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Post by Alfalfa Male on Jun 4, 2004 9:58:45 GMT -5
Check these out while your at it: New reports question war on terror Have US efforts really swelled Al Qaeda's ranks? by Tom Regan | csmonitor.com While officials of the FBI and the Justice Department of the US were telling citizens this week to prepare for possible terrorist attacks over the summer (although Thursday there appeared to be some confusion among US officials over those warnings), a well-known strategic think tank and two human rights organizations were questioning the direction and value of the US-led war on terror. They alleged that the war was actually leading to increased terrorism around the world. Early in the week, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a London-based think tank, released its annual survey of world affairs. The Associated Press reports that the IISS claims that, far from being undermined by the war on terror, Al Qaeda "has more than 18,000 potential terrorists scattered around the world and the war in Iraq is swelling its ranks." Driving the terror network out of Afghanistan in late 2001 appears to have benefited the group, which dispersed to many countries, making it almost invisible and hard to combat, the report said. The US occupation of Iraq brought Al Qaeda recruits from across Islamic nations, the study said. Up to 1,000 foreign Islamic fighters have infiltrated Iraqi territory, where they are cooperating with Iraqi insurgents. www.csmonitor.com/2004/0528/dailyUpdate.htmlad naseum.........  You must be watching network news to get that opinion. The fighting is in an isolated area of Iraq. To hear you and the liberal democrats, you would think that the whole of Iraq is a shooting gallery. Check out this link: "The Bush administration has handled the transfer of power in Iraq more cleverly than anyone expected..." www.davidwarrenonline.com/Comment/Jun04/index216.shtml |
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Post by earthmother on Jun 5, 2004 7:20:47 GMT -5
Alfalfa male--
First of all, we didn't "take care" of the European theater before we took care of the Pacific theater. Where have you been? The Pacific campaign was being waged, in a very lame and disastrous (for us) way, simultaneously with the European campaign. That's why it was such a disaster. Better brush up on your history.
Secondly, you can hardly call Afghanistan "taken care of." Afghanistan and the surrounding countries continue to be a breeding ground for terrorists precisely because we didn't finish up the job there before moving into Iraq. Al Quada has regrouped there, Osama bin Laden is still M.I.A., our soldiers continue to be killed there, the country is a shambles, and Karzai lives under constant threat of being blown up. Show me where we've "taken care" of that situation.
What the hungry children in this country have to do with this issue is the billions of $$ we're spending in Iraq to feed and clothe and house and school and rebuild a country of people who essentially loathe us, even before we invaded them, while meanwhile, millions of our own people here are in desperate need of food, clothing, shelter, and good schools. Not a hard point to grasp. Better to spend our hard-earned tax money taking care of our starving, homeless, and jobless people before we go fixing things in a land where they hate our guts and everything we stand for.
And lastly, I not only lost several very good friends in WTC as well as the fact that Todd Beamer lived in my town at the time his plane went down in PA (and his family still lives here), my father's entire side of the family was wiped out during the Holocaust. I have no relatives at all on that side of my family. So I know a thing or two about the type of devastation these events have wrought. But I still say we don't go attacking people on a hunch that they might maybe do us harm some day. No one ever said anything about knowing an exact time and place. We were never privy to that intelligence surrounding 9/11. But since every single one of Bush's many manufactured reasons for going to war in Iraq has turned out to be flimsy at best, I say we'd damned well better know what we're doing before we go invading other countries and sacrificing the lives of our own sons and daughters, let alone killing other people.
Lastly, you say we are "of free will to join or not join the military." As of June 2005, that may very well not be the case. There are two bills pending in Congress to reinstate the draft. My son will be 18 next May. No way in hell is he going to Iraq to fight this illegitimate occupant of the White House's immoral and illegal war.
Don't mess with me on this issue.
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Post by Tinkerbell on Jun 5, 2004 12:48:04 GMT -5
AMale,
I don't know where you have been during theses last few weeks when the Iraqi prisoner abuse reports hit our air waves?
Anyway, to answer your question regarding horrific and outrageous behavior of our troops under the command of the white house -- our troops leashed naked Iraqi prisoners (as you would leash a dog) and treated them no better than animals. Our troops unleashed vicious attack dogs on naked Iraqi prisoners. Our troops had naked Iraqi prisoners entertain them by performing sexual acts in front of them.
I don't know where you are coming from, but these acts are perverted. No, these prisoners were not killed, but they were tortured in ways not in keeping with the Geneva convention. I suppose though that's okay in your book. Screw the Geneva Convention right? I suppose too that it is okay with you that Saddam's prisons opened up under new management -- the US military. I’m afraid our horrific and outrageous behavior by our troops in Iraq will not win the hearts and minds of the Iraqis or the hearts and minds of the US public.
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Post by MProffitt on Jun 5, 2004 13:58:36 GMT -5
Tinkerbell, careful with words as general as "our troops" - the few men and women who stand accused and are rightly being punished, were impressionable, poorly trained, and poorly educated on rules of conduct on purpose - they were put in this hell house of fear and death all around them, knowingly by superiors who knew all too well what these conditions do to even the best men and women and purposely removed the checks and balances to complete the environment that lead to the abuses. The purpose was deniability - they were used by their government in the worst way - for scapegoat purposes. Hopefully the American public will not let it stop at these poor fools, but will take it directly and squarely where it belongs.
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