Another way to look at it. 2.6 million Americans die every year, mainly from “natural causes” that are from the disease of aging. Terrorism is not worthy of any attention whatsoever.
The “war on terror” cost over a trillion dollars. I would expect that if all that money went to research into heart disease or general aging - especially if it were spent efficiently, on techniques that might actually help, such as genetic editing and trying to grow artificial hearts - far more lives would have been saved with even a small advance.
What is well established in other fields is the notion that safety countermeasures that cost money shouldn’t cost more money than the rough dollar value of the lives it saves. In some cases, certain safety devices are so ineffective that more workers get manufacturing and installing them than were ever saved by the device. Obviously, not a winner.
So what should have been done was “ok, lets lock these cockpit doors” and that would have been that.
No, I think that is wrong. A waste does almost always have negative value (“I lay out ten large for a car for my son and he runs into the river; what a waste”). When you engage in an enterprise that increasingly works against your (stated) goals the more your strive, there must be another name for that. “Fiasco”? “Monumental Clusterfuck”?
I’m not…you’d have to look at what I was responding to and not take it out of context.
Again, I’m not saying this. What I did say is that we have had a more profound impact on their upper echelon C&C than they have had on ours. Simply pointing out that they have recruited a lot more soldiers doesn’t really say much, in and of itself.
Not what I was saying there…seems to be a theme. I also don’t see how the terrorists have had any measurable effect on decreasing US power. The US electorate has a far greater impact on US military power than the terrorists ever could or would have.
Well, you have to admit that, in the early '70s, they did add a whole class of crimes to get tough on. That adventure has been comparable to the war on terrorism.
Groups like ISIS and the The Taliban, if they had the means to a WMD with a delivery system, would likely use it on New York, Washington DC.
They have declared war and are for our deaths, so no its not a waste of time. Many of their members have been killed, and their networks either destroyed or compromised.
The Taliban was never a problem so you can’t look at like that. If you recall, GW Bush told the Taliban hand over Osama Bin Laden and that’ll be it.
Osama was protected by them but not a part of them. When they refused the war began. If they had handed him over, that wouldn’t have happened.
This is the problem, the “War on Terror” is not a thing, it’s just a general term to describe hundreds if not thousands of separate actions.
We also had a war on cancer, which isn’t won but some types of cancer it’s highly successful, others not so.
This is the problem when you try to take an overbroad term to begin with and measure it.
Also the success of this depends on proving a negative, which you cannot do. You can’t say for various reasons if attacks did or did not happen because of actions we took or because of the economy or because attention was diverted elsewhere, with any solid form of proof.
I never even remotely suggested that the OP thought we should not fight terrorists. Nor did I advise such. I specifically said, and continue to say, that declaring as he has that the entire effort has been wrong headed or has accomplished nothing, is rather obviously false.
I even said specifically that many actions HAVE been counter-productive.
I am saying, to use an old simile, that while there certainly is a lot of very filthy bathwater in the mess, that there are also a few babies in there. Declaring that EVERYTHING has been a bad move, is just argumentative petulance.
I would wager that the entire concept that there is a war against terrorism is incredibly ill-conceived. It’s not like there’s one effort in one place. It’s not like there’s one enemy. It’s not like there’s a line item in the budget that says “WOT.”
It’s a catch-all newspaper term for a number of different military and defense actions across the globe by many different countries. Let’s not act like there’s some sort of official reference book that defines the WOT.
The very fact that you feel it necessary to start this sentence with “this may be an unpopular opinion” shows how radical this board is, especially in threads like this. Look at the thread title and ask yourself if this is a debate or a circlejerk.
So for the uninitiated, let me describe the gameplan for a thread like this. If someone mentions something about what the enemy does, you have to follow this recipe:
Deflect blame for their action. Insist they just had to do this evil thing, and they’re a victim of circumstance.
Figure out the last interaction that actor had with the US.
Assign full culpability to the US due to interaction.
If no action is available, find an intermediary who has interacted with the US. E.g. US action in Syria? No, but Syria interacts with Iraq, and the US interacted with Iraq.
Do not, under any circumstances, ask what caused the US to take such an action. Once you find the US link, you have to stop there. Remember, all culpability has to lie with the US.
Only by following these steps can you make sure you feel justified hating your own country, which after all, is how liberals get off.
At no point in time is any terrorist action due to their religion. And, IF it is somehow, but never more than vaguely, related to their religion it is justifiable due to the Crusades or the happenstance religion of those who may have wronged ‘them’ at some time in the past 5000yrs. Oh, and you’re a racist by even bringing it up.
The fact that you actually think that there IS a simple formula to follow, proves that you don’t bother to investigate or think things through at all. This is typical of an Anti Person. In this case, Anti-liberal.
The irony of all Anti people is, that they repeatedly prove that they have no accurate understanding of whatever group it is that they are Anti about. And they prove it as you have, by declaring in your own “circle jerK” way (circular reasoning in this case), by making it clear that you define whoever you oppose by saying that if they don’t hate whatever you hate, they MUST be in the group you ignorantly blame everything bad on.
How is it a strawman when someone predicts the way a thread will go? A prediction isn’t making a claim on an argument already made, it is ‘guessing’ at the arguments to come.
Also, these are predictions based upon the direction of other threads where the these things actually happened.
But, I can happily add to the list:
7. “You’re argument is a strawman, no true scotsman, or (insert fallacy of choice)”. Usually used to shutdown discussion and deflect ‘controversial’ claims rather than getting to the root of the issue.
maybe, just maybe, if all of your arguments here are attacked as “a strawman, no true scotsman, or (insert fallacy of choice)”. you should look at the way you frame your positions a little more closely.
Sorry, that is a strawman. I have never said that ‘all of’ my arguments are attacked as some sort of fallacy. It should be obvious from the fact that it is a list of many possible outcomes.
So, do you think it was helpful to point out the ‘strawman’ in this instance or does it actually distract from the discussion of finding out why someone is making a specific claim?
well, let me start by saying that it wasnt your list. and it wasnt a list of possible outcomes it was a “gameplan” of the progression of arguments on this “liberal” board by ** Chessic Sense**. and you added points 6 & 7. indicating that you believed all discussions of terrorist activities then progressed to 6 = denying a religious aspect of terrorism and accusing those who did bring it up as racist. then proceeding from there to 7 = attacking the arguments as strawmen, etc.
now i did jump to the conclusion that these observations were based on reactions to your own posts, and maybe that conclusion was not warranted. but my observation still holds; if many of the threads end in someone accusing someone else of erecting a strawman, then maybe these posters should re-examine how they are framing their arguments.
Bush was misunderstood. He had a fear of rabbits. Hates them. Wanted them all eradicated from the US. He instituted “Warren Terror” soon after taking office, but world events soon forced everyone to co-opt this as a new rallying slogan for something else.
Same with Nixon. He had a rug that really tied the room together. Someone tripped over it in the White House, so he ordered them all removed, which necessitated the “War on d’Rugs”. Again, soon afterward, the slogan was re-branded for a totally different purpose.
Well, it is comforting to know that there are right-wing-types present who are ready to step in and prevent the thread from wandering into dangerous liberal territory. We ought to express our gratitude to them for protecting us from discussing the subject improperly.
I also don’t see how the terrorists have had any measurable effect on decreasing US power. The US electorate has a far greater impact on US military power than the terrorists ever could or would have.