"permanent war economy"

[catbirdseat]

To me, that is why the term "war on terror" is absolutely perfect for the Haliburtons of the world. It is vague enough to allow rationalizing the irrational.

The problem is that even though this is true. The American public cannot believe our president would be evil enough to wage war to benefit friends and corporate supporters. They believe his stated reasons and not the real ones.

[gotterdamerung]

All I can say for certain at this point is that the war is becoming increasingly politicized and I believe that to be a dangerous precendent. It's Ok for Arabs to blow up 5 Christian churches, but we'll be damned to political hell if we so much as put a scratch on their holy-moly Mosque.

 

It's getting people killed and creating martyrs out of people who are criminal/murderers with blood on their hands. I've stood toe to toe with Sadr and his henchmen in a room knowing full well that our interpreter overheard them discussing our murder and the murder of our prinicipal 2 minutes before we arrived. To say that I personally would like to kill that man would be an understatement.

 

It's mind numbing to think that we have let people like that go. It's mind numbing to think about what the hell it is we are accomplishing over here sometimes. Last night I watched Bush giving press conferences from his ranch in Texas. It looked nice to be there at that ranch. I can't even leave Iraq because airspace is so restricted from Surface to Air missiles, but Bushy is chilling on the ranch.

[Stonehead]

A person could get really worked up based on some of the info out there such as this. If true, then the turmoil we see now is a drop in the bucket.

 

Buchanan also had some interesting ideas ( Buchanan Against the Empire ). For example, "Using rhetoric that hearkened back to Christ Himself in the New Testament – 'he who is not with me is against me' – Bush divided the world: 'Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.'"

 

Or this, "How can President Bush say we are not secure if the Islamic world is not democratic? The Islamic world has never been democratic. Yet, before we intervened there, our last threat came from Barbary pirates."

 

This, "America's huge footprint in the sacred soil of Saudi Arabia led straight to 9/11. The terrorists were over here because we were over there. Terrorism is the price of empire. If you do not wish to pay the price, you must give up the empire."

 

This, "Nine days after an attack on the United States, this tiny clique of intellectuals was telling the President of the United States and commander in chief of the U.S. armed forces that if he did not follow their war plans, he would be publicly charged with a 'decisive surrender' to terrorism."

 

And this, "Terrorists are picadores and matadores. They prick the bull until it bleeds and is blinded by rage, then they snap the red cape of bloody terror in its face. The bull charges again and again until, exhausted, it can charge no more. Then the matador, though smaller and weaker, drives the sword into the soft spot between the shoulder blades of the bull. For the bull has failed to understand that the snapping cape was but a provocation to goad it into attacking and exhausting itself for the kill."

 

What is the cost of empire?

[gotterdamerung]

Stoney,

 

I think that's clever and all. probably valid in some sense. However, the threat is very real, and cannot be so lightly discounted as to simply blame Bush and think it will go away. We are going to be conducting internicine warfare for years to come. Radical Islam is not a joke. What is a joke is the way we are conducting operations with our hands tied by armchair politicians, media, and incompetents. Get to like it.

[Stonehead]

Yes, it's that first link (concerning Peak Oil) that points to what we want in that region. Buchanan touches on the issue briefly but conjures up the Zionist bogeyman, all of which sounds consistent with his character. But, I believe the internal threat of fiscal meltdown to our economic system is as great as the external threat of terrorism. I also believe, and here is where I agree with Buchanan to a point, is that the Islamic world will not respond willingly to external pressure. It must undergo internal change, a reformation within its own institutions initiated from within their own society. Speculative? Yes.

[Billygoat]

Mike, are these guys, like Sadr, numerous or just really influential. My friends who are Iraqis say that most people over there are glad we are there and threw out Saddam, but worry that, since we have created a power vacuum, if we don't stay and finish the job, the radical fundamentalists will take over and propel them back into the Middle ages. My point is, did we polarize things by invading, and give these fringe yahoos more clout than they deserve?

 

Also what politics is hamstringing the operations? It seems like everyone is fighting hard. Why not assassinate Sadr?

 

We should question the Saudis more about their countrymen's role in 9/11.

 

I don't envy where you are at. I hope you keep your wits about you and make it back. We care about you guys, I am just pissed about how I perceive the "why".

 

Your talk about that meeting with Sadr has made this whole thing a little more real for me.

 

[Fairweather]

All I can say for certain at this point is that the war is becoming increasingly politicized and I believe that to be a dangerous precendent. It's Ok for Arabs to blow up 5 Christian churches, but we'll be damned to political hell if we so much as put a scratch on their holy-moly Mosque.

 

 

It's not a mosque anymore. It's fucking armory. Bush is starting to look a lot more like LBJ!

[cj001f]

It's not a mosque anymore. It's fucking armory. Bush is starting to look a lot more like LBJ!

Because of the hamstringed brutal puppet government we've installed in South Vi.... Iraq?

 

Start bombing the mosques and tens of millions of dollars will flow in from the arab world. Turn off the media and it will be worse - you think Al Jazeera is bad now - imagine what they'll do when they just make the news up, and we have no one on site to refute.

[gotterdamerung]

cj001f,

 

You really make absolutely no sense at all. That is unless you are yourself a Muslim fundamentalist with a personal agenda in tandem with their aims and goals. If they use a sacred Mosque as a base from which to conduct military operations killing Americans and Iraqi's loyal the government it defies reason to assume that it is anything BUT a BASE FOR CONDUCTING MILITARY OPERATIONS. Of course everything about their religion has a loophole for saying "The holy will seek asylum in the holy places from which to fight the infidel...blah...blah..blah."

 

I posted something here a long time ago linking the economics and oil to this war. Geopolitical strategy is of course a distant second. There is really nothing here worth fighting for. Over time I begin to find my own views becoming jaded as I am more and more exposed to the politics. War in itself, conducted by men with honorable intentions has a certain quality of honor that cannot be denied. These are the naive and the patriotic who sally forth at the first call of the trumpet. It is the follow-on straphangers with their hidden agendas and 2 faced lies that bring dishonor to our nation and our enterprise. It is their ignorance buyoued by their own sense of inflated self worth that is killing Americans by the day. They are the ones who wear 3 peice suits here and refer to the people who protect them as brutes and knuckle draggers. There is an illness in our society and it does not stem from those who would fight for something they know only as a feeling inside themselves. It permeates from those that deny the basic truths that are visible to the naked eye.

 

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/RRiraqWar.html

[rbw1966]

Mike, I think what Carl is saying is that we're hamstrung by the political implications of attacking a mosque. Anyone with a brain has to figure that this 'mosque' is now a military target but attacking it would creat a backlash of extremism that would generate more harm than good.

 

We're in a quagmire over there, no doubt about it.

[cj001f]

Mike, I think what Carl is saying is that we're hamstrung by the political implications of attacking a mosque. Anyone with a brain has to figure that this 'mosque' is now a military target but attacking it would creat a backlash of extremism that would generate more harm than good.

 

That was exactly my point.

 

All Al Jazeera needs is a handicam film (you can ban news anchors, good luck banning video cameras) of US troops shelling a mosque to raise millions more $ and thousands more people for the fundamentalist cause.

[Off_White]

War in itself, conducted by men with honorable intentions has a certain quality of honor that cannot be denied. These are the naive and the patriotic who sally forth at the first call of the trumpet.

 

This is the myth about war that leads the well intentioned to sacrifice their lives for someone's agenda. Both sides in a war use mythology to make the unthinkable palatable. For the vast majority of people who are not sociopaths, killing other humans is repugnant. Through the use of myth and story we can reduce the humanity of the opponent and make their killing both imperative and justified. In fact, it's essential that we do that, since the other side will too, and without the desensitization the ability to respond to threat is hampered. This is part of what makes reintegration into a peacetime society difficult for soldiers who may have seen or done awful things, the jarring disconnect between the myth they lived and the life most of us as humans want.

 

Similiarly, the story of the nobility of combat, a test to the death between equals, is one of the tools to enable people to discard self-interest and give up their lives for the sake of a fiction spun to inspire them. I think the stories are wearing thin for you GD, and it's a good time to pay close attention to that voice inside you that's trying to tell you how to come out of this alive.

[gotterdamerung]

Appreciate your input and I understand your perspective. It is 100% valid. However, I think you might have misunderstood me a bit. Despite all my core understandings of these frivolous emotions I have only the spirit of Mars inside me brother. I have never had any illusions and this is not the first time I have been in these situations. It won't be the last.

 

Truth is killing hurts, but has to be done. I have no problem with it other than the fact that the clowns in charge are getting ready to give away the whole circus by feeble action. I would prefer we show them the sword and drop a MOAB on that Mosque. If the Arab world finds issue with it we have more MOABS. This is what Saddam understood. This is how he was able to rule this place. If we are really here for the oil, the power, and the position then why turn on the face of the hypocrite and hide it any longer? Let's be done with that once and for all. I imagine telling the bold truth will be an ephiphany for many.

 

The only thing I fear is the weak resolve of the average American. My angst stems from frustration that we are not killing them with more precision and an eye towards final victory. I cannot imagine even one man's life, either theirs or ours, is worth allowing these clowns in Washington/Tehran to play these games. We bow to politics, and media. They dance around each other using our lives as a fulcrum.

[Billygoat]

Mike, if you can identify the bad guy in this fucker of a mess, I fully support your killing him and his backers.

[markinore]

My angst stems from frustration that we are not killing them with more precision and an eye towards final victory.

 

Do you sincerely believe that we can kill our way to victory? Can we kill enough people to achieve peace? Security? If we blow up a mosque, a leader, a militia, will be able to get on an airplane without taking off our shoes and having baggage inspectors rip off our luggage? Isn't it more likely that we will inspire more numerous and more aggressive opposition? That is the history of this region of the world for the last 1000 years. You recognize that the politicians are craven and manipulative, and yet you buy into their public pronouncements that America will be safer if we kill enough Iraquis. Please help me understand your rationale.