[elSicomoro]

Originally posted by kaleidoscopic ziggurat
i don't feel that comparison is accurate... native americans were a thousand years behind the europeans and had nowhere to go. what do you think... should we give a giant chunk of north america back to the natives?

First off, I have to disagree with the statement--Native Americans were actually rather advanced. I'm not sure whether they had guns though, which would have made a difference I think.

And for the record, you're damned right that America should give some of the land back to the Natives...for my piece, I'd like a little swath in Oklahoma, in Ozark country.

Seriously though, Natives have been fortunate enough to get SOME concessions from the US, particularly the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma.

i don't think that would be such a bad idea for certain areas... up here in canada there is always a lot of talk about quebec seperatism. sometimes the point is brought up that the northern portion of the province is nearly entirely populated by cree. would they also be allowed to have their own nation state? quebec would not allow that, given the amount of natural resources that could be exploited in the region.

But Canada itself carved off part of the NW Territories for the Inuit in the form of Nunavut. Overall, there are WAY too many issues for the Quebecois to ever separate from Canada.

with respect to the cry-baby comment, i feel there is a certain validity to the situation... israel was created as a nation state... later it was invaded -- hostile military action on all fronts. not only did they defend their new land, but they pushed back the invaders into their own territory. when you begin a military engagement of that sort maybe you should think about your people living in the territories right near the contested lands. i think it was gracious enough of israel to give the sinai back. the rest -- too bad. decisions were made at a high level and those people had to live with the consequences.

I'm not so sure of that...I can remember as a young child that Israel had much more support from the US than they do now. Sadat and Begin opened the door. The PLO has become more diplomatic. We see a lot more of the entire tragedy than we did 10 years ago, thanks to more news programming and the internet. In addition, we witnessed the crumbling of Yugoslavia over ethnic interests, which I think has highlighted the situation in the Middle East even more.

that's the first i've heard of gulf war syndrome... my understanding is that the war was a lot tougher on the iraqi people, which is terribly unfortunate. i'm of the mind that it's about time that US got off its oil kick, so it is particularly bad that bush is in power now. oil is just another one of the elements of american crapocracy. oh well. can't change that right now either.

I don't doubt that UN sanctions are hurting innocent Iraqis, but it doesn't help that they have a village idiot running the country. Given that access to Iraq is limited, I wonder how many Iraqis really support Hussein.

It's not just the US that needs oil either, although we are the greediest when it comes to want. I don't understand how a country that makes its own oil (and even has oil rigs on the grounds of the Oklahoma State Capitol) has to use so much from everybody else. *gives evil eye towards SUV drivers* I can understand those with cars from the 70s and early 80s...nobody knew better then, and some people can't afford anything better. But this push for bigger is better again...*rolls his eyes* Jesus, do you really NEED that much vehicle?!