Feathers wrote:

Grammar Geek wrote: Oh, okay. Well, I can read it that way now, but what does it mean to keep the peace from the peacekeepers? Honestly, I'm not picking on you, I just don't understand what that's supposed to mean. Who are the peacekeepers these days? GG, it seems that I hurt you.  You know, it was not my initial intention to add another Bushism here on this site: what I really wanted to say is -- I repeat -- in Japan we say, the more intelligent one considers oneself to be, the more he tends to criticize American foreign policy.  Have a great holiday!

No, not a bit! Truly! I'm saying I don't understand you, not "what you say is garbage." (When I feel that a post is garbage, I don't bother to respond.) I want to understand.

But who do you feel are the peacekeepers these days? And how does one take peace from them? My misunderstanding is not a matter of grammar, I'm sure. It's a matter of not knowing your viewpoint enough to make sense of what you say -- who is filling what role out in the world today?

If every country just took their guns (and their money) and went home if they had been a third-party in a dispute between two warring nations/warring tribes/warring peoples, what would be the result? Do other nations have a role in protecting the weaker/poorer nations/tribes/peoples from others who are stronger/richer/have better weapons? (Let's leave Iraq out of this debate for a moment.)

If tribe A in nation A says "Hmm. We have better guns than those people in nation B. Let's go kill the men, rape the women, marry the daughters to our sons, and make the sons our slaves, and take over their natural resources" should the rest of the world say "Oh well. That's not my problem."? I should think not. But who decides when the cause is just and who decides when it's unwanted interference? And if the rest of the world comes to nation B's defence, but nation A isn't ready to give up trying, how long do the "peacekeepers" stay? Should nation A be punished somehow? What *IS* the answer?

I'm not making an argument. I'm speaking purely hypothetically. Remember, I said to leave Iraq out of it. (Although I certainly don't have any memory of hearing him say it was "divine." That's a very un-American way of expressing things. He simply said it was necessary for security reasons. Like I said, some of his policies are indefensible.) Unfortunately for our discussion, I know Chomsky only as a linguist, not a political analyst.

I just want to know whether people think there is EVER any justification for getting involved in a conflict between two warring people when it's not "your" fight.

(PS - It made you "scared." Not "scary." If you were scary, you would be the thing that frightens others. A lot of people make this same mistake with "boring." They say "I'm boring" when they mean "bored." Of course, maybe they are boring, and maybe you are scary, but I think that wasn't the intended meaningn )

I didn't think you were scary. (And I bet you're not boring either.)

Heaven only knows how words are translated. Sometimes I wonder about the things that reported in our news and what the original one was. There was a big stink not too long about someone in Japan (I think) saying women were baby making machines.

Anyway, we're getting off topic... or maybe we're not. Maybe the biggest problem these days is, as a prior posted suggested, misunderstanding honest intentions.