What those middle eastern students don't (and couldn't possibly) understand

Oh God forbid an American should have an opinion and be a staunch supporter of anything right? Suddenly that's the reason that the rest of the world doesn't like us even though the rest of the world acts the same way. God forbid an American should love his country and be proud of his country just like the rest of world feels about their own respective countries right? Suddenly being a patriotic American is the reason the rest of the world dislikes us even though the rest of the world acts the same way. Frankly I couldn't care less if you like me, dislike me or feel utterly indifferent. I was not going to sit by and say nothing while the memory of an American hero and man who served his country honorably was called into question by some self impressed and completely clueless individual. If that makes me a rude American than I guess I'm a rude American and I really don't care what you think about it.

With respect to a public debate, get a clue. This is a political forum not a debate forum or a college campus. I'm not here to debate. I'm just stating my point of view just like everyone else on this forum. I suspect the only reason you're really put off by it is because I'm just better at it.

I fought for my country in the first Gulf War and I'm proud to have done so. What about you? Have you ever served your country or do you just spend all your time calling into question the debate tactics of people on internet forums?

 

Without going into to much detail, I have seen enough violence firsthand to know how terrible war is. The veterans who surround me do not glorify violence and war, especially not with brainwashed ultra-nationalist sentiments. In fact, they hate war with a burning passion. It is easier to fight a war in another country than your own. It is not American women being raped. It is not American homes being burned and turned to rubble. The rest of the world doesn't hate you because you are patriotic. It is the eagerness to support illegal actors in an illegal war. It is America's eagerness to bring war and destruction to other nations. It is America's cowardly fear towards "threats" like communism and radical Islam, that America uses as a justification to make the harmless burn.

America is like any powerful nation before it. Like the Nazi's, Rome, Mongols, Imperial France, America does not see the long term ramifications of war. To America, war is the most effective way of recovering from its crippling decline. To America, war is just the trading of lives to shape the geopolitical landscape in her favor. What you fought in was not a war. In real wars, you are not protected by 100's of fighter jets, while outnumbering the enemy 8:1. Real war involves an enemy with the capability to fight back. Real war is terrible.

 

@GTFOMC, I think you are being unfair towards Mayerling as well. She made a truthful argument of how any patriotic American, would defend their homes from a foreign invasion. She equivocated this to Chris Kyle, who in Iraqi eyes is seen as an aggressor. A member of the Luftwaffe shot down over 400 planes in WW2. He was praised and worshiped in his own country. The citizens of liberated Europe protested against the praise he was receiving. They died. On the other hand, we have a Finnish sniper called Simo Hayha, who was defending his homeland from a Soviet landgrab. He has over 700 confirmed kills, despite having dozens of Soviet assassination attempts on his life, and only using iron sights.

Which would you consider a war hero? Being a hero is not about how many human beings you have killed, but the cause that was being fought for. An unjust cause creates a war criminal in the eyes of all those except the aggressor.

 

Don't even pretend to preach to me about how horrible war is until you've been there and seen it. I don't need your pathetic lecturing on the matter. I don't know what country you're from but I suspect its one of those countries that is all to eager to sit back and let American men and women do the lions share of fighting and dying to prevent the modern world from falling into absolute anarchy and then have the nerve to lecture us about what is illegal or not illegal. You're welcome is all I have to say to you. We preserved your feckless and soft way of life so that you can question the nature in which we did so. There was nothing illegal about the gulf war no matter what myopic and misguided point of view you might have on the matter.

 

I don't know which version of history you lived through but I distinctly remember people across the middle east on 9 / 11 / 01 who were dancing and cheering in the streets by the millions as they celebrated the death of Americans and the attack on our country. I frankly don't care how they feel or in what regard they hold us.

 

That is easy.

He did his duty above and beyond. He killed the enemy and was effective at it which is what the military is for. Anotherr famous american hero stated " no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country, he won it by making the other poor, dumb basted die for HIS country".

Kyle personfied that statement and deserves the honor accorded him for doing so.

He sufferred some as a result and ultimately died tragically.

You may disagree this all makes him a hero but that is only small minded opinion.

 

Lol, have you seen my flag? I will repeat myself, America has not been in a real war since 1953.
The fact that you are giving America credit for protecting any country outside her own borders is hilarious. Care to give any examples of American men and women protecting me from absolute anarchy?

 

I want to point out that Americans would of been cheering all over the streets if Red Square went up in flames in the 70's. Not a lot of Americans would be crying over the destruction of the Kaaba either.
War makes people hate each other. Starting another war isn't a solution. It is evolving the problem.

How does Iraq fit into 9/11 again?

 

You are entitled to your opinion and I am entitled to mine. The difference is that I would never say that yours is a small minded opinion.

I don't have a problem in killing enemy soldiers who are laying siege to, invading and occupying our country.

But until someone tells me how invading and occupying Iraq was protecting U S interests than I see nothing heroic about American Snipers killing Iraqis . We all know now that the invasion of Iraq was based upon multiple lies and is considered to have been a failure and mistake.

I consider that Russian Sniper from WW2 a hero

 

That incident was filmed by CNN and the people dancing were Palestinians who were told that Netinyahu had died. Not that that is a very nice reason I would agree.
Imhad diplomatic friends as well,as journalists friends who were there and on the phone with me as it happened.

I was in the Middle East during that horrible day and total strangers as well as neighbours expressed there shock and offered apologies.

- - - Updated - - -

Oh wereyou there personally or are these just the usual urban legends

 

It is not considered a failure sorry to burst your bubble.

Lies or not it was a legitimate and righteous war in a larger and a righteous war against Islam is which is an enemy we have to defeat.

If you are blaming troops for what politicians do th an the Russian is less of a hero.

She fought for.communism which is histories most evil and bloodthirsty idealogy.

 

She fought for her country.

And radical Islam is what needs to be defeated.

The Iraq war was a failure but again, I respect your opinion.

You didn't burst my bubble

 

The Iraq war is not a failure fact which bursts your bubble.

Kyle fought for his country and it is a vastly superior one.

 

How wasn't it a failure?

 

By circulating a petition and asking that their viewpoint be heard, the muslim students were exercising their freedom of speech. you condemning them is no different than them condemning the movie.

 

Be careful with those strong words! I was not condemining them, I was point out the fact that their tactic was seriously flawed.

If I were them, I would happily cheer on to the movie, watch the movie with the rest of the students together, and put up a video telling people Muslims are not all like that portrayed in the movie. But then again, that requires rich social experience and Black Adder-esque cunningness.

 

Sure I can give you a great example. Look at the absolute mess the middle east has become under our current President. This is what happens when America retreats from the world under the leadership (if you want to call it that) of a President who hasn't got a clue about how to engage in a foreign policy that actually works. Violence and war has spread and become worse under Obama not better. MOD EDIT - Off Topic

 

Oh I'm sorry, I didn't know that I needed to personally be in New York to understand what happened on 9/11. MOD EDIT - Rule 3 Osama didn't become the most popular boys name across the middle east in the years following 9/11 for no reason at all.

 

Know what's worst than America having a dictator? The rest of the world having America's dictator. Keep American leadership to yourself. The world could use less "US engineering" on the geopolitical landscape.

 

Yes of course. Curse that western civilization for bringing, well, civilization to the world. Countries that beforehand didn't have things like roads, schools, electricity, running water, an infrastructure that could sustain a civilized nation. These are things that western civilization brought to the world, not only America but the European powers as well. The the world said "get out of here! We don't need you!" So we did, and once civilized nations fell back into ruin, lawlessness, anarchy. Look at what they have done with what they were given. Destroyed it and let it fall apart.

I notice you still don't want to claim a country of your own. It sure is easy to sit back and be critical of other nations when you won't claim the failures or success of your own.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
Theodore Roosevelt

 

I would like to see all the schools, roads, and infrastructure built for nations out East. Do not act like those gifts in war torn South America were anything more than tokens of apology. America topples governments, funds terrorism, and uses economic strong arming to deny countries of different ideologies the right to economic prosperity. Most nations would be thriving if not for the rifts of instability the US sowed to begin with. Civilization did not start in America. It has been around for thousands of years. Advanced progressive societies and cultural meccas have dominated the world long before the Americas were discovered. Civilization was brought to America, not the other way around.

Power to America for innovating civil code and legal rights, but I am afraid the time of America leading social reform ended 200 years a go. We are living in a new world, dominated by a new generation, and the US is one of those nations who is stuck in a socially conservative past. Paint it however you want, but US foreign interventions are not sustained by regular citizens with strong ideologies, but rather the higher classes with money and power. US foreign interventions are driven by greed, and the fat cat individuals who dominate every sector of American government.

Do us all a favor, and stop imposing America on the rest of the world. Developed countries with a fraction of the manpower and resources of the United States are experiencing an economic output on a 3:1 ratio. I am guaranteed more liberties outside of America. I am more respected more for my individuality outside America. I am better off outside America. Personally I do not care for the greatness of America, or lack thereof. American "civilization" should be confined to American society. Have we became so ignorant that we forgot what imperialism looks like?

 

That was a well written post. Not a single world of it true but well written. And you still have not owned up to which country you are from. Probably because its a country with it's own share of things to answer for and you're too much about pointing the finger at Americans which you hate instead of taking a look at your own.


But it's alright, since you can't own up to it on your own I'll educate the others here in your stead. Yugoslavia is a country with a history of ethnic violence and genocidal conflict. Serbs and Croats having at one another over, not surprisingly, religious intolerance. Not ancient history either mind you but just as recently as the 1990's. The very notion that you point the finger at America is laughable. It was the Americans that intervened in Bosnia and restored peace to the region and we both know it. As I correctly stated. You owe the very existence of your currently peaceful part of the world to the United States and it's military for having come there and restored peace. Your welcome.

 

What tolerance ? You mean like allowing women to drive ... allowing people freedom to do things like drink alcohol and freedom to not have religious control freaks making laws that force religious down peoples throats ?

 

We have like 1500 plus middle eastern students at Idaho State University. I think most are Saudis. They spend tons of money locally. They all try so hard to be cool with the rest of America, and slowly but surely they're working their way there. What started off with them offering girls money right of the bat for sex, turned into awkward grinding at the clubs, to now normal dancing and actually scoring chicks. It just takes time. Whenever I talk to any of them they are so nice and thankful someone not middle eastern is treating them like a normal person. It is hard for any group to make that scary leap of not just hanging with their own. And groups of them together make it that much more intimidating for people caught up in recent events to want to approach them. I think it will all work itself out in the end, but like all uphill battles on such subjects, it will take weeding out the bad elements themselves to let those who are different know that the great majority are normal. No different than any other group. (Honest migrant worker vs drug smuggler, etc.) A big step forward in humanity is when people will start turning on their own instead of making others try and guess who needs it done for them. When you see all kinds of ME kids pointing at the crazy one who just showed up, all of us will be able to breath much better than 1000 tanks in a desert.

 

Non-Muslims aren't expected to conform to Islamic rules and become Muslim. Immigrants to the West are expected to "assimilate" and become Western.