Understanding terrorism

[Urbane Guerrilla]

. . .evidence of an uncaring, self-serving desire to hold on to the reins of power and win elections, our soldiers and our people and our country be damned.

As neatly phrased an indictment of the Democratic Party's misbehavior and misplaced motivations as I've seen in months. I'd like to borrow it.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

As neatly phrased an indictment of the Democratic Party's misbehavior and misplaced motivations as I've seen in months. I'd like to borrow it.

Feel, free, UG. Borrow away. Your response to my points about Vietnam was that you got to go play your bagpipes at The Wall. That's nice. So, all those men died so you could go get your ego gratified at their national memorial? And what makes you think I know nothing of music and the time and dedication it takes to play music well? But that's a not the issue, now is it?

In response to my question of why are we not going after Bin Laden you respond that "There's nothing in particular wrong with eliminating the weakest non-democracy first, and that was Iraq." You have made my point for me. Bush took the easy way out and allowed the real culprit to remain at large.

Frankly, if the people of any given nation don't have the desire or will to rid themselves of dictators and tyrants, why should we spill our blood on their behalf? Let them reap their just reward as a nation and as a people. They'll figure it out - or not.

You may finally become bored at 90, but I have a short little span of attention and I am bored now, so I'll respond to you no further. I have better things to do with my time

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by marichiko

Feel, free, UG. Borrow away. Your response to my points about Vietnam was that you got to go play your bagpipes at The Wall. That's nice. So, all those men died so you could go get your ego gratified at their national memorial?

Dear, dear, dear, Marichiko. How monomaniacally unwilling you are to be fair. Everyone but you knows that is BS. Perhaps you should take up cultivating roses instead of trying to take me on, for you are palpably defeated this day, and your carryings-on are in vain.

Frothings from you aside, that's just my estimation of how much time and experience it would take to play the pipes well enough to do a good public performance. Most playing of the great Highland bagpipe out of doors is necessarily rather public anyway; there's no way to play the things softly, unless you count stationing the piper on one hilltop and his audience on the next one over.

Frankly, if the people of any given nation don't have the desire or will to rid themselves of dictators and tyrants, why should we spill our blood on their behalf? Let them reap their just reward as a nation and as a people. They'll figure it out - or not.

True enough -- if that were the case with the Kurds and the Shi'ites. Did not the both of them rise in revolt against Saddam? You don't revolt if you aren't oppressed, tyrannized, and generally living in a hell, which is exactly the situation when you're living under a dictator whose rise to power partook more of the nature of a mafioso than a U.S. President. I'd say they've got the desire and the will. Do you see Iraq changing course because the Rump Saddamites are leaving bent and blasted car parts all over? No you don't. Did not reporters before the war advise us that Iraqis from Baghdad, when the government minders weren't around, were privately telling them, and I quote, "If the Americans don't come, I'm going to kill myself." They were done with Saddam. True, they might have been done with Saddam eleven years before had we not been afraid of losing the Coalition and aided the rebellions to finish the job then, as the people who reckon Soldier of Fortune was right about it advocated, but in the end the tyrant is still fallen -- as much of his own misunderstandings of what he was doing and having done as anything we might accomplish in our campaign.

I shall assume that an unjust recompense for Iraq's travails as a nation would be the return of a Ba'athist dictatorship.

Bored, not going to answer further and better things to do with your time? I'm glad I've more honesty than to use such childish and transparent phrases to conceal an acknowledgement of defeat on the merits of the matter. I know the sound of a defeated America-should-lose-this-because-I-don't-want-liberated-foreigners-no-matter-how-small-the-cost, and you're making that sound.

But there are other things in this. Clearly there is so enormous a chasm between Marichiko's worldview and mine that neither of us can even reliably perceive the other's important core values, let alone understand or appreciate them. Sure, not taking casualties is preferable to taking casualties -- but that is not an option in a general war, and this one is far more general than bombing targets in Kosovo. We have no known enemies who are too incompetent to blood some of us and kill others. The measure of the worthiness of America's cause is not to be found in our soldiers not getting hurt.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

The measure of the worthiness of America's cause is not to be found in our soldiers not getting hurt.

The worthiness of soldiers is not found in dispatching them to self serving political causes - such as fixing the Middle East only for the greater glory of "Project for a New American Century". A truly respected soldier is deployed for reasons justified by a smoking gun. If a US soldier was indeed respected, then soldiers would have been in Afghanistan - hundreds of thousands - to find, capture, or destroy the real enemy.... Osama bin Laden. A deployment so worthy that even NATO would deployed for the same objectives. A deployment so worthy that even former Soviet Republics and Libya's Kadaffi endorsed and supported that objective.

Instead a US president would lie - blame Saddam - so that soldiers would be deployed for a personal political agenda. Lie to even alienate NATO allies. Like in Vietnam, lie so that American soldiers have doubt about their mission. Lie so that even the Defense Department now changes the parameters of victory - to minimize the possible impact of defeat.

How could a government so disrespect its soldiers? We are supposed to have learned from Vietnam to never do that again to the American soldier. We have so disrespected the American soldier that Osama bin Laden still runs free.

Osama bin Laden still runs free. Those with respect for the American soldier and American principles would never have let that happen. Why is Urbane Guerrilla so silent about disrespect for the American soldier and American principles?