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Politics : Bush Administration's Media Manipulation--MediaGate? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (4230)	7/18/2005 8:57:03 AM
From: Rock_nj	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9838

Are you so naieve to believe that by the USA not having an army, there will be no conflict anywhere? The question really is, are we using our military in a rational manner to defend this country properly? 9/11/01 told us very strongly NO (isn't it utterly amazing that there aren't Congressional investigations into how our military failed on 9/11?). After having spent Trillions on our military to defend threats for decades, real and imagined, we couldn't even defend our capitol with over one hour's notice on 9/11? There is something really wrong with that picture from a military defensive position. If that had been a surprise Soviet attack, there would be major investigations and revamping of our defenses, but nothing after 9/11?!? The American ability to selectively think and worry is incredible. I am not being simplistic about this. I know that conflict will go on in the world, no matter what we do with our military. The conflicts I'm worried about are the ones I come across in my daily life living in the U.S., which have nothing to do with conflicts 1,000s of miles away. I'm far far more likely to be killed by some street criminal in America than by another country droping a bomb on us. I'd rather see Trillions spent on defending us from domestic terrorist (aka criminals). They are more of a threat to my personal safety than international terrorists with a political agenda. Why are we so damn externally focused? We're literally roting from the inside. Besides, our military engagement around the world actually weakens our real defenses against international terrorism. Would 9/11 happened if we had actually been focused on defending our country, instead of engaged in over 100 countries around the world? Probably not, at least it would have been a lot less likely and the Air Force might have actually scrambled jets in a reasonable amount of time. The fact is, it is often our engagement overseas that pulls us into wars needlessly and drains money that should be spent defending and building a stronger America. Why would the muslims feel a need to attack us if we weren't engaged in the Middle East? They wouldn't. There was no domestic muslim/arab terrorist problem in the U.S. until after the Gulf War in 1991, when we killed 100,000s of arabs and then proceeded to kill 1,000,000 more with sanctions. That is the root of our terorist problem today. Now, we're trying to mop it up with a military solution and it's still not working so well. Still, despite all this paranoia over arab terrorism, an American is far more likely to die from random and preventable street crime or a traffic accident caused by a lack of spending on highway safety than the very slim chance of being a victim of a terrorist attack. Our priorities are assbackwards. Security begins at home. Nothing wrong with being idealistic by the way. There are countries that live in peace, and that's partly because of the positive outlook of their citizens. We only have to look a few hundred miles to our north (Canada) to see a country that is peaceful in this world and actually spends its money trying to create a better society.

To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (4230)	7/18/2005 9:16:46 AM
From: Rock_nj	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9838

The real war in America: Camden, New Jersey, is quite possibly the most troubled city in America. It is a city of crime, pollution, and political corruption. Three of Camden's most recent mayors are felons, and the city constantly flirts with bankruptcy. In response to Camden's 2004 ranking as America's dangerous city, Police Chief Edwin Figueroa recently said, "I feel like I'm in Fallujah. I don't have enough soldiers. The enemy is out there. And we're fighting the same battle over and over and over again." Exactly! We've got a war in America to fight against, poverty despair and crime. Too bad we're over in Iraq turing their country into a crime infested war zone like our inner cities, when what we should be doing is rebuilding our own inner cities and putting a serious dent in our domestic terrorism (aka crime) problem. Totally misguided. I find it utterly amazing to watch Fox News or even CNN and listen to some American official talk about problems in places like Iraq and never address problems within just a few miles of where they are sitting. Crazy!