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1. It has been a golden age in the last 65 years, more people died in WWII than every war since combined. Look at statistics of population vs war casualties.
2. I never said they saved Europe alone.
3. After WWII the US built bases all over Germany and Japan and changed their government to make it difficult for them to repeat what they did before. 65 years of peace doesn't forgive 30 some million people dying the US can hardly be blamed for killing 30 some million people out of belligerence and then labeled at the bottom of peace.
4. Many Japanese would have rather died than surrender unlike any other nation. They didn't even surrender days after the first atomic bomb. Any other nation would have used the bomb rather than assault the main island, millions died assaulting other tiny islands.
Don't try to pin me as a conservative Bush lover. I didn't want to go to war in Iraq. I admitted the US is a bully just not nearly to the extent others have been in the past. I would cut our military budget and bases in half. I'm tired of using our money to be the world's police while the rest of the world especially the cocksure 18 year old European liberals on this forum hate on us and come up with these BS posts like the US being one of the most anti peaceful nations. I'd love to see Europe take the lead again in securing world peace like they had before 1945 so we can return to our economy while sitting in the back comfortably removed from the war thousands of miles away and criticize how terrible a job they are doing keeping rogue belligerent nations in check.
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KillerPenguin, the US doesn't police the world. It bullies the world. And it is exactly the same under the democrats as under the republicans. Actually, the democrats may be better at it because they are smarter at diplomacy and can get away with much more.
US has bases all over the world. I think they are 650 in total. Why aren't there 650 foreigner power bases in the US? The relation the US has with all these other countries are unequal and not voluntarily. Most bases the US has are opposed by the population of that country and the US extorts the government of such a country into accepting it.
Two big examples are Japan and Saudi Arabia. US bases in Saudi Arabia prevent democracy in Saudi Arabia and caused 9/11. Bases in Japan prevent democracy in Japan from functioning as well as several governments have been brought down by the US by refusing to respect the demands of the Japanese population.
And let's not forget that the Iraqi and Afghan population also strongly oppose US troops in their country. If the US respects democracy so much why don't they respect the democratic wishes of these people?
I also can't believe you defend the atom bombs. You are immoral.
We aren't going to be worse off with China 'policing' the world, despite China's atrocious human rights record. At least China has a different attitude when it comes to the world and they don't think they own the world. China has been the most powerful 'country' in the world ever since the fall of the roman empire. All that time isolationism has dominated China's foreign policy. Until they were utterly destroyed by western powers the moment western powers became more powerful than China.
The US has never been humiliated. Until they are, they are as dangerous as prewar Germany or Japan. Remember, the Germans were the most civilized country in the world. They had the best artists, scientists, writers, philosophers, etc. Yet they plunged the world into two WWs.
If you look at the research data you see the attitudes of the people of a country defeated in war is very different. This is also a problem with Israel. Israel knows it will win every war. So it tries to solve every problem through war. Might makes right. Israel won't negotiate as long as they don't have to.
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On November 22 2010 23:46 KillerPenguin wrote:
1. It has been a golden age in the last 65 years, more people died in WWII than every war since combined. Look at statistics of population vs war casualties.
2. I never said they saved Europe alone.
3. After WWII the US built bases all over Germany and Japan and changed their government to make it difficult for them to repeat what they did before. 65 years of peace doesn't forgive 30 some million people dying the US can hardly be blamed for killing 30 some million people out of belligerence and then labeled at the bottom of peace.
4. Many Japanese would have rather died than surrender unlike any other nation. They didn't even surrender days after the first atomic bomb. Any other nation would have used the bomb rather than assault the main island, millions died assaulting other tiny islands.
Don't try to pin me as a conservative Bush lover. I didn't want to go to war in Iraq. I admitted the US is a bully just not nearly to the extent others have been in the past. I would cut our military budget and bases in half. I'm tired of using our money to be the world's police while the rest of the world especially the cocksure 18 year old European liberals on this forum hate on us and come up with these BS posts like the US being one of the most anti peaceful nations. I'd love to see Europe take the lead again in securing world peace like they had before 1945 so we can return to our economy while sitting in the back comfortably removed from the war thousands of miles away and criticize how terrible a job they are doing keeping rogue belligerent nations in check.
1. So the last 65 years were great, because less people died during that time than in WWII? WHAT?
You should also take into account that you do not need a war to have a crappy live. Just look at the billions of malnourished people or people who are oppressed for some reason.
2. No. You just said, that europe could have dealt easily with hitler, but almost the entire continent caved in. The bigger achievement of the US than defeating Hitler was the rebuilding of Europe after the war, which would not have been possible without them.
3. You are aware that the US wanted to REARM west germany against the russians? You are aware that the NUKES, that can be fired by german tornados are provided by the US Army? You are also aware that at least part of the german population regularly demonstrated for disarmament during the cold war?
And about your "65 years of peace doesnt forgive" point:
Does not forgive whom? The german population of today? Maybe my oldest grandfather, who was 16 (!) years old when he had to join the wehrmacht in 45?
Also you should realize, that the index only rates the RECENT situation.
4. Hillarious :D
Lots of the problems of today are at least linked to actions of the US and russia in the past.
The US trained the muslim fundamentalists to fight against russia. Leaving them in power after the russians retreated from afghanistan.
Remember who armed saddham hussein? (Also remember who is the biggest arms dealer on the planet and who is one of the nations that opposes the ban on anti-personal mines?) Remember who helped the Iran against saddham hussein? I have to admit that germany also makes a nice amount of money selling weapons and that some of iraqs missiles were "made in germany", but nowadays it is enough for us to sell them to greece and turkey. (Who have some kind of tiny cold war at the moment).
And pls don't kid yourself when you are saying that the US is securing the world. The US ,and of course Europe too, is fighting to keep the world peaceful ... for its citizens. We need resources that are on other countries soil to keep up or way of living. (Again which country had the highest CO2 emission / capita?). If we want to be rich, someone else has to be poor.
Another thing is, that your definition of peace maybe lacking a bit. It is not only about wars, but also about freedom of press, quality of life, crime rate and prison population. And the US has the highest prison population / citizen in the world. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison#Population_statistics )
Also you shouldnt throw around the word "liberal". European politics is a bit more complex than just voting for one of two options. The liberal party in germany for example, would be middle/right wing, while it may be totally different in the netherlands or in sweden.
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I agree with most of that Almeisan though some of it not to the same extent and Japan and the US were very isolationist also until they became a dominant superpower and then their attitude changed. Like all people that go from a submissive to dominant role the Chinese attitude will change if they become the world military leader. They will treat others the same or worse than the way they treat themselves. For now they are caught up in their economic optimism bubble and would hate for anything to jeopardize their growth.
As I said before, if the Emperor of Japan had not surrendered because of the atom bombs the 75 million Japanese more than any other nation would have fought to the death, most of the Japanese on islands chose to fight to the death or commit suicide rather than surrender. I can't believe you would rather have seen millions of people die while the US tried to capture Japan rather than only 200k Japanese civilians. The end does justify the means, Truman said it was his most difficult decision but it would be very easy for me.
As far as winter's annoying post 1. 2. 3. 4. yes. Again, I never said the US does not bully others and create problems and I never said the US is policing the world alone stop trying to put words in my mouth. Of course I can say liberal without knowing the complexities of European politics because its a philosophical idea of which I agree with many and disagree with many because I'm a libertarian. The liberal economic idea that is guiding your post and much of the ideology on this site which of course comes from poor powerless people here like myself is that for people to be rich and powerful they have to steal it from the poor and weak and that's not entirely true and I would argue it is actually less accurate than it is accurate. Typically the rich and powerful just get richer and more powerful because they make slightly better decisions and that causes them to grow exponentially while the poor and weak don't make as good decisions and stay in the same crap they've been in or grow very slowly and after a long time those slightly better decisions add up until you have the difference between North and South Korea and it's not because South Korea is exploiting North Korea.
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I don't really want to get into a debate about the atom bombs in Japan. But I would like to say that first off no excuse is an excuse enough and that the excuses given don't hold up if you look at the historical data. Japan didn't surrender because of the atom bombs and would have surrendered without them. Just not conditionally and not the the US.
Why had Japan to be invaded anyway? Also, if you look at the actual invasion plan you will see they wanted to use more nukes and have their own troops walk through the fallout.
The whole nuking came from incredible arrogance and ignorance.
As for the US being isolationist, after they got done with their independence and internals wars they pretty got into war with other nations. Mexico, Spain, Philippines, Hawaii. Japan attacked the US military base in Hawaii, which was occupied territory.
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We need to look forward people! To me, the fact that the 2 big warmongers of WWII are now doing so well, is interesting and something to learn from. This index provides a snapshot of the levels of peace/violence today, it is not looking to reward/condemn countries for what they did 60 years ago. And its not a competition, please. Its not a soccer game. What is interesting is just that, how can japan be so peaceful today? what have they done right? is it the lesson of loosing WWII? And how can scandinavian countries, with such a violent past - yes long time ago - now all rank in the top 101? This is where this debate should go, in my opinion.
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This index shows the different peace levels between the 2 Koreas;http://www.visionofhumanity.org/gpi-data/#/2010/scor//compare/KP+KR
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On November 22 2010 12:25 Frigo wrote:
Malaysia only marginally less peaceful than Hungary and Slovakia? After all those molotov attacks on churches and christians? Sharia law anyone?
Apparently Malaysia is more peaceful than Singapore as well. I find that truly shocking.
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On November 24 2010 13:33 Avaloch wrote:Show nested quote +On November 22 2010 12:25 Frigo wrote:
Malaysia only marginally less peaceful than Hungary and Slovakia? After all those molotov attacks on churches and christians? Sharia law anyone? Apparently Malaysia is more peaceful than Singapore as well. I find that truly shocking.
Yes, quite a few surprises. I wonder if Singapore might not be as high due to the fact that it's a kind of police state. In other words, there might be no crime but if one in every 3 people is a police, is that truly peaceful?
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19/149 Woot!
AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE!!!
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I wonder if there is a relationship between this index and the democracy index. in other words, are the most democratic countries also the most peaceful?
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EPT
