"If if's and buts were candy and nuts we'd all have a wonderful christmas."

That's the problem when you live in the world of theory and quote Nietzsche Marcus. While you're busy with your pretty pretty words lecturing everyone on the evils of becoming what threatens you, what threatens you is going to come along and kill you. There will you be. Is there no room for practicality in dealing with

Do you deny the fact that radical Islamic terrorists pose a threaten to the citizens of western society Marcus?

Do you think this threat can be handled with your pretty pretty words and kid gloves and still ensure that we are doing everything we can to protect ourselves or is it just that ideals are more important to you than actual lives?

I may in fact agree with you that sometimes ideals are worth dying for but from where I sit America has not even come close to becoming the monster that threatens it. We have a far, far, far way to go before that happens.

It's like Jack Nicholson said "you can't handle the truth."

The fact is that there are islamofacists whom you have never personally met, harmed or even had the slightest desire to harm that want to kill you for no other reason than the fact that you live in a westernized nation Marcus and they might just succeed if we fail to be vigiliant and you just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time someday.

So I ask you. What is YOUR answer as the best way to deal with that?

What is disheartening is that it is done in our name.

Perhaps we have learned a lesson for the betterment of this great land. Perhaps we will wave less flags and ask more questions.

Because I live in a country beset by hate driven terror, I think I have a better handle on this than you do, Richard.

The destruction of the World Trade Center in New York is prima facia evidence that America is at war. The issue is how much do Americans really know about the enemy, and how much will are Americans willing to marshall to destroy that enemy.

Everything else is just gabbing around a kiddush table.

The war that the Americans have conducted in the Middle East over the last several years has been misdirected - badly so. The wrong enemy has been attacked - for the wrong reasons. And it has nearly bankrupted the American economy. And Americans still do not really know who their real enemies are.

If you go to war, you need an identifiable enemy. "Terror" is not an identifiable enemy. It has no address. If Americans lose their freedom over a war that is misdirected, ultimately, the blame lies on their heads - people in "democracies" get the governments they deserve.

Ruvy

Perhaps the very fact that you live in a country that is beset by hate driven terror makes you the least qualified to speak on this topic.

It may be the case that you and your country is the worst at not attracting terrorist attacks.

Perhaps we should hear from people who have managed to offset international dread and hatred, who's inhabitants enjoy a life of safety as a result at least to the greatest degree.

It seems rather reasonable.

Ruvy writes:

The destruction of the World Trade Center in New York is prima facia evidence that America is at war.

True. Totally true.

The issue is how much do Americans really know about the enemy...

Not much...

...and how much will are Americans willing to marshall to destroy that enemy.

Again, not much...

The war that the Americans have conducted in the Middle East over the last several years has been misdirected - badly so. The wrong enemy has been attacked - for the wrong reasons. And it has nearly bankrupted the American economy. And Americans still do not really know who their real enemies are.

Sadly, also true. On all counts.

Perhaps the truth about this story is that Europeans are not distancing themselves from a "war on terror" so much as the War in Iraq and the long detention of people without trial - except by kangaroo court - in Guantanamo Bay.

Recent arrests of would-be terrorists in Europe are evidence of that. However, growing public disquiet in places like Australia - which still believes Habeus Corpus should form the cornerstone of any criminal justice system - in relation to the detention of its citizens in Guantanamo Bay might indicate the friendship is wearing a bit thin on SOME issues.

But Al-Qaeda and oil-Qaeda are two different animals. The so-called "war on terror" isn't the war in Iraq: it's about the rounding up of mass murderers and would-be mass murderers, wherever they may.

All of whom, BTW, are entitled to a fair and quickly instituted trial and the full protection of the law, and in the US that should mean the full protections of US law.

Clavos writes:

Ruvy writes:

The destruction of the World Trade Center in New York is prima facia evidence that America is at war.

True. Totally true.

Not really gentlemen.

It sounds true but lets look at all of the violence that has taken place in this country against large numbers of Americans. The most similar would be the Oklahoma bombing. We would by no means look at that situation as an indication that WE ARE AT WAR. As typical as is the case with Ruvy, that is a dramatic and unreasoned statement.

We are not in a movie and emotional reactions like that are deadly and can have consequences that we will regret for generations to come. Much like the situation in Israel.

Taking out Al Qaeda did not have to be the enormous undertaking that it has become had we FOCUSED on the mission. Containing terrorism should take the role that containing the Soviet threat did 20years ago. It does not have to be in the form of a WAR. Actually its not in the form of any war. Its a completely chaotic mess. Simply because we weren't focused. We were posturing; we talked big, made dramatic gestures and hoped what we said would come true, much like Israel has done for generations now.

The reason that we used such dramatic wording to describe our engagement with the terror issue is because we thought that it was going to be easy. Just as we thought that containing drugs was going to be simple. "Managing the brown people would only require simple Ameeeeercan ingenuity....". We should address both issues in a more stayed, methodical, and diplomatic way as we do all things that we deem serious. This is not an MGM production.

Zedd,

Aside from your completely fallacious comparison of the Murrah bombing to the attack on the WTC, your reference to movies makes it obvious you missed Ruvy's point altogether, and have no idea what he meant; which, ironically, proves his point.

Clavos

I should have stated and intended to say that I agree with Ruvy on the rest of his comments. I just got caught up on the Oscars and was going to come back.

However I think that we need to stamp out the extreme language. It is what leads to what the rest of Ruvy's contribution was. It IS the Hollywood rendition of our reality. It is inflammatory to us and our enemies. It also causes us to loose face across the globe as all are used to our posturing now and it only ensues the yawn or "zzzzz" that you so frequently employ on this site.

But I must say, you are correct. Ruvy made sense. I didn't however agree with the statement that I highlighted.

Fair enough, Zedd.

But, I'm still puzzled that you don't see that there is no valid comparison between the Murrah bombing and the attack on the WTC...

One was a lunatic act by an American citizen; the other was a calculated, cold-blooded attack on Americans by foreigners; i.e., an act of war.

Clavos: The bombers of the WTC were just as much lunatics as McVeigh was. You submitted the dramatics again Clavos. Attacking strangers for no real reason is CRAZY. There is no foreign crazy and American crazy.

The people in OKC are no less dead than those of 911. It was ALL diabolical and INSANE.

Both attacks were methodical, only one was successful, Mcveigh's.
----
Can a country declare war on individuals??? I understand that you are a devil dog. Please enlighten me.

No, Zedd, they didn't attack for no reason.

While perhaps the actual attackers were somewhat incomprehemsible to people like you and me because they killed themselves to carry out their attack, they were no different than the kamikaze pilots in WWII; they were committing an act of war in service to their ideology; an ideology which we now know is dedicated to the eradication of this country, among other things.

If you don't recognize that, you prove, as I said before, Ruvy's original point.

Just for the record: I am NOT talking about the Islamic religion.

Clavos

The ideology is INSANE. For anyone who gets involved with cults (this is a bizarre interpretation of Islam) they are experiencing a mental crisis of sorts. The brainwashing that takes place robs them of their ability to reason. They are not like the kamikaze. While their commitment level may have a cultural element, their reason for being committed to that particular venture is insane.

You do realise that McVeigh represents a great deal of kooks who live in secluded areas who feel they represent the purest ideal of Americanism and have a strong passion for weapons...

OMG uhhh Dave did I say I live in DFW? I meant The Twin Cities. Far far away. Actually I'm moving right now to uhmmm Hong Kong, yeah that's it. Not any where near you.

It can be argued that WTC and Murrah were similarly conceived as mass murder schemes by two vengeance-driven maniacs. They differed in the number of cohorts recruited as accomplices, and magnitude of slaughter and some other variables, but were both basically the product of charismatic mass-murderers. Rather like Manson, etc.

Zedd,

The ideology is INSANE. For anyone who gets involved with cults (this is a bizarre interpretation of Islam) they are experiencing a mental crisis of sorts. The brainwashing that takes place robs them of their ability to reason. They are not like the kamikaze. While their commitment level may have a cultural element, their reason for being committed to that particular venture is insane.

All of that is true. What's your point? Just because they are insane from our POV (certainly not theirs) doesn't make them any less dangerous.

In fact, they are MORE dangerous IMO, precisely because they are so fanatical and out of the normal scheme of things. And they, those who sent them, and all the rest of those particular fanatics, have declared they won't stop until the "great Satan" is destroyed.

You do realise that McVeigh represents a great deal of kooks who live in secluded areas who feel they represent the purest ideal of Americanism and have a strong passion for weapons...

I'm aware of them; yes, of course. McVeigh is one of them, but I don't think he represented anybody but himself. Our American kooks aren't very well organized, plus they are well known to the FBI, who keeps a fairly close eye on them (though in McVeigh's case, obviously not close enough!).

They don't pose as great a threat, IMO, because they aren't organized, nor are they nearly as fanatical. There are also far fewer of them than of the Al Q'aeda fanatics.

Clavos

They McVeigh groups are all over the country. Just like the extreme Islamists, there are different sects and many times they interact. There are the ones who focus more so on the White supremacy angle and others who see themselves and American purists others are Christian extremists. They all have converging points. I realize that you are aware of that. What has been significant is that the government keeps an eye on these guys. There has been (don't know now) been a segment of the justice system that is assigned to their tampering. Some of the attacks that people of the right wing have been outraged about were indeed a prevention of further attacks against the rest of us.

Israel is not successful in bringing peace to their region. Their extreme actions insure generations after generations of hatred and attacks. While they have been persistent and unyielding, its clear that the manner in which they address the problems is a failure. Their war on terror has actually caused a destabilization of the entire globe. First and foremost among these extremist's hatred of the U.S. is our commitment to Israel. I'm sure you know that too.

I'll come back to this, must get to work.

Minor correction to the post for Richard and/or editors - it should read an $11.5 million settlement, not $115-million.....

Deano

I was stunned by that settlement. I was tempted to go put on a burqa in hopes of being kidnapped and tortured. I'd probably have a better chance than winning the lottery.

Just keep talking Zedd, the Men in Black are on their way....just wait for that late-night knock at the door.

Don't worry, Zedd. The McVeigh types and the islamic extremists have a lot in common and are starting to form ties and work together. It's just a matter of time before they're sharing resources and teaming up on projects here in the US.

Dave

Dave

I'm not sure if you are serious about that statement or if you have reason to conclude that, however, we have to become comfortable with the idea that a time will never come when all is well and we have no enemies.

Clavos

I think we start of with the delusion that having enemies means that something is wrong. As THE big power in the world today, it comes with the territory. The 911 attacks came as we were transitioning from being communism obsessed. We thought that threat was over. We abandoned the idea of containment. When the attacks occurred we started over in our thinking (some did any way). We forgot the lessons of the years with the Soviets and reinvented the wheel accept the new wheel was square.

Bush went all commando (scared actually) and started naming off who was next (Axis of Evil). Because of lack of knowledge and respect for the cultures that we were dealing with, we thought that we had to deal with them differently. Instead of immediately and aggressively recruiting Arab spies, we went to what we were most comfortable with, Iraq and Saddam. We thought that we were smarter and more developed so we would just smack them around into submission. We blew a giant hole in the earth down to its core and then later, much too late, invited the experts, Baker and Co to evaluate the situation. Guess what they suggested? Diplomatic and strategic solutions.... sounds familiar.

People are people folks. If you start with the dramatics and calling people EVIL you will loose your ability to reason affectively. Something that is evil is unreachable, it is hopeless and the only thing that can be done is to destroy it. However the problem is that we cant just destroy these groups and expect to remain safe so we have to end the theatrics and deal with this people strategically. EVERYONE wants respect. Even the nuttiest nut. Lets use that to our advantage. Everyone wants to be heard (especially religious kooks). Lets USE it to our advantage. It worked with the Soviets. It works with hostage negotiators and even cops who interrogate.

Taking on Israels knuckle headed approach is useless. Reagan started the "we don't negotiate with terrorists" and we kept that useless bit of advise. Carter worked out all of the details of the release of the Iranian hostage thing... But we took Reagan's statements and thought YEAH! No one ever said "why not?"

So, let's see,

ONLY Clavos was able to figure out what I was saying. Intelligent fellow, he is.

Zedd busies herself lecturing me on why I, born and bred in the United States (Brooklyn, to be specific) but presently living in Israel, am the last person who should comment on this. I see... Stupidity mixed with ignorance reigning supreme. Subsequent comments then follow around her assertions.

Don't you ever worry that someone will whack off that wagging finger of yours, madame?

Here in the US we don't wack off wagging fingers. We leave that to the saudis.

We leave that to the saudis.

Who are VERY good at whacking off! :>)

Ruvy

I wasn't criticising you. I was critiquing part of your idea, as we do on blogs. I thought the rest was brilliant! Bravo!!.

Clavos

You deserve a wagging finger for that. Here I thought you were an innocent soul. tisk tisk indeed.

BTW how many languages do you speak???

I realise that this is off topic

Zedd,

I speak, read, and write Spanish, English (duh!) fluently, and Portuguese well. I can read (but not really write) and speak Italian to a lesser degree than the first three, and I can read and speak French well enough to irritate Frenchmen. I can read Latin with comprehension, but am not fluent in it.

I also can understand Haitian Creole a little bit, and a little Vietnamese, though I've lost most of that from 40 years of disuse.

Bravo!!

I speak two languages fluently and stumble over two others.

I have difficulty memorizing things thus learning a new language in an academic setting is hopeless. I speak a bit of French but I took it in high school AND college and still stammer through it. My pronunciation is impecible though.

Afrikaans and English?

I traveled to and through SA twice, but a long time ago, while apartheid was still the law.

I loved it, except for the apartheid, which to my amazement made me, a white man, feel oppressed; probably because, coming from the USA, I wasn't used to being told which park bench I could sit on, etc. Our segregation here was pretty much one way, but apartheid, I discovered, went both ways.

That said, I found the country beautiful, and I saw a lot of it.

On my second trip, my wife accompanied me and we rented a VW camper in Jo'burg and then spent a month driving all over the country, visiting and camping in Kruger and several of the other game parks, as well as Capetown, Port Elizabeth, East London, Durban, Pretoria, and a whole host of smaller towns in between. We even went into Swaziland.

One of my best memories is walking out to the last possible spot at Cape Point, turning to face north, and thinking "there's an entire continent in front of me, and I'm standing on the very tip of it." I like weird things like that.

I'd like to go back again someday...

Clav wrote: "One of my best memories is walking out to the last possible spot at Cape Point, turning to face north, and thinking "there's an entire continent in front of me, and I'm standing on the very tip of it." I like weird things like that."

Lol. Great minds think alike ... or would that be, small things amuse small minds? On my recent trip to Byron Bay, I walked out to the tip of Cape Byron, the most easterly point in Australia, stood on the rocks, turned west and yelled out to my wife: "An entire continent starts at me."

Then it took me an hour to climb back up the hill to the lighthouse. So much effort for a few moments of idiocy. Boys will be boys ...

"While perhaps the actual attackers were somewhat incomprehemsible to people like you and me because they killed themselves to carry out their attack, they were no different than the kamikaze pilots in WWII; they were committing an act of war in service to their ideology; an ideology which we now know is dedicated to the eradication of this country, among other things."
- Clavos

Actually there was a difference, that being that the kamikazes performed their actions during military combat of a declared war, while the 9-11 attacks were against civilians in peacetime.

True. But, weren't there kamikazes at Pearl also?

Well, no. The Japanese didn't start using the kamikaze until about halfway through the Pacific battles, as sort of a last ditch effort after their major defeat at Midway. They used kamikaze's mostly during the Phillipines and Okinawa battles.

Didn't know that.

There was another difference between the two.

While there was plenty of outrage after 9/11, it didn't last long, and the nation didn't unite like it did after Pearl.

True. But, weren't there kamikazes at Pearl also?

I think the closest thing were the suicide subs, which didn't have the air or fuel to make it back and be picked up.

Dave

"While there was plenty of outrage after 9/11, it didn't last long, and the nation didn't unite like it did after Pearl."
- Clavos

I think the reason it didn't last long had a lot to do with our preemptive invasion and occupation of Iraq, since none of the 9-11 terrorists were Iraqis.

Maybe.

But there have also been some fundamental changes in people's minds about what it means to be American. We have pretty much lost our cohesiveness, I think.

And many of the ideas ascendant in the world today regarding allegiances and citizenship probably preclude our ever regaining it, IMO.

I don't think you have lost your cohesiveness or that there has been any fundamental changes to what it means to be an American.

I do think that the current administration has tried to redefine and hijack the concept of "being American" in their own ideological image - marginalizing others who don't agree or don't fit as unpatriotic, anti-American or supporting the terrorists.

I suspect a big chunk of the current public opposition is far less of a support for other political parties than it is an attempt to swing back to what most people see as "being an American", a precept that Bush is perceived as having exceeded by many people.

I think there was tons of unity and outrage over 9/11...it was squandered in bits, nibbled to death by the Iraq War, Abu Gharib, Guantanamo, the Patriot Act....

I don't think you should be shocked by where you are, I think you should be shocked that it took you this long to get there.

You make a good point, Deano.

But, from the way you phrased it, I'm guessing you don't live in the US.

There are entire segments of the population these days that live here for a variety of reasons having nothing to do with what America is philosophically.

I know people who have lived in the USA for the 30+ years and have no interest whatever in being American citizens. Hell, I live in a city (Miami) full of people much more attuned to what's going on back home than here, and with little to no interest in learning or getting involved.

That's what I'm referring to.

And maybe it's not a bad thing...

Clavos, re your 37;

I feel a lot of it has to do with our unprovoked attack on another country. We've always had this "Don't fuck with us. If you start it, we'll finish it" attitude.

Personally, this aggression against Iraq - propagated by a lying, deceitful administration - is un-American, IMO.

Actually, MCH, I think it had its genesis in the Vietnam fuckup.

I wouldn't disagree, Clavos. Even the late General Douglas MacArthur advised against going into Vietnam. And nobody understood Pacific Rim warfare better than he did.

But we actually had a rebound during/after the first Gulf War. I remember Bush sr. saying "We finally got that Vietnam monkey off our backs." And I think a lot of folks agreed that that action united the country and made us feel proud again.

Until this latest cluster-fuck.

Clav: you've been here before old boy, and it must be frustrating to watch. The answer in Iraq: COIN (tried and trusted counter-insurgency techniques that have been used with sucess for the past 50 years) ... in other words, armed social work, rather than just armed and angry.

If you are going to go around blowing things up and shooting the sh.t out of people, at least rebuild the infrastructure and spend the money on the people of Iraq so they might at least think there was some purpose to it all.

Right now, I suspect they are so far from that kind of thought that the damage might now be irreversible. IMO, it all started to go pear shaped at Abu Ghraib - sending reservists imbued with the culture of the US prison system into such a sensitive operation was a huge mistake (some hadn't even been outside the small towns they grew up in). The other mistakes were disarming and disenfranchising the police and the military, many of whom hated Saddam.

Take away people's livelihoods, and they start to get a bit annoyed. At the point where 95 per cent of Iraqis were welcoming of the US for getting rid of Saddam, the advisers in Washington blew it - they forgot to justify their huge paypackets by understanding what needed to happen.

Not surprisingly, the thing that really pissed Iraqis off early doors was the cutting of already intermittent water and power supplies, and the looting of national treasures because the US couldn't spare the troops. However, there was a pretty good 24-hour guard set up around the oil ministry.

The reason for the increased troop numbers now slated for Iraq is for one purpose only: to begin a counter-insurgency campaign that will rely more on winning over hearts and minds and less on shootin' the shit out of everything. Such a strategy does require large numbers of troops, but troops who might not necessarily be engaged in a shooting war.

Ultimately, however, all this will have one purpose: to get out for good with some face saved.

some face saved.

Yup. That's worth dying for, alright.

Either way, not worth dying for. Certainly not for a lie. Perhaps in situations where our own lives aren't under threat, we'd all be better off minding our own business.

Right on, mate...

Clavos #29

I've come to know that oppressors are oppressed themselves. The have sealed off a plethora of experiences from themselves. The knowledge that one never experiences when they choose to dismiss another soul, let alone a people, is exponential.

I would watch the over weight, uneducated red necks in town as a child, how angry and lacking they seemed to be.... We were quite well financially, my parents educated, we had servants and a full and enchanting life; we were exposed to the underdeveloped Africa as well and had the highest respect for the people because we understood their depth and wisdom. Those poor boiled people in town assumed superiority to me because of my carmel complexion, how base it all seemed then to five year old me. To imagine that most of those people are dead now, lives partially lived in Africa, not knowing Africa....

I don't speak Afrikaans that well. My grandmother did however.

Deano

What good debaters understand is that if you define the meaning of words first then pose the question, you own the discussion.

This administration and those who have spun for this party for the past 20yrs have succeeded by using that technique. They defined what "good" is. Goodness is patriotism. They then defined what patriotism is. Patriotism is going along with us. Once those parameters were set, anyone who disagreed with them was unpatriotic and therefore BAD.

Quite clever really.

What was missed was that it was a trick and a lie. We started using words like "spin" more frequently to disguise or soften the notion of a lie. What has resulted off course is a chaotic amalgamation of spun actions which off course produced nothing or catastrophe. The busy work of spinning prevented real activity to take work. It was all disingenuous, just buying time until whatever the real agenda was carried out. Bad appointments were made (UN, CIA, FBI) and even worse, relationships were bruised with the international community, even our best allies. The spin also created a hypnotized populous who voted in unqualified people because they spouted of the rhetoric of patriotism.