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Joined: 15 Oct 2004 Posts: 787 Location: Indiana

It's all the rage now to blast the President and vilify the "war"...which by the way, we did not start. They got close to 3,500 of us with the opening salvo on 9/11/01. We have NOTHING to apologize for. We read daily of how the opposition beheads people---even their own---and hideously tortures and disfigures those who dare to disagree with them in the name of some heathen "religion"we are supposed to respect. Yeah, right! I'll tell you what: They can all go right straight to hell, where I would gladly send them, with the appropriate nuclear device and NO regrets, if it comes to that. Remember in the 1960's when we wanted to "buy the world a Coke, and live in perfect harmony?". Well, guess what? The rest of the world drank the Coke we bought them, and then pissed it back all over us for our trouble. NO MORE !! THINK !! If this is such a bad ass place, then why do many immigrants often risk everything, including their lives, to cross rivers and sometimes oceans to come here?? Sorry guys, but it's them or us, and any thinking individual is going to choose "us".

You disagree? Fine; it's not going to change my mind one damn bit....

The right place and time was in Afganistan where Al Queda had taken refuge and had directed the attack on our nation. Our intelligence agencies knew it, and our first action was here. Our forces were efficiently deployed and had BenLaden and his henchmen trapped in Eastern Afganistan. We had him and were on the verge of eliminating him as a threat.

Rumsfeld and Cheney, on the other hand, convinced Bush that Iraq should be the center of our military actions instead. They controlled and used the State Department facilities and their connections in the Pentagon to concoct and support with trumped up proofs, a whole series of half truthes and outright lies to embroil us in an action that bled our properly deployed forces in Afganistan white.

Ben Laden used his opportunity to lead his forces out of the trap he was caught in to Western Pakistan. He is now so entrenched in the Pashtoon society, even Pakistani forces loyal to Pakistan can't dislodge him. So he has remained a sword pointed right at our throats ever since. We can't touch him without destabilizing the Pakistani government. To do so is risking a nuclear war involving Pakistan and India, its long term enemy. All we can do now is wait until he dies, and hope his extemist minions die out with his passing. That is a forlorn hope. He showed us to be an easily manipulated super power with no clear vision or course of action. Islamic extremists across the globe now believe they can defy and defeat us due to his example.

Sadam Hussein's regime was no sweetheart, and was definately not our friend in any way, but his was purely a secular regime maintained by his absolute power and control over all the opposed Sunni and Shiite doctrines and factions. He was a despot who would not, and could not support extremist Islamic doctrine and still stay in absolute power. Letting these extremist Islamic forces into Iraq would have torn the nation apart and brought him down. His alleged connections to Al Queda were not real. Neither were his supposed stock piles of WMDs. The whole story was concocted to justify what Cheney and Rumsfeld wanted Bush to do.

We got Hussein, but at what price? Those extremist factions who have entered into the power vacuum we created in Iraq have succeeded helping to tear Iraqi society apart. Peace will come after we leave--and we must leave-- but at the cost of a total blood bath now. The shiite majority will annihilate the Sunni minority and will align itself with the Iranian Shiite majority to ensure its survival. This will fly in the face of the Suadi Sunni majority and theri allies. The whole region will remain a threat the West will continually have to face for decades if not centuries now.

If you doubt this, look to Turkey for proof. The Turks are now mobilizing and preparing to defend themselves against the coming turmoil. They know what is going to happen, and they are doing what they must to ensure their own survival. We on the other hand, are asking them to wait and see. If I was Turkish, I'd just smile in America's face, and do exactly what they are doing. Its their only hope now.

We have to ask WHY??? Why did the administration follow such poor advice and take such a costly and futile course of action? Who has benefited from it and who will continue to do so? Certainly not us, the American society who must fund this fiasco. Certainly not Western civilization and their Eastern allies--the very target of extremist Islamic doctrine.

Cheney has long had connections and strong ties to some very powerful and central figures in the global military-industrial complex. Rumsfeld is and has been a long term close associate and ally. There is no doubt here. Only these global military-industrial entities will benifit from a long term threat of war.

You can agree or disagree, but for God's sake and for your nation's sake, please ask the right questions and honestly and courageously face the answers found in the consequences of what has actually taken place. If we do this, we stand a chance. If not, we will surely remain slaves to global powers that no longer have our interests at heart.

Joined: 15 Oct 2004 Posts: 787 Location: Indiana

We weren't any closer to getting Bin Laden in 2002/2003 than we are now; then as now, the Pakistanis won't let us get close enough and we won't use enough balls to force the issue. The only thing Bush did wrong was not going far enough; he had the initiative, and like his Dad, did not finish them off. If you think Iraq was the first or worst time America ever suffered faulty intelligence, think again...like Pearl Harbor maybe? The Japs did everyting but telegraph that attack beforehand, and we still got caught with our pants down. And see, here's the thing...that fiasco was presided over by a Democrat.

And I've heard enough about the 4,000 dead we've suffered in Iraq...we lost that many in one week on Iwo Jima, and in many of the island campaigns the heavy losses were totally unnecessary. We can own guns and more or less use them as we please because of sacrifices that others, including our present-day soldiers, have made. And I don't think time, or a new President, is going to change that. As Plato once said, "Only the dead have seen the end of war"...

What we don't need is a lot of geopolitical psychobabble. Let's kick their asses, take their names, and leave a smoking hole in the earth when we are damn good and ready to go, and not one moment before. The signal we need to send, unmistakably and finally, is that if you screw with us, you PAY, and in very hard coin. It's the only language that people who mutilate other people will ever really understand.

The world is gonna hate us? Aww, that just breaks my heart ! Guess what...they already do, and have for a long time....but this is still the place they all come to when they want to live the good life.

Wow!!!!
Heck I just dropped by Graff's on 5th St. in St.Charles and bought shot for $38.95 a bag. I guess I ought to do that again.

Griff

Isn't there a political forum this thread can be moved to?

Joined: 15 Oct 2004 Posts: 787 Location: Indiana

For my part, I'm done with it; our talk isn't changing anything anyway.

The price of raw lead is dropping along with all the other commodities. China and the banks backing their industrial build up are now running out of money. Their dream of a Chinese industrial hegemony is turning on them now. Any type of hegemony is and always has been a fool's errand. It's not real and never will be.

The English, the Europeans, the Americans, the Japanese and Asian rim countries, and now China have all tried and failed to dominate world industrial production. It is simple to understand why it can't be achieved. If the selling price is too low to support the cost of materials and labor, the producer losses money. If the price of goods is too high, someone else will find a way to make and sell it for less.

Labor can do only so much for so little until it does not pay to do the work anymore. Overpaid labor becomes greedy and demanding, so production moves to an area of less expensive, less demanding, and more productive labor.

Lately, world production of raw materials has increased to meet the higher demand. Prices will fall as demand drops off. Stockpiles will remain as they are until the price comes down.

World currency will become devalued to compensate for the higher prices if the prices become artificially inflated. The value of money has always been fluid. The gold standard was an artificial value. So is the value of any form of lucre. It is what folks agree on, and that changes all the time.

And so it goes as the pendulum swings back and forth. The more things change, the more they stay the same. If you can't afford to buy ammo for now, then don't. If the demand drops off, prices will fall, and shooting will become more affordable again. This is not the first time prices have spiked and declined. It will not be the last time either.