Bush's War on Terror is a Colossal Failure

[Jives]

Fact: America is a country that values freedom.

Fact: That freedom even extends to people that want to criticize our country.

Fact: America is the single most generous nation on Earth.

Fact: I love this country and enjoy living here.

[Jives]

I just thought of something....the "War on Drugs has not been completely successful either. So should we stop fighting it and just tell all the children to go out and get some crack cocaine?

No.

We fight the war on drugs because drugs are bad and destroy lives. You just can't condone that behavior since it's about death and not life.

So we fight the war on terror for the same reason. It's bad and it destroys lives. It doesn't matter if we are not winning it. It doesn't even matter if it can never be won.

Good will always fight evil, that's the nature of the Universe.

[Clint]

Jives wrote: I just thought of something....the "War on Drugs has not been completely successful either. So should we stop fighting it and just tell all the children to go out and get some crack cocaine?

No.

We fight the war on drugs because drugs are bad and destroy lives. You just can't condone that behavior since it's about death and not life.

So we fight the war on terror for the same reason. It's bad and it destroys lives. It doesn't matter if we are not winning it. It doesn't even matter if it can never be won.

Good will always fight evil, that's the nature of the Universe.
Excellent point Jives. We don’t lose until we give up.

[Adam Zapple]

TW, after reading the article my scorecard reads as follows:

Fact: 2

Distorted half-truths: 6

Opinion: 5

Conjecture: 4

False: 4

[Accountable]

Adam Zapple wrote: TW, after reading the article my scorecard reads as follows:

Fact: 2

Distorted half-truths: 6

Opinion: 5

Conjecture: 4

False: 4
:yh_shame Foul in the thread!

:yh_silent Illegal use of support!

Offense (AZ) must restate assertion with support.

LOSS OF POINT

[Adam Zapple]

Illegal use of support!


Would it be better if I cut and paste an op-ed piece as my basis of fact and support?

[BTS]

TW2005 wrote:





Madrid: 191 dead. Beslan: 330 murdered, half of them children. Riyadh and Jeddah: more than 100 killed. London: about 50 massacred. Then there's the daily terror of Iraq, where more than 700 people have been killed in the last month alone.





There is no easy answer to how we should proceed. But a dose of honesty would be a good start.



Haroon Siddiqui is the Star's editorial page editor emeritus.OK.





You want honesty??????

How does that line go?

"You can't handle honesty"



How about this..... who killed these 1371 innocents? GW Bush? Tony Blair? You? Me?.............. NO, It was terrorist.

So are these murders Americas fault? If so ...Why.

Did we start this jihad? If so... How?....Should we lay on are ass's and let them just cut our throats? Please tell us all how this is Americas fault with facts not opinion..........

Thank you.

[Accountable]

Adam Zapple wrote: Would it be better if I cut and paste an op-ed piece as my basis of fact and support?
What do you agree is fact?

What are you alleging is half-truth, opinions, or lies?

[turbonium]

TW - are you an ex-pat German living in the US, or are you in Germany? Just an aside out of curiostiy, as I note the German flag is in your id tag.......

[Adam Zapple]

Well, that the article is an op-ed piece reveals that it is by definition a published opinion of a columnist. No doubt the author is entitled to his opinion and certainly his conjectures are formed through his worldview as he believes it, but unless his claims can be undeniably verified they are not fact, but opinion and conjecture. But I'll give a short explanation of my previous post:

Madrid: 191 dead. Beslan: 330 murdered, half of them children. Riyadh and Jeddah: more than 100 killed. London: about 50 massacred.


Fact. I'll give him the first two. They sound reasonable and accurate and are easily verified so I concede.

Then there's the daily terror of Iraq, where more than 700 people have been killed in the last month alone.


Fact.



Our leaders respond with revulsion and resolve, as they must, when the tragedy hits closer to home.


On deeper reflection, this is more of an personal observation than verifiable fact or opinion. Seems to have a hidden charge of hypocrisy but perhaps I'm wrong. In any case, Bush and Blair have shown resolve even when attacks are away from home. If you want to call it a fact, I won't argue.

They walk the fine line between increasing security and causing panic, between feeling our pain and exploiting it.


Conjecture. And bad conjecture. I haven't seen the slightest hint of public panic from Americans or Brits during the increases in security. In what way do they exploit our pain? Certainly this is not fact.

Officials who need to be seen to be doing something are, on TV.


Half-truth: Certainly some politicians mug for the camera but many others are working tediously behind the scenes to ensure public safety and find the perpetrators of these heinous acts.

Breathless reporters, anchors and "security experts" spout scary scenarios, pontificate about the latest terrorist group about which they know nothing, and recycle such vacuous phrases as the "vertical vs. horizontal command structure" of Al Qaeda and its "metastasizing" cells.


Opinion.

Islam bashers renew their racist demand as to what Muslims are going to do about the horror.


False. What makes this statement false is the suggestion that it is racist to ask peaceful Muslims to publicly stand against radical Islamic terrorists. Or that it is "Islam bashing" to do so. This statement is false and patently ridiculous.

But once we get past all that, and the empty editorials, what are we left with? This:

The war on terror has been a monumental failure. In fact, it has made matters worse.

You could see that in the words of George W. Bush and Tony Blair after the London blasts.

They contrasted the dastardly acts of the terrorists with their own good deeds for Africa and the environment. True but irrelevant. The terrorists are not from Africa and they don't care about gas emissions.

Blair added: "We will not allow violence to change our values and our way of life." And Anne McLellan parroted: "We will defend our way of life."


Opinion. Strictly opinion.

This is a Bush-ian formulation: they hate us because we are free. It cleverly obviates any need for self-scrutiny.


Conjecture. This is the authors conclusion of any "Bushian" formula but it is not fact.



Terrorists, if they are to be believed, are targeting us because of our policies in Muslim lands. Thursday's communiqué made that clear enough.


Partial-truth. Terrorists have given many reasons behind their attacks and this is just one of them. Another is that we are not Muslims. If we totally withdrew from the Middle East and let them destroy Israel, it would only strengthen their determination to return the Caliphate and we would still be fighting terrorism. The prongs of their hatred are many.

Terrorists also have already changed our way of life.


Partial truth and weak. Our way of life has only been impacted in a most miniscule way, such as hassles getting through airport security. I haven't flown in years so they haven't changed my way of life on iota.

Abu Ghraib. Guantanamo Bay. Secret prisons abroad. "Renditions." Torture. Assassinations. CIA abductions, even on the friendly soil of Italy.

Fear still rules America. Even after waging a war on false pretences, Bush can find refuge from low approval ratings by continuing to link Iraq to 9/11, as he did the other day before ” where else? ” military cadets.


False. Propaganda. Fear doesn't rule America. The left has been beating this drum for years and it is pure horse-hockey.

Our own governments are invading our privacy, suspending civil liberties, criminalizing entire communities and repeatedly exhorting us to be "vigilant," thereby risking vigilantism, the anti-thesis of the rule of law.

All this may be excusable if it were making us any safer.


False. This is the biggest load in the whole article.

Combine this with the other failed elements of the war on terror, and you can see why we don't feel reassured by even the Churchillian calls of Blair ("We shall prevail and they shall not") and Bush ("We'll find them, we'll bring them to justice.")


Opinion.

Paul Martin and other leaders, cowered into co-operating with Bush, need to start saying that the emperor has no clothes.


Opinion. It's what they need to do in his view.

Terrorists used to be spawned in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Now they mushroom in Iraq, even Europe.


Partial truth. Terrorism has been spawned globally for decades.



Far from being "in its last throes," as Dick Cheney claims, the insurgency in Iraq is getting worse. Iraq is also sliding into civil war and lawlessness.


Opinion.



Condoleezza Rice, helicoptered in and out of the walled American headquarters in Baghdad, urges Arabs to send envoys to Iraq but it is they who are getting slaughtered, as the Egyptian one has just been.


Half-truth. Doesn't paint a complete picture. Implies their deaths are on the hands of Condy Rice. Those envoys are needed to legitimize the Iraqi government who also wants them there. They should be there. Perhaps if the author turned his passion against those actually doing the slaughtering....

If Iraq is indeed "vital to the future security" of America ” and, by extension, all of us ” as Bush says, he has made it so.


Opinion

In Afghanistan, where the war was won long ago, the war goes on. Civilians still die under "friendly fire," prompting even the American puppet Hamid Karzai to complain publicly. Raids on civilians continue, alienating even more people.


Conjecture



It's not just the Muslims who are up in arms, as a worldwide poll by the Pew Research Center shows. China's image is now better than America's. Canadians lead those who think of Americans as violent. The biggest reason cited for the widespread anti-Americanism is Bush and his policies.


Conjecture. Polls are not fact. Conclusions drawn from polls are conjecture.

There is no easy answer to how we should proceed. But a dose of honesty would be a good start.


Again, opinion.

That one may agree with the author doesn't make his statements factual. It is merely shared opinion. I didn't have my scorecard in front of me and didn't compare results but you get my drift.

[Bothwell]

TW, this small group of hardline muslims will wreak havoc wherever they can, if allied troops were out of every Arab country tomorrow they would wage the war against the so called moderates whithin their own countries. Once Saddam had gone it was open season for the heart of Iraq, these hard liners will show no tolerance even whithin their own religion if it does not conform to their interpretation.

This will not end if and when western troops are out of the middle east, I am always wary when I hear our leaders or generals who occassionaly slip and say this is a war against Islam, but beleive me the fanatics see it as exactly that and it suits their purpose.

IMO the urban terrorism will weaken any (if they had any) support amongst the allied nations, it certainly will here in the UK. What is their endgame, they cannot possibly win, if I had to take a guess the less fanatical elements will already be reaching out through intermediaries to the coalition if they have not already done so. The coalition must accept this however distasteful and marginalise and isolate the hard core.

[Accountable]

Adam Zapple wrote: That one may agree with the author doesn't make his statements factual. It is merely shared opinion. I didn't have my scorecard in front of me and didn't compare results but you get my drift.


GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL! :yh_hugs

It's mostly conjecture and opinion. It's really all we have, isn't it, TW? I can't overemphasize the irrelevance of rehashing who started it and Bush said/Ahmed said rants.

The question now is, what now?

[Jives]

Nice work by Adam in disassembling that "factual" post. There's a good lesson for posters:

Just because someone else says it is a fact doesn't mean it really is. People love to post extraneous / useless info and call it a "fact".

[Jives]

TW2005 wrote: If it doesn't agree with Bush and his ignorant administration....it's false!


Hold the phone there, TW. I personally hate the guy. I can't stand Bush, he is unpresidential, and usually comes off looking like an idiot to the rest of the world in his speeches. I quote, "The problem with Israel is that ...they have a problem."

Worse yet, his actions are dangerous and unpredictable. i can't wait till 2008 to vote his butt out.

But at the same time, I love my country. America is the best thing going on the planet. My party lost the election, so now I will support my president, no matter how much that galls me. That's the American way. so just because people defend their country, doesn't necessarily make them "Bush lackeys". Get it?

I guess we can all agree that only time will tell?


and isn't that the truth. No matter how bad it is now it will either be worse in the future or better.

[Accountable]

TW2005 wrote: Actual Text From 9/11 comission:

"There were more than 40 intelligence articles in the PDB's (presidents daily briefing) from January 20, 2001 to Septemebr 10, 2001 that related to Bin Laden...........In early May the FBI claimed that there was a plan to lauch multiple attacks on London, Boston and New York......" another report stated that, "operative might HIJACK an aircraft or storm an Embassy." "On June 25th, 2001, Clarke warned Rice and Hadley that six seperate intelligence reports show that al Qaeda personnelwarning of a pending attack." In July, 2001, intelligence report from al Qaeda warned that something very very very very big was going to happen."



It also states that there was no 100% piece that stated a date or where the events might happen. But the intelligence that was recieved did state that Hijacking of aircrafts was possible.

Yet airport security was not increased when they learned about the possiblity of Hijackings of airplanes. The Hijackers walked on the planes with knives. And from there we know the rest. Truly sad.





Looks like thats what Bush and his Admin. did and now we are paying for it.
Wow. My back hurts just watching you stretch like that. I would like to know how many hundreds of predictions of future attacks come through that office every week. How does one sift through and decide which are viable threats and which are not? Until I've had the training the intelligence people have had, I'm just not comfortable second-guessing them.

One thing I am sure of: The knives the hijackers boarded with were legal. The most massive increas in security would not have stopped those knives from getting on board.

(Gee, I'm pretty proud of myself not mentioning the analogy I got while reading this post of a parent being arrested for assault and child abuse because his kid wrecked his bike on a tree root the parent knew about but did nothing!) :sneaky:

[Accountable]

TW2005 wrote: Hundreds most likely come in. But not all make thier way to Bush's desk. But the ones that make it to the president are very serious and real and are often acted upon. 40 made it to him concerning planes and al Qaeda and Bin Laden in some form. 40 made their way to his desk and were not taken seriously. 40 concerning the future events that took place on 9/11 were not looked into more indepth. Most of the threats that come in are related to eachother in some form.
Point taken.





You have got to be kidding me. They were box cutters with blades that were long enough to kill people. Thats not serious??? Legal knives or not, the fact that any kinfe with a blade that is more than an inch long can KILL and be used as a forcible weapon!!! Box cutters are bigger than fingernail clippers. You can't take fingernail clippers on planes now, and those don't even have blades on them!!! To say that "the most massive increase in security in the world would not have stopped those knives from getting on board" that is a very bold and ignorant statement.
My apologies. The most massive realistic increase in security in the world would not have stopped those knives from getting on board. The only reason knives are not allowed today is because of 9/11. Those circumstances were not considered realistic before then. Bold yes, but hardly ignorant.

[Accountable]

TW2005 wrote: I can't help but think that if I were a Airport security person that I would let someone get onboard with a box cutter. When you go through metal detectors, a box cutter will sound the alarm. How they missed this is beyond me.
Knives with blades up to four inches were allowed. Four inches is a really big knife.



And look at the consequences.
We rolls our dice, we takes our chances. I would rather lose another 3000 rather than give up the freedoms represented by 4 inches of steel.

[Jives]

TW2005 wrote: What I don't understand then, is how can you support a guy you "hate, can't stand" who is "unpresidential and comes off looking like an idiot to the rest of the world?"


I don't support him, I support my country. He just happens to be leading it right now.

He represents you and me....In turn he makes you, me and the rest of the American people look foolish.


True. But there have been bad presidents before, worse than Bush even. How about james Buchannon? Or Warren G. harding? Both were not only weak, confused leaders, but also seriously corrupt. America survived them both and we will survive Bush's reign.

I understand that you love the USA and that believe it's the best thing going. But, how can you support a guy who manipulated the US into this war?


Simple. He's the President. When you say support, don't think I'm out there carrying "Bush is Great " signs. I just don't second guess his every decision and actively try to undermine his leadership.

To me thats ludicrous.


The U.S. has good times and bad times just like all the other countries. The best part of our system is that if we get a poor or weak president, we can get rid of him four years later. No matter what Bush does, we will have a new president in three years. then We can repair the damage. Until then, any whining won't change a thing.



To me, it doesn't seem to be getting any better since the beginning of the WOT.[/QUOTE]