Do you see me attacking everyone in the religion thread saying you guys are a bunch of idiots for believing in God, Where's your proof? Either you know it or you don't. This is why I don't waste my time. He is angry for some reason. I wasn't the only one who said anything and I don't care enough to convince you. Why can't I have my own opinion about it without having to convince you? We want to discuss this topic without debating it because it's a pointless debate. I respect you and your opinion enough to not get angry when you want to discuss something I don't believe in or care for. If we all believed blue aliens were responsible for 9/11 then so be it. Why do you want to be convinced if you don't believe it anyways? I am not your lapdog, nor will I waste my time trying to appease your condescending questions loaded with hateful remarks. Franchise, why are you in this thread? What did you expect? I mean look at the title. It was interesting until you guys came in and demanded answers. I don't care what you think about my beliefs. If I did then I would take the time to explain why I believe these things to get your input. But I don't. Anyways, I'm just going to drop the 9/11 subject. Feel free to carry on the discussion amongst yourselves.
You won't find me storming media press conferences and asking questions, but I think the 9/11 conspiracy is fascinating. The circumstances surrounding the entire thing are extremely fishy, if the items that are presented by the truthers are true. I have no idea if they are true or not, and frankly have no idea how to verify it, but nonetheless, it is very interesting if you watch the videos they put together. The theory was it was a false flag operation which enabled the government to gain powers they otherwise would not have had, which subsequently allowed for one of the largest robberies of our civil liberties (Patriot Act) in recent history, as well as the invention of the war on terror which essentially allows for unfettered military excursions anywhere without a formal declaration of war. Since militarism is largely the US government just paying defense contractors to do our dirty work, you could reasonably conclude that the whole idea simply funneled money into private contractors (big business)
I remember with rose tinted glasses of the days where members would suggest solutions rather than drown in their impotent sorrows. A member named weslinder practiced what he preached and dove into politics the most available way he could, at the local level. When faced with this solution, people tend to rationalize their way out of this. Some think the local level isn't big enough. Others think they couldn't possibly devote time on public life on conjunction with their personal life and careers. Which is reasonable, yet without that realization one can't understand how these career politicians exist. They live in a different world. This is their life. Try to think of their standpoint away from greed and cynicism. That is the consequence rather than the root cause. While there are people who start off as crooks and thieves, others began with idealism only to be stomped by an unending discontent by the public they originally aspired to serve. It's not our problem... it's the politicians problem. Our indifference for the nation's long term benefit in exchange for our tribal shirt term gain is why things are the way they are. In a democracy, the problems if the capital pale in comparison to the apathy of the electorate. All we want is to defer the hard choices and return to our peaceful convenient lives centered around infantile consumption. Those who have most to gain encourage this embryonic mentality. Unfortunately, when you awake through consequence, when it really matters it'll already be too late. By then all you know and can do is pin your hope on some messiah like leader to vanish away the darkness. A darkness we cumulatively fostered over time. What are you doing to better society? Can you stand head held high or can you merely lament your impotence and claim moral and intellectual superiority over the "sheep"? Are you ready to emerge out your womb and breathe?
See, here's the thing. The idea that we went into Iraq to help the defense contractors doesn't really hold up. Much of the money that we could have spent buying new planes, new Comanches, new cool ****, you know the stuff that the defense contractors actually make their money from, were cancelled and the money went into things like bribing the Iraqis, trying to prop up their economy, fuel, etc. etc. Heck, as I like to say, maybe we should have fought the war for the defense contractors - it would have meant that the Bush government wouldn't have tried their idiotic "we're going to fight a short, inexpensive war which will leave our soldiers woefully underequipped" strategy, which was what actually happened. Furthermore, your claim that 9/11 allowed for military excursions without a formal declaration of war makes no sense, because well, we were already doing that well before 9/11. As for the Patriot Act? Take out the rhetoric, and the philosophy, and look at it this way. The Bush government killed 3000 Americans, risked losing not just their lives if caught, but also their honor, the total destruction of the Republican Party, and to go down as the greatest villains since Hitler...to listen to some phonecalls and toss a couple nobodies in Guantamo Bay? You think the whole plan makes sense when viewed from that angle?
Just for the record.... ...I respect anyone who wants to question the veracity of the facts available and/or presented about what happenend on 9/11. Something that large and that incomprehensible hadn't happened on these shores since Pearl Harbor. As a nation, we had become very much insulated from that type of horror since the end of World War II. Almost, in some ways I think, to our collective detriment. But having said that, I'm afraid that any act of "evil" doesn't need as much facilitation or machination above and beyond the capacity to form it in one's mind, and the conviction to see it executed. People, I've found, are particularly adept at finding a way to do something if their hearts are set upon it. If there's ever a "conspiracy" involved in something as tragic as what happened to the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the souls aboard the aircrafts responsibile, I would believe it to be a conspiracy of omission. Omission of compassion. Omission of responsibility. Omission of community. Omission of humanity. I wanted to believe myself, for a very long time, that there was some underlying, deep-dark conspiracy tied to the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He was not viewed, at the time of his death, as the fatherly, patron-saint of human goodwill and harmony that he is generally portrayed as now. He was as "extremist" and "revolutionary" as anyone in this country has ever been, especially considering the world Dr. King lived in. He was reviled by a great many people (black and white) by the time he was killed. I can only imagine what he might be called today if he were alive, and said some of the things now that he said then about economic inequality and economic injustice. The FBI followed him around for years believing he was a Communist or a Communist sympathizer. There was enough angst and distaste with him from everyone in the social power structure who felt threatened by his messages that it certainly seems to fall along the lines of a massive covert undertaking to take such a man down (who despite his largely unfavorable national appeal after 1963 was still a very visible symbol of social justice) before he became more trouble than he was worth. There has to be something larger at work, we all want to believe, in order to try to stop something as big as an idea. To believe that if the man is destroyed, then so is the movement he symbolized destroyed with him. I kind of feel the same way regarding John F. Kennedy and the conspiracy theories that still sourround his murder. It's hard to think that human beings are as capable of such terrible things as these, aside from some larger, grandiose, machiavellian scheme that would suit the purpose of seeing such towering symbols brought down by such ignominous means. But this is America. If there's any place in the world where it is possible for one man (or a small group of men) to so drastically alter history with such callow endeavors, it's here. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated by a man whom, by King's own politically position, he was trying to help. John F. Kennedy was assassinated by a man who had become so overwrought with the "Red Scare" message of the previous decade, and his own inner demons, that he thought he was actually doing something beneificial for the country. I've seen enough lives ended senselessly (especially as a poor black youth here in Houston), to understand that "evil" doesn't need a gaudy backstop in order to operate. A man's own heart is fertile enough ground all by itself. I have a friend that I shared this with some time ago... "...the Devil doesn't need any new tricks to get people to do each harm. The old one still works too well..."
A simple Google search would shows roughly 138 billion actually given and surprise surprise Cheney's group comes in at number one. Now, I don't know about you, but when I see something like this, it really makes me wonder. Evidence in itself that the whole thing was planned? No, absolutely not, but one of many similar items, when looked at in aggregate seem extremely fishy. Perhaps "without formal declaration for war" was not the right wording. Again, I am not some hardcore truther, just summarizing their points. The point is, rampant militarism in the middle east, under the guise of fighting against "terrorism" These excursions into Iraq and Afghanistan would likely not have been allowed if not for the terror attacks. The Patriot Act has undone 200 years of progress regarding civil liberties in one fell swoop. The NSA is now recording every conversation you have via phone or email and storing it in data warehouse, with no oversight or integrity. The government can now, without cause or due process, label someone, anyone, a terrorist and detain that individual without a trial, without even telling anyone. Furthermore, if that person just so happens to be on foreign soil, they may execute that person, via drone strike, on a whim. If you think the ramifications of the Patriot Act is just "tossing a couple of nobodies into Guantanamo Bay", then I think you are somewhat blind to what has happened.
I could go on a long rant, but let's keep this simple. The Bush government launched an attack so it could destroy our civil liberties with actions like the Patriot Act. ( Though it should obviously be noted that it's not like people in 2001 knew about drones or NSA metadata collection, so I don't know why you're mentioning those). But how about the next question? Why did the Bush government want to destroy our civil liberties so badly that it was willing to risk absolutely everything in planning this scheme? $40 billion dollars given the total cost of the Iraq war is a drop in the bucket. Not to mention that you failed to refute my fundamental point - which is that the Bush Administration, both in word and deed, utterly failed to anticipate how much the war would actually cost. They did everything they could to cut costs with Rumsfield's strategy, the result of which massively backfired. Yet these are the same people who launched an attack to help out their defense contractor friends? The contradiction is obvious. Same question in particular. Why did the US government want to start a war in Afghanistan in particular ( and I say in particular since obviously they focused the blame immediately to Afghanistan, when they could have just done it with Iraq from the start) so badly that they were willing to risk everything?
First of all I have no idea, what the motivations were, all I know is what some of the theories are, along with just looking at who has apparently benefited the most which is private corporations and big government. There are plenty of theories, some which are silly, others than make some sense. And FYI: The modern drone started in 2000-01 http://www.thenation.com/article/166124/brief-history-drones The NSA wiretapping about the same time http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantless_surveillance_(2001–07) I didn't refute your point because it is irrelevant. At the end of the day, private defense contractors, many of whom's CEOs or board members are prominent members of givernment, were awarded billions of dollars in contract work, without having to make bids against other firms, which otherwise they would not have had access too. There is plenty of documentaries and commentary on this. Here was the first one that popped up: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_Ie1cdTHlU The relevant cost of the war is irrelevant to that, as is whatever cost cutting the government supposedly did (which I have no idea what you are talking about BTW). Dunno? Maybe they want a two pronged staging ground for an invasion into Iran (Iraq and Afghanistan). Maybe, so they could build the TAPI pipeline. Here is something on it: http://sweptmedia.ca/2013/08/28/pipeline-politics-behind-the-afghanistan-war/ Everything kinda goes back to the theory of the Petro-dollar.
I don't mean to jump in between you two lovelies unannounced...:grin: ...but I think the larger (or that is to say, more accurate question, given what we now know about the buildup to the war in Iraq)...is perhaps this: ...was the Patriot Act the sole responsibility of the Bush Administration...or the tacit approval of a (righteously) indignant American populace? It is the responsibility of our elected officials, I feel (particularly at the national level, as in this instance with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq), to not only act for the best interests of the entire American people... ...but to also make certain that we are all aware of the cost of such a commitment. As Presidents who were faced with such a task in the past were able to do. If anything, it can be agreed that the Bush White House did not make the reasons or the cost of conflict with either Afghanistan or Iraq (at the points we wished to engage those countries) apparently clear to the American public. We, as a populace, either did not do enough to demand from our collective anger a higher standard of response for those in leadership, or we chose to take as gospel their direction to either absolve or insulate ourselves from the consequences that such an abdication of our duty to self-govern will cost us all, for many more years to come, in time, toil and treasure. And at the risk of revealing that I'm an indoctinated, plantation-minded, shiftless, unintelligent, Al Sharpton-ite Negro, I'll say that I agree with what General Colin Powell has said about Guantanomo Bay--President Obama should have shut the place down as soon as he could get his hands on one of those nice, shiny Executive pens. There was no need to consult Congress. That particular tactic was the thinnest of veneers in legitimizing its creation anyway. And if we were operating as a nation at war anyway, it was well within his Constitional Authority to order that that prison be closed immediately. Relocate the prisoners to federal facilities. Keep them under a particularly strict guard. But get them processed and out of our legal system as quickly as possible. That would have been the best thing for that mess, in my opinion. But the other reality is that this is a different world now. Now meaning, since the advent of the internet, and the technological advances that outpace most people's commercial spheres of reference, there are threats that we must deal with as a nation that we cannot meet as exactly as we have in the past. That does not mean that we abandon the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. But it does mean that we need to reexamine those rights under the reality of the day, where information, ultimately, is the target and the enemy. And how we manage that reality is largely how we will proceed to govern. As far as the Bush Administration, I find it difficult to believe that any one of them intended to erode or eradicate the civil liberties that makes our nation the envy of the world (because its the liberty that came first, not the money). I had no great love for the Administration, but I just can't get to the place that they acted as they did with some kind of totalitarian agenda in mind that was just looking for an opportunity to spring itself on the rest of us. Might be because I'm just too damned nice a guy, but what with that Sharpton tag hanging over me, you can't ever really know.... If anything the Bush Administration's "bunker" mentality after 9/11 was endorsed in no small part by each one of us. And I take that most personally. I serverd in the First Iraq conflict. I have a brother who fought in Vietnam. I don't take things like war (or the possibility of winning or coming home from one) for granted. War should always be seen (particularly in the ways our country is historically used to engaging in them) as an absolute last resort. I can deal with a reluctant inevitability towards war. I can't do with a cookie-cutter one-size(or bomb)-fits-all approach to that. And to that is where we must seriously consider what the "Patriot Act" is, what it does, why it's needed (if at all), and how we intend to reconcile the nature of war with the ability to gather intelligence, and redefinining the distinction between the two. That is what's most commendable about what has happened with the NSA in recent months, to me. We are having the conversation we were either too lazy or too naive to have a decade ago. And all political posturing aside, I believe that once the converstaion is had in the light of day... ...we the people will agree on which way we want to go....
It's absolutely relevant. Remember Rumsfeld? Remember how he, and the Bush administration, tried to earnestly sell the Iraq War as something short and inexpensive - and it wasn't just words, that's what they really did? Remember how they left the troops massively underprepared for the long fight which resulted from the Iraqi invasion. The point is that the Bush Administration did not anticipate a long, tough, expensive war in the slightest, which is completely contradictory with the idea that it was a war fought for defense contracts. Rumsfeld tried to wage a war on the cheap, thinking that modern technology would be enough and that the Iraqis really would welcome us. He was wrong. Dead wrong. But it completely puts the lie to the idea that the government planned 9/11 in advance in order to hand out a bunch of defense contracts, because they did not do nearly enough. Furthermore, something to note in your little Halliburton article. It's being investigated for a contract that was handed to it...in 2010. Curious, given that Dick Cheney was no longer in the White House. In addition, that article of yours about Halliburton? It's talking about how Halliburton is being investigated for a big contract...in 2010.
You seem to believe that because the war was sold to us as cheap and easy, that this somehow clears any evidence of wrong doing. That idea may hold some water if the war did in fact turn out to be cheap and easy and hundreds of billions of dollars did not end up in the hands of defense contractors. Unfortunatly that was not the case. The war was not cheap, it was outrageously expensive. http://corporatecriminalsexposed.co...ribes-ripoffs-war-racketeering-g1a2d0043c1-2/ Of all the information presented to you, you sure seem to focus on some random irrelevant items.
if you want another take on 9/11 and the patriot act hard at work, this susan lindauer has a story to tell. http://youtu.be/68LUHa_-OlA?t=6m57s she doesn't know everything, but she doesn't claim to know everything.
You're missing my point. The point is that the Bush Administration clearly believed at the beginning that the war would be cheap and easy, which is contradictory to your claim that they planned the war to give away defense contracts. The fact that said war turned not to be cheap and easy is not relevant when we're talking about the actual planning of the war ( and of the 9/11 conspiracy that accompanies it) To put it in simple terms: I plan to build a house. I think it'll cost me $100,000. But when I start, I find out that my estimates are way off and it'll actually cost me $10 million. The builders thus get rich. But does this mean I planned to give the builders a lot of money from the beginning? Of course not. It just ended up that way through my incompetence. And that's my argument. I'm not arguing the Bush administration in regards to Iraq was not incompetent - I'm arguing that they were not malicious. If you want to argue that it was malicious, you have to do better than some contracts. It's a personal policy of mine to never watch anything political on YouTube. But I have heard of Miss Lindauer - and this is a woman who was viewed as unfit to be charged with trying to work for Iraq because she was literally insane.
Just because bush said to the public that the war would be cheap and easy doesn't mean the plan for the war was to be cheap and easy. If he told the public the war would be 10 years long and cost billions of dollars would the public have been on board? Probably not as much as they would of been if it was cheap and easy.
And as I've said, it wasn't just words. The plan for the war WAS to be cheap and easy, as can be demonstrated by the planning and by the PR - do you think Bush really would have pulled the Mission Accomplished stunt if he had actually been thinking the whole time, "Oh, this is going to be a tough war with which we can reward my defense contract buddies?"
This is hilarious. Only the mind of a troofer could transform the bumbling, fecklesss George W. Bush into a conspiring mastermind. W's legacy is a wreck, and the disastrous wars are the main reason. Had we avoided Iraq and smoked OBL in the first year in Afghanistan, he would probably be remembered as a success. Instead, his legacy is so toxic that both parties score political points attacking it. Why in the world would a President intend for a war to go badly?
I really don't believe 9/11 was staged or anything like that. I think it was tremendous incompetence, and I believe GWB took advantage of the fear that followed (perhaps even pumped the fear up). I do believe you guys have one of the more democratic countries in the world. I also believe that you can and should have far better representation in your government, and that your representatives are really really really really really screwing you out of a lot of money, and that money will conveniently end up in their pockets soon after in some form or another. I think it's absurd this gentleman's agreement that your administrations have made to NOT go after each other's past mistakes. I think it's incredible that your presidential election debates are essentially scripted. I think it's hilarious that financial lobbying is equated to free speech. I think your representatives' relationships with large corporations is cancerous and perhaps not curable anymore without a larger change. But the absolute saddest thing about all this is that I see no way that American citizens have an opportunity to legitimately create change in the country through the election system currently in place. There are too many humans tied up in wage slavery in order to feed their families or accomplish superficial goals. There are too many people content with the idea of being the most well-paid wage slave. The tools of information have been hijacked and few have enough time to constantly seek out and purify the information, to read 5-6 diverse opinions on each important topic. Hell it's hard enough to figure out what the important topics are. Jon Stewart did a wonderful piece about US media coverage of Francois Hollande's visit to the US - the media was entirely focused on the fact that his wife was not with him. How does such a thing even happen? The outlook is dire to be honest, but I'm always on your side. Just try to always keep in mind that whatever they're doing to you, they are without a doubt doing worse things to non-Americans. Day in, day out, non-Americans suffer because your system is broken and because your representatives are able to abuse authority with more impunity outside the borders. Understandably this can't be the priority for Americans if the country is in turmoil - but it's something to consider the next time the news tells you so and so people hate Americans. It's a bunch of hogwash. They just have a super exaggerated version of the news which does not inform them about the real problems of Americans and how American representatives are out of control. An American government that serves Americans in a more fair and democratic way is better for everyone, so good luck.
Actually the illusion is what you are stating, and the truth is Americans are getting what they want: lots of entitlement spending, low taxes, and bailouts along with slowly liberalizing policies in terms of gay rights and other issues. Have you thought that maybe we are getting what we, as a whole, really want and deserve?