Posted on 08/10/2006 10:57:20 PM PDT by HAL9000
NEW DELHI -- The U.S. Embassy in New Delhi warned Friday that foreign militants, possibly al-Qaida members, may be planning to carry out bombings in India's two major cities in the coming days.In an e-mail sent to American citizens living in India, the embassy said New Delhi, the capital, and Bombay, the country's financial and entertainment hub, were the likely targets, and the attacks were believed to be planned for either before or on India's Independence Day, Aug. 15.
The embassy confirmed that it had sent the e-mail, although Indian officials refused to comment on the warning.
I just don't understand the self-loathing that so many people feel because of their history. It's not just Arabs or Indians or Maya or Zapatistas or San Francisco pacifists, it's everywhere!
Instead of being proud of where they are and who they are, they spend every moment of every day foaming about what they could have been except for what their forefathers were hundreds or thousands of years earlier.
I'm proud of who I am, even though my past is tainted by some slaveowners, some American Indians, some Downtrodden Irish drunks, some French-German, and most recent and distrubing....som Yankee blood (shiver!)
But I hope to make the best of it yet, and I thank God every day I was lucky enough to be born in Texas! Now, screw all y'all!
Just letting results speak for themselves.
Either:
A - India was strong enough to defend herself and evolve on its own as a world player
-or-
B - India was susceptible to forced colonization.................
Let me understand you correctly. Are you trying to say that , you can safely assume that India would have perpetually remained unindustrailized because............India was not strong enough to defend against Britain?
You know how absurd you sound? Its almost the same as making the argument that Eastern Europe would have never been industrailized had it not been for the Soviet occupation and the communist system . Why?....... because they were so easily defeatable by the Soviets.
(rape, pillage, etc) and she was damn lucky that the British Empire was there other than some other conquerer.
Luck about what? For being raped, pillaged and starved by the Brits instead of the Nazis or the Japs? I dont see the difference. For a rape victim, does it matter whether the rapist is a Brit or a German?
better for freedom and prosperity to be manhandled by Britain or British ex-colonies than otherwise.
Its like telling a woman "Its much better to be raped by me than that other German guy".
Obviously not enough for you to disregard.
As he types in the King's Best English with Authentic Cockney Attitude!!!!
[Chortle, Snicker.]
Thankyou very much but I also speak in German, French and a bit of Japanese apart from 5 other Indian languages some of which are spoken in Pakistan and Bangladesh although I dont think I am a bloody Paki.
Why so much anger in you?
No anger at all. Really.
Just that I find this regular eulogizing of the British Empire kind of silly and annoying and to say the very least .......undeserving.
Muslims were fighting Hindus over Kashmir well before the British even had a navy, or a king for that matter.
Khannie hates Britannia and what she did to India.
Sam_ loves what Britannia did to America.
Sam has shown facts on a correlation showing prosperity and freedom today being more prevalent in ex-British colonies than in ex-French or other colonies. Sam knows this does not imply causation but finds it an interesting coincidence that neither France nor its ex-colonies are leaders in freedom and prosperity, and that our allies today are primarily Anglo-related.....and our world trouble spots generally don't share a common Anglicizing? historical influence.
Non of this is conflicting. Anyone can reasonably see that all these simple points are not in conflict.
You guys can go away hating Britain/Israel/Jordan, and I can go away hating France/Lebanon/Syria.
Everybody gets to hate somebody! Cheers!
Feminists say the exact same thing about marriage, but that doesn't make it true.
If you can extend your discussion beyond "Dude, this....." and "Your [sic] ignorance...." then be my guest.
If you want to address my simple question as to why ex-British colonies top the list of Freedom and prosperity measures, go ahead.
If you want me to play your strawman game that that somehow that translates into support for Islamic control of the world, then we're done. Go sell idiocy somewhere else.
"Sam has shown facts on a correlation showing prosperity and freedom.............."
Its got no "correlation" and most definitely got nothing to do with prosperity or freedom. Its only a clever way to contrive and arrange some figures to make some pathetic point about the benevolence of the Raj.....while skillfully overlooking the Bengal famines, slave trade indentured labour and the regular pillage and rape.
One more important fact your little piece of tripe overlooked was that French colonies were far more poorer to begin with and had far less natural resources then what the British colonies had. British Empire itself was far less richer then the French but at least the French Empire has nothing parallel to the Bengal famines. Not even close.
I hope you appreciate the fact that there are still some disagreements on FR and that a clash of opinions can help us both to understand different perspectives, if not perhaps modify our own.
For example, next time you roll this argument out, you can refine your list of "violent ends of empire."
British empire, Spanish Empire, French Empire, Japanese Empire, Soviet Empire all died a violent death.
British Empire - 1997, Peaceful handover of Hong Kong, for example.
Imperial Japan - TRUE! Violent end, indeed!
Soviet Empire - Ended with a relatively resounding whimper.
I think you are correct that America is a unique new "non-Empire" but it certainly does have elements of the old empire that we should learn from, avoid (corrupt financial influence/aid)...but also some things that were good (stabilizing navy, rule of law), at least, left the world a bit better than it was before or otherwise.
This is where we disagree, but that doesn't mean we're both wrong.
Nowhere in its former colonies ... has the British Empire managed to leave behind a good/respectable opinion of itself.
Simply not true. Perhaps it's true for you/India, but it is NOT universally true. Again, I lived in HK for a while, and you can't imagine a more desperately evil influence of opiates/imperial domination, right? Awful stuff. Yet, people from Guangdong don't hate the British. I don't know how many times people would tell me that they were proud of HK and were thankful for the British, otherwise HK would still be a sleepy little fishing community instead of a world financial/trade center.
I suppose you could tell them they were wrong.
Finally you addressed the "correlation." Indeed, that's exactly one way to handle it. Either they universally created wealth in their colonies, or the British were choosy and only "stole" the richest places around the world. Fair enough.
Perhaps both.
It depends on whether you believe, for example, that oil drilling is legitimate value-added industry or "exploitation" of natural resources.
Q: Who do you pay for oil deposits? A: He who owns the mineral rights.
Q: Who owns the mineral rights? A: Whoever the most recent government sanctions and assigns.
Indians don't get mineral rights in Oklahoma....it's whoever Teddy Roosevelt said owned it in 1901.
So with the raping of natural resources in colonies. Who owns it is who gets it unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on your perspective.
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