quote:

ORIGINAL: BlueCollar

First off, I'm not making any sort of indictment against the EU, and I can fully appreciate what a positive impact it as had on the continent.  However, some of the arguments of the EU overstepping it's mandates (while still few and far between) are totally legitimate.  The main complaint I hear is about political transparency.  Many people simply don't know what's going in Brussels and don't see how issues that are debated there shouldn't be a topic for the politicos in London, or Paris, or Rome respectively.

The most concerning issue with the SPPNA is also transparency.  So much policy is getting written and discussed behind closed doors - no wonder people are getting paranoid about it.

Quoting the Toronto Star:

..Why will the discussion and treaty signing take place behind closed doors?  Why have 30 corporate CEOs from these three countries (Canada, US, and Mexico) been invited to attend, while opposition members of parliament, reresentatives of organized labour, and the general public be excluded?"

Good questions that need answered, in my opinion.

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ORIGINAL: ChainsandFreedom

Just wanted to say something to Darus:

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One could make an argument that they are more accountable as they would be tried in a criminal court rather then a military court and they are not immune from lawsuit unlike the military. (generally speaking) As Blackwater was not a signatory of the Geneva accords it doesn’t seem reasonable that they abide by them. Certainly our enemy doesn’t.  

If the people who would be bringing suit are slighted citizens of an invaded country, than there would functionally, politically, and economically be no possible way to bring suit. Blackwater accidentally shoots your son in the head, well guess what chances are you're village probably can't raise airfair, lawyers, let alone obtain travel visa's to an American court to see justice served.

Blackwater didn't sign the Geneva Convention because it was the parctice of first world nations at the time of its inception not to use merc's. Given that their fully funded by the American tax payer as well as contracted and chartered to fullfill objectives specific to American interests, one could very easily argue that they are American forces who are thus bound by the geneva convention, and if you want to loophole their non-nation status out of it you probably could still take the constructionist argument that they would have been bound by the geneva convention had the signing nations actively stooped to the dispicable act of mercinary warfare when it was signed.

I might get into how fighting for profit pretty much evaporated any of the moral conviction and ethical reasons a nation could concievably enter into a necessary and just war for, and how simply using mercenaries who inherently lack credibility and accountability to fulfill military objectives regulates us to the status of being no better than a rouge state/paramilitary group for fighting outside the bounds of accepted warfare, but thats another issue I'm sure I would never change your mind about.

Also, we invaded Iraq because they ignored the G.C. and other international treaties.
If we turn around like you did and say 'besides, THEY dont follow it, so lets hire people who don't follow it to fight for us, too', than we had no bussiness invading them if we condone the same actions and are admitting our own guilt in employing the same tactics.

Finally, I just gotta say, im truely confused.
Do you know someone who works for Haliburton? why in the name of all thats holy would you or ANY third party defend them?

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ORIGINAL: Griswold

Gawwd hon...there are so many phenomenal books...clarifying things I never grasped....and I'm old enough to have grasped....but the back story is often rich.

What else?

A lot.

Tremendous amounts.

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ORIGINAL: EbonyFtshGoddess

quote:

ORIGINAL: Griswold

Gawwd hon...there are so many phenomenal books...clarifying things I never grasped....and I'm old enough to have grasped....but the back story is often rich.

What else?

A lot.

Tremendous amounts.

there is simply TOO much going on though. what happened to our chutzpah?

then again i do feel powerless, i won't lie.

i vote (gee what a farce THAT is).. i write my congress reps, i try to tell people and trust me..lol none of that truly matters- things keep on truckin' for the sake and good of the  corporate good... whether they know it or not

what is transpiring in our country (the US and the EU for that matter)  is absolutely ALARMING and yet no one gives a shit it seems.