as much a cop-out answer as it sounds, we were decieved in that our government told us that iraq was a threat to our way of life, and barely but enough people believed it to commit to a war that we didn't really want to fight. al-qaeda on the other hand proved themselves a real threat, but we were still deceived by our government which told us that al-quaeda could be fought and beaten. injured and frightened, we entered a war against an intangible enemy without realising the consequences. neither war is one that we can win.
As a nation, I'll accept fickle and impressionable, but not warmongering.
This is not a realistic story, as much as it’s based on reality. It’s a very stylized version.
but still, that quote you posted disappointed me. until this point i had not heard of him making claims under any pretense of fact.
i can only hope that in the broader scope of things he was talking about his spartans, and not the historical ones.....but something tells me i am too hopeful in this
I realize that, I was speaking from the point of view where a person of latin-american descent doesn't actually consider himself an american of the california variety at all. I was defending the point of view that not all of america is full of americans, because 'american' can mean a lot of other things than 'born and raised on the continent of america'.
My point would be that everyone in these two continents is an american and that their differences all contribute to what an american is. your 'american' is only a very narrow subset of the millions fo people in these two continents. i chose california as an example because, while it still only includes the smallest of crossections, it is a cross section much more colorful than the rest. for instance, there are around 20 black students in my school of 1600, 8 asians, and 75-80 hispanics. the rest of us are whites, and the cultural differences are not seen.
Athens never engaged in Thermopylae. They didn't send any timely troops. Athens won over Xerxes' father, Darius at Marathon a while before that, and the Spartans arrived two days after the fact and stared at persian corpses. Perhaps you've got that a bit mixed up?
Engaged was an inappropriate word coice on my part, as the 7000 athenians were part of the original force, but not part of the and they did not engage at thermopylae (as they retreated to help evacuate their city and prepare for the naval encounters), nor did the corinthians or half the thebans who fell back a pace. As i remeber, the rest of the greeks besides the 1350 spartans, thebans, and thespians all withdrew as well and did not fight again until platea, rejoined by the corinthian and theban soldiers.. It has been quite a while, so i wont say that im completely right, but I don't think i'm mixing things with marathon, ten years passed between the two encounters so that would be a gross error on my part if i was >.<
Lawrence - i should have written that as "the legitimate reasons for our being there," since we all know that our politicians are siezed by imperialistic delusions that have influence far beyond reason.
the war-mongering machine consists of a handfull of old men who are highly skilled in their manipulation of information and a people's will, not the nation as a whole. they all write about how they wish we could be in north korea and iran, too, but they haven't yet tricked enough of us into that. trust me - america's foreign affairs are
highly restrained right now.
the lack of support means that we cannot secure the countries effectively, shut down terrorist organizations, and allow the people to establish legitimate governments. however, withdrawal is currently unthinkable with the state of things over there, and it will remain so if our soldiers continue without support. no - lack of support will only make things deteriorate until the situation gradually becomes so hopeless that we cannot even pretend that we are helping.
