illini wrote:We arent exactly inspiring an uprising against terrorism with fighting this battle
When you start with the world already against you because of your success (or more accurately, lack of utter failure) and then do things that shake up the status quo, you usually don't get on people's good sides.
Let us rephrase. There is nothing wrong with islam itself...it is the islam fanaticals doing in that area of the world and it is due to sick mistranslations of a holy text that teaches the same beliefs as Judaism and Christianity. There is one god, be nice to people, and everything will work out. And actually out of the 3 systems, i prefer the idea of the islamic god because he is forgiving and once you have atoned for your sins you are forgiven, rather than just automatic forgiveness or raining fury
I don't know what any of this has to do with anything. If you want to follow Islam, that's your business and has nothing to do with this thread at all.
Anticipating what you'll say though is taking umbrage at the accurate assement of the "war against Islamism" because of your own lack of understanding. Practicing Islamism and practicing Islam are two seperate things. You can be Islamic and not Islamist, but you can't be Islamist without being Islamic (well, I suppose you could, but that would be weird) they're related, but not necessarily the same.
YES IT IS separate. They are different military operations.
Then Iwo Jima had nothing to do with World War II, as it was a different military operation than the Normandy landing, which also had nothing to do with World War II as it was a different military operation than the Battle of Stalingrad, which also...
We heard a DIFFERENT story each week about why we went over there: it started as Saddam HAVING WMD's, when we found that faulty Saddam could've had the ability to make WMDS (which i'm not going to doubt and we did find some proof), and when people started disagreeing...THEN and ONLY THEN did it become "well saddam needed to be out anyway" IF Bush had started out saying: "we are the world super power, therefore have a responsiblity to end this evil" i would've said "AMERICA FUCK YEAH!" and not worried about who we pissed off.
I don't get this idea that there could only be ONE reason to remove Saddam, instead of many reasons. The international law fetishists required the focus on WMDs. (Note: focus.) THE ENTIRE WORLD believed Saddam possessed WMDs, and he did nothing to disprove that idea. (Which was the requirement of him not facing "serious consequences" as the burden of proof was always on him, not us.) It was the one thing the world agreed upon, that he had WMD (or at least WMD programs), that he was a jerk either didn't matter or was disputed by at least half the world.
If you believe removing Saddam was right because he was evil, why would you not agree with the idea of removing Saddam just because the US focused on the WMD angle in a failed attempt to persuade the UN to be relevant.
Also about the sanctions etc.: we're doing it now with N Korea, so why did we not do it with Iraq? that is what i am truly asking.
We did. During the 12 years of cold war between 1991-2003. Did you miss that? Did you also miss that the "world" (France, Russia, China, Osama and The Left leading the way...) was pushing for the end of sanctions in Iraq? Sanctions of Iraq were on the verge of collapse in August of 2001. Had the Bush Administration not pushed the issue, we would have a sanctionless Saddam-led Iraq today.
Why is there no such thing as consistency? I know we have limited power, but the fucker over there literally said "when i get a bomb, america's gone" we have yet to find bombs confirmed to be Saddam's....
I don't understand what your point is? The point was to remove Saddam before he acquired that capability. Done. We had to pick one insane fuck to take out first, we chose the one who we'd been at war with for twelve years.
not a partisan shot: I dont like the electoral college system where some states are all or nothing and some give pieces etc. If there are (hypothetical) 100 electoral votes, 50% vote republican, 49% vote democrat, 1 % vote independent, it should be broken down that way. It'd be the best melding of the two systems because i will admit the popular vote theory is flawed in itself...hell if Ahnuhld could run for prez, i'd fully expect him to win because so many idiots would come out of the woodwork just to vote for the terminator....
Maine and Nebraska can split their electoral votes but never in history have. All states are all or nothing, for the same reason we have a Senate, to make states other than the biggest have some importance. The system was designed to equalize population centers with the rural areas. All Presidental elections would be decided in the largest cities otherwise. Why should someone running up a 20% margin in large cities automatically matter more than someone who won by 35% in all of the rural areas? Especially in a nation comprised of semi-independent states.
It's partisan to whine about it now, after Gore lost only. Like I said, nobody complained when Clinton won despite 57% of the country voting against him. Before the 2000 election everyone though Bush would win the popular vote, but Gore the electoral vote. If that HAD happened would you still be against the founding institution of the electoral college?
World Powers i guess you are right are US and China...and JUST maybe Britain. I tend to forget that world powers dont truly exist since the fall of the USSR and the like...My mistake on this one...Let me rephrase this as Nuclear capable countries since that is the take i had on it...how many in the list helping us actually have nukes? Yes we have 3000 more than everybody else...but that is my point. I am not meaning to disparage the help we are getting, i just think no one but us really strikes fear into anyone "bad guys" from the list. Once again no offense taken, just my view of the world which i very well admit could be young and naive and wrong.
No one strikes "fear" into anyone unless they do something. When the United States removed Saddam, it struck fear into Libya and Syria. It stopped rolling people up, it no longer strikes fear into anyone.
Nuclear-capable is becoming less and less relevant from a nation standpoint. A nuclear Iran doesn't threaten the US with defeat or annihilation. It threatens world cities with nuclear detonations by "non-state" actors. Nuclear weapons are really impracticle in modern military situations. If some nation has nukes it matters a lot less than if they're able to deploy resources. Germany could (does it? I don't know or care to find out) have nukes, but that doesn't really matter when they rent old rusted Soviet planes from the Ukraine in order to get their handful of resources to Afghanistan.
Benji, they need to fix the misnomer. There's nothing wrong with changing a name, it doesnt change the operation.
I remember when Bush tried to change it, there was an uproar that he was attacking "Islam" and everyone said "we're fighting terrorists/al-Qaeda!!!"
Worrld war IV? when was III?
Cold War. It was fought all over the world. And did get lukewarm: Vietnam, Korea, Suez Canal, Latin America. Worldwide conflict between ideologies.
Communism-great idea bad execution....
Yeah...that kinda reveals that you are in fact young and naive...
Just because it's loudly repeated a lot, doesn't make it true.
