The US/China standoff -- opinions from the rest of the world?
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Bush only won the election by chance. If the vote of the people had been counted, rather than electoral votes, he'd have lost. If the electoral college votes were distrubuted proportionally rather than in state-sized chunks, he'd have lost. If 9000 voters in Florida had not been (unintentionally) mislead by a poorly designed ballot UI, he'd have lost. None of this is opinion; it is verifiable FACT. And he continues to lose, by assuming that he has a "mandate" and implementing the most heinous right-wing agenda ever promoted by an administration in my lifetime. He's an ignorant puppet of a bunch of has-been Cold Warriors, he's an opportunistic liar, and he is leading this country in precisely the wrong direction. Let's just hope he's out of office before the bombs start to fall and/or the last bit of wilderness is developed. Bush may have won the election "fair and square", but he's clearly not an honorable man. An honorable man would have looked at the circumstances of his election and bowed out.
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I think George W Bush Jr is onto drugs again. First, deciding to sell arms to Taiwan and making China angry, then environment problem, and biggest defaulter on payments to UN. And not to forget, making angry the whole world over missile defence shield. IMHO, he thinks he is king of the world and he can do anything he wants. That chinese Embassy bombing was no accident. With the state-of-the-art technology that they have, Americans expect us to believe that they made a mistake. Bull shit! China should return the crew but keep the plane. Ammar
You should take this in the context of other events. Last month a squad of US solders were killed by frendly fire during a training exercise. In the gulf war 1/4 of the allies killed were killed by frendly fire. War is an unsafe place. Taiwan has long been a US ally, not selling them arms would be a slap in their face. Besides there is always plenty of saber rattling going on across the strait.
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I think George W Bush Jr is onto drugs again. First, deciding to sell arms to Taiwan and making China angry, then environment problem, and biggest defaulter on payments to UN. And not to forget, making angry the whole world over missile defence shield. IMHO, he thinks he is king of the world and he can do anything he wants. That chinese Embassy bombing was no accident. With the state-of-the-art technology that they have, Americans expect us to believe that they made a mistake. Bull shit! China should return the crew but keep the plane. Ammar
Why is it that when the US is at fault, they're infallable and thus whatever it was must have been on purpose, yet when people from other countries talk about America and Americans, they say we're not better than anyone else? Food for thought.
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Why must the Americans constantly stick their nose in other countries affairs? I would think that the Americans should've learned from the Vietnam war that they seem to mis-read and under-estimate China. (Americans thought that the Chinese we're heavily involved but it was more the Russians) Taiwan and China is an internal affair, Americans getting involved will only cause more tension.
You know, we're damned if we do and we're damned if we don't. If we had a strict policy of isolationism, we'd be criticized for not helping those less fortunate than ourselves, smaller countries, or whatever. Whenever you take a side, there will always be someone on the other side that disagrees with you and will likely be very vocal about it. So simply choosing a side is enough to get negative publicity no matter what you do. Not choosing a side also gains you negative publicity. Further, We do have treaties with other countries to help out. This allows us to protect countries like Saudi Arabia who provide so much of the oil we need. If we didn't, someone like Sadam would come in and take all the oil producing countries and hold the world hostage, again, we'd be criticized for not doing anything about it. It's a tough job, and to sit there and criticize is easy.
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Bush only won the election by chance. If the vote of the people had been counted, rather than electoral votes, he'd have lost. If the electoral college votes were distrubuted proportionally rather than in state-sized chunks, he'd have lost. If 9000 voters in Florida had not been (unintentionally) mislead by a poorly designed ballot UI, he'd have lost. None of this is opinion; it is verifiable FACT. And he continues to lose, by assuming that he has a "mandate" and implementing the most heinous right-wing agenda ever promoted by an administration in my lifetime. He's an ignorant puppet of a bunch of has-been Cold Warriors, he's an opportunistic liar, and he is leading this country in precisely the wrong direction. Let's just hope he's out of office before the bombs start to fall and/or the last bit of wilderness is developed. Bush may have won the election "fair and square", but he's clearly not an honorable man. An honorable man would have looked at the circumstances of his election and bowed out.
Check your facts before spouting off like some ignorant political zealot: http://www.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/04/04/florida.recount.01/index.html?s=2 Josh josh@schroff.com
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"about a million Americans have died as a direct consequence of the asinine political incompetence of the countries of Europe." Now THIS is the sort of thing that inflames anti-American opinion. "On the other hand, none of them have died as a consequence of ours." Ermm, I presume you've heard or the Korean War - it wasn't just America fighting that (UK lost almost 25,000 troops) as well as Australians and other NATO countries. Also, what about Korea, Vietnam, etc, etc. Haven't done too well their have you? :mad: Why should the whole world suffer "global warming", just because America doesn't want to cut down on emissions? Bush complains about 3rd world countries not having to cut emissions, but the USA is the world's largest producer of CO2 per person - more than even 3rd world countries. "Heck, without us, they would all be sending their opinions in German, if they were allowed to send them at all." Maybe - that's not to say we're not grateful for what you've done. But on the other hand, in the American war of independence, a British soldier had George Washington in his sights. Because his back was turned, and because tradition was you wouldn't shoot an enemy in the back, he didn't fire. If he had shot him, the chances are you'd still be British or at least a colony. It's also things like "The Patriot" and "U571" that cause resentment, particularly in the UK. Hollywood completely fabricating stories and alleging that it was USN and not the British who retrieved the first enigma encoding device. Cheers, Peter Pearson
Movies are entertainment. They're modified to make them more entertaining, and since the movies are targeted primarily at American audiences with world distribution second, that is where the focus is. Like anyone in the US would have gone to see a movie about brits? We have identify with the people on screen or we just don't care, much like you brits didn't care that it was americans. You'd love to go see a movie about how the british won the Persian Gulf War, right? Whether it was true or not, it would be great entertainment for most brits. They didn't have to include the bit in the credits giving the official history, but they did. They could have simply said "based on a true story" and that's all that would have been necessary. This is my point about how we're alwasy damned no matter what we do.
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Why must the Americans constantly stick their nose in other countries affairs? I would think that the Americans should've learned from the Vietnam war that they seem to mis-read and under-estimate China. (Americans thought that the Chinese we're heavily involved but it was more the Russians) Taiwan and China is an internal affair, Americans getting involved will only cause more tension.
The US has been traditionally isolationist, with the cold war being an aberration. There is always a strong undercurrent in this country that we should stop trying to be the world's cop, get out of the UN and our other alliances, and let the rest of the world go to hell in its own merry way. Of course, sooner or later the problems of the rest of the world do end up on our shores...
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You should take this in the context of other events. Last month a squad of US solders were killed by frendly fire during a training exercise. In the gulf war 1/4 of the allies killed were killed by frendly fire. War is an unsafe place. Taiwan has long been a US ally, not selling them arms would be a slap in their face. Besides there is always plenty of saber rattling going on across the strait.
"Taiwan has long been a US ally, not selling them arms would be a slap in their face." About supporting allies, when Iraq attacked Kuwait Mr President's daddy went all out to save Kuwait. But when it comes to saving Palestinians citizens, America vetoed the resolution (to send UN unarmed observers to observe Israeli military attacks) in UN. What about Pakistan? No need to mention that America is still pursuing its policy of "will-do-whats-best-for-us-Rest-can-go-to-hell". Pakistan is also an ally since long but when it came to F-16s, Americans not only didnt deliver the planes but kept more than $500 million to themselves. Is there any business-ethics or morals left in this country called US of A government? Ammar PS: By Americans, I dont mean the good citizens of America. I mean the policy makers.
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I'm an American who has spent a great deal of time overseas for work...at the moment, however, I'm in the US and was curious how people outside the US view the brewing storm over the American "spy" plane which is currently in China. I spoke to a friend last night who is a atmospheric scientist, and his data collection aircraft is basically the same airplane as the one which is now in China. He says that the plane is old, slow, and big....that he would be very surprised if it could hit a fighter unless the fighter pilot was asleep. Should the US aplogize? Should the US cut off trade relations? Should the crew be held in China? Should the plane be returned to the US?
Answers as follows: 1/ Yes. If you're spying, you're spying. Sheesh. 2/ No. I'd say that it's probable that China caused the accident, probably on purpose. However, see answer one. You want a war with the biggest army on the planey because they don't like you spying on them ? 3/ Of course not. They should be treated fairly and released in a timely fashion. 4/ I don't know - I'd suggest they will return it once they have learned all they can from it. Christian The content of this post is not necessarily the opinion of my yadda yadda yadda. To understand recursion, we must first understand recursion.
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I'm an American who has spent a great deal of time overseas for work...at the moment, however, I'm in the US and was curious how people outside the US view the brewing storm over the American "spy" plane which is currently in China. I spoke to a friend last night who is a atmospheric scientist, and his data collection aircraft is basically the same airplane as the one which is now in China. He says that the plane is old, slow, and big....that he would be very surprised if it could hit a fighter unless the fighter pilot was asleep. Should the US aplogize? Should the US cut off trade relations? Should the crew be held in China? Should the plane be returned to the US?
Answers as follows: 1/ Yes. If you're spying, you're spying. Sheesh. 2/ No. I'd say that it's probable that China caused the accident, probably on purpose. However, see answer one. You want a war with the biggest army on the planey because they don't like you spying on them ? 3/ Of course not. They should be treated fairly and released in a timely fashion. 4/ I don't know - I'd suggest they will return it once they have learned all they can from it. Christian The content of this post is not necessarily the opinion of my yadda yadda yadda. To understand recursion, we must first understand recursion.
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Movies are entertainment. They're modified to make them more entertaining, and since the movies are targeted primarily at American audiences with world distribution second, that is where the focus is. Like anyone in the US would have gone to see a movie about brits? We have identify with the people on screen or we just don't care, much like you brits didn't care that it was americans. You'd love to go see a movie about how the british won the Persian Gulf War, right? Whether it was true or not, it would be great entertainment for most brits. They didn't have to include the bit in the credits giving the official history, but they did. They could have simply said "based on a true story" and that's all that would have been necessary. This is my point about how we're alwasy damned no matter what we do.
I think you'll find that people outside the US are far less likely to be more motivated by a desire to see *our* country depicted as the saviour of the free world yet again, and probably more likely to be interested in a true story remaining the truth. I guess it's collective insecurity after that bad streak you had with wars in the 50's, 60's and 70's.... Why did Rambo make money ? It was a poor film, but it made millions coz you guys got to forget that you got caned by a technologically inferior army. Christian The content of this post is not necessarily the opinion of my yadda yadda yadda. To understand recursion, we must first understand recursion.
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I agree it's entertainment, but when facts are half used and half changed, it gets silly. Fair point about U571 - I can't actually remember, but I know I was a bit annoyed at the time. As were, I think it is fair to say, quite a few people in this country. Regards, Peter Pearson
I had a close look at an enigma machine on the weekend, damned remarkable piece of gear. It was incredibly advanced encryption for its time, it was only due to a procedural error and a small flaw in design that the code was broken. The procedural error was that the reel settings for the 3 wheels were always sent twice in succession, in plain text at the start of the message. So all someone had to do, once in posession of an enigma machine, was to look for a pattern of 3 characters repeated (and later 5 characters repeated on transition to the 5 reel enigma) The flaw in design was that every 300 messages or so, the enigma would complete a cycle of encryption and 1 character would be encoded the same as the message 300 beforehand. Ie if a 'g' was encoded as an 'a', 300 iterations or so later, the 'g' would again be encoded as an 'a'. That's a fairly simplistic view of it and probably not perfectly correct but it gives an idea of the methods used in cracking the code ;-) Senior Test Engineer GLI Australia www.gli.com.au
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US "MUST" apologize. US "MUST" promise not to send its spy planes to any country. US "MUST" pay for the damages caused by its plane. US aircraft crew "MUST" be punished according to chinese rules.
Since I still consider myself part of the US Military - not only NO! but HELL NO! Has everyone forgotten Tianemen Square and what the Chinese government did to their own people? Every non-American post I have seen here has basically raised China on a pedastel and wants to bash the US. The Chinese aircraft "attacked" an American aircraft in international waters, then held its crew in captivity, denying contact with American embassy personnel. That is illegal according to international law, and certainly not the kind of actions that the American military or government would take Phil Boyd MCP "I took the road less traveled..."
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Bush only won the election by chance. If the vote of the people had been counted, rather than electoral votes, he'd have lost. If the electoral college votes were distrubuted proportionally rather than in state-sized chunks, he'd have lost. If 9000 voters in Florida had not been (unintentionally) mislead by a poorly designed ballot UI, he'd have lost. None of this is opinion; it is verifiable FACT. And he continues to lose, by assuming that he has a "mandate" and implementing the most heinous right-wing agenda ever promoted by an administration in my lifetime. He's an ignorant puppet of a bunch of has-been Cold Warriors, he's an opportunistic liar, and he is leading this country in precisely the wrong direction. Let's just hope he's out of office before the bombs start to fall and/or the last bit of wilderness is developed. Bush may have won the election "fair and square", but he's clearly not an honorable man. An honorable man would have looked at the circumstances of his election and bowed out.
Hmmm - must be a Clinton supporter. Let's see: 1 - Had a sexual affair with an intern while President of the United States, then lied to his wife, and to the American People UNDER OATH about it. Fact - he admitted it to make the inquiry go away. 2 - Stole over $80,000 of property belonging to the American people when he left office, then returned it calling it a mistake. 3 - The Clinton Administration caused over $250,000 damage to the White House and Administration offices when then left at the end of the Clinton debacle. 4 - Pardoned Marc Rich after accepting several thousands of dollars in bribes from Rich's ex-wife. 5 - Pardoned 4 Jewish rabbis convicted of embezzling several thousand dollars from their community in New York to get the town to vote for his wife. Oh yeah - he was really somebody to look up to. And you want to accuse GW of stealing the election? Well - I guess maybe you might have some experience there based on your choices for hero worship.:mad: Phil Boyd MCP "I took the road less traveled..."
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Why must the Americans constantly stick their nose in other countries affairs? I would think that the Americans should've learned from the Vietnam war that they seem to mis-read and under-estimate China. (Americans thought that the Chinese we're heavily involved but it was more the Russians) Taiwan and China is an internal affair, Americans getting involved will only cause more tension.
How are we getting involved? A group of people has gotten together and formed a legitimate democratic government. There are over 165 separate nations on this planet. I know we aren't the only ones that recognize Taiwan as a separate nation (even if we do it in a subdued manner). Are you suggesting that just because the PRC calls it an internal issue that we just shrug our shoulders and say sorry? Phil Boyd MCP "I took the road less traveled..."
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Movies are entertainment. They're modified to make them more entertaining, and since the movies are targeted primarily at American audiences with world distribution second, that is where the focus is. Like anyone in the US would have gone to see a movie about brits? We have identify with the people on screen or we just don't care, much like you brits didn't care that it was americans. You'd love to go see a movie about how the british won the Persian Gulf War, right? Whether it was true or not, it would be great entertainment for most brits. They didn't have to include the bit in the credits giving the official history, but they did. They could have simply said "based on a true story" and that's all that would have been necessary. This is my point about how we're alwasy damned no matter what we do.
Valid point , but why not extend the argument . How about a film about how a Brit perfected the light bulb , or even how we decided not to win the American War of Independance . The result would be uproar , and justifiably so , because it would be viewed as an attempt to rewrite history. This is not a trivial point , look at the current arguments between Japan and South Korea about the content of school text books. Japan is claiming to have liberated large parts of Asia in the 30's and 40's . A point that has some justification if you view the Dutch, French and British Colonists as "Anglo-Saxon invaders" . Its just that the Koreans feel they were not liberated from anybody , simply subjugated to Imperial Japan .(There is a minor point that the Anglo-Saxon tag is not strictly accurate either). When we still had the Soviet Union , History was continually being rewritten there , even to the extent that their greatest Generals were often sidelined and all credit given to the political masters. Rewriting history for commercial reasons is not a harmless thing to do , these untruths can be propagated for a long time . Asprin was invented by a German working for Bayer , he was a Jew , so the credit went to his understudy a Gentile . See , when you start the mis information , where do you stop ? Regards Andrew Torrance
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Since I still consider myself part of the US Military - not only NO! but HELL NO! Has everyone forgotten Tianemen Square and what the Chinese government did to their own people? Every non-American post I have seen here has basically raised China on a pedastel and wants to bash the US. The Chinese aircraft "attacked" an American aircraft in international waters, then held its crew in captivity, denying contact with American embassy personnel. That is illegal according to international law, and certainly not the kind of actions that the American military or government would take Phil Boyd MCP "I took the road less traveled..."
I see very little USA bashing here . Its just that being 'outsiders' perhaps we see the situation a little less subjectively . No one is arguing that China has acted virtuosly in this incident , or that China has somehow been deeply wronged by the US . Most people are assuming that China has probably initiated this whole affair . What scares the crap out of the rest of us is not this individual incident , which will hopefully come to an end soon , but the whole attitude of the new President to foriegn affairs. There are signs of an introverted view of the world , and damn the consequences . No one is saying China had any right to attack a US spy plane in international airspace (no one except the Chinese that is who claim it was within a 200 mile self emposed exclusion zone). What we are saying is that the new president appears to be giving heavy handed signals to the rest of the world in order to play to a domestic audience . He appears , or at least appeared , not to understand that many states in the world do not play by the same rule book. These states are likely ( if totally unjustifiably so in most western eyes) to react in ways which are not acceptable. It is not that the USA is wrong and China is right , it is that a better understanding of international relations could have probably achieved all of the aims of GW Bush , without risking what looks like an incident arranged for political purposes. My suspicion is that China is at fault , and the crew and plane should be returned forthwith .If it goes to international law it will be a mess , all China has to do is force a trial and claim American fault , they may loose , but it would give them months or years to hold the crew and the plane. No , this is a job for politicians , this is what they get paid for .There will be a deal of some kind , but after all , isn't that what this whole affair is about ?
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the only accurate things in the movie "the patriot" were the costuming, the war-reenactors in the background, and the "broad swath" of events (indian wars, debates, &c) the rest of the movie was mindless, over-produced, mel gibson tripe... if you try to make a period piece, you don't have women standing up in church questioning their father's and brother's manhood, you don't have more-evil-than-evil villians (ruined the whole point of the movie, that brit being so nasty), and you certainly don't have some stupid ewok-inspired interlude to show how sensitive to the slavery issue the producers were where the family goes to hide out with their slaves (or sharecroppers or whatever they were)... i think mel's movies are good about 1 in 3, payback, conspiracy theory, braveheart, 2/3 of mad max were all good, but the rest is pretty much mediocre -John
"the only accurate things in the movie "the patriot" were the costuming, the war-reenactors in the background, and the "broad swath" of events (indian wars, debates, &c) " Actually, I'm afraid not even this much was accurate - the Green Dragoons wore green jackets, not red, and I understand the re-enactors were distinctly less than impressed with what they were being told to do in the interests of drama. A friend of mine who took a professional interest in the historicity of the film could deconstruct it in far more detail than I would even contemplate inflicting on CodeProject readers. Cheers, Gavin.
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"Taiwan has long been a US ally, not selling them arms would be a slap in their face." About supporting allies, when Iraq attacked Kuwait Mr President's daddy went all out to save Kuwait. But when it comes to saving Palestinians citizens, America vetoed the resolution (to send UN unarmed observers to observe Israeli military attacks) in UN. What about Pakistan? No need to mention that America is still pursuing its policy of "will-do-whats-best-for-us-Rest-can-go-to-hell". Pakistan is also an ally since long but when it came to F-16s, Americans not only didnt deliver the planes but kept more than $500 million to themselves. Is there any business-ethics or morals left in this country called US of A government? Ammar PS: By Americans, I dont mean the good citizens of America. I mean the policy makers.
"America is still pursuing its policy of "will-do-whats-best-for-us-Rest-can-go-to-hell"." -- Isn't this what every government does?? I think the fear among US policy makers with Pakistan and Palestine is way that they try to "solve" their problems....in the case of Pakistan, haven't there been 3 wars with India, and isn't there a defacto war going on between the two over who owns a few mountains?? Hasn't Pakistan set off atomic bombs within the last few years?? Palestine and Isreal are both amazing to me....why would two groups who actually share a great deal in common feel the need to be at eat others throats....when I was in europe I meet a group of Isrealis my age...they were full of such hate it amazed me. As for keeping $500 million....you must know what you're talking about, but no one I know would take money that wasn't theirs unless they were a dirt-bag.
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I see very little USA bashing here . Its just that being 'outsiders' perhaps we see the situation a little less subjectively . No one is arguing that China has acted virtuosly in this incident , or that China has somehow been deeply wronged by the US . Most people are assuming that China has probably initiated this whole affair . What scares the crap out of the rest of us is not this individual incident , which will hopefully come to an end soon , but the whole attitude of the new President to foriegn affairs. There are signs of an introverted view of the world , and damn the consequences . No one is saying China had any right to attack a US spy plane in international airspace (no one except the Chinese that is who claim it was within a 200 mile self emposed exclusion zone). What we are saying is that the new president appears to be giving heavy handed signals to the rest of the world in order to play to a domestic audience . He appears , or at least appeared , not to understand that many states in the world do not play by the same rule book. These states are likely ( if totally unjustifiably so in most western eyes) to react in ways which are not acceptable. It is not that the USA is wrong and China is right , it is that a better understanding of international relations could have probably achieved all of the aims of GW Bush , without risking what looks like an incident arranged for political purposes. My suspicion is that China is at fault , and the crew and plane should be returned forthwith .If it goes to international law it will be a mess , all China has to do is force a trial and claim American fault , they may loose , but it would give them months or years to hold the crew and the plane. No , this is a job for politicians , this is what they get paid for .There will be a deal of some kind , but after all , isn't that what this whole affair is about ?
Actually Andrew, I think there is a fairly strong current of negative posts in the thread by non-americans....several posts have said that the plane was spying, and don't seem to care if the plane was in international airspace....I've only seen a couple posts which state that the crew should be returned. As for US policy...well I'm sure its going to be more isolationist with Bush, but if you understand how the US government works, not due strictly to him....we have a senate and house of representatives which are the branchs of government which actually pass laws...the president can then approve these laws or try to veto them. The president also sets the tone for international relations, but cannot in fact control what happens in the world. I'm just curious what would have happened if a similar Chinese plane was flying near a US air base on a Japanesse island what the Chinese would have said!!! I know that the air crew would have been home with 24 hours and contant would have been provided as quickly as possible.