Erm...does disagreeing with the war mean that I hate America? Cause if so, that's plankton.

*Claps*

Well said, and I completey respect your views, for the most part.

I have no idea how gay marriage was thrown into this, however I will give my view on this.

1. I'd rather not see too males or females showing signs of sexual affection in public, however during the current time, many Americans do, but I have yet to see two males do so, and I certainly don't want too.

2. I do not support both wars, however I am forced to admit that the fact that Iraq was harboring possible terrorists was enough reason, but then again, I don't like how so many civillians get killed in war. So if we had ever had a vote as a nation, and I had been of legal voting age, I would have voted against it.

3. I don't consider Osama a fanatic, because of what is he a fanatic. Islam? Surely not, Islam is a peaceful religion, it teaches absolutely no hatred for others.

4. I like peanut butter and jelly.

I've red all of this and I still can't believe my cat juggling eyes... of all people here, Jona, I would least suspect that you're the one who views world in such black and white contrasts - if you're a military commander (I susspect it, from that post up there) then even worse. First of all, do you stop just for 1 second to think about your colleagues from the other side, the 'commies' or 'martians' or whatewer ?! Are they robots maybe, or are they also people with human emotions and human fears ?! Say, don't you think that China also might be viewing USA, a technologicaly superior nation, as a threat to itself (funny how that would be so, because there is such a great part of US industry in China ) and maybe, just maybe, they are building up their arsenals to protect their own interests ? And forget about the Far East, how 'bout the whole damn world ? See, everyone in the world has interests. Everyone in the frikkin world loves it's country and has feelings for it, no matter if it's big or small - so USA is not solely entitled to be the cradle of righteousness or the world's policeman; however, there is the question of why Iraq, Yugoslavia and many other happy things have took place over the years... much of it is to blame on itself, true, but a big part falls upon shoulders of wrong foreign policy of the US. See, all my life I hated that damn s.o.b. Milosevic, who is now sitting in Hague and acting like a bloody patriot, and I've done in my days what little I could to  fight against his regime. Did I and the entire serbian opposition get some solid help from the outside ? No - instead, everything was polarised against us, and even now people see the Serbs as DEVILS. The same polarisation thing has gone down in Iraq, with the exception that now they face civil war because they have opposing faiths within islam that drive each other into a bloodbath - and second military intervention didn't help that one little bit, it just drove the entire land even deeper into the void.
The entire thing, however, isn't that frightening as the fact that polarisation and narrowmindness continues still. See, you can be sure of one thing here, Jona: I am a Bush-hater. In my eyes Geroge W. represents completely misunderstood concept of foreign policy that acts arogantly and denies some more open-minded nations the will to help fight against common enemy - terrorism. When bulk of serbian police and military forces fought Kosovo's albanian separatist forces (a great number of them was getting aid from Osama himself) in 1998. some of them did crimes against civilians - in similar way some of your soldiers tortured prisoners - but those exceptions, along with the popular viewing of Serbs as 'butchers' and 'genocidal nation', made foundation for NATO intervention in 1999. - again, a lot was to blame on our own politicians, but that was no excuse to send bomber formations against factories, railroads, communications; heck, my own street was targeted and bombed ! I had cluster bombs in front of my own front yard ! So... after all that, should I be angered against the whole United States and wish foolishly, like some in my land, that things like 9/11 should happen to you more often ?! Should I be that narrowminded ? Should I be angry ?
No. I simply know that everyone in the world has interests; everyone loves his/hers home and everyone would do anything to defend it - but that should be the point that makes us all stop and think bloody hard and try to be more tolerant towards each other. For those who see entire nations as hostile I say: "Picture can never be just black & white - there are always shades of gray", and for those who revel in some things, like revenge, I say: "vengeance and justice, like guilt and responsibility, are two different things".

p.s. : As for the "walk in the boots" part I did a long, 9-month walk, and I can say with some certainty that military does brainwash you a little - or a lot, if you allow yourself that - but that is entirely individual choice.

p.s. II: Oh, and if this whole shebang I wrote doesen't make much sence to youz'all or even anger some of you, fine - I was also angry when I watched the video shoot of a completely burned-up bus with 19 civilian casualties back in '99. when the AGM that took out the bridge took out the bus, too. See, soldiers follow orders of their commanders, who also take orders from highest politicians, and they don't have to think about collateral damage - but families of the dead have to. So there you go - feel free to be pi**ed off and then check to see if I care.

p.s. III : One more time - GUILT and RESPONSIBILITY are two separate things. I believe that soldiers guilty for those tortures have to answer and that their CO's also hold some responsibility for their actions (not entirely, of course) - but that doesen't make everyone in the US Army responsible for that crime. There is no logic in so called 'collective blame', because there is no such thing as 'collective blame', damnit.

EDIT: what the heck, honored user ?!? He is no honored user, he is a horses [CENSORED]

Before you go yelling at me and rambleing on about how the world would be better without bush please get this into your mind. You have no right to insult me here in this calm thread. We are to discuss this in a readable manner. Try fixing your post and then we'll talk.

I believe that war sucks, but I respect those who fight in it, and I admire them to no end. To have that bravery, you command my respect. I think that Afghanistan was a totally justified war, as America (My home, which I LOVE) was attacked, and three thousand innocent people died, by the hands of cowardly terrorrists.

I believe that Iraq was a false war, mounted by false facts and a corrupt, evil administration. IRAQ never attacked us, ever!! Darfur has genocide, but we don't go in there, so the argument "Well, Saddam gassed his own people", is completely [censored] moot.

Iraq may have hated us, BUT THEY NEVER ATTACKED US. They didn't harbor terrorists, but now they do, because of this war. Iraq was a secularist regime, that didn't like religon.

Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, on the other hand, are diehard religous fanatics, who hate us because we invaded their homeland. (When we placed a military base in Saudi Arabia.)

I respect and love and admire the troops, and love my country. Because I do not support this war, does not mean I do not supoort the troops.
Thank you.

I have no idea how gay marriage was thrown into this, however I will give my view on this.

1. I'd rather not see too males or females showing signs of sexual affection in public, however during the current time, many Americans do, but I have yet to see two males do so, and I certainly don't want too.

Before you go yelling at me and rambleing on about how the world would be better without bush please get this into your mind. You have no right to insult me here in this calm thread. We are to discuss this in a readable manner. Try fixing your post and then we'll talk.

Well said Channler.

Now to the point of me "supposedly" being insulted. You are insulting me when you speak badly about, my family, my country, or the people I respect( president, fellow soldiers, friends ect). Thats why i have been insulted. Its the meaning behind the words Alex. Not the words themselves.

Now to the Gay marriage issue. Lets talk about that and stay on it untill someone wishes to begin another topic. There is to be no use of Religion or "its this presidents fault" in this topic. Understood? Good.

Stargelman: bad. You're not the one setting the policy of this forum.
Gay marriage, Good or bad, legal or illegal, why or why not? Begin.

I used to imagine Jona as a happy and cheery guy, now I imagine him to be like....22 with a flat top cut and waving a big ol' American flag, while standing beside the white house....with Bush's autograph.      

And to Kiln - my stance on the wars in discussion here (Iraq and Afghanistan) I believe neither had sufficient justification. I feel that war with Afghanistan was not worth finding one man, and that the reasons behind the Iraq war were completely fabricated (WMDs? What WMDs? Ah, lets just say that we wanted to topple an evil dictator.). I also believe that both wars have been instrumental in causing an increase in global terrorism - attacks on islamic nations will undoubted provide ammunition for those extremists wanting to convince muslims to commit terrorism attacks.

Oh, and on a side note, the train station which my dad uses every day (Birmingham Snow-Hill) was evacuated recently after a bomb scare. An off-duty police officer had seen a man with a suspicious package acting strangely, but it turned out that he was completely innocent. It just goes to show how nervous the british public have already become since te London attacks.

Just to add to this, the man they shot in the tube has turned out to be an innocent Brazilian. Now they were very quick to jump in front of the camera's and make statements the other day praising the police for their quick action in taking him down, I seriously doubt they'll be quite so eager to make statements now. What can they say? "Oops." Another example of flawed intelligence.

"In the immediate aftermath, the Met said the man had come under police observation after he "had emerged from a house that was itself under observation". His "clothing and his behaviour at the station" fuelled police suspicions and he was killed after fleeing the plainclothes officers when they challenged him.

But yesterday's statement said only that the man had "emerged from a block of flats under surveillance", suggesting that he may have been entirely innocent. Later the Met again amended their account, saying the man had emerged from a house in Tulse Hill. "

Anyone who wants to read about it, here's a couple of links.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/attackonlondon/s...1535246,00.html

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article301232.ece

It shouldn't have happened, Mr. George W. was acting on inaccurate intelligence when he started the long drawn out war. 

But Ithink somthing they would have learned by now is that all third world countries ar made up of stupid people.

I just had to pull this quote out of jonajosa's post - is this a typo (missing out the word "not") or are you really saying you think that everyone in third world countries are stupid? If you are, then... no words I can say could ever express how contemptible that sentiment is.

I just had to pull this quote out of jonajosa's post - is this a typo (missing out the word "not") or are you really saying you think that everyone in third world countries are stupid? If you are, then... no words I can say could ever express how contemptible that sentiment is.

Anyway, on to the rest of your big post - you really need to take a look at some of the issues being addressed here from a non-american view . I know it's natural to see everything from the viewpoint of your own country, but a lot of what you say is making the assumption that america is better than all the other countries, that it has the best government, and that it's way of doing things is always best, and naturally this is simply not true. In the world of international affairs, no country is ever wholy right because every country looks to engineer the situation which is best for itself (which is only natural, as each country is bound to look out for its own people). The assumption of US superiority is leading to all kinds of other assumptions, such as the assumption that the UN method is wrong, and that the state of affairs after the Iraq war is better than it was before the war.

In the interests of getting a balanced viewpoint, thinking about the issues from the point of view of other involved parties is very valuable.

Oh, and can I just say Chumbaniya, that was the kind of post we've been hoping to see here. That was very well put, and should hopefully lead to the kind of debate that might be productive. We don't want or expect everyone's views to be the same, but that kind of tone is helpful to provoking a rational debate, rather than outrage from opposing viewpoints.

Oh, and can I just say Chumbaniya, that was the kind of post we've been hoping to see here. That was very well put, and should hopefully lead to the kind of debate that might be productive. We don't want or expect everyone's views to be the same, but that kind of tone is helpful to provoking a rational debate, rather than outrage from opposing viewpoints.

Teenage girls ARE human beings, and they do stupid things, its part of being a teenager.  You can't blame them for being pregnant,

Saying you can't blame a teenage girl for having sex, just because of her age is like saying I can't blame Hitler for killing Jews just because he was crazy. A teenage girl is more than old enough to know what can happen from having sex.

It's their fault for being pregnant, because they decided to have sex. And since they ARE human beings, they should be responsible for their stupid mistakes like human beings.

Okay, so punishment for their "mistake" is to be forced the shame of their parents, and a life of burden raising a child, so their entire future can just waste away.

The alterative: they die because they assume the person they're going to knows how to give an abortion, and of course they're wrong because there's no way to tell if somepne is certified for an illegal act.

That's not the way teenage society works.  I'm a teenager, and like most intelligent teenagers my age, I carry a couple condoms in my wallet.  I have never used them but I do go to parties where there is alcohol served and like any other crappy town that most people live in, there's nothing to do if your teenager except go to parties, and at most parties there is alcohol, and it takes a whole lot of will-power to resist the urges of your friends to drink alcohol, will-power most people don't have.

People will get pregnant that don't want to get pregnant, there's absolutely nothing we can do about that, what we can do, however, is stop them from seeing someone with a rusty clothes hanger and give them the opportunity to have a safe abortion.  It's the cure to what has been a long problem, and yet people still want to illegalize it.

Hmm something caught my attention here,  I normally avoid participating in this thread.