The Cellar  

Go Back   The Cellar > Main > Home Base

Home Base A starting point, and place for threads don't seem to belong anywhere else

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 05-31-2002, 03:46 PM   #61
elSicomoro
Person who doesn't update the user title
 
Join Date: Jan 2001
Posts: 12,486
Kangaroo Court

Downside, I find you guilty of not doing your research on the Cellar or its members. You are hereby subject to perpetual taunting.

We are adjourned.
elSicomoro is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-31-2002, 03:47 PM   #62
downside
a shadow in the dark...
 
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 44
Thanks. I've always had a knack with ePeople
downside is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-02-2002, 12:30 PM   #63
spinningfetus
Major Inhabitant
 
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Between a rock and a hard place...
Posts: 122
Quote:
Originally posted by downside
I'm not doubting it was a good book. But the topic in which he chose to write about seems loose. The equivalent of the book that you are describing would be something like "Earthquakes: Why I Can't Stop Them". Why publish/read a book containing nothing more than a "why we should be punished" theme. But that's another topic.

Anyone can right a book about why they think these people hate us. The real answer lies, obviously, in their beliefs. I believe, for instance, that a variant of the religion, combined with their economic state and a hint of pure hatred caused the September attack. The most important part, of course, is the hatred. I give no merit to any person, group or Religion that agrees killing humans is acceptable.
The title of the book Blowback is a techincal term the CIA employs to name the none too rare phenomenon of them supplying and training some resistance group in a foreign country, that group either serving thier purpose or not, the CIA withdrawing support and losing contact with that group, and finally the group using said training and weapons against American targets. The part that blows my mind is that fact that it happens often enough for there to be a name for it. And as a point of reference we run a nationally sponsored terroist training camp right here in the good old US of A, It used to be called the School of the Americas but as that name began to carry some rather negative connotations it was changed to Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC). Whining "Why us?" and the sanctimoniously deciding it must be something they want, addresses none of the actions that directly lead to terrorism. When they serve our purposes they are called freedom fighters, when they don't they're terrorists. Case in point: We gave the Taliban 40 million dollars just last spring for the eradication of poppy fields that the CIA had orginally started. There needs to be a fundamental shift in how the average american looks at the world and one in the way our leader operate in it. Nothing short of that is going to have any long term results.
spinningfetus is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-02-2002, 01:53 PM   #64
elSicomoro
Person who doesn't update the user title
 
Join Date: Jan 2001
Posts: 12,486
Quote:
Originally posted by spinningfetus
There needs to be a fundamental shift in how the average american looks at the world and one in the way our leader operate in it. Nothing short of that is going to have any long term results.
I fully agree with the first part of this. I would have thought easier access to a variety of news sources on the 'net would make people smarter. But as they say, you can't fix stupid.

I'm not sure if our leaders can really change the way they operate, given the way our government structure is. Taking all the coverups and conspiracies out of it, I wonder if Bush might have been more aware of the possibilities if he didn't delegate so much. And I wonder if he takes more of a lead now in the aftermath of 9/11, though that doesn't appear to be the case.
elSicomoro is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-02-2002, 05:04 PM   #65
juju
no one of consequence
 
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Arkansas
Posts: 2,839
Quote:
Originally posted by spinningfetus

When they serve our purposes they are called freedom fighters, when they don't they're terrorists.
This was a truly exellent post. This is the best part of it, I think. One person's freedom fighter is another person's terrorist.
juju is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-02-2002, 05:05 PM   #66
juju
no one of consequence
 
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Arkansas
Posts: 2,839
juju is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-02-2002, 10:01 PM   #67
spinningfetus
Major Inhabitant
 
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Between a rock and a hard place...
Posts: 122
Quote:
Originally posted by sycamore


But as they say, you can't fix stupid.

I wonder if Bush might have been more aware of the possibilities if he didn't delegate so much. And I wonder if he takes more of a lead now in the aftermath of 9/11, though that doesn't appear to be the case.
The question in my mind is CAN Bush take a greater leadership role? I don't know if he has the ability to do so. I was talking more of the cynical attitude of playing different groups off each other in order to gain the advantage for our country (or at least the business interests). I do understand that tough decisions sometimes need to be made, it just seems like we are always trying to get more out of any particular situation than we deserve.
spinningfetus is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-03-2002, 02:44 PM   #68
Nic Name
retired
 
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: Toronto, Canada
Posts: 1,930
Why Do People Hate the USA?

Quote:
But when Americans ask, "Why do they hate us?" and "Why do these Islamic radicals on the other side of the earth want to come over here and commit hara-kiri killing us?" we get responses that ought not to satisfy a second-grader. They hate us, we are told, because we are democratic and free and good, and we have low tax rates.

Well that is no longer enough. Before, not after, the next terror attack on this country, America's leaders should start telling the truth: Evil though they may be, Islamic killers are over here because we are over there. They are not trying to kill us because they dislike our domestic politics, but because they detest our foreign policy.

Fifteen of the 19 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia. They did not fly into those twin towers to protest universal suffrage or to advance self-determination for the Palestinian people. As Osama bin Laden said, they want us to stop propping up the Saudi regime they hate, and to get off the sacred Saudi soil on which sit the holiest shrines of Islam. They want our troops out of Saudi Arabia – and if we don't get out, they are coming over here to kill us any way they can.

That is reality. Now while America should use every weapon in her arsenal, from intelligence to diplomacy to war, to prevent terror and to punish terror, we must address the central issue: Terror on American soil, and eventual cataclysmic and atomic terror on American soil, is the price of American empire.

Is the empire worth it? French, Brits, even Soviets said no. They went home. And nothing over there – not oil, not bases in Saudi Arabia, not global hegemony – is worth risking nuclear terror over here. I may be the only right-winger in America who loves D.C., but then I grew up here. Washington is my hometown. It comes first, and empire isn't even a close second.
He's not my favorite political analyst but he's got a point here.

And in a photographic montage here, that was my point, too.

P.S. I don't know why I keep looking for this thread in Politics. I must remember: "There's no place like Home, there's no place like Home." -- Dorothy

Last edited by Nic Name; 06-03-2002 at 02:50 PM.
Nic Name is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-03-2002, 03:34 PM   #69
MaggieL
in the Hour of Scampering
 
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Jeffersonville PA (15 mi NW of Philadelphia)
Posts: 4,060
If the answer is capitulating to anybody who might engage in nuclear terror against the US, I suppose we'd better get used to capitulating, because there's a *scrutload* of people out there willing to threaten that.

In fact, based on that philosophy, we should have surrendered to the Soviets back in 1962.
__________________
"Neither can his Mind be thought to be in Tune,whose words do jarre; nor his reason In frame, whose sentence is preposterous..."

MaggieL is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-03-2002, 03:56 PM   #70
Nic Name
retired
 
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: Toronto, Canada
Posts: 1,930
My country right or wrong.

Quote:
Our Country! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right, but our country, right or wrong.
Stephen Decatur, April 1816


Quote:
I can never join with my voice in the toast which I see in the papers attributed to one of our gallant naval heroes. I cannot ask of heaven success, even for my country, in a cause where she should be in the wrong. Fiat justitia, pereat coelum ["Let justice be done though heaven should fall" - anonymous, circa 43 B.C.]. My toast would be, may our country always be successful, but whether successful or otherwise, always right.
John Quincy Adams, August 1, 1816
Nic Name is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-03-2002, 04:19 PM   #71
spinningfetus
Major Inhabitant
 
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Between a rock and a hard place...
Posts: 122
Quote:
Originally posted by MaggieL
If the answer is capitulating to anybody who might engage in nuclear terror against the US, I suppose we'd better get used to capitulating, because there's a *scrutload* of people out there willing to threaten that.

In fact, based on that philosophy, we should have surrendered to the Soviets back in 1962.
But is it really capitulating if we don't belong there? I don't like paying to protect the house of Saud, they aren't even the rightful rulers in the first place. And while bowing to terrorism is a mistake, if they are right on a point we should do the opposite just so it looks like we are being tough on terrorism.
__________________
Don't turn you back on the bottle, its never turned its back on you.
-Boozy the Clown
spinningfetus is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-03-2002, 05:31 PM   #72
MaggieL
in the Hour of Scampering
 
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Jeffersonville PA (15 mi NW of Philadelphia)
Posts: 4,060
Quote:
Originally posted by spinningfetus


But is it really capitulating if we don't belong there? I don't like paying to protect the house of Saud, they aren't even the rightful rulers in the first place.
As I recall, the US Air Force is there to keep the Iraqis out, not to prop up the princes, who were doing OK on thier own until Iraq invaded Kuwait.

That's what ticked bin Laden off, he figured that Hussein's invasion threat was his ticket back into the good graces of the Saudi rulers (who were his daddy's patrons) ,and when they decided the US was a better ally, he became an opponent of the Saudi regime, who subsequently froze his bank accounts and stripped him of his citizenship.

Bin Laden assumed his personal army would be welcome in Saudi after the Afghan war against the Soviets (financed by the US and with the blessings of the Saudis, as well as the Pakis).

Guess he was wrong....whoda thunk it?

If the Saudis had decided that bin Laden would be their savior, imagine how *that* would have played out (however unlikely a scenario that would have been).
__________________
"Neither can his Mind be thought to be in Tune,whose words do jarre; nor his reason In frame, whose sentence is preposterous..."

MaggieL is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-03-2002, 06:32 PM   #73
spinningfetus
Major Inhabitant
 
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Between a rock and a hard place...
Posts: 122
Then you have to ask where did Saddam get his arms? Why us, of course. There is the problem, we are willing to pour money on anyone we think is on our side regardless of what they are doing to thier own people. And there is the answer to the orginial question...
__________________
Don't turn you back on the bottle, its never turned its back on you.
-Boozy the Clown
spinningfetus is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-03-2002, 07:02 PM   #74
MaggieL
in the Hour of Scampering
 
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Jeffersonville PA (15 mi NW of Philadelphia)
Posts: 4,060
Quote:
Originally posted by spinningfetus
Then you have to ask where did Saddam get his arms? Why us, of course.
"Us"? Are you perhaps thinking of the Iranians?

The vast preponderance of the stuff Saddam used on the Iranians, the Kuwatis and then on us was supplied by the Soviets, and paid for by the Iraqis themselves.

On a tangent, it's fascinating how as time goes on, fewer and fewer of the people engaging in political discourse actually *remeber* any of the the Cold War, and how totally fscking scary it was.

That's one reason 9/11 struck so many people to the core; we've routinely expected "thine alabaster cities" to remain "undimmed by human tears" ever since the US and the Soviets stepped back from the brink.

But the psychological impact of living every day in the quite reasonable fear that a limited or all-out global thermonuclear exchange could happen at almost any time has to be difficult to fully comprehend for those who weren't around then.
__________________
"Neither can his Mind be thought to be in Tune,whose words do jarre; nor his reason In frame, whose sentence is preposterous..."

MaggieL is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-03-2002, 07:13 PM   #75
spinningfetus
Major Inhabitant
 
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Between a rock and a hard place...
Posts: 122
Quote:
Originally posted by MaggieL


"Us"? Are you perhaps thinking of the Iranians?
Sorry, you have it backwards. The arms you were thinking about were the ones we tried to trade for hostiges, but the reigm (sp?) that deposed the Shah was most definitely NOT our ally. A google yeilded this site in which the GAO found that we were in fact supplying Saddam.
__________________
Don't turn you back on the bottle, its never turned its back on you.
-Boozy the Clown
spinningfetus is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply


Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
 
Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump

All times are GMT -5. The time now is 06:17 PM.


Powered by: vBulletin Version 3.8.1
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.