J2, honestly, you have a real knack for filling large amounts of screen space without saying much of anything. it must work very well on those not inclined to read critically....
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Myfiles chooses not to pay heed to historical context and circumstances:
i'm having deja-vu...could you be a little more specific as to what i'm missing here?
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Could we have stopped the slaughter in Rwanda? Given full knowledge of events and a clear field-probably.
neither conditions were absent, ergo you should have according to your own logic, probably.
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Could/should others have stepped in? Certainly.
like who? Belgium?! do you think that BELGIUM has the excess military capacity to put down a civil war/ethnic cleansing in which 800,000 people were killed?!
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Was doing so, at least arguably, someone else's duty? Yup.
whose would that be? either way, its irrelevant, 2 wrongs don't make a right.
I must reiterate: i never said that the USA has any particular role, that was J2's line. To quote:
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Imagine you have the power, financial, military, what-have-you, and the altruistic inclination to HELP-anywhere in the world. You are willing to spend the lives of your own to render aid.
You literally have whatever it takes to vanquish evil (subject to definition), equalize any playing field, cure (almost) any ill, and the will to help in almost any situation- in most cases, without compensation.
You know, as the world's leading consumer of goods and resources, as well as being the richest and most powerful country on Earth, you have a duty to do so; not "sharing" would be sinful.
AND
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The fact remains, WE TRY! We always have. And if we stop spending, influencing, and acting when need be, things will get worse-I'd bet my own money on that, too.
what happened to "You are willing to spend the lives of your own to render aid."? You're backtracking.
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I wonder why the U.S. has somehow assumed the mantle of responsibility for ALL of them. As with other such incidents, much of the slaughter takes place without so much as a peep, because dead men (as it were) tell no tales.
see your own comments above. plus, regarindg rwanda, everybody knew damn well what was going on. the same also happens to be true with East Timor, plus you yanks were good enought to supply the weaponry used in the slaughter of 200,000 civilians by the indonesian army. Not only did the good ol usa NOT do anything to prevent the genocide, they AIDED AND ABETTED IT. charming.
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Speaking of massacres-what about Stalin?Estimates of the numbers of his victims run as high as 25 MILLION. What would myfiles have had us do there?(No fair using the "apples and oranges" argument, either, myfiles.)
apples and oranges all the same. I think most people on this board can appreciate the obvious difference between intervening in rwanda and the USSR. but just to spell it out, no, i don't think risking World War III with the only other nuclear superpower of the time would have been justified. I would have thought it went without saying, but there you have it.
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If WE don't look out for our OWN well-being on an on-going basis (that is to say, 'act in our own interest'), we wouldn't be in shape to help for long.
good to see you're finally coming around to my way of thinking, j2. if you look over our posts, you'll see that is has been YOU that ever said otherwise. I'm not the one guilty of myth-making.
edit: quoting hijinx
