Should the U.S. act to stop Genocide?

[Reach]

It appears that you, too, pick and choose your way around this forum.  I've never seen you put in your two cents on a single issue that might open yourself up to doubt or thoughtful critisizm of christianity. I would hazard a guess that you are afraid too.

Actually, Mythra, Dennis has been very open and honest about his doubts and he's participated in a lot of threads, many of them very emotionally wrenching and of a personal nature, that most of our other Christian members have avoided. Dennis has been a member of this site since December of 2003 and he has the respect of at least this member who arrived the same time he did. I've seen him wrestle with a lot of problematic doctrines and teachings. I've seen him play fair. He has been transparent with us and shared his weaknesses. He is teachable and respectful of members of this community. Much less could be said for other Christian members who have come and gone, with the tides.

[Mythra]

OK, my bad. Apologies, Dennis.

 

I haven't been here that long, and I've never seen Soil do anything but tiptoe through the tulips. m.

[Mythra]

So, I retract my personal critisizm. But my point remains.

 

Christianity survives on fear.

[Reach]

OK, my bad.  Apologies, Dennis.

 

I haven't been here that long, and I've never seen Soil do anything but tiptoe through the tulips.        m.

Thanks, Mythra. I realize you haven't been here that long and wouldn't know his "track record."

[Ouroboros]

Yeah, Soil, right.  Perfect love casts out fear.  If all you give a shit about is yourself.  I couldn't do it.  Bask in the knowledge that I was going to paradise when I died while my kids and my dad were headed to eternal suffering.

 

I WAS SCARED as a christian.

Yes, I was too, for some years, but I manage to calm the fear down.

 

But when I was in fear, my fear was that I wasn't passionate enough to please God, or that I had done some sins I'd forgotten, or that I didn't have the whole truth about salvation (fully approved to go to heaven). And I feared that some friends or family would go to hell.

 

The Hell concept is just Propaganda to instill Fear.

 

I tried to talk to my dad about God.  He would just say, if God is real, and if he made me, then he made my brain.  He would have expected me to use it.  And my brain tells me that the bible is nonsense.  End of conversation.

 

I couldn't rejoice and praise god while believing good people (and my dad is a very good person - never hurt a soul in his entire life) were going to scream in eternal torment for eternity.

 

My dad is right.  Nonsense.

Amen to that.

[chefranden]

Boy, sorry for going so far off topic.  As far as the US stopping Genocide, I can help by giving to organizations and such but dang, we need someone protecting this country.  We cannot afford to police the world, we're short on protection as it is already.

 

Protection from what?

[chefranden]

Since most of this whole thread has apparently moved a bit "off topic" I don't feel too guilty offering this post (which is admittedly off the off-topic rabbit-trail we have been chasing).

 

Randen,

 

I don't recall having read (in an original post?) the quote from Pitchu (below), you are currently using in your signature line:

 

"I find I can't sustain fury unless I sleep 10 hours a night. So I try to alternate it with depression."

 

(Pithu, I also encourage your responses to my questions below),

 

1) Are "fury" and "depression" common with exchristians?

 

2) If so, why should a loving father (like I desire to be) encourage my children to become one?

-Dennis

 

The quote is from this thread.

 

Your question reminds me of a Bumper sticker: "If you are not angry, you are not paying attention."

 

1. I don't know I haven't taken a poll.

 

2. My son told me a couple of years back that he was terrified when we were christians. I was shocked as I never taught or preached fire and brimstone, but only love. (Your 1st John passage being the basis for my theology) He said it didn't matter because he knew the real reason for preaching at all was the club. I asked why he didn't tell me then. He said he knew better than to bring it up. How do your kids really feel about God?

[SOIL]

OK, my bad.  Apologies, Dennis.

 

I haven't been here that long, and I've never seen Soil do anything but tiptoe through the tulips.        m.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Mythra,

 

Apology accepted - no hard feelings.

 

Actually - I have been going through some immense personal crises recently - both in my family life and in my job. To tell you the truth, since this new version of the "Forums" has become available, I haven't taken the time to read through many threads (other than those which I have commented in - and/or - ones I have started.

 

Some of the immense personal struggles I have been experiencing are directly related to my taking the time to read through many of the ex-testimonies (mostly on two of the earlier versions of this site).

 

If anyone is really interested in doing research on what I have (and/or have not) waded or "tiptoed" through -- feel free to use the search engine on Old Forum by specifying 'SOIL-ITU' in the "Filter by Member Name" box, and choosing 'any date' from the action drop-down list under "Search posts from...". ('SOIL-ITU' was my handle in the previous version of this Forum - where ITU stood for "In The Universe").

 

Admittedly I have been more "reserved" on this go-round of this site - but still of course my "record" is available to anyone by specifying 'SOIL' in the search engine for this "Forum II".

 

Actually, I have come close to losing my job (still a distinct possibility) and precious relationships with both extended (and not so extended) family members have been strained (to say the least) - in part - as a result of my being willing to "listen" to what is said here, and consider seriously what you folks have to say. I suppose I could always just 'write off' what you folks are saying, and just consider you collectively in some sense like swine from whom I should protect my precious pearls.

 

To this date however, I have not done that (and I have no plans to) - because if I understand the spirit within me correctly (the one I have considered to be the 'Holy Spirit' who Jesus sent) - then each of you is worth the time I have spent "listening".

 

-Dennis

[SOIL]

Thanks Reach!

 

-Dennis

[♦ nivek ♦]

Should the U.S. act to stop Genocide?

 

The question still begs an answer...

 

 

My answer is still "Not only No, but Fuck NO!"

 

We have no business nor reason to put our kids in harms way in the civil matters of other countries, n o matter how "humanitarian" or "religiously' guided the reason may seem to be.

 

If the religious feel the 'Prince of Peace" and that foolish message can go and help. let them go and do so.

 

Hey, Jebuz said "you have the Powah!, go do it!"

 

However to have the Armed Forces of the uS go in as a spearpoint to open up that country for the preechin'; and screechin' of the "gospel guns", no f u c k i n' way....

 

We owe nothing to tribal fools who want to murder and kill each other.. Hell we can't even stop tribal and turf murders here in out own goddamn Country much less in Goofballostan and the Outer Reaches of humanity..

 

kL

[zfunkman]

Something written way back in 1999 - worth a quick read (IMO) -

 

-Dennis

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Don't you think that if "God" really wanted the genocide stopped "he" would stop it; or, is he the cause of it?

[SOIL]

Don't you think that if "God" really wanted the genocide stopped "he" would stop it; or, is he the cause of it?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

zfunkman,

 

I will try to be as honest with you as I know how.

 

I don't think God is "the cause of it". Seems to me like the whole 'us' and 'them' mentality has some causal roots. I have read that when the Belgians started exercising their muscles - they set-up mostly Tutsis in administrative governmental type positions, and when Rwanda was "given" back to the Rwandans, and elections were held - I think mostly Hutus were elected. If I understand correctly, the two groups were involved in many tense situations both while the Belgians were ruling and after as well - but during previous times people who were afraid for their lives - would gather in church buildings and receive protection from the church people. Also I suppose the would-be perpetrators must have had enough respect for the church to "back off". However, the thing that breaks my heart in this case, is that the church folks did not fight for the oppressed (as they had done in earlier situations). Sadly, many of the mass murder sites were in church buildings.

 

One of the clearest (and most honest) accounts I have read about this sad fact, I read in this book: Good News About Injustice: A Witness of Courage in a Hurting World written by the same guy (Gary Haugen) who co-founded the International Justice Mission shortly after he returned from the trip to Rwanda, where he was "detailed out" by the U.S. Justice department to lead a U.N. team to gather evidence about what the f... the world had just let happen in Rwanda.

 

I think God would have stopped the genocide in Rwanda if the people who are supposed to be Jesus' body here on earth would have not "done nothing" -- but (for the most part) we did nothing - and so God didn't stop it (the plan/people - folks like me - God setup for stopping such things simply never 'engaged').

 

Christians did NOT "stop it".

 

I don't think God (in particular) caused it - but God also did not stop it.

 

I suspect there were specific cases where God intervened (for instance, if you have seen the movie Hotel Rwanda - I think God may have been involved in some ways through the life of the main character in the film - and I have heard Gary Haugen speak of other Christians who did help their neihbors - but there are many, many Tutsies and sympathizer Hutu's who are dead now because God (via his people) did NOT stop it.

 

I'm not sure if any of the churches in Rwanda have publically apologized to Tutsies for not providing the same kind of protection as in earlier threats. If anyone has heard of such - please let me know - or if anyone is researching that whole terrible time, and comes onto anything specifically about the failure of the church to overcome the negative aspects of how the culture encouraged hatred - and/or how the church has responded in the aftermath (like in the area of reconciliation) - I would appreciate it if you would let me know some good links and/or books.

 

I talked with a guy on a plane not too long back - Eric ??? - who works for Berkely - and researches and teaches and writes about genocide -- he said he had personally been there and seen the skeletons of many, many murdered bodies still lying in one of the church buildings (the skeletons had been left there as a memorial, I suppose).

 

It really hits home, when you speak with someone who has actually "been there" and has seen with their own eyes that we are not just talking with words about theoretical concepts - but REAL PEOPLE were murdered (mostly women and children) - many of the Tutsi men were in militia bases in a neighboring country (Tanzania, maybe - I don't recall just now) preparing to come back and fight in Rwanda .... which by the way - is how the killing finally stopped) - none of the great caring United Nations folks (from any other nation) ever stepped in - it was Tutsi soldiers who finally progressed their front lines far enough from the south to stop the massacres ... who knows how many more would have died by the machetes if the women and children had continued to wait for that great United Nations organization to come to their aid?

 

-Dennis

 

P.S. (sorry for my rambling lack of structure paragraphs - I am not in a very good and/or productive mood just now).

[Mythra]

Hey Soil.

 

No offense on the "tiptoe" comment. All I meant is that you seem to reside in the threads that focus on peripheral issues (not to say that genocide isn't a horrible tragedy), but it's not central to this site, as I see it.

 

I'm not very well informed in specific conflicts, but in general what I see is that the line blurs in a lot of these conflicts between the "good guys" and the bad. It's the innocents that you feel awful for. But, as we're seeing in Iraq, sometimes an attempt to intervene only complicates matters and excacerbates the misery.

[SOIL]

If you can bear it - like I mentioned earlier - there is some very good information available at this link:

 

FRONTLINE: "The Triumph of Evil"

 

Here is an excerpt from the first part of that fairly sizable transcript:

FRONTLINE

 

#1710

 

"The Triumph of Evil"

 

Air Date: January 26, 1999

 

Produced by Mike Robinson, Ben Loeterman

 

Steve Bradshaw, Reporter

 

Written by Steve Bradshaw, Ben Loeterman

 

NARRATOR: In March 1998, as the Monica Lewinsky scandal was consuming his presidency, Bill Clinton escaped to Africa, to make his long-planned tour of the continent. He had come to offer hope, to strengthen America's commitment to Africa, and on this afternoon in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, he had come to apologize.

 

Pres. BILL CLINTON: I have come today to pay the respects of my nation to all who suffered and all who perished in the Rwandan genocide.

 

NARRATOR: The genocide five years ago in Rwanda was meticulously planned and brutally executed, the methodical slaughter of over 800,000 Tutsis and their sympathizers.

 

PHILIP GOUREVITCH, "The New Yorker": There have been cases of mass political murder, but never a country and a society so completely and totally convulsed by an effort at pure, unambiguous genocide since the end of World War II, and the world left the Rwandans to it.

 

NARRATOR: The killing lasted 100 days, sometimes over 10,000 killed each day. All the while America - and the world - did almost nothing to stop it.

 

JAMES WOODS, Deputy Asst. Secretary of Defense, 1986-94: People didn't want to really grasp and admit that they knew and understood what was happening because they didn't want to bear the consequences then of dealing with it. They did not want an intervention.

 

Pres. BILL CLINTON: It may seem strange to you here, especially the many of you who lost members of your family, but all over the world there were people like me sitting in offices, day after day after day, who did not fully appreciate the depth and the speed with which you were being engulfed by this unimaginable terror.

 

NARRATOR: The story behind President Clinton's dramatic apology for the world's failure in Rwanda is a story about the triumph of evil, which the philosopher Edmund Burke observed happens when good men do nothing.

 

MICHAEL BARNETT, U.S. Mission to the U.N., 1994: What really haunts me was that I and others could have been so cavalier, so complacent.

 

INTERVIEWER: Do you believe that you were a bystander to genocide?

 

MICHAEL BARNETT: Yeah. We all were.

 

NARRATOR: In April, 1993, during the first months of his new administration, President Clinton officially dedicated the new Holocaust Museum in Washington.

 

Pres. BILL CLINTON: To preserve this shared history of anguish, to keep it vivid and real so that evil can be combated and contained, we are here to consecrate this memorial and to contemplate its meaning for us.

 

The evil represented in this museum is incontestable, but as we are its witness, so must we remain its adversary in the world in which we live.

 

NARRATOR: The discovery of the Nazi death camps 50 years earlier had shocked the world into bold new promises, a universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations genocide convention that pledged the world would never again tolerate attempts to exterminate whole groups of people.

 

Pres. BILL CLINTON: Our task, with God's blessing upon our souls and the memories of the fallen in our hearts and minds, is to the ceaseless struggle to preserve human rights and dignity. I pray that we shall prevail.

 

NARRATOR: As the President added his voice to the ritual chorus of "never again," his new administration was formulating its foreign policy and making hard-nosed decisions about where America's interests really lay.

 

JAMES WOODS, Deputy Asst. Secretary of Defense, 1986-94: In the Spring of '93, when the Clinton administration came in, we were asked to develop lists of what we thought would be serious crises this administration might face and forward that to the new secretary of defense, Mr. Aspin. I put Rwanda-Burundi on the list.

 

I won't go into personalities, but I received guidance from higher authorities, "Look, if something happens in Rwanda-Burundi, we don't care. Take it off the list. It's not- U.S. national interest is not involved and," you know, "we can't put all these silly humanitarian issues on lists like important problems like the Middle East and North Korea and so on."

 

NARRATOR: In 1993, Rwanda, one of Africa's smallest countries with just seven million citizens, was a deeply troubled country with a deeply troubled past. Decades earlier, under colonial rule, the Belgians had used the Tutsis, Rwanda's aristocracy, to enforce their rule over the Hutu majority, who were mostly poor farmers.

 

PHILIP GOUREVITCH, "The New Yorker": The Belgians created an idea whereby the Tutsi were a master race, the Hutu an inferior race. And ethnic identity cards were issued. Much like in South Africa, an apartheid-like system was imposed. All privileges went to the Tutsi minority, and the Hutu majority was almost in bondage.

 

At independence in the late '50s and early '60s, this system was reversed. The majority Hutu rebelled, seized power, in the name of majority rule imposed an apartheid-like system in reverse and oppressed the Tutsi bitterly.

 

NARRATOR: Faced with discrimination and increasing Hutu violence, most Tutsis fled to neighboring countries, where they formed a guerrilla army, the Rwandan Patriotic Front.

 

In 1990, the rebel Tutsis invaded Rwanda and forced peace talks with Juvenal Habyarimana, the Hutu president. Anxious to stay in power himself, Habyarimana signed a peace treaty agreeing to share power with the Tutsis.

 

PHILIP GOUREVITCH: To the Hutu extremists who formed the entourage around the Hutu dictatorship, President Habyarimana, it was the threat of peace that was even greater than the threat of war because it amounted to a defeat. It meant that they couldn't have a total victory. They faced suddenly the threat of sharing power, which was the one thing on earth that they couldn't stand sharing.

 

NARRATOR: Late in 1993, the United Nations dispatched its Assistance Mission for Rwanda - or UNAMIR - to help keep the fragile new peace between the Hutu government and the Tutsi rebels. The U.N. force was small, about 2,500 soldiers from several countries, including Belgium and Ghana. In the beginning they had believed this would be a routine peacekeeping mission.

 

Brig. HENRY ANYIDOHO, Deputy Commander, UNAMIR: From all the indications, because I had served on some other U.N. missions before, but at first the level of 2,548 indicated clearly that it was going to be an easy mission, or it was anticipated to be an easy mission.

 

NARRATOR: But the U.N. troops would have to contend with Hutu extremists and their militias - the Interhamwe - literally "those who attack together." They claimed their mission was simply to defend Rwanda from the Tutsi guerrillas. But in January, 1994, the man training them came forward with a very different story.

 

Col. LUC MARCHAL, UNAMIR: Yes, he was a real political leader for the militia, and he wants to give us, I mean to UNAMIR, some information. I met him in my own headquarters. It was at night. There was no electricity.

 

NARRATOR: In that secret meeting, the Hutu informant revealed that the militia's real mission was the extermination of the Tutsis.

 

Col. LUC MARCHAL: So the directive was very simple. Just kill a maximum of people.

 

INTERVIEWER: "People" meaning civilians?

 

Col. LUC MARCHAL: Yes, of course, civilians. Tutsis, of course.

 

NARRATOR: Later that night, the UNAMIR commanders sent an urgent message to the peacekeeping mission at the United Nations in New York. Their coded cable explained the Hutu informant's warning in horrifying detail.

 

CABLE: "He has been ordered to register all Tutsi in Kigali. He suspects it's for their extermination. Example he gave was that in 20 minutes his personnel could kill up to 1,000 Tutsis." [www.pbs.org: Read the full cable]

 

IQBAL RIZA, Chief of Staff to U.N. Secretary General: It alarmed us. It alarmed us that people are being targeted, that this particular person is training people. It was alarming.

 

NARRATOR: The U.N. commanders in Rwanda wanted to act fast to foil the Interhamwe. In the cable to New York, UNAMIR said it planned to seize some of the militias weapons.

 

INTERVIEWER: When you read that the force commander wanted to go on an arms raid, how did you react?

 

IQBAL RIZA: We said, "Not Somalia again."

 

NARRATOR: This was the U.N.'s nightmare, pictures of 18 American Rangers killed in Somalia on primetime T.V. They had died after a raid like the one UNAMIR was now proposing in Rwanda. The U.N. had taken the blame and wasn't going to risk another bloody African adventure.

 

So late the same night, the U.N.'s bureaucrats in New York warned UNAMIR its plan to seize weapons was not what U.N. peacekeepers should be doing. The cable was sent under the name of Kofi Annan, then head of U.N. peacekeeping and now secretary general. It was signed by his colleague, Iqbal Riza, now his chief of staff. It told UNAMIR to avoid actions that might lead to the use of force and unanticipated repercussions. It said, "We cannot agree to the operation."

 

Col. LUC MARCHAL, UNAMIR: We knew that a lot of weapons were hidden in caches. And we were not authorized, I should say, to do our job, and that was a real frustration.

 

IQBAL RIZA: We did not give that information the importance and the correct interpretation that it deserved. We realized that only in hindsight. I'm not denying that.

 

INTERVIEWER: It was a mistake?

 

IQBAL RIZA: Oh, certainly. We- we-

 

INTERVIEWER: Was it a mistake that cost lives, do you believe?

 

IQBAL RIZA: Eventually, yes, three months later.

 

...

...

[SOIL]

Sorry about that long post - but I just think it is good for folks who have taken the time to read through this thread - to be sure to read some of that stuff - my apologies to those who already followed my earlier link and have recently read the whole thing.

 

In that book by Gary Haugen that I mentioned earlier, he talks about finding so many of those "identity cards" (with the check in the box next to "Tutsi") - both by the churches and also the sports stadiums etc... where so many thousands were hacked to death.

 

.... makes a grown man cry (or it should).

 

-Dennis

[♦ nivek ♦]

Dennis...

 

From my standpoint, the tribalists in the mess in Rowanda were armed in one camp/disarmed in the other..

 

*Laws* followed to the letter by "good law abiding citizens* led to Democide, murder by government. The Majority, armed, took advantage in the tribal bullshittings, murdered the unarmed minorities..

 

Given a choice Dennis, should you have been one of those minority being slaughtered like sheep, would you have prefered your religious works in a bound book format, or a cocked and locked AkM and extra magazines?

 

I suspect as you made supplication to your diety that the bad actors would have been hacking your family to death in front of you..

 

OR

 

You'd have your AkM aimed at the dead smoking hole filled bloody bodies of those attempting to murder you and yours...

 

Genocide only happens when *one side* is so dis-armed that the other actors, for whatever reason can take advantage of that situation and commit gross acts of murder..

 

An armed Prole is an alive Prole..

 

Again, "Does the uS have a responsibility to step into genocides?"

 

Fuck NO

 

kL

[SOIL]

Nivek,

 

I understand where you are coming from about the problems that can happen when supposedly only the "good guys" (i.e. those in government) have the guns. Actually, (like I have said before), I think a lot of us folks who live in the United States forget that we might all still be ruled by the government in England - if the average citzen was not allowed to own his (or her) own guns.

 

I wish it was a relatively easy thing to determine who the "good guys" are (and after identification, to be able to know they would always continue to be "the good guys") - then - maybe, it might make some sense to take guns away from everyone who doesn't bear the identification mark of the - Good Guys in Government (GGG) - so as to make certain (yeah, right!) no bad guys would ever be able to get their hands on a gun.

 

I don't even like filling out what ethic group I am a part of - when the census comes around - those folks don't enjoy coming to my house I can tell you!

 

Actually, it is - in part - my Christian idea of the depravity of mankind, that helps to keep me from liking any "groupings" ideas much.

 

I like something Solzhenitsyn said.

 

Below I copied from quotes about evil :

"if only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being, and who is willing to destroy his own heart? "

(I added the Bold emphasis)

 

 

-Dennis

[Kay]

To tell you the truth, since this new version of the "Forums" has become available, I haven't taken the time to read through many threads (other than those which I have commented in - and/or - ones I have started.

 

I'm just surprised you chose to start a new thread referenced back to this same group you were trying to implicitly take credit for in another thread.

 

Any chance you'll get to explaining why it should be charitable organizations, and not the government, that should seek to alleviate poverty and living standards?

 

What point is it exactly that you are trying to make in this thread? That it's ok to impinge on the sovereignty of another nation if their actions offends your set of morals? Sure, whilst we can all safely agree for now that genocide is a repugnant crime, when will you draw the line? How will you draw this line? How do you ensure that others will agree with the decisions you make?

 

The Iraqis were oppressed by Sadam, and he was an unremorseful despot. However, despite intervening and removing this man from power, where are the garlands thrown? Where are the parades on the streets of Iraq? And with a religious muslim conservative in power elected by the democratic process, will the US once again step in and remove a legitimate government to satiate their sense of righteousness?

 

And if the countries of the west were more "Christian" over a hundred years ago than they are today, how do you explain the barbaric concept of colonialism? No wait....spreading the word of Christ was actually the excuse given for one country to invade another and reduce the people of that country into second class citizens!

 

I mean, given that we continue to live in such barbaric times despite the advances in science and technology, we're still stuck in the social mentality that "might makes right", and pitifully, this is supported by a bible whose tenets demonstrate no familiarity or love for democracy with its sickly prostration for hierarchy and monarchy.

 

If we want to progress as a harmonized global community, we really need to throw out such mind-corrupting rubbish promoting the ways of the primitive.

[chefranden]

Dennis,

 

You know dang well this country is not going to go stop a genocide. If the people there had a crap load of oil, maybe, but only if we thought that the winners might not sell it to us. We couldn't let it go in Kosovo because it would have destablized Europe. We tried our very best to ignore it though.

 

If you really want to know how this country (and many others) are run read The Prince. This philosophy is called realpolitik

 

chef

[SOIL]

This post was removed by Dennis - after thinking more about it - it is not fair to Kay.

[SOIL]

...

What point is it exactly that you are trying to make in this thread? That it's ok to impinge on the sovereignty of another nation if their actions offends your set of morals? Sure, whilst we can all safely agree for now that genocide is a repugnant crime, when will you draw the line? How will you draw this line? How do you ensure that others will agree with the decisions you make?

...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

OK,

 

Let me give this another try.

 

I don't know that I am trying to make any specific points in this thread. My heart hurts because people who I think God loves (and so I should also) are now dead - but they didn't really have to be dead now (dead to the tune of somewhere around - 800 thousand human beings - that's a long taps, if the trumpet plays it once for each person).

 

I think the United Nations already drew the "line" - (Chef, please post the link to that document you quoted from earlier), and then folks high up in that same glorious organization (which some here say should make such decisions) decided not to use the G-Word (Genocide) WHY? - I suppose so they would not need to call out anyone for stepping across it.

 

You might look at some of the specific names listed in that piece done by NPR - I think some of those folks are still around in the U.N. these days (one in particular is familiar even to me - and I don't listen to much news).

 

-Dennis

[Kay]

Would you like to tell the little girl (for more detail, see that book written by the Christian guy who talks about the mass murders in the Catholic and I suppose also Protestant church buildings) ... you know, the little girl whose head was split open (but who still managed to stay alive even though her mommy and all the rest of her siblings were killed at just about the same time the machete sliced her head) ... so who among us will volunteer to tell her about why it was a good thing that Clinton's administration chose not to 'get involved' and not to use the G-word in any press conferences (and not to send the maybe 100 guys with a couple of helicopters and a few big guns - to cause the mobs armed with farm-tools to back off and let her family live)?

 

No, I don't know, but I think I would know more if you could cite a direct reference to this girl whose plight I almost couldn't decipher from your hideous sentence or multiple side thoughts and parenthesis. Maybe I didn't make myself explicitly clear in the past, but I'll take the opportunity to do so now - until you'll go to the minimal efforts to construct your thoughts into a proper sentence that flows without interruption, I myself will not bother with the unnecessary mental gymnastics either.

 

so who among us will volunteer to tell her about why it was a good thing that Clinton's administration chose not to 'get involved' and not to use the G-word in any press conferences

 

And who of us will volunteer to tell this little girl that we'll ignore her country's sovereign rights and will send tanks and bombers into her country whenever whatever her country does offends our sense of righteousness?

 

The better question is when should another country intervene in the internal affairs of another country and how do to prevent an abuse of power. Actually think about that before wasting your time typing ridiculous and emotional-driven sap that trashes your argument and your repute more than it bolsters.

 

Sorry to all (including Kate)

 

Who the heck is Kate? Your family member?

 

I am separated from my wife and family.

 

Grow up, Soil, and learn some self control. I don't take my shit out on people and act "caustic" just because my day's shot to hell in a wheelburrow. I'll give you the necessary condolences in another thread, under Rants and Replies, but I'm not going to put up with craptastic emotional-drivel from you thinly veiled as an "argument" because "your life sucks" appears to be easier to express than a coherent, solid position with regards to the initial proposition.

 

You've failed to resume your previous thread about the IJM's rather redundant role in social building, and now, you pretend that being patronizing and condescending is a sufficient point. You've resorted to using labels on human beings in order to lamely insult. Your "script" is such pointless baloney, lacking in any intelligent thought, that it does not even warrant serious commenting.

 

I will pity your situation, but I'm not going to let you get away with disgraceful diatribe simply because you thought it was a cheap way for you to score some non-existent points.

 

I can honestly say I'm not surprised you tried to pull this shameless stunt in the middle of a debate/discussion. You've been here long enough to know the more appropriate places to discuss your personal problems. Your behaviour alone has led me to draw some quite unflattering assessments of your character.

 

Kay

[Kay]

This post was removed by Dennis - after thinking more about it - it is not fair to Kay.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Let's be honest Dennis, your last post was no different to shooting your own foot, and we both know that.

 

I do not believe in backtracking or backpedalling unless there are embarrassing typos and spelling errors.

 

I also believe you should have the guts to take responsibility for the things you said. Removing evidence and whatnot is deplorable and dishonest.

 

Then and again, self-preservation makes all humans do the strangest things, do they not?

[SOIL]

Let's be honest Dennis, your last post was no different to shooting your own foot, and we both know that.

 

I do not believe in backtracking or backpedalling unless there are embarrassing typos and spelling errors.

 

I also believe you should have the guts to take responsibility for the things you said. Removing evidence and whatnot is deplorable and dishonest.

 

Then and again, self-preservation makes all humans do the strangest things, do they not? 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Kay,

 

If you still have my complete post (I don't) - then I request that you post it - since you want to leave everything out there - it will be easier for me to "take responsibility for the things" I said - if I can remember them. I have been so emotional this evening that I don't even remember exactly what I did say.

 

Thanks,

 

-Dennis

 

P.S. I apologize for referring to you as "Kate" - again, a sign of my emotions getting the better of my intellect (that is - if I have I ever had any to get the better of).

[Kay]

I think the United Nations already drew the "line" - (Chef, please post the link to that document you quoted from earlier), and then folks high up in that same glorious organization (which some here say should make such decisions) decided not to use the G-Word (Genocide) WHY? - I suppose so they would not need to call out anyone for stepping across it.

 

Soil, maybe if you could bother yourself, just like you bother yourself to look for citings on the internet of benevolent works that may be accredited to the Christian faith, of the discussion papers produced by the UN re this topic, you wouldn't be here proposing these psuedo-rhetorical questions with your melodramatic air of outrage.

 

Not having read the discussion papers however, you have raised a curiosity. If the consensus of the world community was not to act, what makes you think you are any more right than the world leaders who got together and thought they had legitimate reasons for not interfering? Do you seek to presume you have greater foresight than the members of the UN? That because you can use emotively-charged words and can graphically depict smashed in heads, you therefore have higher standards of morals than those who voted not to intevene?

 

Forgive me for my presumptuous anticipation of your response, but I couldn't draw any other conclusions from your sarcastic use of "glorious" in your post. ;D