Originally posted by Batman Jones I don't really agree, but it was a bad analogy. A better one would be, having failed to beat the Lakers we work up a plan against the Sparks. Or John Stockton. Or that guy that cut us off in traffic. <b>The best way to put Sparks or Malone or Stockton in their place is/was to whip them and send them home. If basketball were war, we would send them to their grave.</b> Those near 1,000 dead didn't decide whether or not to sacrifice their lives for this particular cause. They agreed to risk their lives to protect America. This war wasn't about that, because all evidence shows Iraq wasn't a threat. I think the people who joined the military to risk their lives in the cause of invading countries whose leaders "probably" celebrated 9/11 are probably relatively few. <b>My "celebratory" comment was a studied understatement, so don't conveniently overestimate it for your own purposes. I don't think Saddam had much, if anything, to do with 9/11 but I do know that he is a sworn enemy of the US. He abrogated previous treaties from Gulf War I. Here it comes: 9/11 changed everything. Saddam deserved to go and he is the second chapter in the History of the War on Terror. The Taliban gets the first chapter.</b> Yes, and after a war that majorities in every country aside from ours, Britain and Israel opposed (Back then anyway. Now majorities in America and Britain now oppose it too.) we have international scorn instead. Considerably less effective than sympathy -- or rather, empathy -- in the war on terror. <b>Support for war naturally flags when the course appears unclear. Thank the media for that lack of clarity. Yes, US planning could have been better. Press on.</b> I don't even know what that means. And when are you going to address some of my points? That wasn't it, was it? <b>I didn't mean that I had a lot to address. I was needing to push away from my desk, hit the shower, the closet and the road in very short order to get to my morning appointment. I only had time for a couple of impulsive replies. I've tossed in a few more here....</b>
giddyup: The Sparks are a WNBA team and Stockton's not a threat anymore. We beat him and he retired. He's been contained. We might want to send the guy that cut us off in traffic "to his grave" but it's not worth 1,000 American soldiers and thousands on thousands of innocent bystanders. You repeatedly ignore all evidence to the contrary and say Iraq is part of the war on terror, even though Iraq has no meaningful links to terrorists. Maybe we should attack Nazi Germany next. Where'd Faos and Jorge and basso go? No oops? Just poofs?
LOL... my mind connected to John Starks... not Sparks! Wish that the "other" terrorists was as docile as the once-feisty Stockton. Did the guy who "cut us off in traffic" snub UN resolutions for a dozen years or so? Okay, that's your understatement. Saddam's Iraq was a Terrorist Nation. You're being too U.S.-centered. I repeat: this is not about revenge for 9/11. I don't ignore the evidence. Someplace had to be the first and easiest domino to topple to foment democracy in the Middle East. Saddam was probably easiest and most obvious. And he deserved to go.
First of all will there be a democracy in Iraq? That is yet to be determined. Secondly the domino theory was bogus in regards to SE Asia, why would one work now in the Middle East? Saddam's terrorist ties were way down on the list as far as being a threat. I mean way down. Snubbing UN resolutions? That's up to the UN to solve. Bush started out great by getting inspectors back in Iraq, and deals on the table to have even more verification. All that would eliminate the treaty violations. With that all taken care of, Saddam is contained, not a threat, and thousands and thousands don't die based on nothing. Also how many pieces of faulty intel are they going to throw at us? There was the Niger stuff, the aluminum tubes, the Czech meeting, Rumsfeld saying that he knew where the WMD's were, the mobile labs, A whole line of B.S. from Chalabi and his crew,this most recent piece of debunked intel. That's a lot of stuff that was pushed on us, and all of it shown to be inaccurate, or just plain false. How many honest mistakes can one administration make? And if they do make that many mistakes do we want them to have an opportunity to make that many more?
The Taliban and Afghanistan were the easiest and most obvious and we left (with the exception of 15k troops) to fight an unjustified, elective war that the administration had to use totally uncorroborated "intelligence" to rationalize the action to the American people. We were already IN Afghanistan, and could have set up a stable democracy there instead of leaving it for the Taliban to take over again.
We had unfinished business in Afghanistan. You keep ignoring this. Saddam could have and should have waited. We find our military streached thin, our reserves called up in larger and larger numbers, our regular military having their tours of duty extended. Iraq had a huge affect. And it's had a huge affect on the war against terror in Afghanistan. Want a sample? From the BBC: UN calls for Afghan poll back-up The UN has called for more Nato troops to guarantee security at forthcoming elections in Afghanistan after an attack on a voter registration office. Nobody was hurt when rocket-propelled grenades were fired at the UN office south of Kabul early on Monday. But it underscored the risks to polls due in September from rising violence. The UN's Afghan envoy Jean Arnault said the situation was becoming more volatile, and called on nations to offer more troops by the end of July. He said Afghans had been registering to vote at a rate of more than 100,000 a day, demonstrating their enthusiasm for democracy. Request for cash "That very determination places an obligation on many other actors inside Afghanistan and outside Afghanistan," he said. Mr Arnault called on Nato to dedicate more troops when it holds a summit in Istanbul at the end of June. He also asked for the injection of tens of millions of dollars that had been promised by donor countries, but had yet to materialise. "All the requirements prod us to turn again to the international community and say: 'The time is now'," he said. He said a decision would be needed soon on whether the elections could go ahead. The US military said the rate of voter registration proved the security situation is not deteriorating. Renegades But on Monday an Afghan soldier was killed and another wounded after being attacked by assailants on motorbikes as they travelled to an election office near the city of Kandahar. "The soldiers were our security guards," said an election co-ordinator. "But this act won't stop the registration programme." Local politicians blame the recent attacks on remnants of the Taleban and warlords trying to disrupt the elections. Reuters reported that the Afghan government is sending hundreds of troops to Chaghcharan in Ghor province, to try to wrest control back from a renegade commander. Several regional leaders have resisted attempts to disarm their forces before September's elections. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3826583.stm We should have more troops in Afghanistan. We don't, because they are tied up in Iraq. And, before you blame our allies, we shouldn't have placed ourselves into a position of depending on anyone else to do what needs to be done in Afghanistan. And we wouldn't have needed that assistance, as welcome as it would be, if not for the invasion of Iraq.
Man, the poof factor here is pretty impressive. Jorge calls people out by name for dismissing this story and asks us to defend ourselves. Faos preemptively suggests we'll ignore the story, the implication being this is in our nature and something we do regularly even though it isn't and it isn't and so, of course, we don't ignore or dismiss the story. Then the story turns into one more in a ridiculously long list of oopsies and these guys disappear. Again. I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
No kidding, and yet there is another thread saying that Gore won't give up, because he plans to call the administration on misinformation. Of course the idea that Gore might raise his voice has already been brought up. What will our nation do if someone raises their voice when talking about important issues? Meanwhile I posted a partial list of misinformation, lies, or just honest mistakes earlier in this thread. I ask the question again. Were every single one of those just honest mistakes? And if they all were just mistakes, do we want a group that makes that many mistakes running something as important as the war on terror and our nation?
I wasn't sayhing that you were an "elite." I was saying that others in power are. And they don't put their "money where their mouth is," i.e., they don't send their own children. No. They send yours.
They send whomever is in. Do you really think that a congressperson's vote on a war would depend on the number of dependents/loved ones s/he has in the military at that time?
If our country was attacked, no his vote wouldn't depend on that. If it was an elective war, then yes I think his vote might be swayed.
I'm not ignoring it; I think it was smart on our part not to look the fools focusing our efforts on a frustrating and maybe doomed effort to flush out bin Laden. Remember how frustrated the Soviets got? I've always thought that we kept up token pressure to keep him on the move which will r****d his effective leadership. He was believed to be sick. He might be dead even now. The Allied WWII effort was not about killing Hitler, was it?
How is this war not elective... really? I know that you are driving at the fact that we were attacked on our own soil, but it still is an elective action, isn't it?
I use elective to mean that it isn't for self defense, or protection of our country or constitution. If we were attacked, I wouldn't call that an elective war but one fought in self defense.
Even if it wasn't just about flushing out Bin Laden, it could have been about re-building Afghanistan, and setting it up as democracy. I remember hearing somewhere that those are worthwhile means. We don't have enough troops there now to even keep the whole of Afghanistan stable.
So, when Bush Said that we would get OBL "dead or alive" he was just speaking figuratively, I guess. The Soviet analogy is seriously flawed in that the muhjadeen were fighting a life or death struggle against an occupying force that wanted total control over their country. We are looking for a terrorist leader in order to wrap up our business there and get out once a democracy came about (or at least that is what the administration says was supposed to happen). OBL doesn't have anything like the kind of support from the populace of Afghanistan than the muhjadeen did. And are you actually saying that since finding OBL was a dufficult task that we should have just cut and run? He has not seemed to have had much of a loss in "effective leadership", as the citizens of Madrid will attest. You guys are just grasping at straws and it shows.
Very good point. The recent reports say that the Taliban is making a comeback and that they already control large swaths of the country. We sure did a good job finishing what we started.
Originally posted by andymoon So, when Bush Said that we would get OBL "dead or alive" he was just speaking figuratively, I guess. <b>I know he's a little young, but sometime read that beautiful boy of yours that fable "The Tortoise and the Hare."</b> The Soviet analogy is seriously flawed in that the muhjadeen were fighting a life or death struggle against an occupying force that wanted total control over their country. We are looking for a terrorist leader in order to wrap up our business there and get out once a democracy came about (or at least that is what the administration says was supposed to happen). OBL doesn't have anything like the kind of support from the populace of Afghanistan than the muhjadeen did. <b>I don't think it's flawed at all because the real enemy to our mission of tracking OBL is the geography not anyone in particular.</b> And are you actually saying that since finding OBL was a dufficult task that we should have just cut and run? He has not seemed to have had much of a loss in "effective leadership", as the citizens of Madrid will attest. <b>That's not at all what I wrote. Try re-reading it. I never uttered one thing about cutting and running only keeping token pressure on to keep him on the move. The Madrid thing could have been planned well in advance just like the 9/11 event was. This is no brilliant plan by OBL's crew. It is incredibly gutsy and self-destructive. That's what makes them so dangerous an enemy. Our guys want to live; their's don't care.</b> You guys are just grasping at straws and it shows. <b>Those are pins to prick you with not straws!</b>
Let me ask you this...What would happen if they re-instated the draft? How would it change the middle classes feelings about this war? And, how would it affect Congress's decisions if they knew that their kids would be going to war too (without choice)? Today, we have choice. But, the elite have the choice to not enlist; they know better. They are rich. They don't have to enlist. Why would they? They have nice plush lives ahead of them. Let the poor fight this war, right? They know that the poor and middle class have less options. And maybe a little native about way the world works; poor people can be manipulated and taken advantage of, you know?
Agreed, but I don't know that our foreign policy is predicated upon what the "elite" does or does not do with regards to their feelings about military service. I think a draft would change many feelings about the war. I have no problem with that. Making everybody go through Basic Training is a different thing from watching people line up to go through Basic training. However, there were a good number of volunteers post-9/11: my nephews among them. Do you really think they and the others don't know better?
