Do We Really Know What We're Getting Into

[lavender]

 

[KillerMuffin]

The government understands the war, all right. The average American has no clue. Bush has been talking to his CIA buddies who're telling him all these tales about stockpiled armament, nuclear, chemical, and biological. They lack the one thing that makes them as big a threat today as we are to them, and that's a delivery system.

Saddam Hussein is a good starting point because we know him better than we know the Shah or Kim Jung-il. Ask yourself this: If Saddam Hussein had a Scud that could reach any part of America, do you think that he would use it? Bear in mind that he already has NBC payloads. The rational answer is no. Saddam Hussein is not a rational man. Moreover, he is in a religion that's just as perverted as Christianity is for justifying mass killings.

Here's another little piece of information that you may have missed. In previous administration weapons secrets were freely traded to China, our enemy. No matter how pretty things are written now, China is currently our enemy. How do I know this? They still defend North Korea despite the fact that a certifiably insane man with NBC weapons and a delivery system that can reach most of China sits on their border. Why do they do this? Because they feel N.K. is better than we are.

These are the things that Bush is looking at. This is the reason for the new missile defense sheild. The last 4 administrations have seriously fucked our position in the Middle East and our continued almost unquestioning alliance with Israel will do nothing but make it worse.

Bush knows that this war will be long, drawn out, and protracted. He knows it will be fought against nations, not terrorists. It is, by the way, almost too late to avert a total war over there that's been instigated by us.

This is where I have a serious problem: Bush deposed one government and now he wants to do it to another one. Hussein is evil to the US because he'll launch nukes at us. Bush wants him gone and a friendlier version of an Iraqi government in place. With that he'll have a staging ground for doing the same to Iran. Once we've allied with China, he'll be able to do the same to the DPRK. Do you see the strategy? Evil is a good word to stir the US into believing that he's doing a good thing. No doubt he'll start propoganda with the Kurds soon. He had the Taliban's lack of sympathy ready-made.

We have no right to make decisions in a sovereign nation regarding who should be its leader. The Iraqi people have no representation in our government so we have no jurisdiction to make decisions for them. It's their job to decide whether or not they're going to get a new government.

You should ask yourself why America is so great in the world. Why do we have so much clout? We're the only nation that not has the capability of dropping thermonuclear weapons on any point in the globe at any give time, we're the only nation that has actually used this sort of weapon against another nation. That, my friends, is why the rest of the world treads lightly around the US. Not because of our great government, wonderful principles, or what we stand for. Just cause they know that we will blow the shit out of them. We do it all the time.

So, stop Bush. In 1937 FDR, the most popular president in history, wanted to pad the Supreme Court with 16 justices, giving him an instant 7 justice nomination. The people stopped him. Not congress, not the courts, the people. They told him they didn't like it even though he needed it to ramrod the New Deal into existence.

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

 

[KillerMuffin]

An addendum: Islam and Christianity themselves are not perverted. Some practitioners pervert these religions to justify their own purposes.

 

[lavender]

 

[riff]

I was telling an associate Friday:

America has technology. America has capital in the truest since of the word. But don't think for a second that we are up against people who are any less smart than we are.

It's scary to think about.

 

[KillerMuffin]

The Kurds have no connection to terrorists because they're sworn mortal enemies. They've been persecuted by other muslim factions and Iraq has tried to exterminate them on more than one occasion like Hitler did the jews. Hussein uses the Kurds for chemical warfare testing, he uses his own people too, but the Kurds have their own governing body and his people have him.

During the Gulf War the US sided with the Kurds and protected them from Iraqi and Turkish forces. We later fucked them over, but currently we supply them with food, water, medication, and our no-fly zone protects them from Hussein.

The terrorists don't have connections with the Kurds. The Iraqis-- not just Hussein but the Iraqi people-- and Kurds are sworn mortal enemies. A Kurd is not an inroad to Iraq. Iraq is an inroad to Iraq.

I'm against pissing anyone off, Iran, Iraq, or the DPRK. It's stupid to show your hand. Unless of course he's bluffing.

 

[lavender]

 

[alltherage]

I wrestle with these question almost every day. I think the Bush knows what he wants in some senses. I think that keeping the Unitied States on a War footing keeps his popularity ratings high and somehow I think he noticed this. Remember he was the president elected without a mandate. Now he has a mandate and is extraordinarily popular.

The conflict itself has no end game that I can see. I think we could fight this fight for 10 years and she little progress in securing our safety. The threats are so nebulous and easily manifested the it seems impossible to truely distroy them.

That being said I think we had to do what we have done so far. I think the threats posed by nuclear and conventional weapons of all types are real and I think we need to try to contain that threat. We can do that in many ways but with people like Bin Laden distroying or crippling the threat was absolutely necessary.

Bush's comments about an axis of evil, and his use of words like crusade in reguards to his war were great and avoidable mistakes. I hope he begins to understand that what is good for him with the american public in a political sense often is terrible in terms of foriegn policy.

 

[riff]

It's the GODDAMNED COLD WAR

I wrestle with these question almost every day. I think the Bush knows what he wants in some senses. I think that keeping the Unitied States on a War footing keeps his popularity ratings high and somehow I think he noticed this. Remember he was the president elected without a mandate. Now he has a mandate and is extraordinarily popular.

The conflict itself has no end game that I can see. I think we could fight this fight for 10 years and she little progress in securing our safety. The threats are so nebulous and easily manifested the it seems impossible to truely distroy them.

That being said I think we had to do what we have done so far. I think the threats posed by nuclear and conventional weapons of all types are real and I think we need to try to contain that threat. We can do that in many ways but with people like Bin Laden distroying or crippling the threat was absolutely necessary.

Bush's comments about an axis of evil, and his use of words like crusade in reguards to his war were great and avoidable mistakes. I hope he begins to understand that what is good for him with the american public in a political sense often is terrible in terms of foriegn policy.

It's the damned cold war all over again, with a new twist.

It's going lukewarm?

I am very curious to hear comparisons of then and now. It isn't what burns, it is the burning.

 

[freescorfr]

It's truly about pluristic modernist Islam vs. traditionalist Islam. A great analogy is Western Europe 300 years ago as the church and state began to separate.

Too true Lavander. This is the Islamic reformation on a global scale - a 21stC reformation. I've just read your post after reflecting on the thread about the symblolic and the real.
Perhaps Bush needs to understand how to relate using the register of the symbolic - a lever on the subconscious, and religious in us - more than the real and for the media to focus less on the imaginary.

For instance he might give a symbol - something of the American people's choosing, in which they make conscious all the violence they received on Sept.11 - and deliver it to Mecca, with the words, "on Sept 11, we the People of the United States of America, received the attacks on our nation as an enormous violence brought about by the behaviour of a number of Isalamic fundamentalsts. I now return this violence to you , where it belongs, because we do not wish to keep it in our hearts."


It is also interesting to note that the Reformation of Christianity in Europe was substantially a response to abuse of power by the Church leaders 9 Indulgences etc.) and an enormous imbalance in the distribution of wealth.

 

[KillerMuffin]

You should see what I managed to filter out. The "expert" was standing over my shoulder lecturing. I know less about the Kurds than you do. I know they exist in the fringes of Iraq and that they sound like something you'd find in cottage cheese. That is where my knowledge ends.

Thankfully, the StudMuffin elected to decline using his lit account to lecture otherwise he'd still be here. He can be fun to debate with, but he's as single-minded as p_p_man.

 

[christophe]

An addendum: Islam and Christianity themselves are not perverted. Some practitioners pervert these religions to justify their own purposes.

KM, you just hit the nail on the head. Well stated!

 

[bored1]

Too true Lavander. This is the Islamic reformation on a global scale - a 21stC reformation. I've just read your post after reflecting on the thread about the symblolic and the real.
Perhaps Bush needs to understand how to relate using the register of the symbolic - a lever on the subconscious, and religious in us - more than the real and for the media to focus less on the imaginary.

For instance he might give a symbol - something of the American people's choosing, in which they make conscious all the violence they received on Sept.11 - and deliver it to Mecca, with the words, "on Sept 11, we the People of the United States of America, received the attacks on our nation as an enormous violence brought about by the behaviour of a number of Isalamic fundamentalsts. I now return this violence to you , where it belongs, because we do not wish to keep it in our hearts."


It is also interesting to note that the Reformation of Christianity in Europe was substantially a response to abuse of power by the Church leaders 9 Indulgences etc.) and an enormous imbalance in the distribution of wealth.

Great Idea Im sure theres a lot of Americans who would like to deliver a few laser guided bombs right to the heart of Mecca,Now that would send a message..........

 

[Todd-'o'-Vision]

Another thought on the topic. This war is not truly about us vs. them. They did not attack the United States simply because we are the U.S. They attacked what we represent: the leader of modernization.

I disagree on this point. Not saying I agree with the others or disagre with them But I do diagree with this point

I do not believe or accept that they attacked because the US is the leader of modernization. I believe that the US was attacked because of freedom. US is the leader of the free world. Most of these countries that the terrorist habit are not free countries, religiously, politically, ethnically or genderly. Freedom is a valuable commodity even more so when you don't have it. And when you do not have freedom, you do not want anyone else to have it either. And on that front the terrorist are winning a slow steady victory over the US and the rest of the free world.

 

[SINthysist]

KM

Just one point about delivery systems.

A grain barge, rented cheaply, filled and floated up the Mississippi to St. Louis, or up the Thames. A barge fire, an explosion, radioactive waste material spread over a wide area...

We saw how effective the first low-grade delivery system was.