Do you think the US deserved 9/11?

[jcd11235 0]

Quote

Quote

Now, will you answer the question?

I did.

I fail to see how your reply answered the question.

Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

[mnealtx 0]

Quote

Take ya pick dude

My original point was more about the military spend. Seems to be a pretty fucking obvious conflict of interest going on within the US government, but that seems to be ok with most people.

While we're at it, same deal applies to oil.




let history judge.

So you're asserting that the MILITARY runs the country? I'm sure that Al Haig is PISSED you didn't let him in on this 20-some years ago.

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[StreetScooby 5]

Quote

I fail to see how your reply answered the question.

I believe you. I also am starting to think you're one of those people that think the world is full of rational people who can discuss their way out of any and all conflicts.

I answered you're question. The world needs a clear winner. Badly.

We are all engines of karma

[jcd11235 0]

Quote

I answered you're question. The world needs a clear winner. Badly.

If only that statement had anything to do with the question.

Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

[iamsam 0]

Quote

So you're asserting that the MILITARY runs the country?

No dude, some of the people that own the military.

It's good you're asking questions.

seeya

but what do I know

[StreetScooby 5]

Quote

If only that statement had anything to do with the question.

IMO, you were simply trying to make a sweeping play via semantics. The US is not a terrorist country, nor or we imperalists. Based upon your previous posts, I'd expect you would disagree with that statement. Why go there?

And, I did answer your question, clearly.

We are all engines of karma

[mnealtx 0]

Quote

Quote

So you're asserting that the MILITARY runs the country?

No dude, some of the people that own the military.

It's good you're asking questions.

seeya

I'll take "the American people" for $1000, Alex.

Oh, a Daily Double - that's the SAME group that the government (AND the military) comes from!!!

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[jcd11235 0]

Quote

And, I did answer your question, clearly.

All you have done is dodged the question. I'll make it easy by reminding you that it was a yes or no question, and had nothing to do with winning or losing, the US being imperialists, or the US being terrorists.

Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

[nerdgirl 0]

Quote

Quote

Does that include us when we support terrorists?

The world needs a clear winner right now. Badly.

First, I am impressed! Seriously. That is a response worthy of former SecDef Rumsfeld addressing the Pentagon press corps.
Resolute.
Authoritative.
And getting around to not answering the question.



Why does the world "need" a clear winner right now?
How is a clear winner going to address Salafist networks?
How do you get a clear winner when the enemy is an insurgent, is hiding among the local populace, &/or receives tacit support from the local population?
How do propose achieving this "clear winner" status?
Who was the "clear winner" in Malaya, Algeria, Northern Ireland? (And those were relatively geographically localized insurgencies.)
Unless you're proposing some super-national governing body to which all states cede sovereignty? (And I highly doubt that.)

What constitutes a "clear winner"?
Where is this "clear winner" going to be declared? There's no wall to fall; no Soviet Union to collapse. There is no Fulda Gap that our side is going to secure and be victorious.

And -forbid, what if that winner isn't us? That resolves the bilateral you constructed.

The "whole" world?
It's like trying to convince sub-Saharan Africa or South America that the threat of nuclear or radiological terrorism is something about which they should be concerned. It's not on their metaphorical radar.

If one wants to truly address global needs, things that I would suggest 'the world' needs now more: clean water (that will eliminate the majority of diahhreal deaths); political and institutional stability; lowered risk of state-based nuclear proliferation and fewer nuclear weapons unilaterally (both lower the risk of theft by non-state actors); and an inexpensive, heat-stable treatment for malaria (that isn't DDT).

VR/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

[iamsam 0]

Quote

Quote

Quote

So you're asserting that the MILITARY runs the country?

No dude, some of the people that own the military.

It's good you're asking questions.

seeya

I'll take "the American people" for $1000, Alex.

Oh, a Daily Double - that's the SAME group that the government (AND the military) comes from!!!

Oh dear I'm not answering your questions very well am I. All I'm asking you to do is look at who makes money from war (hint- it's not the american or any other countries people).
It's the same people that make war.

But hey it's not all down to the US, it started over here -

"There is something behind the throne greater than the king himself,"

-Sir William Pitt speaking before Britain's House of Lords, 1770

sounds a bit like this

"Sarah there is a government within the government over which I have no control"

- Bill Clinton talking off the record to Sarah McLelland, former
White House staff reporter

now what do you think they were talking about?

World economics and international relations is managed and manipulated and their best trick is convincing you otherwise.

and I really do leave you with this

"Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes … known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.… No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare"
— James Madison, Political Observations, 1795


A wise man learns from his history.

Have fun.

but what do I know

[StreetScooby 5]

Quote

How do propose achieving this "clear winner" status?

Kill the money funding this activity. And do so without remorse. That's where I think we should be right now.

Let's keep this in simple terms, because it is time to do so. We are in a culture clash with Islam. Are all Muslims bad? Absolutely not. Can the leaders of this so called "religion-of-peace" play well with others? Demonstrably not.

Quote

How is a clear winner going to address Salafist networks?

Once the money funding them is dead, worst case scenario we give them all TVs and show them Baywatch. They'll grow to love us.

Quote

If one wants to truly address global needs, things that I would suggest 'the world' needs now more: clean water (that will eliminate the majority of diahhreal deaths); political and institutional stability; lowered risk of state-based nuclear proliferation and fewer nuclear weapons unilaterally (both lower the risk of theft by non-state actors); and an inexpensive, heat-stable treatment for malaria (that isn't DDT).

These are well placed priorities, and I agree with all of them. But, the world is not full of people who can rationalize such things. There is evil out there, and lots of it. And, unfortunately, there's not enough people willing to say that.

It's time to call this exactly what it is... a culture clash. You can't effectively solve a problem until you properly define it.

Am I a "war monger"? Absolutely not. Never killed a person in my life, and I hope to never have to. Hell, I've only beaten up two people in almost 50 years on this planet. But, there does come a time when might does make right. And I think we're at just such a point in the history of this planet. I hope its the USA that gets to write the history on this one.

We are the good guys. While not perfect, we are the good guys.

We are all engines of karma

[wmw999 2,460]

Quote

It's time to call this exactly what it is... a culture clash. You can't effectively solve a problem until you properly define it.

What is a culture clash? Our involvement in Iraq? The original bombing of the WTC (1993)? The 2001 WTC crash? Those are important to some people. They don't matter in the least to billions of people on the planet. The fact that they matter to you or most Americans doesn't make them automatically important.

Part of what makes this time different is that it's not just marginalized or opposing societies that aren't holding us up as their ideals. Before it was scruffy rebels, commies, and their ilk. Now it's people who are sometimes richer than we are . And we just can't get over it. We belong as players in the world, not the chiefs and arbiters of right and wrong. But kind of like how white males no longer automatically have a dominant place in American society, Americans either no longer automatically have the dominant place in geopolitics or world power-brokering, or that time is coming very shortly.

Quote

We are the good guys. While not perfect, we are the good guys.

That's the difference. We're no longer the good guys; but I, too, think we're among them.

Wendy W.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[StreetScooby 5]

Quote

What is a culture clash?

Isn't that self evident?

When one culture tries to eliminate another culture, especially through repeated violent attempts. When that same culture teaches their children to hate and kill, for no other reason than the other culture is different from their own.

Quote

Our involvement in Iraq?

While I support our armed services, I don't recall ever having supported Bush's decision to invade Iraq. At the time, I remember being very uneasy with his decision.

Quote

And we just can't get over it.

It's the funding of people dedicated to our physical destruction that we shouldn't get over.

So what if the economic pendulum is swinging. There are alot of very smart, very hard working people in the world who have earned that. Good for them. America has proven itself capable of competing at that level.

Quote

That's the difference. We're no longer the good guys; but I, too, think we're among them.

Thanks for the correction. Agreed.

We are all engines of karma

[nerdgirl 0]

Quote

Let's keep this in simple terms, because it is time to do so.
We are in a culture clash with Islam.

Samuel Huntington had something to say about that a few years ago: The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. Huntington’s map.

That identifies the problem (or at least one identification of the perceived problem). What does one do to alleviate it? Or does each nation-state pursue radical isolationism? Or return to pre-Westphalian anarchism?

Tom Barnett (former OSD, under SecDef Rumsfeld) suggested considering it a clash of the non-integrating gap with the functioning core: The Pentagon’s New Map. The map. And provided one strategy to decrease the non-integrating gap: Blueprint for Action, which I was personally less impressed with than PNM but give him credit for proposing a way forward.

Disagree heartily with your former claim – trying to apply to simplistic, single-solution approaches is going to address only superficial factors at best … as worst it's a distracter and will further direct resources ($, time, & lives) toward situations that will not address the radical Salafists or exacerbate. Vision without strategy and executables is recyclable electrons traveling between neurons.

Radical Islamists/members of the radical Salafists ‘hate’ me a lot more than you: independent, educated, feisty female!

I do agree that there is a larger culture class occurring: regressive fundamentalism vs progressive civil order. Technology has empowered group and individuals – I call them the “1000 points of Greyness” – they subvert traditional delivery systems and co-opt beneficial commercial technology for threatening and indiscriminate purposes, using relatively unskilled technologies to pursue disperse insurgent tactics. Fundamentalist, apocryphal groups who want to take the world back to their whacked vision of the 7th Century CE opposing dancing, alcohol, and kite-flying but sat phones & RPGs are okay

We still have the $120B ‘hot potato’ of Reconstruction. State seems to be the stuckee.

Quote

Kill the money funding this activity. And do so without remorse. That's where I think we should be right now.

Excellent suggestion. How do you propose doing that? Sanctions? Against whom? How? Which government? Saudi Arabia? Pakistan?

And how does one accomplish that without infringing on the capitalist marketplace? Sovereignty of other states? More regulations on transnational banking? Strengthen international treaties against money laundering?

What do you know about what has been done to thwart terrorist financing networks? Why has it not been effective? Do you think that the administration has been ineffective in pursuing this? What have they not done, that they should have?

Historically, how has that approach worked with more geographically localized insurgencies with less access to communications technology?

Quote

You can't effectively solve a problem until you properly define it.

Concur. What constitutes a "clear winner"? And where is this "clear winner" going to be declared?

This is why it is so important to clearly delineate what are US national security & foreign policy goals before entertaining ways and means (roughly strategy and tactics).

To illustrate that I’m not asking you questions that I am unwilling to answer, some of my thoughts w/r/t addressing these holistic US national security and foreign policy challenges: here & here.

VR/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

[StreetScooby 5]

Thanks for the links. They look interesting. Give me some time to read them.

We are all engines of karma

[billvon 3,008]

>Kill the money funding this activity.

To do that completely we would have to stop buying oil from the Middle East. That's beyond what americans are willing to do.

>There is evil out there, and lots of it. And, unfortunately, there's
>not enough people willing to say that.

Definitely. Unfortunately, there are far too many people who think that all that evil comes in swarthy men (aged 18-40) with turbans.

>I hope its the USA that gets to write the history on this one.

I hope that the world writes the history on this one, and that the USA is just one of the many nations of the world when it's written - not the overlord.

[mnealtx 0]

Sorry - I gave up on the 'shadow government' conspiracy sites years ago - I'm not flexible enough to get my head THAT far my ass anymore.

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[shropshire 0]

What the US does or does not deserve is irelevant... The people that were killed then, did not [full-stop]

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[SpeedRacer 1]

Quote

From a spinoff of the Obama wants to... thread

Vote and explain your reasoning. There is no third choice because its a pretty simpe question.

If you vote yes, then are are saying that the Taliban are basically well meaning people who just got their toes stepped on by the big bad US and had to respond in the only way that they could.

It was Al Quaeda that did 9/11, not the Taliban
. I suspect that Osama bin Laden & Khalid Sheikh Mohammed kept a pretty tight lid on the operation, and would not just go & tell everyone in the Taliban government what they were going to do.
Pre-knowledge of the attack was probably kept on a "need-to-know" basis.

Speed Racer
--------------------------------------------------

[Skyrad 0]

I voted NO. I don't believe that anyone deserved a death like that. As for US Foriegn policy there has been some terrible decisions and policies but the US also has done good in the world, its easy to forget that.

When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

[pirana 0]

Deserve is the wrong word. It would be more accurate that our role in the affairs of other countries and peoples played a big part of the chain of events that led to 9/11.

Dreams of empire come with a price tag. Stick your nose in other people's business often enough and long enough, and in a way that is seen by so many as parasitic and overbearing; and someday somebody will strike out. We've assasinated leaders, propped up puppet governments, bullied on behalf of corporations, and on and on.

Anyone that was surprised by 9/11 has not been paying attention.

But deserved is the wrong word.

" . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

[pirana 0]

Quote

But I want to keep this thread away from the current war in Iraq. The question was: Do you think that America's actions before 9/11 merited the given response.

I have a feeling that there is a disturbingly large amount of peopel out there who do.

From the perspective of good-sized chunks of the ME population, the answer is yes. They see the US, and most of the other industrial nations of the Earth, as having exploited them for their resources and in the process as imposing an ill-fitting culture on their society.

Posed as it is, the question points out why a solution is still so long away. Failing to recognize the perspective of those you disagree with ensures that finding a solution will be very difficult, if not impossible.

It's easy to say "Yes, we have behaved badly over several generations, but not as bad as you." Says who, and from what perspective? The conversation quickly devolves into a rather childish arguement of "I know you are but what am I?" as one side bullshits and lies and tries to cover for the past and the other side resorts to extremes to get everybody's attention.

" . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

[pirana 0]

Quote

All you have done is dodged the question. I'll make it easy by reminding you that it was a yes or no question, and had nothing to do with winning or losing, the US being imperialists, or the US being terrorists.

Definitely imperialists. By any historically accurate definition I've ever seen.

" . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley