 |
|
 |
 |
 |
Canadian Star Federation Empire Thread
|
 |
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Hmmm...I like the cold, I like hockey...
          
| |
|
|
|
Hi Guys! Nice to see a few CSF members here.
I've been driving up the difficulty level on my games and I think I'm ready to try a few Maso games now. I also want to try being a 'Pure Good' alignment at the same time. Can you give me a few tips?
    
| |
|
#195
by Citizen Sirian - 2/12/2004 5:08:18 PM
| Actually I think he was misquoted in this one. If I remmeber the quote correctly, and maybe I don't. He didn't single out the US, he said the "West" |
|
Forgive me, but there is no way to address this issue other than bluntly. Your distinction is irrelevant, except to illustrate why you are confused about our upset with Chretien, and by extension, Canadian policy.
The September 11th attacks have changed America. Both the attacks and our responses to them have each in different ways changed our course. If you do not understand the full implications, then you will not understand our point of view and what motivates us.
9-11 is not like any other terror attack in history. The numbers do not tell the tale. Yes, it killed the most people, yes it destroyed the most property. Tragic as those are, they are not the primary effects. The scale of the attack reaches beyond even that.
For about ten hours after the first impact, we scrambled to sort out who had hit us and whether or not more was on the way. We didn't know how many of the planes in the sky were involved, or even if the attack would be confined to planes. Could have been dozens of them, and other punches of other types (truck bombs, etc) that could occur. We lived under that cloud all day, and virtually everyone in our nation was in that experience together, because of how plugged in we are with communications technology. Even after shutting down all of our airspace, there were still a lot of planes in the air. Would our jets have to blow some out of the sky?
Other types of terror attacks that have hit us have either been overseas or singular acts of madmen. A strike on a ship in a foreign port, an embassy on foreign soil, a military barracks at a fort in another country... Those are bitter events, but they do not touch the day to day lives of Americans. Most of us do not relate, can't picture ourselves in those positions. 9-11 was different. Most Americans have flown on planes. Very easy to picture what's going on and relate to the people onboard. More so because we got cell phone calls from the doomed people ON these planes. The WTC and the Pentagon are not just symbolic monuments, they are bona fide nerve centers of our country. Not even Israel has suffered an attack on its nerve centers remotely comparable to this. They live under terror's shadow in all the soft targets: cafes, street corners, buses, and so on. This was a successful strike at hard, sturdy targets. We had thought ourselves safe, but we learned otherwise.
We were raped that day. There's no other way to put it. That is how it felt, and that is the psychological impact that has carried forward. To not understand this is insensitive, and perhaps also clueless.
What is the one thing you should not tell a woman who has been raped, if you want to preserve good relations with her? That it was her fault. You do NOT say that, or imply it, in any form. First, because it is not true. Regardless of her behavior and provocations she may have made, nothing she has done could POSSIBLY rise to the level of "deserving what she got". Second, because blaming the victim is itself a further attack, a cruelty, which is both unfair and insensitive.
To listen to Chretien lecturing "the West" about how "we" are responsible for provoking the terrorists and how now is the time to "be nice" is beyond insulting. WAY beyond. Wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy way beyond. It reveals a fundamental insensitivity toward and misunderstanding of our point of view, and you bet it has hurt relations between our nations.
The distinction you have drawn between Chretien referring to the west and not naming the USA is the perfect example of misunderstanding between our two nations right now. All that generalizing accomplishes is to veil the sentiment. I'm sorry, but that's even worse than stating it openly. Using the analogy I have drawn, it is akin to saying "women" should "be nice" and not be provocative in regard to what everybody knows was an attack on a specific woman. As if not naming her by name should shield you from responsibility for your stupid remarks?
The very idea that fault lies with us, in the west, is flawed. It is morally flawed, and it is insulting to all sides. Insulting because it embraces a double standard. Westerners are to be held to a higher standard, where they get the blame if they made ANY provocation, while terrorists get a free pass regardless of their crimes? Our provocations trump everything? That's an incredibly narcicistic view, in my opinion. Sorry, we are not that important. And the cultures that are giving rise to the bulk of terrorists are not that immature and incapable. They can meet, and should be held to, the same standards that apply to the rest of humanity.
Terror is not acceptable, and it is not inevitable.
The United States, at least, will not accept it. We will not live under the threat. We will not sit idly by and let the terrorists have safe havens from which to plot their next move. We will not abide even the remotest possibility of the confluence of NBC weapons and terrorists. Where such a threat exists, we demand assurances for our security. Weapons of mass destruction are acceptable only in the hands of responsible and stable governments, where we can be sure they will not end up in terrorist hands.
That is the missing piece of the puzzle on Iraq for most of the world. You keep saying that Saddam had no direct connection to the 9-11 attacks, as if that matters. WE ARE NOT LOOKING BACKWARD TO THE LAST ATTACK, BUT FORWARD TO THE NEXT ONE. We have that right, to defend ourselves. We do not see it as unreasonable for a reckless dictator with a history of using chemical weapons to provide proof and assurances that he would not do so again. That would have been easy for him to do if he were willing.
From the USA perspective, any LEGITIMATE hope of securing an acceptable level of assurances from Saddam's regime were dead. Any delay after that is worthless, and possibly dangerous. Since we are the ones bearing that danger, you can be sure we do not take kindly to being asked to take risks to no useful or meaningful end. The pre-9-11 world is gone for good. Technology has reached a point at which small groups of trained and dedicated terrorist agents can bring a mighty nation to its knees. We will not allow it. We will not play the same old political games with this. We will not abide the threat no matter how many sets of sensibilities we have to step on to secure against it. That does not mean we will act irresponsibly or in haste, but it does mean we won't tolerate other people playing silly games with OUR security.
Saddam had a full and fair chance to come clean and cooperate. We made every effort to make clear that we would accept nothing less from him. Why is SADDAM not held responsible here? Why does all the blame fall on us, for enforcing compliance from him? This is the socialist mentality at work, and it is faulty.
The socialist says all the responsibility falls on the rich, none on the poor. Being poorer means you have an excuse for anything you might do. Criminals get a pass if they had a "difficult childhood". Terrorists get a pass because their home countries are mostly destitute. This view is well intentioned but ultimately bankrupt. In Chretien's remarks, this viewpoint is forwarded. "The rich get richer and the poor get poorer." Sorry, that's wrong. You can't get poorer than having nothing to your name. The world's poorest have NOTHING. They don't even have enough to eat. How are they going to be fed? They have to feed themselves, ultimately. If we feed them, that only gets them by for a day. Compassion dictates that we help, but what is the best form of help? Feed a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach him to fish, he can feed himself for a lifetime. Yet in order to teach him to fish, you have to VALUE him enough to treat him as a peer, to expect as much from him as you would from yourself. That's the part where socialism breaks down. It keeps the poor poor by insulting them, by treating them as inferiors. And it alienates the rich by blaming them for someone else being poor, as if one could only have something of value by TAKING it away from someone else. That's ridiculous. Most folks who have something of value have it because they worked to create it, or to create something else and trade that for what they have.
The socialists hate the USA because we are the richest. Their very ideology blinds them. Rich equals evil, so the USA must be the most evil people on the planet. THAT idea sits behind most of the anti-Americanism floating around today, and I'm very sorry to see that it has found a home in Canada.
Just because you believe it does not make it true, however. I live in America, and I do not see evil at every turn. I see people. We're people like any other, and our creative energies, our form of government, our values and ideals, our diversity and our difficult history all combine to drive us to be more productive. We share with the world. We're the first on the scene to offer help for any natural disaster. We have spent our blood and treasure to shield free nations from the scourge of despotism and communism, to defend against aggressive dictatorships. Is there gratitude among other peoples for these things? Yes. People love America. Yet people also hate America. How odd, in our view, that you should look to us in this way. You must not forget that we are people just like you.
The world did not take our needs or our words seriously enough on the Iraq issue. Instead, many ascribe ulterior motives to us, and that only further widens the gap between us and some of our friends, whose behavior and insensitivity baffles us.
Iraq was a unique case, being the only major nation (with NBC weapons programs) to have recently invaded its neighbors with bald aggression and open greed, and the only one to have recently used NBC weaponry in warfare. This magnified the threat from them, because of their track record of handling NBC weapons irresponsibly. That was no longer tolerable. Secure it or we're coming in to do it ourselves. No more talk, no more games, one last chance, fix this or we'll fix it for you. Iraq had been through more than a decade of diplomacy through the UN to try to secure peaceful means of having them observe their obligations. They were specifically banned from possessing these weapons and programs BY THE UN, yet the UN was clearly not interested in any forms of enforcement, only more and more endless talk, as if talk could ever accomplish anything when not backed by force if necessary. Well, when does it become necessary? How many chances do you give a proven liar? Appeasement is a policy loathed by history for good reason. Americans are sorely disappointed in many of our friends for sticking their heads into the sand instead of facing up to difficult times and hard choices.
Yes, we do sometimes feel as if you are all riding our coattails, leaving us to face the hard tasks alone, looking to us as parents when we cannot fill that role for you, expecting us to be perfect and all-seeing, to never get anything wrong, never make mistakes, and be able to be all things to all people all of the time. We can't meet that standard.
To do the right thing, we will stand alone if we must. We are not the sort who sit helpless, or who calmly accept the whims of fate if events break against us. We do not accept the long-standing European notion that "nothing can be done about terrorism". No, it can't be stomped out with armies, as the French and others tried to do in their empires, when the "client states" fought back, seeking independence. But if we can eliminate the willingness of states to harbor the terrorists, we can hamstring them, at least the ones on the scale of Al Qaeda who are dangerous enough to reach beyond borders and across oceans.
You wouldn't say to a woman, "You're taking this whole rape thing way too seriously. We don't agree with you that the threat is that strong." Yet that is how it feels to many Americans, when you turn your backs on us and say you don't see a threat, don't see any legitimacy to our demands from Saddam's Regime to come clean and ASSURE US that he poses no threats, when we have reason to believe he does.
The irony is that if perhaps the UN and the international community had taken this issue more seriously, Saddam would have complied and there would not have been an invasion. Instead, he felt secure in his web of lies, that he was smarter than the rest of the world and could continue to finesse and manipulate as he had always done. We can only hope now that the world pays more attention, and gets it, that we are very serious about terrorism, and especially about the potential threat of terrorists getting their hands on NBC weaponry. We know how vulnerable we are.
Libya got the message and has decided to cooperate. We are most eager to see that cooperation move forward.
War is especially painful for Americans. I do not believe other nations understand this. We loathe it SO MUCH, we have dedicated ourselves to being the absolute best possible at it, so that if it must come, we will be sure to prevail, and with as little sacrifice as possible. It is our very love of our soldiers that leads us to spend so much of our wealth on equipment, technology and training to empower them and keep them safe. The suicide attacker is seen in many cultures as an asset. We don't see it that way. Each life is precious, and we will do everything in our power to keep from throwing away even one. But if push comes to shove, we have a saying. "We don't want you to die for your country. We want you to make the other guy die for his." And as with most things we have dedicated ourselves to, we are very good at it.
Other nations look on our military power as a threat. What possible motivation could we have for seeking ever stronger military might, than to use it? But I have just explained our motivation. It is our soldiers, to protect every single precious one of them. It is not enough for us to know we could prevail. We want to prevail with as few of our lives lost as we can make possible. That, plus if our potential enemies understand the hopelessness of facing us on the field of combat, they won't even consider trying their luck. And since we know we have no aggressive ambitions on the territory of others, we see no problem with us holding the most power. WE are the ones who can best be trusted with it. Ask Japan and Germany! And dare I say, Canada. I admit, though, we need to do a better job of communicating with the rest of the world.
The same spirit that we talked about earlier in the thread, where Americans are impatient and discontented with a revolutionary mindset, to tackle problems head on, in the most direct fashion, has combined with the September 11 attacks to yield a new strategic outlook. Many fear us, distrust our motives, our power, our policies. We understand that it is our burden to relieve that distrust, but you must also understand that in some situations, this is not our top priority. Iraq was one such situation. Secure against the threat first, then worry about smoothing ruffled feathers.
The past is behind us, but there are more days of difficulty still to come. We would appreciate as much support from Canada as you are willing to offer.
- Sirian
    
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
|
 |
Copyright 1995-2024 Stardock Corporation. All rights reservered.
Site created by Pixtudio and Stardock, designed by Pixtudio.
|
 |
Glad to have you. And all scores contribute to the empire score. So in other words... every bit helps big or small.
Actually Tech just started that but I'm thinkin' we'll keep it. 
AAAAHHHH! It's da undead moose!
