Quote:
Originally Posted by hawkeyejohn14
I am not so sure I would agree to you point of living in a world of fewer wars, conflicts and murders. I might think it;s just the opposite, not that whole continents are in conflict the way they were during the WW but just look to what is happening in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, Russia and we have not been void of attacks thankfully we have negated most of them since 9/11 but not all and there have been attacks in England, Spain, France, Germany etc....
When I think of Croatia I think of the beauty and wonderful people, but also of the violence and conflict (Operacija Oluja) you must of had to endure.  It is a country of that has seen a long history to be where it is today. A little thanks in the last one to the U.S.  Many forget that the U.S.has sacrificed many lives and treasure for the freedom of others because we believe it is the right thing to do and that long term it protects our freedoms as well. I believe some of the arrogance comes the feeling that we are not appreciated for these sacrifices. I personally believe our own foreign agenda squanders much of this goodwill, for example the invasion of Iraq. My .02 worth. |
It's not my point of view, it's only a statistical fact. If you have a minute to watch Pinker's presentation, you'll see that there's a consistent drop of violent deaths per number of living. The apparent rise of violence is actually a consequence of increased media coverage, that is biased towards reports on violent crimes, or any crimes for that matter. The fact that we perceive this as a deterioration is actually a good sign, because as the quality and therefore the value of life increases, proportionally our tolerance for violence decreases.
In short, look at the bright side and try not to watch and read too many news.
As far as the operation Oluja (Storm) is concerned, that was actually the relief as it marked the end of war and it's still controversial because it displaced a great number of local Serbs, but that's a whole other box of problems. Really bad times were during the beginning ('91. ~ '93.) when we had very small amounts of arms, the embargo was on, and our defenses were inadequate and we suffered many losses, both human and material. Although this is still unofficial and denied, the US did help operation Oluja with tactical support and essentially by giving us a green light.
And yes, the US did sacrifice a lot, both in human lives and material wealth, and more often then not for a good cause, and maybe I'm just too cynical, but it's hard too believe that Americans did it purely out of the goodness of their heart. There's always somehow money involved. Although many of my countryman might disagree, even our (latest) war for independence was actually about money. A small group of insiders that saw profit in it.