OT: How the US is being viewed by AOL users
Wirt Atmar
question: "How would you describe the United States?" The three choices were
"champion of freedom," "well-intentioned but too impatient," or "arrogant
superpower." Six hundred thousand users responded in the US. The number of
European users was unspecified.
The results to date are:
AOL GERMANY
69% Arrogant superpower
21% Well-intentioned but too impatient
10% Champion of freedom
AOL FRANCE
78% Arrogant superpower
15% Well-intentioned but too impatient
7% Champion of freedom
AOL UK
51% Arrogant superpower
30% Well-intentioned but too impatient
19% Champion of freedom
AOL USA
23% Arrogant superpower
27% Well-intentioned but too impatient
50% Champion of freedom
Wirt Atmar
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Shawn Gordon
Q. Do you care what Germany and France think of the US?
Regards,
Shawn Gordon
President
theKompany.com
www.thekompany.com
949-713-3276
rosenblatt, joseph
>A better follow up question to the US would be:
>Q. Do you care what Germany and France think of the US?
about 25% of Americans, thought the US is acting arrogantly.
Let Peace be the maxim by which we act because we will Peace to become a
universal law.
Work for Peace
The opinions expressed herein, whether mildly held opinions or hardcore
opinions are my own and not necessarily those of my employer.
Yosef Rosenblatt
fred White
> A better follow up question to the US would be:
>
> Q. Do you care what Germany and France think of the US?
I believe we should care what the people of all countries think.
Even those from the US, let alone the UK.
FW
Tom Brandt
<font size=3>The validity of on-line polls using self-selected
responders:<br>
0%<br><br>
At 11:30 PM 2/13/2003 -0500, Wirt Atmar wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>AOL has been conducting a survey in
its national country services, asking the<br>
question: "How would you describe the United States?" The three
choices were<br>
"champion of freedom," "well-intentioned but too
impatient," or "arrogant<br>
superpower." Six hundred thousand users responded in the US. The
number of<br>
European users was unspecified.<br><br>
The results to date are:<br><br>
AOL GERMANY<br>
69% Arrogant superpower<br>
21% Well-intentioned but too impatient<br>
10% Champion of freedom<br><br>
AOL FRANCE<br>
78% Arrogant superpower<br>
15% Well-intentioned but too impatient<br>
7% Champion of freedom<br><br>
AOL UK<br>
51% Arrogant superpower<br>
30% Well-intentioned but too impatient<br>
19% Champion of freedom<br><br>
AOL USA<br>
23% Arrogant superpower<br>
27% Well-intentioned but too impatient<br>
50% Champion of freedom<br><br>
Wirt Atmar<br><br>
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*</blockquote>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
--------------------------------<br>
Tom Brandt<br>
Northtech Systems, Inc.<br>
130 S. 1st Street, Suite 220<br>
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-1343<br>
<a href="http://www.northtech.com/" eudora="autourl">http://www.northtech.com/</a><br>
</font></html>
John Lee
>AOL has been conducting a survey in its national country services, asking the
>"champion of freedom," "well-intentioned but too impatient," or "arrogant
>European users was unspecified.
>
>The results to date are:
>
>69% Arrogant superpower
>
>AOL FRANCE
>78% Arrogant superpower
>
>AOL UK
>51% Arrogant superpower
Next time these countries are being threatened, I think the votes will be
different.
John Lee
Wirt Atmar
> The validity of on-line polls using self-selected
> responders:
> 0%
Ordinarily, I'd agree, but when you have 600,000 of anyone respond to a poll,
you have to take it a great deal more seriously.
However, that said, I'm surprised that the percentage of US respondents who
agreed with the idea that the US was the "champion of freedom" was as low as
50%. Every population obviously has its own intrinsic characteristics. From
reading the comments on the AOL chat rooms, on this and many other subjects
over the years, I believe it's fair to say that the average AOL respondent
tends to be younger rather than older, not particularly literate, poorly
educated, conservative, and socially immature. This is an audience that would
seem to be particularly susceptible to the propaganda being promoted by the
current administration, but apparently at least half aren't buying it.
Wirt Atmar
Tom Brandt
<font size=3>I don't know how seriously you should take it, even with
600,000 responses. How many of the responses are the sole responses of
one person, how many are responses from bots? (I'm not an AOL subscriber,
so I don't know if they have tried to control for this or not.) How
closely does the population of AOL chat rooms resemble the population of
those responding to the poll? And why would they be more susceptible to
the pro-war propaganda coming out of the Bush White House than to the
anti-war propaganda coming out of many celebrities?<br><br>
The poll is a beauty contest, nothing more, swayed (as you imply) by the
passions, prejudices, propaganda and incomplete information the responder
possesses at the time he responds. All these things change as time goes
on.<br><br>
One wonders what a poll that asks question about, say, France,
would look like. If Jay Leno and David Letterman are any guide to popular
culture in the US, the results would not be good for the French
(Letterman: "A lot of folks are still demanding more evidence before
they actually consider Iraq a threat. For example, France wants more
evidence. And you know I'm thinking, the last time France wanted more
evidence they rolled right through Paris with the German flag."
)<br><br>
<br>
At 12:58 PM 2/14/2003 -0500, Wirt...@aol.com wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>Tom writes:<br><br>
> The validity of on-line polls using self-selected<br>
> responders:<br>
> 0%<br><br>
Ordinarily, I'd agree, but when you have 600,000 of anyone respond to a
you have to take it a great deal more seriously.<br><br>
However, that said, I'm surprised that the percentage of US respondents
agreed with the idea that the US was the "champion of freedom"
was as low as <br>
50%. Every population obviously has its own intrinsic characteristics.
reading the comments on the AOL chat rooms, on this and many other
over the years, I believe it's fair to say that the average AOL
tends to be younger rather than older, not particularly literate, poorly
educated, conservative, and socially immature. This is an audience that
seem to be particularly susceptible to the propaganda being promoted by
current administration, but apparently at least half aren't buying
Wirt Atmar</blockquote>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
--------------------------------<br>
Tom Brandt<br>
Northtech Systems, Inc.<br>
130 S. 1st Street, Suite 220<br>
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-1343<br>
<a href="http://www.northtech.com/" eudora="autourl">http://www.northtech.com/</a><br>
</font></html>
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Fred White
> The validity of on-line polls using self-selected responders: 0%
I agree with the idea that they're validity is suspect. One doesn't
need to toss the results into the trash. One can accept them without
believing that they are (even close to) perfect. The 0% you assigned
implies that they're absolutely false. Is that the result of a 1-person
poll? :-)
FW
Wirt Atmar
> On Friday, February 14, 2003, at 07:31 AM, Tom Brandt wrote:
>
> > The validity of on-line polls using self-selected responders: 0%
>
> I agree with the idea that they're validity is suspect. One doesn't
> need to toss the results into the trash. One can accept them without
> believing that they are (even close to) perfect. The 0% you assigned
> implies that they're absolutely false. Is that the result of a 1-person
> poll? :-)
Beyond the case that robots are responding to the polls, which I'm sure is
not the case, asking about the cross-section of people who are responding to
the poll is to miss the point of the comparison. How polling is conducted is
an obviously legitimate question when only one group is polled, but it
becomes much less important when multiple groups are polled, so long as the
same methods are applied universally.
All sampling methods are flawed in one respect or another, but those flaws
can be compensated for by using comparative methods. The same questions were
asked of the European national users on February 12th as they were of the US
users on February 13th. Even if we presume that the respondents were the
oddest members of society, presumably they would be equally so on each side
of the Atlantic, and that likely demographic equality only serves to
emphasize the stark contrast between the various national responses.
In that regard however, another segment of European society is planning to
mass for anti-war, anti-US protests this weekend throughout Europe. Hundreds
of thousands of protestors are expected to rally in all of the major capitals
of Europe.
Gavin is exactly right when he writes:
> If the US fails to achieve a consensus that allows it to attack Iraq, and is
> forced to recall its forces from the gulf (or even if it then unilaterally
> attacks Iraq), it is likely to find that the rest of the world will view
> this as a weakness in the former de-facto world leader, and the ability of
> the US to dictate policy to the rest of the planet could be severely
> damaged.
But of course the situation is much worse than that. If the US engages in
unilateral cross-border excursions into another sovereign country without the
legitimacy explicit to the consent of the United Nations, then I would
suggest that such action is a criminal act under international law. If it
comes to that, I believe that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Powell should be
arrested and put on trial before the Hague. Quite obviously, the United
States cannot claim that it is unilaterally enforcing UN resolutions without
the consent of the UN itself.
We enact laws, establish courts and enter into treaties to prevent exactly
such action by the most powerful members of society, and they must be held
accountable to those laws or the laws mean nothing at all.
Wirt Atmar
Tom Brandt
<font size=3>At 12:58 PM 2/14/2003 -0700, Fred White wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>On Friday, February 14, 2003, at
07:31 AM, Tom Brandt wrote:<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>The validity of on-line polls using
self-selected responders: 0%</blockquote><br>
I agree with the idea that they're validity is suspect. One doesn't<br>
need to toss the results into the trash. One can accept them
believing that they are (even close to) perfect. The 0% you
implies that they're absolutely false. Is that the result of a
poll? :-)<br>
</blockquote>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
Yes - but I am absolutely confident that results of the poll are
completely reliable :)<br><br>
--------------------------------<br>
Tom Brandt<br>
Northtech Systems, Inc.<br>
130 S. 1st Street, Suite 220<br>
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-1343<br>
<a href="http://www.northtech.com/" eudora="autourl">http://www.northtech.com/</a><br>
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Fred White
> Tom writes:
>
>> The validity of on-line polls using self-selected
>> responders:
>> 0%
>
> Ordinarily, I'd agree, but when you have 600,000 of anyone respond to
> a poll,
> you have to take it a great deal more seriously.
>
> However, that said, I'm surprised that the percentage of US
> respondents who
> agreed with the idea that the US was the "champion of freedom" was as
> low as
> 50%. Every population obviously has its own intrinsic characteristics.
> From
> reading the comments on the AOL chat rooms, on this and many other
> subjects
> over the years, I believe it's fair to say that the average AOL
> respondent
> tends to be younger rather than older, not particularly literate,
> poorly
> educated, conservative, and socially immature. This is an audience
> that would
> seem to be particularly susceptible to the propaganda being promoted
> by the
> current administration, but apparently at least half aren't buying it.
>
> Wirt Atmar
Interesting that you should bring up demographic issues. Whenever I see
the results of almost any poll, I've always wished that the pollsters
would extend their report to display breakdowns by age, sex or
whatever. I suspect that seniors, many of whom have been in wars
and/or have relatives and friends who have, would be a lot less
supportive of GWB. They remember the Viet Nam fiasco which, in addition
to its monetary expense, cost the lives of millions of Vietnamese and
58K of Americans as well as injuries of 120K Americans. The negative
impact on their relatives, especially the wives and children was
horrendous. Many of the young people who participate in such polls,
have little knowledge of such disastrous wars.
FW
Fred White
> At 12:58 PM 2/14/2003 -0700, Fred White wrote:
>
> On Friday, February 14, 2003, at 07:31 AM, Tom Brandt wrote:
>
> The validity of on-line polls using self-selected responders: 0%
>
>
> I agree with the idea that they're validity is suspect. One doesn't
> need to toss the results into the trash. One can accept them without
> believing that they are (even close to) perfect. The 0% you assigned
> implies that they're absolutely false. Is that the result of a 1-person
> poll? :-)
>
> Yes - but I am absolutely confident that results of the poll are
> completely reliable :)
Now me, as follows:
> Yes.Yes.Yes. Unfortunately the CONCLUSION supported by the person that
> was polled is false even if it was a wonderful digression from the
> topic at hand.
>
> Fun is nice. Thanks.
Tim Cummings
trust them?
-----Original Message-----
From: Wirt Atmar [mailto:Wirt...@aol.com]
Sent: Friday, February 14, 2003 3:53 PM
To: HP30...@RAVEN.UTC.EDU
Subject: Re: [HP3000-L] OT: How the US is being viewed by AOL users
Fred writes:
> On Friday, February 14, 2003, at 07:31 AM, Tom Brandt wrote:
>
> > The validity of on-line polls using self-selected responders: 0%
>
> I agree with the idea that they're validity is suspect. One doesn't
> need to toss the results into the trash. One can accept them without
> believing that they are (even close to) perfect. The 0% you assigned
> implies that they're absolutely false. Is that the result of a 1-person
> poll? :-)
Beyond the case that robots are responding to the polls, which I'm sure is
Wirt Atmar
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Fred White
> Fred writes:
>
>> On Friday, February 14, 2003, at 07:31 AM, Tom Brandt wrote:
>>
>>> The validity of on-line polls using self-selected responders: 0%
>>
>> I agree with the idea that they're validity is suspect. One doesn't
>> need to toss the results into the trash. One can accept them without
>> believing that they are (even close to) perfect. The 0% you assigned
>> implies that they're absolutely false. Is that the result of a
>> 1-person
>> poll? :-)
>
> Beyond the case that robots are responding to the polls, which I'm
> sure is
> not the case, asking about the cross-section of people who are
> responding to
> the poll is to miss the point of the comparison. How polling is
> conducted is
> an obviously legitimate question when only one group is polled, but it
> becomes much less important when multiple groups are polled, so long
> as the
> same methods are applied universally.
Agreed. Randomness is also an important factor. Also, in what the
pollsters consider as random.
For instance, if one does a telephone poll (even if the phone numbers
are randomly generated) the poll would be flawed due to the non-random
distribution of telephone owners. Many seniors, for instance, don't
have phones or live in senior communities which share only one or two
phones.
Similar imbalances exist whenever several people share a single phone.
Also, polling pedestrians minimizes the participation of those who are
stay-at-homes or travel from place-to-place by car. Polling by email or
websites minimizes the participation of the poor.
Even though all polling suffers from these kinds of imperfections, I'd
still like breakdowns by sex, age, education, race religion or whatever
the pollsters decide to provide.
FW
Mark Wonsil
> Fred writes:
>
>> On Friday, February 14, 2003, at 07:31 AM, Tom Brandt wrote:
>>
>> > The validity of on-line polls using self-selected responders: 0%
>>
>> I agree with the idea that they're validity is suspect. One doesn't
>> need to toss the results into the trash. One can accept them without
>> believing that they are (even close to) perfect. The 0% you assigned
>> implies that they're absolutely false. Is that the result of a
>> 1-person poll? :-)
>
> Beyond the case that robots are responding to the polls, which I'm
> sure is not the case, asking about the cross-section of people who
> are responding to the poll is to miss the point of the comparison.
> How polling is conducted is an obviously legitimate question when
> only one group is polled, but it becomes much less important when
> multiple groups are polled, so long as the same methods are applied
> universally.
In US elections, you are not allowed to have campaigning within a given
distance (200ft?) but the same is not true for AOL users. As I have peered
over the shoulder of AOL users, I see they are greeted with current
headlines. What effect on the poll will there be if the "voter" first reads
"US Defies the Will of the UN", "Europe at odds with US on Iraq", "%^&@!
Cowboy at it again", etc.
> comes to that, I believe that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Powell
> should be arrested and put on trial before the Hague. Quite
> obviously, the United States cannot claim that it is unilaterally
> enforcing UN resolutions without the consent of the UN itself.
Right after we capture Clinton, Gore and Albreit for the Kosovo invasion?
Wirt Atmar
> Right after we capture Clinton, Gore and Albreit [Allbright] for the Kosovo
invasion?
The actions in Kosovo and Bosnia were sanctioned not only by the UN but also
by NATO and the European Union and were enforced by multilateral forces,
primarily KFOR and IFOR, and were later codified into the Dayton Accords.
The world's action in the Balkans was as legitimate an action as it has ever
mounted, and was clearly for the benefit of all humanity. To confuse those
events with a unilateral, pre-emptive, cross-border excursion is to blur
every line between legitimacy and criminality.
Wirt Atmar
Wayne R. Boyer
Wirt...@aol.com writes:
> In that regard however, another segment of European society is planning to
> mass for anti-war, anti-US protests this weekend throughout Europe.
> Hundreds
> of thousands of protestors are expected to rally in all of the major
> capitals
> of Europe.
>
And I would like to ask - how many of them will get on a plane and go to
Bagdad to fill the role of volunteer human shields? This is probably going
to happen and it will be another hurdle for the American/British military to
deal with should war occur.
I can't wait to read what bin Laden writes about Americans then. Are we even
trying to counter the bad press that we are undoubtably already getting in
the Middle East now?
Wayne
Wayne R. Boyer
Wirt...@aol.com writes:
> I would
> suggest that such action is a criminal act under international law
How about dropping bombs on Iraqi anti-SHIP missile units now? We just did
that. Wouldn't that count as an act of war?
Inquiring minds....
Fred White
Somehow or other this posting arrived at a state where it's impossible
for readers to decide which part was whose contribution.
The "Fred writes:" heading is in green and the Tom Brandt heading is
in purple. But, I didn't write the green paragraphs and Tom didn't
write the purple paragraph, I did.
I have no idea on how to undo the resulting confusion. Hope you do.
Regards.
FW
> Right after we capture Clinton, Gore and Albreit for the Kosovo
> invasion?
Denys Beauchemin
point of view:
"But of course the situation is much worse than that. If the US engages in
unilateral cross-border excursions into another sovereign country without
the
legitimacy explicit to the consent of the United Nations, then I would
suggest that such action is a criminal act under international law. If it
comes to that, I believe that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Powell should be
arrested and put on trial before the Hague. Quite obviously, the United
States cannot claim that it is unilaterally enforcing UN resolutions without
the consent of the UN itself."
And again:
"The world's action in the Balkans was as legitimate an action as it has
ever
mounted, and was clearly for the benefit of all humanity. To confuse those
events with a unilateral, pre-emptive, cross-border excursion is to blur
every line between legitimacy and criminality."
Wirt forgets a few things:
1- Seventeen UN resolutions against Iraq. The latest one, 1441, passed
unanimously by the Security Council warning Iraq of grave consequences if it
is ignored.
2- Iraq's flagrant disregard of all UN resolutions.
3- That the US is the UN and NATO and has a veto in the Security Council.
4- Most of the history of the last 60 years.
So, let's say that the US, the UK and about 20-40 other countries decide to
follow France's suggestion and they send in about 200,000 aggressive
inspectors and as a by-product liberate Iraq. Let's say that France blows a
stack because it was left behind and now the coalition is poised to find all
manners of dirty little secrets, some of which lead directly to France and
Germany.
So France urgently calls for an emergency session of the Security Council.
It then asks for a resolution condemning the liberation of Iraq and the
vigorous inspection and subsequent destruction of WMDs found there. The
resolution, after days and weeks of debate, comes up for a vote and even if
it were to gather enough vote, which is extremely doubtful, the US and/or UK
veto. So what? This has been done in the past.
Let's say things go very wrong and Saddam unleashes the WMDs that France and
Germany stridently say he does not have. The thing escalates and a lot of
people are hurt. Even in the worse case scenario, Saddam will have been
shown to have lied about his WMDs (surprise, surprise) and will have shown
to have been in total violation of the 17 UN resolutions. So now, France
calls for a Security Council meeting and tries to get a resolution
condemning the liberation of Iraq. It comes to a vote and again, it fails
to garner enough votes, or it does, but the US and/or UK veto it. So what?
But let's suspend reality for one minute. The attempt to liberate Iraq, get
rid of the WMDs and enforce the UN resolutions totally fails and France and
Germany get a vote out of the Security Council and it is not vetoed by
anyone. They then decide to arrest Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Powell. How
are they going to do that? The only way this would happen is if the US
completely becomes a Socialist country and is totally emasculated by its
future government.
Let me point out there were no UN or NATO resolutions when Clinton invaded
Haiti and dropped bombs (cruise missiles) into the Sudan and Afghanistan.
When earlier I said the US was the UN and NATO, I meant it. If it were not
for the US, NATO and the UN could never have gone after Milosevich, which
was as illegal an action as I have ever seen UN and NATO notwithstanding.
After years of being on the ground there, we have yet to find any evidence
of the carnage that he supposedly wrought on his people. The UN cannot
enforce a single one of its resolutions without the US. It cannot even stay
in business without the US. With the possible exception of the UK, not a
single country in NATO could defend itself against an aggressor without
using nuclear weapons (France.)
Finally, after watching him speak extemporaneously during the proceedings at
the Security Council yesterday, I must say that I am in awe of Colin Powell.
I had some doubts about him, but now I believe I understand him much better.
Yes, he was very reluctant to go into Iraq, I even believe he is the one
reason why Desert Storm was stopped too early. As most military men do,
this man hates war. I thought he might "go wobbly" on us but that is
definitely not the case. Colin Powel does not rush to war. He wants peace
and a diplomatic solution to problems. However, when he decides that enough
is enough, he throws his total support behind whatever action is required
and he believes in it.
Colin Powel is a far cry from his predecessor, Madeline Albright. I still
remember her running after Yasser Arafat when he walked out of a meeting in
2000, where he had just turned down an agreement giving him virtually
everything the PLO had demanded from Israel over the years.
Denys
Mark Wonsil
> Somehow or other this posting arrived at a state where it's impossible
> for readers to decide which part was whose contribution.
>
> The "Fred writes:" heading is in green and the Tom Brandt heading is
> in purple. But, I didn't write the green paragraphs and Tom didn't
> write the purple paragraph, I did.
>
> I have no idea on how to undo the resulting confusion. Hope you do.
>
Hmm. That is indeed strange since I always post to 3000-L in plain text,
which would include no color.
However, I have started using a little Outlook add-on called QuoteFix. It
takes most posts and nicely reformats those nasty lines with one or two
words them. It also adds the appropriate number of '>' to indicate how many
levels of reply one is in. Does your mail reader automagically add color?
Maybe when I prune the message, for our digest readers, it messes up the
algorithm in the mail reader. Thanks for letting me know about it.
(For anyone interested in the free OE-QuoteFix program see:
http://home.in.tum.de/~jain/software/oe-quotefix/)
Mark
Ken Hirsch
>
> > Right after we capture Clinton, Gore and Albreit [Allbright] for the Kosovo
> invasion?
>
> The actions in Kosovo and Bosnia were sanctioned not only by the UN but also
> by NATO and the European Union and were enforced by multilateral forces,
> primarily KFOR and IFOR, and were later codified into the Dayton Accords.
Let's keep Kosovo and Bosnia separate. The Dayton Accords were four years _before_
NATO action in Kosovo.
> The world's action in the Balkans was as legitimate an action as it has ever
> mounted, and was clearly for the benefit of all humanity.
Hmmm, well, I'll admit that the actions in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovenia were a
_model_ of what we can expect from the U.N. and European multilateralism. First the
U.N. declared an arms embargo, giving the more heavily-armed Serbs a big edge. So
we have an answer to what happens when they give a war and just one side shows up:
the men are killed, the women raped, the possessions stolen, and the houses burned
down.
The U.S. deferred to European multilateralism for several years and somewhere
between 25,000 and 250,000 people died--no one really knows how many. Eventually
NATO--that is, the United States--got tired of this sophisticated approach and
decided to "work for peace"--that is, start bombing. This is what forced the Dayton
accords. Some highlights of U.N. "peacekeeping" during 1995: in May, reacting to
NATO airstrikes, Bosnian Serbs take 350 U.N. "peacekeepers" hostage. See how the
Serbs feared the wrath of the world government and its fearsome blue-helmeted
stormtroopers! Then in July, U.N. "peacekeepers" who were protecting refugees in
the "safehaven" of Srebrenica decided that discretion was the better part of valor.
What happened when they gave a war in Srebrenica and only one side showed up?
Again, the men were killed, the women raped, the possessions stolen, and the houses
burned down. The U.N. did ...... nothing.
Kosovo is a different matter. NATO (i.e. the United States) did not wait for any
U.N. resolutions. Clinton also tried, but failed to get Congressional approval.
The action was clearly a violation of the NATO charter, the U.N. charter, the U.S.
Constitution, and international "law". Whether it was right or wrong is a different
matter.
Eventually some people from Yugoslavia were brought to trial in the Hague. Was it
the U.N. that managed this? No, of course not; it was the U.S. The U.N. is an
impotent body, as it was designed to be.
The U.N. is a venue for discussion. If nations can settle their differences by
talking, fine. But the very form of the U.N. guarantees that it can never actually
_do_ anything. The General Assembly is like the Senate on LSD, where Vanuatu and
China each have one equal, but meaningless vote. In the Security Council the five
permanent members have veto power, so what are the odds that you could ever get them
to agree on anything meaningful?
In an earlier message, Wirt Atmar wrote:
> But of course the situation is much worse than that. If the US engages in
> unilateral cross-border excursions into another sovereign country without the
> legitimacy explicit to the consent of the United Nations, then I would
> suggest that such action is a criminal act under international law. If it
> comes to that, I believe that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Powell should be
> arrested and put on trial before the Hague. Quite obviously, the United
> States cannot claim that it is unilaterally enforcing UN resolutions without
> the consent of the UN itself.
>
> We enact laws, establish courts and enter into treaties to prevent exactly
> such action by the most powerful members of society, and they must be held
> accountable to those laws or the laws mean nothing at all.
How interesting. This is so revealing. If Wirt actually believed there were such a
thing as "international law" he would have written "I believe Saddam Hussein, Tariq
Aziz, and General Sultan Hashim Ahmed should be arrested and put on trial." But
there is no international law, only lawlessness. If there were international law,
the United States would not need to be planning to invade right now.
When Wirt writes "we enact laws" I presume he means that the United States enact
laws. There are no laws enacted by the United Nations. It was explicitly designed
to not be a world government. Fortunately, President Bush (unlike Clinton in
Kosovo) got advance approval from Congress for his action in Iraq. (October 11,
2002. Votes 77-23 in the Senate, 296-133 in the House.) In the United States court
system, a treaty has equal weight as any act of Congress and if there is a conflict,
the one enacted later prevails. So, any action in Iraq is consistent with U.S. law.
The United Nations was explicitly _not_ established to "prevent exactly such action
by the most powerful members." The most powerful members were given veto power in
order to ensure that the U.N. would not be a threat to them.
The decision not to try to form a world government in 1945 was a wise one and the
reasons hold today. True, communism has collapsed, but China, the world's largest
nation and a permanent member of the Security Council is still despotic. Maybe in a
few decades, if China progresses and Russia holds steady to its democratic progress,
we could consider forming an organization we respect and could conceivably trust to
wield actual power. Such conditions do not obtain today.
Wirt Atmar
> If Wirt actually believed there were such a
> thing as "international law" he would have written "I believe Saddam
Hussein,
> Tariq Aziz, and General Sultan Hashim Ahmed should be arrested and
> put on trial." But there is no international law, only lawlessness. If
there
> were international law, the United States would not need to be planning
> to invade right now.
That statement will come as a great surprise to many people. For a more
cogent discussion of the Kosovo situation, please see:
http://www.asil.org/ajil/kosovo.htm
It's worth reading all of the opinions carefully, regardless of your views.
Wirt Atmar
Mark Wonsil
> confuse those events with a unilateral, pre-emptive, cross-border
> excursion is to blur every line between legitimacy and criminality.
But I was comparing Slobodan Milosevic with Saddam Hussein and not Slobodan
Milosevic with George Bush, which I believe is the comparison you are making
above. I think the former pair have more in common than the later. Off the
top of my head, both have more experience with unilateral cross-border
excursions and ethnic cleansing than Bush.
I am hearing this comparison more and more though. When exactly did the
mission of regime change in Iraq turn into a mission of regime change in the
U.S.? Exactly how do the crimes of George W. Bush compare to that of Saddam
Hussein?
I recently attended a non-violence workshop held at our Church.
(http://www.michiganpeaceteam.org/) I met some people who are very
dedicated to searching for peaceful solutions. But I met a lot more who
were less interested in peace and more interested in a piece of Bush. As I
watch the news about the protests held around the world, I'm guessing the
ratio is about the same.
rosenblatt, joseph
>I recently attended a non-violence workshop held at our Church. I met some
people who are very dedicated to searching for peaceful solutions. But I met
a lot more >who were less interested in peace and more interested in a piece
of Bush.
power and wished to institute this government's plan. This is why I have
repeatedly said that Peace is not about politics. It is a categorical
imperative. War is not wrong because the party I dislike wants war any more
than it justifiable because the party I favor wants war.
The world had an obligation to stop the Serbian government from mercilessly
killing its ethnic/political rivals. The world also had an obligation to
stop others from killing the Serbs. Instead of getting involved and making
the hard decisions, ones that may have cost hard currency, money, the world
waited until they only had to pay in soft currency, human lives. To make the
matters even worse the majority of lives were of the softest currency,
non-combatants.
In the Balkans, in Israel/Palestine and in Iraq there are no "White Hat"
good guys. Each side has committed enough atrocities to fill the
international tribunals for the next century. If nothing else, the "depraved
indifference" of the governments that allowed the situation to get to the
point of genocide and mass murder is enough to bring them to trial.
The comparison of Dubya to Milosevic is valid. Both, for reasons of their
own national security, have waged war against innocent people. The
comparison of Saddam Hussein to Milosevic is equally justifiable. As we all
know from simple mathematical theory: If a=b and b=c then c=a.
It must be noted that the Clinton administration's war policy of more or
less indiscriminate bombing puts it right in the thick of the above
comparison game. Indiscriminate bombing, unlike an indiscriminate sex life
is a crime and Big Bill should have been impeached on this one. So to set
the equation straight we now have a=b=c=d.
War is huge. Maybe the numbers involved are too large for us to grasp. For
simplicity's sake, let's say your local police adopted a policy of
indiscriminately shooting at criminals in the streets of your town. This
might not seem like such a bad idea at first as it cleans up the criminal
element. However, since the criminals are not the sole occupants of the
streets, it is inevitable that innocent people will be shot. The first
innocent person shot would cause a public outcry. The second would cause
mass protest; the third would have riots in the streets. If at any point the
police called one of the innocent victims "collateral damage," city hall
would be razed brick by brick.
The "greater good" never runs roughshod over those it seeks to protect. The
US government is perusing a policy of get the "bad guys" at any cost. After
all the rest of the population isn't really people, they are "collateral."
How many innocent lives will be lost? It's OK though, after all: "We are
doing this for their own good." I'm sure they will all thank their
liberators, from the grave.
Let Peace be the maxim by which we act because we will Peace to become a
universal law.
Work For Peace
The opinions expressed herein, whether mildly held opinions or hardcore
opinions are my own and not necessarily those of my employer.
Yosef Rosenblatt
* To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, *
Denys Beauchemin
Both, for reasons of their own national security, have waged war against
innocent people."
So, tell me again which are the innocent people against whom W has waged
war.
Denys
rosenblatt, joseph
I can't tell you their names specifically but they lived in Afghanistan.
This US regime like past US regimes, including at least the last two, has
pursued a policy of indiscriminate killing for the sake of "a greater good."
The fact that the regime(s) have been able to assuage their consciences and
allay public outcry by calling it "collateral damage" does not change the
fact that innocent people are dying. The policy is in and of itself morally
bankrupt no matter what you feel about the justice of the regime's original
cause.
I will not engage in a quantitative argument. Whether the US killed 6, 60 or
6,000,000 in the pursuit of this policy is irrelevant. The fact that one
died is enough to make it the act and the policy illegal. The perpetrators
of the act and the creators of the policy are by extension criminals.
The current regime is already creating a public relations campaign to blame
the Iraqis if any of their civilians die. The Iraqi government should have
just surrendered and everything would have been ok. Going back to my police
analogy you cannot solely blame the criminals if the police decide to carry
out a firefight in an area inhabited by innocent people. Certainly, one must
blame the criminal because their behavior was a contributing factor to the
police presence but this by no means exonerates the police. You can't say,
"We are making the streets safe for the people but not for that poor slob we
shot by accident." It just doesn't't work.
As I have said before, if you can't make omelets without breaking eggs then
give up omelets. Whether anybody has the moral right to decide who lives and
who dies is open for debate. I will, with feet firmly planted, state that
political and temporal regimes are certainly not on the short list of those
that should have the power over who lives or dies.
Let Peace be the maxim by which we act because we will Peace to become a
universal law.
Work For Peace
The opinions expressed herein, whether mildly held opinions or hardcore
opinions are my own and not necessarily those of my employer.
Yosef Rosenblatt
rosenblatt, joseph
has waged war.
In my earlier post, I forgot to add to the list the Canadian soldiers. The
ironic thing is that the US military is actually considering charges against
the pilots involved in the "friendly fire" incident but not the ones that
dropped bombs on an Afghani wedding party. I guess all people are not
collaterally equal.
Let Peace be the maxim by which we act because we will Peace to become a
universal law.
Work For Peace
The opinions expressed herein, whether mildly held opinions or hardcore
opinions are my own and not necessarily those of my employer.
Yosef Rosenblatt
* To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, *
Wayne R. Boyer
kenh...@myself.com writes:
> But the very form of the U.N. guarantees that it can never actually
> _do_ anything. The General Assembly is like the Senate on LSD, where
> Vanuatu and China each have one equal, but meaningless vote
If that is a reference to their different populations then one should also
consider whether or not people in countries get to vote for their government
and whether or not the people are allowed to have a free discussion on world
topics. China's huge population isn't necessarily supporting their
non-elected government officials. They may do so now but it is not because
they watched worlds reports on CNN and elected people in response to their
opinions.
Wayne
Denys Beauchemin
They were members of the Princess Patricia Canadian Light Infantry out of
Edmonton. This unit has a proud, long and distinguished history.
http://www.glanmore.org/ppclimemorial.html
I offer the following link for a story from a Canadian journalist who was in
Afghanistan when the event occurred. I draw your attention to the last few
paragraphs.
http://www.canada.com/national/features/friendlyfire/story.html?id=2450B6E6-
BFED-46D5-93C4-0424E1C96067
This weekend's Houston Barnacle (Chronicle) has a front-page story about
friendly fire. During Operation Desert Storm, an Apache pilot mistakenly
shot at two "unidentified" vehicles, killing two American Soldiers. The
pilot lives in San Antonio and discusses the event in detail.
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/front/1779841
You should understand the lethality of today's weapons increases the
likelihood of friendly fire deaths. In the past, if someone shot at a tank,
it would simply disable it and people could get out. In Desert Storm, two
A-10 pilots shot two British vehicles with Maverick missiles. People do not
walk away from such an event.
You might want to look at this page and download the short movie. It is
sobering.
http://www.missilesandfirecontrol.com/our_products/antiarmor/LOSAT/product-L
OSAT.html
I hope and pray every day that we do not have to go to war. I hope beyond
hope that Saddam will get religion and either totally comply or walk away.
I fear even more leaving him there.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/
Denys
Yosef Rosenblatt
increases the
likelihood of friendly fire deaths.
Does that statement make it more acceptable or does it mean that people need
to be even more careful? We give babies soft toys so that they don't hurt
themselves. As children mature we let them play with more and more dangerous
toys because we assume that they have learned to use them responsibly.
Adults are supposed to know how to act responsibly. The legal words used to
describe people that can't use their tools responsibly and thereby hurt or
endanger other people is "criminal negligence."
Let Peace be the maxim by which we act because we will Peace to become a
universal law.
Work For Peace
Yosef