If you want to live your life trying to please everyone around you, go right ahead, but thats not how the rest of the world operates. You'll find yourself getting used a lot.
As it is, we do get used a lot. We give more african aid than any other country, and it does nothing to help, the money mostly goes into the hands of warlords. They need REGIME CHANGE! You fools just say "ah, throw money at them! That'll fix it!" That is the most selfish thing. I have friends who're over there fighting in Iraq, that believe in the cause of freedom. You're just a fucking moron if you think pulling out is the answer. You're just a fucking moron. Blair bitch project, ha ha ha! funnnnnny!
Protecting the oil field is actually very important, as the world economy is dependant on it, so while people in the first world may pay higher gas prices, people in the third world will be dieing of starvation. You need to understand that the world economy is very complicated, every action has hundreds and thousands of reactions.
Oh my god I'm not even gonna respond to any of your other nonsense. You're a fucking moron.
You're talking about an entire race of people. It's as if you're trying to change what I said to "kill all arabs" or "kill all iraqi's", what I said was "kill all terrorists".
As for Hussein, you could also beat around the bush and say we should never have allowed slavery during colonization, but we're beyond that now, and it took a lot of fighting to correct that mistake. You make illogical analogies. If a gun store owner were to sell a man a gun and he goes and kills his family with it, do you hold the gun store owner accountable?
You have to take a position here, either you support insurgencies in countries where regime change is necessary, or you ignore the problem entirely, or you go in there and change it yourself. We have had success both ways, but never by ignoring the problem. The problem, if left unchecked, will get worse. I take it you would ignore the problem entirely.
Go re-read history, there was an active insurgency. The nazi party had to be rounded up and exterminated, one by one. They were even living in the United States. Back then people had no sympathy for the enemy, but it's not like that any more.
If the country lacks the necessary will the fault lies in its leadership.
You take this to mean GW Bush, I think there are others to blame, like almost every Democrat in the senate. They're using this to advance their own politics, they want to weaken Bush's leadership ability and the war is the perfect avenue for that. Making a big hoopla over some humiliating acts in Abu Graib prison is one example of our poor leadership, has nothing to do with GW's leadership style as it was not his role to prevent that sort of stuff, that was a failure lower down in the ranks.
Apologizing to the world would be an example of what a leader SHOULDN'T do, especially in time of war. It is the same as admitting to a mistake, and we don't think the Iraq war is a mistake like you do. THat's why you don't see apologies! You read up on Vietnam and find out why we lost that war, it was because of the stupid politics you're supporting, apologies and pussy footing.
The military has cut its recruitment targets in half and is still having problems meeting them. There are no marines sitting around waiting for something to do as you appear to believe.
You're a liar. The military has been increasing it's recruitment goals over the last few years, significantly, and they have only in the last few months failed to meet their goal. That is expected to change by years end.
I know a guy who's sitting around waiting to go back to Iraq. He's sure he'll have to go back, he just doesn't know when... I know another guy who just enlisted, he said there were over a hundred people at the enlistment office when he was there. Back when I enlisted, there were maybe 2 dozen. They aren't using all the armed forces at once, theres something like 250,000 deployed in the middle east out of like 700,000 servicemen. Get your facts straight, retard.
The Al Queda #2 was Zawahiri, and if you do some googling you'll find reports that he met with Saddam Hussein in 1992. APparently there are many links between Saddam Hussein and these terrorists: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTI CLE_ID=34841
If you want to beat that bush further, go right ahead. I think it's pretty stupid of you to claim that all the other middle east countries had connections with terrorism but that Iraq didn't.
Next, you want to assign some benevolent mission to Al Qaeda, like they have a just purpose, which is silly, and their stated purpose is to destroy the infidels/zionists. They use the words interchangeably to mean all of wester civilization, so don't get technical on me like you know more than Al Queda knows about it's self. Listen to reason, retard. Guess you're not as bright as I first suspected.
The cold war started right after WW2 when the soviets took over east Berlin, and ended with the fall of the Berlin wall, which was during the Reagan administration. How'd you interpret what I said as "Reagan started the cold war"? You're an idiot, and apparently you know very little about the cold war if you think it was limited to Eisenhower and Kennedy. Reagan dealt directly with the soviets in an arms race, it was his entire foreign policy. You remember? "Mr. Gorbachev, Tear down that wall!" Oh you probably weren't born yet!
Several of the serving officers were forced to retire for saying that it was a mistake to leave Afghanistan with the job unfinished.
Perhaps they were forced to resign for spreading misinformation like that we were leaving Afghanistan. We're still in Afghanistan.
WWII was a very different situation for several reasons. In the first place Roosevelt ordered both a draft and a general mobilization putting the entire economy on a war footing. From the invasion of Pearl Harbor to V-J day the entire focus of the economy was supporting the military actions.
Needless to say that has not happened, nor is it politically possible to do so at this point. The country simply does not have enough confidence in Bush's management of the invasion of Iraq to allow their kids to be drafted.
At the root of everything is that the country had the will to defeat Germany, and Japan, while Japan didn't kill as many in Pearl Harbor as the terrorists did in 9/11, the Germans most certainly would have continued the extermination of Jews had they been strong enough to reach our shores. That's what we're lacking today is will power, and I think it's because of a coalition of political leaders directly opposing Bush's efforts. War has been executed as good as you can expect. Of course, we're not going to start drafting people, because it's not necessary. I was making the point that America has the capabilities to start pumping out more warships and drafting marines at a moments notice. We could even increase the number of voluntary recruits by paying them more. The pay is currently 50% better than it was 5 years ago when I considered joining the military. I trust that you understand what our country is capable of, you're just using talking points that were targeted at ignorant fools who would believe that our military is stretched so thin as to make our homeland vulnerable to attack, but I don't think you're a fool.
Saddam was a secular leader, precisely the type of leader that the Islamists object to. The whole point of Al Qaeda was to replace 'apostates' like Saddam.
Woooo, maybe we should start building up Al Qaeda! I think you know less about Al Qaeda than I do, and that is not much! I know Al Qaeda #2 met with Saddam a number of years ago, I know Al Queda's stated purpose is to destroy all infidels (zionists). He may have hated Saddam for working with us against Iran, but things change. We were always the big target.
So you think Saddam would be helping us fight the Taliban? I think he would be doing the exact same thing Iran and Syria are doing right now, supporting terrorist operations to destabilize America's efforts, and the world would be just as much opposed to the invasion of Afghanistan as they are to Iraq. In case you haven't noticed, everything America does in the world is the target of massive criticisms, they criticize us for using the bomb to end WW2, they criticized Reagan for his cold war, everything will be criticized. As for your last sentence, I think this is another talking point gone bad. Al Zarqawi was simply hiding wherever he could, we weren't protecting him. Al Zarqawi has always been a criminal, a petty criminal, that's how Bin Laden saw him. He wasn't accepted anywhere he went.
I'll argue that there are less terrorists than before, and that their attacks are much less murdersome than before. Remember that the United States suffered about 100 times more deaths in our most recent terrorist attack. Care to defend your statements further?
Why don't you suggest a different plan? Someone else suggested we build bigger and bigger buildings for them to try and blow up, are you sticking by that? Should we start roundtable discussions with the terrorists? Lets legalize marijuana and smoke the terrorists out of our minds!
I'll vote for the guy who promises a much more agressive war on terror. They all need to be killed. That's the only way problems like this have ever been solved, throughout history, is by extermination.
Quit yer whining. Current report is that 37 people are dead. That is nothing in comparison to the 9/11 attacks. Bush, the same guy you're angry and frustrated at, has done an admirable job preventing any such attacks on OUR country, perhaps you should be pointing your boogered up finger at your own leaders, for failing to protect your country. You guys in the UK seriously have a lot more to worry about than you even realize. Seal your borders, start arresting these radical murderers like we're doing here. You can't expect America to protect the entire world, fool.
no- i disagree. Invading Iraq (no connections to 9/11, Al-Quada) was the worst thing to do. This administration losing focus on afghanistan and Bush telling the nation that he didn't care about Osama Bin Laden was the worst thing to do. Spreading our military so thin to fight a pointless war in Iraq that destabilized the entire region, and let Iraq become an open border den of terrorist activity, with extremists pouring in from nearly every country in the region was the worst thing to do.
The region was not stable to begin with. Our goal is stability, and stability is best achieved with a robust political system like democracy, first and foremost. One thing you leftists fail to realize is that terrorism can only exist at a high level of organization. There is a command and control structure, there has to be a source of funding for these terrorists, they need places to hide and not just in caves in the desert. If Saddam Hussein was still around he would most certainly have been sponsoring terrorists in Afghanistan. Afghanistan would have been the front, as it is Afghanistan is rolling along while Iraq takes most of the heat.
Our goal is democracy in Iraq. Our exit strategy is we will leave when democracy takes root and the Iraqi's start governing themselves. As far as I'm concerned, we've already achieved victory. We stuck around Germany long, long after we defeated them in WW2. I think your standards for victory are just too high, like you just expect more everybody to like us, that's your idea of victory.
That's not a practical goal.
To use the bully analogy, there are options besides caving and fighting. After the bully punches you. You stand back up, stick out you chest, and look at him, waiting for him to hit you again (they seldom do). Bullies don't know how to deal with this responce. They actually prefer you swing at them...
Haha, you obviously never got in a fight. The best thing you can do is go down in glory fighting with the bully. The next day you get pats on the back from all of your peers, and you come out on top in your mind, you don't go through the rest of your life asking yourself "Why didn't I just try to beat that bully? Why?". If you stick out your chest, you are asking for another slugging, what the bully wants you to do is turn tail and run. That is the worst advise I've ever heard. Kids don't listen to him.
Now it would be a sick world if we were to somehow, miraculously, LOSE the war on terror, and the rest of the world jeers at us the next day at school. Hey, isn't that the world we live in? Why, I think it is!
A man is the most dangerous when you take away his hopes and dreams, and from their perspective this is exactly what we have done (I am sure I stole that quote from somewhere). Lets not forget that only one nation has ever used a Nuclear Bomb during warfare, and it was used on civilians, TO SPREAD TERROR!
Oh my god, I can't believe this guy gets an insightful moderation. People in the middle east live under Islamic law, many of the countries have controlled borders, there is no coming or going, men have the right to kill their wives (note the plurality), there are a few hoarding all the wealth brought by their oil resources while the rest live in squalor. America comes along and LIBERATES Iraq from the control of a hostile dictator, and you want to make the point that we're taking away peoples hopes and dreams? That is utterly ridiculous. Insightful? My god, this is infantile!
The nuclear bomb saved many more lives than it took. Japan would not have surrendered. That was their whole military strategy, they saw America as weak politically, they didn't think we could take a bloody conflict. Had we gone on with the trench warfare, invading the Japanese homeland with infantry, some have estimated we would have lost 500,000 lives and countless more Japanese would have died.
By the way, you are completely incorrect about Iraq having connections to Al Qaeda. I believe the talking point you were looking for is that there was no connection between Iraq and 9/11. Al Qaeda has had a long history with Iraq, and Saddam Hussein.
It never ceases to amaze me how someone with this much misinformation could be moderated +5 Insightful. They need a damn -1 misinformation modifier.
Even if Bush's claim that Saddam was involved in 9/11 were true (it has never been substantiated) it was a major tactical error to open a second front before the first was secure.
Look at desktop commander here, making up military strategy. America has had the ability to fight wars on many different fronts for quite some time. We helped defeat Germany while single handedly defeating Japan, a 10x greater effort (or more) than what we have here. You just can't say how things would be different if we had never gone into Iraq. It's quite possible that Saddam could be undermining our efforts in Afghanistan, he probably would have given us plenty of reason to go in there, and Afghanistan would be even uglier than Iraq right now but they would be all juiced up for an invasion in Iraq.
You make it sound as if life in Gaza was all daisies before we intervened. It was a nasty conflict, and we intervened in an effort for peace, not just to support the Israelis. If we wouldn't have intervened, I think the Israeli's would have eventually obliterated most of their Arab neighbors, they certainly had a superior military to begin with, sometimes you just need total military dominance to end a conflict, that has been American strategy for decades. Don't forget why the Jews were in Israel at the time, they were all being senselessly slaughtered in eastern europe by the nazi's during WW2. Besides that, hardly anybody lives in Gaza or the Golan Heights. There was a MASSIVE exodus, and for palestinians to say "we dont want you living on our wastelands" is just stupid, and reflects the same mentality the Nazi's had. That's the difference between the two sides in this conflict, one side has the ability to totally obliterate the other, but all they want is peace. The other side wishes they had the ability to obliterate the other, and it's tearing them apart.
So don't pretend like you know what it's like to have your family killed by Americans. Why don't you try and imagine your mom and sister being blown up on a crowded bus on the way to school.
Here here. This guy has made a very good argument, without resorting to name calling like I would have done:)
On the topic of history and correlations that can be made between present and past events, I'd like to add that the middle east used to be a relatively advanced civilization, hundreds of years ago starting right smack in the middle of Iraq with the river valley civilizations. I think the real factor that caused their civilization to go downhill was the abundance of wealth they found themselves living on. The same thing happened with Spain in the 16/17th centuries, their status as #1 trade empire led them to unheard of riches in South American conquests and it didn't take 100 years for their country to find itself in the dumps. There are of course exceptions, but if you want to blame the state of the middle east on one event in history, it was the adoption of oil as the primary source of energy, and the class differences resulting from it in the middle east. When most of the country is living in squalor and a few royalty are living like... well... royalty. You see that fight being fought on a much smaller scale in America.
It really pisses me off to see you people come out and say "See what you've done, America?" It's such a ridiculous thing to assert that America, or western society "triggered" stuff like this, and it's exactly what the terrorists want people to think. It's just sad.
Reminds me of this mud I had a good time with, me and a friend gained access to their mud server and added a line of code to the login script that allowed us to log in as anybody with the password "letmein". So we logged in as familiar faces for a day or so terrorizing people, deleting commands and what not until it got boring, they recompiled their code countless times but never had any backups made, and nobody ever thought to look at the login script I guess, so I logged in a year later when they had hundreds of users on and did the same thing only this time the terror lasted a few days. They probably had backups at the time but they all had this one line of code in them. I think the mud went to shit after that.
Ah, those were the days. Sorry, "Realms of Chaos".
If doctors and lawyers can have regulated entry into the workplace, I think programmers should to. Eventually programmers will be just as important as doctors when it comes to saving lives. I can't figure out why anyone would think that lawyers are important enough to regulate like doctors.
Yubnub actually defaults to using google, so it's basically just a way to customize google.
I figure if yubnub gets any more attention google will come in with the spikey flail to crush some skulls.
I'm a programmer and I actually don't see this as bad news. I know a lot of people who took some PHP training course and got a job doing PHP, but they weren't programmers, they may have been able to hack PHP code but don't leave it to them to design anything or you will have one hell of a hack job. I hired a guy to work with me who was simply incapable of working, period. I know a lot of people suffer from that, but programmers in particular like to just sit at their computer and browse the net all day. *gasp* Look at the time, gotta get back to work.
The less programmers there are, the more us *real* programmers get paid.
I'm not a Democrat. All it takes to hate the Republicans is a little bit of integrity though. No partisan hackery is necessary.
You're a liberal, and chances are you voted for John Kerry in the last election, that is if you're old enough to vote. Green or socialist maybe? You are definately "out there".
Nobody will make the claim that corporate welfare subsidies go into the hands of "rich people". Every country uses corporate subsidies they will, for the most part, make you RICHER! If we didn't subsidize American car-makers we would all be driving Japanese cars, because the Japanese offer subsidies and tax breaks to their automobile manufacturers. Airbus and Boeing are both supported by massive corporate welfare efforts. So if someone came in and cut corporate welfare efforts (i.e. another Jimmy Carter) we would all suffer big time. That's a proven fact! Clinton vetoed a new budget during his administration because he didn't agree with the corporate welfare cuts. So in that case, it was the Republicans that were on your side.
Wow, your delusions are truly staggering. So torture and murder is perfectly fine with you?
The delusions are yours, my friend. There is no torture or murder. You're being manipulated by the liberal media.
Democrats, being the fiscally responsible party (odd but true. It's certainly not the first time that the parties have switched roles) as well as anybody with any basic knowledge of economics have a big problem with cutting revenue while jacking government spending through the roof.
According to your reasoning, if your salary was cut in half you would go out and put a shitload of crap you don't need on your credit card. That's a pretty retarded attitude.
Economics 101: We have this cycle of depressions and recessions in our country. When in a depression, you cut taxes and increase government spending. It's called Keynsian economics, you should study it! You apparently haven't gotten beyond classical economics. I don't live forever like the economy, so you can't compare home economics to macroeconomics, however there is some similarity related to what you're talking about. When people are young, they make less money, and they spend a lot more. Later on in life you end up saving a lot more because you make more and you have less to buy. It's a matter of capital investment, you buy a house when you are young, putting yourself in hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, and you pay it off later. I don't call a national health care plan fiscally responsible, or putting off social security reform indefinately. The fiscally responsible ones will attempt to fix social security now, not later. By the way, it's not an attitude I have, it's an opinion. You're the one with the attitude;)
Your name calling is truly infantile and hipocritical. You're fuming with hatred. You're a token liberal. Nixon didn't subvert the democratic process. Get your facts straight. He didn't fix the election, he won by a huge margin. If there was any subversion of the democratic process it was by the New York Times. The same thing happens today, Dan Rather attempted to subvert the democratic process in the most recent election.
I don't vote major parties. I certainly wouldn't vote Republican because, as I said before, integrity is important to me. This current crop of Republicans have declared all out war on integrity.
You have no idea what integrity is. You made a childish comment about my mother at the end of your previous reply. I think someone impugned your integrity in the past and you are projecting the image of that person onto me. In this case you have purged any hint of integrity from yourself, you can't just say you have integrity, you have to demonstrate it.
In fact, my position is entirely consistent. The fact that you are spouting nonsense catch phrases barfed up by the right wing hate squads and not actually addressing the arguments is why you see it that way.
What you're sayin
Darby, I like how you step over the line and argue for my side but maintain the same synical "I am better than you" attitude. You really don't fit in well with the rest of your Democrat buddies when you start saying things like "so you expect the government to step in and adjust those forces to benefit yourself at the expense of the free market rather than actually making yourself useful doing some job which actually benefits people enough so that they will be willing to pay you to do it." That's actually not characteristic of Republicans. That's more characteristic of the Democrats, more specifically the labor unions, which typically support Democrat candidates over Republicans. My telecom operator around here is limited in their technology decisions by the unions trying to protect the jobs of "linemen" and "operators". Those same unions support Democrat candidates time and time again, to protect their obsolete jobs. As for Carter, his brilliant policy decisions caused hundreds of thousands to lose their jobs while we were still reeling from the Iran oil crisis, not only were people losing their jobs, but interest rates were astronomical and inflation was going up. It was a hellish time. Go ahead and ignore the fact that Carter did virtually nothing to change this, in fact he probably made it worse. When Reagan came to be president they attacked him over foolish things like the Iran contra, they do the same thing right now with our current administration, trying to somehow blame acts of torture, genocide, whatever. It seems to ring in the heads of liberals everywhere, like a war horn or something. The fact that you're so inflamed by the rhetoric is truly frightening. It's frightening that people can be mislead by such senseless arguments.
I don't see how you can claim that Republicans "take away a bigger chunk of the fruits of my labor (the aforementioned money) and give it to their friends who have done nothing to earn it." when your current president, George W. Bush, cut your taxes. I actually got a check in the mail, CASH! A lot of Democrats were opposed to any sort of tax cut. Another group of Democrats say "Take from the rich and give to the poor.", well then it would be the Democrats taking people's money, wouldn't it? Taking those google guys money, and I would like to know who are the poor and why do they need it? Would you count as one of these poor people? Because you seem to carry on like you deserve more.
The fact that they have far far more than I (or you for that matter) do isn't a cause for envy.
Hah, you would like to think that, wouldn't you? Speak for yourself not others.
It does point out their criminal nature though.
I know you want to talk about the Iran contra more, but that play is getting old. It was a feeble attempt to remove another Republican president from power. Nixon is old news, I wouldn't call it an attempted coup, that is absurd. What does any of that matter? You see how you've been had? Nixon was a great president but you can't see past the big R next to his name. I wouldn't rule out the possibility that he was the target of a plot. There was never any trial you know. It would have been quite embarassing, like the Clinton/Lewinsky ordeal. Clinton lied under oath and he got off scott free. He was only trying to protect his image, like Nixon. But you will automatically assume the worst about Nixon, an attempted COUP? Are you on drugs? That is the most ridiculous conspiracy theory I've ever heard. Let me guess, Bush orchestrated the 9/11 attacks too, right?
he as well as everyone else involved in it should have been put to death for their crimes.
Guess that makes you pro-death penalty, doesn't it? Maybe you should vote R.
As I stated quite clearly, I really don't give a flying fuck how they enjoy their money provided they don't try to use it to directly fuck me. More power to them.
Actually, you're all over the map. I think people tend to vote Republican because they don't want to see the country turn to socialism.
You stated in your previous email that you feel Democrats make "everybody" richer, while conservatives just make rich people richer. This demonstrates that you don't understand economic policy because you can't identify the negative effects of "making everybody richer". Your wording itself is a testament to your simple mindedness. You're whining about conservatives because they aren't making you richer. I know you regret making that comment so let's move on.
Economics is more complicated than "making everybody richer or poorer". How rich you are is not an accurate indicator of how well the economy is doing.
I'm not going to waste time looking at economic figures. I don't know what statistics you're referring to but you've obviously been brain fucked by some statistics wielder. You'd blame George W. Bush for a stock market crash 6 months into his presidency. Intelligent people don't come to such irrational conclusions.
Now you start talking about the Iran Contra, haha. God damn you liberals always say the same damn thing! Is that all you have to say about Reagan? Nixon was a great president too, brought down by some silly scandal. Never mind all the moderate initiatives, calling the troops back from Viet Nam, the EPA... you want to claim that the Carter administration made your life better, well I'll tell you when he made all those defense spending cuts, a lot of my friends lost their jobs. That really happened to me. Now explain to me what the Iran Contra did to piss you off so bad...
The google guys are making a killing, more than they could ever spend, and they will only continue to get richer, the interest on that sort of money alone could support a lavish lifestyle. Don't you think they should have all their money taken from them and given to whiney fucks like yourself?
By the way, the term "Entitlement Mentality" is not a term Rush coined. It has been around for years. My mother used it a lot. But I do listen to Rush, Savage, haven't listened to Hannity much. Does it matter? Are you calling them liars?
The interstate commerce clause has been used to protect civil liberties in the past, but that is not it's purpose. For example, during the civil rights movement it was decided that bus segregation was to be banned by the federal government, since it had the power to do that given that busses traveled in between state boundaries. The certain parameters you speak of are what are in question here. I can site numerous examples of states putting restrictions on commerce that go unchallenged by the federal government, fireworks, alcohol, I read recently that California is trying to ban.50 caliber rifles. Surprisingly, the ACLU isn't opposed to gun control!.
It's not that they decide Constitutional matters, it's how they work the Constitution to suit their needs, or on matters where the constitution is vague or not applicable they have free reign. In this instance I don't think the Constitution really dictates anything, so it just comes down to these justices decision.
Recent examples of judicial tyranny I can recall are the Terri Schiavo case. I thought it was odd that the all the courts ignored plea's by the parents for closer consideration of their daughter, while death row inmates get all the appeals they want. Seemed like a partisan issue and they acted accordingly. Courts in California and Mass. that decide that the state is going to allow gay marriage, obvious example of judicial tyranny. They write their own constitution instead of interpreting the constitution like they are supposed to. They have become a conduit for political agendas to get through. I bet you'll see activist judges start interfering with Iraqi combatants in Cuba or wherever. There are already lawyers hot on the trail, only a matter of time before the judges get in on the action in order to undermind war efforts. Just speculating.
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As it is, we do get used a lot. We give more african aid than any other country, and it does nothing to help, the money mostly goes into the hands of warlords. They need REGIME CHANGE! You fools just say "ah, throw money at them! That'll fix it!" That is the most selfish thing. I have friends who're over there fighting in Iraq, that believe in the cause of freedom. You're just a fucking moron if you think pulling out is the answer. You're just a fucking moron. Blair bitch project, ha ha ha! funnnnnny!
Protecting the oil field is actually very important, as the world economy is dependant on it, so while people in the first world may pay higher gas prices, people in the third world will be dieing of starvation. You need to understand that the world economy is very complicated, every action has hundreds and thousands of reactions.
Oh my god I'm not even gonna respond to any of your other nonsense. You're a fucking moron.
As for Hussein, you could also beat around the bush and say we should never have allowed slavery during colonization, but we're beyond that now, and it took a lot of fighting to correct that mistake. You make illogical analogies. If a gun store owner were to sell a man a gun and he goes and kills his family with it, do you hold the gun store owner accountable?
You have to take a position here, either you support insurgencies in countries where regime change is necessary, or you ignore the problem entirely, or you go in there and change it yourself. We have had success both ways, but never by ignoring the problem. The problem, if left unchecked, will get worse. I take it you would ignore the problem entirely.
Go re-read history, there was an active insurgency. The nazi party had to be rounded up and exterminated, one by one. They were even living in the United States. Back then people had no sympathy for the enemy, but it's not like that any more.
You take this to mean GW Bush, I think there are others to blame, like almost every Democrat in the senate. They're using this to advance their own politics, they want to weaken Bush's leadership ability and the war is the perfect avenue for that. Making a big hoopla over some humiliating acts in Abu Graib prison is one example of our poor leadership, has nothing to do with GW's leadership style as it was not his role to prevent that sort of stuff, that was a failure lower down in the ranks.
Apologizing to the world would be an example of what a leader SHOULDN'T do, especially in time of war. It is the same as admitting to a mistake, and we don't think the Iraq war is a mistake like you do. THat's why you don't see apologies! You read up on Vietnam and find out why we lost that war, it was because of the stupid politics you're supporting, apologies and pussy footing.
The military has cut its recruitment targets in half and is still having problems meeting them. There are no marines sitting around waiting for something to do as you appear to believe.
You're a liar. The military has been increasing it's recruitment goals over the last few years, significantly, and they have only in the last few months failed to meet their goal. That is expected to change by years end.
I know a guy who's sitting around waiting to go back to Iraq. He's sure he'll have to go back, he just doesn't know when... I know another guy who just enlisted, he said there were over a hundred people at the enlistment office when he was there. Back when I enlisted, there were maybe 2 dozen. They aren't using all the armed forces at once, theres something like 250,000 deployed in the middle east out of like 700,000 servicemen. Get your facts straight, retard.
The Al Queda #2 was Zawahiri, and if you do some googling you'll find reports that he met with Saddam Hussein in 1992. APparently there are many links between Saddam Hussein and these terrorists: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTI CLE_ID=34841
If you want to beat that bush further, go right ahead. I think it's pretty stupid of you to claim that all the other middle east countries had connections with terrorism but that Iraq didn't.
Next, you want to assign some benevolent mission to Al Qaeda, like they have a just purpose, which is silly, and their stated purpose is to destroy the infidels/zionists. They use the words interchangeably to mean all of wester civilization, so don't get technical on me like you know more than Al Queda knows about it's self. Listen to reason, retard. Guess you're not as bright as I first suspected.
The cold war started right after WW2 when the soviets took over east Berlin, and ended with the fall of the Berlin wall, which was during the Reagan administration. How'd you interpret what I said as "Reagan started the cold war"? You're an idiot, and apparently you know very little about the cold war if you think it was limited to Eisenhower and Kennedy. Reagan dealt directly with the soviets in an arms race, it was his entire foreign policy. You remember? "Mr. Gorbachev, Tear down that wall!" Oh you probably weren't born yet!
Perhaps they were forced to resign for spreading misinformation like that we were leaving Afghanistan. We're still in Afghanistan.
WWII was a very different situation for several reasons. In the first place Roosevelt ordered both a draft and a general mobilization putting the entire economy on a war footing. From the invasion of Pearl Harbor to V-J day the entire focus of the economy was supporting the military actions. Needless to say that has not happened, nor is it politically possible to do so at this point. The country simply does not have enough confidence in Bush's management of the invasion of Iraq to allow their kids to be drafted.
At the root of everything is that the country had the will to defeat Germany, and Japan, while Japan didn't kill as many in Pearl Harbor as the terrorists did in 9/11, the Germans most certainly would have continued the extermination of Jews had they been strong enough to reach our shores. That's what we're lacking today is will power, and I think it's because of a coalition of political leaders directly opposing Bush's efforts. War has been executed as good as you can expect. Of course, we're not going to start drafting people, because it's not necessary. I was making the point that America has the capabilities to start pumping out more warships and drafting marines at a moments notice. We could even increase the number of voluntary recruits by paying them more. The pay is currently 50% better than it was 5 years ago when I considered joining the military. I trust that you understand what our country is capable of, you're just using talking points that were targeted at ignorant fools who would believe that our military is stretched so thin as to make our homeland vulnerable to attack, but I don't think you're a fool.
Saddam was a secular leader, precisely the type of leader that the Islamists object to. The whole point of Al Qaeda was to replace 'apostates' like Saddam.
Woooo, maybe we should start building up Al Qaeda! I think you know less about Al Qaeda than I do, and that is not much! I know Al Qaeda #2 met with Saddam a number of years ago, I know Al Queda's stated purpose is to destroy all infidels (zionists). He may have hated Saddam for working with us against Iran, but things change. We were always the big target.
So you think Saddam would be helping us fight the Taliban? I think he would be doing the exact same thing Iran and Syria are doing right now, supporting terrorist operations to destabilize America's efforts, and the world would be just as much opposed to the invasion of Afghanistan as they are to Iraq. In case you haven't noticed, everything America does in the world is the target of massive criticisms, they criticize us for using the bomb to end WW2, they criticized Reagan for his cold war, everything will be criticized. As for your last sentence, I think this is another talking point gone bad. Al Zarqawi was simply hiding wherever he could, we weren't protecting him. Al Zarqawi has always been a criminal, a petty criminal, that's how Bin Laden saw him. He wasn't accepted anywhere he went.
I'll argue that there are less terrorists than before, and that their attacks are much less murdersome than before. Remember that the United States suffered about 100 times more deaths in our most recent terrorist attack. Care to defend your statements further? Why don't you suggest a different plan? Someone else suggested we build bigger and bigger buildings for them to try and blow up, are you sticking by that? Should we start roundtable discussions with the terrorists? Lets legalize marijuana and smoke the terrorists out of our minds!
I'll vote for the guy who promises a much more agressive war on terror. They all need to be killed. That's the only way problems like this have ever been solved, throughout history, is by extermination.
Quit yer whining. Current report is that 37 people are dead. That is nothing in comparison to the 9/11 attacks. Bush, the same guy you're angry and frustrated at, has done an admirable job preventing any such attacks on OUR country, perhaps you should be pointing your boogered up finger at your own leaders, for failing to protect your country. You guys in the UK seriously have a lot more to worry about than you even realize. Seal your borders, start arresting these radical murderers like we're doing here. You can't expect America to protect the entire world, fool.
These are the same people that were beating the police cars with metal bars the other day on TV, protesting the G8 summit. Nevermind them.
The region was not stable to begin with. Our goal is stability, and stability is best achieved with a robust political system like democracy, first and foremost. One thing you leftists fail to realize is that terrorism can only exist at a high level of organization. There is a command and control structure, there has to be a source of funding for these terrorists, they need places to hide and not just in caves in the desert. If Saddam Hussein was still around he would most certainly have been sponsoring terrorists in Afghanistan. Afghanistan would have been the front, as it is Afghanistan is rolling along while Iraq takes most of the heat.
Our goal is democracy in Iraq. Our exit strategy is we will leave when democracy takes root and the Iraqi's start governing themselves. As far as I'm concerned, we've already achieved victory. We stuck around Germany long, long after we defeated them in WW2. I think your standards for victory are just too high, like you just expect more everybody to like us, that's your idea of victory. That's not a practical goal.
Haha, you obviously never got in a fight. The best thing you can do is go down in glory fighting with the bully. The next day you get pats on the back from all of your peers, and you come out on top in your mind, you don't go through the rest of your life asking yourself "Why didn't I just try to beat that bully? Why?". If you stick out your chest, you are asking for another slugging, what the bully wants you to do is turn tail and run. That is the worst advise I've ever heard. Kids don't listen to him.
Now it would be a sick world if we were to somehow, miraculously, LOSE the war on terror, and the rest of the world jeers at us the next day at school. Hey, isn't that the world we live in? Why, I think it is!
Oh my god, I can't believe this guy gets an insightful moderation. People in the middle east live under Islamic law, many of the countries have controlled borders, there is no coming or going, men have the right to kill their wives (note the plurality), there are a few hoarding all the wealth brought by their oil resources while the rest live in squalor. America comes along and LIBERATES Iraq from the control of a hostile dictator, and you want to make the point that we're taking away peoples hopes and dreams? That is utterly ridiculous. Insightful? My god, this is infantile!
The nuclear bomb saved many more lives than it took. Japan would not have surrendered. That was their whole military strategy, they saw America as weak politically, they didn't think we could take a bloody conflict. Had we gone on with the trench warfare, invading the Japanese homeland with infantry, some have estimated we would have lost 500,000 lives and countless more Japanese would have died.
By the way, you are completely incorrect about Iraq having connections to Al Qaeda. I believe the talking point you were looking for is that there was no connection between Iraq and 9/11. Al Qaeda has had a long history with Iraq, and Saddam Hussein.
It never ceases to amaze me how someone with this much misinformation could be moderated +5 Insightful. They need a damn -1 misinformation modifier.
Look at desktop commander here, making up military strategy. America has had the ability to fight wars on many different fronts for quite some time. We helped defeat Germany while single handedly defeating Japan, a 10x greater effort (or more) than what we have here. You just can't say how things would be different if we had never gone into Iraq. It's quite possible that Saddam could be undermining our efforts in Afghanistan, he probably would have given us plenty of reason to go in there, and Afghanistan would be even uglier than Iraq right now but they would be all juiced up for an invasion in Iraq.
So don't pretend like you know what it's like to have your family killed by Americans. Why don't you try and imagine your mom and sister being blown up on a crowded bus on the way to school.
On the topic of history and correlations that can be made between present and past events, I'd like to add that the middle east used to be a relatively advanced civilization, hundreds of years ago starting right smack in the middle of Iraq with the river valley civilizations. I think the real factor that caused their civilization to go downhill was the abundance of wealth they found themselves living on. The same thing happened with Spain in the 16/17th centuries, their status as #1 trade empire led them to unheard of riches in South American conquests and it didn't take 100 years for their country to find itself in the dumps. There are of course exceptions, but if you want to blame the state of the middle east on one event in history, it was the adoption of oil as the primary source of energy, and the class differences resulting from it in the middle east. When most of the country is living in squalor and a few royalty are living like... well... royalty. You see that fight being fought on a much smaller scale in America.
It really pisses me off to see you people come out and say "See what you've done, America?" It's such a ridiculous thing to assert that America, or western society "triggered" stuff like this, and it's exactly what the terrorists want people to think. It's just sad.
Yay for Wesley!!! Yay!!!!
DIE WESLEY DIE!
Ah, those were the days. Sorry, "Realms of Chaos".
If doctors and lawyers can have regulated entry into the workplace, I think programmers should to. Eventually programmers will be just as important as doctors when it comes to saving lives. I can't figure out why anyone would think that lawyers are important enough to regulate like doctors.
Yubnub actually defaults to using google, so it's basically just a way to customize google. I figure if yubnub gets any more attention google will come in with the spikey flail to crush some skulls.
I'm a programmer and I actually don't see this as bad news. I know a lot of people who took some PHP training course and got a job doing PHP, but they weren't programmers, they may have been able to hack PHP code but don't leave it to them to design anything or you will have one hell of a hack job. I hired a guy to work with me who was simply incapable of working, period. I know a lot of people suffer from that, but programmers in particular like to just sit at their computer and browse the net all day. *gasp* Look at the time, gotta get back to work.
The less programmers there are, the more us *real* programmers get paid.
You're a liberal, and chances are you voted for John Kerry in the last election, that is if you're old enough to vote. Green or socialist maybe? You are definately "out there".
Nobody will make the claim that corporate welfare subsidies go into the hands of "rich people". Every country uses corporate subsidies they will, for the most part, make you RICHER! If we didn't subsidize American car-makers we would all be driving Japanese cars, because the Japanese offer subsidies and tax breaks to their automobile manufacturers. Airbus and Boeing are both supported by massive corporate welfare efforts. So if someone came in and cut corporate welfare efforts (i.e. another Jimmy Carter) we would all suffer big time. That's a proven fact! Clinton vetoed a new budget during his administration because he didn't agree with the corporate welfare cuts. So in that case, it was the Republicans that were on your side.
Wow, your delusions are truly staggering. So torture and murder is perfectly fine with you?
The delusions are yours, my friend. There is no torture or murder. You're being manipulated by the liberal media.
Democrats, being the fiscally responsible party (odd but true. It's certainly not the first time that the parties have switched roles) as well as anybody with any basic knowledge of economics have a big problem with cutting revenue while jacking government spending through the roof. According to your reasoning, if your salary was cut in half you would go out and put a shitload of crap you don't need on your credit card. That's a pretty retarded attitude.
Economics 101: We have this cycle of depressions and recessions in our country. When in a depression, you cut taxes and increase government spending. It's called Keynsian economics, you should study it! You apparently haven't gotten beyond classical economics. I don't live forever like the economy, so you can't compare home economics to macroeconomics, however there is some similarity related to what you're talking about. When people are young, they make less money, and they spend a lot more. Later on in life you end up saving a lot more because you make more and you have less to buy. It's a matter of capital investment, you buy a house when you are young, putting yourself in hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, and you pay it off later. I don't call a national health care plan fiscally responsible, or putting off social security reform indefinately. The fiscally responsible ones will attempt to fix social security now, not later. By the way, it's not an attitude I have, it's an opinion. You're the one with the attitude ;)
Your name calling is truly infantile and hipocritical. You're fuming with hatred. You're a token liberal. Nixon didn't subvert the democratic process. Get your facts straight. He didn't fix the election, he won by a huge margin. If there was any subversion of the democratic process it was by the New York Times. The same thing happens today, Dan Rather attempted to subvert the democratic process in the most recent election.
I don't vote major parties. I certainly wouldn't vote Republican because, as I said before, integrity is important to me. This current crop of Republicans have declared all out war on integrity.
You have no idea what integrity is. You made a childish comment about my mother at the end of your previous reply. I think someone impugned your integrity in the past and you are projecting the image of that person onto me. In this case you have purged any hint of integrity from yourself, you can't just say you have integrity, you have to demonstrate it.
In fact, my position is entirely consistent. The fact that you are spouting nonsense catch phrases barfed up by the right wing hate squads and not actually addressing the arguments is why you see it that way. What you're sayin
I don't see how you can claim that Republicans "take away a bigger chunk of the fruits of my labor (the aforementioned money) and give it to their friends who have done nothing to earn it." when your current president, George W. Bush, cut your taxes. I actually got a check in the mail, CASH! A lot of Democrats were opposed to any sort of tax cut. Another group of Democrats say "Take from the rich and give to the poor.", well then it would be the Democrats taking people's money, wouldn't it? Taking those google guys money, and I would like to know who are the poor and why do they need it? Would you count as one of these poor people? Because you seem to carry on like you deserve more.
The fact that they have far far more than I (or you for that matter) do isn't a cause for envy.
Hah, you would like to think that, wouldn't you? Speak for yourself not others.
It does point out their criminal nature though.
I know you want to talk about the Iran contra more, but that play is getting old. It was a feeble attempt to remove another Republican president from power. Nixon is old news, I wouldn't call it an attempted coup, that is absurd. What does any of that matter? You see how you've been had? Nixon was a great president but you can't see past the big R next to his name. I wouldn't rule out the possibility that he was the target of a plot. There was never any trial you know. It would have been quite embarassing, like the Clinton/Lewinsky ordeal. Clinton lied under oath and he got off scott free. He was only trying to protect his image, like Nixon. But you will automatically assume the worst about Nixon, an attempted COUP? Are you on drugs? That is the most ridiculous conspiracy theory I've ever heard. Let me guess, Bush orchestrated the 9/11 attacks too, right?
he as well as everyone else involved in it should have been put to death for their crimes.
Guess that makes you pro-death penalty, doesn't it? Maybe you should vote R.
As I stated quite clearly, I really don't give a flying fuck how they enjoy their money provided they don't try to use it to directly fuck me. More power to them.
Actually, you're all over the map. I think people tend to vote Republican because they don't want to see the country turn to socialism.
Economics is more complicated than "making everybody richer or poorer". How rich you are is not an accurate indicator of how well the economy is doing.
I'm not going to waste time looking at economic figures. I don't know what statistics you're referring to but you've obviously been brain fucked by some statistics wielder. You'd blame George W. Bush for a stock market crash 6 months into his presidency. Intelligent people don't come to such irrational conclusions.
Now you start talking about the Iran Contra, haha. God damn you liberals always say the same damn thing! Is that all you have to say about Reagan? Nixon was a great president too, brought down by some silly scandal. Never mind all the moderate initiatives, calling the troops back from Viet Nam, the EPA... you want to claim that the Carter administration made your life better, well I'll tell you when he made all those defense spending cuts, a lot of my friends lost their jobs. That really happened to me. Now explain to me what the Iran Contra did to piss you off so bad...
The google guys are making a killing, more than they could ever spend, and they will only continue to get richer, the interest on that sort of money alone could support a lavish lifestyle. Don't you think they should have all their money taken from them and given to whiney fucks like yourself?
By the way, the term "Entitlement Mentality" is not a term Rush coined. It has been around for years. My mother used it a lot. But I do listen to Rush, Savage, haven't listened to Hannity much. Does it matter? Are you calling them liars?
It's not that they decide Constitutional matters, it's how they work the Constitution to suit their needs, or on matters where the constitution is vague or not applicable they have free reign. In this instance I don't think the Constitution really dictates anything, so it just comes down to these justices decision.
Recent examples of judicial tyranny I can recall are the Terri Schiavo case. I thought it was odd that the all the courts ignored plea's by the parents for closer consideration of their daughter, while death row inmates get all the appeals they want. Seemed like a partisan issue and they acted accordingly. Courts in California and Mass. that decide that the state is going to allow gay marriage, obvious example of judicial tyranny. They write their own constitution instead of interpreting the constitution like they are supposed to. They have become a conduit for political agendas to get through. I bet you'll see activist judges start interfering with Iraqi combatants in Cuba or wherever. There are already lawyers hot on the trail, only a matter of time before the judges get in on the action in order to undermind war efforts. Just speculating.