Where to turn from Amazon

Fletis Humplebacker wrote:
> [email protected] wrote:
> > Fletis Humplebacker wrote:
>
>
> >>>> It sure as hell sounded like justification to me.
> >>>
> >>> How?
> >>
> >>
> >> By reading what you wrote. You pretended that hiding behind
> >> women and children is the only way they can fight and win.
>
> > Please explain an altenative they can use to win.
>
>
> By employing various methods used by mankind throughout his
> history.

Specify.

> Like I said, their tactic is new, I'll add that it's cowardly
> and subhuman too.
>
> >> That's a rather new tactic and history demonstrates otherwise.
> >
> > Please cite an historical example.
>
>
> Huh?
> Cite an example when man used something other than
> war from behind women and children? How about WW 1, 2 and
> every other war for a start.

Well the Vietnam War was another war. The Viet Cong
fought much as our enemies fight us today in Iraq.

The Somalis fought us that way in 1993.

Hezbollah fought us that way in Lebanon in 1983.

The Contras fought that way way against the Sandanistas.

The Sandanista's fought that way against Samoza.

Castro fought that way against Battista.

In WWII the French, Dutch, Norwegians, Belgians, Balkans
of various sorts, Greeks and Danish, to name just a few, carried
on the fight while hiding among the civilians. The British planned
on doing the same, if England had been invaded.

The Irish fought the British that way for a few centuries.

In WWI, the combatants didn't fight that way, they dug trenches
and attacked each other from those trenches. If our enemies in
Iraq had done that they'd all be dead now, don't you agree?

The Mexicans fought that way against Maximillian.

The Spanish fought that way against the French under
Napoleon.

I've left a few out.

>
> >> You are indeed making excuses for them, the fact that you
> >> don't realize it is key to understanding how you arrived at the
> >> notion in the first place.
> >
> > You are indeed lying about what I wrote. I made no excuses,
> > I explained thier motivation.
>
> You are indeed making excuses for them, the fact that you
> don't realize it is key to understanding how you arrived at the
> notion in the first place.

You've no excuse at all for your astounding ignorance.

>
>
>
> >>>>> I think you mean up at the top where he wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> I meant it where I responded, which is why it was there. His
> >>>> comment that terrorists were simply using the only effective
> >>>> means at their disposal was in the context of his moral relativism.
> >>>
> >>> Ok, what other _effective_ means do they have at their disposal?
> >>
> >> Seems like they've been doing pretty good at the PR battle
> >> with the willing media dupes. Outside of genocide, I'm not
> >> even sure what their goal is.
>
> > What other _effective_ means do they have at their disposal?
>
>
> See above.

Above you did NOT describe ANY _effective_ means at their disposal,
other than what they are already doing.

--

FF

Rod & Betty Jo wrote:
> <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
> >> By reading what you wrote. You pretended that hiding behind
> >> women and children is the only way they can fight and win.
> >
> > Please explain an altenative they can use to win.
>
> Ever hear of elections, voting or democracy? Seems I heard a rumor about
> U.S.trying to establish something or the other like that in Iraq.......one
> might think those attempting to thwart such a outcome with violence might
> fear the popular vote. Rod

Do you really think the isnrgents could win control of Iraq that way?
Even if you do, do you think they do?

--

FF

<[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> Rod & Betty Jo wrote:
>> Ever hear of elections, voting or democracy? Seems I heard a rumor about
>> U.S.trying to establish something or the other like that in
>> Iraq.......one
>> might think those attempting to thwart such a outcome with violence might
>> fear the popular vote. Rod
>
> Do you really think the isnrgents could win control of Iraq that way?
> Even if you do, do you think they do?
> FF


My previous comment clearly answered your query before you asked it
"one might think those attempting to thwart such a outcome with violence
might
fear the popular vote".......That said minorities have and often can control
a majority via force....Saddam and his ilk imposed their will on both the
Shiites and the Kurds with approx. 1/3 of the total population....The
current violence there is less about our presence or even religious
differences but rather competing thugs attempting to thwart popular will and
gain dominance. Rod

On Wed, 16 Aug 2006 15:02:09 -0700, "Dave Bugg" <[email protected]>
wrote:

>Too_Many_Tools wrote:
>
... snip
>> Now name calling and applying labels to others is a sign of limited
>> intelligence and of prejudice.
>
>Sometimes the sheer size of the sack of stupid some folks carry around as
>prejudiced opinion, deserves nothing better.
>

*That* has got to be one of the best deadpan lines I have read in some
time!



... snip


+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Mark & Juanita wrote:
> On Fri, 18 Aug 2006 10:34:51 -0400, Renata <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> >On Wed, 16 Aug 2006 21:35:14 -0700, Mark & Juanita
> ><[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> >-snip-
> >> the islamofascists
> >-snip-
> >
> >I see you keep up with the ole talking points... Apparently this
> >combination was coined merely a week or two ago by our most
> >illustrious leader, and propogated quite extensively by the "liberal"
> >media.
> >
>
> That term has been around a bit longer than that.

And it is completely approriate for Al Queda, or the Taliban and the
like. Just like 'American Taliban' is entirely approriate for their
better behaved American counterparts, who are only better
behaved because the rest of us have not let them take over.

Those taking offense (perhaps 'pretending offense' would be more
appropriate) act as if the term 'Islamofascist' was being used toward
all Muslims, and not just the extremists. Which of course it was
not by the President nor by anyone else I can recall using it.

The real bigots don't bother modifying Islam or Muslim. For them,
both terms are already perjorative. There are those who feel the
same way about Christian, Jew or atheist. Pity how they don't
seem to get along, despite having so much in common.

--

FF

On Fri, 18 Aug 2006 10:34:51 -0400, Renata <[email protected]> wrote:

>On Wed, 16 Aug 2006 21:35:14 -0700, Mark & Juanita
><[email protected]> wrote:
>
>-snip-
>> the islamofascists
>-snip-
>
>I see you keep up with the ole talking points... Apparently this
>combination was coined merely a week or two ago by our most
>illustrious leader, and propogated quite extensively by the "liberal"
>media.
>

That term has been around a bit longer than that.

Perhaps you could come up with a better description for those like Iran's
leader who has publicly stated that Israel should be wiped off the map and
the Jews killed. He has further stated that the Holocaust did not happen.
He presides over a state with totalitarian control that hates the Jews.
Gee, what did we call that during the 30's?
Other adherents to this idea are utilizing a religion to promote the
institution of a 7'th century modern totalitarian state ruled by their
rules. Seems to fit pretty well. Sure fits better than the idiots on
your side who yell "fascist" every time the administration tries to do
something to reduce the threat.



>So, let's take a look at this and see if it really fits.
>
.. .snip of


+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Mark & Juanita wrote:
> On 19 Aug 2006 10:36:30 -0700, [email protected] wrote:
>
> >
> >Mark & Juanita wrote:
> >> On Thu, 17 Aug 2006 20:51:18 -0700, "Dave Bugg" <[email protected]>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >> >[email protected] wrote:
> >> >
> >> >> "...that we know terrorists are hiding among the civilian
> >> >> population and that when the necessary bombing occurs, we will *not*
> >> >> be
> >> >> able to separate civilians from terrorists; we make it crystal clear
> >> >> that
> >> >> if these countries and their citizens continue to harbor these
> >> >> animals, we
> >> >> will not deliberately target their civilian populations unlike the
> >> >> terrorists among them, but we will *not* avoid destroying terrorist
> >> >> strongholds despite their locations. "
> >> >
> >> >You need to research what "carpet bombing" is. Nothing that you have quoted
> >> >even remotely smacks of carpet bombing.
> >> >
> >> >> Among other places, the enemy is scattered throughout the
> >> >> civlian population of Bagdad. We do not have bombs that
> >> >> can kill one person in a house while sparing the rest of the
> >> >> household, even assuming we could identify the one person
> >> >> in a house who was the enemy.
> >> >
> >> >That is not carpet bombing. And this is the exact reason why the terrorists
> >> >are responsible for these types of civilian casualties.
> >>
> >> 'tain't worth it Dave. Fred has his wordlview and mindset and no amount
> >> of reasoning nor clarification is going to change that mindset. He will
> >> re-define your terms to suit his purposes and rationale and then read into
> >> your responses that which he wishes to see -- and not in the same way that
> >> you or I might engage in hyperbole or sarcasm to make a point. The
> >> worldview is pretty well illustrated by the statement made in one of his
> >> other postings, "Mind you, IMHO the only way to defeat a guerilla enemy is
> >> to withdraw while the guerillas are still too weak to take control." The
> >> only way to win is to retreat? What a concept! "Oooh, they're running,
> >> guess we better give up" Yeah, that will work real well.
> >>
> >
> >Doh! Just how are they going to fight us when we're not there?
> >Do you think the Sadr militia or the Feyadeen Saddam are going
> >to miss us so badly that they'll send sabotuers over here to goad
> >us into re-invading?
> >
>
> Doh! right back at you. So, in your opinion, the sole purpose here should
> be to prevent our people from being attacked? It's OK if those guerillas
> or terrorists fill the vacuum we leave by bugging out and re-instituting
> the same kind of regime that again enslaves the people of that country. Now
> *that* would be a real good reason for the people of a country we so
> treated to truly hate us.

ISTR that is what you call 'twisting words'.

>
>
> >The long standing dispute over the no-fly zones came to an end
> >for good when we deposed Saddam Hussein. Aside from skirmishes
> >over the no-fly zones there were NO Iraqis fighting us until we
> >invaded.
> >Iraqis are fighting us BECAUSE we invaded.
> >
>
>
> >Iraqis will continue to fight so long as there are foreign troops on
> >Iraqi soil. They may well continue to fight among themselves after,
> >but that is something the Iraqis themselves will have to work out,
> >better sooner than later.
> >
>
> So let's not give the people who might be a bit more friendly toward us a
> chance, eh? Just bomb 'em, kill the dictator, dust our hands "done" and
> let the people we *didn't* fight when they walked away from their arms
> re-arm and re-enslave the country. Yep, great plan.

ISTR that is what you call 'twisting words'.

>
> > The alternative is to stay bogged down in Iraq indefinately. Iran and
> >North Korea would just love that.
>
> So, let's get this on the record. You *are* for invading both North
> Korea and Iran if we would just get out of Iraq?
>

ISTR that is what you call 'twisting words'.

However it would appear that, in your own twisted way, you are
asking for a clarification.

I don't know why we invaded Iraq. I do know it was not to protect
the Kurds, they were already protected, it was not to protect Iraq's
neighbors, they were not threatened, it was not to protect us,
Iraq wasn't even on the State Department's list of nations in
which Al Queda operated. It certainly was not to deprive Iraq
of WMD, Iraq had none, had no facilites for producing them,
had no capacity to recover that capability under the UN sanctions,
and this was clear before the first US soldier crossed the border
into Iraq. We know that because the inspectors we insisted on
sending to Iraq, told us so.

Did we invade Iraq in order to establish a stable Democratic
Government there? It sure doesn't look like it because when
we had control we systematicall deconstructed the governmental
infrastructure at all levels, leaving no border guards, no police,
no one to provide the most basic governmental services. Of
course the country needed to be "deBaathified", but did it
really matter if the local dog catcher was a Baathist in name
only? Disbanding the military left a million young men with
military training without a paycheck and dumped them into
an already ruined economy. Did anybody suppose that would
be anything but a disaster? Sure, the army had largely 'dis-
banded' itself through desertion but was any effort made to
encourage them to return to their ranks? You'd think that
promising them three squares a day and a paycheck would
have gone a long way there. Did anybody think that a
foreign army, unfamiliar with the culture and language could
maintain law and order? We formed an ineffective and
reviled provisional government, then after a year elections
were held to replace it with another temporary governmnet
that was replaced again and so on. There have been
elections after elections in Iraq and each new government
has less control than the last. The country is progressing
to chaos and civil war.

If the Bush administration was tryi8ng to create a stable
Democratic Iraq it sure doesn't show from their actions.

I'll readily agree that a stable and prosperous Iraq would be
a good thing for the Middle East, us, and the world. The fact
that it would be a good thing does not meanit is possible to
force one on Iraq thorugh force of arms. A few notable people
were of the opinion that it would not be possible. George
H Bush, Colin Powell, and Bill Clinton all pretty much
agreed on that before we invaded. OTOH Operation
Iraqi Liberation's chief proponent and architect, Paul Wolfowitz,
cut and ran as soon as the predicted consequences of
his plan began to materialize. But not before being awarded
a medal.

Maybe it was possible to create a stable Democratic
government in Iraq. But maybe by now all hope of
being able to do so has been sytematically destroyed.
Attacks on Coalition Forces have steadily increased and
over the past two years violence has accelerated between
Iraqi factions as well. We are rapidly approaching the point
where any faction that relies on foreign troops for support
will rapidly fall out of favor with the bulk of the Iraqi people.
We have become a force for instabilty in Iraq.

Here in the US the nation is being divided between those
who want to withdraw as soon as possible, and those
who want to send in more troops to 'get the job done'.

The administrations position "stay the course no matter where
we're headed" is increasing unpopular with both factions.

Just what is the Bush administation's plan for victory?
Isn't it clear they have none, they never had one, their
plan was to stay the course and hand the mess over to
the next administration so they could blame somebody
else for losing the war?

Now, as for Noth Korea, there is a real threat of nuclear weapons
there. If we can deprive North Korea of nuclear weapons by
military force that would be justified. I think the Chinese won't
let us.

The same is true, but even more so, for Iran. Iran must not
be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon. It is best if that
can be acomplished by the use of diplomacy and the threat
of military action is a powerful diplomatic tool. But that
threat is only effective if the military is prepared to back it
up. Being bogged down in Iraq hampers our position and
encourages our enemies everywhere.

If military means are required to deprive Iran of nuclear weapons
then that must be done. Be warned, bombing will not be sufficient.
It is doubtful that we have sufficient intelligence to adequately
assure identification of the targets and bombing cannot
destroy the nuclear materials themselves.

Rather than invade Iraq, what I was in favor of, and still am, is
finishing off Al Queda and then proceeding to destroy Hezbollah
and so on. As it surns out, we let Hezbollah grow in power
until Israel was forced to act.

--

FF

Mark & Juanita wrote:

> Doh! right back at you.=A0=A0So,=A0in=A0your=A0opinion,=A0the=A0sole=A0=
purpose=A0here=A0should
> be to prevent our people from being attacked?=A0=A0It's=A0OK=A0if=A0t=
hose=A0guerillas
> or terrorists fill the vacuum we leave by bugging out and re-institut=
ing
> the same kind of regime that again enslaves the people of that countr=
y.

I've been staying out of this because, as usual, nobody is convincing a=
nyone.

But I will point out that, as far as I can tell, what existed in Iraq b=
efore
we invaded was one tribal/ethnic/religious group (the Sunnis) enslaving=
the
other groups. It appears that what's going to happen is another such g=
roup
(the Shiites) enslaving the other groups. For this we send our soldier=
s to
be killed?

And note the resurgence of both the Taliban and the opium trade in
Afghanistzn. While I think we made the right decision in that case, we=
sure
didn't do a very good job. The Taliban is back, there's a new ministry=

dedicated to religious repression, OBL and Mullah Omar are still at lar=
ge,
and the "government" controls little outside of Kabul.

Offering "freedom" to medieval barbarian tribes is, and always will be =
a waste
of time. To them, "freedom" means their tribe rules and all other trib=
es are
their slaves.

--=20
It's turtles, all the way down

On 19 Aug 2006 10:36:30 -0700, [email protected] wrote:

>
>Mark & Juanita wrote:
>> On Thu, 17 Aug 2006 20:51:18 -0700, "Dave Bugg" <[email protected]>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >[email protected] wrote:
>> >
>> >> "...that we know terrorists are hiding among the civilian
>> >> population and that when the necessary bombing occurs, we will *not*
>> >> be
>> >> able to separate civilians from terrorists; we make it crystal clear
>> >> that
>> >> if these countries and their citizens continue to harbor these
>> >> animals, we
>> >> will not deliberately target their civilian populations unlike the
>> >> terrorists among them, but we will *not* avoid destroying terrorist
>> >> strongholds despite their locations. "
>> >
>> >You need to research what "carpet bombing" is. Nothing that you have quoted
>> >even remotely smacks of carpet bombing.
>> >
>> >> Among other places, the enemy is scattered throughout the
>> >> civlian population of Bagdad. We do not have bombs that
>> >> can kill one person in a house while sparing the rest of the
>> >> household, even assuming we could identify the one person
>> >> in a house who was the enemy.
>> >
>> >That is not carpet bombing. And this is the exact reason why the terrorists
>> >are responsible for these types of civilian casualties.
>>
>> 'tain't worth it Dave. Fred has his wordlview and mindset and no amount
>> of reasoning nor clarification is going to change that mindset. He will
>> re-define your terms to suit his purposes and rationale and then read into
>> your responses that which he wishes to see -- and not in the same way that
>> you or I might engage in hyperbole or sarcasm to make a point. The
>> worldview is pretty well illustrated by the statement made in one of his
>> other postings, "Mind you, IMHO the only way to defeat a guerilla enemy is
>> to withdraw while the guerillas are still too weak to take control." The
>> only way to win is to retreat? What a concept! "Oooh, they're running,
>> guess we better give up" Yeah, that will work real well.
>>
>
>Doh! Just how are they going to fight us when we're not there?
>Do you think the Sadr militia or the Feyadeen Saddam are going
>to miss us so badly that they'll send sabotuers over here to goad
>us into re-invading?
>

Doh! right back at you. So, in your opinion, the sole purpose here should
be to prevent our people from being attacked? It's OK if those guerillas
or terrorists fill the vacuum we leave by bugging out and re-instituting
the same kind of regime that again enslaves the people of that country. Now
*that* would be a real good reason for the people of a country we so
treated to truly hate us.


>The long standing dispute over the no-fly zones came to an end
>for good when we deposed Saddam Hussein. Aside from skirmishes
>over the no-fly zones there were NO Iraqis fighting us until we
>invaded.
>Iraqis are fighting us BECAUSE we invaded.
>


>Iraqis will continue to fight so long as there are foreign troops on
>Iraqi soil. They may well continue to fight among themselves after,
>but that is something the Iraqis themselves will have to work out,
>better sooner than later.
>

So let's not give the people who might be a bit more friendly toward us a
chance, eh? Just bomb 'em, kill the dictator, dust our hands "done" and
let the people we *didn't* fight when they walked away from their arms
re-arm and re-enslave the country. Yep, great plan.

> The alternative is to stay bogged down in Iraq indefinately. Iran and
>North Korea would just love that.

So, let's get this on the record. You *are* for invading both North
Korea and Iran if we would just get out of Iraq?



+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Mark & Juanita wrote:
> On Sat, 19 Aug 2006 02:46:23 -0500, Prometheus <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
> >On Thu, 17 Aug 2006 20:23:36 -0700, "Dave Bugg" <[email protected]>
> >wrote:
> >...
>
>
> What absolutely amazes me about this type of argument from your side
> (can't use the words left or right, or liberal or conservative -- heaven
> forbid we label a point of view) is that it totally ignores history and
> does so in a completely schizophrenic fashion. On the one hand, it acts as
> if 9/11 never happened, yet on the other hand, it treats history as if it
> just began on 9/11.
>
> We did not declare war on these people, they declared war on us.

Iraq did not declare war on us. No Iraqis attacked us on September 11,
2001. Iraq was not involved in the plot. There is no evidence any
Iraqi
even KNEW of the plot, indeed on the captured video tape bin Laden
brags about how the conspiracy had been so closely guarded taht
not even all of the hijackers knew the full extent of the plan.

But that doesn't matter to SOME people. 'Retaliating' against Iraq
was fine because _those people_ attacked us.


>... They proceeded to
> escalate, with kidnappings, killings, etc. Notable battles on their part:
> Kobar Towers, embassy bombings, the US Cole, the first attack on the Twin
> Towers, the Iran Hostage crisis and the limp-wristed Jimmy Carter "please
> give our people back, please, please" response that emboldened further
> terrorist acts. Their preferred tacticsa are to target civilians, then
> retreat into the civilian population and utilize any resulting civilian
> deaths as propaganda tools against the people they have attacked.

So why did we invade Iraq, a country that was not implicated in ANY of
those actions? Damn few Iraqis were involved in any of those either.

Those people?

> ...
>
> >
> >What about North Korea? Iran? Syria? Saddam wasn't going to do
> >anything- he was a paper tiger, and now it's a reeking mess.
>
> As stated before, you really need to catch up on this. Their are
> translated documents that indicate that Saddam was waiting for sanctions to
> be lifted in order to pursue his WMD program.

IOW those documents prove he was not producing WMD.

> ...
>
> So you believe that if we had just gotten Bin Laden, all would now be
> right with the world?

It would be a significant imprevement.

> > ... Real people die
> >because of these impostors' hijinks, on both sides of the fence. Just
> >because the folks in Iraq aren't waving American flags and aren't
> >white anglo-saxon males doesn't mean that they are not human. Most of
> >them are as innocent as you or I- they did not "want to engage," and
> >we don't have the right to annihiliate them.
>
> Good grief, you read like an Al Jazeera propaganda broadcast.

Do you disagree with his point that the overwhelming majority
of Iraqis had no beef with the US before the invasion or that more
Iraqis DO have a beef with us now than ever before?

> > ...
> >
> >It is atrocious now. Those we don't kill with bullets or explosives
> >have no water or power. The entire infrastructure of the country has
> >been destroyed. People die of more than military force- they die of
> >disease, starvation, exposure- or any other number of things. That's
> >not making an omlette, that's making a mess.
> >
>
> Again, where in the world are you getting your information? Iraqis are
> not dying by the thousands. We are *helping* re-establish that
> infrastructure and the friggin' terrorists and "freedom-fighters" keep
> trying to blow them up again.

According to the last DOD news conference I listened to on C-Span
simple crime, not political or religious paramilitary activity but
murder
robbery and especially kidnappings for ransom is a major problem
in Iraq today, in addition to the insurgency and internecine fighting.

> > ...
> >>> it'll just make the rats backed into their
> >>> corners fight harder and dirtier.
> >>
> >>Then we just have to kill 'em faster. Maybe we need to eradicate the nest;
> >>if so then we go to Iraq.
> >
> >Iraq was not the nest. Saddam was a secular dictator, not an Islamic
> >fanatic. He wasn't out friend, but he was not part of the "war on
> >terror" until GWB declared it so, despite a complete lack of evidence.
> >Now we have a whole new crop of fanatics who are good and pissed that
> >we wrecked their home- which, while not perfect, used to have some
> >comforts which we have arbitrarily taken from them, handing them a
> >flag and a wink in return.
> >
>
> Better be careful with that argument, it's a bit dated based upon a
> number of documents being translated from the Saddam regime archives.

The evidence being translated shows that he had not rebuilt his WMD
program and was not rebuilding his WMD capacity. OF COURSE
he would have if he could have, no one ever denied that. That was why
there was no termination date for the inspections program.

> ...
> Your comments below don't seem to be in line with that. On the one hand
> you are saying we need to accurately track and dispatch terrorists. Below
> you then say Bush is not doing the job properly. Yet, it is the terrorist
> sympathizers in the media who are screaming bloody foul when Bush attempts
> to identify and track those terrorists by monitoring phone calls between
> the US and countries known to harbor terrorists.

The FISA statute provided for warrantless surveilance so long as the
court was notified within 24 hours after the fact. In the Fall of
2001,
the Bush administration pointed claimed that was too restrictive and
had it changed to 72 hours as part of the Patriot Act, along with a
few other changes to FISA.

Then he went ahead and violated it--his own law!

--

FF

CW wrote:
> Fred, can't you see the obvious? The hijackers wore turbans. They wear
> turbans in Iraq. Close enough. I won't even bring up the Christen against
> Muslim thing.
>
> <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
> >
> > Mark & Juanita wrote:
> > > On Sat, 19 Aug 2006 02:46:23 -0500, Prometheus <[email protected]>
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > We did not declare war on these people, they declared war on us.
> >
> > Iraq did not declare war on us. No Iraqis attacked us on September 11,
> > 2001. Iraq was not involved in the plot. There is no evidence any
> > Iraqi
> > even KNEW of the plot, indeed on the captured video tape bin Laden
> > brags about how the conspiracy had been so closely guarded taht
> > not even all of the hijackers knew the full extent of the plan.
> >
> > But that doesn't matter to SOME people. 'Retaliating' against Iraq
> > was fine because _those people_ attacked us.
> >
> ...

Yes but some are more open aboout their Jihad against Islam than
are others.

I think 'Islamofascist' is a perfectly good term for Al Queda, the
Taleban and the like. No doubt there are some, and not jsut Muslims,
who when they hear GWB use it really do _think_ he means all
Muslims. He doesn't waste much of his breathe disabusing them
of that notion.

In truth, I doubt that he harbors any real predjudice against Islam
per se, given the close relationship between his family and some
prominant Muslim families.

--

FF

[email protected] wrote:
> Iraq did not declare war on us. No Iraqis attacked us on September 11,
> 2001.

No but 80% of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia,
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/11/23/saudi.fbi.911/

and you said, "the House of Saud is one of our Allies".
http://tinyurl.com/f5p7v

I didn't realize that was how our Allies were supposed to treat us.

RayV wrote:
> [email protected] wrote:
> > Iraq did not declare war on us. No Iraqis attacked us on September 11,
> > 2001.
>
> No but 80% of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia,
> http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/11/23/saudi.fbi.911/

Or perhaps more accurately, they entered the US with Saudi
passports. It is not clear how many were traveling under their
true identites.

>
> and you said, "the House of Saud is one of our Allies".
> http://tinyurl.com/f5p7v
>
> I didn't realize that was how our Allies were supposed to treat us.

Perhaps your newspool is a bit behind:

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.woodworking/msg/802dcec5ac89c722?dmode=source

Do you ever listen to talk radio? People frequently call in
to denounce Israel. Does that mean the US in not an Israeli
ally?

--

FF

Morris Dovey wrote:
> [email protected] (in
> [email protected]) said:
>
> | I think 'Islamofascist' is a perfectly good term for Al Queda, the
> | Taleban and the like. No doubt there are some, and not jsut
> | Muslims, who when they hear GWB use it really do _think_ he means
> | all Muslims. He doesn't waste much of his breathe disabusing them
> | of that notion.
>
> It's not a good term for Al Queda - the only real association between
> Islam and Al Queda is that they share a common geographic and
> linguistic context. AQ tries to use Islam as a "hook" to attract
> support from within that context, very much in the same way that an
> American religious leader attempted to use his standing in his
> Christian community to call for the murder of a South American
> president. The AQ folks would be shouting "Crusade!" if they thought
> that would improve traction.

I agree in part.

It is my understanding that bin Laden is a Wahhabi Sunni, a small
sect that unfortunatey includes the House of Sa'ud, though the
family members who share power are probably more or less token
in their beliefs, relying or religious rhetoric to marshal loyalty in
the population. An analogy to American politics suggests itself.

The Wahhabis are extremists, pretty much at the opposite end
of the religious spectrum from Suffiism, which is banned in Saudi
Arabia.

Some of the Wahhabi's are so extreme that they would happily
wipe out all other Muslims, secular Muslims in particular, if
there were no other religions to target instead.

To consider bin Laden and Wahhabism as exemplar of Islam would
be worse even than to consider Vernon Howell (David Koresh) and
the Branch Davidians as exemplar of Christianity.

In a similar vein, Saudia Arabia under the present rulers is no more
exemplar of a Muslim country than Serbia under Millosevic was
of a Christian country. It was MiIlosevic's bad luck that he didn't
control large petroleum reserves contracted to American and Western
European countries. Plus his crimes were comitted against European
Muslims, not Arabian Muslims.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wahabbi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sufism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Saud

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branch_Davidian

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milosevic

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity

--

FF

Noticed it just after I sent it. Figured it out, didn't you?
"Mike Marlow" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> "CW" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>
> > Fred, can't you see the obvious? The hijackers wore turbans. They
wear
> > turbans in Iraq. Close enough. I won't even bring up the Christen
against
> > Muslim thing.
> >
>
> Hmmmmm... what did Christen do to the Muslims?
>
> --
>
> -Mike-
> [email protected]
>
>

[email protected] (in
[email protected]) said:

| I think 'Islamofascist' is a perfectly good term for Al Queda, the
| Taleban and the like. No doubt there are some, and not jsut
| Muslims, who when they hear GWB use it really do _think_ he means
| all Muslims. He doesn't waste much of his breathe disabusing them
| of that notion.

It's not a good term for Al Queda - the only real association between
Islam and Al Queda is that they share a common geographic and
linguistic context. AQ tries to use Islam as a "hook" to attract
support from within that context, very much in the same way that an
American religious leader attempted to use his standing in his
Christian community to call for the murder of a South American
president. The AQ folks would be shouting "Crusade!" if they thought
that would improve traction.

FWIW, the phrase I heard most often in Arabia to describe the muslim
viewpoint was "All men are brothers under the skin." (not far from
Jefferson's "all men are created equal" is it?) I can't even guess at
how many times I heard that said in either Arabic or English. All of
the muslims I got to know especially valued mercy, compassion, and
generosity of spirit - not exactly Al Queda's practiced values - and
universally, they did not merely tolerate my Christianity, they
accepted it as being as natural a part of me as my blond hair or grey
eyes.

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto

"CW" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

> Fred, can't you see the obvious? The hijackers wore turbans. They wear
> turbans in Iraq. Close enough. I won't even bring up the Christen against
> Muslim thing.
>

Hmmmmm... what did Christen do to the Muslims?

--

-Mike-
[email protected]

Fred, can't you see the obvious? The hijackers wore turbans. They wear
turbans in Iraq. Close enough. I won't even bring up the Christen against
Muslim thing.

<[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> Mark & Juanita wrote:
> > On Sat, 19 Aug 2006 02:46:23 -0500, Prometheus <[email protected]>
> > wrote:
> >
> > >On Thu, 17 Aug 2006 20:23:36 -0700, "Dave Bugg" <[email protected]>
> > >wrote:
> > >...
> >
> >
> > What absolutely amazes me about this type of argument from your side
> > (can't use the words left or right, or liberal or conservative -- heaven
> > forbid we label a point of view) is that it totally ignores history and
> > does so in a completely schizophrenic fashion. On the one hand, it acts
as
> > if 9/11 never happened, yet on the other hand, it treats history as if
it
> > just began on 9/11.
> >
> > We did not declare war on these people, they declared war on us.
>
> Iraq did not declare war on us. No Iraqis attacked us on September 11,
> 2001. Iraq was not involved in the plot. There is no evidence any
> Iraqi
> even KNEW of the plot, indeed on the captured video tape bin Laden
> brags about how the conspiracy had been so closely guarded taht
> not even all of the hijackers knew the full extent of the plan.
>
> But that doesn't matter to SOME people. 'Retaliating' against Iraq
> was fine because _those people_ attacked us.
>
>
> >... They proceeded to
> > escalate, with kidnappings, killings, etc. Notable battles on their
part:
> > Kobar Towers, embassy bombings, the US Cole, the first attack on the
Twin
> > Towers, the Iran Hostage crisis and the limp-wristed Jimmy Carter
"please
> > give our people back, please, please" response that emboldened further
> > terrorist acts. Their preferred tacticsa are to target civilians, then
> > retreat into the civilian population and utilize any resulting civilian
> > deaths as propaganda tools against the people they have attacked.
>
> So why did we invade Iraq, a country that was not implicated in ANY of
> those actions? Damn few Iraqis were involved in any of those either.
>
> Those people?
>
> > ...
> >
> > >
> > >What about North Korea? Iran? Syria? Saddam wasn't going to do
> > >anything- he was a paper tiger, and now it's a reeking mess.
> >
> > As stated before, you really need to catch up on this. Their are
> > translated documents that indicate that Saddam was waiting for sanctions
to
> > be lifted in order to pursue his WMD program.
>
> IOW those documents prove he was not producing WMD.
>
> > ...
> >
> > So you believe that if we had just gotten Bin Laden, all would now be
> > right with the world?
>
> It would be a significant imprevement.
>
> > > ... Real people die
> > >because of these impostors' hijinks, on both sides of the fence. Just
> > >because the folks in Iraq aren't waving American flags and aren't
> > >white anglo-saxon males doesn't mean that they are not human. Most of
> > >them are as innocent as you or I- they did not "want to engage," and
> > >we don't have the right to annihiliate them.
> >
> > Good grief, you read like an Al Jazeera propaganda broadcast.
>
> Do you disagree with his point that the overwhelming majority
> of Iraqis had no beef with the US before the invasion or that more
> Iraqis DO have a beef with us now than ever before?
>
> > > ...
> > >
> > >It is atrocious now. Those we don't kill with bullets or explosives
> > >have no water or power. The entire infrastructure of the country has
> > >been destroyed. People die of more than military force- they die of
> > >disease, starvation, exposure- or any other number of things. That's
> > >not making an omlette, that's making a mess.
> > >
> >
> > Again, where in the world are you getting your information? Iraqis
are
> > not dying by the thousands. We are *helping* re-establish that
> > infrastructure and the friggin' terrorists and "freedom-fighters" keep
> > trying to blow them up again.
>
> According to the last DOD news conference I listened to on C-Span
> simple crime, not political or religious paramilitary activity but
> murder
> robbery and especially kidnappings for ransom is a major problem
> in Iraq today, in addition to the insurgency and internecine fighting.
>
> > > ...
> > >>> it'll just make the rats backed into their
> > >>> corners fight harder and dirtier.
> > >>
> > >>Then we just have to kill 'em faster. Maybe we need to eradicate the
nest;
> > >>if so then we go to Iraq.
> > >
> > >Iraq was not the nest. Saddam was a secular dictator, not an Islamic
> > >fanatic. He wasn't out friend, but he was not part of the "war on
> > >terror" until GWB declared it so, despite a complete lack of evidence.
> > >Now we have a whole new crop of fanatics who are good and pissed that
> > >we wrecked their home- which, while not perfect, used to have some
> > >comforts which we have arbitrarily taken from them, handing them a
> > >flag and a wink in return.
> > >
> >
> > Better be careful with that argument, it's a bit dated based upon a
> > number of documents being translated from the Saddam regime archives.
>
> The evidence being translated shows that he had not rebuilt his WMD
> program and was not rebuilding his WMD capacity. OF COURSE
> he would have if he could have, no one ever denied that. That was why
> there was no termination date for the inspections program.
>
> > ...
> > Your comments below don't seem to be in line with that. On the one
hand
> > you are saying we need to accurately track and dispatch terrorists.
Below
> > you then say Bush is not doing the job properly. Yet, it is the
terrorist
> > sympathizers in the media who are screaming bloody foul when Bush
attempts
> > to identify and track those terrorists by monitoring phone calls between
> > the US and countries known to harbor terrorists.
>
> The FISA statute provided for warrantless surveilance so long as the
> court was notified within 24 hours after the fact. In the Fall of
> 2001,
> the Bush administration pointed claimed that was too restrictive and
> had it changed to 72 hours as part of the Patriot Act, along with a
> few other changes to FISA.
>
> Then he went ahead and violated it--his own law!
>
> --
>
> FF
>

"CW" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

> Noticed it just after I sent it. Figured it out, didn't you?

Nuts. I was hoping there was a juicy story behind the whole thing. Oh
well... back to the romance novels.

--

-Mike-
[email protected]

On Sat, 19 Aug 2006 02:46:23 -0500, Prometheus <[email protected]>
wrote:

>On Thu, 17 Aug 2006 20:23:36 -0700, "Dave Bugg" <[email protected]>
>wrote:
>
.. snip
>>You keep waving that flaccid equivalency argument around as if it were some
>>clever justification for terrorists purposefully targeting civilians.
>
>And you keep ignoring the fact that we are purposely targeting
>civilians because a terrorist lives next door to them.

Where in @#$ are you getting your news and information? Al Jazeera?

> If there are
>three terrorists in apartment 2A, a falafel vendor and his family next
>door, a taxi driver and his family one floor down, a carpenter and his
>family one floor up, and an old guy and his wife on the other side,
>and we drop a MOAB on the building to get those three guys, we are
>intentionally targeting civilians to acheive an objective.

I say again, where are you getting your information? We *don't* do that,
even taking your reference to the use of MOAB as (I certainly hope) simple
hyperbole to make your point, our actions in those instances don't even
remotely approach the "kill the building to get one terrorist" model, but
are designed in such a way that our troops are put at greater risk because
of our rules of engagement to reduce civilian casualties. In your
hypothetical engagement, a squad or detachment would be sent to isolate and
take out that single apartment. If the terrorists then initiate a
firefight and nearby apartment dwellers are injured, the moral onus should
be on the terrorists, but it appears that in your world it would be upon
that detachment of troops.


> Now, if I
>was the hypothetical falafel vendor's brother, I'd be looking at that
>bombing in exactly the same way as I look at 9/11 as an American.
>Instead of joining the military, I might hook up with a terrorist
>cell. It's not a flaccid argument, it's how the shooting match works.
>It's how feuds are started and escalated until everyone involved is
>dead.
>

Given that this is not how we are prosecuting the war, your argument and
its conclusion are invalid.

>The thing is- if we have the right to kill civilians in a foreign
>country, we have declared total war. Once we as citizens have
>endorsed total war, it grants the right of our enemies to engage in
>total war against us. They then have the right in the eyes of the
>greater world to kill US civilians as part of their campaign. That's
>why we have rules of engagement and things like the Geneva convention-
>we agree not to torture foreign soldiers in exchange for a like
>promise. If we then go and torture enemy soldiers, it provides a
>moral basis for all other nations involved in the convention to punish
>us through either economic sanctions or allied attack. It's not that
>hard to figure out. We keep a high ground, and others have our backs.
>We resort to wholesale murder, others turn their backs- or attack us
>to make us stop.
>


What absolutely amazes me about this type of argument from your side
(can't use the words left or right, or liberal or conservative -- heaven
forbid we label a point of view) is that it totally ignores history and
does so in a completely schizophrenic fashion. On the one hand, it acts as
if 9/11 never happened, yet on the other hand, it treats history as if it
just began on 9/11.

We did not declare war on these people, they declared war on us. 9/11
was only one battle in that war -- it was finally the one that woke us up
from our 30+ year stupor to realize that this really is a war. The enemy
has known this for years, they first declared war and initiated their
battles with us in the early 70's with the hijacking and blowing up of
airplanes. Our response? We tried to "negotiate". They proceeded to
escalate, with kidnappings, killings, etc. Notable battles on their part:
Kobar Towers, embassy bombings, the US Cole, the first attack on the Twin
Towers, the Iran Hostage crisis and the limp-wristed Jimmy Carter "please
give our people back, please, please" response that emboldened further
terrorist acts. Their preferred tacticsa are to target civilians, then
retreat into the civilian population and utilize any resulting civilian
deaths as propaganda tools against the people they have attacked.


>>> .....but the people who are being continously attacked by well
>>> trained and well armed soldiers from the most powerful military nation
>>> on the planet because some nutjobs decided to have a jihad.
>>
>>We aren't continuously attacking anyone. But your attempt to minimalize the
>>issue to just "some nutjobs" ignores the fact that these highly organized
>>and well funded terrorist groups are a direct appendage of states -- Iran
>>and Syria -- that hate western civilization and religions.
>
>There is a city burning in the middle east every day of the week.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? Over.


> In
>Iraq- and you've just said they're appendages of Iran and Syria. So
>how does destroying Iraq and killing the population help us win a war
>against terrorist organizations?
>
>>> We have
>>> lost two buildings, and part of a third, and a handful of people have
>>> been killed in assorted airline hijackings before that.
>>
>>You've left out quite a few other casualties. But, hey, since you are
>>willing to sacrifice others to your wrong-headed notions, how's about you
>>donate you and your family members as the next terror target? Let's all
>>watch a video tape of y'all getting your heads sawed off, or maybe letting
>>you get gassed or bombed on a plane. Or maybe watch the news as your town is
>>hit with a "dirty" bomb. We'll just shrug our shoulders and ignore it. All
>>in the cause of peace.
>
>It's not about peace, it's about persuing war in the correct way.

That statement pretty much sums up your whole paradigm. That's how we
attempted to fight Vietnam. *That* was a rousing success, wasn't it?


> I
>don't have a problem with fighting a just war- I have a serious
>problem with misguided and high-handed attempts to "spread democracy".
>If the terrorist organizations are direct appendages of Iran and
>Syria, we have no business overextending our servicemen and women by
>sending them into a senseless battle based on a submoron's whim. They
>need to be fighting Iran and Syria, and Iraq should have been left for
>the time being. We do not have infinite resources with which to fight
>the entirety of the world just because you said so.
>
>>> Now, I don't know about you- but if
>>> someone, let's use Russia, as they used to be the Big Bad Wolf- was
>>> about a billion times more powerful than the US, and they continously
>>> bombed my neighborhood for a couple of months or years, killing my
>>> family and destroying everything I have worked for
>>
>><whoooosh> That's what we're fighting to avoid; the ability of any nation to
>>facilitate that kind of damage to our nation and citizens.
>
>What about North Korea? Iran? Syria? Saddam wasn't going to do
>anything- he was a paper tiger, and now it's a reeking mess.

As stated before, you really need to catch up on this. Their are
translated documents that indicate that Saddam was waiting for sanctions to
be lifted in order to pursue his WMD program.

> You
>can't just say "terrorist" and justify any senseless act of agression
>with it. Doing things like that is going to get us in a deep pile of
>shit, alone and cut off. I know the country singers and close
>personal friends of GWB will tell you that we can do anything we want
>because we're the USA, but there have been powers with empires as
>relatively mighty as ours throughout history, and where are they now?
>Rome at the height of it's power was an unstoppable military force-
>but they are now part of the history books. There is a limit to what
>we can do- and if we "stay the course" too much longer, I believe we
>will see those limits firsthand.
>
>>> I'd be pissed off
>>> enough to retaliate in any way available to me.
>>
>>Huh? You've been making the argument that there is no justification for
>>being pissed off. Or don't you think any of us in America felt pissed off
>>when the Towers and Pentagon were attacked?
>
>No, I have been making the argument that we are engaging in the
>wholesale manufacture of enemies by blindly thrashing around without a
>clear plan or vision. The Bush administration's handling of our
>military has been akin to a bully on a playground who got his pants
>pulled down by a sneaky kid, and decides to cream everyone on the
>playground because he's embarassed.

George Bush wasn't attacked on 9/11, the US was.

Your analogy is so weak it's not even close.

9/11 was closer to the big, friendly kid who keeps getting shaken down by
the neighborhood bully for his lunch money on the way to school everyday.
His initial response is to take enough money for himself and the bully --
then the bully finds out and demands the additional money as well. The
"I'll just be more friendly to the bully and he'll like me model" continues
until the big, friendly kid realizes that there is never going to be enough
he can do to make the bully like him and leave him alone. We finally got a
clue and have started to work on flattening the bullies shaking us down
while making us feel guilty.


> I was pissed off about 9/11, and I still am. I'm even more pissed that we are not doing thing one
>about it. We invaded Afganistan- good move.

I wasn't aware that we had stopped our work in Afghanistan.

> We were going to find
>Bin Laudin, great.

I wasn't aware that we had stopped working to take apart the Taliban and
its other minions.

So you believe that if we had just gotten Bin Laden, all would now be
right with the world?

> But that turned out to be too hard, so let's all
>just skip merrily off on a side track to bring democracy to Iraq, and
>in so doing, remove the only secular leader in the entire region.

Hmmm, have you any idea about Turkey's government model?


>Saddam was not a good man- but he was not an Islamic extremist. He
>kept them out, in large part, because they were rivals for his power.
>Now we got rid of him- how does that help? Instead of a political
>roadblock for the extremists, we have made them a new nest.
>

This is one of those incestous arguments that turns in on itself. By our
propagandists for the opposition forcing us to fight this threat in a
certain way, we have created problems. Because of those problems so
induced, we now have the propagandists indicating that we are losing the
war.


... snip
>>
>>>None of it is right, and that is what you jerks can't get
>>> through your thick goddamn heads. They may be evil, but that does not
>>> make us good. Is a giant bear of a man a "good guy" if he fights
>>> according to regulation boxing rules while he tunes up someone half
>>> his size in a bar fight? Is that little guy "evil" if he kicks the
>>> big fella in the nuts and runs away? Of course not. If you killed my
>>> family with a thousand pound bomb and then told me about freedom, I
>>> wouldn't give two shits about putting your family in a bus full of
>>> dynomite and driving it into your house. And I wouldn't call it evil,
>>> I'd call it justice.
>>
>>Oh, I get it, you want a "politically correct" war. A war where there is no
>>superiority and no overwhelming force. You want us to be on an equal footing
>>with the bad guys and suffer just as many casualties. Well, that ain't gonna
>>happen. If an enemy wants to engage, than we need to make sure that they are
>>annihilated with minimal casualties on our side.
>
>No, I want a real war faught by real generals who have a sense of
>diplomacy,

Clue: real Generals do *not* engage in diplomacy -- that's what the
civilian leadership is for. Real Generals develop strategy and plans to
achieve strategic objectives using military force.

> and can get our allies on board by presenting a realistic
>strategy that does not involve Kill 'em all, and let god sort 'em out.
>Getting Mr. Potato Head and his buddies to toss high powered
>explosives around willy-nilly and give each other metals does not win
>wars. It never has, and it won't start doing so now just because the
>press release agent for the White House said so.
>
>I want to see real intellegence gathering, with actual seasoned
>strategists tracking down terrorist cells and dispaching them
>effectively with targeted attacks. They deserve no quarter- but the
>people on the sidelines do deserve to live, just like the people in
>the WTC did. I do not want to see GWB's old drinking buddies
>appointed to run our forces the way they ran FEMA. Real people die
>because of these impostors' hijinks, on both sides of the fence. Just
>because the folks in Iraq aren't waving American flags and aren't
>white anglo-saxon males doesn't mean that they are not human. Most of
>them are as innocent as you or I- they did not "want to engage," and
>we don't have the right to annihiliate them.

Good grief, you read like an Al Jazeera propaganda broadcast.


>
>>And that brings us back to the nexis of the discussion. Our military can't
>>engage the enemy with overwhelming force because they hide behind the skirts
>>of women, and we don't want to kill civilians. Oh, we could easily level
>>Iraq and kill all the enemy, but the civilian casualty rate would be
>>atrocious.
>
>It is atrocious now. Those we don't kill with bullets or explosives
>have no water or power. The entire infrastructure of the country has
>been destroyed. People die of more than military force- they die of
>disease, starvation, exposure- or any other number of things. That's
>not making an omlette, that's making a mess.
>

Again, where in the world are you getting your information? Iraqis are
not dying by the thousands. We are *helping* re-establish that
infrastructure and the friggin' terrorists and "freedom-fighters" keep
trying to blow them up again.

>>> Calling that moral relativism and going ahead with a program of
>>> systematic destruction with huge quantities of collateral damage isn't
>>> going to win us a war
>>
>>The collateral damage is a pin-prick compared to what would occur if we
>>unleashed the full scale of our ground and air forces. The reason the
>>terrorists exist at all is that we are playing nice.
>
>So if I have a toy that will kill everyone on the planet in one
>second, but only use a dozen nukes to wipe a portion of the globe
>clean, that'd be "playing nice" by your standards? We just simply do
>not have a moral right to blow the hell out of an autonomus country
>because we don't like them. Iraq had nothing whatsoever to do with
>9/11. When we fought them because they invaded Kuwait, we had a
>reason, a justifcation and a goal. This time we had none of those- it
>was a grudge and a ruse.
>
>>> it'll just make the rats backed into their
>>> corners fight harder and dirtier.
>>
>>Then we just have to kill 'em faster. Maybe we need to eradicate the nest;
>>if so then we go to Iraq.
>
>Iraq was not the nest. Saddam was a secular dictator, not an Islamic
>fanatic. He wasn't out friend, but he was not part of the "war on
>terror" until GWB declared it so, despite a complete lack of evidence.
>Now we have a whole new crop of fanatics who are good and pissed that
>we wrecked their home- which, while not perfect, used to have some
>comforts which we have arbitrarily taken from them, handing them a
>flag and a wink in return.
>

Better be careful with that argument, it's a bit dated based upon a
number of documents being translated from the Saddam regime archives.


>>> I'm not saying we don't need to do
>>> something- it's that we're doing the wrong things, and the flunkies in
>>> charge of it are rewarding stupidity and ignoring everything else.
>>
>>I love it. You can't define what needs to be done, you sympathize with the
>>enemy, and yet you are quick to judge those that are actually trying to do
>>something.
>
>I can define what needs to be done, we need to accurately track and
>dispatch terrorists-> not blow up civilian targets.

Any recommendations on how one does that when the terrorists look like
civilians, act like civilians, live and cache their weapons among
civilians? ... and do that *before* they carry out their attacks that kill
many times their number?

> I don't sympathize
>with the enemy, I sympathize with their neighbors. And yes, I judge
>the people who have made a terrible mess of this very harshly.

Your comments below don't seem to be in line with that. On the one hand
you are saying we need to accurately track and dispatch terrorists. Below
you then say Bush is not doing the job properly. Yet, it is the terrorist
sympathizers in the media who are screaming bloody foul when Bush attempts
to identify and track those terrorists by monitoring phone calls between
the US and countries known to harbor terrorists.

> Bush
>needs to be gone. It's not a Republican/Democrat thing- I don't think
>the Democrats have anyone all that great to offer either- it's a
>simple matter of competance when it comes to doing the job.
>

"Bush needs to be gone" But it's not a Republican/Democrat thing. uh-huh.



>>> Wrong. It'll work for them in the long term. If this keeps going the
>>> way it is, the rest of the world will continue to see the underdogs
>>> fighting tooth and nail to keep the bully from commiting genocide on
>>> them.
>>
>>Unmitigated hogwash.
>
>>> Eventually we're going to overreach with this, and then it's
>>> going to be more than the Mideast fighting us.
>>
>>Uh huh, sure.
>
>We're not as tough as the media says we are. We lost Vietnam, too.
>

No, the media and fifth-columnists lost Vietnam. That war was prosecuted
in exactly the manner you are recommending we now prosecute the war on the
terrorists and their sponsor-states.



+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Mark & Juanita wrote:
> On Thu, 17 Aug 2006 20:51:18 -0700, "Dave Bugg" <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
> >[email protected] wrote:
> >
> >> "...that we know terrorists are hiding among the civilian
> >> population and that when the necessary bombing occurs, we will *not*
> >> be
> >> able to separate civilians from terrorists; we make it crystal clear
> >> that
> >> if these countries and their citizens continue to harbor these
> >> animals, we
> >> will not deliberately target their civilian populations unlike the
> >> terrorists among them, but we will *not* avoid destroying terrorist
> >> strongholds despite their locations. "
> >
> >You need to research what "carpet bombing" is. Nothing that you have quoted
> >even remotely smacks of carpet bombing.
> >
> >> Among other places, the enemy is scattered throughout the
> >> civlian population of Bagdad. We do not have bombs that
> >> can kill one person in a house while sparing the rest of the
> >> household, even assuming we could identify the one person
> >> in a house who was the enemy.
> >
> >That is not carpet bombing. And this is the exact reason why the terrorists
> >are responsible for these types of civilian casualties.
>
> 'tain't worth it Dave. Fred has his wordlview and mindset and no amount
> of reasoning nor clarification is going to change that mindset. He will
> re-define your terms to suit his purposes and rationale and then read into
> your responses that which he wishes to see -- and not in the same way that
> you or I might engage in hyperbole or sarcasm to make a point. The
> worldview is pretty well illustrated by the statement made in one of his
> other postings, "Mind you, IMHO the only way to defeat a guerilla enemy is
> to withdraw while the guerillas are still too weak to take control." The
> only way to win is to retreat? What a concept! "Oooh, they're running,
> guess we better give up" Yeah, that will work real well.
>

Doh! Just how are they going to fight us when we're not there?
Do you think the Sadr militia or the Feyadeen Saddam are going
to miss us so badly that they'll send sabotuers over here to goad
us into re-invading?

The long standing dispute over the no-fly zones came to an end
for good when we deposed Saddam Hussein. Aside from skirmishes
over the no-fly zones there were NO Iraqis fighting us until we
invaded.
Iraqis are fighting us BECAUSE we invaded.

Iraqis will continue to fight so long as there are foreign troops on
Iraqi soil. They may well continue to fight among themselves after,
but that is something the Iraqis themselves will have to work out,
better sooner than later.

The alternative is to stay bogged down in Iraq indefinately. Iran and
North Korea would just love that.

--

FF

This country fought one of the longest and, ultimately, most
successful guerilla wars in history. It was fought with varying
degrees of intensity from the 1600s into the late 1800s. We tend to
mostly think about and enjoy the entertainment from the mid-to
late-1880s portion though. Of course I am discussing thge Indian Wars.
I seem to remember some collateral damage to civilian populations on
both sides. We figured out how to fight that within our own boarders,
but seem incapable of applying the lessons learned to similar
situations. Mostly because we are no longer accepting of the fact that
these are long term wars of attrition and that they can't be
completely by the Marquis of Queensbury rules.

Dave Hall

On 24 Aug 2006 08:06:51 -0700, [email protected] wrote:

>
>Dave Bugg wrote:
>
>> [email protected] wrote:
>> > Dave Bugg wrote:
>> > > [email protected] wrote:
>
>> > I still disagree. There is a difference between being assigned to
>> > Iraq,
>> > and asking to be assigned to Iraq, whether you recognize it or not.
>>
>> What in the heck is your difficulty in comprehension? You join the military
>> knowing that you are there to accomplish its mission. Your job description
>> calls for deployment on demand. Soldiers that volunteer for the military
>> know that they are volunteering for whatever job the mission calls for,
>> including deployments. I suppose that you'd say a cabinet shop employee
>> didn't voluntarily agree to handle wood on the job.
>
>I comprehend that there is a difference between enlisting,
>knowing that one might be deployed, and volunteering for
>a specific deployment.
>
>Similarly, a cabinet shop employee, at the time he was hired,
>did not volunteer for any specific task.
>
>I'm quite sure that you comprehend the differrence as well.
>
>> > > > Whereas also it is cowardly and stupid to ignore the effectiveness
>> > > > of the tactic.
>> > > Ignoring? No one is ignoring it. That fact is demonstrated by America by the
>> > > restraint of its military power in its tactics in Iraq, and that Israel held
>> > > back the mass of its military might during Lebanon.
>>
>[1]
>> > How is that different from the way we would act toward the civilian
>> > population if the enemy did not hide among them?
>>
>> What... are you really serious? The distinction is the application of
>> overwhelming and unremmiting firepower on the enemy that doesn't hide in
>> civilian populations. If we ignored that distinction, Bagdad or Beirut would
>> have been flattened piles of rubble with no doubt about the existence of the
>> enemy.
>
>Huh? I asked: "How is that different from the way we would
>act toward the civilian population if the enemy did not hide
>among them? "
>
>The enemy hides among the civilians and we have not flattened
>Bahgdad. If the enemy did not hide among the civilians, we
>still would not have flattened Bahgdad, right? You haven't
>indicated that we would treat the civilians differently--you
>ignored the question entirely.
>
>>
>> > Yet you called the reasons the enemy adopted those tactics
>> > _irrelevent_.
>>
>> I said the reasons were self evident.
>
>In:
>http://groups.google.com/group/rec.woodworking/msg/10ee610a19417703?dmode=source
>You wrote:
>
>"The reasons they use such tactics is self-evident and irrelevant. You
>are
>correct about the fact that it points to a fundamental difference in
>morality 'tween us and them. "
>
>We agree that they are self-evidend, though we may not agree on
>why they use those tactics. We do NOT agree that their reasons
>irrelevent, unless you have changed your mind since you wrote
>that those reasons were irrelevent.
>
>We still agree on the fundamental moral difference. That is also
>why you and I can have a public debate, instead of shooting
>at each other.
>
>>
>> > That sounds awfully inconsistent with 'not ignoring' the reasons
>> > the enemy adopted those tactics.
>>
>> To you, not to me.
>>
>> > After we've lost, our change in tactics will not matter.
>>
>> Who says we're going to lose?
>
>I say we lose Iraq if we stay the course. It is far from clear that
>we could have imposed Democracy on Iraq, even without the
>terrible mis (or mal?) management of the occupation.
>
>>
>> > Your first answer was to call the reasons 'irrelevent'. Now it would
>> > appear you've changed your mind on the issue of relevence and
>> > so now you say, "No, we don't ignore them." You haven't suggested
>> > anything that has actually been done about it.
>>
>> And you are talking in circles. I already stated that what has been done is
>> to restrain our military impact on the civilian population where the
>> terrorist are hiding.
>
>I quite agree that we act with retraint. The guerillas take
>advantage of that restraint to survive.
>
>>
>> > Mind you, IMHO the only way to defeat a guerilla enemy is
>> > to withdraw while the guerillas are still too weak to take control.
>>
>> These are not guerillas, these are terrorists. And these terrorists are not
>> "too weak to take control" because they are the forward guard to Iran's
>> attempting to assume control.
>
>Some of the guerillas are sponsored by Iran, many are not.
>Unlike Viet Nam, the enemy in Iraq does not have a single
>central authority. That vastly complicates the situation as
>there is no more an effective way to engage them diplomatically
>than there is to engage them militarily. The Feyadeen Saddam,
>the Sadr militia, and Al Queda in Iraq to name but three,
>have different and incompatible agendas.
>
>[1] While it is good practice to judiciously edit quoted text when
>replying it is also customary to insert a placeholder such as
>[snip] or an elipsis "...". I usually do, my apologies if I have
>been inconsistent in this. I note that you do not, and that has
>the effect, sometimes of misrepresenting (e.g. "twisting") my
>words. That's why I put some of the preceding text back
>in, lest it appear that you were responding to something I had
>not written. This may cause problems in some newsreaders
>that misinterpret plain text as formatting instructions.

<[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Doh! Just how are they going to fight us when we're not there?
> Do you think the Sadr militia or the Feyadeen Saddam are going
> to miss us so badly that they'll send sabotuers over here to goad
> us into re-invading?

According to the present asministration, they will fallow us home.

>
> The long standing dispute over the no-fly zones came to an end
> for good when we deposed Saddam Hussein. Aside from skirmishes
> over the no-fly zones there were NO Iraqis fighting us until we
> invaded.
> Iraqis are fighting us BECAUSE we invaded.

Very true.
>
> Iraqis will continue to fight so long as there are foreign troops on
> Iraqi soil.

> True.

They may well continue to fight among themselves after,

They will, count on it.
>
> The alternative is to stay bogged down in Iraq indefinately.

That seems to be the plan.

> Iran and
> North Korea would just love that.
> > --

No problem, they'll just draft everyone as a world babysitter.

On Thu, 17 Aug 2006 20:51:18 -0700, "Dave Bugg" <[email protected]>
wrote:

>[email protected] wrote:
>
>> "...that we know terrorists are hiding among the civilian
>> population and that when the necessary bombing occurs, we will *not*
>> be
>> able to separate civilians from terrorists; we make it crystal clear
>> that
>> if these countries and their citizens continue to harbor these
>> animals, we
>> will not deliberately target their civilian populations unlike the
>> terrorists among them, but we will *not* avoid destroying terrorist
>> strongholds despite their locations. "
>
>You need to research what "carpet bombing" is. Nothing that you have quoted
>even remotely smacks of carpet bombing.
>
>> Among other places, the enemy is scattered throughout the
>> civlian population of Bagdad. We do not have bombs that
>> can kill one person in a house while sparing the rest of the
>> household, even assuming we could identify the one person
>> in a house who was the enemy.
>
>That is not carpet bombing. And this is the exact reason why the terrorists
>are responsible for these types of civilian casualties.

'tain't worth it Dave. Fred has his wordlview and mindset and no amount
of reasoning nor clarification is going to change that mindset. He will
re-define your terms to suit his purposes and rationale and then read into
your responses that which he wishes to see -- and not in the same way that
you or I might engage in hyperbole or sarcasm to make a point. The
worldview is pretty well illustrated by the statement made in one of his
other postings, "Mind you, IMHO the only way to defeat a guerilla enemy is
to withdraw while the guerillas are still too weak to take control." The
only way to win is to retreat? What a concept! "Oooh, they're running,
guess we better give up" Yeah, that will work real well.



+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Mark & Juanita wrote:

> 'tain't worth it Dave. Fred has his wordlview and mindset and no
> amount of reasoning nor clarification is going to change that
> mindset. He will re-define your terms to suit his purposes and
> rationale and then read into your responses that which he wishes to
> see -- and not in the same way that you or I might engage in
> hyperbole or sarcasm to make a point.

Exactly. He's obviously engaged in wordgames, thinking that it is easier to
confuse the rhetoric by twisting words to hide his inability to support his
positions.

> The worldview is pretty well
> illustrated by the statement made in one of his other postings, "Mind
> you, IMHO the only way to defeat a guerilla enemy is to withdraw
> while the guerillas are still too weak to take control." The only
> way to win is to retreat? What a concept! "Oooh, they're running,
> guess we better give up" Yeah, that will work real well.

Yup; Iran would love us for it.

--
Dave
www.davebbq.com

Mark & Juanita wrote:
> On 18 Aug 2006 10:51:01 -0700, [email protected] wrote:
>
> ... snip
> >>
> >> > Mark of Juanita will deny advocating carpet
> >> > bombing Baghdad but he or she will NOT explain any
> >> > practical alternative approach that would actually impliment
> >> > what he or she advocates.
> >>
>
> It's real simple Fred. First of all, let's realize that this discussion
> was *not* initially about Iraq -- you chose to move the argument to that
> theater. Now, the Israeli defense force knows the source of a rocket
> launch and/or has intelligence regarding the location of a rocket cache. It
> doesn't take "carpet bombing" to launch an artillery barrage or drop a PGW
> to take out *that* location or that cache of weapons.

When you wrote

We win the propaganda war by ...
we will *not* be able to separate civilians from terrorists;
we make it crystal clear ...
we will not deliberately target their civilian populations ...
we will *not* avoid destroying terrorist ..
We further state that ...
we hold their government and the terrorists responsible ...
Then we follow through ...
We need to stop worrying about ...
the rest of the world hates us...
let's do what's right ...

I assumed that by 'we' and 'us' you meant the United States,
and not Israel since it was my understanding that you lived
in Arizona. Have you moved to Israel recently?

> The unfortunate side
> effect is that those animals perptrating those acts have cached said launch
> site or weapons in a civilian home and unfortunately some civilians are
> going to get killed because of that. And Hezbollah's happy media
> supporters will then decry the Israelli strike as "targetting civilians or
> striking without thought to civillian casualties." This is not a
> hypothetical, this has happened in the recent conflict. The attack was
> hardly a "carpet bombing".

I quite agree that the Israelis have not carpet bombed anything,
They don't have the heavy bombers needed for carpet bombing.

I also remind you that I never said anybody had carpet bombed
anybody and you advocated much less restraint than has been
used up to the present.

The long overdue counteroffensive against Hezbollah was effective
because it forced a completion of the implimentation of the UN
mandates 425, 426, and 1559, which collectively called for the
return of Lebanese control over Southern Lebanon.

American-Israel coordination of the counteroffensive was quite
clear and it was action on the part of the Bush administration that
I approve of (not that they care) and support. It is precisely what
we should have done in 2003 instead of invading Iraq. Of course
getting Syria to withdraw from Lebanon first was an important step.

So your use of 'we' was not entirely inappropriate if as you now
claim, you were refering to the IDF counteroffensive against
Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon. The Israelis did the fighting
while we supported them on the diplomatic front.

The couteroffensive was successful because of the diplomatic
decisions it forced. It was not effective at inflicting significant
casualties or material loss on Hezbollah per se. To do that,
by bombing would have required a much more massive bombing,
like carpet bombing.

Perhaps you will consider my use of the term to be hyperbole.
If so, I remind you that you've also taken umbrage when I've
crticized your hyperbole.

As for the media, I get most of my news from C-Span, which
rebroadcasts news from a variety of networks, the BBC,
PRI and various online versions of newpapers most of which
just reprint from Rueters or UPI.

Those sources have given ample coverage to the Israeli
position to Condoleeza Rice and to other supproters.
They have also given some airtime to Hezbollah and its
supporters. From what I've heard, the best thing anyone
can do to discredit Hezbollah is to let them speak
for themselves.


>
> Now, the same thing would apply to attacks in Iraq as well. I'll leave
> the exercise of how and why to yourself, you present yourself as a
> thoughtful and rational person -- use some of that thought.
>

Upon first consideration, the situation we face in Iraq is not at all
analogous to that Israel faced accross the border in Lebanon.
Upon further consideration, there is still no comparison. Our
enemies in Iraq have no central authority to negotiate a truce,
there is no neutral army to bring in to take control, the UN
will not send peacekeepers in to support that non-existant
army.

It's your proposal, not mine. My position, as you well know,
is that it could not be implimented in Iraq with anything less
than carpet bombing. That's the result I arrive at when I carry
out the exercise you suggest.

--

FF

On 18 Aug 2006 10:51:01 -0700, [email protected] wrote:

... snip
>>
>> > Mark of Juanita will deny advocating carpet
>> > bombing Baghdad but he or she will NOT explain any
>> > practical alternative approach that would actually impliment
>> > what he or she advocates.
>>

It's real simple Fred. First of all, let's realize that this discussion
was *not* initially about Iraq -- you chose to move the argument to that
theater. Now, the Israeli defense force knows the source of a rocket
launch and/or has intelligence regarding the location of a rocket cache. It
doesn't take "carpet bombing" to launch an artillery barrage or drop a PGW
to take out *that* location or that cache of weapons. The unfortunate side
effect is that those animals perptrating those acts have cached said launch
site or weapons in a civilian home and unfortunately some civilians are
going to get killed because of that. And Hezbollah's happy media
supporters will then decry the Israelli strike as "targetting civilians or
striking without thought to civillian casualties." This is not a
hypothetical, this has happened in the recent conflict. The attack was
hardly a "carpet bombing".

Now, the same thing would apply to attacks in Iraq as well. I'll leave
the exercise of how and why to yourself, you present yourself as a
thoughtful and rational person -- use some of that thought.


... snip

>No answer? Is that because, like Mark and Juanita, you cannot
>think of any?

No Fred, it's not that I can't think of any answers, it's simply that you
just get way too much pleasure from twisting words, drawing ridiculous
conclusions and generally presenting such silly conclusions that it's just
not worth continuing further discussion.


+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+