It’s over: MPs say the special relationship with US is dead
POSTED BY: AURaptor
UPDATED: Friday, August 29, 2025 15:36
VIEWED: 12277
PAGE 11 of 17
ANTI- you can stop shoveling YOUR load of crap. I'm not buying it.
With all our power, and all of our military, outspending the rest of the world COMBINED when we could have come down on the side of the good, we did not.
There were PLENTY of opportunities for us to have created stable, educated, productive, democratic societies. We could have allied ourselves with democratically-elected reformers. We could have set up schools, hospitals, ports, and roads. Instead, what did we do?
Instead, 95% of the time, our goal was "anti-Communism" ... ie, WE IMPOSED CORPORATISM over democractic reform so we could extract copper from Chile and oil from Iran at rock-bottom prices. So that the dictators and plantation owners south of the border would not be overly troubled by people wanting farmland, or by unions. SO that the Indonesian tyrant Suharto could genocide the East Timorese.
If you say that we're so "benevolant", then I ask you: Why did we do that?
Why did we do that, over and over and over again?
Yanno, I think it's time you faced up to reality. And it's the hard fact in many cases we're no better, and often WORSE, than the "enemies" we've tried to vanquish. You are as you do. Not as you THINK you do, would LIKE to do, or RATIONALIZE what you do but as YOU ACTUALLY DO.
That goes for ALL of us: individuals, Russia, China, the USA, the Muslim jihad.
Like the Bible says: By their works you shall know them. That applies to us, too.
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Niki
I can't speak for Gino, Frem or Kwicko, but I know this one thing about SignyM: on 9/11 her question wasn't 'why' but 'what took so long' ?
Millions of innocent people have died directly as a result of US military intervention and support. Many times more have died by US-backed economics.
The fact that a combined millions of East-Indians, Chinese and East Africans hated the British for imposing their empire on them doesn't make the US any less hated for doing the same, in its own time, for its own ends, to its own areas of interest.
As for Canada, it has some small stain on it for its treatment of natives. OTOH they gave back something like 1/3 of the country to the Inuit and other native groups. Compare that to the miserable pittance called reservations the US has forced its natives to live on.
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"There were PLENTY of opportunities for us to have created stable, educated, productive, DEMOCRATIC societies."
What the US fears most is democracy, b/c democracy doesn't GUARANTEE business results.
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Silence is consent.
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Well, it appears that I killed this thread. :brushes hands: \I guess my job here is done\ irony
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Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Niki
I can't speak for Gino, Frem or Kwicko, but I know this one thing about SignyM: on 9/11 her question wasn't 'why' but 'what took so long' ?
Millions of innocent people have died directly as a result of US military intervention and support. Many times more have died by US-backed economics.
The fact that a combined millions of East-Indians, Chinese and East Africans hated the British for imposing their empire on them doesn't make the US any less hated for doing the same in its own time, for its own ends, to its own areas of interest.
As for Canada, it has some small stain on it for its treatment of natives. OTOH they gave back something like 1/3 of the country to the Inuit and other native groups. Compare that to the miserable pittance called reservations the US has forced its natives to live on.
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Silence is consent.
Alot of work still needs to be done with First Nations people here... some treaty groups have done much better than others... some dues to luck, or geography, or better leadership in a few cases ( that never hurts does it )
Addiction problems and unemployment are huge hurdles
I was rather proud of the role they played at the Vancouver Olympics... as partners in the endeavor
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Gino
At least you guys are taking an honest official try at undoing the damage. I suspect a lot of what held you up was getting your constitution 'home' so that you could negotiate treaties and such. The other thing I remember was that this was a result of a Canadian court decision. I can't imagine the US Supreme Court doing the same.
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Silence is consent.
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Rue,
Some of that is simply in the history, and with the way things were when the original treatys were drafted...
In my part of the country, it was often two or three northwest mounted policemen who rode out, and then got to know the folk they were dealing with...
they had credibility because without threat of force they could come in and talk like all involved were just folk... and often they became the ones who represented their interests to Ottawa
The animosity and distrust from the days of the Indian wars, Harrison, Tippecanoe, etc really made that sort of engagement in the US nearly impossible.
Interestingly Enough was the 1990 Oka crisis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oka_Crisis
I had some minor involvement as the military unit I was with at the time deployed several communications teams, and my Uncle was one of the RCMP commanders on scene.
From what I was told later, Ottawa ordered the army to overrun the protesters, and Colonel Gagnon refused the order... then the RCMP were ordered to do the same and they refused as well...
Instead the army and the RCMP isolated, and then de-escalated the situation... keeping the Quebec provincial police who wanted to storm the place away.
Finally through negotiations with the Military, as the Mohawks involved refused to talk to the government negotiator the crisis was resolved.
Even today, if say the FBI was deployed to an armed native protest with military support ( the grey area, if it was allowed )
What do you think would have happened?
We have our problems, but thankfully we too have our moments, and usually that comes down to individuals taking a stand... Courts and Governments seems to follow behind that... from the Colonel and RCMP folk who decided busting heads wasn't the solution and keep their cool no matter what
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Well, I guess Rappy has bailed from the thread, and so has KPO.
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Rue, I don't disagree on any point. And you actually made my point for me; a few decades ago, the British Empire was hated as much as we are now, for many of the same reasons. Empires fall. It doesn't take violence; in our case, it could easily be economics.
Thank you for the persective I was trying to put forth.
I maintain that bombing America won't solve anything...things like 9/11 will just make our military strike out more, and any attempt at SERIOUS bombing would likely start WWIII, which I don't think the Canadians would enjoy any more than we would.
Our military is stretched so thin at this point that I think we are beyond the point of no return; the military will HAVE to pull back and rebuild before the kinds of things we've done up until now can be sustained. Maybe they'll learn something in the meantime; maybe the government will change sufficiently to back us out of some of this crap; who knows. I know Obama does want us out of both Afghanistan and Iraq; if we could avoid sending those troops to Somalia or some other place, it would be a beginning.
Only time will tell.
"I'm just right. Kinda like the sun rising in the east and the world being round...its not a need its just the way it is." The Delusional "Hero", 3/1/10
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Quote:Well, violence has been a part in all of the fallen empires so far, so I don't know why we be an exception.
It doesn't take violence; in our case, it could easily be economics.
What seems happen is that empires subjugate land and resources, but as their subjects rebel the economic (military) cost of maintaining an empire eventually overtakes the economic benefits, and the empire collapses from excessive militarism.
It would be great if we (the people) could engineer a "soft landing"... a w/drawal from our economic subjects and a reversal of the policies of extraction and exploitation, but (quite frankly) I don't see that happening. Americans just aren't that well-educated.
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