Gordon Brown. I can’t think of any other viable contenders, though there must be some.
In a Presidential system he would probably have faced strong opposition to his candidacy from within the party but the tories did not have a credible leader, just a repulsive old man hated from the Thatcher era. Imagine the Dems running Dukkakis against GWB.
In the UK we don’t have the luxury of voting on single issues. The best we could do was vote tactically to rein in Blair’s huge majority. The UK has not had a credible opposition party since 1997.
Yes; that’s why you need an armed population as a defense-in-depth.
Upon re-reading your post i realise i initially misinterpreted the context of the quote. If you were simply making that point that England did not need to officially declare war on the IRA in order for the bombing to start then i agree.
But I’ve also stated earlier that it is our foreign policy in the middle east that has fuelled the hatred of the west. It was our same foreign policy which pushed the IRA over the edge. We have given them reason enough, before this war (illegal or not, I’m not arguing that point), to be pissed.
It’s not as simple as “No illegal war=no bombings”, I do not agree with Diogenes the Cynic and his reasoning on this. However, that does not mean that i think the war is a good thing. I do not see any reason to believe that it is reducing terrorism. I did not see how that could ever to be a consequence of invading Iraq. It’s my belief that it’s only creating the breeding ground for more fanatics.
With us providing the fuel it’s not difficult for terrorists to produce the match. It is entirely reasonable to question how our actions may have contributed to this end, without justifying the actions of terrorists.
First, I apologize for the “Scott Plaid” comment, it really doesn’t apply and there is no place for a comment like that in this forum. I withdraw it.
All I wanted was for you to provide an actual, real-life example for this comment:
You were not able to do that. Instead, you provided, in your very first attempt to illustrate, a banner displayed by an anarchist group (not a “sister group”) that exhorts the troops to kill their commanders. This in no way, shape or form supports or illustrates your actual comment.
I’m not sure what you mean by “spaghetti-spine.” Do you mean flip-flopping, hypocritical, or cowardly? In any case, if there are any actual liberals that on the one hand claim to support the troops and on the other hand celebrate our setbacks in Iraq, I condemn them. However, I’m reasonably sure that they are only the phantoms of a fevered imagination.
Please prove me wrong, or retract.
I am currently attempting to defend past threads of mine in the pit, so: No comment.
However, I was wondering about how Bricker, as the Op, feels the issue should be handled. How do you think people should respond, ideally? You have already posted how you think matters will be handled, but not how they should be handled.
You know, throwing stuff like “spaghetti-spined nonsense” around doesn’t make your argument any stronger. It just highlights your unwillingness to address the points I’ve made, and the basis (the testimony of a four-star general) I had for making them.
If we don’t have enough troops to do the job, and more troops would make it even harder, then what does that say about the mission?
We’ve been there for over two years. Since May 2003, the insurgency has gotten steadily stronger, and Iraq (except for the theocracy down around Basra) is extremely unsafe - the State Department says “don’t go there, period.” We can do more of the same - but expecting it to work out any diffferently than it’s worked out for the past 26 months is a sign of dysfunctionality.
There is no evidence - other than your asserting it - that to have more troops killed because people like you want them to butt their heads against the same brick wall is somehow “supporting the troops”, and wanting to bring them home isn’t.
Cite?
Or we could compare with how the Clinton Administration vigorously responded to a similar warning, that of the Millenium Plot.
And the pattern (other than the world being a nasty place) is…?
Soldiers and the military are a tool… they are not the mission or the government. If the government uses them badly you don’t have to support that. It sucks to see them used badly… but they are not synonmous with “the mission”.
The Spanish had a situation more like ours: two parties somewhat close to parity with one another.
Britain’s political situation is quite different: Blair’s party is the Labor Party, which used to be a more-or-less socialist party that Blair pulled somewhat towards the center in the 1990s - but aside from the war, it’s still well to the left of the Dems here. Its historical opposition is the Conservative Party, the party of Maggie Thatcher not that long ago. A large majority of the Brits firmly don’t want to go back there.
The Liberal Party is gradually gaining strength, but they’re still the third party, and people don’t think they’re ready for prime time.
So there was very little room for the Brits to vote Labour out just on account of the war; they would have had to conclude that not only was the war the #1 issue, but issue #2 through about #8 as well. Given the constraints, their ability to throw Blair out over the war was more theoretical than actual.
One should add that the opposition in Britain is quite lackluster as well… there wasn’t much of an option and Blair still lost an awful lot of seats in parliament.
Yes, they can. They can even be blonde hair and blue-eyed. But, at least here in the U.S., most aren’t. But my point was that you cuold use certain criteria together, e.g., phsical attributes, dress, plae of worship, to get a pretty good idea which are Muslims. Some, like me at the airport, might receive undeserved scrutiny, but I say that if (and I know that you don’t agree with this) that is the price to pay for a safer society, I gladly tolerate the inconvenience. And I wuldn’t be insulted by it. I’d feel there extra attention is reasonable.
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But then, you’re all for scrutinizing Italians too. Basically anyone who isn’t blonde and blue-eyed. That’s such a wide profile that it’s not worth calling it a profile at all. It would just be stricter checks on everyone - which I would agree with.
The insult was in using his first name rather than his surname plus a title, like with other passengers.
So far that’s what’s happening. It’s just a few bombs. We’ve had them before. Life goes on. It doesn’t for the ones that died, but more than that are killed in car accidents every day, and that’s just as sad.
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I think that’sd an excellent point, but there is a difference. 1) They are accidents. And we know as human beiing we are fallible and accidents will happen. 2) We try to minimize them. We have laws against speeding, reckless driving and driving under the influence. We even deprive some people of the privilege.
Overall, I think your pint is effectiveness. I think what I’ve described here might work here but not elsewhere. If a particular dangerous group had a 99% incidence of blonde hair and blue eyes, it might work in Guatamala, but not Sweden.
Stay safe. My condolences to your country.
That’s what Im trrying to avoid. I don’t want to allow terrorists to hide within a religion. They’re doing that now and I think that is why Islam is getting painted in teh bad ight it is. If I were a Muslim I think I would welcome the scrutiny and even assist in it. I certainly wouldn’t want my religion hijacked by murderers. It’s an insult to the religion and defines it for the world in a way that it is not.
That’s what Im trying to avoid. I don’t want to allow terrorists to hide within a religion. They’re doing that now and I think that is why Islam is getting painted in the bad ight it is. If I were a Muslim I think I would welcome the scrutiny and even assist in it. I certainly wouldn’t want my religion hijacked by murderers. It’s an insult to the religion and defines it for the world in a way that it is not. For now though, there is a VERY strong correlation between being a terrorist and being a Muslim (granted, in one direction). It would be completely foolish to ignore that fact.
Thanks. I think. I still do not know what you were tryinig to say. In rereading some of posts I wonder if it has to do with sloppy typing and not proof reading. In which case, point taken.
I agree. I admitted in my post that my response was not on point. As far as getting the group wrong, my mistake. But when the groups march side by side in the same protests, I’d call them sister groups. Not that their affiliated with each other, but that they share a common cause. Other than that, I will retract my statement. I made a claim that was foolish, in that I should have known I couldn’t support it. Not many people come right out and say they are happy when bad things happen AND state their support for the troops. I’m thinking Michael Moore did, and Danny Glover, but because I cannot point to specific instances, I retract my statement in full. You were right in calling me on it.
magellan01: *But my point was that you cuold use certain criteria together, e.g., phsical attributes, dress, plae of worship, to get a pretty good idea which are Muslims. Some, like me at the airport, might receive undeserved scrutiny, but I say that if (and I know that you don’t agree with this) that is the price to pay for a safer society, I gladly tolerate the inconvenience. *
Hmm, this reminds me of the Dutch story about a guy who had a broken dyke and was afraid of flooding. Instead of repairing the dyke, he tried to drain the ocean.
Moral: It’s best to focus attention and resources on solutions that are practical, even if they’re limited and temporary, than on more comprehensive and permanent solutions that are too impossibly huge to tackle effectively.
Impossibly huge plans like sealing off all borders, or investigating all Muslim residents, may seem comfortingly thorough at first glance, but IMO they’d be a waste of resources in real life. Since the vast majority of Western Muslims are not terrorists or terrorist supporters, requiring anti-terrorism investigators to scrutinize all of them would just dump huge amounts of noise into the signal.
Anti-terrorism resources are finite, and comprehensiveness is sometimes the enemy of effectiveness. I don’t want police manpower diverted to running routine background checks on millions of law-abiding Muslims instead of actively pursuing the few individuals and organizations that are genuinely criminal. Nor do I want patrols spaced every half-mile in deep snow along the Montana-Saskatchewan border while major urban infrastructure security is seriously undermanned.
Speaking of finite resources, when it comes to choosing an appropriate response to terror hazards, I suggest it’s time for our leaders to grit their teeth and repeal some of their most budget-busting top-bracket tax cuts. Does anybody really believe that we can simultaneously run two extremely expensive wars for years on end, and take the necessary defensive measures against terrorist groups who are evidently still active and capable, while still providing millionaires with tens of thousands of dollars apiece in extra annual “tax relief”?
The current US budget situation is not healthy. Being this deep in the red is bad not only for our short-term ability to spend more on anti-terror measures, but also for our long-term safety. If the American economy takes a serious turn for the worse, the rest of the world will feel it too, which will seriously impact their ability to support anti-terror measures.
I’m not thinking of the blonde-haired blue-eyed Muslims, who are in a tiny minority, true. I’m thinking of the significant proportion of Muslims that aren’t Arabic-looking. You probably don’t realise (I know I didn’t before I started teaching ESOL) how many black Africans, for example, are Muslim. Then there are the Albanians and Turks, who do tend to follow a more Westernised version of Islam but are still Muslim. Are there so few black Africans, Albanians and Turks in the US? (That’s a genuine question, not rhetorical).
The only trustworthy criteria would be some Muslim women’s dress and records of their place of worship. But I’m not sure how an airline would know the person’s place of worship. It’d be pretty insulting to ask. And the terrorists would lie anyway. Maybe if a cursory search revealed a Koran in the luggage, that would be grounds for a further check. It would still be religious discrimination, but at least you’d know the person actually was that religion!
Even ruling out five-year-olds and and old Swedish guys might not work. The Maritime Museum in Liverpool had a display on Customs, with a part about the groups of people they tend to look out for - so they do already profile people. They included family groups - presumably where the kids were acting oddly in some way - because smugglers often use children as cover. A Swedish surname could be obtained via a false passport and someone pale enough to pass.
Customs is also suspicious of people travelling from certain countries or from one country via another. That makes a lot of sense.
I don’t think your idea is wrong in principle; I don’t like the idea of targetting a particular racial group for extra scrutiny, but I can see arguments for it. I just don’t think it would work.
Are airplanes the biggest problem now anyway? These attacks were at tube stations. You can’t check everyone going into the tube station. You can’t check all shopping mall users or concert goers or visitors to Disneyland or any other possible target.
I don’t have an alternative suggestion at the moment, though. It looks like several attacks have been foiled in the past, and on the 7th at least 3 bombs were set off safely by the police and army. Only 50+ people have died - that’s not bad, considering. Maybe whatever the security forces are doing now is pretty effective.
OK. It’s a semantic point. I didn’t think you, personally were intending to cause offence. Mohammed can occasionally be a surname too, but then it would still need a title.
You are right - these deaths are different to accidents. But the relatively small numbers make it easier for those not hurt or bereaved to shrug the attack off and carry on with life regardless.
Many interesting points here. Thanks.
I think we agree on thepotential benefit of my main point. And you’re right, maybe as I describe it, it wouldn’t be effective. But I would try to devise a strategy that had us using our limited resources effectively, i.e., giving as much scrutiny to the smallest group and ignoring as large a group as we intelligently can.
Agreed. I didn’t mean to say that “Muslim profiling” was the only or even best way to tighten the weave in the seive, only that it is one waay and should be used.
I agree again. In the very grand scheme of things I think we need to take them of warnings, of the will the resides in the hearts of the terrorists to kill our innocents. I’d like to muster reaction now, before an incident like 911–or worse–occurs.
I really enjoyed your points. Thanks.
Yeah – all you have to do is omit the people who radiate such an intense field of trustworthiness that it repels any bombs that might have been snuck into their luggage by the evildoers. :rolleyes:
Obviously, you can’t really omit anyone unless you are specifically looking for suicide bombers.
How many times would you have to be “inconvenienced” until you stopped “gladly tolerating” it? I mean, it’s easy to be some innocent-looking pasty Anglo guy who breezes through the airport and talk about tolerating the nasty looks and whatnot, but it’s another thing to get stopped every single time you go flying (like twice a week if you’re a business traveller) just because you wear a turban, a robe, and have dark skin (say a Hindu or Indian).
IME, the folks who talk easiest about “tolerating” profiling and stereotyping seldom experience it firsthand.
I’d find it deeply insulting, myself. "They’re saying that people who look like me/sound like me/dress like me/worship like me are more likely to be criminals, just because of some superficial similarities! :mad: "
rjung:
I am very sorry you’re insulted. Truly. But the question is: should someone’s feelings mandate that we create an alternate reality? The unfortunate fact is that a very large percent of the people who have commited terrorist acts against the west (The 1st WTC bombing, the Achille Loro, the marine barracks in Beirut, The USS Cole, 9/11, 7/7, among others) do have a specific profile as to their appearance, language and religion. It doesn’t mean they are guilty of anything. It does mean that there is a very large likeihood that the next terrorist attack will be commited by people fitting the same profile. Surely, you don’t dispute that, do you? If not, doesn’t it just make sense that that group would receive extra scrutiny?
The police and FBI do this all the time: black male, 6 feet tall, bald, 40ish; white male, blonde, crew cut, green eyes, 5 foot eight, goatee; female, white, 5 foot ten, long brown hair. Let’s say the evidence points to the authorities to these profiles, should they ignore this valuable information? Surely many, many innocent people will be included in these groups. Should we put their feelings above catching a criminal or preventing a subsequent crime?
Here in the U.S., some people would probably say yes. But I’d prefer our society be one that is safe rarther than what I’d consider overly politically correct.