Bush - Bad for the Country

[InfiniteNow]

Originally Posted by damocles

No rational man looking at the misery unleashed by 9-11 can conceivably conclude that anything good came of it for either the arabs or us.

Especially from the arab point of view, I cannot see any positive result.

If your proposition is true, then it would seem I am not a rational man.

The eyes of those previous asleep to the world's situation are beginning to open.

Those who might not otherwise care about the future of mankind may now find themselves asking important questions and, better, finding solutions to the problems of the world.

Those in the middle east who have often been described a centuries behind may begin to change and catch up to the rest of the world, contributing new ideas and new energy to long stagnant problems.

America may take back it's government which, for all too long, has been too strongly influenced by special interests and big business, doing so becase they see how mismanaged so many issues have been and hoping for something greater.

The act sheds light on just how many blatant hypocracies exist on this planet, and how often it seems we are living in 1006 instead of 2006.

And there are a select few, those who are truly lucky, who no longer want there to be borders and hatred but understanding and similarity and growth.


But again, I've never claimed to be a rational man.


Although it has two sides, it's still the same coin.

[damocles]

Originally Posted by InfiniteNow

If your proposition is true, then it would seem I am not a rational man.

That is a judgement you must make for yourself on yourself. All I can do is suggest why a sane man would look on that ruin and see nothing but the madness and the hatred that led to the act and realize that the puny egos that conceived the deed look for someone else but themselves to blame for the failures that they are. That to take their frustrations at themselves out upon the innocent who had nothing to do with their own faults, that they refuse to see in themselves as being of themselves, puts them in the ranks of the insane; that they use violence as their chosen meams of venting frustration, means to me a childlike madness that conceived the act.

Originally Posted by InfiniteNow

The eyes of those previous asleep to the world's situation are beginning to open.

MINE were never closed.

Originally Posted by InfiniteNow

Those who might not otherwise care about the future of mankind may now find themselves asking important questions and, better, finding solutions to the problems of the world.

Been doing that as a man ever since I fiirst picked up the concept "heat pollution".

Originally Posted by InfiniteNow

Those in the middle east who have often been described a centuries behind may begin to change and catch up to the rest of the world, contributing new ideas and new energy to long stagnant problems.

They still have one last chance, before the oil and the fresh water runs out. Time is not on their side. My guess is that they have a generation left. After that? Malthus, at least within their range. It all comes down to energy. If they have too many superstitious people, chasing too few joules? I pity them.

Originally Posted by InfiniteNow

America may take back it's government which, for all too long, has been too strongly influenced by special interests and big business, doing so becase they see how mismanaged so many issues have been and hoping for something greater.

Don't wait for it. Work toward it.

Originally Posted by InfimniteNow

The act sheds light on just how many blatant hypocracies exist on this planet, and how often it seems we are living in 1006 instead of 2006.

http://www.crisismagazine.com/april2002/cover.htm

http://hindutva.org/landrajput.html

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collecti.../mtjprece.html

Who attacked whom?

Originally Posted by InfiniteNow

And there are a select few, those who are truly lucky, who no longer want there to be borders and hatred but understanding and similarity and growth.

I want peace, but not on Osama's terms. I want him dead. The same way I want the butchers of Dhafur dead, the same way I want the butchers of Mogadishu dead. the same way I want the fools who murdered the innocent in Rwanda dead, the same way I want the butchers in Zimbabwe...you nget the picture?

You need a military to do that and you need force of arms. I'm sorry but you aren't going to get a one world state-ever. Not as long as you have fiends who seek power over their fellow men because they can.

Originally Posted by InfiniteMan

But again, I've never claimed to be a rational man.

You are a rational man. I recommend that you harness that idealism you have that is so at variance with the reality of the human condition and work toward your vision. THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH IT. But do not think it will be easy, or that most of humanity will not be against you, because despite what they say, most of them will be. Just don't let it stop you.

Remember in a little place in Philadelphia-a bunch of hypocrits invoked words by which we still after 230 years have yet to achieve;

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

We haven't given up trying...............

Originally Posted by InfiniteMan

Although it has two sides, it's still the same coin.

That coin(war) has many faces, but in the end it comes down to two sides; barbarism and superstition against rationalism and realism.

Choose your side which is rationalism and fight to win.

As always; the best of wishes;

(PS; It isn't just some arabs who are on the wrong side of the equation. Look at the title of this thread. D.)

[InfiniteNow]

Originally Posted by damocles

MINE were never closed....Been doing that as a man ever since I fiirst picked up the concept "heat pollution"...Don't wait for it. Work toward it.

Either you're missing my general point, or you're too filled with hatred and anger to admit it's validity. The possibilities I raised all answered your question about "what might some of those good things be..." I was also sure to acknowledge my absolute distaste for methods of terror, but recognize that some good will come out of any situation even if we are too limited to recognize it.

Originally Posted by damocles

I want peace, but not on Osama's terms. I want him dead.

You cannot have both. The moment you choose one, the other evaporates. You cannot wish for the death of another and also state truthfully that you want peace. You must choose which you want more.

Originally Posted by damocles

The same way I want the butchers of Dhafur dead, the same way I want the butchers of Mogadishu dead. the same way I want the fools who murdered the innocent in Rwanda dead, the same way I want the butchers in Zimbabwe...you nget the picture?

I do. The picture is that if you truly want these things, you are no better than the target of your anger.

Originally Posted by damocles

That coin(war) has many faces, but in the end it comes down to two sides; barbarism and superstition against rationalism and realism.

Choose your side which is rationalism and fight to win.

I choose to look at the coin edge on... not heads, not tails, but at the coin as a whole.


Cheers.

[damocles]

Originally Posted by InfiniteNow

Either you're missing my general point, or you're too filled with hatred and anger to admit it's validity. The possibilities I raised all answered your question about "what might some of those good things be..." I was also sure to acknowledge my absolute distaste for methods of terror, but recognize that some good will come out of any situation even if we are too limited to recognize it.

If you mean by general resolution, a final resolution of justice for the oppressed as an outcome as eyes are opened to the ground truth in the middle east or in the misrule in this nation by our own governement, that is not in your power or mine to give. Nor would I give it if I had the power. No slave is given freedom. He earns it for himself or he remains a slave. There are many ways to earn that freedom. Some choose Osama's way. Some choose Bush's way. Others choose Ghandi's or King's. Which men accomplished their ends?

Originally Posted by InfiniteNow

You cannot have both. The moment you choose one, the other evaporates. You cannot wish for the death of another and also state truthfully that you want peace. You must choose which you want more.

Some simple words make nonsense of that statement Infinite;

Mao Ze-Dong (China, 1958-61 and 1966-69) 49,000,000 ("great leap forward" and "cultural revolution")
Jozef Stalin (USSR, 1934-39) 13,000,000 (the purges)
Adolf Hitler (Germany, 1939-1945) 12,000,000 (concentration camps and civilians WWII)
Hideki Tojo (Japan, 1941-44) 5,000,000 (civilians WWII)
Pol Pot (Cambodia, 1975-79) 1,700,000
Kim Il Sung (North Korea, 1948-94) 1.6 million (purges and concentration camps)
Menghistu (Ethiopia, 1975-78) 1,500,000
Ismail Enver (Turkey, 1915) 1,200,000 Armenians
Yakubu Gowon (Biafra, 1967-1970) 1,000,000
Leonid Brezhnev (Afghanistan, 1979-1982) 900,000
Jean Kambanda (Rwanda, 1994) 800,000
Suharto (East Timor, 1976-98) 600,000
Saddam Hussein (Iran 1980-1990 and Kurdistan 1987-88) 600,000
Yahya Khan (Pakistan, 1971) vs Bangladesh 500,000
Savimbi (Angola, 1975-2002) 400,000
Mullah Omar - Taliban (Afghanistan, 1986-2001) 400,000
Idi Amin (Uganda, 1969-1979) 300,000
Benito Mussolini (Ethiopia, 1936; Yugoslavia, WWII) 300,000
Mobutu Sese Seko (Zaire, 1965-97) ?
Charles Taylor (Liberia, 1989-1996) 220,000
Foday Sankoh (Sierra Leone, 1991-2000) 200,000
Slobodan Milosevic (Yugoslavia, 1992-96) 180,000
Michel Micombero (Burundi, 1972) 150,000
Hassan Turabi (Sudan, 1989-1999) 100,000
Jean-Bedel Bokassa (Centrafrica, 1966-79) ?
Richard Nixon (Vietnam, 1969-1974) 70,000 (vietnamese civilians)
Papa Doc Duvalier (Haiti, 1957-71) 60,000
Hissene Habre (Chad, 1982-1990) 40,000
Chiang Kai-shek (Taiwan, 1947) 30,000 (popular uprising)
Vladimir Ilich Lenin (USSR, 1917-20) 30,000 (dissidents executed)
Francisco Franco (Spain) 30,000 (dissidents executed after the civil war)
Lyndon Johnson (Vietnam, 1963-1968) 30,000
Hafez Al-Assad (Syria, 1980-2000) 25,000
Khomeini (Iran, 1979-89) 20,000
Guy Mollet (France, 1956-1957) 10,000 (war in Algeria)
Paul Koroma (Sierra Leone, 1997) 6,000
Osama bin Laden (worldwide, 1991-2001) 4,000
Augusto Pinochet (Chile, 1973) 3,000
Efrain Rios Montt (Guatemala) 2,000

Originally Posted by InfiniteNow

I do. The picture is that if you truly want these things, you are no better than the target of your anger.

The difference is, Infinite, I want specific living people specifically dead for specific crimes that they specifically committed. It is a recognized principle in rational societies, that the guilty must stand judgement and receive collective social punishment for the evil they do. When that crime is genocide or mass murder? Those people are better off dead. It puts them out of their pathological self-loathing misery. It is to that particular end that I work, and for that SPECIFIC reason, when I address that SPECIFIC individual, as a SPECIFIC case. There is no wish involved. There cannot be. Wishes accomplish nothing.

If I am to give a man, like Ayatollah Sistani, a chance to preach the jihad of peace to his brothers, then he must be heard above the din of al Zarqawi and the other disciples of bin Laden.

It is just like the case, if we are to repair the damage George W. Bush has done. We must find a fox to replace him in the next election cycle. Chicken. Plucked.

I've been following this thread with great interest and I find it to be a great clarifyer of why I suggest that my position is not irrational or uncommon..

http://hypography.com/forums/philoso...l-algebra.html

Originally Posted by InfiniteNow

I choose to look at the coin edge on... not heads, not tails, but at the coin as a whole.

I want to thank you for bringing to my attention my incorrect use of an analogy. I was guilty of shortcutting a metaphorical argument and making a faulty presentation. I apologize to you for that. One should never use analogy when one can write plainly as you just did.

You cannot look at the whole argument, if you observe both sides and split the difference(see the coin edge on). You must analyze the argument in the form of first "what is the event measured and from which bias?';
1. identify the biases.
2. formulate opposing theses.
3. test against observable effects-based consequences(results).
4. check biases again.
5. apply the antitheses to the consequences observed(events).
6. formulate a new set of theses.

And then hopefully draw objective conclusions from those theses.

If there is hate anywhere in that process? Well, Ghandi had a lot of anger, but he had a firm grasp of how he intended to fight for what he wanted. Its just that we don't recognize it as him fighting, because we associate fighting with the use of violence.

Even the madman, Osama, admits that there are two paths to jihad. The one is the path of peaceful struggle. The other is the path of violence.

Osama chose the path of violence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hassan-i-Sabah

quoting;

Given the pillars of devoted adherence to the path of the faith, it is unlikely that the usually accepted "Assassin" postulate is unflawed. Hassan had his son executed for drinking wine and another person was banished form Alamut for playing the flute. The theories of Hassan being associated with Hashish are, at best, debatable. Furthermore there have emerged traces that there was a name given to Alamut by the people with Nizarī leanings: al-Assas "the Base". It was the base for all operations that Hassan wished to effect. Members of al-Assas were known as al-Assasīn.

Definitions of Al Qaeda on the Web:

* ahl-KY-duh International terrorist network that claimed responsibility for the September 11 attacks; "Al Qaeda means "the base"
school.newsweek.com/misc/pronunciation.php

* The US government issued an indictment in November 1998 alleging that Osama bin Laden heads an international terrorist network called "Al Qaeda," an Arabic word meaning "the base." Al Qaeda is blamed for several attacks on US interests, including the 1998 bombing of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen, and the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/teach/alqaeda/glossary.html

* Lowercase the al in the name of bin Laden's terrorist network, except starting a line in a headline.
http://www.careerjournaleurope.com/c.../glossary.html

* Al-Qaeda ( - al-Qā'idah, "the foundation" or "the base") is the name given to a worldwide network and alliance of militant Islamist organizations. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Qaeda

That is evil. He used that path to not only kill innocent Americans, but to kill the innocent among islam.

So if I want him dead, I admit there is hate involved. It is the hate against evil that I carry within me.

What good has he done?

Al Capone opened soup kitchens to help the starving of Chicago..

Hitler rehabilitated the Berlin Zoo because he didn't want its animals to suffer in deprivation.

Stalin kept a dog.

Those men were evil.

I'm bizarre that way, I suppose. I believe that evil as a concept is as concrete as liberty or good. That it is NOT relative, but can be objectively defined by the generally agreed scale of harm done for negative outcome generated as most men and women see it..

Just my 1=1 on things.

As always, the best of wishes;

[InfiniteNow]

Your tone has softened a bit since the previous posts, and I appreciate that. Thank you.

Originally Posted by damocles

The difference is, Infinite, I want specific living people specifically dead for specific crimes that they specifically committed.

So does he...


My best as well.

[KickAssClown]

(I'm kinda late into the discussion, and haven't read all that's already been said but I'll say what I will say.)

I personally disagree with the methods of both Bush and the Arab people that have attacked in such a manner. I won't say either side is totally at fault, either. As I believe that we as Americans are partially at fault for the whole shibang.

I will say that the path of moderation is generally the best path, and Bush true to his name has chosen the path of Violence. This in my mind makes him every bit as wrong as any other. Bush could have responded to the problems presented in a clear, consise and morale way. he chose not to, and now every man, woman and child that dies or suffers from his actions lies in his hands in whole and in part.

When we chose to react to violence with violence we become as morally reprehensable. Evil as it is classically defined, does not see it's self as evil. Quiet often it sees it's self in the light of rightousness. Hilter did what he thought was best for himself, and for his people. This does not make his actions right, or any more morale.

I am not saying the Osama is any better than us, I am mearly stating that we must walk the Right path. I don't wish to see Osama dead, if I did then I would wish to see Bush dead as well. Rather I wish to see those who commit hanious wrongs to sit and rot, for the rest of eternity, or until they natural expire, in a dark 10X10 room and think about all that they have done for the rest of their days.

Iraq
Afghanistan
Final role call for Operation: Enduring Freedom
http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/index.php#source

The death, wounds, and suffering of every person listed and not listed are the responcibility of Osama, Bush and every other person whom decided to go to war.

I never went to war. I do not agree with war in any Violent form. I am not a peace nik, I do believe in ruffly handling people whom have commited violence, I however refuse to drop to their level, I refuse to play their game.

Why fight and kill, and maime and hurt and cause suffering, when you could take all that effort and place it else where, into actually productive things. Like Feeding, Housing, Clothing, and Treating people?

Like so many people I personally feel that Bush and Osama should simply grow up and act like the human beings they are rather than fling sh** back and forth. All it does is makes a huge mess and garners the resentment of those looking on.

[damocles]

Originally Posted by KickAssClown

(I'm kinda late into the discussion, and haven't read all that's already been said but I'll say what I will say.)
<snip>

Like so many people I personally feel that Bush and Osama should simply grow up and act like the human beings they are rather than fling sh** back and forth. All it does is makes a huge mess and garners the resentment of those looking on.

Please don't make the mistake of writing that Bush and bin Laden are morally equivalent.

They are not. George Bush is merely incompetent. Osama bin Laden is both incompetent and evil.

There is a vast difference.

As always, the best of wishes:

[Racoon]

Originally Posted by damocles

Osama bin Laden is both incompetent and evil.

Osama is far from Incompetent! On the contrary...He's brilliant.
Why haven't we found him?
Thats not incompetence, but rather intelligence...ability to lead and use others.

I won't defend his morality however...

But lets remember one thing:
One mans Terrorist is another mans Freedom Fighter.

[damocles]

Originally Posted by Racoon

Osama is far from Incompetent! On the contrary...He's brilliant.
Why haven't we found him?
Thats not incompetence, but rather intelligence...ability to lead and use others.

I won't defend his morality however...

But lets remember one thing:
One mans Terrorist is another mans Freedom Fighter.

I tend to shy away from strategy as it gets me into trouble but;

http://bookclub.tpmcafe.com/story/2006/1/16/16936/5083

quoting;

Miscalculations (theirs & ours)

By Spencer Ackerman | bio

When Peter says he aimed to paint "a more comprehensive portrait" of Osama bin Laden, he's not kidding. For me, perhaps the most fascinating element of the portrait that emerges in Peter's book concerns bin Laden's capacity for miscalculation. For over four years, we've grown used to seeing bin Laden as either a cartoonish fanatic or a diabolical mastermind. The Osama bin Laden I Know details instead many of bin Laden's false moves. We get bin Laden's incompetence as a battlefield commander; his hubristic break with former mentor Abdullah Azzam, the charismatic Islamist who globalized the Afghan jihad against the Soviets; his misguided alliance with the sadistic Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar against the brilliant military leader Ahmed Shah Massoud; etc. That impulse to miscalculate is something Peter highlights in the book, and it raises an unexplored question for the war against bin Laden's jihadist movement: Can we count on bin Laden to keep on, well, screwing up, even when it initially looks like he's advancing his objectives? For instance, Peter writes that 9/11 was in fact "a strategic disaster" for al-Qaeda, as it resulted in the loss of Afghanistan, "the best base it ever had," in a matter of months.

But is bin Laden really so poor a strategist? Put another way, I wonder if the biggest question in the war on terror is whose miscalculations are more consequential--theirs or ours.

For an example of bin Laden's dubious strategic thinking, consider his October 2001 prediction that a U.S. invasion of Afghanistan would "cause great long-term economic burdens which will force America to resort to ... withdrawal from Afghanistan, disintegration, and contraction." This incorrect prediction appears to have informed al-Qaeda's decision to attack the U.S. on 9/11. Bin Laden was wrong about miring the U.S. in an Afghan quagmire. Unfortunately, if you substitute "Iraq" for "Afghanistan" in bin Laden's October 2001 boast, he's a lot less wrong. (Not that Iraq will mean our national "disintegration.") As a force to breathe new life into al-Qaeda, the invasion of Iraq worked wonders--the suicide tape of Mohammed Sidique Khan, mastermind of the 7/7 London bombings, testifies to this--and something like that may have been bin Laden's actual goal for 9/11 all along.

Drawing the U.S. into indiscriminate or disproportionate responses to 9/11 is--as Peter details elsewhere in the book--a means for bin Laden to galvanize the Muslim world into an Islamist awakening, which has been al-Qaeda's ultimate, grandiose objective since its 1988 founding. Bin Laden lieutenant Saif al-Adel was recently quoted as saying 9/11 was intended "to prompt [the U.S.] to come out of its hole. ... A person will react randomly when he receives painful strikes on his head from an undisclosed enemy. Such strikes will force the person to carry out random acts and provoke him to make serious and sometimes fatal mistakes." You can call this post-hoc justification--especially after al-Qaeda's loss of Afghanistan--but that doesn't make it an incorrect reading of our own false moves in the war on terrorism.

Yet if we squander opportunities that al-Qaeda hands us, the jihadists do the same thing. Exhibit A is Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Over the last year-plus, bin Laden's man in Iraq has opened fissures between al-Qaeda and the Iraqi Sunni insurgency, thanks to his indiscriminate civilian murders and imposition of austere versions of Islam contrary to local customs. In the absence of a U.S. occupation (big caveat, there) it's not so easy to establish a beachhead for al-Qaeda in the Sunni areas of Iraq when the heavily-armed locals curse Zarqawi's name, as they did after the Ramadi bombing earlier this month. Yet, according to Ayman Zawahiri's recent letter to Zarqawi, this is exactly what al-Qaeda's leadership is banking on. I tend to see that as pretty good news.

Zawahiri's letter is a plea for Zarqawi to stop alienating the very Muslims al-Qaeda seeks to radicalize. After Zarqawi's November attacks on Amman, Jordanians responded with a torrent of anti-Qaedist rage. Indeed, another section of Peter's book describes bin Laden's awareness of how precarious al-Qaeda's own hearts-and-minds campaign is: bin Laden fears that a frontal assault on the legitimacy of the "ruler's sheikhs" who backstop the Saudi royal family will fail, given that al-Qaeda would be fighting against 70 years of popular indoctrination. Better then, he reasons, to fight the U.S.--which everyone can sign on for!--and in the process, inculcate his recruits with anti-Saudi fervor. Zarqawi's diversion from the script shows how difficult is for al-Qaeda to control the nihilism that it's unleashed. The question, though, is whether and how the U.S. can take advantage of such mistakes--or whether we'll make even worse ones.

Spencer Ackerman writes about intelligence and national security for The New Republic.

The Iraq war was a HUGE mistake. Pakistan and Afghanistan were/are the centers of gravity of the current war as is Saudi Arabia. I won't bore you with the long details but if your are interested, GOOGLE islamic proslytization. See where the money is and where the madras school infrastructure began and HOW LONG AGO.

Now then. If you want to know who is running the Al Qaeda war? It's al Zawalhiri. It is not bin Laden, the front man who couldn't even plan a successful campaign in Afghanistan, without CIA and ISI advisors showing him how.

As always, the best of wishes.

[KickAssClown]

As my rant was supposed to convey, I not only put them on the same moral pedestal, I put Bush on the same pedestal as Hitler and Saddam.

Now this isn't localized to just this era or this president, infact i would extend my judgement to include a vast number of previous presidents.

May I point out, in a throughly used fashion, that Saddam and Osama were our responsibilities? That they were on the USA payroll? They had what they had because we gave it to them.

You know who the biggest arms dealer in the world is?

I'm not much for conspiracy, however I wouldn't put it past our people and goverment to have setup this whole thing. How are we to know, for certain, that our president didn't order the Sept 11th thing?

Our goverment lacks the nessary transparency. We maintain an illegal Army, we defie world concearns.

Bush has done so much harm to the USA people and the World as a whole that I am highly skeptical that the damage done will get fixed anytime soon.

In my mind bush has done NOTHING for us, he puts our beautiful country to shame, him, Clinton, Bush sr., raygun, and on and on and on...

It all has to change, we need to stop this bullshit before it REALLY gets out of hand. At this rate I predict either a major world war or a rapid decline for the USA in the next 30 years.

You know the cold war? We're still in it, and at this rate we will most likely suffer the same fate that the Soviet Union suffered when they EXITED the cold war.

You want change? Be the change you want to see.