[quote]Gambit_Lost wrote:
You don’t think what others think about a country (or individual) has anything to do with diplomacy, huh? [/quote]
Threshold question: do you think other countries conduct their policy with a mind to make sure the US likes them?
I think the list of US allies in the Iraq war gives a nice sample of such countries. Just an observation.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
Gambit_Lost wrote:
You don’t think what others think about a country (or individual) has anything to do with diplomacy, huh?
Threshold question: do you think other countries conduct their policy with a mind to make sure the US likes them?[/quote]
Wake up dude, the whole world hates us. It’s not by accident.
[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
Wake up dude, the whole world hates us. It’s not by accident.[/quote]
Do you have an answer to the question, or do you want to mumble past the point?
[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
thunderbolt23 wrote:
Gambit_Lost wrote:
You don’t think what others think about a country (or individual) has anything to do with diplomacy, huh?
Threshold question: do you think other countries conduct their policy with a mind to make sure the US likes them?
Wake up dude, the whole world hates us. It’s not by accident.
[/quote]
Really? Who? Orion? Perhaps you should spend less time in front of CNN and moveon.org and talk to foreigners not from the middle east. Better yet travel outside the U.S. border.
[quote]pat wrote:
Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
thunderbolt23 wrote:
Gambit_Lost wrote:
You don’t think what others think about a country (or individual) has anything to do with diplomacy, huh?
Threshold question: do you think other countries conduct their policy with a mind to make sure the US likes them?
Wake up dude, the whole world hates us. It’s not by accident.
Really? Who? Orion? Perhaps you should spend less time in front of CNN and moveon.org and talk to foreigners not from the middle east. Better yet travel outside the U.S. border. [/quote]
You mean those people you do not bomb do not hate you?
Well, there is a hint right there.
The Iraqi Government does not want us to leave before 2011.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081122/ts_nm/us_iraq_pact_defence
I wish the common folk felt that way.
Maybe they will if we do leave too soon and a civil war breaks out or Iran sends it’s Iraqi Shia minions to destroy the Sunni.
The only reason Al-Sadr’s mob wants us out is because we are preventing him from
gaining control.
And it is interesting, the government is Shia dominated and they are the ones who want us to stay.
Having spent 28 months there a spilt a bit of blood, here’s my $0.02
If we had accurate intel revealing no WMD in 2002, I’d say we should not have gone.
Now that we are there, we should continue to work to prevent the islamic extremists from taking control.
If that’s not possible, pull out. Then when we get nuked on US soil, we retaliate decisively with extreme overmatch.
I have a basic issue. We were attacked by members of Al Qaeda from Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Al Qaeda had the support of 1) the Taliban, followers of Wahabi clerics. There were allegations that they were also supported by Ansar al-Islam. Ansar al-Islam is a Kurdish group with clear ties to Wahabi Sunis.
The Taliban had strong support from Musharraf’s Pakistan and was basically running Afganistan,
How the f%#k did we get involved in Iraq? The only group in Iraq that had even tenuous ties with Al Qaeda was Ansar al-Islam. Saddam Hussein was a SECULAR leader who absolutely hated Kurdish separatists. If it were not for our no-fly zone over northern Iraq, the Baaths would almost certainly have gone after Ansar al-Islam.
Does anyone think that bin Laden and Hussein loathed each other? Bin Laden would be disgusted by an alcohol drinking secular leader. Hussein was simply an evil paranoid bastard that didn’t trust anyone, let alone some religious fanatic that turned his back on wealth and power.
So it seemed to me at the time, and even more now, that we royally f%*^ked up by going after Iraq.
Our attackers where Suni, specifically Wahabi, religious fanatics with the backing of Saudis and operating from Afghanistan because the Soviet Army had been involved in a foolish attempt to conquer what is perhaps the most famously ungovernable regions of Earth (going back at least as far as Alexander the Great)
So what do we do?
We try to oust the Taliban and Al Qaida from Afghanistan. By most accounts, the initial campaign was brilliant. A tiny number of special forces (US, British, German and Dutch) allied with the existing enemies of the Taliban. With precision air strikes and hardened guerrillas, the Taliban was largely routed. We then moved to a second stage of occupation.
Bush then defines the ‘Axis of Evil’ as Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Not the Taliban, Al Qaida and Wahabi clerics. Iran, lead by Shiites, is a historic adversary of the Sunis that actually attacked us. Iraq was lead by secular socialists, who also have no love of Wahaibi Sunis. Finally, there is North Korea, which has ties to A.Q. Khan, the founder of the Pakistani nuclear bomb.
But, we then diverted the majority of our forces to Iraq, to fight a secular leader that was already an adversary of the religious fanatics that attacked us. Hussein was certainly an evil bastard that deserved to be overthrown, but how was that our fight?
Not only did we divert forces, but we had the stupidity to believe that it was Our Patriotic Duty to carry on as if we were not at war. We are at war, and our opponents are funded by the Saudis and their oil. All of the fuel sucked down by our consumer society is funding the bastards that actually attacked us.
Adm. Woolsey, former head of CIA, views our energy dependence on the Middle East as one of our major security threats. And Bush tells us to shop, or the terrorist win. Unbelievable.
[quote]rainjack wrote:
CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
rainjack wrote:
We left entirely too many people alive, and too many mosques standing.
Because only terrorists go to mosques, clearly.
Not so much, but only terrorists use mosques as a base of attack.
Try your bullshit on someone else. [/quote]
So the plan is to destroy them all. Yeah, I dont see how that could end up killing innocent people.
Ooops, there I go again with my “don’t kill innocent people and try to justify it” bullshit again.
[quote]Journeyman wrote:
I have a basic issue. We were attacked by members of Al Qaeda from Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Al Qaeda had the support of 1) the Taliban, followers of Wahabi clerics. There were allegations that they were also supported by Ansar al-Islam. Ansar al-Islam is a Kurdish group with clear ties to Wahabi Sunis.
The Taliban had strong support from Musharraf’s Pakistan and was basically running Afganistan,
How the f%#k did we get involved in Iraq? The only group in Iraq that had even tenuous ties with Al Qaeda was Ansar al-Islam. Saddam Hussein was a SECULAR leader who absolutely hated Kurdish separatists. If it were not for our no-fly zone over northern Iraq, the Baaths would almost certainly have gone after Ansar al-Islam.
Does anyone think that bin Laden and Hussein loathed each other? Bin Laden would be disgusted by an alcohol drinking secular leader. Hussein was simply an evil paranoid bastard that didn’t trust anyone, let alone some religious fanatic that turned his back on wealth and power.
So it seemed to me at the time, and even more now, that we royally f%*^ked up by going after Iraq.
Our attackers where Suni, specifically Wahabi, religious fanatics with the backing of Saudis and operating from Afghanistan because the Soviet Army had been involved in a foolish attempt to conquer what is perhaps the most famously ungovernable regions of Earth (going back at least as far as Alexander the Great)
So what do we do?
We try to oust the Taliban and Al Qaida from Afghanistan. By most accounts, the initial campaign was brilliant. A tiny number of special forces (US, British, German and Dutch) allied with the existing enemies of the Taliban. With precision air strikes and hardened guerrillas, the Taliban was largely routed. We then moved to a second stage of occupation.
Bush then defines the ‘Axis of Evil’ as Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Not the Taliban, Al Qaida and Wahabi clerics. Iran, lead by Shiites, is a historic adversary of the Sunis that actually attacked us. Iraq was lead by secular socialists, who also have no love of Wahaibi Sunis. Finally, there is North Korea, which has ties to A.Q. Khan, the founder of the Pakistani nuclear bomb.
But, we then diverted the majority of our forces to Iraq, to fight a secular leader that was already an adversary of the religious fanatics that attacked us. Hussein was certainly an evil bastard that deserved to be overthrown, but how was that our fight?
Not only did we divert forces, but we had the stupidity to believe that it was Our Patriotic Duty to carry on as if we were not at war. We are at war, and our opponents are funded by the Saudis and their oil. All of the fuel sucked down by our consumer society is funding the bastards that actually attacked us.
Adm. Woolsey, former head of CIA, views our energy dependence on the Middle East as one of our major security threats. And Bush tells us to shop, or the terrorist win. Unbelievable.[/quote]
ME LIKE…
Not to go to far afield but: now would be an excellent time for a major terrorist strike, like a suitcase nuke on Wall Street. Our economy is collapsing, the government is moribund, Bush is simply imitating plant life and wishing his presidency would end sooner…
Wall Street or the Sears Tower would be my guess.
[quote]pavlovs vodka wrote:
Also, where the fuck is bin laden?
[/quote]
Dead and buried in Pakistan, probably for the last five years.
Oh, but don’t worry, we’ll find “him” sometime in February, try “him” for his heinous crimes, and lock “him” up, thereby ending the war on terror.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Not to go to far afield but: now would be an excellent time for a major terrorist strike, like a suitcase nuke on Wall Street. Our economy is collapsing, the government is moribund, Bush is simply imitating plant life and wishing his presidency would end sooner…
Wall Street or the Sears Tower would be my guess.[/quote]
Ports of New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Using THAT as your reasoning – and I can’t believe some people still do it today; it boggles my mind – is like saying that when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor we should have gone and invaded Australia.
That’ll learn 'em!!!
[quote]apbt55 wrote:
Christine wrote:
If we would have just let it alone, we wouldn’t have to worry about the Taliban or Iran taking it over.
Are you saying just let someone destroy the towers in new york and attempt the pentagon and not respond in any way, [/quote]
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
pavlovs vodka wrote:
Also, where the fuck is bin laden?
Dead and buried in Pakistan, probably for the last five years.
[/quote]
Not buried. He’s mumified and standing behind a podium, his arms and mouth moving with audio-animatronics and is used to spread AQ propaganda via grainy, slightly out of focus, video.
ANYBODY know of any good vids that debunk the 9/11 conspiracy?
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
Not to go to far afield but: now would be an excellent time for a major terrorist strike, like a suitcase nuke on Wall Street. Our economy is collapsing, the government is moribund, Bush is simply imitating plant life and wishing his presidency would end sooner…
Wall Street or the Sears Tower would be my guess.
Ports of New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco.[/quote]
Those are possible but they seem to like very visible targets — ports that are clogged with goods that no one is buying aren’t as glamourous. Wall Steet and the Sears Tower are in very heavily populated ares too.