Guantanamo Bay has an official site! Bear in mind as you peruse this that some people have been incarcerated there, without charges, due process, or any clear end in sight, for three years. The United Nations has issued a statement worrying about prisoner's mental health, and released prisoners have talked about psychological torture and physical abuse. (I love the last line of that article, showing the sunny side of Gitmo: "Treats included pizzas, ice cream and McDonald's and the occasional chance to watch a James Bond film." The best of America -- not unlike dropping Pop Tarts into Afghanistan, its sure to win the hearts and minds of the people they're killing and torturing.) Meanwhile, in Uzbekistan, it looks like America has hand-picked another dictator to be friendly to, someone convieniently anti-Muslim -- while human rights groups report on that country's disappeared, murdered, and tortured prisoners, including two who apparently were boiled to death. God bless America! They're paving the way for a bright and shining future...
4 comments:
First of all, your Blog sucks. Read "World on Fire" by Amy Chua and you will realize why you really hate the US. Because we dominate you - "who's your daddy" and you hate that. All humans naturally hate those who dominate them and those on whom they depend for life. You wouldn't have a CT Scan or MRI without the US. You have higher taxes than we do yet no military? Where is the money going? To pay for all the deadbeats in your Country. Loser!!!!!!
So you have no comment on Guantanamo Bay, the US cozying up to yet another dictator-of-convenience, or any of the things I actually wrote about, eh? Just gotta strut your dominance... Good for you! Don't let some fuckin' Canadian pansy like me spoil your fun! You just keep being dominant! It's so... macho!
Okay, more seriously: given the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, and so forth, why do you think I would need some DIFFERENT, OTHER REASON to feel ambivalent about the way the US wields its power? Why not take what I'm saying at face value? Does a country stepping outside the Geneva conventions to torture and imprision people without a trial not count as DISTURBING? Why would I also have to be disturbed by your country's dominance? I mean, how is "you're just jealous" supposed to make Guantanamo Bay LESS disturbing to me?
Many, many of your countrymen agree with me absolutely, by the way.
Well, some dialogue.
Actually, the guy has got me thinking: if the US were some little violent backwater -- if it weren't globally dominant -- I probably wouldn't care very much about its human rights violations; disregard for the Geneva Conventions, international law, and due process; aggressive wars waged for no sane or justifiable reasons, etc. I don't spend a lot of time worrying what Syria will do next, for instance. It's the fact that the US is so powerful (and so close -- if Syria were next door to me I'd pay a lot more attention to them) that makes their current course as disturbing to me as it is. So yes, dominance is a factor.
However, if the US wielded its dominance benignly, I think I'd be quite proud to live beside them. I don't think their dominance alone disturbs me at all.
So (directed at my original respondent) you can go fuck Ann Coulter, you're her intellectual equal.
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