Whatever happened to the McCarthurs and the Pattons

[flippant]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Cyber Wolf

That's the beauty of it, he can't fail. The path of least resistance has been a lifelong pattern and he got to be Prez......twice.

Wow,that's actually a really good point. But isn't the path of the least resistant a bread trail to McDonalds management? (at best)

Yeah, it must be nice to have your path of least resistance paved by a parent who's President of the US and richer than a Saudi oil sheik. Given that background, even Homer Simpson could drink himself into the presidency.

[jaguar]

Is fear an alternative energy resource?

It's been demonstrated of late to be an excellent source of power.

[flippant]

Originally Posted by jaguar

It's been demonstrated of late to be an excellent source of power.

AAAh.....I'll spell out my point.
It's ridiculous to point out weaknesses other people don't have a huge quantity of. It's rabid and none too bright to impose your ideas about how other people feel. Especially if you are known to attack them on some anonymous board. Should I start accusing people of feeling like Losers? How brilliant would I be then? Hey jag you feel great today....get rid of your dog.Impressed? (really not directed anywhere near Jag)

[Undertoad]

CW the larger objective, not stated so plainly, was to create a more pro-US state in the middle of the Middle East. So far it hasn't worked out, but it still could.

NT Times Friedman column today says so, registration req'd.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/18/op...tml?oref=login

Every time I visit Iraq, I leave asking myself the same question: If you total up all the positives and negatives, where does the balance come out? I'd say the score is still 4 to 4. We can still emerge with a decent outcome. And the whole thing could still end very badly. There's only one thing one can say for sure today: you won't need to wait much longer for the tipping point. Either the elections for a new governing body happen by the end of January, as scheduled, and the rout of Saddam loyalists in Falluja is consolidated and extended throughout the Sunni triangle, or not. If it's the former, there are still myriad challenges ahead, but you can be somewhat hopeful. If it's the latter, we've got a total fiasco on our hands.

[Cyber Wolf]

Ehhh...I think I see. That concept is not nearly as marketable as the idea of destroying all who might threaten our way of life. It's be easier to rally the US public to support "putting those 9/11 plotters and US Soldier killers and fuel pipeline destroyers in their place" than it is to rally them to support "creating a political foothold in the Middle East because that's the one place we haven't gotten our feet firmly planted in yet".

[Clodfobble]

And so clearly all the children of all those other wealthy presidents we've ever had must be lower than Homer Simpson on the intellect scale, since none of them managed to waltz into the White House?

GWB ain't the only person ever to have the President for a father.

No, actually, the other kids were the bright and sane ones, because they wanted nothing to do with the presidency.

[jaguar]

oh please, I wouldn't be shocked if bush couldn't do up his own shoelaces, with everything handled by Rove, Cherny or Dad it's not too hard and having a pliable idiot as president suits the pocket-lining and agenda setting desire of those around him nicely.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Oh, I think he can handle the shoelaces, but why should he if he doesn't have to? His only sucessful endeavors have been in the position of front man and gladhander for people with money and a plan. Just follow the script, but in fairness I don't think the script is completely detailed. More likely an outline with established limits of wiggle room. Think of a bowling ball on an alley or bobsled on a track.

[Happy Monkey]

An exerpt from a new report(big pdf) from the Defense Science Board:

'Muslims do not hate our freedom, but rather they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the long-standing, even increasing, support for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan and the Gulf states. Thus, when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypocrisy.

Note that this may or not be the motivation for individual terrorists or their leaders, but it is instead the background environment that gives terrorists popular support and access to new recruits. Fixing this environment is immeasurably more important than killing the current generation of enemies.

[Undertoad]

And why do they hate the Spanish?

Why the Aussies?

Why the Brits?

Why the French?

Why the Russians?

[Happy Monkey]

Well, there are different terrorist groups targeting different countries, but for the most part you just listed some of the closest allies of the US, almost all of which (not Australia, AFAIK) have also had imperial incursions into the Middle East. What point were you trying to make?

[Undertoad]

That the problem can't be fixed that way because even if you are a great friend of Arafat and Palestine and lavish them with gifts and billions of dollars, you can decide to mandate no headgear for students and suddenly you are festering hate and creatiing terrorists.

One problem is that they hate Jews. Very well then allow them to wipe Israel off the map. Where does the hate go then?

The real problem is the intolerable clash of the successful western world against the repeatedly failing middle east. They could wipe Israel off the map and it would only cause them to find another external reason for their overall failure on the world scale. Co-dependency is not good foreign policy.

The only way to do away with the problem is to do away with the hate, or at least the power behind it, not to do away with Israel or try to massage and work with the hate in some way.

[Happy Monkey]

There will probably be a minority who are willing to kill as long as Israel exists, and Israel's existence will probably always stick in the craw of a majority of Muslims. But the mere existence of Israel is not enough to generate most of the non-Palestinian terrorists. It is one (though a big one) of a million issues that combine to bring the mainstream towards the extremists.

You seem to read the article as saying we should shower Muslims with gifts and submit to their every demand (do away with Israel? WTF?). That's not what it says. Our policies are almost unvaryingly detrimental to Muslim citizens, for varying reasons. The cumulative effect is that first, terrorist groups gain recruits, and then anti-American sentiment becomes strong enough that even the governments we try to bribe start America-bashing to divert dissatisfaction from them to the US.

The only way to do away with the problem is to do away with the hate

That's the point. You have to deal with root causes. Killing current terrorists is like picking the leaves off of a tree one at a time to try to kill it.