Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Gold/Mining/Energy : Big Dog's Boom Boom Room -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: cnyndwllr who wrote (21580)	4/12/2003 6:17:44 PM
From: Bearcatbob	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 206099

OT Response to CYND__: Very well written. Lets pull a short part of your post. "I won't get caught up in a wave of patriotism or nationalism or pride of conquest and I won't forget and stop struggling to retain what made this country a great nation and a great civilization admired by almost every man and woman in the world." What has made America great if FREEDOM. In the years to come there should be a great debate about those who sit silent while freedom and human rights are violated. If we cannot bring these blessings to all - can we not at least lead the outcry where abuse exists. How the many sit silent while Mugabe abuses Zimbabwe, while the dodo in NK abuses his people - and while the world watches the current war - Castro cracks down in the shadow. When the left speaks out about villians on the left they may begin to gain some credibility. Until then I will simply remain suspicious that they basically hate American power. When the Hollywood idiots march agains Mugabe and Castro they will have shown balance. For now they hate Bush and excuse all of the left. I simply ask that thinking people examine that inconsistency. I have friends in Egypt. They were shocked by the collapse of Sadam. Why - because they believed the crap of their own media. How long can such idiocy last? As a simple question - we have all heard for years how we have starved children in Iraq. Does not the visuals of the huge amounts of weaponry and presidental palace granduer not say volumes about why the Iraqi people suffered?

To: cnyndwllr who wrote (21580)	4/12/2003 9:50:14 PM
From: chowder	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 206099

OT ... OT ... OT >>> "just seen the greatest military victory in a century" <<< Ed, when one puts things into proper perspective, it's easy to see where this war in Iraq can be called the greatest military victory in a century. I think one has to look at what the casualty predictions were prior to the war. I don't think anyone thought Iraq could win, but they did think we'd see lots of casualties, civilian and military. I think more Americans were lost in accidents than the Iraqi military killed. I think of Hill 737 in the Aschau Valley, during the Viet Nam War, where the 101st obtained a 70% casualty rate and gained mere yards on a daily basis. Now that battle is what I would call heavy resistance, not what we have seen in Iraq, as the press is so quick to try and point out. When you consider the ground taken, the objectives seized and the amount of time it took to do so, and then compare it to the loss of US and civilian lives, this was a great victory for us. In looking forward, I'm not sure we'll justify our actions by how the Muslim world accepts us. I suppose it depends on what you thought the war was fought over. Terrorism and liberation, or the elimination of the undermining of our economic way of life? The Muslim world is anti-American because after inventing the wheel and Algebra, the rest of the world grew up and left them behind. America is only 200 plus years old and is the wealthiest nation in the world. That in itself creates animosity. All we have to do is look at our own country for an example in the "class wars" that are constantly stirred by the Democratic party. A lot of Muslim people come to this country for an education and when they go back home, what do they have? Nothing! They have no hope. They can't improve themselves or their families situation to the degree that we can, here in America. Take away a man's hope and you've taken away everything. This is why they don't have a problem finding suicide bombers. Their only hope is that there is a better world waiting for them in the afterlife. We get the blame for a lot of that hopelessness, and justifiably so because, we have supported many of the Muslim leaders that have kept their countries in the Dark Ages. Most Muslim countries blame us for not supporting them and allowing them to improve. These feelings and thoughts of envy and hatred aren't going to go away with a victory in war, and they aren't going to go away within a generation either, in my opinion. Did we do the right thing by attacking Iraq? It depends on what you think the objective was. We took out a leader that was leading the charge to undermine our economy. We know that Russia was supporting this effort, as was France and Germany. We now know that there were people on the inspection teams that were tipping off Sadamn on where they would be looking for weapons. We now know that Russia was attempting to jam missiles that were heading for Iraqi targets. We know that Russia and Germany were supplying weapons and nuclear technology to Iraq and other countries. We know that France was supplying the weapons grade plutonium. What are we supposed to do? We defeated Russia during the Cold War by destroying their economy. The world knows the only way to defeat us is by doing the same thing. Where would you draw the line in the sand? Where would you say, enough is enough? In my opinion, GWB took too long but, I understand why he did. The world will never be one big happy family as long as the human emotions of greed and power exist. We are and have what most others aspire to. If they achieve the same "in addition" to us, then I have no problem. If you are going to achieve that status by "taking it away" from me, then I have a problem. This is what Iraq and the "Evil Axis" countries have in mind. They want to take it away from us. Rather than build themselves up, they want to take us down. Where do you stand up and say, "enough is enough?" I think that time is now. We now know that the appeasement of the Clinton years is coming back to bite us. Appeasement begets more appeasement, begets us getting our butts kicked. We may deserve a butt kicking but, that doesn't mean you stand by and let it happen, in my opinion. I know my view of war isn't very popular but, in my opinion, it should be made horrible enough that others would think twice before considering it. Our victory to date has been a politically correct one, to a large degree. I don't think the results of this war will deter Russia, North Korea or anyone else to fear taking us on in their efforts to undermine our economy and way of life. But neither would appeasement. dabum

To: cnyndwllr who wrote (21580)	4/12/2003 10:07:10 PM
From: grinder965	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 206099

Kodiak doesn't need defending but at least he expresses his opinion, takes a stand and doesn't waffle behind words such as "time will tell". Hey need a job? I hear there's a vacancy for the Iraqi Minister of Information post.

To: cnyndwllr who wrote (21580)	4/13/2003 1:13:33 AM
From: kodiak_bull	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 206099

Ed, Hit a hot button, did I? Good. Been a little busy playing tennis etc. on the weekend and I won't bother responding in volume to your missive (or maybe I will, who knows where this will go once I get started?), but all I was asking for was an update on your "just 200 people, what does it mean?" statement (which implied that the Iraqi people were less than happy about being liberated). They seem pretty happy now, a lot of them. Don't you want to update your view? People aren't WRONG because they disagree with me, but they can be WRONG because they're WRONG. Get the difference? Anybody who watched April 9's video reports from Baghdad and didn't understand that this was the liberation of an entire nation was very clearly clueless. Or WRONG. After the Democrats in Congress and their fawning news media ran through: quagmire, failed plan, Arabs will hate us, we can never win yada yada yada, and the US Military put "paid to" to each and every one of them, now we are stuck with Jeez the Iraqis are looting, holy cow, LAWLESSNESS reigns in Iraq! Even Kofi Annan that spineless twerp is very very concerned about the looting of government offices (was it the plastic flowers or the used tires that made his heart tremble?), but he didn't give a rat's ass about WMD or the wholesale slaughter of people by Saddam Hussein whilst in power. Your big point is "wait and see" and "time will tell" which is basically the point of view of people who sit back and do nothing. Because, after all, time will tell. Won't it? 35 years of the Baathist regime and Saddam would have led to maybe 35 years of Uday and Ackass-Jay and then maybe more. Wait and see, sure that's a great idea for the people of Iraq. Personally, all along I wanted a diplomatic solution to this thing, I didn't want a single soldier deployed if it was at all possible not to do so. But I recognized that I didn't have near the information that the government had, and since I voted them in I was very happy to let them override my concerns (and "world opinion") and do the job. It's been an incredible job, too. It's turned out they DID have a lot better information than I did, and I'm glad that representative democracy allowed them to carry out this great piece of work. So, in the end, no quagmire, no heavy casualties, liberation for 25 million people who genuinely seem to appreciate it, and still nobody is willing to say, "ya know what, I wuz just plain wrong. Bush and Rummy and Powell and Tommy and the rest just executed an amazing plan, the likes of which we may never see again in our lifetimes. Compare it to our own experience in Vietnam or Korea, the Russians in Afghanistan, the Russians in Chechnya--it is just plain drop your jaw amazing. And all you can do is wipe your hands on your apron, fold your arms and tap your foot and say, "Tsk, tsk, the jury is STILL out on this one. Time will tell." You quote me Goering and tell me to "grow up"? LOL. Who the %$#$ elected Goering to office? I just love it when the left wing hate America crowd cites and quotes Nazi Germany. How apropos. Israel is "just like the Nazis" and GB 43 is "worse than Saddam." Somebody needs to grow up, that's for sure. Also, can you possibly be serious, or are you just really into mega-bullshit with this gem: "NO ONE that I heard speak in this country had any serious doubts that we'd overcome the conventional forces of the Iraqis with a modest effort. We met and exceeded those expectations." Plenty of people had and voiced serious doubts about whether we'd be able to conquer a country defended on their home turf by 300,000 "elite" Republican Guard, especially when our actual fighting force was about 100,000 strong (so much of the 250,000 is support, you know). As late as 2 weeks ago General (I'm a Democrat) Clark was on CNN talking about the failed military plan, not to mention the idiots who attend the Pentagon press briefings and then write for the NY Times, the LA Times, etc. I have no idea how long the gratitude of the Iraqis will last, my guess is not too long. That's okay, French gratitude had a short shelf life, as did Dutch gratitude, Belgian gratitude, South Korean gratitude. We're not in this for the gratitude, nor are we in an elementary school playground world where "Now, Eddy, violence NEVER solved anything." We're in this to pursue our national interest, which happens to coincide with the national interest of 50 million muslims (and maybe quite a few more). When RR brought down the Soviet Union without firing a shot, he was pursuing our national interest, but hey, whaddaya know, 350 million people were freed from the yoke of Socialist claptrap. Now they are free to pursue freedom (Poland, Czech, etc.) or resubmit to autocracy (the "stans" come to mind). In the end, like Adam Smith's invisible hand, when we pursue our interest, tyrants will be overthrown and people will have a chance to experiment with that heady brew, freedom. Watch out, Syria, Iran, North Korea and, yes, Saudi Arabia. In fact, violence solves a lot of things, and will continue to do so. Violence solved Hitler. Violence solved Mussolini. Violence solved Imperial Japan. Earlier violence would have solved them earlier. Violence has effectively solved Saddam Hussein. GB 41 liberated 2.5 million Kuwaitis from Saddam's thugs and plastic shredders in 1991. GB 43 has now liberated 25 million Afghanis and 25 million Iraqis. Eurotrash-beloved Bill Clinton demolished an aspirin factory and lost 19 soldiers in less than a day in Mogadishu (just before exiting the country). Ah, yes, there are none so blind as those who will not see. At some point, anyone who has a shred of intellectual honesty and who vaulted along the parade of horribles (quagmire . . . looting) will have to admit the error of his analysis. But that would be anyone with a shred of intellectual honesty. Kb