Though I'm no fan of his, putting that kind of claim on Bush I think is simply wrong. I don't think he would be capable of allowing this type of brutality to occur for political advancement. Though I do feel strongly that there are people in government who are tightly clinging to their own ideals and belief of how the gov't should be. However, this does somewhat touch on a few things I do worry about and have mentioned in other threads. Namely, we will be given a figurehead in someone like Bin Laden - who still should have been taken care of long ago - to appease us and will never know the whole story. I want EVERYONE involved in this punished. But the country is so eager to take action, and the governemtn will be happy to meet those needs, that we instead be given a nice, way too simple picture of good defeating evil, end of story. And let's face it - doing so would boost the image of our government among the population so high that they would have every reason to simplify the whole story. I guess I'm like SmeggySmeg - I have a hard time putting full trust in the government.
Grinch, I cant see why you would say something like that at a time like this? This isnt some X-Files conspiracy, we have been attacked. We are going to wipe out Terrorism and all who condone it. I do know that you go by glynch, grinch just sounds more approiate after your last post.
Now is not the time for a political diatribe! Or look at it this way: Let's pretend that I am killed in a car wreck today. Let's also pretend that you know that I probably drive a little fast yet I have only had one accident with another vehicle in 12 years that was deemed my fault. Now what do you say to my parents? Do you say: "I am so sorry for your loss. My family and me will keep yours in our prayers." Or "We all know that your son tended to drive a little too fast. I wouldn't be surprised if this was a factor or even worse, I wouldn't be surprised if this accident was all his fault." Now, Glynch, I think your choice here would be obvious. So, what's the difference between my example and the people who were tragically killed by these heinous acts? For you to say something like you did shows me that you would pick Choice B in my example. Show some respect for the people that died and their families on this day of mourning. This type of attitude is what made me so upset last night. Yes, our government is not perfect. Yes, we have pissed some people off in the world. No, we don't need "expert analysis" on how bad our govt is. At least not now. Not when we need to become united as a nation. If you didn't get anything out of this post, at least realize my 3 sentences before this one, okay?
Manny, I think you are absolutely right. But while I don't agree with glynch, I have to point out that revenge/justice, military acts and war are all debated quite easily right now, so it's hard for me to balance your chastisement of him on these points and your own participation in the other factors. For some, war and government go hand in hand. I don't agree with his points, but at the same time there are many who don't agree with the points of others of us about military actions. This isn't meant to be a slam, but it's hard to justify your metaphor.
glynch, comsidering your responses in the other thread mentioned before and your topic here,I feel constrained to ask: Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?? and also, are you even an American?? even our pacifist brothers know better than to start spouting bs theories like yours in this time of tragedy. Question the government? Every Americans responsibility. But realize that spouting off such inane bs is a disrespect to those who died and their families. Try to at least act human when in the presence of other humans ok??
Manny Ramirez, an apology of sorts. No you shouldn't say to the grieving family "it was probably all his fault, he drives too fast. RichRocket, probably too cynical, but Nixon did prolong the Vietnam War for his own reelection chances. The US originally marketed the Iraq War as war for oil, until focus groups showed that the only way to get a strong majority for the war was to emphasize Iraq's chemical and biological weapons and make them out as a military threat to the United States. Dakota , Treeman,HayesStreet, RocksMillenium and others, all your talk about essentially indiscriminate killing or cavalier references to "collateral damage" to people from the Middle East is in similarly bad taste, though somewhat excused by your anger. I'm not going to look for them, but posts refer to "piss ant nations" and say things like "kill, kill, kill" etc. "spend a trillion on assassination squads" Similarly those of us who feel strongly that the hundreds of thousands of Iraq children and millions of Vietnamese who have died needlessly because of US policies are prone to lapses in style or taste,when provoked by your rhetorical excesses. Many of you guys don't even give lip service to the humanity of Iraqi children enough to even inform yourselves. You don't accept full responsibility for the CIA's murdeous practices throughout the Thirld War, the death squads we trained, the drugs we ran, the democratically elected govenments we've overthrown. When someone shares an article from a UT professor about this, you attack all college professors and learn nothing. "I'm aware of some excesses in the past" is not enough of a repsonse. Iraq's and people in the Middle East are human beings, too. They grieve just like the folks in NYC when they are bombed. It is always a good time to remind ourselves of that --even at the funerals of dear friends.
Rockets2k, I laughed out loud in my office when I saw your post. I'm a native born white guy from St. Louis. Sorry to disappoint you. I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of the Communist Party. All my life I've waited for someone to ask me that. I thought it only happened in old movies. How exciting!! It's good we can maintain a sense of humor in these trying times. I refer you to "is it too early for a joke?" post.
yeah..it was a joke kinda...at least the part about being a communist anyway...Ive always had the sometimes inappropriate tendency to try to joke in times of stress..
Please tell me you realize the ridiculousness of your statement. You're telling me that politicans can make the difficult decision to send our sons to war but not theirs? That they might find a cause for which they are willing to sacrifice our sons but not theirs? Man, nice racket. Sign me up for that ****.
Glynch, this is the first I've heard that Nixon prolonged the war and that N. Vietnam was willing to back down. Maybe this is something that is widely known and you might think I'm a fool for not knowing this but could you please point me in some direction to confirm this? Nevermind, I'll look myself. You don't owe me anything and I expect nothing from you except possibly a good debate. You keep infering that the U.S. is responsible for the suffering of the children in Iraq. Can't you see that their leader is the one responsible? Are you that blinded by your unflappable liberalism? You act as if the US bombs the innocent just to bomb something. We bomb militarytargets. People get in the way. We try to keep civilian casualties to a minimum but unfortunately losses occur. Keep in mind that a Democratic President has also ordered these bombings and embargos that you so despise. Your dislike for President Bush is noted, however you've yet to offer anything remotely resembling a solution to the situation in Iraq or this current mess we're in. Obviously, you do not love your country enough to fight for it, so I ask you this: Why don't you just move? Pretty soon the borders will open and you'll be free to go. That's what makes this country so great...........FREEDOM!!
I've been waiting for you to respond to several posts of my own. I talked about the above directly in another thread, and you failed to respond. I was going to post what I said again here, but Bigman beat me to it with You keep infering that the U.S. is responsible for the suffering of the children in Iraq. Can't you see that their leader is the one responsible? Are you that blinded by your unflappable liberalism? You and others keep telling us to ask why all this happened. What I said, and what Bigman said, is WHY this happened. You and others refuse to take into account that people like Hussein are murderous tyrants, and THAT is why we have the restrictions on Iraq that we have.
The Iraq War was initially sold to the American people as "we can't let Iraq control the Kuwaiti oil fields." Practically half the American people didn't buy into the need for a ground war for oil against what was then billed as "the 7th largest army in the world, composed of grizzled combat veterans from the Iran -Iraq war." They shifted to Iraq's supposed military threat to the US when a focus group showed overwhelming suport for a ground war "if Iraq posed a serious nuclear threat to America." This was bs. We did, however, know he had biological and chmeical weapons becasue we had given them to him ourselves when he was our ally. Bush let Saddam Hussein remain in power and even permitted a good part of the Republican Guard who were trapped out on the open road trying to flee back to Iraq from Kuwait to survive. Commentary at the time said Hussain should retain power because either Iran would take over . or alternatively a civil war could destabilize Iraq and their neighbors Saudi and Kuwait. Afterwards it was soon evident that our bombing of public health infrastructure and postwar economic boycott had led to the death of hundreds of thousands Iraqis, primarily children, due to malnutrition. Saddam Hussein was unwilling to agree to the conditions that we wanted before allowing him to sell oil. To be fair, we were only partners in the children's starvation, as Hussein could have used other scarce resources to feed the children. Eventually we allowed them to sell limited quantities of oil so he could buy some food and medicine. For those who only get their news from the corporate dominated media or right wing talk radio, I cite: Alternatively you could try google.com and try "Iraq sanction" and "children" or some such for more information. I was asked for a cite to Nixon's decision to prolong the war. It might have been written in The Nation. I remember it being brough up most recently in comments when Robert McNamara wrote his book on his role in the Vietnam war about 6? years ago.
1.) The Gulf War was sold to me as a war against aggression. A multi-nation coalition was formed to stop and repel the attack on an ally. Granted this country was our ally because of their oil, buy they were still our ally. Our other allies responded with us in this fight. 2.) We could not push further into Iraq or assisinate Hussein. The coalitions goal was to secure Kuwait and destroy Iraq's large army in the process. 3.) The man ignored the coalition's 'no fly' zones and challenged allied pilots. He was also trying to make chemical weapons. The children and civilians killed by the bombings were an unfortunate casualty of this conflict. Had Saddam agreed to the conditions presented to him, the economic sanctions would have been eased. I realize that what I'm stating is what the 'corporate media' has presented to me and that there is probably a lot more than you or I know about. But you act as if it was America vs. the Iraqi people when in fact it was many nations vs. an aggressive military. I'd have to question where you're getting your info. As you ask me to seek other news sources, I ask you not to believe everything you read on the internet. There's a bunch of misinformation out there. ps. I'm sorry about the moving out of the country comments. These are emotional times and I didn't mean what I wrote. Peace.
Bigman et al I'm sorry about some of my more extreme speculations, though I firmly believe, tough as it is to believe at first, that most of our presidents have put such petty affairs as relections and party politics above the lives of their own troops and innocent people of other nations. I have no reason to believe Bush Jr. will be diferent than Bush Sr., Clinton (who I largely supported), Johnson, Nixon, Reagan and others. I really should have kept posting that professor's article. I agree 100% with it and it is less inflammatory than some of my posts. To paraphrase Manny Ramirez, I spent hours of reading posts till 2;30 am and all I seemed to see was hate and kill, kill. leading to take my beliefs to their most extreme. I believe in arguing with facts, though key facts with highly political implications such as Nixon's prolonging the war, or Japan supposedly desperately trying to surrender in between atomic bombs are highly hidden and often never totally resoved.
I don't know about "most", but I would not doubt at all that this has happened before. Now is not really the time to second-guess the president though. Right now it is time to unite, not worry about whether the president is trying to make himself look good(which he is doing a good job of so far anyway).
glynch, It's all so easy for you. You have perfect knowledge. Have you spoken to any Vietnamese who lived in Vietnam after the war? Have you heard them say that maybe the US was right and, communism was bad for them? How about South Korea? I guess that you would have ignored their plight, just as you would have ignored the plight of Vietnamese. Asked any South Koreans whether they would like to move North? Oh, its so easy to see now. Nations did not topple to communism like dominos, we all know that NOW. How the h*ll did you know that THEN? Oh, and what great leadership you could provide this country. Embargos are created to help weaken wacko regimes like Iraq's, and is generally agreed to be a more humane way to topple such governments w/o invading and killing innocent civilians. But what do you do when that country's leaders would rather use those deaths to their own political advantage? What is YOUR superior approach to this dilemma? Just stop the embargo, so it will NEVER be used in the future and the only option will be the military. Again, you previously mentioned some things that we should all be aware of. But overall, any country that you lead would not last long.
