9/11

[Azat]

I have a question for those of us in the USA.

 

I am getting sick and tired of seeing everything revolve in the Press and TV and Radio around 9/11. Every paper you pick up this past week, every TV program and all I hear on NPR is 9/11 this and 9/11 that and the families who are suffering and all that crap.

 

I do not mean to insensitive but I am also sick of the families who have relatives that died in that tragedy. Believe me I am sorry for them, but they are all acting like A-holes as well. Few hundred have said no to offers from the government of 600K to over a million. They want more. WHY? Why should I pay for your misery, what did I do as a tax payer to pay over a million dollars for your relatives death. By the way this is above and beyond all the money they got from insurance, charities and all that. Where are those conservative bastards on TV who were on Red Crosses ass for not giving ALL their funds to these families now. Why are they not showing to the world what greedy bustards these fool are. People are acting as if this is the biggest tragedy in history. It is noting compare to stuff that has happened in MANY(most) other places.

 

Lets move on. I am not saying lets forget about it, but let us as a country move on.

 

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Sorry I am rambling too much. Am I the only one who feels like this?

[bellthecat]

If you, as an American, are getting sick of it then think how sick of it the rest of the world must be!! And then there are all the movies in the pipeline.

[Sip]

All I can say as a patriotic American is if you don't like it, then go back to where ever the hell you came from

 

That seems to be pretty much a standard "American" answer doesn't it?

 

I fully agree Azat jan. But I think it's much better having 9/11 on the news than Chandra Levey, or Jan Bene Ramsy, or (sorry about spellings ... I didn't bother to check) or some other rich white girl that has disappeared and probably dead. Doesn't anyone kidnap poor non-white girls and/or boys anymore? Who cares anyway?

 

At least some people now know that Afghanistan is in fact a real country an that it borders Iraq and Israel.

[Azat]

I completely agree and understand.

[Azat]

Oh one more thing about Iraq. What is Jr doing thinking about bombing Iraq. Is he looking for a way to focus the thoughts and eyes of the country on Iraq instead of the economy? He should put some energy into trying to fix the economical situation here.

 

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ok, that was the last negative thing I am going to say today.

[Harut]

ok, now i start worrying as you don't have any kind of smilie here.

[Harut]

Azat, i've stopped listening to NPR for a week now.

[Sip]

I only put smilies when I am joking about something to make it clear.

[MosJan]

chnayats vor sirts tsavum e zoheri yev n@ranst harazatneri hamar - sakayn arden yes el hognel em iys 9-11 industryaits -

 

Azat hetaqrqir mi ban asetsir - yerb zoheri harazatner@ merjel en gumarner@ voronq 500.000 avel en - isk zinvori mayr@ stanum e 3,500 yete ir zavak@ zohvum e paterazmi dashtum - asenq hents nuyn iyn afganstanum .

 

iys 9-11 industrin arden indz z@zvetsrel e - yerek Radio vra mi dushbag jew portsum er hamemetel 9-11 Ny yev Izrayeli mi qani shabat arach patahvats inqnaspanutyunerin - verchum el te urarkeq dzer ognutyun@ mez - aveli barevoq yev apahov Izrayel karutselu hamar... zaveshtali e - yerb mardiq ogtvum en arithits vor dram korzern bolorits.

 

yev inhcu chogtagortsel iyd nuyn $$ veranoroqelu hamar shrjakayq@ yev motaka mets kam poqer qaraqneri arden mernor SHUKAN ? manak WTC ho chi - 9-11 heto hareakits qaraqnerum nuynpes mets vnasner yeran.

[Azat]

I am not sure if people do? I bet if we show a map of the world (without the country names on them) 95%+ in the US will not be able to show us where Afghanistan, Iraq, or Israel are at. Don't get me wrong, there are some VERY VERY VERY bright people here, but foreign affairs and policies are something they do not care about.

 

A friend told me something that is so true. In 2001 the same year as 9/11 the earth quake in India killed almost 8 times more people than 9/11 attacks. Do Americans care about those people or do they even remember that? I don't think so.

 

Movses jan, The Israeli lobby has the ears(AKA pockets) of EVERYONE in Washington. I am jealous of how well they do their business and how they get away with everything. I wish Armenians were half as smart as they are.

[Accelerated]

And the same injustices that are about to take place in regards to Iraq took place against Yugoslavia just 3 years ago. America, is indeed the Great Satan, to the rest of the world, nothing good comes out of this country.

 

There was a documentary on the BBC about 'Terrorism', and it made a very good point, the fact that the Anthrax case (which seems to have been conviniently forgotten) still remains unsolved, highlighting that the greatest danger for America comes from within, and yet the politicians choose to spend billions on attacking other countries, further inflaming world opinion.

 

America no longer has any friends in the world (except in the British Parleament), and I dont understand why the US forces must remain in Europe, after all the USSR no longer exist, and Russia can barely contain a few guerillas in the Caucases let alone pose a threat to Europe.

 

The NY firefighters have been made into martyrs, out of their idiotic actions (not realising that the flames in the towers will weaken the steel structure). And as pointed out by other forumers, Americans couldnt care less what happens in the rest of the world, during the recent floods in Europe the local authorities complained how there was absolutelly no aid coming from the US, even though Europe played to the American tune after 9/11 and aided in the invasion of Afghanistan.

 

Seriously, the end of America is near, just not near enough!

 

I apologise for the disjointed form of this post, I just felt like rambling, hope you got the point.

[Sip]

Injustices? I wonder if those poor bastard Boznians felt the same way when the Christians Serbs marched into their villages and systematically started irradicating them 100 by 100. Or should we play Turk and ignore that in one single day alone the Serbs anihilated more than 7000 civilian Bonsnians, most of them locked up in churches and in their homes? You want to talk about injustice?

 

I wonder who is first in line to send millions of dollars in aid seconds after a disaster strikes... Even in the india quake that Azat claims no one remembers ... how many millions in aid and workes/rescuers did US and the Red Cross send almost immediately? Why doesn't anyone remember that crap? How about the Armenian quake? Would the Great Satan have even cared?

 

I am so sick of this US bashing ... blame ALL your problems on the US. It's so easy isn't it?

 

When was the last time Iraq did a humanitarian deed towards anyone? Was Sadam being nice when he dropped tons of chemical weapons on poor helpless villagers during the Iran war? Don't tell me CNN/BBC made that up because I was there and I saw the people burned almost to the bone but still alive. I saw the kids that had most of their hands blown away when they tried to play with dolls dropped by the Iraqys that actually had bombs in them ... specifically meant to target childeren . We did the drilles in school every morning about what we are supposed to do when Sadam drops the next set of bombs on us ... and yes, they DID drop the bombs on us ... fortunately, the much nicer exploding kinds though

 

Oh just wait till the next time someone needs their dirty work taken care of.

 

Hope that makes you happy at night. Just think what a great world we'll have without the US ... or even the Jews. All the muslims and the christians in Europe will dance around pink flowers and the chinese will give all the land back to Tibet and the Affricans will all unite and stop slavery and genocide and have food to eat by the tons and the Turks will finally admit to butchering the Armenians and give all the lands back ... oh yah, I can picture it right now.

 

That's ok ... Circuit Analysis had the same effect on me.

[gamavor]

If I had the power, I would abolish the State Department. America is a nice country with perfect Constitution, but those who have the money (power), interpret the right of "pursue of happiness" in a way that would help them to make more money (more happiness for them, according to them).

 

Vanity will finish the World.

[Accelerated]

Firstly, I was talking about Kosovo, the Bosnian war took place 7 years ago.

 

Secondly, I had no qualms over (European) intervention in Bosnia, what angers me is the way Bosnian Serbs were treated AFTER the intervention.

 

Well they bloody well should be the first in line to send aid, they are by far the richest country in the world and also by far the greatest polluter, despite a relativelly small population (compared to India and China). Also I recall CNN saying how much America is helping Germany etc., but the local German authorities never got anything.

 

Yes, this is the official American line, and yes it is easy, and yes it is true.

 

Its pretty difficult for a country where 2 million newborns have died from malnutrition since the Gulf War to help anyone. Even a high ranking UN official (I forget his name, but he was from Sweden), after visiting Iraq, commented how it had been bombed back to the Stone Age!

 

Were the Japanese civilians less helpless when the US dropped nuclear weapons on them? The United States is the ONLY country in the world to have used nuclear weapons (and chemical weapons eg. Vietname) Even the "Evil Empire" (USSR) never used Nuclear weapons. Besides Iraqs use of chemicals weapons was smallscale and the weapons themeselves were provided by the US!

 

Since when has America acted in other nations interests?

 

I have nothing against Jews, and we have Jewish family friends who helped us, as much if not more than our Armenian friends (community).

 

Actually I havnt started on it, but I will have to start soon, or I will be doomed!

[Sip]

Haven't started and you are talking like this? Now that just scared the hell out of me.

[Sip]

nto? abotu? left hand going a bit quicker than the right eh? I think that means the right side of your brian is a bit excited ... I wonder why

 

Yah, I agree. No one seems to remember India but we had quite a bit of disasters here at home ... the HUGE fires that just totally distroyed massive amounts of land ... the BIG floods ... the droughts ... this year was particularly bad. 9/11 just has this nice sound-bite shock value that the media just seems to love

 

But the US did send a LOT of support to india. But what can you do when 90% of the second most populated country in the world is below the complete poverty line (guesstimated statistics on my part)

 

Politics and hidden agendas and all that crap aside, what you chose to call idiotic, I call trully heroic. The only reason those guys rushed in the burning infernos (idiodic or not) was to save people's lives... they weren't going to think about whether they were saving a muslim, a jew, a chinese, or even an Aussie. They were going to pull ANY human out of those fires. Now you want to call them idiots?

[nairi]

I have a question: why did Americans commemorate a firefighter who died on 9/11 at the opening ceremony of the US Open final yesterday? I somehow can't recall the last time Armenians commemorated a victim of 4/24 on 4/21 at the opening of a soccer match.

 

Nairi

[Rubo]

Dear Nairi, Americans are in virgin territory when it becomes to personal loss of lives. Every high school kid knows about Boston massacre, but did you know only four people died? Massacre? Same with 9/11

For us Armenians after the genocide, every disaster pales in comparison and we have our grief meter in max, we can’t take any more grief. I know that I have a hard time listening duduk music. It is just too much for me. Americans just tasted what Armenians have experienced for centuries.

[Azat]

It is not my fault that Garo does not have spell check on this forum. Plus at my age I should be a sleep at that time and not writing on some forum.

 

Hey at least I am relieved and excited now that you have told me that I have a right side to my brain. Who knew?

 

Movses jan, do you see how these young kids like Sip and Harut are always making fun of me? Maybe a warning should be given to each of them.

[Azat]

Juggs you should be happy that it is not coming too fast because you will have me and hundreds of thousands of other Armenians as your neighbors in Sydney the day it starts to end. Would you want that?

 

So how much help did the Aussis send over to Europe after the last floods? And are you saying that America has to give aid to every country that pledged its support(on paper only) to teh US after 9/11?

[Azat]

Wait a second Sip. I KNOW that the USA gives the most aid to EVERYONE and it does not have to give a penny. Noting. Because no one ever does anythign for the US. All this crap about pledging support and all that is just pollitics and nothign else. BUT that does nto mean that Americans(people) are not ignorant and do know abotu the quake in India. They ALL think that 9/11 was the biggest disaster ever and it was not. That is all I was trying to say.

 

Sure, but those are also the countries first in line to kiss US ass. This includes your beloved Austrelia Juggs.

 

Agree

[Rubo]

] Injustices? I wonder if those poor bastard Boznians felt the same way when the Christians Serbs marched into their villages and systematically started irradicating them 100 by 100.

[/bSip jan, excuse me of taking a slight turn but this article shows some of the biases we hear on the news during yogo crises and Milosevic indictment. One of my closest friends is a Serb musician and he gave me a raw footage to watch about Croatians butchering the Krajina Serbs but sadly in the west this was not “news” since the Serbs were the “aggressors” Some background on the break up of Yugoslavia would help. Serbs did not start the war but Croatia’s declaration of separation ignited the Yugoslavian war with much encouragement from German government. Croatians Ustas fascists killed six million Serbs during ww2. My point is, if you only listen or read Washington press releases and major networks you will have an extremely limited perspective.

 

The Milosevic Indictment

By Stephen R. Shalom

 

Following World War II, a war crimes tribunal was held in Tokyo to try Japanese political and military leaders. There is no doubt that the defendants were responsible for appalling atrocities, but, as the Indian judge on the tribunal wrote in his dissenting opinion, the victorious allies had themselves committed grave crimes, and the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the most horrific war crimes of the Pacific War. But only the atrocities committed by the Japanese were punished. In short, the war crimes trial represented "victors' justice."

In recent years there has been an effort to establish an International Criminal Court, a body that could prosecute serious crimes against humanity no matter who committed them. In multilateral talks, the United States did its best to weaken the authority of such a Court, and then in 1998 was one of only seven countries -- along with Libya, Iraq, and Israel -- to vote against its establishment, while 120 nations voted yes. Washington was determined to make sure that it would never be subject to the rule of law.

Earlier the UN Security Council set up two specialized war crimes tribunals, one dealing with Yugoslavia (set up in 1993) and one with Rwanda (set up in 1994). These received Security Council backing because they were framed in such a way as to make powerful states blameless. The enabling resolution for the Rwanda tribunal, for example, was worded so that French citizens who shipped arms to the killers in Rwanda and the French government could not be prosecuted.

Over the past six years, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia has indicted some 84 individuals for war crimes. But because the Tribunal is dependent on others to provide it with evidence, not all those who have committed serious atrocities have been indicted. In particular, the Croatian military leaders responsible for Operation Storm, in which two hundred thousand Serbs in the Krajina region of Croatia were ethnically cleansed -- driven out, with many attendant killings -- have not been indicted, in large part because the United States, which aided the operation, has refused to provide the necessary evidence.

The Tribunal has now indicted Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and four other Yugoslav officials. There is no doubt that Milosevic is guilty of gross violations of humanitarian law. (I don't know enough about the inner workings of the Yugoslav government to comment on the culpability of the other four, but their positions suggest that they are guilty as well.) But two questions still remain. First, is this still "victors' justice"? And, second, what is the significance of the timing of the indictments?

The Tribunal was set up by the Security Council, and the judges were chosen by the General Assembly from a list prepared by the Security Council. So far, only one judge of the 14 on the Tribunal has passed any judgment, the one who approved the prosecutor's indictment. The prosecutor is chosen by the Security Council on the nomination of the Secretary-General. That the Security Council has any role here -- rather than the General Assembly alone -- is undemocratic (because the Council represents and gives the right of veto to the powerful), but it's fair to say that the Tribunal is not simply a pawn of the United States. Nevertheless, there are two respects in which the Tribunal does not represent objective justice.

· First, by being restricted to violations of humanitarian law in the former Yugoslavia, some of the worst atrocities in the world are ignored. Thus, U.S.-led sanctions against Iraq that have taken such a tremendous human toll are immune from criticism, as are massacres in Turkey , East Timor, and elsewhere.

· Second, even focusing on current events in Yugoslavia, Milosevic's are not the only atrocities that warrant condemnation. NATO is now openly targeting the civilian infrastructure of Serbia, a war crime. In early April, Human Rights Watch warned NATO to take care to minimize civilian casualties, but the only change in NATO policy has been to further remove bombing restrictions. And the United States is using cluster bombs which, as Human Rights Watch has noted, are especially hazardous to civilians and refugees, spreading deadly bomblets that are lethal for years to come (children are particularly drawn to the volatile live remnants). It is rather odd to indict Milosevic and company for four hundred odd killings and to remain silent about the several thousand civilian deaths from NATO bombing -- most not intentional, to be sure, but showing reckless disregard for non-combatant casualties.

[Rubo]

sorry guys for the mess up.You can tell I am no programer

[Azat]

Don't worry Rubo, We could tell you were not a programmer when you told us that you had a family and a life.

[Accelerated]

No, probably not . We'll just put them in the detention camps with the Afgans .

 

Australias population hasnt even reached 20 million, anything we would have sent would have been insignificant.

 

Did you think America gives aid for humanitarian purposes? There is always a reason eg. excess food production, or to bolster a friendly regime (Afghanistan)

 

I dont love Australia, I just live here, if finances allowed I would move back to Armenia. And Australia kisses US ass because it has 300 million angry Indonesians on its doorstep.

 

Yes I will, and if not them, then their leaders....should be lined up and shot.

 

Rubo,

 

thanks for saving me time and writing all that out. I will also add a little to your post:

 

The Croats were Nazi collaborators and their death squads (trained and armed by the SS) were not only active in Croatia but also Bosnia and were responsible for millions of deaths. The Yugoslavs (Serbs to be more precise) on the other hand, by 1945 had a partisan army numbering over 1 million (led by Marshal Tito) and inflicted great losses on the German occupiers and tied up many divisions.