THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ, TENTH THREAD.

You are wrong on many counts in this post, Ican.

Quote:

The anti-Bush people went nuts when Bush was first elected. They grew even nuttier after Bush's re-election.

Perhaps some of them, but there was no wide-spread criticism of Bush as there is today. I, for example, am anti-Bush, yet I voted for him in 2000. This doesn't fit with what you've said at all, as it isn't Bush himself intrinsically that I am against, but what he has done whilst in office.

Quote:

The anti-Bush people are nuts to think those of us who support the Iraq and Afghanistan wars do so because of our faith in Bush. The anti-Bush people are nuts to think that our support of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is a product of our desire to control the world. The anti-Bush people are nuts to think that our support of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is a product of anything other than our realization that winning these wars (i.e., establishing governments in these countries capable of securing the liberty of their own people) is necessary to the survival of our own liberty.

You make several errors here. First, most anti-Bush people supported, and support, the war in Afghanistan. Your conflation of the war in Afghanistan and the War in Iraq is highly incorrect and should not be done, as they represent two very different things.

Namely, Afghanistan attacked the US, Iraq did not. Yet you confuse the two. Why? Because it is conveinent for you to do so.

I also can't believe that you believe that liberty is so weak in this country that a few paltry terrorist attacks could kill it. What a low opinion of the American people you must have! On the other hand, reducing our liberties is presented by the Pro-Bush crowd as a way of preserving our liberty. Orwellian, wouldn't you agree?

Quote:

The anti-Bush people are nuts to think that we who support the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are convinced that Bush knows how to win these wars. Maybe he is. Maybe he isn't. If he doesn't know, maybe he will come to knlow. If not, then maybe his replacement will know or come to know. Regardless, we must win the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Do you claim that without waging the Iraq war, we would all be dead? That a major terrorist attack would have occured? Because if you are, this is a major error as well. You don't know what would have occured, yet you speak as if you do. Myself, I believe that we would have been fine. Fine, as a nation, even if we had to suffer further attacks. Instead, what do we have? A mess, which everyone has to admit.

This is the same mentality that said 'we must win the vietnam war.' Well, we lost that one, and we are still a-okay as a country. I don't think that either of these wars is a must-win; we aren't being threatened in any serious way by an invading force. Terrorism alone will never be enough to defeat America, just as our bombing abilities will never be enough to take over another country. Therefore, it cannot be said that we are in any serious danger of losing our Liberty from terrorism. It is only a fear-mongering tactic used to whip the country into a frenzy over an external threat.

Perhaps you have cogent and well-thought out ideas about why we should have attacked Iraq, but many of your compatriot Conseratives do not. They drink the Kool-aid, the Bush koolaid. They have such a huge emotional attachment in Bush, that they cannot ever admit that they are wrong, no matter what happens, no matter how much debt is piled up, no matter how much money we waste in Iraq instead of seriously attacking Al Qaeda worldwide and with world support.

Quote:

We who support the Iraq and Afghanistan wars do so more regardless of Bush than because of Bush. We persist in looking for and examining ways to win these wars. The anti-Bush nuts persist in looking for Bush mistakes to intensify their anti-Bush nuttiness and avoid reality.

Meaningless dreck, here. We are looking for ways to end the war in Iraq, because we believe it is a fundamentally bad thing that we are doing. We are killing the patient in an attempt to cure him, and it's painful to watch it go on. And we don't trust those who are supposed to be 'experts,' who have f*cked it up every step of the way.

Why don't you call yourself a 'pro-war nut?' Why characterize the opposite side as 'nuts?' Does it make you feel better? Yaknow, most people agree with the 'nuts' and not with you. Though I suspect you refuse to believe that, as well.

Quote:

The anti-Bush people are nuts to think that my repetition of truths in response to their repetition of falsities, is a syndrome of anything other than my honest desire to relieve ant-Bush nuts of their nuttiness.

You don't repeat truths. You repeat words which you claim are true, with little evidence or logic to back them up, other than your fevered imaginings that the presence of Al Qaeda trumps each and every other concern that we have as a people. It does not.

Cycloptichorn

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

...
You come off as an extremist, as someone who doesn't have real-world solutions, but instead sees terrorists, insurgents, and everyone who possibly could be against the US as some sort of non-human. They are not non-humans.
...
You left out the words I believe. I believe that they are true.

Just my 2 cents

Cycloptichorn

I believe you have mis-stated how I see terrorists or appear to see terrorists. I'll take the liberty of re-stating your statement about what I believe or appear to believe so that it matches exactly what I believe.

RESTATEMENT: You come off as an extremist, as someone who doesn't have real-world solutions, but instead sees terrorists, and everyone who mass murders civilians, their abettors, their advocates, and their silent witnesses as some sort of non-humans.

That is what I believe! If my actual belief causes me "to come off" to you and/or others as "an extremist, as someone who doesn't have real-world solutions," then I pity you and/or others for your perception. More relevant however, I pity the civilians who will continue to be mass murdered, because of the perception by too many that mass murderers of civilians, their abettors, their advocates, and their silent witnesses are not terrorist malignancy, but are human and therefore must not be exterminated to secure the survival of civilians who are human.

You see, I believe that failure of a large majority of the world's humans to support the extermination of terrorist malignancy, will permit it to continue to metastasize (i.e., to prosper, grow and seduce more youths into sacrificing their lives to murder more civilians).

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Cyclo, All well thought out ideas that I agree with; terrorsits will not destroy America. Terrorists have attacked many countries, but they still survive - hopefully wiht better intelligence and defensive measures that do not destroy our way of life.

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ican711nm wrote:

Amigo wrote:

...
It's truth time ican!!!!

12/14/1997

Oil barons court Taliban in Texas By Caroline Lees
...
Iraq: Declassified Documents of U.S. Support for Hussein
...
"In 1979, Bush?s first business, Arbusto Energy, obtained financing from James Bath, a Houstonian and close family friend.
...

I'd rather the Taliban build oil pipelines with USA help than murder Afghanistan civilians.

Pre-1991, USA support for Saddam Hussein is very old news. It was a part of USA's failed, past foreign policy to contain, stabilize and sustain tyrants throughout the world in the misguided belief we would not eventually have to pay dearly for the consequences of that policy. Fortunately, at the very least, Bush has abandoned that damn policy.

You mean Americas "terrorist malignancy" like what took place in Cambodia, Zaire, Nicaragua, Honduras, Iraq, Indo-china, Panama and brazil. That Policy? Who was head of the CIA when these policies started. Where was Rumsfeld?

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You are completely and 100% wrong, Ican. All terrorists are 100% human. This is verifiable by science. To treat them any differently is to have a fundamental mis-understanding of reality, and a fundamental mis-understanding of the problem of terrorism.

Cycloptichorn

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He's already forgotten the American born and bred terrorists.

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Here you go ican. The "War on terror" is the Blowback of American Terrorist malignancy

Blowback:

Blowback is a term used in espionage to describe unintended consequences. In context, it can also mean retaliation as the result of actions undertaken by nations. The phrase is believed to have been coined by the CIA.

---------------------------------

Blowback
Chalmers Johnson

For Americans who can bear to think about it, those tragic pictures from New York of women holding up photos of their husbands, sons and daughters and asking if anyone knows anything about them look familiar. They are similar to scenes we have seen from Buenos Aires and Santiago. There, too, starting in the 1970s, women held up photos of their loved ones, asking for information. Since it was far too dangerous then to say aloud what they thought had happened to them--that they had been tortured and murdered by US-backed military juntas--the women coined a new word for them, los desaparecidos--"the disappeareds." Our government has never been honest about its own role in the 1973 overthrow of the elected government of Salvador Allende in Chile or its backing, through "Operation Condor," of what the State Department has recently called "extrajudicial killings" in Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil and elsewhere in Latin America. But we now have several thousand of our own disappeareds, and we are badly mistaken if we think that we in the United States are entirely blameless for what happened to them.

The suicidal assassins of September 11, 2001, did not "attack America," as our political leaders and the news media like to maintain; they attacked American foreign policy. Employing the strategy of the weak, they killed innocent bystanders who then became enemies only because they had already become victims. Terrorism by definition strikes at the innocent in order to draw attention to the sins of the invulnerable. The United States deploys such overwhelming military force globally that for its militarized opponents only an "asymmetric strategy," in the jargon of the Pentagon, has any chance of success. When it does succeed, as it did spectacularly on September 11, it renders our massive military machine worthless: The terrorists offer it no targets. On the day of the disaster, President George W. Bush told the American people that we were attacked because we are "a beacon for freedom" and because the attackers were "evil." In his address to Congress on September 20, he said, "This is civilization's fight." This attempt to define difficult-to-grasp events as only a conflict over abstract values--as a "clash of civilizations," in current post-cold war American jargon--is not only disingenuous but also a way of evading responsibility for the "blowback" that America's imperial projects have generated.

"Blowback" is a CIA term first used in March 1954 in a recently declassified report on the 1953 operation to overthrow the government of Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran. It is a metaphor for the unintended consequences of the US government's international activities that have been kept secret from the American people. The CIA's fears that there might ultimately be some blowback from its egregious interference in the affairs of Iran were well founded. Installing the Shah in power brought twenty-five years of tyranny and repression to the Iranian people and elicited the Ayatollah Khomeini's revolution. The staff of the American embassy in Teheran was held hostage for more than a year. This misguided "covert operation" of the US government helped convince many capable people throughout the Islamic world that the United States was an implacable enemy.

Cont:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20011015/johnson

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cicerone imposter wrote:

Cyclo, All well thought out ideas that I agree with; terrorsits will not destroy America. Terrorists have attacked many countries, but they still survive - hopefully wiht better intelligence and defensive measures that do not destroy our way of life.

"Hopefully" Question

Except for those already mass murdered by terrorists, we all "still survive" Exclamation

I believe you suggest our inescapable dilemma with the words: "hopefully with better intelligence and defensive measures that do not destroy our way of life."

I believe that either we exterminate the terrorist malignancy, or by adopting intelligence and defensive measures sufficient to protect us against the terrorist malignancy, we permanently destroy our way of life.

Ok then! Please let's discuss what if any "intelligence and defensive measures" are sufficient to protect us against the terrorist malignancy, but will not permanently destroy our way of life.

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

You are completely and 100% wrong, Ican. All terrorists are 100% human. This is verifiable by science. To treat them any differently is to have a fundamental mis-understanding of reality, and a fundamental mis-understanding of the problem of terrorism.

Cycloptichorn

I shall take the liberty of restating your post so that it be in harmony with your previous advice to me regarding "I believe".

RESTATEMENT: I believe you are completely and 100% wrong, Ican. I believe all terrorists are 100% human. I believe this is verifiable by science. I believe to treat them any differently is to have a fundamental mis-understanding of reality, and a fundamental mis-understanding of the problem of terrorism.

I believe differently. I believe that any organism that mass murders civilians, or abetts that mass murder, or advocates that mass murder, or is a silent witness to that mass murder, is not human, and has sacrificed her/his prior humanity (if there had been any) by one or more of these very actions.

Suppose we discover an organism mass murdering human civilians. Suppose that organism walks like a human, talks like a human, looks like a human, and possesses the DNA of a human. How shall we determine if that organism possesses the mind of a human? Well first, we must decide what constitutes the mind of a human. Then we must decide how we shall test the mind of that organism to determine if it possesses the mind of a human. I believe science hasn't figured that out yet.

But for now nevermind science. Please let us discuss what constitutes the mind of a human. I believe an organism that knowingly mass murders human civilians does not possess the mind of a human. I believe either such organism never possessed the mind of a human or has lost possession of the mind of a human. I believe that an organism that does not possess the mind of a human is not human.

What say you?

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Quote:

I believe an organism that knowingly mass murders human civilians does not possess the mind of a human.

I say that you aren't living in reality, for the human mind is quite capable of this. The human mind is capable of all sorts of horrors and despicable extremes, as well as wonderful extremes of goodness and caring.

All of these acts are encompassed in the human mind.

We all have had the temptation to do bodily harm on others. We all have probably had the temptation to kill others. We just don't act on these temptations. Giving in to these temptations does not make one any less of a human than they were before. It just represents a rejection of the moral framework agreed upon by most of society.

You attempt to make these people less than human, because it then excuses whatever actions you take against them. You attempt to make them less than human, because then there is no need to figure out why they are doing what they are doing. You attempt to make them less than human, because it makes it easier for you to pigeonhole them, to lump them together, to propose things that are also inhuman (but it's not in your case, because they aren't human, so it's okay, in your mind).

None of this shows a mind that is grounded in reality. You state that

Quote:

Suppose we discover an organism mass murdering human civilians. Suppose that organism walks like a human, talks like a human, looks like a human, and possesses the DNA of a human. How shall we determine if that organism possesses the mind of a human? Well first, we must decide what constitutes the mind of a human. Then we must decide how we shall test the mind of that organism to determine if it possesses the mind of a human. I believe science hasn't figured that out yet.

What you propose in this passage is ridiculous. If it has the DNA of a human, it is a human. Simple as that. Your whole 'mind' issue is bullsh*t designed to seperate people into categories which simply don't exist.

Do you contend that America, and our Liberty, can fall to terrorism? That terrorists could mean the end of our country? That it is worth everything, everything, to kill them, no matter what? Because that is the same argument that the terrorists use to recruit youths to kill innocents. Your arguments are the same arguments as a terrorist. If this is truly your mindset, then you have been infected with the 'malignancy' and must take steps to correct your mindset before you entice some young American to do whatever it takes to kill other humans.

In summation, your whole human/nonhuman argument is ridiculous, unsupported by science, and immaterial to the question of how to solve terrorism. You do yourself a disservice by continuning to advance such a stupid viewpoint, and it is the primary reason why you are not taken seriously by posters on A2K these days.

You weren't always like this, yaknow? You used to be much more rational. You should think about this sometime.

Cycloptichorn

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To peggy-back on Cyclo's thesis, humans have performed atrocities against their fellow man in the name of religion, culture, race, color, region, sexual orientation, and almost anything that man uses as an excuse to kill each other.

People that cannot see this reality are pretty ignorant, and trying to discuss anything rationally becomes impossible. Their mental-block refuses to peek into reality for fear they will learn they have believed in something for all their lives that turned out to be a lie.

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http://www.vqronline.org/images/issues/Cameron_10.jpg

http://bh.knu.ac.kr/~sdsong/images/Atomic%20Bomb.gif

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the u.s.
"...To peggy-back on Cyclo's thesis, humans have performed atrocities against their fellow man in the name of religion, culture, race, color, region, sexual orientation, and almost anything that man uses as an excuse to kill each other. "

yes , c.i. ; that is unfortunately true !
there seems to be no nation or religion that is an exception ; must be in the "human'(?) genetic makeup .
seems to me that animals do not kill as indiscrimanately as we humans do . animals usually just kill because they need food ; humans often seem to kill for the fun of it .
pretty sad , isn't it ?
should we be talking of the "inhuman" race rather than the human race ?
hbg

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iraq
more bloodshed in iraq - 14 people killed

...The BBC's Jim Muir in Baghdad says much of the violence now is playing into a scenario of rising sectarian tensions between Shia and Sunni Muslims...

link to the article :
...BBC REPORT FROM IRAQ...

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

You are wrong on many counts in this post, Ican.
...
I, for example, am anti-Bush, yet I voted for him in 2000. This doesn't fit with what you've said at all, as it isn't Bush himself intrinsically that I am against, but what he has done whilst in office.
I stand corrected.

...
First, most anti-Bush people supported, and support, the war in Afghanistan.
I stand corrected

Your conflation of the war in Afghanistan and the War in Iraq is highly incorrect and should not be done, as they represent two very different things.

Namely, Afghanistan attacked the US, Iraq did not.
I believe Afghanistan did not attack the US. Rather, those who had obtained sanctuary in Afghanistan attacked the US.

I believe Iraq did not attack the US either. Rather I believe many of the al-Qaeda members who had previously obtained sanctuary in Afghanistan obtained sanctuary in Iraq after we attacked Afghanistan?

I also can't believe that you believe that liberty is so weak in this country that a few paltry terrorist attacks could kill it. What a low opinion of the American people you must have! On the other hand, reducing our liberties is presented by the Pro-Bush crowd as a way of preserving our liberty. Orwellian, wouldn't you agree?
I believe there is no way to protect our liberty from destruction by terrorists determined to do so, except by exterminating the terrorists. I believe any other attempts to protect us against terrorist destruction of our liberty by the use of means other than those which reduce our liberty, will fail -- yes, it's "Orwellian." I believe the mass murder of 3,000 civilians is not a paltry attack.

I believe the only rational solution available to us that is not "Orwellian," is the extermination of the terrorists that have declared war and are making war against us.

Do you claim that without waging the Iraq war, we would all be dead?
No! I believe that without waging the Iraq war, by the first quarter of 2006, we would have suffered a terrorist attack or attacks far more deadly than 9/11. And I believe, in time all those civilians living in the USA who were not Muslims, or who did not become Muslims, or who had not fled the USA, would be dead or enslaved.

That a major terrorist attack would have occured? Because if you are, this is a major error as well. You don't know what would have occured, yet you speak as if you do.
And I believe, you don't know what it is that I don't know.
...
Instead, what do we have? A mess, which everyone has to admit.
Yes, I believe we have a mess -- a mess that we better damn well clean up.

This is the same mentality that said 'we must win the vietnam war.' Well, we lost that one, and we are still a-okay as a country. I don't think that either of these wars is a must-win; we aren't being threatened in any serious way by an invading force.
The North Vietnamese did not attack us or even declare war against us. We declared war against the North Vietnamese. Al-Qaeda did attack us. In fact al-Qaeda did declare war against us repeatedly, both before and after they attacked us. I believe that a serious difference.

Terrorism alone will never be enough to defeat America
Never is a long time. I believe the better analogy is Churchill's lengthy effort to convince the British that Chamberlain was wrong, and the Nazis would not grant the British peace in their time. Churchill was correct.
...
instead of seriously attacking Al Qaeda worldwide and with world support.
I believe we must attack them with whatever support we can obtain, where we can, when we can, with what we can. I believe the best places to attack them are where they are most vulnerable: where they have previously found sanctuary.

...
And we don't trust those who are supposed to be 'experts,' who have f*cked it up every step of the way.
I don't trust the supposed experts either -- especially the ones pontificating in the opinion news media.

... Why characterize the opposite side as 'nuts?'
I characterize the opposite side nuts that characterizes me nuts, because I think they are nuts to do that.

...most people agree with the 'nuts' and not with you. Though I suspect you refuse to believe that, as well.
I don't know with what most of the people agree. I believe you do not either.

...You don't repeat truths. You repeat words which you claim are true, with little evidence or logic to back them up
I believe you believe this. I believe I have offered far more valid evidence and logic to back up my beliefs than anyone participating in this forum, left or right. I'm tempted to post my entire list of principal references again. If you ask, I will.

other than your fevered imaginings that the presence of Al Qaeda trumps each and every other concern that we have as a people. It does not.
I believe you believe that it does not. I believe that it does trump each and every one of our other concerns. I believe that a group of fanatics capable of enlisting youth to commit suicide while mass murdering civilians is a serious threat. I believe that a group declaring repeatedly that it intends to control the world is a serious threat.

Remember Adolf Hitler: "Today Europe; tomorrow the world." It cost us not thousands of our soldiers lives, but the lives of hundreds of thousands of our soldiers lives to make Hitler reconsider and commit suicide without -- at the same time -- murdering anyone else.

Cycloptichorn

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hbg, Some people will never learn that just because Iraq established a government as "progress," that the sectarian violence will end based on the new government. Some people just keep there heads up their arse.

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SUMMARY

I believe there is no way to protect our liberty from destruction by terrorists determined to do so, except by exterminating the terrorists.

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ican, By all the evidence from your posts, you are the first terrorist I would like to see destroyed.

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cicerone imposter wrote:

hbg, Some people will never learn that just because Iraq established a government as "progress," that the sectarian violence will end based on the new government. Some people just keep there heads up their arse.

First, Iraq has not yet established and organized its government.

Second, even when the Iraqi people have established and organized their government, that government will have much work ahead, but nonetheless the Iraqi people will have made some progress in securing their liberty simply by establishing and organizing their government.

Third, the violence, sectarian and terrorist will not end, but will only be diminished with much time and effort to the point where the liberty of almost all of the Iraqi people will be acceptably secured.

Fourth, when you are perfect, we'll all be perfect.

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ican711nm wrote:

SUMMARY

I believe there is no way to protect our liberty from destruction by terrorists determined to do so, except by exterminating the terrorists.

And anybody who resist our Manifest destiny or divine right is a terrorist.

Manifest Destiny - a political philosophy common among American statesman and business leaders in the nineteenth century that held that United States was destined to, or deserved to, conquer the heart of North America from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean.

Devine right -the doctrine that kings derive their right to rule directly from God and are not accountable to their subjects; rebellion is the worst of political crimes; "the doctrine of the divine right of kings was enunciated by the Stuarts in Britain in the 16th century"

So no matter what Anybody who resist in a Terrorist except for us. Our Terror is "Devine right" and "Manifest Destiny"?

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THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ, TENTH THREAD.

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