Bowling for children

[Professor S]

Gekko, what I have been saying is that we shoiuld let the friggin' military handle the situation. You seem to be spewing your anger at anyone who would dare talk about the war without actually being in it. Well thats plain stupid and you are attacking those that are trying to support you over in the states as well as those that are working against you. I'm trying to fight the growing public opinion fed by the media and democratic leaders that not only is our administration wrong, but that now our servicemen are brutal, torturing animals. And for this I get "**** you". Your anger is all over the place, when maybe you are really only angry at yourself.

As for Xantar...

Strangler, just because I dare to suggest the Bush Administration is doing something wrong, don't lump me in with liberal howlers who have no idea what they're talking about. Within that post alone, you assumed that I think Bush is a fascist dictator (I don't, in fact I think his election is legitimate even if I disagree with the majority), that I am calling his supporters evil (I'm not and never did) and that I think we should lay out all our government secrets on the table (I don't). The only reason you don't see me picking apart Typhoid every once in a while is because you do that just fine on your own. I don't treat you as a Bible-thumping backwoods hick who wants to nuke the rest of the world while dressed in an American flag. Please have the courtesy to treat me as my own person.

I was treating as your own person, as I was reacting to your implications of the Bush administration being a "powerful, unquestionable government". That sounds awfully fascist to me. You may have not come out and said that you view Bush as a Fascist, but that is what I took away from the comment. If I misunderstood, I apologize, but I also think others probably took it the same way.

Now, you're suggesting that because we haven't been attacked since 9/11, we've got a victory and everything the Bush Administration is doing is working. It reminds me of the story of the man who said that if you danced in a circle, tigers wouldn't attack you in Africa. When somebody pointed out that there are no tigers in Africa, he said, "See! It works!" You just can't use logic like that. When there is another attack, I suppose you'll tell me that we've only had one terrorist attack in several years and that therefore we are doing well.

I never said that everything he does has been a a victory, I am saying that overall I believe he is succeeding. I realize that my first comments didn't reflect that, and I apologize. It is an ugly and bloody overall success that probably could have been run better in places, but I'm not willing to completely change the way that we extract information during war time because some people want to extend rights to those who do not get them.

Your tiger metaphor goes for you too. You are assuming that what we are doing is not working and needs to be completely revamped with no evidence to support that it is failing. You assume that it is not working without knowing anything about it and distrusting those that are trained to do and have experience in the process. I don't know for sure that it is working either. All I know is that we have not been attacked since 9/11, that 2 terrorist attacks on the US have been thwarted since 9/11 (a nuclear plant in New England and a planned attack on the Brooklyn Bridge), and that we have experienced people in charge of the extraction. The circumstantial evidence supports my theory. Yours seems to be the African dancing around in circles while mine has a spear and a war party.

And the thing about the Constitution is it's not something we can just hide away when it's inconvenient for us. It's meaningless that way (and make no mistake, detaining people indefinitely without due process is unconstitutional and Justice Scalia himself wouldn't argue otherwise).

THE CONSTITUTION APPLIES ONLY TO AMERICAN CITIZENS. I already went over this. We are under no obligation to extend the Constitution to our enemies. We even extend the Geneva Convention to our enemies when we don't have too, lets not go so far as to give them the Constitution too. If that sounds harsh, so be it.

Al Qaeda and their ilk are twisted, but they aren't totally stupid. They know that they could inflict a 9/11 type disaster on us ten times over without coming close to bringing us to our knees.

I think you are giving them WAY too much credit.

But when we go back on the principles of liberty and freedom that we preach so loudly to the rest of the world, what message do you think that sends to terrorists?

We just freed a country of 50 million people, and before that we took down the Taliban. I don't see that accidentally imprisoning a few inncocent people even comes close to outweighing those accomplishments. The terrorists found hate toward us for Brittany Spears and the fallacy of "cultural imperialism", our military fighting for the majority of people in Iraq who want democracy is just another excuse to continue their fighting. The reason doesn't matter as long as it gives them something to point their rage towards. Rage that is from the perpetual mismanagement of nearly unlimited resources by their leaders. leaders who they cannot fault as most of them either rule with a gun or the Quran. Leaders who have done an excellent job of paint the West a giant scapegoat.

Had the public known about that, they would have gotten angry and demanded that somebody find out who was responsible for such a waste of lives. What they wouldn't have done is demand that we drop out of World War II altogether.

Um, there is a good chance we would have. There were many politicians that were very much against our involvement in the war, and the country at large was split as to whether or not we should get involved in the European theater. There were even many Nazi sympathizers in our country at the time. Roosevelt had to start the "lend/lease" program to England because he knew that the Congress would NEVER vote to sell England weapons and equipment. Japan was a common enemy, but many many people were against being involved in Europe.

Or consider Afghanistan. That was also pretty straightforward. President Bush said, "Al Qaeda was responsible for 9/11, and they are supported by the Taliban.

He also said that this is a war on terrorism wherever it is and in an countries that protect it. I remember the speeech every well as it was right after 9/11.

But then consider Iraq. Remember how that started? Back in 2002, President Bush was saying that we had to get in there to get rid of WMDs. He and his administration presented evidence that Iraq had a weapons program and that it had ties to Al Qaeda and so on. It was called a pre-emptive war to stop further terrorist attacks. There was no talk back then of establishing a democracy in the Middle East so that it would spread freedom and change the entire region and strike at the very root of the culture that spawns terrorism. That's all well and good, but it's not why we went to war. This was one case where the media was actually spreading the message that President Bush wanted. The Washington Post was even in support of the war because its columnists were convinced by the evidence that Saddam had WMDs.

Now here we are two years later, and the reason we're in Iraq is suddenly to spread democracy? Frankly, that looks more to me like trying to make the best out of a messy situation. And as noble as the idea is, the public is discontented because they feel just a bit cheated in the whole matter. Even red staters are turning against the war. After all, that's where most soldiers come from, and they prefer to have a straightforward reason for going to war. What if President Bush had said, right from the beginning, that the main goal was to establish a democracy, free millions of Iraqis and hopefully change the entire Middle East in the process? It would have been a hard sell, but I guarantee Bush would have much less of a problem at home (to say nothing of getting Congress to approve funding for soldiers and so on). And if he couldn't manage that, maybe he should have been willing to wait. Or maybe he should have started his democratic project in Afghanistan just to prove it could work.

My biggest pronlem with the Bush administration is their inability to defend their own policies.

1) The whole world thought there were WMD's. The Clinton Administration thought there were WMD's. Iraq HAD WMD's numbering in thousands of pounds that were found in 1998 which miraculously dissappeared. Before the war the question wasn't whether or not he HAD them, but whether or not we should stick with diplomacy or go to war. Saddam Hussein did everything in his power to make people think he had the WMD's by refusing the cooperate with the inspectors to basically taunting the UN.

2) Installing a democracy. What did you think the US was going to do after they overthrew Saddam regardless of WMD's? Were they just going to allow chaos to take over? Of course not, they were going to do what they did in Germany: build a government. In Afghanistan we also worked to install a democracy, but their was already an interim government waiting in the wings in the northern Rebel Alliance.

What frustrates me about your last two paragraphs is that you are relying on talking points that aren't your own, but that your repeating from the television set. Everything I've said in response to those I've said numerous times before and its all factual, and you knew them before you wrote about the WMD's. So I'm going to leave this conversation before I start repeating myself again. This has all become so very redundant.

[gekko]

Originally Posted by The Strangler

Gekko, what I have been saying is that we shoiuld let the friggin' military handle the situation. You seem to be spewing your anger at anyone who would dare talk about the war without actually being in it. Well thats plain stupid and you are attacking those that are trying to support you over in the states as well as those that are working against you. I'm trying to fight the growing public opinion fed by the media and democratic leaders that not only is our administration wrong, but that now our servicemen are brutal, torturing animals. And for this I get "**** you". Your anger is all over the place, when maybe you are really only angry at yourself.

I know what you've been saying, and I've never said I disagree with any of your points, have I? I'm sick of politics, and politics is two-sided. You know what that means? I'm sick of the people arguing for the war, just as I'm sick of the people arguing against.

I'd rather everyone shut up, and let the military handle it as they see fit. It's politics that got us into the mess, but politics is only going to get us into a deeper mess. There was a time for everyone to say they agree/disagree, now it's a time to sit back, and wait it out.

As for the animals... I have some great pictures

[Xantar]

Your tiger metaphor goes for you too. You are assuming that what we are doing is not working and needs to be completely revamped with no evidence to support that it is failing. You assume that it is not working without knowing anything about it and distrusting those that are trained to do and have experience in the process. I don't know for sure that it is working either. All I know is that we have not been attacked since 9/11, that 2 terrorist attacks on the US have been thwarted since 9/11 (a nuclear plant in New England and a planned attack on the Brooklyn Bridge), and that we have experienced people in charge of the extraction. The circumstantial evidence supports my theory. Yours seems to be the African dancing around in circles while mine has a spear and a war party.

No, I don't know that the system is failing. What I do know is that power given to a bureaucracy inevitably gets twisted and abused. Isn't that why we didn't join in the International Criminal Court? It's not as if we really believed some evil international judge with an agenda would start rounding up random Americans and charging them with acts of war. It was just a matter of distrusting power placed in the hands of a few. I feel the same way about the authorities being able to detain people like this without due process (incidentally, Administration lawyers are trying to argue that Americans can be detained as illegal combatants just like non-citizens, so I'm not so sure that your distinction U.S. and non-U.S. citizens really works).

In the ideal world, this is the kind of power and authority we would grant during wartime and would then take away when it's no longer necessary. In reality, it's extremely difficult to take power away from a bureaucracy. Just ask the communists.

THE CONSTITUTION APPLIES ONLY TO AMERICAN CITIZENS. I already went over this. We are under no obligation to extend the Constitution to our enemies. We even extend the Geneva Convention to our enemies when we don't have too, lets not go so far as to give them the Constitution too. If that sounds harsh, so be it.

No, not harsh. Just hypocritical. Besides, why then are we seeing all these distinctions made between unlawful combatant detainees and prisoners of war? It's all just hairsplitting to get around the Geneva conventions. Let's not pretend the Bush Administration really does have all that much respect for them.

We just freed a country of 50 million people, and before that we took down the Taliban.

A point which doesn't necessarily get through to people on the ground. I'm not going to say that Iraqis hate us and long for the days of Saddam because that's clearly ludicrous. However, the truth is not so simple as saying that the majority of Iraqis want democracy either. Tom Clancy had an insightful line in one of his novels which said that the duty of the President is to ensure that everybody gets a steak dinner every once in a while and a football game on weekend nights. Provide that much and the vast majority of Americans will be content. Make a few substitutions in that statement and you'd have something that applies to Iraq. My guess is that the majority of Iraqis don't have terribly strong feelings one way or another towards democracy, but if they think it will get them fed and clothed, they'll give it a try.

Which in any case is beside the point. Yes, I understand that terrorism is rooted in a cancer on the culture and the society and not necessarily in something inherent to the American culture itself. My point, however, is that anyone can see that terrorism has gotten to us. Not just in the way we've bumped up security and tightened restrictions and so on. The way we're carrying on, anybody with eyes can see that we're scared. And that encourages terrorists to renew their efforts. Sure, they'd keep going regardless, but do we have to help them?

Um, there is a good chance we would have. There were many politicians that were very much against our involvement in the war, and the country at large was split as to whether or not we should get involved in the European theater. There were even many Nazi sympathizers in our country at the time. Roosevelt had to start the "lend/lease" program to England because he knew that the Congress would NEVER vote to sell England weapons and equipment. Japan was a common enemy, but many many people were against being involved in Europe.

Since you're the history major, I'll concede to your expertise. But I'd just like to point out that even supporters of the war here aren't rolling their used tires to collection yards to help in the war effort. Not that I'm saying Bush should go out and ask us for our tires because they won't mean much and never did. I'm just suggesting that some portion of the public really was invested in the war effort. Nowadays, the extent of anybody's support is watching footage on TV and making posts on the internet.

What frustrates me about your last two paragraphs is that you are relying on talking points that aren't your own, but that your repeating from the television set. Everything I've said in response to those I've said numerous times before and its all factual, and you knew them before you wrote about the WMD's. So I'm going to leave this conversation before I start repeating myself again. This has all become so very redundant.

I think your point in these last few paragraphs got muddled because I have no idea what you're arguing or what you're trying to say about my argument. You might want to note, however, that I hardly ever watch TV and so I'd have a very hard time getting my talking points from CNN. Maybe you just misunderstood me. My point in any case was never about whether it was right or wrong to go into Iraq or whether it's right or wrong now to try to establish a democracy. From the moment gunshots were fired, obviously we were set on a course to oust Saddam and establish a new government whether we liked it or not. And I could say that the Clinton Administration as well as the Bush Administration were dupes (despite being a liberal, I wasn't a fan of Clinton's foreign policy), but that's also beside the point.

All I'm saying now is that President Bush and his cabinet could have managed public support for the war so much better. Installing a democracy is a big deal, particularly if it is lasting and provides an example that spreads. As you said, it could lead to nothing less than peace for an entire region and for hundreds of millions of people. Whether I believe that would work or not, those are grand dreams, and Bush would have done well to trumpet them. Sure, you and I understand that a democratic government would have to be established and that it would take a really long time (and I assume back in 2003 that you were prepared to wait however long it took). But did the public at large understand that? I think they didn't, and I think Bush should have made sure that they did. Maybe you and I actually agree on this since you say your biggest criticism is that Bush can't seem to defend his own policies. In any case, I hope that clarifies thing because I'm about ready to give it a rest, too.