I’m referring to TWAT but there is a war in Adghanistan. A Civil War in which we are half-heartedly siding with one bunch of murdering, drug-dealing scum over another while propping up the Mayor of Kabul for as long ass it takes someone to off him. And if that war is so important why didn’t the US do a proper job of it instead of invading Iraq?
You’re way wrong. The 2004 CIA World Facts Handbook says that 26.2% of the 2003 U.S. GDP is attributed to the manufacturing and industrial sector. That’s $3 trillion. An awful lotta nothing.
It also lists these as the largest sectors of industry: leading industrial power in the world, highly diversified and technologically advanced; petroleum, steel, motor vehicles, aerospace, telecommunications, chemicals, electronics, food processing, consumer goods, lumber, mining.
So there is a war in Afghanistan. And the leaders of the war are playing dipsy-do across the border, hiding and running. And yes, we aren’t giving it our full attention. That’s not my choice. My point is, it is a state of war, we are shooting and bombing things there. And, as I said, it’s pretty much akin to the bombing of Democratic Kampuchea during 'Nam. Doesn’t mean I approve of it, but it’s a lot faster to bomb something than to get soldiers to it. (On the other hand, if we’d gotten soldiers there, then maybe one of the women would have survived, but… maybe not. It’s not like it’s safer to be shot at than bombed.)
And I don’t know why Bush has his own priorities. I think they’re screwed up. But that doesn’t make this any more of a horror than any other military bombing, objectively.
The truth buried in here, as some posters have alluded to, is that mswas actually does make a few good points. The US has for many, many years claimed a certain “moral privilege” to in a sense do whatever is in its “national interests” all over the world. There’s no denying the arms dealing and government changing and supporting that the American government has participated in for so long. From the shah in Iran, to Nicaragua, to Iraq, there’s been a ton of things that the US has done, that have made the world worse, but that have been supposedly “in the US national interest”. What is hard for an outsider to grasp, however, is why the US’s national interest is any more important or relevant than their own, or that of the country being affected. Yet it seems that what it really comes down to is might makes right, which is a thoroughly wretched way to govern and believe. I think the people of the US have been effectively duped for a long time into believing that “America, love it or leave it” is a good slogan to have.
That said, a word of advice to mswas: if you have a point to make, and it’s one you feel strongly about, write it out objectively, try to grasp the counter-arguments, and refute those rationally. Don’t spew. Spewing leads to bile, and bilious writing wins you no converts, nor any respect. You had good points in there somewhere, but you corrupted them with so much vitriol and froth that it’s hard to take them seriously. Just a thought.
Actually, if we weren’t numbed by the unending horrors of the evil being done in our names, we’d be spewing too. It’s salutary to see it.
Beer, I was making a somewhat flippant and hyperbolic statement, but I can clarify: durable goods manufacturing in the US is in a decline. Not every SIC code, but a staggering number of them. ‘Industry’ is a more general term, but it simply wouldn’t have been punny if I hadn’t used it.
See for yourself. Make sure you look at outputs by index and not inputs or EMS.
http://www.bea.gov/bea/uguide.htm#_1_13
Oh, and even with outputs, be careful. Sometimes a US product is nothing more than foriegn parts with final assembly taking place here.
You’re the kind of idiot that thinks you’re Jesus Christ.
Jesus would never beat his wife.
Y’know, I’ll be honest. Sometimes I sit there and think about the war in Iraq, the lies about WMDs, the mad spending, the corporate cronyism, the raping of the minorities, the anal rape of the third world…
And, I wonder to myself. “Is this really what it’s all about? Are we really doing the right thing?”
And I have my doubts.
And then, I come to this thread and read the OP in all it’s bizarrely confused biliousness…
…And I know it’s all good.
Can’t help you with number one and two, but here’s a pitchfork, and there’s a heap of manure over there. 
Don’t worry, that’s just the New Republicanism coming through. It doesn’t matter if you were wrong about WMD in Iraq, as long as everyone else was too. It doesn’t matter if you’re violating the law by wiretapping citizens without a warrant, as long as you can say prior President’s may have done it too. It doesn’t matter if lobbyists paid off your congresspersons, as long as Democrats got money too. It doesn’t matter if you insanely increase federal spending and the federal government, as long as you can find someone on the far left who sounds like an idiot.
New Republicanism… As long as we can find someone doing something worse, we’ll be OK!!!
No, it’s not that, it’s just that so many of you guys… are just so fucking stupid.
By “you guys” I’ll assume you mean idiots on the left, and not me. 'Cause the right wing doesn’t have idiot of their own. cough Robertson cough New Iskander cough cough Dubya* I’m just sick of every time an issue comes up for the Republicans, their first defense is to lash out at anyone who disagrees.
In the interest of fighting ignorance, moral relativism is not the same as judging other people differently than you’d judge yourself–that’s called hypocrisy. Moral relativism is the belief that there is no absolute good or bad, only what people think.
If you had ever argued on these boards as a conservative, I, in all honesty don’t believe you’d be so quick to assign that tactic to the right, after you’ve been called a Bushista, apologist, or Repugnican, and, certainly the OP itself is ironic living proof that such is alive an well among the lefties.
Or, in other words, attend to the two by four in thine own eye,
Disappointing OP and subsequent debating, mswas. You are good at nuance; you can see many perspectives at once. This ain’t that.
I would like to alter my last line to: I also wish I had a hamster.
Maybe I didn’t finish my last post. In addition to lashing out at anyone who calls them into question, this adminstration and its lackeys piss me off by, after the first attack, they do the martyr complex crap. I have no idea why that just popped into my mind…
You could not have proven my point any better. Never mind the issues, attack, attack, attack.
And, just so you know, I’ve pissed off Dio, ElvisL!ves, and mswas for calling them on their bullshit. How’s your record?
Yeah well the thing that pisses me off about lefties is that they can never finish a thought.
We’re not discussing issues here, are we? What issues are we actually discussing.
Better. I’ll bet I’ve pissed them off a lot more than you.