Back to the OP, it matters what other countries think because you can’t get it right yourselves. You elected Bush. TWICE!.
I’m sure all the dead and deformed women and children in Iraq are glad you hedged your bets and invaded without proof of WMD. They just care that some half wit republicans can feel safe.
[quote]AndyG wrote:
Back to the OP, it matters what other countries think because you can’t get it right yourselves. You elected Bush. TWICE!.
I’m sure all the dead and deformed women and children in Iraq are glad you hedged your bets and invaded without proof of WMD. They just care that some half wit republicans can feel safe.[/quote]
This is a forum for debate. Do you have something of actual debate to say, or just that people who disagree with you are stupid?
[quote]Reef wrote:
Gkhan wrote:
Reef wrote:
Why not preemptively strike Pakistan instead, since they actually have nuclear capabilities and have a large amount of Al-Qaeda hiding out in the caves?
We are.
Sure there may be small bombings around the border area, but there’s no military in Pakistan. The attacks on Pakistan are nothing on the scale of Iraq when Pakistan obviously has a greater number of Al-Qaeda.
[/quote]
Because, you know, Pakistan actually has a bomb and there’s a chance that they might use it if attacked.
And don’t confuse the official justifications of invading Iraq with the real reasons. It had little to do with the US’ security (the CIA acknowledges that attacking Iraq actually exacerbated the Islamist threat issue). The real reason was to get troops and bases on the ground of an oil-rich land. Did it serve the interests of the American people. I don’t think so. It mostly benefited a bunch of lobbies.
Pakistan, along with Saudi Arabia, are the heart and soul of Al-Qaeda.
[quote]The Mage wrote:
AndyG wrote:
Back to the OP, it matters what other countries think because you can’t get it right yourselves. You elected Bush. TWICE!.
I’m sure all the dead and deformed women and children in Iraq are glad you hedged your bets and invaded without proof of WMD. They just care that some half wit republicans can feel safe.
This is a forum for debate. Do you have something of actual debate to say, or just that people who disagree with you are stupid?[/quote]
The first part was directed at those who don’t care what other countries think. It was a joke.
The second part was directed at those who think invading Iraq was a good idea to play it safe.
This forum is all about calling people stupid, which forum have you been reading?
[quote]AndyG wrote:
This forum is all about calling people stupid, which forum have you been reading?[/quote]
Ooooh. Duh.
And all this time I thought it was a form of intellectual debate to stimulate ideas and advance our knowledge of the subject, and further understand the ideas of others who may not share our view of the world.
But no, I have been doing it wrong here for the last 7 years that I have been having these political discussions on this forum.
All this time I should have been saying:
"You so dumb.
"Yous tinken whicher booty.
"You gots noodels in yer noggen.
"Your branes leeken on da flore.
"Did yo Daddy fuck you in your ear as a kid and replace your brains with splooge?
"When you pick your nose, have you been going too deep and scraping out yer brains?
"Did you fail the test to even get on the short bus?
"It was bad enough you took your sister to the prom, but did you have to try to get to second base with her?
"Is your form of birth control slamming your nuts in the car door?
"Why do you use birth control when your girlfriend is a sex doll?
"When I say sex doll, I mean Teddy Bear with a hole in it.
"How much wood could a wood chuck chuck if a wood chuck could chuck wood, should not have been your college thesis.
"Why do the dorky kids point and laugh at you?
"Were you the guy who asked the cops if his crack was real?
"After the doctor checks your prostate, your not supposed to kiss him.
Good enough?
Mark Steyn has a good post on this in National Review this morning …
Re: Obama, the World’s President [Mark Steyn]
Kathryn, having decided to elect him President and Community Organizer-in-Chief, the World will not be happy if those hopelessly parochial Yank knuckledraggers decline to endorse the World’s decision as to who should govern them and their ghastly backwater. Already, there are awful mutterings from The Guardian:
The World’s Verdict Will Be Harsh If The US Rejects The Man It Yearns For
You mean economic sanctions? Expulsion from the Olympics? Moving the Oscars to Belgium? Jonathan Freedland isn’t spelling it out but he’s not happy:
But what of the rest of the world? This is the reaction I fear most. For Obama has stirred an excitement around the globe unmatched by any American politician in living memory. Polling in Germany, France, Britain and Russia shows that Obama would win by whopping majorities, with the pattern repeated in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. If November 4 were a global ballot, Obama would win it handsomely…
If Americans choose McCain, they will be turning their back on the rest of the world, choosing to show us four more years of the Bush-Cheney finger. And I predict a deeply unpleasant shift… Suddenly Europeans and others will conclude that their dispute is with not only one ruling clique, but Americans themselves. For it will have been the American people, not the politicians, who will have passed up a once-in-a-generation chance for a fresh start - a fresh start the world is yearning for…
For America to make a decision as grave as this one - while the planet boils and with the US fighting two wars - on the trivial basis that a hockey mom is likable and seems down to earth, would be to convey a lack of seriousness, a fleeing from reality, that does indeed suggest a nation in, to quote Weisberg, “historical decline”.
British reports on the presidential campaign are weirdly reminiscent of coverage of pre-independence elections in ramshackle parts of Africa where the Colonial Office has picked out the chap it wants for Prime Minister six months earlier only to discover at the last minute that the wretched natives are too dim to go along with it. If you think Iraq isn’t ready for democracy, it’s apparently years ahead of America.
As for the planet boiling, wait till November 5th.
[quote]Reef wrote:
Gkhan wrote:
They had weapons of mass destruction.
See “The Iran-Iraq War”. They used chemical weapons against Iran and the Kurds.
So we were not too far off base.
Chemical weapons are not nuclear weapons.[/quote]
Dude, Chemical, Biological, nuclear weapons are all called Weapons of Mass Destruction. We attacked Iraq because we did not want weapons of mass destruction to fall into the hands of terrorists chemical, nuke or biological.
It could be one, two or all three. If they were acquired by terrorists, who said they want to use these kinds of weapons against us, the death toll would have been, would be astrological.
Saddam was our enemy, attacked us, Israel several times, paid families of suicide bombers, praised the 9-11 attacks, and tried to have our President assassinated. He also was defying weapons inspectors who were searching for traces of these kinds of weapons. In light of all of that, we did a pre-emptive attack to prevent a worse case senario.
And Yes, Pakistan was an ally, so we generally do not attack allies. The Pakistan govt was supposed to crush the al-qaeda in their country, but they were, are unable to so now we have begun to attack them there.
I’m watching them read the names of the 9/11 victims right now.
FUCK EVERYONE ELSE.
And BTW - they have people from all over the world reading the names - so, I guess not everyone hates us. There are still decent people left in the world that don’t fall into line with the U.S. hating assholes out there.
Lixy, you are the worst piece of shit I think I’ve ever seen. I seriously hope you fucking die.
[quote]Chushin wrote:
lixy wrote:
You’ve just earned yourself a perpetual tag. Congrats!
Hmmmmm. Aren’t you also ignoring GKhan, PRCal, and RJ?
Looking even more like a little girl there, sport!
Actually, would you please consider ignoring the whole T-Nation?
You can hold hands with Orion if you feel lonely. [/quote]
Hey if we keep it up he may ignore everybody! IGNORE-ance is bliss!
[quote]lixy wrote:
Reef wrote:
Gkhan wrote:
Reef wrote:
Why not preemptively strike Pakistan instead, since they actually have nuclear capabilities and have a large amount of Al-Qaeda hiding out in the caves?
We are.
Sure there may be small bombings around the border area, but there’s no military in Pakistan. The attacks on Pakistan are nothing on the scale of Iraq when Pakistan obviously has a greater number of Al-Qaeda.
Because, you know, Pakistan actually has a bomb and there’s a chance that they might use it if attacked.
And don’t confuse the official justifications of invading Iraq with the real reasons. It had little to do with the US’ security (the CIA acknowledges that attacking Iraq actually exacerbated the Islamist threat issue). The real reason was to get troops and bases on the ground of an oil-rich land. Did it serve the interests of the American people. I don’t think so. It mostly benefited a bunch of lobbies.
Pakistan, along with Saudi Arabia, are the heart and soul of Al-Qaeda. [/quote]
Oh the old “We there to steal the oil” bit… If that were true, then oil would not have gotten to $140 a barrel. If we took that shit, it would be at $1.40 a barrel. Gas would be $.20 a gallon. What a moob.
[quote]The Mage wrote:
Why are we sending money to Africa to fight Aids when we should be looking for Bin Laden? Why are we fixing roads when we should be looking for Bin Laden?
Why does everybody think we can’t do 2 things at once? Yes, find Bin Laden, destroy Al-Qaeda, (which we have done a good job of so far,) but we can still do other things.
Tell me and I will kill him myself. He is living in caves, and moving constantly, protected by many of his psycho terrorist buddies. Why does anyone think this is an easy task?
[/quote]
I’m just saying that there should be more emphasis on Afghanistan than Iraq. Iraq was not linked to 9/11.
Edit: Found this article from Washington Post today:
"Another major obstacle has been the war in Iraq.
Officials with the CIA and the U.S. military said they began shifting resources out of Afghanistan in early 2002 and still haven’t recovered from that mistake.
‘Iraq was a fundamental wrong turn. That was the most strategically negative action that was taken,’ said John Brennan, a former deputy executive director of the CIA and a former chief of the National Counterterrorism Center. ‘The collective effort in the government required to go after an individual like bin Laden �?? the Iraq campaign consumed that.’"
Maybe it’s best not to do 2 things at once.
[quote]
What the fuck are you talking about?
He constantly declared war against us in practically every speech he made in the past decade. That is what I was talking about.
Yet U.N. weapons inspectors said there were no weapons of mass destruction of any significance in Iraq after 1994.
Yeah, right.
[/i]“Reference strains” of a wide variety of biological-weapons agents were found beneath the sink in the home of a prominent Iraqi BW scientist. “We thought it was a big deal,” a senior administration official said. “But it has been written off [by the press] as a sort of ‘starter set.’”
New research on BW-applicable agents, brucella and Congo-Crimean hemorrhagic fever, and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin that were not declared to the United Nations.[/i]
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=38213
That last one should cause anyone to pause. Read it again, and if you know anything about Congo-Crimean hemorrhagic fever, you should be scared. That is the last thing you want anyone weaponing.
The fact that anyone would downplay the significance of these finds for the sole purpose of convincing the uninformed fools like you to get the “right guy” into office has disgusted me to no end.
And I might start to trust the UN the day Kofi Annon and his son give back all the money they made on the Oil for Food scandal in Iraq. [/quote]
That link is from a far right source.
Check the link below:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-03-02-un-wmd_x.htm
"Iraq’s nuclear weapons program was dormant.
No evidence was found to suggest Iraq possessed chemical or biological weapons. U.N. officials believe the weapons were destroyed by U.N. inspectors or Iraqi officials in the years after the 1991 Gulf War."
Another link:
“Senior U.S. intelligence officials said Thursday they have no evidence that Iraq produced chemical weapons after the 1991 Gulf War, despite recent reports from media outlets and Republican lawmakers”.
[quote]The Mage wrote:
Heliotrope wrote:
Who wants isolationism? I think that isolationism is a really bad idea.[/quote]
Our popularity world wide has a relationship to isolationist sentiment at home, intended or not. Its only human nature.
[quote]The Mage wrote:
Our debt is out of control. That is why we need fiscal responsibility. I live within a budget, so should the government. But the military is not the problem. This “war” has increased the military budget, but not a significantly as many try to make it out to be.
Socialist security and Midicare are the two big boondoggles in the American budget. In fact through their funny math, they are actually hiding as much as 40 trillion in debt through Social Security.[/quote]
I commend your personal virtues but again human nature is that the majority can not be relied upon to be as disciplined as your self.
Sad but true but if an inflated entitlement economy and society is offered too many will accept. Eventually correction occurs and most will always be under prepared. Good for you if you are not one of them.
Military spending isn’t the problem but military potency is the last argument of politicians. Its simple truth that the more committed we are the less leverage we have militarily.
Debt is a good analogous model. Available credit versus debt. Wars represent debt and standing uncommitted military force represent credit. I don’t think the US military is “maxed out” but we aren’t free and clear obviously and this diminishs our military as a political leverage point on the world stage.
[quote]The Mage wrote:
We are a productive and prosperous nation. We just have an out of control government debt, which mirrors the out of control personal debt of too many people. It actually isn’t that hard for many people to get that debt under control, if they are willing to get their heads out of their asses.
Once that happens, then the people will start to think the government should do the same thing.[/quote]
Yes I agree but thinking either the government or the personal sector will reverse this trend is just wishful thinking. Human nature is fairly predictable. We are on course for a correction and the obvious solutions are not being implemented to any great degree.
The platform is a simple one. A return to a more North American continental commodity market. We have become a nation of shady bankers instead of competitive disciplined developers of North American commodities.
Our commodity and local energy potential is there it is just being dwarfed by an inflated credit based economy destroying American competiveness in world production.
The correction will come and financial investments will burn and commodity traders and producers will prosper. A bull commodity market is coming and financials are going to mauled by the bear.
[quote]The Mage wrote:
There is a world hate of America. It has nothing to do with anything we do, it has to do with us being the big kids on the block. The big guy is never liked by the smaller guys.[/quote]
Nothing to do with anything we do is a cop out explanation. Something a irresponsible person with a victim mentality says.
Of course cowards and lesser men are haters threatened by greatness in any form but acting like we can do and have done no wrong is just as stupid.
[quote]The Mage wrote:
World opinion aligning against is not a positive thing and acting like this is a political asset for McCain is ridiculous.
Uh, what? When did I say this was a political asset for McCain? I simply don’t think we should be political whores to the rest of the world just to be popular.[/quote]
Some have expressed such sentiments in this thread. I stand corrected that you are smart enough not to be among them.
Being a political whore at the mercy of world sentiment is a ridiculous posture for America to adopt. We are a great nation with many strengths. That said popularity world wide is of value and a valid political issue and not something to be dismissed lightly.
[quote]Reef wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
If we’re evil, how come we have immigrants?
Unless you’re a Native American, you’re an immigrant too. [/quote]
Ridiculous. Unless you are an African living in Africa you are technically an immigrant.So what?
Should we all feel guilty because we are human with a natural impetus to invade and explore territory.
We displace, we conquer, and we extinct other life forms and this is basic ancient and universal human behavior. Accept it and learn to deal with it with a positive attitude.
[quote]Heliotrope wrote:
Reef wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
If we’re evil, how come we have immigrants?
Unless you’re a Native American, you’re an immigrant too.
Ridiculous. Unless you are an African living in Africa you are technically an immigrant.So what?
Should we all feel guilty because we are human with a natural impetus to invade and explore territory.
We displace, we conquer, and we extinct other life forms and this is basic ancient and universal human behavior. Accept it and learn to deal with it with a positive attitude.[/quote]
I already explained my point earlier. Read the other responses.
[quote]Reef wrote:
<<< they have no evidence >>>
[/quote]
This is not a court of law amongst litigants before a mutually agreed upon common authority. In other words the UN can eat shit.
This is the deadly serious international arena where might does indeed make right. We have it. We were attacked. We decided to vanquish the most credible threats to future attacks based upon evidence sufficient to ourselves. That’s how it works for countries that survive.
Israel does plenty of things I don’t like, but they will probably save us the trouble of eliminating Iran’s nuclear capability. They will do it in utter defiance and disregard of every consideration except their own interests. Just the way any self respecting state with designs on survival should do.
I hate to shatter the hippified ideals of the peaceniks here, but the world is not a friendly place where the several nations would fall into one another’s arms in a tearful rendition of give peace a chance if only the warmongering US would mind it’s own business.
Everybody wants what somebody else has. The very class warfare we see being played by the Democrats to the hilt in this country is being played internationally as well. The UN is all about seeing that what we have is properly distribute to the rest of the world in the form of influence, power and money. The day we buy into that is the day of our death.
[quote]Heliotrope wrote:
<<< We displace, we conquer, and we extinct other life forms and this is basic ancient and universal human behavior. Accept it and learn to deal with it with a positive attitude.[/quote]
ROFLMAO!! And like I say, HE WITH THE BIGGEST GUN WINS.
It’s largely the refusal to face these realities that makes people’s lives much more miserable than necessary.
[quote]SkyNett wrote:
I’m watching them read the names of the 9/11 victims right now.
FUCK EVERYONE ELSE.
And BTW - they have people from all over the world reading the names - so, I guess not everyone hates us. There are still decent people left in the world that don’t fall into line with the U.S. hating assholes out there.
Lixy, you are the worst piece of shit I think I’ve ever seen. I seriously hope you fucking die. [/quote]
I’m not wishing death on anybody though.
My true wish would be that more nations do the things we’ve done to be successful instead of sniveling and trying to reduce us to their level.
[quote]SkyNett wrote:
I’m watching them read the names of the 9/11 victims right now.
FUCK EVERYONE ELSE.
And BTW - they have people from all over the world reading the names - so, I guess not everyone hates us. There are still decent people left in the world that don’t fall into line with the U.S. hating assholes out there.
Lixy, you are the worst piece of shit I think I’ve ever seen. I seriously hope you fucking die. [/quote]
Here’s the problem. You don’t care about people of other nationalities dying. I care that people died in the September 11 attacks, but I also care that shitloads of Iraqis died aswell.
Tribulus, might is right? Have you read Harry Potter?
[quote]AndyG wrote:
<<< Tribulus, might is right? Have you read Harry Potter?[/quote]
I said [quote]might MAKES right[/quote] not might IS right. I’ll let you muse over the distinction.
No, I have never read Harry Potter or seen any of the movies. That being the case I’m going to graciously assume that you had an intelligible point that I am unaware of.
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
My true wish would be that more nations do the things we’ve done to be successful instead of sniveling and trying to reduce us to their level.[/quote]
Let Iran have nuclear weapons then. The biggest gun wins, let them have the big guns. It’s your true wish.