h264 said:
Therumancer said:
Pretty much that the US shouldn't do anything even when attacked.
I really appreciate you taking the time to explain your alternative view point.
Personally I believe it is an unnecessary war that was based on lies. In retaliation to 9/11, I would have fully supported the U.S. dispatching various military tasks force with the objective on taking out Saddam and his Regime. As well as gaining Intel and taking out al Queada covertly - without shoving your troops in their face every day, fully open to many forms of attack. What the U.S. have done with a full on invasion like this, is created so much more enemies and stirred hatred that will go on and on. Also, wasting billions upon billions, contributing to a ****ed economy and high unemployment.
I would normally agree with you, I do believe in diplomacy and measured response first, despite how it might sound. The thing is that 9/11 was not a "stand alone" act, it's part
of a very long cycle of violence that has been going on for quite a while. For decades we've had hijackings, kidnappings, plane bombings, terrorist threats, and other things. We've sent diplomats, and we tried the surgical military operations in the past, don't forget the whole charlie foxtrot Jimmy Carter caused by attempting a measured response against terrorists in the region. Also understand that backing Saddam in the region was an attempt to create a progressive, stabilizing force in the region, and to oppose Iran so we wouldn't have to go in as invaders, like most attempts in the region this backfired when he sold us out to The Russians so he could go a-conquering. This is to say nothing of regional leaders doing things like putting bounties out fot the deaths of American writers and publishers (look up "The Satanic Verses" what it was about, and what happened in response).
Over a long period of time I have come to the conclusion that we're not dealing with a small group of radicals and fanatics, we're also dealing with the leadership, and the entire culture. The general populance might not be actively fighting, but they are fanatical supporters of what is going on which is why we constantly see an endless cycle of terrorism. They are smart enought o pretend otherwise when we point a gun at them, but otherwise it's their attitudes and ideas that are keeping this alive, and as a closed culture that cannot be changed through outside ideas (we tried) we need to destroy that in order to remove the threat.
As I have demonstrated in the past, the poison in the region goes so deep that you have children's programming designed to "educate" children to hate and want to kill Americans and Jews. There was an incident not too long ago where the star of a popular Islamic children's program, syndicated through the region, was murdered by Jews as a lesson to educate children to hate them. Oh heck.. here is some links there is tons of this stuff if you bother to look, most people don't.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZEGsnWZKh8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJOkyyI4AVk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTa99N_5aPc
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/391489.aspx
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,553724,00.html
http://www.carylmatrisciana.com/product.php?productid=17519
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8P0C2D80&show_article=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjbJnZUJTYU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwQXBgK8qls
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpGRBu7mzrg
Now, granted this was a quick search so most of this has to do with Palestine, but it's through the entire region. Understand, that this is all mainstream stuff, it's not a bunch of radicals distributing covert video tapes in back alleys and stuff, those pics of Children's programming are like their equivilent of "Seseme Street" that parents have their children watch to help properly educate them in an entertaining and childish way.
You might ask "why did I not know this was going on" especially if you notice that despite some of these sites being private, the sources oftentimes go back to Associated Press articles and reports for mainstream news organizations that you never saw promoted. Well, that's where politics and the whole "peace at any price" thing comes into play. After all if CNN reports that they are brainwashing children to kill us through the whole bloody society with complete cooperation, then that kind of kills the whole "these wars are unjust, and we're dealing with a tiny radical fringe" arguements.
At any rate, the point I'm making here is that I'm not sitting here going "woo hoo, let's kill millions and millions of people for lulz", I have some pretty solid reasons behind what I say. What's more, we've already tried other approaches first. I simply believe that trying failed strategies again and again is stupid, engaging in a serious, culture destroying war is a method of last resort, but it's STILL a resort, and in this case we have exhausted all other reasonable possibilities.
The reason WHY we don't engage on the level that I talk about comes down to morality, not because of a lack of abillity (which is the gist of things). We have convinced ourselves that we can never reach that last resort, because killing that many people, for any reason, simply should not be done, ever. I find that attitude to be unhealthy. I believe you try everything else first, but at the end of the day if none of it has worked, that's what your left with, and that's why we made the weapons to do it. We hope that simply having those weapons acts as a deterrant, and helps other methods work, but in the end they are meaningless if nobody believes you will use them. We didn't make conventional bombs that can take out entire towns with the intention of never using them, they are for exactly this kind of unplesant situation should it ever arise.
I'd love for the culture throughout the region to actually reform, but honestly it's not happening. Afghanistan and Iraq set up new constitutions and the first thing they did is declare themselves Islamic nations as opposed to even planting the seeks of a progressive society. Those promises we made of pushing for women's equality and so on? It didn't happen, heck for diplomatic reasons we have our own women in positions of authority wearing body tents and pretending to be submissive to men in meetings, which is us adapting to them as opposed to vice versa.
People forget in moral arguements that this basic conflict didn't start with 9/11, I understand that for the younger generation it looks that way, but this has been going on since I've been a little kid in one form or another, and I'm 35.. I have a pretty good grasp of it as a result, and I'm just flat out sick of it. It's not a matter of an isolated plane bombing causing me to start screaming "kill them all", that's simply the worst and most dramatic incident in a long line of them, Al Queda also isn't the first terrorist organization we've dealt with, which is why I have absolutly zero confidence that focused war against them will resolve anything even if we totally destroy them, another one will ust come up as long as the culture remains intact.
But again, we engage on the level we do right now because of morality. All of the bad things that we do that people complain about, are done as an alternative to "worse" things. As I pointed out, what people don't get is that the issues with torture and stuff come from attempts to make those surgical strikes and the like, and ultimatly save lives in the big picture. If we just pretty much carpet bombed everything and flattened cities, we wouldn't need to worry about trying to take out isolated targets and avoid collateral damage.
We're still fighting, like it or not, and weigh the discomfort of one guy, or even a small group of people being tortured, compared to say the death of 1,500 people in a town to go after the same target. War is never nice, but when you weigh the numbers, guess which desician comes closer to being "right". Most of the people who complain are those who (like people everywhere) don't want to be at war anyway. Me personally, I don't think there is any right or wrong here, especiallyin the big picture, it's just us or them, I'm ready to just go in and disassemble the entire region. When I was younger (like a lot of people here) I thought the same way about diplomacy and measured response, but the thing is I'm looking at the same problems many years later, and that's why I'm such a bastard.
But in the end as i've said in this rant, the specifics of my justifications and attitude on "last resort" engagement doctrine (which I know many people disagree with) aren't important. The issue is that in The Middle East, or any other conflict the issue is rarely one of what we're capable of, but what we're willing to do. We're capable of a lot of things we simply won't do, whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is entirely a matter of perspective.
Personally I suspect a lot of people here that are younger than me who think I'm crazy, are going to BE me in a few years, and have the same thoughts about their younger generation. I won't go into baby boomer parents, but well, for my generation we generally had that attitude about our grandparents generation. In my case to some extent I sit here and think sometims "OMG, I'm now my freaking grandfather".
