大象传媒

Yes, but those who are so treated eventually recover, unlike the poor innocent people that terrorists blow to bits; and if information extracted through this technique saves lives or brings about major coups against terrorist orgnisations, then so be it. In an ideal world it would not be needed; but terror will not be beaten by hand wringing and squeamish bleating.

This is basically about today's item (Sunday 27th) on the film Rendition, although it is clearly related to the subject of terrorism and torture.
Seldom have I heard an item which was so unfair and unbalanced as this discussion.
It was made up of a rep from Amnesty, and yourself ( both obviously on the anti-American side of this argument, and Mike McKimm who although less obviously one sided also appeared to agreed with you.
Was it because you didn't want the opposing view to be presented - such as how many thousands of lives may have been saved by these actions - or because you wanted to create the impression the this was a universal viewpoint.
You even went as far as promoting the event you are hosting, which has racist(anti-American)connotations, involving a lawyer with extremist views who is visiting Belfast.
Fortunately there are other sources of news and information in addition to the 大象传媒.
What wasn't mentioned in your programme was the panning the movie has had from all but the most politically committed critics and the even greater knock back from the American public. It's first weekend placed it at 9th in the listings, well behind such films as - Why did I get married?, The Comebacks, and Weekend Gross.
I should have thought that any serious item on this film would have mentioned, that, despite its star studded cast, massive budget, famous South African director(who hates America so much he lives there) and despite the generally positive pre- release press coverage, it has, in relative terms, flopped at the box ofice.
But then maybe that would have detracted from the anti- American message which appeared to me to be the whole purpose of the programme.

Anyone who thinks that Crawley is anti-American obviously knows nothing about him. But being an Americophile does not commit him to being an Americanist. Is it not just possible he and some of the others on the show have a dislike of Extraordinary Rendition without being enemies of America? I seem to recall many Americans being unhappy with it too.

But how many people are really in any doubt that sleep deprivation techniques are a form of torture?

Here's one!

Torture is like porn - I know it when I see it.

Deprive a man of sleep to mock his suffering is torture.

Deprive a man of sleep to learn which flight will be bombed is not torture.

Regards,
Michael

If you want an authoritative view of what has happened and is happening instead of just media jabber and political spin, try a google search for; charlie rose > michael hayden. Micheal Hayden is the Director of the CIA and gave Rose a full hour interview on PBS on 10-22-07. Hear it straight from the horse's mouth whether you believe it or not and decide for yourself. Sorry I can't provide a direct link, my ancient IE6 browser doesn't support Rose's site and it isn't on U-Tube yet.

When the framers of the American Constitution banned the government from imposing "cruel and unusual punishment" as the consequence of being convicted of a crime as an inalienable right of American citizens, I don't think they had it in mind that captured enemy prisoners who might have secrets vital to the security of the American nation up to and including a plot to use nuclear weapons on American cities would not be tortured to get that information out of them. Were those framers alive today to hear and understand the arguments, I think they would be horrified to think that their words had been construed that way.

The notion that American captives of enemies with whom the US is at war will be safe from torture if we do not torture enemy captives ourselves is a damned lie which is disproved in almost every war the US has fought in recent decades. For all we know, there are still live American captives from the Korean and Vietnam wars. We know that American captives were tortured by the Japanese and the Vietnamese. It's time for the US to stop pretending that international affairs including wars can be successfully pursued by the Marquis of Queensbury rules. I certainly hope our intelligence community and military doesn't think that way. Wars are not won by sending messages or winning the hearts and minds of non-combatants, they are won by finding and killing the enemy more efficiently than he can find and kill you.

John Spence:

I've listened to the SS item on Rendition. Mike Catto (not McKimm) slated the movie as a flop in the item. So I'm not sure what you were listening to.

Michael - on torture through sleep deprivation. Will is totally correct about this. Sleep deprivation has been used asa form of torture for many decades by various security agencies and armies across the world. It is recognised as such by international human rights groups as well. I'm sorry you don't agree that this technique is ethically questionable.

Re 7 Ladzlo wrote:

Will is totally correct about this. I'm sorry you don't agree ....

I said:

Deprive a man of sleep to mock his suffering is torture. Deprive a man of sleep to learn which flight will be bombed is not torture.

Will says in his latest thread ...

Sleep deprivation is not always a form of torture;

So what's the problem?

Regards,
Michael

Ladzlo #7
I wonder if it wasn't just an abstraction but it was in the real world and it was someone you loved whose life was at stake and would be lost if the needed information was not extracted from the terrorist in time just how much your ethics would mean. Invariably the people who spout this kind of nonsense are hypocrites. Even Bin Laden called his mother the day before 9-11 to be certain she was not in New York City.

The debate points out the difference between the European mentality and ultra left wing American mentality on one hand and the mainstream and conservative American mentality on the other. Laws in democracies are made to balance the need to protect security of society with need to protect the rights of individuals. Both are seen as being in service of the greater good of society. But when there is a potential conflict such as alien enemy irregular combatants who may have secrets vital to protecting the security of society, Europeans insist on the rights of the captives at all costs even if they are not technically covered by any laws such as the Geneva conventions while most Americans favor using common sense realizing that the greater good of society is served by protecting itself by using whatever means are necessary to extract that information. In the interview with Michael Hayden, Director of the CIA he was explicit in saying that there are limits to the techniques used even in such circumstances although he would not specify what they were and the number of times even this was necessary was very limited, well under 100 cases. Nonetheless, anti-American forces around the world especially in Europe made a cause celebre out of it as though this was the routine method of handling such people. As usual, most Europeans and Moslems are pathological liars who will say anything in the service of their own political agendas. I give you the 大象传媒 World Service as a prime example for evidence of this fact beyond which I think no further proof is needed. BTW, he was also explicit in that when captives were taken to third countries, they were never out of the control of the CIA and left to local authorities who might have been unnecessarily and unjustifiably brutal.

"Most Europeans and Moslems are pathological liars?"

Can you show us the SCIENCE behind this enlightening remark?

"Europeans insist on the right of captives at all costs" - is that really so? No white noise in british interrogation of irish republican prisoners? No helicopter rides over west belfast and show the bad guy the big drop? come on..We all play hard ball. We might not all like it, but it sure as sh@t goes on.

Admit you are (once again) stretching or forgtting the truth to score anti-euro points. it's either that or you're hopelessly and irredeemably ignorant.

It's one or the other - which is it?

Gee Dubyah #11. The facts speak for themselves. If you want to know the truth of what I've said, just read European history. If you want it all, start with page one and don't stop until you get to tomorrow morning's newspaper. Some of my favorite parts included where the European Union was only going to be a trade pact before it was voted on in the UK, where Tony Blair was going to make Europe the best place in the world to do business, and where Neville Chamberlain bought the world "peace in our time." I also liked the peace treaty the Nazis signed with the USSR. And how about those committments the EU made under Kyoto they were so insistant on, how are the doing on their CO2 reductions? (They're only projected to miss their targets by a mere 92% according to the most recent 大象传媒 report I've heard.)

Funny how outraged all of Europe got when they thought their governments were cooperating with the US on extraordinary renditions of terrorists and how furious they've been over GITMO. Look at the light sentences the terrorists who bombed the train in Madrid got in Spain just last week. What happened to prisoners during "the troubles" in Northern Ireland will never happen again, at least not in the EU. It's unthinkable.

As for the Moslems, many still contend the Jews blew up the World Trade Center and al Qaeda had nothing to do with it. The Palestinians said they wanted peace, said they'd accept a two state solution, and then voted in Hamas whose only unifying program is to destroy Israel. I wouldn't believe a word a European or a Moslem said if their tongues came notarized.

Mark,

I'll take that as a long winded selection of option 1 in my Post 12.

For every lie you can list in Europe, I'll show you an analogue somewhere else in the world. That kind of blows your singling-out of Europeans into pieces. Your rambling is one sided and disingenuous and I think you know it. Question is are you man enough to admit it, or do you prefer to appear simply ignorant?

Gee Dubyah #13
So your defense of Europeans and Europe's actions boils down to "Everybody else does it too." Hardly original. A lot of perps say that when there are no other defense arguments left to refute the facts. (Just got finished watching several episodes of Law and Order. The original with Jerry Orbach and Sam Waterson is still my favorite.)

Offered without comment for amusement;

Mark,

read it again buddy, it's not a defense, it's an attack on your anti-euro irrationality, as such the fact that none of us are perfect serves perfectly well to expose your drivel for the BS it is. So once again, where's the science behind your claims, back up the allegations you make with some balanced analysis, or accept that you are kidding nobody.

Have a nice day.

Mark,

i make no defence, for none is necessary. Rather 13 is an attack on your ridiculous anti euro theme.

Have a nice day.

GW

France's new president "Sharko" as I now call him was brown nosing America's government big time today telling its crookedest most incompetent politicians that America is the greatest country in the world. He addressed a joint session of both houses of Congress to tell them that. Don't take my word for it, look it up, it's all over the news. (He's getting them set up for the big por favor he's keeping locked up...to bail his cheesy failed country out of the fire.) And those imbeciles we elect ate it right up. Nancy Pelosi was her usual disgusting self. (She nearly single handedly alienated Turkey on behalf of her Armenian constituents two weeks ago when we need them most and now she and her friends are working on Pakistan.) Don't think about the fact that she's just two heartbeats away from the Oval Office, that's a nightmare too grim even for Halloween. I'm glad I didn't see fat Teddy, it's all I can do to stand him when he's only drunk on alcohol. Oh do they ever love being told they're loved, even when it's by a bald faced liar and they know it. You could almost say "birds of a feather." "It's your old friend Big Nicky here and have I got a deal for you today pal! Trust Me. Just sign right here on the dotted line and she's all yours, take the keys and drive her right off the lot and away you go, have a nice day Ya All." (hope Jake put enough sand in that transmission to make it past the corner.) There was so much blarney flying around DC today you'd think he'd come straight from Shannon instead of Chucky Cheese DeGaulle Aeroporte. So was he lying? You tell me. They've done this over and over again on and off for the last 200 years playing the collective American ego like a fiddle...each time until they don't need us any more and then they spit in our eye. And then they come back when they're in trouble again and remind us they fought in the Revolution. Oh how I wish they hadn't and it had taken a few more years to kick those British asses out. Then we wouldn't have had to hear them tell us what a big favor they did for us. (Keeping Cornwallis bottled up in Yorktown and relief beyond his reach was probably the last war France ever won. Why do we keep forgetting. What a sleezebag Sharko is. What sleezebags they all are. I'm glad Chirac and deVillepin are still around to remind me. Chirac even looks like and has the manerisms of a reptile. You can just imagine that long forked tongue shooting out of his head when he speaks. Le Snake.

How enlightened, are you usually this eloquent, or did you make a special effort today?

Mark,
What an amazing person you are. It's funny like you never want to generalize on people. Try to avoid categories. You know it's not because you get attacked in the street by some one of a specific religion or color that all the people that share the same ethnic origins are like him/her. Otherwise you just fall into racism. So I found amusing that Europeans are liars, French are anti-Semite, so are Arabs... and so on. If we follow your set of mind we can then fall into sophism (Greek word). Sure why not ! So since, according to you the French and the Arabs hate so much the Jews, they are same. Therefore the French must be terrorists as well. After all our secret services did sink the beloved Rainbow Warrior. But then, the French are European does it mean that all Europeans are terrorists too ? Do you see where it brings us? What a lot of stupidity. Then you raise yours鈥� greatness mentioning French people military victories鈥� history. Not that I agree that you can measure a country鈥檚 greatness judging by his military victories, but what ever! Back to France鈥檚 victory history then. Quite thin in the past 100 years, I give you that. But what about yours? When was the last time you won a war? Iraq (sure !), Vietnam may be or Somalia. You make me laugh. Oh yeah you won against the Japanese. You nuked their cities to assure yourself their redemption, which brings me to another point that you raised in your comments. I particularly loved the bit about the treaty between the USSR and the Nazis. How about you explain here how you managed to construct your weapons of mass destruction that killed hundred of thousands of innocent Japanese? Was that thanks of the great intellectuals of the land of the free? Hell no! Yeah you are right it was your friends the Nazis. The same one that helped you building those wonderful rockets that sent your men on the moon. Stop lecturing the world on how to do things. Europe has survived millennia of different invasions and wars. You are struggling to survive 200 years of history. So please try to be objective about what you state before you just state it. I think that W (George W Bush I mean) made the point a few years back: "Don't believe us especially when we say we have the proofs of what we're telling you but refuse to share them with you." I have been in your country many times and I think they are a lot of great people over there and I won't change my mind about them just because of you.
As a friend of mine once said: 鈥渉ave a good day鈥�

Majestic 12 #20
Your statement is pure sophistry, absurd. You put words in my mouth, drew conclusions that you attributed to me that are unfounded. Europeans do NOT all share the same ethnic origins and none I know of share their origins with Arabs who are a Semitic people. There are studies that trace genealogy back thousands of years through DNA comparisons and before you reach the common roots you have to go back very far. I think they were once referenced here on this site over a year ago. The widespread propensity to lie among Europeans and Arabs and their propensity for racial hatred including Anti-Semitism is a cultural attribution, not a genetic one. The proof is that when they grow up in other cultures as the children of immigrants, cultures that do not tolerate such hatred at least not to the same degree and they only learn it from their families and immediate neighbors, it is not nearly so pronounced. This is what allows them to live in perfect peace in America with the same peoples their relatives in the old world despise and would even kill. I never said the French were the same as Arabs and I never said that they are terrorists. However, their political instincts seem indifferent to terrorism when it is directed against the United States as was shown in their opposition to the invasion of Iraq and as for the Arabs, no matter how some say they oppose terrorism, there is always a "BUT" which tries to rationalize it and justify it when it is directed against Jews and even Americans. I have yet to see an exception in my entire life although I do not discount the possibility that some exist. As for European anti-Semitism, that hardly needs mentioning. It's been a bedrock of much of European culture for many, many centuries, a crime of humanity first promulgated by Christendom. How else do you explain the passivity of Europe at the rise of Hitler? And after WWII it was a well kept secret that many Germans knew exactly what was going on in the concentration camps and even wrote home about it with memorial snapshots if they worked there. They were hardly the innocent unaware they pretended. There was a controversial book about it around 15 or so years ago. Perhaps you can find reference to it on the internet. Many speculated that Nazism would have found far more fertile soil in France than in Germany because anti-Semitism was so widespread and intense there. It was the only place I ever saw it practiced overtly with my own eyes.

When was the last time the US won a war? World War II if you mean hot military conflicts. The reason is that the US doesn't understand the concept of military victory anymore. That's why it has failed in EVERY military engagement since. The Russians understand it, they play chess, Americans play baseball. Americans think you won if you came in one run ahead of your opponent, Russians know you haven't won until the opposing king is dead after you've lopped his head off, his army vanquished because its reason for fighting to defend him is gone. Russians don't give those they defeat in war a chance for a re-match, witness what they did to Berlin before they marched in. 22,000 pieces of artillery surrounded the city pounding it day and night until whatever had been left of it was all but gone. Of course the British knew then what winning meant also, witness Dresden.

As for the construction of the atom bomb, you reveal that you know nothing about history. The bomb was constructed by the greatest physicists from America and Europe and was intended to be used against Germany. Unfortunately the war ended before it was ready or its target would undoubtedly have been Berlin. Many of the scientists who worked on the Manhattan project were Jews who fled Europe like Fermi and Teller, and the project manager was an American Jew Oppenheimer. The scientists who built the American space program were an entirely different bunch and it is true the technical director of the space program was Werner Von Braun, a Nazi scientist who built the V1 and V2 rockets which terrorized London. What Nazi scientists the US didn't get, the Soviets got but for the most part their preference was to head West.

America actually nuked only two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The firebombing of Tokyo killed far more people and did far more damage than the atom bombs. In fact the atom bombs saved countless lives, not only of American soldiers and sailors who would have died if Japan had to be invaded to defeat it (estimated casualties for operation Olympic Coronet set for 1946 was one million Americans) a fact to which you are probably indifferent but it also saved large numbers of both civilian and military casualties among the Japanese who would also have been killed and injured in the invasion.

To say that the Nazis are my friends is another outrageous lie typical of a European. Much of my family was wiped out by them, those who lived in Europe and couldn't escape the way my grandparents and those they brought to the refuge of America did.

Europeans don't like it when Americans tell them what they think, but Europeans have had no reservations mouthing off telling Americans what they think of them. It appears from a recent book chronicling the history of America bashing that it goes back to just after the American Revolution. It hardly matters, most Americans don't care what Europeans say or think, America was born as a rejection of practically everything European and it remains that way. It is an historical fact that in a mere 20 generations, the "wretched refuse" of the world turned an empty wilderness full of unknown dangers and wonders into a civilization the likes of which the world has never seen before. Imagine how far in the dust it will leave the rest of the world 20 generations hence. I just count myself among those lucky enough to have been born here. Perhaps that in itself is amazing.

I was going to leave it at that but then I saw something on Yahoo today that made me ask why are Europeans such consistent liars. The answer is that they are stupid. The British will build a stadium for the 2012 Olympics that will cost 1 billion dollars. It will seat 80,000. But it will only be a temporary structure and when the Olympics are over, the top 55,000 seats will be removed. It will be built in one of London's poorest districts and will be specifically configured for track and field. Why is this being done when there are so many other new and renovated stadiums in London already? Because according to the official who was interviewed in the piece it would be impractical to move 80,000 people to the other side of London for the opening and closing ceremonies. One billion dollars for two ceremonies. Now if that isn't stupid what is? Probably not having learned a damned thing from the Millennium Dome. At least that was a permanent structure.

Mark,
Thank you for yet another lecture. Much appreciated. Not much to say. Since you seem to be a partisan. How about you listen into an American that seems to have a lot of background in common with you: Leonard Cohen. Or is it too left wing for you.

Majestic #12
I'm a partisan all right, I'm politically opposed to stupidity. And while stupidity often appears to be the universal human condition, Europeans seemed to have raised it to a fine art.

Leonard Cohen is a mediocre songwriter with an undeserved reputation thanks to a good promotional agent and no contemporary competitors worth mentioning. (He鈥檚 no Gershwin, Porter, Berlin, Kern, Arlen, or even a Cohan or a Guthrie.) What could I possibly learn from such a songwriter except how to make up lyrics to little ditties that don't rhyme very well or at all, and consistently ignore the rules of meter. Besides, I already have Ireland to teach me that. Didn't you see the blog entry a few months ago about McPoet? We are dying McNeil, dying. (Oh woe is we, woe is we.) Frankly, I鈥檝e never been much of one to automatically put any stock in home spun philosophy just because it is written in verse. How about Robert Frost? I鈥檝e taken The Road Less Traveled myself. Rumpole preferred Wordsworth.

Once again Mark, you cite examples as evidence we Europeans are stupid, crass, bloodthirsty, greedy, lazy or whatever vice you care to mention. Your fatuous citations can be reproduced anywhere in the globe - and therefore tell us nothing about Europe.

For example, you harp on the Olympic Stadium - a structure which when all is said and done will be fit for purpose. maybe you chaps should get the designers to help you with your next river crossing on the mississippi? Whoever put that last bridge together can't have been too bright - espeically when you guys had the spectaculr lesson of Tacoma Narrows to draw upon.

Financial experts who lend money to folk who can't repay them? What a fantastic idea, you play Yankee Doodle and I'll get the apple pie...

I heard on the radio today 4 million americans claim to have been abducted and returned to Earth by aliens - how hilarious. If I was as crass as you have been on this blog, I'd suggest the martians were looking for signs of Intelligent life. Keep looking ET, not time to phone home yet... ;)

On the subject of anti Semitism and racism, you good ole boys gave birth to the KKK. "Fetch the rope Cleetus, let's have this boy swing"...

We could play this game for years, tit for tat - it went on in Belfast for year and years Mark. The point is - your citations of stupidity tell us nothing about Europe and everything about you.

You continually harp on about Europeans being prepared to pan the states, but not being able to take it back. The truth is the converse - you are forever slinging mud, and you won't wear it when it comes back.

I don't hate the US, but it ain't perfect, just like our place. why can't you accept that?

Gee Dubyah #24
With each posting you demonstrate that you know almost nothing about the history or geography or anything else about the United States.

The Tacoma Narrows bridge spanned the Tacoma Narrows in the State of Washington in the extreme northwest of the continental (lower 48) states, far away from the Mississippi River. Shortly after the bridge opened, it taught civil engineers in America and all over the world an object lesson in the principles of resonance. A wind of about 40 mph caused the bridge to resonate just like a violin or guitar string to the point where it collapsed. As a result, every suspension bridge in the world had to be re-examined and modified if necessary to prevent the same thing from happening. The accident happened in 1940, 67 years ago. Having learned their lessons, I don't think there has been another occurrence like it anywhere else. Every engineering student studies this failure as an object lesson in the principles of resonance. The link below gives actual movie footage of the bridge collapsing and an explanation of how and why it occurred. Fortunately no human was killed but a cocker spaniel lost his life.

The rise of the Klu Klux Klan in the aftermath of the Civil war and the terrible period of reconstruction of the South is a complex and tragic part of American history most Europeans know nothing about. The retribution by the North had awful unintended consequences and had they been studied, perhaps the Europeans would not have been so stupid as to impose conditions on the Germans in the treaty of Versailles that led to World War II. It was the same mistake on a grander scale. Again, not learning from other people's mistakes can only be called stupidity. The problem of slavery of Africans and their descendants in the US was one imposed on America by the European slave traders. It was the one major issue which could not be resolved by the founding fathers of America because the entire economy of the Southern states had been built around it, the cheap labor needed to raise and harvest cotton. That is also part of America's long and tragic history, a problem whose echoes we still grapple with today. How many European nations have grappled with their own racial discrimination issues? They pretend they don't have any and like the dopes they are, the inevitable consequences of social upheaval and revolt are inevitable.

Lately I've been fascinated by the debate about immigration in Europe. Many Europeans say they wants to emulate America by building a "United States of Europe" but how can they if they are frightened of immigration? Of the three hundred million Americans, all but one million native Americans, the people we used to call Indians are immigrants or descended from immigrants. And these were for the most part hardly the cream of the crop of the countries they left. They were the "Wretched Refuse," the social castoffs, the hopeless, and even among those not destitute those who felt their lives too constrained by where they had come from. And a lot of them came from Europe. Among those Europeans who see themselves as more tolerant, they mistake their aloof indifference to those who arrive as enlightened liberalism but the consequences of course have been disaffection on a massive scale and now Europe confronts alien cultures everywhere within itself. How long before the 5 million Moslems resume burning down France? We Americans can't help you this time Mr. Sarkozy but take my word for it, we wouldn't if we could. This week Britain's government projected a 16% increase in its population almost entirely due to immigration in the same time it says it will achieve a 20% reduction in CO2 emissions. How will it do both unless it is prepared to take a massive cut in its standard of living? Wind farms, solar panels and even nuclear power plants won't do it.

I think that if anyone in the US government even proposed building a one billion dollar temporary stadium at public expense whose only rationalization was to be used for an opening and closing ceremony for the Olympic games, we might see a return to public hangings.

Thank you for pointing out that space aliens have been looking for intelligent life on Earth in America. Even they are smart enough to know they'd be wasting their time searching for it in Europe.

Mark,

I knew all of that, but my examples are as glib as yours. Difference is I won't dignify your nonsense by debating it.

Every schoolboy knows exactly what went wrong at Tacoma Narrows (resonant frequency is very basic Physics even in dumb old Europe. D'oh...). Thanks for stating the bleeding obvious. What do you do for an encore?

The wider lessons on quality bridge building are not best exemplified on the mississippi. Are they?

You seem to be suggesting that there are no barriers or scoial objection to immigration in your great nation. if that is so, what is going on at your ports, airports and borders, pray tell?

With respect to the Treaty of Versailles, I think you'll find that the final terms were ratified by, amongst the other allied powers, the United States. So what exactly, do we call a failure to learn from one's own mistakes? Surely that's more than stupid?

Once again tit for tat. Your superiority is still unclear to me.

What's going on at America's ports, airports, and borders? Do you live in a cave? America is obsessed with its secuity since 9-11. Hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens enter the country every year and nobody knows who they are, why they are here, or what their intent is. Americans have no objections to legal immigration whether it's for a visit or to stay a lifetime by becoming citizens, that is how our nation was built and how over 99% of us got to be here. We just want to keep criminals and terrorists out and control the rate at which people enter to avoid overtaxing government services they will not likely make a net contribution to for some time. We also want to assure an ethnic balance from all parts of the world. Of the 12 million suspected illegals, many if not most are from Latin America, especially Mexico. This is not good. They may produce profits for some people in the US in some industries like agriculture but when they concentrate in small enclaves they tax the ability of local governments to deliver services to those in the US legitimately including legal aliens. There are also believed to be among the illegals 50,000 Irish in the US without authorization. Now in what country do you suppose there are 50,000 Americans residing illegally?

As far as I am aware, the US did not receive any punative reparations from Germany after World War I the way Britain and France did as stipulated in the Treaty of Versailles. In fact, entering World War I was possibly one of America's greatest mistakes and in a recent re-assessment of American history, contrary to prior popular belief, Woodrow Wilson may have been by far the worst President the US ever had. The US should simply have let the Europeans continue to kill each other until they tired of it on their own. Naive sentimentality and getting entangled with other countries as allies was the mistake George Washington warned against. Wilson was the first President to ignore it. It was a first step on the road to ruin, the US should have remained isolated.

So how and why is America a superior civilization to Europe's? Got about ten or twenty years to read about it? Why not read some books on American History for a change and not the ones published in the UK but in the US. You might actually learn something from them.

Your concerns about Mexican immigration are the same ones Europeans have - no discernable difference there.

Your President got you involved in a war that may have been a mistake - how does this deomstrate your superiority? Some would argue for any country to engage in warfare shows that mistakes have been made - you've shown us the US is not immune from these signs of fallibility. Again, you undermine your own premise of superiority.

So your demonstration of the US's superiority over the rest of the world rests on me reading books published exclusively in the US, and spending 20 years doing it. What a compelling argument.

Gee Dubyah #28
Your question is one of the most provocative and interesting ones I've seen on the internet. I've given it some thought. I don't think it should be narrowed to two small issues the war in Iraq and illegal Mexican migrants. Fist of all, superior people and superior nations are not immune from making mistakes. Do you think Bobby Fisher never lost a chess game or Jascha Heifetz never played a wrong note? That would not have been what made them superior.

With these two issues first, whether the invasion of Iraq was a mistake or not will be something which can only be judged decades from now by historians putting it into perspective. At the time, it seemed like the only course of action. Not only was it President Bush's decision and the advice of many of his top advisors including military and intelligence, but it was the overwhelming choice of Congress (not a rubber stamp Parliament) based on access to exactly the same information the President had. It was also supported by most Americans. Even much about this recent history seems to have been forgotten in the short space of less than five years but it appeared at the time that Iraq had the means and the intention of attacking the US directly. That warning didn't come from the British dodgy dossier, it came from many sources including President Vladimir Putin himself based on his own intelligence sources. We the public and the media still do not have the full story. Who knows if or when it will ever come out but it's certain to be the subject of debate for a long time.

The large number of Mexican migrants illegally entering the US every day is not the same concern the EU has for its illegal migrants. We DO have jobs for them, all of them but they do not pay what is legally the minimum wage and they do not have the legal protections those here legally have. Yes we are also concerned about criminals including drug dealers and terrorists entering hidden among them. We are very concerned about the "Latinization" of our culture and there are bills proposed in Congress to make English the official language for the US because we regard it as a unifying factor that helps us understand each other implicitly. Over 200 languages are spoken in the US today. We are not worried about the ultimate racial or ethnic makeup of the US because the people who arrive will be assimilated just as they always have been, their differences will be superficial. In a generation or two, Caucasians will not be the predominant race in the US but it could hardly matter less, the country will not substantively change from what it would have been otherwise.

I've given some thought to your question about why America is superior to all other nations. This probably cannot be answered by anyone outside the US. It was very disappointing to hear Sir Christopher Myers who was the UK ambassador to the US being interviewed on 大象传媒. His knowledge of the US was astonishingly superficial as evidenced by his answer to Owen Bennet-Jones' question about the US being wealthy. Flippant and dead wrong he said the US was "there first." Actually, the US was a Johnny-come-lately in the world, Europe having been well developed for many centuries before America was even discovered and while it was still an empty wilderness, China, Egypt, Greece, Rome, and many others having civilizations which went back thousands of years. Even the Industrial revolution started in Britain, not the US.

One advantage American historians and American sociologists have in studying America is a vast wealth of information not only of what happened surrounding most of its critical events but insight into the minds of those who participated on all sides. These come from a peculiar propensity for many of the most important players and many unimportant participants to write journals and send letters expressing their experiences and most intimate thoughts about them. An entire large series about the Civil War produced for PBS was put together mostly from letters from the commanders on both sides at all levels and the ordinary soldiers back and forth to their families. Even the Supreme Court recognizes the importance of these correspondences referring to them when trying to understand what various laws and provisions of the Constitution mean by gaining insight into the intent of those who debated, wrote, and enacted them, the fashion of language possibly changing the meaning of words over the intervening centuries.

So Americans through vast resources from Presidential libraries, historical records, private letters and much more can take apart all of its history and cultural development, put it under a microscope and see what makes it tick, then put it back together again to see how the parts fit together. But no matter how they do, I don't think anyone can answer your question, the whole seems to be much greater than the sum of its many parts. Of course it is just possible that America became more than just a mere refuge for those in desperate trouble and that more people came here believing that if they worked hard they had the best chance of realizing their dreams in life and that many of them turned out to be correct. It could just be that simple. BTW, they still just keep on coming in droves from everywhere. That鈥檚 what will keep it that way.

Marvellous - the ingenuity of some people....

Gee Dubyah #30
Excellent defense of Europe GD, I'll bet you were on your University's debating team. I never would have thought of it myself. Congratulations. Keep digging, I'm sure you'll find another American who is even crazier.

This discussion has become both tortuous and torturous.

;-),
Michael