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Politics : Piffer Thread on Political Rantings and Ravings -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: arno who wrote (13315)	5/19/2004 7:59:59 PM
From: MrLucky	Respond to of 14610

Arno, Good post. Although it will fall on "blind eyes". <g>

To: arno who wrote (13315)	5/19/2004 9:20:49 PM
From: Jorj X Mckie	Respond to of 14610

this needs to be bolded. It's ironic we can see photo after photo of Abu Ghraib, but we will never see footage of people jumping 110 floors from the World Trade Center. If we are to face our enemy with integrity, we need to be willing to view, in full horrifying detail, what he has done to us, as well as to look at out ourselves and our mistakes. We as a nation have embraced the self flagellation style of introspection without being willing to look at the enemy honestly. We are all too willing to look at what caused them to be pissed off enough at us to make 9/11 happen. But we seem to be unwilling to look at what has pissed us off enough to retaliate. I do see this as a generally liberal romp into intellectual dishonesty. oh, and....damn good post.

To: arno who wrote (13315)	5/20/2004 12:46:19 AM
From: Alan Smithee	Respond to of 14610

Arno! Good to see you man. Good post, also. Hope all is well dude.

To: arno who wrote (13315)	5/20/2004 7:40:48 AM
From: Oral Roberts	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14610

If Al Qaeda and every other known terrorist wants to come to Iraq to shoot at Americans...let them. It saves us hunting the bastards down, whether there's 4 or 10 times more, now. Amen brother. Great post!

To: arno who wrote (13315)	5/20/2004 4:12:21 PM
From: Rainy_Day_Woman	Respond to of 14610

arno! that is just one of the greatest posts! very bold We’ve created animosity towards the US throughout the world; Oh??? Like there wasn't animosity already. The "world" has always admired and despised us. Freedom is a concept that unknown to most countries and people. They want to come here to be "free", and yet when we are asked to do what nobody else can or will do, they despise us??? WTF is up with that??? ENVY, JEALOUSY? These are two powerful human emotions that cause people to act/react in an illogical manner. zactly when countries of the world are in trouble, who do they turn to? who do they seek out? who has the strength, the courage, the conviction to come to their aid?

To: arno who wrote (13315)	5/20/2004 5:32:20 PM
From: Jagfan	Respond to of 14610

Great post amo. However, I am sure it is going to fall on a lot of deaf ears.

To: arno who wrote (13315)	5/20/2004 6:18:24 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (5) \| Respond to of 14610

Not only is most of the info in your post inaccurate, I find it pitiful that some of the posters on this thread are complimenting you. In the past three years, I have been amazed to learn how ill informed Bush supporters are. No wonder you voted for him. You all are why this great country is increasingly in serious trouble. Do some research........get the facts......evolve and join the rest of us before its too late!

To: arno who wrote (13315)	5/22/2004 11:46:35 AM
From: Road Walker	Read Replies (6) \| Respond to of 14610

Re: “I'm sure the regular contributors to this thread know the difference between goal and method of the terrorists.” They don’t seem to. Let’s leave the patriotic outrage on the doorstep and look at this from a logical and pragmatic perspective. Emotion clouds reason and hides solutions. I think we can agree that bin Laden and al Qaeda’s primary goal is to install fundamental Islamic governments throughout the ME. Their targets are the monarchies that they believe are supported by the US. Their value system is so radically different than ours, that any argument that they are jealous of us is absurd. They hate the US because they perceive us as Christian foreigners that are propping up their illegitimate and repressive governments, for our own economic benefit. Al Qaeda is a small group fighting for change against an opponent with vastly larger resources. So how do they create change in their non-democratic societies? They create terror and subsequent political instability, and add like-minded people to their cause, with very public and gruesome acts of terrorism. It’s their only mechanism for change. But here is the key point. The measure of their success is not the death or destruction of their terrorist events. They don’t have the numbers or weapons to fight us head on; one hundred 9/11’s wouldn’t even dent our power advantage. So they use horrific symbolic events to make us change our behavior. It’s human nature to empathize and project these terrible images, so we over-react. We become outraged, we lose our rationality, and this tiny group wins a battle over the “civilized world”. The Berg beheading is an example. One more death in Iraq, in and of itself, is an insignificant event. The mutilation of a body in Iraq is not unique; one of our bombs or their bombs dismembers far more bodies far worse then Berg. But for effect they set up a camera, they perform a theatrical gruesome ritual, and they make sure the image is available for all to see. Our outrage is their victory; our irrational, non-proportional response is giving them exactly what they want. So how did we respond to 9/11? I gave a list in a previous post, but lets focus on Iraq. If bin Laden could have chosen one response, it might have been that we invade Iraq. First, it was a secular Arab government, as much his enemy as ours. Second it was a stabilized Arab populace with almost no terrorist presence. Third it could be used as proof of what he has been saying all along; that beyond the support of the illegitimate monarchies, the Christian US has started a crusade against the Arab Muslims. Fourth, it would destabilize and weaken other governments throughout the Arab ME. With our irrational and non-proportional response, we gave him exactly what he wanted. Iraq is a huge win for Al Qaeda. I cringe when I read the angst ridden, outraged posts of this thread. Get some guts, folks. Try to understand that you are responding like a puppet, Al Qaeda is pulling your strings. You are playing right into their hands by supporting policies that destabilize, at the precise moment that we need to stabilize and bring together the world in a common cause. We’ve only got one enemy that’s worth fighting, and that’s Al Qaeda. And we need to fight them in a cold, impersonal, merciless way. But first we have to understand what they are doing to us. We as a country, as well as the rest of the civilized world, have to come together in the common goal of ridding the earth of this vermin. (FWIW, I voted for Bush and supported him until the week after 9/11, when I realized how he was responding to terrorism. I now believe that he is the worst, most damaging President in US history.)