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Author Topic:   Please explain Cut and Run criteria in light of Afghanistan
RAZD
Member (Idle past 1435 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 154 of 191 (357347)
10-18-2006 7:41 PM
Reply to: Message 147 by Hyroglyphx
10-17-2006 1:57 AM


Re: There is no "GWOT"
Edited by RAZD, : duplicate

This message is a reply to:
 Message 147 by Hyroglyphx, posted 10-17-2006 1:57 AM Hyroglyphx has not replied

  
RAZD
Member (Idle past 1435 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 155 of 191 (357348)
10-18-2006 7:42 PM
Reply to: Message 147 by Hyroglyphx
10-17-2006 1:57 AM


Re: There is no "GWOT"
Because ignoring them hasn't worked.
THIS IS NOT IN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION
READ THE POST FOR WHAT IT SAYS - NOT WHAT YOU THINK IT SAYS.
YOU'VE HAD TWO TRIES AT tTHIS AND MISSED BOTH TIMES!
When you correct that mistake the rest of your post MIGHT be worth reading.
If you don't understand what YOU have got so wrong, nattering on about it won't help.
Go back and read.

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This message is a reply to:
 Message 147 by Hyroglyphx, posted 10-17-2006 1:57 AM Hyroglyphx has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 156 by iano, posted 10-18-2006 8:05 PM RAZD has replied

  
RAZD
Member (Idle past 1435 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 157 of 191 (357351)
10-18-2006 8:13 PM
Reply to: Message 148 by petrophysics1
10-17-2006 8:11 AM


IGNORE THIS? Or try reading for CONTENT.
What you might have missed is that RAZD isn’t ignoring them either, regardless of his denial of that fact and advocating ignoring as a “solution”.
ok people listen up!
I did not say to blanket ignore the terrorists as a solution. What I said was IN RESPONSE to Tal's characterisation of their PURPOSE, that ignoring them would defeat THAT PURPOSE.
WHY? because (1) it is a false characterisation of the terrorists, and (2) terrorism could NEVER achieve that purpose through terrorism.
Clear reading should make this EVIDENT to you.
There is a difference however between the two positions. You and I are not doing anything close to what the terrorists wish. RAZD is doing and advocating exactly what they wish him to do. I’m sure you realize, as well as I do, that the terrorist’s only hope of victory is to create, by their terror and the use of the media,
ROFLOL. There is also a big difference between what you think my policy is and what it really is (see above for a CLUE).
No, all the terrorist need is for the same old policies of the Schwubbia administration to continue.
... more people in this country exactly like RAZD.
Tell you what -- you reply posting what you think my policy is and I will grade it. Think of it as remedial make-up test with open books, and you are starting with an F-
... otherwise, I have better stuff to do.
Like mis-representing what people are really saying?
Or defending a FAILED policy of the BOTCH Administration that was based on LIES?
Enjoy.

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This message is a reply to:
 Message 148 by petrophysics1, posted 10-17-2006 8:11 AM petrophysics1 has not replied

  
RAZD
Member (Idle past 1435 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 158 of 191 (357355)
10-18-2006 8:48 PM
Reply to: Message 156 by iano
10-18-2006 8:05 PM


Re: There is no "GWOT"
iano, I like you. I don't like people that misrepresent what I am saying.
You are doing that, by using NJ's misrepresentation of my position instead of READING what I am saying.
You had it explained to you 2 or 3 times ...
You have explained your position, and I have said why I think it is wrong. I understand what you are saying, it just IS NOT WORKING, the typical response to terrorists by Botch or Israel or whoever is a TOTAL FAILURE.
Once you understand that tid-bit of reality then you realize it is time to look for a NEW solution, one that deals with WHY people become terrorists, instead of IGNORING that and running after terrorists al the while advertising how successful they were at terrorising you.
For a working program to eliminate terrorists you need to look at programs that HAVE accomplished the elimination of terrorism, not ones that are failures. England and the IRA come to mind for some reason eh?
There is no global "war" on terrorism because each new generation will always have terrorists generated -- BY the "war" on terrorism.
It is a false paradigm, one that is dangerous because it accomplished the opposite of what it thinks it is accomplishing. Look at the rise in terrorism in the last 5 years - it has more than doubled.
What the terrorists are capable of accomplishing is really negligable, insignificant, and pales into pointlessness when you look at the big picture -- unless we ALLOW them to terrorize us.
Look at London in the second world war with V-bomb raining down, but the PEOPLE uncowed, picking up the bits and pieces and carrying on -- and that was FACTORS greater threat to personal life than anything terrorists can throw at BRITAIN to say nothing of throwing at the USof(N)A.
Of course they had a leader, instead of a spoiled prima donna with no principles.
I am not saying ignore the threat, what I am saying is don't ignore the reasons why the threat is there in the first place - treat the cause, not the symptom.
Terrorism is incapable of defeating the ideologies of freedom, justice, liberty, equality, and basic human rights: thus they can only succeed if we give them up.
Enjoy.

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This message is a reply to:
 Message 156 by iano, posted 10-18-2006 8:05 PM iano has not replied

  
RAZD
Member (Idle past 1435 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 165 of 191 (357869)
10-20-2006 10:18 PM
Reply to: Message 160 by Tal
10-20-2006 5:16 PM


Re: There is no "GWOT" (head in the sand)
You are almost correct here. If the Media ignores them, then terrorists have no way to braodcast their message. The media is their biggest weapon.
Now take your head out of the sand and complete that thought. Who has kept this in the media spotlight for the last 5 years? The terrorists or your poor excuse of a president? Thus the president is doing the work of the terrorists.
As a general statement I agree with you on this. But my comment was NOT that generally made.
You claimed a purpose for the terrorists that could not be achieved by the use of terrorism, thus ignoring them would defeat that purpose.
I would say that less than 0/1% were not affected.
Fuzzy on math? Less than 3,000 were killed on 11SEP01 in a nation of just under 300 MILLION, so that is 0.001% of the US population. Many of them were not US citizens either.
While more than 5 times that - 16,000 - were murdered last year in the US by US citizens. And the same for every year after 11SEP01.
I would be more worried about being murdered in the US than about getting killed in a terrorist attack.
Then there were 14 times that from traffic deaths - 42,443 deaths in USA in 2001 - and the same for every year after 11SEP01
I would be much more worried about being in a fatal traffic accident than about getting killed in a terrorist attack.
I guess I don't have to mention 911. They are very capable hitting us.
Take however many attacks you think we've stopped on the US, then multiply that by alot.
Funny thing is, if you had mentioned 26FEB93 you might have made points for being able to connect some of the dots.
1993: World Trade Center bomb terrorises New York
quote:
An emotional Mario Cuomo, New York's state governor, told journalists: "We all have that feeling of being violated. No foreign people or force has ever done this to us. Until now we were invulnerable."
"It felt like an airplane hit the building"
Bruce Pomper, eyewitness
The immense blast happened at 1218 local time in the Secret Service's section of the car park underneath and between what are New York's tallest buildings.
Rahman's organisation, the Islamic Group, is believed to have links to Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, accused of carrying out the 11 September attacks.
Of course most republicans had their collective heads in the sand, because they were more concerned about a blow job than national security.
Multiply zero by as big a number as you want and it is still zero.
Between 26FEB93 and 11SEP01 there were zero terrorist attacks on US soil. That is 8 years and 9 months. With NO added security measures.
Given that record, the fact that there have been none on US soil since 11SEP01 is not surprising -- even without a single security precaution taken since 11SEP01 we would not be "expecting" one.
The Botch administration has made the use of terror such a big part of their political platform that it would be impossible for them to stop a terrorist act and NOT trumpet it to the world so they could show a POSITIVE result.
Conclusion: there have been NO terrorist attacks that the Botch administration has stopped. Good thing, given their general level of accomplishment on any topic they try.
The violence going on in Iraq right now is primarily caused by extremist shia and extremist sunni carryout out attacks against each other; instigated by former bathists and foreign fighters to destabalize the government.
So you agree that they have devolved into civil war between factions due to the removal of government structure by the Botch administration and their failure to comprehend the vacuum they were creating.
But again, this is not what the argument was about. YOU characterised the ones fighting and killing US soldiers as "bad"
Message 124
If you mean he is responsible for soldiers'/sailors'/airmen/marines' deaths in the GWOT, then I'll say that's innacurate. Bad guys with bad toys caused those deaths.
... and that is what my comments relate to, not to the general state of affairs going on in Iraq due to the incompetence of the Botch administration and their lack of understanding.
So you haven't answered the comment in relation to the ones that are fighting and killing US soldiers. You could take your head out of the sand and address the issue eh?
I've talked to many. While there are issues, they are most definately glad we are there and Saddam is out of power.
Many is not ALL. This is pure anecdotal evidence and is self-selecting for only those who say this wanting to say it to you. What they tell other Iraqi we don't know.
Talk to the ones that have had their families blown up by US bombs even though they have had nothing to do with the fighting and the picture is different.
The surveys I have seen that look at the public attitude of all Iraqi in an unbiased manner:
What Iraqis Really Think - Wednesday, September 10, 2003
quote:
They are nervous about democracy. Asked which is closer to their own view--"Democracy can work well in Iraq," or "Democracy is a Western way of doing things"--five out of 10 said democracy is Western and won't work in Iraq.
Asked to name one country they would most like Iraq to model its new government on from five possibilities--neighboring, Baathist Syria; neighbor and Islamic monarchy Saudi Arabia; neighbor and Islamist republic Iran; Arab lodestar Egypt; or the U.S. The U.S. was preferred as a model by 37% of Iraqis selecting from those five. Saudi Arabia was in second place at 28%.
That was 3 years ago. Too bad they didn't choose a constitution or government modeled on the US one ... (oops eh? ... what happened there? Guess those 37% lost out.)
Religious Leaders Ahead in Iraq Poll - Friday, October 22, 2004
quote:
More than 45 percent of Iraqis also believe that their country is heading in the wrong direction, and 41 percent say it is moving in the right direction.
Within the Bush administration, a victory by Iraq's religious parties is viewed as the worst-case scenario.
But in another blow, one out of three Iraqis blames the U.S.-led multinational force for Iraq's security problems, slightly more than the 32 percent who blame foreign terrorists, the poll shows. Only 8 percent blame members of the former government.
And that is still before Abu Ghraib. Before the US was seen as being as bad as Saddam had been.
quote:
A thoroughly unforgiving Iraqi public stated by 74% to 18% that Saddam's henchmen should be punished.
That's not a good place to be.
New Poll: 71 Percent Of Iraqis Want U.S. Forces To Withdraw Within A Year - September 27, 2006
quote:
- A large majority of Iraqis-71%-say they would like the Iraqi government to ask for US-led forces to be withdrawn from Iraq within a year or less. Given four options, 37 percent take the position that they would like US-led forces withdrawn “within six months,” while another 34 percent opt for “gradually withdraw[ing] US-led forces according to a one-year timeline.”
- Support for attacks against US-led forces has increased sharply to 61 percent (27% strongly, 34% somewhat). This represents a 14-point increase from January 2006, when only 47 percent of Iraqis supported attacks.
- More broadly, 79 percent of Iraqis say that the US is having a negative influence on the situation in Iraq, with just 14 percent saying that it is having a positive influence.
Looks like your anecdotal evidence comes from the 1 in 7 Iraqi in that last 14% number ... or it comes from before US popularity shrank to that level.
I've seen the intellegince. I've been to Salmon Pak.
This means nothing, really: you haven't said anything to give your opinion credence. You've seen "something" designed to make you think what you are doing is justified? Have you been to Disney World too?
There is no connection between Iraq and the terrorists behind the trade tower attack. Take you head out of the sand and look at the facts.
So FDR is responsible for all the US Servicemen and innocent German citizens that were killed in WWII?
Yes.
I guess he was responsible for the 6 millions jews that were tossed into ovens too.
No. Don't be silly.
I bet he even signed the order.
With a little work you could try for the stupidest comment on the board award. Or you could take your head out of the sand and look at the facts.
The point is clear: the commander in chief is the one who sends soldiers into harms way, he commits them to a course of actions that result in their deaths and the deaths of innocents.
The justification for it is that this is a lesser evil than not sending them, but that does not alleviate his responsibility for sending them, and it certainly REQUIRES his responsibility for assuring that it IS IN FACT a lesser evil than not sending them.
From the results it looks to me like more evil has been done by invading Iraq that would have occurred without invading Iraq, and it isn't over by half yet.
Another Botch Administration triumph of incompetence eh?
I understand that I took an oath to defend to the Constitution of the United States and to follow the orders of the Commander in Chief. If you are going to follow this logic, you must also blame every member of Congress, for they authorized the invasion, funded it, and continue to fund it.
Notice that you took an oath to follow the orders of the Commander in Chief, and not of congress. Notice that congress did not send the troops to Iraq. Notice that congress was lied to in order to get that authorization. Notice that if you take your head out of the sand and look at who is responsible for troops being in Iraq there is one answer: Schwubbia. The buck stops there.
Oh, you want to marginalize them? How exactly? What master plan do you have up your sleeve to cut off their recruiting? Read some history. BTW if you want to marginalize them, cut off media coverage of thier attacks.
If you would take your head out of the sand you would see that the one person most capable of cutting off media coverage of their attacks is the one person who is making sure they are revisited again and again in the media, every chance he gets.
If you would take your head out of the sand you would see that I already told you how you marginalize them. You deal with the issues that cause people to become terrorists.
Look at history yourself. Look at why the IRA stopped terrorist attacks in England, look at why Hamas got elected in Palestine. The Israel model for fighting terrorists is a failure. Adopting it for Iraq has also been a failure.
Items on thier grievance list: Wipe Israel off the map. Turn the US into an Islam State. Return the Caliphate.
These things will never be irrelevant to them.
Ya gotta love the propoganda regurgitators with their collective heads in the sand eh?
Once again -- it is impossible to force a nation's character to change by making terrorist attacks, so those "grievances" really can be ignored as totally irrelevant and impractical.
What you do to marginalize the terrorists is to make it irrelevant to the rest of the population.
You do that by treating people as people, and work for international standards of freedom, liberty, justice, equality, and respect for basic human rights.
That also means that you don't let the thugs that murder innocents off easy either, but that you deal with them as the criminals they are, and you treat them as the social misfits that they are.
You do NOT glorify them by dedicating a superpower to a "war" against them and constantly trumpet about how much they have terrorised you.
The Botch Administration policy is a FAILED policy, they have created more terrorists than they have destroyed and they have accomplished nothing against the terrorists that attacked the towers -- not once but twice.
Take your head out of the sand and look at the facts.
Enjoy.

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This message is a reply to:
 Message 160 by Tal, posted 10-20-2006 5:16 PM Tal has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 166 by Tal, posted 10-20-2006 10:26 PM RAZD has not replied

  
RAZD
Member (Idle past 1435 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 181 of 191 (359406)
10-27-2006 9:57 PM
Reply to: Message 172 by Tal
10-26-2006 2:51 PM


There still is no "GWOT" (TAL's head is still in the sand)
no amount of information, sourcing, facts, or logical conclusions will matter to someone like RAZD. Saying things like "FDR is responsible for all soldier's deaths is WWII..."
Strawman misrepresentation is the badge of poor debate. FDR was responsible for sending US soldiers to the war, and I'm willing to bet he took responsibility for it and their deaths.
A true leader is responsible for the people he leads. Nor does he try to hide the number of deaths and injuries.
RAZD isn't just in left field, he's not even playing the same game.
And I can't help but notice that you haven't answered a single point I made that refuted your claims, preferring to play this ad hominum card. Another stock in trade badge of a bad argument.
I used information that showed that the majority of Iraqi people were not happy with the US presence (to put it mildly) as opposed to your colloquial anecdote.
You post websites that show obvious bias and poor control in selection of information to include.
Your maps also show more "terrorist" attacks since the invasion of Iraq (early 2003), more change from 2002 (before invasion) to 2003 (after invasion) than from 2001 to 2002 (no influence of invasion). And increasing every year since (the last map has only two months in 2006 and it shows more than in 2001)
Your maps show more attacks on the US in New York Pennsylvania, Florida, Mississippi and California in 2002 than in 2001 - and attacks in Texas in 2003 and 2004. When you click on the 2002 information you see the same table as shown for 2001, and the two Texas items are also the same (1 death?): an obvious doubling up of data? or just poor control? How many other sites are also duplicated in order to make things look worse than they really are?
I can conclude these things from your maps:
  1. There has been a larger increase in terrorism since invading Iraq than there was between 2001 and 2002,
  2. We can't judge the status of terrorist attacks before 2001 because that information is omitted (for reasons of political bias eh?),
  3. We can't separate out the effects of the invasion of Iraq from the worldwide trends in terrorism from this limited data and poor analysis,
  4. There are obvious errors in the data or that it has been incredibly manipulated and stretched to fit an a priori conclusion.
  5. That these maps are essentially useless.
What we DON'T have are any maps of what it would look like without the invasion of Iraq, so that skews the data used no matter how you cut it.
And we still do not have a country called "terrorism" with soldiers and assets to attack, control and conquer, as you need to have a real war (as in the 1st & 2nd war against Germany) in order to bring an end to hostilities from that country. As such there can be no end to this conflict misrepresented as "war on terror" through military means, objectives, actions or whatever, no matter how long or how many people you involve in it or resources you throw at it.
You can only end terrorism through social means, including police actions and the application of basic human rights, freedoms, equality and justice. That is what has worked in the past, that is what will work in the future. Every place a "military" type action is used the terrorism gets worse. Therefore "war" is not only a BAD model it is the WRONG model if not the WORST model to use.
A lesson we (should have) learned from Vietnam is that politicians should not run a war. Otherwise we would have 536 different views on how to run a given operation. This is the opposite of the principle of war known as "unity of command." There is 1 man that is Commander in Chief of the armed forces.
What is really humorous about this is that you substitute 1 politician for 536 ... and don't say why he\she should be any better informed, rational or capable of making the correct decisions.
The benefit of having more than one person involved in decisions of national importance is that you lessen the likelihood of having someone make a completely foolish decision. And the evidence is that Schwubbia makes little else.
If they are talking about a phased withdrawl of troops, well that has been the plan all along.
There are these basic things to consider:
  1. What happens if we withdraw as soon as possible (to get our people out safely)?
  2. Is that happening already?
  3. If YES, then withdrawing doesn't make it any worse and may make it better.
  4. and if so then why not proceed with (1) now?
  5. If NO, then:
  6. Will our staying make things better or worse?
  7. If WORSE, then when do we reach the point in (3)?
  8. and then when do we proceed with (1)?
  9. If BETTER, then what defines when things are "good enough" that we proceed with (1) anyway?
All paths lead to (1) - OR to staying "indefinitely" forever. But without defining the steps that get you out of the situation the default decision is to stay "indefinitely" forever. It's like the old hackneyed slogan "If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail" - and that is certainly what we have been seeing so far from the Botch Administration eh?
Is Iraq really any different than Afghanistan, where it seems things have been declared "good enough" that we can leave?
What would change if we withdrew from Iraq being replaced by NATO troops, but stayed in Afghanistan?
I don't know what information you are using to come up with this, but US troop levels are staying at around 20,000. We are not extricating ourselves. We are simply trying to share the burden with our allies, which is what allies generally do.
I think you may have mis-read something somewhere.
Are you saying that we are not withdrawing or reducing troops in any way from Afghanistan, but that there are massive reinforcements by NATO troops moving into the area?
You mean we are losing Afghanistan the same way we lost Iraq (poor leadership, mismanagement, bad decisions, etcetera - in case you were wondering)?
Or are you misrepresenting something here (again).
Enjoy.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
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This message is a reply to:
 Message 172 by Tal, posted 10-26-2006 2:51 PM Tal has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 182 by Tal, posted 10-27-2006 11:37 PM RAZD has replied

  
RAZD
Member (Idle past 1435 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 189 of 191 (359689)
10-29-2006 5:14 PM
Reply to: Message 182 by Tal
10-27-2006 11:37 PM


Re: There still is no "GWOT" (TAL's head is still in the sand)
One thing it means is that your source is either dishonest or incompetent or ignorant or deluded or whatever at providing good information with intelligent analysis.
One thing it means is that you prefer evidence from such sites, even when the obvious errors are pointed out.
You have refuted no posts that invalidate your claims, and all you have left is this little nit-nat type {reduced to rediculous comment} post:
Any point to that post?
That you have no point left to your posts. They've been refuted and you are unable to defend them further.
Enjoy.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
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RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
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This message is a reply to:
 Message 182 by Tal, posted 10-27-2006 11:37 PM Tal has not replied

  
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