Well said.
But I do, with respect, take issue with one point. Being a physcopath
wanting to live in a lawless society if you wanted to settle the frontier.
There were the odd balls, but the fact remains that many deceint individuals
paved the way for many generations that followed. They did a marvellous
work and made a lot of sacrifices in the process.
I would like to think that I would have been one of them (the decient ones).
Sorry to intrude in a thread, but I am not sure about how Mexico feels
from
having been robbed of California, Texas, New Mexico, etc. by a
democratic
country. I’m not sure whether the U.S.A. formally declared war, or
just
considered themselves attacked by the provocations of the mexican army
that
denied the rightful occupation of mexican ground by innocent
americans,
Mexico was not a country, even by the standards of the time (and
certainly not a country by today’s standards), neither was the U.S.A.
The Americas (certainly, until the latter half of the 19th century) were
frontier’s. Frontier’s are characterized as unsettled areas, that are
essentially lawless. Without the rule of law a democracy cannot exists.
period.
but
it seem, from outside, that the U.S. of A. did attack Mexico.
No country, no democracy, hence, not relevant.
Do not feel too bad about it,
Don’t worry I don’t. I didn’t participate, my ancestors did not
participate, and I would not have participated, if I had been alive at
the time. Psychopathic individuals are those most likely to be drawn to
lawless areas (witness the famous outlaws of the time).
France and the U.K. did the same to get their
former colonies. Send priest, merchants, adventurers, then breed
trouble,
and when the local government complains, pretend to be offended and
declare
war.
The U.K. is technically still a monarchy. Monarchies are the antithesis
of democracies. They (the UK) are practically a democracy now, but only
after the first true modern democracy (The United States) paved the way
for parliamentary reform in the British Isles.
Much to my shame (well, more truthfully to my amusement) the 1870 war
between France and Germany was formally initiated by France. Not so
much of
a republic at the time, but then is U.K. a democratic country? If yes,
so
was France at the time.
Neither were practicing democracies at the time. Again the UK is
technically still not a democracy.
Still you could argue that U.S. intervention in Panama was not war,
but then
How many innocent civilians (i.e. excluding the highly paid armed thugs
protecting Noriega) were killed by this action, let’s see could it be…
NONE ?
How many opposition candidates were beaten tortured and killed by
Noriega leading up to the intervention ? (hundreds)
How many psychopathic drug dealers were captured ? (1)
What percentage of Panamanian citizens supported the action ? (92%), not
to mention the fact that the PCZ was U.S. sovereign territory at the
time (via internationally recognized agreement).
what about Saddam Hussein intervention in Kuwait ? If it was not war,
then a
whole bunch of democratic countries initiated war.
Let me see uhhhh, who initiated that war ? (hint: by invading a
neighboring sovereign nation).
Let us be reallistic, initiating a war from a democratic country is
just a
bit more tricky, but we did it manytimes, and shall do it again.
Nope. Initiating wars in a true democracy, is not tricky, it is darned
near impossible.
I should have added that France and the U.K. and later the U.S. of A.
did
declare war on Germany during WWII. My point is that in that case
Hitler
provoqued the reaction even if he did not do the act.
Uhhh, let’s see, who initiated W.W.II ? (hint: by invading SEVERAL
neighboring sovereign nations)
In the case of Japan,
the U.S.A. did provoque Japan by denying fuel supply, and Japan
attacked.
-
Uhhh, let’s see, who initiated the American involvement in W.W.II ?
(hint: by bombing the military base of another SOVEREIGN NATION)
-
Why was the U.S. denying fuel to Japan ?(could it be because Japan
had recently INVADED SEVERAL SOVEREIGN NATIONS).
Now it was probably right to hinder Japan, and it was the simpler way
for
Roosevelt to involve the U.S.A. in WWII, whether or not the majority
wanted
that. So much for democracies preventing war.
I fail to see how you have come even remotely close to making any kind
of a point here.
Please note that I carefully tried not to judge whether the war was
right or
not. In the later case it seems to be right (understatement), and we
could
find good or less good reasons for Panama, Mexico, and so on.
By the way didn’t you had Civil War and Indian Wars ?
The Civil war is not, and cannot be viewed as one nation initiating war
against another, since it is a war within a nation. Clearly, any nation
that experiences a civil war is not a functioning democracy. The U.S.
was not a fully functioning democracy until about 100 years after the
declaration of independence (which can only be viewed as the intention
to establish and maintain a democracy). If a nation could become
democratic simply by declaring that fact on a piece of paper, there
might be a lot of democracies around. If you are Mexican, then you DO
NOT live in a democratic country (one free election does not a democracy
make). In 20 to 50 years assuming that citizens of Mexico remain
vigilant, you might have a functioning democracy (as an aside, England
took it’s first step toward democracy with the Magna Carta in 1217, and
they didn’t become a fully practicing democracy until the very end of
the 19th century - so if Mexico can do it in 20 - 50 years, rather than
600, they should consider themselves lucky). Democracy is an on-going
process, it is always fragile, and (if you read any of my other posts)
you will know that my main point is that each and every one of us are
responsible for ensuring it’s survival.
Finally, the point I was trying to make by asking how many wars had been
initiated by democracies, was not to somehow show American citizens as
some morally superior class of homosapiens, but (when all of the wars
which I know happened in the last 500 years were brought up) to show
that democracy is a very rare, and valuable commodity, since the answer
to the (admittedly trick) question is that there has been essentially NO
FUNCTIONING DEMOCRACIES IN THE LAST 500 YEARS - as measured by
(democracy-years)/(person-lifespan)). The democracies that exist today
are but a blip in history.
–
Volny DE PASCALE
EBIM S.A.
ZI Saint-Joseph
FR-04100 MANOSQUE
email > volny.de.pascale@ebim.fr
Tel. 33 (0)4 92 72 18 66 - Fax 33 (0)4 92 87 31 86
“Rennie Allen” <> RAllen@csical.com> > a écrit dans le message news:
64F00D816A85D51198390050046F80C9B565@exchangecal.hq.csical.com> …
Remember that it often is not amount of men/women, but their
spirit.
Their readiness and willingness to fight to death. France had much
better economy, supplies and technology than Poland, but polish gave
Hitler more resistance. I believe they held Warsaw for a month. In
Russia it took germans 280 days of siege and several unsuccesfull
attacks to capture Sebastopol (in Crimea peninsula) and there was no
‘cold weather’ factor there. They never managed to capture Leningrad
despite 900 days of siege.
I know it is popular (especially amongst non-French Europeans > 
> to
characterize the French during W.W.II as “wet noodles”, but (IMO) this
is simply not true. It is certainly true that the French military
command was (almost criminally) unprepared to fight W.W.II, but the
soldiers in the French army have been reported to have fought
heroically
in nearly every action for which I have read accounts. In Dunkirk,
for
example, fierce (hand to hand combat in many cases) rear actions by
the
French played a significant role in slowing the advance of the German
divisions (although these soldiers clearly knew their ultimate fate,
and
could have retreated to join the evacuation). Their sacrifice played
a
significant role in the success of the evacuation, without which,
Hitler’s rampage over North Africa and the Mediterranean would have
gone
largely unchallenged, and with this larger geographic base, the war
could easily have gone the other way (and Leningrad eventually taken,
in
however costly a fashion). No, the French military might have made
serious strategic errors, but their willingness to fight should not be
questioned, nor the individual sacrifices of soldiers forgotten or
trivialized. As for the civilian French population, the nature of the
invasion of France was so different than any other situation in
W.W.II,
that there simply was not an opportunity to offer any resistance of
the
type undertaken in Warsaw or Sebastopol. The French population
undertook a successful program of subterfuge as the only reasonable
form
of resistance given the circumstance; while it was not as dramatic as
a
seige, it was ultimately quite effective.
Rennie
> (