Wikileaks double dares Pentagon hawks Wikileaks founder Julian Assange said his whistle-blower site won't be silenced by the Pentagon or any other group seeking to prevent it from airing more than 15,000 secret documents relating to the war in Afghanistan. "This organization will not be threatened by the Pentagon or any other group," Assange told reporters this …
Whatever the original intent of Wikileaks, it's now all about Assange and his martyr complex. If the CIA weren't such a bunch of liberal pussies now, they'd indulge him and give him a dirt nap, so I guess it's all down to a collosal battle of the leftie gobshites.
... and I really hope that this arrogant **** doesn't get them dead. Something like half the people I knew growing up have served there in the past few years, not all of them came back. Several that did come back didn’t exactly come back whole.
I suspect there are a few innocent Afgans saying something similar.
Imagine going to a wedding only to see your family and friends blown to bits by bullets fired from a passing American helicopter.
>>What ever happened to wikileaks serving as a way to keep corporations and governments honest?
Thats exactly what Wikileaks has been doing. They've exposed a number of incidents that were covered up by the US government not least that Apache shooting down the unarmed journalist.
>> The information in these leaks isn’t scandalous in the least; it isn’t evidence of anything untoward on behalf of the governments involved in this war. It’s a detailed list of who’s who and where; just the kind of information that the Taliban require to get our men and women dead.
Information hasn't published it yet. What do you know that the rest of us don't ?
>> We kill them, they kill us.
You do your friends a disservice by breaking down the complexities of whats going on into 6 words
>> The armchair critics of this war such as Ass. have absolutely no idea what is going on there.
Just because you have a few friends involved doesn't make you less of an armchair critic.
You are correct, I am as guilty of armchair criticism as anyone else. you believe that by publishing everything unredacted that this will "keep governments in check." I happen to disagree. First of all the regular Joe American citizen isn't reading what's posted. They're barely aware of the controversy at all. Secondly, there's nothing in those documents that shows anything untoward enough to get a politician or military leader in general. It's a lot of routine stuff that basically covers the disposition of troops, names of informants (and what they told us) as well as strategies, tactics, assessments etc.
Lots of stuff that frankly is helpful to the Taliban, or even to our troops in theatre, but doesn't tell the public at large anything. "There's a war. We do war-like things. We make some mistakes as anyone does, we get our ass handed to us periodically." There is information that hasn’t been published, it’s true. If there were information that were scandalous and could/should be getting politicians and military leaders into hot water /and didn’t compromise the troops on the ground/ then I would be the first person in line saying “this needs to be published.”
In fact, after the war has been fought and we as the public of the nations involved need to assess how it went down and what needs to change for next time I wholeheartedly believe that everything short of the names of the informants should be released whole hog. At that point it shouldn’t compromise any ongoing operations or provide strategists on the opposing side any details relevant to predict our moves. What it would do is allow is to see exactly what went on, and press for legislative changes if necessary.
Understand that I am not pro-war. I am certainly not pro-War-in-Afghanistan. In my personal opinion we should never have gotten into this mess in the first place, but we’re sort of stuck. Right now the locals are living in the middle of a war zone where terrible, TERRIBLE things like the wedding incident you describe happen. We leave and the Taliban reclaim the country and brutally subjugate the population, exacting some pretty horrific revenge for anyone who ever “collaborated” with the allies. (That is not a statement pulled out of my ass. The Taliban have done this more than a few times during the war already. Letting them reclaim the whole country would be unconscionable at this point.)
Let me put it more bluntly: the whole war in Afghanistan is a shitty damn situation. It was badly handled from the get-go, but what Ass. has done isn’t helping at all. Worse yet, it may well compromise individuals on our side. There were better ways to deal with this, and I frankly expected more from wikileaks.
Dear Trevor_Pott
It is my understanding that the guys at wikileaks asked the US military to check the leaked documents for any information that might compromise troops or civilians.
They refused.
Therefore shouldn’t you be angry at the US military? Once for letting the information get into the wild and again for not taking up wikileaks offer to check the documents.
Please would you explain
Assange seemed to have a very particular way of asking for help checking the documents. He says that the Pentagon is "trying to bankrupt Wikileaks" by refusing to help checking the documents.
What I understand from this is that he basically told them:
"We will release the documents, filtered or not filtered. You want them filtered? The filtering will cost Wikileaks a lot of money, so please kindly send $$$ to the following bank account..."
It would be difficult to get closer to blackmail than this
So instead of it costing $$$s to redact these documents, Wikileaks are using volunteers. So where exactly is the money you talk of? He gave the US Govt the opportunity to review the documents prior to release, but they refused because it would cost THEM money. Wikileaks are at least trying their utmost to do the job FOR them for free.
Didn't that happen about 9 years ago?
Seriously, does *anyone* understand what this beknighted clusterfuck is about? I'm not sure even the US government have any understanding of what they are trying to achieve any more, they're just grimly hanging on to avoid losing face, hoping that something will miraculously happen to get them out of the hole they have dug themselves into.
What a sad indictment of the human race....
GJC
Acting like an useful idiot, like most militants leftists that get access to classified information.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot
Western countries may be full of shit, but they are our our shit countries, if we screw them we screw the same shit we're standing on.
I'm all for punishing corrupt governments and god and its dog knows they are corrupt til the bottom of their asses, but leaking massive amounts of classified info does nobody any good.
Asange is a public danger and a stupid guy with an overinflated ego which is atracting the spotlights over the internet. He is just an anecdote, but the damage he's causing is epic.
I would like to see Asange as a freedom fighter publishing classified documents from Iran, Russia, Cuba, etc. Oh wait! he'll be dead in minutes...
"Western countries may be full of shit, but they are our our shit countries, if we screw them we screw the same shit we're standing on"
If "our shit countries" are doing the wrong thing to other peoples shit countries then it is still wrong.
End of story.
Bleating on with some pseudo intellectual rationalisation of what amounts to base patriotism doesn't change the facts.
If you want to take sides on an Us versus Them basis then perhaps you should consider "Them" to be your own goddamn government for a change.
I'm not with you on the "it's our shit so we shouldn't add top it", but Ass has indeed an ego problem and is dangerous. He's smart enough to presently avoid being thrown in jail, but he has nowhere near the smarts to prevent innocent people becoming the victim of what he does.
I'm all for exposing wrongs, but there is a time, place and method for that. Ass. has it wrong on all three counts.
Ass. may have to answer for his part in the release of those documents. If Someone is killed as a direct result of the release of these documents, especially considering that Ass has a fairly belligerent attitude of "damn the consequences", why should he continue to escape justice as an accessory to murder?
Seriously, he knowingly released documents (and is proud to have done so) that led to the deaths of people. I has stated he will do it again, regardless of the consequence because of some higher purpose. Well, I'm sure that higher purpose is of great comfort to the families of those that die as a result of his actions. The man is in fact an accessory to murder, whether he or anyone else wants to see that or not. You can't cry freedom of information and freedom of speech and then claim some kind of BS protection when you are held accountable for your actions or words.
I think a few people, perhaps because of patriotically hazed glasses, forgot what game wikileaks is really playing. In case you did forget: It's about leaking documents and things classified and otherwise hidden. You can see that in the overly enthousiastic CCed wikileaks email that got submitted back as a leaked document in wikileaks. That's what they do. And damn the consequences.
There is also the glaring media spin on top of a dud release, and that arguably is an error.
What I'm not sure about is whether they really did change tack and are now all about spin, whether they're doing a "flight forward" to paper over the mistakes, and/or whether something else is afoot. Time will have to tell.
On to the other side. Though my uninformed guesses are likely poor solace, it might be that most of the danger from the leaks will likely be to the informants (Afghanis), and American soldiers distantly next. Even so, a change has already happened: Civilians and foreign civilian aid workers are now acceptable taliban targets. Those have far less training and equipment to survive direct attacks. One could doubt the taliban will find much of direct operational interest in the 90k+ boring bits of intelligence that were just analyzed to not provide us additional insights, provided they organize the effort to work through it, above and beyond what they already have: Civilians with (in taliban view) "collaborationist" positions, which one can presume known locally already anyway, making them prime fodder for object lessons by beheading. After all, by bbc reports, the path of the righteous taliban is wading through blood and guts while citing the quran, so presumably is not reading infidel writing. In short: I think the impact there, too, will be limited.
Asange may be a grandstanding ass, but at this point any soldiers that die in Afghanistan would be the responsibility of the Afghans and the boneheads in the US military hierarchy that is too stupid to realize that their operational security was compromised long before the latest Wikileaks stunt.
"A soldier in a foreign country, wearing the Queen's uniform and acting in the name of Her Majesty, ought to be held to a higher standard of behaviour than a private citizen in their own home, acting in no-one's name but their own."
Hear, hear! I couldn't agree more. Throw politicians and representatives of powerful companies in there too. That said, I again must say that release of any information that may cost lives, (be it about war or anything else) is not properly thought through.
Hold those who represent us to the flame and see if they are worthy, but remember that we don’t actually burn people to death as witches any more. Release of embarrassing information is one thing. Release of information that threatens lives something else entirely.
.. I would add to that that those so risking their lives are entitled to a higher standard of attention than they were given by their respective governments. Most of these people are like you and me, just trying to do a job (I'm excluding the raving nutcases - that's just a percentage) - only theirs can get them killed.
That the UK people were sent out without proper protection, and that they are treated like 2nd class citizens when they come back injured is dishonourable.
They also really don't need some asshole like Assange leaking details that can get them killed, just because it makes him money. I don't buy this "careful screening" for a second - he has the means nor the required access. What he DOES have is the "selected" media contacts (i.e. those that make him the most money) and apparently a cushy column writing agreement. All of this on the back of a war - you could say he thrives on victims on both sides. Despicable.
Anyway, enough time wasted on Ass. Rest assured that no site or company he is associated with will ever get as much as a webclick from me - I have my standards.
...Iraqi civilians 'disappeared'/'collaterally damaged'/murdered.
Many hundreds and thousands of Afghan's likewise.
I am 25, and I am already a jaded wreck simply from hearing about the disgusting acts of violence mine and other allied countries commit around the world. Terrorist IS synonymous with Freedom Fighter and the opinion that justifies the action does not matter. what matters is that there are sufficient people oppressed, injured and killed to allow some extremists to gain traction and thus commit further acts of violence.
I don't like Assange, he appears to be egotistical and vain, however I don't believe I need to like someone who may hopefully change something about the way our global society does business.
After all, as many Politicians from the west, suicide bombers from all over the planet, Army officials appear to believe: the end very definitely justifies the means.
@Trevor - you probably don't deserve all the 'thumbs-down' some of your opinions seem very reasonable, but I'm afriad I believe that the guys you know who've been hurt and injured pale into comparison with the millions of Asians who've had their lives torn apart through western influence alone in the last 150 years.
Beer cos the only civilised way to discuss this stuff is pissed and trying to forget that you're going to work tomorrow.
I am /NOT/ trying to justify the fact that we are involved in this war. I am SURE AS HELL not trying to justify western imperialism. All that I ma saying is that in the particular case of Afghanistan, the whole thing was been such a clusterfuck for the very beginning that now we are stuck between a rock and a hard place.
We put these Afghani in the situation where they are now considered collaborators and traitors by the Taliban. Even if all they do is try to live their lives and ignore us, the Taliban consider them collaborators because they didn’t fight us to until they were all dead. So if we leave, the Taliban return and butcher EVERYONE.
Is it RIGHT That we put these people in this situation? HELL NO. Should he just take our ball and go home? HELL NO. What we should be doing is stop pussyfooting around with this political garbage and give our troops the resources they need to end this damned war quickly and decisively. The quicker we can bring this to an end the fewer lives lost and the quicker we can spend resources on training the Afghani to take care of themselves.,
If we were even HALFWAY decent as countries, we would be paying reparations to the new country for the next 50 years along with huge amounts of training and education to ensure that the locals never have to take this sort of shit from us or anyone else ever again.
Of course, that probably won’t happen because our politicians are asshats, but at this point I will settle for “ensuring the locals don’t end up another middle-east “cleansing” statistic.”
How this pile of internet trolls gets from that opinion that I am either supportive of US.gov or trying to explain away or excuse our involvement in Afghanistan I will never comprehend. I don’t give a rat’s ass about the politicians involved or their “Right” to have incriminating documents withheld.
If there is one person on this earth who DOES deserve to be burnt as a witch its Cheney, and all his cronies are not far behind. I call for war crimes tribunals, except – oh wait – the US apparently doesn’t believe in the international criminal court.
What I care about are my friends the soldiers on the ground, and the Afghani people who didn’t deserve ANY of this shit happening to them. Apparently however caring about anything other than the moral self-satisfaction of people who bitch on the internet is worth a squillion thumbs down.
So be it.
On the contrary, Trevor richly deserves the thumbs-down for using the massively abused "support our troops" argument at the start of the comments. The only thing in his favor is that he didn't continue with the ".. because we can't tell them it was all for nothing" corollary, though he did take a step in that direction with the fatuous argument that we're there because we care about the Afghans. Perhaps we do, but that's not why we're there. In fact nobody seems to know why we're there. Well obviously some people know, but they're not saying, and the regular media is complicit not so much in in banging the war drums and covering up - though some are - but in suppressing dissent, for what reasons I can only speculate. Even the New York Times, which published the initial Wikileaks, is part of this publishers' cabal. Last week it published an editorial similar to Trevor's first comment and incautiously opened a comment thread, which was prematurely closed after less than 100 comments were submitted, almost all of which were strongly negative.
As a commentard with a son-in-law in harm's way, I strongly believe the best way to "support our troops" is to get them out of there. This appears to me to be the majority view of the citizens of the "democracies" involved in this imbroglio. How are we supposed to get our so-called "representatives" to pay attention, except by embarrassing them in every way possible? Go Assange, go Wikileaks. Extra credits if you can find and publish the order to let Bin Laden get away.
So screw the Afghani, eh?
Our troops aren't dumb. They know they aren't there for any good reason; this war was started based on a series of lies, deceptions and misunderstandings. They should be told this because they are citizens of the countries they are fighting for, and deserve as we do the right to hold our politicians accountable for this fiasco.
What you, and so many commenttards here seem incapable of understanding is that no matter how broken the reason we got into this mess, we are there NOW. We have a responsibility to the people whose lives we ruined not to botch the job further. If you don't believe that, well, that is your right. It is also my right to think you and everyone else who believe the same are terrible people. You would callously throw away the lives of the Afghani people rather than try to fix the mess we created.
The best way to support our troops isn't to bring them home and inhumanely abandon the Afghani. It's to give the troops the resources they need to help the Afghani as quickly as possible and then get the hell out of there.
If that's a thumbs down in your mind sir, then again: so be it.
"So screw the Afghani, eh?"
_I_ have not screwed the Afghani. I have, however, been screwed myself on their behalf and I've had enough of it. I've had enough of being lied to by my own government, and having my pockets looted by the military and their private contractor pals for no good purpose. If you, sir, think the ongoing effort and expense has ANYTHING AT ALL to do with the welfare of the Afghan people, then you are abysmally ignorant of politics. If you think the United States is even capable of making any positive difference in that country, then you are abysmally ignorant of history. Every day and every dollar we spend in that region is just destabilizing it more and creating more problems for the entire world in the future. The best way to stop screwing the Afghani is to get out, now, and leave them alone.
I wholeheartedly agree the AMERICANS shouldn't be in Afghanistan. Pretty much exactly for the reasons you outlined. I’m Canadian, NOT American. I don’t have any faith whatsoever in America’s ability to any good even in their OWN country. If you read back in this thread I think you’ll find that my personal preference is to boot the Americans the hell out of that country.
I would prefer that Canada, the UK and various other allied nations returned to Afghanistan as UN Peacekeepers. The US could help with some funding, aid, supplies or even parking a carrier or two offshore for the nations in theatre to do their job. I honestly believe that if Canada, the UK and the rest were serving as UN Peacekeepers with the SOLE GOAL of shoring up the country enough that they can take care of themselves we could be done with Afghanistan in two years and be able to walk away knowing we did our best.
If the allies simply leave now the result will be a small holocaust. If we stay and let the Americans continue being cowboys the result might very well be the same. As you might find by actually reading my posts in this thread, my opinion on the Afghanistan issue isn’t black and white. There is a lot of nuance here because I am actually pretty well informed on the whole thing.
I don’t think the American government involvement has anything at all to do with helping the Afghani. That doesn’t mean that Canada, the UK or other allies don’t have different agendas. Sure, there’s a large helping of “the US said ‘jump’ and we said ‘how high.’” That said, there’s also differences in the overall national approach to things military. America is a very aggressive nation, and that plays out in their military presence. Canada by contrast is largely a peacekeeping nation. We prefer to do nation building and forge stable alliances rather than conquer or “project presence.”
The only problem with this is that if the Americans did leave, Canada the UK and all the others simply don’t have the resources to stabilise Afghanistan with out them. It’s a “damned if you do, and dammed if you don’t” problem. The locals don’t want us there, and they don’t want the Taliban there. They want both parties to GTFO, but they don’t have the training or the resources to secure their nation on their own.
The best way to stop screwing the Afghani isn’t to leave right now. It’s to hold the line long enough to train a local military and police force, hand then a heap of weaponry so they can defend themselves, put some time and effort into ensuring they have a working communications and education infrastructure, and then phase out our presence with the locals taking over the duties of protecting the local populace. An organised withdrawal rather than simply packing it all up tomorrow and leaving them to the wolves.
And we should be setting about that RIGHT NOW.
"...that Assange will write bimonthly columns for Aftonbladet, a left-leaning Swedish newspaper..."
Mega fail!
Aftonbladet isn't a left leaning newspaper, it is a typical Yellow-Press newspaper like "The Sun" in UK, the "New York Post" in the US and like the "BILD" in Germany...
Regards from Sweden
Anybody calling for our troops to come home NOW should read up about what happened when the UN pulled out of Rwanda.
Maybe we shouldn't have gone there in the first place, but we're there now. The exercise now is damage limitation and mitigation of the worst atrocities. We can't do that by just upping sticks and leaving.
I'm not sure what Assange thought he was doing, but I haven't heard anything yet that gives a sound reason for putting people's lives at risk.
Since when do two wrongs make a right?
You would contend that the US shouldn't be in Afghanistan. I would tend to agree, However as someone (who was being downvoted into oblivion) clearly stated, we're there, so now the task at hand is to get out in the best way possible for all concerned, and a precipitous withdrawal isn't best for anyone. But you know what? That's not the issue at hand, so let's not confuse ourselves with things that are not relevant.
What is relevant is that the files released contain a lot of information, some of it information that compromises the identity of an unknown number of local informants who have provided information about Al Queada or the Taliban. So now these poor people who have done what they think is right to help their country become free of the Taliban and terrorist extremists are at risk, and some may well have died as a result of the release of the information.
Someone earlier suggested that the Taliban should be seen as freedom fighters like those in France in WWII. Not so sure that's really gonna work considering the Taliban record on human rights. Plainly put, the Taliban are not freedom fighters. They are oppressive and disregard human rights and under their rule women have almost no rights.
But my point is, do the misdeeds (accidental or intentional) of military personnel somehow justify the release of these documents in a way that results in further death? Do the two wrongs make a right? Are we saying that the lives of those put at risk by these documents are forfeit because of the actions of others? Are the folks at Wiki-leaks in a position to make that judgment?
No, they're not, and neither are you or I. The people behind these leaked documents have blood on their hands. I'd be ashamed to support them, and so should you. It's not a game, it's real, and immature egomaniacs can be just as dangerous as a Taliban sniper, albeit in a different manner.
Being anti-wikileaks /on this particular issue/ doesn't make you pro-American. Being anti-American doesn't make you pro wikileaks.
In general, I think wikileaks has a good reason for existing and does a good job. I think they went too far on this particular issue and have risked lives. I also think that US.gov needs to be burned down and started over, preferably AFTER the American public has been educated to understand that the past fifty or so years of "yay capitalism, boo everything else" is lies, damned lies and propaganda.
That’s the problem with the internet, and increasingly with The Register. The commenttards seem completely unable to comprehend the concept that the people whose comments they are reading, complaining about or flaming might not be as black and white as they would often like to make the argument. Arguing something in binary is easy. If it’s not 1 then it must be 0. Throw in 2 in there and you increase the complexity quite a bit.
The concept of nuanced opinions that simply don’t seem to have a place in the middle of internet shitstorms, and this is what we have here. It’s sad really, that an issue as complex as wikileaks posting classified documents about an ongoing war as well as the inevitable issues surrounding why we are fighting the war, how we got into this mess and whether or not we have a responsibility to a nation we ruined all boils down a simple binary “I feel this person agrees/disagrees with my opinion.”
How can opinions on these sorts of issues POSSIBLY be that simplistic? Put any two people in a room; throw this topic in, and no matter how closely they would appear to agree on the surface you will find nuanced elements of agreement and disagreement in their take on the matter.
Still, this is the internet, LET THE THUMBSDOWN FLY.
Allow me then my moment of binary exultation: for any and all of you who believe that the fact we should not have been involved in this war in the first place is a valid reason to leave the Afghani people to be butchered I am ashamed to be a member of your species. Your callous disregard for human life sickens me.
If you want to bellyache about the hows and whys of getting into this ridiculous war, then go burn a politician or two. They at least deserve it. The Afghani people are innocent, and they don’t deserve to be abandoned by us simply because the political winds have changed.
How polished your halos must be, and how righteous your moral certainty. That you would throw away the lives of others for your own self satisfaction sickens me. Soldiers at least know what they are signing up for. The Afghani people weren’t given a choice.
"Someone earlier suggested that the Taliban should be seen as freedom fighters like those in France in WWII. Not so sure that's really gonna work considering the Taliban record on human rights. Plainly put, the Taliban are not freedom fighters. They are oppressive and disregard human rights and under their rule women have almost no rights."
That must be me you're referring to, but I said no such thing. Don't make the mistake of confusing Afghan resistance with the Taliban. Most of the Afghan people want the Americans _and_ the Taliban out of their country. As for the Taliban's record on human rights, that didn't seem to be an issue when the US armed and trained them.
It's so easy to pick on official enemies. I'm sure the French resistance murdered a good number of civilian collaborators (that's the proper name of Afghans who work with the foreign invading armies) as well. Should we rewrite history and villify them?
Regular people living their lives with the military boot of an invading army repeatedly stomping on thier faces will often (and with good reason) rise up and fight back. If they see the Taliban as the best option of achieving their goal (freedom from foreign invasion, and swallowing the religious fundamentalism as a necessary evil to defeat an even worse evil), then who are we to blame them? They wouldn't have joined if there was no invasion.
"But my point is, do the misdeeds (accidental or intentional) of military personnel somehow justify the release of these documents in a way that results in further death? Do the two wrongs make a right? Are we saying that the lives of those put at risk by these documents are forfeit because of the actions of others? Are the folks at Wiki-leaks in a position to make that judgment?"
All the lives put at risk and lost are to be placed squarely on the shoulders of those who invaded Afghanistan with their armies in the first place. Once those responsible get a one-way lifetime ticket to Guantanamo bay, and the countries who have invaded Afghanistan appologize and pay billions in reparations, then the issue will be sorted. An Afghanistan with a healthy population will get rid of the Taliban on its own. Or not. That's their business, not ours (except for arming/training the Taliban part, of course).
"All the lives put at risk and lost are to be placed squarely on the shoulders of those who invaded Afghanistan with their armies in the first place."
Which invaders would they be? The US? The Taliban? The Russians,...I'm fairly certain that if you go back through sufficient history, you'll find that Afghanistan has been invaded many. many times.
But there is little point trying to discuss this issue with you as I see from the rest of your comment that you are not approaching from a reasoned position of logic. For a start, you claim that a Healthy Afghanistan would get rid of the Taliban on it's own. Well, prior to the US action in Afghanistan, the Taliban were doing a pretty effective job of not being driven out and being the defacto ruling power in a large swath of Afghan territory. Not only that but their influence was (and is) spreading to Pakistan. But, yeah, the healthy local Afghan population will rise up and drive them away...
However the original point of action in Afghanistan was to go after a certain group of well financed terrorists who were closely allied (and still are) to the Taliban. Perhaps we all forget that unlike Irag, the US didn't merely invade the country on a whim.
They are not the same. As convenient and apparently comforting (to you) to blame the US for everything, they are not to blame for everything wrong in the world. Certainly they are hardly blame free, but then neither is Western Europe, or the former communist states of the Soviet Union (prior to it's disintegration).
On the other hand, there are so many occasions where the world community wanted action but could not bring themselves to take it through the UN. The net result being the US and often the UK acting while the world looks on and wrings it's hands. It's very easy to do that of course because the can claim that it's all America or Britain's fault, and say they had nothing to do with it. What it comes down to is that the US (in particular) is more apt to act than any other nation, and when things don't go as well as they hoped, suddenly the chorus of voices calling for action (but unwilling to take it) turns into a chorus of criticism. It's wonder that the US has a wave of isolationism and xenophobia sloshing around right now.
I'm not saying that the US is right or wrong, but there are so many times when action was needed and the UN and the international community lacked the spine, courage or political will to make it happen. Perhaps if more countries in that community stood behind their words and matched those words with action, the US wouldn't act so often, and the rest of the world might be more apt to get with the program.
Hear, hear! First things first: remove the damned vetoes from the UN Security Council. I think things would get significantly less a bucket of ass from there. Any time a motion comes up to do something that would be good for the world in general either the US, Russia or China vetoes it in an attempt to thwart one of the other three.
Take the toys away from the misbehaved children and let the rest of the world get on with the business of growing up.
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