US apologises for war in Afghanistan

Nope..angering Pakistan is sending in drones and killing civilians.

Has the US not realised yet that collateral damage is the damage inflicted by others on you......not the damage you have inflicted on others...that is reckless disregard for the well being of non-combatants....and is much more heinous and unacceptable when accomplished by an unmanned drone safely directed by someone dozens/hundreds of miles away who can't even be killed in retaliation.and doesn't give a toss where he drops the bomb because he ain't going to suffer any consequences?

I thought Pakistan was doing not too badly given the USA spent a lot of its time extracting the urine.

You jealous because you were born in the wrong era, Serfing?

We grew up in a different era with no UN, International Laws etc. In them thar days...what worked for the interfering country was the whole of the law.

Anyway, what how do you define intervention by Britain?

A lot of British intervention was not by Britain, as any defined policy by the government, but by private companies expanding trade, often by force....who, once they found out they couldn't afford to sustain their control, whined at the British Government to take that control over....and get them out of a knot of their own making. And many were convenient "places as empty as Palestine was" to put our unwanted criminals...like in Australia (no offence meant, Cass.)...and others were places to put military/naval bases..and we got others by helping out the country which owned them...like being granted control of Cyprus by the Ottoman Turks.

Britain's pink bits on early maps are a lot more complicated than any map or list shows. But that would need a new thread on its own.

Don't take this as me agreeing with British colonial policy, btw...just saying that a fair proportion of it was more happenstance than specific policy. Have there been any interventions by the USA.....ever, which was not a deliberate decision by US Governments?

I concede that British Imperialism was driven by the 3 Cs....Christianity, Commerce and "Civilisation" (as in killing those who object to being "civilised", because there isn't enough time to convince them the error of their ways....because you want the profits from Commerce)..and I wouldn't have liked it then any more than I like it now..when America does it.

 

"...doesn't give a toss where he drops the bomb..." fully reveals your lack of credibility in this thread. Being that the thread, in general, is barely more than a cartoon though, I guess posts like this are well at home.

 

Given the level of American directed collateral damage (and friendly fire) in all theatres......prove to me they do give a sh1t who they kill?

 

That's simple. Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, North Sudan, and Gaza still exist.

 

Why are there so many (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)s from the UK?

 

Blame the captain of the Mayflower.

 

But a lot of the innocent civilians who once lived there are dead and buried. The likes of you make me sick to my stomach!

 

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Well, I suppose we could replace America with :

- Russia which killed millions of its own people and sent thousands of others to die in the frozen wastes of Siberia, and is now run by thugs and criminals;
or

China which also killed and maimed millions of its own citizens after it told its people 'to let a thousand flowers bloom';

or

the Kymer Rouge who kiled,starved and mutilated millions (25% of the population)of its own people'

or as a last desperate resort;

Mugabe that 'saint' of Africa. I am sure YOU would have loved him!

No doubt you were enamoured with these demonic thugs and would love them to return!

 

Funny that you would choose even more irrational ********s than America as options..make you feel better to know that there are crackpots out there worse than you lot?

Why not choose Switzerland....or Australia......or the Vatican...countries which don't do aggression as a matter of course?

World leaders don't have to be the ones with the biggest dick.they just have to be the ones other people trust not to stick that dick up them.......and the USA gets a big fail there nowadays!

 

Then there was that Abraham Lincoln, he killed over half a million of his own people.

 

Because there's an equal number of wankers from America?

 

Funny you should mention the Khmer Rouge. I seem to recall America, in a fit of outraged pique, financing, encouraging and arming Pol Pot's genocidal crew when the hated Vietnamese had the effrontery to invade Cambodia and overthrow their government, in 1979.
America supporting genocidists. Who'd have thought such a thing possible?

 

I would have preferred that we stayed out of Libya as well.

All this Arab Spring nonsense seems to have made a bad situation worse. The dictators at least kept these people in line. When they attempt to rule themselves, they just end up putting Islamists in power.

 

There is some truth in this. If it were not for American and British interference in Iran in 1953, it is highly unlikely that a theocracy would have emerged in Iran. However Mossadegh was not a dictator; the Shah, his CIA-installed successor, most certainly was...

 

We are the world's laughingstock according to whom? A bunch of inferior countries who count on us to protect them?

Hardly impressive.

 

The problem is that what happened in Iran seems to have affected a lot of its neighbors.

You're correct that Mossadegh was not an authoritarian. Iran had a lot of potential back then, but we ruined it.

By the time the Shah got ousted, however, Iran was a very different country. Iran is now much more Islamist even among the average citizens than it was back during Mossadegh's time, and it would appear that quite a lot of Egyptians, Libyans, and Yemenis are Islamists now.

Even Turkey is seeing a resurgence of Islamism, but thankfully, they have a system capable of keeping things from going too far.

It makes me wonder if Assad should stay in power in Syria just for the sake of keeping that country from going full-on Islamist. Clearly, he's a bastard, but his replacements could be even worse.

 

We're aggressive, but that's different from being unstable.

Pakistan's government is hanging by a thread. They don't even really control their remote regions, and their intelligence agency has been thoroughly compromised by radicals.

America, on the other hand, has a stable government despite the political infighting. And even though we're the most interventionist country in the world, I'm pretty sure we reacted in a way that most other countries would have reacted after 9/11.

If London had instead suffered a loss of 3,000 people in a terror attack, the U.K. would be the one leading the charge into Afghanistan. They would have likely made some different decisions along the way, but it's hard not to expect a country to go to war after something like that.

 

9/11 had nothing to do with it, that was the Saudis not the Afghanis, America had the invasion of Afghanistan planned well before 9/11.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1550366.stm

 

If attacking Afghanistan had nothing to do with 9/11, then why did most of the world side with us against the Taliban?

Did most of the world want them removed anyway?

 

Surfin , That last post of yours is a disaster ,imo .
1. Uncontrolled aggression is nothing to be proud of .It is one clear symptom of delusion and instability .The US collectively is psychotic .Dangerous . Unclean .
2.If the US had not interfered , then there might have been a neutral reaction by Pakistan to Americans and the US .
As it is , you have managed to make another dangerous enemy by not minding your own business .
3 Only a country the size of the US could realistically consider invading a country the size of Afghanistan .
If you had been briefed honestly about the reasons for going to war , you would not have considered the option for more than ten minutes .
Any Government that goes to war at " the drop of a hat" is completely unstable -- just as the US is .
4 The UK could not have invaded Afghanistan by itself under any circumstances . We simply are not big enough to even consider it .
Despite the wicked Blair and the Iraq decision , I trust our usual good sense would have seen that attacking that country as a measure against world terrorism was a nonsense . As has been proved by the US .

 

Nice trolling.

If fred's article is true, then we were already enemies with Afghanistan, and Pakistan has been a very unreliable ally for decades. All the years we've sided with Pakistan, we should have been siding with India.

Well, good luck finding a country that didn't get involved in Afghanistan.

If what you're saying is true, then I guess most of the world's governments are in pretty sad shape.

I would like us to take a more domestic approach. I can't dispute the futility of trying to war with an ideology.

Plus, if we withdraw from most of the world militarily, we also no longer incur such massive costs while becoming less of a bogeyman for all the world's ills.

 

India and Russia and Pakistan had already agreed to help prior to 9/11, it was in their economic interests. Britain and Australia supported the American invasion.

Apart from that I'm not sure there was a lot of support, there was no UN authorisation for the invasion.

 

Got a link to show evidence of that last statement ? Or is this just a hunch of yours ? Note also that 9/11 wasn't the first time the US was attacked by al Qaeda. There was also the USS Cole attack in which 17 US sailors were killed and 39 were injured. So what are these 56 Americans ? Chopped liver ? We should just say oh well, sh-t happens ?

There was also the 1993 World Trade Center attack in which 6 people were killed and over 1,000 were injured. And there were all these things before 9/11 :

4/14/1972 USA New York, NY Ten members of a local mosque phone in a false alarm and then ambush responding officers, killing one.

1/19/1973 USA Brooklyn, NY Muslim extremists rob a sporting goods store for weapons, gunning down a police officer who responds to the alarm.

7/1/1973 USA Bethesda, MD An Israeli diplomat is gunned down in his driveway by Palestinian terrorists.

7/18/1973 USA Washington, DC Nation of Islam members shoot seven members of a family to death in cold blood, including four children. A defendant in the case is later murdered in prison on orders from Elijah Muhammad.

10/19/1973 USA Oakland, CA Nation of Islam terrorists kidnap a couple and nearly decapitate the man, while raping and leaving the woman for dead.

10/29/1973 USA Berkeley, CA A woman is shot repeatedly in the face by Nation of Islam terrorists.

11/25/1973 USA Oakland, CA A grocer is killed in his store by Nation of Islam terrorists.

12/11/1973 USA Oakland, CA A man is killed by Nation of Islam terrorists while using a phone booth.

12/13/1973 USA Oakland, CA A woman is shot to deah on the sidewalk by Nation of Islam terrorists.

12/20/1973 USA Oakland, CA Nation of Islam terrorists gun down an 81-year-old janitor.

12/22/1973 USA Oakland, CA Nation of Islam terrorist kills two people in separate attacks on the same day.

12/24/1973 USA Oakland, CA A man is kidnapped, tortured and decapitated by Nation of Islam terrorists.

1/24/1974 USA Oakland, CA Five vicious shooting attacks by Nation of Islam terrorists leave three people dead and one paralyzed for life. Three of the victims were women.

4/1/1974 USA Oakland, CA A Nation of Islam terrorist shoots at two Salvation Army members, killing a man and injuring a woman.

4/16/1974 USA Ingleside, CA A man is killed while helping a friend move by Nation of Islam terrorists.

3/9/1977 USA Washington, DC Hanifi Muslims storm three buildings including a B'nai B'rith to hold 134 people hostage. At least two innocents were shot and one died.

7/22/1980 USA Bethesda, MD A political dissident is shot and killed in front of his home by an Iranian agent who was an American convert to Islam.

8/31/1980 USA Savou, IL An Iranian student guns down his next-door neighbors, a husband and wife.

11/6/1989 USA St. Louis, MO A 17-year-old girl is stabbed to death by her parents for bringing 'dishonor' to their family by dating an 'infidel' African-American.

1/31/1990 USA Tuscon, AZ A Sunni cleric is assassinated in front of a Tuscon mosque after declaring that two verses of the Qur'an were invalid.
11/5/1990 USA New York City, NY An Israeli rabbi is shot to death by a Muslim attacker at a hotel.

1/25/1993 USA Langley, VA A Pakistani with Mujahideen ties guns down two CIA agents outside of the headquarters.

2/26/1993 USA New York, NY Islamic terrorists detonate a massive truck bomb under the World Trade Center, killing six people and injuring over 1,000 in an effort to collapse the towers.

3/1/1994 USA Brooklyn, NY A Muslim fires on a vanload of Jewish boys, killing one.

3/23/1997 USA New York, NY A Palestinian leaves an anti-Jewish suicide note behind and travels to the top of the Empire State building where he shoot seven people in a Fedayeen attack.

4/3/1997 USA Lompoc, CA A prison guard is stabbed to death by a radical Muslim.

3/17/2000 USA Atlanta, GA A local imam and Muslim spiritual leader guns down a deputy sheriff and injures his partner.

 

Is being aggressive different from being unstable?

I am not so sure that it is.

Some of the most unstable people I know are the most aggressive.

Go visit San Quentin, ask to speak with some of the inmates there.

Or if you are ever in Scotland, do the same, speak to the inmates of Barlinnie prison.

You will find aggression and instability go hand in hand.

One of the primary reasons why people hate America, is not Americans, but their foreign policy, which is the most invasive and imperialistic. As you admit. It's a funny thing, but when you are being attacked, invaded, occupied, you do tend to rather have a beef with your occupier.

Was Churchill a 'mad terrorist', for going to war with Hitler? Were the British people who fought against Germany, in the wrong?

Hardly.

They were 100% right to defend themselves from an invasive empire builder, that being Germany.

You don't need to talk to a Londoner about bombs.

Britain suffered incredible bombing like YOU CAN NEVER imagine, during WW2. Trust me, 3000 people in one attack would be tiny in comparison.

I might remind you that more recently, London suffered bombs, and the attackers were alleged to be Muslims. But we did not go to war with whatever nation of origin their parents or grandparents may have been from, in retaliation. And when the IRA were planting bombs in mainland Britain, killing innocent people, we did not react by bombing Ireland to bits, and murdering tens of thousands of Irish, then putting our own Gov in charge of the whole match.