NS : Where's this all going?

[AllenETreat]

www.MSNBC.com



&



ABC World News Tonight ( with Peter Jennings )



What's your opinion of the current state of

affairs in Iraq / the middle east?



We stay, we're gonna take a shalackin'.



We leave, OBL's gun totin' loonies ( known

as "terrorists" ) are gonna be on our doorstep ( AGAIN! )



Damned if we DO, damned if we DON'T!



How's this for a compromise - Let the Carlise group & the Blackwood group take

over security of Iraq ( and the Iraqi's

can pay'em! )



And bring our troops home!



What say the augurers?



AET



Some things are necessary evils, some things are more evil than necessary. John Le Carre

[J Smith]

Kill um all and put americans to work over there running the oil wells.

<img src=http://techhelpers.net/e4u/drink/trink36.gif

[vampyrewolf]

I'd give an easy solution...

pull all of our boys out, nuke the terrorists into a crater, and then throw a party for finishing the war up.

<img src="http://www.members.shaw.ca/pjharyett/spyderco/spyder5.gif"><br>Mei Fides, Mei Victus<br>We are programmed to receive. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.<br>

[AllenETreat]

KILL'EM ALL, LET ALLAH SORT'EM OUT!!!

One noo-cule-er device should do the trick!<img src="wink.gif" width=15 height=15 align=middle border=0>

Have a &quot;nice&quot; day <img src="smile.gif" width=15 height=15 align=middle border=0>

AET

Some things are necessary evils, some things are more evil than necessary. John Le Carre

[vampyrewolf]

one? I was thinking enough to wipe the desert off the map... one COULD do it, how about a 200megatonne H bomb?

<img src="http://www.members.shaw.ca/pjharyett/spyderco/spyder5.gif"><br>Mei Fides, Mei Victus<br>We are programmed to receive. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.<br>

[AllenETreat]

VW -

Usually one H-bomb'll do the trick - look
at what happened after Hiroshima &amp; Nagasaki!

The Jap's had a series of paintings that U2
immortalized in their album : The Unforgettable fire

The A-bomb left it's mark.

AET

Some things are necessary evils, some things are more evil than necessary. John Le Carre

[dialex]

Guys, do you realize that America already IS in war? Not the type of war we've been used to know of, but hey, just like everything on Earth, war evolves too <img src="sad.gif" width=15 height=15 align=middle border=0> In ancient times they used to make two big crowds and bash each other. Later on they developed tactics (the Phalanx, for instance). Then chivalry, artillery, tanks, airstrike, commandos (and whatever, I guess most of you know better than me).
They are terrorists because they attack unarmed civilians (well, maybe &quot;unarmed&quot; is not the proper term for US residents, they have the right to bear arms, maybe &quot;defenseless&quot; would be better) but hey, this things happened also in the WWII. It was called the &quot;submination of the enemy's war efforts&quot;. <img src="sad.gif" width=15 height=15 align=middle border=0> They always said that in war everything is correct, as long as it helps you win. <img src="sad.gif" width=15 height=15 align=middle border=0> Arabians don't have the means for a conventional war, so they try a different approach, that's the fact.
Now don't let me be misunderstood. I don't defend the terrorists. I personally believe the American civilisation is great and I'd surely fight for the American way of life (camels and oversized women with cotton bags on their heads just don't fit me).
FYI, we already had our casualties of war in Afghanistan and Iraqi (Romanian soldiers are there in the line of duty as we speak).

<a href="http://users.pcnet.ro/dialex"><font color=blue>(my page)</font></a>

[AllenETreat]

DiALEX -

Indeed, war it is. In the US Army the term
for this type of conflict is &quot;LIC&quot; or Low
Intensity Conflict ( insurgent war ) They
are often protracted conflicts ( witness
VietNam / SE Asia ) in short, the insurgents
are fighting US as we fought the British during the American revolution ( sniping, bombs, etc. ) so the only way to counter-act that is to fight an un-conventional war.
( thing is, Congress made such type of war
&quot;illegal&quot; after Sen. Frank Church's inquiries in the 70's <img src="sad.gif" width=15 height=15 align=middle border=0>) So a good &quot;nukie&quot;
is probably our only way out - unless &quot;WMD&quot;
are made &quot;illegal&quot;.

AET

Some things are necessary evils, some things are more evil than necessary. John Le Carre

[HoB]

Edited by - HoB on 4/14/2004 11:46:16 PM

[Concord_Bob]

Tell the Kurds and Iranians that they didn't have WMD's.

[dialex]

I don't aggree with using a nuke. It has the bad habbit of contaminating the environement. IMHO, using a nuke will leave a poisoned wasteland. A more subtle strategy is required. There's the need for a firm and intelligent leader. Bush's determination is undoubtable (I guess it's a familly feature), but maybe he had some not so brilliant advisers.
Dragging the country into war, that involves a great responsability (not me, Sun Tze said this some time ago) <img src="wink.gif" width=15 height=15 align=middle border=0>

<a href="http://users.pcnet.ro/dialex"><font color=blue>(my page)</font></a>

[Concord_Bob]

I think the person(s) that dragged the U.S. into this war was the islamo-facist scum that attacked us. I don't think the President or any of his advisors did it. I wish the first President Bush had the resolve of his son and not bowed down to the fools at the united nations. If we had removed sadam in the first gulf war maybe the terrorists would have thought twice about attacking America.

[java]

&lt;b&gt;Dialex,&lt;/b&gt;

This is Allen's way of letting off steam and playing the devil's advocate. The &quot;nukie (as Allen has previously called it)&quot; ace in the hole card harkens back to Barry Goldwater's day when he advocated bombing Vietnam back to the Stone Age as a means to end the war with a big glowing check in the win column. The counter protester’s alternate cry of &quot;Nuke 'em 'til they glow!&quot; would effectively nullify the peaceniks' &quot;One, two, three, four. We don’t want your freakin’ war!&quot; chants as both reverberated across 60s campuses (campii?). The phrase was hauled out once again in Afghanistan but immediately lost favor once people realized that much of Afghanistan seemed to still be in the Stone Age. Allen is upping the rhetoric for the sake of argument but as any child of the 60s knows, &quot;Nukes are not healthy for children and other living things&quot;

&lt;img src=http://blogs.salon.com/0001604/images/war_poster.gif&gt;

Peace – but not peace at any price my sharp edged Romanian knife designing Spyder-Brother!

&lt;b&gt;Allen&lt;/b&gt;

U2's album and song title was a generous rip off of the book by the Japan Broadcasting Staff titled &quot;The Unforgettable Fire&quot; which is a 1977 collection of hand drawn pictures by those who survived the &quot;pika-don&quot;. It remains a hard to find work in the US and is an interesting and powerful set of drawings.

Normally our terrorists can be called their freedom fighters - but freedom is coming to Iraq. The timetable must not right for the thugs who hide behind religion and holy shrines and who foment violence to further their own goals to lay a yoke of oppression in the form of another fundamentalist Islamic Republic. Perhaps the Russians had the best plan when they gassed and stormed the theatre in Moscow. What a field day Al-Jazeera would have with that tactic, eh?

j

Edited by - java on 4/15/2004 3:07:03 AM

[HoB]

I tried to put my thoughts into word and failed...so I retract both what I wrote here as well as what I posted earlier. No...it wasn't funny at all and never intended to be. I guess I just tip my hat to dialex who said it better than I ever could.

Edited by - HoB on 4/14/2004 11:51:59 PM

[java]

HoB,

Sorry for misinterpreting your post.



I am not an advocate for the use of WMDs in any case. They existed in Iraq and Saddam used them in the past. The fact that we have found no &quot;smoking gun&quot; does not prove their nonexistence. Nearly twelve years of stalling the UN inspectors while his people suffered under the sanctions was plenty of time to disburse and advance the proscribed weapons he had already used in his reckless war with Iran and against his own Kurdish citizens. Hans Blix be damned but it was not until Saddam began to realize the jig was up and the US was serious in enforcing what the UN could not, that miniscule progress began to be made. There are still issues of so called destroyed weapons that Blix knew of from previous inspections which were never properly documented and the proscribed weapons such as the longer range al Samud missiles that were found and Blix never pressed home to the regime. All the time the UN turned their collective backs on the unfortunate southern Shi'a who rebelled after the 1991 Gulf War while Saddam prosecuted his own final solution on them. How many more mass graves remain to be discovered in Iraq? Or consider the human and ecological toll effected when, after suppressing the rebellion, he systematically drained the Euphrates marshes to eliminate the &quot;marsh Arabs&quot; as viable opposition in the future.

The only other option was Saddam had no WMDs and was only exercising Iraq Sovereignty for the duration. If that is true then the cause was even more right - why would you drive your country to ruin and deny your citizens humanitarian relief while you add to your own obscenely full coffers and bolster the forces to keep you in power.

Some of the opinions here are a bit over the top and more like I'm used to reading on the Yahoo News bulletin boards. I was initilly reluctant to post anything on this thread but sensed concern on Dialex's part. Noone seriously advocates the use of nuclear weapons to settle their disputes. It irritates me to that military planners in the US are considering reviving tactical nukes as an option for low intensity conflicts where the enemy has formidable hardened defenses. As unpalatable as the use of nuclear weaponry is to most of us, rest assured that the likes of Usama will not give a second thought using one against the &quot;western&quot; civilizations should he acquire the capability.

j

[AllenETreat]

Ya' gotta admit one thing java -

If Al Qaeida has &quot;dirty bombs&quot; ( and that's
probably a big &quot;if&quot; ) they wouldn't hesitate
to use'em on US ; most military operations
are, for the most part, a show of force.

In the case of the bombing of Hiroshima &amp;
Nagasaki we were ( at the time ) left with
little choice ; look at operation &quot;downfall&quot;
and the high cost of the invasion of Japan.

I can't equate this current situation in Iraq EXACTLY with the war with Japan, other
than we're in the Iraqi's backyard(s), so
we better be prepared for a LONG fight.
( same in SEA ; while divided as a nation,
the Vietnamese ( north &amp; south ) didn't seem
to take too kindly to having the US there )

It would be no different if an invader ( or &quot;friendly&quot; ) force occupied the US &amp; started imposing it's own ideas.

Also consider that Iraq is divided into
warring factions itself ( kurds, Shi'ites,
Sunni's, commies, and even criminal elements.) thus this is not something the
US can possibly get a handle on anytime soon.

Sadly, &quot;the bomb&quot; may be the only solution
as a demonstration of force - I don't see
America doing another SEA type conflict.

Sometimes violent force is more respected
than winning the proverbial &quot;hearts &amp; minds&quot;

And, if we are winning there, we now have
that fanatical cleric rallying his people
first in Falluja, then, who knows, the rest
of his country.

The Italian army had the same problem in the middle east when General Rudolpho Graziani tried to contain a rebellion lead
by Omar Mukh tar ( he captured Mukh tar, had him tried &amp; hung by the neck - and created a religious martyr - the Italians
( and the Afrika Corps sent to bail them out
( the reason the Afrika Corps was sent in the first place )) ultimetely were defeated.
( the allied invasion helped in this effort )

So, we either accept the returning body bags
for the next 10yrs or so, or use the unthinkable.

AET

Some things are necessary evils, some things are more evil than necessary. John Le Carre

Edited by - AllenETreat on 4/15/2004 7:08:58 AM

[king-of-mars]

This book opened my eyes to a lot of what's going on in the world right now. I highly recommended it to anyone that's interested with the current events in the Middle East.

Sleeping With the Devil : How Washington Sold Its Soul for Saudi Crude (Hardcover, 2003)
Author: Robert Baer

" So many Spydies so little time!"

[Luvbug]

I once heard a possible alternative to turning the desert into a glass parking lot. Because it has become apparent that the majority (if not the totality) of the terrorists are islamofascists, let it be known to all that the next act of islamofascist terrorism will result in the bombing (nuke or conventional) of Mecca. Seems Machiavellian to me, but perhaps worthy of consideration.

[dialex]

Quote Allen: &quot;If Al Qaeida has &quot;dirty bombs&quot; (and that's probably a big &quot;if&quot<img src="wink.gif" width=15 height=15 align=middle border=0> they wouldn't hesitate to use'em on US ; most military operations are, for the most part, a show of force.&quot;
Absolutely correct!

<a href="http://users.pcnet.ro/dialex"><font color=blue>(my page)</font></a>

[dantecubit]

Hi all. Sorry to rehash an old topic, but I felt the need to respond to this topic. This will seem long, but please give my viewpoint a chance.

First of all, I don’t know if you guys are serious about nuking Iraq or not, but that would not be a good idea. In the absence of evidence of WMDs, George Bush has justified the war by saying it was a success in freeing Iraqis from Saddam’s clutch. Do you know how resentful they would be if we dropped a nuclear bomb? Anyone who resented the US even a tiny bit would become an overnight terrorist. Bringing people democracy to people by nuking them? No.

Second: the idea that we in the West are safer because Saddam is gone? There are dozens of punks like him around the globe that dislike the US and possess, in the words of Jon Stewart, some “weapons of minor destruction.” Kill ‘em all and more will spring up. And that he is somehow linked to Bin Laden? Ridiculous. There is no evidence of this, and Bin Laden and Hussein are very different maniacal animals. Iraq is essentially a secular stare, despite Saddam’s attempt to portray himself as the leader of some grand Jihad. If they met in a bar, I suspect they would have very little to talk about.

Terrorism isn’t something you can have a war on. It’s a tactic, a means to an end. “War on Terrorism” is like saying you want a “War on Siege Warfare.” It doesn’t make any sense. Yes you can kill terrorists, but as long as there is injustice and poverty in the world.

What are “weapons of mass destruction,” really? The depleted uranium that the coalition used in Desert Storm has caused cancer rates in Iraq to skyrocket. According to Dennis Halliday, former director of the UN Iraq program, the sanctions killed 1 MILLION PEOPLE or more, while solidifying Saddam’s power. HALF of those are children. If that’s not mass destruction, I don’t know what is. Picture an Iraqi girl like the ones you see on TV. Now, throw aside all your preconceived notions and imagine that she is your daughter and she is dying of leukemia caused by DU ammunition and the hospital is desperately short on supplies. Would you pick up the AK and go shoot some Marines? I would. Consider this: it would not be illegal to do so. Under international law that the US is so fond of holding Saddam up to, invasion requires UN support and the requirement that a UN member country is being attacked. By killing Marines, Iraqis are, in a sense, repelling foreign invaders, which is legal.

That’s not to say I support killing US troops. Death is horrible no matter who is dying. I’ve talked to Iraqis who fled during the Gulf War and they feel betrayed. Betrayed because the US jerks them around to use them. First they prop up Saddam, then attack him only to fail to oust him from power, despite Stormin’ Norman Schwarzkopff’s protests. Then they enact genocidal sanctions, after 10 years of which they finally finish the job. My good friend Mah says that Iraqis don’t want Saddam, obviously, but neither do they want war. They feel the US does not have their interests at heart, and they’re only a pawn in a global chess game to control the new world order.

Another thing that concerns me is the casually racist attitude towards Islam these days (not that you guys share this attitude). Bush upset the conservative religious leaders when he said that the Islamic God and the Judeo-Christian God are the same. Islam essentially IS Christianity. Our holy books are their holy books- they read the Old and New Testament as holy books and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. They simply have the addition of another prophet. Islam is essentially a religion of peace, I believe. Bin Laden is an extremist. There have been Christian extremists as well. Remember the horrible crimes committed in (Christian) God’s name? The Spanish Inquisition springs to mind.

I know you all are good people. I’m sure that you love your family, as I do. I would fight to my last ounce of strength for them and die for them, as I’m sure you would. Please understand that _people_ are dying over there. That US Marine has a family, just like the Iraqi killed in the street.

Anyway, just something to consider.