How thoughtful, nuanced and complex do you need to be in a situation where a bunch of guys want to kill you and me at any cost and will stop at nothing to do it? Seems to me it comes down to you gotta kill them before they kill you. I know, not a very civilized thought. But that's how the world is, sometimes, I'm afraid.
Why?
Because Bush hasn't made the US or world safer but actually more dangerous.
The US economy is bad and Bush hasn't helped to improve it for the people, but for the corporations.
So I will risk Kerry because Bush is a failure at his current job like he has on all his previous jobs.
Why?
Because Bush has made the US or world safer and actually less dangerous.
The US economy is rebounding and Bush has helped to improve it for the people, the small businesses and the corporations.
So I will risk Bush because Kerry is a flip flop at his current job like he has on all his previous jobs.
Keep singing, but sing to your choir, OK! If you come up with an original though, let's hear it.
Kerry is so ashamed of his Senate voting record he will not even talk about his last 20 years in office. It would be nice if he could shut up about the purple hearts and actually bring some substance to the debate.
This is why he got one of the smallest bounces recorded from the convention and why he will lose. GWB embraces his record, Kerry has to run from his...
number one mantra of the right, and it's simply not true. Both candidates will have to answer questions about their records. Both have problems with decisions they have made or not made.
Which is certainly an amusing way of Bush "embracing" his own record, by not mentioning a single word about it in his own ad.
Talk about needing to look in the mirror before leveling a charge.
The point is, in time of war, we need a leader of CHARACTER, much more than we need a leader of specific legislative positions. And Kerry's war record, as well as Bush's record (DUI, no-show in Alabama, etc.) during the Vietnam war, are both highly enlightening into their character. Kerry talks about it, because that is what matters most. And Bush shies away from it, because he has no choice - he can't afford to be seen as the craven coward he genuinely has demonstrated himself to be.
-- Modified on 8/2/2004 7:34:32 PM
Bush calling Kerry a flip-flopper epitomizes the phrase "the pot calling the kettle black".
Watching the DNR convention last week, I was hoping to hear something specific about how he'd combat terrorists. All I got was he'd only go to war when he had to. Sounds great, but what does that mean? That he's going to sit and wait until we suffer some more horrific attacks? That he'd rather fight terrorism after the fact with cops and fireman? Does this guy even have a strategy? I don't want to vote for Bush but I'm starting to think a vote for Kerry is a vote for ... nothing.
Well, at least Kerry saying ``only go to war when he had to'' shows he may actually think about the consequences of war.
This, I feel, is in stark contrast to Bush (``Mission Accomplished'' - I don't think so).
...because that's another way of saying he rejects the concept of proactive war to protect the U.S. homeland. What he's really saying is this: He's going to let the U.S. (meaning you, me and our kids) take the first strike. Once he has a few thousand or few hundred thousand dead civilians on his hands in New York, or LA, or Oshkosh, then he'll ask around to find a consensus about what to do this problem. Maybe he'll be bold, and even appoint a new czar. IF that's Kerry's mindset (and it is a classic Northeastern liberal one) then that scares me. Being a citizen of this nation shouldn't mean you're a conscript against your will in a war being fought in your own backyard. And under a President Kerry, I'm worried we're ALL going to be draftees for the front lines.
Kerry may not be the best man to fight terrorism, but a guy who insists that a square block fits in a round hole is definitely not the right dude. I for one believe the invasion of Iraq was Georgie's agenda from the first day he was ``elected''.
Sure, Sadaaam is a bad guy, but where's Osama ? Its sorta like the old bait and switch we hobbyists have to deal with - ``Well, I didn't capture those actually responsible for the WTC attacks but I got this really bad man who maybe, possibly, could have been a possible threat to US. '' Okay, maybe I mis-quoted President Bush, but that seems to be what has happened so far.
I do enjoy the application of the ``expanding pie theorem'' whereby focusing on Sadaaam does not take away from the efforts to capture Bin Laden et al. But, I may not understand its conditions and probably missed some of its corollaries ?
Hell, man, defending the commonweal is the first job of the president. If you're not voting to fight terrorism, what are you voting for? More free pills for seniors? Every other issue pales compared to the threat of horrific terrorist acts here in this country -- everything from the economy, jobs, even funding for social programs hang in the balance. God forbid, if a suitcase nuke gets detonated on Wall Street, and another at the Rose Bowl, you're looking at a much different economy an entirely different electorate and a wholly different world. Millions will lose jobs. The economy will tank. The citizenry will be in an uproar. Will they scream to appease the Arabs, begin tearing down churches and ejecting Mosques? Hell,no. They'll scream to nuke any and all Arab people back into the Stone Age. THAT'S when civil liberties go out the window. Better to fight the terrorists now on their own turf and let them do there Jihad thing 5,000 miles away than give them an inch to try to do it here. Do I think Bush is a genius? Hell, NO! But at least he's engaging this threat to us aggressively.
If you honestly believe that Bush's Iraq war was a necessary DEFENSIVE war, I've got a bridge to sell you, but I see you've already bought one.
The fact is, Bush's pro-active war doctrine is the pre-cursor to WW III, if he actually carries it out. And it's no wonder that the rest of the world both fears and despises us for it. It's stupidity on the most global scale imagineable, and you BET we are voting against it, at least as that doctrine has been carried out under Bush.
There are at least a half-dozen other nations that were more tangibly involved in direct threats to the U.S. than was Iraq in 2003, when we invaded. Certainly, Iran and North Korea represent far more dangerous situations for us than did Iraq, as those nations really DO have nuclear programs that can be weaponized in short order, unlike Saddam.
Uh- that's how you fight terrorism. Take the glamour out of it if its just s imple crime. You are always better off if you treat is as crime- go to war- you put yourself in the hands of the terrorist and their political agenda
...and fireman. Better we fight the terrorist on our own streets than get those glamourous military guys involves. And we wouldn't want to inconvenience those Iraqis. Do me a favor: Get word to the terrorists that you want the cops and fireman on your street to fight them. I'd prefer to have my street left in peace, and have the Jihad conducted 5,000 miles away.
Terrorism or insurgency? They are NOT synonymous. And the fact that you cannot tell the difference does you no good on this board or in any real dialogue on the subject.
Insurgency is war. You DO use the army.
Terrorism is crime. And if you make war on it- you give it a higher place than it deserves as well as endagering the political factor that seperate you from the opponent.
so much for the phrase "New York Intellectual"! You gotta represent better than that!
Let's apply your approach that elevating terrorism to war gives it more attention/glamour than it deserves. Let's apply it to: Robbing banks. No, no, no. THAT gets FAR too much attention from the media. Let's treat it the way we do... double parking! THERE! THAT'S less glamourous! Certainly THAT'S a disincentive to hold up banks. Sully, I may be misinterpeting your point here (in which case, apologies) but if all the world's ills could be solved by not giving them as high a profile (sorry, but that IS what you're saying) we'd be living in Utopia by now. In a way, I do agree with the point that media hysteria does get the terrorists fired up, IF that's the point you're making.
Now, as to your point about terrorism versus insurgency, I must say I don't follow. Most of your point centers on terrorism versus crime. To quote your post back to me, the fact that you cannot tell the difference does you no good on this board or in any real dialogue on the subject. So let me help you divine the difference:
Crime, as most people define it, is when an individual steals your car, mugs you, breaks into your house, shoots you, murders your neighbor. The police, and FBI (if the suspect crosses state lines) are designed to deal with this. Sure, there are organized groups like the mafia and gun nuts in Idaho but last I heard none of them had any interest recently in knocking down skyscapers loaded with people. Oklahoma City is yesterday's news. Let's deal with the threat at hand. And it is a threat that doesn't originate on this soil.
Terrorism, as opposed to crime, involves groups of foreigners whose goal is to perpetrate mass murder on a unimaginable scale, here. And not Son of Sam mass murder. The type of mass murder seen only in -- (yup, you guessed it contestants!) WAR TIME! THAT'S the difference between crime and terrorism. And the folks best equipped to take out people hell-bent on staging war-sized death and destruction upon our soil is NOT your friendly Officer Krupke. You use the military to kill them where they live, before they get here, and before they have a chance to kill you. Sure, there's a role for police in terms of security and watchfulness. But they can't man the front lines and if they do, the battle is being fought in our backyards and it shouldn't come to that.
So, what are you saying: by extension...terrorists are juvenile delinquints who just need a good social worker? And by the way, thanks for the comment about my NOT being a New York intellectual. I'm not, by any means. Flattery will get you everywhere. So I'll play nice and respectfully disagree, respectfully, if you do, too. Okay?
If you treat a bombing that kills 12 people as a major terrorist event, it will encourage more suicide bombers to want to blow themselves up and kill 12 innocent people. If you treat it as just another crime that killed 12 people, at least from a news standpoint, it helps to defeat the aims of the terror.
Example: around 3000 Americans died from all of the terrorist acts 3 in the past 3 years (some 95% of them, on one single terrible day). That's around 1000 per year, on average.
But, in the overall context of things, that's 3000 American deaths in 3 years. It's bad. But it's by no means the worst thing that has happened to kill Americans in that time.
over 11,000 Americans died from handguns per year.
over 30,000 Americans were killed by drunk drivers per year.
over 30,000 Americans committed suicide per year.
around 14,000 Americans died of AIDS per year.
over 580,000 Americans died of cancer per year.
over 700,000 Americans died of heart disease per year.
and over 70,000 Americans died of Diabetes per year.
Yet the national outcry and response to these causes of death, in some cases as preventable as acts of terror, is nowhere near as much a part of the national agenda as is the war on terror.
Why aren't we up in arms about preventing cars from being started and driven by impaired drivers? That simple step would save 10s of thousands of people a year, at a cost to our civil liberties no worse than the inconvenience we now face at airports. And at FAR lower monetary cost than we are expending on the war on terror.
Why aren't we aggressively removing carcinogens from our society, with as much vigor as we are fighting to eliminate terrorists?
These are all value decisions our society has made, with very little informed debate. But we've somehow concluded that the acts of a small number of terrorists, who kill a relatively small number of Americans, is a greater threat. Yet the objective evidence would indicate otherwise. Of course terrorism is an issue for us. But many other things, that have gotten FAR less emphasis from our political leaders, and our society as a whole, are actually far greater threats to our personal safety. THINK ABOUT IT. We are playing into the hands of the terrorists, by giving their relatively insignificant actions so much emphasis.
Read up on terrorism. You named a tiny subset of the phenomenon. you also need to read up on the edge where politics and terror meet. The IRA/Sinn Fein divide if you will.
...and if I seem strident, fail to see the nuances, complexities and intellectual high-ground it's because I don't want anyone else to see what I saw. Some might say I'm too close to be able to assess the situation objectively. To which I say, others are too far removed to see the threat as it really is.
The best way to fight terrorism is to keep the enemy occupied by engaging and keeping them occupied close to THEIR home. That's what the Iraq war was designed to do, although no one is going to say that. Iraq is like a big black hole that sucks up the resources of Islamic fascists and there followers, trying to eject the Great Satan from the neighbor of Mecca and Medina. Resources that were they not occupied, would be spent on wreaking havoc here at home.
Methinks you are TOO close to see clearly.
I have lost a cousin to a plane bomb, numerous other relatives to Terrs in Israel, and a friend's dad to the IRA. But all over the 70s and 80s, so I got to see the development of the phenomenon over time.
9/11 was not in a vacuum. And it was brillian theater. Perhaps the most successful attack ever. But it has nought to do with Iraq, nor does Iraq serve any purpose in the Terror war. In fact it is more of a red herring to US, weakening our combat effectiveness, and totally undermining our moral high ground.
And jeez- we gotta be more thick skinned. Are you still whinging about your first lost love in HS? Then you can get over this and be more objective.
I flew back east for T-Giving in 2001. Nary a soul on the plane. Until I see otherwise, I say that regular Americans are PUSSIES. We need to be prepared to take casualties- we have barely taken any!
And the fact is, Kerry's record is complex and nuanced - unlike the simpleton we presently have in office, Kerry is thoughtful and able to deal with complexity. The answer does not come in a sound-bite. If you want to know Kerry's plans for the country, I suggest that you research his plans on the issues right on his website:
Why? Because John Rambo-120-day-wonder-warriar Kerry will be to busy getting b*tch slapped by Hillary Clinton. The first whuppin happened yesterday. George Stephanopolis gave him a proxy b*tch slapping BIGTIME. YOU DON'T THINK HILLARY IS BEHIND THIS. PRETTY SOON ALL THE OTHER NETWORK FLUNKYS WILL JUMP ON HIM AND POOR KERRY IS GONNA BE HURTING. YYYEEEEAAAAHHHHH
count the chickens when now??? Dream on baby...
Kerry is the ONE.
-- Modified on 8/3/2004 6:26:07 PM
How thoughtful, nuanced and complex do you need to be in a situation where a bunch of guys want to kill you and me at any cost and will stop at nothing to do it? Seems to me it comes down to you gotta kill them before they kill you. I know, not a very civilized thought. But that's how the world is, sometimes, I'm afraid.
Meanwhile, Clinton gave us 8 years of Peace, Prosperity, and Poontang. And when Clinton TRIED to go after Al Qaida, he was accused by the right wing of pulling a "Wag the Dog" to distract people from the Lewinsky issue.
in Afganistan and we let them get away. Now, who the hell know where they are? The bottom line is that we need to do a far better job of "killing them before they kill us". If we do not do a better job, we are simply going to go around making more s+++piles.