O'reilly Vs. Moore

[Snee]

Originally posted by Biggles+1 August 2004 - 23:52--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Biggles &#064; 1 August 2004 - 23:52)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>

Originally posted by spinningfreemanny@1 August 2004 - 21:43
<!--QuoteBegin-vidcc

@1 August 2004 - 21:33
Has anyone ever wondered why nobody attacks switzerland?.... could it be that they tend to keep their noses out of everyone elses affairs?


I am of course here omitting the times it was bombed in WW2.... by both sides

Maybe of they were in the way of Germany&#39;s blitzkrieg it would be different...

The Swiss ran things like clockwork (I&#39;ll get me coat), every able bodied man was a member of the National Guard and the country is a nightmare to move around in. It would have taken half the Wermacht to secure it for no strategic gain whatsoever.

Strangely the Nazis observed Sweden&#39;s neutrality and that of the Iberian Peninsula. They had a specific game plan and it mostly involved taking Poland, Ukraine and the Russian oil fields. [/b][/quote]

A bit OT but...

It should be noted that the swedish Royals were Nazi supporters, and that they weren&#39;t the only Swedes who were of the persuasion. And that that our government at the time gave up people who had ended up in sweden when trying to avoid the war, estonian soldiers I think among others, when prompted to.

I&#39;ve wondered about how much the Swedish neutrality really was worth at the time, and whether the Germans had been so benign had the policies in this country been of another kind.


EDit:
Oh, and I think German soldiers were given passage to Norway. Which btw gave them ample time to spit on those swedes they came across who didn&#39;t fit the aryan model.

[clocker]

SJ,

I suspected that your involvement with the Trade Center was something like what you have revealed.
I&#39;m sure it was/is horrific and I&#39;m sorry you ( and all the others so involved) had to deal with it.
That said....

Why is your anger ( which seems intense) not focused on Bush for letting bin Laden remain free?
After a halfhearted and woefully undermanned and belated venture into Afghanistan to root out Al-Qaeda where they hid, Bush diverted manpower, money and material to fight in Iraq...a country which had NO CONNECTION to the 9/11 massacre at all.
Bin Laden, the man who still gloats that HE was responsible for the tragedy, is no closer to being caught than he was 2 years ago.
He is still organizing and (presumably) planning further attacks on our country, and it seems obvious that Bush could care less.
All of the resources which could have been used to hunt him down were diverted to further Bush&#39;s delusional empire building.

Oddly, to me at least, Bush&#39;s "War on Terror" seems to have completely ignored the biggest terrorist in our history.

Now how come THAT doesn&#39;t piss you off?

[hobbes]

Again, why does Iraq need to be connected to Al Queda? That point is COMPLETELY irrelevant. Was my snake analogy not sufficient for you?

And how did you determine that the effort in Afghanistan was half-hearted and belated?

Are you suggesting that there was some secret connection between Bush, 9/11, and Bin Laden.

[clocker]

No hobbes, your "snake analogy" sucked when you first posited it and it still does.

The effort in Afghanistan was clearly not of the scale of the Iraq incursion, hence my description.

No, I am not suggesting a secret conspiracy.
When it suited his agenda, Bush was all for making Bin Laden the poster boy for world terrorism.
After serving his purpose- galvanizing the public against terrorism and building a willingness to strike back militarily, bin Laden became superfluous...suddenly the biggest bad boy became Iraq.

[hobbes]

Originally posted by clocker@1 August 2004 - 21:17


No hobbes, your "snake analogy" sucked when you first posited it and it still does.

The effort in Afghanistan was clearly not of the scale of the Iraq incursion, hence my description.

No, I am not suggesting a secret conspiracy.
When it suited his agenda, Bush was all for making Bin Laden the poster boy for world terrorism.
After serving his purpose- galvanizing the public against terrorism and building a willingness to strike back militarily, bin Laden became superfluous...suddenly the biggest bad boy became Iraq.

Why did it suck? You make claims without telling us why.

As for Afghanistan, it was a completely different situation. You can blow as many holes in the ground as you wish, but you are only moving dirt.

Why would Bush, as an American, as a human, not want to catch Bin Laden?

Afghanistan was a fugitive situation, Iraq was far different.

Again, why do Iraq and Bin Laden need to be connected, you failed to address this issue.

[vidcc]

Just an observation

I agree with hobbes. Iraq and bin laden don&#39;t have to be connected...in fact there is no credible connection, however i have to say that many of those that support the actions taken against iraq have somehow implied the connection.
Iraq had nothing to do with 911 yet how many times have we heard about how America changed since 911 in debates about iraq?


on iraq though


If we have made a mistake and the WMD never existed and Iraq wasn&#39;t a threat (even with what everyone thought) then we need to accept responsibility and not avoid it and not change the goalposts.

I&#39;m sure very few people would get away with the defence "i thought he had a gun" if tried for a domestic shooting in a court of law
it seems to me that we now have a policy that enjoys the merits of pre-emptive strikes as a defence and that those strikes are worth the price of any mistake...as long as it&#39;s not Americans paying the price. ( America has the right to be free from fear but not those we think don&#39;t like us...even if we just think they don&#39;t like us and actually they do).

[spinningfreemanny]

Originally posted by vidcc@2 August 2004 - 00:06

If we have made a mistake and the WMD never existed and Iraq wasn&#39;t a threat (even with what everyone thought) then we need to accept responsibility and not avoid it and not change the goalposts.

Accept responsibility for what? oops, we accidently attacked your country, sorry.

Hussein is the one that forfited his right to be leader with over 10 resolutions.

It doesn&#39;t matter if all they find is an old crowbar that hussein used to beat people with, his right to be a leader is void.

Why people don&#39;t enforce this is beyond me...oh wait, no it isn&#39;t: oil for food program.

[vidcc]

Originally posted by spinningfreemanny@1 August 2004 - 18:16
It doesn&#39;t matter if all they find is an old crowbar that hussein used to beat people with, his right to be a leader is void.

Well you appear to be one that likes to move the goalposts.


can you place that same thinking to our own leaders?

If a mistake is made and we invade an innocent country do you feel that the leader has voided his right to lead?

My whole point is that if we are going to proclaim ourselves the rightious world police then we can&#39;t be hypocritical and apply lesser standards to ourselves or do you believe that mistakes can be made because the price is worth it as long as it&#39;s not americans paying that price?...i notice you didn&#39;t comment on that bit.

[clocker]

Originally posted by hobbes@1 August 2004 - 17:26

Why did it suck? You make claims without telling us why.

That&#39;s not a "claim" hobbes, that&#39;s my opinion.
You have used the "snake" theory several times in the past to try and convince me ( us) that being bitten by one snake (al-Qaeda) somehow justifies attacking the snake that didn&#39;t (Iraq). I didn&#39;t buy it before and doubt that sheer repetition will sell me in the future.

As for Afghanistan, it was a completely different situation. You can blow as many holes in the ground as you wish, but you are only moving dirt.

And this differs from Iraq how exactly?
The beauty of the terrorist&#39;s position ( from a military standpoint) is that they aren&#39;t fighting for places, they want the hearts and minds of the people.
They don&#39;t have to defend or occupy a stronghold, they can just melt into the populace and find another opportune target.
So far, our military actions in Iraq since the "victory" over the armed forces has amounted to little more than "moving dirt".

Again, why do Iraq and Bin Laden need to be connected, you failed to address this issue.

I&#39;m not the one who forged the connection, hobbes.
Bush/Cheney did.
Cheney still likes to make the connection.

If Bush (presumptively the most powerful man on the planet) was serious about apprehending Osama, we&#39;d have him by now.
You&#39;ll have to ask Bush why he decided to shift priorities and attack Iraq instead.

[hobbes]

Clocker,

You have yet to address why the analogy is not correct. Please explain. How exactly is the analogy incorrect. Is it not possible that 2 independent people want to take the US down and have no relationship with each other.

I don&#39;t care about your opinion, I want exacting detail that proves the fallacy of the analogy.

One has burned us on 9/11, and we strike the other before it has such an opportunity.

Did you notice that the US is not engaging in "shock and awe" in Iraq, currently. Why, because it is more an Afghanistan situation now. Dropping bombs does not equal victory. I agree, now that we are into guerilla warfare, there is little difference between Iraq and Afghanistan currently. See how hard it is to stifle the insugents, just like it is hard to catch 1 man being escorted cave to cave.

Initially, in Iraq, we had to uproot the government to put Saddam and the insurgents on the run, now the battle is more akin to the guerilla warfare which charcterizes the conflict in Afghanistan.

As for Al Queda and Iraq, how many times do I have to say that a connection is not relevant in any way.

Iraq is about quenching the ember before it sparks to flame. If you could have managed to address this the first time, instead of resorting to alter ego "sprocket", maybe we could cover some new ground here.

For those not really in the know, I am a liberal who is fighting "bullshit" as I see it. Agenda driven nonsense is odious to me.