International Politics Thread

[Balschoiw 0]

It has already been confirmed by US officials that Iran is nowhere near building a nuke but Israel seem to have a "it´s now or never" ideology when it comes to bombing Iran. They have conducted extensive military maneuvers this year.

The purpose of this maneuvers was to practise bomb runs on nuclear facilities in Iran. The outcome of such operations is questionable at least as Israel simply doesn´t have the capacities to bomb all strategic targets successfully. A ground campaign against Iran is out of question as it simply can´t be won right now. You can only hope that the US and coalition forces are out of Iraq by the time the attack will take place as the reaction from Iran will be to sack some there. I guess people underestimate the Iran military-wise and that will be a major problem. Iran is currently equipping with russian 9K331-Tor M1 to be able to react to missile threats and has upgraded their stock of general AA defenses. The outcome of an israeli strike on Iran is very questionable in this context. The iranians know what to expect, where to expect it and the timeline seems to be set also if you read israelian media that all toot the upcoming war for weeks now.

If Israel goes on a unilateral attack run with dubious outcome they will only fuel the fire even more and support for Israel on the international stage will go lowlevel. Apart from that they put the western nations and africa at risk of being cut from ressources and only strengthen Russia´s influence in the region even more.

So in the end it will be be a failure as the Lebanon campaign was with the difference that they will set free radiation in large amounts this time and only strengthen the support of iranian people for their weirdo leader who then can say that he was right about the imperialist invaders.

Maybe spokesperson then can grab a job in Iran which would be the only positive effect of such campaign.

Israel´s current way of dealing with their local problems (the problems they create themselves by building walls and fences on soil that is not theirs) is very remarkable...

Israeli soldier shoots Palestinian prisoner with rubber coated steel projectile into his foot on purpose

[turms 0]

Quote[/b] ]To me it is disgusting how people start to romanticize communism.

I am not trying to romanticize communism in no way, im just stating that SU wasnt a communist system, in order to critizize something, one has to know the terms, and use them properly.

Quote[/b] ]

To me it is disgusting that some people here in Finland want me to be sorry for the fact that my great grandparents were among those who choked the red (socialist) rebels in 1918. I'm never going to apologize that to anyone. There is an overwhelming amount of heavy evidence around the world to support the stance my great grandparents took. They did the right thing, they can rest in peace.

There are 5.5 million people in Finland, im sure that there are some people among them that "want you to be sorry". I am not one of them.

Your family in all likelihood had soldiers in both sides, some of them red, some of them white. There were 90 000 red troops and 90 000 white troops, Finland was divided in two.

Im very happy of the outcome of the civil war also, but it would be quite naive to assume that your family was only in the white side.

the white army wasnt so noble as you portray it to be as you can see from the charts of the aftermath of the civil war: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Civil_War#Bitter_legacy

[baddo 0]

Quote[/b] ]To me it is disgusting how people start to romanticize communism.

I am not trying to romanticize communism in no way, im just stating that SU wasnt a communist system, in order to critizize something, one has to know the terms, and use them properly.

Quote[/b] ]

To me it is disgusting that some people here in Finland want me to be sorry for the fact that my great grandparents were among those who choked the red (socialist) rebels in 1918. I'm never going to apologize that to anyone. There is an overwhelming amount of heavy evidence around the world to support the stance my great grandparents took. They did the right thing, they can rest in peace.

There are 5.5 million people in Finland, im sure that there are some people among them that "want you to be sorry". I am not one of them.

Your family in all likelihood had soldiers in both sides, some of them red, some of them white. There were 90 000 red troops and 90 000 white troops, Finland was divided in two.

Im very happy of the outcome of the civil war also, but it would be quite naive to assume that your family was only in the white side.

the white army wasnt so noble as you portray it to be as you can see from the charts of the aftermath of the civil war: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Civil_War#Bitter_legacy

Your nit-picking about the usage of the term "communism" is exactly the kind of discussion style spokesperson has had here for as long as I have seen him say anything. It's not the point if we call it "communism" or "legoism", you know well what we mean and you should not try to nit-pick your way around it. Maybe you need to come up with a new word for that ideology if it is mis-used so much everywhere.

---

You can look to your President and there you see right away one person who is (more) on the Red side. By her own admission.

It truly pisses me off how people vote in elections. They have no fucking idea of what kind of candidates there are. Then they are told "you must vote!" then they vote without doing one bit of research. Just watch the TV ads or newspaper ads. And that's it. No more research into what kind of people are elected. This bothers me quite a bit I have to say. I'm not blaming the individual voters, I am blaming the system and the general instruction that everyone should vote and they should vote *now*. Vote, vote, vote! Then people feel quilty if they don't vote. So they vote anyways, without knowing shit of any of the candidates. The President we have now is one such person who would NOT have been elected if only her socialist/communist ass-licking would have been known widely before.

I can speak of my family only how deeply I know it. I don't know any one Red, but all I know are White. It is likely that when looked deeper, there are bound to be someone who was on the other side. It would not make sense to argue against that. It is something I can not prove either way. I speak of the relatives which I know, and they are White.

There have even recently been statements made by several people (for example in newspapers) of how this and that wrong-doing by the White side should be condemned and an apology presented to the relatives of the fallen Reds. It is the year 2008 and still some people think that someone needs to go to them and apologize that their family members got killed when they tried to overthrow the government of Finland.

I think that the Finnish socialists were *naive* of the goals that their movement actually had. I will argue here and now that the actual goal why Lenin first "accepted" our independence, but then later started to support the Finnish socialists in their palace coup attempt, was to regain control of this country to Russia. Why did this happen? Why they first accepted our declaration of independence, but then after some months they start to support the socialist rebels? Answer yourself that question, I already did and wrote it here. There is a term which best describes what was going on, and it is called "maanpetos" for which I think the English equivalent word is "high treason".

http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maanpetos

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_treason

So, to summarize, I view our Civil War also as a fight for our independence. This view is based on Lenin supporting the socialist movement in our country. If they would have won, in my opinion that would have meant that the socialists of Russia would have been in power in our country.

It can be argued that the White army *was* noble when they punished the Reds as little as they did. This is the other side of the coin.

It was correct action to fight the people who committed high treason against our country. Especially when we know that the link between the Russian and Finnish socialists is very clear. You have to ask yourself what motive did the Russians have to support the rebels in Finland? Of course they wanted to increase their political power in this country, and I simply can not do anything else but to oppose that kind of movement. And as I already have said here: There is an overwhelming amount of heavy evidence around the world to support the stance my great grandparents took. They did the right thing, they can rest in peace.

[chops 111]

At least there's a discussion going on. And I think that's always a good sign of a functioning society.

I read a saying somewhere, that the sins of the father shall not be visited up on the son. And that was the allies attitude to the post-war Germans and Japanese.

Of course there's 'he he forgets history is destined to repeat it."

I spent a few years in Japan and was absolutely astounded and revolted by the total ignorance of most people of almost anything to do with Japan's part in WW2. I've spoken to people born in the '40s and '50s who had no idea that Australia was allied with the US and not Japan. Granted Australian involvement was limited by our small population, but still. It's frightening to see how easy they'd go at it again without so much as a whimper.

One fella who was letterboxing anti-war leaflets, prior to Japan sending troops to Iraq, spent three months in jail for his outrageous crime.

[-Snafu- 78]

Quote[/b] ]prior to Japan sending troops to Iraq

I thought Japan's role for TWAT was supplying stuff with support ships to US forces en route to the Middle East, which was then stopped and then started up again?

Quote[/b] ]allied with the US and not Japan

If I am reading this right, it sounds like your saying people thought Australia was allied with Japan?

[chops 111]

I thought Japan's role for TWAT was supplying stuff with support ships to US forces en route to the Middle East, which was then stopped and then started up again?

In their involvement in operations re Afghanistan, the Japanese navy were supplying US ships with fuel (for free) in that part of the world for a while, on again off again. Got a bit pricey (no shit?)

Japan sent 'engineers' into post invasion Iraq. Their role was to set-up some kind of water purification operation. At one point the ADF took over from the Danes or Dutch (I forget) to provide protection for them. Something very Orwellian in that.

Quote[/b] ]If I am reading this right, it sounds like your saying people thought Australia was allied with Japan?

You read it right my friend.

[-Snafu- 78]

I thought Japan's role for TWAT was supplying stuff with support ships to US forces en route to the Middle East, which was then stopped and then started up again?

In their involvement in operations re Afghanistan, the Japanese navy were supplying US ships with fuel (for free) in that part of the world for a while, on again off again. Got a bit pricey (no shit?)

Japan sent 'engineers' into post invasion Iraq. Their role was to set-up some kind of water purification operation. At one point the ADF took over from the Danes or Dutch (I forget) to provide protection for them. Something very Orwellian in that.

Quote[/b] ]If I am reading this right, it sounds like your saying people thought Australia was allied with Japan?

You read it right my friend.

Interesting info on Japan there. Cheers.

Seriously? I cannot believe that people thought Australia was allied with Japan during WW2. Who thought this again?

But...Port Moresby....Tobruk...have they ever heard of these?

[Commando84 0]

some people maybe just wanted to forget the past really well? I read somewhere that in One of the most advanced nations Korea? Where they got all tech tech but nobody knows anything about history cause they didn't want to care or know, just working on the present time or something like that.

[Baff1 0]

I think the Israeli's make their own laws in their own parliaments.

I read somewhere that Israel has defied about four times the number of UN security council resolutions than Saddam-era Iraq ever did. And it was enforcing resolution number 14-blah-blah that was quoted over and over again as reason to invade Iraq.

Israeli government policy towards the Palestinians is a railroad and a extermination camp short of what the Nazi did to the Jews in '40s. And this same government has nuclear weapons, it's frightening.

As fucked up as the situation in Israel is, I'm a world less worried about them having nukes than the fruitcakes in Iran.

No government ever represents all the people, even more so in the Allah-tatorship in Iran, but this is fundamentally fucked-up society...still stoning people to death. At least any nuke wielding Israeli government will have to answer to the US and to it's own people.

Israel's actions since the '67 war are the root of a lot of this shit. But I can't see how murdering them in a nuclear attack is less of a crime, or remotely justified.

It seems the nutters on both sides have hijacked foreign policy. The fiery spirit in the sky worshipping mullahs in Iran and the fundamentalist settler-types in Israel (don't tell me to stop killing children, you're an anti-semite).

All we need is to send Spokesperson over there and all the factions will unite in incredulous hilarity at his continuing arse-backwards view of the world.

Who is going to murder Israeli's in a nuclear attack?

The Russians?

The Chinese?

The Americans?

The French?

The British?

The Indians?

The Koreans?

The Pakistani's?

Themselves?

Why is stoning people to death wrong, but electrocuting them or poisoning them or gasing them ok? How are you on hanging?

We may have banned capital punishment in our countries but most cultures in the world to day still use it.

(The israeli's have a mechanical rock throwing machine that they comically drive through the streets of Palestine).

It's just thouroughly wrong to make out that Iranians are not a highly civilised culture.

It is very wrong to pretend that the Iranian government is not popular with it's people. It is far more popular with it's people than yours or mine is. Iran has a very sophisticated democracy (and is the political model for more than a few countries).

It is wrong to pretend that they have threatened Israel with nuclear destruction. (The opposite is in fact true. It's the Israeli's who make regular threats of nuclear destruction to Iran).

It is also true to say that no two nuclear powers have ever gone to war. The chances of either Israel or Iran nuking each other would be greatly reduced by Iran gaining atomic weapons. Something the Iranians must be acutely aware of this.

At the guy who said the Iranians have no nuclear weapons program, prove it.

It's the same Catch 22 Saddam was in.

You can't.

Proved beyond reasonable doubt, the same proof we would require to imprison someone here, A) isn't possible, and B) isn't enough. When we are talking atomic weapons and the ability to kill hundreds of thousands of us at a time, normal ideals of justice don't apply. The scale of destruction makes calculated risks far less acceptable. When it comes to nukes, any doubt at all, is highly unreasonable.

It's already gone too far.

For someone hell bent on usurping our hegemony, even the threat of nuclear weapons. Just the veiled hint, is too much.

It sets in motion a chain of events.

Saying you no longer have a weapons program, or that you never did, or even allowing full and unrestricted inspections is not going to cut it with anyone.

The Israeli's did all of this, and they still managed to make a bomb.

The Iranians must be all too aware of what happened with Saddam when he attemped compliance. They must know that even if they have no weapopns program, they will be assumed to have one, and treated the same.

There is no way out for them. They are not in a position where they are able to back down.

When it comes to nuclear weapons, aside from 1945, the assumption of nuclear weapons is enough.

In my personal opinion the stakes are higher than the value I place on Iranian lives.

Beautiful though they are. Civilised though they may be. Cultured as they are.

Despite how many of them in my personal life I call friends. Despite the money I stand to make from my trade links with them.

Not every choice in life presents pleasent solutions.

With regard to the Japanese, I had the mispleasure of taking a tour of Japanese students to the Imperial War museum. The first hangar was the history of the Nuclear bomb.

They are all acutely aware of their part in history. None could be more so.

There is something about the atomic destruction of your cities that burns itself into a nations psyche.

As for being willing to do it all again, do you remeber what happened to the minister who proposed the deployment of said 100 engineers into Iraq?

All the other Ministers of parliament physically beat him on the spot. I can't forget how funny that woman MP looked jumping off tables to slam dive into the mob on him, with her shoe in her hand.

Japan is a nation of pacifists.

Nations that have been on the recieving ends of wars tend to be, (cf Europe) it is those nations who have not been utterly conquered and had their homes all destroyed, genocides in their own cities, that you have to watch.

Those for whom war didn't come at too a high price.

P.S. When a Japanese person won't tell you the answer to the question you ask, it isn't necessarily because they don't know.  

It is considered highly impolite to then persist with this line of questioning.

Perhaps if you limit your enquiries to more neutral matters, flower arranging perhaps, you will find them more knowledgeable and engaging.

[walker 0]

Hi all

[edit]Good Post Baff1, or more simply "You cannot prove a negative" but I agree most people are too ingnorant to understand that, so it needs explaining[/edit]

Commando84 and -snafu- and anyone else who sees Chops post about current Japanese understanding of WWII history as strange.

Most people in the world are ignorant about the world. In fact I think every single person on this forum and in this world are ignorant about the world. And yes I include myself in the statement.

The ignorance of us all is one of the few known facts about the universe that we have known for a couple of millennium. It was described in western philosophy by Plato C.375 BC in the "Allegory of the Cave" often shortened to "Plato's Cave". It may well be that other philosophers and enlightened people described it before then, Gautama Buddha comes to mind 563 BC to 483 BC.

You think it is unusual that people in Japan think people were with them in WWII who were not. You think perhaps they have been manipulated by their press or do not want to know bad truths about their history or present condition or are just plane stupid. It is a common theme of all cultures. Your own included.

Consider the Iraq war.

NO WMD

NO Link to Al Qaida

NO Link to 9/11

Consider Fox News

Consider censorship laws. (Every country has them)

Consider US geography knowledge.

Consider French Pride

Consider the British Empire

Consider people who think the world was created in a few days by a fairy puff of smoke.

Consider that we all walk round with a model of universe in our heads that we have spent our life time crafting and some ****ing **** comes along with the avowed intention of knocking over the whole unstable house of card with a simple statment or news piece or insight or discovery.

Welcome to reality.

Kind Regards walker

[chops 111]

While important not to slide too far into generalisations, there are of course certain attributes particular to certain countries. To call the Japanese pacifist is as far off the mark as to call them ALL ignorant.

The Japanese constitution was written by the Americans, the pacifist element of it (article 9) is frequently proposed to be scrapped.

I have been to Yasukuni shrine and the attached museum. It's interpretation of the Nanking massacre is that it NEVER happened. Imagine a musuem in Germany saying the equivilant?

There are thugs linked to organised crimes who demand the disolution of parliament and revert to diret rule by the emperor. They harrass foreign embassies and foreign-language schools and nobody does a thing.

Whenever the territorial disputes with Korea flare up, these same clowns protest out the front of parliament, demanding war.

While an extremist, lunatic-fringe element doesn't represent the whole society...again imagine the same for a moment in Germany.

Meet the ever-popular Govenor of Tokyo,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shintaro_Ishihara

No doubt there are national delusions that I as an Australian have fallen into, but "Oh well never mind everybodies ignorant, none of us knows anything" won't get people very far in dealing with this kind of inter-generational strife

[Baff1 0]

Germany has persistent trouble with Neo Nazi's.

It also has prominant politicians who deny the holocaust occoured. They all get together with the Arhmajadinebad and have little holocaust denial seminars and stuff.

It's not the Japanese constitution that makes them pacifist. It's what they experienced being on the recieving end.

It's still in living memory.

Japanese kids cartoons depict Hiroshima and the children all dying of radiation sickness afterwards.

We get Bambi and the Powerpuff Girls.

It's a little bit comic, if you'll excuse my saying, to hear of the Japanese being racially stereotyped as ignorant.

That is a racial stereotype more widely attributed to your own fair nation.

The Japanese have perhaps the highest standard of education in the world.

They have a deep respect both for education and their teachers quite simply unmatched by any western society. They are a dream to teach.

Similarly my country has a far greater reknown internationally as being a martial society. Warmongers even.

You won't find any war protesters outside our parliament.

In my own country, the clowns we have protesting outside our parliament are all peace protesters.

Just as the Japanese don't do war, we don't do peace.

Meet the ever popular peace proponent.

http://www.yoko-ono.com/

[chops 111]

You've missed the whole point Baff1.

Quote[/b] ]It's not the Japanese constitution that makes them pacifist. It's what they experienced being on the recieving end.

as if the atomic bombs were dropped in peace-time by the warmongering Anglos? Just for kicks?

Kids cartoons? WTF?

Quote[/b] ]"Just as the Japanese don't do war"

Yeah you're right WW2 never happened, my mistake.

[Mr_Tea 0]

Germany has persistent trouble with Neo Nazi's.

It also has prominant politicians who deny the holocaust occoured. They all get together with the Arhmajadinebad and have little holocaust denial seminars and stuff.

And what prominent politicians would that be namely?

You go to jail here in Germany, for denying the holocaust in public.

I don`t know of even one single prominent politician here, that is denying that the holocaust had happened.

If you claim something like that, provide names and an reliable proof to that claim.

[kavoven 4]

Germany has persistent trouble with Neo Nazi's.

It also has prominant politicians who deny the holocaust occoured. They all get together with the Arhmajadinebad and have little holocaust denial seminars and stuff.

Thats rubbish!

As stated before, its forbidden and nobody could recover politically from that statement.

[chops 111]

When I spent my little bit of time in Germany, I thought the "Nie wieder Deutschland" grafitti I saw was something to do with losing a soccer match or something

There seems to be a great deal of reflection in German society about it's past, which is admirable I think. While I imagine there are a few neo nazi throwbacks under the carpet, people in general seem to be educated and aware.

It's a very stark contrast to what I've seen in my experience here in Japan. Perhaps a big part of it would be the fact that the Nazis targeted their own citizens in Jews, political opponents, etc aswell as neighbouring countries, whereas there wasn't the same scale of internal attrocities committed in Japan.

[Commando84 0]

have you guys heard of there is breaking out fighting in east europe between Russia, Georgia and some other country nearby.

Seems bad..

[Shadow NX 1]

Yes, was wondering that there is no thread for this already

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7546639.stm

From what i head from russian sources it seems that russia is moving in with 58th army after their peacekeepers in the region were also targeted by the georgians.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/58th_Army_(Soviet_Union)

[NSX 8]

Not just after that. 90% of SO population are russian citizens. It's clearly stated in Russian constitution, that we will defend our citizen wherever they are. And tonight georgian troops are in fact murdered dozens of our citizens.

Georgians said, that if moving in of Russian troops is confirmed - they'll declare a war upon Russia. Well, noone made them to say it... Let's see if they're ready for consequences, their step may lead to.

[JdB 151]

Not just after that. 90% of SO population are russian citizens. It's clearly stated in Russian constitution, that we will defend our citizen wherever they are. And tonight georgian troops are in fact murdered dozens of our citizens.

SO isn't part of Russia, it's part of Georgia, no matter how many native Russians live there (as it is their own choice to stay there), just as the part of Kosovo with a majority of Serbs is still Kosovo and not Serbia. If Russia thinks that a single sided declaration of independence by the SO Russians is enough to warrant independence, than it at the same time is admitting that the they have no business in places like Chechnya, who also declared their independence (but since it is from Russia this makes it a whoooooooole other matter of course).

If you start an insurgency against your own democratically elected government, things are bound to get violent (Chechnya, Dagestan etc). "Oddly enough" the conflict intensified when a pro-Western government was elected in Georgia, and we all know that Mother Russia always wants a few buffer countries (read: puppet regimes) between it's own territory and anyone daring to stand up to them.

As for the "murdering of our citizens", I thought 60 years of Soviet propaganda rubbish had thought people not to believe every bit of "information" the own, totally biased, state controlled media reports. Civilians can get killed for any number of reasons, shelling, disease, mistaken identity, going out in their civilian clothes armed to the teeth, and yes, willful action. On the other side of the media-spectrum, a lot of journalists critical of the government are murdered by "criminals" in Russia, so trusting every bit of news, especially that from state-run media is fairly naive.

Until I see reports from countries not involved in the fighting (like Germany, UK etc), I'm not buying it. Powerful countries get away with these kinds of made up excuses to protect their own interests far too often to be credible until proven otherwise (like the Iraq disaster). The source of this genocide story is the Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, not the most credible source as I can still vividly remember the "mass suicide of the Americans at the gates of Baghdad", and the contradicting stories about Bezlan and the Moscow theater drama.

[-Snafu- 78]

Things seem to be moving quickly:

Two Aircraft Downed

Russia moves into South Ossetia

Reports that Russian peacekeepers have been wounded.

[NSX 8]

Quote[/b] ]If you start an insurgency against your own democratically elected government, things are bound to get violent (Chechnya, Dagestan etc). "Oddly enough" the conflict intensified when a pro-Western government was elected in Georgia, and we all know that Mother Russia always wants a few buffer countries (read: puppet regimes) between it's own territory and anyone daring to stand up to them.

Sorry to disappoint you, pal, but noone is starting insurgency there. If it would be an insurgency - than Tbilisi and whole Georgia would be heavily bombed. As for now our peacekeepers got additional forces to stop the bloodshed. As for now it's only about a batallion of RF peacekeepers stationed in Georgia and that's not enough to stop georgians. As I heard about 150 tanks (not counting other vehicles) entered the SO and this should cool down georgian troops. At least they finally left Tskhinval.

Quote[/b] ]As for the "murdering of our citizens", I thought 60 years of Soviet propaganda rubbish had thought people not to believe every bit of "information" the own, totally biased, state controlled media reports. Civilians can get killed for any number of reasons, shelling, disease, mistaken identity, going out in their civilian clothes armed to the teeth, and yes, willful action. On the other side of the media-spectrum, a lot of journalists critical of the government are murdered by "criminals" in Russia, so trusting every bit of news, especially that from state-run media is fairly naive.

O rly? Don't know how your "independent" western mass-media will report about this - but ours showed the bombed Tskhinval, the burning georgian tanks, the refugees, telling what's happened. If everything, that is showed here a lie to you - then you have too prejusticed opinion. We also heard what georgian mass-media said and this is apparently a lie. First they told russian airplanes bombed Georgia, then they said, that they destroyed the tunnel between RF and SO, preventing Russian troops to move in. We here monitor every news agency available, but apparently have much more info, than you.

So, cool down your proud anger - war won't start unless Georgia want to start it.

2 Snafu

First report about russian plane was denied by russian officials.

They simply called it "deliric nonsense".

[kavoven 4]

If you want an excuse for attacking another country always say "But they did it first!"

Following this rule it was Georgia that opened fire.

[NSX 8]

So far noone attacked Georgia, since it's peacekeeping force entering there. Georgia itself named Russians the main peacekeeping force in the region few days ago, before the attack and we indeed have mandate of UN to do peacekeeping job. So we act like peacekeepers. And so far our actions are pretty successful. Everyone had returned to their position.

Although it's still a humanitarian disaster - Tskhinval lies in  ruins.

[wipman 1]

Hi, i just hope that booth sides make a true effort to minimize the

civilian deaths and that they shot only to those in uniform. Let's C ya