What if we do nothing...?

[Guest]

It's all too late, the damage is done...if the US had gone for the sympathy vote, actually shown 'christian values' and gone for an intelligent thought out approach, none of this would've happened. Instead it used the 'might is right' tactic, justified on lies.

 

The Iraq invasion was planned before 9/11...it's well documented. Bush et al. went for the 'get rich quick' approach, a few years in office, make a pile of cash for your friends, retire, live a life of high luxury...never have to work again...it backfired due to the use of force...excessive brutal force...ignoring international law, using highly flawed logic, abusing 'religious' belief (the evangelical christian, not the mislim), lying to everyone, all for personal gain...

 

It's the biggest con i've seen...conducted by sociopathic individuals...Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bush et al.

 

The future...well....not many options remain as Bush has manouvered himself into a corner, exposed and lame.

 

Option 1, Might is right....invade Iran, control the gulf, destroy the centre of Muslim faith...in effect it's colonialism modern day style...this will fail...just ask the British...add to this the rise and rise of China and it will be the death throes of an ailing USA.

 

Option 2. Pull out, try to recover some dignity, try to repair the colossol damage done. Again, wont work, too much damage is done...ultimately the whole area will become even more extremist. There are too many Muslims seeking power for personal gain and control of the vast wealth there (for who really believes there's an idealogical/religious struggle taking place? It's all about power and money).

 

Option 3. Continue as is ala Vietnam...a long drawn out campaign, resulting in ultimate loss and humiliation. Huge loss of life, money and time...Presidents to come are going to be left with this mess anyway, no way is it going to be solved in 2 years, however it could drag on for years and years.

 

Option 4?? Anybody?

 

The current sabre rattling indicates option 1, with Israel as a support in the region.

 

Whatever the future, the damage to the USA is going to take a long time to repair and recover from and the longer it drags on, the worse this is going to be. This total fuck up has created extremism, fed it, provoked it. There are plenty of nutters running around saying this is the beginning of the end and the final battle predicted in the Koran is coming..where of course the Muslims are victorious...

 

There's more to this, but i'd like to know others opinions as well.

 

1,000 posts completed...and it was about this most grim of subjects...roll on the next 1,000.

 

Peace.

 

 

[Fidel]

Congrats on the 1000th post. I'll soon be celebrating 5 years annoying Lazy Phil on np.com/thai360!

 

[chuckwoww]

Option 1 seems the most likely. Force, gunships, bombs. Bush seems to like the hamfisted stuff. Better than trying to think it through I guess.

 

I said somewhere when Bush invaded Iraq...'the US has it's very own West Bank now'.

[foreigner]

israel was the motivation for 911, as per 911 commission

 

sodomy insane's main transgression was providing death benefits for palestinian freedom fighters

 

how can the proven aggressor israel be allowed a military & it's potential targets be denied.

 

Jim Laher of PBS's The News Hour in an interview with the shrub called iraq a broken egg .. we

broke it & now want to leave with it broken

the shrub said it was simply a 'cracked egg'.

 

the US needs a military draft

& a plan to stay in the middle east til the oil is depleted .

[sekander]

Iran's leader is a nutjob. Do you really think he's saying his garbage just to piss us off? When did a Muslim say shit just for the sake of saying it? They mean what they say. If you don't believe he has the destruction of Israel on his mind, you're living in a dream world.

So, the question still remains....what to do?

I'm an atheist but I see the world straining to fulfill Biblical prophesy. The Evangelical Christians in the U.S. are prodding Israel into a fight that will result in Armegeddon and the eventual "Rapture" they're so enthralled with.

They want to piss off the Muslims so that the world can end that much sooner. Nut jobs on both sides will ensure that this eventually comes to pass. Sure doesn't look like a rosy future.

[Guest lazyphil]

<>

 

I believe I hold that badge of honour, not you....was it not you who was going to put me on your first poster ban list :grin: .....but didn't have the heart to carry out the threat!!.....i expect nothing more from a wooly liberal sandal wearer!!!

 

[ALHOLK]

Congrats on the 1000th post. I'll soon be celebrating 5 years annoying Lazy Phil on np.com/thai360!

Not really a major achievment. Anyone that is semi litterate could do that.

[Guest lazyphil]

ALHOLK, as BA from the A Team would say (I say to you!) 'I pity the fool' :smirk: ....now leave Fidel and me cyber bitch on our own :grin:

[bust]

Ok let's get this straight from the start. I AM NOT ANTI-AMERICAN. I am however anti-american foreign policy. These days I can hardly bear to see the faces of Bush, Cheney, Rice and Rumsfeld, or to watch their posturing body language, or to hear their self-satisfied and incoherent platitudes. The world press has done its best to make them appear ridiculous, but these people are not funny. I once watched a news story about "friendly fire", which included footage of what must have been one of the most horrific bombardments ever filmed. But what struck home hardest was the subsequent image, of a row of American warplanes, with grinning cartoon faces painted on their noses. Cartoon faces, with big sharp teeth. Reminded me of the Team America logo of the eagle with the world firmly in it's beak. It is grotesque and apalling to watch supposed democratic and powerful nation bombs foreign cities and the people in those cities. It's been written about the euphemistic and affectionate names that the Americans give to their weapons of mass destruction: Big Boy, Little Boy, Daisy Cutter, and so forth.

We are accustomed to these sobriquets; to phrases such as "collateral damage" and "friendly fire" and "pre-emptive strikes". We have almost ceased to notice when suicide bombers are described as "cowards". The abuse of language is part of warfare. I detest American imperialism, American infantilism, and American triumphalism about victories it didn't even win. A couple of years ago CNN screened a piece designed to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam war. The camera showed us a street scene in which a shabby elderly Vietnamese man was seen speaking English and bartering in dollars in a city that I think was Ho Chi Minh City, still familiarly known in America by its old French colonial name of Saigon.

"The language of Shakespeare," the commentator said, "has conquered Vietnam." I did not note down the dialogue, though I can vouch for that sentence about the language of Shakespeare. But the word "dollar" was certainly repeated several times, and the implications of what the camera showed were clear enough. What happened to the "dong?" Last time I was there it was the currency of trade not the $US. The elderly Vietnamese man was impoverished, and he wanted hard currency. The Vietnamese had won the war, but it seemed like that was all. The US administration uses the word "democracy" as its battle cry, and its nervous soldiers gun down Iraqi civilians when they try to hold street demonstrations to protest against the invasion of their country. So much for democracy. (At least the British Army is better trained.) America is one of the few countries in the world that executes minors. Well, it doesn't really execute them - it just keeps them in jail for years and years until they are old enough to execute, and then it executes them. It administers drugs to mentally disturbed prisoners on Death Row until they are back in their right mind, and then it executes them, too. They call this justice and the rule of law. America is holding more than 600 people in detention in Guantánamo Bay, indefinitely, and it may well hold them there for ever. Guantánamo Bay has become the Bastille of America. They call this serving the cause of democracy and freedom. Don't get me started on my own Government about that. At least the US government takes care of it's own. Bored the other night I watched the 911 doco by Micheal Moore. Now I know there are a lot who despise him and what he does but the point I want to make is that most of what we consume these days is in print or by the controlled media. But one thing that will never lie is a picture. There is so much footage out there demonstrating that this continued war on terrorism is by far a greater crime than any terrorist attack the world has seen. Every time this subject is brought up nobody ever discusses the cause of the current hostilities in the world. Always the symptoms. A great democratic nation cannot behave in this manner. But it does. I keep remembering those words from Nineteen Eighty-Four, on the dynamics of history at the end of history, when O'Brien tells Winston: "Always there will be the intoxication of power� Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - for ever."

[itsmedave]

BUt I wonder what would happen if we did actually leave.

 

It seems most of the hostility (not just recently but going back decades) is that we infidels are on their holy land. If we were to say that we would go, entirely and permanently, (and from all Muslim countries) in exchange for a Muslim dominated oversight group keeping everybody honest over there, I wonder if that wouldn't pacify many of those who are so angry. (I'm stealing this idea from the good Father T) Then you get a bunch of the saner Islamic countries together to work it out for themselves. We can be the good guys again for providing aid when they have financial problem, but in an entirely non-threatening way.