This blind squirrel commends you for your willingness to retract. Good on ya.
Point 1) OK…so who were we fighting at the time? You see, because I don’t remember us being at war with anyone, and I was under the impression that military defeats usually involve, you know, the military. of at least one side!
Point 2) No, the Moslem world is not laughing and dancing in the streets. Please, Fred, try to pay attention to the words during the news, not just the pictures.
Point 3) If, as you say, the rest of the world see us as “weak and helpless”, why were the Taliban initially practically begging us not to attack them? Why are countries the world over urging us to think before we act, to not start dropping the bombs indiscriminately? They apparently feel we are not so helpless as you do.
Point 3) The probable figures are closer 6,500 dead.
**
This sort of attack only worked because the hijackers had the element of surprise. They don’t anymore. The truth is, they can’t make it happen again.
**
Point 1) While it may not have been cowardly, it most certainly was terrorism. Try a dictionary, Fred.
Point 2) Would I do it? No, but then I’m not a bloodthirsty, suicidal maniac, either. Courage, or the lack thereof, is irrelevant if one wishes to die, and doesn’t care how it happens or they take with them.
Point 3) Why yes, Fred, it was an act of war.
Point 4) No Fred, bombing civilians during during wartime, while horrific and misguided in philosophy (in the latter, it is much like the philosophy behind terrorism), is not terrorism. It’s war, and it’s supposed to suck. That’s why most rational folks would like to avoid it, if at all possible.
**
Point 1) Yes, it was well choreographed. They came a far cry from humiliating the United States, however. Anyone who’s embarrassed that this happened, please raise your hand.
**
Point 1) In watching the coverage, there was a lot of shock and horror at what happened. That, however, is not the same thing as “passive acquiescence”. Don’t know about you, Fred, but I’ve heard plenty of cries for blood myself.
Point 2) Again, Fred, listen to the words, not just look at the pictures. There has been plenty of talk about retaliation. However foolish you think we look to the world now, think about how we would look if we went off half-cocked like the cowboys we are often believed to be, dropping nukes and cruise missiles all over the Middle East in retaliation. Before we even knew who was really responsible.
**
Point 1) We are not, as it happens, run by the “two-thirds of the newscasters were blonde drones”. We have a real live government, made up of both men and women! Shocking, perhaps, but true.
Point 2) We must get on with our lives because to do otherwise is to acquiesce to terrorism.
Point 3) If bin Laden is such a man, why is he in hiding? If we are so weak, why isn’t he out there saying, “Yeah, U.S. bitches, I did it…what are you gonna do about it?”
**
Point 1) We haven’t acknowledged that the Moslem world is our enemy because they aren’t.
Point 2) No one in their right minds thinks this attack was “a unique incident unrelated to anything else.” We know why it happened.
Point 3) We do not face an enemy more inteligent than we are. We face an enemy is willing to go to extremes in order to accomplish their goals.
**
Point 1) I’m sure France, India, Pakistan and Israel would all be pleased to know that “superpower” status is achieved merely by the possession of nuclear weapons.
Point 2) There is a lot more to winning or losing a war than whether there is cover or not. As a former Marine, I’m surprised that you don’t know that.
**
Point 1) Have you noticed where Afghanistan is, Fred? Here’s a clue: we can’t get there thru India.
Point 2) As a matter of fact, we do plan to go through Pakistan. Ain’t diplomacy wonderful?
Point 3) The only people talking about bombing Afghanistan are, frankly, people who don’t know what they are talking about. Just as you know there’s nothing there to bomb, so do our military leaders.
Point 4) The Afghans whipped the Russians with our help. Perhaps you remember a little thing called the “Cold War”?
**
Point 1) The Viet Nam war was not lost because the NVA and Viet Cong used guerilla tactics (believe it or not, we do know how to fight using the same tactics! See “Viet Nam: Nave SEALS, involvement in”). It was lost because the military leadership was either hamstrung (at lower levels) or incompetent (at higher levels).
Point 2) The Moslem world is doing no such thing.
Point 3) Their “troops” are sponsored by countries; where, exactly, do you think they get their funding?
Point 4) [sub]Pssst…New York wasn’t destroyed.[/sub]
Point 5) Again, please pay attention to the words you hear on the news, not just the pictures: we are not just going after bin Laden, we are going after all such terrorist organizations.
Point 6) Sure, it’s not worth doing if you aren’t bothered by the occassional car bomb or caving in to terrorist demands. I’d say most folks, both in the U.S. and elsewhere, feel differently.
**
Point 1) Yeah, it’s agood thing we had those Roswell aliens to teach us stuff about stealth technology, huh? What with no R&D going on, and all.
Point 2) I must admit, I’ve never been in the military. But, I’d be willing to bet that “sensitivity training about homosexuals” is not part of the training.
**
Point 1) OK, Fred, you completely lost me here. Maybe you haven’t noticed, but Libya’s been pretty much behaving since we dropped a cruise missile into his living room.
Point 2) Oh yeah…real U.S. Imperialism will improve our status amongst nations. :rolleyes:
Point 3) It’s a shame we’re so militarily helpless, because, you know, I hate borscht.
[Moderator Hat ON]
Quotes of article edited down out of copyright concerns. Please read http://www.fredoneverything.net/NewYork.html for full context. --Gaudere
[Moderator Hat ON]
[Edited by Gaudere on 09-25-2001 at 10:09 PM]
Darwin’s Finch:
You make good points, many of which would are worth discussing.
Unfortunately while you were diligently typing away that reply, you’ll notice that something happended that kind of took the wind out of the sails of this debate.
Now I don’t what to do.
I’m considering asking David B or Gaudere to lock, or better yet delete this entire thread, but something tells me that they will be laughing at me far to hard to do so.
I may have to change my name again over this one.
Change your name again? Who were you before?
Scylla, I do hope this teaches you to read something through before you “post it without comment.” 'Cause if you don’t comment, you let it stand alone with your name next to it. Whatever that name may be. 
Yeah, Scylla, I kinda noticed that a bunch of stuff had come in while I was typing. No big deal, though, if you want to lock this one up.
He’s not advocating invading Libya, but he sure is right that it would be effective in showing we mean business. It won’t last long but it will work better than talking to the countries we suspect help terrorism and asking them real nicely that they’ll stop doing it.
Just because this guy is in other respets is a jackass doesn’t mean we have to disregard everything he says. That’s one of the first things my Philosophy prof taught me.
But of course everyone assumes that’s not true so it doesn’t help you any to argue against it.
So ignore this post.
Eternal:
While you are of course correct, I feel as if I’ve quoted Bozo the Clown on Nuclear physics. Bozo may say that “E=mc squared,” but he’s not the best source if you wish to be taken seriously.
While some parts of it may be worth discussing, I am rightfully being chided for using such a regrettable cite.
Let me try to salvage this discussion with a much more lucid alternative perspective on the whole affair (certified as true and real by Snopes):
Note that the Snopes page reprints a piece of spam, so I believe that posting the content is not a copyright violation.
He’s not advocating invading Libya? It won’t last long? Lessee…
Damn my faulty reading comprehension!
Well, it’s a fine rant, right from the gut and the heart. Not all that much involvement from the brain, but one can’t win them all.
The only halfway-salvageable point I see in that whole mess is the railing against the tendency to see terrorist acts as isolated events. I don’t think that the “pileups of cars on a snowy road” (a nice image–like I said, it’s a fine rant) is as near a universal misperception, and I’ve know idea what it has to do with our feminization…whatever the heck that happens to mean inside his headspace. But the problem with the salvage operation is that, once all the horseshit is hosed off, what you have is a cheap plastic plaque (of the sort that corporations buy up because of the odd brain damage that invades any organization beyond a certain size often enough to have made Scott Adams have the career that he does) that says “events don’t happen in total isolation from each other.” Sort of…unfulfilling.
As far as deleting the thread, or changing your name, well–I think in the future, quite a few Dopers are going to look back at things they said in these interesting weeks (that old Chinese curse, “may you live in interesting times”) and feel rather embarassed at some of them. Some few might carry grudges over those things said, but they’re…they’re…hmm. I’m trying to think of a term that wouldn’t earn me a stern glare from a frazzled mod, and am failing. But whatever they are, they’re not to worry about.
You had a Pit thread some ages back about internal monitoring. Now, er, obviously situations change and all that, but it occurs to me that perhaps you should look back at that, brush some dust off those interior gauges? Just a thought.
Drastic:
I wouldn’t go that far. I thought the piece had some interesting points to it, and I wasn’t aware that the author was a total fruitcake.
He’s not advocating invading Libya? It won’t last long? Lessee…
Damn my faulty reading comprehension! **
[/QUOTE]
What I meant is that we can TRY to hold onto it permanently, but we wouldn’t BE ABLE to.
but I read the essay.
And while there is certainly plenty of annoying and inflammatory sexism and miscellaneous bigotry being bandied about…the guy definitely has some * excellent * points to make.
And I can’t decide which is more depressing…that I find so much of what he is saying valid, thereby aligning with the most over-the-top hawks I’ve come across recently, calling into question everything I think I believe in; or that I find so much of what he is saying valid, and that means that he’s got it right when he says we aren’t going to do anything effective at all, calling into question the future of this country and the life I’ve known up to now.
I think I’ll go watch a movie or something.
Makes it an even better idea, doesn’t it, Eternal? :rolleyes:
You know, going back and re-reading my post, I realize that I am having some major communication difficulties tonight. Please forgive the misspellings and grammatical errors (as well as that “dropping a cruise missile into [Libya’s] living room” thing - I meant Khadafi, or however you choose to spell it).
I is a colluj gradumate, rilly!
Okay, Scylla, just the military stuff.
Um, lost what? A battle? I don’t recall seeing a “battle”. A “battle” is where two sides line up and have at it, and one side wins and the other side loses. What happened was, we were rabbit punched from behind out in the parking lot while we were fumbling for the car keys. We didn’t “lose”, any more than the guy who gets rabbit punched from behind “loses”.
Again, what “military defeat”? I didn’t see any “military”, I saw 20 Timothy McVeighs. Are you going to argue that the Oklahoma City bombing was also a “military defeat”, perhaps just a teeny one?
And the FAS wouldn’t agree that it was the “worst military defeat since Vietnam”.
Um, no, actually it doesn’t. But in “military” terms, it’s always a good thing to inflate your body counts–makes it look like a fiercer fight than it was.
An “act of war” presupposes that the party of the first part is officially, legally,“at war” with the party of the second part. Rabbit punching someone from behind is not being “at war” with him, it’s just a sucker punch.
Bush is referring to our “war on terrorism”, which, granted, isn’t a “declared war”, but remember–THEY punched US first.
When we bombed Hamburg, we were “at war” with Hitler’s Germany. When we bombed Hanoi, admittedly we were fighting an “undeclared war”. However, the big difference between bombing Hanoi and terrorism is that terrorism is, by definition, perpetrated by clandestine operatives. There was nothing clandestine about the U.S. bombing of Hanoi during the Vietnam War. Uncle Sam stepped high, wide, and handsome all over North Vietnam and didn’t care if the rest of the world knew who was doing the bombing. But the WTC terrorists DID care, and most emphatically did not want the rest of the world to know who was responsible. Those are the differences between “war” and “terrorism”.
Er, no, actually, it wasn’t, and they aren’t. According to news reports, there were probably at least 2 more planes that were supposed to be hijacked, but which were grounded by the FAA before they could take off. So they didn’t foresee THAT. And, of course, the hijackers on Flight 93 in Pennsylvania were overcome by a handful of unarmed businessmen, with the plane falling short of their real target, whatever it was.
Er, no, I don’t think they did. What’s so humiliating about being rabbit punched, other than the embarrassment of getting caught not paying attention to your surroundings out in a parking lot?
Er, no, I would think that cruise missile attacks on Afghanistan would frighten the crap out of the rest of the world. “Ah-ha,” the world will say in trepidation, “Uncle Sam has been itching to use those babies for decades, and now he’s got a semi-legitimate excuse. Let’s all be real polite to him and hope he stays focused on Afghanistan, and doesn’t point the missile silos in our direction.”
Yes, it was my understanding that Sesame Street and Teletubbies chose not to do any special coverage of the bombings, so that would explain it. But if you had been watching anything else, I’m sure you would have heard a few people express maybe just a tiny bit of anger
Yes, that’s right, because that is not the U.S. government’s planned military response. Their planned military response is one of intimidation coupled with bribery, not wholesale slaughter. The carrot and the stick, not Armageddon.
Yes, and they’re working on that even as we speak. But all military responses take time, and a military response of “carrot and stick” takes a little bit longer than one of “bomb them back to the Stone Age.” It’s all the tea-drinking that has to go on down at the embassy, I guess.
Well, again, Fred Rogers isn’t very big on “retaliation”, because “getting even” isn’t how you behave in the Neighborhood. But I believe the U.S. government does have a few ideas about retaliation, and I believe the major networks have been covering those plans quite extensively.
Israel is fighting for survival with its back literally to the wall. They’ve got nowhere else to go. The U.S. is NOT fighting for survival–the bombing killed 6400 people out of a population of 250,000,000, it caused the stock market to sway a tiny bit, and it disrupted travel plans for millions of vacationers and business travelers. And that’s it. No fight to the death calling for heavy immediate military retaliation.
According to this website, only 22.5% of elected offices nationwide are held by women. That’s less than 1/4. How exactly are the women running us?
This is because, as every high-ranking U.S. government official from the President on down has made perfectly clear, the “Moslem world” is NOT our enemy.
The President of the United States has made it equally perfectly clear that he DOES consider us to be “at war”, a “war on terrorism”. By lunchtime on 9/11, he was declaring that the U.S. was officially on a “war footing”, which was the rationale for the FAA’s closing all of the airports and for scrambling everything from Alaska to Cape Cod.
Yes, but it’s an undeclared war. So far there has been no delegation visiting a U.S. embassy, delivering an official diplomatic “note”, declaring war on the United States of America.
Yes, they are so intelligent that they evidently didn’t foresee that the FAA would close the airports, or that some passengers might have other ideas about where the plane was going. I doubt whether they foresaw the freezing of all their bank accounts, either.
And I have to wonder about the “intelligence” of people who believe that random bombings of innocent people is the way to get things changed in the world. “The pen is mightier than the sword”, and the ballot box and the route of diplomacy can be even more powerful than the pen.
Our culture spreads to every corner of the world, from Patagonia to the South Pacific. English is the widely accepted language of business, of science, of culture. What other culture on Earth can say that? People are lining up three deep at the Rio Grande and other more legitimate ports of entry to get in here. Why would they keep wanting to come, if we weren’t the most powerful culture in the world? I don’t see them lining up like that to get into China or Russia.
Teddy Roosevelt said, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” The “big stick” of nukes, much though we may deplore them, is the reason we aren’t posting in Russian.
Undoubtedly.
That’s just an opinion, not a military fact.
A quick glance at a map will show that you get to Afghanistan the same way U.S. forces are currently getting to Afghanistan–by either air or sea to Pakistan, and then either overland or by air from there.
A quick glance at a map will show that we don’t need overflight rights from Iran, we just need them from Pakistan, who in fact has already consented to that, I believe.
A quick glance at a map will show that there’s no need for supply lines to go through Turkmenistan, when Pakistan is right there.
We don’t “imagine”, we know. We have the sealift and the airlift.
I should imagine they would be very upset, because even though it’s “rubble”, it’s THEIR rubble.
No, we “backed out” of Somalia because finally it was clear that there was really nothing we could do to help them, that they were going to have to help themselves. It was a well-intentioned effort to help, which eventually ran out of steam.
A military analysis of Operation Restore Hope, by the FAS.
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/ops/restore_hope.htm
It was a joint U.S.- UN effort, with the U.S. officially leading it, starting in December of 1992. On May 4, 1993, the U.S. handed off leadership to the UN (UNISOM II), although some U.S. troops and support personnel remained assigned to Somalia. The failed raid that killed 18 GIs (not two), was on October 3, 1993, and subsequently some of their bodies were dragged through the streets. However, U.S. troops weren’t officially pulled out of Somalia until March 1994, six months later.
This all hardly qualifies as “backing out when a couple of GIs got killed”.
(Also from Center for Defense Information )
I, too, have a great deal of respect for the Afghans as soldiers. I also have a great deal of respect for Americans as soldiers.
A detailed analysis of why Russia lost the Afghan War.
http://www.bdg.minsk.by/cegi/N2/Afg/Waraf.htm
It wasn’t merely because they were “pansies” and the Afghans weren’t. It was considerably more complex than that.
I see, so in order for Britain to have won the Battle of Britain against Nazi Germany, they would have had to force the Germans to fight a war for which they weren’t prepared. Hmm, what kind of war would that have been?.. … … … … … You know, I can’t think of anything, other than “battle of the bands” or maybe a water balloon fight. Seems to me that the Germans pretty much had it sewed up–naval power, air power, land forces. So how come the British held out for 2 years by themselves before America entered the war?
Well, I actually can’t argue with that. But I CAN argue with this:
The “Moslem world” is not at war with us.
Egypt is not at war with us.
Saudi Arabia is not at war with us.
Jordan is not at war with us.
Pakistan is not at war with us.
Iran, Turkey, Syria, the Emirates, Yemen, none of them are at war with us.
Nobody at all in the Moslem world is “at war” with us–we have merely been sucker punched by a gang of loonies out in the parking lot.
The “troops” in question aren’t sponsored by a country because they’re sponsored by a psycho bomber named Osama Bin Laden. And we do know who to hit–Osama Bin Laden.
Um, “New York” was not destroyed, only a couple of buildings. And the reason Arafat is denying any part in the bombings is because he’s not stupid–he knows he’d be the #2 Suspect, right after Bin Laden.
I seriously doubt whether a committee of religious fundamentalists would have the know-how to organize something like 9/11.
I agree that killing him would make him a martyr. The U.S. government agrees, too. That is why they’re not trying to kill him. It is not the stated intent of the U.S. government to assassinate him. That would be completely counter-productive. If that were even possible, don’t you think the Feds would have gone for it? No, they need him out in public, so the American voters can see the cause of all their troubles, and have, if not a trial, at least some sort of accounting, some kind of official finger-pointing and blame-putting. Vengeance, in a word, but American-style, on 20/20 and Good Morning America.
- Who exactly is being defined as “Arabs”?
- There is no genetic basis for the idea that one “race” is smarter than the other.
- The “Arabs” didn’t pull off the 9/11 bombing. A small group of terrorists did.
- The ability to bomb things is not a measure of intelligence. If that were true, then Timothy McVeigh would have attended MIT.
If we don’t have a military, then who are all those people on CNN, being filmed going about their duties on the USS Carl Vinson and other ships? If we don’t have a military, then where did all those thousands of reservists (reservists, as “they’re in reserve”) come from?
No, the only way we could save any dignity and respect in the world would be to behave like mature adults who realize that the Moslem world in general is not our enemy, and that bombing the people of Afghanistan back into the Stone Age would be a massacre, not a war.
You know, they actually considered something like this back during the Kennedy Administration. It was part of “Operation Mongoose”, the CIA’s proposed “dirty tricks” campaign against Fidel Castro. If the Mercury orbital mission failed, they were going to fabricate evidence proving that the Cubans did it, which would give them an excuse to invade Cuba.
Of course, the Mercury mission succeeded, so they never got to try it. What a shame.
But, why would we want Libya, for heaven’s sake? 
I dunno, I thought Saddam Hussein gave us a pretty good run for our money, considering. And I shudder to think what would happen if Egypt or Saudi Arabia or Turkey or Pakistan got really pissed off and decided to come after us.
That’s just an opinion, not a military fact.
No, but then, Katie Couric isn’t currently Commander in Chief.
Scylla wrote
Of course.
Am I allowed to grumble because I posted this a full 10 hours before Scylla did? No? Alright then.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Gadarene *
**
Except for that time when it was run by Golda Meier. But I bet Fred Reed would argue she wasn’t REALLY a woman.