we're in no way better than other countries

[Schildog]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/at-least-16-killed-at-afghan-hospital-after-us-airstrike_560fed96e4b0dd85030c43ea

 

[the dude abides]

Was just going to post this.

Fvcking disgraceful.

[TobiasFunke]

Can't wait to see how Juan spins this as the fault of Marxist liberals

[Schildog]

Can't wait to see how Juan spins this as the fault of Marxist liberals

 

well the commander in chief is a muslim marxist. it's not that hard to get from a to b on this one tobias.

[Spirit]

Time for some common sense airstrike reform.  

[TobiasFunke]

well the commander in chief is a muslim marxist. it's not that hard to get from a to b on this one tobias.

It's tough not being as smart as Juan.

Of course I got my education from a socialist school district so that could be why.

[Blarg]

"One resident, Khodaidad, told Reuters the Taliban had been using the hospital buildings for cover during the fighting on Friday."

I am cynical enough to say there was a discussion about how to force the combatants out of hospitals as safe havens and bombing one would send the message it would not be one.

[Jay]

when you say, "we" do you mean the French?

[UndertheHalo]

I'd say in general we're a lot better in many ways then other countries.  This is unfortunate.  We aren't often bombing hospitals. 

[juansavage1]

Leftists range from ambivalence to hatred of the US. This isn't my opinion or a defamation. You can look at polls and talk to your lefty friends or just listen to Pacifica radio, a station that had, until recently executioner, war monger, and racist Che Guevara on it's web page. There are two reasons for this, which are not exclusive of each other. It IS NOT primarily based on the behavior of the US- that's just an excuse. I know this because leftists generally praise countries like Vietnam, Cuba, and the Soviet Union. You can find this out yourself by asking a leftist who was worse, Castro or Pinochet. They'll all say Pinochet even though Castro was worse in every way imaginable, especially body count and exportation of war. 

 

The classic America-haters are Zinn and Chomsky. The first reason is articulated by Zinn in which he says that it's OK for small countries to be patriotic, but not Americans. This is just lefty support for the cool underdog (not underdogs like Christians in the Middle East, but cool ones like Palestinians): 

 

Another reason is that it was the US that prevented worldwide Communism (progress) and that was a bad thing to do. 

 

 

 

 

On this July 4, we would do well to renounce nationalism and all its symbols: its flags, its pledges of allegiance, its anthems, its insistence in song that God must single out America to be blessed.

Is not nationalism -- that devotion to a flag, an anthem, a boundary so fierce it engenders mass murder -- one of the great evils of our time, along with racism, along with religious hatred?

These ways of thinking -- cultivated, nurtured, indoctrinated from childhood on -- have been useful to those in power, and deadly for those out of power.

National spirit can be benign in a country that is small and lacking both in military power and a hunger for expansion (Switzerland, Norway, Costa Rica and many more). But in a nation like ours -- huge, possessing thousands of weapons of mass destruction -- what might have been harmless pride becomes an arrogant nationalism dangerous to others and to ourselves.

Our citizenry has been brought up to see our nation as different from others, an exception in the world, uniquely moral, expanding into other lands in order to bring civilization, liberty, democracy.

That self-deception started early.

When the first English settlers moved into Indian land in Massachusetts Bay and were resisted, the violence escalated into war with the Pequot Indians. The killing of Indians was seen as approved by God, the taking of land as commanded by the Bible. The Puritans cited one of the Psalms, which says: "Ask of me, and I shall give thee, the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the Earth for thy possession."

When the English set fire to a Pequot village and massacred men, women and children, the Puritan theologian Cotton Mather said: "It was supposed that no less than 600 Pequot souls were brought down to hell that day."

On the eve of the Mexican War, an American journalist declared it our "Manifest Destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence." After the invasion of Mexico began, The New York Herald announced: "We believe it is a part of our destiny to civilize that beautiful country."

It was always supposedly for benign purposes that our country went to war.

We invaded Cuba in 1898 to liberate the Cubans, and went to war in the Philippines shortly after, as President McKinley put it, "to civilize and Christianize" the Filipino people.

As our armies were committing massacres in the Philippines (at least 600,000 Filipinos died in a few years of conflict), Elihu Root, our secretary of war, was saying: "The American soldier is different from all other soldiers of all other countries since the war began. He is the advance guard of liberty and justice, of law and order, and of peace and happiness."

We see in Iraq that our soldiers are not different. They have, perhaps against their better nature, killed thousands of Iraq civilians. And some soldiers have shown themselves capable of brutality, of torture.

Yet they are victims, too, of our government's lies.

How many times have we heard President Bush tell the troops that if they die, if they return without arms or legs, or blinded, it is for "liberty," for "democracy"?

One of the effects of nationalist thinking is a loss of a sense of proportion. The killing of 2,300 people at Pearl Harbor becomes the justification for killing 240,000 in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The killing of 3,000 people on Sept. 11 becomes the justification for killing tens of thousands of people in Afghanistan and Iraq.

And nationalism is given a special virulence when it is said to be blessed by Providence. Today we have a president, invading two countries in four years, who announced on the campaign trail in 2004 that God speaks through him.

We need to refute the idea that our nation is different from, morally superior to, the other imperial powers of world history.

We need to assert our allegiance to the human race, and not to any one nation.

This piece was distributed by the Progressive Media Project in 2006.

Howard Zinn died on January 27, 2010. Please read Matthew Rothschild's "Thank you, Howard Zinn," for more about his legacy.

 

[nate]

Who the **** cares if the rest of the world has communism?  Why do Americans care so much about this shit?

 

Also, who the **** cares about the middle east.  Can we get out of there?  We killed doctors from Doctors Without Borders.  How ****ing pathetic and despicable.

[gotbeer]

So you are telling me that wasn't a X marks the spot on that building but a red cross?

[Angelsjunky]

I like Howard Zinn. What exactly do you disagree with there, Juan?

[the dude abides]

Any official statement from the White House yet, or are the going to bury it like when we shot down the Iranian commercial jet?

[Glen]

I'm guessing none of the libs here have ever heard of Pacifica radio until now

Juan doth protest way too much. He's gotta be a closeted self-hating liberal.

[juansavage1]

Who the **** cares if the rest of the world has communism?  Why do Americans care so much about this shit?

 

Also, who the **** cares about the middle east.  Can we get out of there?  We killed doctors from Doctors Without Borders.  How ****ing pathetic and despicable.

Do you think we should have fought Hitler or boycotted South Africa? 

[Glen]

Who the **** cares if the rest of the world has communism? Why do Americans care so much about this shit?

Also, who the **** cares about the middle east. Can we get out of there? We killed doctors from Doctors Without Borders. How ****ing pathetic and despicable.

Yeah. It's horrible.

[juansavage1]

I'm guessing none of the libs here have ever heard of Pacifica radio until now

Juan doth protest way too much. He's gotta be a closeted self-hating liberal.

I was a liberal in college and I like political philosophy and history so I know a lot about this subject. Pacifica Radio supports communism. They play Cuban music every once in a while and I do remember 9/11 truther shows on the 9/11 anniversary. They also had famous communists on their banner a few years back. 

 

I think we can stick to the subject without the Juan disagrees with SSM so he must be gay and he hates communists so he must be a communist. 

 

Glen, would you tell a racist that he's wrong or about the history of racism? Does that mean that you're a racist? Surely, somebody who opposes a certain philosophy must secretly like that philosophy. 

[nate]

Do you think we should have fought Hitler or boycotted South Africa? 

 

Do you think that the middle east in any way resembles the Third Reich or Aparteid?

[juansavage1]

I like Howard Zinn. What exactly do you disagree with there, Juan?

Howard Zinn does make factual errors and leaves things out, but what I don't like about him is his lack of perspective or, rather, his stridently communist perspective that makes what he writes essentially a lie. Let's say that I'm asked to write a history of Angelsjunky. I include when you stole a stapler from school, said something mean to Susie, lied to your parents about going with your friends, and was mean to a retarded kid. I don't mention that you're nice to your wife, have three sons who love you, or helped a co-worker through a hard time. I didn't mention that the stapler was confiscated from you or that the retarded kid spit in your face and you didn't know he was handicapped. 

 

Did I lie about you? Is that fair. One would correctly assume, upon learning the whole story that I must hate Angelsjunky or, at least, have an agenda to make him look bad. 

 

That's Howard Zinn, Chomsky, Ward Churchhill, and the whole lot of communist stooges. 

[juansavage1]

Do you think that the middle east in any way resembles the Third Reich or Aparteid?

Yes, in some ways. I think ISIS and many ME countries are worse than Apartheid. ISIS and many in the ME are genocidal against Jews, although I don't know if they'd let Jews convert, an option the anti-religious Hitler didn't give his Jews. 

 

ISIS and many in the ME are much worse against the dignity of women. Wheras the Soviets raped women systematically, ISIS does that and then enslaves them instead of discard them. 

 

ISIS and Saddam, and the Ayatollah are up there as the most evil countries in history. 

[nate]

The ME is a ton of different tribes that hate each other killing each other.  The only reason they care about us is because we keep occupying them for their oil.  There is no systematic elimination of a race or people.  It is civil war.  There are similar wars happening all over Africa.  Where is your outrage there?

[juansavage1]

One objective way to tell how good a country is is by counting how many people want to go there. Do we have a lot of Mexicans, Indians, women, gays and blacks (Did I leave anybody out?) leaving the US to escape the horrible oppression here? Do a lot of blacks, Mexicans, Philipinos, women, and gays want to come to the US? 

[juansavage1]

The ME is a ton of different tribes that hate each other killing each other.  The only reason they care about us is because we keep occupying them for their oil.  There is no systematic elimination of a race or people.  It is civil war.  There are similar wars happening all over Africa.  Where is your outrage there?

This isn't a dumb point. A good case can be made for not wanting to engage in the ME and leave the fighting to China and Russia. 

 

Not wanting to fight an international movement set on world domination and who fought like crazy to undermine and corrupt us, like communism, is an indefensible point. 

[nate]

What in the actual ****?