• SeanRenaud said on Aug 14, 2008....

  We don't have the man power to step into this war right now.  Now if we did, I'd still say step out.  I think America for the next say ten years should refuse to send any soldier outside of the US for any reason and close down all of our foreign bases.  The only time we'd send any troops would be along with the UN and then only in equal numbers to what other nations are sending just to see what would happen.

• stopmediabias said on Aug 14, 2008....

  Kemo-North Ossetia in Georgia is primarily Russian with South Ossetia the Ossetians who want to be independant and have been (though not recognized) for a while.  The North has always said it will bring the South back in line and started the conflict along side Russian "peacekeepers." 

  Russia planned this, notice how it started at the same time as the Olympics. 

  I think we should do what we are doing, diplomatic pressure, humanitarian aid, etc. I agree we shouldn't get involved militarily.  This of course unless Russia goes on a conquering spree.

  Sean- I hate to break this to you, but you (for a marine) everyday are sounding more like a big sissy :>

• pusscat said on Aug 14, 2008....

  Hi Kemo - long time since we spoke my friend. 

  I did feel though that I had to comment on this.  now I do understand that everyone is entitled to their opinion so I am not saying that you are wrong or right here. 

  Georgia and Russia signed originally to the Geneva Convention in Dec 1949 along with many other countries.  In 1954 Russia agreed and signed to the amendments (Geneva Convention part iv) and Georgia in 1993. 

  Under the GC, it is a crime to terrorise, pillage, humiliate, destroy property - I could go on of course.  These acts are happening on both sides.  There really would be no point in any country signing this convention if it is going to mean less than the paper it was written on.  The US of A signed in 1955, the UK in 1957.  By signing this amazing document and agreeing to all of its protocols, we were agreeing to abide by those rules.  If the state of affairs continues, how can we sit by and let the attrocities continue?  If it were happening to us, there would be millions of people screaming the words 'Geneva Convention' louder than a nucleur bomb blast.

  I myself can not imagine what it must be like to be in the armed forces, miles away from my family, living with fear but, one thing I do know, is that those men and women that sign up to the forces, have strong beliefs against injustice.  They are willing to put their lives on the line for freedom and democracy.  I can not and will not believe that anyone joining the armed forces in this day and age, does so without realising they may be called upon to protect and fight for the peoples of countries that yes, as you say, some have never even heard of. 

  The government of Russia may have started this conflict or the Government of Georgia may have thrown the first stone but, the government is not the people.  If my Priminister decided to commence war with or invade a territory, and reprisals were sought against my town, I sincerely hope that the world will not sit back and say, "well england started it - nothing to do with us, it's their fault".   The terrified 7 year old and his family that I saw huddled in a truck, that had escaped from their burning village in Georgia did not start this conflict.  Unfortunately it is the peoples of these governments that suffer the consequences.

  If you have got this far in reading, thanks.  I appreciate the time taken.

   

  pusscat

• SeanRenaud said on Aug 14, 2008....

  Sean- I hate to break this to you, but you (for a marine) everyday are sounding more like a big sissy :>
   
  Indulge me, why?  Oh and by the way Marine is always capitalized, we aren't the army.  I'll debate pusscat later as I half agree and half vehemently disagree.

• pusscat said on Aug 15, 2008....

  SeanRenaud - thanks.  I don't think name calling is any way to hold a debate.  the shame is that comment was a very good one and he/she spoiled it by name calling at the end.  I didn't know you were a Marine Sean (I never say ex anything as you can never unlearn what you have been taught and what you have done and seen can you?)  I have huge respect for anyone who is or has been in the forces.    thank you for taking the time to read my comment Sean.

   

  pc

• stopmediabias said on Aug 15, 2008....

  No actually Sean I was just fucking with you.  Still go back and read your comment about the UN, the UN?!  The UN is useless and toothless and should be a humanitarian organization.

• SeanRenaud said on Aug 15, 2008....

  I know they are you know they are.  The fact is that there is a popular sentiment around the world and in America that we haven't the right to police the world.  So I say we stop.  For starters it's not like having American military men on US bases spending money in the US market is going to hurt anything, it's not like there aren't problems we could be solving in the US and more than that I'm genuinely curious what happens when you take the "police" off the streets.
   
  I highly suspect that one of three things will happen.
  1.  The world will fall to shit and people will beg the US to become involved again
  2.  Somebody else will step up and start policing the world. 
  3.  The UN will be forced to step up.  See I have a theory that if the UN were restructured just slightly so that no single nation could just outright veto the will of all the others AND if the UN couldn't pretty much ignore a problem until America said FINE, FUCK IT.  I'll go take care of this shit and you guys just fucking sit here.  That they would start doing some good.  Right now they don't actually have to accomplish anything. 
   
  The reason they don't have to is what i just explained.  If they ignore their problems long enough they will go away courtesy of the US. 
   
  The other reason of course that they can't accomplish anything is because America, Russia, China, England and  France all have Veto power.  Everybody can agree and any one of them can tell the other four to pound sand.  Which obviously prevents a lot of shit.
   
   

• silverwhisper said on Aug 15, 2008....

  i agree that russia's been planning this, likely for at least half a year+. it takes a lot of time to get people & materiel in place, esp without raising the georgians' suspicions!
  
  ed

• pusscat said on Aug 16, 2008....

  When it comes to conflicts like these that we are hearing and seeing on our news almost on a daily basis, I just want someone, anyone to stop the attrocities.  So many of these people give soldiers a bad name.  How DARE they call themselves an army when, after defeating a tiny speck on the landscape village, they feel the need to continue to terrorise 80 year old ladies and 6 year old children.  They call them 'reprisals'.  My friggin ass reprisals - it's pure barbaric bullying and pillaging!!   Soldiers are proud men and woman who face an armed enemy.

  During WWII, we didn't go round terrorising and torturing every German because of the Nazis.  We knew they were just young soldiers, sailors and pilots like our guys.  We didn't blame the German citizens for what Hitler was doing yet, in every modern day conflict, that is what we see time after time after time.  Innocent civilians watching their homes burn with all their belongings.  Photos and momentos of dead parents or children just burned.  People having to leave behind everything they have ever known.  People who just yesterday were working, teaching, banking, going about thier everyday business.  The world seems to forget that these people aren't peasants living in shacks.  They are intelligent, educated working people in homes like ourselves.  I do not ever want to know what it feels like to be in a war torn country but, these people?  There but for the Grace of God go I. . . .

• stopmediabias said on Aug 16, 2008....

  Sean-I agree, I think we waste a lot of resources where they could best be used elsewhere.

  The main question is what is the solution to the Russian thing.  What if Russia says screw everyone and decides to conquer all of the former Soviet Union to make a unified Russia.  What do we do?  Russia has veto power and supplies a lot of oil to a lot of people.

• SeanRenaud said on Aug 16, 2008....

  If Russia decides to take back the rest of the USSR. . .I honestly don't believe China would sit back and watch.  It's a complex hypothetical to be honest and I'm not sure.
   
  But I'm dead serious that to much of the world seems to think they would be better off without our meddling so I say we stop, and let them figure it out without us for a decade.

• andora said on Aug 18, 2008....

  wow, Sean I didn't even read the other comments but I had to give you a giant thumbs up on the first comment you put on this thread.
  aloha
  

• andora said on Aug 18, 2008....

  SMB,
  you think it is cowardly to stay out of a fight that has nothing to do with you?
  
  according to US citizens that were in S. Osettia during the Georgian incursion into that region, Georgia began a bombing raid on sleeping citizenry at night. Russia was responding in much the same manner that Israel responded to Lebanon when lebanon kidnapped Israeli peacekeeping soldiers. remember?
  
  Cheney is playing the American people like a bad fiddle. He is stirring up the pot in order to get McCain elected. Leberman was out there the first few days crowing about what a great Commander in Cheif that McCain would be.
  
  If the Georgia escapade doesn't scare people enough, then DIEBOLD will be used systematically as it has in the past to throw the election into the lap of the neo-cons.
  
  once again we have a Ratheon pensioner sitting on his duff creating propaganda as he calls himself stopmediabias, just like the neo-cons call themselves compassionate conservatives!
  
  LOVED YOUR ANSWER SEAN, didn't know you were a leatherkneck
  

• andora said on Aug 18, 2008....

  pusscat,
  
  the good ole US of A has already shredded the Geneva Convention, we have no moral ground whatsoever to stand on. I agree with you that innocent people on both sides are being brutalized, but our own government thinks of this type of loss as 'Collateral Damage' and do not mind using innocent people, such as Iraqi's to get what they want. You may think we have been fighting for democracy and justice but this is far from the truth.
  
  I wish the average American would use the internet to investigate the activities of the oil and the banking cartels. In this way they would be able to trace the origins of all the major conflicts since WWI. All of the sqirmishes have been over oil pipelines. Considering that Exxon made 13 billion of profits in one quarter should help anyone to realize that the oil game is the  global race. To use freedom and democracy as the reason for the Battle Cry is what has me frustrated. If we are going to steal from poor 3rd world countries under the guise of freedom, then 'we' as a nation deserve to lose jobs, go homeless, have banks close, bridges collapse, and to have slave labor collapse the living wage...have fun defending that my fellow Aericans!
  

• SeanRenaud said on Aug 18, 2008....

  I always forget you hate America.  Honestly oil is worth fighting over, it's worth killing over.  I wish I felt that the rest of the world deserved the help they need but I don't feel they do anymore.  At this point I say we should just step back and watch the world burn.  Eventually they'll figure it out.  But who knows.
   
  Though I've done the research and it's dubious at best to say that all the major conflicts have been over oil.  Now once you add in resources in general then well you're talking about every war ever anyplace forever and always.  It goes right down to ants, hyenas and lions and even trees.  So well welcome to reality.

• stopmediabias said on Aug 18, 2008....

  Andora-you are moron, I say that with the greatest respect.  The koolaid you are drowning in is killing you.

• seer said on Sep 01, 2008....

  Well this has become a flame war hasn't it.
   
  Russia is in the wrong, in my eyes, but then so is Georgia. But I guess we never should have really gone into Iraq after oil. I mean the Afghan war on terror, sure, but Iraq? Jees.
   
  But then Russia has been giving us a head ache a lot lately, with the Litvienco (scuse the spelling) case in Britain, but we really cant have ANOTHER war. So what do we do?
   
  Anyway, just thought I'd let you know, the Middle Eastern Killcount (according to government figures from the UK and US) is 100,000 civillians. Not too good. Leftie hippies who say 'stop the war' a lot say its 800,000. Big difference, its somewhere in between probably, like 600,000. Now here's what made me laugh, Bush said Russia's action was 'too heavy handed'.
   
  (oh yeah I don't hate America, England or Russia, I just find government funny)

• stopmediabias said on Sep 02, 2008....

  Seer-14 Resolutions, authorization from Congress and President Bush announcing on national TV he going to Iraq, compared to sneaking in the middle of the night when all eyes are on the Olympics.  Two different things with no comparisons.
   
  And if we wanted Iraqs oil we would just buy it. 
   
  What was your solution for Iraq?  Let is fester longer? 
   
  Have a sip of Andora's koolaid. 
   
   

• SeanRenaud said on Sep 02, 2008....

  Honestly SMB we had let Iraq fester for thirteen years (since the first Gulf War) it wasn't going to suddenly develope Lex Luthor's power suits in the next five, we could have and should haveleft them alone and finished up in Afghanistan first.
   
  *Clinton should have bombed them into the stone age in 98 when they turned down inspectors for the first time.

• Thoughtful said on Jan 22, 2009....

  " is that those men and women that sign up to the forces, have strong beliefs against injustice.  They are willing to put their lives on the line for freedom and democracy"
   
  This is pusscats comment above. Well you know that those people believe in justice. I want to know where the justice is for those families that LOSE someone, are you going to bring them back ? o of course not. They sure did look good though and noble fighting for the cause while your at home glad that its NOT you right ? ya .. some justice there ;) some democracy so nice to see that this is where 2000 years has gotten us. Still having wars fighting battles that are not our own. I am not ashamed to say .. the world is doomed im pretty sure.  As long as its not you and your own .. its all good rigtht ? well i know first hand how it feels to have someone in the "forces" and ya sure im proud, but would i rather NOT have the person i love most get involved in this excuse my language , bullshit war !? obviously.....

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