pentagon contract ban

[waedoe]

Originally posted by Maskirovka
afghanistan was attacked because the taliban government was supporting bin laden and for no other reason. of course that didn't have anything to do with money...and nobody's saying it did. it's beneficial because it's another democracy in the region.

============

look, i'm not saying we should be like "hey france, germany and russia! come get some iraq rebuilding contracts so your economy can benefit from our war!"

and i don't think it's bad that they're being excluded from bidding on the contracts.

but...i'm opposed to the way things are being done. i'm opposed to bush continuously pissing off the rest of the world.

the administration is trying to get these countries to contribute troops to iraq in order to bid on the rebuilding contracts. there's nothing wrong with that. it's just being done in a confrontational way. bush is saying "contribute or else you're out." it's just not the way to do things after you've pissed everyone off already.

bush should be humbling himself saying "sorry we did this thing alone...sorry we made saddam's weapons seem more threatening than they actually were...sorry there was no immediate threat...but we were right to get rid of saddam, so let's put that behind us and get to work on helping these people."

but that's not what he's doing...he's saying, "hey guys...**** you...you don't wanna help with troops? we'll do all this ourselves and get all the benefit from it."

it's the same message but it's just the asshole way of saying it.

and personally i'm tired of my president making our country sound like a bunch of assholes instead of a bunch of people who really care about what happens to the rest of the people in this world.

First off, we dont know "If there are any Weapons of Mass Destruction." this means that the weapons could and possibly might still be there. Lets also look at the allies Iraq had. Yes they could have smuggled the weapons out.

 

[OCybrManO]

Originally posted by DimitriPopov
actually about 50 to 51% of the US supports the war , that a majority I believe. Totalitarianism , you must be joking. Imperialism? I hope youre joking again , Iraq will not be the 51st state , Afghanistan not the 52nd , Kosovo is not a US territory now last time I checked. But hey , in youre overly negative world we probably are imperialist. Killing people for money , sure some of it was for economic means , it must be we are running a country here not a fing charity. To say that economics shouldnt be important is a little too negative , but it was also about something else. Not WMD , I admit , but it was about security , and now its about the people of Iraq , I know it didnt begin that way , but its what it has become.

Imperialism is the policy of extending the rule or authority of an empire or nation over foreign countries. We are being imperialistic.

Totalitarianism is when the centralized government does not tolerate parties of differing opinion and exercises almost dictatorial control over many aspects the freedom, will, or thought of others. We are being at the very least somewhat totalitarian.

Maskirovka, that sounds a bit less harsh than the way I put it, but essentially what I was trying to get across.

 

[waedoe]

Originally posted by OCybrManO
Imperialism is the policy of extending the rule or authority of an empire or nation over foreign countries. We are being imperialistic.

Totalitarianism is when the centralized government does not tolerate parties of differing opinion and exercises almost dictatorial control over many aspects the freedom, will, or thought of others. We are being at the very least somewhat totalitarian.

Maskirovka, that sounds a bit less harsh than the way I put it, but essentially what I was trying to get across.

Defs:

Totalitarianism: Of, relating to, being, or imposing a form of government in which the political authority exercises absolute and centralized control over all aspects of life, the individual is subordinated to the state, and opposing political and cultural expression is suppressed: “A totalitarian regime crushes all autonomous institutions in its drive to seize the human soul” (Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.).

Link:http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=Totalitarianism

Imperialism: 1) The policy of extending a nation's authority by territorial acquisition or by the establishment of economic and political hegemony over other nations.
2) The system, policies, or practices of such a government.

Link: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=Imperialism

First off, we are no where near a totalitarism, we do not Centralize our control over all aspects of life on the Iraqi or Afgani people, we do not Oppress the Iraqi or Afgani people. Sure we are Against A DICTAORSHIP which was saddam that kill hundreds of thousands of people.

As for imperialistic, we have not "extended our nations authority by TERRITORIAL acquisition." in order to do that we would have to OWN IRAQI AND AFGANISTAN which we don't. take this all into mind, next time show the whole picture!

 

[OCybrManO]

You ignored the "or" right after "territorial acquisition"... the second part is what we are doing. Can't you see that in our actions in Iraq?

... and when the media is controlled primarily by one party and says that the other party's arguments are "liberal bullshit" and that they are "communist bastards"... that is the government trying to suppress opposition. They are also trying to give the government many rights that infringe upon several rights specifically stated in the Bill of Rights, and I would consider that trying to make the individual subordinate to the state. So, that would make our actions like I said "at the very least somewhat totalitarian". I know "somewhat totalitarian" isn't the best way to put it but I couldn't think of a better word.

 

[GhostValkyrie]

Originally posted by OCybrManO
You ignored the "or" right after "territorial acquisition"... the second part is what we are doing. Can't you see that in our actions in Iraq?

... and when the media is controlled primarily by one party and says that the other party's arguments are "liberal bullshit" and that they are "communist bastards"... that is the government trying to suppress opposition.

Yeah, right. And do you think CNN is controlled by Republicans?

 

[waedoe]

Originally posted by OCybrManO
You ignored the "or" right after "territorial acquisition"... the second part is what we are doing. Can't you see that in our actions in Iraq?

... and when the media is controlled primarily by one party and says that the other party's arguments are "liberal bullshit" and that they are "communist bastards"... that is the government trying to suppress opposition. They are also trying to give the government many rights that infringe upon several rights specifically stated in the Bill of Rights, and I would consider that trying to make the individual subordinate to the state. So, that would make our actions like I said "at the very least somewhat totalitarian". I know "somewhat totalitarian" isn't the best way to put it but I couldn't think of a better word.

well at least you realize you were wrong about the totaliterinism, hold on lemme get a def for hegmony...

Def:

Hegmony: The predominant influence, as of a state, region, or group, over another or others

Link: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=hegemony

Ummm, i dont see any "Predominant Influence in our Actions", Of coarse though we have to be in control right now, because a terrorist group would take over with out our help. In addition i'd like to point out that if the democrats would have let us take saddam out of power in the first gulf war none of this would have happened.

 

[OCybrManO]

There you go ignoring words again. This time it was "primarily"... and if you don't understand why media conglomerates are controlled primarily by conservatives then you need to read up on business and politics.

EDIT: waedoe, you don't think we are excercising control over the rest of the world by excluding them from being involved in the reconstruction of Iraq for our own benefit?

 

[Maskirovka]

Originally posted by waedoe
First off, we dont know "If there are any Weapons of Mass Destruction." this means that the weapons could and possibly might still be there. Lets also look at the allies Iraq had. Yes they could have smuggled the weapons out.

if they are so hard to find, there wasn't really any immediate threat to the united states now was there? if his arsenal was so huge and imminently threatening, there would have been tons of stuff lying around.

sorry, but it's been quite a while and they haven't found shit. don't start blaming syria and crap like that for helping smuggle the weapons out...that's just an excuse. the war was ok'd by congress out of fear...manufactured fear.

our government seems to be adept at manufacturing fear to justify its actions.

 

[waedoe]

Originally posted by Maskirovka
if they are so hard to find, there wasn't really any immediate threat to the united states now was there? if his arsenal was so huge and imminently threatening, there would have been tons of stuff lying around.

sorry, but it's been quite a while and they haven't found shit. don't start blaming syria and crap like that for helping smuggle the weapons out...that's just an excuse. the war was ok'd by congress out of fear...manufactured fear.

our government seems to be adept at manufacturing fear to justify its actions.

Ok you say you want proof that there thier, well i want proof thier not. and from the shit the liberal media hasnt put out im not suprised that you are thinking the way you are right now. If you will notice they have found missles with traces of WMD, powders and shit, they also couldnt seal off the borders to the other rogue states, I.E. syria.

 

[waedoe]

Originally posted by OCybrManO
There you go ignoring words again. This time it was "primarily"... and if you don't understand why media conglomerates are controlled primarily by conservatives then you need to read up on business and politics.

EDIT: waedoe, you don't think we are excercising control over the rest of the world by excluding them from being involved in the reconstruction of Iraq for our own benefit?

They excluded themselves from the war. i belive they have no, authority to make money off of american, and iraqi lives. thats like saying, oh ur grandma was just murdered can i have half of her will. People like you make me sick. Especially the french, they should be sending us money, for what we did in World War 2 for them. In fact all of Europe and Japan are in our debt for us helping them to rebuild. Shoulda let the Nazi's keep france IMO.

 

[MrMethane]

Originally posted by waedoe
Of coarse, why should it be any other way. i dont see french people dieing over thier for money, i didnt see them fight a war, to liberate iraq. personally the U.S.A is reaping what they have sown. quit trying to make the republican party look so bad. At least we took some action. Id also like to debate afganistan, what reward do we get over thier? (this is to all you people who say its all about the money)

From the CIA World Factbook:

Afghanistan
-------------
Natural resources:
natural gas, petroleum, coal, copper, chromite, talc, barites, sulfur, lead, zinc, iron ore, salt, precious and semiprecious stones


Connect the dots

 

[OCybrManO]

Originally posted by waedoe
Ok you say you want proof that there thier, well i want proof thier not. and from the shit the liberal media hasnt put out im not suprised that you are thinking the way you are right now. If you will notice they have found missles with traces of WMD, powders and shit, they also couldnt seal off the borders to the other rogue states, I.E. syria.

... about the myth of "the liberal media":
If you read any independant studies of the media overall you will find a heavy lean toward the conservative viewpoint. Why? Who controls the media outlets? That's right... the people with lots of money.

... about CNN:
You have to have cable/DirecTV to get CNN (the "lower class" people are not likely to have this and it's an all politics channel so it probably doesn't get nearly as many viewers as a channel like FOX), whereas FOX broadcasts conservative-skewed political news during primetime through basic TV that is free to everyone. That is quite a large difference in their demographic.

Also, why does FOX have to keep thrusting "fair and balanced reporting" and "we report, you decide" at its viewers?

They excluded themselves from the war. i belive they have no, authority to make money off of american, and iraqi lives. thats like saying, oh ur grandma was just murdered can i have half of her will. People like you make me sick. Especially the french, they should be sending us money, for what we did in World War 2 for them. In fact all of Europe and Japan are in our debt for us helping them to rebuild. Shoulda let the Nazi's keep france IMO.

People like you that want to profit off the lives lost in a war that didn't need to be fought are the ones that make me sick. If they just wanted to eliminate Saddam why didn't they try something on a slightly smaller scale than declaring war on them? Why not send several "elite" groups or get insiders to assassinate him first? Anything but throwing everything we have at them.

... and how is fighting in a war a prerequisite to being able to help clean up the aftermath of said war?
"We screwed it up on our own. Now, only we can fix it."

... and it would be more like "Oh, your grandmother was just murdered. Can I help you with the funeral arrangements?" to which you respond "No, I will only let her killer help with the funeral."

 

[waedoe]

Originally posted by MrMethane
From the CIA World Factbook:

Afghanistan
-------------
Natural resources:
natural gas, petroleum, coal, copper, chromite, talc, barites, sulfur, lead, zinc, iron ore, salt, precious and semiprecious stones


Connect the dots

Im pretty sure the CIA, has tabs on every countrys recources, same with most the other super powers. BTW, has it ever occured to you that mabe these facts could be use in trading, or anything like that. Cause right now, i dont see on the USA top priority list to go mine some copper.

 

[waedoe]

Originally posted by OCybrManO
... about the myth of "the liberal media":
If you read any independant studies of the media overall you will find a heavy lean toward the conservative viewpoint. Why? Who controls the media outlets? That's right... the people with lots of money.

... about CNN:
You have to have cable/DirecTV to get CNN (the "lower class" people are not likely to have this and it's an all politics channel so it probably doesn't get nearly as many viewers as a channel like FOX), whereas FOX broadcasts conservative-skewed political news during primetime through basic TV that is free to everyone. That is quite a large difference in their demographic.

Also, why does FOX have to keep thrusting "fair and balanced reporting" and "we report, you decide" at its viewers?


People like you that want to profit off the lives lost in a war that didn't need to be fought are the ones that make me sick. If they just wanted to eliminate Saddam why didn't they try something on a slightly smaller scale than declaring war on them? Why not send several "elite" groups or get insiders to assassinate him first? Anything but throwing everything we have at them.

... and how is fighting in a war a prerequisite to being able to help clean up the aftermath of said war?
"We screwed it up on our own. Now, only we can fix it."

... and it would be more like "Oh, your grandmother was just murdered. Can I help you with the funeral arrangements?" to which you respond "No, only I will only let her killer help with the funeral."

FIRST OFF ITS ILLEGAL TO ASSINATE A POLITICAL FIGURE!

 

[OCybrManO]

I find that logic more than slightly flawed...

"Killing one person is illegal. Killing thousands is war."

Especially when Bush said time and time again that our top priority was killing Saddam even without the support of the UN...

This was basically an assassination attempt that missed and killed lots of innocent people. An assassination with an entire army is still an assassination.

 

[MrMethane]

Originally posted by waedoe
Im pretty sure the CIA, has tabs on every countrys recources, same with most the other super powers. BTW, has it ever occured to you that mabe these facts could be use in trading, or anything like that. Cause right now, i dont see on the USA top priority list to go mine some copper.

I think you're missing my point (though I don't really see how)

I was not suggesting that the CIA factbook is some kind of plan for invading countries rich with natural resources.

I was simply using the CIA factbook to show that there's oil and natural gas in Afghanistan, so there are economic and strategic benefits to having an increased control over it.

 

[DimitriPopov]

Originally posted by OCybrManO
... about the myth of "the liberal media":
If you read any independant studies of the media overall you will find a heavy lean toward the conservative viewpoint. Why? Who controls the media outlets? That's right... the people with lots of money.

... about CNN:
You have to have cable/DirecTV to get CNN (the "lower class" people are not likely to have this and it's an all politics channel so it probably doesn't get nearly as many viewers as a channel like FOX), whereas FOX broadcasts conservative-skewed political news during primetime through basic TV that is free to everyone. That is quite a large difference in their demographic.

Uhm , last time I turned on my TV FOXnews was right next to CNN in the cable news channels. Fox news is not free like you suggest , and Mr.Methane you must consider and prove how much natural gas and oil is in Afghanistan. Just by educated guess I would say not much because of how poor that country has been. Their biggest export is heroin. Omfgoozle we went to war for heroin!!

 

[MrMethane]

Well there's probably not that much oil compared to other countries in the region, such as Iraq. I think there's quite a lot of natural gas though.

Anyway, there just is no denying the strategic importance of Afghanistan. Check out this bbc article from 1997, it really an interesting read.

Keywords: taliban, afghanistan, oil

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/analysis/43219.stm

 

[OCybrManO]

You're right, I forgot FOX has a cable news show in addition to tons of local stations. That just makes it bigger and more influential. Thanks for reminding me.

I haven't actually looked into it, but FOX says that it is the network most watched for political news in the entire nation. I would say that gives them quite a bit of influence if it is true.

If you are set in your ways as a conservative you probably won't see anything wrong with their news (because it's what you want to hear) but if you do a little bit of research they take all kinds of things out of context, put positive spins on anything that would benefit conservatives, belittle anything positive done by liberals, and sometimes just come right out and blatantly lie. It disheartens me that probably the most influential news giant does this kind of stuff. This is why I usually watch both sides and when they conflict (which is far too often) I look to other sources. Don't get me wrong... there are plenty of dirty liberals and liberal extremists, as well. Both sides are politicians at heart, so you have to take what they say with a grain of salt.

I wish everyone could meet on some common ground, but everyone has such varied opinions. We are a nation divided against ourselves. It will take a lot of work to get it all sorted out... though, the problem remains that not many people are willing to put forth the effort.

 

[Lil' Timmy]

popov, foxnews is popular because it's 'analysis' appeals to the mean and stupid, two groups that are populous in america. cnn is a joke, and it has become such precisely due to the influence of fnc. to get any real news these days, one must turn to c-span or bbc.

afghanistan was dominatly personal (9/11), whereas iraq was business (literally). however, afghanistan has been eyed by the US since 1998 for oilpipeline access to turkmenistan, kazakhstan, uzbekistan, etc. (http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/intlrel/hfa48119.000/hfa48119_0.htm#17). it certainly won't be an unprofitable little acquisition for a profiteering group like cheney and friends. in fact, what was done to afghanistan was tad illegal, like it or not. now i know we all love to hate the taliban, but no one ever accused the taliban of commiting 9/11, but the terrorists they harbored, "al-qaeda". now isreal bombed tunisia in 1985 b/c they thought they were harboring terrorists. the UN security council 'condemned' the action 14-0 with one abstaining vote.. kudos to anyone who can guess the abstaining nation according to SC resolution 573, nations are not allowed to attack other nations just because they harbor terrorists. of course pretty much no one paused over that after 9/11, blind rage has a funny way of carrying one along. oh well, the UN is irrelavent anyway.:upstare:

ocybrmano, waedoe is right, legally, the US no longer assassinates as a foreign policy. ethically, strategically and logistically, you may have a point. but legally he has a (CAPS DOMINATED!) point.

waedoe, one could probably not find a more perfect example of economic and political hegemony than the US in iraq. you don't have to dislike it, but if you don't recognize that, i sugest you educate yourself (and no, not with fox news, anne coultre, or william buffet..).

and everyone should take heed of the point maskirovka makes about fear. here's a fun quote that i'm sure a few of you will recognize

"Why of course the people don't want war... But, after all, it's leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it's a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a parliament or a Communist dictatorship. But, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to greater danger."

 

[OCybrManO]

Since when has the legality of something (or, rather, the lack thereof) stopped us from doing things?

 

[Lil' Timmy]

true..

 

[DimitriPopov]

Originally posted by OCybrManO
B]

Im glad you can tell me how I watch the news. I may have conservative views on debated matters , but I like to get my news relatively moderate. I look at Al-Jazeera , MSN and watch either CNN or FoxNews depending on who doesnt have a dumb non-news show on. I balance my news myself , Aljazeera.net is especially interesting. I may have conservative views on here , but that doesnt mean Im completely and utterly conservate. When you assume...

Timmy - Im glad you have the patience to wait for a partisian , lethargic , and increasingly innefective organization to rule an action 'illegal'. Your patience is much appreciated by all terrorists , not just al-qaeda. It gives them time to move ,they are not a central government but you happily allow them to hide behind one.

 

[Lil' Timmy]

Originally posted by DimitriPopov

Timmy - Im glad you have the patience to wait for a partisian , lethargic , and increasingly innefective organization to rule an action 'illegal'. Your patience is much appreciated by all terrorists , not just al-qaeda. It gives them time to move ,they are not a central government but you happily allow them to hide behind one.

you sound like the 'politician' in the quote from my last post.

 

[OCybrManO]

Did I say "You must watch conservative news." or "You are an ultra-conservative blinded by propaganda."?

I don't believe I accused you of anything of the sort... when talking about FOX (not about you) I said that if you or anyone else is set in the their ways as a conservative or a liberal and watch news biased toward your ideas you (you meaning everyone) will probably not notice a spin/slant because the kind of news they report would be the way you see things already. When you take things the wrong way...

 

[DimitriPopov]

Originally posted by OCybrManO
Did I say "You must watch conservative news." or "You are an ultra-conservative blinded by propaganda."?

I don't believe I accused you of anything of the sort... when talking about FOX (not about you) I said that if you or anyone else is set in the their ways as a conservative or a liberal and watch news biased toward your ideas you (you meaning everyone) will probably not notice a spin/slant because the kind of news they report would be the way you see things already. When you take things the wrong way...

Im trying to do 2 debates on forums , browse another , write a review of an article , and take my meds all at the same time , I didnt really read and re-read , so I admit I probably took it wrong , my bad

 

[OCybrManO]

Well, I was getting a bit snappy there for a while... so I can see how that may have appeared to be an attack. It happens.

 

[Maskirovka]

Originally posted by Lil' Timmy
you don't have to dislike it, but if you don't recognize that, i sugest you educate yourself (and no, not with fox news, anne coultre, or william buffet..).

that made me lol.

and that quote is about as relevant as it gets.

==========================

as far as the political assassination thing goes...

no, we can't legally assassinate leaders of other countries...but that's a result of an executive order by president Ford which was made in the wake of the Watergate scandal. The point of it was to make clear that the CIA was not supposed to try to assassinate Fidel Castro.

but after 9/11, the bush administration declared that the executive order issued by Ford and upheld by every president in between "wouldn't stop the US from acting in self defense." (well... it didn't stop Reagan from dropping bombs on Moammar Gadhafi's house in 1986, and it didn't stop the US from starting a war to get rid of Saddam Hussein :\ )

so the anti-political assassination thing is more of a tradition than any kind of specific law.

 

[Lil' Timmy]

good points mask. oh and cybr and popov, civility is highly frowned upon in my threads! :frown:

 

[Maskirovka]

lol...i guess it's a good thing poseyjmac's not in on this one...he loves civility and labels everyone who makes any snide remarks as a child and then refuses to listen to whatever they say.

 

[OCybrManO]

Originally posted by Lil' Timmy
good points mask. oh and cybr and popov, civility is highly frowned upon in my threads! :frown:

I'll be ****ing civil if I **** well please, you *******!

Is that better?

 

[Maskirovka]

to add to the political assassination thing:

from (worthless) CNN's website:

White House and CIA lawyers believe that the intelligence "finding" is constitutional because the ban on political assassination does not apply to wartime. They also contend that the prohibition does not preclude the United States taking action against terrorists.

regardless of the source, this is true and has no political spin on it (except for the quotes around the word finding)

see...this type of legal maneuver allows the US to label someone as a terrorist and then kill them...since we're always fighting our "war on terror"

so saddam got labeled as a terrorist and was pinned as being in league with terrorists...so he got gone.

====================

people seem to forget why Saddam invaded Kuwait in the first place. He was an ally of the US during the Iran/Iraq fighting. We gave Iraq tons of money, training, and weapons. Then, Saddam claimed that Kuwait was doing some shady drilling operations and trying to steal Iraqi oil. Whether or not that's true, he asked the US to come and investigate. When we told him we weren't gonna concern ourselves with that, he invaded to stop it.

Now, of course this doesn't excuse all the terrible things he did to the Iraqi (god that word is hard to type for me) people, and it certainly wasn't some noble reason to invade Kuwait, but it does prove that we have more to do with these kinds of things than people seem to remember.

people quickly forget all of these side-reasons for why things happen and only seem to remember the agressor in situations...who started what...the why is discarded in history lessons and by the media.

all that is remembered by most people is:

Saddam attack Kuwait
US defend innocent Kuwatis
Osama fly planes into our WTC (never forget!!!11)
We didn't do anything to provoke this attack and it was cowardly!
We kill afghanistanssns cause they all love Osama
Saddam is a terrost, too!
We kill Saddam now!

 

[DimitriPopov]

Originally posted by Maskirovka

all that is remembered by most people is:

1. Saddam attack Kuwait
2. US defend innocent Kuwatis
3. Osama fly planes into our WTC (never forget!!!11)
4. We didn't do anything to provoke this attack and it was cowardly!
5. We kill afghanistanssns cause they all love Osama
6. Saddam is a terrost, too!
7. We kill Saddam now!

1. Sure did
2. Defending our allies from agression , my god how wrong are we.
3. I get SO sick of seeing people say "nevar forgetharhharh" mockingly , and I just realized that its gotten old. It was never funny , and frankly we shouldnt forget not to kill terrorist , but to not become complacent. But maybe in your world nothing any American says or does can be good
4. Actually we really didnt do anything to provoke an attack killing INNOCENT CIVILIANS. We provoked political unrest , certainly , we provoked small military action , maybe marginally. But we did not , and have not provoked the wholesale slaughter of innocent civilians. I dont see where you see that as being acceptable.
5. We kill the tailaban which oppressed women and aided terrorist in hiding behind a corrupt and opressive govenrment , I guess that was bad too. And I guess the Northern Alliance was nothing as was the civilian population. In fact the death of CHILDEREN which is VERY tragic wasnt covered up or played down , its widely reported. But we are evil oppressive news twisting whores.
6. No hes not , never said he was. Just an asshole that deserves death.
7. God willing.

 

[Maskirovka]

you missed the point completely. i wasn't saying all of those things were bad.

you seem to be the type of person who loves to ignore the real point and prove someone wrong by tearing apart the portion of their argument that had the least significance.

i was just pointing out how the US isn't totally right in all of these situations. we had influence on every single one of these events.

i didn't say it was wrong to defend kuwait...i said that we could've prevented the invasion by investigating Saddam's claim that kuwait was stealing Iraqi oil...but we ignored him and he invaded.

you seem to forget that we kill INNOCENT CIVILIANS (caps win i guess) all the time in Iraq and Afghanistan. they're innocent bystanders. sure, the terrorists purposely attacked only civilians, which was "cowardly" only if you look at it in a certain way.

i mean...if you want to attack the most powerful country in the world, should you try to attack their military directly so you can't be considered a coward? no, they were smart to do what they did. i'm not saying it's good that they did it...of course it's horrible and we should stop them...but it was the smart way for them to do damage to us...it wasn't cowardly.

yes the taliban was bad and i'm glad they are gone....it just fit the timeline of my stupid little thingy.

and yes, george bush called saddam hussein a terrorist just like he called the taliban terrorists. he accused hussein of supporting terrorists, which is the same thing by the administration's definition.

======================

all of this goes back to my "option b" theory...the wrong way to solve problems.

i'll paste it here...

======================

Here’s the real problem, which nobody has addressed.

· Why are we obsessed with treating the symptoms of problems and not finding a real solution?
· Why do we fight the war on drugs by spraying colombian farmers' coca crops instead of providing them with an incentive to grow coffee instead?
· Why do we fight battle after battle in the Middle East instead of working harder to find an alternative to their oil?
· Why do we fight software and music piracy by continuing to try to make it impossible, when it will never be impossible without some nazi-like system?

I'll tell you why.

Because there are two types of people in the world. There are two ways of trying to solve problems:
A: Try to make it easier for people to make the right decisions
B: Try to take away the possibility of the wrong decision

B is the way you treat children. A is the way you treat adults. In all of these situations, the world has tried method B. Method B has been shown to be utter crap. It has been shown to be physically impossible without a government that is dangerously like George Orwell’s “1984”. B is impossible when combined with freedom. B just makes people more rebellious and people usually end up wanting the wrong decision even more.

On the other hand, the problem with method A is that it takes too long. People don't have the patience. It also doesn't produce results in the short term...especially during the 4 years each Presidential administration gets to produce results. Because of this, most democratic political systems are inherently shortsighted.

The solution?

Use a mix of the two. A balance. You use method B to calm the effects of a problem, and method A to actually solve it. The real problem is that nobody seems interested in actually solving any problems.

======================

republicans love option B...democrats love option A. both are being unrealistic

 

[qckbeam]

republicans love option B...democrats love option A. both are being unrealistic

Republicrats then?

Ha, that seems funny now, but it's 2 A.M. so... I don't know.

Good thread though interesting read guys

 

[Maskirovka]

no, you just have to seriously try to solve problems using both methods. while you do things the "option B" way, you have to be looking for the "option A" long term solution.

with the drug war for instance. a true 100% liberal would want all drugs to be legal and let people make their choice. a true 100% conservative would be trying to eradicate all the drugs and punish all the people who do drugs.

when really, you need to be fighting drug imports and punishing drug dealers, but at the same time you need to be solving the real problem by asking questions like these and finding solutions for them:

why do people use drugs? how can we make drug use less attractive?
why are drugs so profitable? how can we make alternative crops (in the coca instance) pay the same amount?

i mean...does our government really think that spraying farmers' crops will convince them to grow less profitable coffee? no, they're just going to find ways to get around the cropdusters.

so of course you can't completely ignore drug imports and stopping drugs from getting into the hands of kids, but you can't just spray coca crops, and try to stop drug imports at the border and hope people will eventually think smuggling drugs isn't worth it anymore :\

 

[qckbeam]

What you're saying is that the virtue lies in the middle, correct? I agree with that completely.

 

[OCybrManO]

I'm bored. Here are some other suggestions for the name of the new party:

"Republicals" - (Republican Liberals)
"Democravitives" - (Democratic Conservatives)
"Demublicraticans" - (Democratically Republicanistic Democratic-Republicans)
"Libonservocratipublicans" - (Liberally Conservative Democratic-Republicans)
"Concraserblicals" - (Conservative Democratic-Republican Liberals)
"Remocravatals" - (Republican Democratic Conservative Liberals)

 

[shiv]

Originally posted by bAbYhEaDcRaB
/me cries



whats funny is that bush made a point of saying it wasent an oil war and that it would remain a resource for the IRAQI people......... IRAQI

Uhh guy I think you are missing the point as well as some other posters. We are not talking about IRAQI money. We are talking about contracts paid by the american tax payers!! american money!!!!!
So it makes sense that the contracts got to countries that backed us up, not back stabbing surrender monkies like the french.

 

[Maskirovka]

yeah qckbeam...i guess i'm a buddhist

and yeah...some people did miss the point. this is about american tax dollars going to certain companies.

of course it will be better if the companies are american and not french, german, russian, or any other foreign country. but it would also be better if the contracts didn't go to all of the buddies of the people in the white house like haliburton.

yeah i know these contracts will be bid on, but you can be sure the rules will be manipulated a bit. (and read this as an attack on politics, not the republicans only...i'm sure the same thing would happen with a lot of democrats as well)