Erk_Forever

A question that has been bugging me is, what is an acceptable weak female character; if we're going to understand what an acceptable strong female character is, then we need to understand an acceptable weak character at the same time*; in the same way a male can be weak and flawed.

If you don't have enough money to get onto Greenlight, how is that any different from before when the service wasn't there at all? Did these same critics of the fee sit around going "Why hasn't Valve offered us a free way to promote our game..."?

What people should really be complaining about are the douche-bags who caused this sort of thing to be necessary.

Indiana Jones: Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was a great movie!

@forkboy: You're right. Opportunities did open up, however, that is still a poor argument to explain our presence there. I think that the seeking enemies of the American people where they was the primary motivation, following an attack on the American people. To say otherwise just seems to ridiculous. The hunt for the one man was also the hunt for his supporters; the people who would assist him in doing it again. The taliban were hiding him and we owed it to the innocent people he helped murder to find him, and make him and all his friends pay. Did people end up profiting? Yes. That's just something that happens with the military industrial complex. Wars make someone rich. We're not going to fault doctors for profiting from another persons misfortune, are we? We're going to say "Thanks doc." Doing something we ought to do turned out to be profitable. Big deal, but, an unpopular war (globally unpopular) and the massive debt that goes with it is hardly a boon to the American people. ps, unocal withdrew from the consortium involved in the pipeline was acquired by chevron is now an inactive subsidiary, furthermore, the pipeline was primary being pushed by other middle eastern companies and less so by American businesses. This was in 1998 prior to the september 11th attacks, but, after terrorist attacks on american embassies in the region (credited to osama bin laden). On top of all of this, it seems like Afghanistan stands to make a deal of money from the pipeline passing through the country as well; which seems good when you consider they have next to no industry. I'm done.

@forkboy: You mentioned an oil pipeline and a an oil exporter that is now owned by a major oil company. None of these things support an argument for our presence in Afghanistan being motivated by opening new markets up to our domestic businesses.

@forkboy said:

@Erk_Forever: Well, that's where we differ. Going to Iraq meant an end to sanctions on the oil trade, lucrative contracts for a large number of western corporations. Private security firms, military contractors, the infamous Haliburton & other companies related to the oil busines like Washington Group International, Perini whose owner is married to Senator Dianne Feinstein & have lucrative environmental cleanup contracts & umpteen more. Iraq, thanks to sanctions on Iraq since the war to defend Kuwait (another shady regime ruled by a despotic monarchy, but they were pals with the Saudis & we can't fuck them off), was closed to most western companies.

Ditto with Afghanistan, sanctions were put in place in 1999 I believe. Which for one thing stopped construction of the Trans-Afghan oil pipeline, which had Unocal as one of the major backers.

Opening up markets that were previously closed to business for western corporations, & in turn installing liberal democracies is absolutely furthering the reach of globalisation.

You do know that there is no significant amount of oil in Afghanistan, right? You'd be making a pretty good argument for us wanting things like copper here, if, china wasn't getting most of the rights to mine. Ps, trans afghan-pipeline is a natural gas pipeline.

@forkboy said:

@Erk_Forever said:

@forkboy: As far as Afghanistan is concerned, we wanted Osama Bin laden and had reason to believe he was there; unfortunately, Muslims are required to offer shelter (and protection) to just about anyone who come seeking it. After asking for them to turn him over to us, we were left with the option of not seeking someone out who has proven to be a threat to the American citizens; or going to war and destroying terrorists and attempting to offer a country the chance to rule by law as opposed to violence. The motives for Iraq might be a little more questionable, but, what is not in question is that we deposed a dictator who was committing acts of genocide against his own people.

And then promptly left Iraq on the verge of civil war. It's not black & white. Far from it. Geopolitics is never simple.

From a moral perspective it's hard to question the invasions of Afghanistan & Iraq (I'll never defend a regime like the Taliban or the Ba'athists). Though I think war in the name of regime change is a questionable road to go down because where does it end? Personally I find the Burmese just as abhorrent as Saddam's lot. And is liberal democracy really the greatest system in the world? It's a valid question. And where do you draw the line? I mean the Chinese state is appalling when it comes to human rights. And well...so is America according to some metrics.

As far as I can tell, Iraq and Afghanistan are worlds apart as far as motivation goes. There wasn't really a regime to change in Afghanistan; there was essentially no regime. The here government mostly been the government of Kabul and not much else. Regardless we have established some sort of governing body, and we are putting things in their hands. We train their police, and try to teach the the value of rule by law. If the people don't want it, that's on them. We really are doing our best to do nothing. I couldn't speak much on the specifics in Iraq, but, to get back on point; the united states doesn't stand to gain much from either war. They are unpopular, and neither country has much to give. What they do have, we aren't rally getting preference for. I wouldn't say we're spreading much in the way of free trade or globalism by doing what we have done.

I chose to use only the 9mm and a revolver the whole game, so, i was left with whatever weapons and grenade the boss area had after expending those. I also did it with the fucked up kill-switch thing. On the highest difficulty. You should be able to do it with just about anything.

@forkboy: As far as Afghanistan is concerned, we wanted Osama Bin laden and had reason to believe he was there; unfortunately, Muslims are required to offer shelter (and protection) to just about anyone who come seeking it. After asking for them to turn him over to us, we were left with the option of not seeking someone out who has proven to be a threat to the American citizens; or going to war and destroying terrorists and attempting to offer a country the chance to rule by law as opposed to violence. The motives for Iraq might be a little more questionable, but, what is not in question is that we deposed a dictator who was committing acts of genocide against his own people.