The Lemmings Are Marching to War.

The BBQ Pit
1

The drums are beating, the flags are waving, and the lemmings are marching to war. May God have mercy on my beloved country.

The last straw? Which one?

The formulation of a first strike policy? An expansion of the President’s power to decide who is our enemy, and to carry out a pre-emptive strike at his sole discretion. But of course it only applies to enemies, and enemies who are developing weapons of mass destruction. And who are our enemies? Damn near everybody. When they hear “you’re with us or against us”, do their hearts swell with admiration and adoration for the stern, manly way with which we conduct ourselves? Is there a single country above level of development of Upper Chad who isn’t developing weapons of mass destruction? And, of course, if Goddam Hussein should react unreasonably to our announced intention to kill him, the warmonger can expect swift retribution. Knowing that the bear is rabid, we poke him with a sharp stick. Insanity. Blithering insanity!

Or was it Rehnquist, world famed jurist and gown designer, with his charming little speech about the flexibility of the law in time of war? Sure, says he, constitutional boo-boos happen in time of war, but we can fix them later. After we win. When the President says the war is over. When Oceania surrenders.

Or was it Karl Roves cynical urging of Republicans to run on the War Ticket.?

Or was it the utter non-reaction to revelations about “Big” Dick Cheney’s tenure at Haliburton ( a wholly owned subsidiary of MammonCo)? If this had happened to Al “The Plank” Gore, the Republicans would be rolling about on the floor of Congress and shrieking with porcine rage through foam-flecked lips! But this is a time of war. Bi-partisan solidarity, and all that. A Get Out Of Shit Free card.

Which brings us the Democrats, who have mastered the art of the craven cave-in. The Republicans have examined their bread, and determined to their satisfaction which side the butter is upon, the Demowhores have searched their courage and their conscience, and have discovered they have neither. Clearly, the Republicans intend to run on the “God Bless America and Our Heroes” ticket and the Loyal Opposition will sing “Me Too, only More So!” Spineless gobs of gutless mush. And our only hope.

But the drums are pounding, and the lemmings are marching. Its gonna make for some very large bumper stickers: “Support our Heroes in Afghanistan! And Iraq! And Iran! And Sudan! And The Philippines! And North Korea! And Tau Ceti 5! (see next bumper)…

Attacked by a swarm of bees, we are determined to flail at them with a hammer until they surrender. The inmates have taken control of the asylum, and a unshakably convinced that they are firm, hard-headed realists. The grown-ups.

The drums are beating, the lemmings are marching, and somebody is about to die.

May God have mercy on my beloved country.

2

I once ate a bug.

3

Despite your overflown rhetoric, **Elucidator[/b[, you are absolutely 100 percent correct. Never before in our history has any president advocated a "first strike"policy. And the spineless Democrats, instead of opposing this militarism, are cheering bush on!

OK, I was all for hitting the Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and taking out the Taliban in the process, but this is nuts! As despicable as Saddma’s regime is, the US has no casus belli that would stand up before world opinion. Under this buffoon who was foisted on us by a rabidly partisan Supreme Court, we are turning into the bully the rest of the world believes us to be.

4

The “flexibility of the law” during times of war is what really scares me. When will the war on terrorism end? How do you tell when you’ve defeated an arbitrary term?

5

I think you probably mean “overblown rhetoric”, but I take your point.

On the gripping hand, rants are for wussies. The situation calls for a weapons grade Jeremiad, and this all I have to offer.

“I’m scared as Hell, and there ain’t shit I can do about it”

6

That has been thoroughly clarified. When the President says so.

Now sit down, shut up and wave your flag. Oh, by the way, what size combat boots will your children be needing?

7

The Republicans are fascist warmongers and the Democrats are spineless sellouts…

So, tell me again why Ralph Nader and Winona LaDuke should not have been elected in 2000???

8

Oh, come on, you guys! Bush clearly said this was to be a war on “evil doers.” It ought to be fairly obvious when we’ve killed all the bad people. Then we’ll get our freedom back. Don’t worry.

9

That isin’t really that new. Roosevelt has basically the same policy. The only difference was he would take some minor event and use it as a cause to attack.

10

Roosevelt judiciously did not use attacks on several U.S. ships as an excuse for war. I suspect that few people would consider the Pearl Harbor attack as a minor event. The U.S.S. Reuben James and other ships were attacked long before Pearl and the Philipines.

11

I feel physically ill about our own Prime Minister even considering supporting a “first strike” policy by the US, let alone muttering about the possibility of sending ground troops into Iraq. It’s bad enough that our naval vessels are involved in enforcing the trade sanctions against Iraq.

Does anyone truly believe that should Saddam be deposed, the Iraqi people will or should be grateful to the Western world for taking an action about which those who will be most directly affected and stand to suffer the most have not even been consulted?

One day my country might get a government whose military strategy is not simply to put up its hand and say “can we play too” whenever the US flexes its military muscle - but I wouldn’t count on it. :frowning:

12

Wow. I am glad we have freethinkers like you people here, to help clear up all the propaganda that ‘The Man’ is spewing!

Since you give no alternatives, (What the fuck SHOULD we do to stop terrorism, etc), you are just blowing anti-establishment smoke out of your ass for the sake of doing so.

13

Sterra, were you referring to Teddy or Franklin? I might agree in the former case, but I don’t think Pearl Harbor can be considered a minor event.

14

Brutus, I’m thinking the point being made here is not that we shouldn’t fight terror, but that Bush is going about it in a remarkably stupid way. Our policy is now that we reserve the right to attack anyone we consider to be harboring terrorists and/or developing weapons of mass destruction to be used against us. Talk about taking away your strategic flexibility; if we don’t follow up on this threat we’ll end up looking like fools, not that we don’t already with that idiotic ‘Axis of Evil’ speech. I imagine an alien somewhere is looking down on all of this and telling it’s kids “This is what a foreign policy constructed by someone who didn’t learn anything in his high school history/civic’s classes looks like.”

15

[quote]

Since you give no alternatives, (What the fuck SHOULD we do to stop terrorism, etc), you are just blowing anti-establishment smoke out of your ass for the sake of doing so.

[quote]

You’re new to the boards, boy, or you would know my rep as the redneck, “love it or leave it” conservative gay guy. I love my country for my nation when we embrace a “first strike” mitary policy. Now go back to kindergarten, punk.

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Well Brutus, the freethinkers explained pretty well why they feel the way they do, whereas you explained nothing about your view. Are you simply another “The president must know what he’s doing and it’s traitorous to suggest otherwise” guy or do you have some logic why we should let the gov’t do whatever they want without criticism?

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Brutus, the “freethinkers” have seen the US get bitten in the ass more than once by pursuing a policy of “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” and providing military and economic aid to those who oppose a government which the US also opposes. Saddam and The Taliban both benefited from such a policy.

No-one wants the US population to be asking the question “why do they hate us so much?” again anytime soon, and to many people living outside the US the pursuit of a “first strike” policy seems almost guaranteed to rebound on the US in the future.

You mentioned in another thread that you are visiting Australia later this year. You might like to spend some time while you’re here talking to our large Middle Eastern communities and ask them what THEY think can realistically be done to combat terrorism.

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Brutus, the “freethinkers” have seen the US get bitten in the ass more than once by pursuing a policy of “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” and providing military and economic aid to those who oppose a government which the US also opposes. Saddam and The Taliban both benefited from such a policy.

No-one wants the US population to be asking the question “why do they hate us so much?” again anytime soon, and to many people living outside the US the pursuit of a “first strike” policy seems almost guaranteed to rebound on the US in the future.

You mentioned in another thread that you are visiting Australia later this year. You might like to spend some time while you’re here talking to our large Middle Eastern communities and ask them what THEY think can realistically be done to combat terrorism.

19

I feel that President Bush is on the right track, although he seems to be treading far too lightly for my liking. We are up against an enemy who is willing to die to kill civilians. To worry about these animals ‘civil rights’ is ludicrous, and in the long run, will cost us dearly.

[begin somewhat related rant]
The first month in Afghanistan was pretty much a debacle, in my opinion. We have the XVIII Airborne Corp and the USMC for a fucking reason: The rapid projection of power anywhere on the globe. Instead, we pussyfoot our way into Afghanistan, giving Bin Laden ample opportunity to haul ass.

And what about that M.Omar incident, where the Predator commander called a fucking lawyer for permission to launch his hellfire, letting him get away!

$400 billion a year buys America unprecedented flexibility in dealing with military situations; The real problem is our gutless policitians, who are using this real danger to America to load up the pork-barrel with all sorts of juicy yet useless expenditures for their home districts.

Not to mention, our Generals seem more concerned with making sure that the animals in Camp Xray get their fruit-loops then with making sure we utterly destroy Al Queda and friends.
[/end somethat related rant]

Wabbit,

Just the opposite! By declaring that we may strike first, if we feel it is neccesary to protect American lives, we give ourselves MORE options in dealing with the dictatorships in Syria, Iraq, etc. Why limit ourselves to a ‘no first strike’ policy? To do so it to hand the initiative to the enemy.

20

As an excellent example of the “do something no matter what” school of thought, we have the war in Afghanistan.

Avowed goals: destroy Al-Queda terrorists ability to endanger the US and get Osama Bin Evil-Doer.

The Administration has recently announced that the threat is greater than ever, and Ossie could be smoking a hooka with Elvis for all we know. Hear anybody say “failure”?

At a cost of a definite number of Allied dead, and a somewhat more vague number of collateral corpses, the mightiest military force in human history accomplished diddly squat.

But at least we did something.