About Starscream.... all I have to say is, HA!! Was there *ever* a Transformer who cared less about anyone or anything else?? He used everyone he crossed paths with, merely to achieve his selfish ends. Name one person (or robot, as the case may be) that Starscream ever did anything for, that didn't directly benefit him somehow. Even his talk about the Decepticon cause was really a smokescreen for his true cause -- himself. This is not who I want as my leader.

Skyfire

 

they were friends before the war, and he even went so far as to include him in his conquest of the decepticons so that his friend would rise to power with him. and i said if starscream turned good. he has the politcal mind set to be able to pull it off and come away with things better then when he first began, think Regan. no one thought this actor could pull us out of the cold war and get this country back on track but he did, and mind you every one blames bush for the state our country is in right now, hell in general discussion there is a post about a possible draft, that would have never been an issue if not for Clinton getting rid of a large number of our military. and with a smaller military force, 9/11 would have been a lot less likely to happen. i am not saying that bush is completely blame free of why america is where it is right now, but he is not the only reason. and as to why we are in iraq, this is not fully bushes fault either, we americans put Saddam into power there. we saw what he was doing , and we are now fixing our mistake, (the politicians not the population in general), and giving the Iraqis a chance for the liberties we now take for granted, like being able to say we disapprove of what our leader is doing with our country. not to many other governments will stand for that.

 

now my rant is over, and im going back to topic. Prime is too good and too heroic for these modern times, he wont fight dirty, he wont cover his exhaust manifold for the betterment of his people, and the first time he mentions turning to the matrix where the spirits of past leaders reside, for guideance he would be thrown out of office for incompitace and being crazy

Skyfire

 

they were friends before the war, and he even went so far as to include him in his conquest of the decepticons so that his friend would rise to power with him.

OK, fair enough. But Starscream's friendship with Skyfire evaporated pretty quickly when Skyfire refused to execute the Autobots. (I always did find Starscream's "friendship" with Skyfire to be a bit out of character for him.)

 

BTW nice rant. :tfgrin I fear to respond (partly b/c this is supposed to be "Transformers General Discussion"), but....

 

If they reinstate the draft (which they won't -- no politician is going to want to have that on their voting record), it won't be because Clinton had downsized the military. Everyone at the White House and the Pentagon knew the size of our military before they invaded Iraq, and *they* decided that it would be more than sufficient to handle the job. They were wrong.

 

And just to be clear: we did not put Saddam Hussein in power. He and his Baath party rose to power in a military coup in 1968. Perhaps you're thinking of the fact that we sold him weapons in the 80's when Iraq was fighting Iran. We are in Iraq because the administration believed the neoconservative philosophy that creating a democracy in Iraq would lead to massive reform and change throughout the Middle East, like a democratic version of the "domino effect" people used in the 50's and 60's to describe the spread of Communism. What we are sadly discovering is the vast difference between political theory and reality.

 

And beyond that, I think many people have a very bigoted view of the Iraqis. They think of them as children who don't or can't understand world politics or history. They're not stupid, and they can read the news just like anyone else. Do you think they don't remember how the US left the Iraqis high and dry in 1991 after encouraging them to rise up against Saddam? Or the British occupation of Iraq in the 1920s, which bears so many similarities to the current situation? It's insulting to say that the Iraqis should just be grateful to us for getting rid of Saddam, when we have demonstrated in so many ways that we did not do so for the benefit of the Iraqi people, but for our own interests. We only care about ourselves and Israel, and they know it. And if they didn't know it before, they certainly do now, now that the Abu Ghraib scandal has hit the news.

 

There is a lot of political spin put on the news in this country, both pro- and anti-Bush. The best thing to do IMO is to check out some foreign newspapers, which aren't inside that political bubble. It's an enlightening perspective.

 

Okay, I'm sorry -- that was way off topic. I'm done now.