BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied

Subject: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: Peter T.
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 03:26 PM

It is increasingly hard to imagine that we are dealing with the America of Gary Cooper and John Wayne. The basic image is now of a scared child cowering in the corner. President Obama goes on TV twice to say, "Great and proud nations don't hunker down and hide behind walls of suspicion and mistrust" -- immediately followed by "WE ARE AT WAR!!" (George W. returns!) -- with a new vast enemy made up of a bunch of Yemenis and a Nigerian who can barely set himself on fire! DON'T PANIC! LET ME PANIC FOR YOU!!! Vast new resources are to be deployed in all directions, every piece of information on earth is to be funnelled through the National Security Agency, and bodyscans will proliferate. You really have to wonder how this insanity will end.

The point of terrorism is to terrify people. It sure is working on big, tough America.
yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: katlaughing
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 03:31 PM

Peter, I don't know what's come over you unless it is residual effects of the shrub for eight years, but I wish you'd go back to writing Beauty with thought for the day threads instead of sitting up "there" and writing such general claptrap as you've done recently. A person cannot undue the catastrophic mess of eight years in one fell swoop...nobody has given him a chance since he was sworn in just one year ago.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: Bill D
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 03:39 PM

Funny how people can listen to the same speech and 'hear' totally different things. He sounded clear and focused to me, and the antithesis of 'panicked'.

"Vast new resources are to be deployed in all directions, every piece of information on earth is to be funnelled through the National Security Agency, and bodyscans will proliferate. "

I heard NOTHING in what he said to warrant those remarks.

Who have you been getting your analysis from, Peter?

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: Wesley S
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 04:11 PM

I for one was waiting with baited breath to find out what Peter and the other Canadians were thinking about this situation. Now that I know I can go on with my life and think about more important things. Like - whats for dinner tonight?

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: CarolC
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 04:17 PM

You really have to wonder how this insanity will end.

It ends with the bankrupting of this country. Which is what the right-wingers who are goading Obama into using language like that want. When the country goes bankrupt, the dominionist churches can (and fully intend to) step in and take over the whole show.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: Peter T.
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 04:59 PM

Gee, and here I thought I was being beautifully restrained.....

(we druids have a tough time of it).

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 05:28 PM

Heh! My reaction to this incredible farce is the same as yours, Peter.

The American elephant (or is it a T-Rex?) continues flailing away madly at pesky bees, furiously battling the outer symptoms of the national illness but not addressing, treating, or even acknowledging the cause of it...which is America's imperial foreign policy of the last 60 years or so in the Middle East. Their flailings at the angry bees they have provoked by their nutbar foreign policy will inevitably provoke further aggravated symptoms of the illness, further isolated attacks by infuriated young Muslim men, and the illness will worsen.

Obama has jumped right into Bush's tarpit. It's easier to get into a tarpit than to get back out of it.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: Bill D
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 06:14 PM

I'm curious, Peter & Little Hawk....did you actually hear all of Obama's speech yesterday? And did you listen to any analysis of it?.... or are these comments based on what you, personally, thought about his speech?

...and I guess a secondary question is: Did you hear nothing new in yesterday's speech, compared to your opinion about strategy & policy BEFORE yesterday?

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: katlaughing
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 06:24 PM

Or is it just a Canadian thing?:-)

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 06:28 PM

I see all the rhetoric as a means to ease the rift between those 20% who seek civil war and assasination in the USA (to preserve it) and those who seek some kind of world peace (to preserve all life on Earth).

Its a razor's edge out there boys.


Real Americans are the same as Real Germans. I saw what the half witted Bush supporters did with their power when they got an ounce of arm band authority and cash pay offs. They went after their neighbors first.WITH A VENGENCE.

Obama may refer to foreign threats but he is balancing the domestic threats with each remark you here him say.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: artbrooks
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 06:55 PM

Interesting. I guess that there was a different speech made for Canadian audiences. Here is the actual test of yesterday's speech.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: katlaughing
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 07:27 PM

Peter, you might do well with more research, also. One man cannot do much without backup from the Congress:

From NPR

Congress Under Scrutiny Over Detroit Bomb Plot

by Andrea Seabrook

January 8, 2010

When members of Congress return from their holiday break, lawmakers will be delving into the intelligence and security lapses that allowed a would-be bomber, laden with explosives, to board an airplane bound for the United States.

But some people are pointing their fingers right back at Congress. Did lawmakers do everything in their power to prevent the Christmas Day bomb attempt and future attacks?

"I'm, in a weird way, sort of glad we had this moment one more time to examine this issue," says Bob Kerrey, a former senator and member of the 9/11 Commission. The commission took a bipartisan look at what went wrong before the Sept. 11 attacks and issued detailed recommendations.

"In 2004 when we made our recommendations, Congress very quickly, with an overwhelming affirmative vote, reformed the executive branch. And I don't think [it] mustered 15 votes to reform itself," he says.

One of the commission's most urgent recommendations was for Congress to reorganize its oversight of intelligence and security agencies. Today, six years after the commission's report, Congress has mostly ignored that recommendation.

The commission also urged the Transportation Security Administration and Congress to give priority attention to improving the ability of screening checkpoints to detect explosives on passengers.

"We didn't do it," says Kerrey.

The results: undetected explosives; no chief of the TSA because of a political fight in the Senate; and a convoluted oversight process in Congress that few can unravel.

Former Rep. Lee Hamilton was vice chairman of the 9/11 Commission. He says Congress has not centralized oversight of homeland security, as called for by the commission.

"The jurisdiction is split among dozens, really, of committees and subcommittees," says Hamilton.

Hamilton now heads the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, a Washington think tank. He says in 2008, officials from the Department of Homeland Security attended more than 370 congressional hearings. They gave more than 5,000 briefings to members of Congress.

"That really is an absurdity," he says. "When you have that many people involved in the oversight process in the Congress, it greatly dilutes it. Nobody has the clout and strength to push through improvements. It's just too diffuse and too decentralized."

There was one big change that followed the recommendations. When Democrats took control of Congress in 2006 and Nancy Pelosi became House speaker, she set up a brand-new committee called the Select Intelligence Oversight Panel. She put New Jersey Democrat Rush Holt in charge of it.

The panel is an unusual creature, Holt says, because it combines powers that are usually kept separate in Congress: overseeing an agency and funding it. He says the 9/11 Commission specifically recommended giving Congress more control over the somewhat autonomous intelligence agencies.

"They felt they would give the committee enough clout that the intelligence heads couldn't... well, couldn't blow them off," says Holt.

Holt says in the three years the new panel has operated, it has improved oversight of domestic surveillance, covert operations and other areas — so it has been partially successful.

"The oversight is stronger," says Holt. "Sure, there was occasional oversight before, but not as strong as it is now. Now, is it good enough? Of course not. Obviously things aren't working right or we wouldn't have had the Christmas bombing that only the diligence and bravery of the people onboard stopped."

No comparable oversight mechanism has been established in the Senate.

Moreover, there are those who argue against implementing the 9/11 Commission recommendations. Heather Wilson, a former Republican representative from New Mexico, has focused on national security for much of her career.

"The idea that centralizing oversight improves oversight, I think, is not necessarily true," she says. Lots of lawmakers have ideas about how intelligence agencies should be run, she says, and they don't all have the expertise to back up their opinions. Wilson says she believes there's a reason intelligence professionals are just that — professionals.

But Wilson does think there's a problem with oversight whenever you have an executive branch and a legislative branch controlled by the same party. She saw that in the Bush years, and she's seeing it now.

"Can you imagine what these hearings coming up in January would be like if this was a Republican president, and the secretary of homeland security had said the system worked?" says Wilson. "I mean this would be a firestorm on Capitol Hill. And it is so much more muted."

While lawmakers prepare for hearings next week, Wilson and others hope they can set aside politics as much as possible and figure out how to correct the systems that failed on Christmas Day.

The 9/11 commissioners say Congress should be delving into its own mistakes, too — although Kerrey doesn't have much hope for that.

"What you're going to get is an exercise in flagellation; you know, looking for someone to blame, looking for someone to hang out," Kerrey predicts, "and Congress one more time dodging the bullet of having to reform itself."

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: kendall
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 07:47 PM

Bin Laden told his followers years ago that the only way to beat America is to drive it into bankruptcy.Well?

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 07:51 PM

Well, I find myself increasingly bewildered by not only Obama but the American people in general...

I mean, everyone is obsessed with connecting the millions and millions of dots in order to get on a friggin' airplane??? That is completely rediculous... Forst of all, in this information age there are so many dots out there they would completely blacken out a wide screen TV... They are like pixils... Yet folks think that they can be seperated out and connected to other seperated out dots... This is impossible...

But secondly, this obsession demonstartes just how fearfull people are... Every time you turn on the TV fear is being packaged and sold to you in any dose you want... Fear of getting a tummy ache... So take this... Fear of rapist... So buy this lock or pepper spray otr better yet, a Glock...

Makes me sick!!!

And the most fearful people in the country are these moronic tea baggers... They are afraid of their own shadows and see "taxmen" behind every tree, and socialist and commies and whatevers under every rock... These people are seriously deranged and are a major cause of the heartburn that grips the country... Hey, they are the same folks whoes daddise and grand daddies used to scream "America, love it or leave it!!!"... Time for them to take that advice...

But, nevermind all that... Peter says it's about Obama... Nah, it ain't... The elader of any team has to realize just what the team is and, sadly, this is the team... A bunch of washrag, crybaby wimps who vote against their own interests, who are clueless about the real world and who are basically a bunch of retards that don't know squat about anything...

So don't blame Obama here... Blame the hapless team he is trying to lead... If they have to hear certain words to make them feel all warm and fuzzy then give them the words... Don't let the words influence policy but give them their stupid little buzz words so they can get to sleep at night and...

...beam me up, Scotty... Things have gotten pretty dumbed down down here...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 08:56 PM

Right, Bobert. It's not Obama or his speech (which contained a lot of typical, very predictable rhetoric) that I am concerned about...it's the general ongoing foreign and domestic policy of the USA I am concerned about...a policy that is based on intervening in, attacking, and politically dominating foreign countries, and the fact that they would rather obsess about the minutiae of American domestic "security" issues than question the utter wrongness of their own imperial overseas doctrine...which is the direct cause of all their security issues.

Muslim jihadists are not attacking the USA because they are "hateful" people bent upon destruction of our way of life. They are attacking the USA because they are desperately angry and bitter people who have seen their own societies terribly damaged by American imperial policy for the last 60 years, who feel helpless and enraged in the face of an aggressor superpower, who have suffered under American-backed dictatorial regimes for decades, and who have lost tremendously more innocent lives amongst their own people as a result of war and repression than Americans or Israelis have lost as a result of terrorist counterstrikes during the same period. They know perfectly well from their own direct experience that imperial America does not "stand with those who seek justice and progress" (as Obama put it). America stands for its own big business and geopolitical interests, period, and it will go to war on other people's land to secure those interests.

Now, of course, the vast majority of individual Americans DO seek justice and progress...virtually all ordinary people everywhere seek justice and progress. It's just that their government's imperial policy does not seek justice and progress. It seeks material gain and absolute control of the means of material gain...and that has nothing to do with justice and precious little to do with genuine progress.

Virtually all individual Muslims ALSO seek justice and progress. They are not getting either justice or progress from the policymakers of the USA. They are getting violence on a grand scale.

They have lost most likely 1,000 or more civilians for every American civilian who has died in that violence in the past few decades. Perhaps many thousands for every one American. Why be surprised that they get angry and strike back? They feel the same way about losing their friends and relatives and their national sovereignty as we would, were we in their position.

Obama cannot speak openly or honestly about that, not even if he wanted to. He'd be accused of being "soft on Terrorism". He'd be accused of being a "defeatist" or even a "traitor". So he must go on mouthing the usual platitudes and fussing about the symptoms while ignoring the fact that it is his government's own aggressive foreign policy that is causing the illness.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: GUEST, heric
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 10:18 PM

They DID connect the dots they were going to talk to him after he landed!! It would be damned funny if it wasn't . . . Nah - it is damned funny.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: Greg F.
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 10:29 PM

vide "Dance of Death" by Patrick Sky.

"Queen of Fools turn around, life will be your folly
Wave your wand at those who will waste away and worry
Play them for the fools they are and make their steps up for them
A clock that's shaken hard enough, it cannot stay in rhythm."

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: GUEST, heric
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 10:36 PM

Muslim jihadists are not attacking Malaysia because they are "hateful" people bent upon destruction of their way of life oh wait a minute yes they are.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 11:01 PM

LH Please do not ever mention again the first mosques that the US bombed. It is inconvienient and unamerican to bring up the scores we killed in one Lebanese Mosque alone while missing the intended target of an Arab nationaist who was seeking the overthrow of American puppet leaders in Iraq and Iran.
Most of all NEVER repeat that it was sanctioned by Ronald Reagan. The US troops who later died on the beach in their sleep in Lebanon led to Reagan pulling out troops.... and to save face fired several salvos of shells into Lebanon from the oldest AND ONLY floating battleship still commissioned. Lookin back, its pretty sad that Ronnie signed off on givin Iran a shitlad of weapons to git our hostages back too.

Nothin set a precedent for US wimphood and Arab victory than that one.

Destabilization and arms sales to both Iraq and Iran did eventually succeed in a war between the two countries resulting in a staggering death toll that virually exterminated an entire generation on each side.
But the blowback was the loss of the US Shah and a fundamentalist Khomeni starting an Islamic goverment. but wait it gets worse...we then killed our puppet in Iraq after TWO wars with him!
but never mind those kinds of facts. Sure you can point fingers at the USA and say its all quid pro quo but Jesus Christ on a cracker! they have bombed our bikes, cars, trucks, SUV's, Hummers, Tanks, boats, ships, helicopters, planes, planes and buildings, Embassies, subways, Tesas Arny base, and now underwear on a commercial flight. Iffin it rolls floats or flies they done bombed it. Ahm a geddin sick and turd ofit Yahear?. Were all sic and turd ofit.


LETS HAVE SOME HYPTHETICAL FUNNNNNNNNNN

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~NSA WARNING
Go no further



Now ahm jus a country boy but iffin I was them, shhh, if i wuz them, I would have really destabilized America ... ;-0
by having us fear a terrier attack from Canadian actors OR WURST YET get a mouth breathin Mexican to bomb America.

Holy Shit in your beer! now that would scare the livin crap outta teabaggers and commie fasist libruls alike!! Imagine AMerica surrounded by Canadian terriers and Mexicant terriers just a shootin and a bombin the shit outta Texas and Minnisota!!!!!!!!!!

opps,sorry i'll keep it down...

(whisperin) I can see it now, Brigadeer General Pat Bucchanon would lead a civolian army of Real Americans and private secretary of real american defense General Sarah Palin would direct the invasion of the Knuks with an all civilian army armed to the teeth along with volunteer AWOL troops from the Alaskan National Guard. livin on nothin but wolves and moose meat these troops would git seasoned and mean in a big hurry.

In a classic pincer movement she would clear a path from Alaska to Buffalo while Gen Buchannon would go from Texas up through South Carolina to DC. The rest of the Red Sates Army would go due east and attack DC in superior numbers with Sarah and Pat on their flanks.

Sheeeit there is room here for a whole lotta insane detail but you git the pictur.

By the way it really bugs me that red blooded right wing red state tea baggers can never say RED China. Man its like nothin is gonna stand between them and plastic Wall Mart merchandise, not even commies.
Crap! a community leader in skid row can be called a commie socialist but not Walmart, no siree.

But ya know the biggest terrror tack of all, biggern all the Canadians and Hezbolla Mexicans put together???? IT would be an CO - ORDINARYTED terrior tack on all evry FOX news studio in Merica, or at least one per state on 8-9-10. Man can U majine the shitsturm over that ONE ??? Hooo BOy

ah oh, I better shut up fore some sack head hadgie overheards me an duz it.
Man watchin Fox News live, gitin blowd up overn an overn again...... sheeit I'd pay ta see that fur sure.    wha? I'm jus sayin...

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: katlaughing
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 11:09 PM

LMAO!

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 11:16 PM

Yemen Iran 2.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 11:21 PM

heric - American military personnel are not bombing and killing civilians in many places in the Middle East and central Asia because they (the American servicemen) are "hateful people bent upon the destruction of the Islamic way of life"...

No. They are doing it because they are:

1. following orders, and...

2. they think it will defend the American way of life!

They're deeply in error to think that, but they do think it.

Likewise, the Islamic fighter is...

1. following the orders of his superiors whom he looks up to, and...

2. he thinks he's defending the Islamic way of life!

He is deeply in error to imagine that blowing up an airliner full of civilians will defend the Islamic way of life, but he does think it.

This doesn't make American soldiers or Islamic jihadists "evil" people. It makes them ignorant people who are caught up in huge political and social situations that they don't really understand very well, but who are convinced that they are doing their duty as they should, and that they are defending their way of life by killing the "enemy".

They BOTH end up ruining the lives of many innocent people and killing the innocent...but they don't do it because they're evil...they do it because they are ignorant. They're too ignorant to understand the full effect of their own actions on other people, mostly because they don't know those other people personally and don't understand them at all. They can easily kill a stranger if ordered to.

To believe that your enemy is an "evil" person is simply to fall for crude and stupid propaganda which has but one purpose: to make YOU go out and kill someone for your government or leaders in a stupid and profitless fashion. If you do fall for it, then you'll go out and DO something evil, yes...but not because you ARE evil...because you don't really know or fully grasp what the hell you are doing in the first place. Thus do the innocent and foolish who are NOT evil themsevles bring evil into the world. And they do it on BOTH sides of any war, but specially when they invade someone else's country or bomb somone else's civilians.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: artbrooks
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 12:26 AM

One great difference is that American (and British and French and German and Iraqi and Afghan) soldiers do not deliberately target civilians. Jihadis do.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: CarolC
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 12:29 AM

Well, the prime minister of Malaysia doesn't think the terrorists are doing what they're doing in that country because they're "'hateful' people bent upon destruction of their way of life". This is what he had to day about it...


"Is this an Islamic issue? No. It is an issue of the people, of Muslims, non-Muslims, Christians and Jews, who have a right to return to the homeland when people have been expelled...

...They want to react because [they think] their government is not reacting. That is the whole trouble. [They say]: 'You are not an Islamic government, so you have no feeling for the people, for the Muslims who have been attacked, who have been marginalised and treated unjustly by other countries.' What is happening now in the Middle East has made even the moderates angry. That is not good."


He's saying that what's going on in Palestine/Israel is undermining the governments of all Muslim countries.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: CarolC
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 12:31 AM

I think that's debatable, artbrooks.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: CarolC
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 12:33 AM

Actually, now that I re-read what the Malaysian prime minister said, I think he is speaking about what's going on in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other Muslim countries, and not just Palestine/Israel.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 12:33 AM

I just read President Obama's speech. I don't think we're dealing with with the America of Cooper or Wayne. Thank God. President Obama is much more thoughtful and much less cowboy than either of those people were in the movies.

The man got through security and could have easily killed 300 Americans. President Obama was making a speech about how he was going to protect us from that happening again. Whether you like it or not we are at war with Al Qaeda. Even if the root cause is US imperialism we can't put that genie back in the bottle a day or two.

President Obama has taken responsibility for the mistakes that were made. He has told us how the will be avoided in future. I don't see how he could do any more. I am proud and happy that I supported him in his election campaigns.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: artbrooks
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 01:18 AM

Carol, if you can find even one verifiable case of US military deliberately targeting civilians, as opposed to "fighters", I'd be amazed.   There is no question that civilians have been killed and injured when they were too close to legitimate targets. There is also no doubt that soldiers, and contractors, have committed illegal assaults on innocent people. I am speaking of deliberate attacks, under orders, on entirely civilian targets.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: CarolC
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 01:31 AM

Me Lai, artbrooks.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: artbrooks
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 09:18 AM

The person who gave the orders at Me Lai, a very junior lieutenant, was convicted of murder. After several extensive investigations, it was determined that he was acting alone. You have to do better than that.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: artbrooks
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 09:47 AM

You are off topic, mystery guest. The discussion is on "American military personnel bombing and killing civilians in many places in the Middle East and central Asia"; in other words, contemporary issues.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: Donuel
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 10:06 AM

art you are off the mark
but your personal disbelief isn't important.

Blackwater agents deliberatly kill civilians for target practice and night training exercises and sometimes get charged with murder when they do it in broad daylight in busy Baghdad traffic circles. The line between Blackwater and the CIA is only a light blur. 2 Blackwater agents also died in the suicide bombing by the triple agent. The others were CIA and one Jordanian agent.

Killing civilians is approved by collateral damage proclamations.
Over a quarter million civilians were killed directly by US military strikes and small weapons. Its not that much if you think about it. But we don't want to think about it really. We would rather be amazed if such a thing could happen. Then doubt it again unless names are given.

The CIA sometimes pays 1000 bucks to Afghan famlies who lost kids or moms or husbands in air strikes. The most they ever got was 20,000 bucks for a dead bride and groom.

However you might try to imagine a code of honor for our mercenaries and troops, it is so different that I do not blame people for not wanting to believe it. It is slaughter or be slaughtered so slaughter the best and as fast as you can. Civilians? just a bump in the road.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: Peter T.
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 10:18 AM

Actually, I did watch the speech -- and the previous one -- and the sheer craziness of Obama's remarks about not hunkering down in complete contradiction to what he was then proposing to do in the same speeches! was what prompted my remarks.   I have a historian's interest in watching empires lose complete sense -- the Romans, the British, the French. They all find themselves having to deal with people who refuse to come out on the playing field and fight like civilized armies, and they just go all to pieces. They build walls and buy more tanks and extend their borders, and still those bastards won't come out and fight right and be defeated like good enemies! Trying to put out Al-Qaeda is like stomping on mercury. It is a network, operating mostly through the Internet, and based on a mixture of people pissed off at American policies (including dropping bombs from a great height on anyone they don't like), as well as nutcases. The main recruits are not in Afghanistan or the Yemen -- they are educated people in Britain and Germany and so on. This is all so obvious, but no one can deal with it in a military empire. It's not a war: it's a psycho-political struggle. And Obama knows this (or knew it) and he has capitulated to the "war" mentality. The main person Obama is frightened by is Dick Cheney -- who is (in my books) a terrorist -- if the definition of a terrorist is someone who thrives on terrorising people. In fact, Dick Cheney may be the most successful terrorist of our time.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: Donuel
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 10:54 AM

Peter history is a great prophet for current times.
Rome took nearly 200 years to finally collapse under the strain of insurrection and political infighting.

Some wise scholars today suggest that with the help of American genius and ingenuity that the USA can do it in less than 20 years.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 02:11 PM

Peter, you have explained the problem perfectly as far as I'm concerned. This is just one more case of a badly overextended military/commercial empire gradually losing its iron grip on other people's lands and totally losing its rational judgement in the process.

Here is an interesting list that was posted on another thread. It should be read carefully, with an eye toward present political circumstances much closer to home than things that happened way back in the 1940s.

Fourteen Defining
Characteristics Of Fascism
By Dr. Lawrence Britt
Source Free Inquiry.co
5-28-3

Dr. Lawrence Britt has examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes. Britt found 14 defining characteristics common to each:

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of need. The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

4. Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are widespread
domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

5. Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.

6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

7. Obsession with National Security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

8. Religion and Government are Intertwined - Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.

9. Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

10. Labor Power is Suppressed - Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

14. Fraudulent Elections - Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.
Posted 06/01/2010 at 12:42 PM

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: CarolC
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 02:31 PM

artbrooks, I have been told by veterans that My Lai was not an isolated incident. And your original comment was this...

One great difference is that American (and British and French and German and Iraqi and Afghan) soldiers do not deliberately target civilians. Jihadis do.

My response, that this comment is debatable, is entirely correct.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: Stringsinger
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 04:17 PM

Obama has gotten bad advice from everyone around him including the financial
wizards that got the US into it's economic mess from failed foreign policy by Petraius to McChrystal.

Obama has locked himself in a prison of his own making. Will he break out?

Of course, in war, there are plenty of My Lais. And plenty of lies.

It's time to call out this war racket. Blackwater should show you that.

It's time to return to sanity. Bring 'em home.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: kendall
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 04:37 PM

We have a strong need to believe that we are right. Mr. Clean. Rubbish.

Old saying, but still valid.

Difference between Russian propaganda and American propaganda
We believe ours.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 04:56 PM

"Dick Cheney may be the most successful terrorist of our time."

well, there's something we might agree on, Peter.

Yes, as you say, it IS no longer a standard 'war' that we are fighting, and in one sense (as Obama suggested) one that is not 'winnable' in the sense of WWII, where entire regimes 'surrender'.

As long as basic hatred, fueled by distortions of religious principle, can provide a pool of young would-be martyrs, stuff will happen! Still-- people expect a president to **do something**, and some vague ideological statement of altering "imperial foreign policy of the last 60 years or so in the Middle East." simply will NOT, by itself, impress the folks a president needs in order to get elected, even if that IS part of his overall strategy!
   We NEED intelligence, and we NEED to do what we can to disrupt the staging areas of the terrorists, and we NEED to also make **some** attempt to identify and stop the most obvious ways a Jihadist group can cause random panic using disturbed, expendable young suicide bombers. Obama is not dumb....he follows the pundits,as well as listening to his paid advisors... and he IS in a 'damned if you do and damned if you don't' game of trying to do all this while still giving a teeny bit of attention to the economy, the environment, and a dozen other silly little issues.
I see why some folks are impatient...but Obama is as close to sane and smart as I have seen, and I am scared shitless of someone like Kucinich or Huckabee or god forbid, someone like Inhofe or *shudder*, Jim DeMint getting elected and flailing about with one of their narrow-minded pet notions!

You don't like what Obama is doing? Give him a chance to work things out! It's a complex recipe he's cooking, and too many folks are demanding quick "Hamburger Helper" solutions to their hunger.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 04:56 PM

We are at war with Al Qaeda and we can win. We are killing their leadership. We are also fighting for hearts and minds and winning the public relations battle. George W Bush was their dream president. Obama is their nightmare.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 05:02 PM

We appear to be at war with Al Qaeda, Jack, but that's just surface noise. What this war is really about is an attempt by Anglo-Israel-America to control much of the world's oil supply and to dominate the Middle Eastern and central Asian area in order to do that. This tramples on the mostly Muslim population of that area in a variety of ways, and causes them sufferering and distress...so they fight back. If Al Qaeda were to vanish utterly, this war would still go on, and new "Al Qaedas" would appear from the shadows and assume the role of the new official "enemy" of Anglo-Israel-America.

Al Qaeda is a symptom of a problem that existed long before Al Qaeda did. Any American president is the Muslim world's nightmare as long as the Anglo-American imperial objectives remain in play.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 05:10 PM

Most Muslims, like most of the world's people are not directly effected by attempts to control oil. I am at war with the people who sent out those 19 terrorists. That was not a legitimate expression of the grievances of the Muslim world. It was an act of evil. Such evil needs to be punished and prevented.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: artbrooks
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 05:49 PM

Carol, if you choose to "debate" on a contemporary issue with a 42-year-old isolated incident, that is entirely your choice. I am not in that discussion with you.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 05:58 PM

"What this war is really about is an attempt by Anglo-Israel-America to control much of the world's oil supply and to dominate the Middle Eastern and central Asian area in order to do that..."

You really need to add "In my opinion" to those sort of posts, LH.... you are generalizing in ways that are really not helpful.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: kendall
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 06:18 PM

We are in the war business, period.
The attack of 9/11 was not an act of war, it was a criminal act and should have been dealt that way.

There are over a billion Muslims, every time we kill one of their extremist leaders another comes up to take his place. Bush was their best recruiting tool ever.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: CarolC
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 06:22 PM

artbrooks, I have been told by veterans that incidents like My Lai are not as uncommon as we are led to believe, in all wars.

I have also read reports from veterans of Iraq that sometimes soldiers will decide they want to shoot somebody just walking along the road, and they'll do it, and then put a shovel in the dead person's hands and say that person was digging a hole for an IED. I read from more than one veteran that this is done.

And we know for a fact that contractors employed by the US government in countries like Iraq are not only targeting civilians, some of them have even stated as a part of their mission the objective of killing as many Muslims as possible, and they make no distinction between men, women, or children, or combatants and non-combatants. They're killing for Christ. You may choose to separate those kinds of killings from those committed by the military, but it is all being done on behalf of the US government, and in our names. So you are trying to create a false distinction between the "terrorists" and us.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 07:18 PM

As Kendall said, "The attack of 9/11 was not an act of war, it was a criminal act and should have been dealt (with) that way."

Of course it was an evil act to launch the 911 attacks, Jack. Obviously. However, to use them as pretext for a multinational war effort waged on other nations was inappropriate, illogical, counterproductive, and frankly, ridiculous....but handy if you wanted to invade Afghanistan and Iraq anyway, which I believe was the case. Not because of 911. Because of major geopolitical considerations that existed well before 911 ever happened.

You don't declare war on the state of Oklahoma because a hidden cell of White supremacist conspirators there blows up a building somewhere in the USA or France or Germany. You don't declare war on Afghanistan because a hidden cell of jihadists there blows up a building somewhere in the USA. You don't declare war on Iraq because of WMDs that don't exist.

Not if you are telling the truth and are still capable of rational thought, that is....

Bill, please just add an "in my opinion" to the end of all my posts when you read them, okay? I would do it myself, but I thought it was obvious already.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 07:25 PM

In your ridiculous comparison, if the state government of Oklahoma were harboring and supporting terrorists, that government would have to be removed.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: Donuel
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 07:28 PM

Who could we get to run Oklahoma? I think they hace WMDs.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Becomes Terrorfied
From: artbrooks
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 09:44 PM

Carol, did you bother to read where I said that "there is also no doubt that soldiers, and contractors, have committed illegal assaults on innocent people"? Never mind. As usual, a rational discussion has degenerated. You and LH have fun.