I'd just like to clear up a thing or two about "the worst millitary move the US ever made": Kosovo. Slobadan Milosovic was ethnically clensing an entire race. They would have all be killed. What did we do? We went in to stop him, of course. By "we", I mean the West Europeans in NATO. We (British, Germans, French, Italians etc) launched attacks on Serbia from our own bases to stop Milosovic. Now the conflict is over, we (British, Germans, French, Italians etc) are trying him in a European Court in the Netherlands, for crimes against humanity. Serbia is in the centre of one of the most unstable regions in the world. Milosovic was carrying out crimes against humanity all over the place, under our noses. That, ladies and gentlemen, is why we went in there. The conflict could have gone on for a lot longer, except for one thing. What, you might ask? The involvement of the US. The US is a full member of NATO, and the strongest, so the rest of NATO asked it to come into the conflict to put an end to it quickly. Which they did, very successfully. The bottom line is.. Kosovo was a conflict to stop a madman killing a lot of people. NATO went in, and practically stopped him. Then the US came in, put their full weight against them (basically by putting an aircraft carrier or two in the sea next to it), and the Serbian government revolted and crumbled. Milosovic was captured, and will be very lucky to get a sentance less than life. In all, a madman was stopped, and a tyranical government was crumbled into nothing. The area was made just a little bit more stable.. a lot of good was done. JMac, or anyone else, if you keep up with this "Kosovo was all about hiding the fact that Clinton's secretary was blowing him off every day", I'll personally go over to Kosovo, find a mass grave of people Milosovic killed, and bury you in it.
 
-----------------------
AAMB/LCM Bear/VEHC/VE
------------
RET/LCM Bear/mSSD Atrus/VEN/VE (=A=) (=SA=) (=FOCE=) (=JCPA=) [BRC] [BRC] [NDM] [LSM]
------------
TRP/LCPL Grizzly/3SQD/1PLT/1COMP/1BAT/1REG/Lorn IV/VEA 

One of the most amazing things about America that few people know are how stinking puritanical we are.  For that group, Clinton is a symbol of all that is wrong with our country.  I don't agree with them but that should explain things for those of you scratching your heads about the whole business. In my eyes, the guy was guilty of a) being a lousy husband and b) having horrible investment strategies.  Other than that, he was left (as all presidents are) with tricky geopolitical situations.  The thing about that was he (gasp!) actually wanted to know what the world thought before acting, unlike other un-named presidents who just think the rest of the world are (here ya go Bear and Fish) second billing actors in this play called America.  I'm never gonna convince JMac that all politicians are by nature corrupt and self-serving.  I will also never show that there are very few people who could've handled the Balkans and Somalia much better (other than a bigger commitment of firepower, which no Democratic prez could've pulled off without a Republican Congress going apesh*t).  Look to Northern Ireland, look to the quickly ignored and unravelling Middle Eastern situation.  Look at southeast Asia.  These are where we had made headway - ground quickly being lost as our neighboring nations freak out over our current leadership. We may or may not still be the No. 1 nation in the world, I won't agree or disagree with any arguments there.  But please stop deluding yourself that we were led by the devil and are currently under the administration of the Second Coming.  Neither are true.  The military, while shrunken, was done as we (as Argon has pointed out) have no need to plant half a million troops anywhere in the world.  Bush the First would've done the same things for the most part.  We still have power of projection in the world, more so than a lot of nations are comfortable with today. In a few years we'll see how relevant W still is, how "moral" we look in the eyes of the world, how culturally open and free we are.  I expect that he will always be judged more as a good administrator than a leader.  Which is not a bad thing; but face it, its his staff that does the work - and for that at least, I am thankful.  At least he knows his shortcomings. 
 
-----------------------
XO/LTC Fury/VEA/TADATH/VE [PoC][SotE:HC][SotE:VEA][IOC]
Company Commander
Shopkeeper - Imperial Center

I'd like to back Argon up on that concept...especially going back to the whole "axis of evil" comment that has been thrown around the past couple of months. No particular group of people - or even person - is purely evil.  I know a lot of people get demonized in events like this.  It doesn't mean that they never had a good reason for doing what they did.  I work and live in a college campus, up in the married student housing area.  This means that almost all my neighbors are from some other part of the country if not world.  In my block of 12 apartments are representatives of China, India, Singapore, France, Korea, Japan, a couple of African nations (they moved in recently so I don't know which exactly) and at least a South American and another Southeast Asian nation here and there; plus representatives of four distinct American racial groups.  I may be in the sticks in Oklahoma, but my neighborhood is the world.  My point is this - every single member of our neighborhood was outraged on September 11th.  I spent two weeks or more explaining to all our Muslim friends and neighbors that they didn't have to apologize about what happened. Not a day went by that someone wouldn't try to do that, and you had to feel bad for what they were going through. If anything, they were embarrassed and shocked more than anything else.  And I have no illusions that they don't all like this country or the way we do things.  It doesn't mean they wanted to destroy a chunk of New York City or see average citizens falling out of tall buildings. It's been six months since this all happened, and while the media tries to beat in your head the message that we should never give up defending our way of life (which I do not disagree with), remember this: we are not out to kill off people who are different from us.  We are working (or should be anyway) to stop those who would try to harm us.  That's it.  No great changes, no annihilations of cultures, religions, thought patterns, etc. should be expected or intended.    ----------------------- XO/LTC Fury/VEA/TADATH/VE [PoC][SotE:HC][SotE:VEA][IOC] Company Commander Shopkeeper - Imperial Center

On Argons point.. Everyone has been going on and on (mainly JMac) about how Muslims should not be killing people because it is against their religion. Now Bush, apparently a devout Christian, is going around killing people and locking people up against their will when there isn't any proof they have done anything (Camp X-Ray, whatever its called). If, as JMac says, Bin Laden has been killed, it will mean George Bush and everyone who supports him are just as evil as Bin Laden - because they have killed too. The world will only begin to live in peace when people stop trying to hurt each other. On another note.. Bush says we should attack Iraq, because they apparently have weapons of mass-destruction. I see nothing wrong with that.. except that they could mis-use them, of course. So Bush is justified. HOWEVER, for many decades during the Cold War, the US had hundreds (perhaps thousands?) of nuclear warheads aimed at Russia, and dozens of submarines carrying a few missiles each. If they had been fired, not one of us would survive today. That, ladies and gentlemen, is mis-use of weapons of mass-destruction. Until the UN goes into the US (and the rest of NATO, for that matter) and destroys all of their weapons of mass destruction, the US is not and will never be justified to attack anyone for the reason above.
 
-----------------------
AAMB/LCM Bear/VEHC/VE
------------
RET/LCM Bear/mSSD Atrus/VEN/VE (=A=) (=SA=) (=FOCE=) (=JCPA=) [BRC] [BRC] [NDM] [LSM]
------------
TRP/CPL Grizzly/3SQD/1PLT/1COMP/1BAT/1REG/Lorn IV/VEA 
------------
"There are lies, damn lies.. and facts" - Winston Churchill

Argon, even if you move, you'll still have to deal with me Anyway, onto business.  Bear, I said nothing about religion.  Actually, saying that Christianity is against killing is a commonly held misconception made by mistranslation of the original bible.  The commandment acually is:  Though shall not MURDER.  That is the key difference.  killing a soldier is not murder, it is war.  That is not to say that it still isn't wrong, it just means that there is nothing in my religion that says KILLING is wrong.  You are correct that the best thing to do would be to eliminate nukes.  The problem is that it is just not feasable to do so.  The world is a huge place, and it is very easy to hide weapons.  Should we all destroy our nukes someone that then brought out a hidden nuke, or built one, would have incredible power.  It is just not feasable to completely disarm.  What we can do is try to make it a bit safer.  iraq has already been shown to be uncreadibly unstabe, particularly its leader.  This means that Nukes are much less unlikely to be used there then they would be to be launched from the USA or other Nato members.
 
-----------------------
[army] Fishman
FM/LCRW JMac/Aegis 3-4/Aegis 12/(=A=)(MC1)
"I know life isn't fair, but why can't it ever be unfair in my favor?."
"Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves, for they shall never cease to be amused."
Tall, dark, handsome, and all around stud.

/me applauds Fury for his post. Sorry about the 6 or so identical posts.  my school's server sucks and as a result this kindof thing happens.  Posting me as Liquid Sna, multiple posts, etc.   ----------------------- [army] Fishman FM/LCRW JMac/Aegis 3-4/Aegis 12/(=A=)(MC1) "I know life isn't fair, but why can't it ever be unfair in my favor?." "Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves, for they shall never cease to be amused." Tall, dark, handsome, and all around stud.

I agree with some of that.  We do not need to build more nukes.  Apparetly the government agrees too, because we actually are on mere maintenence.  What I was saying was that we can not disarm.  Iraq is certainly suicidal enough to attack us.  But that isn't the point.  We didn't see WW1 coming, we didn't see WW2 coming, so we probably won't see WW3 coming.  That is why we need to be ready.  We can never know exactly what is going to happen, so we need to be prepared for anything.  You already heard my rant on nonviolence, so I won't even go there. 
 
-----------------------
[army] Fishman
FM/LCRW JMac/Aegis 3-4/Aegis 12/(=A=)(MC1)
"I know life isn't fair, but why can't it ever be unfair in my favor?."
"Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves, for they shall never cease to be amused."
Tall, dark, handsome, and all around stud.

Here, check out this site: http://www.satirewire.com/index.shtml A lot of hilarious stuff, but read about the "Axis of Evil" first  Can't stay too long right now, so I'll leave you with that 
 
-----------------------
Argon Viper
"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
"How boring life would be if everyone felt the same way we do..." - Argon Viper
"Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses" - Carl G Jung
"The way of peace is always better than the way of war, it's just not as fast" - Argon Viper

Sure, suggest one and I'll disagree with you   
 
-----------------------
Argon Viper
"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
"How boring life would be if everyone felt the same way we do..." - Argon Viper
"Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses" - Carl G Jung
"The way of peace is always better than the way of war, it's just not as fast" - Argon Viper

Wow, I agree with you...  One argument I saw stated that the Nat'l Guard was being used to make up for the "Armed and Trained Militia" mentioned in the constitution, and then proceeded to mention that a militia organized, trained, and funded by the gov wouldn't rise up against it even if it had become unrepresentative.  I may be non-violent, but that doesn't mean I trust any politician in the world any farther than I can throw them, and I don't believe in limiting people's options to defending their own freedom.
 
-----------------------
Argon Viper
"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
"How boring life would be if everyone felt the same way we do..." - Argon Viper
"Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses" - Carl G Jung
"The way of peace is always better than the way of war, it's just not as fast" - Argon Viper

I don't know what the waiting period is where you live, but it's 30 days in CA...  And you're right.  Switzerland actually has a law that says that every household must have an automatic weapon(in case of war), and their crime rate is the lowest in the world because a potential thief knows he'll get his bloody(literally) head blown off if he tries to rob a place.  The same is true in other countries with automatic weapons legal in the homes.  Well, that's my rant 
 
-----------------------
Argon Viper
"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
"How boring life would be if everyone felt the same way we do..." - Argon Viper
"Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses" - Carl G Jung
"The way of peace is always better than the way of war, it's just not as fast" - Argon Viper

Not ALL of them, all the shooting badges, of which there are really 3. I made it sound like there were more, makes me feel special. Rifles, shotguns, archery. I think Switzerland is where its at. I was there over the summer, nice place, beautiful place too. I wouldn't mind a policy like Switzerland's regarding guns. Theirs also has a section about mandatory shooting practice and safety stuff, to help prevent problems like "accidently" shooting their wives. As Argon said though, its largely not a problem because theives aren't stupid enough to try to break into a house where they know an angry Swiss man will shoot him.
 
-----------------------
Captain Japheth Cappadocious, Dark Jedi Knight
Naval Executive Officer

there is a place that still remains
it eats the fear it eats the pain
the sweetest price he'll have to pay
the day the whole world went away

I don't know if you all live in doughnut-like homes in Scotland Bear, but if a thief had already gotten past my wife, I already hadn't reacted in time.  Also, if a thief had managed to get by my crack-shot of a wife, he probably earned the right to rob us blind.
 
-----------------------
XO/LTC Fury/VEA/TADATH/VE [PoC][SotE:HC][SotE:VEA][IOC]
Company Commander
Shopkeeper - Imperial Center