Who has determined that Iran, N. Korea, Cuba et all are "our" enemies?

[marmar]

Perhaps Ahmedinijad and Kim Jung-Il are the American government's political enemies, but does that make Iran and N. Korea "our" enemies? That means that Iranians and N. Koreans sitting at their computers right now on their equivalents of DU are our blogosphere enemies, right?
Not to sound all philosophical and anti-establishment radical, but sometimes it seems that the goal of governments is to mindf**k us into buying into these irrational, nationalistic, us v. them absurdities. And sadly, our current govt. seems to be one of the world's worst offenders.
I suppose that a government that was busy seeing to the needs of its people (Sweden, Iceland and Denmark come to mind) wouldn't have time to whip up nationalistic fervor.

Just my deep thought for the evening. :think:

[Flatulo]

1. Don't believe it.

The Iranians I work with are among the nicest people you will ever meet. Very smart, polished and impeccably polite. They also have an absolutely delightful sense of humor.

It's a shame that governments try to turn people against each other. But propaganda is as old as war. Dehumanize and enemy and it becomes easier to kill them.

If the leaders have a beef, they should have a cage match or Thunderdome or something. Leave us out of it.

[kestrel91316]

2. Caligula decided it.

[RL3AO]

3. Saying they wan't to wipe America off the map might do it.

I don't remember if the Iranian Gov't have said anything like that but NK has.

[LeeDemWebmaster]

4. Well nk

I would think that if any of these nations would be our "enemy" it would be NK just because they have ruthless government and they treat the citizens very poor in NK.

[BrotherBuzz]

6. Well, why isn't Uzbekistan our enemy?

America's Terrorist Ally

Uzbekistan's Dictator Makes Saddam Look Good

by Ted Rall

Who is more brutal, Saddam Hussein or Islam Karimov? Reasonable victims disagree. Saddam's goons electrocuted his political dissidents. Karimov, on the other hand, loots so much of his country's oil wealth that his state torturers don't have an electrical grid to draw upon. So his police torturers are forced to resort to medieval methods. They boil their "terrorist extremists"--businessmen who refuse to pay bribes--to death.

There's no question about which tyrant is more reviled. Saddam stole millions from the Iraqi treasury, yet he also spread around enough loot to build both a second-world infrastructure and an economic base of power among the Sunnis who amount to about 40 percent of the population. Karimov, absolute ruler of Uzbekistan since the 1991 Soviet collapse, is a glutton whose personal motto echoes David Bowie's old promos for MTV: too much is never enough.

Uzbekistan, a major player in the Caspian Sea energy sweepstakes, is theoretically poised to become an economic success story. It is one of the world's largest producers of natural gas and possesses large untapped reserves of crude oil. As the republic with Central Asia's largest city--Tashkent has the region's only bonafide international airport and even its own subway system--its strategic importance extends beyond the fact that it has common borders with all of the other "stans." But, unlike Saddam's Iraq, every cent generated by Uzbekistan's vast resources goes straight into Islam Karimov's pocket. His parsimony extends even to his thuggish militsia (military police): rather than pay them a realistic salary, he grants them free reign to coerce, rob, jail and even murder at will. Not only do the militsia pay for themselves, their lawless behavior ensures loyalty. Every cop knows that his neighbors would kill him were Karimov to disappear.

Uzbekistan has a politically and ethnically diverse population comprising Uzbeks, Tajiks, Kazakhs and even Bukharan Jews. While it's common to see women wearing miniskirts on the streets of such secular urban centers as Khiva and Samarkand, the rural Ferghana Valley is home to a fundamentalist brand of Islamism reminiscent of the Taliban. But all Uzbekistanis have something in common. It doesn't matter whether you talk to a guerilla fighter for the radical Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, a prostitute playing the bar at the Tashkent Sheraton or a kid hawking sodas at a bazaar: everyone hates Karimov and everyone hates his militsia, a force whose presence is so intimidating that people plan their itineraries to avoid checkpoints and police stations where they'll be robbed or worse.

<more>

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0525-28.htm

[Judi Lynn]

8. You've got it! Bush doesn't hate people who are evil, he hates people who don't like him

when he tries to harm them because they won't put him before their own people's interests.

Any country's leader who's happy to sell the poor out to American-based multinationals as wildly cheap labor, any country which allows American-based multinationals to plunder its resources, while giving almost NOTHING back, while bribing all the expected high-ranking officials, any country which hesitates to allow the World Bank or IMF to make them huge loans they can't afford to pay back, then maneuver their affairs around until they end up privatizing things like the very water they drink, even to the point of charging them for trying to collect goddamned RAINWATER in vessels in their own yards, will ALWAYS be popular with American business-serving pResidents, at the great expense of his own people.

Here's Uzbekistan, run by a mega-monster and leading ghoul, someone right out of horror stories, who does, as you said, BOIL his enemies, and _Bush thought the sun rose and set in him, until he started trying to raise the cost of doing business in his country not too long ago. It could be the word was getting too public to allow _Bush to continue using Uzbekistan in the same way, so he started backing away, fearing bad publicity. Whatever it was, was LONG after he had been Islam Karimov's big friend from America.

This is a disgrace beyond redemption. If there were any justice, _Bush would have to stand with Karimov on Judgement Day, to explain just how the hell these people ended up BOILED TO GODDAMNED DEATH while they all carried on bidness as usual.





_Bush's Ukrainian pResident buddy,
Victor Yuschenko loves Karimov, as well.

[Selatius]

5. The people who make weapons for the US government.

It's an industry that rakes in hundreds of billions of dollars in yearly profits in the form of government contracts.

Without an "enemy," there is no possible justification for such huge subsidies to private developers of military technologies and private contractors and mercenaries.

The end of the Cold War was something the military-industrial complex did not want, but now they have a War on Terror to replace the former as reason to keep spending.

[Judi Lynn]

9. And there will ALWAYS be a population which needs to be bombed into submission,

when it tries to overturn the American bought stooges trying to grind them into the ground with exploitative deals made with powerful American companies who pay off the leaders, while stealing the labor of the citizens, and helping themselves to their national resources at sub-rock bottom prices.

[unhappycamper]

7. The BFEE made it up.

They needed a slogan.

[spindoctor]

10. ok, one more time..

"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."

-- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials

Without enemies, we may have to spend money on issues like health care, schooling, social security and other nonsense that's not making anybody wealthier.

Deep thought? You are faggot traitor scum!