New Testingstan

Losonti Tokash wrote:why the hell is your store searching through people's pants or grabbing people

Losonti Tokash wrote:why the hell is your store searching through people's pants or grabbing people

adr wrote:It's so painful to see people try to talk about themes on teo.

starku wrote:

adr wrote:It's so painful to see people try to talk about themes on teo.

What's funny is that thread where 40k fans admit 'yeah these novels all suck'

starku wrote:

adr wrote:It's so painful to see people try to talk about themes on teo.

What's funny is that thread where 40k fans admit 'yeah these novels all suck'

Aaron wrote:Yeah, novels with actual fleshed out characters are pretty few. Probably count them on one hand.

As if Europeans or academics were less critical of the United States in the 1990s. I remember the decade very well, and all the same criticisms tossed around about Iraq were tossed around every time the United States has intervened somewhere. You might as well say Vietnam destroyed American credibility as say Iraq did. Of course, one might as well say the Spanish-American War did, or the Mexican-American War. Iraq gave a pretext for people already inclined to be hypercritical and suspicious of everything the United States does and represents... to be hypercritical and suspicious of everything the United States does and represents.

As far as Iraq being unique, I beg to differ. The intervention in Kosovo was at least as misguided, had absolutely no international sanction outside the participants, and has turned into a farce that facilitated a much more complete ethnic cleansing. As for civilian deaths, how many were killed in Chechnya by Russian forces who deliberately adopted a strategy designed to cause collateral damage? Did Germany stop to even ask that before signing oil and gas deals with Vladimir Putin? Has Germany done a thing to hold Iran accountable for the murders that its own courts have accused it of abetting, even as you whine about the "extrajudicial murder" of al-Awlaki and Osama bin-Laden?

Fundamentally going into Iraq was a bad idea, but when even Shroom is willing to concede it was precisely that, bad policy caused by tunnel vision rather deliberate deceit, maybe you should reconsider your own personal narrative about it? Or would not being able to sagely nod when your fellow Teutonic professors go off on some rambling monologue that amounts to "Bush lied to steal oil and kill brown people and Americans are savages" hurt your social standing too much?

starku wrote:it's pretty funny right

because post gulf war coalitiion saving the world the US had a massive upswing of prestige and trust

ask people who were kids around that time (like all of you guys probably)

the cynicism only came back later with their really poorly advised interventions into africa and the balkans

zhaktronz wrote:The post desert storm optimism really reflects in the tv shows and movies of the time too.

Take sg1 for instance; it's all about the power of freedom and democracy defeating the evil Communists Gould.

Compare that with post 9/11 media and there's a really strong change towards AMERICA NEVER FORGET.