Threat Assessment by dreamtrove

You know Chris, this was my ninth and final attempt to bait the supporter of either Clinton or Bush to talk, and the fact that they won't do it leads me to one conclusion: They have no ideological defense of their position. IOW, the are on the take, plain and simple, there's really nothing else to it. So, I'm gonna just give up, I'm sure there are better uses for my time.

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Monday, March 27, 2006 1:33 PM

My two cents worth:

North Korea (DPRK): From what I gather (including an interview I saw somewhere with Bill Clinton), the issue is money. The previous Clinton agreement had basically boiled down to "We will give you money and oil, and you will not pursue weapons programs in return". I believe this is still more or less what the North koreans are looking for; essentially extortion money. The Bush administration has taken this off the table. As Clinton pointed out, the only resource or industry or anything they have to sell is weapons, including nuclear technology. So they are threatening to sell/advance these unless we broker a new deal. I personally believe Kim Jong Il (?) is fairly reasonable and western minded, but is backed into a corner with a starving country and no options. He has nuclear technology and some materials currently, but doesn't really want to sell them. He wants money from us. And in turn, we want to wait him out and see his government crumble. Reunification is probable, but Kim Jong Il doesn't want to be made obsolete, and will fight much of it. Now, what the best course of action is...

CHINA: Personally I see them as the biggest real threat to the US. This is due to the Taiwan stand-off, their recent increases in military spending, the amount of public debt financed by them, and their portion of the trade deficit. I foresee them retaking Taiwan and telling us to back off as they do it. Then we have an option: back our promise to protect Taiwan and have the financial shirt stripped off our back just as we are going into a REALLY big war, or sit back and let them. Probably the latter.

CHINA and INDIA: Let's not forget that the real threat is economic, and a strong economy of the future comes from education. Simply put, the reason we won't be a superpower in forty years is because they will pass us. I just read China is building 800 univeristies in the next few years, each capable of 20,000-35,000 students. D'oh!

"It's a cow."

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Monday, March 27, 2006 1:46 PM

Sorry, Dreamtrove, I didn't realize this was bait for a trap. *Puts down peanut butter sandwich* I'll just be going then...

"It's a cow."

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Monday, March 27, 2006 4:19 PM

SEVENPERCENT

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
All partisan politics aside

You say this, but then you say this:

Quote:
bait the supporter of either Clinton or Bush to talk

Which seems to me like you want to start a partisan catfight in this thread. If a Bush supporter comes in (which we all know I'm surely not), will you just play pile-on? Or is it if a Clinton supporter comes in first he/she gets the treatment? I think that's why no one wants to play in the thread, it's got nothing to do with defending a position (especially since you haven't really given an argument with a position to side one way or the other).

Besides, unless you're talking about Hillary - who is not Pres yet, and probably will never be - I see no reason why you even bring up Clinton's name in the same sentence as Bush. As I tell everyone that jumps on the "But Clinton," the man is no longer President, and has not been for enough time that the ability to use him as a defense of Bush has long passed.

------------------------------------------
He looked bigger when I couldn't see him.

Anyone wanting to continue a discussion off board is welcome to email me - check bio for details.

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Monday, March 27, 2006 4:51 PM

Sick Dude

Quote:
I personally believe Kim Jong Il (?) is fairly reasonable and western minded, but is backed into a corner with a starving country and no options.

I disagree. This is a man who made posters to drum up popular support for nuking America, literally, and who has launched test missiles against Japan.

I think money is only part of it, he also wants power. He would never agree to a NK/SK merger that did not involve the communist NK govt. getting 1/2 of the control. SK will never let that happen.

I would like to think that diplomacy is possible here, but I can't see that any part of the NK power structure would be at all acceptable in SK. NK's best hope is to become a low wage labor outsourcing destination for SK.

But that in itself is actually a pretty good thing to be, esp. compared to what they are right now, which is a dictatorship on an economic par with Burkina Faso, and well well below much of subsaharan Africa.

CHINA

I agree is a much greater threat, but then again, where does an 800 pound gorilla sit?

Quote:
I foresee them retaking Taiwan and telling us to back off as they do it.

They already have.

Economic threats are a separate issue. The goal of the neocon agenda is to remove the possibility of getting nuked. I know this because they said it lots of times over the last 30 years. I just don't think it's a realitic one towards that end, but at the moment I want to try to focus on real military threats. Of which, China is certainly one. They've already taken out two of our major pacific allies and we haven't even raised a hand.

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Monday, March 27, 2006 4:58 PM

SERGEANTX

Follow the bouncing ball...

http://www.korea-dpr.com/media/kfahymn.swf

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

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Monday, March 27, 2006 5:06 PM

7%,

That's not partisan. Bush is a republican, Clinton is a democrat, together they both support an aggressive military stance to wipe out govts. which propose a threat.

I see a non-partisan dispute going on here, on the forum, which is probably going on all over. But no one is talking about it in an honest manner, everyone's turning it into a partisan political debate which it's not.

The fact is: We are engaged in an aggress military campaign to remove possible threats from the world, and have been ever since Clinton took office. Defending Kuwait was defending, it wasn't a regime change mission, but the wars of Clinton, Yugoslavia, Haiti, Somalia and Iraq, all had that goal, as do the wars of Bush, Iraq and Afghanistan.

The debate is: A) Is this a goal we should be focused on B) Is this the best way to go about it C) Who are the threats, D) In what way are they threats E) What *is* the best way of dealing with them.

I suspect the supporters of the aggressive Bush/Clinton stance are afraid of the debate because they have dodged it perpetually. They prefer instead to hide behind spin which ranges from wild exaggeration to unadulterated lies. This makes me suspect that either their position is far weaker than they have let on, or that they have no argument at all.

In their absence, we might as well debate it without them.

Also:

In my world, Clinton is *still* president. I think PN lives here too. Hillary will probably be president, but in any event, Clinton will be helping to set the agenda.

What I mean by Bush/Clinton is a group of people who include Cheney, the PNAC neocons, the Lieberman democrats, in short, Team Evil.

I'm not looking to pick a fight, I'm looking, as I have been for three months now, to get people who support this agenda to come out and say "I support this agenda and here's why" rather than hiding behind lies. If they can do this, then we will be able to analyze whether neocon philosophy has any merit, and if we can't possibly work together on some of the goals.

If they don't, which they haven't because neocons seem to want to run the show all by themselves with no compromise, justification or debate, then I will be left with the feeling I have now, which we all who are not on Team Bush or Team Clinton which is that they're either evil, horribly corrupt, criminal, incompetent, idiotic or just blind ideologues without a real clear vision.

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Monday, March 27, 2006 6:08 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

Me, I'm just to busy to read long posts .....

Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

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Monday, March 27, 2006 7:08 PM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

Quote:
The fact is: We are engaged in an aggress military campaign to remove possible threats from the world, and have been ever since Clinton took office. Defending Kuwait was defending, it wasn't a regime change mission, but the wars of Clinton, Yugoslavia, Haiti, Somalia and Iraq, all had that goal, as do the wars of Bush, Iraq and Afghanistan.

I find that to be a bit of a short-sighted statement - at least the part about "ever since Clinton took office." But that might just be my reading of it, combined with my take on American history of the last 50 years or so...

Wasn't Viet Nam ostensibly a "campaign to remove possible threats from the world", insofar as it was sold to us as the key part of the whole "domino theory" of a feared communist takeover? And what of our dirty little wars in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Panama? Were we *defending* them, or were we simply trying to remove leaders with whom we didn't agree politically?

As for future threats on the world stage, China has to be one of the biggest. North Korea and Iran are certainly capable of destabilizing their zones of influence, but those zones are comparatively tiny compared to China's zone of influence. And Iran and North Korea don't really have the capabilities to project their influence or will upon other nations within their own area, much less the world at large. As such, they're simply posturing, rattling their sabres and trying to get a seat at the big kids' table. Are they dangerous? Definitely. But also, only "locally"; the danger is pretty much confined to Iraq and Afghanistan (in Iran's case), and to South Korea, in North Korea's case. Kim Jong Il knows far better than to try to expand his territory into China or Russia, either of whom would roll over him before he could scream "human rights violation!".

India can't be overlooked as a major up-n-comer on the global stage, either. And with them come their "troubles" with Pakistan over the Khashmir region. THAT may be the one to really watch. For whatever reason, India and Pakistan seem to rabidly hate one another, and more than once they've been on the brink of putting command and control of tactical nuclear weapons into the hands of field commanders. If and when that happens, stand back. For about three thousand years, until the radioactivity levels subside a bit.

China IS a very real threat, because they've become a very real power - in large part because of the US. We worried about them becoming a legitimate military power, but they seem content to play lawyer's and banker's games with us, letting us get deeper and deeper into their pockets, until they feel the time is right. They view Taiwan as their "wayward province", and have vowed to have it back under their control, and when they feel the time is right, the US may be so far indebted to China that if we try to stop them, they can simply cripple our economy, either by calling in their debt, or by cutting off the flow of goods to the US - or by doing both.

We've maneuvered ourselves into a position not terribly dissimilar to where Japan was before Pearl Harbor. They needed materiél for their empire-building ambitions in China and the Pacific Rim, and the US was embargoing their oil and steel, trying to blockade them and cut them off economically in the hopes of stemming their growth and power. Japan, feeling backed into a corner, thought crippling the US was their only bet, and they further bet that they could then negotiate a settlement that was favorable to them. They were a li'l bit mistaken on that one...

Anyway, the US is on the verge of becoming China's "bitch" on the economic stage, and gone will be the days when we get to pick and choose who we buy from, who we sell to, and who we borrow from. When the US feels backed into a corner, what will we do? No tellin'.

So in that sense, the US might be one of the gravest threats to the US! :)

Of course, this could all be armchair quarterbacking - who ever knows what will happen the day after tomorrow? One tiny thing happening in the Palestinian settlements (like a soldier shooting an unarmed kid, for instance) could ignite a firestorm, which could conceivably then spread like wilfdire throughout the Middle East region, into Europe, and beyond. People seem to be on edge; Muslims seem to be on edge, others seem to be on edge about the Muslims being edgy, and it gives us a whole tinderbox situation that could ignite from just about any flashpoint.

Or any of the several former Soviet outer republics could decide to have a shit-fit and fall into extremist hands, or decide that money talks and start selling off "surplus" nukes to the highest bidder, which would make for some *very* interesting situations.

That's the problem with diplomacy; you try to walk a tightrope, and even when you think you're safely on across, you find out that one of the other parties involved thinks you dishonored them with one word, or the lack of a word, and things escalate quickly from there.

We find ourselves living in interesting times. They get TOO much more interesting, and I'm gonna need some Kevlar undies just to keep my ass intact.

I say all this without trying to push any particular agenda. I'm just looking at things from an objective point of view and trying to get the lay of the land, as it were.

Mike

A baby seal walks into a club...

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Monday, March 27, 2006 8:26 PM

SASSALICIOUS

This isn't going to be the most well-thought out answer for a variety of extraneous reasons, but here's my quick and dirty thoughts:

1. N. Korea is a legitimate problem. Kim Jong Il is a nut job, plain and simple. Unlike the President in Iran, Kim Jong Il isn't even remotely answerable to anyone in North Korea. I'm not going to pretend to understand the big issues happening in Korea, but a significant portion of them are probably socioeconomic in nature and probably aren't likely to be solved to anyone's satisfaction in the recent future given that many South Koreans "hate North Korea because it's full of poor farmers". That was a quote from some South Korean people I go to school and work with. It's fine to go to the Olympics together, but beyond that I get the impression that the two parts aren't all that friendly.

2. China. The governments of the world keep pandering to China just because there are 1.4 billion people there and it's a fabulous market and Asia is booming and blah blah blah. The Chinese government has already demonstrated that they have no qualms about illegally occupying a country (Tibet) on the flimsiest of reasons (it's historically part of China--that's lame. What about Vietnam?), committing gross human rights violations, concealing basic information from their citizens (Google censorship? They say f*** you to the Bush administration, but develop special filters for the Chinese market), and concealing relevant information from the rest of the world (SARS, Bird Flu, etc). The continual policy of appeasement can only end badly for all countries involved. Except possibly China.

3. The U.S. (and I'm going to assume other countries as well) wouldn't recognize a legitimate threat if it jumped up and bit them on the ass. Case in point: I'm a 21 year old white female and a U.S. citizen who spent 3 weeks backpacking in Ireland and London over winter break. What happened when I arrived in Chicago? I got my ass chewed by the Department of Homeland Security because they didn't believe my story. Apparently I'm a threat.

I think I started to get tangential towards the end. Oops.

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Monday, March 27, 2006 8:34 PM

SASSALICIOUS

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:

Wasn't Viet Nam ostensibly a "campaign to remove possible threats from the world", insofar as it was sold to us as the key part of the whole "domino theory" of a feared communist takeover?

That's the reasoning behind the war as far as I've ever learned. I know this guy that has some theory about the war being an attempt by the U.S. to depress the Asian economy, but it didn't make any sense to me.

What's interesting is the U.S. helped eliminate the South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem in 1963 because the U.S. government didn't think the war could be won with his leadership.

Obviously his death helped us immensely.

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Tuesday, March 28, 2006 8:58 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
I disagree. This is a man who made posters to drum up popular support for nuking America, literally, and who has launched test missiles against Japan.
I think money is only part of it, he also wants power. He would never agree to a NK/SK merger that did not involve the communist NK govt. getting 1/2 of the control. SK will never let that happen.

This is one of those situations where being in the State Dept would be useful. Based on what I currently know, I'm assuming he does these actions as a kind of tantrum, looking for international attention. This would be consistent with the administration's policy of ignoring him (although I do not typically agree with Bush!). I agree with your assessment of the chances of a Korean reunion.

Quote:
They already have.

I realize they now 'control' Taiwan, but I meant in the final military invasion/no dissension/absolute control sense.

"It's a cow."

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Tuesday, March 28, 2006 9:04 AM

Kwicko, I agree with your post. I do not see US military intervention as something limited to the Clinton and Bush admins. There have been constant little actions going way, way back.

I remember hearing Bush say during the 2000 election debates that he would not have sent troops into any of the countries Clinton did except for Iraq/Kuwait. He disagreed with Bosnia, Serbia, Somalia (duh), etc, and felt we should have a basically isolationist stance on foreign policy. Clinton did a lot of policing and UN Peacekeeping, whereas Bush doesn't (remember Liberia?).

"It's a cow."

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Tuesday, March 28, 2006 2:36 PM

While I am against the democrat wars japan-korea-vietnam, at least korea and vietnam were actually about protecting countries from an invading force, China. Anyone who thinks that the local maoist rebellions in both countries, or in Nepal and Bhutan right now, or in Cambodia, are 'independent indiginous uprisings of the common man' weren't paying any attention to the geographicl movements of people and arms. This is all Chinese expansionism and should be stopped.

My objection to the democratic approach is that it's costly in terms of lives and also doesn't work. You can't stop a expansionist juggernaut by engaging it in active combat in the areas in which it's expanding. You have to pre-empt the expasion by building a strong defense in the potential take over targets. This is what enabled us to hold on to the asian allies we have in asia.

I agree that China is a threat, wejust need a solution which will work.

Also, I agree that the US is a threat to the US. Particularly, since I define the US as a combination of:

The Constitution + The ideas of the founding fathers + the Business interests of America + the physical land of America + The sum total of the people of America, their lives, their freedom, and their well being.

... the I think it's safe to say that Bush/Clinton is the greatest threat to America.

While we're on stateless threats, I want to nominate Bin Laden and co., but a little down there on the list. More than Iran/Syria, less than China/Bush ... maybe somewhere around North korea.

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Tuesday, March 28, 2006 4:50 PM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
You know Chris, this was my ninth and final attempt to bait the supporter of either Clinton or Bush to talk, and the fact that they won't do it leads me to one conclusion: They have no ideological defense of their position. IOW, the are on the take, plain and simple, there's really nothing else to it. So, I'm gonna just give up, I'm sure there are better uses for my time.

Wow.

I was interested in this discussion until I read this. I hope whoever you were trying to bait (nine times already?) read this and got discouraged too. Whether they are right or wrong about anything else, they'd be able to legitimately wag their finger at you for this. (Thanks Steven Colbert!)

--Anthony

"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner

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Wednesday, March 29, 2006 4:38 AM

Quote:
Wow.

I was interested in this discussion until I read this. I hope whoever you were trying to bait (nine times already?) read this and got discouraged too. Whether they are right or wrong about anything else, they'd be able to legitimately wag their finger at you for this. (Thanks Steven Colbert!)

--Anthony

"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner

I'm stunned and amazed.

Should I feel sorry about posting that? No, of course not. Because I used the word 'bait' it's somehow a trap now? Jesus ff^&king Christ your spin machine is amazing.

I keep trying to think of words to describe it, but "Pure evil" is what comes to mind.

So, my question, which I've posted a dozen times with no response has been to all those people out there who support this expansionist campaign "invade and conquer Afghanistan" "invade and conquer Iraq" "invade and conquer Iran" "invade and conquer Syria" This isn't an exansionist campain???????????!!!!!!!!!!????????????????

Expansionist campaign which has killed in excess of 2 million innocent men women and children, these people who did it with a song in their heart, who joke about it, to get them to even talk about why they did it?

* oh no that would be TRAUMATIZING *

I'm speechless. To say that they're cowards, that you are a coward, doesn't even begin to cover it. These people feel their divine spin needs to be protected that they can endlessly lie and never have to try to explain to anyone why they did it, it simply boggles the mind.

You're worse then Bin Laden. Oh, is that alarming? Not just worse, Much Much worse. Bin Laden is still very wrong, but not only did he tell us why he did it, he didn't kill anywhere near as many people.

Finally, if you won't come out and explain yourselves (even the Nazis did that) and wont EVEN engage in a debate about the subject of what your agenda might be and why you might have done some of these things, then we will have to attribute motives to you. I'm sure we'll be more than fair.

Here's a sample of what I think some of the motives of this conflict are:

1. Power. I think the main motive was to assemble not-US controlled, but specifically them-controlled, Mid East power block that controlled the world's oil supply to hold the world hostage to their agenda.

2. Money. I think they intended to steal not only the Iraqi oil but to use the situation to justify the allocation of a large amount of budgetary supplementals and obscond with those funds. I think people like you who defend, or rather, don't defend, because you're afraid to even try, but stand by your Bush/Clinton, here, on this forum, are in some way receiving some of that blood money. I'm pretty close to certain of it.

3. More Power. They intend to use the situation of war to assert extreme executive power, which is just another way of saying to replace America, and the world, with a dictatorship of them.

4. Fun. I think that a lot of this is literally the killing of the little people for good not so clean old time Nazi fun. Listening to the soldiers talk about tortutring "playing with" the Iraqis is like listening to a kid tell you about pulling wings off of flies. They really truly think, Bush really truly thinks, that the Iraqis are not human, that they're a subrace talked about in the bible, caananites or whatever, that need to be looked after, while they serve you. I think that even the testing of unmanned drones against civilian populations is about fun. It's all a great big video game, to listen to some of the people who leveled Fallujah talk.

Thanks, Anthony, you've tipped me off to the real true threat in this country. Forget the rest of it, the real threat is you. People who think they're above discussing with the little subhumans liek us here why you killed millions of innocent people for fun and profit and why you plan to do a great deal more of the same.

If there were an argument, which it's painfully obvious that there is not, now from the lack of a response other than one to rididule and attack me for daring to suggest that there should be one, but if there were one, like "We needed to nuke Japan so that we didn't lose two million lives conquering Japan" then there it would be to debate. I disagree with that argument, I would counter "Why did we need to conquer Japan?" But that's the kind of debate we could have. Maybe there would be a logic under this madness.

Very clearly now, there isn't.

I really think this was a telltale sign, Pirate News is right, and you guys are just evil.

Anyway, I want to continue the threat discussion realistically *without* the supporters of World War Three involved. If they have nothing to say about why we're doing what we're doing, and why they think it's acceptable that millions of people got killed because of some greater goal, then I really have no interest in what they have to say.

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Wednesday, March 29, 2006 4:58 AM

Kwicko, Sickdude,

I didn't mean to suggest that it is. But American intervention is different then this kind of imperialism. Prior to Bush/Clinton, We didn't all out invade extant countries at peace to overthrow the recognized governments of those countries. Possible except of Panama, which I disagree with that decision, but was like 4,000 troops.

Prior to Clinton, near as I can tell, all large scale US military operations were efforts to defend a nation allied to us against an aggressive occupying or invading force. This is what all nations are suppose to do, help defend their allies from aggressors. The one exception is the invasion of Japan. There is a difference between defending China or the pacific against Japan and invading it. I think that Germany is a slightly different case because, a) it wasn't our idea to invade Germany, and b) Germany had not kept Germany an isolated unit but had claimed everything was Germany and moved lots of people from other countries into Germany as prisoners, so there would be no way to resolve the conflict without invading Germany.

But largely, the US policy has been one of defense of our allies, like Kuwait. Occassionally we have run small regime change operations, which we shouldn't, but those don't have millions of casualties. What we have here is something categorically different.

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Wednesday, March 29, 2006 5:56 AM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Quote:

I'm stunned and amazed.

Should I feel sorry about posting that? No, of course not. Because I used the word 'bait' it's somehow a trap now? Jesus ff^&king Christ your spin machine is amazing.

I keep trying to think of words to describe it, but "Pure evil" is what comes to mind.

* oh no that would be TRAUMATIZING *

I'm speechless. To say that they're cowards, that you are a coward, doesn't even begin to cover it. These people feel their divine spin needs to be protected that they can endlessly lie and never have to try to explain to anyone why they did it, it simply boggles the mind.

You're worse then Bin Laden. Oh, is that alarming? Not just worse, Much Much worse. Bin Laden is still very wrong, but not only did he tell us why he did it, he didn't kill anywhere near as many people.

Finally, if you won't come out and explain yourselves (even the Nazis did that) and wont EVEN engage in a debate about the subject of what your agenda might be and why you might have done some of these things, then we will have to attribute motives to you. I'm sure we'll be more than fair.

Thanks, Anthony, you've tipped me off to the real true threat in this country. Forget the rest of it, the real threat is you. People who think they're above discussing with the little subhumans liek us here why you killed millions of innocent people for fun and profit and why you plan to do a great deal more of the same.

Wow. You're like... nuts. I'm a coward, I'm evil, and I'm worse than Bin Laden. All because I think your idea to 'bait' people into a discussion where they can get slammed is disingenuous.

You know what, dude? You want to talk about why the war is/isn't a good idea, you post something like, "I want to discuss with the supporters of the war why I don't share their point of view."

But geeze, you don't even know my politics and I'm a coward, I'm evil, and I'm worse than Bin Laden. Apparently, this is for the sin of thinking your debate tactics are wrong.

You're nucking futs, and anyone who reads the above should really think twice about having a discourse with you.

--Anthony

"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner

(Edited to add an end-quote)

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Wednesday, March 29, 2006 11:39 AM

Anthony,

You're clearly a serious asshole. I've been yacking with these people for months. I don't recall seeing you around. I'm beginning to think that if you're working for Bush then you're probably on the road to being evil. But I don't know you from Adam, and really have no interest in knowing you any more, you clearly are completely unbothered by 2 million casualties, and are much more concerned that I have been clear about what I think we need to talk about. I've been abundantly clear. I think we need to talk about why it is that we use war as our only diplomatic tool. Since obviously in your book, challenging that policy makes someone a lunatic, nothing approaching a solution is going to come out of a debate with you.

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Wednesday, March 29, 2006 12:19 PM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

"Anthony,

You're clearly a serious asshole. I've been yacking with these people for months. I don't recall seeing you around. I'm beginning to think that if you're working for Bush then you're probably on the road to being evil. But I don't know you from Adam, and really have no interest in knowing you any more, you clearly are completely unbothered by 2 million casualties, and are much more concerned that I have been clear about what I think we need to talk about. I've been abundantly clear. I think we need to talk about why it is that we use war as our only diplomatic tool. Since obviously in your book, challenging that policy makes someone a lunatic, nothing approaching a solution is going to come out of a debate with you."

Dude,

I think you're a lunatic for ranting and raving and hurling names at me. If someone did that to you, I hope you'd think there was something wrong with them. You obviously DON'T know me from Adam, because I've been critical of the war policy for the last year or so. In fact, I think the day I finally surrendered to the idea that the war was a bogus mess was when the torture scandal surfaced. I posted my views on it when it happened on THIS VERY BOARD. I've been around, man. Maybe if I cussed more you'd notice more?

Thing is, you seem to have gotten into an US and THEM mentality. There's US reasonable folks and THEM unreasonable folks and you seem to be looking for opportunities to pummel THEM. But man, you've totally become THEM. You've aligned me with Bush, compared me to Bin Laden, and called me evil. Why? Because I called you on some totally lame 'debate' tactics. I didn't make up that you were baiting people. You said it, plain English. And man, there is no other use for bait except in conjunction with a trap. The fact that your 'debate' is just an excuse to hurl vehemence at people is plain in your treatment of me. You're beating up the choir, man. Your own friggin choir.

So if anyone who disagrees with you on any level is an evil, equal to Bin Laden, A-Hole, then you've totally become what you despise. You've morphed into the 'Anyone who disagrees with me is an enemy of Freedom' mindset. And if that's how you think and how you argue, then "nothing approaching a solution is going to come out of a debate with you."

Take a look in the mirror, Dreamtrove. Read your rants and raves. Read how you cussed out someone who actually agrees that the war is a bogus mess.

Is this how you want people to see you? Cause you are totally ruining your point.

--Anthony

"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner

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Wednesday, March 29, 2006 6:04 PM

Actually, I've been trying to have a debate, and you came at me with both guns blazing, and you're suprised I fired back?

I'm not sure which planet you live on. I wanted people who support this war, which there are several of on this board, to try to argue something other than "it's because iraq attacked us on 9/11" or "well we're there now, so let's invade iran and syria."

I wanted people to actually discuss why we might be doing this, if there was a reason, cause if there's a reason other than to kill people for fun and steal their oil, I want to hear it.

And as is painfully obvious, your analysis of me has nothing to do with me because you don't know me from Adam either. You came forward with your analysis of me ready in hand.

BTW, people who torture children for fun *are* the enemy, whether their on our side or not. I think that everyone from John McCain to Teddy Kennedy agrees.

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Wednesday, March 29, 2006 7:03 PM