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Topic:  Before you make any "political" statements...
chipmunk man
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  RE: Before you make any "political" statements...
March 5, 2004 5:58:19 AM    View the profile of chipmunk man 
Shazam, welfare was started by FDR during the Great Depression of the 1930's. It was part of the same program that launched Social Security and the FDIC.

Think of it this way Argon. Would you rather:

A: Spend extra on the military so that noone in the right minds would even consider messing with America, or

B: Pay too little, then need all those troops you fired.

The spending is absolutely necessary, even if we are not in a time of war, simply in case something happens. The motto of Teddy Roosevelt was taken from an African proverb, "Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far." Even if the body-builder has no need for all that extra muscle, noone dares slug him in the face. Al Quida thought that they could get away with it, and they probably would have if "Sore Loserman" had won the election of 2000. A strong military simply cannot function if politicians who think they know best cripple spending on weapons and training. The very training you were complaning about is what helps bring our soldiers home alive. Do you really want the casualty rate to rise? Because that is what will probably happen if you eliminate training and equipment.
 
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"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." -Albert Einstien

"There is a certain kind of peace that can be found only on the other side of war." -Sean Connery as King Arthur in "First Knight."

"People like you are the reason people like me take medication." -Cool T-shirt

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JMac
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  RE: Before you make any "political" statements...
March 5, 2004 6:01:28 AM    View the profile of JMac 
Argon, do you have any idea how much the weapons that we use cost?  One Tomahawk missile costs $1.4 mil, just to give one example.  We use a ton of these things with every engagement so that we don't get our people killed.  If you start to cut the budget, the we will have to start using weapons without all of the guidance systems, and we will have a great deal more collateral damage, meaning more innocent lives lost.  All of our equipment is top of the line to keep our soldiers and innocent people alive, thus the high cost.  I'd prefer to keep paying the money.

Thge tax cut benefited the rich the most because they pay the msot taxes.  The top 10% of the people pay about 90% of the taxes.  Thus, they got more money back.

Clinton did give Bush a bum economy.  We were starting to go into a slump when he left office, and then our economy got slammed by all of the economic lies that pumped up the Clinton economy to such insane levels like Enron, itc.  The trade towers just made it worse.

Lastly, NPR is by no means Conservative Fundamentalist station.  Is is basically the most liberal medium out there.


 
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chipmunk man
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  RE: Before you make any "political" statements...
March 5, 2004 6:22:34 AM    View the profile of chipmunk man 
Ah yes, I almost forgot that one. NPR is incredibly libral, which is exactly why my parents listen to it. Also, I don't live anywhere near the Southern US. You're looking at a yankee boy, here.
 
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"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." -Albert Einstien

"There is a certain kind of peace that can be found only on the other side of war." -Sean Connery as King Arthur in "First Knight."

"People like you are the reason people like me take medication." -Cool T-shirt

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Arturus
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  RE: Before you make any "political" statements...
March 5, 2004 7:44:31 AM    View the profile of Arturus 
In regards to the tax cuts, I completely agree that the upper class should not get a cut and probably shouldnt get one any time soon.  However I disagree about the middle-class cuts.  I think the cuts should be lower and there should be much higher tax cuts for low-income families. Cutting taxes for lower and middle class families will stimulate the economy much better than for the wealthy.  This is because the marginal propensity to consume is much higher among the lower class, at times reaching 1.0 where as the wealthy elite spend more like .00 - 0.005.

Argon Im not quite sure what you mean by Americans pay more for welfare than any other industralised  country (if thats a misrepresentation of your statement then I apologise).  Ive heard many Americans say that they pay such high taxes.  This in fact is truly not the case.  One needs only to look at Canada, Sweden, or Norway to see much higher tax levels.  Ironically, up until recently, the Canadian and Swedish economies were greatly out performing the US in terms of GDP growth which helps to prove that tax cuts arent the best way to stimulate the economy.  I believe strongly in the Keynesian model of fiscal policy.  The one aspect of it I dont agree with is defecit spending but if social programs demand more money, then I think controlled defecit spending can be very beneficial tothe economy in the long run.  For any of you who don't know the Keynesian model, its essentially a system promoting government expenditures on social programs and infrastructure in order to stimulate the economy.  This combined with a good monetary policy can definitely stimulate the economy in the short run and pay off for the government in the long run (except if you waste billions on the military).

Most social programs in some way shape or form get abused by a few individuals.  Governments should see what loopholes are in the system to allow this to happen and should close them.  Welfare is a very effective and vital program to any country, but it hurts everyone when it isnt properly utilised because there is less for those who need it.  The point is, just because its abused does not mean its not a good system.

One final point on the military.

1. The US will never be invaded
2. If you dont want high casualty rates, simple response is, stop fighting wars
3. Massive world wars are a thing of the past and will probably not happen again.  The world is in need of dedicated peacekeeping countries, not war mongering ones with bases around the world.  The US could save a fortune by removing its bases in Japan, Germany, Diego Garcia, and elsewhere.  I think both Canada and the US will benefit from the savings of disbanding NORAD, an outdated and now useless cold war military strategic alliance.

When talking about military spending in Canada I use this argument for how to save money, I figured Id throw it out as a suggestion for the US too.  Completely revamp the nations's military.  In Canada we are selling off our tanks for light attack vehicles.  In essence, Canada is ridding its self of heavy equipment for more peacekeeping oriented gear.  I would take this one step further in Canada, sell off 100% of Canada's tanks and all of its artillery, heavy mortars, etc.  In essence create an army of light attack vehicles (known as the stryker) which are ideally suited for peacekeeping.  In addition Canadian military training should be shifted from heavy combat to peacekeeping type training such as teaching many lanugages, learning about countries and cultures around the world.  This is already done here but I figure it can be more effective with less combat training.  Essentially Canada will eventually not have a military to fight a war, which is exactly what every country should do in order to preserve global peace.
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SL/ESN_Arturus/Kaph 1-1/Phoenix Wing/M-SSD_Atrus/VE/VEN/(=a=)(=sa=)(=jcpa=)(=scpa=)[MC:1][SV][BRC][LoC]
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No...I expect to leave on some beach with absolutely no name at all while I sail away on my ship...and then Ill shout the name back to you...savvy?
[This message has been edited by Arturus (edited March 5, 2004 7:54:02 AM)]
Argon Viper
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  RE: Before you make any "political" statements...
March 5, 2004 8:55:49 AM    View the profile of Argon Viper 
There are some statements in there that I agree with, and some that I disagree with...  Let's start from the top:

Chipmunk:  You're still thinking under the mentality that some idiot is going to attack us with conventional arms.  Let me see how I can put this...  they won't!  Even Russia with it's inconsistant leadership and decent conventional strength never once even considered attacking us during the cold war.  Today, the biggest threat in the world is Europe, one of our closest allies    I think we can let go of the paranoia and cut down a bit in order to fix up other parts of our nation.

JMac:  I'm not complaining about the training, I am complaining about the incredibly inflated cost of nearly everything we buy.  Let me give you an example.  Recently it came to light that the military has leased about 120 planes from Boeing for some use or another.  The point here is that they leased them at such incredible rates, that over the time period they were using them, it would have been cheaper to buy them.  Even if we never cut the military budget a cent, I want some kind of oversight to make sure that those kind of idiotic spending decisions aren't implemented...

Finally, tax cuts for the wealthy really aren't going to help much (as Art said) because the wealthy aren't very likely to say "ooh, extra money" and then go out and spend it.  It's more likely that that extra money will sit in their bank account with all the rest of the money they can't find a use for at the moment or are living off the interest of.

Art:  I'm sorta in agreement there...  Lesse, tax cuts for the middle and lower class, works for me.

Anyways, I didn't mean to say that the people individually pay more for welfare, I meant that the government itself does.  I realize this is probably a side effect of having a huge population and a huge amount of land to spread that population on, but still, we can do better.  Social programs designed to help the lower classes cost the upper classes more, but they generally tend to lower the percentage of the population that can be classified as "lower class".  I'd prefer one big country of middle class to a country of 10% upper, 80% middle, and 10% lower class, because as long as you have that 10% lower class, you've got 10% of you population struggling just to survive, and since we live in supposedly the most advanced nation in the world, I don't see why we should allow some citizens to live in poverty as if they were in sub-saharan africa.  (personally, I think we should do more to help out sub-saharan africa too, but that's a different matter).

Okay, one point I definitely agree with Art on.  Think about it, outside of Afghanistan and Iraq, how many soldiers do we actually lose in combat?  I'll tell you, the answer is an exponential limit approaching zero (for those who took calculus).  Afghanistan, I can see a reason for going in.  We took a hit, they harbored the bad guy (who I may remind you we haven't caught), so we retaliated.

However, before we were even done there (as I said, we still haven't caught the bad guys), we went on to another war.  An ill conceived little plan to invade the militarily pathetic nation or Iraq.  Now, if the fact that we ran over their military in less than a week isn't enough to convince you that we really had nothing at all to fear from them, I'd say that you've got a lot of paranoia about the situation.  And then, over all of that, we've lost more soldiers in the occupation than we did in the actual war.  And on top of all of that, we didn't even have a realistic plan to set up an independent government in Iraq after the fit stopped hitting the shan.  Oh we had a plan, one that had been worked up since at least 1992.  Who made it?  Oh, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, you know, guys high up in the current administration who can think someone's a hero and then drop him within a couple of week (think paramilitaries from Nicaragua).

Anyways, I do sort of disagree on what the military is for.  Honestly, the reason we still have a conventional force is so that we can deal with a conventional threat if it ever asserts itself.  However, at this point, all conventional threats pretty puny (Iraq had probably the equivilent of 10,000 trained US Army soldiers, and maybe a battalion of tanks...).  I do think we should scale down the assault forces and focus more on peace-keepers and special ops, because not only are those cheaper, they're also more effective in the way we currently fight wars.  First off, lower casualties.  If you take a look at it, a special op usually has less than one casualty per mission.  A convnetional op involving about 10,000 troops will usually have at least 3 deaths, and that's usually from friendly fire.

My feeling is keep the conventional stuff at about 100,000 strong conventional force at home for defense in case some idiot decides to do something, but invest the rest in about a 250,000 strong special ops group, and a 50,000 man air force with our advanced bombers and fighters.  Heck, we could even keep the budget at $400 billion dollars, at least we'd see a huge difference in the effectiveness of each soldier, and we'd also likely have less casualties.

Anyways, that's my rant of the day.  Stay tuned tomorrow for "The Rant Part 20!!" 
 
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Argon Viper
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Ramon Stonefish
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  RE: Before you make any "political" statements...
March 5, 2004 9:27:12 AM    View the profile of Ramon Stonefish 
I'm bored, so...

One thing to consider is that by responding to the twin towers attack with a military assault on Afghanistan is that you are kind of making his point for him.

Now let's be very clear on my logic here: I am neither condoning or defending the activities of terrorists or terrorist organisations, merely doing a little devil's advocate work.

His point, in my uneducated and unschooled opinion, being that America is an evil oppressor nation.

Same thing could be said of Iraq. America (I should have added and Britain in both cases) went in and imposed their rule on the country, trying to root out someone based on - it now comes to light - misinterpreted intelligence. Yeah, right. Oil.
 
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Ramon Stonefish

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Shazam
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  RE: Before you make any "political" statements...
March 5, 2004 9:45:13 AM    View the profile of Shazam 
Why can't we be this active anywhere else...  And thankyou Chip for that information on FDR and Welfare... 

BTW, one of those stealth bombers, that might I add we've rarelly been using, cost more than four or five of our normal engaging fighters...  So really, we've kind bin wasting some money here...  Well, to me anyways...  Because, the only way we would ever really be using thos F-117's is if we were doing nighttime nuke bombing...  *Shrugs...  And we've got hundreds of 'em on call...  But then again, that's not all they're used for is it...  Hrm...
 
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chipmunk man
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  RE: Before you make any "political" statements...
March 6, 2004 8:23:32 AM    View the profile of chipmunk man 
I can't put this in any simpler terms:

The reason that America will probably never be invaded is BECAUSE WE SPEND SO MUCH ON OUR MILITARY! That is what makes us so strong! Why didn't Russia attack during the Cold War? Because we would have nuked the bejezzus out them! Cut military spending, and that protection will DISAPPEAR! Strong militaries can PREVENT conventional warfare because noone wants the snot beaten out of them! That's why terrorists have resorted to terrorism!
 
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"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." -Albert Einstien

"There is a certain kind of peace that can be found only on the other side of war." -Sean Connery as King Arthur in "First Knight."

"People like you are the reason people like me take medication." -Cool T-shirt

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Kuroishi
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  RE: Before you make any "political" statements...
March 6, 2004 9:13:21 AM    View the profile of Kuroishi 
I'd hate to admit it but Chip does have a point.

Also considering a few other things it is true that terrorists became terrorists mainly because they didn't want to fight a conventional war and get squished.  Some do it because they think terrorism can actually effect change.

When Isreal was first an idea it sounded rather good but no one really had any idea of what they were about to face over the next sixty years or so.  The terrorism they face on a daily bases would probably keep most of us Americans up at night if we ever decided to go there for an extended period of time.  We just don't hear about a lot of it on the news is all.

As far as Bush inheriting a poor economy look at what our choices were: Gore and Bush Jr.  Every political analyst I came across was prediciting economic doom and gloom no matter who won.  If anything Gore would have us in deeper economic trouble and most likely would have done far less to go after those responsible for the twin towers attack.

Besides, we'd like to blame Clinton or even Bush Jr. for our economic problems but the fact remains that the responsibility lies in the hands of corporate america.

I have no income anymore, unemployment figures say there is only about 10% unemployment in my area but there are less then 90,000(rounding the last censious to 100,00 even for the county I live in for simplicity's sake) jobs around and that does not even include the people who used to be making $10.00+/hour that now have to work minimum wage jobs just to barely eak out an existance.

ENRON, the twin towers, a republican president(I don't care who they are or what they do, public belief says they are bad for the economy), and a guy who's economic plan seems to change on a whim have hurt us but they are not the only problems.

Cheap labor in Mexico and Asia make it very inviting for manufacturing plants to move out of America, the threat of moving out of Americamakes what employees a company has work harder, and since more and more people are having less and less to spend it won't take much longer before supply so totally out reaches demand that we're going to have another depression, that is a much more likely and imenent threat then a global nuclear war.

America and Russia basicly came to the conclusion during the Cold War that ther could be no winner in a nuclear war, they called it MAD(Mutually Assured Destruction) and that more then anything else kept either side from ever launching a nuclear strike on the other.  Communism may no longer be the way of life in Russia but they made us sweat and jump through some hoops.

I read someone call NORAD a useless cold war alliance I'll asume they actually meant NATO since NORAD still serves a viable purpose to this day even if it is not quite the same one it started out serving.  NATO is not obsolete or useless.  It was actually a NATO operation that solved a lot of the conflicts in Yugoslavia, not the UN.

Then again I believe the UN cannot work until it accomplishes three things:

1: Abolish veto power.
2: Has it's own independant full time peacekeeping forces.
3: Gets enough fair economic support that no one nation can cut off thier support and the UN would fail due to insufficient budget(If the US pulled out it's backing the UN would die a slow death).

But I think I'm getting off topic so I'll stop ranting now.
 
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Squall
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  RE: Before you make any "political" statements...
March 6, 2004 10:35:08 AM    View the profile of Squall 
  Wow, this post is huge.  Why do we keep rambling on about things in the world today?
 
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Argon Viper
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  RE: Before you make any "political" statements...
March 6, 2004 2:22:01 PM    View the profile of Argon Viper 
Because those issues are what matter    I could easily use my time to talk about what shoes today are hot, but difference does that really make on my life?  If I debate politics, it forms my opinions, changes how I vote, and therefore has an impact in my daily life 

Anyways, I'd like to point something out on this idea that "we need to defend ourselves from anything".  First off, Europe and Russia aren't going to attack us, both groups have agreed that the nuclear deterrent is too strong.  That leaves...  China?  China can already beat us in conventional forces, not because their forces are better, but simply by sheer numbers they will overwhelm us.  So again we're relying on our nuclear deterrent.  Lesse, who else...  North Korea?  Sure, they've got a large army, it nearly matches us in size, but how exactly are they supposed to get to us?  Last I checked, the transport capabilities of DPRK troops outside their own territory was practically nil.

Face it, we haven't relied on our conventional military might to deflect threats to us since 1960, every protection we have lies entirely in our nuclear arsenal (about twice what the nearest enemy has, but since we can nuke the world about 100 times over, who really cares anymore?).  Our conventional force is purely for one purpose, offense.

Now, with no country actually able to attack us before we nuke the living snot out of them, why exactly are we on the offense?  Obviously it's not a threat, if Saddam really did become a serious nuclear threat to us, no one in the world would bat an eyelash if we sent 120 terratons of nuclear destruction into Baghdad.  And they certainly weren't a conventional threat, we rolled through all the military opposition they could muster in about a week.

So why did we go there?  Obviously it wasn't security, so we're left to assume more sinister motives.

Anyways, I'll leave that one where it is, and go to another issue.

Terrorism.  For some reason, the very word sends chills through random people.  Now, if you were a particularly odd child like I was, you've known since at least age 7 how capable terrorists are of killing millions, and that we probably have a couple thousand cells here in the US, not to mention the rest of the world.

Now, what stops them from actually killing people?  Simple, the word "terrorism" isn't defined as killing people, that's called "war".  Terrorism requires that people be alive, because it's supposed to frighten them.  I agree that the 9/11 attacks were a tragedy, but look at the actual figures.  5,000 people killed.  That seems like a lot of people, but compared to the US population of 250 million people, that's about .002%.  Heck, even compared to the population of New York City itself (I'm assuming about 5 million, it's probably more), that's .1% of the population.  Not exactly a devastating blow when you really think about it.

What did it really accomplish?  Fear.  It radicalized us, polarized the issue and forced us to one side.  We then proceeded to attack, radicalizing their base of support, wiping out the moderates that had been holding them back, and rallying an entire population in support of them.

Terrorism isn't reliant on the terrorist to work, it's reliant on the terrorized.  A calm measured approach is what's needed, not a "kill them all and let God sort them out" approach.

Anyways, I think that's it for this rant, enjoy 
 
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Argon Viper
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"History is on the move, those who cannot keep up will watch from a distance, and those who get in our way will not watch at all" - Grand Admiral Thrawn
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Ramon Stonefish
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  RE: Before you make any "political" statements...
March 6, 2004 5:09:29 PM    View the profile of Ramon Stonefish 
What he said. My point from earlier.
 
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Ramon Stonefish

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chipmunk man
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  RE: Before you make any "political" statements...
March 7, 2004 7:28:11 AM    View the profile of chipmunk man 
Thank you Kuroishi, the acceptence of at least one person was all I could have hoped for.

Argon, you don't seem to understand what I'm trying to point out. If you take the kind of "calm" approach you've been advocating, the terrorists will continue attacking, and the death toll will rise. Perhaps 9/11 killed only 5,000 people, but that's still 5,000 people! That's more than the entire population of my town! Maybe even plus the next town! What would this supposedly "small" death toll be if you added the first WTC attack from the early '90's, the Oklahoma City bombing, the USS Cole, AND 9/11? It gets much, much bigger. And that's not including the civilian deaths that were AVERTED by retaliating. We HAVE to kill the terrorists or they WILL kill more of our people. The string of attacks since the early '90's, which INCREASED in magnitude, have proved that they will not stop if we take the backseat and say, "Oh, leave them alone and they'll leave us! It's uncivilized to defend ourselves!"

Also, I do not think China could cream us. Why? Because we spend so much on military research. Take that funding away, and we're screwed.
 
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"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." -Albert Einstien

"There is a certain kind of peace that can be found only on the other side of war." -Sean Connery as King Arthur in "First Knight."

"People like you are the reason people like me take medication." -Cool T-shirt

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Ramon Stonefish
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  RE: Before you make any "political" statements...
March 7, 2004 10:41:28 AM    View the profile of Ramon Stonefish 
I don't think he said it was uncivilized to defend ourselves. It is, however, not very nice to go and bomb a place to glass because someone who cut you might be there, or because someone there might be a threat.
 
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Ramon Stonefish

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Argon Viper
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  RE: Before you make any "political" statements...
March 7, 2004 4:54:29 PM    View the profile of Argon Viper 
Yup, Stonefish said it precisely.  If you can tell me where the terrorists are, and can hit them, I'm all for that, you go right on your merry way.  But I'm looking at the figures in Iraq and Afghanistan...  Well, both seem to have their own unique circumstances that seem to repeat themselves.

Afghanistan.  We think a terrorist may be here, we send an A-10 or a Predator and blow the living snot out of them.  Oops, intel says it was a wedding or some innocent children out for a picnic.  Oh well, we still insist that there was a bad man there, and that the 24-50 innocent deaths were worth it 

Iraq.  Well, we seem to killing militants (whenever they open fire on us, but never seemingly before...), but usually around 1-5 at a time.  However, we also seem to have amassed a death toll or 10,000 civilians or more.  Oops, "casualties of war", right?

Like I said, I'd be fine if we actually hit the terrorists, but by hitting civlians like this, we're only creating more than we're killing.

As for the conventional war part of it, think about this.  China suddenly militarizes 300 million people.  That's okay, they've got a billion more.  But that's more than our entire population.  Even if they were armed with only pitchforks, we'd take a severe pounding.  We're still relying on our nuclear arsenal if that ever flares out into full scale war.

Also, to Kuroishi's statement about the Israelis suffering through terrorism, I'd like to point out that the only way they got the state of Israel in the first place was that they used those very same tactics on anyone and everyone who said no 

Anyways, that's my rant for today, enjoy 
 
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Argon Viper
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  RE: Before you make any "political" statements...
March 7, 2004 7:23:04 PM    View the profile of chipmunk man 
Argon, show me where you got this 10,000 civilian casualties and I'll believe it. Also, keep in mind that alot of these libral news services have sacraficed objectivity for the appearance of nuetrality. For example, 300 Iraqis throwing grenades and burning shops are rioters, but the libral media calls them demonstrators and protestors. But of course the media has no problem demonizing the American troops who are forced to fire back and defend themselves.
 
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"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." -Albert Einstien

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  RE: Before you make any "political" statements...
March 7, 2004 11:54:32 PM    View the profile of Ramon Stonefish 
Were you there? Do you know that they were forced to fire back, and not just ordered to fire?
 
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  RE: Before you make any "political" statements...
March 8, 2004 9:43:43 AM    View the profile of Argon Viper 
Okay, I'm tired of all this "liberal media" stuff...  No matter how hard people try to portray it that way, the only actual "liberal" media company I've found is a British newspapaer called The Guardian.  Every other major news source (The BBC, CNN, NBC, FOX, what have you) except for NPR has a conservative slant.  Want proof on that?  Count the number of stations that ran the stories about Clinton's sexual life.  Then count the number of stations that ran stories about the fact that we haven't found any WMDs.  And I don't mean 20 second "informational" pieces, I mean full fledged stories.  Trust me, Clinton got a lot more coverage, and what he was accused of mattered a whole lot less than what Bush is accused of...

Anyways, take a look at a few sources for the 10,000 civilian body count, we haven't exactly been precise here:

http://www.iraqbodycount.net/
http://www.rferl.org/features/2003/09/30092003153209.asp

And if these don't fit your idea of "reliable", I'd say look it up on the net, you're going to get similar figures almost everywhere.
 
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Argon Viper
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  RE: Before you make any "political" statements...
March 8, 2004 2:36:27 PM    View the profile of Arturus 
www.iraqometer.com is also a source.  They analyse multiple news sources and reports and take a conservative average based upon that.  Their number also exceeds 10,000.

Argon I disagree about the BBC being conservative, I think it is a more centrist if not slightly liberal source in some regards.

I agree on the first 2 suggestion Kurioshi made about the UN.  It does need its own peacekeeping force and serious Security Council reform.  I also think its 1.8billion dollar budget needs to be severely increased so that they can provide for substantive services.  I strongly approve of the funding system.  Dues are based on a percentage of GDP so that countries who can afford to contriubte more do so and those who cant afford it dont.  That just makes sense.

I did say NORAD was useless and should be disbanded.  It serves no real purpose now and Canada isnt going to go along with the missile defence proposal so if anything that issue will divide the countries making NORAD even less useful.  Lets save both of our countries money and move on from the Cold War.

Chipmunk, no country can possibly successfully invade America.  Id argue theyd have a hell of a time ever entering the American continent.  Lets think about this for a second.  There are 2 ways to invade America.  Invasion fleet or massive air drops.  Either way this will not succeed.  Canada and Mexico wont ever invade America, if for no other reason, its rather hard to garrison the 4th largest country in the world.  Thats my same argument as to why Canada will never be invaded by the US.  Try garrisonning a country that's area is almost 10million square kilometers.

I think NATO is starting to crack and I also think that will fail one day.  In fact I have absolutely no problems with that failing.  It is another out of date cold war alliance.  Europe will soon have its own EU military force that will replace it and America no longer facing a supposed Soviet threat no longer needs NATO.  The Iraq war helped to demonstrate the weakenings in NATO, as well as the patriot missiles in Turkey.

Chipmunk, some of us are actually informed about things, we arent ignorant to the world.  Sometimes our numbers are right.  I know you cant take it upon yourself to believe America isnt perfect but newsflash...it is anything but.

Nuclear weapons are something that need to be destroyed.  These weapons should have never been made and pose a risk to the entire world.  I agree partly with Bush's anti-nuke plan.  The only part I agree with is that countries who dont have nuclear weapons should not develop them.  I disagree with about everything else.  I think all nations should disarm their nukes...this includes the US.  Bush's plan seems to indicate the dream that one day the US will be the sole nuke nation.  This is not acceptable.  I disgaree also with continued research into short range nukes and nuclear bunker busters.  An additional note is that uranium tipped weaponry, while effective in combat, is a serious health and environment risk and should be removed from all armies.

The doctrine of pre-emption sets a dangerous precedent in the world, one that violates international treaties and international law.  The declared right to attack any nation because they might be a threat sets a very dangerous path for the world.  Its a policy that moves from one of promoting peace to one of promoting war for imperial values.  Indeed we are not learning from history and are falling back to the old ways with new applications.  This doctrine is a serious blow to world peace and stability.  I agree with Argon.  If you can find terrorist camps, by all means destroy them and arrest the terrorists...note I said arrest not exterminate, liquid, annihilate or anything other term youd like to use.  Remember one person's terrorist is another's freedom fighter.  We need to examine why these people do what they do and how the world can change to end the problems that breed terrorism.  These problems include, oppression, lack of equality, unemployment, poverty.

Also Chipmunk, these "rioters" are protesting American occupation and destruction...keep in mind many of them are simply armed with stones.  Guns vs stones, rather uneven wouldnt you say?  Do you also believe that WTO protestors should be shot?

That ends my rant for today.
 
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No...I expect to leave on some beach with absolutely no name at all while I sail away on my ship...and then Ill shout the name back to you...savvy?
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  RE: Before you make any "political" statements...
March 8, 2004 3:59:41 PM    View the profile of chipmunk man 
Um, let's see, did you know that there is a major difference between protestors with stones and rioters with grenades? Because grenades were what they were throwing.

I'd post more but have a time constraint.
 
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  RE: Before you make any "political" statements...
March 8, 2004 9:34:35 PM    View the profile of Argon Viper 
Well, I actually think the BBC is mostly centrist, but I ranked them as conservative because if they do have a slant, it's usually in that direction.

Anyways, I don't agree that we should get rid of all nukes.  Nukes, like it or not, have been developed, and the only thing us getting rid of them would do would be to leave us without them.  I do think they should be controlled within the countries that have them, and that no new countries should develope them.  The countries that already have them are so diverse that if you can't get one of them to back up your case, it's not likely to be one that deserves to be backed up with that kind of force.

Anyways, Art basically added another point to the one I've been making, it'd take an idiot to try to actually invade the US, and that idiot wouldn't succeed either.  And this isn't because of some massive military budget either.  If someone took 100 million man army, they could smash the US army to pieces.  But the resulting insurgency, nuclear warfare, and plain budget costs would cause them to fail.

As for the UN, I definitely agree that it needs to be expanded.  The US is running on something like 1.6 trillion dollars a year, for an international agency with so many commitments like the UN to be running on just 1.8 billion is a farce.

Anyways, about rioters, if you want to control a riot, you use rubber bullets, bean bag shotguns, and tear gas.  When you start using guns, you need to justify it as a full fledged uprising, which most of these things definitely arent.

Well, that's about it for today.  Enjoy 
 
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Argon Viper
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  RE: Before you make any "political" statements...
March 9, 2004 9:22:14 AM    View the profile of Arturus 
Use of deadly force on protestors merely angers the protestors more.  It only fuels theproblem, not solves it.  People are more likely to feel oppressed and bitter when their countrymen are shot by a foreign oppressor who they despise.
 
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No...I expect to leave on some beach with absolutely no name at all while I sail away on my ship...and then Ill shout the name back to you...savvy?
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  RE: Before you make any "political" statements...
March 9, 2004 9:49:08 AM    View the profile of Shazam 
*Shrugs...*  Now I could say,"Hey, it should shut'em up..."  But we know that certainly not true...
 
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  RE: Before you make any "political" statements...
March 10, 2004 5:43:37 AM    View the profile of chipmunk man 
I want you to know that I did check that www.iraqbodycount.org site, and I think it's a crock of you-know-what. If you read the list of the events they recorded, it's all the Iraqi's killing each other, without U.S. involvement. I cannot understand how they blame American troops for Iraqi's targeting their own policemen.

And Art, what are you talking about in the last post? Do you mean to tell me that our troops shouldn't defend themselves when people start throwing grenades at them?
 
Oh, and I checked iraqometer.com, and they use the same phooey from iraqbodycount.org, thus those numbers are inflated as well.



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"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." -Albert Einstien

"There is a certain kind of peace that can be found only on the other side of war." -Sean Connery as King Arthur in "First Knight."

"People like you are the reason people like me take medication." -Cool T-shirt

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[This message has been edited by chipmunk man (edited March 10, 2004 7:54:01 AM)]
Kuroishi
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  RE: Before you make any "political" statements...
March 10, 2004 9:31:11 AM    View the profile of Kuroishi 
Iraqis killing Iraqis is our problem too, because we've recruited those people to help us out.

One of my history teachers once said that the Mexican American war isn't over because they're still invading with thier illegal immegrants.  Even though he was joking if you think about it and how much of the economy employes those illegal immigrants and how much of that money goes back to Mexico and how many of our heavy industries are moving out of America, there is more ways to fight a war then picking up a gun and killing the enemy, if you don't believe me read Sun Tzu's the Art of War(the main idea I came away with from reading that book was that it is best to win without using military force).

I believe Iraq was nothing more then an attempt to finish what Bush Sr. couldn't at the time, at the time Iran was seen as such a threat to mideast security that removing Iraq from the equation was unacceptable, at least that is the reasoning given for why Bush Sr. didn't do this the first time around.  If the war really was about WMD we should never have spent months giving Iraq forewarning that we were coming for them.

As one of my friends said "How long did it take for us to find Sadam?  Now imagine trying to find something that does not need to eat, breath, have to go to the bathroom, sleep, or have human contact."

Sadam could have burried, shipped out, or even sold them to other nations in the months of time we gave him before we went in.  I'd asuggest a suprise inspection of Syria for starters.

Afghanastan I can actually somewhat let go.  They were being bastards by pretty much admitting they at least knew where Osama was at, but were going to protect him.  There still isn't any real evidence made available to the public that he was responsible for 9/11, but even if he's not he's done enough terrorism that we really should have brought him in a long time ago.

NORAD has changed it's function to a degree, so it is not as useless and needless as one would think.  All those handy radar dishes of thiers that are designed to track objects in space have been put to work for the space program to an extent.  How much I can't say for certain but I know they do use a fair amount of NORAD's capabilities to track over 10,000 objects in orbit, or am I one of the few that considers manned exploration of space important?
 
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Ramon Stonefish
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  RE: Before you make any "political" statements...
March 10, 2004 10:03:30 AM    View the profile of Ramon Stonefish 
Think of all the metal in the asteroid belt.
 
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  RE: Before you make any "political" statements...
March 10, 2004 11:23:13 AM    View the profile of Arturus 
Chipmunk you will never find a 100% exact body count unless you want to spend hours upon hours sifting through many international organisations.

Let me put out for you a few figures I found and where they came from.  I have tried to find these counts from around the mid part of last year.  Since then the number of iraqi casualties at the hands of coalition forces varies.  I have done my best to get counts before the mass suicide bombings began...bombings that wouldnt have happened had this war not started in the first place.

08/05/03 Guardian - 7,000 casualties (1,500 killed, 55,00 injured)
(April 8th)

I have been going through other sites which list ever single incidence of civilian casualties at the hands of American forces.  Adding them is a slow process so I am trying to find some more broader numbers.  Yes this is a commentary from me as I search...lol.

20/06/02 Associated Press - at least 3,240 Iraqi civilians were killed in the first month following the beginning of the war on March 20th

12/11/03 Medact - approx 7,500 Iraqi civilians were killed and 9,500 injured since the war began.

05/22/03 - CSMonitor approx. 5,000 killed and 10,000 injured
Ratio of civilian deaths to coalition fatalities, 33 to 1

05/21/03 - PDA Report - deaths total approximately 4,000 civilian deaths during the course of the war to date
A 23 page glimpse at this report here, it compiles hospital and cemetary records along with articles from many reputable media sources around the world.

http://www.comw.org/pda/fulltext/0305iraqcasualtydata.pdf

Interresting CNN article (12/12/03) with some figures and references to a report by HUman Rights Watch.  Ill see if I can dig up the 147 page report.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/12/12/sprj.irq.human.rights.ap/

I have to run right now but I will find more evidence soon.  Chipmunk, the evidence doesn't lie mate.  Many of these sources such as the AP report document ONLY so-called "collateral damage" and "victims of war".  These number indicate than thousands of civilians have been killed and even more injured by mostly the US.


 
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No...I expect to leave on some beach with absolutely no name at all while I sail away on my ship...and then Ill shout the name back to you...savvy?
chipmunk man
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  RE: Before you make any "political" statements...
March 10, 2004 12:42:08 AM    View the profile of chipmunk man 
They may not be directly lying, but they are definitely misleading. The sense that I got from reading their editorials is that they want people to believe that American troops were the ones doing the killing, but their events show that that simply is not true.

I think the problem here is wether or not people believe that American troops are responsible for the suicide bombings. I do not believe that is our fault; the Iraqi's are killing each other. And while I can see how some people might blame the invasion I feel that is ridiculus. But yes, I think I understand where you are coming from. I still feel, however, that these websites are misleading propaganda.

I will say this, though. All these websites will be interesting sources for my project. I have to film some news-skit thingy on the war, and I need more than one side. So if noone here has any objections, I was hoping to use some of the arguments here as quotes.
 
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"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." -Albert Einstien

"There is a certain kind of peace that can be found only on the other side of war." -Sean Connery as King Arthur in "First Knight."

"People like you are the reason people like me take medication." -Cool T-shirt

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  RE: Before you make any "political" statements...
March 10, 2004 1:05:55 PM    View the profile of Ramon Stonefish 
You cannot possibly say that the Americans did not kill any civilians though, purely on the basis that there were a number of British casualties from the war due to friendly-fire from our American "allies".

EDIT: And besides, do you really think any website is going to show events depicting Americans shooting civilians??? Except for an Islamic miliant one???
 
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[This message has been edited by Ramon Stonefish (edited March 10, 2004 1:10:11 PM)]
Argon Viper
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  RE: Before you make any "political" statements...
March 10, 2004 2:39:40 PM    View the profile of Argon Viper 
Yeah, honestly this whole idea about anything that even remotely reflects badly on the military being "propoganda" has got to stop.  Face it, the whole purpose of a military is to kill things.  They can barely enforce peace, they can't rebuild, they can't create.  Heck, even when they are killing, they're not specific about it.  Civilians will die, and lots of them.

That's my reason for opposing almost any war to begin with.  Face it, if we really wanted to get things done in the middle east, we'd start by supporting the people of these countries rather than their leaders, and we'd finish by endorsing governments formed from internal constitutional processes instead of ones that we force to happen.

The point is, we really don't care about the Iraqi people at all, we wanted something, and we went in and took it.  That's all war is good for, and any stuff about "liberation" is pure bogus, all we did was switch the oppressor that's hanging over them.

Anyways, I leave you with a quote because I happen to like it, I don't expect it to form part of my argument.

"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent"
Salvor Hardin, Foundation
 
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Argon Viper
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Fallen Angel and Proud of It!
"History is on the move, those who cannot keep up will watch from a distance, and those who get in our way will not watch at all" - Grand Admiral Thrawn
"Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses" - Carl G Jung
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