Free dissent is the foundation of democracy, however, I have to say, though I don't like everything Bush did, I would have voted for him if he were up for re-election. At least you always know what this guy thinks, he just says it, and not in a "skirt around the issue, politician sort-of way" like both Gore and Kerry did (goodness I could barely understand what that dude was talking about, never answered a single question he was asked) but Bush tells you in a conversational frankness.
I am amused at how a good majority of people I talk to blame the president for not forcing the terrorists to come out as if they were playing hide-and-go-seek. and on the flip side, many americans say "well this president would have kept us from having a terrorist attack" ha. What, do they think that whoever the president is, he/she can control what terrorists do and don't do? Terrorists are like viruses, our military can't seem to kill them without killing themselves. They come and go unexpectedly
creating the "terror" part, and they hide out for years at a time, dormant, until it is the right time to become active again. Terrorism spreads, killing off ideas of a fair and equal world for all. It must be stopped, but the question lies now more in who has the vaccine, what ingredients make up the medicine to heal, the anti-virus? Which presidential candidate holds the shot to silence this virus forever? Is there such a shot?
These are the questions we must ask now, not the question of who the original carrier was or which doctor "let it" infect his entire nation of patients.
I know, no solutions here, it's just something to consider. Thanks.
Terrorist vaccine?
By jenpanda - Posted on February 9th, 2008
I think that you are right about eh people blaming the president for the terrorist acts in the world.
I don't directly blame the President. I blame the foreign policy of intervention that this President continued to uphold.
"Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do."
Benjamin Franklin
"Terrorism spreads, killing off ideas of a fair and equal world for all."
Terrorism is a tactic. In general, it has nothing to do with killing off any ideas of any sort. Essentially, all it is is guerrilla war fare with the aim of not only harming an enemy but scaring them. Hence the name.
Specifically, our modern terrorists are fairly clear in what they want. They want us, the United States and the west in general, to stop meddling in the Islamic World.
Osama, for example, is particularly pissed by the military bases we have in Saudi Arabia, which is considered Holy Ground.
"It must be stopped, but the question lies now more in who has the vaccine, what ingredients make up the medicine to heal, the anti-virus? Which presidential candidate holds the shot to silence this virus forever? Is there such a shot?"
"Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do."
Benjamin Franklin
Thanks for the comments guys! Nice quote, by the way.
So I suppose the question now is necessity of intervention. Really, it is the underlying concept behind all of this mess over there. Should and to what extent does the U.S. need to be involved in the rest of the world, especially with the motivation of preventing attacks? We cannot just wait until someone completely wipes us out to take action, but then we can't go starting a war for no (real, solid, proven) reason either. Should we have gone to war simply with the purpose of setting up a democracy in Iraq? Is that fair to their people, no matter how horribly oppressed they were?
It reminds me of a question I heard once about World War II. Would the Allies have gone to war if the only damage Hitler did was exterminate the Jews within Germany (given that the Allies knew about it)? Should they have?
Thanks. My problem is that it doesn't really fit me. I'm a big complainer. :idk:
I don't think that the US should go to war with the purpose of spreading anything anywhere. It's not our job, and as history has shown again and again, a democracy can't just spring up out of nothing. It failed in Russia. It failed in China. It failed several times in Africa. It's failing in Iraq and Afghanistan.
If we have good, and I mean really good, evidence that someone is planning an attack, then we should take steps to stop them, but not military steps.
Think of it this way, no nation is going to attack the United States. None of our enemies are in a position where a traditional invasion is conceivable. As for Nuclear weapons, any nation that uses a nuke against any other nation will instantly find the world against them.
This hypothetical attack will almost definitely be coming from some sort of organization. If these organizations are infiltrated enough to get us reliable information, then we should no enough to stop them without launching a full scale invasion.
And, I say this as a Jew, I don't think much would have happened if Hitler's only goal was Jewtermination. If there was no invasion, it would only be in Germany, and the Jews would've gotten out of there pretty quick. With the imperialistic goals though, not only did Hitler get more Jews to kill, he gave German Jews, who had the most warning, more distance to travel to escape.
The reasons the Europeans entered the war is obvious. They were attacked. The U.S. should not have entered the war without provocation. We got ourselves a reason to go after the Japanese by cutting off their resources, but the Germans, we invented some nonsense story of how an attack was imminent if the Allies fell, even though in however many years of war, they couldn't even cross the English Channel.
The fact is, that the Allies couldn't have cared less about the Jews, but the only way that Hitler could really have a successful Jew-hunt at all would be tied in with imperialism.
"Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do."
Benjamin Franklin
"who has the vaccine, what ingredients make up the medicine to heal, the anti-virus?"
I agree with you that Bush is far more scapegoat than evil, but if he failed post 911 it was in not considering the cause of the terrorist problem. Like most disease the terror virus needs a weakened host to grow and prosper. The 5 Billion people on this planet with little or nothing to lose is where suicide bombers come from, and bringing them into the modern world of wealth is the only vaccine I can think of.
Bush went after the terrorists aggressively which was the 'stick' of 'carrot and the stick' or the 'lead' of 'Silver or lead.' He forgot the carrot and the silver.
To lead by force or fear alone you must be brutal. The Bush administration was well documented for stepping this up beyond most of the American publics’ tolerance level. Bush did not even approach the brutality of the terrorists, but tactics such as Club Gitmo, Water Boarding, and redacted prisoners to nations that allowed torture had an effect of confusing the identity of the 'good guy' in the war on terror.
If he had pledged to go after terrorists and the nations that supported them, as he did, and IN THAT SAME SPEACH committed to spend an equal amount of money building the infrastructure of the poorest nations and helping the poorest people join the prosperity of the 21st century, then we would have gotten better value and effect from spending the TRILLION dollars that we have fighting terror.
If you spend money building you gain skilled workers, buildings, and create lasting good will. If you spend money fighting what do you have when you finish?
To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.
-William Blake
Well said.
"Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do."
Benjamin Franklin
Yes, wow, ya'll are good. It is a disappointment to many to examine the not so "knight in shining armor" behaviors of the U.S. and anti-terror forces.
I am a big proponent of social justice, starting case by case, but could changes have come about by infiltration and non-militaristic individual actions?
I do agree that building up a nation is the only way of ensuring its success. We cannot stop halfway and say "well, we gave you a system of democracy, now figure out what to do with it" though to stay too long would be too similar to visiting in-laws. Ha.