[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
[text][/quote]
You’re the child at the adult table that keeps interrupting to talk about a subject no one else is interested in. Go practice in your coloring book.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
Let me echo this. I have been a student of western history for over 30 years and let me assure anyone reading this that nothing in American history is more distorted than the modern day “Indian - noble, white man - evil butcher” revisionist, steaming pile of war pony doo doo.[/quote]
Well said, Push. Anyone who is going to understand and rely on History must have the integrity to view the whole of history, not just the cherrypicked “narrative” that suits an ideological ax to grind.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
Well said, Push. Anyone who is going to understand and rely on History must have the integrity to view the whole of history, not just the cherrypicked “narrative” that suits an ideological ax to grind.[/quote]
I sensed a shift in the force from 6000 miles away, such was the irony contained in this post.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
[text]
You’re the child at the adult table that keeps interrupting to talk about a subject no one else is interested in. Go practice in your coloring book.[/quote]
Thunder, all government is evil. We just need a well armed mob to take care of this terrorist problem.
All bullshit aside, we need to do something with these detainees. If they are captured on an Iraqi or Afghan battlefield and they are not citizens of those countries they are terrorists.
If an Iraqi or Afghan are fighting our troops in their own country they are a resistance to what they may consider an illegaly occupying force. I am all for our military might and for our immunity to prosecution during humanitarian missions if something happens accidentally if it is a good faith effort. Who are we to say we are right and that is that when we invade a country, what ground rules are laid that says an Iraqi force can’t attempt to repel us. Who are we to capture them and list them as terrorists. I can understand when there is a functional government and they declare who is the enemy of their state. When do we decide who is an enemy to the Iraqi or Afghan state.
Now I don’t think any of this applies if you are a Saudi, Syrian or whoever else fighting in a war in a foreign country or targeting civilians, be it Iraq, Afghanistan or the US. It’s alot of random thought, but action is needed.
[quote]snipeout wrote:
If they are captured on an Iraqi or Afghan battlefield and they are not citizens of those countries they are terrorists. [/quote]
That’s what I’ve been saying from the very beginning.
And in case you’re wondering, Americans are NOT “citizens of those countries”.
[quote]lixy wrote:
snipeout wrote:
If they are captured on an Iraqi or Afghan battlefield and they are not citizens of those countries they are terrorists.
That’s what I’ve been saying from the very beginning.
And in case you’re wondering, Americans are NOT “citizens of those countries”.[/quote]
You are missing my argument, we declared war on these nations. In Afghanistan we dispatched a bunch of oppressive thugs. We helped to install a real functioning government. We may not be citizens there but we are not terrorists. Do you believe The Afghan people were better off 8 years ago?
In Iraq we attacked a sovereign nation with a despotic leader. We attacked based on intel that showed they had the means to produce WMD. Do I think we should have dispatched Saddam? I think we created this monster many years ago during their war with Iran.
With all that said I think he needed to be removed from power and let the Iraqi people have someone who doesn’t kill and maim them for wanting certain freedoms. I do think Saddam was a supporter of terrorists, he paid suicide bombers families a sum of money after they blew themselves up.
You don’t think he supported terror against America? I think I raq has gone to long and to far. Do you think the Iraqi people were better off 6 years ago?
I believe that it is our responsibility to rebuild these countries we destroyed to the best of our ability.
[quote]Reef wrote:
zephead4747 wrote:
I’m all for stem cell research, now that we don’t need dead babies for stem cells, but I don’t want to pay for it, You pay for it if you want it so bad.
Why wouldn’t you want your money to go to stem cell research? God forbid you or anyone in your family ever end up with a deadly or chronic disease. Why not just go ahead and end all medical research if taxpayers’ dollars are funding it?
Also, if stem cell research produces real cures like many scientists think it will, then it would greatly ease the load on your soon-to-be universal healthcare system.[/quote]
Just for the record, I think the immediate potential for stem cell research is overblown currently, as many scientists currently do. I’m not saying it’s worthless, or that it shouldn’t be pursued, but I know for a fact there are many scientific lobbyists advocating it basically as a panacea for all our current medical research, and they’re full of crap.
It’s hyped. Seriously. Not worthless by any means, but it’s a helluva lot LONGER road to any sort of viable treatments than the hardcore advocates for it would have us believe it is.
They make it seem like a couple years from now we’ll have solved most of our medical problems by virtue of stem cell treatments and research, and that’s just simply false.
[quote]snipeout wrote:
You are missing my argument, we declared war on these nations. [/quote]
Not really. Congress authorized military engagements.
A declaration of war is something else.
I personally had nothing against that. That was self-defense.
Whether they were “oppressive” or not is quite irrelevant. The US supported and continues to support oppressive regimes.
“Real” and “functioning” are just jibber-jabber in this context. The Taliban regime was a “real functioning government”.
What matters, is that the people you install be on your side.
I’m certain many Afghans would disagree.
No. But I do think the American people were better off 8 years ago.
Afghanistan is a complicated story. The Pashtun would rather all die than let foreigners roam the land. Most of them have no connection whatsoever with the Taliban and would still fight you to the death.
If some country having “the means to produce WMD” is enough to justify attacking it, what do we do with countries that have stockpiles of WMDs?
What’s amazing to me is that, knowing that, you still argue in favor of American interventionism.
Absolutely! I just think his removal should have been grassroots instead of the foreign hyperpower waltzing in, shooting people, establishing military bases and making the place inhabitable.
It’s all good and nice in theory, but at the end of the day, more Iraqi people were killed and maimed as a result of the American attack.
I disagree. But then again, we probably have different perspective on who’s a terrorist and who’s not.
The US considered the ANC a terrorist organization up until the late 80s. Mandela was still on the terrorist watch list as of last year.
So do the Saudis. And yet, they’re best pals with the crew in Washington.
Do distinguish between legitimate resistance movements and crazed criminals. If anything, 90% of Iraqis supported Saddam’s support of the Palestinian resistance.
Not any more than America supported terror against Iraq. Or Cuba. Or Iran. Or Haiti. Or Guatemala. Or Nicaragua…
I could go on for lines.
Yes. Many of them were still alive.
The ones that are undoubtedly better off are the Kurds. The same people Turkey oppresses with your help.
OK.
I believe it is even more important that you stop destroying countries.
[quote]snipeout wrote:
thunderbolt23 wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
[text]
You’re the child at the adult table that keeps interrupting to talk about a subject no one else is interested in. Go practice in your coloring book.
Thunder, all government is evil. We just need a well armed mob to take care of this terrorist problem.
All bullshit aside, we need to do something with these detainees. If they are captured on an Iraqi or Afghan battlefield and they are not citizens of those countries they are terrorists.
If an Iraqi or Afghan are fighting our troops in their own country they are a resistance to what they may consider an illegaly occupying force.
I am all for our military might and for our immunity to prosecution during humanitarian missions if something happens accidentally if it is a good faith effort. Who are we to say we are right and that is that when we invade a country, what ground rules are laid that says an Iraqi force can’t attempt to repel us.
Who are we to capture them and list them as terrorists. I can understand when there is a functional government and they declare who is the enemy of their state. When do we decide who is an enemy to the Iraqi or Afghan state.
Now I don’t think any of this applies if you are a Saudi, Syrian or whoever else fighting in a war in a foreign country or targeting civilians, be it Iraq, Afghanistan or the US. It’s alot of random thought, but action is needed. [/quote]
Thunder- I’m going to reply to your post tomorrow. But I just wanted to say that I don’t disagree with this.
In a war where the lines are so clearly blurred, who sets the rules becomes the number one thing. We have them now, so make the rules, and have the trials, or tribunals, or whatever. But letting them rot in jail for the rest of their lives in the name of “safety” is not the right thing to do.
I’m not saying these guys aren’t guilty of whatever the US government is saying, be it killing civilians or being members of Al Queda or whatever. And they should be punished accordingly. However, as Stringer Bell once said, “GET ON WIT IT MOTHERFUCKER…”
Don’t sit here waitin for the end of a war that has no clear beginning and will certainly have no clear conclusion. Besides being wrong on a human scale, it reminds of the low level war in Asia that England was always fighting in 1984 that gave them just enough room to arrest traitors but never enough to end the war.
Who can seriously deny that government is not essentially the negation of liberty?
Who can further deny that government does not murder and steal to achieve its end?
If you condone government intervention you are a murderer and a thief.
Who can seriously deny that the more negatives you incorporate into a sentence, the more incomprehensible it becomes?
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
I go on google news today, and I see that he’s signing the orders to close Guantanamo.
[/quote]
Where have you been? He signed off on that major fuck up on his second day. How can you applaud something so stupid?
The man and his advisers are absolute retards. When he signed the authorization to close Guantanamo he said it becomes effective in a year so he has time to figure out what to do the prisoners.
WTF! For the last six years all the democrats have been doing is whine and bitch about Guantanamo and how it needs to be closed immediately. Then when they get into power the first thing they do is order it closed. But they still need a year to figure out what else they can do because even after six years of bitching about how they would do things differently they still don’t have a fucking clue about how they can handle those people any differently. What a bunch of incompetent hypocritical assholes.
If this any indication of how they are going to govern we are going to be very lucky to make it through the next four years without another major attack.
[quote]
I look down a little further, and see that embryonic stem cell research is approved, and that Obama will soon be signing a bill offering Federal funding. [/quote]
Although I support stem cell research, it isn’t going to do us any good if Obama starts releasing AlQaeda operatives so they can go back to killing us.
[quote]
And then I look down a little more, and I see that he lifted that stupid fucking ban on funding abortion groups overseas. [/quote]
Now we are going to disagree with the Iranians on another issue.
[quote]
And I think, finally, FINALLY, we’re heading back to where America should be. It’s been three days, but he’s done more good than W did in 8 years.[/quote]
Back to where? Do you mean unable to defend ourselves or be taken seriously like when Bill Clinton was president. So far Obama has been making major blunders in the war on terror and his learning curve is going to be bloody for the US.
[quote]1000rippedbuff wrote:
When you have a problem that stem cell research fixes you’ll want the funding for the research. Stuff like that doesn’t just fall from the sky.
Guantanamo needs to be closed, if for nothing else just because of its reputation. Plus there are people who have been in there for 7 years with no trial, charges or anything. That is unamerican, it isn’t how we do things.
Those people, guilty or not, bad people or not, need to have charges filed and be sent to trial, then dealt with accordingly. Americans don’t hold people without charges or trial.[/quote]
We didn’t give prisoners of war trials during world war two. So you are wrong it isn’t un-American.
[quote]orion wrote:
thunderbolt23 wrote:
Well said, Push. Anyone who is going to understand and rely on History must have the integrity to view the whole of history, not just the cherrypicked “narrative” that suits an ideological ax to grind.
I sensed a shift in the force from 6000 miles away, such was the irony contained in this post.
[/quote]
LOL
'Ain’t nothing wrong with a little due process.
Get the damn albatross off from around our necks
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
I never said the “right” wasn’t guilty of it - but clearly you needed a wak-up call if you thought you were giving conservatives a lesson on history they were ignoring.
[/quote]
Pointing out hypocrisy is no crime. Pretending like it’s only one side that is full of hypocrites is different.
When we say “the West” are we grouping ourselves with all of those European countries that we now hate so much? Because most of them ended slavery without a war over it.
It was only in the United States that a war had to be fought that had over a million casualties in order to end the abomination. On top of that, the war had to be cloaked under the mantra of “preserving the union” in order to end it- entire northern regiments resigned after Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation because they “Weren’t fighting for sambo.” You know this.
And you also know that Abolitionism, as a movement, was very small, and hovered on the fringes of what was acceptable. Horace Greeley was nearly killed for his beliefs that black men were equal- and this was, I believe, when he was in NYC.
My point is that you’ll go on and on saying how everyone else did these things in the world, so it’s ok, such as the demolition of the indians and slavery. You’ll say that it’s just human nature to do this, etc. etc. But then, at the same time, you’ll condemn our enemies as barely human and not in need of a trial, and raise America and its actions on a pedestal
So, in effect, you’re insulating yourself from ever having to defend the actions of Americans in the not so recent past, as well as allowing yourself the freedom to condemn our enemies for doing things that the people who built this country have done.
Fundamentally, you’re contradicting yourself, and saying that while it was OK when we did things, now it’s unacceptable, and that our enemies should be treated far differently than Americans who have committed the same crimes should be treated.
The circumstances of the Civil War were wholly different than those surrounding whatever this is that we have going on.
During the Civil War, there were clear cut battle lines, armies trudging back and forth across the landscape, and clear losses and victories. There were strategic objectives, such as the taking of Richmond and Atlanta and Vicksburg, that would signal that the country was on the way towards winning. What I’m saying, in short, is that the American Civil War was a self contained nineteenth century war that could not go on forever due to the very nature it was fought- conventional armies fighting with conventional battle plans to achieve conventional objectives.
Those imprisoned simply weren’t going to be imprisoned that long by the very nature that the war wouldn’t go that long. That is a perspective that people at the time would not have known, of course, but looking back on it its clear that that war is wholly different from THIS war, which is a worldwide, low level war fought by secretive agencies and underground terrorists.
How long this war will go on for is unknown, because everything about it is unconventional. This allows people to easily be imprisoned for a decade or more, while America can (and probably will) say that this war is neverending, and must always be fought on some front. There’s no clear end, or victory, like there was guaranteed to be in the Civil War.
On top of that, there was court challenge upon court challenge issued in the US over the suspension, and, at the very least, due process was somehow being served because it was in the public eye and judges and lawyers were constantly fighting about it. I’m not saying that the administration was right in doing it, but if you look at how long the people actually served time for and what their punishment was, it’s completely unequal to what’s being done now.
I’ve supported Lincoln’s choice because at the time, all things considered, ending slavery was the most important thing to America. If that meant that some guys were wrongly imprisoned, then it was justified, because they were upholding a system of oppression in which men were enslaved. To me, them crying about being wrongly imprisoned while at the same time supporting slavery is supremely ironic.
Obviously, the Clement Vallandingham was a separate case, and I don’t wholly agree with it. However, even HE did not stay in jail for four years- eventually they just sent him to the confederacy.
The circumstances and the detail of what was carried out were wholly different than they are today, and thus I don’t think that my position is all that unrealistic.
I don’t know what you’re referring to, but if you’re talking about the internment of the Japanese, then I would tell you that that was an abomination that I would have been the first to bitch about.
There was no excuse for it then, or now, and it surely hurts FDR in my eyes. Otherwise, I loved him. But that’s a big fuck up. I’ll readily admit that.
So, how do we go about determining how long we should participate in a jihadist war against us? Maybe we can negotiate a time frame with Islamists over the phone? Hey, it’s in their fighters’ best interest. That way we know how long we’ll be fighting each other, and so be capable of providing detainees an expected date of release.
Or, we could ask for their demands and sign a treaty stating we’ll hold true to the stipulations against us.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
So, how do we go about determining how long we should participate in a jihadist war against us? Maybe we can negotiate a time frame with Islamists over the phone? Hey, it’s in their fighters’ best interest. That way we know how long we’ll be fighting each other, and so be capable of providing detainees an expected date of release.
Or, we could ask for their demands and sign a treaty stating we’ll hold true to the stipulations against us.[/quote]
What amazing wit!