Well I’ll be darned – you didn’t. But I swear I read that — it just ain’t there anymore.
Where did you get the you’re "defining the average guy-opposing-American-occupation as “terrorist” - from? Look again at my posts above. I’m not taking about “average guys” — at least in my mind. Now if the “average guy” - that you speak about - means what I’ve described as a “terrorist” - then yes, I call those people “terrorist,” and it doesn’t matter where they happened to be born. Whether Jordon, Iran, Iraq, or the United States. Is that how you draw the distinction? If so I don’t agree at all. Terrorist actions can certainly be taken against the U.S. government by U.S. citizens for their stated reason that the U.S. government isn’t legitimate. So - maybe I don’t understand why birth place or citizenship decides whether one is a terrortist or isn’t — if that’s your distinction —
Kinda all hinges on the meaning of “right away”, doesn’t it? Finding Iraq worthy of being described as a “strong and stable” (and free) democracy would be a wonderful thing. I wish I had confidence it would occur within the next 5 years.
I’ll give credit to Bush on this latest move - it was shrewd.
What now?
I’m not optimistic. I expect to see much of the same on the ground, and I’m hoping for marked improvement with a freely elected government. But I just don’t see it stable for quite a while.
And Zagadka - considering the common definition of terrorism cited below ---- flying planes into buildings full of innocents, exploding bombs in the middle of bus loads of morning commuters, and lopping off heads and disseminating the related video and pictures serves what other purposes? No matter where you come from —
Terrorism is a tactic of violence that targets civilians, with the objective of forcing an enemy to favorable terms, by creating fear, demoralization, or political discord in the attacked population.
"Terrorism" is also used as a pejorative characterisation of an enemy’s attacks as conforming to an immoral philosophy of violence, in a manner outside of warfare, or prohibited in the laws of war.
ter·ror·ism n. The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.
Its not so weird if you’re a Nixon survivor. Even in his last hours, when you could hardly see for the smoke from smoking guns, the talking heads acted like it was some sort of mournful and dignifed ceremony, instead of the political exorcism it truly was…
“…respect the office, if not the man…” Hard to do when the office is occupied by a seeping human pustule.
“…proof that the system works…” After about four fucking years! And only, only because dimwit Butterfield blew the pooch about the tapes.
“…a somber moment in our history…” Not me. Got my dancing shoes on!
In Iraq? Surround the building where you plan to have your ceremony with concrete barriers.
Long term middle east problems? Realize that Fundamentalist Muslims think America is a nation where everyone drives a Hummer while watching DVDs and getting blowjobs from trophy wives, while they can’t even get a job because the economy’s in the toilet (unless you own an oil field), and work to change that situation through a series of cultural exchanges. (Also known as the ‘Israel is widely seen as a horrible place to live except by the thousands of people who go for a visit and keep going back’ plan.)
Assuming “concrete barriers” prevent terrorists from conducting activity against the occupants of that building and those occupants — just assuming – how does that stop terrorism elsewhere or by other methods? It doesn’t – and there’s another problem. Buildings full of people and people moving here and there are around everything and everyone. Remember, I as the terrorist, have the luxury of picking my targets, picking my time, and picking my victims. If “concrete barriers” actually do stop me as a terrorist than I’ll just kill ten times a hundred around various parts of the country – or film a few murders and stick ‘em up on the Internet, or poison the well water, or shoot people shopping, or gas ‘em on the job, or mine the streets or blow up schools or buses or toilet seats.
Well if that is REALLY the problem ---- it should be easy enough to cure. If true we’ll just stop because the Fundamentalists don’t like that – or we can teach them that us driving Hummers and getting hummers from babes is OK – for us. BUT – it appears that the terrorists already here must be sending back false Hummer/trophy babe information – at least in regards to the volume. Either that or I ain’t getting my share ---- and THAT makes me mad enough to kill a few thousand innocents - Or if not thousand - cut the head off some person I don’t even know.
If cultural exchanges, are what the Fundamentalists want, (and I sort of doubt this by the way) than cultural exchanges are the answer. However, as I recall, they’re not all likely to be real excited about “cultural exchanges” since they seem to hate our decadent culture.
Gosh. So many choices. Could of all been avoided if we just never invaded to begin with.
It’s only a ‘lose-lose’ situation to the Americans in Iraq because it was a shitty plan to administer Iraq with purely American (de facto) support to begin with. Now they find themselves being faulted for everything that goes wrong because there’s really no-one else to blame, frankly. You can hardly fault people critical of the current situation in Iraq when ‘we’ were advocating something entirely different from the outset of this whole mess.
I think they should resolve it. To some those terrorists are freedom fighters. Get rid of the puppet government and leave the country. Truly give power to the Iraqis. If what they want is not democracy, then let it be. Who are we to say anything?
I want out and once we get that I don’t care about Iraq anymore. That whole section of the world is one giant problem that I think should be left ignored. The people in the Middle East have been killing eachother for over 2000 years without pause.
You’re wrong about the history, and misguided in your opinion.
People in the Middle East haven’t been “killing each other for over 2000 years” any more than the rest of the world, and arguably much less so than in Europe and Asia.
Ignoring the problems in the Middle East leads to more attacks like what we saw here in America and recently in Spain. The problem with simply leaving an entire region of the world alone is that we are internationally dependant on each other. Without the Middle East, there is no Europe or America as we know it. It’s that simple.
No cite handy, but I’ve heard several times on the radio, and read in several GD threads, that this interim government is explicitly, legally prohibited from doing anything to vacate or impair or alter the deals awarded to foreign contractors (e.g., Halliburton) by the Coalition Provisional Authority during the occupation. That is not sovereignty.
Well, the contracts are with the United States so Iraq couldn’t alter them. As long as the US has the preponderance of force in the area I don’t suppose Iraq could refuse to allow performance either. And in any event why should they? I don’t think the contracts cost Iraq anything and might even get done some work that needs doing.
This thread’s still about Iraq, right?