I just want to know how many of you love America? How many of you enjoy the freedoms that we have to come here and voice anti-government (or let's say "this administration" or "the Bush Administration") without fear of retaliation? How many of you think America is evil? Why must America be the bad guy in so many "Americans" eyes?
For those that think America is so wrong all the time what have you done to make it better? When was the last time you attended a town hall meeting? When was the last time you wrote your congressman, senator, the president? Have you ever considered running for office yourself to help change this evil empire that America has become in your eyes?
It really gets my goat to see all this hate America first talk.

I don't think we're perfect by any stretch of the imagination but I don't just throw America under the bus every chance I get like Hugo Chavez or something.

Y'know ShortHair... I don't know who in particular you're directing your comments against, but they struck a chord, so I'll respond.

I really do love my country. I've served in her Army, I vote, I write my congressman and my president. I participate in this great experiment that is Democracy at every opportunity.

I also refuse to wear blinders and drink the "America is always right" coolaid.

I take a good, hard look at where we are, what we've done with and to whom. I recognize that we've done both great good and great harm in this world we all share.

I believe that it is the duty of every American to hold up a clear and honest mirror to each other and to our government. To acknowledge our best and our worst, and work to make this great country better.

I believe that anyone who ignores the very real problems in our interactions with other countries is doing both themselves and their contry a disservice.

I believe the same of those who focus only on the problems. That's as skewed a view as those who see only good.

The reality is that there's both. If you're honest with yourself, you'll see that, and see that it's not "throwing America under the bus" to acknowledge when we screw up.

quote:

Originally posted by CrazyPoet:
My understanding is that this was a light automatic weapon, which would be appropriate for that type of ship.

SubChop - do you have details?

No details I can verify, but an educated guess would be that since it was a Navy security detail onboard, it was probably nothing bigger than a 50cal., which is still a big gun, if you know what I mean.

quote:

Originally posted by LuckyBreak:
As for saying that your soldiers sacrifice themselves to help others, I won't much agree here. Maybe the soldiers think that, and I have respect for them, but their commanders and their commander-in-chief doesn't have helping people much up on his list.

You're talking apples and oranges here Lucky. You start out by saying soldiers don't sacrifice themselves for others and finish by talking about the President. Soldiers (and Marines and sailors and airmen) DO sacrifice themselves for others! First and foremeost for the men and women to their left and right, but also (indirectly) for those they'll never know. The list of examples is longer than my arm. You are definitely wrong on this one Lucky!

I can't say what motivates the President and his administration to issue the orders they do, and frankly, I don't give it too much thought. But once the order makes it's way down to the deckplate level, that's another story.

EVP, thanks for your offer, I'll certainly tell you if I ever find myself in NYC, which I hope to happen soon.

quote:

Originally posted by SubChop:
You're talking apples and oranges here Lucky. You start out by saying soldiers don't sacrifice themselves for others and finish by talking about the President. Soldiers (and Marines and sailors and airmen) DO sacrifice themselves for others! First and foremeost for the men and women to their left and right, but also (indirectly) for those they'll never know. The list of examples is longer than my arm. You are definitely wrong on this one Lucky!

I can't say what motivates the President and his administration to issue the orders they do, and frankly, I don't give it too much thought. But once the order makes it's way down to the deckplate level, that's another story.

Lucky, I have to agree with SubChop on this one. You won't find any finer people than the average US Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marine. They go out of their way to serve and to protect, sacrificing themseleves if necessary to do so.

I don't always agree with the missions they receive, or the foreign policy behind those missons, but I will always, always support the soldiers in the field.

We do make mistakes, and when we do I expect to see people held accountable. But I'll also say that most of our mistakes, even those with tragic or deadly outcomes, were made honestly and with good intentions. I also understand that this doesn't make things any better for those on the receiving end.

quote:

Lucky, I have to agree with SubChop on this one. You won't find any finer people than the average US Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marine. They go out of their way to serve and to protect, sacrificing themseleves if necessary to do so.

And that is what I've said. I do believe that most of the American soldiers, heck, most of the American population, believe they are doing everything they can for world peace and for helping others.

But is that the truth of what's happening??
I will not talk about other countries I don't know of, I will just talk about Egypt.

We have a massive problem with wheat. A lot of Egyptians literally can't find a loaf of bread to eat. Our wheat production is not sufficient and we have to import most of our needs....mostly from the US.

Since my birth (maybe even before that) and until 2004, we've had a man called Youssef Waly as our minister of agriculture. For all the years this man has stayed in his position, he has done nothing but destroy the Egyptian agriculture. I can tell you a lot about what he did but now is not the time or place. Anyway, this man's corruption became so evident years ago, but whenever there was a new cabinet, we'd still find him in there as the minister of agriculture. The man never did anything to try solve the wheat problem. Until 2004, it became unbearable, and he was thrown off.

In July 2004, my uncle (the same one who smokes 5-6 CC's/day) was selected as the new minister of agriculture. Once in his new position, he started devising new plans to expand the areas planted with wheat. He presented a plan that would increase the land's productivity of wheat more than double fold. He was very enthusiastic and started working on these plans right away. In September 2005, a new cabinet was selected, and my uncle wasn't there. The new minister threw all the plans in the garbage, and now we're back at point zero.

We've had inside information that his removal from the cabinet was on the request of the American embassy. Now I know you will not believe me, and will say I am making it up, or at least exaggerating, but what I am telling you is the truth and only the truth.

This is one example of how the US uses it's aid for political pressure. Our wheat imports from the USA is a major pressure tool, and a man who has "increasing wheat production" on his list will certainly not appeal that much to the US.

Now my uncle is retired and enjoys himself smoking CCs in his balcony that has a view of the golf course. So in the greater scheme of things, the US has helped him relax

quote:

Originally posted by LuckyBreak:
He presented a plan that would increase the land's productivity of wheat more than double fold. He was very enthusiastic and started working on these plans right away. In September 2005, a new cabinet was selected, and my uncle wasn't there. The new minister threw all the plans in the garbage, and now we're back at point zero.

We've had inside information that his removal from the cabinet was on the request of the American embassy. Now I know you will not believe me, and will say I am making it up, or at least exaggerating, but what I am telling you is the truth and only the truth.

That's alot of postulating...

How is anyone to predict that nature will guarantee double the yield? How is anyone to know your uncle's plan, aside from the results that he promised, were even feasible?

Also, you gloss over the fact that there was a cabinet change and your uncle was not even around....I don't know how politics works in Egypt, but pretty much the same exact thing would have happened here. Plans in place at the change of a cabinet almost always tend to be discarded.

The man before him was in office for more than 20 years and did nothing. My uncle stayed there only a little bit more than a year and his plan was starting to get it's fruits but he wasn't even given the chance.

By definition, a cabinet change implies that multiple advisory/minister positions were shuffled. Unless you are implying that the US engineered an entire cabinet change just to get your uncle's wheat plan from taking effect, you don't really have a logical correlation here.

Yes Sobek, but you see things here are quite different. It's not at all unusual to see a minister staying in his position for whatever number of cabinet changes. The cabinet changes, but he is still there. Our minister of culture has been in his place for over 26 years now.

Things are different here. It was very surprising that my uncle was changed without even having time to do anything. All the papers wrote about it and it smelled fishy from the start.

And of course you can guess it. The new guy who came is one of Gamal Mubarak's friends, and actually has no idea about agriculture, he used to own a tourism company before he was selected by his friend Gamal for he position. (My uncle has over 30 years experience in the field of agriculture)

You might think I am being emotional because he is my relative. But believe me I am not. Everyone talked about it and a lot of news papers commented on the thing and on the new minister who has nothing to do with agriculture in the first place.

And actually the American influence in Egypt is so strong that yes, they can have a cabinet change if they requested one. The cabinet change in which my uncle was changed in was a normal one that follows the parliamentary elections (in which my uncle won with an extreme majority). The new cabinet was = the old cabinet minus my uncle.

quote:

Originally posted by LuckyBreak:
And of course you can guess it. The new guy who came is one of Gamal Mubarak's friends, and actually has no idea about agriculture, he used to own a tourism company before he was selected by his friend Gamal for he position. (My uncle has over 30 years experience in the field of agriculture)

Well isn't this just more a case of cronyism?

quote:

Originally posted by sobek:

quote:

Originally posted by LuckyBreak:
And of course you can guess it. The new guy who came is one of Gamal Mubarak's friends, and actually has no idea about agriculture, he used to own a tourism company before he was selected by his friend Gamal for he position. (My uncle has over 30 years experience in the field of agriculture)

Well isn't this just more a case of cronyism?

Indeed, cronyism derived from American orders.

Lucky, any update on the investigation from your side? I haven't seen anything in our news (which isn't unusual - seems most stories that make the headlines rarely have any follow up)

Nope, nothing. You really thought anything would happen?
The case is closed, it's over, nobody even remembers it. Just like I told you on day one.

You got away with it, as usual. We're used to that. Israel killed more than a thousand Lebanese civilian under direct US support in 2006 and it just went by unquestioned as if these were bugs that got killed, not humans. The US didn't even allow a UNSCR condemning it. A guy killed by an American vessel is something that won't even be remembered a week later.

I appreciate your concern Sub, but that's how it goes, the US and Israel can do whatever they want and go unquestioned. If you really thought anything would have happened on the case then you really don't know how things work.

We're used to this. But just don't act surprised at why so many people in the Middle East don't have much favorable views of the US.

So it seems then that Egyptians are content to let it fade from memory. Did anyone there do an investigation? Did "Cairo Today" follow up on the story? Has the victim's family pressed for further details?

I'm sure we just threw some money at it and it went away. As usual...

quote:

Originally posted by SubChop:
So it seems then that Egyptians are content to let it fade from memory. Did anyone there do an investigation? Did "Cairo Today" follow up on the story? Has the victim's family pressed for further details?

The Egyptian people are not content to see it fade, but they simply know that they can't take nothing from the USA. The USA has destroyed a whole country that was once called Iraq and turned it into the ugly mutant it is now, they did it and then turned they were mistaken, now WMDs, my bad, sorry pals, we were mistaken. End of story. So it's not at all hard for the USA to kill some trivial third world country poor guy and say "sorry, we didn't mean it".

The victim's family as well know that there is nothing they can do. The governement probably gave them a good pension so they just shut up and don't press the issue any longer, because it certainly will cause embarrassment to the pawn Mubarak.

It's over Sub. Thanks a lot for your concern, I appreciate it and know it comes out of good heartiness. But the world works in another way. The more powerful can force his laws, all while claiming he is the angel of peace and the lord of justice.

quote:

Originally posted by LuckyBreak:
The Egyptian people are not content to see it fade, but they simply know that they can't take nothing from the USA. The USA has destroyed a whole country that was once called Iraq and turned it into the ugly mutant it is now, they did it and then turned they were mistaken, now WMDs, my bad, sorry pals, we were mistaken. End of story. So it's not at all hard for the USA to kill some trivial third world country poor guy and say "sorry, we didn't mean it".

The victim's family as well know that there is nothing they can do. The governement probably gave them a good pension so they just shut up and don't press the issue any longer, because it certainly will cause embarrassment to the pawn Mubarak.

First off, Iraq was already an ugly mutant.

Second, although I do not agree with the war, there was plenty of just cause to enter Iraq. All you have to do is go to the UN's own account of all the weapons violations Iraq had in the 90's. I'm only against the war because I just happen to think it wasn't worth our time or money.