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What happens in war is different from what happens in peace. First off, things don't "happen", people do them. Secondly, the actions of people determine peace or war, not the other way around. Thirdly, the "War On Terror" is a rhetorical device, and depending on the thickness of your skin, an exercise in hipocrisy or comedy. all the terrorists, many tens of millions of radical Muslims Wait, what??? what is going on in Gitmo is not really the US criminal legal system. It's a bad situation. But 9/11 was a bad situation 9/11 was a tragedy and a horrible crime, but what made it the bad situation you are referring to were the, how do I put this, nazi cunts who abused it for their ends. I also assume building 7 collapsed out of sheer sympathy with the whole situation being so bad? And of course, this logic applies to the attackers as well. Killing thousands of people wasn't ideal, but the situation was "bad", you know. |
> nazi cunts who abused it for their ends
I'm guessing you mean Cheney and the "neocons" who, for reasons of Mideast oil and having a position to put more pressure on Iran (note the map of the huge number of US military bases within 200 miles or so of Iran -- it's amazing), etc. (which can cover a lot if are willing to believe).
I didn't like Gulf War II. I would have let Saddam stay there since as bad as he was we had no real way to engineer something a lot better. And I would have ended the no fly zone over Iraq as essentially just pointless. Leave carriers in the Persian Gulf? Likely. Be ready to jump back into air bases in Saudi Arabia? Likely. Keep a big presence in Kuwait? Okay.
But, whatever anyone thought of W, Cheney, the neocons, Gulf War II, in fact W, etc. had a lot of help from Congress. There was plenty of war authorization and money voted.
Basically have to blame the US voters. But, then, maybe should blame the US MSM -- which I do. One W Admin guy said that Gulf War II would cost $120 billion and got fired because W, etc. wanted to say the cost would be $80 billion or some such. One guy said that to occupy the country (an occupying force is supposed to ensure police protection) would take 500,000 US soldiers, and the W Admin fired him. Still the MSM didn't raise a big stink and basically public opinion went along with Gulf War II. So, who to blame? Basically the public.
For the places I said it was "bad", that's a euphemism to admit it was not good or acceptable but to try to avoid a hot rehashing of the old issue. If you believe much worse than "bad", fine with me.
For Building 7, I've heard this and that but really have tried to avoid following the issue because I doubt I could put back Building 7!
For the "nazi cunts", my guess is that in part they rubbed their hands with glee, told themselves that with the Patriot Act, our military, the NSA, CIA, etc., we were going to "take the gloves off" and really roast the Jihaders and teach them a lesson, not to mess with the big bad US, that would last for 1000 years. For the Patriot Act being constitutional, they just took the position that it would take years for legal cases to reach the Supreme Court and get the act struck down as unconstitutional and in the meanwhile they would bend the Constitution for a while and roast all the Jihaders.
But the "nazi cunts" in the end were quite dumb, wasteful, and ineffective. One reason is, if want to use Nazi techniques, they were not enough like the actual Nazis: In some area the Nazis occupied, if something went "boom", the Nazis were not reluctant to round people up, torture them, and level much of the area. The US, however, kept wanting to be loved from building roads, bridges, hospitals, and schools, of course, including for the girls (which totally torqued off nearly every Muslim for 2000 miles), setting up a constitution and holding free elections. Didn't work at all well.
Instead, nearly every low level thug, every leader of a small gang, a large fraction of everyone with some military training, various tribal and Muslim leaders, various international opportunists, etc. all saw that the US occupation in both Iraq and Afghanistan was a golden opportunity for mischief, money, power, etc. while the W Admin and any of their Nazis didn't. We were writing term papers on the lessons from Ireland, Indonesia, and anywhere else, guessing, etc. The short answer is, we blew it.
Now we've got one in Syria: Assad is an ugly guy. He's in with the Iranians we are pissed at. He's in with Putin who, I guess, stole a Superbowl ring and is not running a Jeffersonian democracy. A lot of innocent people in Syria are suffering. So, there is US political pressure "to do something". A point is, it's not the least bit clear that there is a better alternative, and there's a fear that the main alternative is Al Qaeda or some such and worse. So, it appears that Obama is trying to appear to do 'something' but actually is doing very little, which to me means that he will please the people who want him to do 'something' but not really seriously piss off the people, like Palin, who just want to "leave it to Allah". The Pentagon has said no fly zones, shooting down Assad's air force, etc. would all be too darned expensive, e.g., 400 US air sorties.
So, no politician wants just to come out and say, "The situation stinks. What we can do about it is next to nothing -- we could throw in a lot of effort and come up with a big, fat zero for making the situation better. In time, the civil war will burn itself out with likely not much impact on essential US interests.". US politicians don't want to say that. However, politicians in nearly every other country on the planet are eager to say just this. Really, only the US is all vulnerable to rushing off to more 'international adventures'.
I believe that the US voters need to wise up and then wise up the politicians.