A whole new war, a dazzling hate I never knew by dreamtrove

Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
I do note, though, that Hero called this a war. It was my understanding that, constitutionally, only congress can declare war, and they haven't done that since the 1940's. Is this an admission that Bush acted unconstitutionally?

No. The legal use of military power outside a formal Declaration of War has been well established..."since the 1940's".

Korea, Vietnam, Libya, Kuwait, etc.

You could argue that Congress acted unconstitutionally by giving the President authorization for every military action since 1945...but you'd lose. In fact I suspect the Court has ruled on that issue at some point.

Makes sense when you consider that, and this is only one example, it would take about five minutes for a surprise SLBM launched from a Soviet sub to hit Washington obliterating Congress BEFORE they get the opportunity to listen to a fine speech, debate a bit, and then call for a formal vote.

H

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Monday, January 26, 2009 3:13 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Hero is right that when Obama reviewed the policies to and okayed them, they are Obama policies. Now maybe he did not want this, but he should speak up.

Jan 20, 2009. Military briefing:

Obama option #1:
"Ok, guys. Sounds like you got this whole war thing under control. We'll take it up tomorrow, gotta run, wife and I gotta shindig...say which way to the residence?"

Obama option #2:
"Ok, guys. Sounds like we need more time to really get into the details of what we are doing here...lets take this up first thing tomorrow, till then hold off on any new operations or bombing countries other then Iraq or Afganistan. Gotta run...oops thats the closet, which way...never mind, I'll figure it out."

He chose option #1.

H

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Monday, January 26, 2009 3:31 PM

SGG, very thoughtful post, a lot to gnaw on there. I want to comment on those interrelationships. I'll get back to this. The shocking thing to me was that Obama would use predator drone airstrikes. Robot bombings clash radically with the now tarnished nice guy image he's been polishing for the last two years.

I knew he had a policy of getting into this mess, why I couldn't vote for him, but I was expecting time, planning, caution, and subtlety, maybe some CIA, maybe some special forces, etc. Small rambo stuff, not just go all skynet on us, first week out of the gate.

Characterwise... I'm doing something else, I'll get back to this

HERO

This is one of my brother's areas. He says that since the UN basically outlawed war, war had to evolve. Now it exists in four basic ways

1. The UN backed intervention. This could include arguably Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Bosnia, Somalia.

2. The invitation invasion. The recognized host govt. invites you in to help them defend. This includes Korea, Vietnam, Kuwait, etc.

3. The "illegal war": You have no UN resolution and no invite, but you go in anyway. This is like Saddam Hussein invading Kuwait. Anyone is basically allowed to go in and stop you at this point. That gives two creds for the US in Kuwait.

4. Civil war. This is an internal dispute, and intervention is a violation of national sovereignty.

#4 represents probably the biggest hole in UN logic, because it prevented intervention in Rwanda. That's why Clinton's veto of the Rwandan exception resolution was a blatantly evil act. But it's a problem again in Sudan, which is waging war not just in Darfur, but in all the southern provinces. Also, Ethiopia. Some of that mess was cleared up by recognition of Eritrea.

Now Russia in S. Ossetia was an invitation. The US in Pakistan is iffy. We have created a puppet govt. where the defacto head of state is a US govt. official. The international recognition of that govt. is in question, but it's certainly a tyranny, with one of the lowest approval ratings of any govt. The sitting figurehead of state is wanted for murder, conspiracy to commit terrorism, and a 1.5 billion dollar fraud. Of course the US could buy international recognition for a puppet govt., and then get its invite. Sure, it's only a matter of time before the rest of the Bhutto clan is executed, but rewind a sec. and you see an additional flaw in the UN: Set up a puppet govt. and then bribe govts. to recognize it. Or, absorb it, have your puppet govt. willingly surrender, and make it a member territory, and then any conflict is "internal" like China and Russia like to do.

So, it's unquestionably a flawed system. I believe there can be no open declarations of war between member states of the united nations.

This is a problem for the moron idea of war with Iran: We will never get an invite, it's highly unlikely we'll get a UN resolution, Bush tried to provoke them into invading someone else, to justify a response, leaving us with only one option, the illegal war. The main problem with the illegal war is not its name and connotation, it's that international law allows anyone to defend. Russia and China are both desperate to see us out of the mideast, they would defend anyone it was legal to defend.

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Monday, January 26, 2009 4:46 PM

Okay, SGG, back to your comments about connections. (continuation of the above.)

IMHO, encapsulated analysis:

The globalist movement has lots of clans, conspiracies, gangs, and just regular old special interests. Like any movement, it moves in a particular direction because there are a number of groups aligned more or less in that direction.

That said, some are powerful globally, some locally. The Bush-Clinton thing is a marriage made in hell. Bush Sr. has his little CIA international empire, and Clinton has his Texarkana drug empire. Cheney is part of the military industrialists, and also has oil connections. Bush has oil connections.

Cheney's globalist group is separate from Bush's. He is bent on ...

Well, rewind. Cheney isn't an entity. He's 1/2 of a team, life long, it's been Cheney/Rumsfeld. Rummy is a hardcore MIC guy, and a member of the asymmetrical warfare crowd, which is like 7th day adventists of military science. The trick twist to the asymmetrical warfare crowd is that they try to convince you that they are trying to restore balance, and that the threat du jour, like terrorism, is creating imbalance. Really, the asymmetricalists want to create an imbalance, so they can dominate.

Cheney is also part of the oil tyranny crowd. This crowd believes that they can hold the world hostage by controlling its energy supply. Eventually, they figure, nations would cry uncle, and change policy.

Along the way on any of these ideologies, personal or group greed can take over an f&*k things up, but I'm just discussing the ideologies themselves.

So, Cheney had a big fight with Bush Sr., (Bush Sr. wouldn't invade Iraq) and switched to support Clinton. The Perot campaign got a huge underhanded influx of support, and like most third party guys, he didn't know, but he knew enough to play Clinton for control of 1st term fiscal policy (another long story.)

Anyway, the Clinton empire was born. Or put in power. Clintons are gangsta types, I think they're after themselves, money, power, drugs, not unlike Bushes. It took a long time before the Clintons and Bushes really joined forces. But these are just petty power cabals that are after themselves, and behind the scenes, more targeted ideologues are pushing them into policy.

The one world crowd, CFR, is really looking for permanent global domination, and finds people without scruples easy to manipulate, or work with. As do most agenda globalist groups, like the corrupt banker crowd, and sure, there's some cross over there.

Where Obama fits in? Is he the pretty face for the new Clinton admin? Or the ugly globalist goons behind the curtain?

Wait and see I guess. There was no denouncement of the attacks, no apology, I have to assume that Obama is on board with this idea. We'll know for sure when the next one hits, because now we are certain he has held a national security meeting on this precise issue, directly after the last attack.

It's possible that Obama is an ideologue with his own agenda, and willing to compromise everything else in order to achieve it.

Just some random thoughts on the matter

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Tuesday, January 27, 2009 2:37 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Hero:
No. The legal use of military power outside a formal Declaration of War has been well established..."since the 1940's".

Korea, Vietnam, Libya, Kuwait, etc.

Doesn't prove war can constitutionally be declared by an entity other than Congress, just that war has been declared. Though of course most of the above weren't 'wars' they were 'police actions'.

Quote:

You could argue that Congress acted unconstitutionally by giving the President authorization for every military action since 1945...but you'd lose. In fact I suspect the Court has ruled on that issue at some point.

Ah, but they didn't declare war, that's the point.

Quote:
Makes sense when you consider that, and this is only one example, it would take about five minutes for a surprise SLBM launched from a Soviet sub to hit Washington obliterating Congress BEFORE they get the opportunity to listen to a fine speech, debate a bit, and then call for a formal vote.

I'm sure Nuclear war with the Russians was fore-front of the founding fathers minds.

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Tuesday, January 27, 2009 2:40 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:

Now Russia in S. Ossetia was an invitation.

Georgia (the only legitimate and recognised government in the region) invited the Russian's in to fight them?

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Tuesday, January 27, 2009 2:45 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Shinygoodguy:
So, although it is true that this throws a monkey wrench into the Muddle East (yes, I meant to say muddle) one has to take a "wait and see" attitude, at least until the dust settles, before condemning the new president for his actions. Did the president act responsibly in allowing such airstrikes to continue? Was he given indisputable intelligence that would cause him to act?

I must admit that I was not surprised when Bush attacked Iraq, but I am somewhat shocked that Obama called for such action in a highly volatile region. This is disconcerting to me, but I will reserve judgment until I hear the president's thinking on this. Jury's out.

Indeed.

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.

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Tuesday, January 27, 2009 3:21 AM

Quote:
CITIZEN
Georgia (the only legitimate and recognised government in the region) invited the Russian's in to fight them?

Good point. Though Russia and I think one other country recognized S. Ossetia and Abkhazia, the UN did not. The Govt. of Georgia did not. I guess this falls under meddling in the inside affairs of another member state.

The same argument could be made for Kosovo, the war has NATO backing, I'm not sure it had UN backing, but there was a UN condemnation of Serbia.

Did Russia seek a UN resolution against Georgia for cutting off supplies to S. Ossetia?

I suspect that the war was a PR stunt. Russia had been sort of dismissed by other world powers as an ex-superpower, and afterwords, they were back on the superpower list.

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Tuesday, January 27, 2009 3:43 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Good point. Though Russia and I think one other country recognized S. Ossetia and Abkhazia, the UN did not. The Govt. of Georgia did not. I guess this falls under meddling in the inside affairs of another member state.
...
Did Russia seek a UN resolution against Georgia for cutting off supplies to S. Ossetia?

That was essentially my take. As far as the UN is concerned Russia invaded sovereign territory. Russia did attempt to get a resolution, but they didn't get one. Off hand I forget if they waited for a vote or not.

Quote:
I suspect that the war was a PR stunt. Russia had been sort of dismissed by other world powers as an ex-superpower, and afterwords, they were back on the superpower list.

I think Putin, sorry Medvedev, wanted to flex his muscle, he's doing it a lot in all sorts of ways. Holding Europe to ransom over fuel supplies, and sending Aircraft close to British airspace, so they have to be warned away by the RAF for instance. If the UN hadn't been ignored by the allies when invading Iraq I don't think he'd have gone ahead with the invasion, but the UN has been shown to be something only 'lesser' states have to listen too recently.

Quote:
The same argument could be made for Kosovo, the war has NATO backing, I'm not sure it had UN backing, but there was a UN condemnation of Serbia.

It had Security Council backing, which is UN military backing.

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.

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Tuesday, January 27, 2009 4:49 AM

Quote:
Off hand I forget if they waited for a vote or not.

Learning from us :) Why bother to wait for the results? Bush tried to get a second Iraq resolution with explicit language allowing the use of force, but it failed. He had to resort to just stretching the interpretation of the first.

Quote:
I think Putin, sorry Medvedev

lol

Quote:
Re: Kosovo
It had Security Council backing, which is UN military backing.

I couldn't find it. Link?

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Tuesday, January 27, 2009 5:30 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
HERO

This is one of my brother's areas. He says that since the UN basically outlawed war, war had to evolve.

The UN has no legal authority over its member states.

The US can choose to go to war. The UN can complain...but it cannot act. The only body through which action can be taken is the Security Council. That means that so long as the US has an ally such as Britain (who would likely support US action in Iran), then the UN cannot make any sort of a finding as to the nature of the conflict.

The UN has only the power we choose to give it. No other nation has ever shown the will to be the UN's backbone. Iran could bluster and complain...but it would amount to nothing. Only the crazy-talker peace community would even notice...and they would be out in the streets talking about 'making love not war' regardless of the circumstances.

H

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Tuesday, January 27, 2009 6:21 AM

I am hugely disappointed. While I never thought Obama would be perfect (since he's bound to be under pressure from all the militants and power-mongers)I at least thought he was decent and honest and would get away from Bush's approach. I'm a liberal, I want to believe Obama's good man, but I can't deny the evidence of my eyes. This flies in the face of so much Obama claims to stand for. This is a man who has openly condemned the over-use of airstrikes due to civilian fatalities and promised to restructure the US military accordingly. He has also just days ago extended an olive branch to all America's former enemies. I sincerely hope this isn't a sign of things to come, because if it is then Obama has done a complete 360 within days of being sworn in, which would make him the most dishonest politician in history, rather than the most honest.

"Gorramit Mal... I've forgotten my line."

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Tuesday, January 27, 2009 6:24 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
I couldn't find it. Link?

Quote:
The parties agreed to a ceasefire, which had begun in October 1995, withdrawal of UNPROFOR and deployment of a NATO-led multinational Implementation Force, to be known as IFOR. On 15 December, the Security Council endorsed the establishment of a High Representative by the London Peace Implementation Conference to mobilize, guide and coordinate the activities of the civilian organizations and agencies involved with the civilian aspects of the Peace Agreement. On 20 December, IFOR took over from UNPROFOR, and on 21 December, the Council decided to establish the United Nations International Police Task Force (IPTF) and a United Nations civilian office, brought together as the United Nations Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina (UNMIBH).

http://www.unis.unvienna.org/unis/pressrels/2001/sc7150.html

Sorry, it occurs that we maybe talking at crossed wires. The Security Council did authorise some action in Bosnia, other wise there wouldn't be any possibility of UN peacekeepers. It didn't authorise air-strikes which were undertaken by NATO, partly using the defence of the UN Peacekeepers as a reasoning. In fact that's another reason why Russia may have gone into Georgia, they didn't like NATO's attacks at all.

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.

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Tuesday, January 27, 2009 6:26 AM

Quote:
The UN has no legal authority over its member states.

No, like mcdonalds, the only thing that they can do is kick you out.

Of course, the US govt is run by globalists and some well intentioned internationalists, and they want to stay in. A smarter customer might go to a different restaurant.

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Tuesday, January 27, 2009 6:44 AM

Quote:
CORNCOBB
I am hugely disappointed. While I never thought Obama would be perfect (since he's bound to be under pressure from all the militants and power-mongers)I at least thought he was decent and honest and would get away from Bush's approach. I'm a liberal, I want to believe Obama's good man, but I can't deny the evidence of my eyes. This flies in the face of so much Obama claims to stand for. This is a man who has openly condemned the over-use of airstrikes due to civilian fatalities and promised to restructure the US military accordingly. He has also just days ago extended an olive branch to all America's former enemies. I sincerely hope this isn't a sign of things to come, because if it is then Obama has done a complete 360 within days of being sworn in, which would make him the most dishonest politician in history, rather than the most honest.

That last part, I think there's some very tough competition for.

He did a 360 on his cabinet. He said during the campaign "my cabinet will be this, [suggested names], it will definitely be made up of the best people for the job, and people who will disagree with me, challenge me, not a crew of yes men" and then, here came the crew of crooked yes men. But we all were willing to bend a little bit to say "well, he didn't have all the power, the Clintonistas pulled the strings."

On this one, I have to agree. The defense, when it comes at all, which is pretty rare, seems to be "well, Bush did stuff like this." And I have to say "Is this our goal? To have another G.W. Bush? Four more years, is that what the people voted for, is that change they can believe in?"

I can also get the possibility of this was a screw up by someone in his administration, but I can't that on faith. If that's the case, or even if it isn't, any non-evil politician, (and even a few evil ones) would have the common decency to make a public apology. It's gotta start out with "This is a tragedy, and a terrible mistake, and it's my mistake. Here's what I'm going to do so that it doesn't happen again." If he comes out with a "we thought there were terrorists there" hell, throw him to the wolves. If he says nothing, then its four more years guys, get ready.

This is where Clinton totally lost any chance of redemption for me. He came back after the Waco thing. At the time, supposedly Al Gore was in charge, but the testimony said Hillary gave the green light, and Reno gave the order, Wesley carried it out. But Clinton's first words should have been "This is my mistake, the buck stops here, I set a policy, I didn't see oversee its execution, and tragedy resulted, and the blame belongs right here." Instead, he opened with "We have reason to believe that these children [whom he had just killed] were being abused." At that point I said, f^&k him. Hang him high, impeach him. Hell, that would have saved millions of lives. By the Ford rule it would have been say hello to President Paul Tsongas, maybe Jerry Brown.

I don't think this is an impeachable offense, whether or not it's forgiveable depends on whether or not he asks for it, and admits it.

Otherwise I'm forced to conclude that he's just the charismatic frontman for the next Clintonista regime, which is no better than the Bushes, I'm not even sure it's not the same thing.

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Tuesday, January 27, 2009 6:50 AM

Quote:
Sorry, it occurs that we maybe talking at crossed wires. The Security Council did authorise some action in Bosnia, other wise there wouldn't be any possibility of UN peacekeepers. It didn't authorise air-strikes which were undertaken by NATO, partly using the defence of the UN Peacekeepers as a reasoning. In fact that's another reason why Russia may have gone into Georgia, they didn't like NATO's attacks at all.

That's what I thought. They authorized the partitioning of Bosnia and the arms embargo, but not the Kosovo operation or the airstrikes on serbia. The difference being that Bosnia was an independent recognized nation, and Kosovo was a province of Serbia. Attacking Serbia itself was more questionable, like the bombing of Baghdad, particularly targeting civilian populations. There was an outroar at the time from some of the anti-milosevic civilian areas which were hit in both Serbia proper and Kosovo. We can claim this was an error, but war crimes are there to say "hey, err on the side of caution. If you're sure it's the enemy, then don't bomb it."

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Tuesday, January 27, 2009 10:17 AM

Agreed, agreed, agreed and agreed.
I see several possible expalantions, which I'll split into those I thik would be good (or acceptable), and those that would make me worry about Obama, who up until now i had a lot of respect for.

The Good:
1. This was a mistake, or some order left over from Bush, he'll apologise and correct policies.

2. This was a one off surgical strike, to prevent an imminent disaster, and all due care was taken to make sure no innocents would be harmed. I'm not sure I'd buy this if he made such a claim though, unless there was good evidence.

The Bad:
1. He's a puppet, or at least under pressure from the same section of the Democrats who made sure hundreds of thousands of children died in Iraq during clinton's era.

2. He's trying to prevent bipartisanship by taking a 'strong' stance against terror. Even though I could see his thinking on this, and it wouldn't be entirely against the ideas he's expressed (in The Audacity of Hope for example), it would still be a bad move, and probably the first step on a slippery slope.

The Ugly:
He's as bad as Bush, and all this 'I respect human life and want an end to war' stuff was a long con.

"Gorramit Mal... I've forgotten my line."

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Tuesday, January 27, 2009 11:31 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
Quote:
Originally posted by Hero:
No. The legal use of military power outside a formal Declaration of War has been well established..."since the 1940's".

Korea, Vietnam, Libya, Kuwait, etc.

Doesn't prove war can constitutionally be declared by an entity other than Congress, just that war has been declared. Though of course most of the above weren't 'wars' they were 'police actions'.

No, but it does establish the precedent that military power can be used absent a Declaration of War...just as the founders intended. (...to the shores of Tripoli; We will fight our country's battles...)

H

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Tuesday, January 27, 2009 12:08 PM

Uhuh, just keep telling yourself that, Hero.

From the halls of Montezuma,
To the shores of Tripoli,
The American Army Marches,
On Coke and LSD

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.

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Tuesday, January 27, 2009 12:28 PM

Cobb

I see g1 as possible, but time is fleeting.
g2 I would have trouble believing.
b1 seems most likely
b2 is typical dem, but that would mean that he was a puppet, because personally, he doesn't come across as partist

ugly. That's a scary thought.

note: If you see me post "millions" for Clinton, that's because I also blame him for Rwanda. I have good evidence to do so. What I really lack is a why.

It's like the crime that you can prove, and still have no motive. I suppose there's always the homocidal lunatic angle, but I suspect there's a reason. The best I've come up with is that it was the idea of some genocidal african leader who Clinton supported in order to create the african union. (a Mugabe or Mbeki, one of those people who thinks people of other races have no place on africa, I'm talking other african races here, like nubians and pygmies.)

Anyway, yes, it's very worrisome, and I've noticed the american MSM is keeping a lid on the story. I want to hear a statement from the president. If it happens again, it will be more worrisome.

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Tuesday, January 27, 2009 2:50 PM

Gates seems to be saying that he bombed Pakistan, but that it was cleared, in his opinion, with Pakistan and Obama. Clearly Pakistan disagrees.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/01/27/gates-afghanistan-military-
challenge/

Also, there's a disturbing new initiative to move the JSOC style operations, training and arming locals to fight insurgencies, to be under the state dept. aka Hillary. Not only is it disturbing to consider the creation and arming of a non-US military militia in a theater of combat to be taken out of the military power structure, but to be handed to a Clinton with no experience whatsoever.

Anyone have the whole tues 1/27/09 Senate Armed Services Gates testimony link?

[edit] He says this is an Obama admin policy and attacks will continue against Pakistan, in spite of Pakistani govt. complaints.

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Tuesday, January 27, 2009 3:07 PM

Originally posted by Dreamtrove: Clinton's veto of the Rwandan exception resolution was a blatantly evil act

That's damning enough for me. Go ahead, call it millions. I actually didn't know about that, gotta admit. F***ing appalling.
And to make things worse, most people seem to think Clinton was such a nice guy and that the worst thing he did was get a BJ in the oval office. Conveniantly forgetting the, ya know, atrocities.

"Gorramit Mal... I've forgotten my line."

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Tuesday, January 27, 2009 5:49 PM

VETERAN

Don't squat with your spurs on.

Quote:
Hero wrote:
Tuesday, January 27, 2009 11:31
Quote:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by citizen:

Quote:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Hero:
No. The legal use of military power outside a formal Declaration of War has been well established..."since the 1940's".

Korea, Vietnam, Libya, Kuwait, etc.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Doesn't prove war can constitutionally be declared by an entity other than Congress, just that war has been declared. Though of course most of the above weren't 'wars' they were 'police actions'.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No, but it does establish the precedent that military power can be used absent a Declaration of War...just as the founders intended. (...to the shores of Tripoli; We will fight our country's battles...)

H

Wasn't this established back in the 1890's with Phillipines?

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Tuesday, January 27, 2009 7:59 PM

Quote:
That's damning enough for me. Go ahead, call it millions. I actually didn't know about that, gotta admit. F***ing appalling.
And to make things worse, most people seem to think Clinton was such a nice guy and that the worst thing he did was get a BJ in the oval office. Conveniantly forgetting the, ya know, atrocities.

yes, the timeline was something like this:
Ugly story warning.

Select to view spoiler:

day 2: 2 rwandan tutsi flee to gabon, meet kofi annan, who was director of UN peacekeeping affairs, who drafts the resolution, which comes to a vote on day 15. About 20,000 tutsis are dead. France abstains for treaty obligations, clinton-albright veto it. Rumor surfaces that the incident that started it was the shooting down of a plane with Rwanda+Burundi Tutsi+Hutu leaders on their way to a peace summit (over uganda i think). The weapon is identified by local african officials as a US anti-aircraft gun. No one can enter the region without risking open war. Violence flares up, and then, with about 1 million tutsis of the original 10 million are dead. Main reason for the dust settling seems to be lack of ammunition. Clinton flies in with peacekeepers with lots of weapons. Violence spikes up again, and doesn't stop until deaths pass 8 million 7.7 million are tutsis, the rest are almost all other africans accused of "helping tutsis" very little counterfire against hutu militia. Violence flares up a few more times, as the central african war gets under way (something which just started again.) Overall, no one is entirely sure if there are tutsis left. There are an estimated 2 million, some small colonies of a few thousand living in refugee groups, some here in the US, other parts of the world, and in africa. Most remaining regionally tutsis are sex slaves captured by the hutu, and their half-hutu children.

But how we got to Monica was a massive meander. There were two children killed in arkansas in connection with a drug ring, cocaine. This led investigators to a couple people who were receiving contracts from the govt. of arkansas for projects never completed. Coincidentally, they had been campaign contributors to Clinton, and rewarded a la Bush. The ring is busted, and many of Clinton's people go to jail for cocaine trafficking, 100ish (their names are all on his last day pardon list, along with the charges.)

Vince Foster is Hillary's former boss, she hires him to oversee their finances. He does so, and finds a real estate related money-laundering circle, which is a red flag to him for drug money. He calls a federal prosecutor, his secretary, and then Hillary, essentially saying to all three, I think that some of the donors might have drug money, and the clintons will have to disown this right away. (waco has already happened at this point, and foster/clinton have had a falling out over it.) So, he goes to see Hillary, and shows up dead in the wood, after several investigations, it's ruled a suicide, but it doesn't stick. Hillary ends up with a murder charge and fraud charges. This ends in a mistrial, after two years of the president's meddling in the case.

The secretary is linda tripp. She has known foster for 30 years, and been his secretary for most of them. She can't get the clintons for murder or embezzlement, because the federal prosecutors say they need hard evidence. The only hard evidence she gets is on monica, and clinton lies under oath about it.

There's a book called "the strange death of vincent foster" which makes the case, without trying, it just presents the evidence. My brother who was an avid clinton supporter, and complete non-conspiracist, read the actual case file, and his conclusion, as a law professor, was Hillary was "More guilty than OJ." That was meant as a superlative.

Next, the now disgraced foot-tapping larry craig presented to congress proof that during the arms embargo on bosnia, Clinton used the US contingent of that embargo to run arms, to the mujahideen, more commonly called "al qaeda" for the purpose of attacking croatia, to secure a strip of land to the sea. This strip of land would complete a right of way for the kosovo pipeline, which is one of many contracts that would be awarded by clinton in a no bid contract to halliburton CEO dick cheney.

See how small the steps in this Bush-Clinton conspiracy are?

Anyway, the mujahideen would eventually secure a small strip to the sea, after killing 100,000 people, they attempted to secure a larger portion of coast, for fear it would be re-taken, but were defeated at the walls of dubrovnic. They were not the first muslim militia to be defeated at dubrovnic, these walls have defeated muslim invaders many times over the last 700 years.

Horrid story, but I just love the idea that a walled city is still capable of stopping an invading army. Anyway, Craig wanted to impeach Clinton in this.

So, yeah, I haven't even touched on the Iraq embargo you mentioned, which banned the importation of food and medical supplies to a desert nation, or the later bombing runs on Iraq, the attacks on Somalia, the deliberate attacks on civilian populations in Kosovo and Serbia, the illegal random scattering of landmines in Serbia and Iraq (continued in Iraq by Bush)
(Clinton dropped more bombs on Iraq that Bush Sr. in the gulf war. G.W. also dropped more bombs than his father *prior* to the official beginning of the war, then 10 times as many in his opening strike.)
Oh, and I left out Clinton's invasion of Haiti. (Bush has one of those two, and also, Bush's involvement in Darfur, which is less nefarious, but never gets talked about. Bush hired the Mujahideen to invade the Sudan to capture an oil field to attach to the Pan-Sahel or Chad-Cameroon pipeline project, which operated under the name "Pan-Sahel anti-terrorism initiative." Ironic, since Al Qaeda was working for us. So, he started the mess, but the less demonic part is that he's not actually responsible for the killing, Al Qaeda is defending against the Janjaweed. Ironically, Al Qaeda/Mujahideen are often defending africans.)
Oh, and as long as I'm ranting, let me shoot down a myth: The only way clinton "balanced the budget" was by selling off america's assets, military bases, ports, weapons systems, gold reserves, etc. It's like the company that liquidates itself and calls it earnings.

Honestly, I don't think there's really a strong different between a Bush admin or a Clinton admin. Increasingly, they are becoming one and the same. I was hoping that Obama would be different, but now I have serious doubts. A lot of Clintonistas in govt., and I was waiting for this Tuesday announcement, and instead of a presidential apology we get a sec. of def. saying "this bombing is policy, and it's going to continue."

So, sure, there's change we can believe in:

1. some of the campaign supporters have changed, the democrats have labor, republicans have oil, so you'll see more friendly policies towards automakers, and alternative energies. There's going to be better stem cell policy. Pharma supports both parties. A lot of policy will be the same. There will be a change in the meaningless lip service to wedge issues. And there's a more likeable face to the admin. I don't know if that helps us, or helps them.

Also, disturbing new power for the sec. of state to create and train foreign militias.

As for what we're doing in Afghanistan, "we're hunting down osama bin laden who is there and in pakistan, and was behind the 9-11 attacks and rules our enemy, al qaeda," and if you buy that I have a bridge here in NY for sale...

According to Seymour Hersh and CIA sources, as well as locals, we're there to destablize the region, with hopes that the instability will spread to Iran. We're attempting to surround Iran with military bases, and cut off Russia and China from supplying Iran with defense, which is actually the harder task. Even if all that were done, the pentagon still predicts we lose a war with Iran. But this is an insane plan made up by neocon/neolib zealots back in 1979, when the world was a very different place.

So, Obama might bring change, which is why I'm tracking it, but these clintonistas aren't change. I don't like Hillary having the power to create militias (doesn't that make her an international terrorist organization?) He needs to reverse course and listen to reason on foreign policy at least. As for other things in the shadow, a new tax bracket, devaluation of the dollar that puts us all into that tax bracket, a draft for boy and girls right out of highschool, a national healthcare plan that you have to pay for and you have to buy it for each kid you want to have... These are democratic platform items to be brought up by the Pelosis of the world, I hope that this is not the change. I can believe that it can happen, but I hope it doesn't.

I was really positive on Obama coming in. I didn't vote for him or McCain because I promised myself not to vote for anyone who didn't promise to end the war, the whole war. Iraq is already over. Maliki and Talibani are in power, with Al Sadr and taliban behind them, and Iran, and in time, the Baathists, and there's not going to be a war. The CIA leak said we were hoping that Iraqi instability could spill into Iran, but it didn't happen, because every time it was stirred up, it stablized. Afghanistan is much more chaotic.

Anyway, still waiting and seeing, but ready to gnaw on a plan for some effective passive resistance to a war with Pakistan. Or the war in general.

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Tuesday, January 27, 2009 8:44 PM

NAVYFLYER

Evening everyone,

This is my first time to the boards and I was just looking around but saw this post and felt the need to respond.

I'm a Navy officer flying an electronic attack jet called the EA-6B Prowler. I'm a member of only two land based Prowler squadrons in the Navy and we deploy every 6 months to Bagram, Afghanistan and spend the next 6 months on the ground in the combat zone. I have to say this...we NEED the extra troops over there. I hope and pray that 20,000 is only the start. In fact, Obama's polices to increase troops in Afghanistan and his willingness not to accept Pakistan's excuses was one of the main reasons I voted for him. Pakistan is not our ally. They actively pursue polices against the US and then claim that they deserve more money. They were some of the principle backers of the Taliban in manpower, money, and equipment. I have flown many missions very near the Pakistan boarder and I have to tell you its not a comfortable feeling. They have taken potshots at my friends across the border on more than one occasion.

As far as the attacks into Pakistan go, almost the entire northern region of the country is Pashtun tribal land that the Pakistani government doesn't control at all. The entire region is run by the Taliban and the Pakistanis do nothing about it because they fear a Taliban takeover of the rest of the country.

I've met many Afghans in Bagram and I assure you that they want peace, but not a peace imposed by the Taliban. Most of the men there are clean shaven. Why? Because the Taliban wouldn't let men shave their beards and as soon as they were gone the first thing everyone did was shave their beards as a symbol of their freedom.

Ultimately we still have a long road to go over there. But us, the Australians, Canadians, French, Germans, Polls, Koreans, Checs, and everyone else over there is fighting hard. I only spend 6 months in the US a year and 3 of those months are on the road for training. So I really only spend 3 months of the year at home. Please don't tell me that we shouldn't get help. Obama is making the right moves with Afghanistan and Pakistan. I sincerely hope that we keep striking targets in the Taliban controlled parts of Pakistan to stop them from building up forces to attack us across the border. I go back in 3 months.

Have any of you been to Afghanistan? Talked to the people there?

Oh and I can't wait to get the rest of my squadron addicted to Firefly too lol

--Jason

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Wednesday, January 28, 2009 3:43 AM

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we NEED the extra troops over there.

I know people in that war, including one guy who was shot in the head twice. No brain damage, but he was on the front lines in both wars over the last five years, on the ground.

His attitude was you shoot at people, bomb them, they're gonna shoot back. He never once blamed the guys that shot him, and this guy got pretty messed up more than once physically.

The real question is "Why do WE need to be there at all.

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Pakistan is not our ally.

Alliance in not an opinion, it's a fact of international law, signed on a peace of paper. We recognize a territory call it Pakistan, and are sworn to defend it. Every bit as much as you are sworn to defend America.

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principle backers of the Taliban

Why wouldn't they? Don't we also support groups on the ground in Afghanistan?. Of course we do, we openly admit to doing so, the N. Alliance and Mujahideen groups. We support militants inside Iran against that govt. We supported some in Iraq. No conspiracy theory here, this is official.

Yeah, Pakistan is going to look after its regional interests. If you were Pakistan, you'd do the same thing.

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I have to tell you its not a comfortable feeling. They have taken potshots at my friends across the border on more than one occasion.

I'm sorry, my sympathy for this sort of thing has run out. They don't like it when you shoot at them, I figured that one out for myself.

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almost the entire northern region of the country is Pashtun tribal land that the Pakistani government doesn't control at all.

Everyone on this board already knows this, if not everyone on the planet. It's their job to get control, or not as they choose, but they choose, and it's our job to help them. They have made it extremely plain that our bombing runs are counter-productive to their mission to achieve peace with the tribal areas.

Lack of control in a given country doesn't give a foreign power a right to bomb that region. If S. Ossetia hadn't asked to become a Russian protectorate by a vote of over 70% of the population, and say, instead, they hated Russia, and Russia had just started bombing them, on the grounds that they border Russia, and are a remote tribal region that is occasionally a launching spot for terrorist to get into Russia, all of which is true, then Russia would have gotten even more sternly denounced by the world. As it was, the action was not welcomed with open arms by anyone except S. Ossetia.

I can guarantee you that our actions against Pakistan will not cause us to be welcomed with open arms in Waziristan.

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The entire region is run by the Taliban

Most of your post is at least accurate, but I'm one of the skeetshooters here, and I have to point out something like this. The region is run by no one. That's part of what makes it tribal. It contains three distinct ethnic groups speaking three different languages and has no coherent body to rule. This is an ideal place for militants to hide, because there is no authority to gnab them. But that doesn't mean that the locals should just be tossed aside as collateral damage.

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I've met many Afghans in Bagram

Should we talk about Bagram for a moment?

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But us, the Australians, Canadians, French, Germans, Polls, Koreans, Checs

Czech.

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Please don't tell me that we shouldn't get help.

Okay, some people say we shouldn't, but whether or not we should, I will give you this, unapologetically: We aren't helping. We're part of the problem.

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I sincerely hope that we keep striking targets in the Taliban controlled parts of Pakistan

Jeez.. Listen to yourself. Targets in Taliban controlled parts... that's vague. That's an open license to bomb anyone. Should the rest of us say that "Democrat controlled portions of the US are fair game, civilians included?"

Okay, you want to draw a line between Taliban and Democrats, I'm game. Who has killed more people?

Taliban are a political party. We should talk them into participating in the democracies in Afghanistan and Pakistan which are already in place. The Taliban know how to campaign. Our own military heads say "They're doing what we should be doing, meeting people on the ground, learning their names." So, yeah, they're not the forces of Darth Vader, they're a political group, that we disagree with, but they know how to campaign, and they're not running for office in the US. They are only the enemy as long as we insist they are. To quote Osama: "The Taliban govt. was the main barrier preventing me from carrying out the attacks on America that I envisioned." That doesn't make them our friends, sure, but it's a hint that we don't have to be enemies.

We talked the Mahdi into the political process in Iraq. They used to be shooting at us. They joined the democracy, and now they control the country. Maliki is one of them. We all know this. And we're allies, and friends, now, and working together to stabilize Iraq.

Just throwing a target our there like Taliban or Hamas as if they're some sort of undead army, that's absurd. These are locals, and they're trying to defend their land. Sure, their leaders want power, all leaders do. I just watched out of control ambition run for office, and there was just as much audacity as hope. But the rank and file of the Taliban today, are the people you just fired at yesterday.

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to stop them from building up forces to attack us across the border.

If you listen, you'll see that you are their recruitment poster.

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I go back in 3 months.

Alas, I've known people who were gung ho to go to war. Those were the ones who didn't survive. As a bomber pilot, your probably safe, provided you're a better pilot than McCain.

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Have any of you been to Afghanistan?

No, but I have met Afgans here, and I know people in the war there. I also know that Bagram prison has the reputation locally as the Auschwitz of the 21st century. Go for a stroll around the countryside and say "I'm stationed at Bagram, I fly a predator." See if that makes a lot of friends.

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Oh and I can't wait to get the rest of my squadron addicted to Firefly too lol --Jason

Sorry for this part, because it's pretty common over here on RWED: New users are often sockpuppets: second accounts of people that are already here. This post is made with the assumption that this is the case. I don't want you to scare you off posting here, because as Firefly fans, we disagree on everything, and fight all the time, which is fitting. But in case you are a new fan, and not some other user, you will encounter everyone saying "Welcome aboard," and pretending that this is not also what they're thinking. But it is, and will be, just get used to it and bear it in mind. Some sockpuppets run for a year, so it's unlikely to go away in 3 months.

Just in case you're not a sockpuppet, then "Welcome, fellow browncoat, while we disagree on this war, we may, and probably do, agree on other things." and be forewarned about the sockpuppet situation.

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Wednesday, January 28, 2009 10:11 AM

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Originally posted by Veteran:
Wasn't this established back in the 1890's with Phillipines?

Yes...not to mention Jefferson and the Barbary Pirates...in 1807 or Washington marching on Pittsburg in 1794.

H

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Wednesday, January 28, 2009 10:16 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
That's an open license to bomb anyone. Should the rest of us say that "Democrat controlled portions of the US are fair game, civilians included?"

HEY! I've seen that before (flips through book), page 29 of the Al Queda Rules of Engagement, "...an open license to bomb anyone. Democrat controlled portions of the US are fair game, civilians included."

H

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Wednesday, January 28, 2009 11:18 AM

Hero, surely you're not implying that makes it right for us to kill civillians from that region. Eye for an eye, is that what you're saying? The whole reason we're fighting the 'war on terro' is (allegedly) because these people kill civillians. We're supposed to be doing this to protect lives. But never mind that, 'they' killed innocent people 'over here', so let's kill innocent people 'over there'.

Civillians are civilians, they're not fair game just because the other side broke the rules.
P.S. all this is academic anyway. The U.S. and it's allies have been killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people for decades, that's what started this whole stupid mess. Technically our side broke the rules first.

"Gorramit Mal... I've forgotten my line."

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Wednesday, January 28, 2009 1:02 PM

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Originally posted by Hero:
Yes...not to mention Jefferson and the Barbary Pirates...in 1807 or Washington marching on Pittsburg in 1794.

No one ever said the US could follow it's own rules...

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.

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Wednesday, January 28, 2009 1:28 PM

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COBB
Hero, surely you're not implying that makes it right for us to kill civillians from that region.

No, I think that Hero was drawing a moral equivalence between Al Qaeda and the United States.

Personally, I agree =)

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Wednesday, January 28, 2009 3:41 PM

Hero, if I did misinterpret your post I apologise

"Gorramit Mal... I've forgotten my line."

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Thursday, January 29, 2009 3:24 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Corncobb:
Hero, surely you're not implying that makes it right for us to kill civillians from that region. Eye for an eye, is that what you're saying?

What I am saying is that there is no moral equivilancy between an act of terror, that deliberately targets civilians, and an act of war which unfortunately results in civilian deaths.

To take your 'eye for an eye' analogy. One person strikes for the eye with the purpose of putting the eye out. The other punches the first person accidently putting the eye out. There is a difference of intent...not result.

In WW2 the Nazis fired rockets at London to terrorize the people. The Allies bombed factories to stop the production of war material. Both killed civilians.

Your analysis puts the Allies and the Nazis in the same moral catagory. I reject that notion. In fact I argue that the Nazis are responsible for the death both the civilians in London AND the ones in their bombed factories.

Likewise Al Queda is responsible for the attack on 9/11 and EVERY death (civilian, military, and terrorist) in the war on terror since 9/11 INCLUDING Iraq.

H

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Thursday, January 29, 2009 6:49 AM

Hero

I am abstaining from arguments, in general, I just advise you to do a little research. You research a lot better now than when first showed up, but it still doesn't make sense to me. Wouldn't you're argument be more persuasive if you fact checked your statements before posting them?

Now, forgive me some nitpicking, but I just want to show some examples of what I mean:

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What I am saying is that there is no moral equivilancy between an act of terror, that deliberately targets civilians, and an act of war which unfortunately results in civilian deaths.

Okay, this may be true, but it doesn't support a pro-US position. While we have no evidence that Bush has targeted civilians intentionally, we know for a fact that the US has, many times, and admittedly so. Certain in WWII. Forget Dresden for a moment, we dropped two nuclear bombs on Japan. This sort of thing has been policy since Andrew Jackson, and was still so under Clinton, there's no reason to think that it would stop. I'm not talking conspiracy theory, I'm talking open admission of targeting civilians. If you want to call that terrorism, I would agree, but that definitely makes the US a rogue state.

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To take your 'eye for an eye' analogy. One person strikes for the eye with the purpose of putting the eye out. The other punches the first person accidently putting the eye out. There is a difference of intent...not result.

Okay, just because I'm nitpicking, I don't see where this fits in.

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In WW2 the Nazis fired rockets at London to terrorize the people. The Allies bombed factories to stop the production of war material. Both killed civilians.

Your analysis puts the Allies and the Nazis in the same moral catagory. I reject that notion. In fact I argue that the Nazis are responsible for the death both the civilians in London AND the ones in their bombed factories.

This is what made me respond. This is patently absurd. The entire historical community is agreed that the allies killed more people, and more civilians, than the axis. It's not even a matter of debate. Certainly more than Germany alone. There are numerous websites devoted to this topic. Allies are responsible for about three times the casualties of the axis.

If you want to make the case that the Axis was morally wrong, that's a different and more complex issue. But what you stated is equivalent to saying that the South did more property damage to the North in the Civil War. That would be absurd. You can still argue a moral high ground for the North, and many do, but not on the basis that they were less destructive.

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Likewise Al Queda is responsible for the attack on 9/11 and EVERY death (civilian, military, and terrorist) in the war on terror since 9/11 INCLUDING Iraq.

And, since you mention it, who is Al Qaeda? Does this organization exist? Does it have any connection to 9.11, let alone Iraq?

The CIA and FBI don't seem to think so. I think that you'd have to come up with a strong argument to support this, first define Al Qaeda. If you mean the mujahideen militants in Afghanistan lead by Osama bin Laden, those guys work for us, they always did, and it's highly doubtful they had anything to do with 9.11, and it's absurd to blame the Iraq war on them. I have, as I said, in my possession, the actual documented war plan of the invasion of Iraq written by Dick Cheney, and published, back when Osama was working with the CIA. The Iraq war was planned and executed by Cheney, and that requires no theory: He published the thing.

"There is no connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda, I don't know why anyone would think that." - George W. Bush, a year or two ago something, I don't know the date.

So, you say something like that, and you're out on the limb of Hero, by himself, making an outlandish claim. Yes, sure, you can do that if you want, but don't expect it to be saluted if you don't run it up the flag pole. A claim like that has to have a ton of evidence behind it.

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Thursday, January 29, 2009 8:03 AM

Quote:
To take your 'eye for an eye' analogy. One person strikes for the eye with the purpose of putting the eye out. The other punches the first person accidently putting the eye out. There is a difference of intent...not result.

Allow me to rip holes in your analogy: this isn't a one on one situation. A closer analogy would be: one person strikes a close friend of yours, intent on putting out their eye. So you punch a close friend of theirs, accidentally putting out the eye. This doesn't sound very just to me.

And this is even if I were to accept that the retaliatory 'eye removel' would be wholly accidental. If we make the analogy as exact as possible it would read 'you punch a friend of theirs. You know you're likely to take out their eye, and you don't really need to risk taking out their eye, but you do it anyway.'

I do not believe that you can reject responsibility for an act in that way. It wouldn't hold up in a court of law. If you do something knowing full well innocent people will be hurt then you are responsible for the injuries or deaths that result. It doesn't matter whether that was your desired goal or a means to an end or a side effect that you felt was acceptable.

Don't bother rebutting with how the person is meant to represent a nation while the eye is meant to represent civilians, its a faulty analogy - people's eyes have no autonomous conciousness and you can't regard a whole nation of people as a conglomerate entity.

As far as the WW2 analogy goes, ditto everything Dreamtrove said. Plus I don't see much comparison between the two situations. The Nazis were a threat to the existence of whole races, and the freedom of the world. They had a huge war effort, which, unfortunately, many innocent factory workers were a part of. The factories had to be destroyed and thats horrible and I'm not sure it's entirely justifiable, but it's still a very different situation. Middle eastern terrorists, to quote Bill Bailey, are 'a loose collection of random zealots who could be rounded up with a sustained police investigation'. The civilian casualties caused by attempts to round them up are not unavoidable - they're not directly in the way, they're not involved at all, they just happen to have the misfortune of being in the vicinity. Furthermore, the threat posed by terrorists, though they have commited horrendous acts, pales in comparison to the threat posed by the Nazis. Finally, its a slightly spurious assumption that in this analogy Al Qaeda would take the role of the Nazis and the War on Terror would play the part of the Allies. This betrays a nation-centric 'us-vs-them' way of thinking. As I mentioned earlier, technically, we started it. The conflict between the western world and the Middle East did not start with 9/11. If we were to follow your reasoning, that would give Al Qaeda the right to wipe out everyone in the US, and the US government would be to blame, which is clearly an insane and disgusting idea.

"Gorramit Mal... I've forgotten my line."

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Thursday, January 29, 2009 3:06 PM

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Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Wouldn't you're argument be more persuasive if you fact checked your statements before posting them?

Perhaps. But from the rest of your post you fail to grasp any understanding of both my argument and the facts you claim to present.

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Certain in WWII. Forget Dresden for a moment, we dropped two nuclear bombs on Japan...

So your argument is "but we killed civilians in WW2". Lets not skip the greatest and most lasting non-Jewish humanitarian disasters of the war, the atom bombs. There was great debate over what targets to choose. Hiroshima was a major naval base, logistics center, transportation hub, and industrial center. That is why it was bombed. To deny the enemy the naval base, harbor, airfields, railroad yards, supplies, and factories.

That the enemy would place such things in such close proximity to its civilian population was tragic. All the more sad when you consider that every death was the responsibilty of the Japanese leadership.

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To take your 'eye for an eye' analogy. One person strikes for the eye with the purpose of putting the eye out. The other punches the first person accidently putting the eye out. There is a difference of intent...not result.

Okay, just because I'm nitpicking, I don't see where this fits in.

You don't see a difference between two fighters when one sets out to blind his opponant and the other merely sets out to win the fight.
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Your analysis puts the Allies and the Nazis in the same moral catagory. I reject that notion. In fact I argue that the Nazis are responsible for the death both the civilians in London AND the ones in their bombed factories.

This is what made me respond. This is patently absurd. The entire historical community is agreed that the allies killed more people, and more civilians, than the axis. It's not even a matter of debate.

Must not be counting Jews or Commies...

But your point is that we killed more civilians. But our goal was never to kill civilians it was to eliminate the enemies ability to make war.

During the Civil War Sherman destroyed massive amounts of civilian property in Georgia. The point was not to lay waste to the South, it was to end the South's ability to continue the fight.

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And, since you mention it, who is Al Qaeda? Does this organization exist? Does it have any connection to 9.11, let alone Iraq?

The CIA and FBI don't seem to think so...

Perhaps. But then you don't think like a lawyer. We're trained to look beyond the moment for causation. Spilled milk in the aisle, slip and fall. But for the failure of the store to clean up the mess, the injury would not have happened. But for the milk jar's defective design the bottle would not have broke. Etc.

But for Al Queda's attack on 9/11 the war on terror would not have started, therefore the Iraq war would not have happened (absent some other factor).

While the causation line can go back further then 9/11 and branch out...the forseeability becomes a factor. The Iraq war was a forseeable...perhaps even a planned outcome of the attack. The is not true of Clinton...but for Clinton's failure to take custody of Bin Ladden in 1998 9/11 would not have happened because 9/11 was not forseeable.

Lets go back to Hiroshima. But for Japan's bombing of Pearl Harbor the bombing of Hiroshima would not have happened. Yamamoto himself knew it was coming...maybe not the form but inevitable and total of defeat was a possibility he understood, warned about, and ultimately planned for.

H

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Thursday, January 29, 2009 4:14 PM

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Perhaps. But from the rest of your post you fail to grasp any understanding of both my argument and the facts you claim to present.

I'm extremely well informed on the subject. I do know people, and one of my closest friends is the EU's eductation expert on WWII, as I said before.

But I don't need to ask him, because this is all very well known.

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Lets not skip the greatest and most lasting non-Jewish humanitarian disasters of the war, the atom bombs.

I just said I'm not even wanting to discuss anything with people who defend the attack on Hiroshima.

That said, you're way off. You left out the chinese nationalist campaigns against japan, which often targeted civilians, killing 900,000 civilians in one incident. But the biggest killer was Russia. The Ukranian and Polish victims of soviet aggression were the largest civilian casualties of WWII. Total axis caused deaths were about 25 million, total allied were closer to 90 million, civilians represented about 1/2 of all deaths, pretty much across the board. One of my pet peeves with holocaust discussion is that it was not only jews. This is our mainstream media. I'm not denying 6 million jews died, but I'm saying yes, and we focus on this to the exclusion of everything else? The nazis themselves killed as many non-jewish civilians, even in camps. Including many relatives of mine. I know this position gets no more sympathy than Wulf's reverse racism, but it's very real. But I would say that the Chinese, Ukrainians and Poles were the principal victims of the war in numbers, Poles getting it from both sides, followed by Jews, Gypsies, Serbs, and Japanese.

But our media has a lot of jewish people, not so many polish people. Some poles were also jews, and some jews were poles, but at this point, the nazis weren't making any real distinction, and the soviets made none at all, they, like the germans, killed people who were a power threat, people with influence, that's where my dad's family got crushed.

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All the more sad when you consider that every death was the responsibilty of the Japanese leadership.

This is so twisted an idea that it barely is worthy of a response except to say Tojo took his orders from Hitler, not from Hirohito. But talk about blaming the victim. Sure, there were a lot of Japanese atrocities.

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Must not be counting Jews or Commies...

I just counted them.

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But your point is that we killed more civilians. But our goal was never to kill civilians it was to eliminate the enemies ability to make war.

To be fair, neither was the Germans, their goal was to relocate them to Israel. I blame the corporations and the Nazis for the shift in policy.

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During the Civil War Sherman destroyed massive amounts of civilian property in Georgia. The point was not to lay waste to the South, it was to end the South's ability to continue the fight.

Some folk would take issue with that statement.

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And, since you mention it, who is Al Qaeda? Does this organization exist? Does it have any connection to 9.11, let alone Iraq?

The CIA and FBI don't seem to think so...

Perhaps. But then you don't think like a lawyer.

Spare me, my brother is professor of law, an expert, I hear a lot about this.

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But for Al Queda's attack on 9/11 the war on terror would not have started, therefore the Iraq war would not have happened

1) this was obviously your point.
2) it was nonsense. I have cheney's original war plan right here. Besides that, we had been at war with Iraq for 12 years before we "invaded." More if you count Iran/Contra.

Oh, and 3) you're concept of Al Qaeda needs work.

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The is not true of Clinton

Clinton went to war with Iraq and killed 670,000 civilians, everyone knows this. Everyone except the democratic media.

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Lets go back to Hiroshima.

Oh, please, let's not.

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But for Japan's bombing of Pearl Harbor the bombing of Hiroshima would not have happened.

The bombing happened because we had the bomb. Forget the part where the bombing of pearl harbor was a reaction to the sinking of a japanese sub. The local japanese commander panicked, and thought "we have to sink the US Navy before it deploys" which they thought was imminent. They were also right. Fascinating story, the guy who shot the sub figured out what the japanese response would be, and radioed based, and told them to evacuate. Base couldn't do so without an order, or so he was told. They got ahold of the Dep. Sec. of defense, who had trouble finding the sec. of defense, who took his mornings in the park. They then went to the president, who called pearl harbor to tell them to evacuate. Pearl harbor had been destroyed 2 minutes earlier, and didn't respond.

Back on a japanese aircraft carrier, a captain got a distress call from the sub. He was about 100-150 miles away. They went into the cabin and discussed it for 15 minutes. They realized that this might be the result of an unintentional collision, meaning that the fleet was to be deployed at dawn. They decided to make a pre-emptive strike, and take out the navy. It took another 15 minutes for the japanese bombers to reach their target, two minutes before the incoming call from washington.

But all of this is not where the war started: We had been at war with Japan for four years. That's only where the naval battle started. But the Japanese were probably right. We were about to deploy that fleet. We didn't need an incident. There was no grand conspiracy, just a little matter of timing and protocol that got in the way.

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Thursday, January 29, 2009 7:58 PM

NAVYFLYER

Wow, people get really upset on these threads. I figured Firefly fans to be a bit more easy going lol.

Anyway, Dreamdrove thanks for the greating and I assure you I'm not a what did you call it? "Sockpuppet"? If I was I wouldn't have picked such an obscure aircraft as the EA-6B Prowler to say I flew. I would have picked an F/A-18 or F-15 or something like that.

At any rate, we obviously disagree on the Afghanistan war and we're not going to change each other's opinions. You know Afghans who want it stopped, I've had an Afghan come to me in tears thanking me and begging us not to stop before its done with.

However, I DO agree that we're overly dependent on bombing. Airpower is an amazing thing and its definitely necessary in combat, but we need to have more stringent standards for when we use it and when we don't. You're right in that case. We'll never win the hearts and minds if we keep causing so much collateral damage.

Oh, and my plane doesn't drop bombs. We carry the HARM missile which is used to shoot at surface to air missile/radar sites. Its a tactical jamming aircraft that we use to suppress enemy air defenses.

We are doing some good over there. Every Friday we have a bazaar and the local Afghans come on base and set up a little tent city and try to sell various crafts, mostly made in Kabul. They make pretty good money. I remember this one kid in a Bears jersey, gold chains, and a sideways Chicago White Socks hat trying to sell me Soviet uniforms and old British pistols. Another one was giving these Air Force girls a ride on a camel. Its a hell of a place.

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Friday, January 30, 2009 4:22 AM

NAVYFLYER:

Quote:

Wow, people get really upset on these threads. I figured Firefly fans to be a bit more easy going lol.

A couple times they get upset, but usually they're just f^&king with you. We might have a battle to the death here, and then go have a beer.

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"Sockpuppet"? If I was I wouldn't have picked such an obscure aircraft as the EA-6B Prowler to say I flew. I would have picked an F/A-18 or F-15 or something like that.

Ah, you're making an assumption: That no one else on the board is a naval airman. That assumption would be incorrect. But even uneducated tomato farmers know the scope of the US military. People are more aware than you may suspect.

BTW, Get used to being a suspected sockpuppet, it's not going away for a long time. It didn't for me either.

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At any rate, we obviously disagree on the Afghanistan war and we're not going to change each other's opinions. You know Afghans who want it stopped, I've had an Afghan come to me in tears thanking me and begging us not to stop before its done with.

Unfortunately for me, you're the one with the weapons.

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However, I DO agree that we're overly dependent on bombing. Airpower is an amazing thing and its definitely necessary in combat, but we need to have more stringent standards for when we use it and when we don't. You're right in that case. We'll never win the hearts and minds if we keep causing so much collateral damage.

So called. I think it's worse than just a bad choice as a weapon of war, it's a recruitment poster for the enemy. The problem is that our govt. is afraid of US casualties, because they make headlines. If you go to war, that's the risk.

The case against aerial bombardment was made long before it began, in Jules Verne's Master of the World, 1904.

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Oh, and my plane doesn't drop bombs. We carry the HARM missile which is used to shoot at surface to air missile/radar sites. Its a tactical jamming aircraft that we use to suppress enemy air defenses.

Interesting. I'll look it up, see what happens if you hit a house with it

I'm impressed that they have air defenses.

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We are doing some good over there. Every Friday we have a bazaar and the local Afghans come on base and set up a little tent city and try to sell various crafts, mostly made in Kabul. They make pretty good money. I remember this one kid in a Bears jersey, gold chains, and a sideways Chicago White Socks hat trying to sell me Soviet uniforms and old British pistols. Another one was giving these Air Force girls a ride on a camel. Its a hell of a place.

Just try not to make it a *hell* of a place

One problem with places like Bagram is that our side doesn't report them at all, and so all we here is from the other side.

My own view on the matter is complex, and I have a lot of issues I'd like to discuss on it. But at the moment I'm very sick, so I have to get over this flu. But stick around a while, and we'll have a nice civil discussion about the pros and cons, and the possible courses of actions, after which I'll go back to growing tomatoes, and you'll be ordered by people to do whatever their bosses think is right, and neither of us will have any power to change it

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Friday, January 30, 2009 8:58 AM

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Originally posted by dreamtrove:
The bombing happened because we had the bomb. Forget the part where the bombing of pearl harbor was a reaction to the sinking of a japanese sub. The local japanese commander panicked, and thought "we have to sink the US Navy before it deploys" which they thought was imminent. They were also right. Fascinating story, the guy who shot the sub figured out what the japanese response would be, and radioed based, and told them to evacuate. Base couldn't do so without an order, or so he was told. They got ahold of the Dep. Sec. of defense, who had trouble finding the sec. of defense, who took his mornings in the park. They then went to the president, who called pearl harbor to tell them to evacuate. Pearl harbor had been destroyed 2 minutes earlier, and didn't respond.

Back on a japanese aircraft carrier, a captain got a distress call from the sub. He was about 100-150 miles away. They went into the cabin and discussed it for 15 minutes. They realized that this might be the result of an unintentional collision, meaning that the fleet was to be deployed at dawn. They decided to make a pre-emptive strike, and take out the navy. It took another 15 minutes for the japanese bombers to reach their target, two minutes before the incoming call from washington.

Wow...didn't realize you were a crazy-talker. A local Japanese commander?

"Well, we just happened to be sailing within short range striking distance of Pearl Harbor with the bulk of our carrier fleet and strike aircraft armed with specially modified shallow-water torpedoes thousands of miles away from our bases and after having spent months training for a shallow water attack in a harbor resembling Pearl Harbor when low and behold a short range mini-sub was sunk trying to peacefully enter an American harbor, submerged and unannounced, and we responded accordingly (not to mention the whole "Declaration of War" top hat and tails bit)."

I like the 'Tora Tora Tora' much better. Hell, Ben Affleck's version has more basis in fact then yours does.

Edited to add: To you know how much oil it took to sail the Jap fleet to Hawaii? Do you realize the amount of logisitcal planning the operation required? Local commander my ass...

H

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Friday, January 30, 2009 10:59 AM