We can speculate on and on. While it looks fishy at times, the intelligence agencies are usually smart enough at least to cover their own tracks when concocting something. So I don't think we'll ever know 100%. Frankly I don't much care.
The point is that we were at the very least willing to look like liars if/when we found nothing. It's plain that we just needed an excuse to get in there that the world would buy in the short run. So the debate would be, at best, muted, and mostly coming from France (who we ignore anyhow).
The fact is that the damage is done. Now we have to deal with the perception. Right or wrong.
Mike
US Bashing
Well I work for an US agency, politics is odd at best, it isn't so much paranoia as that each person in control has their own agenda.Skipjack wrote:Being the paranoid that I am, I cant help wondering how the supposedly best intelligence agencies in the world could make such mistakes.
If I was not being such a politically correct person (loughs), I might feel tempted to suggest that there was intent in this false information.
Truth be told most of what we see as a 'conspiracy' is nothing more than someones agenda and ego pushing to do things their way, even if it isn't wise.
Last edited by gblaze42 on Mon Nov 24, 2008 9:40 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Sorry for cross posting.
I just remembered one more thing:
If it was just about removing Saddam Hussein or the Husseins in general from the picture, it would have been much better to use a secret service to take care of that, or at least some targetted attacks. That would have kept collateral damage to a minimum and would have been a lot cheaper too. They tried hitting him with bombs during the 2nd war, but that was lame, since he knew they were coming for him and hiding somewhere.
I just remembered one more thing:
If it was just about removing Saddam Hussein or the Husseins in general from the picture, it would have been much better to use a secret service to take care of that, or at least some targetted attacks. That would have kept collateral damage to a minimum and would have been a lot cheaper too. They tried hitting him with bombs during the 2nd war, but that was lame, since he knew they were coming for him and hiding somewhere.
The law of war is guilty until proven innocent.One more thing to consider about Guatanamo and that is what I hate about it the most. People are kept there without a process. Innocent until proven guilty. That is the law, but not there.
OTOH a number of folks released from Gitmo have been found dead on the battle field. So maybe all the "innocent" are not innocent.
Gitmo is an incentive not to kill everyone found on a battlefield.
Be careful what you ask for.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
This conversation got me investigating WWII monuments.
I found this one that the French created for us to honor our Rangers...
Pointe Du Hoc Monument
... you just can't put that kind of gratitude into words.
I found this one that the French created for us to honor our Rangers...
Pointe Du Hoc Monument
... you just can't put that kind of gratitude into words.
Last edited by seedload on Mon Nov 24, 2008 9:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
seedload's seventh picture was taken at the Colleville cemetary. This piece of American soil is less than a one-hour drive from our home. We brought our two daughters there, now that they are old enough to understand (they are 9 and 11). If you ever go there, you will see many visitors from the US, from France and from all over Europe, despite it is not exactly an amusement park but a place for contemplation and memory. From the number of visitors, you will understand that European anti-americanism is mostly fear-mongering reinforced by the media. You sell more paper with the image of fools burning a US flag than with that of families quietly walking through a cemetary.
The American civil war made 600,000 casualties (2% of the population), more than the sum of all the wars that followed.
WWI killed 1.7 million people in France (4% of the population and 20% of the men in the 19-27 year range) .
WWII killed 7.3 million people in Germany (10% of the population) and 23 million in the Soviet Union (13% of the population).
That does not undermine the courage of US soldiers nor the impact of the US military and industry in WWII.
All nations have their traumas and the knowledge of these helps understand their differences.alexjrgreen wrote:Everybody takes casualties in war
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties
The American civil war made 600,000 casualties (2% of the population), more than the sum of all the wars that followed.
WWI killed 1.7 million people in France (4% of the population and 20% of the men in the 19-27 year range) .
WWII killed 7.3 million people in Germany (10% of the population) and 23 million in the Soviet Union (13% of the population).
That does not undermine the courage of US soldiers nor the impact of the US military and industry in WWII.
Last edited by olivier on Mon Nov 24, 2008 9:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
The deal is: governments keep secrets. Some times even from themselves. Saddam thought he had WMDs. And the intel agencies - if Saddam thinks he has them he must have them.Skipjack wrote:Being the paranoid that I am, I cant help wondering how the supposedly best intelligence agencies in the world could make such mistakes.
If I was not being such a politically correct person (loughs), I might feel tempted to suggest that there was intent in this false information.
So lets see: in Iraq everyone was lying to everyone. How do you sort that out?
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
You have spoken to the Egyptian Government about this? I'm sure they will be interested in your concern.torture is torture and that is nothing that should exist in the 21st century.
You have spoken to the Iranian Government about this? I'm sure they will be interested in your concern.
I nominate France to clear up the torture problem in Egypt and perhaps Belgium could have a go at Iran.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
Thank You, Olivier.olivier wrote:seedload's seventh picture was taken at the Colleville cemetary. This piece of American soil is less than a one-hour drive from our home. We brought our two daughters there, now that they are old enough to understand (they are 9 and 11). If you ever go there, you will see many visitors from the US, from France and from all over Europe, despite it is not exactly an amusement park but a place for contemplation and memory. From the number of visitors, you will understand that European anti-americanism is mostly fear-mongering reinforced by the media. You sell more paper with the image of fools burning a US flag than with that of families quietly walking through a cemetary.All nations have their traumas and the knowledge of these helps understand their differences.alexjrgreen wrote:Everybody takes casualties in war
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties
The American civil war made 600,000 casualties (2% of the population), more than the sum of all the wars that followed.
WWI killed 1.7 million people in France (4% of the population and 20% of the men in the 19-27 year range) .
WWII killed 7.3 million people in Germany (10% of the population) and 23 million in the Soviet Union (13% of the population).
That does not undermine the courage of US soldiers nor the impact of the US military and industry in WWII.
Your words are quite refreshing. My perceptions are probably as clouded by media filters as some other peoples perceptions are about us.
BTW, sorry for the previous post in which I mock the Ranger Monument, but it is pretty hard to imagine that someone didn't think that one through. I do think that The Statue of Liberty is quite sharp.
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ravingdave
- Posts: 650
- Joined: Wed Jun 27, 2007 2:41 am
Nanos wrote:> Until he invaded Kuwait, Iraq was a "friend" of the west.
> was in their financial interests to oppose the US messing
> up their gravy train.
From what I see, the US wanted the gravy train all to itself, which is why during the invasion stage they was happy to let everything be looted, so they sell the people shiney new American made goods instead..
> The solution ?
>
> Make them prosperous.
I quite agree there.
> It CAN be done in the Western Style Democracy free capitalistic society
Hmmm... I'm less sure there..
> A large middle class is the major cause of stability in any nation
I'd agree with that too.
> Solve the prosperity problem in Iraq, and you will likely solve
> the Terrorist Problem in the middle east. You will also likely solve
> the immigration problems in Europe.
Agreed on all counts there.
..
Well, on the plus side (at least from my perspective) you agree with some of my assesment.
I might be mistaken, but I didn't just jump to my conclusions, I've thought them out carefully over a long period of time.
Nanos wrote:>
But, lets not forget home grown terrorists, why do we have those if our countries are so great... ?
..
Well, here in the US, domestic terrorism doesn't appear to me to be terribly common. In the case of the Weather Underground, at least Bill Ayers was a spoiled rotten little rich brat that wanted to challenge authority (as was popular with spoiled rotten rich brats in the 1960s) while Timothy McVeigh had some notion of the US government having become Tyranical and killing Innocent people at Waco and Ruby Ridge ( How "innocent" they were seems to always get swept under the carpet) and he theoretically did it for revenge, mainly of the Waco incident.
Neither of them were religious fanatics, though McVeigh would probably be closer to being one. Ironically enough, McVeigh murdered his own cause along with the other 168 people in the OK City Federal building.
It is my opinion that it is IMPOSSIBLE to get rid of the poor, since poor is entirely relative to middle class and rich. It's like the old joke about an insurance computer determining how to eliminate falls down stairs with the data that most falls occur on the top and bottom steps.Nanos wrote:>
Its because we screw the poor for every penny.. sure we have a wealthy middleclass, but its at the expense of the poor which they exploit that its created. Not because the middleclass happen to be really good hairdressers or bakers..
If we had no poor and just had the majority as middleclass, then I imagine we'd get rid of a lot of our own domestic trouble.
..
The computer's answer ? Remove the top and bottom steps.
We have the richest poor in the world. Poor richer and better fed than kings. It's not lack of material that make the poor poor, it's their status vis a vis people higher up the income chain.
Nanos wrote:>
Which, in all honesty, I don't see disappering from the likes of Iraq as we replace one dictator with another under a different name, so that for the poor people at the bottom there isn't any change..
In fact, the change so far, the majority poor (even though they are being killed off at a rather high rate..) are even poorer than when Saddam was in power!
I don't know what it is, its either the lack of hospital supplies, or the huge increase in price of petrol and fuel... but for some in Iraq life is back to normal, even better, so we hear from those people, but not the ones living in abject povety..
Kinda reminds me of the homeless in my own country, we rarely get to hear from them how great our democracy is working in making sure they aren't poor..
And with thousands every week loosing their homes due to the mortgage situation, our poor are getting poorer..
Some might say, we'd be better off with our own version of Saddam..
There is a certain threshold beyond which nothing will work. Some level of the population will always be poor, and some portion will always be rich. Communism can fix this by making everyone the same degree of poor, except the people who cheat, and they become the new wealthy.
(party leadership)
Optimization is the idea that you can't get 100% but you can maximize your bad circumstances be it crime, poor, losses from heat, etc.
David
I am sorry I cant follow what you are trying to say here. Have you been smoking that stuff again?You have spoken to the Egyptian Government about this? I'm sure they will be interested in your concern.
You have spoken to the Iranian Government about this? I'm sure they will be interested in your concern.
I nominate France to clear up the torture problem in Egypt and perhaps Belgium could have a go at Iran.
JK
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ravingdave
- Posts: 650
- Joined: Wed Jun 27, 2007 2:41 am
MSimon wrote:So almost true. And yet we are now trying to head off trouble (you can question the tactics) and the Euros don't like that either.Will I get labeled as unpatriotic if I say that the above propaganda won't convince anyone to stop bashing the US? If the Europeans know their history, they know that we didn't enter WWII until there was an eminent threat to us in the form of an attack on US soil. We weren't fighting their war, we were fighting for our own survival.
But hating America (the provincials) is not some recent European sport. It goes back to well before 1776.
BTW the Euros don't know their history. Neither do most Americans. We were de facto at war with the German Navy from the Summer of 1941 on. See The Reuben James.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Reuben_James_(DD-245)
People are also forgetting the Lend/Lease program (march 11, 1941) and destroyers for bases agreement. (sept 2nd, 1940) Also the secret technology transfers between England and the US. (August 20, 1940)
David
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ravingdave
- Posts: 650
- Joined: Wed Jun 27, 2007 2:41 am
Do I detect MSimon actually supporting a culture war ?MSimon wrote:We are never going to get significant military help from any of the Euros save Britain.
So it is really pointless to care what they think.
In any case the real war is a culture war. And the wrong side is winning in Europe. They are back to hating Jews and loving Arabs.
OTOH America is winning the culture war in Iraq. A majority of Iraqis think that the American invasion was a good thing overall.
Simon
David