RebelKev Wrote:

NIU007 Wrote:I remember the administration sayiing that Iraq was a threat to the United States itself. Not Saudi Arabia, not Kuwait. Not Israel. The United States. It was part of the blitz to get people worked up and worried about Iraq instead of AQ. So he would have to have ICBMs, otherwise there's no way he could attack the U.S.

I remember it specifically because I remember thinking, how is he a threat to us? He's not. Maybe a threat to Israel or Kuwait.

I said direct threat. He was most certainly an indirect threat. The threat being that he handed one of those WMD's that just about everyone, and I do mean just about everyone, said that he had. Imagine a Sarin-laden satchel pack going off in the middle of a mall...on the day after Thanksgiving.

There are a lot of indirect threats out there. You cannot have a policy where you launch pre-emptive wars against every indirect threat.

You can't simply concoct fantastical possible threats like the one you mention above, work backwards to somehow feasably link that hypothetical possibility to a state, and then invade them.

Thats a recipe for permanant war and a military stretched far too thin to actually protect us against an eventual DIRECT threat.

OUGwave Wrote:There are a lot of indirect threats out there. You cannot have a policy where you launch pre-emptive wars against every indirect threat.

You can't simply concoct fantastical possible threats like the one you mention above, work backwards to somehow feasably link that hypothetical possibility to a state, and then invade them.

Thats a recipe for permanant war and a military stretched far too thin to actually protect us against an eventual DIRECT threat.

Well, you know my views. His ass should have been taken out in the 90's. He needed to be taken out period.

NIU007 Wrote:They could kill just as many people with conventional explosives. A lot cheaper, they can build the explosives themselves, and they wouldn't have to work with an 'apostate' like Saddam.

Hardly. A blast area for conventional weapons, called the kill zone, diminishes every 50 feet. The concussion is also diminished by everyone and everything it hits. I.e., if I'm walking towards the future blast area and there are 10 columns of people in front of me, chances are I'm going to be OK, with the exception of maybe damaged eardrums. It would take a helluva lot of HE to kill as many as you would with sarin, not to mention trying to smuggle it in without being detected. With a sarin-laden bomb, the bomb could be placed in a small area, or even worn. An explosion would cause a dispersal of the toxin and catch a ride in the circulating air, contaminating many, many people. ...and we aren't even talking about the stuff I consider the worst, biological.

For the record, the Civil war was about the resources in the south (being grown mostly in slave-owning states) versus the manufacturers and buyers in the north. It was cheaper to have slaves on a farm, house them in a shack and pay them in food than it was to hire someone who had to buy things to feed his family in a home he chose. (Sound familiar to the arguments being made NOW about cheap overseas labor?) Anything that the south needed (timber?? steel??) was easier to float down the Mississippi than it was to pull cotton north by horse.

Some things never change...

RebelKev Wrote:

NIU007 Wrote:They could kill just as many people with conventional explosives. A lot cheaper, they can build the explosives themselves, and they wouldn't have to work with an 'apostate' like Saddam.

Hardly. A blast area for conventional weapons, called the kill zone, diminishes every 50 feet. The concussion is also diminished by everyone and everything it hits. I.e., if I'm walking towards the future blast area and there are 10 columns of people in front of me, chances are I'm going to be OK, with the exception of maybe damaged eardrums. It would take a helluva lot of HE to kill as many as you would with sarin, not to mention trying to smuggle it in without being detected. With a sarin-laden bomb, the bomb could be placed in a small area, or even worn. An explosion would cause a dispersal of the toxin and catch a ride in the circulating air, contaminating many, many people. ...and we aren't even talking about the stuff I consider the worst, biological.

Either one could kill a lot of people. The bombings in Madrid killed more people than the sarin gas attack in Tokyo. Yes, the sarin could have been used more efficiently. Even so, I don't think the difference is such that you invade a country for it. Anyway, explosives placed properly could probably be used to bring a building down, which would escalate the casualties, or used in some other way to increase the fatalities. Nuclear I would be more concerned about, if the terrorists could use an actual nuclear weapon. Was Hussein known to have biological weapons?

RebelKev Wrote:

Fo Shizzle Wrote:

RebelKev Wrote:

NIU007 Wrote:Yep. All Saddam had to do was roll out his ICBMs and hit us with a "nucular" weapon. Oh wait, he didn't have nucular weapons and even if he did, he didn't have ICBMs. Nevermind.

When did Bush say anything about ICBMs? Matter of fact, when did he say anything about them being a direct threat?

I have no idea who said what or thought what..And I dont think they did either... The Bush administration was kinda like a bunch of Chicken Littles..."The sky is falling...The sky is falling"...great job

Well, what "I" heard, and what "I" deducted, is that Bin Laden did this, we're going into Afghanistan to get him, and oh by the way, we're taking Saddam's ass out too because of his incessant refusal to allow inspections to continue. After 9/11, we cannot afford the chance that, in the event he's producing WMD's, he passes them off to a terrorist organization such as Al Qaeda, who they may not "like", but have one thing in common, they want America destroyed.

That's what "I" got out of it and I was then, and am now, sold on the idea. I was damn prepared to go into Iraq in the mid-late 90's. I wasn't there during Desert Storm, but I've been there. I spent '92-'00 in the US Military, '27Apr00-Mar of '01 in Atlanta working as a network consultant, and been a defense contractor ever since. I have had offers to go back into the private sector, but this issue is damned important to me, to the point of me coming very close to re-enlisting and getting shipped off to OCS where I would most likely be heading to Iraq as an officer, as opposed to a contractor. Marriage is a ***** though, so I'm doing the next best thing.

I see radical Islam as a problem that isn't going away, but is growing exponentially. This problem will make Nazism and Communism seem like child's play. If we can kill brutal dictators and get people on our side, so be it. As for Iran, fuckin' A right we need to do something about them. Do we have the manpower? Strategically yes. Logistically, no. We could ****'em up, but we couldn't send thousands of troops into Tehran. Make no mistake, that issue is going to come to a head very soon. They hate us, they hate the west, they hate Israel, and they want to go nuclear. You do the math. As for Israel, I'm a supporter. Why? When I see two sides, I generally side with the group that doesn't have as one of it's tenets to wipe the other off the face of the Earth, but hey, maybe that's just me. Islam needs to grow the **** up. The "moderates", if that exists, need to grow some balls and take back their religion or ****'em, they can get caught in the crossfire for all I care. It's no more my responsibility to change the perception of Islam as it was blacks to change the perception of white supremacists. That's their fuckin' job.

Now, as for the wars themselves, you people better be glad Bush was in office and not me. I wouldn't have been as kind and I damn sure wouldn't appease the left over the protection of this nation. ...a job that is specifically stated in the Constitution and vested in the Executive branch.

We all know that the Bush Adm. and the UN screwed up...and if we knew then what we know now...we wouldnt be discussing this...Its all hindsight..I hope like hell that we come out of this leaving Iraq a better place for its people...but Im not optimistic...No matter the timeline for our withdrawl from Iraq...I fear they will still go right back killing each other as they have for centuries...and all will be for naught. Its really strange that even though Saddam was a sadistic SOB, he knew that the only way to control the 2 factions in his country was to rule with an iron fist and keep them in fear...We cant do that and shouldnt stoop to that type of barbarism..Thats why Im afraid this is going to end badly and be an embarassment for our nation...It is my sincere hope that I am wrong.

People in the 40's had the same fears about Japan, Fo. They weren't Islamic, but they did have a person they thought was a living God. ....and he had his ass handed to him. How'd they turn out?

As for the two factions you're talking about in Iraq, assuming you're talking about the Sunnis and Shi'ites, Saddam was a Sunni. Wasn't too hard to control them when they were given everything.

RebelKev Wrote:People in the 40's had the same fears about Japan, Fo. They weren't Islamic, but they did have a person they thought was a living God. ....and he had his ass handed to him. How'd they turn out?

As for the two factions you're talking about in Iraq, assuming you're talking about the Sunnis and Shi'ites, Saddam was a Sunni. Wasn't too hard to control them when they were given everything.

As I said...It is my hope that the policy of intervention that you support is successful and my cynicism is unfounded...I just want our troops home...more sooner than later.

Fo Shizzle Wrote:As I said...It is my hope that the policy of intervention that you support is successful and my cynicism is unfounded...I just want our troops home...more sooner than later.

I don't see it as intervention. Bosnia-Herzegovina was intervention. Somalia was intervention. Kosovo was intervention. Iraq was a country that needed to be dealt with......in the interest of national security.

RebelKev Wrote:

Fo Shizzle Wrote:As I said...It is my hope that the policy of intervention that you support is successful and my cynicism is unfounded...I just want our troops home...more sooner than later.

I don't see it as intervention. Bosnia-Herzegovina was intervention. Somalia was intervention. Kosovo was intervention. Iraq was a country that needed to be dealt with......in the interest of national security.

Who is next in our quest to save the world?...I wonder if there is a list somewhere?

Fo Shizzle Wrote:

RebelKev Wrote:

Fo Shizzle Wrote:As I said...It is my hope that the policy of intervention that you support is successful and my cynicism is unfounded...I just want our troops home...more sooner than later.

I don't see it as intervention. Bosnia-Herzegovina was intervention. Somalia was intervention. Kosovo was intervention. Iraq was a country that needed to be dealt with......in the interest of national security.

Who is next in our quest to save the world?...I wonder if there is a list somewhere?

You apparently didn't get my point.

sorry but FDR is one of the reasons we still are having problems with our economy.. instead of telling people to fix it themselves, he set up systems where their failures translated into national failures.. I cant consider him in my top 5 personally..

RebelKev Wrote:

Fo Shizzle Wrote:

RebelKev Wrote:

Fo Shizzle Wrote:As I said...It is my hope that the policy of intervention that you support is successful and my cynicism is unfounded...I just want our troops home...more sooner than later.

I don't see it as intervention. Bosnia-Herzegovina was intervention. Somalia was intervention. Kosovo was intervention. Iraq was a country that needed to be dealt with......in the interest of national security.

Who is next in our quest to save the world?...I wonder if there is a list somewhere?

You apparently didn't get my point.

Oh no...I got your point...You see a difference..I dont.

I respect all of our military servicemen and women and admire and appreciate their service...I just think our leaders have put them in a situations they shouldnt be in..due to an unsustainable and folly foreign policy that is bankrupting our nation.

RebelKev Wrote:[quote=onlinepole]
Oh, and Top five, in order:

Lincoln
FDR
Washington
Jefferson
Truman


Teddy Roosevelt is up near the top IMO.

You don't know a f'n thing about Lincoln, do you?

First of all, you moron; I wasn't the poster who ranked the top 5. I simply added TR as a 6th. But yes I know quite a bit about Lincoln. Without him, blacks in the south would still be considered nothing but glorified property by most of the majority race. He grabbed the country kicking and screaming into the modern world.

Damn, I feel like I've lost a few IQ points responding to you.

You have none to loose you ignorant fool so stop responding to my posts while you still have any brain matter left.

I'm still not convinced that Social Security is necessarily a bad idea.

It's a great idea that has allowed generations of older Americans to retire in dignity. The corporofacist wingnuts who want to dismantle it must enjoy watching older Americans die in sickness and poverty.

You can't reason with the "War of Northern Aggression" crowd. They are a bunch of lunatics.


Can't wait to watch their collective brain matter explode when either Obama or Hillary is elected President; hopefully the same will happen to Billo.

onlinepole Wrote:I'm still not convinced that Social Security is necessarily a bad idea.

It's a great idea that has allowed generations of older Americans to retire in dignity. The corporofacist wingnuts who want to dismantle it must enjoy watching older Americans die in sickness and poverty.

You can't reason with the "War of Northern Aggression" crowd. They are a bunch of lunatics.


Can't wait to watch their collective brain matter explode when either Obama or Hillary is elected President; hopefully the same will happen to Billo.

SS is the single biggest pyramid scheme ever foisted on the public...No wonder over 5 million and climbing folks are opting out of this fiasco for legitimate investment options that allow better than a subsistance retirement...Anyone under the age 50 better not be counting on recieving SS at retirement.

How is social security different from any other retirement plan, other than the fact that you don't have to put money in to get money out... and the more you put into it, the more likely you are to get less than you put in out, but the less you put in, the more likely you are to get MORE back out.

BESIDES all that.

Tell me what about that encourages someone to earn or save??