Assistance turned Occupation

[Norm Barnes]

Thank you I agree being 16 out of 192 Nations does show a high degree of concern. I always thought being in the top 8% was pretty good.

Incidentally, what's your position we stay in Afghanistan or we leave. Does religion play an impact on their willingness to leave this earth and if they do leave do they have to take someone else with them. What's the point. I'm glad I made you laugh but I still would like to hear your opinion to the issue of "Outstaying our welcome" or even "Outstaying our less than welcome".

[jtur88]

Originally Posted by Norm Barnes

Thank you I agree being 16 out of 192 Nations does show a high degree of concern. I always thought being in the top 8% was pretty good.

Incidentally, what's your position we stay in Afghanistan or we leave. Does religion play an impact on their willingness to leave this earth and if they do leave do they have to take someone else with them. What's the point. I'm glad I made you laugh but I still would like to hear your opinion to the issue of "Outstaying our welcome" or even "Outstaying our less than welcome".

Yeah, we give more than Togo and Tonga do. Whoopee. Compared with them, we actually do OK. Not a high enough standard to gloat.

Afghanistan is a difficult question, and I don't know the answer. Afghanistan and Bosnia are probably the only two countries the US has gone into since WWII with any modicum of justification whatsoever. Maybe also Haiti, but that was just for show, and we accomplished nothing there. Afghan is not clear cut, but I agree there were reasonable arguments. even those reasonable arguments were not the stated reasons for going in there. We've been in Afghanistan for seven years, and have only improved the lives of the people in one city. What we are doing there is very much like what we did in Nicaragua and El Salvador---we shifted the balance of power to equilibrium, to allow the war to go on forever---much to the delight of our profiteering military-industrial complex. At lest, in Afghanistan, we are probably on the right side, but I don't know enough about it to say for sure.

[tcrackly]

Originally Posted by Cali BassMan

Yep, time to bring the boys home, From Korea, from Germany, from Japan, from all overseas bases...Close them down and reopen some ones here,, be good for unemployment and save us some money....Let the rest of the world pay for thier own defence...

Some of these overseas deployments are what is keeping our service people "employed". What do you expect them to do stateside with an ever increasing unemployment rate? There aren't enough jobs for all of us because our corporate leaders in their wisdom have shipped all the work overseas.

[Norm Barnes]

Uh-Oh! I hope our police actions, limited war of necessity, and elimination of threats to the tranquility of the world are not acts we perpetuate for full employment. Domestic tranquility costs less than waging a war take one disabled soldier through a lifetime of misery and hardship and the benefits we owe him and multiply that a magnitude of times then take that money to the bank and spend it to achieve full employment. Staying here at home costs less but then staying at home when there is a threat is just not the American way. Moderator cut: Off topicThis is one man's opinion right or wrong.

[jtur88]

Originally Posted by Norm Barnes

Unlike Kennecott, Anaconda depends on Chile for most (61%) of its production and half of its earnings. The company reports that its profits from Chile totaled $99 million last year

General Imports
20042005200620072008
(In Millions of Dollars)
Chile 4,732 6,664 9,565 8,9998196

99,000,000/8,196,000,000 or 99/8196

Obviously there was a greater motive than the Copper Trade - Agree?

Those are current values, and even Pinochet could not stop the nationalization, so today there are only token US holdings. The Chilean people finally prevailed and won their copper.

But before nationalization, 29 million tons was taken out of Chile's US-owned copper mines. In one year, production was 200,000 tons from one mine alone, absolutely owned by Kennecott, including the town where the workers lived and the stores where they shopped. At today's copper prices, that 29-million tons is worth 180-billion.

Quite a motive - Agree?

[GregW]

We may be an altruistic people ready to help the unfortunate caught is a natural disaster. We do this at the shake of an earthquake or the belch of a volcano.

However our, and the international organizations we dominate, are as far from altruistic as possible. The IMF and the World Bank are completely greed driving colonizers of the worst sort. They are very efficient looters and are primarily responsible for the lack of real development on most of the third world. The IMF will fund huge hydroelectric dams providing they are built with first world contractors and equipment and the paid for by the majority of the local population. The locals pay exorbitant electricity prices and the huge aluminum smelters owned by the first world hardly pay anything for the energy.

This extends to Afghanistan as a simple war of terror on our part. We are backing as corrupt a regime as possible. The “Rulers of Kabul” make the Diem family of Saigon look honest. The reason we are spending the money and lives is to facilitate domestic and international petroleum companies success in looting the oil and gas reserves of Central Asia. This requires a major pipeline across Afghanistan and before it is built the investors need some assurance that there will be a puppet government that will pay in money and lives to provide protection for the line. These companies want to bribe one government not a huge number of local tribes and the Kabul Ali-Babba’s want to keep the money for themselves.

Then there is the not so minor matter of keeping Opium production in the 3,000 tons per year range. The last time the Taliban (another bunch of useless thugs backed by a false god) was in power it cost the international banking industry nearly a trillion dollars in cash flow because the Taliban nearly stopped Opium production. The bankers do not want this to happen again and they are willing to sacrifice American soldier’s lives to prevent a Taliban resurgence.

We are a good people but our financiers, and the international bankers we support, are financial colonizers. They are willing to fight to the last American to keep the money flowing through the world’s banking centers. They are not willing to pay for our protection so they make our people pay the price. They have not only colonized the third world they have colonized America. It is past time we stopped supporting this Gang of Thieves.

[Kracer]

"Assistance turned Occupation "

Unfortunately this philosophy has reached full maturity under the Obama administration as it has now turned upon its own country with proposed government programs.

The attitude of many countries would make them absolute tyrants if they were 'bigger'. Germany, France, Spain, GB, the Dutch, et al have had their chance and what did they do? Moral superiority demonstrated by the top 16 when they had their chance?

The intro of the Euro was feared because most folks on the street believed it would mean the creation of the United States of Europe and make Europe responsible for problems in their own backyard.

Forget the creative statistics that place the US 16th. From a practical perspective Sweeden, for example, does not have the material or manpower to make a whit of difference in any critical situation which may arise in their own backyard. As long as Europe remains divided into disneyesque provincial states they will always be restricted to complaining and puffing their chests in the face of real problems. Handing an unconscious disaster victim a handful of cash is not helpful.

Would be nice to withdraw our troops and eliminate foreign aid. Problem is the ineffectiveness of the rest of the world to deal with localized chronic problems that become septic and require US intervention. The longer the problem goes on the the more blood the US has to 'donate'.

[GregW]

How do you define "chronic" and "septic" problems. Are they situations where a country might decide to throw out an American or International business because the business has been looting the country? Like Chile, Ecuador or Cuba?