They Think It Can't Happen Here Again!!!!
 

Some of these people they interview on TV seem to think "IT" can't happen here again because of all of the "stepped up" security, awareness and such......got news for you all.....it can and will happen again unless these freaks are dealt with and that right quick! :doh:

It seems impossible to put a genie back in it's bottle......it will definately happen here again.....might not initially be by an Islamist terrorism group, but it will happen here again.

All groups with political agendas can now see terrorism as a final weapon to getting their way if they feel they are loosing their cause......Christian Foundamentalist bombings of abortion clinics = terrorism.

Maybe we should start nuking churches that are known to associate with extreme christian groups now then?

Everyone wants to nuke the middle east, so why not nuke here at home?

Just start another superfund after.

:rotf3:

Can test that new bunker busting nuke on some of those crazy non-drinking baptist churches in maine!

Cuz yanno, old growth oak is like concrete and all.

I work on the periphery of the international security business. BigFish is absolutely correct in his assessment that it will happen here again. It may not be a plane or a train or a bus but the extremist will use whatever means thay can to strike terror into the American public.
Of couse, Nuking a Middle East country will not solve the problem. leaving Iraq will not either. What the hell, we weren't there on 9/11 were we?
No, the answer is a lot more complex and, trust me, I'm not bright enough to know what it is.
I know I fought for my country in a foreign land back in the 60's and it burns me to see what is happening here and around the world. We are now relegated to these "Alerts" so we can be more vigilant.
I just feel that if we are going to wage war, then by God, let's do it!!! :bounce:

Yep....has always been the downfall of the US since the days of WWI.

Why is it that the US is the (or at least was the first) only country in history to not TAKE OVER a country once we beat them in war? Doesn't that kind of make the whole purpose of the war in the first place irrelevant? What's the point in beating up your sworn enemy (AFTER THEY PUNCHED YOU FIRST) and then just going home and letting them attack you again tomorrow?

Never mind take over....we are rebuilding their friggin country at our expense!!!!!! :mad:

Army giving 5 more billion to Halliburton to do jobs the Army should be doing.

Surprise? Nah, none here.

Same s**t, different war....... :mad:

We should not be doing anything!!!!!! We completed our mission when we removed Saddam from power.....no WMD's....our bad but then it turned into a "lets rebuild Iraq and put our own system in place to run the country and that way everyone will forget that the real reason we were there was to find the WMD's"! We are paying the freight for cryin' out loud......why? Gas prices are at an all time high and we...the American public are getting royally screwed!!!!! This country is in dire need of some reform let me tell you....and you think an uprising can't happen here? We need some change here! :mad:

I agree BF.....but one question.... Why is it that EVERYBODY forgets the REALITY that WE KNOW FOR A FACT THAT SADDAM HAD WMD......HE USED THEM TO KILL OVER 200,000 SUNNIS AND KURDS. This is undisputable and part of the public record.

We may not have found WMD in Iraq, but we know they have the technology to build them (mostly biological) at any time they liked. I guess the question is: do we attack after the weapons are made, or before they are made? These are not stock-pile type weapons. They can be made easily at any time.

BTW - it ALSO pisses me off to no end that the American people (or more accurately our pocket-books) are being used to subsidize the entire world. Yet we have no jobs here, and many people struggling to make ends meet in the USA..... :realmad: :realmad:

We didn't find any technology either.

Its a known fact the weapons they used in Iran were given to them (by us in part... the VX was traced to a chemical company in the US) but how much "technology" they got is a whole other question.

Its all retarded if you ask me.

Yep

Those deaths, if I am not mistaken, happened before Iraq invaded Kuwait? Not after the rules were set in place to prohibit Iraq from having them. I believe they are still there somewhere! Saddam needed removing and that reason for going into Iraq is good enough for me but we should have packed it up and left that %$%$%$%$te-hole to itself after we got the head honcho.......I believe we are only there now to police the region until Bin Laden is apprehended....they are just trying to limit his options for hiding.

The key word is HAD.

The administration said as fact they knew Saddam had stockpiles. Rummy even went so far as to say he knew where they were. The reality is we nothing to justify these claims aside from some unaccounted for stocks that hadn't been destroyed by the time the inspectors left. WMD that had a short shelf life anyway...

The important point is that we've set the bar so low for justification we couldn't ever repeat it and out credibility is seriously damaged.

Why is this important?

Our credibility and moral high ground give us the freedom to address the real threats without the same resistance. In other words, it's impacted our ability to keep it from happening again.

-spence

This country, as well as almost all others in history, have never just packed up and gone home after a war. the only time we didn't do it was when we lost, i.e. Vietnam. We still have troops in Germany and Japan over 50 years after we defeated them. So would anyone in their right mind suspect that Iraq would be different? Leaving a country after you have defeated them is simply a receipe for another war in a decade or so.

We did not have troops in all of Germany...just part of it after the split! Point is we were not there rebuilding it or trying to govern it! :rtfm:

If it happened in Britain, of course it could happen here.

Britain's intelligence services are the equal of anyone's.

They don't have a written constitution with a Bill of Rights. There's no 4th Amendment in the UK, and their courts don't have an exclusionary rule that prohibits the introduction of illegally obtained evidence.

Their intelligence and law enforcement people aren't hamstrung by their laws, and they have much more leeway to conduct wiretaps, other electronic surveillance and warrantless searches of premises.

Almost 35 years of IRA terrorism has given their law enforcement people a lot of experience, and their laws allow the authorities to detain terrorist suspects without bringing charges, sometimes "At Her Majesty's Pleasure", which means they throw away the key.

Their miltary special operations folks are the gold standard world-wide and they can be employed domestically. And have been reputed to have been used as hit squads against the IRA and INLF.

And, you have to believe that whatever intelligence the US has gleaned against Al Queda and its friends since 9/11 has been shared with the Brits.

Ever here of the uhh, err, Marshall PLan? Technically, "WE" only had troops in 1/4th of Germany, France, the UK, and the Sovs split up the rest plus a 4 way split of Berlin (who here has taken the Berlin Night Train :hee: :wavey: ). The ideological difference of the Soviets brought the Iron Curtain and resulted in the Berlin Airlift.

We did rebuild Germany and Japan and we, or at least our parents and grandparents and Capesams :laughs: , paid a goodly portion of it. We instituted the governments there and got them started too. But the German people and the Japanese people pulled themselves together and made something of their countries with PRIDE. But they were fully defeated militarily but fortunately did not have much in the way of roving hit squads and suicide bombers.

right on....homerun04
if you think about the money being spent daily on the war on drugs....the war in Iraq, afghanistan, and every where else we're having to play world cop,,,,, and what that money could do for us Americans as part of their states budget...it's mind boggling. Easily we could give each state in america a 2 billion dollar + boost if were were not engaged in all these endeavors. Those huge BLACK triangular area 51 aircraft seen by thousands of Americans floating over head with no sound what so ever,,,,are the secret aircraft of Armegeden.... and i have no doubt that we shall prevail....but we dont want to do it pre-emptively which is feared to be looked at historically as a non American type of approach based on principle
and will probably only be used in retalliation.

thank you john....

just last week a "master of all he surveys" was proclaiming the injustices of Gitmo and I laughed about Amnesty's comment that it was the "Gulag" of our time.

Then I mentioned that 8 or so congressman went down to review the "atrocities" (a cross section of parties mind you) and we have heard nary peep from the press since.

I think when they saw the air conditioning many of the leftists shut up.

how soon people forgot about 9/11 and Madrid and began criticising again....

Stop with the "we still have troops in X" because neither of those places would fall apart like Iraq would today, tomorrow, or a year from now if we pulled out.

Those are normal overseas bases, not "occupation forces".

the problem is
 

that the enemy is as terrified of democracy as we are of terrorism.

I wouldn't say that's true at all. Tell me there hasn't been plenty of reporting on GITMO since???
Do you have to be a leftist to be critical of GITMO? Don't think so, in fact it's an observation any pragmatic person can make regardless of idiology.
I love how it always comes back to the "remember 9/11" mantra. Does 9/11 weaken the US Constitution? Does it give us freedom to ignore our own laws?

If the Founding Fathers were aware the US Government was secretly detaining large numbers of people without charge they would be rolling in their graves.

We're not talking about the specific interrogation of known terrorists, it's the wholesale rounding up of anyone we choose, then putting them through hell to see if they just might know anything...

I think most Americans find the interrogation techniques permitted and at times endorsed by the Administration to be quite un-American and patently dehumanizing, often abusive and sometimes even torture.

This isn't my America, and if 9/11 made it so, then you have just given Bin Laden another victory.

-spence

Soence - I agree with some of your points, and disagree with some others.

I guess that's what makes the world go round.............. :)

But there is no question that they started out as "occupation forces" and the situation in Japan and Germany right after WWII was much the same as it is in Iraq today. Yes, including "insurgents" then referred to as die hards who were still fighting the allied troops well after their goverments had surrendered. Many parts of south pacific weren't "pacified" until several years after the war ended. Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.

Spence,

re:"I love how it always comes back to the "remember 9/11" mantra. Does 9/11 weaken the US Constitution? Does it give us freedom to ignore our own laws?

If the Founding Fathers were aware the US Government was secretly detaining large numbers of people without charge they would be rolling in their graves. "

I doubt that. The U.S. consitution does not apply outside the U.S.,, neither do most U.S. laws. Do you think we just tried spies during our other wars when they were caught outside the U.S.? We did, and still do, treat POWs according to the Geneva conventions. But the guys at Gitmo don't qualify for POW status, as they were never in a recognized army to start with. IMHO thay are treating the majority of those guys waaay better than they deserve.

The US has agreed to International law which many believe we are clearly violating. The Constitution may not dictate International law, but that doesn't mean the Founding Fathers didn't write plenty about how they felt the US should act Globally.

Just because a prisoner isn't a POW doesn't mean there are no rules. If we believe in the Rule of Law then we should establish guidelines for treatment of suspected terrorist prisoners so it's clear we are within bounds. One of the major political failures of GITMO is that it sends the message we are above all law.

-spence

Name the "International law" that many believe we are violating. there are no rules governing non-POWs. There are no laws, international or otherwise that govern how a soverign nation can treat detainess outside their own country who are not POWs. We are a nation of laws, that is we have laws that govern our actions within the country. Outside the country there are a few international treaties, but other than that, anything goes. That's why we have wars! There aren't and should not be any bounds on how we treat captives who are intent of harming innocent civilians. IMHO anything is fair game. How do you think the spy game is/was played, especially during the cold war? Do you think we fed enemy spies cookies to get the information we wanted out of them?

I know its difficult for epople, who are used to have laws or rules govern every aspect of their lives, but once you step outside the country and engange in hostile acts against a soverign nation, there are no rules. You may wish it otherwise, but that't the way it is and has always been.

ok spence, I set myself up for that...

I haven't heard much reporting on "ATROCITIES" at Gitmo since the reports of their return and their subsequent reports....


do you have anything current that I have missed ?

i hope so.....


The right and the left are usually poorly informed, IMO, and that has a huge impact on their rhetoric.

World Peace and rebuilding
 

I am addressing many issues mentioned here bear with me.

We did rebuild Germany and they paid every cent we told them it cost. They are the only country to do so. We took over Japan and instituted our form of democracy there. That was their payback. If Haliburton wasn't submitting the lowest contract bids some other company would be with "ties" to one of our current leaders.
As far as WMD's, nope no one found any amount that could be considered a stockpile. Did he have and use them in the past, just ask the KURDS. Did Saddam and his henchmen kill 300,000 non believers, just ask their families who have been digging their bodies up. And Saddam showed so much arrogance in those peoples murders he left their identification with thier bodies. 300,000 is all they have founbd so far because things are a little hot out in the desert in Iraq right now, so no looking is going on.
Why are we the only country that is supposed to be blessed with free speech and a democratic way of life? In this regard we are extremely selfish. Sure we give money, we give many things and now we are giving are most precious children to this cause. I am not referring to one person here on this
list when I say this but many people are starting to sound like Jane Fonda out there, and most of them are doing and saying things only because they want to unseat George Bush. These Fondas, certain senators and congressman,
do not really care about our servicemen and women they just want to get a democrat in the high office, which makes thier intentions rather obscene.
To say that we shouldn't be there is to say that their isn't an Iraqi worth saving. You can't always bandaid problems overseas with foreign aid and hope thing will get better. Sometimes you have to gut it up and do the right thing and sometimes that hurts.

This is also a VERY different situation Mike, occupying and just sitting on the country is NOT working this time around.

Just because it worked before dosen't mean it'll work again.
Maybe you're forgetting the ENORMOUS DEBT that we're accruing from all this?

Whats it all worth? Honestly.

That's simply not true. The Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions detail treament of prisoners who don't have POW status. The US Army's field manual even recognizes protections for non-POW's "engaged in hostile or belligerent conduct."

Perhaps even more significant was the recent US Supreme court ruling that "United States courts have jurisdiction to consider challenges to the legality of the detention of foreign nationals captured abroad in connection with hostilities and incarcerated at Guantánamo Bay."

-spence

Wasn't that like 2 weeks ago?

-spence

I will never forget the day i was having breakfast and read that bush and CO refused to re-sign the treaty that held american forces liable for international war crimes. I think he was in office for about 1 month. 9/11 hadn't happened yet and when i read that i knew we were going to go to war. I had a hunch it was going to be Iran.
Bush has spent about 90% of his energy on fixing other nations policies and about 10% on our own.. I really dont agree with that..

janefonda was great in barberella IMO

Im staying out of this one.
:bounce:

Me too....Im just enjoying some of the bonehead comments im seeing from the well known lefties on here. Its quite funny yet so sad in many ways :rollem:

dont worry. i've heard some real classics from you too :bshake:

O.K., I'm going to have to look up those two treaties. The U.S. army field manual is just that, a manual, no force of law and can be changed at the pentagon's whim. As far as the court rulings go, notice that they didn't say that the Consitution applied, only that the detainees needed to have some sort of hearing. In fact that decision proves my point about the consitution not applying outside the U.S. Do you think the courts would allow a hearing before a military tribunal to pass for justice, inside the U.S. ?