I think the US should move back to a state of isolationism except for the allies we have like Israel and South Korea and our commitments there. like our troops in europe pull'em frenchies wanna fight the germans again? who gives a shit? not our problem

and the UN? they can move to England or another nation that gives a shit what they say we obviously don't.

African Nations need aid money? let'em go beg from the europeans.

The world smiles as it takes our money while it screams about "death to america!" "we hate the americans" "americans will destroy us all". "american are capitalist pigs" and so on and so forth.

so what do we do? well we've tried everything else like getting involved in two european wars and giving away trillions in forgien aid and that seems not to have helped. We've tried negotiation several times and ended up in more wars and conflicts getting our young men killed. we've worked with the UN and got more of our young men killed in shitholes like somalia and the huge free fire zone that used to be yugoslavia.

so what do we do? well we can try even harder give away more money to people who waste it on more guns eventually requiring military intervention because of things like genocide. we can smash more of the international community with military force thus making more people with cheap guns who hate us or we can just flip the world the bird and head back to our own shores if some one wants to mess with us come on over we'll kick you ass but you wanna start a war with france? have fun try not to mess up the atmosphere. are your leaders murdering large portions of your population because of religous/ethnic reasons? go whine to the UN.

I'm sick of the global whining about America. You'd think the US was the cause of every problem from hunger and poverty to Aids when we've done more to solve those problems than anyone else in history.

so the world doesn't want our help? or wants to whine about the help being "to little"? well fine! get along with out the military force on request and the billions in forgien aid. and while were at it all the american inventions can come with us! like the lightbulb, the airplane, the helicopter, the car, any number of weapons inovations and hundreds of thousands of other inventions that the world uses every day taking for granted. so you can do with out all of it see you all next time someone attacks us or one of our allies.

But the insurgency also kills civilians en masse, so again that leads to the question where is the line between terrorist and freedom fighter?

it depends how each term is defined and in what context. The Chechen rebels were quicly branded islamic terrorists following 9/11 by Putin, that event really gave power to nations such as Israel who coul dnow group all the 'terrorists' together under the category of islamic terrorism, yet each case has to be examined on merit.

Palestinian Resistance - freedom fighters and justified

PKK - unjustified violence due to the nature of Kurdish rights in Turkey.

Iraqi Insurgency - Freedom fighters, justified slaughter of American soldiers.

Al Qaeda - justified aims of removing America from the middle east, unjustified methods.


Etc.

Is it terrorism or being a freedom fighter when one struggles to save one's own oppressed people?

they see America as an opportunity to continue their quest for autonomy, what is sick is that America does nothing to combat the Kurdish Workers Party in northern Iraq, not doing so is almost endorsing and dare i say it sponsering terrorism in the Republic of Turkey.

You need to check some stuff on the kurds out

"I do not ask America to build bases in kurdistan(kurdish state in iraq) I demand it"
-Kurdish offical

they see us a liberators and saviors as do a very large portion of Iraq.

I will post a thread in War and Terrorism that gives a great example of this

actually, although kuwait may be an exception, the Kurds probably have no sympathy towards Americans, they are just benefitting from the chaos in Iraq so are able to have basically free reign in North Iraq in order to launch terrorist attacks against Turkey. As for the general population who may be sympathetic, when all is calm and the Americans are still there i will guess they will alspo have quarrels.

Less than 99% a very good amount (Kuwait, the Kurds, other small middle eastern nations and so forth) see us a protectors and liberators and like having us around to keep their larger and more violent neighbors heads cool

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We have boots on the ground in some of the holiest sights in the middle east and hardline islamic fundamentalists do not like that

its not just the fundamentalists who don't like that, theyre just the ones with the power to mobilize anything, i would guess 99% of the population of the middle east wants American soldiers gone from their lands, and middle easterners aren't the only ones.

Another reason Osama hates us he was involved in funding the afgan mujahideen and hated US backing seeing it as "Intervention"

The reason Al-Qaeda did not like the US in Arabia is we are from their point of view (the extremists that is) a bunch of white, pagan, crusaders who are desecrating the holy land and aid the hated jews. We have boots on the ground in some of the holiest sights in the middle east and hardline islamic fundamentalists do not like that

Al Queda's existence corresponded with that of the Taliban which would trace their lineage back to the USSR occupation of Middle Eastern territories. Besides, US occupation of Kuwait never really was large scale. In fact, I think that the US's only involvement in Kuwait was during Desert Storm/Gulf War nearly a decade before 9/11. And anyways, Kuwait was sought after by Iraq, it has never been said to my knowledge that Afghanistan or Al Queda sought the wealth of Kuwait.

The whole reason Osama Bin Laden formed Al-Qaeda was because of American troops presence on Saudi/Kuwati soil which he saw as "holy", he had various other reasons including American backing if Israel and American Intervention in other arab affairs

September 11 was a product of faulty intelligence during Clinton's administration and Islamic contempt for western culture. There exists no positive evidence that US obligations in the Middle East contributed to 9/11. The attack was based in ideology.

The demilitarization treaty was signed by the Allies following WWI in an attempt to establish a world democracy and peace based upon President Wilson's 14 Points Plan. Japan never signed the treaty so restrictions we NOT put on their military and instead the US military was scaled down. This allowed Japan the opportunity to overpower the US. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was not moronic but a strategic move to cripple the Pacific Fleet and gain control of the Pacific Ocean. We even had an idea that Japan may attack Pearl Harbor yet coded messages concealed hard evidence.

The world's problems should not be thrust on the US at all why should we have to do anything? why can't englan? or france? or china? why the US?

The whole reason Al-Qaeda declared Jihad on the US was because of our involvement in the middle east, because we involved ourselves in world affairs not backed out of them.

Japan was an allie in the first world war why should we have any reason to force them to demilitarize if the didn't want to? we had no reason to suspect that they would betray us as they did

September 11, 2001 was a direct result that we did not take action against Al Queda early on following the bombing of the USS Cole which occurred prior to 9/11

December 7, 1941 was a direct result of a policy of isolationism and demilitarization that began with US refusal to sign the Treaty of Versailles and the creation of demilitarization treaties that did not include Japan(allowed them to amass a tremendous amount of arms)

For Bosnia, Rwanda, and the Kurds, I agree that it was the UN's problem yet we are part of the UN and it is our moral obligation to help protect and preserve the rights of peoples throughout the world. In Rwanda alone, we refused and delayed armored vehicle support and left 50 APC in neighboring Uganda during Rwanda. The genocide of the Kurds was established as a reason for our intervention in Iraq, the fact that Saddam Hussein was gasing his own people.

amp-if you went on to read the rest of my reply you would have seen my statements regarding the UN and the acknowledgement that the UN is useless and that the world's problems should not simply be thrust "completely" on the US.

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-2001: September 11

that was a result of being to involved in forgien affairs

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-1941: Pearl Harbor

a result of moronic japanese who couldn't figure out that if they left the US alone we wouldn't have bothered them.

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-1994: Genocide in Rwanda(US fears to intervine as the rest of the world following Somalia and Hutu butchering of 8 Belgian peacekeepers)
-1992: Bosnian Genocide
-1980s-1990s: Genocide of the Kurds/Kuwait

That's the UNs problem not the US's our forgein ould have no impact

A policy of Isolationism has nearly always ended in tragedy:
-2001: September 11
-1994: Genocide in Rwanda(US fears to intervine as the rest of the world following Somalia and Hutu butchering of 8 Belgian peacekeepers)
-1992: Bosnian Genocide
-1980s-1990s: Genocide of the Kurds/Kuwait
-1970s: Cambodian Genocide(following Vietnam's end)
-1941: Pearl Harbor(WWII isolation and stupid foreign treaties following WWI)
-1917(?): Zimmerman Note
-1812: War of 1812

The early neutrality proclamations issued by Washington were essential to the US's formation yet the continuation of that policy or the lack of renewing or rethinking the idea allowed events and tragedies as these to occur whether they directly affect the US or not.

I agree that the US should not have to shoulder the difficulties of foreign nations by ourselves, I thought the UN was created for that reason?

Unfortunately, the UN has seemed to pass on the world's problems to the Allies(namely the US and Britain). I stand by the disasembly and reconstruction of the UN as an uncorruptable, stronger force when it comes to international diplomacy.

The UN in fact has a small army(UNAMIR) of its own comprised of soldiers from several nations, an ample amount to contend with tragedies such as the genocide in Sudan. The UN even has set up an Internation Court System/War Tribunal(the US is not a part of this) and has set up a Genocide Convention(created in 1948) that stated the world community would never allow genocide to occur again. Unfortunately, they've failed and continue to fail acting upon the convention as evident in Rwanda and Sudan for example.

It is about time that not one country stand, but the whole world stand up to contend and solve the difficulties of the world.

ever here of the Un peacekeepers? albit they suck at keeping peace but they do exist

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As to the UN it doesn't do anything except cost america lives and money let someone else play world police force because we shouldn't have to.

They aren't the world police. That would involve a personal UN army. They just advise, and apparently, you don't have to follow. The UN is the first step in prevention towards a war.

America can't have isolationism. Hell, I don't think any country can.

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Britain knew when the world had had enough of empire, and withdrew accordingly

in the got thrown out sense of "withdrew"

In the cases of the first two yes we cared in the sense we didn't want them to become communist goverments and in the cases of the last group of small wars we fought because it was in our best intrests to keep those regions stable. so in all those we cared about the affairs of other nations and got our boys killed because of it