Hezbollah night-vision gear manufactured in Britain

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Jay, the reason that question is so vexed is the current context of events: the Republican Party, now in power, is actually trying to fight the war. It may have been helpful to formally declare that a the US is in a state of war, which would have had the effect of obligating these parties to put all differences aside and concentrate on pulling together, but it seemed out of proportion, disjunct, at the time -- and it still does. The Democratic Party, by contrast, has no plan whatsoever to fight the war, none to win it better than the Republicans might, an inclination to carp about it in the most irresponsible, soft-on-antidemocracies manner that gave the Soviets such a free hand to work their will to make life suck internationally and not just domestically, and generally indulge in the most foolish acts of party empire-building I've ever seen in my country. The national leadership of the Democratic Party has completely forfeited my trust for the foreseeable future by this exhibition, this following of the far-left lunatic fringe.

We've got two kinds of people: those who know the Islamo-fascists are our enemy, self-made and self-declared, and those who couldn't correctly identify our real enemy on a multiple-choice question. Most of the senior leadership of the Democratic Party takes actions that say they believe the true enemy is the Republican Administration. What fools! What addlepated, ninnyhammered, scrotum-knotted invertebrates!

[JayMcGee]

mmmm....... UG answers within the context of US internal polictics.....

like I care........

[JayMcGee]

.... and UT is right......almost....

It's not anti-americanism as such.......but we do truely believe that you are heading down the wrong path. Each of your actions makes more enemies and reduces the numbers of your friends.

[tw]

Originally Posted by 9th Engineer

Our spy web was neatly dismanted during the Clinton administration and we need to double it from what it was before that.

Then you were not following the news in 2000, 2001, etc. You did not even pay attention to details in ABCs "The Path to 9/11" In Clinton's time, even the Syrians were providing the US with intelligence. Even Libya was a source of American intelligence. When a nation is so responsible as to have a 70% approval rating, then people do want to help. People volunteer intelligence which is why Ramsey Yousef was even caught.

America's government today has so much disdain that not a single useful tip on bin Laden has been received in two years. Even the bin Laden task force was shutdown due to total lack of information. That loss of intelligence (and allies) is directly traceable to the George Jr administration and people like MaggieL that somehow just know from a political agenda - facts and the little people who do the work be damned. This George Jr need first to restart the cold war so as to even shutdown all pre- 11 September investigations. Same cold war mentality even demonstrated by a large monolithic chart of Al Qaeda everywhere.

I've seen their terrorist network chart. Chart includes names such as Ali Hussein, Al Sistani, Abdul Qasim, Muqtada Al Sadr, Saddam Hussein and his sons, Abu Musah al-Zarqawi, Tariq Aziz, Ahmad Chalabi, Iman Abbas, Muhammad Sadr, and Ahmad Hashim. Some represent various wings of Al Qaeda or Al Qaeda wanna-bes (better known as Muslim Brotherhood). Some are or could have been American allies. And yet on administration charts, all are part of a united terrorist network. It’s the 'them and us' mentality that will only confirm two American defeats in Iraq and Afghanistan. Same mentality that does not understand why intelligence sources no longer walk into American embassies with information.

We will be bled to death by a government that does not even try to get bin Laden. This because no one more destroyed our intelligence sources more than George Jr and his extremist agenda.

The intelligence network dries up when our leaders lie. We have never seen so much lying since Nixon.

[tw]

Originally Posted by MaggieL

We didn't "create terrorists with our wars". (That's blaming the victim.) The terrorists existed before the wars. The terrorists *started* the wars.

And they also had no gripes with America. MaggieL repeatedly forgets details to post that quote.

Our extremists failed to do their jobs. Middle East was Muslim Brotherhood verses their enemies - secular governments. A bin Laden greatest enemy was Saddam. America had no camel in that fight. Islamic extremists had no gripes with America. American extremists who failed to understand this and therefore got us into this mess, now rewrite history. Only a political extremist would say 'evil' was always coming to get us.

We rescued Kuwait and promised to leave. We did not leave. Some political leaders whose job was to be planning for the peace long before the Kuwait rescue, instead, failed to do their job. They failed their boss, George Sr. They undermined that tremendous military victory by not doing their job. These people who were supposed to be planning for the peace, instead, drank champagne. Having not done their job, we ended up occupying Islam's most holy country. And so the world changed after 1 Aug 1990. And so we made ourselves part of a religious war that otherwise would have completely ignored us.

Same American extremists preached that Saddam was coming to get us. Extremist American government leaders (in the image of Gen Curtis LeMay) saw everything in terms of enemies like Saddam (whose threat did not exist) rather than the Muslim Brotherhood. Muslim Brotherhood saw Americans desecrating Islam's holiest lands. And yet still people like Condi Rice and Dick Cheney denied this and stifled American anti-terrorist activities. Due to a political agenda, they saw Saddam as the enemy. Their extremist agendas made it impossible to understand where obvious threats were coming from.

It was no accident that one of Condi Rice's first job was to demote the CounterTerrorism Security Group - even removing it from the White House. They hope you never learn why anti-terrorist investigations were quashed repeatedly. This administration was going to fix the world, instead, by attacking America's enemies - Saddam. It was the new cold war that would get hot using pre-emption: the final solution.

Even long after bombing of two African embassies, American anti-terrorist experts and FBI Investigators were repeatedly stifled by George Jr administration officials who refused to acknowledge the threat. You saw what you always should have known in that ABC movie.

No. We did not create the terrorists. MaggieL has that part right. We stuck our nose into things that did not involve us. Our leaders then refused to acknowledge the enemy we created. Notice the two completely different uses of the word 'created'.

Our extremist leaders did the opposite of what Clinton did. Our MaggieL type leaders stifled all investigations that would have stopped 11 September. Why? Such attacks did not conform to their political agenda and therefore did not exist.

Look again at that above MaggieL quote. She lies but again. She lies because her political agenda makes it impossible for her to acknowledge reality. We did not create the terrorist. But we created an enemy that otherwise would have never bothered the US. Extremists whose political agenda caused these failures then spin facts. You saw it on the ABC movie. Right wing extremists in the American government stifled attempt after attempt to stop terrorism. John O'Neill was only one example of what happens to patriotic American who confront George Jr's political agenda with reality.

Meanwhile look at that MaggieL quote. Notice how she spins reality into a George Jr agenda.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by MaggieL

We didn't "create terrorists with our wars" ... The terrorists existed before the wars.

It's good to know that there's absolutely nothing we could do to inspire people to attack us. It certainly frees up a lot of actions for us. As long as terrorists exist, we can't create them!

[Undertoad]

Originally Posted by jay

...but we do truely believe that you are heading down the wrong path. Each of your actions makes more enemies and reduces the numbers of your friends.

May I ask, which three actions are the most offending?

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

It's good to know that there's absolutely nothing we could do to inspire people to attack us.

I didn't say that we couldn't.

What I'm saying is we didn't.

Of course, if your politics are driven by the belief that the proper state of affairs is world-wide imposition of Sharia law, mere failure to comply is sufficient "inspiration to attack". It's called "jihad"...although some beleve that's a deep perversion of the original meaning of that word.

Western civilization and culture is pretty much antithetical to Sharia law as interpreted by these people. I don't think we should give it up just because somebody finds it "offensive" or "infidel". Perhaps it doesn't mean much to you, and you'd just as soon live their way.

If so, I do hope not too many agree with you...or I'll be seeing you in the 12th century.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by MaggieL

I didn't say that we couldn't.

What I'm saying is we didn't.

So nobody who becomes a terrorist does it for any reason other than hating our freedom?

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

So nobody who becomes a terrorist does it for any reason other than hating our freedom?

They certainly do it because they hate the successes of our culture and the failures of their own. I think it's a reasonable supposition that our success is by and large due to our freedom. Of course, there are other
theories about that.

Have you read the paper "Spotting the Losers: Seven Signs of Non-Competitive States" by Peters, already cited in several other threads here?

[glatt]

Originally Posted by MaggieL

Four airliners weren't hijacked five years ago today because we "failed to be nice enough". And we've not avoided more of the same by "learning to be nice". Or tolerant. Or nuanced.

Osama Bin Laden told us why he ordered 9/11. He ordered it because we based our troops on 'holy' Saudi soil. The highjackers were virtually all Saudis who were pissed that we were defiling their holy lands.

I'm not saying we have to kiss terrorist ass. I'm saying we shouldn't be surprised to be stung when we go up to a hornet's nest and start poking it with a stick.

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by glatt

Osama Bin Laden told us why he ordered 9/11. He ordered it because we based our troops on 'holy' Saudi soil.

Indeed the *title* of the fatwa was "Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places". But *read* the fatwa--he demands much more than "no US troops in Saudi"; such a withdrawal wouldn't be enough to appease him. He has a much larger agenda than that.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by MaggieL

They certainly do it because they hate the successes of our culture and the failures of their own.

And none of them do it for political reasons?

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by MaggieL

They certainly do it because they hate the successes of our culture and the failures of their own. I think it's a reasonable supposition that our success is by and large due to our freedom. ~snip

I'll buy that's one of the prime motivating factors for the leaders but I doubt it causes many rank and file terrorists/homicide bombers to sign up.

[headsplice]

I've also heard that, besides the american troops on holy land (i.e., a return to the Crusades, and if you don't think they remember that, you're deluding yourself), the Towers were specifically targeted because they were symbolic of American economic tyranny (e.g., the World Bank and IMF's restructuring 3rd world countries' economies).