I don't mean "x thousand/million dollars/euros/yen", that's not an equation with a solution.

What I have is a problem with not so much "double-standards" as a whole multiplicity of standards depending on what the argument of the day is.

At one end of the scale you have the idiocy that is suicide bombing: killing oneself and many others for no measurable gain whatsoever.  This places no value on life at all.

At the other end of the same scale, you can get in some cases millions spent in medical treatment to "save" one life, where "save" translates as "postpones death for a few years at best".

And in the middle, there's a whole bunch of levels from invading countries and causing innumerable deaths in "collateral damage" while believing the cause and the end justifies the means; then there's many deaths which could easily be avoided - road deaths, deaths of the vulnerable from hypothermia when the weather turns cold or from heatstroke when it's too hot, abortion, starvation.

Why do we get so worked up about particular types of death (murder, terrorism, medical malpractice, etc.) while not really caring about the significantly higher numbers of people being killed by careless or just plain bad driving?

And to finish: it is not simply "likely", it is inevitable that at some point in the future there will be a cataclysmic event, be it supervolcano, meteorite impact or possibly merely a nuclear war, which is going to kill off a high percentage of life on the planet - the "when" may be twenty years in the future, it may be twenty million, but it will happen.  Our current attitude to life as something that is entirely good - and the more "lives" the better - only really means that the statistic for number of lives lost in said cataclysm will be slightly higher.

So why do we even occasionally bother with the thought that life is sacrosanct and taking life is the worst thing someone can do?  Logical it certainly ain't, but then Homo sapiens has never been the most logical of creatures, has he?


P.S.  Where do I stand?  I don't believe all lives have equal worth and that people have an equal "right to life"; however, I also don't believe there is anyone or anything capable of making these judgments, and anybody who thinks they *are* worthy of judging the worth of someone else's life either has way too much ego or is some kind of insane.  It would be nice to believe that there was some kind of judicious God able to weigh each life in the balance, but being "nice to believe" doesn't make it so.  Unfortunately.

And to finish: it is not simply "likely", it is inevitable that at some point in the future there will be a cataclysmic event, be it supervolcano, meteorite impact or possibly merely a nuclear war, which is going to kill off a high percentage of life on the planet - the "when" may be twenty years in the future, it may be twenty million, but it will happen.  Our current attitude to life as something that is entirely good - and the more "lives" the better - only really means that the statistic for number of lives lost in said cataclysm will be slightly higher.


One thing about the last 2 generations, they really have no concept about how dangerous our world is.  Historically, millions of people have died in just a couple of years.  However, because of "Science & Technology", this has become increasingly rare.

Since the early 1980's, an estimated 25 million people have died from AIDS.  While that may sound like a disaster, consider this.  That is roughly 1 million people a year on average.  Between 1918-1920, an estimated 75 million people died from Spanish Influenza (almost 5% of the world's population).  In one decade, the Black Death (Bubonic Plague) killed at least 75 million people.  At the time, between 1/3 and 2/3 of Europe's population was killed.  And most estimates of the death are considered to be low, since the death tolls in China and Asia are only loose estimates at best.

And I have mentioned other things that will happen in our future.  Supervolcanoes are a real threat, and will happen in the near future (geologically speaking).  The Thera eruption in 1628 BCE destoryed the Minoan Civilization (which is where the story of Atlantis originated), and devistated the Egyptian Civilization (which gave rise to the Exodus plagues).  And that was microscopic compared to what Volcanoes can really do.  The Toba Eruption (@ 77,000 years ago) brought humans to the brink of extinction (an estimated 14,000 humans were left in the entire world after that event).  And the Yellowstone Caldera erupts around every 600,000 years.  But the last eruption was 640,000 years ago - so that one is overdue.  And by following the 1.3 million year cycles - the next eruption is expected to be of "Supervolcano" scale - devistating 85% or more of the North American continent.

Then there is "Global Warming".  If you think things are hot now, just wait.  Historically, the Earth tends to be 10-25 Centegrade warmer then it is now.  55 million years ago, there was a thriving Tropical Climate in Northern Greenland, Siberia, and Alaska!  And 65 million years ago, there was a thriving tripical rainforest growing over the entire continent of Antarctica.

And let's not forget the NEOs (Near Earth Orbit asteroids).

On 13 April 2029, 99942 Apophis will pass within 4,000 KM of the Earth.  To give an idea how close that is, GPS satellites orbit at around 35,000 KM.  And if it misses us then, it will be back on 13 April 2036 and pass just as close.  And an unexpected change in the orbits makes it shift so it strikes the Earth, expect an impact in the 1,480 megaton range.  To put that in perspective, Krakatoa was a 200 megaton explosion.  This will be very devistating to the planet, but not along the lines of a "Planet Killer".  The Chicxuluib Impact 65 mya that killed the dinosaurs was around 100,000 gigatons.

In short, the entire "Human Civilization" is on the brink of extinction.  Global Pandemics, Supervolcanoes, Ateroid impacts, these are all overdue.  And if we somehow miss all of those, the natural warming of our planet will eventually cause massive changes to the way we live.

Life is fragile.  But most people really have no concept of how fragile all life is.

Might I just say there were guys like Ralph Nader who fought for consumer product reform, such as "Unsafe at Any Speed," about the Corvair.  Naderites put seatbelts in your laps.  They studied who died and how in vital statistics.  They were not glamorous, they were not sexy, they weren't like Jackie Onassis...but they got the job done.  How many millions of lives have safety belts and safer cars saved in the past forty years?

The value of a life was of course your own kin, and then it spread from kin to kind and here's where things get complicated.  Looms the terrible spector, "racial identity"!

And might I just add, courtesy of Mr. Mushroom:
This is basically why I reject both people and ideas like that.  I view both the ideas and the people who spout them as loonies.  When I hear about somebody being killed, I could not care a bit about where the victim came from, nor the perp.  I simply view the killer as exactly that: a scum-sucking low-life killer.  His or her social status, economic level, education level, job, and everything else is really meaningless to me.
--Colonel Jack T. Ripper, FOX News contributor

The value of a life was of course your own kin, and then it spread from kin to kind and here's where things get complicated.  Looms the terrible spector, "racial identity"!

And might I just add, courtesy of Mr. Mushroom:
This is basically why I reject both people and ideas like that.  I view both the ideas and the people who spout them as loonies.  When I hear about somebody being killed, I could not care a bit about where the victim came from, nor the perp.  I simply view the killer as exactly that: a scum-sucking low-life killer.  His or her social status, economic level, education level, job, and everything else is really meaningless to me.
--Colonel Jack T. Ripper, FOX News contributor


Actually, I only view one race as "my kin".  And that is the "Human Race".

However, it is also my belief that somebody who knowingly kills another has removed himself/herself from that race.  They have proven to me that they are nothing but animals.

And as for that quote, of please!  Col. Jack Ripper is a classic example of a lunatic, and I find it on the offensive side that I am finding his name attached to my thoughs and beliefs.  It would be like my putting "Joseph Stalin" at the end of one of your quotes.  However, I make no apology for the above remark.

I may be somewhat "strong" in some of my beliefs, but I would like to think that I am very fair.  And I would wish harm on nobody that has not harmed others.  And I judge people purely on their own actions, nothing else.  Because when it is all said and done, we are only responsible for our own actions.  I am responsible for nobody else, and nobody else is responsible for me.

I know, I was just saying, you're conservative but you don't watch FOX News.  I was saying Jack T. Ripper's rhetoric sounds like the rubbish you always hear from FOX pundits. 

Invasion and occupation of Iraq: 2003-20??: 3,000 US troops, ~100,000 Iraqi civilians.

Vietnam War: ~50,000 US troops, ~1,700,000 others (civilian and military, both sides).

World War 2: 55,000,000 dead: 20,000,000 troops, 35,000,00 civilians, all sides.

The current unpleasantness (aka the "generational struggle of our times") in Iraq has killed, in four years, what was killed in a week on Tinian or Okinawa, about a 20:1 kill ratio of non-US to US dead.  (Wanna include every US-vs-Muslim death since 9/11, as opposed to just the Iraq war?  Fine.  "Two weeks!")  If the original poster's point was to remind us that we've lost perspective, he's absolutely right.

Everyone's homework for tonight is to ponder the questions in the compiler's FAQ, and don't skip over the part where he compares deaths  by government (170,000,000) versus deaths by lack-of-government (300,000,000 from failure to vaccinate against smallpox).  I'd go one step further than the original poster: life is not only fragile - life is cheap. 

I'd go one step further than the original poster: life is not only fragile - life is cheap. 

Sometimes.  At others , we place an impossibly high value on a life.  This is starting to feel Stalinesque: a single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic


Life is fragile.  But most people really have no concept of how fragile all life is.

"Life" is remarkably robust and resilient; individual lives, however, are remarkably fragile.  That we are here at all shows that parts (though definitely not all) of the biosphere have shown really quite incredible powers of survival and recovery.

I notice one thing about Foo Bar's statistics:
Modern warfare kills a lot more innocents than combatants.

However, I've seen these numbers trotted out by conservatives with the attitude, "Look at how many more died in these wars!  What are we, wimps?  We don't have the stomach for this anymore?"

I saw Dennis Miller use that line this week.  Yeah, easy to say when your country isn't the one under siege and you know your 52-year-old azz is safe and sound and nobody's gonna muss your hairplugs!
::)

Does it matter how many are dead when it's your loved one coming home in a body bag?

"

I saw Dennis Miller use that line this week.  Yeah, easy to say when your country isn't the one under siege and you know your 52-year-old azz is safe and sound and nobody's gonna muss your hairplugs!
::)



I don't have cable, or anything like that.  Is this a$$ still around.  Jeez, I would have thought he would have been kicked to the curb a long time ago.

Over in Newark NJ the lives of three students, killed when two other students set fire to the dorm, don't seem to be worth a hellofa lot.  The two perps set fire after being sent out of the common room for unruly behaviour.  They tampered with witnesses and do not express remorse.  If they had gone to trial they stood to face up to 30 years, so they entered a plea and got....5 with the possibility of parole in 16 months.  Sounds like they got off with a song... and a smirk.  One can only wonder who they must be related to.

www.nytimes.com/2007/01/27/nyregion/27seton.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin

I don't have cable, or anything like that.  Is this a$$ still around.  Jeez, I would have thought he would have been kicked to the curb a long time ago.


I always despised Dennis Miller.  He is funny sometimes, but he has only one schtick:  mean-spirited creep trying to play it hip.  Thus, he was perfect for the right-wing media.  He had a show on CNBC, but even that failed.  He now does pro-war, anti-Muslim commentary on FOX News.  He is no longer a comedian.  He's just another hatemonger getting a paycheck from Newscorp.  They call it "Dennis Miller's Real Free Speech."  You know, because right-wingers always pretend they're victims of political correctness.  Miller's schtick is mostly I-hate-the-ragheads rhetoric.  He uses dumb similes all the time, which is annoying.  He said he stopped being a liberal because he got tired of using the word "but."
"I used more buts than a something something something on a something something something."

And it is true, liberals do say "but" quite a lot because liberals use sentences with more than one clause.

I always despised Dennis Miller.  He is funny sometimes, but he has only one schtick:  mean-spirited creep trying to play it hip.  Thus, he was perfect for the right-wing media.  He had a show on CNBC, but even that failed.  He now does pro-war, anti-Muslim commentary on FOX News.  He is no longer a comedian.  He's just another hatemonger getting a paycheck from Newscorp.  They call it "Dennis Miller's Real Free Speech."  You know, because right-wingers always pretend they're victims of political correctness.  Miller's schtick is mostly I-hate-the-ragheads rhetoric.  He uses dumb similes all the time, which is annoying.  He said he stopped being a liberal because he got tired of using the word "but."
"I used more buts than a something something something on a something something something."

And it is true, liberals do say "but" quite a lot because liberals use sentences with more than one clause.



I never liked Dennis Miller either. And I never thought he was funny. FYI: He usually appears on Bill O'Reilly on Weds. but he will be on vacation next week so you know who they will replace him with?  Hold on to your hat and get ready......Ann Coulter.  I'm sure everyone will now be setting their VCRs or TiVos or whatever they have so they don't miss it.  ::)




Cat

I never liked Dennis Miller either. And I never thought he was funny. FYI: He usually appears on Bill O'Reilly on Weds. but he will be on vacation next week so you know who they will replace him with?  Hold on to your hat and get ready......Ann Coulter.  I'm sure everyone will now be setting their VCRs or TiVos or whatever they have so they don't miss it.  ::)




Cat

Well, that's a bit of a busman's holiday, isn't it?
::)

Once in a while Miller says something witty.  His wit seems to be absent from his FOX commentary.  I think he's a burned out comic who just needed another gig.  I don't know why he's such an angry guy.  Probably unresolved mommy issues.

Coulter is never funny when she thinks she's being funny.  She is often funny because what she says is so off-the-charts absurd.  She has no credibility, but you know what?  She doesn't need it!  You only need "credibility" in places where you have tell the truth and document your assertions.  FOX News is not such a place.  If she wants to appear on FOX News every week, she's all set.  As long as people continue to buy her books, her publisher will continue to publish them.  Who doesn't like to make money?
::)

I notice one thing about Foo Bar's statistics:
Modern warfare kills a lot more innocents than combatants.


Sure, on a percentage basis - but on an absolute basis, it kills a hell of a lot fewer innocents and combatants, on both sides.

(Keep in mind that most of the Iraqi civilians dying these days aren't being killed by US troops. They're being blown up by other Iraqis, at the rate of about 50-100 per day by means of car bomb and death squad, and it costs Iraqi militiamen about 5-10 men per day in car bombs to do it.  US troops die at the rate of around 1-2 per day. The ratios have been almost constant over four years, and are consistent with the reported figures of 3000 US troops dead (and 15,000 militiamen dead from suicide, plus an unknown number dead from combat with US troops and Iraqi police forces) and around 100,000 Iraqi civilians dead (mostly at the hands of their own countrymen) over 4 years.

Sure, on a percentage basis - but on an absolute basis, it kills a hell of a lot fewer innocents and combatants, on both sides.

(Keep in mind that most of the Iraqi civilians dying these days aren't being killed by US troops. They're being blown up by other Iraqis, at the rate of about 50-100 per day by means of car bomb and death squad, and it costs Iraqi militiamen about 5-10 men per day in car bombs to do it.  US troops die at the rate of around 1-2 per day. The ratios have been almost constant over four years, and are consistent with the reported figures of 3000 US troops dead (and 15,000 militiamen dead from suicide, plus an unknown number dead from combat with US troops and Iraqi police forces) and around 100,000 Iraqi civilians dead (mostly at the hands of their own countrymen) over 4 years.

I don't care so much about who pulled the trigger and who denated the bomb.  What you see in Iraq are almost all war-related deaths.  The U.S. shares responsibility in these from 1991 to present.  Political decisions are just as much a part of warfare as military combat.

I'm not sure where you're coming from in that first sentence.  It doesn't make any sense.

I don't care so much about who pulled the trigger and who denated the bomb.  What you see in Iraq are almost all war-related deaths.  The U.S. shares responsibility in these from 1991 to present.  Political decisions are just as much a part of warfare as military combat.


And do we also share blame for the deaths in Somalia, former Yugoslavia, Philippines, Thailand, India, and every other area of the world where people are killing each other over religion?

How about Lebanon?  I seem to remember that we got involved there about 25 years ago as part of a UN Peacekeeping group, to stop the violence.  The end result was that we left after over 300 Marines and Sailors were blown up by those we were supposed to protect.

People really have lost touch with reality.  In less then 100 years, we have gone from wars in which 57,000 die in one day, to wars where less then 1/10 of that many die over an entire year.

And do we also share blame for the deaths in Somalia, former Yugoslavia, Philippines, Thailand, India, and every other area of the world where people are killing each other over religion?

How about Lebanon?  I seem to remember that we got involved there about 25 years ago as part of a UN Peacekeeping group, to stop the violence.  The end result was that we left after over 300 Marines and Sailors were blown up by those we were supposed to protect.

People really have lost touch with reality.  In less then 100 years, we have gone from wars in which 57,000 die in one day, to wars where less then 1/10 of that many die over an entire year.



It is still WAY too many.



Cat

People really have lost touch with reality.  In less then 100 years, we have gone from wars in which 57,000 die in one day, to wars where less then 1/10 of that many die over an entire year.
well, it's different if there's a reason to fight the war. if there's no good reason for it then one death is too many. it's a bit odd to say, well, america lost 400,000 people stopping nazism, so why worry about 3000 americans dying for... whatever they're dying for in iraq? (not to mention the iraqi casualties -- which hardly anyone ever does -- which are statistically quite more shocking...)

i personally don't think americans are as casualty-averse as politicians are always accusing them of being. let us know WHY we're doing it and we don't shirk from sacrifice. but when the rationale for the war falls apart, or when the government starts showing a disturbing pattern of fighting or abetting one war after another for obscure political gain (remember all that nonsense in central america under reagan?), you're gonna get a lot of people asking questions. it's not whether the sacrifice is too great, but whether it's worthwhile.

Perhaps x10 the number of soldiers wil die from combat-related causes in the years/decades following this war than will die at the time of the war: Complications from physiological traumas, radiation poisoning, and suicide.
The government won't count these deaths as war mortalities and the media will cringe from discussing them for fear of being called unpatriotic.  Especially radiation and suicide. The government will try and keep a lid on results of using depleted uranium products.  We don't like to talk about suicide because it's not something John Wayne would do.

More Vietnam veterans committed suicide in the decades after combat than all the direct combat mortalities combined.  Granted, some of these men committed suicide for reasons discrete from anything to do with their tours of duty.

well, it's different if there's a reason to fight the war. if there's no good reason for it then one death is too many.


Now you are leaving real political debate, and entering into the relm of personal morality and beliefs.

Remember, not even the vote to enter WWII after the US was attacked by Japan was unanamous.  And even in that war, there was a large "Anti War" movement.  And even Ghandi felt that the war was not justified.  In fact, he even encouraged Jews to willingly go into the death camps, thinking that eventually the Germans would get sick of killing them.

And in the Nroth, the American Civil War was largely unpopular.  There were even race riots, with blacks being lynched.  Because a large number of people simply thought that there was no reason to go to war with the South, simply for die in order to free slaves.

So yes, to some people even 1 death is to many.  Some people also seem to believe that some kind of Utopian fantasy is right around the corner, where brother will love brother, and we will all live in peace and harmony.

Myself, when somebody holds a gun to my head - I prefer to shoot him first.

who held a gun to bush's head and forced him to go into iraq, though?

i wouldn't call the antiwar movement in wwii "large." a lot of isolationist conservatives thought we should sit it out, yes, but after pearl harbor that was pretty much that. the handful of people who were against getting involved in the war were pretty much marginalized.

i wouldn't call the antiwar movement in wwii "large." a lot of isolationist conservatives thought we should sit it out, yes, but after pearl harbor that was pretty much that. the handful of people who were against getting involved in the war were pretty much marginalized.


Isolationist conservatives?  Hmmm, I can't remember ever hearing that term used in reference to the Quakers. 

In fact, some of the staunchest and most vocal anti-war groups were composed of Socialist and Communist groups.  Well, at least until June 1941, when Operation Barbarossa started.  Until then, most Socialist groups in the US were strongly anti-war, seeing the conflict then in Europe and Asia as "colonial wars", in which the US had no business being involved in.  And I would hardly call these groups "Conservatives".

Of course, other "Anti War" groups were such organizations as the German-American Bund.

So why do we even occasionally bother with the thought that life is sacrosanct and taking life is the worst thing someone can do?  Logical it certainly ain't, but then Homo sapiens has never been the most logical of creatures, has he?


P.S.  Where do I stand?  I don't believe all lives have equal worth and that people have an equal "right to life"; however, I also don't believe there is anyone or anything capable of making these judgments, and anybody who thinks they *are* worthy of judging the worth of someone else's life either has way too much ego or is some kind of insane.  It would be nice to believe that there was some kind of judicious God able to weigh each life in the balance, but being "nice to believe" doesn't make it so.  Unfortunately.



  Humans are capable of empathy.  We know what it is like to feel pain and we know that others are capable of feeling pain...

  We instinctively value our own life.  We want to live and we know that others value their life....

  Humans evolved to survive in societies.  The society is very important to the survival of the individual...

  For a society to exist there must be cohesion and order....

  To ensure order society must place value on life...

  We don't want to be harmed and we want to be treated fairly.  The best way to ensure that we are not harmed is if everyone values everyone's life....

  We value society because society increases our likelihood of survival.  Society requires other humans.  We must value other humans to benefit society and to increase the likelihood of our own existence....

  My simplistic and incomplete explanation of why humans value other humans groove ;) on...

who held a gun to bush's head and forced him to go into iraq, though?


The same one who is holding a gun to his head and forcing him to go to Iran.  I mean, we have no choice but to make war on Iran 'coz the leader is a very, very bad man and he's trying to make an atomic bomb.  Sound....familiar?

Rock me Ahmadinejad!
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/12/headbang.gif

who held a gun to bush's head and forced him to go into iraq, though?


Well, it may not have been nessicary if the UN had done it's damned job.  But the "UN Resolutions" were a joke.  The UN has sadly become so corrupt, that Saddam could have announced that he intended to kill every Kurd in Iraq on television, and they would have done nothing about it.  As long as the oil and bribe money kept pouring into their pockets.

The list of UN Resolutions that Iraq violated is to long to even list.  And nobody seemed to give a damn.  And is it really any surprise that the countries that opposed enforcing the resolutions (France and Russia) also happened to be the countries that gained the most through those programs?

Or should we have kept ignoring what was going on there?  People starving as the "Humanitarian Relief" went straight into the hands of Saddam's supporters, and the Shi'te, Druze, and Kurds were marched into mass graves.  Saddam building yet another multi-million dollar palace, as his people starved.  The entire time, blaming the starvation on the US.

I simply can't understand how somebody can look at the mass graves that have been found all over that country, and think we should not have gone in.

Would the world be better if the US suddenly went "Isolationist"?  No longer send it's military anywhere outside of the US borders.  No more operations like Yugoslavia, Afganistan, SOmalia, Korea, Indonesia, Cyprus, or anywhere else.

Let's go a step farther.  Let's refuse to allow any US Corporation from investing money in any foreign countries.  If they have crumbling infrastructures, let them crumble.  After all, it is not our responsibility, it is not our fault, it is not our problem.

hey! it's the blame-the-UN-first crowd! ;D

"Or should we have kept ignoring what was going on there?  People starving as the "Humanitarian Relief" went straight into the hands of Saddam's supporters, and the Shi'te, Druze, and Kurds were marched into mass graves.  Saddam building yet another multi-million dollar palace, as his people starved.  The entire time, blaming the starvation on the US.

I simply can't understand how somebody can look at the mass graves that have been found all over that country, and think we should not have gone in."

"we're" ignoring all sorts of humanitarian tragedies all over the world. it's just so sadly obvious that "we" invaded iraq because it's strategically significant and not because of humanitarian concerns. it's a conversation we've already had a million times -- all through the 80s the SAME PEOPLE, largely, were in the reagan administration giving hussein a wink and a nod while he did our dirty work against iran. sure he gassed people by the thousands. did reagan and bush sr. and those guys care then? no. but he invaded kuwait and then suddenly we care. because he was getting so many green lights from the republican oil guys he got cocky and overreached. but iraq, a humanitarian intervention? it's just... not. sorry.

i mean, come on, how many times are we gonna go down this road?

hey! it's the blame-the-UN-first crowd! ;D

"we're" ignoring all sorts of humanitarian tragedies all over the world.


I do not "blame" the UN.  I blame the corruption in the UN.  I really wish that the UN was the strong force that it was 50 years ago.  But it is not.  They pass resolution after resolution, and never do anything to enforce them.  As long as the beaurocrats get rich from insider contracts and vote buying, they do not care.  North Korea even detonates a nuclear bomb, and they do nothing about it.

Maybe if the UN found a way to get a spine, I would start to pay attention to it.  The UN that stopped fighting in Korea and Cyprus is not the UN we have today.

And I myself have talked about many incidents I think us (meaning the UN, or the US) should be involved in.  Darfur, Somalia, Sudan, the list goes on.  Myself, I think that the UN should create a "Strike Force", to intervene in any instance where claims of genocide and slavery take place.  A multinational force to step into places where such things happen, and put an end to it.  But that will never happen, because they are more interested in placing the blame.  After all, it is easier to come in after all the fighting is over.  Nobody complains when half of the people involved are resting in graves.

Personally, I think some of the worst "tragedies" the US has been involved in over the last 17 years are about situations where it did not do enough.  When the Soviets left Afganistan, we did not do anything to help them rebuild their country.  They descended into anarchy.  When we got involved in firefights in Somalia, we ran away.  An estimated quarter of a million bodies later, they are still slaughtering each other.

And even earlier, we left Lebanon in 1984, leaving a shattered country with no government.  Once again Lebanon is a haven for terrorists, which continues to attack it's neighbors.  And people still riot and kill each other in the streets.

Yes, we do not get involved in every conflict in the world.  Does that mean we should never get involved?  Should we turn isolationist and ignore everything that goes on?  Because there seems to be no middle ground.

If we get involved, people scream that we should mind our own business.  If we ignore things, people scream about how can we sit back and let things happen.

Seems to me that no matter what, we loose.

Personally, I would rather loose, and be on the side that tries to prevent the loss of more life.  As the old saying goes, "It takes 2 to have a fight".  And as is happening in Iraq and Afganistan, the vast majority of deaths are by other Iraqi citizens.

So should we ignore it?  Should we leave, and allow the country to descent into anrachy?  Where Shi'te and Sunni slaughter each other indiscriminately?  Where Kurds and Druze are caught in the crossfire, because they are neither of the main groups?  How can somebody actually complain that we do not do enough to help end suffering, yet insist we leave a country to dissolve into an all-out bloody civil war?

dude, talking about corruption in the UN but shrugging off all the corruption in the current adminsitration -- which is what you get if you take the "corruption" in the UN and add at least one more zero to the dollar figures involved -- what am i supposed to do with that?

and where is this UN strike force supposed to come from? the UN is a deliberating body, not a military junta.

as usual, we're talking past each other. you want a MORE interventionist US foreign policy, which is unbelievably interventionist already -- but to me, i don't see how that's going to be productive until we start questioning why the government decides to get involved in the particular conflicts that it does. i mean, yes, the republicans invaded iraq and are currently ignoring sudan. the real question is, why? you seem to be operating under the presumption that the government is acting, albeit often ineptly or unevenly, with the world's best interests at heart. but to me i see a self-serving foreign policy, where if there's something to be gained financially then the US intervenes (like in iraq, which is famously sitting on a sea of unexploited oil), whereas in sudan, it's their problem.

this isn't random. there's a reason why the bush administration intervened in one and not the other. and from where i'm sitting, humanitarian concerns rather plainly have nothing to do with it.

until we get to the bottom of this question of motivations, i'm just not certain that a hyperactive US foreign policy where we've got cluster bombs flying hither and yon for peace, i just don't see the point. because unless the government is actually and sincerely interested in creating peace in the world rather than making war for big bucks, which is what this iraq misadventure looks like, i mean... how does that help, exactly?

and where is this UN strike force supposed to come from? the UN is a deliberating body, not a military junta.


Then what are "UN Peacekeeping Forces"?  You know, those guys in the Blue Berets, who try to act like traffic cops in the middle of war zones.

They have been very effective in the past.  Korea, Cyprus, Arab-Israeli War, India-Pakistan War, even the Yemen Civil War.  In each of these conflicts, they were decisive in putting an end to conflict, and helping to restore stability to the area (if only for a short time).  This was also the organization that intervened in the Iraq-Kuwait war in 1990-1991.

However, looking at the 1990's, it is apparent that the UN is becomming less effective.  2 interventions in Somalia, both of them retreats.  2 interventions in Rwanda (where they left after they realized they could not stop the genocide - only to return and leave again).  Croatia (where they were basically evicted by the government of Croatia).  3 interventions in Haiti.  4 interventions in Ethiopia.  Liberia (where they ignored a bloody civil war for almost 3 years).

And still no intervention in Darfur.  An estimated 400,000 have died in Darfur (at least 20 times the number of all fatalities in the Iraq war), and the UN has yet to do anything.  Darfur has also become a leading source of slaves, but the UN does nothing about it.

A UN Report admitted that there were mass murders, mass rapes, and systematic killings done in Darfur.  But they refuse to consider it a genocide, because "genocidal intent appears to be missing".

Meanwhile, the bodies pile up.  And the world says nothing.

Then what are "UN Peacekeeping Forces"?  You know, those guys in the Blue Berets, who try to act like traffic cops in the middle of war zones.

aren't these troops actually contributed by specific countries? what am i missing here?

However, looking at the 1990's, it is apparent that the UN is becomming less effective.  2 interventions in Somalia, both of them retreats.  2 interventions in Rwanda (where they left after they realized they could not stop the genocide - only to return and leave again).  Croatia (where they were basically evicted by the government of Croatia).  3 interventions in Haiti.  4 interventions in Ethiopia.  Liberia (where they ignored a bloody civil war for almost 3 years).

And still no intervention in Darfur.  An estimated 400,000 have died in Darfur (at least 20 times the number of all fatalities in the Iraq war), and the UN has yet to do anything.  Darfur has also become a leading source of slaves, but the UN does nothing about it.

A UN Report admitted that there were mass murders, mass rapes, and systematic killings done in Darfur.  But they refuse to consider it a genocide, because "genocidal intent appears to be missing".

Meanwhile, the bodies pile up.  And the world says nothing.
well, it's pretty apparent bush doesn't care. and it's not like there are any us troops to spare anyway. they're all in iraq.

if you're really so outraged about darfur, you should be out there trying to put an end to the iraq war. because it's plain that's where all THIS nation's resources are going.

and i'm seriously not sure what you're saying. who are these people who are supposed to be part of the "un force"? what country are they from? because my understanding is that the UN sends forces collected from specific countries that are IN the UN. if there are people who are actually BORN in the UN and therefore available for some "UN force" that's independent of any specific constituent country, i'd be curious what their motivation might be. ;D

this is what i mean when i say the UN is a deliberating body, not a military force in and of itself. as far as i know, any time the UN intervenes somewhere, it does so by actually finding countries that are willing to contribute their forces to the project.