and before you lay Hitler solely in our lap, have a look here:
http://www.suomalaisuudenliitto.fi/case.htm
neutrality apparently has its advantages…
Interesting link, RH!
And who knew of the Swedish Police beating a Finn to death? I’m sure everyone in the world knows about Rodney King, but wow, the free press in Sweden have done a great job publicizing Swedish police brutality.
Oh, and wait . . . there was a trial with Rodney King . . . but no charges filed in the death of Osmo Vallo? But wait, that was 1995, and it’s only historically that Europeans have been “bums.”
WOW, that’s not to mention the Swedish National Institute for Racial Hygiene, which closed its doors in . . . 1976. Only 60,000+ people sterilized for not being blond-haired and blue-eyed.
Stuart
I don’t want the US to be international policemen at all. I want your government to act trough the UN. The UN is our best organ that can deal with international matters. I would like all countries to think of the interests of the world first and protect their own interests second.
I agree Sweden has done plenty of mistakes. Most of them has been in order to not piss anyone off. Our government is probably the worst bootlickers in history.
You should read up a little on the UN. It’s a good idea in theory, but it sucks in practice. It has rendered itself useless.
A better model for international politics would probably be the EU, rather than the UN, I think.
I wonder if the UN does any good at all. Iraq was in compliance with, oh, exactly zero of what the UN wanted it to do. Yes, I think it was wrong for the US to go to enforce the UN-brokered agreement. But what would the next step have been? More (ineffective) sanctions? Or a war, just like the one now, with UN approval?
Does UN approval make a war just? Most emphatically, no.
Stuart
UN is not perfect in any way, but it’s the best international organisation we have and we need to work with it. It’s dangerous when the largest squad of the international police starts to act on its own, not giving a damn about what the rest of the police force thinks.
And on the Bosnia matter, I agree that it was not directly the fault of the US, but to a large extent it was indirectly (as in so many cases trough history) the fault of USA that the war broke out in the first place because you would not support Jugoslavia to stay united and build a working democracy, you shut them out and blocked them, which led to the war. I should add that the Germans played a rather large part in this aswell.
Then you went in there to bomb, which sure helped the war to end (with tremendous casualties). Your solution in these cases is always to draw weapons real quick and start bombing, even when a diplomatic solution might be very much possible, I suppose that is what bugs me.
The UN is useless as a way to employ millitary force in an international way as long as the situation in the world remains so unballanced (USA versus the rest of the world), and the USA has veto power in the Secuirty Council. Israel has violated a lot more UN decrees than Iraq, but i don’t see an invasion coming.
The UN is still useful as an international forum for discussion and dissent. It still carries some moral weight, and even though these things don’t lead to action, they still sting. The UN is a thorn on the side of the governments of Israel and the USA. Have the USA finally paid their overdue dues, by the way?
The USA made a pretty good attempt to demoralize the UN by connecting it with shady dealings in Iraq. That’s dangerous; i hope the UN has taken heed and acts much more carefully in the future. The UN is not perfect, but it’s all we have.
I agree the EU model of how to do international politics is very good.
I kind of disagree with you, Glauber, but that’s OK. Mostly I think it’s laughable to say that UN decrees hold any kind of moral weight. It’s a huge political body just like any other huge political body.
Stuart
I can’t believe I forgot to mention this!
OK, you have no argument from me that the UN is right to chastise Israel for its treatment of the Palestinians. Shame on Israel.
Why do you think that the UN, an “international forum for discussion and dissent . . .” hasn’t yet called the situation in Sudan genocide? Hmm? Why exactly is Sudan getting less attention than Israel? The UN has been unwilling to call it genocide because it would compel the UN to act with military force. That’s great, kids, wait long enough and there won’t be anyone left in Darfur . . . at least, no black muslims. Too bad it’s the evil US that’s drafted the resolution calling what’s going on in Sudan genocide. I mean, you’re right. Israel is wrong, and we should be attacking Israeli policy. 100,000 dead in Sudan not a blip on anyone’s radar? Maybe if they were white, nonmuslims?
Wait, what country profits from Sudanese oil? France.
Wait, what country profitted from Hussein’s government in terms of oil? France.
Stuart
Yes. When it comes to defending the rights of people who are at the same time black and Muslim, it seems that the white/Christian world is unwilling to take any risks. Is this inflammatory enough? Same problem in Bosnia, even though they weren’t black. Same problem with the AIDS pandemic in Africa, even though they are not all Muslim. I guess being either black (outside the US) or Muslim means you’re out of luck as far as international action is concerned. That’s terrible.
Speaking of AIDS, i heard today that 25% of the population of sub-Saharan Africa is infected. If this isn’t the most horrible calamity of the century, what is?
Of course AIDS is an even harder problem because of the sexual and religious implications (a sinner’s disease!).
(I hope everybody knows that this is not my position.)
Better not to start down that road…
… and a save. Ya might not have used the word “position”!
Denny
Okay, okay. Got me on that one. But my point in posting what I did was not that education is something that must be graciously visited upon the benighted unwashed of Islam by their betters (remembering the benighted unwashed of the US, who are in their millions, I regretfully agree), but that thinking people within the Islamic community itself see a problem to be addressed BY themselves WITHIN their community for the sake of peace and a viable and relevant place in this world of diverse realities. Period. Nothing more, nothing less. I found it heartening that critical thinking was to be found even in devout, orthodox religious communities, something I’ve been suspicious of, whatever the faith. If that’s a stamp of “the prevailing ego and nationalism” of a US citizen, please let me know. I do enough bemoaning the educational state of the US as it is. Not that I’m any example to be held up for emulation.
Sorry I didn’t respond to this earlier cause it’s a whole lot of b******t. Are you serriously saying that American Police is less brutal and violent than the Swedish? I don’t really think so. So a policeman was charged for a murder but a swedish policeman was not? What exactly are you trying to prove with this? There were probably a good few more in USA that didn’t end up in a trial, and probably a good few that you don’t even know about. There has been thourogh investigation on the murder of Osmo Vallo and there still doesn’t seem to be enough evidence, a shame really. But there has been an investigation nontheless, and it has been so for all the other cases of brutality/shotings as well. Your policeforce on the other hand seems to reach for their gun as soon as they see a black guy.
But it seems a bit silly to sit here critisising each others policeforce don’t ya think? Atleast I can say that you started 
On another note we had a Swedish citizen in that big camp Guantanamo (was it?) on Cuba. He was suspected for terrorist actions. Got no trial, no lawyer, no phone calls but he still got to sit there like a monkey in a cage for about two years I think. We finally managed to get him home a few days ago (tried for over a year) and he has spoken about terrible things ever since. Last thing I heard on tv just a few minutes ago, the interrogation rooms were in fact large refrigerators and they were interogated for hours in -2 degrees Centigrade with very little clothes. Ofcourse we are not 100% sure that he doesn’t lie, but I have no reason not to believe him and a spokesman from Amnesty Sweden said he seemed trustworthy in this.
Of course, Sturob UN approval does not make a war just but it does make it legal in international law. When the UK or USA or whoever decides that it is above international law, ( as the US is tending to do in a number of ways ) we are all in trouble.
It now appears that the UK Attorney General changed his mind about the legality of the war, but the Government said nothing.
The UN might be a bit more more efficient if the US coughed up the money it owes in subscriptions, but that’s not very important.
On the matter of Waco poisonings I understand that high concentrations of CS and CN as common forms of tear gas will produce concentrations of cyanide in the tissues, but doubt has been thrown on whether the oxidation products of tear gas include cyanide. You are perhaps the best person to tell us, if you care to.
Are you saying a Swede couldn’t stand a little -2 C?
I believe the point that was intended was simply to show that the US are not the only ones guilty of abuses. Nothing more. If you look at Amnesty International’s documentation, there are few countries that can claim to be innocent (even Canada gets accused).
The UN is totally tied up in knots of political rhetoric. It may have been intended as a world forum for diplomatic solutions, but the sad reality is that it is helpless when real action is required in a timely manner. The US gets elected by the UN as the policeman simply because it is so heavily manned and armed already (a telling feature of the American character?). The US is so familiar with being the policeman that it now acts with or without UN direction. It would be better not to need a policeman in the first place, but we are still a long way from Gene Rodenbury’s utopian vision of the future.
One strategy that seems to be having the desired effect of bringing the backward, religion-run, have-not nations into submission is trade; capitalism in action. As countries taste the fruits of modern technology and its attendant luxuries they quickly start to convert into modern societies (with all the debt and social problems this entails), but at least we’re not dealing with stone-age ideologies with them. Once we are on the same playing field, i.e. dealing with the same problems with the same world-view, we can treat as equals. As long as we continue to permit such a large portion of the world’s population to live in the same social circumstances and poverty from centuries ago there will always be this conflict in point-of-view and understanding.
djm
DJM actually paraphrased (or interpreted) my intentions with bringing up Osmo Vallo. I’d appreciate it if you actually read my posts and made a small attempt at making the correct inferences, rather than calling whatever I’ve said BS.
I mean, look at what you’ve said. I said that the Swedish police beat and tortured Vasmo, as DJM mentioned, to point out that we’re not the only ones with problems (for example). You come back with acting like my mention of Vallo was BS . . . and then say “there has been a thorough investigation on the murder of Osmo Vallo and there still doesn’t seem to be enough evidence, a shame really.”
Do you read any Finnish? Probably not, and they probably don’t bother translating that stuff på svenska, but buddy, that’s not the view to your East. They feel like Vallo’s murder hasn’t been thoroughly investigated, and that he was, in fact, the victim of Swedish racism.
You are upset that I use an example of police brutality from your own country, and you defend your country’s handling of the situation. There are obviously others, folks different from you, who take a very different look at the same thing. To them, it’s a crime that no one has been brought to justice. (Crap, someone dies in police custody? Rocket science, I realize.) Can you at all realize how much bias there is in any reporting? How much personal feelings can influence the way things are handled?
And you mention that “. . . there were probably a good few more in USA that didn’t end up in a trial, and probably a good few that you don’t even know about.” Yeah, we have a crapload more people than Sweden does. Lots more police. Lots more interactions between police and citizens, criminal or not. So even though you make that statement as some kind of attack, you’ve missed the point entirely of what I was trying to say.
I am not trying to be an apologist for US actions. And just to be clear, I mean Apologetik, not “ursäkte sig.” But my Swedish sucks so I could be wrong on that one. What’s your point in bringing up the fact that atrocities have been committed, and are committed, in the US all the time? Our media is filled with them. We’re ashamed of them, and we work to fix them. The US was founded on the prinicple that people are not only fallible, but infinitely corruptible. That’s the crux of why we broke from the monarchy.
What’s your excuse?
Stuart
Lads, a pint and handshake required of each of you. A nice tune to get the feet a tapping. We’re musicians, or part time music hobbyists, makers of art, patrons of culture, advocates of thoughtfulness and peace, right? What do any of us really know? We love our friends and family. We help others when we can. We give thanks and spread peace and good will. We don’t maim or seek to harm with word or worse. Right? I have seen countless threads in this forum where a European bashes the US but states they like most Americans the meet. “Meet”, in the personal sense. Eye to eye, face to face. Not the fellow hunched over his keyboard blasting away a flaming response to a heated post. I take the view that I might one day meet anyone of the posters on this forum, and if fortune favors me or the other, a pint or meal is offered in friendship by one. My point, hmmm…I’m not sure. I prefer to neutralize conflict and build bridges instead. Lots of good intelligent stuff here. And, Henke, if you are Swedish and English is a secondary language for you, my hat is tipped to you. You have good command of English. Second and third language skills in anyone are commendable. Sturob, if I have another surgery, which I hope won’t be for a while, would you fly back to Texas to adminster the sleeping stuff? Perhaps you could play me a tune rather than the usual count backwards to ten stuff…BTW..if you are still in Toronto, I hope you enjoy an occasional stroll down Queen St. Very nice, eclectic. A lovely little restaurant with good jazz is Le Bistre. Reasonable prices too. Good memories for me and maybe you too.
McCullagh
Something with the refresh key or maybe too many pints has duped all of my posts. I’m nuking this one to conserve C&F disk space…
Good night.
McCullagh
I find this thread quite unbalanced. We haven’t heard from a single Islamic terrorist or even, I suspect an Iraqi. Are these people not interested in the flute ?
Okay, now you die, capitalist pig! We come blow up your bum big time. And when we are through with destroying your country and every person in it, we will turn on every other non-muslim country and burn and destroy them, too. And when all the infidels in the entire world are burning in the hell of our own choosing, we will look to the muslim world and see who is wanting in our eyes and destroy them and their goats, as well.
You can’t blame the Islamic religion for what is going on in the Middle East. This is entirely a social/cultural phenomenon. These peoples have been at each others throats for centuries, long before Islam was created. It has become ingrained in their societies. There are many modern, educated, civilized Muslims in the world, and they abhor what is being done in the name of their religion.
What you are seeing are medieval cultures where violent retribution is the first and only response to any perceived slight or injury. It can’t be blamed on male-dominated cultures as the women are the ones who carry on the traditions of hatred and violence, and instill these values in their children.
It will require a significant cultural shift within these societies before things improve. Much of the internal strife we have seen in the past few decades in these countries is the power struggle between the old culture and the new; modern, educated youth who are trying bring their countries up out of the depths of ignorance and hatred. I expect it will take at least two more generations before the old ways are finally on the wane.
In regards to them liking flute, many Muslims interpret their religion to preclude all music (Bob Dylan tried this, so did Cat Stevens), while others allow it only if it is totally dedicated to Allah. Then again, there are others who have long traditions of their own religious and cultural music traditions. There are too many different peoples to try and come up with any sweeping statements of music or instruments in Islamic countries.
Abu djm