In 1996, Osama bin Laden declared war against the United States. (Also against the Saudi Kingdom, incidentally.) He assembled an army, and established a worldwide network of covert operatives who were tasked with carrying out attacks against US military and civilian targets.
This you almost certainly know, unless you're an even bigger fool than you appear to be.
Why did he do this? Because Osama bin Laden advocated Islamism. Islamism is what we call Islamic theocratic totalitarianism. It's a political and social system in which basic freedoms are denied. And its core precept is worldwide domination, the unification of what they call the "Ummah," which is an Arabic word which is usually translated as "believers," but actually is closer to "mankind." Islamism, on the other hand, stands for the total domination of the entire human race under an oppressive, totalitarian, theocratic state.
That's what "the forces of Islamism" means. It means those people, all around the world, who are fighting to achieve that goal.
They want to enslave you. They want to create a world in which you can be told how long to grow your beard, what time to pray, and what you can and can't say in public or learn in school.
Do you like that idea, or do you oppose it?
Trillion dollar oil interests, U.S. support of numerous dictators across a number of states (from the Middle-East to Latin America), exploitation of the Middle-East throughout the Cold War, Western (US, British, & French) subjugation, murder, and dissection of the entire region.
Fine. Explain it to me. Tie all those random things together into an explanation of who it is that's trying to destroy our country and what we should do about it.
I have no problem with complexity. Show it to me.
Did 'the forces of islamism' push or are they just pushing back?
Who cares? That's a fine discussion for the postbellum period, but right now it's us versus them. It's a zero-sum game. If they experience victory, we experience defeat. Are you for Western victory or Western defeat?
Do they care at all about religion or are they hiding underneath its banner in order to achieve political gains?
That's exactly the point. Glad you've finally decided to catch up to the rest of the class. Islamism has about as much to do with Islam as the Crusades had to do with Christianity. But the Islamists have decided that worldwide, totalitarian Islam is the way to go, so that's what they're fighting for.
Of course, we can talk about the fact that Islam is essentially a medieval religion, and the fact that that's not helping us at all, but that's a side-issue.
Is the U.S. similarly hiding underneath the banner of national security or humanitarian concern for similarly selfish reasons?
The US is in a fight for survival. All other motivations are secondary now.
This is a war of opportunists hiding under the umbrellas of appealingly simple ideologies (islamic fundamentalism, capitalism, democracy, nationalism).
So you think Democracy is the same as Islamism, then?
We have this thing called the Constitution and it outlines what's involved in taking this nation to war.
Wrong again. Article I section 8 says simply that Congress has the power to declare war. That's it. It doesn't say anything about Congress being required to issue a declaration before a state of war can exist.
In fact, legally a state of war is said to exist anywhere there is an organized military presence and a sustained state of armed conflict.
I don't expect you to understand this. For being such a short document, it continually amazes me how few people have actually read our Constitution.
though you seem to indicate that debate is not allowed in your world.
"Debate" means discussion of a question. There is no question. We are at war.
Just to make it clear I'm all for waging war on Al Qaeda.
Then you are all for war with Iraq, since Iraq was home to hundreds of thousands of al-Qaida militants after Enduring Freedom. Right?
And I'll repeat mine, give it time, it will get there, just give it time.
"We don't want to give up half our land to you" equates to "Arab aggressors"? Okaaaay...
It wasn't their land.
Okay, let's make this simple. I'll use small words. In 1947, there were Jewish settlements and Arab settlements in the Mandate. The partition plan called for borders to be drawn around the Jewish settlements, where the Jews lived, enclose them, and declare them to be a state.
Get that? The land where the Jews lived. Not the land where the Arabs lived; the land where the Jews lived.
Thing is, the Arabs who lived in the region didn't want to see a Jewish state at all. They hate Jews and want them killed or scattered. So they rejected the whole idea of a Jewish state and went to war.
They lost....Nor has a "nation-state" called "New England" ever existed. Regardless, I live there.
Which has what to do with this discussion?
Additionally, the Jewish holy book seems to mention those pesky "Palestinians" quite a bit... What do you suppose that could mean, if no such people exist, nor did they ever?
Go to schul often, do you?
Two of those three we've done in recent history, and one we have not.
Which two? The genocide one? Or the expansionist one? Or the abolish-the-Constitution one?
No, I prefer to conclude that you are just a fucking idiot who doesn't know what he's talking about.
As a matter of fact, yes, I have. A close friend, for that matter. They want OUT.
Wait. You have one cowardly friend. But somehow they want out?
I spent nine months in Iraq, Kuwait, and Qatar. I talked to uncounted thousands of US soldiers. I ate with them, bunked down with them, and once, one of them threw me to the ground and lay on top of me while shrapnel rained down around me.
I don't give a flying fuck what your one close friend says.
To what, pray tell, could we surrender?
Surrender isn't just a transitive verb. I do not expect you to understand this.
So, you have a PhD on the new Iraqi constitution?
Well, I have a copy of it right here, if that's what you mean. I can, you know, READ.
But wait, we basically made them a US territory
The notion of an unincorporated territory has a specific legal meaning, basically established in Puerto Rico v. Shell, 1937. Iraq doesn't come close.
So, assuming US law holds there
It doesn't. Iraq is under Iraqi law and the jurisdiction of Iraqi courts.
how does declaring martial law not make it essentially a dictatorship?
Even in the United States, the least dictatorial of all nations, the option of the temporary imposition of martial law when circumstances demand it is guaranteed in Article 1 section 9. Andrew Jackson imposed martial law in New Orleans in 1812. The Governor of Idaho declared martial law in 1892. President Wilson imposed martial law on Colorado in 1914. San Francisco was under martial law following the dock workers' strike in 1934, and also after the earthquake in 1906. Hawaii came under martial law in 1941 following the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Your ignorance of the basic ideas behind governance and of American history should make you deeply ashamed.
You accuse a bunch of pacifists and cautious moderates of supporting violence.
No, I accuse a bunch of people who advocate violence against American troops of supporting violence. I accuse a bunch of people who support the violent overthrow of the American government and the capitalist system of supporting violence.
People who don't support those things who throw their lots in with ANSWER and the IAC just need to be more careful about who they align themselves with, that's all.
What the hell does "Support the Troops" mean anyway?
Haven't you been reading? I've answered this question repeatedly now. "Support the troops" means "don't support the people who kill our troops." It means "stop assuming that we're monstrous and the terrorists are noble."
Ever seen the bumper sticker that says "Support The Troops, Bring Them Home"?
For fuck's sake, read my posts!
If you try to argue that we shouldn't be at war, what you're really doing is arguing that we should surrender. What you're really doing is arguing that we should unilaterally withdraw our forces and our diplomatic and economic pressures and allow the forces of barbarism and tyranny to sweep across the globe. What you're really doing is arguing that we have no business bringing all the weapons in our arsenal to bear against those who provide aid, backing, and safe harbor to terrorists.
If you want to make that argument, at least have the basic human courtesy of making it out in the open. Don't hide it behind disgusting, disingenuous lies about supporting the troops by bringing them home.
I've been to a couple of those marches where one out of every 500 people in the US converges on DC to make their wishes heard.
Oh, please. Rubberneckers, opinionless college students, anti-capitalists, anti-Semites, conspiracy nuts, pro-abortionists... you name it. These so-called "marches" are social velcro for anybody with (a) something to say, or (b) the desire to see a show. I've been there, too. I've covered them. I've spent countless hours, including countless hours of videotape, talking to the people who attend those sorts of things. These are not cohesive masses of people with a firm grasp on foreign and military policy. They're dregs. They're the uneducated, the mentally ill, the deeply troubled, the deeply confused. If there are a thousand people at a "march," you might find three who have a meaningful opinion about the war on terror. The rest are just noise.
hundreds of thousands of people who are there because they want less dying, not more
Oooh, that's really going out on a limb! "I want less dying, not more!" Wow, that's really taking a stand!
You fucking idiot. How exactly do you hope to get "less dying, not more?" By sitting down and letting the people who are dedicated to the utter destruction of the United States and our way of life carry out their terrorist campaign unopposed? By stopping all of our economic, diplomatic, and military pressure and letting Islamism burn like a firestorm through the third world? By letting the conflict seethe until it erupts into outright global war, this generation or the next?
You have nothing to say, do you? You spew things like "less dying, not more," but you have nothing MEANINGFUL to say?
People complain about freedom of speech being supressed. This is because it is being supressed.
Wrong. IF IT WERE BEING SUPPRESSED, YOU WOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO SAY WHAT YOU HAVE SAID HERE.
Most of the censorship to date has been economic, not legal
Then it's not censorship, is it? Censorship is, by definition, the making of laws abridging the freedom of speech. I think I remember seeing something about that written down somewhere.
Let's start the debate off right. What *does* "Support Our Troops" actually m
Just what I read in the papers.... This was what a reporter from the New Yorker was saying on CNN this morning....
Sorry, but I'm not really interested in continuing this conversation with somebody who doesn't know anything more than what he reads in headlines and what he hears in six-second soundbites on the TV.
The things you're saying are false, and you're wrong to repeat them. Go educate yourself before spewing lies again.
Bullshit, there has been a Palastine and Palastinians for millenia.
Nope. There has never been a nation-state called Palestine, and there have never been people called Palestinians. Until today, sort of, kinda, a little bit.
The only reason there wasn't a nation state especially in the 20th century is that it was under colonial occupation by the Turks and then the British after World War I.
There was a nation-state. It was called Transjordan.
Try reading an alternative view of history for a change:
No, thanks. I think I'll stick to people who know what they're talking about, and who aren't trying to advance an agenda.
Please read. Please read the entire word. I said "the forces of Islamism." Unclear on what Islamism means? Well, let me see if I can't explain it simply. Islamism is a brutal and repressive social and political system based around two core precepts: the rejection of the human rights upon which Western civilization is based, and a policy of rampant expansionism.
But none of that matters, because these forces do not exist, according to Mr. Johnny Denies-a-lot here.
And they did not declare war against the United States in 1996.
Yes, they did. Don't wanna, you know, read? In the name of propriety, I will be your personally summarizing service.
The [Saudi] regime is fully responsible for what had been incurred by the country and the nation; however the occupying American enemy is the principle and the main cause of the situation. Therefore efforts should be concentrated on destroying, fighting and killing the enemy until, by the Grace of Allah, it is completely defeated.
Efforts should be concentrated on destroying, fighting, and killing America until it is completely defeated.
But this never happened, right?
What happend is that an arrobant united states had finally managed to piss off a large enough portion of the planetstrong enough they determined they could not stand it anymore.
So? I mean, let's set aside the question of whether that's actually what happened. You have your opinion and I have mine. So what? The point is that we are at war now.
Well, looks like your government said "could you please crash the planes into the these buildings".
Oh, great. Not only do you deny the existence of the enemy and the existence of the war, you also deny that 9/11 happened. Great. I wasted all this time replying to a fucking nutcase. Oh, well. Might as well finish. Maybe somebody else will read this and be enlightened.
Basically you are run bya group of politicians that - in front of any criminal court - would be convicted of fraud and a lot of crimes.
For example? I'm sick of the "BUSH LIED!!!" meme being spread without any corroborating examples at all. If you're going to accuse somebody of lying, you'd better be prepared to explain when, exactly, they lied. Point to a SINGLE KNOWINGLY FALSE STATEMENT made by the Administration. Point to a SINGLE LIE.
Your inability to do so--I know you can't, see, because I know more about this than you do and I know it didn't happen--means that YOU are the one who's lying.
It is ok if you are high nosed and arrogant and incompetent. As long as you can at least say you fight for the good thing. And this, pretty much, sums up why you got 9/11.
My key point is this: I don't care what the Islamists' motivations are. I don't care if they're fighting for world domination or puppies and bunnies or low, low prices on car insurance. I do not care. They have declared war against us, they are fighting against us, they are doing so through terrorism, a doctrine which we will not allow to exist any longer. Enough innocent people have been killed. Enough innocent people have lived in fear. We're ending it now. We will defeat them.
I think your definition of terrorism is pretty good.
Please don't try to give me credit for it. It comes from the United States Department of State.
Unfortunately, as others have pointed out more elequently than myself, a 'terrorist' is either the good guy or the bad guy, depending on what side you're on.
No. No, no, a thousand times no. A terrorist is always wrong, always bad, even if the motivation was sound. I think International ANSWER is a bunch of anti-capitalist, anti-freedom radicals who want to bring down the country that I love. That's a laudable motivation to act, assuming that it's founded. But firebombing their office is still not okay.
Revolutionary War fighters were either 'freedom fighters' or 'terrorists' when they took over British-run towns
Please point out JUST ONE example of a Revolutionary War fighter or group of fighters who carried out a violent sneak attack against civilians in an effort to terrorize (aha!) the populace.
I'm also not sure why you feel the need to include 'covert.'
That's a key part of terrorist doctrine: to operate in secret maximizes the psychological effect of terrorist attacks. And it's the psychological effect you're after, not the body count.
Is it so things like the bombing of Dresdon or Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or American crimes during Viet Nam, won't be able to be called 'terrorism'?
Well, those things AREN'T terrorism, obviously. Remember the definition of the term: covert attacks against noncombatants with the intention of influencing political of social policy through fear. Bombing during wartime is carried out with the intent of destroying the enemy's means to fight or will to fight. That's not terrorism. And war crimes, when they occur, are not terrorism either, for the same reason.
However, I'm intentionaly being difficult because I think it's _not_ as black-and-white as you're making it.
But it is, though. Terrorism refers to a specific doctrine of violence. It's not a catch-all word for "violence that I think is bad." Once you understand that, all the silly arguments about "freedom fighters" and moral relativism just melt away. They no longer apply.
The Russian implimentation of Communism was unforgiveable
You are being too specific. Communism itself is an evil ideology, no matter whose "implementation" you're talking about. Communism is a poisonous tree. No nourishing fruit can come from it.
But I don't see in your post how Iraq _was_ a threat to the US.
That's an arguable point. Iraq was a threat, in my opinion, because it possessed weapons it was not allowed to have, had demonstrated in the past a clear willingness to use them, had demonstrated in the past a clear willingness to use them against us, and had established contacts with networks of international terrorists both willing and able to strike at our essentially undefended homeland.
But take all of that out of the picture, and leave only Iraq's sponsorship of terrorism, and that's sufficient. A country that sponsors terrorism financially (which Iraq did) is an enemy of civilization and must be stopped. A country that sponsors terrorism by giving terrorists a place to base themselves (which Iraq did) is an enemy of civilization and must be stopped. Where diplomacy can work, diplomacy must be deployed. Where economic pressure can work, economic pressure must be deployed. Where diplomacy and economic pressure fail us--and we had a decade of failure in our pockets with Iraq--military force is not merely justified, but necessary.
But the first one (seemingly) never existed
No, no, no. Iraq did have stockpiles of proscribed weapons. These stockpiles have been found, cataloged, and destroyed. Artillery shells, ballistic missiles, binary and multiplex chemical agents, and so on. What has not been found is a big jug with the label "Saddam's sarin--handz off!" on it, and that's ev
How did you get the Karma bonus calling everyone who doesn't instantly adopt your rather unique and extreme view of the world things like "traitor" and "fool".
If you'll note carefully, you'll find that I reserve terms like "traitor" and "fool" for... well, traitors and fools.
You come a bit closer to a reasonable position and you'll find that I warm up immediately.
What do propose doing to all of us "traitors".
Calling you names in public forum, and trying my damnedest to change your horribly misguided opinions.
You are a flaming hypocrite when you spout off about what a wonderful thing it is to live in a "free" country and then harangue anyone who has the audacity to exercise that freedom and disagree with you.
Yes, because "freedom" means having to listen quietly and respectfully to idiots.
Oh, wait.
Thats because in your rather naive view of the world you don't understand the rather subtle long term strategic play for Iraq's oil.
Demand suddenly skyrocketed. The price for tinfoil hats is now $4.95 each.
The suspected goal of the play is to get Iraq's oil back on the market without U.N. restrictions, and without the money going in to Saddam's pocket.
The UN was ready and willing to lift the sanctions in 1992. The US demanded that they stay in place. The UN effectively did lift the sanctions when they instituted their disgustingly corrupt oil-for-food-and-also-weapons-and-bribes program. The US could have bought all the oil it wanted from Iraq.
Of course, the fact remains that the US doesn't really want that much oil from Iraq. Even before the 1990 invasion of Kuwait, when Iraqi oil was a glut on the market and it could have been bought at bargain-basement prices on the grey market, we imported more oil from Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and Mexico than we did from Iraq.
But let's ignore those things. Let's assume, for sake of your argument, that we were frothing at the mouth over Saddam's oil. Why would we care where the money went? Saddam's pocket or elsewhere. If we're as callously indifferent to the suffering of oppressed and tortured people as you believe we are, then why would we go to war and waste all this money to take Saddam out of the picture?
I mean, it's not like we can just go seize the oil. The Iraqi oil resources are still nationalized. (They were nationalized by the Saddam himself in 1992, and remain under the control of the Oil Ministry to this day.)
So just how is this subtle, insidious plan of yours supposed to work?
With Saddam out of the way spend a bunch of money developing Iraq's oil capacity
That doesn't quite make sense; I suspect a typo or something. But are you saying that Iraq lacked oil-exporting capacity? Saddam spent a fortune building up Iraq's oil-exporting capacity after the 1988 cease-fire with Iran. He spent a king's ransom modernizing the port of Umm Qasr so he could export every drop of oil he had and refill Iraq's depleted coffers. His dispute with Kuwait in 1990 was over oil prices, in fact. He had just gotten his production levels back to where he wanted them to be when he was dismayed to find that Kuwait was exporting more oil than he wanted them to, driving the market price down. So he invaded that country.
The port of Umm Qasr, the oilfields of the western desert, and the main pipelines were completely untouched in the 1991 Battle of Um al-Ma'arik.
Iraq's oil-exporting capacity in the 1990's was not a problem.
most of the money going in to Halliburton's pocket
Halliburton has absolutely nothing to do with Iraqi oil. The total extent of their involvement with Iraqi oil involved putting out fires and capping destroyed wells, cleaning up spills, and repairing the main pipeline which had been damaged by a terrorist bomb.
The other problem is, at present, Saudi Arabia has a great deal of control over the U.S. and the world because if
Are you saying this because you haven't heard of Brett Bursey, who was arrested and faced with a six-month sentence for holding a "No War for Oil" sign?
That's like saying that the killer was arrested for wearing white shoes after Labor Day.
Brett Bursey was arrested for trespassing. For security reasons, the Secret Service restricts access to public property when the President is visiting. They do that because in the past people with an axe to grind have had a bad habit of taking potshots at our various Commanders-in-Chief, all too often with tragic results. This is just and proper.
Brett Bursey seemed to think that his cardboard sign somehow trumped national security. He was mistaken. When this was explained to him, he refused to relocate. And we're not talking about relocating to another county here, either. He was asked to move about a thousand yards down the tarmac. Others were also so asked, and complied, and were not arrested. Mr. Bursey became belligerent and refused to move, and so was taken into custody.
What if Mr. Bursey had had a.38 tucked into his belt? The Secret Service did not know whether he did, but he was certainly acting like he was angry about something, and he was insistent about getting into close proximity of the President, so they acted in the only reasonable way.
Once arrested, he was given a clean cell in which to wait, full and free access to legal counsel, hot food, and complete liberty to relieve himself, bathe, and conduct the other procedures relevant to basic human dignity.
If convicted of every crime he is accused of committing and sentenced with the full strength and weight of the government against him, he will serve six months in jail and pay a $5,000 fine.
God damn this fucking fascist dictatorship we live in.
Believe it or not if you are living in a free country there is ALWAYS room for debate
Sigh. I guess it's too much to expect that basic reading comprehension might be a prerequisite for participation.
The sky is blue. The sky is not green, it is not red, it is not yellow, it is not purple. It is blue. There is no debate about the color of the sky.
We are at war. War was declared against us, we were attacked repeatedly overseas, we were ultimately attacked in devastating fashion at home on a Tuesday morning, we took up the gauntlet and acknowledged the fact that we are at war. There is no debate about whether we are at war.
People who argue that we are not at war, or that we should not wage war, are almost always arguing that we should surrender to our enemies.
Is that what you mean about "always room for debate?" There's always room for somebody to stand up and say that we should surrender? Yes, there is. We live in a country that suffers fools gladly. Better men than you or I have given their lives to ensure that you, or somebody very much like you, would be able to stand up and say that we should surrender to the enemy.
trying to put an end to if if there is anyone willing to express an opposing view.
What is that opposing view? If that view is that we should lay down our arms and sing Kumbaya, by God, sir, you have expressed it, and I'll thank you to stop expressing it before you make yourself out to be an even bigger fool than you already are.
If that view is something else, then by all means have at it.
They shouted down anyone who disagreed with them in the beginning too, only later did they haul them off to prisons and concentration camps.
I'll repeat my core thesis: if this country were one tenth as bad as you say here that it is, you would be lying in the street in a pool of your own blood by now.
You are so wrong, at least according to the DOJ and Ashcroft last week.
Oh, please. There's a jurisdictional spat, and you're blowing it up into a sky-is-falling moment.
The Patriot Act apparently has a clause
Too much trouble to read it yourself? It's section 377.
Any person who, outside the jurisdiction of the United States, engages in any act that, if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States, would constitute an offense under subsection (a) or (b) of this section, shall be subject to the fines, penalties, imprisonment, and forfeiture provided in this title if--
(1) the offense involves an access device issued, owned, managed, or controlled by a financial institution, account issuer, credit card system member, or other entity within the jurisdiction of the United States; and
(2) the person transports, delivers, conveys, transfers to or through, or otherwise stores, secrets, or holds within the jurisdiction of the United States, any article used to assist in the commission of the offense or the proceeds of such offense or property derived therefrom.
In other words, if you commit an act overseas that would have been a crime if you'd committed it here and you used US-based funds or found facilitation or safe harbor in the US, the government has the option of prosecuting you under its jurisdiction.
Subsections a and b mentioned refer to Title 18 section 1029, which was not amended by the Act.
The worst thing you did here was made it sound like the Patriot Act is a tiny little law that did a few specific sage little things.
The USA PATRIOT act is a vast piece of legislation that did a few specific, sage, little things. What's more, you can READ IT YOURSELF because THIS IS AMERICA AND THAT IS HOW WE DO THINGS HERE.
The "support the troops" slogan is meant to deflect attention from the reasons the troops are there in the first place.
OK, let's talk about that. The forces of Islamism declared war against the United States in 1996. We did not take the declaration seriously despite numerous serious attacks against our own citizens overseas and even more numerous failed plots to attack our citizens at home. Then 9/11 happened, and we said, "This is enough. This will not continue." And now our troops are overseas in places like Iraq and Afghanistan and the Philippines fighting to defeat or destroy those who would seek to inflict harm on our citizens.
I'm equating Iraq with terrorism, of which 9/11 was the most dramatic example. Whether Iraq actually had a hand in 9/11 or not doesn't matter one damn to me.
Of course, there is that troubling matter of the Iraqi Military Intelligence operative and member of the Fedayeen Saddam who escorted two of the 9/11 hijackers to their meeting in KL. What do you make of that?
The two are unrelated, as the 9/11 comission has found.
You're grossly oversimplifying the Commission's statement... and besides which, it seems pretty clear that the Commission itself jumped to conclusions.
As is hopefully common knowledge, Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda are the culprits.
Yes, as are the people who supported them, bankrolled them, gave them safe harbor. But we're not seeking retribution for 9/11. We're not exacting punishment for a single act. We're in a war against an ideology. Wherever a person commits an act of terrorism, we have an enemy. Wherever a person finances an act of terrorism, no matter who the target, we have an enemy.
What I am saying is that there is no reason for the west to be in Iraq.
Saddam personally bankrolled terrorism. He wrote checks to the families of murderers. Saddam planned assassinations of high-level US officials, including a former President. Saddam attacked our allies in the region, Qatar and Bahrain and Kuwait and the UAW and Israel. Saddam provided aid and safe harbor to members of al-Qaida after the fall of the Taliban. Saddam stockpiled weapons of mass destruction in contravention of US and UN surrender terms. Saddam murdered countless millions.
And the West has no reason to be in Iraq.
You're either blind or a fool. Which is it?
There's no WMD. (You can post some links to right wing blogs or magazines if you like, but the US govt hasn't actually been able to dig up any physical WMD on the ground).
Except huge stockpiles of artillery shells, stockpiles of ballistic missiles, facilities for the production of chemical and biological weapons, and ACTUAL CHEMICAL BOMBS USED AGAINST OUR FORCES. Not to mention a HUGE chemical bomb that was intercepted at the Jordanian border with Syria that has been traced to Saddam.
But those don't count, right?
Saddam's government was dodgy, but no more so than, say, North Korea or Indonesia.
That's funny. I don't remember North Korea or Indonesia bankrolling terrorists, or letting al-Qaida members set up training camps in their country with the full support and assistance of their military intelligence directorates, or concocting assassination plans against US officials. I also seem to have forgotten the decade-long pattern of Indonesian or DPRK defiance of binding Chapter VII UN Security Council resolutions.
I'm pretty sure the U.S., Britain and the Jews started the war with the Arabs about 50 years ago when they kicked the Palastinians out of their homes and homeland after World War II.
Guess again. The 1948 partition plan called for a Jewish state about half the size of the present state of Israel with ridiculously convoluted borders. Why convoluted? Because the borders were drawn to enclose Jewish settlements and avoid Arab settlements.
How did the Arabs, who were going to get the lion's share of the Levant in the partition plan, react? By attacking the Jewish settlements. The Jews defeated the Arab aggressors and, since peaceful partition had been rejected, took their state by force.
The same basic thing happened in 1967, and again in 1973.
There were no "Palestinians," incidentally. There has never been a nation-state called "Palestine." At the time, the people who live in what we now call "Palestine" were Jordanians and Egyptians.
But please don't let the facts get in the way of your desperate desire to blame it all on the Jews. Hell, why not go all the way back? Blame it all on Sarah. It was Sarah who ordered Abraham to cast Hagar and her son Ishmael out of their house, after all. It was Sarah who wanted Isaac to be Abraham's only son. If you want to blame somebody, blame Sarah.
I'm pretty sure we are still fighting Fascism today though its appearing in the form of the Republican party today.
Right, because key planks in the Republican party platform include the abolition of the Constitution, wars of expansionist aggression on our northern and southern borders, and the extermination of millions of people in the name of racial purity.
Oh, wait.
Its coming in slow motion but if Bush gets another four years, he has another Republican Congress and especially if there is another big attack on the U.S. you will be living in a velvet gloved police state.
I'll repeat my offer: tin-foil hats, 3 for $9.99. Going fast. Get 'em while you can.
Let's start flying them home tomorrow...
Like I said: you don't propose that we support the troops. You propose that we surrender. Sorry, but I'm not willing to coexist with Islamism, with religious totalitarianism, with terrorism as official state policy. Better war than that.
I'm guessing 90% of them have had enough of Iraq
Ever been there? Ever talked to the troops serving in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in South Korea, in Germany, in the Philippines? I've been there. (Not to all of those places, but to some.) I've talked to the troops. I've shared meals with them.
I don't recall anybody saying that they've had enough of Iraq. I don't recall anybody saying that they wanted to give up. I recall lots of tearful recollections of home, lots of well-worn photographs of wives and husbands and sons and daughters. But to the last, they told me that they will stay where they are assigned as long as it takes to defeat the enemy, to defeat the ideology that wants to enslave the world under the iron fist of Islamism. Because they don't want their children to grow up in that world. They don't want their children to have to watch another 9/11 on television or out their windows.
Apparently the new interim prime minister of Iraq was one of Saddam's thugs and assassins in the 70's.
Heh. Check your facts again. Allawi was a member of the Baath party in the 1960's, but left the party during the coups of the late 60's and early 70's. He was never a thug or an assassin.
He was suggesting martial law as the best solution to the on going violence a couple days ago, which would make him dictator.
Sigh. Your understanding of the intricacies of government is truly dizzying.
Would it kill you, I mean seriously, would you actually DIE if you read more than just the headlines in your morning paper? Would it kill you to read the whole story, and to understand the facts and the context?
It implies that there is some greater good that we are pursuing
We are pursuing an end to terrorism as a political and a military philosophy.
that the term terrorism can be objectively defined
The term "terrorism" has been objectively defined as the use of covert attacks against noncombatants with the purpose of influencing political or social policy through the creation of widespread fear.
and that the sides of this issue can be cleanly divided into right and wrong, good and evil, black and white.
Those who practice, facilitate, finance, or advocate terrorism are wrong and evil. Those who eschew and oppose terrorism aren't.
a war against one of the world's largest religious faiths.
Based on the rest of your comment, I'm not surprised that you misunderstand the basic terminology at work here. Islamism is not Islam. Islamism is ultra-extremist Islam expressed as a political and social philosophy. It's an entire system of governance and of society. It rejects the very ideals on which our society is based: freedom of speech and assembly, freedom of association, freedom of religious expression. These things are all severely abridged or prohibited entirely under Islamism. That's not religion; that's social policy. The right to due process, the right to be free from cruel or disproportionate punishment, the right to be free of self-incrimination or forced confession: these rights are denied under Islamism. They're not even acknowledged to be rights at all. The ideas simply do not exist, and their expression is not tolerated.
Islamism is not Islam. Islamism is a sickness, a scourge. It's a force which we must defeat, one which we have a responsibility to defeat.
At the risk of beating a dead horse, the USA does not care in the slightest about the well-being of the third world.
Because in our world, in our time, it's possible for you to build a bomb in your country, put it on a container ship, and sail it into my country's harbors, the USA cares very much about the well-being of the third world.
We don't care about Saddam Hussein; after all, we practically put him in power.
Saddam came to power in Iraq in 1969, long before the United States got involved in Iraqi affairs.
It was in Britain/US's best interest to destabilize the region by arming the Bedouine tribes there and essentially helping stop the March of civilisation that the Turks were (brutally) bringing to the region.
Wow. That's a new one on me. Everything would have been fine in Iraq if we'd only let the Turks continue to dominate the region: is that your argument?
News flash: there are tyrants all over the world, and many of them we put into power in the name of fighting Communism.
And it was the right decision to do so. Communism killed more people in the 20th century than any other man-made cause. It killed more people than war, it killed more people than murder, it killed more people than any other force short of disease. Well-thought-out estimates put the death toll due to communism at more than two hundred million, and climb dizzyingly toward the one billion mark when you figure in indirect deaths such as the millions of Russians who didn't survive the winters of economic collapse, the famines of central Asia, the almost unimaginable dearth of medical care available in the Warsaw Pact and China. If the USSR hadn't fallen, and the network of Soviet client-states largely collapsed with it, that death toll would be climbing still.
And that doesn't even begin to calculate the countless teeming masses of innocent people who were born under communism, lived under communism, and died under communism, never tasting freedom, never knowing liberty, never experiencing opportunity.
Sometimes you have no choice but to pick the lesser of two evils. Sometimes that's a hard decision. When it came to communism, it wasn't a hard decision at all.
WTF? What does this comment have to do with this story? It's like "MacFury" spasmodically hit the "BUSHITLER!!!" keyboard shortcut without even trying to establish a relationship in context.
Perhaps people are being put in jail for saying "bad" things.
Tin foil hats are on sale at the Target down the road. Want me to pick one up for you?
No one would know because the USA PATRIOT Act allows the government to hold anyone for indefinite periods of time for any reason without outside contact.
That's yet another in a long line of absurd lies about the content of that piece of legislation. What the USA PATRIOT act did was extend FISA to include agents who are not acting on behalf of a foreign government. It extended laws we already had on the books for dealing with spies to cover agents of non-state entities like al-Qaida.
That's all it did. It did not create new laws. It did not give the FBI new powers. It simply extended the powers they already had to surveil, investigate, and pursue agents of foreign governments to cover agents not affiliated or directly sponsored by any state.
If you read the bill instead of the lies and the propaganda, you'd know this.
Or if you say something the Administration doesn't like, such as the fact that their claims about the Iraqi war was based on falsified documentation, then they simply out your wife as an undercover CIA operative.
I think they're three for $9.99. That's a pretty good price, right? I read about it in the circular I got in my mailbox this morning. How many do you want me to get for you?
And what about being just plain old being censored? The Dixie Chicks, Bill Maher, and Helen Thomas all faced some sort of retribution because of their viewpoints.
At what point were the Dixie Chicks, Bill Maher, or Helen Thomas censored? Are you unclear on what "censored" means? "Censored" does not mean "told to shut the hell up by private citizens who are sick of your particular line of bullshit."
Agree with them or not, democracy is founded on two-sided debate; a one-sided debate is called totalitarianism.
Um... no. That's not what "totalitarianism" means. See, there were some good things about the USSR and their satellite states. A tragedy that destroyed the lives of hundreds of millions of people throughout the latter half of the 20th century, sure, but when the USSR was still around we could always look to it and say, "That's totalitarianism. That's how bad things can get. That's what we oppose. That's what we need to fight against."
Now that that cautionary example is gone, the West is positively riddled with dumbasses like this one who think that the fact that the Dixie Chicks' customers stopped buying their records means we've slid into totalitarianism.
This is what I'm talking about. This is what makes me laugh.
Friend, if this country were one tenth as bad as you think it is, you'd have been dragged out of your home in the middle of the night, put down on your knees in the street, and shot right between the eyes long, long ago.
You're a damn fool, and I can only pray that one day you'll grow up enough to realize it.
We're at war. We're at war with Islamism now as surely as we were at war with fascism in 1943, as surely as we were at war with communism in 1986. We're at war.
If you try to argue that we shouldn't be at war, what you're really doing is arguing that we should surrender. What you're really doing is arguing that we should unilaterally withdraw our forces and our diplomatic and economic pressures and allow the forces of barbarism and tyranny to sweep across the globe. What you're really doing is arguing that we have no business bringing all the weapons in our arsenal to bear against those who provide aid, backing, and safe harbor to terrorists.
If you want to make that argument, at least have the basic human courtesy of making it out in the open. Don't hide it behind disgusting, disingenuous lies about supporting the troops by bringing them home.
"Support the troops" is vitally important because not everybody does, and we need to be mindful of that fact.
That's the one you're not allowed to talk about.
You know what always cracks me up about these assertions that people "aren't allowed to talk" about certain things? It's this: if these assertions were true, then people would be put in jail for making them.
Whenever you hear someone spout off about how freedom of speech is being suppressed, or how it's a fascist state, or how Bush = Hitler, ask yourself why that person isn't rotting behind bars or in an unmarked mass grave... and then ask yourself if it's just possible that that person might be full of shit and not worth your time and attention.
I've been following detailed accounts of the situation in Iraq since the war started.
And yet you get basic things like names and numbers wrong. How do you explain that?
Now, in an effort to bolster the 37,000 member Iraqi police force...
Christ, how old is that quote? The number has been a steady 260,000 for nearly two months now.
Here's the deal: you're wrong. That's nothing to be ashamed of; it happens to everybody sooner or later. But the problem is that you know you're wrong, and yet you persist in believing things that are no longer true, or that were never true. And, as if that weren't enough, you repeat these things. You're spreading lies.
Let me repeat that: you are spreading lies.
Now shut the fuck up you fucking liar. I've had it up to here with your amateurish attempts to deceive.
A few US advisors leave and the largest US Embassy in the world moves in - and you can't comprehend that.
Heh. Wanna hear something funny? Right now I'm sitting about forty feet away from Robin Wright. Why is this funny? Because she's the one who wrote that Washington Post story you're referring to.
The troop count including the British and others is going to be 150,000 when the rotation finishes - you can't comprehend that either, right?
Why do you keep getting numbers wrong? It's 138,000.
And you figure 150,000 US troops means there is no US "presence" in Iraq after the 30th - even though Bremer and the others remain in command of virtually everything.
Seems like we need to take a second and remember what we're talking about here. I mean, assuming you can wrap your head around basic ideas. Basic idea #1: an idiot upthread said that the US was hiring Americans instead of Iraqis to rebuild Iraq. The US isn't hiring anybody. There is no official US presence in Iraq to do any hiring. Yes, there are Coalition troops, but they don't hire people, do they?
Am I going too fast for you?
Mr. Bremer hasn't been in charge of anything since June 5. His official capacity was dissolved on that day. He remains in Baghdad as the chief United States diplomat to the Iraqi Interim Government. On July 1, he'll go home and be replaced by Mr. Negroponte.
Should I slow down? Is your tiny little head spinning?
Slashdot Mirror
What the hell are 'the forces of islamism'?
Basic education time.
In 1996, Osama bin Laden declared war against the United States. (Also against the Saudi Kingdom, incidentally.) He assembled an army, and established a worldwide network of covert operatives who were tasked with carrying out attacks against US military and civilian targets.
This you almost certainly know, unless you're an even bigger fool than you appear to be.
Why did he do this? Because Osama bin Laden advocated Islamism. Islamism is what we call Islamic theocratic totalitarianism. It's a political and social system in which basic freedoms are denied. And its core precept is worldwide domination, the unification of what they call the "Ummah," which is an Arabic word which is usually translated as "believers," but actually is closer to "mankind." Islamism, on the other hand, stands for the total domination of the entire human race under an oppressive, totalitarian, theocratic state.
That's what "the forces of Islamism" means. It means those people, all around the world, who are fighting to achieve that goal.
They want to enslave you. They want to create a world in which you can be told how long to grow your beard, what time to pray, and what you can and can't say in public or learn in school.
Do you like that idea, or do you oppose it?
Trillion dollar oil interests, U.S. support of numerous dictators across a number of states (from the Middle-East to Latin America), exploitation of the Middle-East throughout the Cold War, Western (US, British, & French) subjugation, murder, and dissection of the entire region.
Fine. Explain it to me. Tie all those random things together into an explanation of who it is that's trying to destroy our country and what we should do about it.
I have no problem with complexity. Show it to me.
Did 'the forces of islamism' push or are they just pushing back?
Who cares? That's a fine discussion for the postbellum period, but right now it's us versus them. It's a zero-sum game. If they experience victory, we experience defeat. Are you for Western victory or Western defeat?
Do they care at all about religion or are they hiding underneath its banner in order to achieve political gains?
That's exactly the point. Glad you've finally decided to catch up to the rest of the class. Islamism has about as much to do with Islam as the Crusades had to do with Christianity. But the Islamists have decided that worldwide, totalitarian Islam is the way to go, so that's what they're fighting for.
Of course, we can talk about the fact that Islam is essentially a medieval religion, and the fact that that's not helping us at all, but that's a side-issue.
Is the U.S. similarly hiding underneath the banner of national security or humanitarian concern for similarly selfish reasons?
The US is in a fight for survival. All other motivations are secondary now.
This is a war of opportunists hiding under the umbrellas of appealingly simple ideologies (islamic fundamentalism, capitalism, democracy, nationalism).
So you think Democracy is the same as Islamism, then?
Fuck.
We have this thing called the Constitution and it outlines what's involved in taking this nation to war.
Wrong again. Article I section 8 says simply that Congress has the power to declare war. That's it. It doesn't say anything about Congress being required to issue a declaration before a state of war can exist.
In fact, legally a state of war is said to exist anywhere there is an organized military presence and a sustained state of armed conflict.
I don't expect you to understand this. For being such a short document, it continually amazes me how few people have actually read our Constitution.
though you seem to indicate that debate is not allowed in your world.
"Debate" means discussion of a question. There is no question. We are at war.
Just to make it clear I'm all for waging war on Al Qaeda.
Then you are all for war with Iraq, since Iraq was home to hundreds of thousands of al-Qaida militants after Enduring Freedom. Right?
And I'll repeat mine, give it time, it will get there, just give it time.
Nutcase.
"We don't want to give up half our land to you" equates to "Arab aggressors"? Okaaaay...
...Nor has a "nation-state" called "New England" ever existed. Regardless, I live there.
It wasn't their land.
Okay, let's make this simple. I'll use small words. In 1947, there were Jewish settlements and Arab settlements in the Mandate. The partition plan called for borders to be drawn around the Jewish settlements, where the Jews lived, enclose them, and declare them to be a state.
Get that? The land where the Jews lived. Not the land where the Arabs lived; the land where the Jews lived.
Thing is, the Arabs who lived in the region didn't want to see a Jewish state at all. They hate Jews and want them killed or scattered. So they rejected the whole idea of a Jewish state and went to war.
They lost.
Which has what to do with this discussion?
Additionally, the Jewish holy book seems to mention those pesky "Palestinians" quite a bit... What do you suppose that could mean, if no such people exist, nor did they ever?
Go to schul often, do you?
Two of those three we've done in recent history, and one we have not.
Which two? The genocide one? Or the expansionist one? Or the abolish-the-Constitution one?
No, I prefer to conclude that you are just a fucking idiot who doesn't know what he's talking about.
As a matter of fact, yes, I have. A close friend, for that matter. They want OUT.
Wait. You have one cowardly friend. But somehow they want out?
I spent nine months in Iraq, Kuwait, and Qatar. I talked to uncounted thousands of US soldiers. I ate with them, bunked down with them, and once, one of them threw me to the ground and lay on top of me while shrapnel rained down around me.
I don't give a flying fuck what your one close friend says.
To what, pray tell, could we surrender?
Surrender isn't just a transitive verb. I do not expect you to understand this.
So, you have a PhD on the new Iraqi constitution?
Well, I have a copy of it right here, if that's what you mean. I can, you know, READ.
But wait, we basically made them a US territory
The notion of an unincorporated territory has a specific legal meaning, basically established in Puerto Rico v. Shell, 1937. Iraq doesn't come close.
So, assuming US law holds there
It doesn't. Iraq is under Iraqi law and the jurisdiction of Iraqi courts.
how does declaring martial law not make it essentially a dictatorship?
Even in the United States, the least dictatorial of all nations, the option of the temporary imposition of martial law when circumstances demand it is guaranteed in Article 1 section 9. Andrew Jackson imposed martial law in New Orleans in 1812. The Governor of Idaho declared martial law in 1892. President Wilson imposed martial law on Colorado in 1914. San Francisco was under martial law following the dock workers' strike in 1934, and also after the earthquake in 1906. Hawaii came under martial law in 1941 following the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Your ignorance of the basic ideas behind governance and of American history should make you deeply ashamed.
No, I accuse a bunch of people who advocate violence against American troops of supporting violence. I accuse a bunch of people who support the violent overthrow of the American government and the capitalist system of supporting violence.
People who don't support those things who throw their lots in with ANSWER and the IAC just need to be more careful about who they align themselves with, that's all.
What the hell does "Support the Troops" mean anyway?
Haven't you been reading? I've answered this question repeatedly now. "Support the troops" means "don't support the people who kill our troops." It means "stop assuming that we're monstrous and the terrorists are noble."
Ever seen the bumper sticker that says "Support The Troops, Bring Them Home"?
For fuck's sake, read my posts!
I've been to a couple of those marches where one out of every 500 people in the US converges on DC to make their wishes heard.
Oh, please. Rubberneckers, opinionless college students, anti-capitalists, anti-Semites, conspiracy nuts, pro-abortionists... you name it. These so-called "marches" are social velcro for anybody with (a) something to say, or (b) the desire to see a show. I've been there, too. I've covered them. I've spent countless hours, including countless hours of videotape, talking to the people who attend those sorts of things. These are not cohesive masses of people with a firm grasp on foreign and military policy. They're dregs. They're the uneducated, the mentally ill, the deeply troubled, the deeply confused. If there are a thousand people at a "march," you might find three who have a meaningful opinion about the war on terror. The rest are just noise.
hundreds of thousands of people who are there because they want less dying, not more
Oooh, that's really going out on a limb! "I want less dying, not more!" Wow, that's really taking a stand!
You fucking idiot. How exactly do you hope to get "less dying, not more?" By sitting down and letting the people who are dedicated to the utter destruction of the United States and our way of life carry out their terrorist campaign unopposed? By stopping all of our economic, diplomatic, and military pressure and letting Islamism burn like a firestorm through the third world? By letting the conflict seethe until it erupts into outright global war, this generation or the next?
You have nothing to say, do you? You spew things like "less dying, not more," but you have nothing MEANINGFUL to say?
People complain about freedom of speech being supressed. This is because it is being supressed.
Wrong. IF IT WERE BEING SUPPRESSED, YOU WOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO SAY WHAT YOU HAVE SAID HERE.
Most of the censorship to date has been economic, not legal
Then it's not censorship, is it? Censorship is, by definition, the making of laws abridging the freedom of speech. I think I remember seeing something about that written down somewhere.
Let's start the debate off right. What *does* "Support Our Troops" actually m
Just what I read in the papers.... This was what a reporter from the New Yorker was saying on CNN this morning....
Sorry, but I'm not really interested in continuing this conversation with somebody who doesn't know anything more than what he reads in headlines and what he hears in six-second soundbites on the TV.
The things you're saying are false, and you're wrong to repeat them. Go educate yourself before spewing lies again.
Bullshit, there has been a Palastine and Palastinians for millenia.
Nope. There has never been a nation-state called Palestine, and there have never been people called Palestinians. Until today, sort of, kinda, a little bit.
The only reason there wasn't a nation state especially in the 20th century is that it was under colonial occupation by the Turks and then the British after World War I.
There was a nation-state. It was called Transjordan.
Try reading an alternative view of history for a change:
No, thanks. I think I'll stick to people who know what they're talking about, and who aren't trying to advance an agenda.
Please read. Please read the entire word. I said "the forces of Islamism." Unclear on what Islamism means? Well, let me see if I can't explain it simply. Islamism is a brutal and repressive social and political system based around two core precepts: the rejection of the human rights upon which Western civilization is based, and a policy of rampant expansionism.
But none of that matters, because these forces do not exist, according to Mr. Johnny Denies-a-lot here.
And they did not declare war against the United States in 1996.
Yes, they did. Don't wanna, you know, read? In the name of propriety, I will be your personally summarizing service.
Efforts should be concentrated on destroying, fighting, and killing America until it is completely defeated.
But this never happened, right?
What happend is that an arrobant united states had finally managed to piss off a large enough portion of the planetstrong enough they determined they could not stand it anymore.
So? I mean, let's set aside the question of whether that's actually what happened. You have your opinion and I have mine. So what? The point is that we are at war now.
Well, looks like your government said "could you please crash the planes into the these buildings".
Oh, great. Not only do you deny the existence of the enemy and the existence of the war, you also deny that 9/11 happened. Great. I wasted all this time replying to a fucking nutcase. Oh, well. Might as well finish. Maybe somebody else will read this and be enlightened.
Basically you are run bya group of politicians that - in front of any criminal court - would be convicted of fraud and a lot of crimes.
For example? I'm sick of the "BUSH LIED!!!" meme being spread without any corroborating examples at all. If you're going to accuse somebody of lying, you'd better be prepared to explain when, exactly, they lied. Point to a SINGLE KNOWINGLY FALSE STATEMENT made by the Administration. Point to a SINGLE LIE.
Your inability to do so--I know you can't, see, because I know more about this than you do and I know it didn't happen--means that YOU are the one who's lying.
It is ok if you are high nosed and arrogant and incompetent. As long as you can at least say you fight for the good thing. And this, pretty much, sums up why you got 9/11.
My key point is this: I don't care what the Islamists' motivations are. I don't care if they're fighting for world domination or puppies and bunnies or low, low prices on car insurance. I do not care. They have declared war against us, they are fighting against us, they are doing so through terrorism, a doctrine which we will not allow to exist any longer. Enough innocent people have been killed. Enough innocent people have lived in fear. We're ending it now. We will defeat them.
That's what matters.
I think your definition of terrorism is pretty good.
Please don't try to give me credit for it. It comes from the United States Department of State.
Unfortunately, as others have pointed out more elequently than myself, a 'terrorist' is either the good guy or the bad guy, depending on what side you're on.
No. No, no, a thousand times no. A terrorist is always wrong, always bad, even if the motivation was sound. I think International ANSWER is a bunch of anti-capitalist, anti-freedom radicals who want to bring down the country that I love. That's a laudable motivation to act, assuming that it's founded. But firebombing their office is still not okay.
Revolutionary War fighters were either 'freedom fighters' or 'terrorists' when they took over British-run towns
Please point out JUST ONE example of a Revolutionary War fighter or group of fighters who carried out a violent sneak attack against civilians in an effort to terrorize (aha!) the populace.
I'm also not sure why you feel the need to include 'covert.'
That's a key part of terrorist doctrine: to operate in secret maximizes the psychological effect of terrorist attacks. And it's the psychological effect you're after, not the body count.
Is it so things like the bombing of Dresdon or Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or American crimes during Viet Nam, won't be able to be called 'terrorism'?
Well, those things AREN'T terrorism, obviously. Remember the definition of the term: covert attacks against noncombatants with the intention of influencing political of social policy through fear. Bombing during wartime is carried out with the intent of destroying the enemy's means to fight or will to fight. That's not terrorism. And war crimes, when they occur, are not terrorism either, for the same reason.
However, I'm intentionaly being difficult because I think it's _not_ as black-and-white as you're making it.
But it is, though. Terrorism refers to a specific doctrine of violence. It's not a catch-all word for "violence that I think is bad." Once you understand that, all the silly arguments about "freedom fighters" and moral relativism just melt away. They no longer apply.
The Russian implimentation of Communism was unforgiveable
You are being too specific. Communism itself is an evil ideology, no matter whose "implementation" you're talking about. Communism is a poisonous tree. No nourishing fruit can come from it.
But I don't see in your post how Iraq _was_ a threat to the US.
That's an arguable point. Iraq was a threat, in my opinion, because it possessed weapons it was not allowed to have, had demonstrated in the past a clear willingness to use them, had demonstrated in the past a clear willingness to use them against us, and had established contacts with networks of international terrorists both willing and able to strike at our essentially undefended homeland.
But take all of that out of the picture, and leave only Iraq's sponsorship of terrorism, and that's sufficient. A country that sponsors terrorism financially (which Iraq did) is an enemy of civilization and must be stopped. A country that sponsors terrorism by giving terrorists a place to base themselves (which Iraq did) is an enemy of civilization and must be stopped. Where diplomacy can work, diplomacy must be deployed. Where economic pressure can work, economic pressure must be deployed. Where diplomacy and economic pressure fail us--and we had a decade of failure in our pockets with Iraq--military force is not merely justified, but necessary.
But the first one (seemingly) never existed
No, no, no. Iraq did have stockpiles of proscribed weapons. These stockpiles have been found, cataloged, and destroyed. Artillery shells, ballistic missiles, binary and multiplex chemical agents, and so on. What has not been found is a big jug with the label "Saddam's sarin--handz off!" on it, and that's ev
How did you get the Karma bonus calling everyone who doesn't instantly adopt your rather unique and extreme view of the world things like "traitor" and "fool".
If you'll note carefully, you'll find that I reserve terms like "traitor" and "fool" for... well, traitors and fools.
You come a bit closer to a reasonable position and you'll find that I warm up immediately.
What do propose doing to all of us "traitors".
Calling you names in public forum, and trying my damnedest to change your horribly misguided opinions.
You are a flaming hypocrite when you spout off about what a wonderful thing it is to live in a "free" country and then harangue anyone who has the audacity to exercise that freedom and disagree with you.
Yes, because "freedom" means having to listen quietly and respectfully to idiots.
Oh, wait.
Thats because in your rather naive view of the world you don't understand the rather subtle long term strategic play for Iraq's oil.
Demand suddenly skyrocketed. The price for tinfoil hats is now $4.95 each.
The suspected goal of the play is to get Iraq's oil back on the market without U.N. restrictions, and without the money going in to Saddam's pocket.
The UN was ready and willing to lift the sanctions in 1992. The US demanded that they stay in place. The UN effectively did lift the sanctions when they instituted their disgustingly corrupt oil-for-food-and-also-weapons-and-bribes program. The US could have bought all the oil it wanted from Iraq.
Of course, the fact remains that the US doesn't really want that much oil from Iraq. Even before the 1990 invasion of Kuwait, when Iraqi oil was a glut on the market and it could have been bought at bargain-basement prices on the grey market, we imported more oil from Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and Mexico than we did from Iraq.
But let's ignore those things. Let's assume, for sake of your argument, that we were frothing at the mouth over Saddam's oil. Why would we care where the money went? Saddam's pocket or elsewhere. If we're as callously indifferent to the suffering of oppressed and tortured people as you believe we are, then why would we go to war and waste all this money to take Saddam out of the picture?
I mean, it's not like we can just go seize the oil. The Iraqi oil resources are still nationalized. (They were nationalized by the Saddam himself in 1992, and remain under the control of the Oil Ministry to this day.)
So just how is this subtle, insidious plan of yours supposed to work?
With Saddam out of the way spend a bunch of money developing Iraq's oil capacity
That doesn't quite make sense; I suspect a typo or something. But are you saying that Iraq lacked oil-exporting capacity? Saddam spent a fortune building up Iraq's oil-exporting capacity after the 1988 cease-fire with Iran. He spent a king's ransom modernizing the port of Umm Qasr so he could export every drop of oil he had and refill Iraq's depleted coffers. His dispute with Kuwait in 1990 was over oil prices, in fact. He had just gotten his production levels back to where he wanted them to be when he was dismayed to find that Kuwait was exporting more oil than he wanted them to, driving the market price down. So he invaded that country.
The port of Umm Qasr, the oilfields of the western desert, and the main pipelines were completely untouched in the 1991 Battle of Um al-Ma'arik.
Iraq's oil-exporting capacity in the 1990's was not a problem.
most of the money going in to Halliburton's pocket
Halliburton has absolutely nothing to do with Iraqi oil. The total extent of their involvement with Iraqi oil involved putting out fires and capping destroyed wells, cleaning up spills, and repairing the main pipeline which had been damaged by a terrorist bomb.
The other problem is, at present, Saudi Arabia has a great deal of control over the U.S. and the world because if
Pretty funny typo up there. It's obviously UAE, the United Arab Emirates. Not UAW, the United Auto Workers. ;-)
Are you saying this because you haven't heard of Brett Bursey, who was arrested and faced with a six-month sentence for holding a "No War for Oil" sign?
.38 tucked into his belt? The Secret Service did not know whether he did, but he was certainly acting like he was angry about something, and he was insistent about getting into close proximity of the President, so they acted in the only reasonable way.
That's like saying that the killer was arrested for wearing white shoes after Labor Day.
Brett Bursey was arrested for trespassing. For security reasons, the Secret Service restricts access to public property when the President is visiting. They do that because in the past people with an axe to grind have had a bad habit of taking potshots at our various Commanders-in-Chief, all too often with tragic results. This is just and proper.
Brett Bursey seemed to think that his cardboard sign somehow trumped national security. He was mistaken. When this was explained to him, he refused to relocate. And we're not talking about relocating to another county here, either. He was asked to move about a thousand yards down the tarmac. Others were also so asked, and complied, and were not arrested. Mr. Bursey became belligerent and refused to move, and so was taken into custody.
What if Mr. Bursey had had a
Once arrested, he was given a clean cell in which to wait, full and free access to legal counsel, hot food, and complete liberty to relieve himself, bathe, and conduct the other procedures relevant to basic human dignity.
If convicted of every crime he is accused of committing and sentenced with the full strength and weight of the government against him, he will serve six months in jail and pay a $5,000 fine.
God damn this fucking fascist dictatorship we live in.
Believe it or not if you are living in a free country there is ALWAYS room for debate
Sigh. I guess it's too much to expect that basic reading comprehension might be a prerequisite for participation.
The sky is blue. The sky is not green, it is not red, it is not yellow, it is not purple. It is blue. There is no debate about the color of the sky.
We are at war. War was declared against us, we were attacked repeatedly overseas, we were ultimately attacked in devastating fashion at home on a Tuesday morning, we took up the gauntlet and acknowledged the fact that we are at war. There is no debate about whether we are at war.
People who argue that we are not at war, or that we should not wage war, are almost always arguing that we should surrender to our enemies.
Is that what you mean about "always room for debate?" There's always room for somebody to stand up and say that we should surrender? Yes, there is. We live in a country that suffers fools gladly. Better men than you or I have given their lives to ensure that you, or somebody very much like you, would be able to stand up and say that we should surrender to the enemy.
trying to put an end to if if there is anyone willing to express an opposing view.
What is that opposing view? If that view is that we should lay down our arms and sing Kumbaya, by God, sir, you have expressed it, and I'll thank you to stop expressing it before you make yourself out to be an even bigger fool than you already are.
If that view is something else, then by all means have at it.
They shouted down anyone who disagreed with them in the beginning too, only later did they haul them off to prisons and concentration camps.
I'll repeat my core thesis: if this country were one tenth as bad as you say here that it is, you would be lying in the street in a pool of your own blood by now.
Oh, please. There's a jurisdictional spat, and you're blowing it up into a sky-is-falling moment.
The Patriot Act apparently has a clause
Too much trouble to read it yourself? It's section 377.
In other words, if you commit an act overseas that would have been a crime if you'd committed it here and you used US-based funds or found facilitation or safe harbor in the US, the government has the option of prosecuting you under its jurisdiction.
Subsections a and b mentioned refer to Title 18 section 1029, which was not amended by the Act.
The worst thing you did here was made it sound like the Patriot Act is a tiny little law that did a few specific sage little things.
The USA PATRIOT act is a vast piece of legislation that did a few specific, sage, little things. What's more, you can READ IT YOURSELF because THIS IS AMERICA AND THAT IS HOW WE DO THINGS HERE.
Sorry if that's too much trouble for you.
The "support the troops" slogan is meant to deflect attention from the reasons the troops are there in the first place.
OK, let's talk about that. The forces of Islamism declared war against the United States in 1996. We did not take the declaration seriously despite numerous serious attacks against our own citizens overseas and even more numerous failed plots to attack our citizens at home. Then 9/11 happened, and we said, "This is enough. This will not continue." And now our troops are overseas in places like Iraq and Afghanistan and the Philippines fighting to defeat or destroy those who would seek to inflict harm on our citizens.
Which part of that do you not support?
Now you're equating Iraq with 9/11.
I'm equating Iraq with terrorism, of which 9/11 was the most dramatic example. Whether Iraq actually had a hand in 9/11 or not doesn't matter one damn to me.
Of course, there is that troubling matter of the Iraqi Military Intelligence operative and member of the Fedayeen Saddam who escorted two of the 9/11 hijackers to their meeting in KL. What do you make of that?
The two are unrelated, as the 9/11 comission has found.
You're grossly oversimplifying the Commission's statement... and besides which, it seems pretty clear that the Commission itself jumped to conclusions.
As is hopefully common knowledge, Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda are the culprits.
Yes, as are the people who supported them, bankrolled them, gave them safe harbor. But we're not seeking retribution for 9/11. We're not exacting punishment for a single act. We're in a war against an ideology. Wherever a person commits an act of terrorism, we have an enemy. Wherever a person finances an act of terrorism, no matter who the target, we have an enemy.
What I am saying is that there is no reason for the west to be in Iraq.
Saddam personally bankrolled terrorism. He wrote checks to the families of murderers. Saddam planned assassinations of high-level US officials, including a former President. Saddam attacked our allies in the region, Qatar and Bahrain and Kuwait and the UAW and Israel. Saddam provided aid and safe harbor to members of al-Qaida after the fall of the Taliban. Saddam stockpiled weapons of mass destruction in contravention of US and UN surrender terms. Saddam murdered countless millions.
And the West has no reason to be in Iraq.
You're either blind or a fool. Which is it?
There's no WMD. (You can post some links to right wing blogs or magazines if you like, but the US govt hasn't actually been able to dig up any physical WMD on the ground).
Except huge stockpiles of artillery shells, stockpiles of ballistic missiles, facilities for the production of chemical and biological weapons, and ACTUAL CHEMICAL BOMBS USED AGAINST OUR FORCES. Not to mention a HUGE chemical bomb that was intercepted at the Jordanian border with Syria that has been traced to Saddam.
But those don't count, right?
Saddam's government was dodgy, but no more so than, say, North Korea or Indonesia.
That's funny. I don't remember North Korea or Indonesia bankrolling terrorists, or letting al-Qaida members set up training camps in their country with the full support and assistance of their military intelligence directorates, or concocting assassination plans against US officials. I also seem to have forgotten the decade-long pattern of Indonesian or DPRK defiance of binding Chapter VII UN Security Council resolutions.
I'm old. The memory fades.
I renew my question: blind, or a fool?
I'm pretty sure the U.S., Britain and the Jews started the war with the Arabs about 50 years ago when they kicked the Palastinians out of their homes and homeland after World War II.
Guess again. The 1948 partition plan called for a Jewish state about half the size of the present state of Israel with ridiculously convoluted borders. Why convoluted? Because the borders were drawn to enclose Jewish settlements and avoid Arab settlements.
How did the Arabs, who were going to get the lion's share of the Levant in the partition plan, react? By attacking the Jewish settlements. The Jews defeated the Arab aggressors and, since peaceful partition had been rejected, took their state by force.
The same basic thing happened in 1967, and again in 1973.
There were no "Palestinians," incidentally. There has never been a nation-state called "Palestine." At the time, the people who live in what we now call "Palestine" were Jordanians and Egyptians.
But please don't let the facts get in the way of your desperate desire to blame it all on the Jews. Hell, why not go all the way back? Blame it all on Sarah. It was Sarah who ordered Abraham to cast Hagar and her son Ishmael out of their house, after all. It was Sarah who wanted Isaac to be Abraham's only son. If you want to blame somebody, blame Sarah.
I'm pretty sure we are still fighting Fascism today though its appearing in the form of the Republican party today.
Right, because key planks in the Republican party platform include the abolition of the Constitution, wars of expansionist aggression on our northern and southern borders, and the extermination of millions of people in the name of racial purity.
Oh, wait.
Its coming in slow motion but if Bush gets another four years, he has another Republican Congress and especially if there is another big attack on the U.S. you will be living in a velvet gloved police state.
I'll repeat my offer: tin-foil hats, 3 for $9.99. Going fast. Get 'em while you can.
Let's start flying them home tomorrow...
Like I said: you don't propose that we support the troops. You propose that we surrender. Sorry, but I'm not willing to coexist with Islamism, with religious totalitarianism, with terrorism as official state policy. Better war than that.
I'm guessing 90% of them have had enough of Iraq
Ever been there? Ever talked to the troops serving in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in South Korea, in Germany, in the Philippines? I've been there. (Not to all of those places, but to some.) I've talked to the troops. I've shared meals with them.
I don't recall anybody saying that they've had enough of Iraq. I don't recall anybody saying that they wanted to give up. I recall lots of tearful recollections of home, lots of well-worn photographs of wives and husbands and sons and daughters. But to the last, they told me that they will stay where they are assigned as long as it takes to defeat the enemy, to defeat the ideology that wants to enslave the world under the iron fist of Islamism. Because they don't want their children to grow up in that world. They don't want their children to have to watch another 9/11 on television or out their windows.
Apparently the new interim prime minister of Iraq was one of Saddam's thugs and assassins in the 70's.
Heh. Check your facts again. Allawi was a member of the Baath party in the 1960's, but left the party during the coups of the late 60's and early 70's. He was never a thug or an assassin.
He was suggesting martial law as the best solution to the on going violence a couple days ago, which would make him dictator.
Sigh. Your understanding of the intricacies of government is truly dizzying.
Would it kill you, I mean seriously, would you actually DIE if you read more than just the headlines in your morning paper? Would it kill you to read the whole story, and to understand the facts and the context?
When that
It implies that there is some greater good that we are pursuing
We are pursuing an end to terrorism as a political and a military philosophy.
that the term terrorism can be objectively defined
The term "terrorism" has been objectively defined as the use of covert attacks against noncombatants with the purpose of influencing political or social policy through the creation of widespread fear.
and that the sides of this issue can be cleanly divided into right and wrong, good and evil, black and white.
Those who practice, facilitate, finance, or advocate terrorism are wrong and evil. Those who eschew and oppose terrorism aren't.
a war against one of the world's largest religious faiths.
Based on the rest of your comment, I'm not surprised that you misunderstand the basic terminology at work here. Islamism is not Islam. Islamism is ultra-extremist Islam expressed as a political and social philosophy. It's an entire system of governance and of society. It rejects the very ideals on which our society is based: freedom of speech and assembly, freedom of association, freedom of religious expression. These things are all severely abridged or prohibited entirely under Islamism. That's not religion; that's social policy. The right to due process, the right to be free from cruel or disproportionate punishment, the right to be free of self-incrimination or forced confession: these rights are denied under Islamism. They're not even acknowledged to be rights at all. The ideas simply do not exist, and their expression is not tolerated.
Islamism is not Islam. Islamism is a sickness, a scourge. It's a force which we must defeat, one which we have a responsibility to defeat.
At the risk of beating a dead horse, the USA does not care in the slightest about the well-being of the third world.
Because in our world, in our time, it's possible for you to build a bomb in your country, put it on a container ship, and sail it into my country's harbors, the USA cares very much about the well-being of the third world.
We don't care about Saddam Hussein; after all, we practically put him in power.
Saddam came to power in Iraq in 1969, long before the United States got involved in Iraqi affairs.
It was in Britain/US's best interest to destabilize the region by arming the Bedouine tribes there and essentially helping stop the March of civilisation that the Turks were (brutally) bringing to the region.
Wow. That's a new one on me. Everything would have been fine in Iraq if we'd only let the Turks continue to dominate the region: is that your argument?
News flash: there are tyrants all over the world, and many of them we put into power in the name of fighting Communism.
And it was the right decision to do so. Communism killed more people in the 20th century than any other man-made cause. It killed more people than war, it killed more people than murder, it killed more people than any other force short of disease. Well-thought-out estimates put the death toll due to communism at more than two hundred million, and climb dizzyingly toward the one billion mark when you figure in indirect deaths such as the millions of Russians who didn't survive the winters of economic collapse, the famines of central Asia, the almost unimaginable dearth of medical care available in the Warsaw Pact and China. If the USSR hadn't fallen, and the network of Soviet client-states largely collapsed with it, that death toll would be climbing still.
And that doesn't even begin to calculate the countless teeming masses of innocent people who were born under communism, lived under communism, and died under communism, never tasting freedom, never knowing liberty, never experiencing opportunity.
Sometimes you have no choice but to pick the lesser of two evils. Sometimes that's a hard decision. When it came to communism, it wasn't a hard decision at all.
Do we
WTF? What does this comment have to do with this story? It's like "MacFury" spasmodically hit the "BUSHITLER!!!" keyboard shortcut without even trying to establish a relationship in context.
Perhaps people are being put in jail for saying "bad" things.
Tin foil hats are on sale at the Target down the road. Want me to pick one up for you?
No one would know because the USA PATRIOT Act allows the government to hold anyone for indefinite periods of time for any reason without outside contact.
That's yet another in a long line of absurd lies about the content of that piece of legislation. What the USA PATRIOT act did was extend FISA to include agents who are not acting on behalf of a foreign government. It extended laws we already had on the books for dealing with spies to cover agents of non-state entities like al-Qaida.
That's all it did. It did not create new laws. It did not give the FBI new powers. It simply extended the powers they already had to surveil, investigate, and pursue agents of foreign governments to cover agents not affiliated or directly sponsored by any state.
If you read the bill instead of the lies and the propaganda, you'd know this.
Or if you say something the Administration doesn't like, such as the fact that their claims about the Iraqi war was based on falsified documentation, then they simply out your wife as an undercover CIA operative.
I think they're three for $9.99. That's a pretty good price, right? I read about it in the circular I got in my mailbox this morning. How many do you want me to get for you?
And what about being just plain old being censored? The Dixie Chicks, Bill Maher, and Helen Thomas all faced some sort of retribution because of their viewpoints.
At what point were the Dixie Chicks, Bill Maher, or Helen Thomas censored? Are you unclear on what "censored" means? "Censored" does not mean "told to shut the hell up by private citizens who are sick of your particular line of bullshit."
Agree with them or not, democracy is founded on two-sided debate; a one-sided debate is called totalitarianism.
Um... no. That's not what "totalitarianism" means. See, there were some good things about the USSR and their satellite states. A tragedy that destroyed the lives of hundreds of millions of people throughout the latter half of the 20th century, sure, but when the USSR was still around we could always look to it and say, "That's totalitarianism. That's how bad things can get. That's what we oppose. That's what we need to fight against."
Now that that cautionary example is gone, the West is positively riddled with dumbasses like this one who think that the fact that the Dixie Chicks' customers stopped buying their records means we've slid into totalitarianism.
This is what I'm talking about. This is what makes me laugh.
Friend, if this country were one tenth as bad as you think it is, you'd have been dragged out of your home in the middle of the night, put down on your knees in the street, and shot right between the eyes long, long ago.
You're a damn fool, and I can only pray that one day you'll grow up enough to realize it.
'Support our troops' is a non sequitir in a debate about whether we should be at war at all.
There is no such debate. Seriously: there is no such debate.
If you're willing to overlook some blinding facts, you might be able to argue that we shouldn't have been at war... but that whole question kind of melts away when viewed in the light of the fact that war was declared against us by our enemies eight years ago, in light of the fact that one of our enemies repeatedly violated an unconditional surrender, in the light of the fact that that same enemy personally financed acts of terrorism against the United States and our closest allies, in the light of the fact that we were brutally and shamefully attacked on our own soil.
We're at war. We're at war with Islamism now as surely as we were at war with fascism in 1943, as surely as we were at war with communism in 1986. We're at war.
If you try to argue that we shouldn't be at war, what you're really doing is arguing that we should surrender. What you're really doing is arguing that we should unilaterally withdraw our forces and our diplomatic and economic pressures and allow the forces of barbarism and tyranny to sweep across the globe. What you're really doing is arguing that we have no business bringing all the weapons in our arsenal to bear against those who provide aid, backing, and safe harbor to terrorists.
If you want to make that argument, at least have the basic human courtesy of making it out in the open. Don't hide it behind disgusting, disingenuous lies about supporting the troops by bringing them home.
The point of public relations slogans like "Support our troops" is that they don't mean anything
Oh, that's so untrue. The idea behind "support the troops" runs exactly counter to ideas like "support the intifada" and "support the freedom fighters" and "support the armed resistance" and "support the deserters" that you hear all the time from anti-American radical leftist organizations that purport to oppose the war when they are actually supporting tyranny, thuggery, and terrorism that leads to the deaths of innocent foreigners and Americans at home and abroad.
"Support the troops" is vitally important because not everybody does, and we need to be mindful of that fact.
That's the one you're not allowed to talk about.
You know what always cracks me up about these assertions that people "aren't allowed to talk" about certain things? It's this: if these assertions were true, then people would be put in jail for making them.
Whenever you hear someone spout off about how freedom of speech is being suppressed, or how it's a fascist state, or how Bush = Hitler, ask yourself why that person isn't rotting behind bars or in an unmarked mass grave... and then ask yourself if it's just possible that that person might be full of shit and not worth your time and attention.
Where've you been? I don't work in anything like IT. This has been well known on Slashdot for nearly two years now.
How the fuck does a bullshit comment like this get moderated to "insightful?"
Viruses, both man-made and naturally occurring, reproduce. That's one of their defining characteristics.
The software doesn't propagate. So it's not a virus, nor is it virus-like.
Seriously: how does something so blatantly wrong get moderated up?
I've been following detailed accounts of the situation in Iraq since the war started.
And yet you get basic things like names and numbers wrong. How do you explain that?
Now, in an effort to bolster the 37,000 member Iraqi police force...
Christ, how old is that quote? The number has been a steady 260,000 for nearly two months now.
Here's the deal: you're wrong. That's nothing to be ashamed of; it happens to everybody sooner or later. But the problem is that you know you're wrong, and yet you persist in believing things that are no longer true, or that were never true. And, as if that weren't enough, you repeat these things. You're spreading lies.
Let me repeat that: you are spreading lies.
Now shut the fuck up you fucking liar. I've had it up to here with your amateurish attempts to deceive.
Just shut the fuck up.
A few US advisors leave and the largest US Embassy in the world moves in - and you can't comprehend that.
Heh. Wanna hear something funny? Right now I'm sitting about forty feet away from Robin Wright. Why is this funny? Because she's the one who wrote that Washington Post story you're referring to.
The troop count including the British and others is going to be 150,000 when the rotation finishes - you can't comprehend that either, right?
Why do you keep getting numbers wrong? It's 138,000.
And you figure 150,000 US troops means there is no US "presence" in Iraq after the 30th - even though Bremer and the others remain in command of virtually everything.
Seems like we need to take a second and remember what we're talking about here. I mean, assuming you can wrap your head around basic ideas. Basic idea #1: an idiot upthread said that the US was hiring Americans instead of Iraqis to rebuild Iraq. The US isn't hiring anybody. There is no official US presence in Iraq to do any hiring. Yes, there are Coalition troops, but they don't hire people, do they?
Am I going too fast for you?
Mr. Bremer hasn't been in charge of anything since June 5. His official capacity was dissolved on that day. He remains in Baghdad as the chief United States diplomat to the Iraqi Interim Government. On July 1, he'll go home and be replaced by Mr. Negroponte.
Should I slow down? Is your tiny little head spinning?
What I see on the news are quotes from average Iraqis who are NOT news and they are saying they are all concerned about their security.
You're wrong.
The "26,000 strong Iraqi police" are regarded by the average Iraqi as either criminal thugs or members of the insurgency.
Again, that's not true.
You know what amazes me? That you, an idiot who's never been within seven thousand miles of Iraq, purport to know what "the average Iraqi" thinks.
That amazes me.
Also, it's not 26,000. It's 260,000. You're off by a factor of 10. That's one Iraqi policeman for every 100 citizens.
Please stop speaking about a subject on which you are neither informed nor educated. Seriously: please stop.