Nothing to do with you? How about taking the fight to the terrorists so ingrates like you can go on with you la-de-da existence? I’ll give you an example: If you were al-quaeda, and have trained all your life to “take up the cause for allah”, where exactly would you be now if your goal was “intifadah” and expelling the “infidel”? Engineering another terrorist attack in NYC, Chicago, LA, etc., or planting IEDs and sniping U.S. troops in Iraq? Someone is taking the heat off of you so you and your ilk can have a higher quality of life. So you’re welcome you little ingrate and spare us the sympathy.
Yeah. 'Cause Iraq has been SO clearly tied to Al-Qaeda and American-targeted terrorism…
As biggest newsmaker, the one who shaped the news to the most significant extent, I don’t think you could argue the “American Soldier” over George W. Bush. Bush instigated the biggest news story of the year (from America’s perspective, and Time is an American magazine), and has since remained one of the biggest newsmakers with his policies (steel tariffs, exclusionary bidding for contracts, etc). The American Soldier is obviously very important, but to put it bluntly, they are mostly doing what they’re told, tools of the higher ups. I don’t see a huge grass-roots soldier campaign that actually influenced events in any significant way; if there was, then the choice might have been justified (could have been argued for the soldiers returning from Vietnam, perhaps?).
Also, I believe the person of the year in 2001 was clearly Osama Bin Laden, as he was the active force that made the rest of the world react, and precipitated one of the biggest news stories of all time. His face dominated the news seemingly every night; he was the nefarious boogieman that haunted America’s dreams.
The Time that made Adolf Hitler person of the year is gone. It seems like our Time is making decisions on what will play well to the public. Making Osama POTY would not play well (in fact, I read letters to Time from readers saying they would cancel subscription if Osama was named POTY), and making the American Soldier POTY seems to be more politically expedient crap. I am not saying 2003’s POTY has to be Bush (other top newsmakers abounded, surely), but having it be the feel-good American Soldier just stinks to high heaven…
I think Time has lost something, and that makes me sad.
Who said anything of the sort? Read the post. I said if you were al-qaeda, where would you most want to be? From al-qaeda’s point of view – as well as the viewpoint of other stateless and nationless terrorist groups – instigating “intifadah” and waging an insurgency against American troops in Iraq is more important from their world perspective than risking getting caught pulling off another WTC-type attack in the U.S. Hence, as a result of creating a second front in an Arab country, the guys catching the flak in Iraq and Afghanistan are directly contributing to the safety and security in the homefront that many Americans are now taking for granted.
And the fact that we not only invaded a sovereign nation, but did an awful lot of lying to justify it against overwhelming world opinion, is okey-dokey because it gives us an after-the-fact Al-Qaeda magnet?
How clean, exactly, does GWB keep his rectum, anyway? Considering the first-class view you must have…
Remind me, what did Iraq have to do with al Qaeda or 9/11?
Oh yeah…nothing.
An illegal, non-defensive war of aggression that has nothing to do with protecting me? No thanks is warranted. Just pity for the poor unfortunate bastards who are being exploited for an election campaign.
In war, unfortunately – or fortunately, depending on whose side you’re on – sometimes the ends justifies the means, i.e., as long as you are the victor. And I don’t know about you, but I’m not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth on this one – that’s just how I was raised. And regarding the cleanliness of Bush’s rectum, I say it’s remarkable what a regular diet of roughage can do for anyone, including yourself.
“, is okey-dokey because it gives us an after-the-fact Al-Qaeda magnet?”
You are being too kind to this silly theory aka “flytrap theory” which has been debunked in other threads. There is zero evidence to support the idea that Al-quaeda has pulled people from attacking targets in the US in order to attack US forces in Iraq. And it doesn’t make any sense from their pov; the kind of people who could pull off another terrrorist attack on US soil would be people who have lived in the West , can enter the US etc. Why send such people who are valuable terrorist assets to fight in the ME when there are so many extremists in the region itself? Not to mention the fact the “flytrap” doesn’t work if you are increasing the total pool of extremists by creating a new focus of propoganda like , say, an unpopular US invasion of an Arab country.
In short the flytrap theory is just a piece of nonsense that war-supporters are pushing now that their central claims about WMD have proved false. Note that few ,if any, were pushing it before the war.
As to the OP I agree that the Time choice is feel-good fluff. I would have chosen Cheney myself who IMO is probably more responsible than anyone else for the US foreign policy blunders of the last year. Not just the Iraq war but the bungling of the North Korean nuclear crisis.Sorry. The only roughage Bush or his supporters are offering is predigested, and I don’t eat that…
What end would that be? Killing thousands of people and getting hundreds of American soldiers killed while simultaneously pissing off the world and ratcheting up anti-American sentiment in the Arab world?
We have a high terrorism alert as we speak. When does the world get safer?
It’s not too late to notice, but the world is safer thanks to the folks pictured on this week’s Time.
Cite?
Look, I appreciate them for doing a necessary and difficult job. I don’t think they didn’t deserve any recognition. I just disagree with their boss’s plans.
In other words, I don’t think the military in general are assholes. I just think the Commander-in-Chief is.
You don’t need one. But if you wanna see for yourself, come on up here to the DMZ and see for yourself. Spend a day with a forward deployed unit, like the U.S. Army’s 1/506th Infantry at Camp Greaves (just a mile and a half south of the DMZ), or tour the JSA (Joint Security Area at Panmunjon). Then you’ll understand quickly what an under-recognized and under-appreciated job these folks are doing not only for this region, but also the world.
How can anyone say it is under-appreciated? Public discourse has been filled with tributes to the troops, such as Time and their soft-toned romanticized cover.
Yet, certain people keep parroting that the troops are under appreciated (one assumes the parrots are filled with dewy-eyed gratitude, and only talking about others, of course). All the patriotic montages on television and sentimental op-eds and lawn signs and so on are not enough. What exactly do you want in the way of appreciation?
My opinion is people want to use constant baderging about supporting and appreciating the troops to stifle opposition to the war itself.
I haven’t subscribed in a couple of decades. I read The Economist when it gets through the local censors.
One week A Long Time Ago, the American Ambassador in Beirut was killed. Time’s cover that week was “Ice Cream, Getting You Licks In.”
It simply is not a serious magazine.
Just b/c you say it is doesn’t make it so.
Well there’s zero evidence that proves they haven’t. I guess that’s the nature of terrorists anyway, being the elusive, non-reporting entities that they are. Damn them!
Name one thing that does make any sense nowadays.
Why? Because they’re already there! It’s also a lot less risky – and inexpensive – for terrorists to mount terrorist operations and insurgencies in their own neck of the woods, as opposed to operating highly exposed and vulnerable in middle America where they would stick out like a sore thumb and require massive daily financing and support. Also, how many terrorist attacks have been successfully pulled off on U.S. soil since 9/11? Al Qaeda et al., is fully aware of the low probability of mission success is in the post-9/11 U.S. As a savvy unconventional force, they also have the option of picking their battles and choosing the path of least resistance. Refocusing their efforts and activities outside of the contiguous U.S. as well as increasing their terroristic activities in an area where they will be able to achieve their objectives (kill Americans) with relative impunity (Iraq & Afghanistan) works more in the favor of unconventional strategy than not.
In military parlance, it’s not referred to as a “flytrap”. It’s what strategists call creating a "second front. (Mind you, the “Homefront” is where it all began.)
Military operations and strategic planning for such operations is not an exact science. In reality, operational needs, priorities and tactical considerations are constantly shifting. To fail to exploit an advantage or opportunity on a dynamic front at the most opportune time would be tactically naive.
And although things have changed considerably since late March, the Bush administration certainly reserves the right to deploy whatever smokescreens, deceptions and ruses are available in order to ensure operational security of U.S. forces and its objectives.
If anyone has been the victim of deception, it has been our own media. The American public, however, should’ve smart enough to figure this out from the get go, without resorting to believing everything the media – and our own government – has been dishing out.
If you really wanna give credit where credit is due, why not go to the source? In that respect, we have Clinton to thank for the North Korean crisis, specifically, for being such an amateur in negotiating with Pyongyang and failing to strike while the iron was hot back in 1994-95 when we could’ve nuked those bastards when we had the chance.
We also have GWB’s father – GHB – to thank for failing to tie up the loose ends in the first Gulf War, thus paving the way for the really wasteful sacrifices being made today. Cheney, at best, is a cheap imitation of the real McCoys.
In that respect, my dream Time POTY cover would be dedicated to these two imbeciles: GHB and Clinton. Afterall, where would we be today were it not for their handiwork in over ten years worth of bungled and pointless foreign policy?
My POTY cover, however, would be a little more creative. Instead of featuring these two in typical POTY-poses, both GHB and Clinton would be superimposed from the neck upon the body of Orthos – the two-headed watchdog from Greek mythology who serves the the monster Geryon.
The two-headed dog, Orthos, now sporting the mugs of GHB and Clinton, would thus represent the assinine and schizoid nature of U.S. foreign policy over the past ten years, which mollycoddled the likes of Saddam and North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il – who would incidentally be represented as the three-bodied six-handed beast “Geryon,” whom Orthos worked for. The caption on the cover would read: “Thanks Guys!”
“Well there’s zero evidence that proves they haven’t”
Sorry but the burden of proof is on you. If you want to invoke the “flytrap theory” as a rationale for the war then provide evidence that it’s true. Don’t just assert it and ask other to prove it wrong.
“Because they’re already there!”
Who’s they? Many of the 9-11 operatives were already living in the West. Why would Al-quaeda pull them out and send them to the ME when there are so many extremists there in the first place. It doesn’t make any sense from their pov.
“Also, how many terrorist attacks have been successfully pulled off on U.S. soil since 9/11?”
So what?. For whatever reason Al-quaeda has not been able to carry out attacks on US soil after 9-11. But this was true before the Iraq war as well. All this means is that no “flytrap” was necessary. There is no reason to believe that the people attacking US forces in Iraq woud otherwise be carrying attacks on US soil. We know for a fact that many of them are Baathists who weren’t attacking the US before the war.
You also ignore the point that if the Iraq war has boosted Al-quaeda recruitment then they can send those extra recruits without harming operations elsewhere. Finally there isn’t that much evidence that there are a large number of Al-quaeda fighters in Iraq in the first place.
As for North Korea I have discussed it in some detail in other threads so I won’t go into it here.
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It’s not a second front, it’s a completely different war.
The flytrap justification would not be a justification even if it were credible. There is no evidence that al Qaeda or any other terrorists have been involved in the insurgency in Iraq but even if they were, we still don’t have the right to make another innocent country the battlefield for own own personal grievances.
It’s all a smpkescreen anyway. The war was sold as a preemptive strile against an imminent threat. That was obviously a lie and the war is then illegal no matter how many bullshit, retroactive justifications that the Bushistas pull out of their asses.
Nope! The burden is still on you as you haven’t proven a thing, let alone substantiate your “flytrap theory” argument – which is your assertion, not mine. Also, simply saying that things were proven in previous threads elsewhere does not constitute a cite. And FTR, I there is a difference between creating a second front (which I am talking about) and the a “flytrap theory” (which you are advocating).
Who do you think “they” is? (I’ll give you a hint: “They” does not refer to 69-year-old grandmas and grandpas en route to their children’s homes for the holidays bearing bags of gifts and cookies.) And “many of the 9-11 operatives were already living in the West?” Let’s say for arguments sake that you are correct. Where, then, are they living now? If you knew where they were living before 9/11, then you probably know where they’re living currently. That is, unless you never really knew at all.
All these are plausible statements, I’m sure, but I’m going to have to ask you for cites.
In lieu of that, however, the fact remains that U.S. forces in Iraq are dealing with anywhere from 15-30 terrorist attacks a day according to MSNBC, while in the past two years of the post-9/11 era, there have been exactly zero terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. Do you, per chance, have a plausible explanation for this disparity?
It doesn’t take much to realize that terrorists of any sort need some type of financial and logistical support in order to carry out their activities. As the Sadaam’s political machine has ceased to exist, I think it is naive to assume that the Baathists are a self-supporting entity.
Terrorists and insurgents, from time immemorial, have always been supported by larger entities. The Vietcong were supported by the Soviets in their insurgency. Same with the North Koreans. The Baathists and Sadaam loyalists have their own “sugar daddies” as well.
Someone, somewhere is supporting the pro-Sadaam loyalists and Baathists with equipment, arms, explosives, training, volunteers and money.
Who, pray tell, could that be?
Whoever it is, it is most likely someone who has the financial wherewithal and the extensive international networks necessary to pull off such activities.
War is less about being a touchy feely do-gooder than it is about killing the enemy and all who oppose you in battle. If what is happening in Iraq is lessening al qaeda, et alia’s spectre of influence in your neighborhood and the surrounding environs, why knock it?
Orange alerts notwithstanding, I feel safer when I’m back at home in the States among my friends and relatives, knowing full well that someone, somewhere is taking the heat off of us, so we can have a higher quality of life. I’m thankful to them every day of my life for the sacrifices they are making for us.