in between one fish and another, i am with you claudia. history will teach the us what mostruosities have been committed in iraq (shall we start with depleted uranium? that was a good liberation from long term health).
the problem is that history is always too late. nowadays the media are very much under control and people in the us just do not get a realistic picture of what's going on.

we must remain optimistic about the future though. despite all these disgusting things, the majority of people all over the world demonstrated a good sense of perception of what is really going on.

as somebody said quite a long time ago..

"il pessimismo della ragione,
l'ottimismo della volonta'"

I hope you're still there:
I must say I agree with Ray in one thing: we all have better fish to fry. Apparently this was no longer an healthy discussion, just an exchange of arguments full of underlying complexes. People that are not ready to hear to different opinions should not be part of international fora of discussion because they risk being shocked when not everybody agree with them. that's the danger of the american model right now: il pensiero unico, the model where everybody thinks the same. the model where ends justify means (guess who said this first? does the name Machiavel rings a bell?) and all have to accept it or become enemies...
Very sad, Ray. Very sad indeed.
continue reflecting and try reading books from different countries. You'll discover another world. If you took your time to be in this small list is because, after all, you do have some will to get in touch with different people and to hear other thougts.
Just remind that history is not written in a few days. Yesterday there were demonstrations against Saddam Hussein AND the US, both in Bassora and in Bagdad. Guess what: even CNN showed how US troops tried to stop journalists to film these images, "for security reasons"..... and clearly this is going to increase with time. Back to Afghanistan, your soldiers cannot put their nose out of Kabul without being shot, and even the mujahidin have been uniting to fight the US troops. Recent history should teach the US something. I hope this makes you think as well, ray.
From this side, I can assure you we cannot avoid doing so... Enjoy California!

good luck to you ray, i mean it.
a little advice, if i may. just think about never saying again "stop reading this", but just "add this to your list of readings", which makes much more sense.
democracy is confrontation with new ideas, criticism, especially of who is in power.

all the best.

Funny thing is the same media that is available to you is available here....guess what America has the internet....we also have papers....we also have magazines, and oh my gosh we also have radio and tv and satellite tv.. we're in the information age.
You can believe your totalitarianism myth....and keep working on creating your perfect utopia in Europe.

Claudia and Robert it has been informative but we all have bigger fish to fry and good luck to you

Ray

by the way I live in Texas but just moved from California if you wanted to know

well.. thank you claudia for your insightful thoughts about what is going on. i think you got to the point.

ray, as a clever american says (prof. krugman, you may have heard of him, but possibly not) for as much as you are concerned you (you many rays all over the states) will have lost the war, whatever happens on the battlefield.

your idea of democracy is in fact totalitarianism, i could not call it differently.
in this sense a bit of education would not harm.

am i wrong in seeing an inferiority complex there?

the thing ray is that we read both liberal and conservative media. and this is why we are just more informed than the average american.

there's nothing nice being so average, believe me.

what newspapers would you like me to read? You Europeans think that you are the icon of culture and educated! Don't you know that this war is a media war? everyone has information including us. By the way, have you checked out the paper today? Even CNN which is one of the most biased media reports that the people are meeting US troops with parades of people? what does that tell you. Everyone is a critic but europe will be the first when all is said and done to be ready to take the handouts. Germany forgets about all their WWII debts, but will be there in the end to say...whats in it for us...you just watch. All of a sudden a lot of countries now are starting to take our side....imagine that! By the way China makes a large number of those who are opposed to the war.....and they are Communist....why would they agree with us?huh!???
By the way that was a pretty good sterotype of Bush....yawhaw! This attitude is typical of the European mindset...."don't get involved..wedon't want to make anyone mad!!" There are a couple of sountries in Europe that understand why we are doing this but to the others...who cares! 9/11 won't happen again and we are making a stand as a country that we are not going to put up with terrorism of any type! Whatever it takes.
You talk about Afghanistan....change does not happen over night....if you haven't noticed we are still over there. How long did it take for women to have a place in the US, ....nationwide...stupid comment...next

I think the thing that makes me laugh the most is you in europe think that because you are so "educated" it automatically makes you Generals...masters in foreign diplomacy. You condemn the way we handle this but you all are cowards by nature. England...you still have a queen for God sakes....and I won't even get started about Parliment....your country has no idea how a country is supposed to run....but maybe you went to Oxford to get that good "education" We are not brainwashed...we have patriotism because we love our country. We understand that democracy is of the people by the people, but demonstrations while a war is in progress is wrong! Where were these demonstrators before? The media played on the demonstrations and other countries chimed in....it turned into a media frenzy...and don't blame the US for that. Those British are over there and correspondents from all over the world are over there collecting on all this media coverage.

Some words of advice....get your facts straight, don't believe everyhing you read, and stop reading all those liberal publications it makes you look bad

ta ta

I just found this on-line discussion and was really sad to confirm that in this moment there are really two visions (at least) of world politics and of reality;
We are all western (i.e. presumably sharing a common history and some common "humanist" values), presumably well educated, living in confortable socio-economic conditions, etc, etc, but at the end of the day we have totally different ontologies, different perceptions, different "everythings"... "we" see the world in one way, most Americans see it in another way;
I would say we see the complexity, while most of the Americans are blind for their pariotic feelings and their absolute FEAR, very wisely manipulated by their leaders;

In Europe, we don't believe in a world of bad guys versus good guys, a dicotomic world of evil and Good, a world of black and white, a world of "you're with us or you're against us". My reality -as I perceive it- is more complex than that, it is framed in a historical, social, political, human context. This way of "thinking the world" tries to look at the processes not only to the ultimate results, it attempts at assessing the "how(s)" not only the "what(s)", it tries to put things into context even when they hurt. I don't like a world led by arrogance and prepotence, no matter from where it comes. I don't believe in unilateralism. I try to ask as many "why(s)" as I can, even -again- when they hurt. I don't like Saddam in the same way I don't like Bush. for me they both are leaders who manipulate and use their peoples, disregarding ethic conventions and principles. They both kill in the name of stability, in the name of their personal views of justice, both have excluded themselves from a certain world consensus on international norms.
There are millions of people against this war, there are many many countries against this war (not only france as many Americans like to say, in a simplistic analysis), there are many institutions against this war. Many like to believe it is only hate or jealousy towards the US. but maybe there are some deeper reasons to think about? maybe some questions are worth dedicating time to think about....maybe the "rays" that will read this email could take some time of their precious lives to try to understand the reasons why most of the world is so much in disagreement with the US...
Are we all - those who do not back the US administration in their imperialistic cruzade to clean the world from the bad guys and to impose their "peace of the cemiteries"- stupid? Are we all manipulated by the French? are the french that powerful? not anymore, I should say... or are we -whatever this "we" means- just tired of prepotence and afraid of a world led by an empire thirsty of blood and revange? A world where military power is substituting the diplomatic tools that were created and gradually developed since after the Congress of Westfalia? this is not only about keeping Saddam in power ("we" all want him to go!! we all want Iraqis to live a decent life!!) it's about the way in that is made. it's about substituting politics by arms. arms should be used in function of politics not the other way round. it's about double standards. it's about stupidity and simplistic versions of world politics. it's about creating a chaos, a real clash of civilisations. it's about transforming moderates into potential future terrorists, it's about creating a world of constant conflict. it's about saying "no" to the cowboy philosophy - "me good, you bad. me shoot you, you're dead" - that believes the world outhere is all a big ranch full of bad indians to exterminate.
It's also about learning from history and from the outcomes of similar politics in the recent past. Look at Afganistan!! Women continue to have a miserable life, being obliged to use the burka and excluded from the public sphere, and never as today instability, insecurity and poverty were so strongly felt by all the population.
I don't believe in simplistic analysis and my head is full of questions. Isn't saddam a result of american politics in any case? and bin laden? and how many more...? Pinochet, Suharto, etc, etc... the list would be long. aren't there lessons to be learned from all this? and so many related questions??? and what about double standards, again? is israel excluded from all justice? is the holocaust a justification for what they do? are they "intouchable"? is setp 11 a justification for any war against others, even when the majority of the world says "no"? where are the borderlines? where will it end? will this be a fight against the world, forever?
too many questions, really. I just hope that Americans open their eyes to see that they are not living in a "dream country" anymore (if ever...), they are living in a country which is becoming a new form of totalitarianism. And that never as today the feeling of anti-americanism was so enormous all over the world!!! and this anti-americanism is not only expressed by the pacifists that Ray describes in his email, it is -as Robert explained- a shared feeling across social groups and professional classes!
Finally, all this is not "the world versus America", this is all about proportions and means. it's a big "we" of voices -of americans and many others- that say no to Bush and to his circle of fascist dangerous advisors, like Cheney and Rumsfelt, that will make a lot of money with this dirty war that already killed and wounded thousands of people (but maybe that doesn't pass in American tv). I would advise Ray to read other newspapers once in a while and try to think about the root causes of all this....

hippies?
block the streets?
chain yourself to a pole??
what are you talking about???

we are intellectuals, workers, employees from all sort of milieau of the world society opposing the arrogance of this war. free thinkers and not brainwashed. by the way, thinking about hippies in oxford is quite a funny joke.. i see you don't have a great knowledge of the "outside" world, don't you?

a society like the one in the states, where 70% of the people support a war of aggression, that is fairly brainwashed i fear, like most of my friends in the states are witnessing.

we are talking about democracy here. people's voice being heard? any idea of that?? (democracy means power of the people, by the way).
or the democracy you want to export is the one where you rule with the gun,and everybody quiet.
this is what you want? kind of hard to achieve anyway, no? 250 millions american against the other 5 billions. kind of an hard game the one of the cowboy-john wayne-georgie-chickenhawk-whata brain-daddy i have big balls-bush..

is that the "freedom" you talk about? the one you have in that country, where you can be arrested and put in jail without civil rights (it's called "new patriotic act"). where prisoners are held in guantanamo against the geneva convention?? where more than a million people are in jail (mostly black of course). this is a joke, isn't it? or another result of brainwashing..?

come on, you want a safe world for your children.. this is exactly what you won't have after this. you will have a new 9-11 and then another and another ("why people hate us?" somebody asked after 9-11!! can you believe that? another victim of the autistic syndrome..) .
and you won't even be able to complain then. they will be using the same logic you are using now. the one of violence and fear.
congratulations! what a masterpiece! good luck!

I have a life....a great one as a matter of fact a one where I want to make sure that my children are safe. One that allows us to keep the freedoms that we have in this country.

I can see we are going nowhere here but I am glad to see that the hippie movement is alive and well in Oxford. Go ahead a carry your protest sign "blood for Oil!"Chain yourself to a pole or better off yet go ahead a block the streets of your business district...that will work! HAH!

Ray

That's it then. you choose a world of fear, violence and blood.
we choose something else.
history will judge about war crimes committed for "liberating" iraq.

and talking about balls, i don't see how much balls you do need to attack such a desperate country.

sorry that's no ball.
the only balls i see in iraq are the ones of the peasants that fight with old rifles against laser guided weapons. that is what i call brave.

firing cluster bombs from an apache chopper is like playing an alienating videogame.

the people of iraq are earning the respect of the world because they are defending their country against an overwhelming invading army.

the us and its neo-fascist leadership are loosing respect from most of the people in the world for the crimes they are committing.

the thing is that most of the american people do not realize how much alienation and nationalism they are fed with.

you call "defending the us from terrorism" what is a war of aggression. prehemptive strikes are not a defense. they are an attack.
this is so obvious that honest minds could not seriously object that.

the ridicolous lies are getting out of fashion. come on, wake up and get a life.

I don't know what world you are from but US and Europe have never seen eye to eye....Starting with the founding of our country! To be quite honest public opinion is exactly what it is....opinion and all the sources that you have given for your data are the most liberal opinionated publications. Come on....the economist!!! totally in favor of the utopian society...

As for the SH arguement. It is true US was supporting and aiding him during the war with Iraq. However, allies change and now he is a threat! He would not supply proper documentation and played a cat and mouse game with us and we had enough. The UN inspections were a joke! Just a waste of time. Much of time spent was done in vehicles that SH's men were paid to make distrations....fake car breakdowns, not allowing access. We were getting no where. Now we are.

Fear is everywhere, unfortuately, we live in a different time and the worst thing we can do is sit around and wait for another 9/11...that is what former president Clinton would have done...I am glad that finally someone with balls went in there and did something.

It is not about oil...There is intel that you or I can't even begin to know that runs much deeper than this...but that's what all the bleeding heart anti-war demonstrators want you to think. The funny thing is they think that flipping over cars and stopping traffic actually means something..that it is actually doing something.it is not the 60's anymore, their voice is NOT being heard

Ray

ray,
s.h. used to be a major allied of the us in the region. he was financed, protected, armed by the us.
when he brutally repressed the curds in north iraq, the us were very close friends with him (donald rumsfield may have some nice memories about it). and the us didn't do or even say anything about it.
instead most of the people that adverse this war of aggression on iraq were the same that at the time gave voice to the curds in opposition to the us policies in that region.
which is not a contradiction at all. being against oppression and us friendly dictatorships means trying to stop the vicious circle of us involvment in financing other dictators, other oppression, other bloodshed.

much of the contrasts in middle east were fomented by western countries in order to be able to dominate on strategic resources. Most of the colonization attempts begin with the urge to “liberate” or “democratize” the regions. But we all know that “democracy” can mean evereything or nothing. In the 1970s democratically elected politicians in south america were deposed or even killed with thousands of their connationals by us trained agents (guatemala in the 1950s and chile in 1973 are only a few examples. the us backed a coup d’etat in venezuela just a few months ago, by the way). It follows that the concept of democracy needs to be defined further. Otherwise we cannot distinguish episodes in history that are very far apart from each other.

it is not a surprise that the average iraqi does not feel liberated at all. they are fighting for their country now. against the invader. as you would do if some people from far abroad would come to your country trying to impose YOU what THEY think it's best for you (there's a revealing piece by Haifa Zangana, an Iraqi-born novelist, former political prisoner of the Ba'ath regime, on the guardian today, at http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,928414,00.html ).

who gave the us the authority to do that? how much do the us know about the iraqi people needs? they didn't know much when they used to love s.h.. they do not know now.

Can you realize how much arrogant can be the idea of deciding for others? There’s an important and democratic thing called autodetermination. People around the world have the right to revolt against their oppressors. Europeans did it when the time came for them. Americans did it. We cannot hijack arab’s history and development process.

In addition, s.h. is not different from many oppressors in the region and elsewhere. Many of which are still very good us friends. The question is, therefore, why iraq? Why s.h.?

Is iraq threatening the us? Come on, let’s be serious.
Is he involved with 9-11? Of course not and bush and blair know it (us sources say this, not me). actually bin laden hates the secular baath regime and he will be very happy when s.h. will be gone.
Weapons of mass destruction? Inpectors were verifying it, so why doing all this before the end of the ispections??

You know the answer.
Oil for the few. The same few that are willing to trade it with american soldiers lifes. The soldiers, the less educated in us society that are dying every day, even now, believing honestly it is for superior moral reasons. Without knowing it is not.

And Bin laden is having a laugh. He knows many more young arabs will join fundamentalists groups now. This is exactly what happened in iran, where the us did the same mess before everything ended up with a fundamentalist revolution.

Is this in the us interests? Of course not. Not yours. You are condemned to live in a world of fears and disrespect from now on. Come to europe and you will realize how much unpopular are the states now. And I am talking about europe. Even in oxford, uk, where I am now, I have never experienced something like that in my life time.

What happened to you america? You used to be the avanguard of the world. Everybody used to respect you and admire you for your tolerance and democracy. People from all over the world came to contribute to your development and growth. And now look at you. A shadow of what you used to be. Now we do not love you, we fear you.

So what would your solution be? I am interested! If all the world is against us (which you say) Do we let this known murderer continue to inflict and support weapons of mass destruction and wreak havoc on the rest of the world. It seems you have been caught up in the cheering media party. Perhaps your biased media only shows the negatives around the world of protests and anti-war demonstrations..but the fact remains when you are #1, the Superpower, your are under constant scrutiny of all others...and it is easy to sit back and be an armchair critic. The fact is I do believe that certain aspects of our foreign policy has holes in it....but I do believe this war is necessary and should have been taken care of a long time ago. As for the innocent and the lives lost, America and GB will gladly give up a few lives in order to keep the world safe. I also feel saddened by these civilian losses, but a lot of American lives have also been lost in previous battles....all for a purpose and that purpose has not changed

ray,
that is exactly my point. the us gained an international moral authority from their role in international politics far long ago.

the recent events of the war of aggression on iraq prove that this authority has been (irreversibly?) lost.

most of public opinion in europe, china, arab countries, india, i.e. basically the entire world except us, uk and australia and few others is against this war.
(check "the economist" for example,
http://www.economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1679933 ).

this is what i mean by a worrying american autistic syndrome. do you guys realize you are alone in this? do you realize how many lies your media feed you with?

and most of all, do you realize what people from any kind of background and education across the world think of the us now?

do you really think the vast majority of germans in nazi germany acted on fear?
well, sadly, that is not the truth. they believed in their leaders. in the role germany would have had in a new world order. in conformism. in law and order. in military power. and the same war lithany.

how sad this is. precious young american lives traded for the interests of the few. in the middle of a cheering media party. and iraqi kids dying under their houses rubble with their heads turned into pieces.
that is what i call a liberation.

Mr. Wilson,

Where is your data coming from? Most of the people wish for the demise of US???? I am sure you are talking about the Arab nations or the non-committed countries. I also assume you are NOT an American citizen. You wouldn't happen to be French would you? As far as your comment about God with us...that was the motto of Nazi Germany however, we in this country do not act on fear we act on allegiance to our country under God. Whereas, Germany acted on fear...anyone against the regime was executed. How dare you compare the two!!! Don't forget we probably liberated you too!

so you can say "thank you"

de genova filthy creature? maybe. as a matter of fact many people across the world is thinking exactly the same. they wish a defeat for the aggressors, i.e. the us. i think you american fellows are drawning in a serious autistic syndrome. you do not realize you keep justifying anything america does. it must be just! it must be. you know what? "god is with us" was the motto of nazi germany. just draw your conclusions.

the sad thing is that we used to like you, guys.
a lot. but not anymore. you lost the moral authority you gained after the second world war.

my respect goes to all the people that are dying because of this unjust war. they don't even get a serious cause. while their commander sits in a comfortable chair in washington, and his friend are making money of it.

think guys, think.