Sacrifice for the War

by GUMDROP on April 5, 2007

TX what we have here is a failure to appreciate math.

If you are responsible for killing 50 or 60 thousand Iraqis in Desert Storm, support Saddam while he is killing a half a million Iranians in the Iraq/Iran War, shoot down an Iranian civilian air r with your ship, and otherwise act an ass, some patriotic fanatic is likely to kill as many of you as he can with a private hobby effort. So we got 9/11.

Now we have created a 26 million participant terrorist training farm that happens to have oil under it, and we have traded thousands more lives to purchase a chance it is a domino.

Like Reagan's support of Saddam against Iran, or Eisenhower's overthrow of the Iranian government, Bush has used public money to purchase another very bad deal.

Muslims -- if you're not going to kill them all, then you'd better notice when you kill a hundred thousand innocent ones on their home turf. They bite back, and it doesn't stop them just because you are offended at retaliation, or you didn't notice how many of them your tax dollars killed first.

by KABOOM on March 30, 2007

My point here is to the topic of civil rights that "we" as citizens have had to give up as was the comment posted. Granted we can discuss the rights and wrongs of the current war, however, that would be a different discussion and not to the point of the original post.

by GUMDROP on March 30, 2007

No Kaboom, it is not enough to admit we have called this terror menace upon ourselves. We didn't do this overnight, and since there have been so many untruths used in this conflict the other side won't believe us for a while.

We have to stop killing innocent people on their own turf then acting like the biggest tragedy is that we are losing our soldiers in the process. It is an arrogant approach to our economic and strategic interests and the world has outgrown our right to do it. The desirability of a military response has been used politically, along with the billions in pork attached to security bills, to purchase GOP congressional votes and government power until Americans saw through the lies. And it will likely cost the Republican Party their effectiveness in government for a while, as the other side pays for Bush's gigantic debacle.

We also have to stop using the assumption that we can re-engineer a country of 26 million people over half of which do not want us there -- hodge-podged together and s drawn for the purposes of the Brits in the waning days of colonialism. We certainly can't do this with an invasion of 150,000 soldiers and a jillion dollars attracting crooks of all stripes. The plan was bad from the start -- an outgrowth of several global strategic initiatives that Bush's select group have been pushing for years and that 9/11 became an excuse for. These men's ambition to control the world as a one superpower strategic move has backfired.

We can, however, keep killing people who we catch red-handed, with evidence, and prosecute them using American standards of justice.

Here is evidence that HotTex is right, even if he did not reply to you, even if he did not suffer a personal loss that has affected his lifestyle. Truth is truth, no matter if you are not satisfied that he did not rise to your challenge.

Bush War on Terror Draws Fire as Misguided Venture
By David Morgan
Reuters

Thursday 29 March 2007

Washington - Five-and-a-half years after the September 11 attacks, President George W. Bush's war on terrorism has emerged as a wasteful, misguided exercise that poses its own threat to U.S. national security, experts say.

A growing number of analysts and former U.S. officials say the global war on terrorism has undermined U.S. influence abroad, forced onerous costs in American lives and money in Iraq, and unleashed a huge government spending spree that has often funded projects unrelated to national security.

It has also produced a climate of fear in the United States that helped justify the war in Iraq and the curtailment of civil liberties at home, they said.

"The atmosphere of anxiety and uncertainty, and the vagueness of the definition of the enemy, makes the country more fearful and more susceptible to being steered in irrational directions," said Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was U.S. national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter in the 1970s.

Unlike the muted response to attacks by Britain and Spain, experts say the U.S. has overreacted to the September 11 attacks that killed 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania in 2001.

Congress has spent nearly $271.5 billion on homeland security since September 11, with money often going to projects that have nothing to do with security but that are important to politicians and their constituents, according to a survey by the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

At the same time, the number of potential terrorism targets identified by Congress has exploded from 160 in 2003 to 80,000, allowing such unlikely sites as a Midwestern apple festival and a roadside theme park in Florida to bid for funds.

Meanwhile, the private sector - lobbyists, interest groups, industries, the media and even universities - has also used the national security label aggressively to sell its own agendas, experts say.

"What's clear is that there is no focus whatsoever in the way we are fighting terrorism," said Veronique de Rugy, author of the AEI study.

Department of Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke dismissed the criticism as old and inaccurate, saying the Bush administration had never viewed sites such as small theme parks to be critical national assets deserving of funds. "This has no basis in fact," he said.

Knocke's boss, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, has also taken issue with the assertion that the U.S. response to September 11 is exaggerated.

"If we begin to heed arguments that somehow our concern about security is overblown ... then I feel we're going to feel consequences in the loss of lives," Chertoff said in a speech outlining his priorities for 2007.

But terrorism experts say the United States has yet to develop a clear understanding of the threat posed by al Qaeda and other Islamist militant groups, despite the war on terrorism and a total of $500 billion spent on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The most pernicious effect of the war on terrorism has been the Iraq war, which has claimed the lives of more than 3,200 U.S. troops and tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians and damaged U.S. standing in the Muslim world for generation, experts say.

"Iraq has been vastly worse than anything terrorism's ever done," said Ohio State University political science professor John Mueller, author of a book about the war on terrorism titled, "Overblown."

While both Democrats and Republicans have acknowledged the shortcomings of U.S. policy in Iraq, experts say politicians have not questioned the war on terrorism mainly because it remains a vote-getter.

"Politicians are acting this way because they think they'll lose votes if they don't. Basically, it's a big pork-barrel, so the pork-barrel leaders are there in five seconds," said Mueller, using American vernacular for the politics of self-enrichment.

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by KABOOM on March 29, 2007

Notwithstanding the right to ask any question in a forum, if Hottex has not personally lost civil rights that affected his behavior, does that invalidate his statement? I think not.

The lack of providing any support for his position or answering a simple question does however invalidate his statement.

If I am understanding your point of view, all "We" have to do is admit that "We" screwed up and this will somehow bring about the beginning of the end of the terroist threat to our country and abroad.

by GUMDROP on March 29, 2007

Notwithstanding the right to ask any question in a forum, if Hottex has not personally lost civil rights that affected his behavior, does that invalidate his statement? I think not.

Anyone who says "we" in a political discussion can reasonably refer to the citizenry, a portion of it, or others who live among us, legally or not. In that context "we" have lost due process, among other things.

The head of the FBI recently admitted that his agency was abusing even the legal authority given by Patriot. The victims were thousands of US citizens subjected to illegal scrutiny. One of the first uses of Patriot was to prevent a NORML convention, affecting free speech rights and the rights to organize for the millions interested in their cause.

There are many thousands of selective incarcertations, trumped up suspicions, and harassments that eminate from the thousands of local, state and federal employees for every single bonafide case that emerges to be a legitimate terrorism case.

The War on Terror is actually a war on reprisal from groups who oppose our meddling and our use of military might on the Middle East and Third world.

It is reasonable and logical that our habit of doing this with impunity from country to country (eg. Israel, Iran and Iraq) has backfired on us insofar as clerical Muslim solidarity that rejects all manipulations in Muslim countries. When you prevent people from forming a military, support opponents that bleed a country dry as our support of Saddam against Iran did, then meddle in their affairs, history as shown that a percentage will strike you back however they can. Almost always we have already killed more of their innocents in goading them to strike than they even attempt to take of ours. That makes them mad just like it would make you mad.

I love my country, but admitting that the above statement is true is the beginning of conquering the terrorist threat. Killing people in their own country is something we have always thought was more acceptable than it actually is in today's world. Terrorists are our reminders of those we thought were dead and buried.

by KABOOM on March 29, 2007

A lot of dancing around, but NO answer to the question. What civil right have YOU been forced to give up?

by GUMDROP on March 29, 2007

The only people who have had to give up any civil rights are those people the presdent or his employees think might be trouble for them. Tehre have been some legitimate concerns the president must address and there have been some many would say are not legitimate.

This includes:

terrorists,

potential terrorists (in lands where the president has special plans for their government, people will be striking back any way they can),

their relatives and anyone who comes into contact with them,

people who give to charities that the president thinks are involved with any cause also supported by groups who also support the Palestinian people or Iran,

anyone who might get in the way of the administration staying in power, whether a candidate, a diplomat who sees things differently, a scientist whose research indicates the danger of global warming, etc.

Your voting rights if the RNC wants to jam anyone's phones who will vote for your side (busted),

your right to honest testimony from the White House or the Justice Department,
and your right to a representative government that accurately represents the will of the people.

So some might insult you for noticing the above, or call you names, or claim since you shouldn't oppose the president, or are not presently engaged in the knowledge of a personal violation, that none exists. But that is provably untrue literally for many thousands in an active sense and millions in a potential sense. A case could be made that the entire country of Iraq represents 26 million people whose rights are now violated by us instead of Saddam, and many of them think it is worse now.

The smaller your concept of "self" the less likely you are to notice that anyone has lost anything, because you have not personally lost anything, and your umbrella of care does not extend very far.

Why is the ability to be literally correct in speech really needed on a swing site?

Susan to John -- wow, you're cute. I'm d+d free and would like to play. How about you?

John to Susan -- you're cute too. Let's do it. Gimme some.

Susan to John -- Then you're disease free?

John -- sure I am, I said c'mon didn't I?

But when John said he was disease free, he meant that right then he didn't have an outbreak. He actually had genital herpes, and shed virus asymptomatically on average 12 days a year. He even had a little dialog with himself about how he didn't have an outbreak, and he could reasonably claim he was disease free -- besides, since he was not likely to infect the girl and violate her rights to health, so what was the difference? If she didn't stand to likely be hurt, where did it violate her rights to think that he was disease free?

Your honesty is only as good as your ability to express yourself, and that is only as good as your command of the language and your respect for literal truth.

by CUNABIT03 on March 29, 2007

Explicit image available, join sdc.com to view

by RUFFEDGES on March 28, 2007

"Lord- Forgive me for this one little remark. It's just blaring at me Lord, and begs my slow talking inflections."

We are all still afforded the rights to tan at our own leisure. Whether you choose to do so or not, is completely up to you.

Ruff

by CUNABIT03 on March 28, 2007

Explicit image available, join sdc.com to view

by KABOOM on March 28, 2007

Ok, for shits and grins, I'll bite. What civil right have you personally had to give up? Name just one. Can you?