Because of idiots like you who ask questions like that.

Well i think it's lovely that you think the US is the greatest country on the planet. Just two things though:

1) The US is no better and NO WORSE than any other country int he world. That is a fact. YOu may think it's the best thing on the planet, and that's great for you. Just remember that there are 6 billion people on the planet that DO NOT think that. So you'll have to forgive me for not really being particularly impressed by the US ( don't get me wrong, i'm not particularly impressed by any other nation either). And you must also understand that some people might just think that Sharia is BETTER than US style democracy. Now this may sound absolutely insane to you, but then again, the acceptance by the US population of the Patriot Act sounds absolutely INSANE to ME. THE WHOLE POINT OF DEMOCRACY IS THAT PEOPLE GET TO CHOOSE WHAT THEY WANT - some may even choose sharia?? is it any of your business to decide what indigenous populations want?

I suppose this is a pretty major complaint against the US. If something doesn't agree with you, you will dismiss or even discredit it, WITHOUT CONSIDERING how the local population feels about it. The problem is also that the US seems to reserve to the right to decide what is democratic and what is not. I don't think that's the premise of the US. See i MIGHT have thought so if the US was the best functioning democracy on the planet.. but that is most assuredly is NOT. No doubt it has the biggest muscle - but it's a bit like your cars; energy guzzling, collossal, powerful, intimidating, wasteful, impossible to turn and not very efficient. No sir, if you wanna see a REAL DEMOCRACY, with equal opportunity for all, with no class differences, with excellent infrastructure and a truly representative democracy, then Scandinavia is where you should look.


2) The current War on Terror is not actually protecting ANYBODY. It is sparking major unrest in most nations the US in involved in AND it has VERIFIABLY made your lives less secure. So on behalf of the muslims, i would like to request you to STOP your glorious war - you are only making things worse. You see, you can only use the "we're liberating and protecting you" argument when you are ACTUALLY doing it... And in the WOT you are neither liberating or protecting - rather you are endangering EVERYBODY.

Can nobody see that OBL and other terrorist elements have GAINED power and influence over the past few years?

Excerpts from a letter from Henry Waxman, Chairman of Committe on Oversight and Government Reform, to Condoleeza Rice, for her to appear before the committee:
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I am writing to raise new concerns about the State Department's $600 million U.S. Embassy in Iraq. On July 26, 2007, the Committee held a hearing to review reports of numerous problems with the Embassy construction project. In particular, the Committee asked about allegations of substandard work by the prime contractor, First Kuwaiti General Trading & Contracting Company, and whether problems with the fire protection systems, electrical systems, and power plant would delay the opening of the Embassy beyond its September 2007 completion date and increase the costs to the taxpayer above the $592 million budget.

...the Embassy construction project has gone $144 million over budget and the State Department has delayed its opening indefinitely. ..."Because the fire service mains are deficient, there is no reliable automatic fire sprinkler system coverage in any building on the compound." ..."None of the fire alarm detection systems were ready for testing at the time of arrival and none were completed during this site visit." ..."Most buildings have a complete lack of firestopping in fire rated walls and floors. Unless all openings in rated walls and floors are firestopped using approved methods and materials, a fire could spread very quickly from one area to another. This is especially true because the sprinklers are not in service." ..."[T]he entire installation is not acceptable."

Other documents reveal that the Justice Department has asserted in court papers that the Managing Partner of First Kuwaiti, the prime contractor, bribed officials to obtain subcontracts for First Kuwaiti. According to these documents, Wadih El Absi agreed to pay over $200,000 in kickbacks to obtain subcontracts under a Halliburton subsidiary's multi-billion dollar contract to provide logistical support for U.S. troops in Iraq. Mr. El Absi operates First Kuwaiti as a foreign corporation out of Kuwait and refused to travel to the United States to testify at the Committee's hearing in July. ...The fire service mains are installed using non-approved materials and this was noted in a trip report dated 16 October, 2006. The Contractors has not corrected this situation despite having more than 20 breaks on the system since being place in service in July 2007. ...The inspectors, who are licensed electrical engineers, also discovered significant problems with the electrical system and wiring. An attachment to their report documents unsafe splicing and incorrect wiring methods used throughout all buildings on the compound that do not meet either electrical codes or the contract specifications. The inspectors observed wiring problems with electrical panels, smoke detectors, and light fixtures. Many of these problems were found to be endemic throughout the Embassy. For instance, describing a photograph of faulty electrical work, inspectors noted: "Wrong wiring method. Free-wiring and open splices do not meet code or specifications." Another observation notes: "Improper wiring methods used on light fixtures. Typical throughout building."

...In July 2007, Anthony J. Martin, a former subcontracts administrator and manager for Halliburton subsidiary KBR, pleaded guilty in federal court to violating the federal Anti-Kickback statute in connection with the award of a subcontract to First Kuwaiti. In so doing, he admitted that in 2003 he had conspired with Mr. El Absi in a kickback scheme to award over $13 million worth of contracts to First Kuwaiti under the U.S. Army's Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP). According to the Justice Department, the amount of the kickbacks was incorporated into the price of the subcontracts and ultimately paid by the U.S. government. ..."Under the kickback agreement … [Mr. Martin] was to receive approximately US$50,240 for his awarding Subcontract 167 to [First Kuwaiti], including the US$10,000 [he] had already received."
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It just goes on, and on, and...

I'm all for realpolitik. I understand it and i can even respect it. However i deplore it when it is hidden under a cape of altruism. The Iraqi people never asked to be liberated. It was not the US' place to decide for the Iraqis. If the US is so damn gung ho about it then why cut deals with a psychotic dictator like Kim Jong Il? Where is the North Korean "liberation"?

This "liberation" bullshit was an AFTERTHOUGHT. And it was one that was pushed to the foreground when the WMD lies were made public. It was a swift turn from " combatting terrorism" to "liberating the Iraqis from ole Bush-pal Saddam". It was not altrusim, it was opportunism.

Germany didn't attack the US, that is correct. However by the destruction of Europe, the US too would suffer. entering the arena in Europe was a good idea BOTH for Europe andfor the US. I can even believe that it was done with an altruistic purpose of helping out. But that altruism stopped at WW2. THe Iraq invasion is NOTHING like WW2.

So you claim that the media was "LYING"??? Or "MISREPRESENTING" perhaps?? Or could it just maybe be that there were only negative stories because the action in itself was fabulously stupid. Everything that was predicted about the problems faced by the US in Iraq has come true. Has it occurred to you that maybe the reporting was "NEGATIVE" because the entire action and its consequences were NEGATIVE.

The fact that your population found its voice and started criticising the administrations inability to keep its promises, its constant erosion of civil rights, its flagrant violation of human rights, its tragic waste of human lives and resources ( when it could have been better spent at home), its dogged insistence of "staying the course" in spite of public opinion and every other incompetent step along the way is something to be PROUD OF. This is the sound of a population that does NOT wish to conduct a "my penis is bigger" foreign policy.
It would not have been tolerated at the time because:
1) There was not the same type of info available.
2) the war machine was responsible for the resurgence of the economy after a harsh time.
3) The suggested action was actually according to the needs of the time. The Iraq war was NOT NEEDED for the purpose of OBJECTIVE NUMERO UNO : The War on Terror.

Instead Bush found a completely UNRELATED war to fight and fooled you people into believing they were linked. it was only AFTERWARDS that he said it wasn't related.

Because the PEOPLE believed in it, nobody said anything against it. BUt THE PEOPLE DO NOT BELIEVE IN THE IRAQ WAR. This not because the american of today suck compared to the american of WW2. Rather it is because the Iraq war is a stupid, wasteful, unprovoked and unnecessary war.

The failure is not of the people. It is of the GOVERNMENT and its action.

Well, in Britain they have been squabbling for centuries about how many bloody countries actually make up the United Kingdom. Wales thinks it's a separate country, as does Scotland. Should we even mention Northern Ireland? Further, the blokes from London don't fancy with anybody to the north of them. All of this on an island nation smaller than the state of California. You think with your lack of real estate, and dismal weather, you could at least identify yourselves as one nation.

At least there's no arguing over what the boundaries of America are - unless, of course, you are from Texas.

Do all his post's hold to this high standerd of Maturity? or just the occasional throwbacks?

The fact is they "are" seperate countrys, just held under one generalised rule like say the EU, it was more put in place as a way for the British to control its neibourgs but yet allowing them some sense of individuality to keep them happy so as not to simply consume them into our nation. Now that England is no longer the superpower it once was and we no longer feel the need to keep our neibourghs in check via a tyranicle rule, so there breaking of and asserting there independance once more

You're making a lot of good points, hkbajwa, but I would like to add something to this. After Pearl Harbor, Germany declared war on the United States. And even if they hadn't, because of the alliance system going to war with Japan necessarily meant going to war with its allies.

May have been lamed, but it is the TRUTH. Your standards remember that........

dmk

Because where as realpolitick is important, it does not have to be stupid. We are engaged in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, do we need a third???? We also have to consider that what North Korea does impacts China, we know that right now the Chinese government has no wish to engage in a war with the US. China is beginning to prosper, and in the future will probably rival the US in the economic realm. North Korea is a thorn in their side, one they do not want to have unleashed, China will take care of North Korea, and leave our hands free.

It may have been an afterthought on the reasoning for war, however, its results were the same was it not, something along the lines of the means justifying the end. I agree that the invasion of Iraq is nothing like WWII. But then again, Iraq was in a UN sanctioned cease-fire with the United States following its invasion of Kuwait, and had violated how many UN resolutions, at last count I believe it was 18. If the UN is to have any real meaning in this world, as it wants, then at sometime it must put its foot down. Unfortunately the only time the UN wants to put its foot down is with the US, perhaps maybe we should stop footing their bill and see how long they last???

Lets see, if I recall a few days into the invasion the US was confronted with a huge sand storm. Because of the nature of our equipment, especially our aircraft and tanks, the US came to a bit of a grinding halt. Immediately the papers came with the phrase Quagmire, and began comparing the invasion to the stalemate in Korea. Lo and behold the next the thing we heard was about how the invasion had out run its supply lines, and units were running out of ammunition, food and fuel. Meanwhile on the ground, the storm blew over and the invasion continued moving.

Next came the talk about the deadly door to door and house to house fighting when we moved into Baghdad, and stories about how we would not be met with open arms. Meanwhile on the ground, as the tanks first moved into Baghdad and met light and scattered resistance, the media itself was stunned to silence as its cameras showed the Iraqi citizens pulling down a statute of Saddam, and camera after camera showing Iraqi citizens hitting images of Saddam with their shoes, which I believe in the Arabic world is quite an insult.

Negative story after negative story and all lies.......

Staying the course may be politically unpopular, however, all we have to do is remember back to Afghanistan following the withdraw of the Soviet forces, our ignorance then led to the rise of the Taliban and resulted in another war, only fools fail to remember their history and are doomed to repeat it.

The information was available then, however, then reporters considered themselves Americans first and journalist second, unlike today where they are journalists first and foremost and if it is news they are going to report damn the consequences.

The government failed in providing a deliberate and longlasting reason for invading, you are correct, we heard about the ties to terrorism and the weapons of mass destruction, instead the focus should have been on liberation and the failure to abide by UN resolutions.

And yes the war machine has not improved the economy, that has happened on its own, following the Clinton recession and exacerbated by the Sept 11th attacks. Unemployment is down, more people own homes and the stock market is over 13,000.

The failure is that of the media, and the soldier will be the first to tell you. The media knows that if it bleeds it leads. So the death of a soldier makes headlines, the opening of a power station does not. A road side ambush is front page news, the supplying of power is not.

dmk