THE SHUTTLE.... !!!!!

[na_th_an]

"International law"? It makes me laugh. It never works. What happened to Milosevic? Or to Pinochet? It sucks. Pinochet spent all the time he ruled Chile killing those people who disliked what he said. And now he should be considered 'cause he's an old man... OMG, that International Law really sucks. A dusty and old ship full of petrol has sunk near my country and now the nothern coast is more dirty than an arsehole, killing the fishes and the birds, and having thousands of people out of work 'cause they can't fish... The International Law stated that a ship without a double coating could not sail near our coasts... But, oh, who cares... Those damned spaniards again

[toonski84]

um, milosevic was overthrown, arrested and tried. unless there's something about his trial i dont know about. but yeah, it's a joke. i mean, you'd think in pretty much any set of laws, murder would be in there, but then the world would be leader-less. so it's under the vague, and twistable "war crimes." frankly, you'd think "have a reason for starting wars" would be there too, but here we are.

[red_Marvin]

(I haven't read all posts on this thread when I post this)

Sweden=the swedish government thinks that if UN
agrees with USAs plans to attack Iraq then Sweden
agees too but a vote on yesterday news shows
that the majority of the swedish people don't think
that an attack on Iraq is good even if UN agrees!

The problem in our (swedish) way of controlling
the land (indirect democrasy=we vote for the dictators)
is that if we (=mortal common people) don't
demonstrate and the government don't hold elections/votes
we have more or less VERY little to say about the control of
the country = more or less dictatorship (let's call it indirect dictatorship)

[Jocke The Beast]

The Shuttle: Sad...really sad story My memories goes back to "Challanger"....


War in Iraq:
First of, I don't know stuff but I can express what I THINK... cool ?!
I hope and wishes that USA (with or without a coaltion) will bring down Sadam and his goverment and that they will install a democratic goverment.

But why, war is evil? Nothing good comes out from any war? Well, if a strong alliance had stood up against nazi germany 1936 the WW2 would never take place (and more then 20 milions of people would survive). USA bombed the shit out of former Jugoslavia and after that a relative peace has appeared there. We (Europe) just stood and watched as we always do....

I'm not a expert in Iraq's weaponary industry and nor it's history. I do know that Sadam HAVE used chemial weapons against civilians in north iraq. Sadam HAVE said that he WOULD like to get controll over nuclear weapons for USING against "enemies" close to iraq and long-distance enemies.

Of course war means that innocent people will suffer, but can we risk that even more innocent people will suffer just because we stood and watched this happend....

Democracy: In Sweden we vote for what goverment we like to rule our country. What's wrong with that?! Should ALL freaking questions that the "rulers" must take be voted about by us. We vote for someone (someones) that we think could lead this country. Don't complain at the "rulers" complain at the voters...

This doesn't mean I'm a guy who loves all that my goverment say but I sometimes think we are spoiled-ones that complains about everything when other countries have alot of mayor democratic-issues that are really BIG. I'm no war-mongler either, I just think that sometimes one war can help us avoid a bigger and more desstructive war.

Peace :wink:

[wildcard]

I agree with you Jocke. I too hate war(who actually likes it?), but I've said the same thing about WW2 to people. Everyone didn't listen to Churchill about Hitler, if they had countless millions of lives would not have been lost or affected.

I think the shuttle tradegy is very very sad, but at the same time just the day or two before 30 people died in accident in Zimbabwe which only made 1 mins news(it was lucky to get even that). 7 people died, I know, and any loss of life is sad.

[toonski84]

well, the shuttle leads to more than just 7 people, though any time someone dies it's a tragedy. this is going to slow down majorly any progess in the space industry, which has more commercial implications than you might drink. the shuttle launches satellites, repairs satellites, performs experiments and pours funding into new technologies which extend much farther than space exploration (take for instance, the microprocessor in your computer), not to mention providing tens of thousands of jobs while keeping business like boing and mcdonald douglas. Right now, you're looking at nasa loosing an 11-digit figure, which puts a major halt on this powerhouse, and it will affect thousands, if not millions, of people.

iraq: i dont think there's a person here that believe saddam is an evil man. nor does anyone not believe he's tested chem. weapons on his citizens or would love to get his hands on nuclear weapons. but think about it: we wouldnt be fighting saddam. he wouldnt be holed up in a palace we could storm or at waterloo to surround. what would happen is is we'd kill hundreds of thousands of iraqis fighting in a ground war because they've been raised from birth to believe saddam is their savior, like the millions of russians sent to die in wwii under joseph stalin (anyone else notice a stunning similarity in physical appearance between those two?). In the end, we'd probably win, or at worst be forced to leave like in vietnam. but saddam will live. he will escape, he has those means and the followers to support him. just look at the taliban in afganistan. bin laden is still alive, and i have no clue on the mullah. they have been replaced by what is called a democracy, but in reality a decaying loose alliance between warring clans (for lack of a better word) that dragged helpless people to death accross the streets and recently suffocated two hundred people. and that's just what's on camera. no, war is not the best solution, though i can see how it would appear that way.

hitler was a mistake, an awful one that is still hitting hard today. but dont too readily jump to the conclusion that this is the same as the appeasement churchill gave to allow hitler to take over the polish corridor, as many people do. we will not allow him to expand militarily to avoid war, we dont need to come to that. the best solution, while the u.s. has military power is to simply keep him weak, keep up with the military aggression that we used in the late 90s. make him another petty weak leader and his people will take care of the rest. but in a time of crises the masses turn to their leader for support and put him on pedestal (e.g. bush). and if we go to war, that's exactly what's going to happen.

[na_th_an]

Wise and concise. Completely agree.

[toonski84]

concise: no. rambling? depends on your definition

[wildcard]

toonski: I understood what you said before you said it, I know theres a heck of a lot riding on the space program other than space. I doubt it would crumble completely, but obvisouly it will affect many many people.

Iraq: I agree and disagree, yes a war outright won't solve anything. But then again playing nancy pansy and making idle yells at saddam wouldn't be any better. I'm glad to see Bush/etc taking a hard stance, its because people have become too soft that we have problems in society(crime/violence). The whole war dosen't have to happen but it should still be used to get him out of power, whether people shoot or they have blockades/etc. I left a country that was doing "bad things" and I understand the change over, e.g. taliban to democracy, and yes it can look like not much has changed, but things do change.. they just take many many years;

[Jocke The Beast]

Iraq: This is a very difficult discussion... but I still belive that a war against Sadam and his goverment (I bet if USA just killed Sadam there would appear another "really-bad-ruler" or iraq) is the right thing to do.

I think we all can agree that we would say YES to this war if there were no civilians killed ?! But we are all reasonable and intelligente humans so we all understand that innocent people WILL die in iraq if a war is launched. Therefore the question is :
Does the goal of this war justify the negative effects of this war?
My answer is yes. The effects will be (or at least could be) alot of innocent people dead. The Goal is to remove Sadam AND his goverment (don't forget this, the goal must be to restore democracy. think germany and japan after ww2). And I justify my opinion by thinking like this: if "we" don't go to war, the result could end up even more horrible. I have no "real" knowledge but I think we must trust the selected people that works under UN and trust what they say to us (conserning If and What types of military equipment iraq have/will have).

Difficult issue. Maybe nobody knows the truth and what's the right thing to do. It's a interesting discussion though, and we all (me included) can use to hear other peoples thaughts about it.