How is all of this recent "CIA Torture" stuff coming to light going to effect this situation? Does Putin come out and tell the United States that we are full of shit and the pot shouldn't call the kettle black?
I don't consider waterboarding to be torture since our own SF have to go through it. As far as i'm concerned, if you take up arms against the US or its citizens, regardless of who you are, you get what you get.
They have been doing this for decades. We have invaded and occupied more countries than they, bombed more countries than they, practiced more Geneva Convention violations than they and interfered with more foreign governments as well. But we haven't annexed any territory since WWII and we actually gave up the Panama Canal Zone. The Soviets gave up 14 entire countries. It's hard to blame them for recognizing the double standard.
@red55 We all know the election was a sham. Anytime you get 96% of the vote, it's a tipoff. Youcould ask 100,000 men if they wanted a blow job from Kate Upton and still somehow you wouldn't get to 96%. Having said that, is Crimea as pro Russian as it's portrayed in the media. Would they have passed a legal vote. I understand this doesn't address the issue of the remainder of the Ukraine's desire but I'm just curious about what the Crimeans actually want.
It depends on who you want to call a Crimean. 60% of Crimeans are Russian-speaking, Russian heritage and mostly former Russians. A majority, but not an overwhelming majority. About 30% are Ukrainian-speaking. About 10% are native Tatars who have mostly been exterminated under 200 years of Russian rule. In a legal vote, all of Ukraine would shave had to vote and it would never have passed. The sham vote was largely boycotted by the opposition. What do the Crimeans really want? Probably the status quo was all right with them, they never staged a revolt or demonstrated for independence. It's hard to imagine their standard of living changing much either way. Ukraine has more freedom of expression than Russia, but like Russia, they have had a difficult time adjusting to a free market. 100 years of Soviet-style socialism with the state owning everything and no incentives to be productive, many folks just don't know how to be entrepreneurial or to aspire to wealth through hard work and risk-taking. Many such people would rather return to the nanny-state of the Soviets than compete in the free market,
I had to read that last paragraph twice. I thought you were talking about the democrats in the US at first.
So you are a farmer, you live your whole life praying to your god, farming, raising your family, a bomb blows your farm and family to shit. You wouldn't want to take up arms against the asshole who did it? If it could be proven that torture works beyond a shadow of a doubt then I'm all for it. But it doesn't.
But you don't really know either way. One side says no it doesn't, and another side says yes it does. The location of Bin Laden was ultimately attained through info gathering sessions where water boarding was used. So yes in some cases it does. And I know Obamas Admin swears that those methods don't work, but you'll have to excuse me if I don't listen to the propaganda of a guy who demonizes the rich, but yet has used his "office" to grow his personal fortune by over 10+ fold.
The biggest foolishness with Republicans is their ridiculous notion that all democrats are alike . . . and that they are all on welfare. There are more hard-working, millionaire democrats in this country than you imagine.
Well, this is bullshit. Obama's personal wealth came from the sales of his two books, both of which were published before he became president, one 13 years before he became president.
