Do you have trouble maintaining an election?

[Good Old Neon]

Uh oh - someone might want to step in and drop a tactical nuke on this scorched-earth-thread before it erupts into all out war.

[bjorn_skurj]

Considering what has happened to people who start wars of annihilation and lose them, I think the Israelis have shown quite a bit of restraint.

[MrRain422]

The matter of whether or not we should have invaded is completely relevent to the current discussion. Without considering that question, how can we accurately evaluate our goals there? We have to be conscious of how our presence in Iraq played a role in creating the current situation if we are to fix it. The validity of our reasons for being there in the first place are completely relevent to that.

[Good Old Neon]

You aren't really disagreeing with me here. I actually agree with almost everything you've said here aside from your last point, which I assume was in jest.

 

My point with the whole "not thinking" comment was that rather than discussing things that, you know, actually really matter right now, we keep on going back to a decision made 5 years ago and criticizing that. I think almost everyone can agree it was a bad choice, but it's a choice we made already. We have to live with the consequences.

 

 

 

The difference is one is a small, but vocal group of Palestinians and the other is the government of a nation that is doing these things. Terrorists have no regard for international law, governments should.

 

That

[gogo]

I think you and I agree on many issues

We should declare victory and just lock this thing right now!

[giraffo]

am I the only one who things terrorism is a sham? I mean, 9/11 was terrible and it was definitely means for a reaction, but it seems to me that there really isn't a war on terror anymore...From what I understand, 9/11 could have been prevented easily, but it was pretty much allowed to happen. Now it seems like everyone thinks such a catastrophe is around the corner again, just ready to happen every day. I don't think it doesn't work like that. Listening to these new presidential candidates talk about terrorism and being "soft" on terrorism....it's like the Cold War, another infamous historical sham. It seems like everyone is gripped by the fear of some abstract concept of terrorism, like Arab and the Beardsleys living next door are a potential threat. Fuck that. If you can argue about why a war was started, then it obviously wasn't worth starting. I know it's hippie bullshit, but the United States spends how much on military? It's its own % of our budget. And yet we have recession, genocide in Africa, a multitude of world problems while we sit with our thumbs in our asses worrying about a small threat that's talked like it is contagious and moves with the wind. Use some common sense, terrorism exsists in a minority of countries of the world and usually in countries where the government cannot exert control. Do Canada or the majority of Europe have these events happening? No. They don't worry about terrorism or any of that bullshit because they don't create self sustaining problems and project an atmosphere of fear over something virtually nonexsistant. What would the world be like if we cut our military spending and turned it into a defense force like Japan...If we collaborated with the U.N. and then used our domestic money to solve domestic problems and world problems. Maybe I'm just immature or naive, but why hasn't anyone learned that war has never outrightly given a good end result? How long has humanity been fighting wars? It just seems like America could be doing a lot of good but you have people, even here on this board, arguing over really trivial bullshit. I'm not saying war is going to end, or that America should never fight another war...but look at a country ike Japan, and rarely do they even have problems to worry about, let alone terrorists getting weapons or recession. I don't know, I got rambling and stuff, but it just seems like everyone's too busy arguing over the semantics of some bullshit war. has anyone even thought about Iraq in it's context? We're not talking Germany, a world power, rising from the ashes and taking over the world, we're talking about some piss-ass dictator in his little shithole of a totalitarian state potentially having WMD's. Sure, he was evil, but isn't the Middle East more unstable now that we're there than having him in power? Iraq really couldn't have caused the collapse of a world or even have the technology to shoot missles at America, yet we decided for the sake of everyone around there to go in? Really...how is that common sense? It just seems like society doesn't progress despite being fully aware of the good that could be done. Like everyone says this war is a terrible thing but never wants to do anything but argue about it rather than seeing it end and then seeing some kind of change. Instead we'll argue trivially, vote in the same bullshit politicians, and wonder why we have huge looming problems (recession, "climate change", AIDS, cancer..).

 

again, I got ranting, and I don't imagine I made much sense..but..man. I'm tired of seeing the same meaningless arguments...it's WAR! it's people's lives. people are dying, being killed, and we have to fumble to even justify their deaths. We can't even come up with a concrete reasons that all these innocent people are dying.

[bobbob1313]

majority of Europe have these events happening?

 

These people would go ahead and disagree.

 

 

Terrorism never happens in Japan too. Good point.

[Mr. Kinsley]

While I agree that the war shouldn't have been started, I think it's naive to think that terrorism isn't a real threat. I do agree that we are being scared into submission about it, ala the Red Scare years. These sorts of things have been happening in Europe and Israel for decades (granted not as spectacularly as 9/11), so we're a bit new at dealing with it. When we were attacked we should have fought back DIRECTLY at Al Queda by sending all those troops that went to Iraq into Afghanistan, and then some. If you can't find the terrorists that are hiding in the mountains... bomb the crap out of the mountain and level it. Instead, we showed the world that if you mess with us we'll respond by throwing a temper tantrum and attack whoever we feel like, regardless of whether they did anything or not.

 

Did Saddam do anything bad? Was he out to get us? Sure. Get in line. Who isn't?

Was he involved in 9/11 or was he an immediate threat? No. If we could handle the Soviet Union having thousands of missles ready to take out the eastern seaboard for decades, why couldn't we deal with one dictator who may or may not have had a couple of rusty missles buried under 50 feet of sand that probably weren't even in good enough shape to be put in a military museum?

 

So, instead of dealing with the perpetrators militarily, we take our eyes off the ball and give them a great recruiting tool. Hmm. Maybe that's why we don't have terrorist attacks here? They're all attacking our troops over there. Maybe W is smarter than I thought?

[Sweet Papa Crimbo]

am I the only one who things terrorism is a sham? I mean, 9/11 was terrible and it was definitely means for a reaction, but it seems to me that there really isn't a war on terror anymore...From what I understand, 9/11 could have been prevented easily, but it was pretty much allowed to happen. Now it seems like everyone thinks such a catastrophe is around the corner again, just ready to happen every day. I don't think it doesn't work like that. Listening to these new presidential candidates talk about terrorism and being "soft" on terrorism....it's like the Cold War, another infamous historical sham. It seems like everyone is gripped by the fear of some abstract concept of terrorism, like Arab and the Beardsleys living next door are a potential threat. Fuck that. If you can argue about why a war was started, then it obviously wasn't worth starting. I know it's hippie bullshit, but the United States spends how much on military? It's its own % of our budget. And yet we have recession, genocide in Africa, a multitude of world problems while we sit with our thumbs in our asses worrying about a small threat that's talked like it is contagious and moves with the wind. Use some common sense, terrorism exsists in a minority of countries of the world and usually in countries where the government cannot exert control. Do Canada or the majority of Europe have these events happening? No. They don't worry about terrorism or any of that bullshit because they don't create self sustaining problems and project an atmosphere of fear over something virtually nonexsistant. What would the world be like if we cut our military spending and turned it into a defense force like Japan...If we collaborated with the U.N. and then used our domestic money to solve domestic problems and world problems. Maybe I'm just immature or naive, but why hasn't anyone learned that war has never outrightly given a good end result? How long has humanity been fighting wars? It just seems like America could be doing a lot of good but you have people, even here on this board, arguing over really trivial bullshit. I'm not saying war is going to end, or that America should never fight another war...but look at a country ike Japan, and rarely do they even have problems to worry about, let alone terrorists getting weapons or recession. I don't know, I got rambling and stuff, but it just seems like everyone's too busy arguing over the semantics of some bullshit war. has anyone even thought about Iraq in it's context? We're not talking Germany, a world power, rising from the ashes and taking over the world, we're talking about some piss-ass dictator in his little shithole of a totalitarian state potentially having WMD's. Sure, he was evil, but isn't the Middle East more unstable now that we're there than having him in power? Iraq really couldn't have caused the collapse of a world or even have the technology to shoot missles at America, yet we decided for the sake of everyone around there to go in? Really...how is that common sense? It just seems like society doesn't progress despite being fully aware of the good that could be done. Like everyone says this war is a terrible thing but never wants to do anything but argue about it rather than seeing it end and then seeing some kind of change. Instead we'll argue trivially, vote in the same bullshit politicians, and wonder why we have huge looming problems (recession, "climate change", AIDS, cancer..).

 

again, I got ranting, and I don't imagine I made much sense..but..man. I'm tired of seeing the same meaningless arguments...it's WAR! it's people's lives. people are dying, being killed, and we have to fumble to even justify their deaths. We can't even come up with a concrete reasons that all these innocent people are dying.

 

 

Wow...wall of text...I died

[Duck-Billed Catechist]

I know it's hippie bullshit, but the United States spends how much on military?

More than the rest of the world combined! There was a good story about that on NPR this morning. Most of the money goes to big ticket items like fighter planes that have virtually nothing to do with the "war on terror."

 

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.p...toryId=18764753

[Good Old Neon]

When we were attacked we should have fought back DIRECTLY at Al Queda by sending all those troops that went to Iraq into Afghanistan, and then some.

 

Not to mention the heavy duty shit we should have levied against the House of Saud - those mofo

[giraffo]

These people would go ahead and disagree.

 

 

Terrorism never happens in Japan too. Good point.

 

 

my only problem with the incident in Japan is that it predates 9/11 and the attitude. I was aware of the ones in Spain and UK, but I said Canada and most of Europe for that exact fact. Also, I looked up the Japanese one and can't find the terrorist organization responsible..which could mean it was a domestic group or a group completely unrelated to the context of what many people believe terrorism to fit in...everyone knows that when a presidential candidate is referencing terrorism, they're not talking McVeigh or the unibomber, they're talking about Muhammed at the corner store with his beard and turban. Everyone has an expectation for what these guys look like and should be like now, when it's a more amorphous type of idea.

[ikol]

my only problem with the incident in Japan is that it predates 9/11 and the attitude.

 

You don't have any other problems with it?

[tugmoose]

Not to mention the heavy duty shit we should have levied against the House of Saud - those mofo

[ikol]

Does anyone here truly believe this is not all about money and oil?

 

[tugmoose]

Here's the bumper sticker I saw yesterday:

 

 

It's not a Republican-Democrat thing (although both sides make it seem that way, to keep us occupied); it's an access-to-resources thing. That's all. And barring some serious lifestyle changes, this is what we're gonna have to do. Hey, Wilco, you wanna tour? You're gonna need oil.

[Good Old Neon]

Does anyone here truly believe this is not all about money and oil? With emerging markets in China and India, the middle east soon won't need our money. Then, we're f-ed, unless we have a major presence there. 9-11 became an excuse for invasion.

 

This, in a nutshell, is why we are interested in the Middle East. It was never really about freedom or wmd

[giraffo]

You don't have any other problems with it?

 

does it make you feel better to take a quote entirely out of context for a witty pun? obviously judging from my previous statements, no, that's not my only problem. but for the discussion of terrorism, I wouldn't think about it very much.

[ikol]

does it make you feel better to take a quote entirely out of context for a witty pun?

 

It does make me feel better, but alas there was no pun.

[bjorn_skurj]

This, in a nutshell, is why we are interested in the Middle East. It was never really about freedom or wmd

[explodo]

I think that attack in Tokyo was the result of a Japanese cult, no?

[bobbob1313]

So terrorism that isn't by Al Queada isn't as bad, according to some people here.

[Good Old Neon]

Yep. Empires in the past would have no qualms with stating this out loud. I don't know if it's a sign of progress or not that we feel that this is a dirty secret needing to be obfuscated at all costs.

 

"Well, first, we should be a little clearer about terminology. You refer to the Pentagon, as is usually done, as a defense organization. In 1947, when the National Defense Act was passed, the former War Department -- the American department concerned with war which up to that time was honestly called the War Department -- had its name changed to the Defense Department. I was a student then and didn't think I was very sophisticated, but I knew and everyone else knew that this meant that to whatever extent the American military had been involved in defense in the past -- and partially it had been so -- this was now over. Since it was being called the Defense Department, that meant it was going to be a department of aggression, nothing else." - Noam Chomsky

[Good Old Neon]

So terrorism that isn't by Al Queada isn't as bad, according to some people here.

 

Terrorism is, I think, in many ways, a subjective term, after all, we went into Iraq with a full on Shock and Awe

[Sweet Papa Crimbo]

Political observation.

 

With Romney out of the race on the GOP side, McCain is going to have 6 months of attacking Obama and Clinton and shoring up the conservative base.

 

The Democrats are going to undergo a bloodletting here as Obama and Clinton will go at each other tooth and nail until the convention.

 

Is it possible that McCain can win now? I think there are divisions showing up in the Democratic base that should be troubling to any political observer (i.e. the race question...specifically the hispanic vs. black dynamic).

 

What looked like a cake walk now looks interesting.