America --- Really The World\'s Police??

[sly]

Prince I think the aim for this forum is for us to hear each other out as well as to better understand and be able to make rational decisions. U can take it personal if u want to. What I just said is the simple fact. I said we should not close ur eyes to reality because the situation favors us and again I said if we attack NK our marines will roast as well. The situation favors us no matter how we go about handling our foreign policy. That we have the best military might and best economy does not mean we are invincible. I still maitain that the US should peddle it soft with other nations. Since the war in Iraq, even though the US supposedly won the the war, lives have been lost, and some of us were affected by that situation. Its ok to say we will do this or that, at the expense of other peoples lives.( who no go no go know) If the US decides to go to war with NK aint no telling what might happen, who knows if another world war might occur, who knows who will continue to be the US ally.  The little war in Iraq was an eye opener. After all was said and done we still went back to make peace with our allies. Nobody ever envisaged that they will refuse to go to war with us . The fact that One is strong does not mean he should go about beating evrybody. There is always room for suprise(s).

[Prince]

Sky, I read where Honeybunnie?s advised you to ensure clarity in your communication.  She counseled against ambiguity.  This is a lesson, obviously, you have not learned.  Let us revisit the episode.
 
I saw your comments as a personal attack, not on the issue, but on me.  And this is your response:

U can take it personal if u want to.

Is this a denial or an affirmation of my allegation? Clarity would have required that you say, ?Yes, I attacked you,? or ?no, I didn?t attack you.?  You may then proceed with an explanation, if you are so inclined.  Instead, you dare me to take it any way I want.  Brilliant.

This is what went down.  I was responding to Hb?s comment and concern about US possible attack on NK.  She wrote

North Korea claims that it has gone ahead and built more nuclear weapons to counter what they feel is an \"imminent invasion\" by the US. I wonder what the US intends to do with this new information.

Being the world police like it claims to be, I guess we should go ahead and invade NK to take their WMD.

Attempting to ease her concern, I pointed out the difference between NK and Irag and explained why such attack by either side is not imminent. These are my words:

I don\'t know that the US will go that far, that quickly. There\'s a difference between Iraq and NK. NK\'s got the nuke, but they haven\'t threatened anybody yet. But Iraq, under Sadam, went gong-ho the first time he touched a WMD.

NK is just bluffing. Who are they gonna attack, SK, Japan, China, who? They know that if they launch anything in the direction of the US, they are done; they are toast. They don\'t have enough nukes to penetrate US air defenses.

Your very first comment, right out of the gate, was sarcastic:

Hmn, prince I love ur courage.

I guess that was in preparation for your big gun,

U need to wake up to reality.

You don?t see that as a personal attack?  Then you shot off a question that has nothing to do with NK or nuke attack:

So why didnt the US intercept 9/11 hijackers since we are invincible.

.  That wasn?t all. After I had just explained why we haven?t and may not attack NK, you fired this question:

Why didn\'t the Us then attack N korea.

When I pointed to the personal attack, where most site members would have apologised, you became indifferent.   That?s when you dared me to take it any way I want to.   This is your denial and explanation:

What I just said is the simple fact. I said we should not close ur eyes to reality because the situation favors us and again I said if we attack NK our marines will roast as well.

 What simple fact are you referring to?  Please explain the highlighted phrase. What is this thing about our marines roasting?  If that?s your point, why didn?t you tell us how and why?

I said that NK does not have enough nukes to penetrate our defenses.  It will take a lot more than 10 nukes, which NK doesn?t have, to get into our air space.  I?ve provided just one tiny aspect of our strategic defense to which you have no answer.  You refuse to see what is here and now, yet, you are prophesying about what will happen in the future?  Who, then, should wake up to reality?

You said something about 20 yrs ago,

U will agree with me that 20 yrs ago US could not do shit and other powers were running the world affairs.

I gave you an opportunity to rephrase your claim. You didn?t.  Please tell us the power that was running world affairs in 1985 or thereabout.  Was it Britain whom we didn?t let push us around, whom Adolph Hitler almost bombed to thy kingdom come? Was it France that was urinating and defecating on herself, under Hitler?s boot?  

In the 1950s France tested their atomic bomb in the Sahara, it caused some serious influenza in West Africa.  US told them not to do it again and it has not been done sonce.  Are you talking about USSR?  Well, JFK shoo-ed them out of Cuba.  Who were they, at the time?  Was it China, whom Japan overran in three days?  Without provocation, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, and you know what happened to her.  

WHO, UNO, NATO, IRC, etc are all US\'s babies, formed in an effort to maintain peace the world over.  Who was running the world 20 years ago and before?  Tell me please.

In all this, you have failed to show one incorrect statement emanating from my mouth.  Yet, you are quick to say:

Prince I think the aim for this forum is for us to hear each other out as well as to better understand and be able to make rational decisions.

 Yes, that why we are here.  But you were the first to violate it by saying, unwarrantedly, that a fellow member is fantasizing, and needs to wake up to reality. You drew first blood.  Apparently, you haven?t figured that out.  It is offensive.

[fresco]

SLy, nobody is rejecting your argument and like you said, we are here to learn and understand things better. I think that personal attacks on pple\'s posts will garner conflicts and that\'s not what we want. Our primary motive is to learn, which is continuous process.
 I would have been better had you elaborate more on your claims because your statements are vague. they could be interpreted different ways, so it is you who should show us the way you want us to inteprete it. No offense meant, but if you kowashite more, perhaps we can understand your point of view better.

[sly]

Prince this site is not about u or me so plz let us put aside anything personal and talk about the things in qst. I have read how confrontational u\'ve been on posting remarks about me but I will not reply to those things anymore.Peace

[Prince]

Booo-hu-hu-hu-hu... Booo hu-hu-hu-hu-hu... Booo hu-hu-hu-hu-hu...  Booo hu-hu-hu-hu-hu......
:cry:  :cry:  :cry:  :cry:  :cry:  :cry:   I\'m heartbroken. I can\'t be comforted :cry:  :cry:  :cry:  :cry:  :cry:  :cry:

[Honeybunnie]

I guess someone else in the US government thought that the US was pushing their weight around too much in the Iraqi war and maybe still doing so with it\'s foreign policies...

\"Powell: U.S. was ?too loud? pushing Iraq war

Ex-diplomat says mistakes made, but he\'s glad Saddam is gone

Updated: 7:31 a.m. ET March 30, 2005

The United States made errors in presenting its case for war against Iraq, but Saddam Hussein had to be removed, former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell told a German magazine.

?We were sometimes too loud, too direct, perhaps we made too much noise,? Powell told Stern magazine in an interview released on Wednesday. ?That certainly shocked the Europeans sometimes.?

He said terms like ?Old Europe,? the expression coined by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to describe countries such as France and Germany which opposed the war, had not helped ease European concerns about Washington?s policies.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7334576/

I guess I\'m not the only one thinking that US policies are not very welcome to most countries, apparently the Europeans are not very happy about it as well...

[Prince]

Of course, Honeyb.  That the US has ruffled a few feathers in world politics is not in dispute.  But that\'s how things go.  My point is, if those other countries had the same ability and opportunity, they would do worse.

One thing I\'d like you to keep in mind though, please don\'t judge US foreign policy by the actions of George Bush and the Republicans.

You saw what happened in Somalia. Clinton didn\'t go there with guns blazing.  He went to keep the peace.  But when there was no peace to keep, even in the wake of the barbarism and cannibalism suffered by the US troops, Clinton pulled our boys out.  There is not such wisdom and restraint in Bush.

You also saw the Iranian hostage situation.  While bush would have gone in with air, land, and sea power, Jimmy Carter opted to use a more remote route.  Although the outcome was disastrous, thousands of lives were saved.

Contrarily, while Democrats would have applied pressure, and possibly sanctions, on Libya, Ron Reagan went off bombing.

Suspected terrorist camps and factories were bombed in Afghanistan and Sudan by Clinton, while bush would have declared war.  That\'s how it is.  While the Dems see it as wisdom and maturity, the Reps see it as weakness.

[Honeybunnie]

News stations and many other sources have conclusively reported that North Korea did fire a missile over the weekend, and the missile went into the Sea of Japan. Even if this test was just that of a short-range missile, who is to say that long-range missile tests are not in the horizon. That being said, it should be noted that the US has not obliged N. Korea?s demands to have privately held talks on their nuclear weapons program. The 6-nation talks have been stalled since June, and there isn?t any indication that the US will want to give in to privately held talks. The US continues to ruffle feathers (borrowing the phrase from Prince) in world politics by continuing to demand that Iran and North korea end their nuclear weapons programs.

South Korea, Japan play down test[/b][/color]
Sunday, May 1, 2005 Posted: 10:50 PM EDT (0250 GMT)

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- Asian governments have played down the significance of North Korea\'s latest missile test, saying it involved a short-range weapon unable to reach as far as Japan and with no link to the communist North\'s nuclear program.

North Korea apparently test fired a missile into the Sea of Japan on Sunday, raising new concerns about Pyongyang\'s nuclear intentions just days after a U.S. intelligence official said the secretive Stalinist state had the ability to arm a missile with a nuclear warhead.

\"The missile that North Korea recently fired is a short-range missile and is far from the one that can carry a nuclear weapon,\" Deputy Foreign Minister Song Min-soon said in an interview with South Korea\'s Yonhap news agency.

\"This isn\'t a case to be linked to the nuclear dispute.\"

Song also commented on reports that Washington warned allies that Pyongyang might be ready to conduct an underground nuclear test as early as June, with Song saying South Korea had not received no such warning.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/05/01/northkorea.missile.reaction.ap/index.html

Iran on the other hand is planning on defending its acquisition of nuclear weapons at the UN non-proliferation meetings. The US on it?s own is planning on sending reps over to the meetings to harden its stance that both N.K and Iran cease their productions of NW.

The US is still throwing their weights around different countries, and asking them not to make any more nuclear weapons, but as at news time this morning, United Nation?s Chief, Kofi Annan is asking the United States and Russia to cut back on the production of their nuclear weapons. Makes me ask the same question that prompted this thread, ?Who made the US the world?s police?? This is a classic example of asking people to ?Remove the log in your eye before you remove the speck in other people?s eyes?.

Nations gather to review nuclear treaty[/b][/color]

Annan appeals to U.S., Russia to cut arsenals

The Associated Press
Updated: 2:22 p.m. ET May 2, 2005

UNITED NATIONS - At a time of growing nuclear tensions in the world, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Monday urged nonweapons states like Iran to step back from the nuclear temptation, and America and Russia to cut back more sharply on their arsenals.

All must work toward ?a world of reduced nuclear threat and, ultimately, a world free of nuclear weapons,? the U.N. secretary-general said as he opened a monthlong conference reviewing how well the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) is keeping the lid on man?s most terrible weapons.

The delegations from almost 190 governments have gathered at a moment of mounting nuclear fears and mistrust.

North Korea, which declared its withdrawal from the treaty in 2003 and claims to have built nuclear bombs, said this weekend it was giving up negotiating over its weapons program with a George W. Bush-led United States. It was another blow to the suspended six-party talks aimed at bringing Pyongyang back into the NPT

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7708862/

The Koreans are not fools, they know for sure that the US has tons of nuclear weapons and are probably still producing more, why do you expect them not to make theirs in defense of themselves if the need arises. Tensions continue to increase in this saga; I didn?t even realize that Russia was still on the map of nuclear-armed countries. This international dance going on amongst all these countries is very interesting, and I can?t wait for the turn of events in the coming days. Need I add, that the tensions mounting must be weighing heavily on the US foreign polic, can\'t wait to see what action they decide to take.

Oh and By the way, this other link provided announces as its headlines that US is set to deliver Ultimatum at the conference

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7694119/

[fresco]

Yeah NK needs to stop acquiring more weapons. I think Koffi Anna\'s talk on US cut back in its arsenals does not mean that the US is currently producing nuclear weapons. Most of the US nuclear weapons were acquired in the past war, especially Cold War, like I said before. So since the wars ended, the weapons are also available and has not been used. Wait a minute, why didn\'t NK use it, US possession of nuclear weapons, as a justification of its currently built weapons? Also why didn\'t other nations tell US to cut back it\'s own weapons? NK does have nuclear weapons acquired in the past, although not so sufficient as the US own but why would they want more Now? If the wanted nuclear weapons, they would have possessed it in the past, but they didn\'t, reason being that it didn\'t have the resources.
About the ultimatum the US is going to issue to NK...man, this situation is deterioriating. This type of thing was one of the causes of First World War. It was after death of Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary (AH), caused by terriorist group in Serbia, that AH gave ultimatum to Serbia, which they didn\'t accept. This ultimatum was made difficult for Serbia not  accept and thereby giving AH a reason for going to war w/ Serbia. Now US is going along that line, although with different ultimatum, about nuclear weapons. If NK rejects it, i wonder what is going to happen. Although the UN is there but, will they do enough to prevent it? i don\'t know.

[fresco]

In addition, it\'s likely that US would go to war if needed. Rice has expressed it through her ambiguous speech. She said, quote \"\'\'I don\'t think anyone is confused about the ability of the United States to deter, both on behalf of itself and on behalf of its allies, North Korea\'s nuclear ambitions or gains on the (Korean) Peninsula\". Now, US is indirectly seeking support of their allies. This kind of speech is what usually garner support for the US, especially from its allies. US concern for their allies is one of the methods employed to justify and carry out war.

[Honeybunnie]

I knew the events would take a very interesting turn. Iran\'s foreign minister Kamal Khazzari was addressing the United Nations Conference on non-proliferation treaty and still stands by his country\'s determination to amass WMD through all the legal channels possible.

Apparently, the non-proliferation treaty aims at keeping the ownership of WMDs to only countries that already have them, and preventing countries that do not have them from acquiring them.

The Foreign minister does make solid and sound arguments in favor of his countries aquisition of these weapons, which is that \"How are they sure that they would not be attacked with these weapons by countires that already have the WMDs\", and that his country aims at obtaining and using them only for peace keeping purposes.

Iran \'determined\' to pursue enrichment[/b][/color]

Tehran demands U.S. guarantee against nuclear attack[/color][/b]

The Associated Press
Updated: 11:51 a.m. ET May 3, 2005

UNITED NATIONS - With the world watching its every nuclear step, Iran on Tuesday declared it is \"determined\" to pursue all legal areas of nuclear technology, including uranium enrichment.

Addressing a U.N. conference on the nonproliferation treaty, Iran\'s Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said his government is \"eager\" to provide guarantees its nuclear-fuel program will serve only peaceful purposes, as sought in current negotiations with European governments.

Washington contends Iran\'s enrichment program is aimed at building nuclear weapons, and U.S. President George W. Bush has proposed banning such technology to all but those countries that already have it.

\"It is unacceptable that some intend to limit the access to nuclear technology to an exclusive club of technologically advanced states under the pretext of nonproliferation,\" Kharrazi said.

The Iranian minister also told delegates from more than 180 nations that the United States and other nuclear-weapons states should make legally binding assurances to non-nuclear states like Iran that they will not be subject to nuclear attack.

In Tehran, meanwhile, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said Tuesday the government would resume some nuclear activities -- but not uranium enrichment -- that have been suspended during talks with European governments to resolve the dispute.Addressing a U.N. conference on the nonproliferation treaty, Iran\'s Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said his government is \"eager\" to provide guarantees its nuclear-fuel program will serve only peaceful purposes, as sought in current negotiations with European governments.

Washington contends Iran\'s enrichment program is aimed at building nuclear weapons, and U.S. President George W. Bush has proposed banning such technology to all but those countries that already have it.

\"It is unacceptable that some intend to limit the access to nuclear technology to an exclusive club of technologically advanced states under the pretext of nonproliferation,\" Kharrazi said.

The Iranian minister also told delegates from more than 180 nations that the United States and other nuclear-weapons states should make legally binding assurances to non-nuclear states like Iran that they will not be subject to nuclear attack.

In Tehran, meanwhile, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said Tuesday the government would resume some nuclear activities -- but not uranium enrichment -- that have been suspended during talks with European governments to resolve the dispute.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7721392/

I can\'t wait to see the response from the US. And Frescoe, I sure heard what Conddie said, they aren\'t even disguising their words too much. US trying to allign with allies, on this end, are you following the rift between the US and Italy regarding the shooting in Iraq. Both sides have different stories with regard to how events happened that led up to the killing of the Italian journalist (who had just been set free from her insurgent kidnappers) by American soldiers\' fire. I\'m thinking they are losing Italy little by little.

[fresco]

Yeah, the relation between Italy and US is worsening as a result of the shooting, but they, Italians, have not issued a blame on anybody, although they know that it was US soldiers due to their \"inexperience\" according to them. The other thing is that Belisconi, Italian leader, has stepped down from his post and i wonder who is going to replace him and what how the US relation with them is going to be. Also in Britain, what will happen to US relation if Blair does not win the election? i wonder too. lets see whether US will still maintain their toughness.