“When you’re risking your life to accomplish a mission, the last thing you want to hear is that mission being questioned in our nation’s capital,” he told cadets. “I want you to know that, while there may be a lot of heated rhetoric in Washington, D.C., one thing is not in dispute: The American people stand behind you.”
How the hell does Bush know how a soldier feels at war? This is the beef I’ve always had with some of the most hawkish people that I’ve known in my life, and certainly this administration’s biggest cogs. If you’ve never been in a uniform across an ocean, not knowing whether you’re ever going to make it out alive, you’re NOT AN AUTHORITY ON HOW IT FEELS!
This isn’t something that a book or a movie or a trip to the bedside of a soldier with no legs is going to change. He’s the President, trying to sell me a line about how I’m somehow turning my back on others who are serving by wanting things to change in Iraq.
A pampered, rich man-child telling me about things he knows nothing about. Perhaps his next trick will be lecturing Katrina victims on how it feels to be homeless and poor.
What he’s doing is morally reprehensible. He clearly doesn’t want to deal in the facts. His speeches in the past 6 months on Iraq have lacked details, as if the details didn’t matter. All he does is try to shame whoever opposes his policy. In response to a parent who lost a child in Iraq and thinks things should change, he offers nothing but a stream of psychological ploys aimed at turning your opinion around using shame.
Bush is talking to us now as if we were his children. It’s insulting.
Actually, while i’m quite the ‘bush basher’ myself, psychologically speaking, motivation IS severely hampered when it is not accompanied with conviction. Thus, it would not be implausible to assume that opposition to the war might affect the soldier in the field in a myriad of ways that compromises his performance and focus.
But this, of course, does not mean that we ought to ‘support the troops’ or the war as this simply plays into the hands of the government of the day and sends a clear signal to future governments that the will of the people can always be ignored when it comes to foreign ‘interventions’, till the first casualty can be held up to call upon the people to ‘support the troops.
Troops ought never to be supported as an entity apart from the government but as an extension of it. The government, in turn, ought never to be supported as an entity apart from the people but as an extension of its will.
In no worse way than finding out their spouse wants a divorce, that they have to drive across an IED happy stretch of land to pick up or drop off something w/out armor that can keep them alive.
I just think that for every soldier we hear a single word from on the web and in the press, there are thousands we never see or hear about once.
If you gave them a choice, stay or leave, what do you think most of them would choose?
I’d bet a dollar to a doughnut that a lot more than 75% of them would choose to go home. Nobody wants to be in a war, and surely not one that’s damaging the overall readiness of our military like this one is.
As the months go by, the enemy grows stronger and we grow weaker. It’s a fact. A lot of these guys have been stop-lossed and others have rotated into Iraq 3 times already.
Our military is not built to fight a war like this. The soldiers know that, the officers know that and Rumsfeld knows that. This is about Republicans retaining Congress in 2006 at this point.
Today’s speech was proof of that! Mind games. Tricks instead of facts. President Bush asks us to take a leap of faith with him, for the sake of making sure a lot more people die before the contractors in Iraq have to close up shop and/or figure out a way to keep stealing US taxpayer money w/out actually having to be in Iraq.
GWB has the right to his opinion Chris just as you Left/Liberals do ! Sure soldiers want to go home, but they want to complete their midssion too. Do you favor a US surrender? If you do say so! When they start cutting heads off in LA or Kansas City you may sing a different tune.
Paul, everyone has their right to their opinion. Bush thinks I’m a horrible person, that I’m pissing on the people still over there.
That’s his argument.
Saying ‘sure soldiers want to come home, but they want to complete their mission too’ – it’s a false statement. None of us know what the majority of them think. What I can guarantee you is this, they want to come home alive and well.
If the plan we currently have in place continues to produce in this downward trend we’ve been seeing for well over a year now, a viable answer to what you’re going to do about it is not to simply restate the same thing you said three months earlier and six months earlier!
Is it his ‘opinion’, or is it just that he sees the entire thing in a political frame? To me, he’s going about this thing as if the war was being fought on Meet the Press instead of on the ground in the Middle East.
Chris I guess that we should surrender. You Lefties just don’t get it!
Paul – When did I EVER say surrender in anything I’ve written?
Murtha’s plan was described by right-wingers as a surrender, but that doesn’t make it so!
We as humans are strongly susceptable to word association, and simply describing the opposition’s idea as the worst word you can possible find is politics, but not reality.
For all of you right-wingers out there, what’s the plan if it’s not Murtha’s? What is your understanding of the plan?
Because to me it sounds a lot like the scheme from South Park…the underpants gnomes…step 1 – collect underpants, step 2 – ?, step 3 – profit.
You need something in the middle there to actually make it a plan. Just saying that Saddam had to go, and we’ll be better off once this is all over isn’t a plan.
Saying we’ll hand off to the Iraqis when they have enough troops is entirely too vague. That’s the primary goal that will prompt our withdrawal, yet Bush doesn’t point out why they haven’t gotten enough ready yet, nothing about the challenges they face, nothing about what’s holding up the works.
Murtha’s plan is not a retreat! Anything opposite or critical of President Bush is not a call for retreat either.
That’s the primary goal that will prompt our withdrawal, yet Bush doesn’t point out why they haven’t gotten enough ready yet, nothing about the challenges they face, nothing about what’s holding up the works.
There is the diconnect in all this. Your expecting liberation of Iraq on Monday, fix broken window on Wednesday, arrest zarkawi on Thursday and Iraq self-sufficient on Friday. That isn’t how it works.
Plus, that little thing called the war on terror still has a few things that need to be taken care of. When ever has a country/government be started completely from scratch to a well working machine in 5 years or less?
Murtha’s plan is not a retreat! Anything opposite or critical of President Bush is not a call for retreat either.
It’s all about retreat, almost all the Democrats want retreat, it’s what they do, it’sin their nature. Surrender to the inferrior because we don’t want to make him feel bad. Liberals want the biggest humiliating and deadly surrender so they can say how bad Bush was for the next 100 years. Why do you think the media lies so much about what is going on in Iraq?
Also, I curious how you came to the conclusion that Bush thinks he’s your father based on the quote you provided. I’ve read the whole thing a couple of times and I’m not getting the children feeling.
Absolutely! Bush is giving America a lesson on morality here. He’s ‘teaching’ America about how it feels to be a soldier at war, and how we need to watch what we say for their sake.
The dominant male role model is at play with this statement. It’s the same type of thing you’d hear concerning sex from a priest. There’s a logic system in place that eliminates the chance for meaningful dialogue.
By not accepting what the President has to say about Iraq – in the same way a priest will defer to God or a father will defer to ‘because I said so’ – he does it with a statement about how you’re making the troops feel by questioning the mission.
It’s a classic play. The person in the dominant male role cannot articulate his position using facts, so shame is necessary.
I have heard some of our troops in Iraq say that talk against the war by Americans does affect them negatively. One can give aid and comfort to the enemy. Or do you not consider terrorists our enemies Chris?
I do consider terrorists our enemies, but in Iraq, we are becoming our own worst enemies.
It’s an insurgency Paul. It’s not a situation where you can just keep plugging away and one day wake up to find it all over.
Military experts (even Rumsfeld has admitted this) say that your average insurgency takes at least a decade (weak) to defeat and sometimes 30 years or more. This insurgency is starting to turn…not disappearing, but getting to the point where it’s not just ‘terrorists’ doing the killing.
Iraqi police, squads on the payroll as of this very moment, are engaging in hate crimes against their fellow Iraqis.
Only it’s Kurd or Shiite killing Sunni. Is the death squad wearing Iraqi police or military uniforms…are they ‘terrorists’? If so, a lot more thought needs to go into what’s really happening over there.
Who’s our enemy?
How does it work then Right? I’m not saying that it should all be fixed overnight. Hey, that reminds me…why are you and Paul squeezing my position into a can? I support Murtha, you guys call it ‘retreat’. You’re saying, ‘things don’t happen overnight’…when did I ever say that they would?
If the goal is making Iraq self-sufficient, how are we helping them by continuing to carry all the water for them? As long as we’re willing to take care of the hard work for them, what incentive is there for them to step up?
I don’t know, neither does the President or the Pentagon. According to both of them prior to the war…and this is from years of think-tank work by Rummy and the neoconservatives…Iraq could be liberated and a democracy could be established with minimal amounts of troops and money.
Right, it’s not like the President told us all prior to invasion that we’d be there for this long. When did he say this…when did ANYONE in the administration say this prior to the invasion?
What you’re advocating is an open check, and that’s neither what the administration asked for nor what our military was prepared to carry out.
You’re the one thinking about politics 100% on the Iraq issue Right. You say that it’s all about completing the mission, yet right here you say it’s not about that at all, but instead about Bush’s legacy.
I don’t give a damn about Bush’s legacy. Historians will take on that assignment. Besides Howard Dean and Dennis Kuchich (sp?), who was running for President on a withdrawal platform?
Murtha’s plan calls for a withdrawal over a period of six months. We’re urging Iraqis to step up and take over, right? Unless the actual goal is something different, I’m not hearing arguments about why Murtha’s plan is wrong.
All I’m hearing is right-wingers calling the plan a retreat and leaving it at that. Nothing about what would happen if we did that, just one word…and in politics, a label is often all you need.
The enemy for America lies within America !
Paul, that’s a crock. The enemy took down the world trade centers in NYC, and Osama surely isn’t living in Columbus, OH right now.
If everyone in the country got behind this war right now, nothing would change. The only thing that would change…the White House would be forced to answer less questions about the war.
They had the opportunity to handle this right, but at every step of the way managed to screw things up. Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowicz…troop strength upon invasion, cost, interrogation methods…
Take every bit of news that’s emboldened the enemy, and you’ll find a decision that was made by civilians that never would have been made by generals in uniform.
Osama may not be living in Columbus Chris, but Hakim or Abdul may be (and most likely is) in Detroit or some other American town. May I call you general Chris? 🙂
You’re the one thinking about politics 100% on the Iraq issue Right. You say that it’s all about completing the mission, yet right here you say it’s not about that at all, but instead about Bush’s legacy.
No, it’s the Anti-Bushers legacy I’m talking about. There hasn’ tbeen a politically successful Democat since JFK and now were find crazy stuff about him too. Liberals can’t handle a Bush legacy that is as powerful as the Reagan legacy. For Bush, it’s the mission and America, for Democrats it’s all about politics.
Murtha’s plan calls for a withdrawal over a period of six months.
Actually it’s calling for the fall of Iraq, the installation of a new dictator and a huge, new Al Queda base in Iraq in 6 months and 1 week.
The enemy for America lies within America !
I think he’s talking about Schumer, Kerry, Keenedy, Dean and the others. Osama didn’t patent terror and he didn’t work alone. Even if you capture Osama, the terror cells still will go on, that is what Kerry couldn’t grasp, it’s what most Democrats refuse to grasp. Bush=Hitler=Lied, that is the core libeal argument.
A lot of Americans don’t fathom what we are up against and some do not care. This is a cultural and a spiritual war. We stand on a precipice.
Paul – on 9/11 we were attacked by terrorists, some of whom we were already tracking.
This is the same thing the evangelicals do…they say that everyday a war is fought against Satan, and because of that, their leadership can say whatever they want and people buy into it.
Paul, Right…Osama Bin Laden attacked us. Now both of you honestly believe that the correct move was to attack Iraq?
I’m starting to think that we were better off with Saddam in control. The region was a hell of a lot more stable back then. Sure, it was bad for some Iraqis…but neither of you or Bush are all that upset about what’s going on in the Sudan.
The logic behind invading has nothing to do with why we’re there now.
A lot of Americans don’t fathom what we are up against and some do not care. This is a cultural and a spiritual war. We stand on a precipice.
Bingo
Paul – on 9/11 we were attacked by terrorists, some of whom we were already tracking.
We were attacked by Islam and when I say Islam, I mean Islam the religion as the rules and laws of that religion currently stand. Because America has yet to fully convert to Islam or pay the jizya (poll tax) the 9/11 attack was totally justified in all Islamic circles.
This is the same thing the evangelicals do…they say that everyday a war is fought against Satan, and because of that, their leadership can say whatever they want and people buy into it.
Evangelicals don’t fly planes into buildings, homicide bomb cafes and schools or cut the heads off of school children. Evangelicals are the opposite of muslims in that muslims kill for their religion and evangelicas just talk.
Paul, Right…Osama Bin Laden attacked us. Now both of you honestly believe that the correct move was to attack Iraq?
Your fixation on Osama shows you still don’t grasp the enormity of the situation. In Star Wars, if Obi Wan killed Darth Vader in episode 4 would that have made a difference to the Emperor? Osama is one player in a vast Islamic offensive to fulfill the commandments of their religion.
Therefore Iraq is the flypaper that draws the fanatical thugs to their doom. As long as we have a presence there then Islam will be focused there and not here or is Israel. Speaking of Israel, they are now at the point where the murderous homicide bombings are at a low point thanks to Iraq and their own security wall/fence.
I’m starting to think that we were better off with Saddam in control. The region was a hell of a lot more stable back then.
Now this is just nutty, you think perpetual invasion is stability, Kuwait, Iran, Syria. The region was a war zone since the 80’s, now is the golden age compared to the last few decades.
Sure, it was bad for some Iraqis…but neither of you or Bush are all that upset about what’s going on in the Sudan.
You mean to 100 thousand that were gassed or the 90% of the population that wasn’t in Saddam’s home town or maybe the Olymic atheletes who disappointed Saddam and ended up in the torture chambers or maybe you mean the rape victims or the targets of the secret police who needed “examples” to show the puiblic what happens why you go against Saddam? It was a real paradise according to Michael Moore.
As for the Sudan, the U.N. has everything under control, yes that great bastion of human thought and hope. Why would I be concerned about the Sudan? Besides, since we and our few allies are doing all the work in Iraq we don’t have the ability to help Sudan even though we want to.
I hear there are a bunch of Frenchmen sitting on their asses torching cars, maybe they can help although there isn’t any corruption or fraud to be had so they my not be interested.
The logic behind invading has nothing to do with why we’re there now.
The logic never changed, we were attacked on our soil and we are making sure that it doesn’t happen again. We are fully prepared to invade what ever shit hole of a country participates in attacks against us. That ought to get them thinking.
DI: Paul – on 9/11 we were attacked by terrorists, some of whom we were already tracking.
RT: We were attacked by Islam and when I say Islam, I mean Islam the religion as the rules and laws of that religion currently stand. Because America has yet to fully convert to Islam or pay the jizya (poll tax) the 9/11 attack was totally justified in all Islamic circles.
That’s inaccurate. Islam is a religion, and it alone cannot hijack a plane. People did that. If you look at it as us against a religion, then we might as well quit right now. People aren’t going to stop being Muslim.
DI: This is the same thing the evangelicals do…they say that everyday a war is fought against Satan, and because of that, their leadership can say whatever they want and people buy into it.
RT: Evangelicals don’t fly planes into buildings, homicide bomb cafes and schools or cut the heads off of school children. Evangelicals are the opposite of muslims in that muslims kill for their religion and evangelicas just talk.
Bullshit! Evangelicals have killed doctors and bombed clinics. Just recently some evangelicals beat a college professor because he didn’t believe in ‘intelligent design’.
DI: Paul, Right…Osama Bin Laden attacked us. Now both of you honestly believe that the correct move was to attack Iraq?
RT: Your fixation on Osama shows you still don’t grasp the enormity of the situation. In Star Wars, if Obi Wan killed Darth Vader in episode 4 would that have made a difference to the Emperor? Osama is one player in a vast Islamic offensive to fulfill the commandments of their religion.
If someone murders my family and isn’t caught after 4 years, the person who told me I didn’t grasp the enormity of the situation would get hit in the head with something.
A murder took place, and the culprit is still on the loose. How that doesn’t anger you is beyond me. Osama did it.
RT: Therefore Iraq is the flypaper that draws the fanatical thugs to their doom. As long as we have a presence there then Islam will be focused there and not here or is Israel. Speaking of Israel, they are now at the point where the murderous homicide bombings are at a low point thanks to Iraq and their own security wall/fence.
There’s no proof to this Right. Just like the Iraq invasion and what would happen next, it’s all just a theory. Right now it’s Iraqis killing our soldiers over there. Nothing factual can be presented that makes this ‘flypaper’ theory work in reality.
DI: I’m starting to think that we were better off with Saddam in control. The region was a hell of a lot more stable back then.
RT: Now this is just nutty, you think perpetual invasion is stability, Kuwait, Iran, Syria. The region was a war zone since the 80’s, now is the golden age compared to the last few decades.
Iran was neutralized, and now they’re back to what they were doing in the 70s and 80s. We were able to use Saddam in the 80s to keep Iran in line, and it was his presence that prevented them from having that much influence in the region. Now they’re puppeteers for the Shiite population, with Islam existing as a much greater authority in the culture than it was under Saddam.
Saddam knew that in order to maintain control, he had to limit the influence of Islam within his country. Now we’re seeing that he was right. When the Sunni and Shiite communities are free to do as they wish, they kill each other. With Saddam there was no civil war, and without him now, there is.
DI: Sure, it was bad for some Iraqis…but neither of you or Bush are all that upset about what’s going on in the Sudan.
RT: You mean to 100 thousand that were gassed or the 90% of the population that wasn’t in Saddam’s home town or maybe the Olymic atheletes who disappointed Saddam and ended up in the torture chambers or maybe you mean the rape victims or the targets of the secret police who needed “examples” to show the puiblic what happens why you go against Saddam? It was a real paradise according to Michael Moore.
As for the Sudan, the U.N. has everything under control, yes that great bastion of human thought and hope. Why would I be concerned about the Sudan? Besides, since we and our few allies are doing all the work in Iraq we don’t have the ability to help Sudan even though we want to.
OK, so you don’t care about the Sudan, yet I’m supposed to shed a tear for the Iraqis? Isn’t a person a person? Or is Arab higher up on the scale than black people? I think Europe is deeply racist, and our silence just makes us as bad as they are. We’re not helping out in Sudan because those people are black.
RT: I hear there are a bunch of Frenchmen sitting on their asses torching cars, maybe they can help although there isn’t any corruption or fraud to be had so they my not be interested.
DI: The logic behind invading has nothing to do with why we’re there now.
RT: The logic never changed, we were attacked on our soil and we are making sure that it doesn’t happen again. We are fully prepared to invade what ever shit hole of a country participates in attacks against us. That ought to get them thinking.
Iraq didn’t invade us. They were punnished for the crimes of the Taliban. It’s just like your brother doing something wrong and you getting blamed for it.
That’s inaccurate. Islam is a religion, and it alone cannot hijack a plane. People did that. If you look at it as us against a religion, then we might as well quit right now. People aren’t going to stop being Muslim.
It doesn’t need to be alone to hijack a plane, it only needs to be the kingpin, the mastermind, the source of encouragement and approval. Why quit right now? Is Islam so powerful that we may as well just laydown now and start calling each other by our new islamic names?
Is that why liberals hate Christianity so much that the sheer preceived power makes them so jealous they have to marginalize the holidays such as Christmas. No, people won’t stop being muslim and Islam will continue to try to dominate the world but at least we can hold of the impending invasion for a few more decades.
Bullshit! Evangelicals have killed doctors and bombed clinics. Just recently some evangelicals beat a college professor because he didn’t believe in ‘intelligent design’.
How many doctors? 2? 3? and how many clinics? Evangelicals never invaded an entire continent and enslaved it’s population, evangelicals don’t bomb innocents on a daily basis or use retarded children and women as WMDs. You really have no argument here, Islam and Evangelical Christians are like night and day.
If someone murders my family and isn’t caught after 4 years, the person who told me I didn’t grasp the enormity of the situation would get hit in the head with something.
A murder took place, and the culprit is still on the loose. How that doesn’t anger you is beyond me. Osama did it.
If you define your argument so narrowly then the logically the murderers died on the airplanes with everyone else. Your linking Osama as a co-conspirator or a mastermind and in that case all of Islam is a co-conspirator since:
it was Islam that taught Osama,
it was Islam that provided Osama with people
it was Islam that provided Osama with approval
and it was Islam that provided Osama with money.
Osama is Islam and Islam is Osama, you can’t surgically separeate the two.
There’s no proof to this Right. Just like the Iraq invasion and what would happen next, it’s all just a theory. Right now it’s Iraqis killing our soldiers over there. Nothing factual can be presented that makes this ‘flypaper’ theory work in reality.
Have we been attacked since? Especially now that we are in Iraq every terrorist in the world should be flocking to America to take revenge on us. Where are they? What is taking so long? We invaded a muslim country, where is the firestorm of revenge attacks on U.S. soil?
Iran was neutralized, and now they’re back to what they were doing in the 70s and 80s. We were able to use Saddam in the 80s to keep Iran in line, and it was his presence that prevented them from having that much influence in the region. Now they’re puppeteers for the Shiite population, with Islam existing as a much greater authority in the culture than it was under Saddam.
Not Islam, Shiite Islam, the enemy of Sunni Islam. Sunnis claim Shiite Islam was manufactured by Israel to harm the true religion. This works to our favor more than you realize.
When the Sunni and Shiite communities are free to do as they wish, they kill each other. With Saddam there was no civil war, and without him now, there is.
With a religion so violent and so destined for world domination this is a pretty good situation in my book. They are over there not bombing us ore cutting the heads off of school children.
OK, so you don’t care about the Sudan, yet I’m supposed to shed a tear for the Iraqis?
That isn’t what I said, I said the U.N. has is under control, the lazy French could help and we are very occupied right now. Don’t shed a tear for the Iraqis, jump for joy that the terrorists have other things to worry about other than bombing your home town.
Isn’t a person a person? Or is Arab higher up on the scale than black people? I think Europe is deeply racist, and our silence just makes us as bad as they are. We’re not helping out in Sudan because those people are black.
There are few more prejudiced than Islam, either your muslim or you are dhimma (2nd class citizens under the “care” of islam much like Africans were under the care of Apartheid) Race has nothing to do with this, most muslims are not Arab at all and many Arabs aren’t muslim. The race card doesn’t play here. Sudan isn’t drying to take over the world by force.
Iraq didn’t invade us. They were punnished for the crimes of the Taliban. It’s just like your brother doing something wrong and you getting blamed for it.
Osama, the Taliban, Iraq, Syria, Hamas, they are all one entity under Islam. This is like saying the State Department and the Department of Education are totally separate countries but they aren’t, they are part of the same government with different jobs.
If my brother does something wrong but I supplied the means and encouragement to him then I am just as guiltyas he is.
1. Millions of liberals ARE CHRISTIAN!
2. A thought can exist that influences people in a bad way, but it still requires humans to carry it out.
Right, Islam cannot be striped from the people of this earth no sooner than Christianity could be. The very idea of going to war against a religion is flawed. All that does is get the Muslims who aren’t terrorists to think that we’re at war with them when we’re not.
We’re at war against terrorists, not a religion. Pretending that we are at war against Islam will get you ratings on AM radio and fans in evangelical circles, and that’s where we hear this stuff.
No man will be told by another man that his beliefs are wrong and just accept it. If you attack the man physically, he’ll only grow more stuborn and resolute. Millions have died in human history trying to ‘convert’ their neighbors, and to this day none of it accomplished anything.
Right, you’re advocating an idea (identifying a form of religion as the enemy, then attacking people in an effort to rid the world of that religion) that was not only proven useless in the Hundred Years War, but initially prompted the Pilgrims to come here in the first place.
If you think we can win over the hearts and minds of those people in the Middle East while somehow striping them of their religion, you’re out of your mind. It cannot be done.
Butters on South Park wants to take over the world as well, but it’s not going to happen. Not because everyone bands together to stop him, but because he’s a loser. Same goes for these idiots. The countries they’re in charge of are the same ones they were in charge of 100 years ago. It’ll be the same if not less in another 100 years. I’m not scared.
Right, a seperate law had to be passed to keep the evangelicals from harassing every person that went in or came out of a clinic day after day after day. They had to pass a law for these nutbags…just for them.
And as far as using women or retarded people…Shiavo anyone? I suppose it’s alright to exploit someone as long as they’re unable to see anything or speak for themselves. Look up Army of God.
What? You’re behind Shiite Iraq being run by Iran? If it came down to a free for all, the Sunnis would get slaughtered and Iran would grow by a few hundred square miles. I don’t see how this is a ‘good’ thing in any way Right.
Good for you, not good for a US soldier!
All of that’s been debunked for quite a while now Right. Saddam and al-Queda were not partners. Saddam hated the religious fanatics. That’s why we supported him througout his war with Iran.
We can’t just rewrite history to suit today’s political necessity. Wolfowicz said there wasn’t any long standing cultural battle in Iraq…they didn’t have a clue about Shiite or Sunni or Kurd or what any of it meant.
I’m talking about history here, and Saddam’s loyalties were not with jihadists. He knew that Islam was the one thing that could bring him down…just like what happened in Iran when the Sha was overthrown.
It’s all right there. Clear historical facts.
The very idea of going to war against a religion is flawed.
You are correct except the religion is at war with us. Muslims have been hijacking planes and blowing up buildings since before the 1970s. We have been somewhat isolated because of the distance and lack of access to America. Now, there is little between us and the muslims, hell, just last week American muslims decided that the constitutionis irrelevant and vandalized liquor stores in New York.
You talk as if we just started a random war out of now where with a random target.
No man will be told by another man that his beliefs are wrong and just accept it.
You’ve never talked to a Jew or Christian living in a muslim occupied place.
Right, you’re advocating an idea (identifying a form of religion as the enemy, then attacking people in an effort to rid the world of that religion) that was not only proven useless in the Hundred Years War, but initially prompted the Pilgrims to come here in the first place.
The hundred years war was about trade and did not cause pilgrims to come here. This was in the 1300s
Again, Islam is gunning for us, not the other way around, it’s not like we have much of a choice. We pay the jizya, convert or die.
Butters on South Park wants to take over the world as well, but it’s not going to happen. Not because everyone bands together to stop him, but because he’s a loser. Same goes for these idiots. The countries they’re in charge of are the same ones they were in charge of 100 years ago. It’ll be the same if not less in another 100 years. I’m not scared.
These “idiots” number 1/4 the earths population and control most the oil. They are lavishly wealthy and could fund a jihad with money and people for a decades. We have the technological advantage now but with “allies” like the French, we are in for a long and rough ride. Europe will be ruled by Islam by the end of this century.
Right, a seperate law had to be passed to keep the evangelicals from harassing every person that went in or came out of a clinic day after day after day. They had to pass a law for these nutbags…just for them.
Liberal hysteria and posturing led to this unnecessary legislation stripping people of their 1st ammendment rights.
And as far as using women or retarded people…Shiavo anyone? I suppose it’s alright to exploit someone as long as they’re unable to see anything or speak for themselves. Look up Army of God.
What building did Shiavo blow up? I don’t recall seeing the death toll from her homicide bombing attack.
What? You’re behind Shiite Iraq being run by Iran? If it came down to a free for all, the Sunnis would get slaughtered and Iran would grow by a few hundred square miles. I don’t see how this is a ‘good’ thing in any way Right.
Sunni is the dominant faction by a land slide but the good thing for us is it is happening over there and it reduces the terrorist pool.
Good for you, not good for a US soldier!
If being a soldier was a cakewalk then everyone would be doing it and war would never end.
All of that’s been debunked for quite a while now Right. Saddam and al-Queda were not partners. Saddam hated the religious fanatics. That’s why we supported him througout his war with Iran.
Nay, there are documents recovered from the Iraq capitol that say different. It was a perfect union with both groups wanting to hurt the U.S. and blood is thinker than water. Saddam didn’t hate fanatics, he worried about a religious over throw of his dictatorship. Saddam followed Islam pretty close and was known to observe the muslim holy days. He was more like communism and liberalism where you worship the state and not the deity.
I’m talking about history here, and Saddam’s loyalties were not with jihadists.
No one said they were but it was very convenient to funnel oil for food money to al queda so the real jihadists could distract America, didn’t work really and ended up getting Saddam deposed. It is all linked together, no rewrite needed but a better understanding of Islam is required by the West.
It’s all right there. Clear historical facts.
But you need to understand why and what was behind those facts. Sayind Saddam hated fanatics because he was protecting his dictatorship doesn’t tell the whole story.
Evangelicals beat a college professor for not teaching intelligent design. Does that mean America is at war against evangelicals? No…it means there are criminals out there who need to be punished. If a cell of terrorists are out there and planing to do something, our intelligence and law enforcement people either find out before something happens or they don’t. It has nothing to do with tanks.
The idea that 9/11 could have been prevented if we’d had our military fighting a war in the middle east at the time is incorrect. Everything we know points to intelligence gathering/sharing and pro-active law enforcement or if the cell is based outside of the US, pre-emptive engagement.
That’s how you prevent terrorist attacks. You leave the rhetoric and bravado at the door and let the people we pay to do this figure out how to get better at protecting the country. Not only from a procedure/technology standpoint, but a political and diplomatic standpoint as well.
This type of control is practically impossible with the distraction of a real war being fought, let alone a fake one against Islam. The people we have whose job it is to protect us from terrorist attacks can’t simply focus on Islam and be done with it.
School shootings = terrorism, Waco = terrorism, Oklahoma City = terrorism, drug gangs-witness intimidation(BIG problem in Boston and Baltimore) = terrorism
If we’re at war against ‘terror’, and 9/11 – OKCity are our last two horrendus masacres, both carried out with explosives (fuel in the tanks of airplanes)…then that’s where we need to start. How did these people gain access to what they used? How could we have become suspicious of them before they carried out their plans?
Democracy in the Middle East has very little to do with whether or not terrorism continues to kill people here in America.
It’s sad to say, but one has nothing to do with the other. In fact, the only way they do affect one another is the war in Iraq screws up the war on terror.
The people were motivated to fight through manipulation inspired by religious leaders in concert with the nation’s rulers. The Protestant Reformation created the existance of two distinct sides in any instance where the population was hungry and poor (so why don’t we shave that number down with a war), or they simply wanted to take someone else’s shit by force and sent the preacher out there to convince the hooples that GOD was communicating from up on high, and they wbere to find a weapon and walk into the next country over and don’t stop until you’ve killed everyone who lives there…it’s not because the king is a greedy prick who doesn’t care whether you live or die ya see, it’s because those hethons over there don’t have a close relationship with the Lord up above like you and I do…in fact, he’s rather tired of those rubbish people over there and their evil rituals, all the trouble that belief system of theirs creates for you and I…so he wants us to go kill those people.
Right, nobody can tell me to do shit. That’s the way it is, and that’s the way it’s going to be until the day I die. Islam doesn’t have nuclear submarines, aircraft, battleships, etc. This ‘Islam is comin’ to getcha’ stuff is wildly incorrect.
No man can walk into your house and tell you a damn thing you don’t want to hear, let alone hold out a kufi and shout, “wear it or die!” Not gonna happen…never…never ever ever ever in a million years is it gonna happen.
Bullshit…they’ve got oil, which barely manages to uphold even a minimal social structure by today’s standards in most of the countries that have a lot of it. The middle eastern countries like saudi and kuwait that have a lot of it are run by rich cocksuckers who don’t give a damn about anyone but themselves. You think they want a war with anyone? You think Kuwait and Saudi Arabia…the rich folks who run those countries give a shit about any of this? You think they give a damn about what some Islamic preacher has to say about anything?
That’d be like Pat Robertson getting Bush to actually kill Hugo Chavez. You know…the messed up thing when I take a step back and think for a moment on this, is that it’s probably more likely the Robertson-Bush-Chavez deal would go down than a preacher’s going to tell the Saudi royal family what they’re going to do with their money!
Shiites control the majority of government positions, a great deal more oil than is resting underneath Sunni territory, and there are more Shiites than Sunni.
How you conclude that Sunnis are dominant by a landslide and not the other way around is the question.
Right, there’s got to be references for all of this stuff somewhere. If it’s true, it’s out there. I haven’t heard or read this anywhere.
It’s not any more complicated than that. He was the boss and he liked being the boss. See…if a preacher tried to tell him anything, he’d cut the bastard’s head off.
Maybe Saddam had it right and Saudi, Kuwait and we have had it wrong the entire time. Maybe the cure to all this crap is for governments to say to religious people, ‘do your own thing and let us get back to work!’
Take the tax money and make sure the people benefit from the shit you spend it on. How about we get back to THAT at some point!
Because that’s the job. Dictating to you and I what type of birth control we use or TV shows we watch or that a prisoner is on death row for 20 years before his paperwork finally makes it through our piece of shit justice system since it’s clogged up with bullshit ‘Religious Douchebag v. ACLU’ cases over bullshit like statues and braindead courpses in Florida.
Seriously…this constant weaving of religion into every political nook it will fit in is ridiculous. Fox News and radio clones across the country do this specific thing, full-time, 24/7.
It gives the impression of relevance to something that doesn’t matter to anyone but a group of people whose only goal in life is to tell everyone else why they’re right because God told them so, and as result of this divine communication, everybody else has to do it like we do.
The way we think is right and everything else is wrong…because God told us so, and either you agree with us or we’re going to screw with government to the point where you no longer give a shit either way.
Because these preachers are ‘performance artists’…they put on one-man-shows for money. Robertson, Fallwell, Pastor Ted…all those guys are good at performing, and their audiences are actually dumb enough to believe that even if God WAS talking to humans…that he’d communicate through the likes of them!
Rant…wow, I’m sick of the religion mucking up this political process of ours. We’ve got a lot of work to do making sure we’re not paying people to sit around and do nothing. None of that going on. Money is missing, bribes have been made, government officials are going to jail…
The government is broken right now, and getting it fixed would be a lot easier if religious people weren’t constantly pointing a finger after every thing some of these politicians do. Take the Shiavo thing as a perfect example. EVERYTHING had to stop…the President had to cut off his vacation (not to talk with the mother of a dead soldier camped outside of his house mind you, but to tend to the wishes of the evangelicals)…the media had to focus in on this ridiculous family dispute down in Florida.
Meanwhile, people are murdered everyday in America…let alone taken off of life support after more than ten years and half a brain turned to liquid!
Sure, there’s some moral quandry somewhere in there…but what the hell is the outcome supposed to be exactally?
Let’s see…I guess that even though people who are healthy, children and adults go without health care at all in this coutry, that we should make sure we keep every braindead person on lifesupport until their chest finally caves in.
It’s the most ridiculous concept I could have even imagined, and it was all started by these preachers…these entertainers.
Screw all of them. They want to be a part of the process, tell them to get going on work that actually improves the lives of those who are already born and haven’t suffered a near fatal accident that’s rendered them braindead…how about those people in the middle there. What can we do about them?
The fact is, religion has nothing to do with managing a workforce or analyzing numbers on a spreadsheet. Unfortunately for religion…that’s most of what government is really about. The crap they toss around on the ‘news’ shows and talk radio is there to distract us from the fact that the idiots in DC don’t know what the hell they’re doing and because of that, we’re blowing that money we took out of your paycheck.
That’s the part that preachers can’t riff on. So they’ve got to create controversy or else become irrelevent.
Evangelicals beat a college professor for not teaching intelligent design. Does that mean America is at war against evangelicals?
How do you know they were evangelicals? The left has a history of staging “attacks” on their nutball activists to garner emotional support. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if this was a hoax. The guy is walking down a deserted country road when two miniters jumpr from the bushes and kick his ass with a metal pipe? But he just has minor bruising??? Come on.
Again, even if this did happen, muslims have KILLED hundreds of thousands and tortured many more.
The idea that 9/11 could have been prevented if we’d had our military fighting a war in the middle east at the time is incorrect.
This wasn’t part of the conversation.
School shootings = terrorism, Waco = terrorism, Oklahoma City = terrorism, drug gangs-witness intimidation(BIG problem in Boston and Baltimore) = terrorism
This is completely wrong. Terrorism is one group using violence to scare the other group into surrender. Again, Islam is coming for us, not the other way around.
The people were motivated to fight through manipulation inspired by religious leaders in concert with the nation’s rulers.
Are you sure this is the hundred years war? I’ll research some more but I didin’t find any religious catalyst in what I was reading yesterday.
Right, nobody can tell me to do shit. That’s the way it is, and that’s the way it’s going to be until the day I die. Islam doesn’t have nuclear submarines, aircraft, battleships, etc. This ‘Islam is comin’ to getcha’ stuff is wildly incorrect.
They didn’t need nuclear submarines or aircraft carriers to bring down the world trade centers. All they needed was a few guys who had the will to stangle a baby with their bare hands and taught them how to fly. Osama has already given us our “official” notice in 2002 to convert to Islam as per the tenants of the religion. Islam IS coming to getcha.
No man can walk into your house and tell you a damn thing you don’t want to hear, let alone hold out a kufi and shout, “wear it or die!” Not gonna happen…never…never ever ever ever in a million years is it gonna happen.
I know, that is what suicide bobers are for. When you say no, they bomb you. It’s the way it’s been since their beginnings.
Will write more later…
Ah – they were kicking his ass for talking smack about intelligent design. Right, it took place in…drumroll…
KANSAS! Yea…those level headed agricultural Jayhawks are so smart, I’m surprised Harvard has the balls to stay open!
??? – Where, when, whaaaa? (Note: shit that took place a century ago doesn’t matter)
Right, you’re a believer in the notion that the Iraq War makes us safer. That we’re ‘fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here.’
The geeks were killing the cool kids – mcveigh was trying to scare the government into fixing itself for his sake – in Baltimore and Boston, prosecutors can’t do their job because the accused intimidate witnesses so a conviction becomes impossible. Murders are dealt with by murdering the witnesses. How doesn’t it fit your definition?
Oh yea. I first studied it when I was a born-again, and it scared the hell out of me. The politics behind ‘why’ are chilling.
Yea…if we’re still a country with poor intelligence and law enforcement agencies. Otherwise, we stand a good chance to fare better than countries in the middle east!
Yea…those suicide bombers are just going off left and right in Boston and Vegas. Only a matter of time before a suicide bomber kills me and everyone I love…shit, I’d better move all of us to somewhere safe like…
DI: Ah – they were kicking his ass for talking smack about intelligent design. Right, it took place in…drumroll…
KANSAS! Yea…those level headed agricultural Jayhawks are so smart, I’m surprised Harvard has the balls to stay open!
RT: Well, well, looks like another fake attack claim from none other than…drumroll…
Some liberal yahoo looking for sympathy. The police have removed the hate crime status, the police report has no details, there was no hospital stay, just a quick trip to the ER, a 20 minute gap in the emergancy call timeline, a completely unplausible story, no witnesses to the crime or witnesses to any injuries and the guy, who used to love the media, is no longer giving interviews.
His story of being forced off the road by a pickup and two guys get out, one menacingly carrying a metal object walk towards his. So he gets out to have chat, you know, catch up on old times. No description of the assailants, no description of the pickup and he doesn’t even know where the “assault” took place. Some back country road where they just happened to meet.
DI: Right, you’re a believer in the notion that the Iraq War makes us safer. That we’re ‘fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here.’
RT: We fight them over there to drain their resources of people money and supplies. Now that I think about it, if we were in a war over there then the nation would have been under tighter security and 9/11 most likely would not have happened. Clinton botched Iraq like be bothced North Korea and now Bush has the unflattering job of haivng to fix it all.
DI: shit, I’d better move all of us to somewhere safe like…
RT: And that is the crux of the point. The islamic terrorists want you to think that you are not safe anywhere, that is the point of terrorism, they can get to you where ever you are. This is the beginning of control, it worked in Spain, France, hell most of Europe. The French can’t fellate the terrorists fast enough.
DI: The geeks were killing the cool kids – mcveigh was trying to scare the government into fixing itself for his sake – in Baltimore and Boston, prosecutors can’t do their job because the accused intimidate witnesses so a conviction becomes impossible. Murders are dealt with by murdering the witnesses. How doesn’t it fit your definition?
RT: Single acts of revenge and retalliation are not terrorism. McVeigh was getting back for the murder of the Koresh group and the Weaver murder, the geeks were getting picked on by the “cool kids” and fell into the goth crowd and the Baltimore and Boston issues are organized crime silencng witnesses.
All of these so fit under the definition of terrorism if you ignore all the details and say guy A hurt guy B so it’s terrorism. Terrorism is an attack against the safety and wellfare of an entire population. The crime boss rubs out a witness to stay out of jail, not to scare the State of Mass. into following his rule. The geeks weren’t trying to take over the city and McVeigh wasn’t over throwing the government.
Huge difference.
No link – no credibility. Facts I know at this moment. Professor is critical of intelligent design, gets beaten by multiple individuals.
Knowing that Kansas is nothing like Compton or Harlem…it being a coincidence seems unlikely. The KKK used to wear those hoods so the cops wouldn’t have any leads.
You actually believe this? Being a fan of Reagan…and I know you are one…when the USSR thought the same thing about their war in Afghanistan, what happened? We funded and supplied their enemies and squeezed them dry.
How do you know that the same thing isn’t being done to us right now? Because we’re indestructable? What about the war thus far convinces you that we’re drying up their resources?
And so the answer is to give them what they want by getting scared? That’s the OPPOSITE of what we did after 9/11. It’s politically necessary to act scared at this point, so right-wingers are stuck on the idea that we’re all going to die if we don’t win in Iraq.
That’s incorrect. By your definition, the KKK wouldn’t be terrorists, when they clearly are.