Wow, where to start?
someone wrote:The fact that he beat Gore is also up for debate. I've read over and over again that Gore got more votes. I'm sure you're all thinking oh no, not THAT again, but it is hugely important. If the fact that Gore got more votes and still didn't become president is true, it essentially means America isn't a democracy.
The United States of America is not a democracy. It is a Republic. Unfortunately, the Electoral College system allows a candidate to win the popular vote, but lose the election. Either way, Gore lost according to the rules of the game. Don't bother replying with Michael Moore conspiracy theories, this is fact.
someone wrote:and no proof that Saddam was funding international terrorists or planning another invasion.
Saddam wasn't paying families of suicide bombers?
someone wrote:30 out of 191 countries I might add.
That's a helpful comment. I'm sure we could have used some help from the Army of Tonga and the Navy of Madagascar, but they must have been... busy?
someone wrote:And none of the other superpowers noticed these problems? Bush's main argument was that the protocol would be a hard blow on the American economy (mainly due to increased electricity prices). Of course it would! The protocol forces people everywhere to make compromises. Personally, I think the Kyoto protocol is a threat to the American lifestyle more than anything. Americans get grumpy when they can't fill up their oversized SUV's with extremely cheap gasoline (less than a third of what we pay in Europe) and leave the George Foreman grill on 24/7. Ok, I'm not sure about that last one 
, but you do consume a rediculous amount of electrical energy "per capita".
Unfortunately, this is the legacy of capitalism. If you are concerned about the energy use of USA, you'd better start worrying a hell of a lot more about China.
someone wrote:First: How could america know that the bombs would not just make japan more angry?
Second: How could they know how many people would die compared to a traditional attack? The atomic bomb had never been used before... I´m pretty sure that they knew nothing or very little about the radiation that after the bomb would kill japanese people for over 50 years forward in time.
Wow, this is going way back, but I seem to recall that we invited the Japanese to a test of the bombs before we dropped them. "This is what's going to happen" sort of a thing. They basically ignored us, so we bombed them. They laughed at us, so we bombed them again. A HORRIBLE tragedy to be sure, but as others have stated those two actions may have saved millions in the end. I could be completely off base here, maybe I dreamed this. ???
someone wrote:A people will never just all of a sudden stand up against someone else.. A good proof of that is the slavery that existed everywhere in the world for a long time without any slave standing up for the others... People are surpressed everywhere without doing anything about it - simply because they most often can´t. The locals are far to supressed by the US soldiers and the extremists to dare something like that.
Thank God Almighty our founding fathers did not share your opinion.
someone wrote:The american lifestyle of money before life make me sick 
See China, above.
I apologize if my first post in these forums makes me look like I'm trying to start a fight (I'm not), its just that I followed a link to this thread and felt like adding my two cents.
Americans aren't all greedy, SUV driving, money hungry warmongers. And I really believe that we do more good in a day than a lot of countries do in a year. I'm not calling anyone lazy or anything like that, but a lot of good has come out of my country and I'm very proud of it (technology, medicine, etc).
Don't lose faith in America just yet. Things will work out.
Edit: I guess I was wrong about the Japan comment, I just read this: "Other arguments state that the United States should have warned the Japanese, or that we should have invited them to a public demonstration. "In retrospect that U.S. use of the atomic bomb may have been the first act of the cold war."(Grolier 8) On the other side, advocates claimed that the invasion of the Japanese islands could and would result in over one million military casualties plus the civilian losses based on previous invasions of Japanese occupied islands."
I was sure I read somewhere that we demonstrated the bomb to them, but I stand corrected. Sorry.
