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Originally posted by Yurin:
.....If you're serious, then this is good to see, up here in canada all we get to know is from CNN and to us it might seem like all of american is backing bush and want to kill everything.[/QB]

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Well....YES!
Americans pretty-much DO want to kill everything!
Especially Americans from the South.
Right Mez?

...and i am serious. I condemn Prez. Bush.

I have also found a new fav actor...Sean Penn!

'Now, look: I am all about learning about strategy, policy, and the regional implications of war against Iraq. I just think that the wrong place to do that is in Baghdad. Being led about by duplicitous Iraqi authorities will not bring one to a series of satisfactory conclusions about the use and efficacy of diplomacy and military force. In visiting Iraq, was Penn allowed to visit the torture cells, where countless prisoners spent their last painful moments on earth? Was he brought to the sites where young girls were raped before their fathers as a form of political punishment and intimidation? Was he flown to the Kurdish villages, where thousands perished in Saddam's chemical attacks against his own citizens? Of course not. In truth and fact, Penn's sanitized trip was devoid of the things that he really needed to see.

Penn stated that he went to Iraq to "see Iraqi faces … and go home with some impressions that will not let me off the hook." While Penn visited the Al-Mansour Children's Hospital and saw the smiling faces of the children within, he was not shown the faces of Iraqis contorted in death following murder at the hands of Saddam Hussein's henchmen. Talk about impressions that would never let you off the hook…

The point here is that there are better ways to become more knowledgeable about international affairs than to visit the monster's lair. As a start, I recommend reading alternative news sources. I start off every morning reading the New York Times and Washington Post to get one side of the equation, and the Washington Times and the Wall Street Journal to get the other. I end the day with USA Today and counter it with the National Review Online. And get this: It is cheaper than a ticket to Iraq!

Or perhaps you could digest documents from organizations like the United Nations, the Central Intelligence Agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International.

You might even hire someone brilliantly schooled in International Affairs and Strategy — oh, someone like me — to get you up to speed on the ethical and political quagmire before you. It might allow you to unpackage the issues and develop a basis from which to develop well-founded opinions.

Or if you simply must fly around to verify, then go to London and interview both dissidents and Iraqi supporters, but do not waste time by visiting Saddam's Little Shop of Horrors. For by visiting Iraq, you come perilously close to being used as a propaganda tool by a dictator who has oppressed his people and has verifiably raped and murdered his own citizens. How much different is that from an actor visiting a 1938 Germany and declaring his opposition to war against Hitler? Or visiting a murderous Stalin or Mao and giving them a clean bill of health? At a certain point, you find yourself allied with those whose dreams of power sail down a river flowing with the blood of their victims — victims who are more often than not their own people.

I am not denying Penn's right as a citizen to voice his opposition to a possible war. Nor am I questioning his legitimate search for answers. My point is that there is a better way to grapple with theses issues than by naively playing into a murderous dictator's hands. By doing so, you may be contributing to the oppression of a tortured people.

Speaking at the completion of his tour, Penn stated that, "if there is a war or continued sanctions against Iraq, the blood of Americans and Iraqis alike will be on our hands." No, Penn, not quite. The blood of the Iraqis already runs thick on the hands of their own leader.

If I may say so, there seems to be no one who is willing to say to Penn, "Sean — what in the hell are you doing? Did you really think that you were going to learn anything by going there? And do you really think that was such a wise thing to do?" Allow me then, to be that person. Or if not, then please forward all scripts to the e-mail address below.'

Mandela Accuses U.S. of Diplomatic 'Piracy'

STELLENBOSCH, South Africa (Reuters) - South Africa's Nelson Mandela lambasted the United States Tuesday for what he said were efforts to sideline the United Nations and condemned a U.S. grab for an Iraq weapons dossier as piracy.

The former South African president, who has been praised across the planet for his efforts to heal the wounds that decades of apartheid inflicted on his country, said he felt let down by the silence of other world leaders over U.S. policy.

"I am disappointed with heads of state who are just keeping quiet when the United States wants to sideline the United Nations," he told the ANC's five-yearly conference.

The latest move, providing evidence for what Mandela says is the dangerous U.S. disregard for the principles of multilateral world governance, was the arrival of Iraq's 12,000-page weapons declaration dossier in Washington earlier this month.

Washington obtained an early unedited copy of the Iraqi declaration originally sent to the United Nations after a deal was struck to override a U.N. Security Council decision to keep the report under wraps at U.N. headquarters in New York.

"This was an act of piracy which must be condemned by everyone," the former South African president told members of the ruling African National Congress.

Iraq blasted the move and said the United States would manipulate the dossier to produce a pretext to launch war.

Mandela, 84, said both he and current South African President Thabo Mbeki counted themselves as friends of the United States and of President Bush. But Mandela has been a fierce critic of U.S. policy toward Iraq.

"And one must not be dishonest and evade the real issue, viz. that the United States of America (with the United Kingdom in tow) has tended to dangerously disregard the principles of multilateral world governance," he said.

"The conduct of the United States and the Bush administration with regards to the current Iraq issue is a case in point."

Mandela said there was a clear impression that the United States "remained intent on military action against Iraq at all costs."

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Yes...the Bush Administration is determined to control the World.
Yes...the Empire known as Amerika, wants to kill you or control you through Governance and Capitalist Corporate Control.

It is true...the Americans want WAR at all costs.
I knew that the Iraqi Weapons Dossier would be manipulated by the Bush Administration to attempt to justify a War.

Kula, I have to ask - it's blatantly obvious what your opinion of the Bush Administration is. I'm curious as to how you view the Hussein regime. Care to comment?

And i suppose that the United States is the Solution to all the Worlds problems??
That seems to be what you are implying.

Just because i see things on a Global Level (outside the "American Way" of thinking)...you say that i (and others) are complaining, with no offers of solutions?

BAH!

The World has been around a lot longer than the U.S.
The Solutions are to be decided on a GLOBAL Scale...NOT a U.S. led one.
Saddam can be delt with...but NOT the way the foolish Americans want to.

I just love stirring you people up anyways.
It is quite funny to watch how all the Pro-American "We know better than everyone else does" ...views come out of the woodwork.