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Author Topic:   Violent propaganda
nator
Member (Idle past 2169 days)
Posts: 12961
From: Ann Arbor
Joined: 12-09-2001


Message 7 of 135 (191269)
03-13-2005 7:29 AM
Reply to: Message 6 by Syamsu
03-13-2005 7:22 AM


quote:
I think all of you need to explain a bit about your ethics, why the military can use guns and bombs, but can't use words and pictures as weapons.
Nobody is saying that words and pictures can't be used.
What is being said is that to use them in the way you suggest would be very, very counterproductive and would lead to more anti-American sentiment and terrorism, not less.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 6 by Syamsu, posted 03-13-2005 7:22 AM Syamsu has not replied

  
nator
Member (Idle past 2169 days)
Posts: 12961
From: Ann Arbor
Joined: 12-09-2001


Message 43 of 135 (199670)
04-15-2005 8:35 PM
Reply to: Message 34 by Phat
04-14-2005 4:15 AM


Re: The Great Satan defines itself
quote:
It does make sense, does it not? I think that the REAL reason that we are at war is because 2% of the worlds population which owns or controls 90% of everything was threatened economically.
"Threatened?"
Hardly.
Iraq has the second largest untapped oil reserve in the world.
It was greed and protectionism, nothing less.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 34 by Phat, posted 04-14-2005 4:15 AM Phat has not replied

  
nator
Member (Idle past 2169 days)
Posts: 12961
From: Ann Arbor
Joined: 12-09-2001


Message 44 of 135 (199672)
04-15-2005 8:37 PM
Reply to: Message 38 by Tal
04-14-2005 10:26 AM


Re: The Great Satan defines itself
quote:
Not feels threatened.....IS threatened and has been repeatedly attacked both at home and in multiple countries with promises of more from the bad guys.
Iraq didn't attack the US.
Osama bin Laden did, remember?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 38 by Tal, posted 04-14-2005 10:26 AM Tal has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 45 by IANAT, posted 04-16-2005 10:36 AM nator has replied
 Message 46 by IANAT, posted 04-16-2005 10:56 AM nator has replied

  
nator
Member (Idle past 2169 days)
Posts: 12961
From: Ann Arbor
Joined: 12-09-2001


Message 48 of 135 (199791)
04-16-2005 6:54 PM
Reply to: Message 45 by IANAT
04-16-2005 10:36 AM


Re: The Great Satan defines itself
quote:
Repeatedly over years since WTC attack, American "intelligence" was duped.
Well, you are partially right.
American intelligence was not really wrong about much of the Iraq information; Bush and Cheney and the rest just chose to ignore what many people were telling them.
quote:
Isn't it quite possible that your President, whom many of Americans call 'idiot', and his many advisors was also duped by some clever Arabs who saw advantage by removing Saddam by creating a convincing case of weapons of mass destruction?
It's possible, but not probable.
That's because there never was a convincing case for Iraq having WMD in the first place.
Bush and Co. Just saw what they wanted to see and ignored the rest.
quote:
Or, isn't is quite possible that the use of oil revenue by Saddam and friendly European traders to fund military power in Iraq and other countries was an eventual threat to Israel and of bringing USA into a war that would bring massive causualites of life and business to Americans?
Maybe, except that IRaq was still under pretty severe UN sanctions regarding any kind of military build up and was being well-monitored by the international weapons inspectors.
Given Hussein's record, I don't think the international community would have readily allowed him to make any moves toward militarisation at all.
quote:
Of course the reasons for war are power and money. In sports there is the saying "the best offense is a good defense". That is true in power as well.
Agreed, although remember that sometimes the manifestation of power boild down to "My religion tells me that I should kill you because you are not part of my group."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 45 by IANAT, posted 04-16-2005 10:36 AM IANAT has not replied

  
nator
Member (Idle past 2169 days)
Posts: 12961
From: Ann Arbor
Joined: 12-09-2001


Message 49 of 135 (199792)
04-16-2005 6:58 PM
Reply to: Message 46 by IANAT
04-16-2005 10:56 AM


Re: The Great Satan defines itself
quote:
Saddam was thumbing his nose at America.
How so?
quote:
Osama hit the nose and then was thumbing his nose at America.
...and had been for quite some time.
Bush and Co. dropped the ball and did not protect the country from this religious extremist. They had courted the Taliban, the most oppressive and brutal government in recent times.
If we had finished the job in Afghanistan instead of going after a country which had never attacked us, things would be much better.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 46 by IANAT, posted 04-16-2005 10:56 AM IANAT has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 54 by contracycle, posted 04-18-2005 8:26 AM nator has replied

  
nator
Member (Idle past 2169 days)
Posts: 12961
From: Ann Arbor
Joined: 12-09-2001


Message 55 of 135 (200071)
04-18-2005 9:52 AM
Reply to: Message 54 by contracycle
04-18-2005 8:26 AM


Re: The Great Satan defines itself
quote:
Nonsense. There was nothing gained by attacking Afghanistan; it was merely the first bit of Imperialism that the administration knew it would get rubber-stamped.
The Taliban was supporting the terrorist that attacked us, and he was in Afghanistan.
We were quite justified in going after the Taliban and Bin Laden.
Of course, my point was that we had no justification at all in going after Hussein and Iraq, and it was a diversion of needed resoources that could have been used effectively elsewhere.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 54 by contracycle, posted 04-18-2005 8:26 AM contracycle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 56 by contracycle, posted 04-18-2005 11:17 AM nator has replied

  
nator
Member (Idle past 2169 days)
Posts: 12961
From: Ann Arbor
Joined: 12-09-2001


Message 57 of 135 (200100)
04-18-2005 12:04 PM
Reply to: Message 56 by contracycle
04-18-2005 11:17 AM


Re: The Great Satan defines itself
The Taliban was supporting the terrorist that attacked us, and he was in Afghanistan.
quote:
according to intelligence - the same intelligence that reported WMD in Iraq.
No, that's not correct.
Our intelligence never provided evidence of WMD in Iraq. Bush and Co. just lied about it being there.
quote:
Even if he was there, Afghanistan was still a soveriegn state
- By your admission, your beef was not with the Taliban, but AQ (if it exists).
The Taliban, which was the current religious dictatorship leading Afghanistan at the time, was funding and harboring and sheltering Al Qaida and Bin Laden. After 9/11 and before invading, the US demanded that the Taliban turn Bin Laden over, and they refused.
Therefore, we invaded.
We were quite justified in going after the Taliban and Bin Laden.
quote:
There was no justification for "going after the Taliban". The Taliban were doing their own thing in their own country and did not pose a threat to you; they had no effective army and minimal weaponry.
The taliban was harboring a known terrorist responsible for the WTC attacks, and they refused to turn him over.
They were hardly "doing their own thing".
They made a choice to ally themselves with Al Qaida and Bin Laden against the US both before and after Bin Laden bombed the WTC, so they paid the consequences.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 56 by contracycle, posted 04-18-2005 11:17 AM contracycle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 58 by contracycle, posted 04-19-2005 6:20 AM nator has replied

  
nator
Member (Idle past 2169 days)
Posts: 12961
From: Ann Arbor
Joined: 12-09-2001


Message 59 of 135 (200321)
04-19-2005 9:28 AM
Reply to: Message 58 by contracycle
04-19-2005 6:20 AM


Re: The Great Satan defines itself
quote:
The blame cannot be laid purely at Bush's door, or that of the Republicans. The whole American establishment has read the situation incorrectly in almost every detail.
Look, you keep switching back and forth between Iraq and Al Qaida in the same breath. They are very different situations, and the fact that you keep switching like that leads me to believe that you have them conflated in your mind for some reason.
Anyway, Clinton's bombing of Iraq in 1998 was in direct response to Iraq's giving lots of difficulty to the UNSCOM international weapons inspectors, including attacking helicopter pilots when they tried to fly the inspection teams to planned destinations, attacking photographers with the inspectors when they tried to take pictures of a site, etc. Around this time, evidence of Iraq's WMD plans and actual acivity were uncovered by coalition weapons inspectors:
September 25, 1997
* UNSCOM inspects an Iraqi "food laboratory". One of the inspectors, Dr. Diane Seaman, enters the building through the back door and catches several men running out with suitcases. The suitcases contained log books for the creation of illegal bacteria and chemicals. The letterhead comes from the president's office and from the Special Security Office (SSO).
* UNSCOM attempts to inspect the SSO headquarters but is blocked.
October 23, 1997
* The UN Security Council passes a resolution demanding once again that Iraq cooperate with UNSCOM inspectors.
October, 1997
* UNSCOM destroys large quantities of illegal chemical weapons and related equipment. Iraq admitted that some of this equipment had been used to produce VX gas in May, 1997.
Here's my info on the Pre Desert Fox timeline
As you can read, this is REAL PHYSICAL EVIDENCE that Iraq was producing illegal chemical weapons, because it had to be destroyed. Overall, the timeline shows that Iraq was basicaly jerking the inspectors around.
Also note that I do NOT think that Iraq had WMD when Bush invaded. Desert Fox was a completely different mission than Desert Storm.
OK, now on to Al Qaida.
quote:
It is not even clear that Al Qaida even exist in any objective sense,
Sure it does, but it is not terribly clear cut who is an "Al Qaida member" or not because it is a shadowy, secretive, covert terrorist organization. There are probably many sub-groups that Bin Laden and other leaders can call upon.
Anyway, pretty much the entire international community recognizes that Al Qaida exists, so I'm not sure why I should believe you when you say it doesn't. Here's my info:
Al Qaida has an entry in Wikipedia, so it must exist
quote:
or whether US intelligence "deduced" the existance of AQ from first principles.
Uh, Bin Laden has been identifying himself (and his group) as being responsible for many attacks and bombings on US targets, including 9/11.
Do you deny what he says?
quote:
It is not clear that the demand to the Taliban was therefore reasonable or achievable.
Did they offer to help find bin Laden and to bring him to justice?
Anyway, it had been very well known that bin laden had been conducting terrorist training camps in Afghanistan for years before that.
quote:
Furthermore, what right does the US have to go around unilaterally demanding that citizens of other states be handed over to you merely becuase you demand it?
It wasn't unilateral. The UN and much of the international community demanded it also:
United Nations Orders Taliban: Hand Over Bin Laden
This message has been edited by schrafinator, 04-19-2005 08:32 AM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 58 by contracycle, posted 04-19-2005 6:20 AM contracycle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 60 by contracycle, posted 04-19-2005 11:22 AM nator has replied

  
nator
Member (Idle past 2169 days)
Posts: 12961
From: Ann Arbor
Joined: 12-09-2001


Message 61 of 135 (200427)
04-19-2005 2:49 PM
Reply to: Message 60 by contracycle
04-19-2005 11:22 AM


Re: The Great Satan defines itself
quote:
I'm well aware of the allegations. That said, I consider some of them spurious - one is that a group of guards refused to let them into an HQ; that could be simply cockup rather than conspiracy.
Oh, so you see conspiracy everywhere when you are looking at a government you don't like, but you give Saddam Hussein's government every benefit of the doubt?
What an amazing double standard you have there, contracycle.
quote:
You will need to more specific about alleged attacks on inspectors - I don't recall any such.
Well, I have my news sources which say that they happened. Do you have any particular reason or evidence which would cause me to doubt them?
quote:
And clearly, no such WMD plans or programmes were in fact uncovered: because as we now know, they were clean since 1991.
quote:
Thats the allegation that has now been comprehensively disproven. You will remember that Scott Ritter testified that "we got it almost entirely wrong", and as I recall he ran USNCOM during this period. This is also the period in which UNSCOM inspectors were revealed to be US intelligence agents, in total violation of the agreed tersm of the inspection.
Once again, these alleged products that justified Desert Fox have never been found.
Source please.
quote:
The problem is, the rest of the world does not haver access to US intelligence sources, and cannot verify US claims. And that is all we have to go on.
What bullshit.
Do you think that no other governments besides the US monitor Al Qaida and other Islamic terrorist groups?
Italy, France, Spain, Germany and Great Britain all have counter terrorism offices and monitor Al Qaida and similar groups.
quote:
Why should they, when Bin Laden was administering justice?
He administered justice to office workers? Cleaning staff? Fire fighters?
You have a very twisted idea of what justice is.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 60 by contracycle, posted 04-19-2005 11:22 AM contracycle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 62 by contracycle, posted 04-20-2005 5:43 AM nator has replied

  
nator
Member (Idle past 2169 days)
Posts: 12961
From: Ann Arbor
Joined: 12-09-2001


Message 63 of 135 (200822)
04-20-2005 11:14 PM
Reply to: Message 62 by contracycle
04-20-2005 5:43 AM


Re: The Great Satan defines itself
quote:
*I* most certainly do NOT have a double standard...(snipped the rest)
Yes, you do, and the several paragraphs you wrote about Iraq are irrelevant to this point, which I will restate:
Oh, so you see conspiracy everywhere when you are looking at a government you don't like, but you give Saddam Hussein's government every benefit of the doubt? What an amazing double standard you have there, contracycle.
The fact of the matter is that you are willing to give Saddam's government every benefit of the doubt (as if he had the reputation of being a wonderfully upright, just, virtuous leader instead of a homicidal sociopath), and you are completely willing to see conpiracy everywhere from a government you don't like.
You know, it must be really comfy living in that black and white world, where everything is so crystal clear and you know that the "bad guys" are 100% bad and the good guys are 100% good.
Too bad you don't live in reality.
quote:
This is why I say the USA is the most thoroughly propagandised state on the planet.
Except for China.
quote:
Maybe Bomber Bill should have though about that when he adminstered justice to make-up girls, programme producers and cameramen when he orderd the bombing of Belgrade's TV station. Or is it OK and not really murder if you are a Democrat?
Maybe Bin Laden should have though about that when he adminstered justice to office workers, firefighters, and cleaning crews when he orderd the bombing of the World Trade Center. Or is it OK and not really murder if you are a non-American?
quote:
Once again American Exceptionalism insists that the US not be held accountable for its brutality and cruelty.
Once again a Terrorist Apologist insists that the extremist religious terrorist not be held accountable for its brutality and cruelty.
Source please.
quote:
Source for what? Ritters testimony to the committee? Otr the allegations of espionage?
Neither. I'd like a source for tis claim of yours:
quote:
Once again, these alleged products that justified Desert Fox have never been found.
Show me that the chemical weapons were not actually found and destroyed, contrary to my Wikipedia timeline source.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 62 by contracycle, posted 04-20-2005 5:43 AM contracycle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 64 by contracycle, posted 04-21-2005 4:56 AM nator has not replied

  
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