How do you define terrorism?

[BlueSkyJaunte]

For some reason the self-described liberals keep pretending like Saddam had turned over a new leaf and repented for all of his crimes.

WMDs or no WMDs, whether the administration lied to us or not, the correct thing to do was to go into Iraq and take the bastard down.

[speeder]

It just kills me, now even Bush supporters admit that they lied, but "so what".

[BlueSkyJaunte]

I made no such admission. Neither you nor I have enough information to decide whether there were WMDs or not. Nor am I a Bush supporter per se. I support some of his policies and deplore others. Stop trying to pigeonhole me to fit your narrow two-party weltanschauung.

I do support taking down Saddam, the Taliban, Kim Jong Il, the Iranian "government", and every other dictator, oligarchy, and police state in Asia, the Middle East, South America, and Africa. Unfortunately it seems only the US has the power and the will to even begin the job.

Most of the rest of the world would rather engage in profitable trade (whether over or under the table) with said tyrants.

I also support consumer rights (over the rights of the corporation), personal privacy (over the Patriot Act and its ilk), and gay marriage.

Happy now?

[speeder]

I'm happy, as long as you aren't proposing marriage.

Keep your weltanschauung to yourself, there, big fella.

[BlueSkyJaunte]

Originally posted by speeder
I'm happy, as long as you aren't proposing marriage.

My wife wouldn't like that, I think. Besides, you're not my type.

Keep your weltanschauung to yourself, there, big fella.

What, I'm the only one who's not allowed to get huffy?

Seriously, all this talk of "WMDs or no WMDs" is just laughable. As if any of us who post to this site would ever know. Yet people talk about it as if they'd personally turned over every grain of sand in Iraq and couldn't find a thing.

[Purrybonker]

I do support taking down Saddam, the Taliban, Kim Jong Il, the Iranian "government", and every other dictator, oligarchy, and police state in Asia, the Middle East, South America, and Africa. Unfortunately it seems only the US has the power and the will to even begin the job.

Damn, I keep missing stuff, mental note to self: read World Weekly News seriously rather than just skimming the headlines at the Safeway check-out.

Fill me in BlueSkyJaunte: Who died and made you and GWB god/lord & master of the universe? BTW - we in Canada are hanging on "tender hooks" as to whether our government meets your approval or if we too, are in need of liberation.

[joeclarke]

Seriously, all this talk of "WMDs or no WMDs" is just laughable. As if any of us who post to this site would ever know. Yet people talk about it as if they'd personally turned over every grain of sand in Iraq and couldn't find a thing.

wow, that's really "out-there" man, it's blowin' my mind. That's darn near as funny as speeders take on the Saddam/Adolph swap-meet. You talk about something like it really has something to do with something.

Talk about tempests in tea cups. Now let's all go pump some oil.

[tabs]

Reinhard Heydrich was instrumental in leading Stalin to believe that his military was planning a coup by planting false documents on a Russian Military attache in Berlin. Futher in December of 1941 a lot of the officers who were purged and sent to Siberia, suddenly showed up as officers again in the units that Stalin brought from Siberia to defend Moscow. Thus defeating the Germans last gasp push on Moscow.

[speeder]

Tabs, An encyclopedic knowledge of war history is meaningless when filtered through the nickle slot machines at Skinny Dick's Halfway Inn. I'm impressed by your recollections of past battles, but you still haven't sold me on your, (and Cheney/Rumsfeld/Perle/etc.), vision for my future. A few billion others are with me here and feel the same way, could you maybe type a little slower for us or something? Thanks for everything.

[Blk87Carrera]

P-Bonker,

Before criticizing the results of U.S./GB/Italy/Spain/Hungary/Czech/Iraq/Afghan/Pakistan/Turkey/Uzbek/Kyrgystan/Kuwait/Sudan/Bahrain/Yemen/UAE/Japan.... and CANADIAN actions in the efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention all of the Non-Government Agencies, and the average citizen...

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE go there and look at the efforts at peacemaking and rebuilding.

You can criticize all you want, but until you have been there and gotten a bigger picture of what goes on in the day to day rebuilding efforts by all parties (except, of course, the extremists, terrorists, and criminals) your thoughts, beliefs, insight, and arguments have ZERO credibility.

P-Bonker, you have know idea of the close friendships made between Iraqi citizens and US/Coalition service members. You have no clue about the pure joy in the eyes of Iraqis that know they have a part in there country's destiny! You have no idea that these thousands and thousands personal, close, and friendly relationships- little specks in the overall picture- contribute so much to the positive direction that Iraq is going. You have no clue!!

Please, P-Bonker, enlighten the rest of us as to why a nation of millions-- if they're so upset at the overthrow and rebuilding efforts--- why we haven't suffered tens of thousands of coalition casualties??? I don't get it? Did I miss those massively violent uprisings??? You've been there, right?? I mean, you've seen it! Right???

I've been to that part of the world. Trust me, it's a different picture than what you've been painted.


Dave

[speeder]

You are so right, Dave! Things are going swell there, even according to plan, wouldn't you say?

Say, tell me: What do you think of the Iraqis' demands for direct elections and the premise that they are a highly civilised people who can build their own new government? Without our "help"?

You don't work for Bechtel or Haliburton/KBR by any chance, do you? Just want to make sure that we are getting news from an unbiased source and all.

[Purrybonker]

You can criticize all you want, but until you have been there and gotten a bigger picture of what goes on in the day to day rebuilding efforts by all parties (except, of course, the extremists, terrorists, and criminals) your thoughts, beliefs, insight, and arguments have ZERO credibility.

Those that object(ed) to the invasion of Iraq don't need credibility. There's certainly tons of evidence to support the arguments of the objectors, but I'll play to your hand for the purposes of this discussion.

The only need for credibility lies with the authors of the invasion. It seems like fundamental logic that if I want to invade a foreign country killing thousands of their citizens, hundreds of my own countrymen and virtually bankrupt my own economy even to the extent of putting the world economy at risk while I'm at it, I better have a very good and sustainable reason for doing so.

Yet on the credibility front, each basis that was used to support the invasion has proven to be blatantly false or, at best somewhat shaky. How is it that you are not outraged?

Your comments about the good things that you see/hear about what is now going on in Iraq is great stuff but my friend, that's just humanity making lemonade from lemons.

I bet that in a hundred years or so (probably much less) this whole thing is going to look like the earth is flat/round debate.

[RickC]

"The circumstances are what render every civil and political scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind."
Edmund Burke

I'm no fan of GW. But the haughty holiness of those who try to say accidents are similar to murders is an insult to all of us.

Remember that all of life lives on - sometimes thrives on - the death of others. This (for me at least) is hard to live with if I really THINK about it. At the most basic level, do we REALLY have the right to eat plants or animals (a distinction we created!)? I suppose we just have to admit our horrible reality - that we need to kill something to live, that we make mistakes, that our race has an evil streak that we must try (and often fail) to rise above.

No, America is not perfect. And no, I don't think GW is really trying (he's more a businessman, with all the compromises that implies - and without whom we'd be living in caves - than an idealist), but even when he's out of office in 1 or 5 years, we will still be hated by the small minded men and women who seek to grasp power in other countries and the sheep who follow them. This is true of all ages and all human circumstances. How - or if - we will ever rise above this to some happy "Star Trek" future I just don't know.

Mark Twain wrote this:
"In a moment we were in a French village. We walked through a great factory of some sort, where men and women and little children were toiling in heat and dirt and a fog of dust; and they were clothed in rags, and drooped at their work, for they were worn and half starved, and weak and drowsy. Satan said:

"It is some more Moral Sense. The proprietors are rich, and very holy; but the wage they pay to these poor brothers and sisters of theirs is only enough to keep them from dropping dead with hunger. The work-hours are fourteen per day, winter and summer--from six in the morning till eight at night--little children and all. And they walk to and from the pigsties which they inhabit--four miles each way, through mud and slush, rain, snow, sleet, and storm, daily, year in and year out. They get four hours of sleep. They kennel together, three families in a room, in unimaginable filth and stench; and disease comes, and they die off like flies. Have they committed a crime, these mangy things? No. What have they done, that they are punished so? Nothing at all, except getting themselves born into your foolish race. You have seen how they treat a misdoer there in the jail; now you see how they treat the innocent and the worthy. Is your race logical? Are these ill-smelling innocents better off than that heretic? Indeed, no; his punishment is trivial compared with theirs. They broke him on the wheel and smashed him to rags and pulp after we left, and he is dead now, and free of your precious race; but these poor slaves here--why, they have been dying for years, and some of them will not escape from life for years to come. It is the Moral Sense which teaches the factory proprietors the difference between right and wrong--you perceive the result. They think themselves better than dogs. Ah, you are such an illogical, unreasoning race! And paltry--oh, unspeakably!"

Then Satan dropped all seriousness and just overstrained himself making fun of us, and deriding our pride in our warlike deeds, our great heroes, our imperishable fames, our mighty kings, our ancient aristocracies, our venerable history--and laughed and laughed till it was enough to make a person sick to hear him; and finally he sobered a little and said, "But, after all, it is not all ridiculous; there is a sort of pathos about it when one remembers how few are your days, how childish your pomps, and what shadows you are!"


So tonight let's drink to our short lives, and our noble attempts to spread peace and prosperity to a greater percentage our planet, and try to do better when we fail rather than forfeit the attempt entirely just because our leaders our not always worthy of us..........

RickC