RockyYou never asked for help at the time the reconstruction contracts were assigned. After the whole Iraq has been subdivided among U.S. contractors, now you want Europeans to share some the danger with you.. Why should we risk our lives to enable US companies to grow nasty rich?
The US and UK won the war and are taking all the casualties while France and Russia would have left Saddam in power. You think its odd that they didn’t get reconstruction contracts? BTW, guess which two countries were owed billions by Iraq before the war? Try France and Russia. Guess which two counties supplied almost all the arms that Iraq had? Try France and Russia.
If peace and democracy is what you are looking for in Iraq, then please, tell your senators to send their own sons and daughters first. They surely will accept this honorable task with great pleasure. After that, we will gladly follow such unprecedented act of humanity..
We have an all volunteer military. We don’t make anyone join.
RockyAre you still saying it was single handedly responsible? A simple yes or no would suffice.
No.
Since american jingos anyway have the tendency to claim all the glory for themselves, why not go ahead and do it….errrrm… *single handedly* 😀 . Then they can claim how some other freer, vastly more powerful country with the ability to turn a given coordinate to radioactive dust was responsible for their freedom. Infact they are welcome to have their “Iraq” and eat it too. Noone else wants a part of it.
The UK has been there with us providing a large fraction of the troops, and many other nations are helping to a lesser degree.
RockyName one nation that has done more. One. America is the reason all of Europe isn’t forcibly speaking German or Russian at this point. It sure is convenient how short, or selective, some peoples’ memory is. So go ahead – tell me what other nation has done more to promote freedom and democracy.
Some people just can’t stand it that some other, freeer, vastly more powerful, country is responsible for their freedom, and go through their lives resenting that fact.
By the way, thank you France, for making the American Revolution possible, and honoring us with your gift of the Statue of Liberty. Its nice to know there are Europeans who know and appreciate what the United States stands for and what good it has done. Now if you would just help us out in Iraq…
RockyYou have no evidence that crime will be reduced.
The crime rate before, during and after prohibition in the 1920s is my evidence.
But legalising all drugs is drawing a line. It is saying to everyone that you can take anything you like, when you like. You will need to completely change the legal systems to recognise that with such freedoms there are responsibilities and consequences.
Yeah, the courts can sometimes be a problem. Mandatory sentaces have been introduced, but that is another issue and I think we agree there.
For suggesting that no one country defeated Germany on its own?
For suggesting that WWII would have been won without the United States.
No it is an insult to those who resisted Nazi aggression.
I don’t see where you get that idea.
RockyThats odd considering how many of the E.Germans, Poles, Hungarians, Romanians and Bulgarians dont speak fluent russian.
Its a figure if speach, silly. :rolleyes:
RockyWhat you say is correct but you ignore the criminal elements. Criminals get involved with whatever is illegal and whereever money can be made. Of you legalise some softer drugs the criminals will just start dealing in harder drugs that are still illegal. If you legalise those they will go into prosititution. If you legalise that then child prosititution… if you legalise that then what is left that is illegal?
Criminals are already involved in all of that. Actually, laws against prostitution are not really enforced, and I don’t think organized crime has been involved in that for a long time.
As I said before if you think getting rid of drug crime is as simple as legalising the most popular drugs then you are wrong…
So legalising Alcohol hasn’t solved the problems associated with it, why do you think legalising other drugs will be problem free too? Right now if you turn up to work stoned there is actually a law against that… if so called mild drugs are legalised where do you draw the line?
Don’t draw a line. I am for legalizing all drugs. It won’t make the world a perfect place. People will continue to ruin their lives with drugs and alcohol just as they do now. There is no utopia. But we will save billions fighting the war on drugs, crime will be reduced, and those poor fools who use drugs won’t have their lives made even worse by spending years in prison and being branded as criminals thereafter. Not problem free, just better.
How do you test someone on the side of the road to decide if they are fit to drive with drugs? What are the limits and are you prepared to get on a plane or bus knowing that the driver or pilot might have had a few puffs? No laws will stop them doing it now but a simple urine test as part of licencing will detect if they are a heavy user. Will such a safety measure be viable if they can just say they did it on their holidays when they had every right to because they are legal drugs now…
If a pilot has drugs or alcohol in his system he will be fired. Nothing new here. Drivers are now given coordination tests if they are supected of being intoxicated. It doesn’t matter what they are intoxicated with. Nothing new here either.
Interesting logic. So someone hooked on a chemical is not a victim? A child born addicted to heroin is not a victim?
I suppose it depends on how you define “victim”. In any case, if you do it to yourself, thats your buisness. I’m not sure what the law is here on this, but if a child is born addicted to heroin, its fine with me if you charge the mother with child abuse.
Wouldn’t bother me if it was outlawed. Cigarettes as well.
No more rediculous than saying the US did.
Admit it. You are taking hallucinigenic drugs. We can tell.
RockyI heard the United States was offering Iran aircraft and spare parts on the condition it suspends its nuclear program.Iran does still operate a number of F-14s,so the possibilty is there for some of the stored airframes and spare parts to go to Iran if this deal comes to light.At least one country would continue to operate the Tomcat even if we retired it.
So Iran could use F-14s against our allies Afganistan, Iraq or ourselves? I guess that is one way to see if the F-14 is better than the F-18E…
RockyWell…I really like the way the U.S “contributed” to this world by spreading its influence through the invasion and dropping of bombs on other sovreign nations, and it’s soldiers torture and get prisoners to post naked for them to take polaroids.
Those soldiers are being punished.
The U.S may be a superpower but its nothing more then a bunch of cowards, only fight countries they know they could beat.
The US president can press a button and turn any nation into radioactive dust. What is your latitude and longitude? 😎
RockyAmerica is the reason? If this had anything to do with WW1 and WW2 then you’re way behind in history. America may have helped some European nations, but the reason the U.S joined WW1 because it wanted to have the spoils of victory.
What spoils? Europe was a smoking ruin at the end of the war. We left. We only asked for enough land to bury our dead. :confused:
As for WW2, there were 50 other countries who fought the Axis, so when you think about it, it’s really the Allies who won the war, not the U.S who was “victories” by itself. If the U.S didn’t do it then someone else would’ve have, so you shouldn’t be so proud.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Belgium, Mexico and Luxumborg saved the world. :rolleyes:
RockyTo promote good and spread democracy the US has had a very special and close relationship with communist China,
What?? China supported North Vietnam and we went to war with China in Korea. They recently forced down one of our P-3 aircraft and held the crew. Do you mean Taiwan?
has also had a good relationship with military controlled Pakistan against the largest democracy in the world (India)
No, we supported Pakistan against the Soviets who invaded Afganistan. The US has nothing against India, other than their occupation of Kashmir, and its not something we get too upset about.
Lets also talk about the Shah of Iran or perhaps Iraq… or the democratic regimes in the ME that the US supports (Props up) like Saudi Arabia or Kuwaite.
Yeah, we supported some nasty guys, but it was part of the struggle against Soviet tyranny. I won’t defend it, but it was for a noble purpose. And don’t you complain about the US making sure that you have gas to put in your car…
Ahhh, yes… America won WWII… The soviets had an interest in making sure the country that had just cost it 30 million inhabitants and unknown $$$ woudl never be a threat again. Whether America was in the war or not would probably not have made much difference except the Soviets probably would have stopped when they had all of Germany instead of just half of it.
The US, with some help from the UK, defeated Japan, Italy, and carried half the fight against Hitler while he was across a U-boat infested ocean. Without that second front that Stalin pleaded for and all the billions in war material we sent Stalin, Hitler would have divided up the Soviet Union between Germany and Japan. If Stalin had won, he would not have stopped at the French border. The US kept western Europe free for the last half of the 20th century. And if it weren’t for the US the world would be a fascist hell hole, and YOU would be speaking Japanese. You don’t have to thank us, just enjoy your freedom and stop complaining.
RockyBut in the US tobacco growers could just as easily produce opium… wonder why they don’t? Wonder if the reasons they don’t would be good reasons for afghan growers not to…
Some US farmers grow tobacco, some corn, some grow pot, some make other drugs in their basements, and apparently its cheaper, all things considered, to get their opium from overseas. If it wasn’t, we’d be growing poppies here too. Right now stealing oxycontin is an easy way to get opiates.
And half the populations would be vegetables.
Casual use would go up somewhat, but not a huge amount. Drugs are widely available already. The drug addiction rate doesn’t seem to change much either way with prohibition and strict or lax penalties. Would you use heroin if it was legal? How many people do you know who would? Not many, I’m sure.
So if you make everything legal crime will stop? Criminals will stop being criminals and will lead healthy wholesome lives?
Thats not my point. If you outlaw something for which there is a large demand, huge profits become available to criminals who are willing to provide the supply. They can’t make use of the courts to settle disputes, or enforce contracts, so they resort to violence. They kill each other to control market share. Police are bribed for information, or to ignore illegal operations, with some of the huge amounts of money at stake. All this went on with alcohol prohibition in the US in the 1920’s. The motivation for a vast number of crimes would evaporate with legalization. Distillers do not now kill each other over market share, but they did when alcohol was illegal.
First of all define evil. Some stupid woman here in NZ loaded up a drink bottle with the drug “P”. Her boyfriend didn’t know what she had done and drank the whole bottle in a few minutes. That woman is now missing an arm as is another woman and a young man who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time (a petrol station) was stabbed in the chest and killed by the same samurai sword the guy used to mutilate the two women.
Yup, thats bad. And I take it that the drug “P” was illegal when this happened, yet it happened anyway. People also get drunk and commit terrible crimes too.
Yes, lets make the lesser drugs legal… and in five years time when all the same old criminals and drug abusers turn to the harder drugs lets make them legal too.
Alcohol IS legal, and you are not using cocaine.
You’d better make murder legal as well so innocent civilians can defend themselves though.
It IS legal to kill in self defense.
So called evil laws should be changed but not broken. You can’t change the law in a jail cell.
If you were a slave, it was the same either way. Slaves couldn’t change the law, and they couldn’t vote either. I’d run north. You can stay home and pick cotton if you would rather be a good slave. In 1775, many Americans picked up their muskets and ended the evil British laws, rather than turn in their arms.
But those selling the porn aren’t making it. They don’t abuse kids or animals. They are just making money off someone elses misery. If it isn’t illegal… or just isn’t policed properly in the country it was made it should be OK shouldn’t it?
No. In this case the buyers and sellers are creating the demand for the abuse. They are accessories to the crime. They are paying people to abuse children. Its like paying someone to kill somebody. Again, poppies are not victims. The analogy does not work.
But we also live in a society. The consequences of someone going outside for a smoke are their own. In fact all the taxes they pay on cigarettes is probably the only thing keeping the health systems in most countries going. If on the other hand someone goes out, gets drunk and then chooses to fly a commercial aircraft or drive a car then it becomes my problem… and your problem. When they hurt or kill others then it is more than personal freedom or individual rights.
Right. And neither one of us is calling for alcohol to be outlawed.
RockyHow many opium growers paid tax?
None, because its illegal. In the US, tobacco growers and distillers and brewers pay lots of taxes on our lethal, addictive drugs.
You are suggesting breaking the law is OK. By this comment you are suggesting there is no victim with drug abuse in the west. Perhaps you don’t have any family members with such problems. Perhaps you have never been robbed by someone trying to pay for a habit… a habit that prevents them holding a normal job so their only option is to steal… initially from friends and family, but later just from anyone.
Heroin users can hold jobs. (I’ve seen a couple of alcohol users loose their jobs where I work because of their drinking. Any day now I expect to see another alcohol user loose his.) The only reason they have to steal to support their habits is because the price of the drugs is vastly inflated because they are illegal. Morphine is not very expensive. If drugs were legal, the crime rate would drop, the murder rate would drop, and the prison population would drop in half. The last time we saw criminals killing each other over who controlled the alcohol market was during prohibition. Prohibition was the last time the murder rate was as high as it is now.
It used to be illegal to teach slaves to read in this country. The law used to return runaway slaves to their masters. The law used to say people couldn’t use birth control. When the law is evil it should be broken.
So the sale of child pornography is OK? Selling pictures of children being abused is not abusing them… it is just making money from their misery. It is those that abuse the children that are the bad guys… not those who sell the pictures or get off on the pictures… right?
No, its not the same. I don’t think we need to protect poppies from abuse. But if you take drugs, the poppies might tell you differently. 😉
So you are suggesting that mild stimulants like alcohol and nicotine should be treated the same as opium and other hard drugs. Well if that bothers you why not ban alcohol and nicotine instead of suggesting these other chemicals should be used?
YOU think alcohol and nicotine are trivial drugs. They are not. Either one kills many times the number of people that all illegal drugs do put together. I have seen several people whos lives have been destroyed by alcohol. Alcohol was banned, and people kept drinking it anyway. Organised crime flourished, the murder rate soared, it was a disaster. More importantly, if people want to drink, its their choice. I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t use drugs, and you shouldn’t either if you know whats good for you. But if you decide to get drunk, or fill your lungs with tar and carcinogens, or get high, I have no right to stop you. Its your life, not mine. People have a right to make their own choices about their own lives, even if we think they are bad choices.
If my son or daughter was in prison for breaking the law the I would be very unhappy but I wouldn’t demand the law be changed. I would wonder what I did wrong to bring them up to be so stupid as to not understand the difference between right and wrong.
Legal and illegal is not the same as right and wrong. Laws can be very, very wrong.
The difference is the law. One is illegal and the other is not. Why is it illegal to marry more than one person at a time? The divorce rate seems to suggest monogomous marriage is unnatural.
In many societies its not illegal to marry more than one person. Not in Afganistan, anyway.
Afghanistan will not improve its situation by becoming the drug supplier to the world.
The US is making a lot of money supplying tobacco to nicotine addicts all over the world. Its killing them too.
Well neighbouring countries have a vested interest in what sort of crops that farmer produces. If he chooses wrong there is a good chance that his crops may become a target… either from a foreign countries airpower to solve a problem at its source or from afghanistans new government tryig to suck up to the west. Either way the farmer loses. With wheat at least he can eat his crop if no one wants to buy.
Now we are back on thread. Afganistan needs F-15s to defend its farmers from airstrikes. 😀
Rocky.
Really? but it seems that the election was rigged in Karzai’s favour, and I don’t think the U.S would help anyone unless it gets something in return. Unlike Iraq, the Afghans doesn’t have any oil or other valuable stuff to offer, so a puppet government in Kabul alone would serve the interest of the the U.S.
Unfortunately the people of this country have been blinded by Western currency, and thus have turned to a different direction and let themselves been exploited morally. 🙁
What makes you think it was rigged? There is a lot of oil in Iraq, where there is much more is at stake for the US. We obviously didn’t rig that election. They didn’t elect the guy we wanted.
What moral exploitation?
RockyLets wait until North Korea developes a B-70 before we buy that one. I think something like Bomarc would be cheaper for those type targets. Interceptor bases would be taken out by ICBMs early on anyway, and defending against a nuclear attack from someone with that level of technology is futile. Thats why the F-106A was our last intercepter.
You do not want Neutron bomb warheads on the missiles. An irradiated pilot will live long enough to complete his mission, and will become fearless. Its better to take out the target with blast effects. I also don’t want to be underneith the thing when it goes off. Sprint and Genie had nuclear warheads, but they were not enhanced radiation warheads. That didn’t come along until the very late ’70s. BTW, you could safely stand under a Genie when it went off at altitude.
RockyAnd that extra money they earn from opium they spend more on imported food. At least with food crops you can eat what you make.
With extra money to buy goods and tax money for infrastructure.
Indeed why bother with legitimate work when they could make lots more money using their kalashnikovs to rob from nearby villages. They could start up meth labs as well… put their kids out to work as child prostitutes, sells their wives on the internet…
A straw man. No one is advocating victimizing anyone.
You could probably make four or five times more than what you earn now by robbing banks… why don’t you?
Because that is using force to take other people’s property. I’m for free, voluntary, trade, not robbery.
hahahaha fraud is not OK but selling illegal drugs is OK??? Interesting set of moral values you have there mate.
And its moral to throw someone, who has done nothing to anyone, into prison for years because you don’t like how they get high, while their jailers go home at night and get drunk and die of cancer from the cigarettes they smoke?
Perhaps if it was your daughter or son you’d think differently.
Perhaps if your daughter or son was in prison for years for growing a plant you would think differently.
Making an illegal drug like opium is not even the same as a legal material that is misused like glue or paint.
My cousin married a man who loved to drink. He destroyed his liver. Now he is dead. He was a New York State Policeman. How is making a legal drug like alcohol different than making opium?
You are assuming that the Farmers get somewhere near a fraction of what the drug traffikers get. They don’t. Afghanistan is a poor country. If a farmer grows wheat he is hardly going to get anywhere near what a western country pays for wheat. He sells in markets to other poor people who will pay very little for his wares. He gets four or five times more for opium but four or five times bugger all isn’t much either. Do you really think an afghan pays what you pay for a loaf of bread?
No, I don’t. Whether any farmer anywhere grows poppies or wheat he is still only going to get a small fraction of the price of the finished product. I don’t see an argument here for or against either crop. The bottom line is what the farmer is going to get for his work. What other people make after that is irrelevent.
There are similar laws in Thailand. Sounds like a good start to me.
And if its your children who are convicted?
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