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Nah, using that word makes you hussker. For the record I don't know where this is going either.
Hallelujah.
Between 9-11 and now, I can only hope we will get off our collective, "oh that costs too much tax money" butts and do things right for once.
Nah, using that word makes you hussker. For the record I don't know where this is going either.
US infrastructure is hideously vulnerable in many ways. 9-11 was bad, but had the terrorists been smarter, they could have done much worse.
The only good things about the pyschopaths attracted to violent ideologies, is that rationality and mental stability are not in great supply.
Um, Saddam's government was a secular, Stalinist dictatorship.I keep forgetting the gassing of the 30,000 Kurdish men, women and children was a humanitarian act.
They're called Fanatical Islamist Extremists, aka terrorists, and it should be crystal clear to all that they inhabit most countries (certainly Iraq) in the middle east.
Just thought I might point that out.
I have rarely seen such a disconnect between the reply and the source. Stunning.
Tell me where oh where, did anyone say that the gassing of the Kurds was justified.
Ah so you are talking about TODAY'S terrorists, as in the new ones we created by going into Iraq?
Those terrorists?
I figured it out.
The thread is about "leadership", and I was pointing out the quality of information coming out of the Republican leadership in the executive.
I think that is more relevant to the thread than dumping on people who post here.
And just how did we "create these new" terrorists, by removing a brutal dictator from power? Were terrorists created because we interferred with Saddams brutal torture and murder of all who dared to oppose him in any manner? Were terrorists created because the women of Iraq are now allowed to once again educate themselves and teach the children of Iraq? Were they created because their vise-like grip on the freedoms we take for granted in our Country are being slowly restored to the people of Iraq?
Which of the above would you say is a justifiable trigger mechanism for creating a terrorist?
You blame the Americans for the newly created terrorists? Thank God you are no longer an active member of our miltary, you are an egotistical disgrace!
jochhejaam--italics
And just how did we "create these new" terrorists, by removing a brutal dictator from power?
Indirectly, yes. The removal of Saddam didn't create the new terrorists, the mismanagement of the subsequent occupation did.
Were terrorists created because we interferred with Saddams brutal torture and murder of all who dared to oppose him in any manner?
No.
Were terrorists created because the women of Iraq are now allowed to once again educate themselves and teach the children of Iraq?
No.
Were they created because their vise-like grip on the freedoms we take for granted in our Country are being slowly restored to the people of Iraq?
No.
Which of the above would you say is a justifiable trigger mechanism for creating a terrorist?
You are asking this question, yes?:
Is it ok to create new terrorists if we rid the world of a really bad dictatorship?
Yes. I believe so. I am willing to accept the price to really, truly better the world.
Was invading Iraq about freedom? Only after we didn't find WMD, and the administration had to change the spin so we didn't look like asses.
You blame the Americans for the newly created terrorists? Thank God you are no longer an active member of our miltary, you are an egotistical disgrace!
I am not sure what you mean by "the Americans". I DO blame the mismanagement of this war for creating far more terrorists and sympathizers than there were before we went in. This mismanagement is criminal in my opinion, because a lot of our best are dying for it.
(shrugs)
What is disgraceful is someone who unabashedly accepts any administration's spin as the 100% unvarnished truth. If you really do some critical thinking, then I applaud that.
If you aren't willing to accept that this invasion has had any negative effects, then you are not being intellectually honest.
[EXERPT FROM A RANDOMGUY BLOG ON MYSPACE.COM]
Think Iraq was about "freedom"?
Congressional Resolution on Iraq (Passed by House and Senate October 2002) Whereas ....Iraq unequivocally agreed, among other things, to eliminate its nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons programs ... ....Iraqi defectors led to the discovery that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical weapons and a large scale biological weapons program... and that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons development program... Whereas Iraq... attempted to thwart the efforts of weapons inspectors to identify and destroy Iraq's , weapons of mass destruction stockpiles, and development capabilities... Whereas in 1998 Congress concluded that Iraq's continuing weapons of mass destruction programs threatened vital United States interests and international peace and security... Whereas Iraq both poses a continuing threat to the national security of the United States ...by... continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability , actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability... Whereas the current Iraqi regime has demonstrated its capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction against other nations and its own people.. Whereas the attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001, underscored the gravity of the threat posed by the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction, by international terrorist organizations... Whereas Iraq's demonstrated capability and willingness to use , weapons of mass destruction... Whereas [UN] Resolution 660 [calls for] Iraq to cease... the development of, weapons of mass destruction... Whereas the United States is determined to prosecute the war on terrorism and Iraq's ongoing support for international terrorist groups combined with its development of , weapons of mass destruction... ANYBODY SEE A RECURRING THEME...? Sigh.
OK, back to my paper on the Impairment of Goodwill. Jeez, how do they expect me to write 3-5 pages on this? Heh, I would rather argue on the internet.
THAT said, if the purpose of Iraq was to somehow make us safer and more secure: I don't think it did. The bungled occupation so far has created more people willing to kill us or help those who do. We are losing a PR battle so far, and only the stupidity of the al-Qaeda types in indescriminantly killing muslim civilians is keeping the PR battle from being a rout.
I hope Iraq turns out well, I really do. Either way, I think this administrations failures have directly increased the number and severity of future attacks against us on our own soil.
Ok, now I am REALLY going back to my paper...
We can't prove one way or another that we are more or less safer because of Iraq. We are in their terrority so they do have more opportunity to kill us, I would say that those who would like to kill us now would have done so before if given the opportunity.
I'm not going so far as to say the war is justified, the fact is we are there and we are fighting terrorists and we need to make the best of it until Iraq can form a somewhat stable government. At that point, and I hope it's sooner rather than later, perhaps the U.N. can form a peace keeping military presence that will allow us to pull out the majority of our troops.
That's good to hear, there are Americans that don't feel that way and with that being said I retract the egotistical disgrace comment. (I know, you shrugged it off anyway, I don't usually take others insults too seriously either)RAndomGuy: I hope Iraq turns out well, I really do.
Future as in starting when? I don't see how what you perceived as the present administrations failures equals an increased number of attacks against us on our own soil. That hasn't been the case to this point so the burden of proving that point with something resembling sensible facts rests with you.RG:Either way, I think this administrations failures have directly increased the number and severity of future attacks against us on our own soil
If you post it we'll happily critique it for free.
Heh, you would have to read through the accounting standards board (FASB) ruling on goodwill (SFAS #142) first and then apply that to the case "A & B Companies: Impairment of Goodwill" from the August 2004 issue of "Issues in Accounting Education"
http://www.fasb.org/pdf/fas142.pdf
Be warned it is a pdf file 110 pages long, and um, rather technical. And by technical, I mean icky.
"Prove one way or another" is a bit of a high standard for such things.
We can stack up evidence and weigh it just as people must do in a variety of ambiguous situations. So let's try putting up some things that support our arugments.
It is reasonable to expect that the pictures out of Abu Gharaib and elsewhere make it easier for those who hate us to recruit new members. We made their argument that we are out to get muslims for them.
It is reasonable to expect that we aren't going to be able to kill or capture all the jackasses that are organizing and arming the insurgents. This will leave some of them to train the next generation of bomber in the type of IED warfare seen in Madrid and London.
Intelligence estimates (open source ones) list the al-Qaeda organization and the ideology behind it as "flattening" their structure. This will make them a bit less effective to be sure, but it will make them just as hard to catch. They are indeed reacting to what we are doing. It is reasonable to expect them to do so.
So, we have provided the people we are fighting with a training ground and propaganda to recruit new people to their cause who woulnd't have done so otherwise. These are reasonable conclusions based on what is going on.
The coalition casualty figures seem to back up the assertion that the insurgency is getting better over time at producing casualties. (The figures have remained flat despite the increasing reliance on both armored vehicles and burden sharing with the Iraqi security forces).
There are indeed some good things going on. They are irrelevant to the overall perception that the US is the bad guy. The message is just not making it through the clutter. We may have a list of all the good things we are doing and make that available on the internet, but most muslims in the world, have little or no access to the internet. They know what is in their local newspaper or what is told to them by their local mullahs.
THIS is why I believe we are less safe. The war has been mismanaged and ill-planned.
'salright. I usually try not to respond in kind, but am just as human as the next guy sometimes.
Further terrorist attacks on American soil are a 100% inevitability. Ask that of any terrorism expert.
That means the future as in starting yesterday. Since they are unavoidable, we can only judge our foreign policy by the metric of whether it creates more or fewer people who are motivated to carry out those attacks and whether it will lead to better or worse overall training for those people, making them more or less effective at whatever it is they will do.
These are not immutable incontivertable laws of physics, but they are reasonable assumptions with reasonable conclusions with as much evidence as possible weighed in making them. New evidence may produce new conclusions, but based on what we know now, that's what I think.
This means that invading Afghanistan was a very good thing, as it eliminated a lot of training bases and no few number of fanatics, with very little PR damage.
The same can't be said of Iraq.
Sudan would have been a better place to start, in my opinion.
While I have your attention:
http://spurstalk.com/forums/showthre...t=24908&page=5
I sent you a message about this, but don't think you read it. See post #121
(the "pics you won't see on TV thread")
Heh, you would have to read through the accounting standards board (FASB) ruling on goodwill (SFAS #142) first and then apply that to the case "A & B Companies: Impairment of Goodwill" from the August 2004 issue of "Issues in Accounting Education"
http://www.fasb.org/pdf/fas142.pdf
Be warned it is a pdf file 110 pages long, and um, rather technical. And by technical, I mean icky.
Been there, done that. "Icky" isn't the word I would have used.
Been there, done that. "Icky" isn't the word I would have used.
I say "icky" more for humorous effect. Believe it or not, I really like this stuff and find it all interesting. Not that I find it an easy read, but it is my cup 'o tea.
Here's another good one to bump.
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