Bush finally admits what we already knew

[Accounting Troll]

link That just leaves the theory that it was all about gaining American corporate access to Middle East oil...

 

I don't have a problem with OPEC being paid back for messing the rest of us around since the 1970s, but I wish Bush & Blair had been a bit more honest about it and hadn't pretended they care about Freedom in the Middle East.

[uriaheep]

I just can't believe that these pair of knob-stones have been allowed to keep their jobs.

[Pete]

That website is ratehr informative. Cheers for the link Troll. You'd think these guys would be more careful about what they say but apparently the internet is unknown to them

[DeepOne]

link That just leaves the theory that it was all about gaining American corporate access to Middle East oil...

So I suppose it was wrong for the U.S. to get involved in European affairs during World War II because the aggressors in Europe had nothing to do with the attack on Pearl Harbor?

 

You are supporting a straw man argument. I don't think Bush (or anyone else) said that the reason for the war in Iraq was that Iraq was responsible for 9/11, and I saw no evidence to the contrary from the link you provided. However, 9/11 was the wakeup call which made the U.S. realize that it could not continue to virtually ignore the threat posed by openly hostile regimes - especially those which support Islamic jihad (which is a connection to 9/11 after all). Iraq had been an ongoing issue for about 12 years before the U.S. and U.K. (with the support of quite a few other countries) finally decided to remove Saddam who had been violating the terms of the 1991 ceasefire agreement for years.

[Pete]

In fact this is exactly what he implied before he started out in Iraq. I hope someone has a link handy - I had one the other day which was quite amusing/infuriating.

 

And, not being funny or anything, but a World War is a little bit of a different situation than going to war with a country for fuzzy reasons. America was attacked directly by Japan at Pearl Harbour. Bush declared war on Iraq over nuclear weapons that even the UN said didn't exist and has since admitted that there aren't any himself. See the slight difference in context?

 

Nobody's saying Saddam's rule was good or anything or that he shouldn't have been removed from power, but making up lies to go to war is like invading countries for the hell of it and that's how World Wars get kicked off.

 

To go to your final point, violating a ceasefire - yes, but the reason we all went to war was over those darned invisible nukes remember? This thing has dragged out for so long that even Bush can't remember what he said in the first place.

[Snakeman]

I've always thought it was a blunder for the administration to use possible chemical weapons posession as an excuse for the war. Or they shouldn't have worded it that way (or the press shoudn't have focused so much on it either way).

 

Considering too that the UN has no real muscle other than sanctions to enforce its directives, I personally think they ought to have hyped this angle. Sanctions didn't work so well or as well as they'd hoped as a deterant. Neither did diplomacy for that matter - didn't they boot out weapons inspectors on more than one occasion?

 

I think the bottom line here is that, the enforcement of UN resolutions. If they've been broken, there's only so much you can do. I also think this event probably has set a new prescedent in terms of trying to figure out what the UN's purpose should be in this kind of thing.

 

There's also another issue, and that's countries who may be up to no good who aren't members or bound by their decisions. What do you do? Default to some kind of moral high ground and take necessary action anyway? And who leads the charge?

[DeepOne]

In fact this is exactly what he implied before he started out in Iraq.

Implied? I don't think so. But if that's your opinion, then I doubt that anything could convince you otherwise. Implication is often in the eye of the beholder.

 

And, not being funny or anything, but a World War is a little bit of a different situation than going to war with a country for fuzzy reasons.

I don't think the reasons were fuzzy at all. Bush laid them out clearly in his 2003 State of the Union Address . And by the way, Iraq is part of a World War (fundamental Islam vs. the rest of the world). You could argue that it wasn't at first, but it certainly seems to have become the main front. I don't know about you, but I would rather have the main front be in Iraq than in someplace like the U.S. or the U.K.

 

Nobody's saying Saddam's rule was good or anything or that he shouldn't have been removed from power, but making up lies to go to war is like invading countries for the hell of it and that's how World Wars get kicked off.

Lies? A lie requires knowledge that what one is saying is false. Are you able to read Bush's mind to know that this was the case? The entire world (including Saddam's generals) believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction (because he most certainly did at one time) and that he was seeking more. Some (sarin gas, if I remember correctly) were found, but not in the expected quantities. They could still be hidden somewhere, or they might have been shipped off to someplace like Syria. Saddam was supposed to provide verification that he had destroyed what he was known to have, but he never did anything of the sort.

[Pete]

Well okay then, for the last point we'll change "lie" to "misinformed" but either way as President of the USA he's accountable along with the rest of his office.

 

Any yes, everyone has differing views so I don't think anyone's got much chance of changing each other's stance on the subject as you say.

 

I think my underlying point though is that if you have to go to war, make sure you're not so bloody vague to begin with. It needs to be "We are at war because XYZ" and not because of the "we think they've got stuff like..." or "they're looking pretty powerful so we might just..." kind of thing. It's the only way to be absolutely clear or people forget what the whole point was and start filling in the rather large gaps in the logic themselves.

[Hobbes]

Iran should get nukes....then both Iran and Israel could nuke themselves and the entire Middle East into oblivion and permanently solve the problem. (plus getting rid of all the oil that fuels it)

[Accounting Troll]

I found a link on the iunfamous 45 minute warning dossier published by the British government in the buildup to the war here. This dossier was the official justification by Tony Blair for taking Britain into the war.

 

It includes a link to the actual dossier, which you can find here.

 

Curiously, the dossier argues that Iraq's use of chemical weapons against Iran and his own people in the 1980s is proof of the danger of the Iraqi WMD programme. These are the very weapons that the USA and its allies supplied him with so that Iran would not win its war against Iraq. According to Wikipedia, these chemical weapons killed around 100,000 Iranians. By condoning Iraq's actions at the time and supplying Saddam with chemical weapons that we knew he would use, we ended up being equally to blame for those 100,000 deaths as Saddam so we are on questionable ground when we use that against him 15 years later.

 

The paper also lists Iraqi human rights abuses as a secondary reason for war. Trouble is that we turned a blind eye to the human rights situation before 1990 when Saddam was someone we could do business with, and we continue to ignore the human rights abuses in many other countries because we can do business with their governments.

[Snakeman]

I think your right, it makes it harder to stand on some moral high ground in justifying a war when a previous conflict saw our indirect particpation cause more problems.

 

More Cold War fallout bites us in the ass. We help guys like bin Laden during the Russian war with Afganistan - it bites us in the ass later. Russia helps the Vietnamese, it turned out relatively well for them. China helps the North Koreans, ended in a stalemate that's lasted 50 years. We help Iraq fight Iran, it bites us in the ass again.

 

Seems to me remote control wars work less often than not. Mopping up our problems isn't so easy is it.

[DeepOne]

Curiously, the dossier argues that Iraq's use of chemical weapons against Iran and his own people in the 1980s is proof of the danger of the Iraqi WMD programme. These are the very weapons that the USA and its allies supplied him with so that Iran would not win its war against Iraq.

It wasn't nearly as simple as you make it sound. From what I've read, as far as the U.S. was concerned anyway, it was private (i.e. not the government) corporations which supplied dual-use components (e.g. insecticide) of those weapons. The weapons themselves were then made in Iraq (it seems that nearly all of the weapons Iraq purchased as weapons came from Russia). I suppose that the degree to which the U.S. government was aware of and/or supported this depends largely on how cynical one is.

 

It always amazes me how so many people in the U.S. and U.K. are so quick to accept propaganda which goes against their own governments. Sometimes, it seems as if they think their own countries are the source of all lies and other evil in the world. Remember this guy ? I wish people would see that a great deal of the anti-U.S., anti-U.K., and anti-Israel propaganda to which they are exposed is either blatantly false or otherwise twists facts in a dishonest manner. And I wish people would be more aware that a lot of this distortion is perpetrated or at least accepted by their own media for political purposes. There are a couple of interesting videos on this subject here . A certain amount of cynicism is a healthy thing, but too many times, it seems to be misdirected.

 

Snakeman:

More Cold War fallout bites us in the ass. We help guys like bin Laden during the Russian war with Afganistan - it bites us in the ass later. Russia helps the Vietnamese, it turned out relatively well for them. China helps the North Koreans, ended in a stalemate that's lasted 50 years. We help Iraq fight Iran, it bites us in the ass again.

I would not disagree with you that the results have not always been stellar, but at least the intentions were good. The involvement in Vietnam and Korea was attempting to stop the violent spread of communism, and Iran is something like the world headquarters of militant Islam which also seeks to spread itself through violence. It's entirely possible that things would have turned out much worse had the U.S. not made these efforts to stop the spread of tyranny. The worst thing you can do when opposing tyranny is to display weakness; if they see that, they'll walk all over you. And negotiation, while it can be an honorable goal, is not always a legitimate option. For negotiation to work, both sides must be honest and reasonable.

 

Mind you, I don't think the U.S. has been right in absolutely every military action throughout its history (I can think of at least one case where the U.S. may have been helping the wrong side). But for some reason, people seem to demand absolute perfection from the U.S. - anything less is portrayed as absolute failure. And yet they seemingly ignore (or don't care about) regularly occurring atrocities in other nations. Iran's president has announced that he wants Israel wiped off the map, and still many people seem more concerned about ascribing ulterior motives to Bush, Blair, and others who stand against that sort of thing.

[Pete]

Sometimes, it seems as if they think their own countries are the source of all lies and other evil in the world.

 

Because we are. We (civilised governments) sell people ARMS to fight wars because we want to end up with the lesser of two evils (whilst making a shed-load of cash) right? Then we complain when they use them ON US later on and then pretend like it's not our fault that they've got our equipment pointed at us!

 

It really is that simple when you break it all down to it's most basic components.

 

However, as has been stated earlier in the thread there's no point getting too passionate about either side of the argument as most folks reading or participating in this thread have made up their minds one way or another already

 

Having said that I can't let this next gem go without comment:

 

The involvement in Vietnam and Korea was attempting to stop the violent spread of communism, and Iran is something like the world headquarters of militant Islam which also seeks to spread itself through violence. It's entirely possible that things would have turned out much worse had the U.S. not made these efforts to stop the spread of tyranny.

 

All I can say is Good old USA eh? I'm glad I had a good laugh today after a hard day's work.

[Crazy Gringo]

Ah, yes! the good old war-by proxy doctrine. Tried and tested since the World War 2 and perhaps even before.

I guess El presidente Bush just doesn't believe in it any more as it almost always came back and bid the US in the rear. So he send in his own goons to do the dirty work.

Is Syria and/or Iran next?!?

[DeepOne]

"Sometimes, it seems as if they think their own countries are the source of all lies and other evil in the world."

 

Because we are.

Wow. I thought I was being hyperbolic. It seems that moral relativism and elements of socialist/communist ideology have been spreading like a virus. May I ask how old you are (I'm 42)? Do your parents think as you do?

 

We (civilised governments) sell people ARMS to fight wars because we want to end up with the lesser of two evils (whilst making a shed-load of cash) right? Then we complain when they use them ON US later on and then pretend like it's not our fault that they've got our equipment pointed at us!

The only U.S. or U.K. arms of which I'm aware that might be pointed at us are some stinger missiles which were given to the Afghans to help them fight off the Soviets. Iran still has some U.S. fighter jets which were sold to the Shah, but it is highly unlikely that they are still functional. The U.S. has not had dealings with Iran since the revolution in '79. China and Russia have supplied nearly all of the arms which may be used against us.

 

It really is that simple when you break it all down to it's most basic components.

I think you're having trouble in assigning responsibility. If a person gets drunk, gets in a car, and ends up killing someone, you would be blaming the shop owner who sold him the beer.

 

It is true that "civilised governemnts" have empowered the Islamic jihadists during the 20th century by purchasing oil from Islamic nations. At one time, they could have quite easily taken whatever they wanted by force, but that would have been barbaric rather than civilized. In retrospect, it would have been best to just leave the oil where it was and look elsewhere. But I don't think people understood (and most still don't understand) the ideology of these people.

[Accounting Troll]

Regarding American and British arms sales, I've just had a look through Jane's 2002 Warships Guide, and it lists a large number of UK and US built ships serving in foreign navies. Some were built to order, while others were second or third hand, a common practice to save money. I've used the original class name where possible:

 

 

ALGERIA

 

Eleven UK Kebir class patrol boats

 

ARGENTINA

 

Two UK Type-42 class destroyers

Honourable mention to the US built cruiser General Belgrano, sunk in the Falklands War

 

AUSTRALIA

 

Six US Oliver Hazard Perry class frigates

Fifteen UK Fremantle class patrol boats

Two US Newport class amphibious personnel carriers

 

BAHRAIN

 

One US Oliver Hazard Perry class frigate

 

BANGLADESH

 

Two UK Leopard class frigates

One UK Salisbury class frigates

Two UK Megna class patrol boats

 

BARBADOS

 

One UK Kebir class patrol boat

 

BRAZIL

 

One UK Colossus class aircraft carrier, since paid off

Four UK Broadsword class frigates

Six UK Niteroi classa frigates

Four US Garcia class frigates

Twelve UK Grajau class patrol boats

One US Newport class amphibious personnel carrier

Two US Thomaston class landing ships

 

BRUNEI

 

One UK Brunei class corvette (imaginative name!)

 

CANADA

 

Four UK Upholder class submarines

 

CHILE

 

Three UK County class destroyers

Three UK Leander class frigates

One US Newport class amphibious personnel carrier

 

ECUADOR

 

Two UK Leander class frigates

 

EGYPT

 

Four US Oliver Hazard Perry class frigates

Two US/Spain Knox class frigates

Six UK Ramadan class patrol boats

 

GERMANY

 

Two US Charles S Adams calss destroyers

 

GREECE

 

Four US Charlews S Adams class destroyers

Two US/Spain Knox class frigates

Seven UK Super Vita class patrol boats (three of which are in construction and the other four are planned)

Two UK Hunt class minesweepers

 

INDIA

 

One UK Hermes class aircraft carrier

Five UK Leander class frigates

 

INDONESIA

 

Four US Claud Jones class frigates

 

IRAN

 

Three UK Vosper Mark 5 class frigates

Two US Bayandor class frigates

 

IRELAND

 

Two UK Peacock class patrol boats

 

KENYA

 

Two UK Province class patrol boats

 

MALAYSIA

 

Three UK Leiku class frigates

One US Newport class amphibious personnel carriers

 

MOROCCO

 

One US Newport class amphibious personnel carrier

 

NEW ZEALAND

 

One UK Leander class frigates

 

NIGERIA

 

One UK Vosper Thorneycroft Mark 9 corvette (a second is in repair due to an embarrassing accident)

 

MEXICO

 

Two US Gearing class destroyers

One US Fletcher class destroyer

Four US/Spain Knox class frigates

Two US Bronstein class frigates

Thirty UK Azteca class patrol boats (The Yanks must have been ticked off to lose that order!)

 

OMAN

 

Two UK Qahir class corvettes

FOur UK Province class patrol boats

 

PAKISTAN

 

One US Gearing class destroyer

Two UK Leander class frigates

Six UK Amazon class frigates

 

PERU

 

One UK Daring class destroyer

 

PHILLIPINES

 

One US Cannon class frigate

Three UK Jacinto classw patrol boats

 

POLAND

 

Two US Oliver Hazard Perry class frigates

 

QATAR

 

Four UK Barzan class patrol boats

 

SAUDI ARABIA

 

Four US Badr class corvettes

Nine US Al SIddiq class patrol boats

Three UK Sandown class minesweepers

 

SOUTH KOREA

 

Five US Gearing class destroyers

 

SPAIN

 

Six US Oliver Hazard Perry class frigates

Two US Newport class amphibious personnel carriers

 

TAIWAN

 

Seven US Gearing class destroyers

Seven US Oliver Hazard Perry class frigates

Eight US/Spain Knox class frigates

Two US Newport class amphibious personnel carriers

 

THAILAND

 

Two US/Spain Knox class frigates

One US Cannon class frigate

Two US Tapi class frigates

One UK Yarrow class frigate

Three UK Khamronsin class corvettes

Two US Rattanakosin class corvettes

 

TRINIDAD & TOBAGO

 

One UK Island class patrol boat

 

TURKEY

 

Six US Oliver Hazard Perry class frigates

Six US/Spain Knox class frigates

One US Claud Jones class frigate

 

 

Of course, Britain and America aren't the only countries exporting warships, but I believe that this list demonstrates how widespread and profitable the arms trade really is. Plenty of people make money out of wars.

 

Iran is currently very hostile to the US/UK, but I think the ships we sold them predate the 1979 revolution. Several other countries, including Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan and Oman could very easily become hostile to American and British interests in the near future; in some cases our economic and military interests would make war inevitable if that happens.

 

Some of our customers may well sell on our ships to other countries hostile to our interests. There is also the matter of naval technology - China, who regards as strong navy as necessary in order to compete with the USA, is likely to be aquiring data on American and British naval technology by doing deals with or spying on some of the countries on that list.

 

The human rights issue of selling arms to repressive regimes sometimes "bites us on the ass" as people have a tendency to become angry with the foreign governments who support their oppressors, and arms sales certainaly come into this category.

[Pete]

Deepone - I'm 24 years old, but since that's irrelevant to this topic (as is the opinion of my parents) I'd suggest that we not use age as an indicator of wisdom eh?

 

Accounting Troll has shown just the tip of the iceberg with the figures above. That's just ships - whereas planes, tanks, guns and ammo themselves... the numbers can only be higher.

 

As for the car crash analogy - it doesn't really hold water because it's the driver's responsibility, and at the start of the night they're not consciously going out to kill anyone (even though they probably will if they carry on drink driving).

 

In the case of arms sales, what do you suppose the guns are going to be used for? Door stops? They're going to be used to kill people (often in "self defense" which is another conveniently relative term) on a large scale - hence why you usually get around 30-odd bullets per rifle.

 

Back to an earlier comment in your post - what the hell has communism got to do with anything?! I don't really have much truck with political ideologies as they're just excuses to blow stuff up half the time and say it's all okay.

 

Let's stick to the argument eh and not suggest Age = Wisdom or Differing View = Communism

[DeepOne]

Deepone - I'm 24 years old, but since that's irrelevant to this topic (as is the opinion of my parents) I'd suggest that we not use age as an indicator of wisdom eh?

There you go again finding implications where none were intended.

 

The reason I asked is that your thoughts seem so alien to what I have always thought were the ideals of western civilization. And I was wondering whether this kind of thinking was something that had only become popular recently (hence, my asking whether your parents thought the same). In the U.S., public schools and most colleges have become liberal (in the U.S. sense) indoctrination centers in recent decades. I thought the same kind of thing might be happening there.

[Locutus]

It always amazes me how so many people in the U.S. and U.K. are so quick to accept propaganda which goes against their own governments.

 

DeepOne, may I suggest that, to some extend, you seem as you too may be a "victim" of another kind of propaganda? The governmental one?

 

The involvement in Vietnam and Korea was attempting to stop the violent spread of communism

 

Western propaganda of the cold war era was full of phrases like that. In fact if you look at the core philosophy of communism (From the wikipedia: Communism is an ideology that seeks to establish a future classless, stateless social organization, based upon common ownership of the means of production and the absence of private property) you 'll find it is just a (failed) attempt at fighting social injustice. Of course it's implementation so far meant suppressing the individual. I could argue on the same points for Capitalism, as its current form has evolved into "Corporations stepping over everyone and everything they can find, in order to maximize profits"

 

The only U.S. or U.K. arms of which I'm aware that might be pointed at us...

 

Arms dealing is not always done directly by governments, but by third parties, directly influenced by government, as well. Therefore, if something goes wrong "The government had nothing to do with it".

 

These were just two examples from things you said that struck me as worthmentioning. All in all, propaganda is a very efficient, and often not too obvious, tool at leading the public into believing what one wants.

 

Of course all of this doesn't necessarily mean it's true in your case.

[DeepOne]

DeepOne, may I suggest that, to some extend, you seem as you too may be a "victim" of another kind of propaganda? The governmental one?

Of course, you may. Actually, I have a great many gripes regarding my government (that of the U.S.). However, I still think it is, overall, probably the best system of government in the world today even if it isn't as good as it should be. Propaganda, by the way, is not necessarily false (that's a connotation - not a denotation).

 

In fact if you look at the core philosophy of communism (From the wikipedia: Communism is an ideology that seeks to establish a future classless, stateless social organization, based upon common ownership of the means of production and the absence of private property) you 'll find it is just a (failed) attempt at fighting social injustice. Of course it's implementation so far meant suppressing the individual.

I am rather familiar with the core philosophy of communism as I have read The Communist Manifesto (have you?). It is far more (and far worse) than "just a (failed) attempt at fighting social injustice." By the way, wikipedia is not always entirely accurate when it comes to political or religious subjects.

 

I could argue on the same points for Capitalism, as its current form has evolved into "Corporations stepping over everyone and everything they can find, in order to maximize profits"

And that would sound like communist propaganda (or U.S. Democratic Party propaganda).

[Accounting Troll]

The reason I asked is that your thoughts seem so alien to what I have always thought were the ideals of western civilization. And I was wondering whether this kind of thinking was something that had only become popular recently (hence, my asking whether your parents thought the same). In the U.S., public schools and most colleges have become liberal (in the U.S. sense) indoctrination centers in recent decades. I thought the same kind of thing might be happening there.

 

This might be a good time to remind everyone that these days the word 'liberal' has different meanings in US and UK English, which is why DeepOne made it clear that he was talking about liberal in the US sense. American liberals tend to be more left-wing than British liberals, and are more akin to the British Labour Party was before it elected Tony Blair as leader. Conservative philosophies are pretty similar, although since the early 1990s, the British Conservative Party has been more left wing than the US Republican Party.

 

In answer to your question, DeepOne:

 

Left-wing feeling has long been present in British society, so I don't think it is responsible for the lack of respect we have in our modern politicians.

 

Even in mediueval timnes, there were protests by the workers for a more eligatarian society - the Peasants Rebellion and the English Civil War spring to mind.

 

By the early 19th Century, the industrial revolution meant miserable and highly dangerous working conditions for factory workers. Yet people still flocked to the cities from the countryside because overpopulation meant that conditions were even worse there.

 

One example of the oppression of the workers was the truck system. A currency shortage during the Napoleonic Wars meant that Parliament allowed factory owners to pay their employees with metal tokens that could be exchanged for products in the company owned shop. Parliament's intentions were good, but captains of industry soon realised how this gave them extra powers to rip-off their workers. Trade unions were illegal, as was going on strike for better pay and conditions. Workers were considerably worse off than medieval serfs and not much better off than the slaves being worked to death in the sugar plantations of the New World.

 

It quickly became necesary to station garrisons of soldiers in the industrial and mining heartlands, not as defence against foreign aggressors but to keep the workers from overthrowing and killing the factory owners, a situation that couldn't last.

 

By the mid 1830s, the mining communities of the South Wales valleys were on the verge of rebellion. A radical group calling itself the Scotch Cattle was fighting a campaign of intimidation against the mine owners and their collaborators. There was a big security clampdown after the murder of a policeman, but a noticeable lack of arrests because virtually the entire community supported their actions. By 1839 a more moderate group, the Chartists were the primary group fighting for workers rights across the country. Their leaders hope to present a charter listing their grievances to the young Queen Victoria, and persuade her to force through some reforms. Things got out of control during a protest march, and some frightened soldiers in Newport, South Wales, fired on the (mostly unarmed) protesters, killing 20, and ending the protest. Several Chartist leaders were convicted of treason and deported.

 

Workers protests continued to escalate during the 1840s and 50s. Some passed off peacefully, but others resulted in violent confrontrations. Various radical Members of Parliament who supported the protestors formed the Liberal Party in 1859, so the people trying to maintain the status quo faced attack on two fronts. Over the next few decades, the Liberals managed to push through reforms for workers rights, some welfare provisions and even a few womens rights. In 1945, Labour won a general election by a landslide (despite the Conservatives being led by one Winston Churchill) and over the next few years they created the modern welfare state. None of the Conservative governments we have had since then have managed to amass the popularity they would need to reverse the reforms of the late 1940s, although they have tinkered with the system, usually to its detriment.

 

Most of the values of late 20th/early 21st century British civilization are down to the efforts of radical liberals. Liberals ended the slave trade, arranged the mostly peaceful breakup of an empire we couldn't afford to maintain, brought in the system of parliamentary democracy, turned the monarch into little more than a figurehead (after George IV, who can blame them? Even the Times of London couldn't find anything nice to say about him in his obituary!), forced companies to provide safe working conditions for employees, created workers rights, women's rights and free health care.

 

I think the real reason why people in this country are so cynical about our political leaders is that they are more subject to public scrutiny than ever before (freedom of the press was another liberal creation). The corruption of individual politicians or morally dubious government policies are more likely to be exposed than they were thirty years ago.

 

Regarding schools in the US, Conservatives are responsible for slashing school budgets, restricting teacher salaries and foisting corporate sponsorship onto schools. Conservative talk show hosts and newspaper columnists then accuse the teachers of incompetance when the schools grunt out poorly educated students. Some US states even expect schools to give credance to Creationism, something that happens in no other industrialised nation on the planet. Maybe this is why teachers and reasonably astute students have certain liberal inclinations...

[DeepOne]

Regarding schools in the US, Conservatives are responsible for slashing school budgets, restricting teacher salaries and foisting corporate sponsorship onto schools. Conservative talk show hosts and newspaper columnists then accuse the teachers of incompetance when the schools grunt out poorly educated students.

In the U.S., "slashing budgets" nearly always means slowing the rate of increase (we have Democratic Party propaganda to thank for that). For example, if the budget for something were set to automatically increase by 10% every year, and conservatives decide that this is excessive, a change in the rate of increase to 5% per year would be characterized by liberals as a "Draconian cut" (or perhaps "declaring war on children"). Real cuts in government spending are, unfortunately, very rare.

 

"Foisting corporate sponsorship onto schools" is a charge that I don't recall hearing before. Do you have any references for that? And why would there necessarily be anything wrong with that?

 

Basic education should actually be very inexpensive. Once a person has learned to read, all he should really need is motivation in order to educate himself to a certain level. Public schools, in general, already have far more money than they should really need. Some children are "home schooled", and they are well known for being far better educated than those in the public schools. Private schools also tend to do a much better job than the public schools.

 

Many teachers are indeed incompetent (I even noticed that when I was in school), but the powerful teachers' unions make it nearly impossible to fire any teacher for incompetence. There is also the problem that liberals have ceased to hold students accountable for not learning. When I was young, if you didn't do well enough in school, you would be held back to repeat what you hadn't learned. It seems that this rarely happens anymore (it might harm the child's self esteem). Students are promoted to the next grade with or without merit.

 

Some US states even expect schools to give credance to Creationism, something that happens in no other industrialised nation on the planet.

You've probably heard of Ann Coulter, and most who have probably hate her even though they have little real information about her (she has been thoroughly demonized by the popular liberal media, and her sarcastic wit makes it very easy to pull things out of context to make her look bad). I highly recommend her recent book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism . The latter part of the book deals with evolution. She also has much to say on the subject of public education. She calls teachers "the liberal priesthood" which is a pretty good analogy.

[Accounting Troll]

This is a wonderfully wideranging topic

 

Michael Moore has a lot to say about the state of education in the USA (along with a lot of other things) in his book Stupid White Men. You can find out a bit about it at his website and read a bonus chapter he wrote for the second edition here.

 

Michael Moore has repeatedly argued that there is little real difference between the policies of the Democrats and the Republicans and he thinks that the Democrats would stand a better chance in elections if they were to adopt more left wing policies and defend them vigorously when their policies are criticised by the Republicans. For instance (and we're really wandering off topic here) , Bush was cricised by environmentalists for pulling out of the Kyoto agreement, but Michael Moore argued that Clinton had managed to avoid committing the USA to anything but in such a way that the environmentalists thought he actually was committed to the Kyoto agreement.

 

The problem with corporate sponsorship of schools is that corporations usually want to make money out of the deal, so strings are usually attached. Usually the company gets to do a lot of heavy advertising to the children, uses them for free product research or enforces a monopoly of that company's products within the school.

 

I think you may be underestimating the costs associated with education. In the UK, paperback school textbooks cost £15-20 each, and spending so much time being bumped around in a school bag every day means they get battered very quickly. There is also the costs associated with equipping a school library, which for many children is going to be their only real opportunity to discover the joys of reading.

 

These days, it is important for school leavers to be familiar with information technology to make them more employable. This is not a problem if your parents are reasonably well off, but if they aren't your chances of getting a high paying job decrease, so schools need to provide access to modern IT equipment. This is particularly important for the future prosperity of the UK as our manufacturing sector has been in decline in recent decades, making our economy more dependent on financial and information services.

 

There is also the matter of hiring competant teachers, paying them enough to keep them in the profession and spending enough money on teacher training that their skills remain up to date; more money spent on teacher training equals less incompetant teachers. Also, smaller class sizes are better as it means that the teacher can spend more time with each pupil, but it means having more teachers on the payroll.

 

Teachers also need to be trained to understand "special needs" issues and detect the symptons of such conditions; I'm speaking from personal experience here. When I was eleven, I was diagnosed with an inherited condition called dyspraxia which affects hand-eye coordination. Even now, dyspraxia is poorly understood and the majority of people haven't even heard of it. I was extremely fortunate to have been diagnosed - it only happened because one of my teachers had a daughter with the same condition.

 

Most children with dyspraxia remain undiagnosed. They drift through school aware that they are different from the "norm", but they don't understand why; it is not a good thing for a schoolchild to be seen to be different by his/her classmates and it often leads to bullying. This makes them far more likely to descend into drug and alcohol addiction, leading to long spells in prison. There is no cure for dyspraxia, but just being diagnosed and knowing WHY you are different makes a big difference to your life.

 

It is expensive to train teachers to spot hidden disabilities and hire specialists in schools, but it is well worth it. This UK study indicates that the percentage of people in prison with undiagnosed disabilities such as dyspraxia and dyslexia is far higher than the national average. It costs a lot of money to keep people in prisons (to say nothing of the social costs of their crimes), so it would actually work out cheaper to increase the education budget to ensure that such people are diagnosed while at school.

 

In the UK, students at private schools (which we call public schools for some reason) tend to get better exam results than students at government funded schools, but this is because private schools have the freedom to charge what they like by way of tuition fees. They therefore have a much bigger budget to play with.

 

Ann Coulter isn't very well known in the UK - I probably wouldn't have heard of her if it hadn't been for the fact thatt Michael Moore doesn't seem to like her. I find it interesting that she is attacking the very system that allowed her to pursue an independent career. During the Middle Ages, a woman was legally the property of her husband. The few laws on wife beating simply said that you couldn't beat your wife at night because her screams might wake the neighbours. You could also take your wife down to the market and sell her if you got fed up with her nagging. The purpose of a wedding ring was to advertise the fact that a woman was the proerty of some man or other, so you would have an angry husband to deal with if you raped her. It was only THIS YEAR that Parliament made it a statutory criminal offence for a man to rape his wife, although to be fair this reflects a precedent set in the courts as far back as the 1970s.

 

The funny thing is that when Ann Coulter defends the Conservatives and the Church and attacks the Liberals, she is defending the people who tried to maintain the medieval status quo with regard to womens rights against the people who fought for her to have the right to vote, own property and have a career.

[Locutus]

I am rather familiar with the core philosophy of communism as I have read The Communist Manifesto (have you?). It is far more (and far worse) than "just a (failed) attempt at fighting social injustice."

 

Opinions, opinions. Even though I'm actually opposed to this particular system, I'm also against deamonizing it in such a way. This backwater little country I live in, has suffered a civil war between Democrats and Communists, and has seen some of the greatest attrocities commited (by both parties) in those systems name. There's no reason, in my point of view, to start a war because someone has different beliefs than your own (be they political or religious). Let me make clear at this point, that I'm making a distinction between believing in something and enforcing it unto someone (as both cold war superpowers have done). I'm objecting to your former quote, because you seem to be judging communism on its whole, regardless if its thrust upon you or not.

 

And that would sound like communist propaganda (or U.S. Democratic Party propaganda).

 

One's opinions are another one's propaganda.

 

Foisting corporate sponsorship onto schools" is a charge that I don't recall hearing before. Do you have any references for that? And why would there necessarily be anything wrong with that?

 

Sponsorship of a school is another way of saying "influencing". Unfortunate as it may be, being given money is a form of accepting some form of authority over you. And this is understood and accepted by both the giver and the taker, which, in the very least, makes "suggestions" unavoidable. You can see where this leads.

 

Some US states even expect schools to give credance to Creationism, something that happens in no other industrialised nation on the planet.

 

The whole issue about Creationism and Darwinism is another one concerning belief. Those who believe in science vs those who believe in God (without implying that these two are mutually exclusive). The thing that I find totally unacceptable though is that in some US schools, Darwin's theory is being dumped on it's whole in favor of Creationism and is not taught at all!! While the same argument can be made about Creationism, let us not forget that Darwinism has been scientifically proven. While science may have nothing to do with God, it is the only way of accepting something to be true in our era. Let me recommend in return Carl Sagan's "The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark." as an example of that.

[DeepOne]

Michael Moore has a lot to say about the state of education in the USA (along with a lot of other things) in his book Stupid White Men. You can find out a bit about it at his website and read a bonus chapter he wrote for the second edition here.

Oh, dear. Michael Moore. I have seen two of his movies (Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11). He is dishonest, not particulary bright, and cynical to the point of insanity. I read the bonus chapter to which you referred, and he's still at it: "The bottom line: Anyone who would brazenly steal an election and insert themselves into OUR White House with zero mandate from The People is, frankly - sadly - capable of anything... " The election was not stolen. This is the mantra of the grossly ignorant (or perhaps just liars) who never had a clue how their electoral system worked (probably thanks to our wonderful public education system). The man he thinks won didn't get a majority of the vote no matter how you slice it (and they tried to slice it in ways previously unimagined). Bush got a majority of the electoral college votes, and that's ultimately all that has ever mattered.

 

The problem with corporate sponsorship of schools is that corporations usually want to make money out of the deal, so strings are usually attached. Usually the company gets to do a lot of heavy advertising to the children, uses them for free product research or enforces a monopoly of that company's products within the school.

I've not heard of any of this actually happening, but why is that any worse than the government giving them money with its own strings attached? Many schools spend a large amount of money on sports (which is not really necessary to one's education). I think it would be better if a corporation willingly paid for things like stadiums and olympic size swimming pools with the ability to include some degree of advertising (like naming the stadium after the corporation) than it is to forcibly take money (via taxation) from people to pay for such luxuries.

 

I don't agree with your assertion that throwing more money at schools is going to decrease the prison population, but I don't feel inclined to spend time discussing that.

 

The funny thing is that when Ann Coulter defends the Conservatives and the Church and attacks the Liberals, she is defending the people who tried to maintain the medieval status quo with regard to womens rights against the people who fought for her to have the right to vote, own property and have a career.

You seem to have a serious misconception of what conservative and liberal mean in the U.S. It's difficult to explain quickly, so I'll see if I can find a good link. Here is a pretty good explanation.