Sam PLease substantiate “millions of hostile people who want to harm us” (unless you’re including things like the French ). I"ve not seen any numbers on the A Q network, and /or if you are including other groups etc.
and from the last I saw, Mr. Bush personally said he had ‘no plans’ to invade any other country, so, if you have information to the contrary (“several others< nations> will topple”), I’d appreciate that as well.
[Tiffani, a Valley Girl]
“Dude, they’re like, oil companies. Of course the helicopters would be black.”
[/Tiffani]
I second wring’s request for substantiation of that assertion about millions of people out to get us that have formed para-military orgs and are launching attacks. That sounds kinda paranoid, frankly.
Smells alot like the “war” on drugs from where I’m sitting, only it’s easier to make this “war” sound like a * real * war, which allows the administration to get away with all the junque I mentioned in my last post.
More feh from here.
Once again, modern democracy is shown to be a pretty weird creature. The administration dragged its feet on managerial reforms until the Democrats found something to call hearings on. Then we get (some) action. Firms fight bureaucratic sclerosis with the profit motive. The corresponding entity in the public sector appears to be real or imagined scandal.
Now, if we could start addressing some of our infrastructure vulnerabilities, we’d be all set…
Wring: Well, let me clarify. There are millions of people in countries like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Syria, Iran, and Iraq who support the goals of al-Quaida, if not the methods. I did not mean to suggest that there are millions of soldiers arrayed against us. But popularity for Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaida remains high in many of these countries. Enough that I think you could classify these countries as ‘hostile’ in this fight.
Ok, I give up, what are their goals?
Destroy Israel/Establish a Palestinian state, run the U.S. out of the Middle East, end “Western imperialism” and global domination in general, bring about a renaissance of Muslim peoples on the world stage, end corruption and injustice by implementing governments based on Islamic law, establish an idealized pan-Islamic Caliphate.
Obviously, some of those goals are more concrete than others; people may support some but not all of them, and they may use the same words to mean very different things (“corruption”, “injustice”, and “Islamic law” don’t necessarily mean the same things to everyone who uses them). Some Muslims may not support any of those goals. (Well, I don’t suppose a Muslim of any stripe would be opposed to “bring about a renaissance of Muslim peoples on the world stage” in one form or another.)
What he said.
I seem to recall reading some analysis someplace* which said that Osama bin Laden has been a something of a clever bastard in adopting rhetoric around which Muslims of many different stripes can unite. In other words, most Muslims wouldn’t necessarily accept the actual nuts and bolts of bin Laden’s presumably Talibanesque vision of the Islamic Caliphate, but he doesn’t play up the “stone the kite-fliers” aspects of his theology. Instead, he uses themes which tend to appeal to many Muslims, as if some ultra-fundamentalist sect of Christianity talked mainly about “bringing God’s love to the world”, when what they really meant was “stoning to death all the idolaters and degenerates so as to lovingly save the world from the righteous fiery Wrath of the LORD”.
*Quite possibly right here on this board, or else in a magazine, or on some other web site…I’m pretty sure it didn’t come to me in a dream, anyhow.
sorry, Sam but listing the populations of several countries doesn’t really substantiate your claim of ‘millions of hostile people who would harm us’. While many may be sympathtic to some of the goals of AQ, you’ve not established that the primary goal of “doing us harm” (which was your claim), is in fact supported.
But, if you accept that your ‘clarification’ is more of a back peddling from an unsubstaniatable claim, fine.
I accept that AQ wishes harm to fall on the US. I also accept that some countries don’t consider us to be allies. those statements are a far cry from your original position. Hyperbole often isn’t a good tool. (see - I didn’t claim that it’s never a good idea or ‘always’ a bad idea… 
)
And, now onto the second part: what’s your basis for claiming that ‘other nations will topple’ since Mr. Bush himself has declared publically that he has ‘no plans to invade’ other countries?
Wow when was that old-timer? It had to have been before they torched Ms. Rosenburg in the electric chair. (And here I was thinking you and I were about the same age.) But I know what you mean - these kids today, what with their shredders and their incinerators and their prep-school codes of silence, it’s getting to be where a fellow can hardly gather any evidence at all.
It raises an interesting point though; namely that this thread is, ultimately, an expression of opinion rather than a debate of resolvable, definable truths. It’s a thread for IMHO, IMHO. What Bush is hiding will most likely never be revealed. Perhaps some Fawn Hall type will step forward. We eagerly await further developments in the case.
Oil-construction consortiums like Haliburton would say that such a pipeline takes an awful long time to build, many years, so we might as well get started ASAP. As for the rest of it, what you skip is the part where a massive glut of oil becomes a convenience factor that keeps the fossil fuel industrial culture running strong for another few decades. It doesn’t matter who gets the pipeline if all oil companies get to maintain their status quo rather than ending up seeing the world eventually turn to machines that use less fuel or no fuel at all. Which it will anyway, only later rather than sooner. (Now, that is.)
This part of your response I’m not sure I get, John Corrado. So W is supposed to just start bombing the hell out of Afghanistan one day because the Taliban blew up some Buddhas? Because they don’t let their women read? How do you think the world would have reacted to that - let alone your supposedly liberal media? What about the isolationist wing of the GOP? Certainly what was going on in Afghanistan was a damn shame, but there are a lot of damn shames around the world. Suddenly W is supposed to abandon one of his key campaign platforms, so that the US military can start policing the various problems around the globe?
I just can’t imagine W going on TV out of the blue one day and laying out with a list of “cases belly” like the Cole (old, old news, BTW) as to why we are suddenly going to set aside the Enron story because we are going to be dropping a hell of a lot of bombs on the Taliban. (Setting aside for one minute the idea that we need airspace rights from Pakistan and/or Russia to do so, which they certainly would not have granted for such a cowboy action without a fresh and tragic outrage as clear justification.)
So, no; I don’t think you’re at all correct with the further fleshing out of the scenario. Respectfully. I enjoyed the reductio ad absurdum, though.
IMHO, this thread is a bit too incindiary for IMHO. 
RTA, reducio ad absurbum only works when your arguements aren’t ad absurbum in the first place.
Bullshit. You’re stating an opinion that has absolutely no facts behind it. I’m pointing out that your opinion has as much verity as “FDR knew Pearl Harbor would be bombed” and “Clinton bombed Afghanistan to distract us from the Lewinsky affair” and “Lyndon Johnson ordered the assassination of Kennedy”; you repeat that, even though there are no facts which prove your case, you still believe it. And even though I’m bringing up facts which show how impossible such a situtaion is.
I fully expect, then, when december next talks about how Clinton murdered Vince Foster, you shall heartily join in support? After all, again, it has just as much evidence as your little theory, here.
Bringing up the question, then, as to why they would wait a year and a half to bring up the issue. Thank you for proving my point.
Do you realize how little sense you’re making here? The oil already is available; it’s merely a matter of making it less expensive in the long run to haul out. There is no “availability” matter here- the oil is already “available”.
Likewise- the creation of alternative energy sources has absolutely nothing to do with whether we have any oil left or not. It’s a matter of relative price; right now, it’s generally more expensive to get useable energy from windmills or nuclear plants than it is to get it from oil.
First off- I dare you to find any reference I’ve made to “the liberal media”. C’mon. Do it.
Now then. See, here’s an amazing amount of void. Y’see, if I were President, and my Secret Masters had told me that they wanted me to eventually go to war with a country, I’d try to build up support for such a matter. So when that country- let’s say Afghanistan- started doing things that various European leaders and American newspaper columnists were decrying- why, I’d leap up and take the opportunity to rag on that foreign country, to help shape American mindsets that that foreign country needs to be dealt with, to gear them up for our efforts- be it military intervention or a mass shipment of arms to the rebels- to overthrow the Taliban.
Which, I suppose, is why W was constantly decrying the Taliban during the month… no, wait. He never said a word. Even though editorialists and cartoonists were wringing hands over the “Nazi-like” Taliban, W was saying nothing.
And yet you still aver that he was planning war with the Taliban at that point.
And, see, there’s another bit of fallacy. At what point did “overthrow the Taliban” become synonymous with “send American troops to fight the Taliban”? There were plenty of other options- increasing aid to those fighting the Taliban, placing sanctions- that could have been taken to overthrow the Taliban which wouldn’t have risked American lives. But there was no effort made by the Bush administration to do anything like that.
So, instead of “abandoning a key platform,” he’ll kill a bunch of Americans? Do you even hear what you’re saying?
In fact, for him to get a pipeline in Afghanistan, he must abandon said platform.
See, in the end, your logic makes no sense. There were plenty of easier things to do and ways to do it in order to overthrow the Taliban. Use the atrocities as an excuse to ship more arms to the anti-Taliban fighters. Claim that al Qaida is planning a massive operation and that we must strike first in order to prevent it- and rest assured, we have enough power to force or money to bribe Pakistan into letting us use airspace.
The fact that none of these options was ever close to being broached makes it impossible for me to believe that the Bush administration was planning for war with Afghanistan. For you to believe that indicates that you believe that the Bush administration preferred an option which killed Americans simply because it killed Americans, which I consider insane.
I really don’t enjoy invitations to sound like a foil-hat loon, but I feel the need to point out the Conspiracy Timeline: The oil fellas were still negotiating with the Taliban (in Texas) about the pipeline through the summer of 2001, and the meetings ended something like 6 weeks prior to 9/11. At the time of the Buddha blastings, the oilmen were interested in negotiating - not bombing. Besides, the Taliban offered much better security than what they would have without them. So at that point, no, they weren’t preparing for war.
Can I take off the foil hat now?
wring: Have you been following the issue? You are aware that polls conducted in Arab countries show high levels of support for al-Qaida and Bin Laden? You’re aware that there was cheering in the streets of Arab countries when the WTC fell? You’re aware that al-Qaida enjoys support from governmnents or high government officials in Iran and Pakistan?
I think maybe you’ve not kept up with the latest intelligence. The notion that al-Qaida is an isolated fringe wacko group of a few thousand people. It’s becoming clear now that al-Qaida has penetrated deeply into the Pakistan government, Indonesia, the Philippines, and has links to other terrorist organizations like Hizbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad.
As we speak, al-Qaida is working with radical elements in the Pakistan government to try and start a war against India.
I’ll try to find some cites, but I know that polls in Arab countries have shown widespread support for al-Qaida. I believe one poll in Saudi Arabia showed 11% support for the attacks on the WTC. That qualifies as ‘millions’ of hostile people.
Sam - yes, I’ve ‘kept’ up with the issue. that’s why I called you on the ‘millions want to do us harm’.
If you scan back over other folks’ postings you’ll also see that OBL is considered to have distinct charm, etc, and many people are sympathetic to the ‘overt’ goals of AQ (of Muslim unity, Palestinian homeland, having the infidels leave their countries etc.), but none of that equates to your original claim of millions who “want to do us harm”.
Simply put, if, as you claim, the ‘support’ you see for AQ network is so very strong and rampant in the countries you named (remember, to get that number, you added up pretty much their population), you’d be talkin entire countries full of people willing to become suicide bombers, etc. If you’ve got evidence of that level action, you’re doing a really good job of hiding it. Fer cryin’ out loud, even Bush with his ‘axis of evil’, wasn’t claiming the list of countries you did, all of whom ‘want to do us harm’. Afghanistan itself didn’t have an ‘entire country’ full of people wanting to do us harm.
Hyperbole isn’t necessary here. Reality sucks quite enough thank you.
by the way, are you still working on ‘other countries will topple’ aspect?
A little under two million ( assuming we exclude SA’s 5 1/2 million non-national residents, which for the purpose of poll data we probably should ).
Regardless of the raw numbers, myself I don’t see how 11% support is “enough that I think you could classify these countries as ‘hostile’ in this fight.” Not the best of allies, perhaps - But actively hostile? I’m not quite there.
MHO.
Amen.
And the guy who decries hyperbole accuses me of claiming that support was ‘rampant’ and that I was claiming that entire countries full of people want to become suicide bombers. Yeesh.
Go read what I said again. It’s not nearly as inflammatory as you are portraying it. The fact is, there are a number of countries that can be considered hostile to the United States. Syria, Iraq, Iran… Others, like Saudi Arabia are technically our allies, but in which a majority of the citizens believe that the U.S. is acting immorally in attacking Afghanistan, who are very unfriendly with one of our best allies, Israel. Many of the citizens who aren’t actively supporting al-Qaida believe that al-Qaida’s goals are correct, if not its methods. Many believe that it was a Jewish conspiracy. They are visibly allying themselves with Iraq right now, in full knowledge that we consider Iraq the enemy.
If you don’t find this worrisome, I do.