Nuthin since Nine Eleven: So Let's Stay the Course, America

Discussion in 'Politics' started by hypewaders, Sep 14, 2007.

  1. hypewaders Save Changes Registered Senior Member

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    We are repetitiously told that the proof of the success of War on Terror, and the Justification for Quagmire is that we haven't been hit since you-know-when. This would make some sense, assuming we had been experiencing non-stop 9-11s before the long hard slog in Iraq.

    If you believe this irrationale, or something close to it, then I would like to discuss it with you.

    Mitch McConnell's interview on NPR today got me pondering this again:

    We keep hearing this, so we should get a handle on it. Is it really true that terrorists are incapable of criminality in the USA because the occupation of Iraq has all terrorists, um, pre-emptively pre-occupied?
     
    Last edited: Sep 14, 2007
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  3. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    It could just be increased airport security, locking cockpit doors, and air marshalls.
     
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  5. hypewaders Save Changes Registered Senior Member

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    Those measures stop car-bombs; UPS-bombs? We did mostly close the airline barn-door after the cows got out- But is another 9-11 the only way that terrorists could freak out The Homeland? Are we to assume that the occupation of Iraq (and let's also include Guantanamo) and other measures really have terrorists like Osama Bin Laden & Co & sympathizers & imitators contained- They're all in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Gitmo..(?)

    Since the WMD justification flopped, this is what the proponents of Staying the Course are latching onto now: The greatest Bring-'Em-On of all.
     
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  7. Neildo Gone Registered Senior Member

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    Nothing since 9/11? I guess all the worldwide attacks don't count. When the 1st WTC bombing occurred, nothing happened till 7-8 years later.. if you don't count the other worldwide attacks, heh, and we didn't have go start a war with anyone. But this time around, we're all expecting another attack this year, which is just about the same time frame as before yet we're at war in Iraq to keep our country safer, uh huh.

    Wars won't stop terrorism. Terrorism on our home grounds is a law enforcement issue, not a military one. All the soldiers in the world won't help better protect our homeland. So what will the excuse be this time when another terrorist attack occurs? Can't stay the course anymore as it'd show it failed. My guess they'll just spin it and enact more laws to take away our freedoms and attack yet another country, which would basically be staying the course, pissing off more Muslims worldwide, yay.

    - N
     
  8. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Two possibilities:

    It took bin Laden five years, after he told us he was coming, to hit us at home; it may be that the next plan simply has not yet reached fruition.

    Also, it is possible that the point of 9/11 was to bait us into doing exactly what we've been doing. We've spent lives and pissed away a good deal of prestige. Given cause, we must go about our response with integrity, else we give over to the enemy.

    As it is, bin Laden and al Qaeda set in motion a sequence of events that have destroyed thousands of lives and seriously damaged American prestige.
     
  9. Exhumed Self ******. Registered Senior Member

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    And if we are hit again they'll act like they never said this and blame Democrats for not giving them more power, etc.
     
  10. countezero Registered Senior Member

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    I think the success is being "spun," but one still can't deny the fact of it: The current administration, love it or loathe it, has prevented terrorist attacks on US soil since that dreadful day all those years ago. I also think it's undeniable that hitting the terrorists overseas has significantly disrupted their command and control, making it more difficult for them to plot 9/11 or U.S.S. Cole type attacks.

    Is the Iraq war distracting the terrorists? The worldwide attacks show that it's not doing that completely, but I can't help but think it must be on some level. Iraq, like Afghanistan in the 1980s, seems to have become the flame for a lot of the wannabe jihadist moths out there. Surely, that impacts how many loons are available for overseas targets (and keep in mind how many of these loons are getting KILLED in Iraq)...
     
  11. mikenostic Stop pretending you're smart! Registered Senior Member

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    Yep. And the native insurgents that once fought against us, are now realizing that Al Queda and their suicide bombers are more trouble than their worth and are now helping us weed them out.
     
  12. hypewaders Save Changes Registered Senior Member

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    This is a difficult concept to convey. Our emotions have been appealed to so consistently, and as a result, that certain assumptions are nearly automatic for us.

    Before 9-11, very few Americans were concerned about the risk of terrorism. Even recalling also the 1993 WTC bombing, it's an exaggeration to assert today that we were under a terrorist onslaught until the War on Terror halted it. We are now consistently told that we must Stay the Course in order to keep terrorism at bay. The phrase is often repeated that we are fighting "them" over there, so we don't have to deal with them here in the USA. It's as if 9-11 has been subliminally inflated into representing an entire era that was halted by war. It's also the leading justification given by the Bush Administration for continuing the occupation of Iraq indefinitely.

    I have trouble with the rationale that international terrorists are too fixated on Iraq and Afghanistan to plan or coordinate attacks on the USA. When Israel cracks down on Palestinians, and even when their aim is true, it isn't long before a Palestinian terrorist strikes again at Israel.

    I don't think it's as instructive to delve into hypothetical future terrorist plans that we know nothing of, as it is to look back at the precedent for our assumption. But at least one forward-looking explanation, which Tiassa mentioned, seems plausible to me:
    Bin Laden's recent video aside (he appealed for American war opposition) it is plausible that organizations wishing to disrupt American hegemony would not want for American public opinion to force withdrawals of expeditionary forces until our attrition in lives, investment, and prestige is maximized in Afghanistan, Iraq, and potentially elsewhere.

    It further seems plausible that if American war proponents continue to play up the stay-the-course-because-there's-been-no-domestic-terrorism mantra, they run a risk of a precipitous drop in popular support should further shocking attacks on the USA occur.

    Americans seem to have widely accepted the thesis that an era of spectacular terrorism has been interrupted by war, or that war precludes terrorism. But I don't see a precedent for the assumption, especially considering other modern conflicts. It must be the politics of fear, overriding reason. Boom- we're at war; no Boom- we stay at war. Perma-war by default.
     
  13. Dunn11x Jesus Christ is The Messiah! Registered Senior Member

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    Have you ever heard of Martial Law?
     
  14. Neildo Gone Registered Senior Member

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    Terrorism occurs all the time, and is settled by law enforcement, not troops. However, I don't doubt Bush using martial law during the next attack, in fact, it's needed to pass these new global economical laws they want.

    - N
     
  15. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    Yep, and every single time it's been used in Baghdad, with curfews and roadblocks, etc, the terrorism was cut to almost nothing. And as soon as it was lifted, at the insistence of the Iraqi Goverment, then the terrorism went right back to killing innocent Iraqi civilians.

    Martial law, the military in charge, works perfectly well to stop terrorism or civil war or any other kind of such actions.

    Baron Max
     
  16. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    How about militia law?
     
  17. hypewaders Save Changes Registered Senior Member

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    Baron Max: "every single time [martial law has] been used in Baghdad, with curfews and roadblocks, etc, the terrorism was cut to almost nothing."

    Terrorism has never ceased in Baghdad throughout the occupation. Neither has martial law. Ever since American forces took control of the country, Iraq has been under continuous martial law: Out in the streets are signs sternly warning all Iraqis that getting too close to American military or mercenary vehicles, or merely finding oneself suddenly too close to colums that routinely disregard all traffic conventions, is punishable by dispassionate deadly force. Iraqis have lived for over four years with the unrelenting fear of having the doors of their homes bashed open in the middle of the night without warrant- by Americans, by the police, and by militias, some of which Americans have been arming. Iraqis are subject to detention and disappearance without warrant at the hands of American soldiers, their Iraqi sidekicks, and the proliferating militias. It's martial law, and often martial lawlessness, but civil law in Iraq is even more broken than public works.

    "as soon as it was lifted, at the insistence of the Iraqi Goverment, then the terrorism went right back to killing innocent Iraqi civilians."

    Martial has has never been lifted in Iraq throughout the occupation. Foreign soldiers have never stopped keeping the "peace".

    "Martial law, the military in charge, works perfectly well to stop terrorism or civil war or any other kind of such actions."

    Resistance and terrorism feeds on resentment to unjust and uninvited foreign occupation. Germany engaged more forces, was more brutal, and enjoyed much greater collaboration in occupied France than the USA has in Iraq. Yet the French Resistance continued a campaign of bombings, sniping, and suicide missions throughout the war. French colonialists then engaged the same flawed assumption that you are making here, Baron, insisting that more crackdowns would halt terrorism against France, against democracy, and against "Western Civilisation" in Algeria. But it didn't work. France had worn out its welcome. Martial law, bitter resistance, and gruesome terrorism ground on for 8 horrific years, until the hopelessness of martial law quelling the resistance became utterly undeniable, and France withdrew. The deep antipathy between the two countries persists to this day.

    I could go on with examples, repeating the aspect of human collective behavior by which overlords, once discredited, are ever overthrown- however long the struggle. There is a certain critical mass that occurs when a foreign occupation is rejected. Beyond that point, there is never a reversal to popular acceptance of the foreign entity.

    Because of Iraqi trauma since the US invasion, there can be no legitimization of the American presence. There can be no popular legitimization of any Iraqi leadership consolidated under US auspices. Resentment, terrorism and sectarian war are in indefinite supply in Iraq, for at least as long as the United States continues expending our finite resolve, in the most crackpot foreign nation-building project that we have ever embarked upon in our history.

    The proponents of this project have desperately run through a series of justifications for this quagmire, and the most compelling have always involved fear-tactic: Saddam is going to nuke us; Saddam is with al-Qaeda; now, it's Victory for Terrorism if we ever back down.

    Through fear, the war, and the terror, have been allowed to drag on. "We're fighting Them over there, so we don't have to fight them over here" is the last great slogan propping up support for this gargantuan mistake in Iraq. You want to believe it, Baron, because you want to believe our country is behaving rightly and rationally. I too don't want our country to be wrong. But this time, we are. If you take a sober look at history and human nature, you can gain an understanding of how we have repeated the very same mistakes that have led powerful countries to shame in foreign military campaigns against militarily-weaker nations.

    Taking over a modern foreign nation, and overseeing a transition to new government is a murderous bluffing game: Sufficient force must be displayed to crush all hope of resistance. In the case of Iraqis, considering all that they have endured in war and under a police state prior to the occupation, the level of foreign brutality necessary for reaching that threshold of submission to foreign authority was higher. It would certainly have required exceeding the level of brutality dispensed by Nazi Germany in France, or by France in Algeria. The United States never came to Iraq politically or logistically prepared to do that. Meanwhile, the threshold is rising, because resistance has been emboldened.

    It is widely understood that the American public is realizing what I have tried to describe to you here. The price of domination is inflating, as even greater brutality would be necessary to outweigh the increasingly-obvious realization that the American political commitment to the cause in Iraq is expiring. American fear of Iraqi terrorists needs a booster-shot in order to further suspend reason. But the signals of future terrorism are unlikely to speak so plainly to Americans. Why did we invade Iraq? Who do we invade next? Does war stop terrorism? The questions keep coming without answers, only war. And "War is the Answer" isn't likely to hit the tp of fthe propaganda charts like "We're fighting them there, so they won't hit us back here" did. Think, Baron, think: The Lone Superpower needs a new slogan to occupy our minds when the present one expires.
     
  18. Neildo Gone Registered Senior Member

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    Baghdad, big whoop. One city. We don't have enough troops on the ground to do that in most other important areas. Rumsfeld thinking we could take over Iraq with a mere 80,000 troops, lol. Good thing we brought in more even though that sure as hell ain't enough!

    - N
     
  19. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    Why did you change the quote, Hype? That wasn't very nice of you!

    Here's what I said:

    Yep, and every single time it's been used in Baghdad, with curfews and roadblocks, etc, the terrorism was cut to almost nothing. And as soon as it was lifted, at the insistence of the Iraqi Goverment, then the terrorism went right back to killing innocent Iraqi civilians.

    The next time you quote me, please do a better job of it ....and don't add in your own bullshit where I didn't say it!

    The rest of your post is just more of the same that we've heard from you since forever .....that you're glad that there's continued trouble for our troops and for America .....and it's all to further your own hatred of the USA.

    Baron Max
     
  20. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    Sounds to me like you're glad.

    Baron Max
     
  21. hypewaders Save Changes Registered Senior Member

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    Baron Max: "The next time you quote me, please do a better job of it ....and don't add in your own bullshit where I didn't say it!"

    I did not misquote you. Here was the context:



    Dunn11x: "Have you ever heard of Martial Law?

    Baron Max: "Yep, and every single time it's been used in Baghdad, with curfews and roadblocks, etc, the terrorism was cut to almost nothing."




    With appropriate brackets to indicate the change, I replaced the possessive pronoun "its" with its antecedent. Martial law was clearly what you were specifically referring to, in responding to Dunn11x's question. I used a standard method of quoting more concisely and accurately, replacing the indefinite pronoun "it" with the word referred to by "it" in context. You're protesting over nothing substantive, and adding nothing substantive to this discussion.

    "don't add in your own bullshit where I didn't say it!"

    I don't think I did. Your meaning was not changed- only emphasized.

    "you're glad that there's continued trouble for our troops and for America"

    No, I have been opposed to this trouble since before [this trouble] began, and am still opposed to it.

    "...and it's all to further your own hatred of the USA."

    That isn't a fair statement. I have never hated, nor have I demonstrated hatred for my country. It seems to me that you are only diverting from the subject here.

    Why?

    You may preface your response by quoting me thusly, and I would have no reasonable cause to take offense. Maligning my patriotism is another matter. Nevertheless, I would graciously welcome your return to topic:
     
  22. Neildo Gone Registered Senior Member

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    Of?

    English lesson for the day: The Use of Brackets.

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    - N
     
  23. hypewaders Save Changes Registered Senior Member

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    Sorry it had to come to that. Class dismissed.
     

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