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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: michael97123 who wrote (112969)	8/26/2003 9:58:35 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Michael, the problem is with the definition of "this country". Most people around the world love their country, which is an amorphous concept they carry in their heads. <i always loved this country. Often got me in trouble with the hard left who we sometimes marched with in the vietnam days. When they started cheering downed american planes and american casualties I ran the other way. I continued against that war like some reasonable opponents in the US oppose iraq.> Many people were opposed to President Bill Clinton and many are opposed to President Geoge Bush. But they would mostly say they love their country. So it isn't the president or the current policies which they love. Some might say they love the constitution, but they don't really, just as they don't really love the flag. Those are just symbols of what really turns them on. Each person carries in their head what "their country" means and while many of their ideas will be similar, there will be many differences with a bit of scratching of the surface. Germans no doubt loved their country, but ended up trying to murder Adolf. Nelson Mandela no doubt loved South Africa, but supported violent overthrow of the regime and his wife was enthusiastic about necklacing opponents. Cassius Clay no doubt considers himself fully-fledged American but was attacked for refusing to go and put napalm on Vietcong who never called him nigger. I can understand Americans who were attacked by warmongers becoming enthusiastic about USA planes being downed. When people feel attacked, they wish for and are enthusiastic about the demise of those they see as supporting or doing the attacking of them. Taken to extremes, it becomes an outright civil war and battle of slaves against the slave drivers. Which is not to say that the slaves are in the wrong to seek their freedom. Nor that draft dodgers are in the wrong to oppose being forced to do something with which they ethically disagree. It's easy to write them off as cowards, as simple, mindless, morons are prone to do to justify their domineering authoritarianism. But there's more to it than that. Here's a link to my father's cousin, who became a pacifist. dnzb.govt.nz Que burbles on about serving and sacrifice blah blah blah.. yeah yeah.. in boastful self-adulation. I wonder if he would call Ormond Burton a coward. Snicker. While Ormond was in pacifist prison, my father was in battle, having volunteered to go 'Because Hitler had to be stopped' nearly a year before the USA figured out [after Japan persuaded them at Pearl Harbour] that freedom might be worth defending. Here's some of his report from the front: Message 13794091 Love of country and what is worth fighting for or about and who is the enemy is not certain. I think the people who put one in gaol are the enemy. Those who would conscript, press-gang and enslave are the enemy. Well, maybe not the worst enemy, but certainly the closest and probably most dangerous. They are removing one's freedom and self-determination. When one gang imposes too much on the rest, it leads to civil war. It starts with arguing about who is loyal to whom and who is in the right, what is "the country", and who is the boss, who gets the money and who is giving the orders and who shall say "Yes sir" or "Yes massa". Mqurice <Early in 1915 Burton sailed with the No 1 New Zealand Field Ambulance. At Gallipoli he stayed aboard the Lutzow to tend the wounded and dying, but was later a stretcher-bearer. In September 1915 he was evacuated to Egypt, and by May 1916 was with the New Zealand Division in Flanders. In the spring of 1917 a friend was killed and he volunteered to take his place in the infantry. Refusing all leave, he won a reputation for gallantry. In August 1918 he was wounded for the third time and awarded the French Médaille d’honneur, alongside a Military Medal already won. That year he was sent to Cambridge for officer training and in January 1919 he became a second lieutenant.> Some coward...

To: michael97123 who wrote (112969)	8/27/2003 7:04:31 AM
From: GST	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

<GST probably a nice guy with conspiracy theory for every event and so on> I don't need conspiracy theories -- US policy is fairly clearly laid-out. I object to US foreign policy under Bush. This is a guy who came into office with no experience in foreign affairs and immediately found himself thrown into the deep end of the pool. It is not hard to understand that a guy who is not too bright and having no personal experience of his own might think that the "go it alone" style advocated by a few people around him -- people he was inclined to trust -- would sound like the magic answer he needed to save the world from "evil doers" (at least he did not go all the way and say the "bogeyman").