. Toc: SouthAmerica, Let us hear your solutions to solving the 'Fanatic Islamist' Terrorist problems in the world today. ******* February 10, 2006 SouthAmerica: When people are fanatic about most things usually it is bad â as a Brazilian I make one exception for soccer - for Brazilians soccer is almost like a religion. But when we are talking about politics and religion - when people are fanatics usually means trouble. And that goes for any religion, and any type of political belief. In history millions of people died because of religious conflicts. If you are a Christian â I remind you of the crusades, and the inquisition. The Jews have been fighting against some other tribe or group since the time of Moses about four thousand years ago. Modern Islamic history begins in Arabia around the year 600 A.D. with the emergence of the prophet Muhammad â since then the Arab world has been torn by civil wars and conflict. Underlying all these religious conflicts - by all these major religions - is always the pursuit of power by one group or another. But to answer your question: I respect most peopleâs religions and I believe in "freedom of religion" as the right of each individual to freely choose and practice his religion. I am a free thinker and I donât like to be indoctrinated by anyone â including religion, or any form of ideology. If people respected each otherâs religion we would not have so much conflict and trouble today all over the world. Today, the right-wing fanatics who took control of power in the US are not much different that the Islamic fanatics that you mentioned above. I donât have a solution on how to handle fanatics regarding religion and politics. One possible solution is let these people alone and respect their views. You donât have to agree with them or adopt their points of view. Anyway, we would not be having this conversation if there were no oil in the Middle East. The conflict in the entire Middle East is about oil, money, greed, and power - and to a lesser degree about religion and the problem between Israel and the Arab world. The reality is: if there was no oil in the Middle East then nobody would care about the conflict between Israel and the Arab world. ****** Regarding my above posting about North Korea and Japan â I donât have anything against North Korea or Japan for that matter. The reason I said Tokyo, Japan is because Tokyo is a major target and it is close enough to North Korea and by the time the Japanese realized what was happening would be too late for them to do anything - and Tokyo is in reach of North Koreaâs current missile capabilities. For all practical purposes Tokyo, Japan would be just a target picked to achieve a certain objective with maximum impact â Tokyo just happen to be close to North Korea. .
"I donât have a solution on how to handle fanatics regarding religion and politics. One possible solution is let these people alone and respect their views. You donât have to agree with them or adopt their points of view. " There you go, if you leave them alone then first they will expand and force their views on others around them and then in whole of middle east and muslim world and before you know it THE WHOLE MUSLIM WORLD HAS BECOME ONE BIG MONSTER SPEWING VENOM OF HATRED AND TERRORISM. If US had left Saddam alone in Kuwait in 1991, by now he would have captured half of middle east. If US had not contained Iran's fanatics from 1980s, by now they would have spread out in ALL the directions. If US had left the Commies alone since 1945, by now the whole world would have been bowing down to life of animals. I hope I made my point clear, if you see a problem better work on it right away and constantly. Precaution is better than cure or rather early rectification is better then facing destruction from and oppression of FANATICS. Let me make one more point: Capitalism or Free Economic systems require lots of fairness and ethics to succeed. When these factors are absent then they will fail or give very weak results like we have seen in SouthAmerica, Russia and other nations.
. February 10, 2006 SouthAmerica: Reply to toc Sorry, but I canât follow your reasoning â you seem to mix things up religion with ideology and you think that both are the same. You go over the place here. You said: âIf US had left the Commies alone since 1945, by now the whole world would have been bowing down to life of animals.â I donât even understand what you are trying to say. You also said: âLet me make one more point: Capitalism or Free Economic systems require lots of fairness and ethics to succeed. When these factors are absent then they will fail or give very weak results like we have seen in SouthAmerica, Russia and other nations.â Are you for real? I hope you are not trying to imply that that the US capitalist system is fair â and ethical? You must be kidding. If you donât know what I am talking about I will refresh your memory for you. The savings and loans fraud of the 1980âs cost over $200 billion in taxpayer money to clean that mess. Then lately we had Enron, WorldCom, Adelphia Communications, Global Crossing, City Bank, Tyco, mutual fund industry scandal, the hedge fund industry scandal, Halliburton scandal and so onâ¦. The crooks in South America get away with nickels and dimes â in the United States the crooks get away with billions of US dollars. If you think that businesses in the United States are fair and ethical then you are living in La La Land â Any time there is a scandal involving billions of US dollars you can bet US companies are involved on the deal. .
"I donât even understand what you are trying to say." That life under communism is equivalent to living like animals. US free economic system is not without any faults, corruption and injustices. 80%+ wealth is owned by 2-5% of the people in US. However, comparing with other systems, including other forms of capitalism like in Canada, UK, France etc. US system is the most successful and progressive. Corruption in US in percentage terms of GDP is way less than that of Latin American and Asian countries. Religion is the basis of our lives, it forms ideologies and cultures. If I am equating Islam with Fanaticism then I am right to some major extent if not 100%. I cannot fathom the state of Islamic nations once oil is finished or not the major source of energy and fuel, like in 20 years. Rightnow they are plush with oil revenues but are spending 100s of billions in arms to fight Israel and US. They should rather be spending it in building economic infrastructure and guarantee the incomes for next 50 years. To the wise, only a small hint is enough. To the foolish, even hammer does not make any sense.
"otherwise I would have had to take your non-sense a little more seriously." Hey Commie Conman, You dudes took lots of Commie nonsense very seriously for 70+ years, so right now you cannot afford to take anything seriously, because your minds are all spent up.
SA should we respect the fanatics point of view like they respect ours? Like freedom of press? You are living in fantasy land and have not a clue who these fanatics are. Your ignorance is as dangerous as their suicide bombers.
Actually, living under either communism or capitalism, if they've been taken to far towards their "pure" essence, would be equivalent to living like animals. Thank God we have a mixed economy. Interestingly, forest view, we ARE living like animals. But that's philosophy... nm.
Your article has a very flawed explanation of soverignty. I will address it this weekend. Suffice it to say you completely mis applied the power theory of international law. And of course as a budding commie you would not be expected to acknowledge the fact the the U.S. creates international law.
The Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, in force since 1970, became obsolete overnight in 2002. It's time for Brazil to wake up and join the nuclear weapons club. As a sovereign country, Brazil does not need any authorization to develop chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. This premise you stated in the beginning of your article is fatally flawed as is your reasoning regarding non proliferation. First You must understand that while International law is somewhat dynamic there are basic principles which serve as the foundation for International law. international conventions, Rules recognized by States international custom, as evidence of a general practice accepted as law; the general principles of law recognized by civilized nations; the teachings of the most highly qualified jurists and legal scholars. Now when analysing the law. The biggest most powerful states set the standards. In your article. You mis interpret the effect of a country like the U.S. has when it no longer wishes to participate in a treaty for at least two reasons. The first being that if the U.S. chooses not to participate in a Treaty then arguably and usually, the U.S. is no longer subject to that part of International law. And you might rightly say that the power or that norm is not as strong as it was. However, it still may apply to smaller nations. Particulary if other large nations like G-8 nations say it applies to smaller nations. Two, that treaty may have either identified a true international norm that pre existed the treaty and my still be a norm for every other non-U.S. country. Or, the treaty may have risen to a level of international law and even if the signatories to that treaty were to all withdraw, the law that it embodied would still be an international norm. Conclusion with respect to Nuclear Non-proliferation - As long as the U.S. and or other large nations say that Nuclear Non proliferation is the law of nations it is. Especially for smaller weaker nations. This same logic applies to all the WMDs you mention. And it certainly applies to Iran and most likely your beloved Brasil. International norms and Powerful nations say so. The U.S. alone can say so and it is therefore interanational law. continued.
According to Alan James, the common possession of sovereignty enables the territorially based members of international society to speak of their sovereign equal ity.7 It is possible to draw "a contrast between them that all states are supposed to be sovereign and the fact that the rights which are at the disposal of some states are inferior to those at the disposal of others." It equally misrepresents the position of the states to say "though lip service continues to be paid to the concept of 'sovereign equality', it now bears less relation then ever to the treaties of the world."9 Though Vattle had aptly stated that a dwarf is as much a man as a giant; a small republic is no less a sovereign state than the most powerful kingdom. Yet the state practice continues to favor the big powers. This is a quote from an article by a Jordanian professor who makes a resonsable run down of soverign rights. http://kennedy.byu.edu/partners/WFPC/alrfouh.html the following is his conclusion. CONCLUSION In modern times of interdependenceâeconomically and technologicallyâno state can either live in isolation or exclusively exercise its national sovereign rights. Besides, problems like terrorism, drug trafficking, proliferation of small arms, degradation of environment etc require international cooperation and interstate interaction for their resolution. Thus, a state, while exercising its sovereign rights, has to see that similar interests of other state are preserved. The process of globalization and clamour for attracting a foreign direct investment demand fluctuations and not rigidly in the capabilities of a state to exercise its sovereign rights. Non-State actors like international terrorist groups and multinational corporations have emerged on the scene as effective pressure groups which have immense potential of influencing domestic as well as external policies of a state. These and related developments have necessitated the urgency of safeguarding the national sovereign rights. This also calls for recasting of measures designed to protect these rights. Political predominance of great powers which are represented in the group of eight or G-8, in Security Council as permanent members Council for Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) and NATO etc. poses a sort of threat to the sovereign national rights of small and weaker states. The possibility of this threat has assumed added dimensions in the post-Cold War period in the aftermath of the unraveling of former Soviet Union. NATO is expanding eastward and its role in Bosnia Herzegovina and then in Kosovo has raised apprehensions. The American role in Iraq also raised skepticism. The mandate of the UN Security Council was exercised by individual countries. Thus, the protection of national sovereign rights of a State calls for expansion of the permanent members of the UN Security Council where Veto power should be abolished and all decisions are taken by consensus or at least by two-thirds majority. Only a strong United Nations is the surest guarantee for protection of national sovereign rights of the states.21 ----- While I do not like his solution in the final paragraph. You can see clearly in this article that he recognizes the fact that a small nations soverign rights are contingent upon that states conforming to the rules of interanational law. When Iran states that another soverign like Isreal does not have the right to exist, it relinquishes its protections as a soverign state under interanational law. Additionally, when a small state attempts to acquire and develop nuclear arms, it violates international norms by unlawfully threatening the rights of States and by acting in contravention of a the international norm of nuclear non-proliferation. In short a fundamental and powerful international norm is that Little countries are not allowed to become nuclear, especially dangerous ones that argue for the destruction of other Nations.