Is the game still in development?

charlieg said:
Yes. It's a global class called, "American Foreign Policy" and is currently taught by GWB.

Whilst it's understandable people are pissed at the way the US conducts itself, the irony is no other country would be much different if given a similarly powerful position. However, it's amazing that the majority of yanks are clueless as to why the rest of the world seems so antagonised.

Why don't you fill us in, then? Or was the point of this post just to spout some mindless dribble and not to address some true problem?

You can throw insults and vaguely refer to possible grievances all day long but it won't get you anywhere.
 
Well... I assumed you were paying attention to current events.

Let's see... wage war in Iraq because of a bunch of self-constructed lies over WMD. (Did anybody see Colin Powell's "evidence" that was presented to the UN?) I recommend that you (as in everybody) read "Against All Enemies" by Dick Clarke (amazon.com link) which gives an excellent insight into how the US conducts itself and how especially badly it's being run of late. (It's not the wishy washy drivel that Michael Moore pushes out.)

One eyebrow raising paragraph describes how Clarke (then head of counter terrorism, involved in high-level counter terrorism for 20-odd years) gave a 2 hour briefing to the president in the wake of 9/11 on who was behind it, listing names and countries, mainly pointing the finger at the Saudis. At the end of the meeting, Bush simply asked, "But is there any evidence involving Iraq?" Clarke resigned a few months afterwards.

The fact of the matter is, America only pursues stuff that benefits America. What I was also saying (which is why I'm puzzled you classed this as insulting) is that any other country would probably be just the same given similar stature.
 
charlieg said:
The fact of the matter is, America only pursues stuff that benefits America. What I was also saying (which is why I'm puzzled you classed this as insulting) is that any other country would probably be just the same given similar stature.

Awfully true... but that doesn't remove the fact that such practice, when it's beneficial to the US while perjudicial to some other countries, those other countries will look at the US with anything except friendly thoughts.

That's what's going on.

I don't see wrong that US gvmt does what's good for the US... but it would be wise of them to limit the enemies they make - from a strictly practical POV.

Anyway, LOAF... you convinced me - no more judgemental stuff, there's no point in trying to judge anything discussed so far.
 
Oh... and since we're with the political debates...

Do you see any sense in my government giving diplomatic immunity to US soldiers during this encounter they're having here at Mar del Plata?
I really think it's very, very silly and dangerous to give diplomatic immunity to a bunch of soldiers, no matter their nationality.

(besides, a nice change of pace, from picking on US gvmt to picking on Argentinian gvmt :p )
 
Diplomatic immunity is something that is very exaggerated in popular culture. It really just boils down to offering a sign of respect to visiting dignitaries -- there's all kinds of legal minutiae assosciated with immunity that prevent it from actually being a license to commit crimes in a foreign country.
 
I'm pretty sure I can't "troll" my own message board. I'm illustrating an important point. You're very hung up on Iraq in that cutesy internet manner that we've all come to expect from... well, everyone on the internet. I can see three possible reasons, two of them half legitimate:

* You're from Iraq, and are unhappy with the United States occupation.

* You're from a country that isn't Iraq, but are honestly worried that the United States is going to invade.

* You're part of the whole 'internet foreigner' club we've been talking about in this thread, and can't tell the difference between internal political opposition and an opinion you should have.

You're ranting and raving about all the things an opposition does, but you're treating them like they're the holy writ instead of... well, the job of an opposition, which is of course to disagree with everything the party in power does. You're completely tapped into the *American* media and its own very easy pop culture method of political discussion... and you're trying to pass it off as original thought.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
* You're from a country that isn't Iraq, but are honestly worried that the United States is going to invade.

Well I'm quite sure that I'm living in a country which is not on the invadinglist. And I guess most of the other guys in this forum are as well.
Yet this is kind of the problem. Most other advanced (or lets say western) cultures on this planet sense that the times, in which invading was a regular part of international affairs, are over. Yet, the US seems to be the only western country which doesn't seem to agree in this point. And I guess this is enough to let the US occure as some kind of agressor to many people.

BTW This is no Anti-americanism. This is how the concept of democratic peace (the peace between democracies) work. Maybe some of you want to check out the work of Alexander Wendt and Something Risse-Kappen. Although they are both of german origin they both work in the US and are highly acknowledged there. Their key essays are rather short and, of course, in english. Ill post the bibliographic data later.
 
Master Wooky said:
BTW This is no Anti-americanism.

Your arguments are not phrased in the typical "Let's bash America just for the sake of bashing America" style, so I don't think you're in much danger of participating in anti-Americanism.
 
Well I'm quite sure that I'm living in a country which is not on the invadinglist. And I guess most of the other guys in this forum are as well.
Yet this is kind of the problem. Most other advanced (or lets say western) cultures on this planet sense that the times, in which invading was a regular part of international affairs, are over. Yet, the US seems to be the only western country which doesn't seem to agree in this point. And I guess this is enough to let the US occure as some kind of agressor to many people.

Well, that's an interesting claim, but it's just not true on any level. The United States isn't even the only 'western' country involved in the current occupation of Iraq -- the United Kingdom, Denmark, Poland and Australia all sent troops.

It's not true on a greater scale either, though. Just six years ago your own country sent troops to Yugoslavia -- Germany still has forces deployed in Bosnia, Kosovo, North Africa and Afghanistan. The world isn't beyond occupation as a method of solving foreign issues -- not by a long, long, long shot.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
It's not true on a greater scale either, though. Just six years ago your own country sent troops to Yugoslavia -- Germany still has forces deployed in Bosnia, Kosovo, North Africa and Afghanistan. The world isn't beyond occupation as a method of solving foreign issues -- not by a long, long, long shot.

This is sure true. AFAIK, Germany is even on third place when you are talking about the state, having the most troops out of it's home territory. Yet, I don't perceive it the same way. It'll take a little longer to point this out and I'm currently visiting a lecture class, but I'll do so later (I also haven't forgot about the sources I talked about above). But for a short version:
I think it's about the combination how the US behaves in foreign and internal affairs.
Wendt and Risse-Kappen argue (very reduced version ;) ) that democracies don't fight each other because they see how the governments act towards their own citizens. These good relations between a government and the citizens in a state makes this state apear inherently peacefull and, as result, trustworthy.
Now, from an exterior view, the relation between the US government and the US citizens seems not so good. AFAIK, there is a lot of personal freedom taken in the name of security. This seems to most Europeans very strange, especially because we still have the pictures of the land of unlimited opportunity and the land of the free.
This combination might be what makes the US today very suspect to a lot of people in the world and, AFAIK also in the US.
 
To go back to WC... Why is WC often understood as WWII in space? I don't get the link...

And second question: I still don't see the problem with adding aditional plotlines with new factions as the AWACS in WCU. (We had this thread about the topic in the Vegastrike forum: http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5577&start=45 ) I just don't see the difference to the retros (which where new in Priv AFAIK), the steltek (new in priv too AFAIK) and the borderworlds, new in WC4 as acting faction...

Not to forget... Tolwins Nazi-Gang (New in WC4 too) and Tolwin, turning evil.
I mean, is there a strucural reason aginst the AWACS plot or is it just that is wasn't implemented by Origin?
 
Bandit LOAF said:
You're very hung up on Iraq
I'm not hung up on Iraq. I was merely citing a topical example of why there is such problems with the way America is perceived.

You read far too much into far too little and use it as a reason to stand on a pedestal, which is why you rub so many people up the wrong way. Fortunately I couldn't give a rats ass what you think.

The evidence was circumstancial at best. ("This is a mobile biological weapons factory" - Powell points at picture of a couple of lorries on a road.) It was amazing how quickly the motivation for war was rephrased to "Regime Change" and even more amazing how the US people gobbled it all up. It's clear the Bush administration was looking for an excuse to wage war in Iraq (when senior Whitehouse insiders like Dick Clarke are saying this, well, there isn't smoke without fire) and 9/11 provided the climate to enable the war. The rest of the world looks at the situation and sees America seizing large oil fields and Halliburton awarded multi-billion dollar contracts to pipe oil out of Iraq and all in all it just doesn't look good.

There is a wonderful irony in the way other countries behave too. France, so anit-war, was making a killing from the oil-for-food program. As were a lot of the high profile anti-war antagonists.

It's all politics and few politicians care about the Iraqi people. We (UK, US) sold weapons to Saddam when it suited us and would do so again, genocidal maniac and all. It's just the US is the highest profile country and also one of the clumsiest in terms of it's foreign policy. (Do you have any idea how idiotic George Bush appears outside of his home nation?) Hence America comes in for more flak than other nations.
 
Master Wooky said:
Wendt and Risse-Kappen argue (very reduced version ;) ) that democracies don't fight each other because they see how the governments act towards their own citizens.
And this applies to Iraq how, exactly?
 
Wendt and Risse-Kappen argue (very reduced version ) that democracies don't fight each other because they see how the governments act towards their own citizens. These good relations between a government and the citizens in a state makes this state apear inherently peacefull and, as result, trustworthy.

Now, from an exterior view, the relation between the US government and the US citizens seems not so good. AFAIK, there is a lot of personal freedom taken in the name of security. This seems to most Europeans very strange, especially because we still have the pictures of the land of unlimited opportunity and the land of the free.

This couldn't be further from the truth. The *reason* you think this is true, as we've already talked about, is specifically because of the *American* media and opposition have the freedom to tell you that.

If you're basing your opinion of what you heard children on the internet complain about on the internet, then you're going about this wrong. My (the royal my, that of Americans) opinion of France isn't based on seeing that there's a riot there on the news, my opinion of Germany isn't based on reading about how video games are edited for content.

Our pal charlieg makes the same mistake - you're putting yourself in the middle of an internal debate that isn't important at all. Why do you read about Bush being an evil tyrant and Iraq is a horrible mess? Are the American people ready to rise up? Do people actually believe these things in the US? Of course not -- the whole point of any of that is that someone who isn't Bush would like to be president next time around, and part of doing that means showing that their party disagrees with everything the Republicans do.

You must have the same concept in Germany - the party that isn't in power is obligated to force criticism of the one that is wherever possible. The difference is that in other countries you don't have Americans seeing the scale of the thing and assuming there's actually some grand battle between good and evil going on. You're seeing words like 'tyrant' and 'oppresive' because they're negative buzzwords -- not because anyone believes that a legitimately elected president serving his Constitutionally mandated term is a terrible dictator, or that the government is actually going to start censoring everything because it's a theoretical possibility that such a law could be passed when one party controls the legislature and the executive branch. (Well, okay, American teenagers probably believe this - but only because they read it in the same place you have and also have no concept of what oppression or a tyrant is.)

To go back to WC... Why is WC often understood as WWII in space? I don't get the link...

Wing Commander is the *Pacific* theater of World War II in space.

The war begins when the Kilrathi - the Japanese in space, complete with their own Bushido honor code - launch a sneak attack on the Terran Confederation. The entire makeup of the games is built as an analogue for the 'island hopping' campaigns -- you fight for one system after another until you get close to the enemy homeland.

(... and then, of course, the war ends when you drop the secretly developed "t-bomb" on the enemy home planet, forcing him to surrender.)

Not to forget... Tolwins Nazi-Gang (New in WC4 too) and Tolwin, turning evil.
I mean, is there a strucural reason aginst the AWACS plot or is it just that is wasn't implemented by Origin?

The complaint people (and don't confuse people with me) have with the "AWACS" plot is that it's incredibly contrived, not that it's some kind of continuity error.

I'm not hung up on Iraq. I was merely citing a topical example of why there is such problems with the way America is perceived.

Well, what you were asked to do was cite a grievance you had with the United States - and you're stll spouting this generic teenage crap about Iraq (which, since you're apparently from England is all the more idiotic).

We're all heard this story. It's not original thought on your part and it's not an unbiased opinion crafted by other countries -- you're just parroting the American political opposition.

The evidence was circumstancial at best. ("This is a mobile biological weapons factory" - Powell points at picture of a couple of lorries on a road.) It was amazing how quickly the motivation for war was rephrased to "Regime Change" and even more amazing how the US people gobbled it all up. It's clear the Bush administration was looking for an excuse to wage war in Iraq (when senior Whitehouse insiders like Dick Clarke are saying this, well, there isn't smoke without fire) and 9/11 provided the climate to enable the war. The rest of the world looks at the situation and sees America seizing large oil fields and Halliburton awarded multi-billion dollar contracts to pipe oil out of Iraq and all in all it just doesn't look good.

Neat. What's it to you?

It's such an inane debate, because it's one of those things where everyone takes their own standpoint that's so far diverged from reality and pretends that it's true.

The administration is stupid to continue claiming that it's looking for 'weapons of mass destruction', because it's a claim that's going to go nowhere.

But *EVERYONE ELSE* is stupid, in a non-rhetorical sense, to continue claiming that they were honestly mislead by any of this. Anyone with half a brain knew exactly what the administration was going to do regarding Iraq when they elected Mr. Bush. Sticking your fingers in your ears and pretending you were tricked isn't an intelligent defense at all.

That is to say, the proper response to all of this is: duh. Of course the reasons for going to war were 'manufactured' -- just like the reasons for pretty much every war in history. If you've figured out that the "evidence" for war with Iraq wasn't an open and shut case demanding action, then congratulations, you've figured out... exactly how the world works.

From FDR conducting a media campaign to prepare Americans for a war with German (to stimulate the economy!), to Johnson claiming the US needed to go to war in Vietnam because someone shot at a destroyer to Polk being ever so worried about how Mexico reacted to the soldiers he sent into their territory in the first place, it is simply how every single war in history has begun from a public relations standpoint.

Figuring that out makes you a master of the obvious, not some kind of righteous crusader on the side of truth and justice.

(Do you have any idea how idiotic George Bush appears outside of his home nation?)

Which I've always thought of as good evidence for why the entire system is a hilarious sham both internally and externally -- everyone is reacting to a conceit created by the American media. Of course President Bush isn't an idiot - it's a realistic impossibility. The entire concept is half conscious put on and half sour grapes here at home... and abroad, again, people somehow believe that a blatant political debate is somehow *true*.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
Sticking your fingers in your ears and pretending you were tricked isn't an intelligent defense at all.
Wow. Woooow. You are the absolute master at making people sound like somebody you can put down, just so you can subsequently put them down.

I never said I felt tricked. Where did I say I ever believed a word that came out of GWB/American media/British media/Michael Moore/TAKEYOURPICK? You assume so much. A few people here asked why the world is so anti-America, I simply explain why, and now your at my throat for answering their questions? The world is pissed because the White House likes to go to war based on lies. Whether me/you/he/they believed them at the time is moot.

Bandit LOAF said:
That is to say, the proper response to all of this is: duh. Of course the reasons for going to war were 'manufactured' -- just like the reasons for pretty much every war in history. If you've figured out that the "evidence" for war with Iraq wasn't an open and shut case demanding action, then congratulations, you've figured out... exactly how the world works.
Well obviously everybody isn't as clued up as you, otherwise your fellow country men and women would understand what the world is pissed about.

I was responding to a request by Nomad Terror. Now you're telling me I'm trying to argue something I'm not and basically butting in and changing the topic without even addressing the reason(s) I posted this stuff in the first place. Most of your post would be better directed at Nomad Terror and not me.

Hell, the irony is I totally agree with what you said, other than your ridiculous pigeonholing of me as some kinda hippie democrat anti-war iraqi student,.

Bandit LOAF said:
Figuring that out makes you a master of the obvious, not some kind of righteous crusader on the side of truth and justice.
Again, I never claimed to be a crusader. Why are you telling me I think I am something I am not? Because it makes you look more intelligent? Not in my eyes. It makes your style of argument weak - if you could stick to the point without jumping on people's backs for fictional reasons then perhaps you'd win some of these debates without them getting heated. (Not that this is heated, but a number of discussions involving you seem to get pretty heated.)
 
Now I'm not the most politically-versed person in the world, but I am as familiar as anyone else here with the most common complaints against America. I wanted to see if you could offer anything original (or anything at all rather than your post I was replying to, which didn't target anything specifically).
 
charleig said:
The world is pissed because the White House likes to go to war based on lies. Whether me/you/he/they believed them at the time is moot
Not precisely.
More like the opposite - the world is pissed because America likes to go to war too often, and can (basically, IMO, it's the "and can" portion that unsettles people).
Add that to the threats made after 9/11 about "you're either with us or against us". Now, that makes Bush seem idiotic: that's not the way a president should speak in international matters, that's looking for trouble. Even if you think so, you can't say that - it makes countries that are not on the invade list think that by even looking at the US in the wrong way they could get in it.
 
Back
Top