Posted on 02/04/2007 9:12:57 AM PST by A_perfect_lady
That's reality. That's the nature of terrorism. Get used to it.
So you advocate giving up and dying?
I've never actually seen anyone advocate that before. I'm not sure that is a policy you can sell the American people on...
It doesn't make much of a campaign slogan:
"The nature of terrorism is that they kill us. Now get used to it and die!"
The job is not only to prevent a repeat...its to prevent a nuclearized repeat. In that effort Iran is the key target...and Iraq is a very strategic location in the goal of remaking, or removing, Iran.
By all measures, each American lost in Iraq is a huge loss - but the total numbers are low when compared to other wars. We lost 870 last calender year. We lost 470 to gunfire in Philadelphia in the same time period. Thats in only one US city! I was around (but not old enough to fight) on D-Day and Iwo Jima. Check those out by way of comparison. American's were willing to sacrifice to keep fascism at bay then....and Militant Islam is every bit as Fascist (if not more so) than the Nazi's.
Thank God for the brave of America.
No. I advocate combating terrorism by methods other than the one being used in Iraq. I advocate combating terrorism by methods other than sticking an army in the middle of the terrorists' domain.
OK, I'll bite: Like what methods?
Whatever methods have so far prevented another attack seem to be working well. They would work as well and perhaps even better if were were not in Iraq.
No, I agree that it probably doesn't make such people "less likely" to turn to terrorism. But between "less likely" and what you're trying to imply (more likely) there is an excluded middle (equally likely). For many if not most of these people, if it weren't Iraq, it would be something else that would piss them off - in which case you can't credibly claim that "Iraq" as such made them do it. In any event, such an effect can not easily be separated from background noise. How do you take a young man and figure out "the" reason why he became a terrorist? How do you examine the alternate-universes in which we didn't invade Iraq, to see whether that same young man still became a terrorist in those universes?
Also, there's a huge leap from your claim, which is essentially that our being in Iraq pisses a sig. # of young men off that wouldn't have otherwise gotten pissed off (which I doubt, but might be true), to saying that our being in Iraq "increases" the "threat" to us. Making more young men mad in a faraway country than otherwise would have gotten mad, is not quite the same thing as "increasing the threat". The "threat of terrorism" is not directly proportional to the # of young men that are mad, necessarily. What do those young men do? Perhaps nothing. Perhaps they go to a rally and get videoed on CNN pumping their fists. Big deal. Perhaps they do indeed become recruits for terror missions, but even then, it doesn't really seem like terror masters lacked for recruits before; maybe they were already at the saturation pt in that regard. And perhaps those young men go to Iraq, maybe kill some Iraqis, and then get killed, in which case how can you say their getting mad "increased" the "threat" to the United States? Seems like a wash, or even a net loss for their side.
Let me put it another way: if you want me to pay attention to your alarm bells, "threat of terrorism" has got to mean something other than "how many young men are mad at us". If it doesn't, then the "war on terror" is nothing but a popularity contest and the lefties are right, we should focus all our efforts on trying to make everyone love us. Sign Kyoto, more foreign aid, submit to int'l courts, toss Israel overboard, etc.
Finally, if the "threat" is so "increased", as you've convinced yourself, why haven't there been any attacks against us since 9/11 + anthrax? Because this "increased threat" thing is entirely a hypothetical construction that exists in your mind. There's no way for me to really argue with it because it's not based on anything substantive to begin with. But it sounds impressive in arguments, to most people, which is the important thing.
He is used to it, that is why he advocates a strategy which acknowledges the fact (unlike you).
What makes you think our doing this has made them want to kill us "more"? Again, what is your objective basis for thinking this?
That method includes engaging them in Afghanistan and Iraq, exploiting the intelligence we gain there, pinning down their footsoldiers and killing their leadership.
Not to mention giving the citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan an alternative to supporting a murderous dictator or Taleban....
It's certainly better than preserving up a dictator by enforcing a no-fly-zone and starving the average people with sanctions. Now that creates Jihadis!
Not to mention Iraq and Aghanistan border Iran....
Right. You don't want our armed forces to be in the terrorists' domain. You want them to be back on their heels, standing around, as far from the terrorists' domain as possible - on our home turf, just waiting.
It's so rare when a critic actually comes out and states their completely-uncompelling alternative so explicitly. Thanks :)
But one among our methods thus far has been to invade and occupy Iraq, yet you complain about this.
They would work as well and perhaps even better if were were not in Iraq.
Based on what do you say this? Anything?
Dying is always an option, but it's hard to get people on board with that option.
I will support the war as long as I see that the Military supports the war. Currently I see the strongest support for this war among the people who are actually putting their lives on the line over there and at home. As long as they think it is worth it then it is worth it and so far from what I can see they think it is worth it.
As for all the armchair quarterbacks I could care less. No country is ever beaten until their warriors have either been beaten or given up and we sure the hell have not been beaten.
That's a dangerous subject to get me started on. You can't understand a nation unless you understand its culture. As a voracious reader and classical music fanatic, I've spent some time understanding the German mindset.
Hitler's roots can be seen in the anti-Semitic volkitsch literature of the 19th Century, the behavior of Vienna mayor Karl Lüger (who chased composer/conductor Gustav Mahler out of town to New York because he was a Jew), and the music dramas of Richard Wagner.
Check out the last act of Wagner's opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Hans Sachs, poet and cobbler, sings a passage about how "foreigners" (read "Joooos") would change the German language to prevent king and subject from understanding each other. Hitler was not operating in a vacuum.
Check out newsreels of the funerals of Nazi Storm Troopers killed by German Communist Party militia members ("Red Shirts") during the Weimer era. These events were staged like the entrance of the gods into Valhalla in Wagner's Das Rheingold.
Take a listen to the music and drama of the Weimer era, and you'll see precisely what Hitler -- and the German people -- were reacting against. The movie musical "Cabaret" simplifies the issues, but it captures the basic essence of the decadence that prompted Germans to embrace a monster.
That's a cop out
No, it's not. Know your enemy.
You're exactly right.
Is Hillary the way she is because of our nation?
What do you know about Saddam's father's connection to the Third Reich?
Hillary is little different from any other member of the New Left of the Sixties and Seventies. The one key difference is that she married a man with prospects and managed to get herself elected senator.
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