Who would you like to see as the next US President?

[REASON]

If the Iraqi people do not want to ratify it then I support their wishes....

 

Sure, but will your government?

 

Have you heard about the size of our new embassy there? They never show it. It will be the largest embassy in the world. Larger than any one of Sadam's palaces. Were also setting up permanent military bases throughout the country.

 

Were not going anywhere folks. Doesn't matter what the current president says, what the candidates say, or what the Iraqis say. Were not going to get this far and let Iran become one with the Shi'ah, and regain total control of the country with second largest oil reserves in the world. There's a risk that they will strike deals with the Russians and the Chinese. Where would that leave us? At their mercy.

 

Not to mention, Iran and Iraq unified with Shi'ite control represents an even greater threat to Israel, or so they say.

 

Nope, we're not going anywhere. Might as well get used to it. When you hear them say that we will stay until we have won, control of both those situations is what winning is. This is what hegemony and empire are. Lives are inconsequential in the big picture. Our sodiers and Iraqi civilians are being sacrificed for our imperial aims. Meanwhile, our government will continue to dress it up as WMD's, or Iraqi democracy, saving them from the evil dictator, or stopping the al Qaida safe haven.

 

And the candidates will continue to say what ever they think will get them elected.

[CraigD]

america is ready to be over taken, too many people are not willing to fight

This is not a claim I hear very often, even from Rush Limbaugh listeners.

 

It’s generally believed, by groups as varied as the extreme left, the extreme right, and military professionals, that the US military is the strongest one in the world, and arguably about as strong as the militaries of all of the other nations in the world combined (46% of all military spending in the world is by the US).

 

 

I’m curious, goku – what nation, allied nations, or other group do you believe is about to take over the US?

[Boerseun]

It’s generally believed, by groups as varied as the extreme left, the extreme right, and military professionals, that the US military is the strongest one in the world, and arguably about as strong as the militaries of all of the other nations in the world combined (46% of all military spending in the world is by the US).

Ironically, it is exactly this that makes terrorism the only viable form of military opposition against the US. No other country in the world can maintain itself militarily in the face of the US' insanely inflated military.

 

So, be it Iraqis or Muslims or Afghans or anybody else, if you invade and occupy my country, I, being the good patriot that I am, will have to take up the cause and fight back. With what, though? Yep - terrorism, there is no other way. It's not that they're cowards or silly or crazy or any such thing, it's simply a matter of logisitics, and a cost/benefit analysis.

 

Believe me, I know. I'm a Boer - we've basically invented guerilla warfare in the 1800s against those pesky Brits, and have been taught the ins and outs of it from very young, knowing all the details abouth the Boer Wars.

I’m curious, goku – what nation, allied nations, or other group do you believe is about to take over the US?

Nobody. Just get out of ours and mind your own business, I suppose is what the "terrorists" are telling you.

 

Points to ponder...

[Thunderbird]

There ya go again. haha But ah well, I think there was an al Qaeda-Iraqi connection. The intelligence just wasn't there when America wanted it. And now that a few years have allowed more time and debate, people have already made up their mind.

 

The Mother of All Connections

 

But their connection is no longer an issue. The issue now is withdrawal and the benefits vs. consequences. I personally don't buy that our presence in the middle east threatens their stability. They never had stability as we know it, they had tyranny keeping the peace, and they had propaganda against the democratic societies to keep people ideologically appeased. That's why insurgents were rampant at first, but they'll decrease with time as people realize that we're not there to manipulate or dominate them.

 

 

Why do you think we are there?

[CraigD]

There ya go again. haha But ah well, I think there was an al Qaeda-Iraqi connection. The intelligence just wasn't there when America wanted it. And now that a few years have allowed more time and debate, people have already made up their mind.

 

The Mother of All Connections

Southtown provides a link to an article from the 7/18/2005 Weekly Standard. That article asserts that, contrary to the position of official US intelligence agencies, former Iraq president Saddam Hussein was a sympathetic supporter of Osama bin Laden. It does not state, but appears to insinuate that Hussein was an active party to the 9/11/2001 attacks. It notes

UNTIL SHORTLY BEFORE THE IRAQ WAR, the consensus view within the U.S. intelligence community was simple: Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were natural enemies who, despite their common interests, would not work together. Daniel Benjamin, a senior counterterrorism official in the Clinton administration, summarized this view in a New York Times op-ed on September 30, 2002. He wrote: "Saddam Hussein has long recognized that al Qaeda and like-minded Islamists represent a threat to his regime. Consequently, he has shown no interest in working with them against their common enemy, the United States. This was the understanding of American intelligence in the 1990s."

but implies that this is no longer true

 

I don’t believe the Weekly Standard’s (and apparently Southtown’s) implication that subsequent US intelligence has actually proven that Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attacks is well founded or correct, for several reasons:

• The Weekly Standard is not, IMHO, a reliable source of information or analysis, but an publication intended to further neo-conservative agendas using techniques not excluding distortion and fabrication of data.
  
• The preponderance of data and analysis supporting the conclusion that Hussein would not have supported the 9/11 attacks is much stronger, I think, than the opinion statements of The Weekly Standard and others.
  

The Weekly Standard article is well written and intriguing, if just for its mention of one of the more enigmatic characters in recent history, Abdul Rahman Yasin. I don’t, however, think it is accurate, or intended to be accurate.

[C1ay]

Ironically, it is exactly this that makes terrorism the only viable form of military opposition against the US. No other country in the world can maintain itself militarily in the face of the US' insanely inflated military.

 

So, be it Iraqis or Muslims or Afghans or anybody else, if you invade and occupy my country, I, being the good patriot that I am, will have to take up the cause and fight back. With what, though? Yep - terrorism, there is no other way. It's not that they're cowards or silly or crazy or any such thing, it's simply a matter of logisitics, and a cost/benefit analysis.

 

I tend to think that's a matter of semantics. If native countrymen are using guerrilla tactics to fight an invading force I would not label that as terrorism, it is guerrilla warfare.

 

On the other hand, if an opposing force is using terror against non-combatants it is a crime and is not a valid form of opposition.

 

Consider the example of Hamas. They do not lob rockets at the Israeli military, they shoot them at civilian neighborhoods. They walk onto city buses, blow themselves up and take civilians with them including women and children. They go into a seminary and shoot a bunch of teenagers studying the Torah. These are cowardly crimes, not military opposition. This is terrorism.

[CraigD]

I tend to think that's a matter of semantics. If native countrymen are using guerrilla tactics to fight an invading force I would not label that as terrorism, it is guerrilla warfare.

 

On the other hand, if an opposing force is using terror against non-combatants it is a crime and is not a valid form of opposition.

I agree that the distinction between “guerrilla” and “terrorist” is often unclear and semantic.

 

The distinction C1ay draws: guerrillas fight an invading force, terrorists attack non-combatants, is, I think, a troubled one.

 

Uniformed militaries have, arguable for as long as they’ve existed, attacked non-combatants, under such euphemistic labels as “scorched earth tactics”, “attacking the enemies means of production”, “reducing the enemy’s will/ability to wage war”, “shock and awe”, etc. Two of the most famous acts of war, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, intentionally chose to kill and injure large numbers of civilians for its demoralizing effect, rather than “demonstrate” the atomic bombs on predominantly military targets.

 

A policy of attacking only invading forces is likewise strategically unsound, and historically uncommon in modern war. Unless one is overwhelmingly powerful, such a poorly defensive policy allows a tactically defeated enemy to rebuild their forces and learn from their mistakes. An important modern exception is a strategy of inflicting sufficient casualties on invading forces to cause its citizens and/or government to withdraw the forces. This strategy was employed by the military of Vietnam against a French, and later a much larger US force, and appears to by the strategy of various insurgent forces in present day Iraq.

They [Hamas militants] go into a seminary and shoot a bunch of teenagers studying the Torah. These are cowardly crimes, not military opposition. This is terrorism.

Cowardice is, in my experience, commonly used as a criteria to distinguish terrorism from “resistance fighting” and other more acceptable actions by uninformed attackers.

 

Upon consideration, I find such logic puzzling. Terrorists such as those who attack gathering of civilians in Israel are nearly always killed, either by their own weapons, or by overwhelmingly better armed, trained, and numerically superior police responders. Soldiers employing standoff weapons (long-distance missiles, high-level bombs, armed remotely controlled drones, etc) that kill equal or greater numbers of unsuspecting civilians, or armed forces that literally cannot shoot back, however, are often termed “courageous”, “heroic”, and “valiant”, even though they have almost no expectation that they may be injured or killed.

 

War, between closely matched uniformed militaries or poorly organized and equipped insurgents against overwhelming forces, seems to me fraught with tortured logic, politically oriented rhetoric.

 

In my opinion, Boerseun’s point

Just get out of ours and mind your own business, I suppose is what the "terrorists" are telling you.

is the correct one to inform US policy. I reject the rhetoric that labels this conclusion “cowardice”, “cut and run”, or “emboldening the enemy”, and will continue to vote for candidates for US public office who I believe most share my view.

[C1ay]

The distinction C1ay draws: guerrillas fight an invading force, terrorists attack non-combatants, is, I think, a troubled one.

 

I think the short answer is this; terrorism is the use of terror as a means to an end, the use or threat of violence intended to induce fear in not only the direct victims of that violence, but also in the wider population as a whole.

[REASON]

I think the short answer is this; terrorism is the use of terror as a means to an end, the use or threat of violence intended to induce fear in not only the direct victims of that violence, but also in the wider population as a whole.

 

Based on your definition, the Shock and Awe campaign by the United States at the onset of the Iraq invasion would qualify as acts of terrorism. Would you agree with that?

[Southtown]

• The Weekly Standard is not, IMHO, a reliable source of information or analysis, but an publication intended to further neo-conservative agendas using techniques not excluding distortion and fabrication of data.
  
• The preponderance of data and analysis supporting the conclusion that Hussein would not have supported the 9/11 attacks is much stronger, I think, than the opinion statements of The Weekly Standard and others.
  

The Weekly Standard article is well written and intriguing, if just for its mention of one of the more enigmatic characters in recent history, Abdul Rahman Yasin. I don’t, however, think it is accurate, or intended to be accurate.

Why is that I wonder?

 

I agree that the distinction between “guerrilla” and “terrorist” is often unclear and semantic.

 

The distinction C1ay draws: guerrillas fight an invading force, terrorists attack non-combatants, is, I think, a troubled one.

Then you proceed to obscure the distinction.

 

Uniformed militaries have, arguable for as long as they’ve existed, attacked non-combatants, under such euphemistic labels as “scorched earth tactics”, “attacking the enemies means of production”, “reducing the enemy’s will/ability to wage war”, “shock and awe”, etc. Two of the most famous acts of war, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, intentionally chose to kill and injure large numbers of civilians for its demoralizing effect, rather than “demonstrate” the atomic bombs on predominantly military targets.

 

A policy of attacking only invading forces is likewise strategically unsound, and historically uncommon in modern war. Unless one is overwhelmingly powerful, such a poorly defensive policy allows a tactically defeated enemy to rebuild their forces and learn from their mistakes. An important modern exception is a strategy of inflicting sufficient casualties on invading forces to cause its citizens and/or government to withdraw the forces. This strategy was employed by the military of Vietnam against a French, and later a much larger US force, and appears to by the strategy of various insurgent forces in present day Iraq.Cowardice is, in my experience, commonly used as a criteria to distinguish terrorism from “resistance fighting” and other more acceptable actions by uninformed attackers.

So what exactly do you consider "acceptable," may I ask?

 

Upon consideration, I find such logic puzzling. Terrorists such as those who attack gathering of civilians in Israel are nearly always killed, either by their own weapons, or by overwhelmingly better armed, trained, and numerically superior police responders. Soldiers employing standoff weapons (long-distance missiles, high-level bombs, armed remotely controlled drones, etc) that kill equal or greater numbers of unsuspecting civilians, or armed forces that literally cannot shoot back, however, are often termed “courageous”, “heroic”, and “valiant”, even though they have almost no expectation that they may be injured or killed.

So I have to die in combat to achieve honor in your book correct? Regardless of my intentions or my concern for human life?

[Southtown]

Why do you think we are there?

Because my TV says we are. Just kidding. Really, how the hell would I know? Time will tell, as it has already.

[CraigD]

The Weekly Standard article is well written and intriguing, if just for its mention of one of the more enigmatic characters in recent history, Abdul Rahman Yasin. I don’t, however, think it is accurate, or intended to be accurate.

Why is that I wonder?

I believe that Weekly Standard articles are intended primarily to promote neoconservative goals, specifically the kind promoted by an organization founded around the same time (1997 vs. 1995 for the Weekly Standard), Project for the New American Century, and like many publications intended to promote political agendas and ideologies, regards objective data and analysis as secondary, and in some situations, contrary, to this goal.

I agree that the distinction between “guerrilla” and “terrorist” is often unclear and semantic.

 

The distinction C1ay draws: guerrillas fight an invading force, terrorists attack non-combatants, is, I think, a troubled one.

Then you proceed to obscure the distinction.

I did not intend to obscure the distinction between “guerrilla” and “terrorist”, only note that, if the only criteria qualifying one as a terrorist is the intentional targeting of non-combatant civilians, then soldiers in practically every uniformed military that has ever existed would be labeled terrorists. As this is clearly not the meaning most reasonable people associate with the term, the “attack non-combatant” is not adequate to define “terrorist”.

 

It arguably fails in the converse, also. During the recent US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, many non-uniformed combatants believed to have attacked only US and allies’ uniformed soldiers have been described as terrorists.

 

IMHO, a better definition of terrorist is one who engages in acts, or acts in direct support of those who engage in acts intended to create fear of death or injury by their or their allies actions to further a political or ideological goal.

 

So President George W. Bush claiming that failure to support his decision to invade Iraq would result in people being killed by a nuclear attack on a US city by Iraq, though intended to create fear to further a political goal, is not terrorism, because he does not threaten that this attack would be carried out by the US military.

 

A criminal threatening to injure or kill someone if they do not surrender money or property is not a terrorist, because while he intends to create fear of death or injury, it is not to further a political or ideological goal.

 

An individual threatening to kill, or cause his allies to kill US civilians or soldiers if the US does not withdraw its soldiers from Saudi Arabia, or curtail public and private support for Israel, satisfies this definition, so is a terrorist.

 

This definition is not, however, untroubled, because threats such as those by Bush and other US representatives to attack Iran if its government does not refrain from contact and support of Iraqi politicians and militants also meet its definition of terrorism, while most reasonable people would not term this terrorism, but something like “gunboat diplomacy”.

Cowardice is, in my experience, commonly used as a criteria to distinguish terrorism from “resistance fighting” and other more acceptable actions by un-uninformed attackers.

So what exactly do you consider "acceptable," may I ask?

As C1ay asserted, I believe that attacks by un-uniformed combatants against uniformed soldiers of an invading army, such as the French partisan resistance against occupying Germany soldiers in WWII, and even US soldiers in present day Iraq, are considered by most people more acceptable than present day attacks on civilians and soldiers in the US, Spain, England, the Philippians, etc.

Soldiers employing standoff weapons (long-distance missiles, high-level bombs, armed remotely controlled drones, etc) that kill equal or greater numbers of unsuspecting civilians, or armed forces that literally cannot shoot back, however, are often termed “courageous”, “heroic”, and “valiant”, even though they have almost no expectation that they may be injured or killed.

So I have to die in combat to achieve honor in your book correct? Regardless of my intentions or my concern for human life?

No. In my book, if you act in your best judgement to promote the best interest of others, which necessarily includes not killing people unless certainly necessary to prevent their killing greater numbers of people, you have achieved honor.

 

Thus a military aviator who kills tens or hundreds of people, some or all of whom may be innocent of wrongdoing, in an effort to thwart the killing of hundreds or thousands, even though he or she may be little at risk, is honorable. Someone who provides medical care to others is honorable, even if he or she incurs nearly no risk in doing so. Someone who commits armed robbery for their own gain, even though they may incur a high risk of being killed, is dishonorable. Of these three, however, the latter demonstrates greater bravery.

 

Bravery and honor are not, I believe, synonyms.

[Boerseun]

I tend to think that's a matter of semantics. If native countrymen are using guerrilla tactics to fight an invading force I would not label that as terrorism, it is guerrilla warfare.

 

On the other hand, if an opposing force is using terror against non-combatants it is a crime and is not a valid form of opposition.

In your first point, I think the times have changed a bit. Due to the globalisation of the world, I don't think "native countrymen" using guerilla tactics counts as terrorists if they ply their "guerilla tactics" outside the borders of their country. Even relatively poor people have access to the entire world, what with flight tickets being as cheap as they are. So, if you invade my country, my countrymen would conduct warfare against your countrymen, wherever they can find them. I don't think warfare is geographically limited to a localised theatre of war anymore - war, any size war, is today a global issue.

 

On your second point, I have to fully agree with Craig on that one - where does that leave the US in terms of "Shock and Awe", Hiroshima, Nagasaki, the Allies in WW2 knowingly and intentionally firebombing the civilian sectors of Dresden, the United Kingdom in the invention of concentration camps during the Second Boer War which killed 27,000 Boer women and children (you want to attempt to call them combatants, perhaps?), the UK's Scorched Earth policy during the same war?

 

The list certainly goes on.

 

It seems as if those countries bitching and moaning about terrorism today might know more about the intimate inner workings and details of terrorism on the grandest of scales than what they might want their electorate to know about. So what are they bitching and moaning about? Maybe because this time around they're on the receiving end?

 

I'm not trying to defend terrorists at all - but I'm also not going to let history's curtains drop over some of the biggest acts of international terror simply because the victors who wrote the history books might find it slightly uncomfortable to have its skirts hanging out in these dire times.

[C1ay]

Based on your definition, the Shock and Awe campaign by the United States at the onset of the Iraq invasion would qualify as acts of terrorism. Would you agree with that?

 

Yes, I think I would.

 

In hindsight I think I'd label Saddam's rule terrorism as well.

[Turtle]

In light of NY Governor Spitzer's getting caught with his zipper down, I felt like revisting some early jesting. I don't think Bill's cigar use is any subject to judge Hillary's suitability to office by, and we need just a little history touchstone in regard to presidents, sexual dalliance, & the performance of duty of President. We can start with Washington, then Jefferson, Eisenhower, & Kennedy to name a few. :)

 

As smart and well connected as Hillary is, I don't see her keeping Bill out of the business end. :)

[Thunderbird]

As smart and well connected as Hillary is, I don't see her keeping Bill out of the business end. :)

 

No way, she and Bill are a package deal, a two fer..:)

[Turtle]

No way, she and Bill are a package deal, a two fer..

 

When the phone rings at 3 AM at the White House, who do you want to answer? :) :) :)