While the media and general public is basking in the explosions and bloodshed unleashed by the US and UK military, no one seems to have realised that Bin Laden is now only a few small steps away from utlimate victory. Sadly, the US is unable to do anything other than play straight into his hands.

What did Bin Laden want to happen as a result of the WTC attack? A war between Islam and the West. That's the path Bush cjhooses to follow, and despite an understandable sense of relief as the bombs fall on Kabul, the US is going to become increasingly at risk.

Quote from Guardian newspaper:

Blair and others constantly said the west has no grievance with Islam. But they never paused to wonder how Islam felt about the west - they regard the current bombing offensive as utter confirmation of his [Bin Laden] key message: that America and its allies will always seek to crush poor, Muslim peoples wherever they may be. The night war on Kabul has been conducted without the military help of a single Muslim country.

I wonder if it would have been smarter to have taken out the men of the al-Qaida network one by one, quietly and in the dead of night, rather than giving Osama bin Laden this spectacular war he craves. I wonder if he is not celebrating in that cave of his - celebrating the war he has already won.



The US may be making one of the worst strategic decisions in its history. For more reasons than just this...

So a bunch of third world nations declare war on the civilized world. So what? We butcher em like cattle and move on with our lives. We killed 100,000 Iraqi soldiers without breaking a sweat. Our kill ratio is something like 1,000 to 1. If they want to declare war, it would be a great opportunity for America to sweep out the trash.

Originally posted by Brad Rules
So a bunch of third world nations declare war on the civilized world. So what? We butcher em like cattle and move on with our lives. We killed 100,000 Iraqi soldiers without breaking a sweat. Our kill ratio is something like 1,000 to 1. If they want to declare war, it would be a great opportunity for America to sweep out the trash. If I ever aspire to become a bigoted redneck, this is the quote I'll use. It's great. To call oneself civilised inthe same paragraph that refers to the third world as 'trash' is so astonishingly ignorant, it can only be ironic. Who said that the americans weren't able to detect irony?
I take my metaphorical hat off to you.

And let's not forget: that 1,000 to 1 would've been 10,000 to 1 if it weren't for the staggering incompetence of the US army. Or do american troops get a bonus when they kill someone on their own side?

If you call a kill ratio of 1,000 to 1 incompetent... what do you call a kill ratio of 1 to 1,000? The Arab nations are only able to do battle with unarmed civillians... when they run up against motivated western forces... they fall like dominoes.

Lets remember that the middle eastern trash targeted, attacked and murdered 6,000 innocent American civillians. They desparately want a holy war. I say it is time to give it to them. Kill 30 or 40 million of them. This would give them pause should they ever decide to bite the ankles of a superpower again.

We have tried to play nice with them for too long. We give them humanitarian aid and they hate us. We try to save them from starvation in Somalia and they kill us for our efforts. We save muslims in Bosnia from ethnic cleansing and they hate us. We save muslims in Kuwait from Hussein and they hate us.

The Islamic religion is the most racist, hateful religion in the world. Whenever muslim fundamentalists take over a country, they immediately start killing and oppressing those of other faiths. Their culture is incompatible with a civilized world.

I was ambivalent about the ragheads until they killed American civillians. Now I hate them from the bottom of my core. Lay waste to them. Bury them all. Annihilate them. We have the technology. They want to mix it up with us. Lets take the gloves off and see how powerful their Allah really is. I figure we can wipe them out in the space of a year or so.

<i>"I wonder if it would have been smarter to have taken out the men of the al-Qaida network one by one, quietly and in the dead of night, rather than giving Osama bin Laden this spectacular war he craves."</i>

No, this is the better way. In a most violent way, we need to jump on his ass and on those who cradle his cause. The guy is a lunatic as are his supporters.

<i>"I wonder if he is not celebrating in that cave of his - celebrating the war he has already won."</i>

My guess is that most of Islam see that cave in which Osama wishes to bring all muslims...Afghanistan. He has won nothing but the sympathy of the poor, the ignorant, and the foolish.

Here are the REAL facts of the wonderful peacful Islamic religion:

http://www.secularislam.org/call.htm

http://www.secularislam.org/wtc2.htm


Here is unequivocal proof that Islam is not divinely inspired.

http://www.secularislam.org/guide/mirza.htm

Cool site, Brad. I looked for an english version of the koran but couldn't find one anywhere. I read conflicting thoughts regarding its nature.

Oh! the struggle between past and future....regress and progress...Conflict and Peace....

So, it begins...the war between Shadows and Vorlons....which side will you take....???

See the big picture: http://www.sciforums.com/t4171/s10169b1252ce29c5f46f700c35636f7b/thread.html

I would like to point out here that The Guardian is predominantly a "left wing hi-brow rag" and does not reflect the views of the vast majority of the British public. Over 90% of the UK populace believe that enough is enough and that we have to deal out summary justice to these butchers now, before it gets out of hand. Failure to respond to the NYC/WTC disaster would be total surrender to terrorism and send out the message "Do what you want" - we wont come after you. The meaningless -10% remaining are left wing whingers like MPs Tony Benn and Tam Dalyell who protest and demonstrate against anything that is tagged with "democracy" and they are not to be taken seriously whatsoever. Both these MPs by the way, for our overseas readers are far left wing loonies and are regarded as such by their own socialist party.:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Quote from Brad: So a bunch of third world nations declare war on the civilized world. So what? We butcher em like cattle and move on with our lives. We killed 100,000 Iraqi soldiers without breaking a sweat. Our kill ratio is something like 1,000 to 1. If they want to declare war, it would be a great opportunity for America to sweep out the trash.

I would not crow too much about the kill ratio of the Gulf War - all British casualties were from "friendly fire".:confused:

Quote from Brad: I was ambivalent about the ragheads until they killed American civillians. Now I hate them from the bottom of my core. Lay waste to them. Bury them all. Annihilate them. We have the technology. They want to mix it up with us. Lets take the gloves off and see how powerful their Allah really is. I figure we can wipe them out in the space of a year or so.

A question of terminology here. I presume that, in the USA, the phrase ragheads refers to Afghan tribesmen or Islamic's in general. However, here in the UK the term "raghead" refers to quite the opposite, it refers to the innocent Sikh. It is not a derogatory term however. I think that the term to be used for these "islamic" nutters should be simply "dead". Calling them Islamic is also slightly incorrect as there is no place within the Islamic religion for these "things" like Bin Laden. They twist and shape Islam to THEIR ends and not to the real definition of their religion, therefore making it an unclean religion. It was suggested to me one night recently, by a muslim of all people - to send over a B52 full of pornography, budweiser and bacon sandwiches for these unclean islamics!!

:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

If you have to resort to warfare, you've blown every other chance you had along the way.If you call a kill ratio of 1,000 to 1 incompetent... Depends on the standard: surgical bombing is only about 33% accurate. Think of that in surgical terms:

* I recall that a man going in for an appendectomy was once given a gender reassignment; this may be an urban legend, but I recall a local radio station faxing around the wire story last year.

* My mother's family physician would eventually be sued out of business; he was known for stupid things like sewing up patients with sponges or clamps still inside. You've heard the story of the lost Porsche keys? His was a BMW, but you get the point.

Surgeons are, generally speaking, better than 33% effective.

So why don't we examine that 1,000:1 kill ratio. How many of those kills were the target?

thanx,
Tiassa :cool:

I have to assume that your rant is ironic in intention, because I can't for the life of me imagine anyone that stupid.

If the world becomes a more dangerous place for me, my friends, and my family as a result of USA military operations - I will personally lay the blame not just on Osamar Bin Laden and his terrorists, but the US government also, and 'fundamentalist nutter fanatics' like yourself.

Hopefully, one good thing might come out of this whole mess if the US stops to think - it might stop supporting terrorism itself - but then again, I doubt it. Old habits die hard.

US soldiers are faced with their own mines and military technology yet again. When will you learn to read about your own history properly? When will you realise that you shouldn't set the bad guys up in the first place? When will you realise that creating breeding grounds for instability and hate aint a good idea?

And when will America stop giving terrorists a million excuses to exist? We might be stuck with them now, and all the fear they bring, partly due to US foreign policy.

killing 40 million will still leave one really, really pissed off terrorist around to slit your throat when you're not expecting it. Thats all it takes.

Anger begats anger. Its the eternal cycle of the dumb.












Originally posted by Brad Rules
If you call a kill ratio of 1,000 to 1 incompetent... what do you call a kill ratio of 1 to 1,000? The Arab nations are only able to do battle with unarmed civillians... when they run up against motivated western forces... they fall like dominoes.

Lets remember that the middle eastern trash targeted, attacked and murdered 6,000 innocent American civillians. They desparately want a holy war. I say it is time to give it to them. Kill 30 or 40 million of them. This would give them pause should they ever decide to bite the ankles of a superpower again.

We have tried to play nice with them for too long. We give them humanitarian aid and they hate us. We try to save them from starvation in Somalia and they kill us for our efforts. We save muslims in Bosnia from ethnic cleansing and they hate us. We save muslims in Kuwait from Hussein and they hate us.

The Islamic religion is the most racist, hateful religion in the world. Whenever muslim fundamentalists take over a country, they immediately start killing and oppressing those of other faiths. Their culture is incompatible with a civilized world.

I was ambivalent about the ragheads until they killed American civillians. Now I hate them from the bottom of my core. Lay waste to them. Bury them all. Annihilate them. We have the technology. They want to mix it up with us. Lets take the gloves off and see how powerful their Allah really is. I figure we can wipe them out in the space of a year or so.

You have the general idea. West vs Islam/Arabs, however, no one is playing into bin laden's hand and bush makes no choices, both are but pawns in this drama.

Follow the money, it leads closest to the truth. The Taliban recently refused to let two u.s. oil companies put 500 miles in piping across their conuntry.

It is always about money in one way or another.

Peace, jt

I may be a bit of radical but listen to what Jandt posted:

Follow the money, it leads closest to the truth. The Taliban recently refused to let two u.s. oil companies put 500 miles in piping across their conuntry.

It is always about money in one way or another.

Jandt must have missed the fact that 6000+ americans were just killed. That our pentagon was hit and that the white house missed being hit by a hair. He also must have missed the multi-billion dollar kick in the guts our economy just received.

By the way Jandt, without oil our entire economy collapses. Oil is the lifeblood of western society.... without it we would regress back to the stone age.

Jandt, obviously a high level CIA operative has access to information that the rest of us poor saps can never see. The fact that they let him spill the beans on the secret conspiracies without putting a hit on him is amazing. I hope your cover assignment as a fast-food worker isn't broken by the high level secrets you have given out here.

I've now heard about "kill ratios", "ragheads", "hi-brow rags" and a general desire to "jump on Bin Laden's ass in a most violent way." With the exception of a few, most appear to happily advocate the destruction of Afganistan and deaths of Afghans in general (imagine if we could go better than 1,000:1!).

Now assume that most of you arm-chair, Playstation generals are rather concerned for your personal security. I've yet to see an argument that by doing waht is currently being done your security improves. I shall, in my most beneficent way, provide the argument that illudes you myself. I can't stand to see small animals suffer so.

By sending a loud, prettily couloured and lethal messahe the US says 'Hey - you can't do that to us! We'll come and get you!'

Thus all Americans can sleep soundly in their beds once more.

Funny though, with all these bombs that are falling I don't think one of them has hit the 22 people named by the US government. Or Bin Laden. Or his followers lodged as sleeper agents in Europe, Canada, the US, the middle east....

Thye have hit Afghans. And what have the Afghans done? They didn't hand Bin Laden over. That's it. Are they implicated in the attack? No. So they have simply not responded. But they wanted a bit of evidence first. None has been released. (Maybe we should hand over Salamn Rushdie by the same token. He's committed a crime in their country, and they've asked that we give him up...)

So how is this helping the US? It's certainly pissing off even more Muslims/impoverished/Arabs. It's certainly making Bin Laden more of a hero (no matter how appalling that seems). It's making the Muslim world look like victims once again. It's breeding hatred that will fade long after the smoke above Kabul clears.

I'm saying that the US has been attacked and that what happened must be justly resolved. I'm actually, selfless individual that I am, thinking about YOUR security in the future. And this is not the way to get it. In this I agree totally with Pilgermann.

Maybe we should hand over Salamn Rushdie by the same token. He's committed a crime in their country, and they've asked that we give him up... I thought the mullah, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, that placed the fatwa on Rushdie was Iranian.

Yes - but the US didn't seem to object to the UK harbouring an international fugitive. Similar questions arise with Pinochet and Spain.

Have you not heard of "softening up" Captain? Just as in previous wars throughout the 20th century, the "heavy stuff" goes in first to soften up the enemy in preparation for the ground troops. Afghanistan is no different although you appear, by your mails, to believe the taliban rather than a democratically elected, therefore accountable, alliance. As in the gulf war, Saddam Hussein made wildy exagerated claims as to civil casualties, proven to be wildly inaccurate or downright lies after the conflict, which the politicians ended prematurely, unfortunately. Now assuming that even 10% of the taliban's lies are accurate, the figures are still well within acceptable parameters for such a large scale operation. Admittedly 1 civilian casualty is still far too many. The allies are hitting what they say they are hitting, taliban and terrorist targets. It is possible that one missile may go "screwy" now and then - its the nature of the beast. However, as to the claim that 4 UN workers were killed - the taliban themselves told us that all aid workers had left the country - so who is lying now? How many "bodies" have been planted for the cameras as in Iraq - proven by the way. A government who loves to cold bloodedly butcher its own should not really be taken verbally serious, and it is the seriously weak minded who believe them........

Salman Rushtie committed exactly WHAT crime? In what country? All he did was write a book which some people in Tehran thought to be rather anti Islamic! So What? Those people who thought him a criminal are now dead. Rushtie lives in a democratic society where, like in America, he is free to write what he wishes. No, I have not read his book, nor do I wish to, another democratic choice. But as to being a criminal - nooooo!

Captain Canada, how sad you would be the one to believe Osama.

If Osama bin Laden want's a war, well he's got one now. And he will be sorry that he instagated this. You say that the US is making one of the biggest strategic mistakes in history. What's the alternative? To talk to him?

If these people wanted to adress grievences with the US, they would have had a meeting with our ambassadors, and adressed the United Nations. But they didn't. Instead, bin Laden and his minions hijacked four planes, and in three hours, approximatley 6,000 people died. They weren't Americans, but more than a natinoality or race. They were priests, teachers, police officers, firefighters, mothers, brothers, fathers, small children, nurses. Children will never have a father to greet when they come home from school, a mother to hug as they open presents at Christmas. No siblings to tease, or congradulate at their graduation. No they killed these people because they are truly evil.

Bin Laden has truly commited one of the biggest mistakes in history: he underestimated his enemy, America. Adolf Hitler claimed Americas were a mongral race, too softened by the good life to be effective fighters. His thousand year riche lasted twelve years. The Japaneese the same. Ten years ago Saddam Hussein thought that America would have a Vietnam mentality with them, and not fight. In a 100 hour ground war we wiped away one of the planet's largest armies.

We will fight, and we will win this war. It will be long, it will be hard, we'll never be the same for it. But we will win.

A single mother was buried in Arlington National Cemetary a month to the day after the attack. The American flag was given to her SIX-YEAR-OLD daughter. She has no next of kin, and will have to be adopted.

We owe it to her to win this war.

A single mother was buried in Arlington National Cemetary a month to the day after the attack. The American flag was given to her SIX-YEAR-OLD daughter. She has no next of kin, and will have to be adopted.

We owe it to her to win this war.That's low.

That's really effing low.

We owe it to her to orphan how many of her sisters worldwide? To kill some of those sisters?

Logically, we can look at it from the Muslim perspective: bin Laden, therefore, owes it ... oh, pick any little Muslim girl whose death was caused by American funds, equipment, training, or other involvement and claim that they owe it to her to win this war.

(By the way, rhetorically speaking, is this a War? It's just that I don't recall watching the President present himself before Congress and request a formal Resolution of War. As long as I'm tangential, I'll finish the points: A- Would the media at least--and everyone else--please stop calling it War? or B-Could we please stop calling WTC an act of terrorism and call it an act of war? Anyway, back to the real subject.)

I suppose there's a question: what does the little girl want? It depends, I suppose, on how we phrase the question. A couple of extremes:

* Do you want us to make things right and safe again so that nobody else's Mommy has to die like this? or ....

* Do you want us to make things right and safe again by killing other people with bombs and bullets and (invariably, such is war) kill other Mommies and make other little girls sad?

Like I said, a couple of extremes.

It's just that violence begets violence.

Need proof? Look at the insane thing somebody did in New York. Look what's happening. Violence ... violence. And what do Americans fear? Further violence by extremists.

Please understand ... I'm stretching my principles beyond previously established lunacy in order to grant my government leeway in this action without taking it to the streets. I'm actually abstaining from peace rallies and protests presently on one simple point: Thus far, for a military action, my government has done everything far and away in excess of my expectations. One could say that they've done everything right so far, inasmuch as I can't stop the fact that this is happening. It's sad we killed four of our own by accident, but that's their job in the UN, to put themselves in harm's way so others don't have to--it's a crying shame, however, it was our bombs and not the landmines that got them. But even the casualty claims I heard out of Afghanistan are amazingly low for this kind of stunt. Surely, even reputable figures will begin to climb at some point here, and it's really up to our military to execute and our executive to plan this thing properly. For the record, God is on nobody's side in this.

It's impossible to prevent civilian casualties in modern warfare: I tend to think that's the point.

thanx all,
this tantrum brought to you by
Tiassa :cool:

I tend to abstain from most boards due to the emotionally charged -read biased- and quite often uniformed views. So allow me to insert my own biased and possibly uninformed view;

As an American, I am not blind to the hypocrisy of the diplomacy of the government. I am frequently outraged by it. I am also aware of the instability we sometimes nurture. So we have no right to claim the high ground politically. However, we do have the freedom to voice our objections and practice differing religions, ideologies, and lifestyles and to that extent we can claim a kind of moral superiority, especially when juxtaposed with the plight of women worldwide, e.g. Muslim inequality, Chinese infanticide and feet binding,etc..

The bombings of the WTC and Pentagon were intentional civilian attacks. Not collateral damage. And they were not initiated due to the policies of western government, despite the trite rationalizations offered post-incidentally. They were the acts of an organization seeking power. Notice the reticence to claim the "just rewards" of the afterlife of Bin-Laden. When will he strap on the explosives ? When he is face to face with his pursuers, possibly...

So I advocate the military actions and sanctions to be imposed on the basis that, yes, violence begets violence and we have not shown that to terrorists prior to this. I think this message will be loud and clear. And while there is starvation, famine, and disease in the world there will be those angered to take action, however inappropriate. So terrorism will not go away completely. What we may hope for, though, is the consideration of other states who have previously overtly or covertly sanctioned these people to rethink their stance on it.

I pray that civilian casualties are kept to a minimum. I hope the losses incurred on the terrorists is astronomical.

I would like to add that we need to regain the respect ( yes, I do mean fear) of the rest of the world. Along with the unethical backing of governments that have come back to bite us we also do more humanitarian acts than any other nation. Always, it seems, with no appreciation whatsoever.

I don't think we need "Burger Kings" worldwide or that other cultures need to become more "westernized" but I do think that confiscation and non-distribution of food and medicine by governments who let their own people starve must end. We have sat back for far too long and allowed genocide in all it's forms to exist, except when it benefits us.

This, I think, has contributed far more than our policies regarding the Israeli-Palestinian border, to the hatred we endure from many worldwide. That, along with your run of the mill envy.

So will this action eradicate this hatred ? No, absolutely not, except possibly from women slated to torture or death in Afghanistan. What it should do is deter anyone else from believing they can get away with similar actions as those of Sept. 11th. There then will need to be some serious discourse on what we (all nations) can do to prevent a reoccurence. And while I have tremendous doubts about the actuality of that, I can only hope.

All I know is that a pacifist stance as a response would only signal encouragement to further acts of terrorism. We are not the aggressors, this time.

LOW? YOU CALL THAT MY COMMENT LOW?

Give me a fucking break! They killed INNOCENT people. If these g-damn terrorist had two brain cells to rub together, they'd realize our government was who they really had the beef with (suppodily), and gone after them.

Don't cry to me or the country that we have caused mass starvation and killing of children in countries. Ever heard of propaganda? If Saddam Hussein had agreed to the UN peace document he signed, then the sanctions would be lifted. He won't let weapons inspectors in. That's his fault. If Hussein and bin Laden spent their combined millions if not billions on education, and food intead of buying AK-47s and Anthrax their citizens would be better off.

Great Satin, huh? Saddam Hussein used bio-chemical wepaons agains the Kurds, and Sh'ites in 1988-1989. Jeez, I don't remember releasing Sarin gas on Detroit in the 1967 riots do you?

Ladies and Gentlemen - you are now doing exactly what bin laden and his **** followers hoped to do with the extinction of the WTC, the attack on the Pentagon and the heroic lose of life on the White House bound PA flight. You are beginning to fight amongst yourselves. I am a Brit - and proud to be associated with my American friends in their hours of grief and revenge BUT hey! Stop fighting yourselves!! Civilians will get hurt in any conflict - thats sometimes the cost of justice. 99% of you reading this will not know conflict on a global scale and in your schools biased teachings abound. Yes, it does, many of my US friends admit it - some teachers. Stick together and allow democratic opinion to flourish - if you dont agree with it - ignore it or try and produce some constructive criticism. Step back - deep breath - now come back in!!:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

thecurly1They killed INNOCENT people. And that separates them from us how? That funding, equipment, and otherwise has contributed to civilian deaths. Since this is a War, and we haven't declared it yet, it seems this act of "terrorism" was an act of "war". So Dresden in WWII is an interesting question, as is Vietnam. Of course, one can argue the "necessity" of Dresden, and the "justice" of Vietnam, but we're doing nothing to end the killing of innocent people when we get right down to it. And despite our best efforts in the current conflict, we will kill civilians; when I say that's the point it's to point out that no act of war is worth it. Revenge? Fine: why are we upset about violence in our schools? Despite the fact that we punish children for fighting in schools, we set the example that it's the thing to do. Violence begets violence begets violence. We, the United States, owe serious consideration to setting an example, not following one. Or are "they" the ones following? Would they, then be following "our" example? Where should we start the cycle of blame?Don't cry to me or the country that we have caused mass starvation and killing of children in countries. Ever heard of propaganda? If Saddam Hussein had agreed to the UN peace document he signed, then the sanctions would be lifted. He won't let weapons inspectors in. That's his fault. If Hussein and bin Laden spent their combined millions if not billions on education, and food intead of buying AK-47s and Anthrax their citizens would be better off. Propaganda? What if we spent our American fortune peacefully spreading the fruits of democracy and liberty, instead of building armies? If we let the US-sponsored Hussein monster stomp around Kuwait, there wouldn't be a UN peace document or sanctions.

Don't get me wrong: I'm all for spreading the fruits of democracy, but it seems like the Tree of Freedom gives applesauce when those fruits are delivered via cruise missile.Great Satin, huh? Saddam Hussein used bio-chemical wepaons agains the Kurds, and Sh'ites in 1988-1989. Jeez, I don't remember releasing Sarin gas on Detroit in the 1967 riots do you?You know ... a Pakistani man committed suicide the other day. He had been convicted of killing children. His sentence was to be strangled, cut into 100 pieces, and dissolved in acid.

I tend to think this is the danger of religions, which is a secondary issue; we just don't take God's mandates for death as seriously in the West. In this country, we have the right to protest; over there, people do not. Well, not necessarily; there's always the government-sponsored show of hatred. Such are the dangers of mixing religion and government. But when we learn who bin Laden's international supporters are, what will that say about Western ideas when we realize how many westerners actually contributed to the New York atrocity? We can call these regimes limited and empowered by their lethal force, but the West helps them exist. Their sins are ours also. Saddam Hussein was the US's man; we helped him fight the evil Iran. Are we going to pretend he was a good guy then who went over to the dark side a couple of years later? The west supports these religious regimes for its own purposes, and creates its own monsters to deal with.

The only reason Hussein could use Sarin gas is because the US made sure he could.

Red Devilyou are now doing exactly what bin laden and his **** followers hoped to do with the extinction of the WTC, the attack on the Pentagon and the heroic lose of life on the White House bound PA flight. You are beginning to fight amongst yourselvesIn most cases I would agree with you; in fact, that's exactly why I haven't taken myself to join the protests.

But this is warfare: human destruction. And we show no signs of learning anything about how we got here; the focus is on Justice and not on how things got this bad in the first place. I will accept evil to prevent greater evil, but I don't forsee any real progress on the issue except for a lot of dead. I owe it to humanity to point out the stupidity of all warfare. Especially warfare for sentiment.

thanx all,
Tiassa :cool:

Give me a fucking break! They killed INNOCENT people. If these g-damn terrorist had two brain cells to rub together, they'd realize our government was who they really had the beef with (suppodily), and gone after them.

I agree that they intentionally targeted innocent people. They also targeted the Pentagon (which may, by some stretch, be considered a government institution-excuse my sarcasm) and the White House which was never reached. That took considerably more than two brain cells to coordinate. They ( the ever popularly vague "they") also consider every tax paying male to be a government co-conspirator.

For that I condemn them unequivocally. I think the point here is that we are not blameless. Although I disagree with Tiassa's analogy of violence in school being learned from military actions. Much more responsible is the home life which includes good christian upbringing that generally follows the philosophy of "trust God but keep yourself armed" and generations of "spare the rod, spoil the child".

The USA is responsible for opening nuclear warfare, development of chemical and biological warfare, testing LSD on civilian and military personnel without their consent, financing liquor stores on every other corner of urban neighborhoods to usurp the Black Panther party (not that I favor them either) and numerous other covert criminal actions too numerous to enumerate. We refuse to enter into environmental agreements, rebuke past ABM treaties, and back whichever future terrorist dictator suits us at the time.

When these issues are addressed we can claim the moral high ground. Until then, we have to admit our own sins even while we strike retribution, which I do believe is necessary. What we owe to that six year old and every other child is the right to grow up in an environmentally safe, corruption free (or at least relatively inexpensive- yuk-yuk-yuk) land with a sense of security brought about because we live and govern ourselves so that no ill will is harbored towards us. Am I asking a lot? Yes. But I would prefer to die striving for my principles then live apathetically because of the distance to their destinations.

Give me a fucking break! They killed INNOCENT people. If these g-damn terrorist had two brain cells to rub together, they'd realize our government was who they really had the beef with (suppodily), and gone after them.

I might also point out your interesting use of profanity, albeit by TOA standards. The hyphenated g-damn as opposed to the proper spelling of f-c-ing, and spelling does count. Unless g-damn is an actual term these days. I probably should listen to more rap to re-up my awareness of hip.LOL

Please understand I mean this humorously. I can completely relate to the anger you obviously feel about this atrocity.

Tiassa, I can't change your oppinion, but I can disagree with it.

Vietnam I could go on about, but I'll focus on the Dresden fire-bombing. Maybe we shouldn't have fire-bombed the Japaneese to all hell, so on and so fourth.

Once again, they could have talked to us in a resasonable fashion, but instead they killed nearly 6,000 people, and possibly more to come. If you should be complaining about begaiting violence, bring it up with Osama. There wasn't a war with Afghanistan before September 11th.

So awanser me these questions Tiassa:

1) What else can we do to get rid of the terrorists, intead of fighting. The Taliban had their chance to get rid of him and they didn't.

2) What would happen if we preached peace with Hitler? I think the awanser is self explanitory.

3) Why did the terroist cowardly go after CIVILIANS, not military or gov't officals? Seems their beef is with our SOCIETY not just the political workings.

Heres the thing, this isn't about Israel, or bases in the holy land, and all that other shit they'd like to list as causes. It's that we and other's do not have a extrimest Muslim government, we enjoy freedom from true Tyranny, and that we are better off than they are.

I never claimed we were perfect, but who would you rather live under the Taliban, or the US?

We have been raped of our sense of security, freedom, and liberties when days ago evil incarnate struck ot against the souls in New York, Washington D.C. and Pennsylvania. Never again may the world look upon the values that we have lived by the same again.

What happened on September 11, 2001 will be where history book chapters begin and end. At this spectacular juncture, we are poised now to fill the pages of those chapters for the ages. My hope is to see a day when terrorism's only sanctuary is in the glossary of an American History book. The only way of achieving such a goal, and to fulfill the prayers of millions is to fight this dark force and never stop until it has been vanquished from the world.

The unprovoked killing of innocent people makes Osama Bin Laden no different than Adolf Hitler except for in numbers.

What kind of a name is Brokaw anyway? And what's the deal with attacking the media sources in the USA? I don't get this this logic? Certainly the Ragheads can spread more terror by attacking the very sources that reach the American & world masses, but the real terror would be the introduction of germs into the nation's many food supplies, IE the many food manufacturing factories, the water supplies, and other assoiciated retailers to the general public.

Obviously the Ragheads are now limited in their ability to do significant damage to our military, therefore they are going to be limited to attacking civillian targets. I hope you people have a good grasp of germ sterilization techniques. I think that we all will soon need to know how to sterilize the outside of a variety of food containers, ect.... Fyi: Common household bleach is easy to obtain and it kills all but the toughest germs......

Better safe than sorry
As I don't live in any of the major metro areas, I am at less risk that so many others. But just be extra sure, I do now make it a habit to keep a bit of Clorox bleach w/ a spritzer (pump nozzle) to spray on all of my food containers. After applying a mist of bleach to all of my food containers, I simply rinse them off underneath the kitchen sink & dry them. IT'S a Hassle, but a good idea, especially now! Actually I began doing this a couple of years back, because of the many different types of germs that are passed due to the nastier habits of store employees (stock boys) and customers. The best thing that I have found is to take an empty "Windex" or other similar type bottle and fill it with Clorox Bleach! I keep one in the kitchen and one in each bathroom.

I would also advise that people ought to make it a HABIT to wash their hands far more often nowadays!
Again, bleach is easy to obtain & cheap! It won't do much for your lungs if the disease is airborn/transmitable, but it can be used very effectively against most other plagues.

The tip of the iceberg!
You know......it occurred to me the other day, that the RagHeads had to have at least a little bit of brainpower to pul off the WTC/Pentagon attacks. Certainly not to difficult for an intelligent criminal, I believe the attacks could have had other points of attacks that would be effected before all those RagHead pilots committed suicide??????????? ! ! ! ! As follows:

1) Why would a perfectly good RagHead airplane pilot spend the money to learn how to fly an airplane and kill himself in only one act when he could use his skills to kill many others without killing himself, as a crop dusting pilot from Hell???????.........;

2) Why wouldn't the WTC/Pentagon Kamakazi pilots use their skills to spread germs around for perhaps several months earlier, before they committed their final acts at WTC/Pentagon?????..., and

3) Wouldn't they be able to affect much more damage to the USA, before dying?????????.......

The answer is simplistic. Even these stupid RagHeads would probably try to maximize every last drop of terrorists manpower! [u]Therefore I do believe that they have in fact done so.[/b]

This is why I believe that simple sterilization tasks that I have above mentioned, should now by practiced by every American citizen immediately. Better safe than sorry!


What would I do If I were a RagHead Terrorists???????..as follows:

1) get my RagHead buddies, who work in factories, to spread these germs on door handles at manufacturing plants. Whether they worked in food manufacture, or in producing something(s) as unexpected as microwave ovens, computers, water purification and treatment plants, automobiles, phamaceuticals............. I wouldn't be one damn bit surprised if Bin Laden wanted to "stampede" the American people into getting immunizations for anthrax, while he might very well have people who are now putting such things as anthrax into the very vaccines....Right NOW! Has the FBI considered this possibility?????????? [i]If I were Bin LADEN, this precisely what I would do after the WTC/Pentagon attacks!

Now comes the TOM BROKAW ATTACK! WHY IS THIS???????
WHY?........ How better to STAMPEDE THE PEOPLE INTO GETTING IMMUNIZED, WHEN IN FACT AMERICANS MAY WELL INFECT THEIR DUMB ASSES WITH TAINTED VACCINES ! ! ! !????

2) Does anyone remember the Tylenol murders??????????? A simple asshole, with a chip on his shoulder, prompted the the FDA to mandate protective seals on all consumables......I remember a time when this was not so.......

If any of you, or a friend of yours, works in pharmaceutical production, then beware!!!!!!!!!!!/////////////,,,,,of the RagHead co-workers!!!!!!! You never know----------------------- If I were Bin Laden, I would not pass up the opportunity to herd the AmeriKan masses into an immunization line, waiting to be innoculated with the Taliban preferred plague of Bin Laden's choice. Question: What are the requirements for a a person to become a simple laboring employee in such a production facility? , and

3) The postal system. This is now painfully realized, in the recent attacks;

Bin Laden is under-estimated by the law eforcement professionals of the USA. This guy intends to win, therefore he is going to use everything at his disposal. He didn't go to college to learn about terrorism, therefore he isn't going to play by the rules of our law enforcement community! He doesn't have 10,000 other cops to back him up in order to take down crack pusher black bubba in Harlem! He is going to plan and make use of his resources to the extreme! This is something that the FBI knows nothing of. Your average FBI guy may not have the ability to repair his own weapons, when the federal government will just buy him a new one! These terrorists do know how. They will make use of everything, including the trash that we throw away!
Vietnam again.

They are a bad lot, now people! Who knows what more surprises are in store for US, during the following days and weeks???????



Edits and further thoughts may follow......
:eek:

Thre is something I just don't understand....

Take one man, who fights for his beliefs and then his supposed religion. He attacks a country and when the retaliation occurs he rally's people that are near him and claims a "Religious" war.

People that are upset at bombings and agree with him are causing civil disputes in a number of countries over this "Religious" war. But what I can't understand is there logic?

How can they miss that this One man is trying to become greater than the very person that they believe is responsible for creation.
I even had a look at a conversion of their religious texts to try and get an idea of how they percieve us western cultures.

From what I understand, their religion was based upon Prophets and messengers that by what their religion states will never occur again. (No prophets or messengers will re-appear)
From what i read the reason was to stop the manipulation of their religion, Having someone... for instance Bin Laden, manipulating himself as some form of prophet, when in fact he's more likely to be the opposite that of what they hold as good.

How can that one man try to step beyond their belief structure... to be mightier than their god?

I noted Vietnam and Dresden mentioned back there. Regarding Dresden, a war cry (pardon the pun) from those who understand little about global conflict. Before Dresden there had been attacks on the cities of London, Coventry, Liverpool, Southampton, Birmingham and others - all started by Bin Ladens previous alter ego Herr Hitler. Britain had a rule before these cities were smashed that they would not bomb civilian centres. Hitler changed all that - so Britain and the USA began the bombing as we now refer in history as "Dresden's". I agree that two wrongs don't make a right, but as in WTC, Pentagon and PA, something had to be done in "retaliation" and so it occurs. Please, let us not forget who started what? And also please - can we cut out the unnecessary language, although far from being a prude, I see no reason to resort to the level of the subject of this forum.

From Slate.com magazine:
(Especially read the last paragraph)
Why U.S. Military Bases Are Good For Mecca and Medina

It's well known that the establishment of U.S. military bases in Saudi Arabia at the outset of the Persian Gulf War caused Islamic fundamentalists, in particular Osama Bin Laden, much consternation. The fundamentalists thought that the presence of U.S. soldiers would contaminate the holy shrines of Mecca and Medina. For Bin Laden, the outrage was so great that he felt compelled to declare war on America and the West. Here he is getting his knickers in a twist over the infidel American invaders in his 1998 "Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders":

The Arabian Peninsula has never--since God made it flat, created its desert, and encircled it with seas--been stormed by any forces like the crusader armies spreading in it like locusts, eating its riches and wiping out its plantations. ... [T]he United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples.

What Bin Laden never says, and what Chatterbox didn't know until fairly recently, is that the U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia dates back not to 1990, but to 1946. If harboring nearby U.S. troops desecrates Mecca and Medina, these places were spoiled long before the Gulf War, even long before Bin Laden was born. More surprising still, the first introduction of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia came about at the end of a chain of events aimed at increasing the number of Muslims to visit the two holy places. This effort was a success, but is Bin Laden grateful? Of course not.

As Harvard's Nadav Safran explains in Saudi Arabia: The Ceaseless Quest for Security, the flow of pilgrims traveling to Mecca and Medina slowed to a trickle after 1929 as a result of the Great Depression. Since Saudi Arabia was heavily dependent on this pilgrimage, known as the Hajj, for revenue, the slowdown threatened the country's finances, and, indeed, its very existence, which was quite precarious. To boost his treasury, King Ibn Saud in 1933 granted an oil concession to Standard Oil of California. "The agreement was bitterly opposed by the religious leaders on the grounds that it would let into the country infidels who would corrupt the people and introduce liquor, phonographs, and other instruments of the devil," Safran writes, "but Ibn Saud overrode the opposition on what might be called raison d'état." Sound familiar? Then the onset of World War II halted oil development and stemmed the tide of pilgrims once again, whereupon Standard Oil persuaded the U.S. government to provide aid via the Lend-Lease program. In exchange, the Saudis, though officially neutral, allowed U.S. Army planes headed for the Far East to stop in Saudi Arabia to refuel starting in 1942. In 1944, the United States asked Ibn Saud if it could build its own air base for this purpose in Dhahran, and the Saudi king said yes. Construction began in 1945 and was completed in 1946. The United States continued to use the air base as a stopover and a training base for the Saudi armed forces. Eventually the base was turned over to the Saudis when its lease expired in the early 1960s. (Chatterbox wishes to thank the Air Force Historical Research Agency for tracking down some of this information.)

Before the American air base was built at Dhahran, something like 130,000 pilgrims could make the Hajj in a good year. (In 1931, only 40,000 came.) Today, more than a million pilgrims come. The same forces of globalization that put a U.S. air field in Dhahran half a century ago made the Saudis rich enough to expand the shrines. It was Bin Laden's own family that got the construction contracts! Meanwhile, the presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia during the past decade helped deter potential foreign invaders like Iraq, which is not known for its liberal granting of visas. This is a great deal for the Saudis. It's a little less clear, especially whenever OPEC allows oil prices to spike, that this is a great deal for the United States, but that's a story for another day.

Well, it seems I owe a few people responses around this and a couple of other topics; I'll start here:1) What else can we do to get rid of the terrorists, intead of fighting. The Taliban had their chance to get rid of him and they didn't.As one who has said before that I will sell myself to an evil if it stops a greater evil, I'll concede that we've backed ourselves into a corner we can't easily extricate ourselves from. Perhaps, today, this situation requires human destruction.

But here's a great barrel to put oneself over: anyone who has ever claimed the US to be a "Christian" nation--which argument arises in abortion, education, censorship, homosexual, and other political issues--ought to recall that we're obliged to take this great affront to our nation and offer up the other cheek.

Christian or not, we still owe it to ourselves to take a peaceful route. What the Taliban has asked--primarily, their request for proof--is only absurd when contrasted against the violations of liberty and people that are the Taliban mode. Perhaps Tony Blair and GW Bush are in agreement, but I, the citizen have not seen it, and I don't recall the Taliban having seen it.

It is entirely possible that if the proof is so incontrovertable, and if nations realized that the American war machine had a legitimate target, that we could have compelled the Afghanis to let us have bin Laden, or at least roped in more support for diplomatic pressure. (Note: don't remind me that nations didn't realize the war machine had a legit target; but the point would have served us better had we coughed up the proof we have.)

Yet our president says he will not negotiate with terrorists; in other words, he will not acknowledge the standard he wishes to defend with this military action. Apparently, proving a suspect guilty is "negotiation".

If we have actually arrived at a point whence we cannot escape the situation without grievous human damage, it is only because we chose that it should be this way.2) What would happen if we preached peace with Hitler? I think the awanser is self explanitory.Preached peace or practiced peace? Do we look to the British here and ask for a reiteration of Why we built Adolf's navy? I find it funny that when I look through Dr Seuss Goes to War, a collection of Seuss' cartoons advocating war, he repeatedly portrays pacifists as people who wish harm onto others. And here I sense a different process at play. Perhaps if we had done something other than cash-and-carry for military equipment, the British would not have been so desperately pressed; there are a thousand maybes touching that war, ranging from American territorial intrusions (Japanese justification for Pearl Harbor) to the design of the Maginot line. Yet all of these decisions were made with warfare in mind: the British helped Hitler build a war machine because they thought they could keep him close enough to reduce his potential for harm--a tactic well-known in American foreign policy, and part of how we arrived at our present Afghani situation; does anyone realize that in order to enter the war, the US sacrificed its own soldiers at Pearl Harbor?; perhaps if we hadn't hung the Russians out to dry when the Germans marched toward Moscow, we could have seen a lower Russian casualty count and also avoided the messier parts of the Cold War .... Preach peace? Try living it: preaching peace gains nothing when one looks forward to war. Our decisions regarding how to handle Hitler, as well as other nations, led directly to World War II. Furthermore, it was a different age, then, a more violent age; have we learned nothing?3) Why did the terroist cowardly go after CIVILIANS, not military or gov't officals? Seems their beef is with our SOCIETY not just the political workings.Obviously, you'll have to ask them. A few suggestions, though:

1) WTC was a financial center: in addition to the terror, in addition to the death, and in addition to the insult, the terrorists also took a hard swipe at our economy. I believe it was a Boston Globe columnist (I can't recall which) who pointed out that our Y2K paranoia seems to have paid off indirectly; all of that "lost" information is available on backup. But a swipe at our economy seems a sound strategy if you can pull it off.

2) The US is a government by, for, and of the people. Killing our civilians is also killing our government.

3) Payback: the Western history in Muslim and other lands is a little ridiculous. The Khyber Rebellion in India started when, among other offenses, British officers shipped munitions packets to the conscripted locals. The units were separated according to religion, since the Hindu and Muslim soldiers could not get along. The munitions packets were sealed, to be opened with the teeth. The ones sent to the Muslim conscripts were greased with pork fat; the ones sent to Hindu conscripts were greased with beef fat. It is not known why the British didn't merely switch shipments. This kind of idiocy is part and parcel in Western interaction with Islamic nations. The US has shepherded Israel; by our funds, equipment, and training, Muslim civilians have died. The US had money, guns, and training in the Iran/Iraq war, as well. The cumulative insult and damage coalesced in this shadowy figure named bin Laden.Heres the thing, this isn't about Israel, or bases in the holy land, and all that other shit they'd like to list as causes. It's that we and other's do not have a extrimest Muslim government, we enjoy freedom from true Tyranny, and that we are better off than they are.It is about Israel, bases, and all that other stuff; it's about it all. It's a lot of resentment built up and aimed at the driving force of what the Muslim people see as harmful. I guarantee you that the Muslim extremists--and especially the extremists--do not envy our abortion rate, our unwed teen birth rate, our gang wars, or our outright hypocrisy. (Laugh about that, but realize that the world, and not just the Islamic world, rejected the US for two UN commission seats it usually receives--human rights and drugs; we must wonder if there's a reason for it.) They don't want our Imus or Stern, or our obsession with fellatio. Christianity isn't much different. In the West, we ignore God's demands for death, and this is largely because there exists something we find more precious than our lives: money. Muslims don't want all of that Western greed.

The result of which is that, while they may wish for the benefits of our technical knowledge, they won't accept it if it means becoming "like" the US. I've pointed out before that Islam is 600 years younger than Christianity. 600 years ago, Christians were burning people at the stake, drawing and quartering, and boiling in oil. 600 years ago, the religious institutions kept the masses illiterate. 600 years ago, they believed in a Satan that we could fight in the form of other nations and other peoples. Roger Waters notes, By the grace of God almighty, and the pressures of the marketplace, the human race has civilized itself. It's a miracle.

Given economy and education, even according to their own standards, we will see a revision of those standards taking place. It is the superstition of undereducation and the desperation of poverty that personalizes so deeply what should be left to God's wisdom and guidance.

What? It worked in the West, to a degree. Sure, we're still hung up on fellatio, but women vote now, and our literacy rate is respectable at least; we're living longer when not being blown up in 757's ... how did we get here? Well, we got here by understanding the dissenters and what they saw. We got here by being unable to deny the validity of other viewpoints. We got here because the only other solution was to kill everything, and at some point such excess becomes distasteful, even to the most hardened Christian heart. It might take generations to accomplish, but assaulting the shadows of fundamentalist-inspired terrorism with economy, responsibility, and education will bring peace to these disparate cultures long before bombs will. Well, okay, we can always shoot for a quick genocide, but then we'd just be Westerners out for a nostalgic lark.

If we're trapped into doing it the hard way, it's because the easy way is too expensive. That's right--thousands died because it cost too much money to do it right until after they died. (Note, I don't see any progress on that doing of things "right".) But hey, we trust our money more than we do our God. As much as I hate to admit it, if we get right down and compare what's really important, these Muslims are at least responding to what they think God is. Whether they're right or wrong is a separate issue, though we'd probably agree on the answer. But they, at least, are responding to God while we, in our own, are responding to the dollar almighty. It's a matter of priorities, and I would hope that people in general, regardless of religions, could find it more useful to attempt to understand the differences 'twixt cultures instead of wait for the opportunity to eliminate the perceived opposition. Only peace and knowledge can lead the darker shades of Islam into the light, and that only with the world's understanding and best efforts and intents. I see none of those factors at present; there is no great attempt to understand what we're dealing with except as a strategic consideration related to killing and dying; there is no best effort except to win, and make sure others lose; there is no best intent at all.I never claimed we were perfect, but who would you rather live under the Taliban, or the US?I'm sorry man, but that's as stupid as it was during the Vietnam conflict. I say stupid for at least two reasons: First, of course we would rather live under American Liberty; the question's a no-brainer in that sense. Secondly, the question is restricted in its nature; who here is proposing that Americans adopt Taliban standards? The Taliban knows full well that if it doesn't pull off it's PR stunt, it's going to have to muscle the entire Islamic world into its ranks in order to make Americans live by their tyrannical standards.

I'd say the fair response to that is to ask, Is the best we have the best we can do?

Just because I'd rather be here and not there does not mean that my American neighbors and I don't need a serious attitude check. We, the People of the United States of America, through the devices of our government, promise the world roses and bury it in fertilizer. We treat people terribly according to our own standards. What, was I raised in Afghanistan? No. Nor were the pacifists I know. Hmm ... where did we get it, this strange affliction that makes us crave peace among nations and dignified equality among peoples? It might be that we're Americans who, unlike our hawkish neighbors, had the benefit of learning the value of respect and peace. It seems we remember why we don't want to treat people poorly: because then you have to fight about it.

No, the terrorists didn't have to do this. But we, the Americans, didn't have to ask our government to do the things it has done internationally. Parts of the world are pissed off at us, apparently to the point of violence. The question why we have an enemy deserves at least as much thought as how best to kill it.

thanx,
Tiassa :cool:

Quote" What would happen if we preached peace with Hitler? I think the answer is self explanatory. Unquote.

We did! That pillock Neville Chamberlain (British PM at the time) went over to see Herr Hitler and came back with that famous piece of paper, waving it in the air declaring "peace in our time" whilst Hilter was massing on the Polish border after reclaiming the Rhineland and taking the Sudetenland!
Who hung the russians out to dry? I take, sorry to say, a bit of an offence over that remark as we lost thousands of merchant and royal naval seamen in the Arctic seas trying to get supplies or arms etc to Stalin's Armies. If you go to the following url you will see just an example of what happened in those freezing seas. http://www.kemble.org.uk/kite.html - and look for the "sinking of the Kite" page.
Regarding the slaughter of the Russians - most of this was by the deliberate hands of Josef Stalin, using Prison Battalions up the front, cannon fodder, and the recapture of the "rodina" (Motherland) with complete disregard to cost in lives.

Tiassa, that was a really good response.

I really mean that, you have the prowless of a seasoned journalist. You covered every point very well, I'm happy to debate with someone who can stand firm on their oppinions and express them equally as well.

With being short on time, I still belive this is more about our culture and influence in the region, more than Israel. I'm not completely denying that Israel, the bases, and Saudi Royal support aren't factors, but they are branches of the problem tree, not the trunk.

Do you agree that we are doing the right thing by taking military action Tiassa?

P.S. I think that Israel has a right to be in the Mid-East, but not to be where Palestine was. That was wrong, but the Jews needed a return to a land where they could live with relitivley low religious perecution from hostile governments.

I'm for the construction of a Palestinan state, but not for a year or two, we don't want the terrorists to think they compeltely suceeded in getting their goal.

Quote: I think that Israel has a right to be in the Mid-East, but not to be where Palestine was. That was wrong, but the Jews needed a return to a land where they could live with relitivley low religious perecution from hostile governments. Unquote.

Curly, as I understand it and forgive me if wrong, but when Great Britain held Palestine as a protectorate, we opposed any settlement of Jews into Palestine and the creation of a Jewish State where it is. But America, flexing its lend lease muscles, and saying we would have to pay our war debts in full, overuled Great Britain and forced us to concede the land to the Jew. Following on from WW2 we were in a very weak position and America bullied us into the creation of Israel.
:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

I don't know about bullied.

Israel was created for three reasons:

1) Zionists (Jewish members who supported the construction of a Jewish state) helped fund WWI and WWII for the US and UK. They helped us and the Brits to get loans from Swiss banks to rebuild and reconstructe Europe, and the States. You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours, type of thing.

2) The Jews setteling in what was ONLY Palestine in the thirties were constantly being repressed by the Arabs. Interestingly enough the situation is the exact converse of what happened seventy some odd years later. You can argue against or for that.

3) I think that people have forgotton or at least not fully appreceated that the Jews have been persecuted since the time of Moses leaving Egypt. Russia had a crackdown by the Czars and Commies, Germany is self explanitory, and eastern Europe was a horrible place for the Jews. Anti-semitism ran rampid in the States and other industrialized countries. For this reason I think they deserve the state.

Yes I agree that the Jews need a state and said so but at what price, the forceable removal of arabs from their "own" homeland. No wonder they are pissed off! As far as sympathy goes for either side, I really do not think that now, I have any. They are both as bad as each other..:rolleyes:

One aspect that I don't remember having seen addressed is that the Palestinian demand for a 'right of return' ignores the fact that a small percentage of Arabs remained and are now 'Israeli Arabs'. The ones that fled and became refugees are still such only because the countries they fled to did not accept them and kept them in refugee camps.

thecurly1

It would seem that I should waste less time bickering with Tony1; the debate over here is so much more relevant, interesting, and, with one notable exception, largely more educated than the quagmire over in the other forum. Nonetheless, I owe you an apology for the ugly delay in answering the simplest, most direct, and essential question thus far:Do you agree that we are doing the right thing by taking military action Tiassa? I shall endeavor to be somewhat focused, but I work with committee thinkers, live with committee thinkers ... come on, I live in Seattle; we can sell bad software and not sell good airplanes because we're a massive marketing committee up here. It's rather sick, and also beside the point. But nothing is simple; everything from my last girlfriend to ordering a box of envelopes from our internal company reserve bears more moral accretions than Darwinism should allow. (And I'll throw that digression out there and drop it: Conclusive evidence to disprove evolution should be easily found in the present state of humanity itself, but that's beside the point.) The point of this loquacious disclaimer, of course, to note that my feelings on the present conflict are complex, and any summary I offer necessarily incomplete.

The obvious answer at play is that no, I don't think We the People of the United States of America are presently doing the right thing. Less obvious, and in some cases perplexingly subtle, is the detail of the mosaic.

I have a general aversion to warfare that comes from various sources. In sixth or seventh grade, I drew a cartoon of Ghadaffi (Khadafy, Qadafi ... you read the papers in the US ... you tell me ;) ) on a child's ... hobby-horse (?!) ... you know, the broomstick with a horse's head, charging against an American tank. As a child I grew up thinking war could be good, could be noble. I was born in '73, under Nixon and the cloud of Vietnam. My first real vision of that war came when things began to unravel in the 1980's, and also post-Rambo. Of course I didn't understand the idea that war was a good thing, but Reagan had us thinking of nukes. And to hear my father speak of Communists--he fully admits his entire opinion of Communism comes from two classic issues--much less the American community in general, I remember two stunning ideas that I learned as I grew up: I read the Manifesto, in parts, over the years, and then finally in a whole, cohesive reading; and also in college when my Foreign Relations professor drove home the point that our first interactions with the new Communist regime in the Soviet Union following the Revolution were duplicitous in that our assistance was only provided as cover for our attempts to destabilize the yet-unstable freshman government. And it's not like we ever lightened up; during WWII the US delayed munitions assistance to the Soviets in order to let the Germans carve through some potential future enemies. By the time it got to Kruschev banging his shoe on the table and hollering that he would destroy us, frightening the religion out of my father, the geopolitical situation was just a little out of hand. Does it surprise any of us that international journalists are pointing out that the fundamentalist Islamic regimes that trouble us have a history that includes the Red Spectre? Where communism failed, there is poverty and little education: the people are ripe for fundamentalism. However, I digress: I'm not sure the Cold War had to happen. And that's what makes me sick about all the violence it caused: Central America, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Africa .... Think about the grievance Africa is entitled to against the West--slavery, imperialism, environmental chaos: at what point does the global chess game stop? When do we all settle down and realize that this isn't working? We're stuck with the mortal job of cleaning up for a history that didn't have to be that way.

Don't get me wrong: I like the Manifesto; I don't particularly like modern communists. American Reds are, to say the least, just a little ... um ... ridiculous. Blatant. Idiotic--I once had a subscription to a communist newspaper; I generally understood what the writers and editors were after, even when I disagreed with them. But I still, to this day, fail to comprehend their protest of the removal of a public schoolteacher to a higher-paying, administrative position out of the classroom: the teacher was a registered NAMBLA member. So don't get me wrong, please--the modern communist understands the Manifesto about as well as the Bolsheviks, which is about as well as Governor Winthrop understood the Bible. But even the Manifesto is doomed to failure. It leaves too much to chance, assumes to much of human nature, and fails when it assumes the benevolence of a human race that is largely taught from birth of its own malevolence. It is quite telling of our confidence in our way of living if something so critically flawed as adapted Marxism should scare the hell out of us.

I truly, truly think we overreacted to Communism. Aside from it being a slightly-too-convenient tale for how we got here to be accurate, it was also one of my first true departures from the political dimensions I learned growing up. It made so much of the century's conflict seem ... well, dumb. It cheapens the promise of a free nation to contribute to death squads, dictators, and terrorists. I don't care what we think we gain--and why does so much of that seem economic?--by pandering to bad ideas: with Liberty comes the responsibility of Integrity. I've always accepted WWI as an accident of political lunacy, and WWII seems to have its proper cause, except that we might have avoided at least some of the mess. But WWII set the political stage for an international nightmare. We went from post-war to Cold War and we'll be damned if there's any other way to do it than outgun the other guy. I wasn't quite to my teens when I first saw some of the uglier Vietnam footage. Much of it turned my stomach, and by the time I got to a monk setting himself on fire, it scared me that I thought I understood why he did it.

By the time I was watching SEALs land in Africa on CNN, I pretty much decided to listen to that inner voice that said it just didn't seem right, and figure out why it said that.

Today's wars are yesterday's wars. Clive Barker wrote that Nothing ever begins, and as we tie the threads of yesterday into the present, we find ourselves reflecting on Janis Joplin: It's all the same f--king day, man ....

In general, warfare doesn't seem to actually solve anything other than to kill the idiots at war. It rarely, if ever, settles the issue at hand, and usually leads to further human suffering beyond its immediate boundaries. Take the American Revolution: sure, we kicked the British out, but still there exists among the free government of the people the sense of a menace to liberty. We empower our government to commit some of the same injuries our forefathers complained about in the Declaration. Yeah, we stopped evil in WWII, but our warlike machinations belied American integrity: the rise of the atomic age created a political farce that proved to be more than slightly dramatic. It's like an example I used in the religious forum: If Joe kicks his dog, ouch. Okay, he learned not to kick the dog. So then he kick's the cat. Whoops. Okay, no kitty-kicking. His son? He's not even going to start on that, so he kicks the sofa. Broken foot and all, when is Joe going to learn that it's not what you kick, but that you needn't be kicking anything at all? If I thought the world was learning anything from warfare, then perhaps I would see its value other than in terms of the macabre history for us all to nibble and moralize.

In consideration of the current conflict:

Stamp out terrorism? Ambitious, but it cannot be done with fire. Capture bin Laden? Nobody expects it to be easy but what was that Rumsfeld two-step last week? I've let it slip by me so far because I would cover my ass for that one, too. Semantics, my eye ... he just needs to be a lot more careful in what he's saying. We all know it, but that was a pretty blatant slip on his part. And what's with his Westmoreland routine with the press? We know they're annoying, but Rummy ... bubs ... you're splitting hairs and the whole world is watching. Send Bulldog Blair a nice fruit basket at Christmas, eh? So, yeah, I'm a little ticked watching Rumsfeld snagging his sac on the trees, but I didn't vote for his boss and if we've got the credibility to do this, why is he squandering it like a credit grift?

* http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis/web/vortex/display?slug=mcdermott14m0&date=20011014&query=Jim+McDermott+Afghanistan

Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Seattle, WA) spoke it well. My personal standard for simply shutting up and hoping for the best just wasn't met: we asked Afghanistan to extradite Osama bin Laden on the grounds that we'll blow their asses up if they don't. That was pretty damn stupid. The point of that was to guarantee that this would come down to combat.

There were plenty of channels to try: show the evidence, put on the squeeze, and publicly hold the Taliban responsible with the incontrovertable evidence there for the world to see.

Is this warfare or law enforcement? There's an important question.

But I'm not aware of a formal resolution of warfare; Bush will need that eventually. He'll get it, there's no question there. But this is the Hindu Kush we're going into; when it comes down to it, they'll do a hell of a lot of damage going down. Great empires have stumbled at the Kush: we must be prepared to lose substantial amounts of soldiers.

And when and if (I'll still hold out for the possibility of avoiding that phase) that happens, it will be hard to justify that this was the only way. I got an e-mail the other day that pointed out how many times US Presidents have used the phrase "hunt down and punish". Clinton seemed to like it a lot. We don't have a good record of hunting down and punishing.

For the most part, wars don't accomplish anything. And those which we agree do accomplish something--were they truly necessary? Hitler, for instance, rebuilt the military machine at first with equipment from nations he would later take to task. I'd like to think that we're smarter about warfare now, than we were in the 19th century, when the threads of two coming world wars became identifiable. But I'm worried that we're not: it seems like we rushed into this thing in the classic American tradition of shoot first think when it's convenient.

Civilians? Yes, it's a huge consideration. But if the reason we're going ahead is that the enemy is hiding among civilians, then we need to try harder. It's not like warfare is easy, but there must be another way. And we have all the time in the world to get down to warfare.

The "next strike" by the terrorists is an interesting concern in that sense, but it's not enough to sell me. It's quite obvious that someone is still screwing with us, despite the hammering we're giving Afghanistan. And I don't accept the horror stories of fundamentalist regimes worldwide, either: these evils existed before 9/11, and they weren't relevant to the political scheme then. They're merely convenient excuses for justification. To the other, it will be hard to ignore those conflicts; to yet another, we're Americans so we'll give forgetting our best efforts. But yes, these injustices need to be corrected; yes, these regimes must topple. But it's not going to get us anything to do it this way except more of the same.

Economy and education. Stability to ease the soul, and knowledge to understand human equality: society will always have its dissenters, but before you reach the point that you educate the violence out of dissent, you'll reach the point that you educate violence out of the culture. We are the United States of America: where shall we lead the world, and how shall we get there? What's the point of leading the world to freedom if it's no improvement on the present?

All warfare is stupid; from the first I learned of it I noticed that people tried awfully hard to make it sound like a good thing. Over the years I learned that it is not. From the most basic, immediately relevant juxtapositions, I find myself believing that those standoffs weren't necessarily unavoidable. Sometimes it seems like we decide there's no other way just so we can get on with the shooting and bombing. And, being a competititve, economic society, we require competition in the world to prosper. We have a trend of creating our enemies by accident of ignorance (accident of bliss?)--I don't think it's entirely coincidental.

But I do think we blew it in the current conflict; our credibility in this situation rests on the fact that we can blow the hell out of whoever objects if it comes down to it. I admit this is a better situation than in a Gore presidency: the GOP would have blocked all his major nominations, and we'd be without an executive branch in time of crisis. ( ;) ... come on, a little levity ....)

When we run out of options to avoid warfare, well, we run out of options. It doesn't seem to me that el Presidente really gave a rat's ass about the options. And that's a dumb reason for a war.

And to be honest, I could go on like this all night but I'd be repeating myself at some point, and still not have gotten it all on the table. It's ugly, but warfare accomplishes nothing that couldn't have been done less mortally.

It's how I see the world: there is no cause for warfare. A lack of foresight is no excuse.

Two cents or so ....

thanx,
Tiassa :cool:

Very nicely put Tiassa. Couldn't really summarise the arguments against warfare any better.

Just wanted to add a couple of things about the current campaign that don't quite seem to have been in the initial planning and, given the title of this thread, are quite pertinent.

1. Objectives and aims. Now I thought that since Vietnam one thing that the US was determined to do was have clear objectives. I think the current campaign raises a few questions here though. Is it just about captruing Bin Laden? Rumsfeld et al seem a little more prosiac on the issue. Might not get him. Long haul. We seem to have accepted going from A to G is logical, but someone forgot to point out where B, C, D.... come into it.

Why is it now a war on Afghanistan? They harbour Bin Laden. That's it. They're not responsible for the 9-11 attack - no one is suggesting they are. But the US and UK seem to think that the aim of getting Bin Laden is worth what ultimately may be several thousand innocent Afghan deaths. Where is the justification for this? So far not one person directly involved in the WTC attack has been arrested or killed as a result, and the air force is fast running out of targets. Is this campaign working in any way? It doesn't look like it.

2. A bit more about the point Tiassa raised regarding other options. Right up until the 11 September attack the US was negotiating with the Taliban over Bin Laden. They wanted something in return for handing him over to the Saudis, something to save face. That was the price of getting him into custody BEFORE the WTC attack. Not that severe. But now the cost goes through the roof with the military action. And, as Tiassa said, that really is the only thing the US is considering. None of this was necessary. And other options were (still are?) available. Not just other options, but more effective ones.

3. The results of the US response so far? Islamic opposition (created largely as a result of US one-sidedness with Israel and support for repressive Arab regimes) is on the rise. Gulf monarchies are increasingly under threat. The US is losing support with every child that dies and moral superiority becomes questionable. Terrorism threats have not receded. Bin Laden is no closer to being in custody. The Taliban is still in power. Pakistan is destabilised. The opposition leader being groomed by the US (incidentally, responsible for the deaths of numerous Russian civillians and children when he blew up a plane, but that doesn't look so good in the media) is killed.

What can I say? So far this campaign really is working and paying dividends. Can't wait to see what extra little gifts lie in store to this senseless, ineffective and destructive little war.

Good source of news not found easily in the mainstream:

www.mwaw.org (http://www.mwaw.org)

CC,

<i>"Objectives and aims."</i>

Beyond the first, to eliminate a sanctuary for terrorist.

<i>"Where is the justification for this?"</i>

The pile of rubble that was the WTC.

<i>"Is this campaign working in any way? It doesn't look like it."</i>

Wow, it's been a whole month.

<i>"And other options were (still are?) available. Not just other options, but more effective ones."</i>

What are those options again?

<i>"The results of the US response so far?"</i>

Wow, it's been a whole month.

"Objectives and aims."

Beyond the first, to eliminate a sanctuary for terrorist.


What does that mean? when do you decide that this has been achieved? In a year, decade, month, century? Does it mean Taliban out? Does it mean all terrorists found and detained? Does it mean the destruction of Afghanistan?


"Where is the justification for this?"

The pile of rubble that was the WTC.


Was Afghanistan responsible then?


"Is this campaign working in any way? It doesn't look like it."
Wow, it's been a whole month.

True enough. That's kind of the scary part - the very fact that after a month of sustained bombing which has killed anywhere up to 1,000 Afghan civillians with no descernible progress, you're prepared to see this go on indefinitely.

In a year - 'Wow, it's only a year'

In a decade - 'Wow, it's only a decade'

Because this takes us back to the first point - just when does the US say they've completed the task?


"And other options were (still are?) available. Not just other options, but more effective ones."

What are those options again?

See Tiassa's post.


"The results of the US response so far?"

Wow, it's been a whole month.

Yeah, let's give it at least six months before we hazzard a guess. Or maybe a year. Does the phrase 'mission creep' mean anything to you?

The air war on Iraq was a solid six weeks, the ground war less than a week. I guess there was no opportunity to assess its success.

...to eliminate a sanctuary for terrorist.

<i>"What does that mean? Was Afghanistan responsible then?"</i>

Afghanistan is the victim too, used by the forces which we desire to destroy. I really don't see a need to point a finger at the target.

<i>"True enough. That's kind of the scary part - the very fact that after a month of sustained bombing which has killed anywhere up to 1,000 Afghan civillians with no descernible progress, you're prepared to see this go on indefinitely."</i>

If our targets were not staged within the confines of the civilian domain, there would be fewer civilian casualties. As for the progress of the war, both you and I are not privileged with knowledge of such. And yes, I am willing to let this one play for years.

<i>"...when does the US say they've completed the task?"</i>

Our goals for both terrorism and Afghanistan were defined from the start. I haven't forgotten, and I will hold my government to that resolve.

"And other options were (still are?) available. Not just other options, but more effective ones."

What are those options again?

<i>"See Tiassa's post."</i>

I read his post and don't recall seeing any practicle solutions. They might have been lost on me. Do repost them.

<i>"Yeah, let's give it at least six months before we hazzard a guess. Or maybe a year. Does the phrase 'mission creep' mean anything to you?"</i>

Let's not expect miracles. Let's give our own every month they need.

<i>"The air war on Iraq was a solid six weeks, the ground war less than a week. I guess there was no opportunity to assess its success."</i>

<i><b>"...the ground war less than a week."</b></i>

But of course the Afghan Government is responsible; just as if they did it themselves. The taliban harboured Laden knowing full well what he has done in the past and wanted to do in the future. Dont be so naive to believe that they really "didn't know", that is irresponsible. The taliban are also just as guilty themselves of many other crimes, especially against their own people. I do not believe one tenth of their claims as they are proven liars. I do believe one thing though, the inaccuracy of US bombings, they have proved time and time again that they cannot do it "right". In Kosovo for example, US claims of many tanks destroyed - when Kosovo was overran by ground troops, they found 1 (ONE) burnt out tank. The best advice I can suggest is be open minded - both sides use a certain degree of propaganda, its just that the taliban live on it and believe their own lies.:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

What are those options again?

"See Tiassa's post."

I read his post and don't recall seeing any practicle solutions. They might have been lost on me. Do repost them.


There was potential to put far more political pressure on the Taliban. I know that such a seemingly weak move was dificult given the shock of WTC, but the Taliban was already negotiating with the US on a hand-over prior to the WTC attack. Remeber, it's tough for the Taliban as well, Bin Laden virtually has his own independent army. Then there's the political issue, the Taliban - being the hardline regime it is - would look very weak if there was not some form of give and take.

Arrangements could have been investigated. Pakistan would have liked this as would Iran - both could have offered more help and the US would have maintained the goodwill felt towards it in the region. In an area with such murky politics and covert activities, Iranian cooperation along with Syrian and Pakistani would go a long way.

At the same time monitoring by special forces could have gone on, much as it is now, until good intel on Bin Laden's wearabouts was uncovered - maybe even 'secretly' from the Taliban.

What I would argue is that more political, and covert, options would be open to the US in tracking down Bin Laden and his group if the 'fireworks' display of air strikes never occurred. Let's be honest, the strikes on the Taliban were largely PR at first for US consumption, and are now evolving into a wider effort to remove the Taliban. But only so far. The northern alliance is not receiving the kind of support it expected - the US is not keen on replacing the Taliban with them. So where now?

OK, the Taliban are not exactly easy to talk to. They are not particularly sympathetic and they are nasty pieces of work. But everyone is interested in self-preservation (a regime is at least). I believe that a dual covert/diplomatic approach might have been more effective. Don't give the opposition something obvious to latch on to - like blowing up a hospital. If we're talking months, let the northern alliance do it - avoid condemnation for causing civilian deaths and keep the moral high ground.

I am reminded of Israel and Munich. When their athletes were killed by Palestinians, they didn't wipe out the West Bank. They slowly, deliberately and tenaciously tracked down and killed each and every person involved in the attack. Not a lot of publicity, but the terrorists got the message, and Mossad added to its ruthless reputation. To be honest I wouldn't shed a tear if the US tried the same approach. It's the indiscriminate fireworks that cause such a problem.


In the US you may see such political concerns as small fry. But in this region they aren't.

As for the objectives - I genuinely still am not sure. I thought initially it was to get Bin Laden and those responsible for the attack. I'm with you on that one. But the added goal of 'wiping out regimes giving sanctuary to terrorists' may mean that the first objective is much harder to achieve. I also think disingenuous. I think we'll see, like the Gulf War, that states harbouring certain kinds of terrorists will still receive US support. Removing regimes for crimes against humanity must be part of an international agreement, not a US decision. The current case maybe falls outside of such general concerns, but I would hope the US aims for inclusion rather than 'crusades' of its own choosing.

We differ on means.

One question - do you see the attack on Afghanistan as part of a global war on terrorism, or in some other way?

Compared to the Mossad, the American intelligence community is like a bunch of kids hung-up on playing with the latest 'toy' (and it is a community - a dysfunctional community spending more on protecting its turf than protecting the country).

I would have respected Dubya far more had he acknowledged the loss of life and then cleaned up the mess that our intelligence community is in rather than almost immediately declaring a 'war' on terrorism.

Even more unfortunate is that the covert military action required in this situation depends on SOF type warfare ... and the military decision-makers are still reluctant to support the SOF units that exist in every branch of service except the Coast Guard. You can't micro-manage warriors who disappear in-county and aren't heard from until the job is done. Hell, you don't get a chance to use all those neat C3I toys used to micro-manage the 'battlefield'!

And finally; yes, I see it in some other way: ... OIL ... and all those poor Afghan women that have to stay hidden under their chaderi's.

I just want to say a couple of things:

- You are all scaring me now. I feel cold in the presence of such violent expressions. Off cause America has the right to defend themselves and if this is the way they choose to do it in, then that's ok with me.

- But America must realize they are not alone in the world, I am scared to, I want my safety back. It was not my family that was killed, neither is it my family that killed someone, but I am still involved. The attack upon WTC was a demonstration that no one is safe from any kind of evil. The evil <B>can</B> strike.

- We also need to realize that Bin Laden is only a face put upon the evil Taliban government to make it easier to comprehend the enemy, as was Saddam. As Osama gets blasted into space by all the "civilized" weapons that America will drop upon him, there will be another face of evil. If we always choose to bombard the evil faces across our Earth, when is it enough? Is it when there are only scared industrial populations left, is it when there is only republicans or social democrats left? or is it when there is no one left?

Originally posted by thecurly1
I don't know about bullied.

Israel was created for three reasons:

13) I think that people have forgotton or at least not fully appreceated that the Jews have been persecuted since the time of Moses leaving Egypt. Russia had a crackdown by the Czars and Commies, Germany is self explanitory, and eastern Europe was a horrible place for the Jews. Anti-semitism ran rampid in the States and other industrialized countries. For this reason I think they deserve the state.

I agree with of what you just said. But if you look at the history of them or if you look at the religious history as well you will notice something very interesting that these Jewish people were trying to get back to Jeruslem for more then half a century. And then finally they were able to get back because of us. Also a while back in the time of First Caliph of Muslims ( Omar ) there was an agreement among jews christian jews, it all occured when Omar went to capture Jeruslem and jews handed over the city to him. But christians back then wanted to make an agreement and that was, Jews will be not be allowed to buy the land in land of Israel. This law was in effect untill 1940. And then thr turks changed it I am not sure how true is that because I heard that and read part of this from some books i read during my school time. I can look up for names.But will take some time.
Now there is also a beliefe of some Chrsitians, Muslims and Jewish that all the problems jews faced in past or facing is the bitterness of God. Jews been butchered by romans and gerrmans and not in 1000,s but 10s of thousands or perhaps millions. Since these were the people who rejected almost all the God's messenger. They killd Azhai ( Forgive my spelling) Put david in jail for preching God's word and crucified Jesus. And still they don't beleive that Jesus was a messiah. Now once agian I do like to have some insight from members here if they know more details. Since I am in early learning stages of compartive religions. And their history.

CC,

<i>"One question - do you see the attack on Afghanistan as part of a global war on terrorism, or in some other way?"</i>

My understanding of our attack on the Taliban is that we are taking the first step in a war on terrorism...or so it was presented. I think it very important that we succeed there in Afghanistan, else the war will escalate.

And yes, Tiassa had some good thoughts. I think, however, that if we had failed to respond quickly and decisively, we would have left ourselves open for more bold assaults.

Holly,

The face of evil is defined. Is it not.

We didn't fight before, and the terrorist killed 5,000 people. If we don't fight they'll continue to kill, driving us deeper into a isolationist fox hole.

I respect the oppinions of those opposed to war, eventhough I don't agree. In an ideal world there wouldn't be any war or fighting to begin with. But we don't live in an ideal world.

The terrorists can only be stopped with violence: war.

As ugly and horrible this human endeavour is, we must use it and destroy these people. We can look back on how to prevent such occurances from happening again, but only after the problem is fixed.

When your toilet is overflowing, you don't hypothesise on how to prevent plugging it. You take out a plunger, fix the damn thing, then work on how to stop it from plugging it.

We are fixing the world's toilet, to make sure it doesn't spill over on freedom's floor.

(Hey that was a pretty good analogy, if I do say so myself.)

When your toilet is overflowing, you don't hypothesise on how to prevent plugging it. You take out a plunger, fix the damn thing, then work on how to stop it from plugging it.

We are fixing the world's toilet, to make sure it doesn't spill over on freedom's floor. When my toilet runs, I jiggle the handle to reset the device. If this doesn't work, I have to get my hands wet untangling the chain.

Then one day we figured out that if we bent the arm holding the chain in two places, we could prevent the toilet from wasting water in the future.

Perhaps the answer is why we're clogging the toilet in the first place. Poor diet on our part? (Are we really that full of ...? ;) )Poor design on the toilet's part? Is there no better toilet on the market? Is the toilet we have the best we can get? Or is it simply too expensive to get a toilet that works?

I know it's nice to think that if we blow up this and this and this, the terrorism will stop. But thinking its nice has no effect on reality in this case.

When it's my toilet, I'm willing to put up with jiggling the handle instead of spending the money on a plumber to install a new toilet.

When it's human life, money's not an excuse. We don't set anything right by taking other lives. We only set things right by spreading liberty's benefits, not its wrath.

thanx,
Tiassa :cool:

13) I think that people have forgotton or at least not fully appreceated that the Jews have been persecuted since the time of Moses leaving Egypt. Russia had a crackdown by the Czars and Commies, Germany is self explanitory, and eastern Europe was a horrible place for the Jews. Anti-semitism ran rampid in the States and other industrialized countries. For this reason I think they deserve the state.

No doubt that Jews have faced continued persecution. It's a shame that the balance is restored by piling misery on Palestinians though, when we're talking about Germans, Russians, the US, the Romans etc. being responsible.

Arabs pay for the West's mistake. I think that's where some anger justifiably comes from.


We didn't fight before, and the terrorist killed 5,000 people. If we don't fight they'll continue to kill, driving us deeper into a isolationist fox hole.


I've often considered why terrorism continues. Desperation? Perhaps. Revenge? Maybe. Psychotic desire for violence? Possibly. Some, maybe all of these reasons. But freedom fighting (to use the cliche)? Is it an effective tool?

We always hear that terrorism achieves nothing and government's never talk to terrorists. Well, I don't think that's quite true.

The Moi Moi in Kenya were labelled terrorists by the British - blew up a few civilians, attacked and murdered farmers etc. The British said they'd never talk to them and cracked down hard, violently, with force. The Moi Moi's leader eventually became post-colonial Kenya's first leader after the British desparately tried to get around their pledge.

ANC in Africa. I think we all know the story. 'Terrorist' action was the big signal that something was wrong, and the world took notice. Mandela spent years in prison for terrorism, and went on the become a great leader. Most of his government was composed of 'terrorists'.

Ireland. The British would 'never negotiate'. A few secret chats with Jerry Adams and the Provisional IRA and we're on a path to peace (hopefully). Those bombs took their toll. Would the US have noticed otherwise? Would they have dug deep into their Bostonian pockets to pay for al-Qadhafi's semtex if there weren't a few big bangs for their buck?

And now we talk about the Palestinians. They certainly haven't been succesful. Is their cause really any different though? Asad compares Hamas to the French Resistence, opposing an occupying power. Perhaps this is a stretch, but not that much.

Of course, most of these examples are linked with a specific, territorial cause. We could talk about the Red Brigade and Bahden Meinhoff group and see how ineffectual their terror campaign was. I would suggest Bin Laden is in this category - those who want to change society - an impossible objective. But the way to get them is not with a big massive military attack (UK in Kenya, Ireland; South African army, Israel in the occupied territories), but through intelligence and the security forces (Red Brigade). A 'cultural' terrorist is all about publicity and rallying people to his cause through perceptions of injustice (because the cause is hazy). That's just what the US is giving al-Qaida.

Terroism, bad as it is, does work sometimes, and governments do negotiate. That's one of the reasons it's still around. But the type that is most effective requires a specific cause, this is what Bin Laden lacks. Don't give him one.

By any chance are you referring to the Mau Mau and their leader Jomo Kenyatta?

Moi Moi just doesn't ring a bell.

Umm, yes and rather embarrasing error. I think I was thinking of Daniel arap Moi, and somehow confused the terms around. But you get the idea.

tiassa,

Liberty was born through violence in the United States of America.

For the most part, Liberty has been defended via violence throughout this nation's history particularly when threatened by a direct attack on its homeland.

Being both peace-loving and freedom-loving, the current state of affairs causes much conflict for me personally. However, there are times when one must hit back if Liberty is to live. I'm especially surprised that the reaction was NOT a knee-jerk response on the part of the Bush administration and I was pleased to see a more restrained, better-planned and more humane approach.

Captain,

There is at least one Muslim country participating militarily, with trrops, in this war against the Taliban in Afghanistan. It is Afghanistan itself. Remember the Northern Alliance? There are also other "-stan" countries which are providing military airspace, military ground space and military intelligence to the coalition's military forces.

Oh yes we do - and, much to my shame, on both sides! We have allowed muslims, born and bred in the UK, to travel to Afghanistan, to "fight" (and hopefully die) for the taliban. Now, how we deal with any survivors from this phantom army when they return is open to conjecture. I think we will "turn a blind eye" and allow them back, even if they have killed allied troops. Such is the nature of the "public" socialist government and the "private" socialist government we currently "enjoy" in this country. :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Because this takes us back to the first point - just when does the US say they've completed the task?

When that pipe line is in operation and pumping cheap crude oil from the caspian sea to the markets of the west.
Battle won.

This whole thing about the oil pipeline makes me laugh. Iran <b>wants</b> that pipeline in a big way. I don't see Afghanistan gaining enough stability in the near future that the West should entrust such a valuable asset to its care. Iran, however, is the key to any such pipeline. If we are domesticating Afghanistan for the protection of oil, it is also for the protection of Iran.