[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
These are dangerous times, and there isn’t one politician on either side man enough to step up and fix it (yes, MAN, fuck you Hillary).[/quote]
LOL. I shoudn’t laugh, but I can’t help it!
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
Well, how’s this for one: The terrorists fire a rocket into Israel. Instead of an armed invasion with tanks and troops, Israel responds by firing a rocket into Gaza, if it hits a crowded street, so be it. If terrorists blow up a bus, a bomb goes off the next day in a Palestinian market. [/quote]
Please don’t amalgamate the Palestinian question with the murderous bastards of Al-Qaeda.
You must have forgotten the part where they commit suicides. You simply cannot deter someone whose goal is to die.
Plus, if you chose that road, who’s gonna fire up all those fancy weapons to make room for the new ones? It’s naive to underestimate the degree of dependence of the U.S. economy on its military and defense spending.
I doubt it’ll have a positive impact. It’s not like they’re putting bombs and running away. They actually long for the moment they’ll get to die. Don’t overlook that crucial aspect.
[quote]lixy wrote:
You must have forgotten the part where they commit suicides. You simply cannot deter someone whose goal is to die.
I doubt it’ll have a positive impact. It’s not like they’re putting bombs and running away. They actually long for the moment they’ll get to die. Don’t overlook that crucial aspect.[/quote]
Then why do these pussies always cry when we retaliate? Why do they always bitch about all the “civilians, women and children” we allegedly kill in these retalitory attacks? If they long for the moment when they die, they should rejoice when we strike them, not cry like little babies.
If we started retaliating by striking civilians, women and children (you know, the ones the terrorists normally target with their suicide bombs?) would they still long to commit suicide. If they knew their families executed, would they still have the urge to die?
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
Then why do these pussies always cry when we retaliate? Why do they always bitch about all the “civilians, women and children” we allegedly kill in these retalitory attacks? If they long for the moment when they die, they should rejoice when we strike them, not cry like little babies.
If we started retaliating by striking civilians, women and children (you know, the ones the terrorists normally target with their suicide bombs?) would they still long to commit suicide. If they knew their families executed, would they still have the urge to die?[/quote]
Times moves only forward.
Like it or not we don’t live in the dark ages, and God willing, we won’t revert to that type of lifestyle anywhere in the near future.
You might want to acquiant yourself with the realities of today and figure out how to best make things work within them, or face perennial confusion and frustration. Then again, you may not want to. Bush hasn’t made the transition and he was elected president, so you certainly are not alone.
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
lixy wrote:
You must have forgotten the part where they commit suicides. You simply cannot deter someone whose goal is to die.
I doubt it’ll have a positive impact. It’s not like they’re putting bombs and running away. They actually long for the moment they’ll get to die. Don’t overlook that crucial aspect.
Then why do these pussies always cry when we retaliate? Why do they always bitch about all the “civilians, women and children” we allegedly kill in these retalitory attacks? If they long for the moment when they die, they should rejoice when we strike them, not cry like little babies.
If we started retaliating by striking civilians, women and children (you know, the ones the terrorists normally target with their suicide bombs?) would they still long to commit suicide. If they knew their families executed, would they still have the urge to die?[/quote]
If we do this, then we are no better than they. We call ourselves “Civilized” because we do not do this to others.
It is not that hard to figure out that when you do this, you make men intent on revenge, not scared of what might happen- just like you appear to be.
This is a very ignorant, dangerous line of thinking that leads to brutal wars. Nothing can excuse women and children dying, and when my government purveys it like that, it won’t be my government anymore.
[quote]rainjack wrote:
GDollars37 wrote:
There’s a world of difference between being a Christian and believing in fighting to protect yourself and loved ones (which are totally compatible) and labeling your enemies (or even just those in their general area) “cockroaches.”
I’ll accept judgment from a power higher than you. If I am wrong - then I will face my due. But you sitting in judgment is a joke.
I’d like to know where a godless asshole such as yourself finds the power to sit in judgment of anyone.
But I digress… WWII was the last time anyone entered a war to win. I think a visit to those times, and those goals are exactly what we need.
Maybe you are of the kiss ass clan. I am not. Destroying the enemy is not a bad thing, regardless of what you might say. I say it would save lives, and end the fighting mch sooner than your plan of apeasement, or Bush’s plan to wage a friendly war.
We destroyed Europe. We should destroy the ME just as purposefully.
Why do you have a problem with that? Are you affraid of winning? You must be to be such a pussy-filled apologist.
I’m pretty sure that, all things held equal, you will be judged far more harshly for the size of your vagina, than I will for my desire to destroy an enemy.
IF you have a problem with that - please offer an intelligent response. Your straw man festival may have been popular recently - but I refuse to buy a ticket.
[/quote]
The dynamics of this war and World War II are far different, and you know that.
There are no German divisions in this war, no Panzer tanks supported by infantry, no fanatical government that can be eliminated. This war is a moving one, one of shadows, that cannot be won with the nature of fighting that World War II involved.
World War II was also the last conventional war we fought in, meaning that that’s why we did so well. America is famous for failing at guerilla insurgencies, from Vietnam to Iraq. What makes you think this war in the middle east you propose would be any different?
Making war on an entire region would take millions of troops, more years, and more money, all for a payoff that may or may not be attainable. We will end up occupying that area for years, with the population against us, just like every invading army.
It’s not appeasement- it’s acknowleding that this war must be fought a different way. Fighting this war the conventional style is like putting a boxer in the ring with a streetfighter… what works in one place will get you fucking killed in another.
Why is this hard to understand? Scorched earth policies will not work here- it never does with people who have nothing to lose.
[quote]rainjack wrote:
I’ll accept judgment from a power higher than you. If I am wrong - then I will face my due. But you sitting in judgment is a joke.
I’d like to know where a godless asshole such as yourself finds the power to sit in judgment of anyone.
But I digress… WWII was the last time anyone entered a war to win. I think a visit to those times, and those goals are exactly what we need.
Maybe you are of the kiss ass clan. I am not. Destroying the enemy is not a bad thing, regardless of what you might say. I say it would save lives, and end the fighting mch sooner than your plan of apeasement, or Bush’s plan to wage a friendly war.
We destroyed Europe. We should destroy the ME just as purposefully.
Why do you have a problem with that? Are you affraid of winning? You must be to be such a pussy-filled apologist.
I’m pretty sure that, all things held equal, you will be judged far more harshly for the size of your vagina, than I will for my desire to destroy an enemy.
IF you have a problem with that - please offer an intelligent response. Your straw man festival may have been popular recently - but I refuse to buy a ticket.
[/quote]
RJ, you’re completely missing his point. Read this quote again:
We all agree that the enemy should be sought out and destroyed without mercy. What this quote implies is that not only our enemies, but all surrounding civilians and non-combatants be destroyed too. The “them” in “bomb’em all” refers to all inhabitants of the Islamic world, and compares them to “cockroaches”. All inhabitants, meaning the innocent women and children in the region along with the terrorists, are “cockroaches” because of where they live (or their ethnicity).
I wonder, along with others here, how one can reconcile knowingly targeting innocents along with the enemy and labeling a race as “cockroaches” can be reconciled with the religious beliefs that HeadHunter specifically espoused, namely seeing the face of God in all things. One would think “all things” would include that innocent women and children he has called “cockroaches” and wants to carpet bomb. The question wasn’t aimed at you because, as far as I know, you haven’t suggested literally carpet bombing the whole region.
I’m not judging anyone, I just would honestly like to know how that is reconciled. Does the Bible condone mass killing of innocents for the greater good? (That’s not a rhetorical, I honestly am not that familiar with the Bible; it’s been a while. It wouldn’t surprise me if it did condone it).
Personally, I was fervently against invading Iraq. Not because I believe Saddam should not have been toppled, but because we didn’t go in the right way. We should’ve had the support of our allies and presented a conclusive case to the international community. I fault the Bush administration for failing to do so.
That said, once the decision to go in had been made, I found this administration’s handling of the war to be incompetent, and voiced that opinion. Why? Because we used underwhelming force. I believe that if you go to war, you declare it outright (congress should have declared this war, no “war powers” bullshit) and you use overwhelming force unrelentingly until the enemy is completely decimated and has no choice but to submit. When we were letting thieves and murderers riot in the streets freely I knew we had fucked up (but “that’s freedom!”). When we bargained with Al Sadr (because he was hiding in a fucking mosque) I knew we were headed down the wrong path. Al Sadr and his minions should have been decimated instantly by smart bombs regardless of where they were hiding. If we didn’t have the troop levels to do so, we should’ve put more boots on the ground.
I want a clear declaration by our Congress. I want clear, specific goals for reconstruction made public (This much of the country with electricity by this date, this many security forces trained by this date, etc). And I want unrelenting, overwhelming force applied until those goals are met (All resistance met with disproportional destruction). Collateral damage minimized where it can be, but destroying the enemy completely takes a higher priority. One part of Ron Paul’s campaign I completely agree with is the notion that we haven’t won a war since WWII because we refuse to commit to one.
When I voiced these opinions years ago I was a “Bush bashing liberal”, now everyone that defended Bush seems to be agreeing with me.
The thing is, I’m not religious, as you know. I don’t think there’s anything inconsistent about my view. I don’t, however, believe in labeling an entire ethnic group as “cockroaches” and don’t see how indiscriminate carpet bombing dovetail with strict Christian beliefs.
I disagree. How can you say this is a different set of times, or that this war must be fought differently? We are fighting it the same way we fought Viet Nam - and it is not working.
I don’t really care to be civilized. Since when is fucking war a civilized endeavor?
Just in case all the brainiacs out there have forgotten - war is about killing people and breaking things.
war is the shit you wade through so can be civilized.
Being nice is the last thing you should consider.
I don’t really care if you think it will work or not. It hasn’t been tried in over 60 years, so how in the hell can you say it won’t work?
I don’t want to be their fucking pen pals - I want them to sit down, shut up, and leave us the hell alone.
Going the vroom route, and having them sit on the Oprah couch and listen to how the FEEL solves nothing. They respect power. We have not showed any.
[quote]Moriarty wrote:
We all agree that the enemy should be sought out and destroyed without mercy. [/quote]
I’m going to have to disagree with you on this point.
I certainly appreciate the rest of your post - but the first sentence makes an assumption that is just flat wrong.
There are many on here that see the enemy as the United States.
lixy, vroom, NP, GDollars, among others get little stiffies in their underoos at the first opportunity to blame us, and sympathize with the enemy.
The argument could be made that we will never win a war with an enemy we can’t see. I say bullshit. Instead of going door to door looking for him - level the entire village. If they hole up in a church - destroy the church. Will there be collateral damage? You bet. Do I care? Not a bit. It is war. Shit happens.
Pretty soon innocent people will stop harboring the roaches.
[quote]rainjack wrote:
I disagree. How can you say this is a different set of times, or that this war must be fought differently? We are fighting it the same way we fought Viet Nam - and it is not working.
[/quote]
Because in World War II, we firebombed the factories and the means of production, which eventually fucked up the Luftwaffe. After they lost air superiority, it was a given that sooner or later Germany would have to fall. The Germans, as I recall, couldn’t even make ball bearings at one point later in the war because we were so effective.
We did the same thing in the first Iraq War and it worked beautifully- but that was a conventional war. You can’t do that in the Middle East- there is no “means of production” to take out, no chain of command to destroy. We cannot land at a certain point and just march into Islamabad or Tripoli fix eveything like we did in France- instead of the French Resistance helping us, like back then, we would have the Muslim resistance in our rear harassing us like they did the Germans. We are fighting a war that they have fought for centuries against all types of enemies, and it’s a war that we cannot win in that manner.
I know, I know, “War means fightin, and fightin means killin”. Starting a guerilla war with the entire region though… I don’t know man. We can’t handle this insurgency now… widening it would be very dangerous. Not too mention other countries may have some kind of problem with us starting a war like that… and I know you’ll say “Fuck them”, but every country has a military, and not every politician will support wars like that.
I agree we have fought this halfway. But that halfway started with attacking the wrong damn country, and it’s hard to recover off of that. It would take a withdrawl and redeployment of the military in order to straighten this out… not too mention about three or four million troops. And whether you like it or not, America won’t fight that war after getting our asses kicked in another third world country in another unsuccessful campaign. They should have thought this out better if they really wanted to take on the Islamic world and not just knock off the only secular dictatorship out there.
This has all been mismanaged, and as I said before I don’t think any of the politicians currently in power have any idea how to fix it, or have the balls to do what needs to be done. Honestly, at this point, I don’t have any idea what should be done. When I come up with something decent I’ll let you know.
As Lincoln said once, it seems we have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold on nor safely let go.
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
I agree we have fought this halfway. But that halfway started with attacking the wrong damn country, and it’s hard to recover off of that. It would take a withdrawl and redeployment of the military in order to straighten this out… not too mention about three or four million troops. And whether you like it or not, America won’t fight that war after getting our asses kicked in another third world country in another unsuccessful campaign. They should have thought this out better if they really wanted to take on the Islamic world and not just knock off the only secular dictatorship out there.
This has all been mismanaged, and as I said before I don’t think any of the politicians currently in power have any idea how to fix it, or have the balls to do what needs to be done. Honestly, at this point, I don’t have any idea what should be done. When I come up with something decent I’ll let you know.
As Lincoln said once, it seems we have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold on nor safely let go. [/quote]
I agree with most al of this - except the invading the wrong country part. If the idea was to take the fight to their home court - it really doesn’t matter what the GPS co-ordinates are for doing that. Iraq was the easiest.
And I don’t think we are getting our asses kicked. I just think we are not fighting to win.
But I will say that the US is experiencing a critical shortage in balls. Politicians in particular.
My opinion will never change. You either fight to win, or you should stay home. Winning involves killing. There is no way around that.
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
Then why do these pussies always cry when we retaliate? Why do they always bitch about all the “civilians, women and children” we allegedly kill in these retalitory attacks? If they long for the moment when they die, they should rejoice when we strike them, not cry like little babies. [/quote]
This statement is wrong in so so many ways.
First, you seem to be advocating the killing of “civilians, women and children”, which only the scum of the earth would do.
Then you make the mistake of thinking that there is a retaliatory attack to a suicide mission. There isn’t such thing. You can’t kill a dead guy. The terrorists kill themselves.
What do you mean? If they “knew their families executed”, they would be more compelled to avenge them. And if they already blew themselves up, how can they know that their families are being executed?
[quote]lixy wrote:
What do you mean? If they “knew their families executed”, they would be more compelled to avenge them. And if they already blew themselves up, how can they know that their families are being executed?[/quote]
You put the threat out there. Make it known. I’m not saying I condone this kind of action. But you asked how to stop a suicide bomber. That is the only way I could think of to do it. And I doubt the US or any civilized nation would stoop to that level.
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
Why is this hard to understand? Scorched earth policies will not work here- it never does with people who have nothing to lose.[/quote]
The way to win is to find out exactly what these people DO have to lose and threaten to destroy it.
[quote]Moriarty wrote:
Personally, I was fervently against invading Iraq. Not because I believe Saddam should not have been toppled, but because we didn’t go in the right way. We should’ve had the support of our allies and presented a conclusive case to the international community. I fault the Bush administration for failing to do so.
[/quote]
We should have taken over by supporting a revolution from within, instead of by armed invasion. We had a perfect chance after the first Gulf War and we blew it.
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
This has all been mismanaged, and as I said before I don’t think any of the politicians currently in power have any idea how to fix it, or have the balls to do what needs to be done. Honestly, at this point, I don’t have any idea what should be done. When I come up with something decent I’ll let you know.
As Lincoln said once, it seems we have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold on nor safely let go. [/quote]
Couldn’t agree more.
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
You put the threat out there. Make it known. [/quote]
Explain to me again why you think the threat hasn’t been put out there.
I mean, did you not bomb Afghan villages? Heck, you even bombed Iraq and they had nothing to do with 9/11 in the first place.
In terms of “we mean business”, there could hardly be stronger a message.
[quote]lixy wrote:
I mean, did you not bomb Afghan villages? Heck, you even bombed Iraq and they had nothing to do with 9/11 in the first place.
[/quote]
We bomb Afghan villages when our troops and helecopters come under fire from them. We do not bomb villages for the sake of bombing villages, unlike terrorists who fly planes full of civilians into skyskrapers, blow up busses, night clubs, embassies, ect and who know full well they are killing our unarmed men women and children and could care less.
We attacked Iraq for a whole different set of reasons.
But if our buildings and planes were not attacked, do you think we would still be bombing Afghan villages?
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
The way to win is to find out exactly what these people DO have to lose and threaten to destroy it. [/quote]
They’ve got nothing to lose. They evidently don’t attribute any value to anything associated with this life. What does a dead man have to lose? What’s a dead man gotta worry about it? SQUAT. That’s what!
Anyway, the way I see it you have only one option: Police. That’s the only way to fight terrorism without exacerbating it. Attacks will take place, but invading Iraq for example or threatening to bomb Iran only fuels terrorism.
If I had to make an educated guess, I’d say that Al-Qaeda doesn’t recruit people by tauting the company’s excellent retirement plan or the desserts at their cafeteria. They go around acting out on legitimate grievances. It ranges from corruption or a dictatorial political system to military interventionism and unconditional support of Israel. You might have been first exposed to Islamism in 2001, but I have grown up “surrounded” by people who try to lure you to their cause. I have been approached several times by political Islamists (not necessarily the type who advocates violence) and have heard all their lines. I was in Algeria during the bloodiest times of the civil war. Trust me, there’s no quick fix to that problem. More importantly, the answer doesn’t lie in military power. You could have all the firepower in the world, and still get attacked by a dude strapping dynamite. I understand that Americans felt like something had to be done, but the Iraq war was the absolute worst thing you could have done. You toppled the Talibans and that was a good move. Next, you should have thoroughly secured your borders and started scanning cargo that comes in. I don’t care how much it costs, it would have been a tiny fraction of what’s you spent to make enemies in Iraq. Then, you collaborate with police forces around the world to stop new attacks if possible. Anymore than that, and you end up doing a lot more harm than good to the cause of defeating terrorism.
You need to unite and collaborate with the world. All I see, is a deeply divided nation arguing over a mother’s right to do as she pleases with her womb, and a country flipping off the international community and acting unilaterally.
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
We bomb Afghan villages when our troops and helecopters come under fire from them. [/quote]
Do you seriously believe this crap or are you pulling my legs?