The Logic Off Topic list

Hendrik wrote
>The US feels its interests are being threatened, and steps 
>in to secure... whatever, oil supply, other interests.  At the onset, 

Where does Europe get its oil? Did you know that the US has a lower 
percentage of foreign oil than Japan and Europe. We have many oil rigs in 
the US, even in my beautiful and trendy beachside town there are oil 
rigs. There is also Mexico, or neighbor to the south, and Venezuela. So 
did we do for ourselves selfishly as you are implying? Or did we did we 
do for the world, including your world Hendrik?

>it was _not_ (NOT) their war, but they _choose_ to intervene. 

When the Nazi's invaded France and Belgium and the rest, we should have 
stayed out of it. THe US, Britain and Canada choose to land at Normany 
Beach on D-Day (as in "Saving Private Ryan"). 

So according to your view, we should have allowed Saddam Hussein to take 
over Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and controla bout half the world's oil 
supply, then jack up the prices, then buy technolgy for atomic bombs and 
missiles, destroy Israel completely, then create a new evil superpower 
which eventually takes over Europe and the US. 

You're right, thats far better. I can learn to speak Iraqi Arabic, and 
grow a mustache like Saddams. I think I would look good in those green 
army fatiques and black berets of the Iraqi army. Its too bad the knocked 
down the World Trade Center, we could have put up a giant painting of 
Saddam Hussein on it, when he takes over New York. You can put Saddam 
Hussein paintings on your dikes, and turn your colorful windmill blades 
into Arabic swords. 

Hendrik, its great you're so liberal, and I think its good for people to 
question the US because any power should be questioned. But is your 
hatred for America so great you don't have much common sense left?

>Obviously, you now suddenly can say that anything the US does is a 
>war-act (ignoring the simple fact that they mingled in a war not 
>their own, out of their own free will).  And so all of a sudden all 
>the killing is justified, since it's just "war acts"???

Did the US invade Kuwait, kill many people, rape many women .... or did 
Iraq do that? You're right, the US is staring all these things. We have 
to stop flying our planes into our own buildings just to justify our 
national pastime of going to war and getting our boys sent home in body 
bags. Thats we love -  killing others, and having ourselves killed.

>Reasoning this way, you can always justify any killing: first call 
>the entire situation 'war', and then defend each act as an 
>'unavoidable war-act'.  How's that for logic...

During the Gulf War, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi POWs were taken, 
treated fairly and repatriated. It would have been pretty easy to kill 
them all - you're out in the dessert, no one around, ... just machine gun 
them all.

First of all, I don't like the fact that my name now is used in the 
subject-line, in such a way that it can only be considered to be an 
insulting act.  If that's mature behaviour, well...

I won't change it.  That's not for me to do.


Further:

Thoughts from the mind of GAmoore@..., 9/24/01:
>Hendrik wrote
>>The US feels its interests are being threatened, and steps
>>in to secure... whatever, oil supply, other interests.  At the onset,
>
>Where does Europe get its oil?
>[...]
>  Or did we did we do for the world, including your world Hendrik?

Will you please, please stop quoting me entirely out of context? 
Responding to arguments like the above is completely pointless, since 
you manage to quote _anything_ in such a fashion that it supports 
your case.  I don't have the will,nor the time, nor the patience to 
refute all these mis-construed arguments.

I'll try to rectify the above nonsense one final time:
I said that often the US _choose_ to intervene in whatever situation. 
I didn't say they shouldn't, I didn't talk about WW-II, I didn't say 
intervention is always wrong, I didn't say I hate the US, I didn't 
say _anything_ like that.  I ONLY stated the very obvious fact that 
rather often the US have elected, out of their own free will (and 
superior hearts, I suppose), to get mixed up in foreign affairs.
OK, simple, got it?  BUT, I continued, that means that these 
self-elected wars then automatically make the argument valid that 
"the US only killed in war-acts".  Chicken -> egg -> chicken -> ad 
infinitum.

>  >it was _not_ (NOT) their war, but they _choose_ to intervene.
>
>When the Nazi's invaded France and Belgium and the rest, we should have
>stayed out of it. THe US, Britain and Canada choose to land at Normany
>Beach on D-Day (as in "Saving Private Ryan").

Once more: I didn't say any and all intervention is bad.  Please 
quote me saying otherwise.  For the rest I refer you to the foregoing.

>Hendrik, its great you're so liberal, and I think its good for people to
>question the US because any power should be questioned. But is your
>hatred for America so great you don't have much common sense left?

It's amazing how people can read things that just aren't there.  I 
don't hate America.  I'm not particularly fond of some of it's 
viewpoints & principles either, but that *not at all* the issue. 
Besides: my personal preferences are interesting for me, and me alone.
The only thing I do, in the context of this discussion, is put 
questionmarks where many don't put them -- out of ignorance, fear, or 
whichever other motive.  Sure the US has done good things.  But: 
equally sure the US has done horrid things.

Why is it that simply "not liking the way Bush goes about his 
business" (since, as far as I'm concerned, that's all this entire 
long-winded argument initially was about) apparently makes one the 
object of hate or ridicule?
If I knew I was stupid, well, then ridicule probably was justified. 
However, I happen to be rather smart I'm afraid, there happen to be 
millions of people agreeing with me (ony counting in the western 
"civilsed" world), I receive daily mail from LUGgers thanking me for 
saying reasonable things (Americans included)...
... and what's the public reaction?  "It's good that we nuked Japan" 
and justifications for any and all kinds of attrocities that have 
been committed in the name of "freedom"...


Right...  Sick of it...  Sick of the entire "all-time american heroes 
and we did nothing wrong" attitude.

The US f*cked up, multiple times, horribly.  Period.  And so did the 
Netherlands in our own past.  I KNOW.  And I'm not afraid to admit 
it.  Dutch forces have killed gods know how many innocent civilians 
in our own colonies, and gods know where else.  Slavery.  Etc.  I 
KNOW.  And the guilt and the shame is upon us.

"Guilt" and "shame" -- two words that _any_ decent human being should 
be able to spell before being allowed to call himself "civilised".

And once we acknowledge our guilt and our shame for the horrible 
things we have done, our forefathers have done, or things we have 
witnessed or condoned or simply conveniently closed our eyes for... 
once we can do _that_, then we maybe, hopefully can finally learn the 
lessons from the past.  Then we may finally understand that we, all 
of us, have made a mess out of it.  That there's very little to be 
proud of and brag about.
And then we can maybe finally start doing things differently.  For 
once.  Dear god, for once...


HJ
-- 
     Hendrik Jan Veenstra
     email: mailto:h@...
     www:   http://www.ision.nl/users/h/index.html

Lets just drop the argument. I respect Hendrik as someone with 
intelligence and conscience, even I don't agree. Lets just wait and see 
what happens in the middle east. If you watch CNN you must be aware the 
Bush has gone out of his way to state that this is not against muslims- 
even visiting a mosque and giving a press conference, and mentioning that 
in the speech the other night. this is against terrorism. Maybe  you will 
turn out to be right, and the US will overreact, but lets just wait to 
see before assuming it to be true. 

By the way, the pope said the US has a right to defend itself too. And we 
do. We just need to get the right people. I don't consider those who take 
up arms in defense of the terrorists, even if they didn't mass murder 
themselves, to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Europe could help, according Bush's speech this morning, by making it 
easier to seize terroist's money.

GA Moore wrote:

>Lets just drop the argument.
OK

>I respect Hendrik as someone with
>intelligence and conscience, even I don't agree.
Which is pretty much where we started from.

And where we were also certain to finish.

Lotta lotta emails between there and here.

Kool Musick
Keep Musick Kool


_________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @... address at http://mail.yahoo.com

Thoughts from the mind of GAmoore@..., 9/24/01:

>Lets just drop the argument.

Fine.

>I respect Hendrik as someone with
>intelligence and conscience, even I don't agree.

Now _that's_ making sense.

>Maybe  you will turn out to be right, and the US will overreact, but 
>lets just wait to see before assuming it to be true.

I didn't say the US will overreact.  I only warned for possible 
overreactions, esp. after hearing Bush talk.  But even sounding a 
word of warning apparently is enough nowadays to "set the house on 
fire".

>Europe could help, according Bush's speech this morning, by making it
>easier to seize terroist's money.

If the terrorists have money in Europe, then they'll surely have it 
in Swiss bank-accounts, and not in e.g. Holland or Germany. 
Switzerland is not part of the EU (as far as I know), and they keep 
very much to themselves.  I don't think they will change their laws 
(something quite fundamental) to accomodate Bush's request, and the 
EU will not have sufficient influence to convince them otherwise, I 
suspect.

Apart from that...  I can see the logic behind Bush's idea, but 
wonder how realistic it is.  First of all, he implicitly requests a 
_lot_ of countries to change their laws.  I don't know how viable or 
reasonable that is in itself.  And: such a change of laws would mean 
that governments have easy access to privacy-sensitive information -- 
a very hot item this last decennium, with technology progressing, 
large databases being set up, and the general feeling among the 
public that "big brother slowly starts watching you".

So I would really be amazed if the money-seizing-tactic would 
actually have a deep effect.  But who knows...?


cheers,
HJ
-- 
     Hendrik Jan Veenstra
     email: mailto:h@...
     www:   http://www.ision.nl/users/h/index.html