Re: Pause to re-group
-They treat non-Americans as second class citizens.
Their entire culture is based on allowing people from other countries into theirs, giving them citizenship and allowing them to participate equally with other native born Americans.
I am not talking about the many people who they take in every year. Maybe I should have phrased it as "other countries and their people"
We should look a bit closer to home when we talk about treating people as second class.
This point is irrelevant. We are discussing America here.
-Kyoto Protocol
I don't like that one either but their is a strong argument that the 40 or so billion that it will cost to implement could be better spent.
Would this not be the best way to spend 40 billion - saving the planet for future generations. Reason they won't sign up is because the big businesses in America who control the government all rely on the ability to polute.
-Guantanamo Bay
I think that one is a huge mistake on America's part. Having said that if France or Britain did it no one would hear a word about it.
Again, as America is the biggest country in the world, they should be leading by example. How can they now seriously slate any other country on its human rights record when they are doing something equally as bad. (Also as a side note, on Morning Ireland last week, they were talking about that Iraqi jail and mentioned that most of the important prisioners are not there. They are in camps around Iraq where they don't have to allow the Red Cross to see them).
-Unconditional support of Israel
George W is the first US president to publicly support a Palestinian state. He has tried to impose a road map for peace in Israel.
So, he is giving an inch here. What is he actually doing about it. Does anyone disagree that there should be no Palestian state?
-Unilateral action in Iraq (i.e. no UN agreement)
The UN is a joke. It is now at the stage the League of Nations was at in the 1930's.
I wouldn't go that far now, but the reason it is ineffective is because you have the worlds biggest country ignoring it.
-Blatant lies over the reasons for war in Iraq (why not tell the truth)
Examples please. While the WMD issue may or may not have been lies it is not proven either way.
Do you remember the presentation Powell gave to the UN where he had arial photos of where they were manufacturing WMDs? Remember when he had "artist impressions" of mobile labs?
Remember the documents describing the Uranium from Niger, which turned out to be faked (I wonder who faked them).
What happened to all this evidence?
I remember when Resolution 1441 was passed that Russia and France both stipulated at the time that this resolution was not a pass to go to war, just a pass for stronger action.
The idea that he was an evil dictator is the biggest load of baloney (spelling?). There are far worse people in the world than him (look at Africa) and yet we don't do anything about it.
-Bush (I really dislike him)
I don't like him either but he has done more than anyone else to fight AIDS. Perhaps more than everyone else put together.
I give him that.
He has also cancelled massive amount of debt in the third world.
Again, agreed, but it is not as though he was going to get the money back anyway. The countries can't even afford the interest, let alone the acutal amount they borrowed.
-Their belief that they are whiter than white (they believe they are the freest and most democratic country in the world - what a joke).
Just like you think the anti war/anti American people in this counter think they are?
I am both anti-war and anti-American (but only recently) and I would not say I am whiter than white.
-Their attitude of either you are with us or against us.
That's a bit simplistic, but in general I agree. Then so does every country.
That was almost the exact quote Bush said when he first mentioned the war on terror - either you are with us or against us.
I remember thinking at the time that if Bin Laden turned up in Dublin, what would we do. We couldn't hand him over to America as he would face the death penalty.
Imagine what would happen if we decided to send him the the ICC? That would be funny!
-The way they treated France (and their freedom fries)
If you look up hypocrisy the definition should be "France".
They conduct nuclear tests, sink Greenpeace ships, send their troops into west African countries to protect their mining interests, sell a nuclear reactor to Saddam's Iraq, kill over a million Algerians in the 1950's trying to hold on to their colonies and then when their oil companies interests are threatened in Iraq they get all moralistic. The same oil companies that prop up the dictatorship in Burma, recognised as the most oppressive in the world by both Amnesty International and the UN.
Don't get me going about the French!
Again, just because one country does it, does not mean another country can.
I was watching The O Reilly Factor on Fox News last week, and at the end of his program he told everyone to go to his web site and download a bumper sticker for their car which read "Boycott France". I don't think I have ever heard Charlie Bird Say anything like that before.
-Their news coverage being so biased
Yes, but is it as biased as ours?
See above.
Incidently, the New York Post ran a piece recently about the interview on PrimeTime by Bush. They applauded how it was conducted and asked why they don't take an approach like this in America as opposed to agreeing with everything Bush says.