9/11, In my humble opinion

The BBQ Pit
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In my humble opinion, there is no conspiracy regarding the US government involvement in 9/11.

In my humble opinion, George W. Bush didn’t know about the hijacked planes.

In my humble opinion, the attacks on 9/11 were carried out by a group of fundamentalist Muslim extremists under the direction of Osama bin Laden.

In my humble opinion, Afghanistan was a breeding ground for terrorists and required our intervention.

In my humble opinion, Iraq refused to comply with UN WMD inspections on a number of occasions.

In my humble opinion, Saddam Hussein sanctioned the mass murder of Kurds under his regime.

In my humble opinion, Iraq was a breeding ground for terrorists.

In my humble opinion, the world will be a better place in years to come because of the proactive US stance on terrorism.

In my humble opinion, an earlier intervention in 1930’s Germany would have resulted in hundreds of thousands fewer casualties,

In my humble opinion, all of us were extremely upset on Sept. 11/2001, and were willing to use nuclear weapons to retaliate. Now we’re upset because it’s taking a wee bit longer than anticipated.

In my humble opinion, George Bush is probably the exact right leader, at the exact right time in history. Although I’m willing to bet Ronald Regan would have acted accordingly.

In my humble opinion, you can’t molly-coddle terrorists.

In my humble opinion, things are proceeding as they must, after 3,000 innocent lives were lost on one fine September 11 morning.

In my humble opinion, someone’s going to come back at me and tell me I’m wrong.

In my humble opinion, I wish he or she were right. But the world is a scary place and I thank the United States of America for having the fortitude to stand up to it.

In my humble opinion, I’m willing to stand by the allied forces in Afghanistan and Iraq and understand they’re fighting for our freedom, or lack of terrorism.

In my humble opinion, I’m willing to bet this post won’t be popular.

In my humble opinion, I don’t give a shit.

In my humble opinion, I think I’m in the majority.

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I don’t post often at all. I am very seldom sad.

I’m posting now to say:

This makes me very, very sad.

3

Leaffan, in my humble opinion, you’re right.

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You’re certainly entiltled to your opinion, however simplistic and unrealistic it might be. Fortunately I believe that cooler minds will prevail and we will eventually undo all the harm that the idiot Bush has caused.

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On what grounds do you base this? And why is it better now?

I don’t think it makes much of a difference, honestly. There are always going to be people pissed off by our policies-- whetherwe think they have a valid beef or not is not the issue. The simple fact is that there are always going to be people who want to deal out death and destruction and consider it an honor to die doing so. More intervention means more pissed-off people. You can’t destroy an idea.

Yet another reason why emotion should never dictate policy.

I’ve never heard anyone suggest we should.

To me, this smacks of “Well, at least they did SOMETHING.” But action is not synonymous with progress.

What would really be brave is if we showed this hard line to other nations who harbor or even sponsor violent extremism, but we don’t. (In other words, Saddam was not the only badass out there.) Some of them have stuff we want, so we tend to look the other way.

What did we do when all those Kurds were being gassed? I mean, if we’re going to use it as justification for a war now, why wasn’t it a justifcation back then?

Just because a view is held by the majority does not make it right. Segregation was pretty popular in its time, too.

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In my humble opinion, some people believe whatever the government tells them and will never question authority… no matter what they are told, because that takes intestinal fortitude.

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Or worse, because they believe anyone who DOES question authority is some kind of godless commie pervert ethnic liberal scumbag. Just MHO.

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In my humble opinon, the OP should stick to hockey.

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Give us a break here. You aren’t towing the Democratic line?

OK, I question Ted Kennedy’s gleeful exploitation of the abu-grab prison situation, despite the fact that it was already under investigation. In my humble opinion, he aided the enemy with his diatribe and extended the war. If there’s any justice in the world Ted Kennedy will be reincarnated as Ted Kennedy.

Before Bush ever ran for President I was in favor of removing Saddam. The United States was a sitting duck in Saudi Arabia and it was becoming another Bosnia or Kosovo. As the World’s policeman we were permanently mired in an unstable region and we ended up paying for it.

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In my humble opinon, the OP has no idea what the word “humble” actually means.

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As long as people consider us “the world’s policeman” the US will constantly be drawn into no win situations such as Iraq. Where is the coalition of the willing? Why are the only foreigners mainly Americans and a few British who are dying every day to turn Iraq into a democracy? If the UN had a problem with Iraq then the Security Council should have figured out a way to deal with it. How did it primarily become a US problem? And what did freeing Iraq have to do with 9/11 again?

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IMHO, this thread should be moved to The Pit so that I could really give the OP my NSHO on his intellectually vacuous parroting of nonsensical Neocon rhetoric.
::::gag:::::

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Oh my god, there’s a Democratic line now? I’m so excited!!! Finally we have some cohesion! I thought the only thing that all Democrats agreed on is that Republicans are assholes!

Seriously, this isn’t a party thing. This is a give me a fucking break thing. **leaffan ** wouldn’t know an original thought if it bit him in the ass. If his radio only picked up NPR, then I suspect that “his” humble opinon would be quite different.

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You were off to a good start…

Agreed, no reservations, absolutely, hands down. If the administration had cooked this thing up as a nefarious scheme, George W Bush and his handlers would have done a better media-op event re: “The President Receives the News and Acts Like a Leader”. No way in HELL would they have come up with “OK, I know, you be reading The Pet Goat to some kids. Then when you get the news, you kinda sit there looking like an opening-night actor who has forgotten his lines and pissed his pants, then we’ll put you in the air for awhile until after Rudy Giuliani gets first crack at looking like politician-hero-leader person. Should we rehearse it, or do you think you got that down?”

I believed it then, got no reason to disbelieve it now. Heck, if it was a lie, it was a damn smooth and believable one. I’ve seen this administration lie. They’re not very good at it. Occam’s Razor says they’re telling the truth. Besides, the Taliban was really really bad news on general principle. I’d move to North Korea, Iran, or Iraq-under-Hussein with great zeal if the alternative was Afghanistan-under-Taliban.

See above. I wouldn’t countenance unprovoked invasion, but I’d favor it for far less provocation than they offered us. And I was glad the Taliban was stupid enough to not hand over OBL / Al Qaeda. I only wish we’d genuinely ridded the place of the Taliban. They’re still there and their mindset still controls the place and we’ve kind of fucked up the whole Afghanistan invasion by diverting energy and resources to fucking Iraq.
Anyway, from there on down, we part company. The invasion of Iraq was inappropriate, badly timed, poorly planned, appallingly explained domestically and internationally, implemented with breathtaking incompetence, and funded in a financially disastrous manner. Saddam Hussein was an authoritarian despotic shithead killer, but largely fangless, not an immediate threat, and as time is already telling us quite possibly better than the alternatives for rule in that specific area. Invading Hussein’s Iraq when we did made about as much sense as invading the USSR would have made in 1943. When Captain Kirk was up to his eyeballs in war against the Klingons, did he unilaterally invade the Romulans because they sometimes encroached on the fucking neutral zone? Stupid, stupid, stupid.

The rest of the world is coming to regard us as the evil empire, a la Star Wars. We’ve got the size, the uncontested hegemony, the war-tools and tactics of extreme intimidation, the ruthlessness, the warboot upon the throats of random nations with the rest having damn good reason to be concerned that they might be next.

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There has been steady improvement in Iraq from day one so it’s far from a no-win situation. The success will not be at the hands of the US, it will be at the bidding of Iraqis. It’s primarily a US problem because nobody else wanted the job. I agree that we shouldn’t be used as the blunt end of a global stick. IMO, Bosnia and Serbia were the first signs of a reemerging European presence and hopefully that will continue. I expect nothing from the UN in the way of action and I don’t think that’s going to change in the near future.

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I have a lot of Democratic friends and none of them are as childish as the type of pundit you associate the Demoocratic party with.

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In my humble opinion, this is bullshit and I object to being “spoken for” like that. I wouldn’t have approved of a nuclear retalation at 11 a.m. on September 11. I was against invading Iraq no matter how long it would have taken; I think the problems they’ve had there in the last three years just show that it wasn’t a good idea. I’m not upset that things are “taking too long” in Afghanistan, I’m upset that they’re not being taken care of.

I think this statement is meaningless.

As it’s been noted elsewhere, a majority of Americans now think that the Iraq war was a mistake, and people are split about evenly on how Bush is handling terrorism, so at least in part, you are definitely not in the majority.

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yup.

True. It’s also true that he didn’t do anything about the looming threat of an Al Qaeda attack prior to 9/11.

Right again.

I don’t know what a “breeding ground” for terrorists is, but we were justified in invading Afghanistan. Afghanistan was host to Bin Laden and there were terrorist camps there. There were none in Iraq.

Yes he did. However the inspections had resumed prior to the invasion. In any event, Saddam turned out not to have any WMD’s.

Yes. He was a brutal dictator. Is anyone saying otherwise?

No. It wasn’t. It just wasn’t. There were no terrorist bases or camps in Iraq at all. There are now, thanks to Mr. Bush and his poorly planned ill conceived invasion. You are entitled to your opinion, you are not entitled to your own facts.

A bipartisan investigative comittee gave the administration very poor grades in their approach to terrorism.

I’ll get in my time machine and pass your advice on to Daladier and Chamberlain. Seriously, what does this have to do with anything?

I’m not sure what this means, but yes almost all of us were upset on 9/11. Most of us wouldn’t seriously have wanted to use nukes, even if some of us–including me–might have said “Nuke 'em all” in our outrage that day. I’m not sure what it is that’s taking “a wee bit” longer than anticipated.

Well that is an opinion and you are entitled to it. Of course living in Canada you won’t be affected by this President’s disasterous domestic policies. Nor will your friends and relatives be sent to be killed or maimed on this fool’s errand. I’m no fan of Reagan’s, but I think even he would have had the sense to stay out of Iraq.

I agree 100%. Please let me know which candidates are running on a pro-terrorist-coddling platform, that I may denounce them and urge people to oppose them.

This must be some strange new use of the word “fine,” which I am unfamiliar with. Even if you were in favor of the Iraq war, surely you have to admit it was carried out with a level of incompetence so great it borders on criminal.

Yes. :slight_smile:

I think you’ve inadvertantly hit closer to the truth than you meant. Yes with are ridiculous policies the U.S. is so alienating the rest of the world that soon we may be standing up to it. The world, that is.

How is the war in Iraq protecting any American’s freedom, or making any American safer from terrorism?

Probably not.

OK. Again you are entitled to your own opinion, but not your own set of facts. If you think the war in Iraq is making the world a better place, you could at least explain why.

Sadly you may be right. However I am hopeful that more and more Americans are waking up to the muddled bloody mess that is this Presiden’t war.

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In my post above I misplaced the “fine” regarding the weather on 9/11 to mean that things were going fine. You didn’t say that you said things are proceeding as they must. My brain-fart. But in case anyone thinks things are going fine:

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I believe you. I have many Republican friends who aren’t impressed with the pundits who claim to speak for them, either.

Besides, I was referring to the Democratic leadership. I think that the one thing that many traditional Democrats and traditional Republicans have in common (based purely on my experience with friends on both sides of the fence) is that we each look at our party leadership now with confusion, disappointment, and no small amount of disgust, wondering where it all went wrong.