AMERICA NEEDS TO WAKE UP! At war for years now

Better yet, what the **** kind of people train their kids to be homacide bombers????

Einherjar, I learned about the "homicide bomber" thing here. Evidently it's a rhetorical device used by Fox news and others? (not sure) to replace "suicide bombers." Because suicide is um too sympathetic or something. I don't quite get it.

gungasnake, two problems. 1) Then why is Bush crowing about getting 75% of the AQ leadership (those who were leaders at the time of 9/11 anyway -- the hydra has sprouted many more heads since), and 2) how come Osama's at large?

Hahaha

So "homicide bomber" is an atempt to conect negative conotations to suecide bombers? Does the term "homicide bomber" also cover those individuals who atempt to take lives by detonating explosive devices without blowing themselves up in the process, or is it completely synonymous with suicide bomber?

1. The so-called 'intifada' has pretty much been crushed and 2. Osama's dead.

Consider the palestinian situation both before and after the Clinton/Arafat tandem arrived. Consider also how the typical American negro in Alabama was living in 1955, three years into Ike's first term.

Your view of the second item has to be qualifed, i.e. you have to ask, compared to what? Compared to the rich and ultra rich of the land, not terribly well but, compared to Haiti, the average black person living in Alabama in 55 had it pretty good.

The typical "palestinian" in 1992, i.e. pre Clinton/Arafat was living about the way blacks lived in Alabama in 55. Now they're living about the way people do in Haiti. From much of what I read, this has finally dawned on most "palestinians" and the days of the present pali leadership are numbered.

Osama's dead. Huh. Missed that news somehow.

Here are some of accounts of special forces...who were there.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/campaign/ground/torabora.html

Also, I recently saw an interview with a special forces officer (can't remember his name) who is of the opinion (he was there), that bin Laden was either killed or seriously injured in the bombing, or he slipped across the border into Pakistan. We weren't allowed to follow, according to him, and the trail went cold.

It's a possibility. gungasnake is stating it as fact.

"It was a cool fall day in November 1979 in a country going through a religious and political upheaval when a group of Iranian students attacked and seized the American Embassy in Tehran. This seizure was an outright attack on American soil; it was an attack that held the world's most powerful country hostage and paralyzed a Presidency. The attack on this sovereign U. S. embassy set the stage for events to follow for the next 23 years."

Some - with more historical knowledge - might argue that it was American (and British) action in engineering the overthrow of the elected Iranian leader, and installing the Shah, that set the stage for the events to follow. Like - the extreme anti-Americanism of the Iranian revolutionaries....

But hey - never let the truth get in the way of a good polemic.

What you say is true, Deb, but it doesn't dispute a single word of the paragraph you quoted, does it?

Actually, it does, Bill - but in a meta sort of way, because I think the intent of most of Xena's postings is to promulgate the idea of some sort of battle between good (the US) and evil (currently the radical Islamists).

I see such simplification as the enemy of reason and good (oh the irony) decision making in a complex world - as well as lending itself to the lures of propaganda and the manipulated assent to appalling actions - whether by your government and mine, or to the dictates of rabid mullahs in Afghanistan.

My point in challenging Xena's simplistic analysis is simply to attempt to introduce some sense of balance and understanding to the debate.

When one does this, the same simplistic black/white thinking will often see this as a defence of the action of taking a large number of poor folk hostage - it is not. However, talking as though the Embassy attack took place in a historical vacuum, and was totally unprovoked, is simply, in effect, a lie. The account of the actions is not a lie - they demonstrably took place - the slant given to them here does, however, in effect, create a false impression which lends itself to emotive and chest-beating analysis (an oxymoron, if ever I heard one) - and potentially to similarly tainted actions.

Yes, yes, but it doesn't dispute a single word of the paragraph you quoted, does it? :razz:

Over-thinking will get you in trouble just as easily as under-thinking. Ask Jimmy Carter. While those students, if it was indeed just students, did have reason to be angry, that doesn't mean our reaction, or lack there of, didn't "set the stage for events to follow for the next 23 years". That was our soil we were attacked on and we barely responded. Call me overly simplistic if you wish, but regardless of what my government is up to, I expect a little more reaction when we're attacked on American soil.

What did you think Carter should have done?

Not being privy to the conversation in the "situation room" or whatever they call it, I don't know what the experts told him the options were. How about this for an answer: SOMETHING.

Weak.

If you are going to criticize someone - how about having an idea.


This is similar to the intereting discussion that grew up about Bush's stunned mullet act during 9/11, where the critics were challenged to say what he SHOULD have done. People came up with some pretty good ideas. Not nuking anyone was a damned good start, in my view.

And - have you considered that NOT acting stupidly is something?

And - have you considered the kind of activity re diplomacy that was going on? Or, the helicopter group that sadly crashed in the desert on the way to rescue them? Made Carter look dumb. If it had succeeded - it would have made him look clever. Such is history....

Hostage dramas are pretty tough to deal with - especially when you can't starve them out etc. look at what is happening in Iraq now. What ought Bush to do? SOMETHING?????

How should the Iranians have responded to the US' manipulations there in their own country, on their own soil, orchestrating the overthrow of their democratically elected PM, and replacing him with a dictatorial monarch?

What would be just punitive measures against the US for its transgressions against Iran?

Are you guys referring to Carter turning his back on the leader of Iran and letting terrorism getting it's footing in the ME. Yeah I said it, Carter turned his back on the leader of Iran when he was asked for help. Shame on Carter. If he had had a set of balls he would have done something at the time instead he talks **** about Bush for taking action!

IB, the playing field isn't level. Until such time as idealists run the United States questions like that will remain irrelevant.

Dlowan, I don't know if I'll have time to debate this, in a timely manner, so I wasn't going to start it. But what the hell.

The helicopters were too little, too late. Diplomacy? 444 days of diplomacy? Capped off by meeting their demands to release funds anyway, if memory serves. That was ridiculous. And yes, I do think it weakened our country's security because it demonstrated that we didn't have the stomach for the hard decisions. Who knows how much of the running amuck that's gone on since can be attributed, at least in part, to our exceedingly weak handling of that affair. If I were in charge?

Speech to the American people (which is obviously to everyone on earth).
(Naturally, the speech people would write something better, but to this effect)
"Americans have been captured on American soil" (Explain the importance of defending our soil, no matter where, and a few details to piss us off).
"This is an act of war and I stand here before you today to inform you we are now in a de facto state of war. In the interest of peace, I am giving the Iranian Government 10 days to resolve this situation before the United States Officially declares war." (Pause for effect, then bow head slightly)
"Heaven help us get through this ordeal peacefully"... (raise head and voice) "and God help them if they don't comply. That is all." Turn briskly and stalk away like I'm heading for a fight.

Iran either takes care of business themselves, rolls out the red carpet for us to come in and do it, or 10 days later suffers a disproportionate proportional response… like air strikes on something of great military strategic importance. Through negotiations offer normal relations if they do the "right" thing or doom if they don't.


I think you were wrong about not Nuking after 9/11, too. If I were in charge; Bin Ladin would have been vaporized in the Tora Bora Valley after we dropped a 50 Megaton H-Bomb over the mountain range reducing the entire area to vapor (quite literally).

Which is how Kennedy stopped the Soviet ships from unloading their nuclear missiles in Cuba in 1962. He stopped them with action, and threat of immediate war if the ships did not turn around. It's also how we eventually beat back the Nazi regime, and how Reagan handled the cold war. Not by "conferences", but a show of strength.



Me, too.

Not often I get agreement there. :wink: