Apollo

Uh... OK. Well i figure total victory will be when there are no terrorists anymore ,and limited victory when the terrorist threat is erradicated mostly. On youre question on how such an abract thing as "victory" looks like ,then id say i dont know ,but i think it's blue ,has about the form of a synagoge split in 2 ,but put back toghether with glue? Â You might notice that actually i have no real fitting answer on youre question... I would think that Al Qaida wouldn't surrender if they lost Osama ,although it could be a major PR blow for them ,but basicly many branches of Al-Qaida alreay work fairly if not tottaly indipendant ,and it's known that Al-Qaida appoints strongmen under each cell ,like Mohamed Atta with the 9/11 terrorists.And there are also the allies of Al-Qaida ,those fighting against the same enemy's in the same ways ,buty with other goals and other structure ,like the terrorist branch of Chechen rebels ,or groupings like Abu Sayef.

Oh the irony. Then perhaps you should stop discussing the nature of the discussion and get back to discussing the topic. Well ,why didn't you just start? Â Oh the Irony... Â I replied of topic on the ontopic nature of this discussion because i was forced to layout the rule of discussion in a discussion enviroment. So that means your spamming by this reaction in off-topic and forcing me to react off-topic ,so stop spamming Bernadotte ,or i will be forced to report youre post to a moderator. Â Â

Funny. i think livingstons reaction is a good to. This kind of Brittish mentally reminds me of so many thing's.Just of the bat ,i would say that in the 80's the Argy's probably never expected the UK neither to send most of the fleet to recapture a small island inhabitant by a mere 1000 sheepherders ,i guess thats typical Brittish ,and it reminds me a bit of the Kolonol in "bridge over the river Kwai".

Listen phil ,you know i have respect for you as an addonmaker ,but i'm not going to continue with you in discussion because it's no discussion ,if i handle youre remarks point by point then you just reply the same thing all over withought expanding onto the discussion in a rational way. Well yes ,thats youre point above there.But Phil ,this is a discussion board ,and in discussions rational points win over emotional and biased reactions ,actually in a debate such reactions have no place. Or like panda noted: And therefore i'm discussing in a rational way ,it's the only way really ,youre emotional reactions are more out of place ,although i can understand such reactions for people involved. Btw ,my oppinions arn't perfect.While i have thought a lot about them ,and thus have a solid bases to discuss from ,also having an adequate knowledge off history.But as Panda did show ,my oppinions do have limitations ,for ex. when comparing Iraq to Vietnam ,my points do have value on certain levels ,but i cannnot know all factor's involved that will finaly make up the final result.this is also the limitations of discussions ,NOONE knows all the factor's ,noone can predict how actions will turn out ,noone is perfect ,but some oppinions are clearly more true than others ,especially if they can be proven. if a discussion board would only fill threads with emotional reactions ,then there wouldn't be a discussion board ,being rational is being On-topic.

Whipeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!! Â Â Really ,i wished some discussion would be more rational and less emotional ,but i guess that's not easy when rubble is still smouldering. Â Or even more ,i wish people who were emotionally involved wouldn't participate themself in rational discussions ,if a rational discussion is On-toppic then plz don't flood it with irrational emotional reactions.

Im not that into pot smoking hippy artists. Â Kidding ,i like a lot of his songs ,but i like The Doors more for that kind of music. Â Hmm i think my points made after my edit are prety much right on the mark concerning Africa.Indeed people ,in the African country's that are now more stable and developed ,were indeed wise to make use of those institutions that the colonizers left them ,the problem was not what the colonizers left them ,it wasn't all that bad ,it was only the lack of what they left im many cases. Though i think the faulty territorial consturctions were worst of all ,most country's in wich that happened eather resulted in civil war or a certain ethnicity dominating an other ,if not cleansing.The example's are Legio over Africa ,and not only there ,in Fact Iraq is also a quite markant ex. of such an faulty construction ,as you should know and understand ,under these circumstances Saddam did not much different in that case that Paul Kagame would have done ,or in fact ye old father Stalin.(although Stalin made his own construction)Not to justify any of these monsters really!Only you have to admit the UK is quite responsible for the faulty construction that is Iraq ,so far for "its not the colonizers fault" . The point is that it's much much easier to build a stable political system in a country of one ethnicity-culture ,than in one of many (and thats all to logical and known) ,there are many factor's what makes up if a country is going to be succesfull or not ,and some of youre points are valid to as factor's ,but you cannot deny that ethnic makeup of a country is a very important factor in politica stabilety/continuity.And the same applies for political tradition ,a country like Egypt that has been an entity for 7 millenia has it far easier to keep it's people toghether than a country only existing a few decade's.

My brother died 4 years ago in a car accident ,and is therefore apart of an even greater statistic.Have you ever cared specificly for the fate of my brother. (rest his soul ) Everyone has losses and setback ,but that doesn't change the world in any noticable way.Whats the grief worth of a mother who lost her 2 children by a drunk driver? You won't invest Billions in a war on drunk drivers ,but they kill more in the world ,they are greater terrorist ,and the mother has to sit idle while the drunkard is released from jail after some time ,and she doesn't see the state doing much to prevent more such tragedy's ,the state seems more concerned in fighting all over the world to capture some terrorists ,and even in that they seem to fail. I never said you should quit ,i only asked to put it in perspective ,even how grim that might be ,i don't want to minimalize the millions that died in iraq under Sadam ,but most here seem to be minimizing the millions that die in poor country's though. Irrelevant to what we werre discussing. Over 50 millions died in WW2 ,i think this isn't a conflict that was pulled out of proportion ,hence the war effort in it's volume was justified. Like you are the boss of America. HAH!

I never said you should give that money to them.I bet funds and organizations like 11 11 11 ,Medcin sans frontiere ,etc can invest funds pretty effeciant ,although even that doesn't elliminate some corruption. However its just an example of good causes ,even in reducing traffic kills at home you will prvent more deaths than with all the billions in anti-terrorism ,it will cost you much less and you can't expect that much corruption abroad.It's like in the case of the USA ,with the funds they put in Iraq they coulda have made a lot of chances domesticly to things like poverty ,those funds would have achieved MUCH more there than in Iraq. Well ,this just stems out of the fact that compare to the size of the problem investment in anti-terrorism is just tottally out of proportion.I won't say that you don't need to fight terrorism ,but look at the problem with some nuancation plz. Huh?? Â Bob Marly promoted the Rastafari movement ,it's ideal was to pull all blacks (former slave's) from the American continent and let them return to their roots.Maybe they also wanted a unified Africa ,but i think that thought is just tottaly unrealistic ,nationalism is even larger in Africa ,but it's also more tribal ,and this in itself already sparked civil wars in quite tiny African country's. (Rwanda for ex.) Africa doesn't need unity ,the trouble of Africa is low education and high illiteracy ,wich makes it easy for tyrants to rise in a democratic system.Thats the fault of many colonizers of Africa ,they preffered to keep them (Africans) relativly uneducated ,so when many country's became independant there were to few educated people in the country to see when democracy went wrong and when they had to react.In many country's in Europe there is to much political conciousness for a tyrant to easily rise in a democratic system ,most people would understand what hes trying to do and would react. This is also also a reason why certain African country's perform quite decent ,like Egypt ,much of the Northern Africa like Marroco and Tunesia ,and for ex. South Africa ,there was a better political establishment there ,people were often more educated (in south Africa this was the large Brittish minority) ,maybe the nation was also longer established and thus more stable ,like Egypt again where everyone is actually Egyptian ,compared to many other African country's where western country's drew their borders irrespective of ethnical compositions of certain area's.

Sorry apollo. hunger and problems of the world are being solved or attempts to solve it, its another story,but what we have now is MURDER!!!! OF THE MOST FOUL!!! and not only happened yesterday but will continue to happen tomorrow. Must we wait till our very own love ones are murdered before we act? Â The dead and their families seek justice!! I'm not saying that terrorism inst something worth to be fought against.Rather i ask you to stay proportional ,The US have wasted billions ,whole percentage's of the BNP in increased security and the war against terrorims ,compared to this staggering amount of funds ,funds given to good causes like solving hunger ,disease and ethnic cleansing along the world are virtually nothing compared to funds for the war agaisnt terror. And note that funds for the war agaisnt terror hardly can be invested effeciantly ,the war against terror and so many more security measures later there still is not much of an increased chance to stop terrorist attack ,the backlash of the war against terror is even more terrorists. Ironicly ,i would say you would better combat terrorism by investing those funds rather in such good causes ,poverty ,unemployment ,lack of civil freedom or illiteracy are a excelent basis for Al-Quiada for recruitment. Reality ,in figures and numbers.Terrorism is moraly most foul ,but kill's few globaly and is realisticly ,NOT MORALLY ,a far lesser problem than Aids in Africa ,or ethnic cleansing in many parts of the world.You can shout as much "terrorism ,most foul" as you want ,but you can't look asside from the figure's ,wich clearly show that in reality terrorism is a lesser problem. I don't want to justify it with that ,but i don't see the point why you would invest Billions to try to prevent 10.000 killed ,and meager peanut's to prevent 1.000.000 killed ,especially if you can get more effeciancy in alleviating other problems. I can understand this sentiment to a certain point.But i wonder how you view the USA in this democracy installing liberator scenario's.Because ,may i mention ,there are dozens of dictator's around the world doing nasty stuff ,Africa is full of it ,and in South America some of these murderous dictator's have even to thank the USA for their carreer. Someone here mentioned Batista just a thread ago ,i'm no castro fan but i can understand why the cubans wanted to get rid of Batista. I officially declare my favourite Belgian beer ,"castle beer" (11%) as our national freedom beer.And now im going to drink a beer of 2 on Freedom. Â (hik! Oh ,and i deffinatly going to try those beers when im in Germany again.Especially because they are Bavarian. Â

Seriously ,try to still look at this with some perspective ,yes terrorism kills ,but it's not the threat that humanity seems to give it.I can understnd that you feel emotional after yesterday.But think about it ,in all these years the deathcount of terrorism has hardly exceeded 10.000 ,lots of more civilians are killed in many different ways!And yet this don't mean you will spend so much attention and funds to those problems compared to terrorism.Yearly many more people die in mondane thing's like traffic ,natural disasters ,shortage of medicine ,disease ,while many of these problems get far less attention and funds.Millions are dying in Africa trough aids ,millions are dying in the world trough civil war ,famine ,or ethnic cleansing ,and we care far less about these problems. If it's for the sake of humanity ,then start give terrorism less attention ,and try to alleviate some of the REAL problems in this world.

True ,but nevertheless... ,lots of nationality's and people here ,and they might be interrested tto know what it is.Like me ,who hence searched it up in google. No pun intented to the original poster though.

The territorial army is a branch of the Brittish millitary ,a kind of reserves it seems. http://www.ta.mod.uk/ Didn't know that though ,google power ,but next time you might add what you are talking about in youre firts post. Â

At Panda[pl] Few people are going to refute this point ,and most are aware of this when they engage in discussion here. Yes ,i won't disagree ,there were obviously supporters on both sides.However the North had clearly more supporters among the large poor class ,and this can be seen in the amount of men ,AND even woman and children that they mobilized into war.For the normal Vietnamese peasent ,the communists made prommises for them were worth fighting for ,even if it was an illusion and the Communist regime was never up to so much good as it promised.The value of the ideoligy here isn't important ,it's the reality of how many wish to belief in it and fight for it in a actual conflict. Here you are correct ,and i must admit that the deeper reasons for anti-american sentiment in Iraq do not have that much simmilarity's to those reasons for the ordinary vietnamese peasant.There is less of an economical reason ,like land reforms in Vietnam ,no nationalistic reason like one state but actually just the other way around ,many Iraqi's are fighting for their clan or their religious segment ,more like seperatist movements.on the other hand the new Iraqi goverment has realy few support ,like i mentioned their support comes mostly from the more liberal elements either ,or from people alligned to the clan/religion of the sitting president.But this selective support means automatic enemy's to ,their always going to be number of religious groups and seperatists movements in Iraq that won't be content with a specific president and the political establishment ,as that establishment will always be dominated by one group that the many others won't like. Well simply said there is no Iraq ,i know you agree with that ,it's a country on the constant verge of civil war. Most importantly however my point goes to the ever increasing spiral of violence ,the escalation of the conflict.This was my most important parallell to Vietnam ,as essentially the Americans were confronted with a situation that was never improving ,only worsening ,i find they are in the same place in Iraq now ,the problems are only getting greater with time ,the amount of US casualty's increasing to. The point here is that if Iraq keeps escalating like it is ,then soon the USA is going to stand for the same problems as in Vietnam when it was becoming to hot.Either send more Americans ,make a strong puppet regime ,or leave the area all toghether.The USA is choosing for the strong pupet rregime option ,afcourse it's the best option when it succeeds ,but the precedent in Vietnam tell's us that there ,EVEN if the South Vietnamese goverment had a number of support domesticly ,even if they were very good funded ,had many men ,good training and excelent material (atleast compared to VC) ,even then they performed misirably. True ,a Shia dominated Iraq might have much more goverment supporters than South Vietnam had ,but it then still winds up in a civil war ,with the other groups attacking them ,and by norm the goal of the US is to keep Iraq toghether ,a Iraq falling apart during civil war would be a catastrophe ,but how are you going to prevent it from happening if much of the violence in Iraq these days make it look like Iraq is in a civil war already anyway. I understand what you want to say ,afcourse i should point out that nuancations are important in such discussion ,if somebody is trying to make a point it's better to look at the general oppinion that he wants to put forward rather than the syntax and semantics of this words where it could be easy to make misinterpretations. I do understand the difference between an Arab and a muslim ,although i'm sure most Arab's are muslims. i do not think any one here wants to make generalizations of muslim's or Arabs here neither ,just try to take people's oppinions witha grain of salt and try to deduct the general point. Well thank you ,and i'm gratefull that you are continueing this discussion again on a fair bases. Youre points have value to btw. ,he fun about discussions comes when both do it in a good way and hence learn some thing's about eachother and his views.Personally i can say i have learned a lot by years of some debating online. Ouch! You hit one of America's grandest misconceptions.Heck in America a hippie is about synonim to a communist ,wich actually is kinda rediculous. Actually the hippie movement had absolutly nothing to do with communism ,although afcourse there probably were a number of communists among hippie's ,and communists of various forms. However the hippie movement was distinctly a pacifist ,anti-war movement ,it did not porpagate any communist ideals as a movement ,and pacifism in itself is really nothing that coincide's with communism ,i do not know any Communist regime that ever put pacifism forward as one of it's leading principle's. This is America however ,it's a country that is just so much polarized to the right wing that even what is perceived as moderate left views in Europe are seen as extreme left wing views in America ,communist for them.In America "Hippie" ,"liberal" "communist" are almost foul words.Heck GW Bush used Liberal as a slur against Kerry ,saying that Kerry was by this on the far end of the political spectrum and that his views were onrealistic and absurd.Bush knew that there is this conception among the majority of American people that left ideas are bad ,and are comparable to hippie'ism (aka pot smokers) ,communists ,etc... Why is America so much right wing polarized?The cold war afcourse ,and i deffinatly blaim mcartyism for a very large part.That is ,in the 50's people were arrasted ,mollested or put in jail for having political thoughts were people counld interpret them as loosely allied to communist.In a way Mcartyism was leftist erradication time in the USA. Afcourse this last presents a discussion on itself.Nevertheless on this topic i advice you to rent the movie "punishment park" ,it shows a lot of the mindset of that time ,and i think youll like the movie a lot to. Oh i do agree ,i never wanted to glorify the communists as i mentioned earlier.However ,wheter or not the communists were good or bad ,they did effectivly achieve to get that many supporters ,enough to beat the USA ,and thats the important thing to note.See i'm not going to morraly justify Al-Quaida for ex. ,but wheter or not they are filth of the earth ,it doesn't impair their recruitment potential.So whether or not people's hatred is used for political goals ,the results in both scenario's are similar. Well it does have some value though ,as the word terrorism is used by many country's to justify own agenda's against certain seperatist movements. (btw a movement can be and seperatist and terrorist to ,so terrorists can have a political agenda to) In the case of Indonesia this is getting a bit absurd ,sure there are sme real terrorists there ,but seperatist movements like those of Papua New Guinea terrorists??? Don't make me laugh. An ex. of this ,a few years back the USS cole was attacked witha  speadboat carrieing bombs ,a big hole and some servicemen dead as result.The attack was widly denounced as a Terrorist act ,yet the USS cole was a military target.If these boat guys were technicly terrorists ,then what were Japanese Kamikaze's? Well i think the American goverment doesn't want to much negative immages about the war in Iraq because it would increase war wearriness ,with the though even maybe that in Vietnam this was a big factor to defeat ,that is war-weariness at home.So the US media mostly shows positive images from Iraq ,some Iraqi person content with the potential Democracy gives him ,another one of servicemen handing out water ,food or medicine to people ,etc ,meanwhile reports of US casualties are minimalized ,only the lowest estimate given ,showing dead body's of American soldiers on US Tv seems to be a No No. the American media is for some part biased ,we know that Rupert Murdoch ,bos of Fox and the big media Moghul in the USA ,is a staunch supporter of president Bush (and Fox news is really absurd ,shoulda seen their ellection coverage ,Bush had won the ellection 50 times already on Fox before the voting even started) I think the American media is showing a very polished view of Iraq ,giving the average American an impression that everything is going well there and that American soldiers are truly so brave and hounerable.While in Europe there is much less nonsense and more showing the grim reality ,hence many people in Europe get the impression that Iraq is truly FUBAR. However ,as much as American media can give a polihed view ,they cant stand at the side when an attrocity happens ,like in Abu graib ,US media couldn't keep that silent.In Vietnam ,it was also a specific attrocity that make war weariness go trough the roof. Yeah ,i'd say it's fun to talk about history and try to put the lessons learned there into a modern perspective.it's a fun style of debating IMO ,and history is a lot of fun to talk about. Btw ,as to youre remark to Denoir ,i'm an Atheist myself ,but im democraticly minded.Yet i agree with Denoir that there are actually litteral passages in Quran and bible ,that if interpreted litteraly basicly means: you are alowed to kill non-believers.Afcourse only fanatics use the literal meaning there ,but these passages are also in the Christian bible ,and they were used in the crusades to fight the "infidils" ,heathens ,or used later in times of colonization or religious wars to justify some acts.Like slavery and genocide in certain colony's. In fact i remind myself of the Council of Valladolid wich happend around somewhere 1570 i think.It was a meeting of christian clerics and nobilety ,it's subject was the question "do we have the right to enslave and do whatever we want with non-christians in colony's" ,the answer of the clergy was "yes ,you can" however they also noted that the indiginous poopuation of America was to weak for slavery and that black Africans would be much better as slaves ,with this the church actually promoted 200 years of slavery trade. The thing is here that this conclusion was made from theoligist ,supposedly those who knew what the bible meant said that the bible said "you have the right to kill non-believers". btw. ,if you don't want to reply on all my texts ,i undestand ,our discussion is getting long alread ,i'm content that actually somebody replied to my thoughts in the first place.

Well Panda since youre reply was directed to me ill take time to reply to it ,last one for now as i have to go to sleep soon. Vietnamese ,as in inhabitant born in vietnam ,of Vietnamese origin.South vietnam was an artificial construction ,but there was a nvietnamese nationalistic movement where most Vietnamese felt symphaty to ,wich can already be seen in the times of French colonialism in Vietnam. I'm not going to glorify Communism or the NVA ,iim no communist myself ,and from what i read of books on the Cultural revolution in china ,i have few symphaty to the idioligy. Where did the Vietnamese care for? 2 thing's: Their lands and crops ,and an unified Vietnam ,the first being most dominant.The problem in Vietnam was ,just like in china before the Chinese civil war ,that the agruicultural system was still much fuedal with poor peasants and rich landlords.The ordinary Vietnamese wanted land reforms ,and South vietnam never managed to get them trough ,for an ordinary farmer therefore the communist system looked much more ideal ,atleast they thought it could prevent mass famine.This is one of the foremost reason of the failure of South vietnam ,and it was also a major factor in the Guomingdang's loss agaisnt Communist China. Afcourse here there are few parallels to Iraq ,but this is besides my points.Furthermore you might interpret that my view onthe vientam war is skewed by the generalizations i make ,but i merely make these generalizations to avoid having to write a whole history book on Vietnam here to put it in detail. Actually the main problem was the US involvement in the first place.Why did they involve themselfs? Because the USA leaders thought the fall of Vietnm to communists would lead to a domino effect in the rest of South-East Asia ,and this had to be prevented.But the real domino threat was never actually there. Once in the war there was no way to win ,and IMO those that think that USA could have ever won the Vietnam war are wrong ,and many historians would agree with me ,try Barbara Tuchman for one.Even if backing down from escalation would have been the problem ,wouldn't engaging then in the escalation only have ment even more people to fight against? Well ... i agree that the SV goverment was most corrupt and unworthy.However ,for the USA there wasn't much of an alternative than that goverment ,if none. I got the right to discuss about what i want here as long it is withing the lines of the rules. I do notthing of this sort ,and this comment is even somewhat insultuous.I never agreed to what terrorists do ,i havn't made the link to any current terrorism groups and any so called freedom movement.I was talking about parallels between the Vietnam and Iraq war ,plz don't misuse my words to create a slur usefull for dismissing my oppinions as worthless. If you can't debate fairly then don't.And neither do you hav to paternalize me ,as if it was a fact that youre views are obviously correct and mine obviously faulty ,oppinions are oppinions and as for now i have respected yours even if i didn't agree with them. If you fail to discuss with me on reasonable terms ill start to shun you. But then the Vietnamese were never called terrorists ,neither would anyone dare to say these days that the nationalist movement that united Vietnam was one based purely on warfare by terrorism on the bases of religious fanatism. Besides ,Vietnamese strapped bombs to their body's often and ran with it into command posts to blow them up ,kinda terrorist like to ,but then it's not much different from a japanese VAL crashing itself with a few 500kg bombs on an aircraft carrier ,at these times such ways were merely perceived as vertical warfare. I don't understand what you want to say here.Do you have trouble's making a disticntion between an inhabitant of Vietnam and one of Iraq??? Or do you want to say there is no such thing as an "Iraqi"? I can agree on the last one ,but this dismisses few of my oppinions ,as i already stated in a previous reply that the difference here between Vietnam and Iraq was that there was a general nationalist movement in Vietnam ,and regional sepperatists movements in Iraq ,but in the end the consequences for the US installed puppet regime are about the same. WTH are you talking about??? Wich communist propaganda? i could care less for communism ,and i acknowledge that Communism effectivly resulted in mass famines and failed industrial projects in many country's that it was implemented to.Again i find such remarks somewhat insulting ,you twist and misinterpretate my words and make conclusions out of it that are far from the truth ,if not illogical to. Dude ,what i was saying was that the situation in Iraq is becoming unmanagable for the USA ,for reasons where i drew parallels to the Vietnam war to.That is very far away from saying that the USA is to blame for terrorism. OK ,ellaborate what you want to mean with this symbolism in this context ,im not getting youre point here.

I'm happy lots of Brits can nuancate these attacks and put them into perspective. I was not surprized to see that the reaction of the USA against this perceived hughe threat was much more irrational and emotional than it was for the Brittish.It does remind me of the Cuban missile crises ,while East germany had been under constant threat from the USSR both unconventionaly and conventionally by a hughe land army sitting at its border for decade's ,the American public went Beserk with a few nukes placed in close range ,it seems the USA is much less reseliant against attacks on it's home soil than most of Europe seems to be ,on the other hand while the USA have been able to put themself in safe isolation for more than a 100 year Europe was always the center of almost constant war and security was always illusive for any european country. I think there is a distincive difference in mindset when it comes to the USA and many European country's on the matter of warfare.While Europe have felt much of the consequences of hughe scale warfare at home ,when it came to WW1 and WW2 the USA could always campaign from a virtually secure homeland to a conflict abroad ,wich it could win with not a to hughe cost in terms of manpower and finances compared to it's potential.For Europe these wars were much more devastating ,a much higher amount of manpower lost for the country's involved ,same for infastructure ,and a victory that was illusive ,it's costs often to great. The result is that Europe is genneraly much more weary of war ,having fought bloody conflicts in wich even the winner lost more than it gained.Compared to the USA wich actually gained a lot in WW1 and 2 ,both these wars eventually made the USA the dominating power in the world ,their victory's wern't illusive ,and the USA might have gotten the impression it could gain a lot with it's power ,while in Europe the merrits of war would have been much less if compared to the results at home.Well the hughe difference here was that the USA came as liberator's. Even the vietnam war didn't learn the American's much about involving oneself in a conflict where their input is really not wanted.Much Americans still think the USA could have won that war if not for some "cowards" ,that failed to give the finnishing blow. I think this is the big difference between europe and the USA ,and also somewhat between Europe and the UK ,continentel Europe didn't came out as victor's from both world wars ,and might look at war more as something were it's hard to get any possitive effects from.The UK and te USA on the other hand were more constant victor's ,and for them war migth seem a easy way to get their wishes done in this war. 1. What do you base that on? Being more used to somthing is not that same as understanding. 2. You mean west germany right? Also years its very starnge that the US didn't like to have the russians suddenly being able to nuke em thats not stange at all. German's coundn't realy do enything about the russian army and problery learnt to live with it. The american's could do somthing about and offcause they did I think eny Nation set in that situation would have done somthing simular. 3. You problery right but it has never stoped us from killing each other now here your history could problery draw some paralells my dad prity offens says that the situation we have to day resemblens the state we had before WW1 and says that i might expirence a Inter European war in my life time. 4. I belive that if meany of the US troops in vietnam had not been withdrawn and instead started the massive bombing of  the north the US had, had a chance of winning but it would offcause had cost them meany lives. 5. Offcause they are different and the British have thier own Island for a reason but honestly I don't think that central europe look at war as a much worser think than the the US and UK its more a political thing and that Europe is more socialistic than the USA and the reasons the US fight for is not the same as a Socialist would fight for. STGN on 1: dont understand what youre trying to ask here.Can i prove my oppinions fully with facts?No afcourse not ,hence an oppinion ,but i read a lot of history ,so i have a lot of precendents to draw comparisons to.No it's not perfect but since this is a discussion board oppinions go freely as they should.Btw ,never feel youreself less because i feel my oppinion is more correct than yours ,such discussions can never rach a consencus accepted by everyone ,so no oppinion ism ore proven tur than an other most of the times. on 2: yes sorry i meant West Germany. The reaction of the USA wasn't that strange at all ,that is not my point ,the importance is the amount of fear it spread among the poppulation of the USA ,people were really heavily frightend and upset in the USA by this move of Russia ,more than any western civilian would have ever been from such a move.Even Kruchev addmited ,long after the incident ,that he never expected such a hefty reaction of the American public against this move ,he didn't supect the USA would have been so frightend.The consequence however is that this has influenced the politics of the USA ,as it's poppulation is the ellectoral decider.In other words it shows that the American poppulation is easier to frighten and thus more easy to win for an forcefull reaction than the poppulation in europe might be ,i think the attacks in London today showed that to some extent. on 3:Actually i could find less important parallels to the current situation in Europe now and that one before WW1.Most importantly there isn't such a military buildup beteen various European nations as it was before WW1 ,and there isnt so much competition between european major's worldwide as there was before WW1 where when the European nations were colonial superpowers.Neither is there a formation of systems of alliances like there was bfore WW1 ,actually most European country's these days are part of NATO.neither are there many oppresed nationality' these days in europe ,wichwas much different before WW with such constructions as for ex. Austria-Hungary.(and note that it was the assasination of the Austrian Kaiser that started it all) Top it off with mutual interrests on the levels of trade and employment ,due to globalization ,and i would say there are actually very few parrallels to the situation of Europe before world war one ,if not none. on 4:Actually ,a staggering amount of bombs were thrown on North Vietnam during the vietnam war ,and by staggering i mean that tghe amount of bombs was even hughe compared the amount of bombs thrown over the whole course of WW2 by allied bombers.So staggering was the amount of bombs ,and yet it nver amouted to much neither ,it deffinatly changed few to the war capabilety's of North vietnam ,most casualty's were civilian ,the industry's were irrelevant anyway ,same for much of te transport infrastructure.the actual result was that the bombings of civilians only made more recruits for the North vietnamese costs ,and to top it off US casualty's of bombers in the war were quite substantial ,those north vietnamese AA gunners were no amatuers. 5: You could have a point ,however one must analyse first why Europe has turned that socialist and pay that % of their BNP to social programs that other country's ,like the USA ,might use for upkeeping a larger millitary.Deffinatly many Western country's were much less socialist before WW1 and WW2.

on 1: i wouldn't know ,doesn't present much of a point though from youre side doesn't it? on 2: There are difference's there to vietnam ,yes the USA had more oppenents there against their puppet regime ,though granted the South Vietnamese did have a lot of supporters under it's poppulation ,more than you think.The matter however was that few were preppared to fight for the South Vienamese goverment ,while it had quite some supporters among the liberal emlements in the country ,this while recruits for fighting the USA were lineing up. I wander how many Iraqi servicemen will be so preppared to risk their lives against well armed and morale strong insurgents ,not afraid to die. on 3: Thats a very commen misperception ,as i said made by most Americans ,a myth spread among American's to relieve somewhat the pain of the defeat.Yes the Americans were deadly flanked by the Ho Che Ming trial ,many believe that if the extension of the war to fight in cambodja had allowed to continue ,so that the USA could have bombed Vietnamese forces in Cambodja flanking the USA ,that as hence a valuable flank could have been taken out and that the war therefore could have been won. This perception and thought is not realistic though.Firts of all the aerial bombardments wouldn't have much eeffect on the trial itself in the firts way ,the Vietnamese were quite good at organizing that trial even under bombardment.Second of all the question arrirses if the USA wouldn't have been defeated regardless of the trial ,most historains would say that the trial only shortend the time for the Vietnamese to win the war.Afterall even withought the trial the war was from an American stand of view at it's best a stalemate ,there was no chance to actually head up north and decisivly defeat the Northern Vietnamese.At best a peace treaty could have been made ,but the Vietnamese would havve never accepted it ,in any case time was on the Vietnamese side at any time in the conflict. The most important parallel however is the ever increasing escalation ,in Iraq just like it was in Vietnam.The longer that the USA puppet regime in vietnam lived ,the more recruits joined the ranks of the North Vietnamese ,the larger the scale of the war became. If the war keeps escalating ,logical under the current trend ,then the USA will only have these options. 1: Leave the area all toghether ,withought chance of survival for the Iraqi regime 2: leave the area ,but with and Iraqi army in place to hold the nation toghether ,seems impossible to build such a strong Iraqi force ,and even if it would be build it would need USA funds to be supported ,a recipe for disaster in itself ,their quality would be less so they would need more than the Americans now in place to control the country ,thats a quite large number of troops ,and these troops would also have to increase as the situation escalate's.Personally i think this option is impossible. 3:Stay in the country ,and by the escalation you are forced to constantly increase the number of troops there to keep the situation under control. In fact ,these considerations are much the same to those that the USA had on the end of the Vietnam war.It had created the South Vietnamese in the first place for the mere reason to fight the war for them.And when the USA saw itself forced to leave the area ,it hoped the South vietnamese state that they so artificily created could live on it's own and possibly win the civil war ,if not defend its own home.However the South vietnamese goverment was that hollow ,and fell before the feet of the North vietnamese in no time after the USA had left ,while the South vietnamese army had quite large numbers of men and were equiped with fairly modern American equipment. So deffinatly in the problems the USA faces in Iraq there are lots of good parallels to be drawn to the Vietnam war.

I'm happy lots of Brits can nuancate these attacks and put them into perspective. I was not surprized to see that the reaction of the USA against this perceived hughe threat was much more irrational and emotional than it was for the Brittish.It does remind me of the Cuban missile crises ,while East germany had been under constant threat from the USSR both unconventionaly and conventionally by a hughe land army sitting at its border for decade's ,the American public went Beserk with a few nukes placed in close range ,it seems the USA is much less reseliant against attacks on it's home soil than most of Europe seems to be ,on the other hand while the USA have been able to put themself in safe isolation for more than a 100 year Europe was always the center of almost constant war and security was always illusive for any european country. I think there is a distincive difference in mindset when it comes to the USA and many European country's on the matter of warfare.While Europe have felt much of the consequences of hughe scale warfare at home ,when it came to WW1 and WW2 the USA could always campaign from a virtually secure homeland to a conflict abroad ,wich it could win with not a to hughe cost in terms of manpower and finances compared to it's potential.For Europe these wars were much more devastating ,a much higher amount of manpower lost for the country's involved ,same for infastructure ,and a victory that was illusive ,it's costs often to great. The result is that Europe is genneraly much more weary of war ,having fought bloody conflicts in wich even the winner lost more than it gained.Compared to the USA wich actually gained a lot in WW1 and 2 ,both these wars eventually made the USA the dominating power in the world ,their victory's wern't illusive ,and the USA might have gotten the impression it could gain a lot with it's power ,while in Europe the merrits of war would have been much less if compared to the results at home.Well the hughe difference here was that the USA came as liberator's. Even the vietnam war didn't learn the American's much about involving oneself in a conflict where their input is really not wanted.Much Americans still think the USA could have won that war if not for some "cowards" ,that failed to give the finnishing blow. I think this is the big difference between europe and the USA ,and also somewhat between Europe and the UK ,continentel Europe didn't came out as victor's from both world wars ,and might look at war more as something were it's hard to get any possitive effects from.The UK and te USA on the other hand were more constant victor's ,and for them war migth seem a easy way to get their wishes done.

Actually ,iraq is SERIOUSLY going wrong ,personaly i have read a number of books on the Vietnam war for ex. ,and i can draw important parrallells between both conflicts. The most important parallel of all however is that ,just like in Vietnam ,the Iraqi's don't want the Americans there ,neither do they want to be forced with goverment that they do not want.The result ,and this is also in parallel with the vietnam war ,is an increasingly escalating conflict ,spiraling out of control.It's already getting out of control ,even american generals admit that ,the only temporary measurement will be an increase in troop number ,but that can't solve the deeper reasons why this conflict is escalating.Meanwhile the financial costs of waging that war are ever increasing. America tried to install a democratic puppet regime in Vietnam to.It never worked ,Vietnamese didn't want this puppet regime ,foremost they wanted to be unified under a nationalistic movement ,that also was communist in name.The reason for starting the war was also dogmatic ,replacing the bad communist regime with the good democracy ,the war against terrorism is in some ways simmilary dogmatic ,and few nuancations are made in the different forms of terrorism that occur ,just as like in the cold war where communist systems were often very different from country to country.It might be different in Iraq ,while in Vietnam they wanted an unified country now in Iraq its almost the other way around.Even the South vietnamese army that the US created for its aid ,wich had substantial funding ,did never ammount to much ,i do not expect much better from the new iraqi army ,and im looking with grief to the rediculous amount of support and territory that they left Karzai with in Afhanistan. Nevertheless noone can deny the fact that the war in Iraq is increasingly escalating ,and there is no hope on imporvement ,in fact if it continue's to escalate ,i see no option for the USA to withdraw from the region ,just like they did with Vietnam.You might laugh with this point now ,but lets see what happens in the next decade ,Vietnam took a few decades to before the USA realized the faced an fundamental problem that they couldn't overcome.And concerning Afhanistan ,well that project failed from the moment the USA left it.

Ok ,well it was the way youre words were formatted ,the sentence "wow ,are you sober denoir?" could have been interpreted as "I usually never expect Denoir to ever say something sensible as i see him as a persisten alcoholicus".Under this interpretation the rest of that post could have been seen as sarcasm. Ah well ,English isn't my primary languaghe neither so i can understand such error's ,so then discard my reply.

Don't know ,but that would be kinda ironical ,although i am of the oppinion that there is few chance to stop a terrorist attack anyway ,regardless amounts of security.There are just to many targets of opportunity for terrorists.

Wow! Are you sober, Denoir? I meant that as a compliment. Christ Avon ,as much as i have some respect for youre efforts in this community ,and for youre individual oppinions even while they very different of mine. But such remarks is not showing very much respect for the oppinions of others ,if you wish to have youre oppinions respected by others i advice you to debate on somewhat more reasonable terms. It's remarks like this that let threads turn into flamefests so that Placebo has to come in here ,close the thread or to curtail how far a discusson can go.

i AM CANADIAN they are our Enemys too Canadian Troops are in Afganistan or are you living in a bubble ? Al Qaeda is not actually making plans to attack our soft targets you know. Â We are not in Iraq. They are not my enemy, I respect their wish for whitep eople to get the heck out of the ME, and I am Canadain. I don't support us being in Afghanistan either BTW. Â I think those who broke it should have been fixing it. you are sad you must be our enemy to side with the no good terrorrsts and dictators when our troops are doing a fine job to do our part in the war on terror no we are not in Iraq Afganistan take up all our troops and you shame our Candian troops that are giving the ultimate price they have not targeted us yet but who knows what the future holds... now WAKE UP or are you a Enemy sympathizer tough shit you don't support the free world why don't ya move to a place that represents your view you pussy mabe move to Iran you will like it there Plz refrain from insulting bn880 for his views ,or paternalizing him with conventions that you in youre oppinion think are true.This is a discussion board ,not a propaganda board.

Strange ,i saw my mother today and while chatting i told her about the attacks ,she didn't know yet ,and all she said was "well i guess they were next in line for a long time" ,i think that will be the reaction of many Belgians ,we condem terrorism ,but for most Belgians ,and i guess many nationality's around the world ,it seemed quite logical that Britian would be next on Al-Quida's targetting list.If not it seemed that Brittian was rather spared for a long time of such thing's. But i think aonther conclusion that many Europeans and other nationality's can make is that it's yet again a member of the "alliance of the willing" thats get hurt ,and not a non-involved country ,so far it seems Al-Quaida is targetting exactly that involve themselfs substantially in war's in the ME such as in Iraq.

There is an idea ,could many of the terrorists just have become terrorirst as they were forced to engage in vertical warfare by the fact that most western powers have excelent armor/equipment ,an unovercomable conventional supperiority? One must note that in many cases it's hard to make a difference between terrorists and freedom-fighters ,much of what is perceived as terrorism in the west ,often insurgency attacks in Iraq are included ,have more a nationalistic origin than a purely religious one ,but often religion is merely used as a platform for recruitment.Notably in many cases of terrorism their is a sort of conventional counterpart in the same conflict.The Chechen rebels have non-muslim conventionally fighting rebels to ,same goes in iraq or even in Palestine.Even Al-Quaida have engaged in conventional warfare in Afhanistan ,both against Russians and Americans.

First of all my condolences to the victom's and the citizins of the UK for this henious attack of whatever worthless pile of human that call theirself terrorists. My symphaty to the Brittish people ,who are close neighbours of our country ,and in history Brittish society has positivly influenced a lot ,if not saved our arse in WW1 and 2 ,more than the Americans. Yet i must add this to a long list of thing's going very bad in the world this year ,the genocide in Darfur for ex. ,wich isproportionally neglected compared to the problem of terrorism. I do not wish to minimize the grief from this terrorist attack ,but i only hope that this attack will not result in more security ,more conflict out of anger ,or fixation on the terrorist problem compared to other pressing problem's that the world is coping with. I saw Tony Blair make his speech while being at the G8 with most world leaders around him in support ,however for world leaders like Bush or Putin this almost justifies them in their anti-terrorist agenda under whatever surcumstances.I hope the Bittish can find a sensible sollution for erradicating his threat for them ,hopefully a sollution that doesn't create more conflict than where it started.