[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
The 9/11 attacks were because they knew the US was going to lead a coalition of more than 40 nations in deposing a dictator in Iraq? [/quote]
No. The 9/11 attacks were supposedly because you unconditionally support Israel and had troops stationed in Arab countries. That is at least, what the official version says.
It was very clear that the Mujahideen in Afghanistan would turn against the next-big-bully as soon as they were done with the Ruskies. You didn’t seem to mind at the time, and you paid the dire price of putting your nose where it didn’t belong.
We’ve been over this. Saddam has been your pal for a long long time, but I’m talking about people like Mubarak, Duvalier, etc…
He? Who’s that?
[quote]Freedom of speech.
Freedom of religion.
Freedom to be clean shaven.
Freedom for women.
Freedom to listen to music.[/quote]
That all sounds good to me. Let me append a few more;
Freedom to grow.
Freedom to grow grass.
Freedom to grow beards.
Freedom to live a dignified life.
Freedom to fight agressors.
Freedom from occupation.
Freedom of the press.
[quote]Heliotrope wrote:
A well organized national government bent on conquest for whatever reason could obviously inflict even greater disruption. [/quote]
[quote]lixy wrote:
Heliotrope wrote:
A well organized national government bent on conquest for whatever reason could obviously inflict even greater disruption.
Case in point; The United States of America.[/quote]
Yep.
Our leaders are at all time low approval rates for good reason. It is a difficult situation and our leaders mistakes have made it even more precarious.
It is sad to see the line between what you are supposedly fighting against and what you are actually accomplishing blurred.
I hope that our leaders learn and do better but what little consolation such a thought must be to the millions who have had their lives destroyed as a result of their mistakes.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
I am so disgusted by people that want to justify the terrorists actions. We know why they hate us. We have the power and they do not. [/quote]
Let’s pick this one apart: What “power” do we have? Please define power – this term is smacked full of rhetoric.
Power doesn’t mean anything. It is an abstraction. No one can take power – no one can have power. It simply does not exist.
How can someone hate someone else for such an abstracted idea? Even if it was the “perception of power” for which we were hated do you think the entire fundamentalist Muslim world is worried about such a nonsense idea when the “power of Allah” is backing them?
Who is “justifying the terrorists?” To justify something means to defend some action as just. Very few people actually think killing innocent people is ever justified–the ones who do are in the supreme minority with respect to the planet earth.
Even the majority of Muslims have decried the actions of these people; and the hawks ignore it out of a false sense of moral superiority to justify their warmongering.
You obviously don’t “know why they hate us”. They hate us because we interfere in their world. It is not the job of The United States of America to “rid the world of evil”. It is not endowed by God to rule the Empire. Rome also thought they were endowed by the Gods.
[quote]Heliotrope wrote:
Sad but true. When are people going to get the heads around this reality? As a lone superpower the U.S. could never allow a vacuum of power in a region that is destined to have the final reserves of the greatest resource ever exploited by man.
The big bad greedy U.S. taking the oil for its own selfish purposes is a simplistic notion. We have built an incredible mass of human population and infrastructure worldwide that depends on oil. The entire world is going to find it highly uncomfortable if that oil demand becomes acutely under supplied, not just the U.S…
[/quote]
Then let those who want the oil so bad send mercenaries to go out and secure it for them. Quit using the men and women who signed up to defend the Constitution as pawns in a war with false pretenses. If this country was truly run as the Constitutional Republic it was designed to be then there wouldn’t be so many hidden agendas and goals shrouded in mystery.
I realize that the oil situation is getting worse but that does not mean a select few individuals in power get to then decide what is the best course of action in order to secure that resource. The people of the United States make those decisions through their elected representatives. The problem is that the people of the United States would never authorize a war in order to secure a natural resource for our personal interests. We would rather spend the billions on this war on research for another resource which is a gamble certain leaders are not willing to make; hence the war.