[Adeez]

Get out much at all bart?

[BartSimpson]

Adeez Adeez:

Get out much at all bart?

No! I'm at work covering for someone else on one hell of a boring day.

[Tman1]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

Tman1 Tman1:

Heh, that tears it. You went to a piece of shit 2 dollar Catholic school

Hate to tell you, but the only education that is statistically better than a Catholic school education is home schooling.

I went to BC for a year to get courses that weren't offered anywhere else and the courses I took were required by the US State Deparment for foreign desk assignments. Easily half of my class was from Foggy Bottom.

And some advice, the Jesuits who run BC? Put them at the top of your "Do not f*ck with" list. Most of these guys have been there and done that and a lot of them are ex-military.

http://www.bc.edu/

$1:

Hate to tell you, but the only education that is statistically better than a Catholic school education is home schooling.

Hmm right. MD perfectly shows that now doesnt he. Do Catholic schools also preach eradicating Muslims from the Earth? Some education system Bart.

$1:

And some advice, the Jesuits who run BC? Put them at the top of your "Do not f*ck with" list. Most of these guys have been there and done that and a lot of them are ex-military.

No idea what your talking about here...(something about Jesuits for some reason) but I'm sure when your ready you will more than happy to clarify that.

[Tman1]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

The Hoser The Hoser:

It is my understanding that Manifest Destiny was, more or less, a proclemation that the US was chosen by 'God' to conquer the world, and North American in particuler, which is uder bullshit and I think anyone who believes it is at least as crazy as the Mormons.

No, Manifest Destiny was about western exapansion. Bear in mind that God was mentioned in every aspect of public life back then so take it with a grain of salt. He did.

Here's a site that you should find acceptable...

http://www.pbs.org/kera/usmexicanwar/di ... stiny.html

PBS leans to the left and you'll note it says very little about religion influencing that policy.

Bart, the Manifest Destiny was the doctrine of the American government in the early 19th century. It meant that America had the GOD given right to take over the Continent and when I mean Continent, I mean including Canada to which the U.S were thoroughly stopped at (probably don't say that in American history books no doubt ) NOT soley on western expansion.

[harzer_knaller]

@To the Topic:
Is it important to have a strong military in the times of terrorism? Where the terrorist attack countrys like Guerillas? I don't think so, and by the way GreatBriton, we can defend ourself very well, if you take a look into the CIA World Fact Book you will see that we "could" have an army with 12.000.000 soldiers (though we haven't got enough weaponry I think) and our armed forces have a power of ca. 500.000 men) isn't that enough to defend a country against foreign aggressors?
And don't forget the nuclear bombs from the US-Army that are stationed in Germany and can only be droped by German Tornado-Bombers (I don't know the exact number of nukebombs in Germany, but probably there are 150 upto 500 bombs) Don't forget that boy!
And one from the History... Germany don't wants an Army like "we" had in World War II with a manpower of 5 million soldiers, with strong and predominating weaponry (did you know that a lot US, UK, Soviet, ... soldiers took Germany weapons for fighting because they were better than their ones?)

Now the Manifest Destiny...

I think that this manifest has some communnalitis with the Ideoligy of Hitlers national-socialsim... one country ruling at first a continent and later the world (including racism and all that f*ckin crazy stuff)

And now the Iraq-War...
In my opinion the one and only reason for that war IS OIL, look, the President of the United States, George Walker Bush, gave Saddam Hussein an ultimatum to lay down his power and to leave his country, Saddam first didn't want to leave the country (but he wanted to lay down his power and make the Iraq a democratic country on his own, so that they are not forced to like now under the US-Military...)
As Saddam seemed to agree with that ultimatum (unfortunately it was too late) the President said: No, time is over!
That means Bush had the chance to make the Iraq a democratic country in the middle east (I think one of the first), but he did not!
The Question is why? And the answer, I think is, OIL, because the Iraq owns I think about 10% of oil of the whole world ressources (please correct me if I'm wrong!)...

So far from me and greetings from the pacifistic Germany!

[Castor_Fiber]

our Bundeswehr is the army we got from the allied forces after WWII.
It was built as an army of defence the only enemy there was, was the sowjet union. The Sowjet Union doesn't exist anymore, and there is also a thing called the "NATO".

a German army never should be able to start an attack-war. The Bundeswehr should only keep the east-borders safe for about a week, and then our big brother would do the rest. The war should take place on the FRG/GDR-area and that's it.

Normally we should have learned from history, that war is shitl Unfortunately our chancler Mr. Schroeder hang out of the window and gave 100% support for our US-Friend, and when we was asked to send troops to Iraq, he couldn't, because the Bundeswehr is not allowed to take part in aggressive wars. He should have said: Sorry, we learned from history, we can't go to war anymore.

Harzer_Knaller is right, when he says that the only reason to bomb Iraq is oil. You can't build a democracy in an islamic country in 6 month! that's rediculus! Do you know, why the US-Troops were very active in the Jugoslawian war? Human rights? Nope! Uranium! Why is the civil war in the Kongo is not intersting? no interesting natural resources. that's it!

I joined the German airforce, when the enemies were well known, and Iran was a new enemy.... Today I give the advice NOT to join the army!

Peace is cool, war isn't! And don't think you can fight terrorism with armies!

[Canadaka]

I enjoy reading the comments from the german members here.

[bootlegga]

The article that started this whole thread is hilarious. Are we sure it wasn't written by Rush Limbaugh?

If the Europeans are such weaklings, why would the US need them to fight in Iraq? France I understand, because they have a veto on the Security Council. But Germany? They are not even on the Council...same goes for Canada. Americans like to harp on us for not spending boatloads on defence, but they always seem to want us along for their 'adventures'.

If we are so weak and pathetic, why ask us? Shouldn't they be asking the Chinese, who are spending 90 billion a year on defence? After all, they could send an army corps of soldiers instead of one sad little Canadian light infantry battalion...I mean, they are now the #2 guys in the world, at least that's what the Pentagon and Rumsfeld seem to tell us every couple of weeks.

[GreatBriton]

harzer_knaller harzer_knaller:

you will see that we "could" have an army with 12.000.000 soldiers (though we haven't got enough weaponry I think) and our armed forces have a power of ca. 500.000 men) isn't that enough to defend a country against foreign aggressors?
!

But you don't, do you? Atthe moment, the militaries of Continental Europe are weak - and even your politicians admit it. Britain is far ahead of you all. Our land army is traditionally smaller than that of other European nations, but that doesn't matter, because even our land power is greater than that of all European countries except Russia, and even Turkey is third behind Russia and UK and ahead of France and Germany.

[GreatBriton]

http://strategypage.com/fyeo/howtomakew ... mies/e.asp

This is a list of the power of European countries, NOT including their naval power.

Look at the column on the left - Russia is 369, UK is 259, Turkey is 240, Germany is 190 and France is 147. They are the top 5 in Europe, in that order.

[cmasta2]

I am not surprised by the current state of affairs within the militaries of two of Europe's most prominent nations. It has been a trend since the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s for nations to cut back their armed forces spending and thus decline in military readiness. This is especially clear within Western Europe, whose militaries during the Cold War were highly prepared to fight off a Soviet attack with large amounts of man power, nuclear weapons and impressive technology. Without the threat of Russian domination existing just beyond the Elbe, Europe's major powers have gone to sleep and perhaps rightfully so. The only major nation on the continent which hasn’t gone completely militarily dormant is the United Kingdom, but this is not to say that they have not cut back. The UK’s forces have been decreased by at least 1/3 since the end of the Cold War and the military while one of the world’s most powerful is in dire need of upgrades. Both France's forces and Germany's Bundeswehr have just cut back more significantly.

This is reaction to the unipolar nature of Geo-politics today. Without an outside threat, there is little need for secondary great powers to place much emphasis on defense. In reality today Europe is a peaceful, prosperous and powerful continent, that some would say no longer needs a major military presence in the world. I would disagree somewhat. Despite the United States dominance of military affairs, Germany and France can both contribute greatly to operations, much like Britain. But they do not have to become armed nations like what the article suggests. It seems that both Germany and France are placing too much emphasis and reliance on their prestige in international politics, with little power backing it up. This can change, but it doesn’t have to. The world has changed for Europe, in the view of the Franco-German elite the time for military action has passed; instead they believe we have now entered the age of diplomacy.