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 BaronIveagh wrote:
Let me start off by saying that, like quite a few other people, I didn't need a TV to watch it.


Dread, I might simply state this: I don't like Brass any more than I like you. But at least he's consistent. I'm amazed you could write that post without your computer bursting into flames at your hypocrisy. After all, when crimes against humanity happen to someone else, it's not your concern if it doesn't advance your national interests, remember?

When it happens to you, however... 'anger and outrage'.

More personal attacks then Baron?
Tell you what, I'll do you a favour. Rather than worry about you mis-reading and misinterpret my words and having to explain myself at every turn I'll make sure you don't see them

and god knows how many iraqi and afghani lives

Sad that not even a figure was quoted here (thats not an attack on the writer of this comment by the way). Just sums things up for me.
9/11 was a horrific act of mass murder but what followed in Iraq and Afghanistan (and is continuing to this very day) cannot be allowed to be forgotten either nor boiled down into one liners as above.

 Seaward wrote:
Give peace a chance, I say. We're all children of the One Love.

So true.

Leaving Iraq aside not seeing the bad part about Afghanistan.

While nation building turned out to be stupid for that region, it was an inherent attempt at good.

After Q effectively hit us with WMDs. We could have, maybe should have, responded in kind.

 Frazzled wrote:
Leaving Iraq aside not seeing the bad part about Afghanistan.

While nation building turned out to be stupid for that region, it was an inherent attempt at good.

That's actually a pretty valid point, and one that gets left out of a lot of the discussion. I wouldn't presume that our overall goal in Afghanistan was benevolent, but we invested heavily into trying to build something non-crappy there.

although, again, it's hard to tell what our purpose was there. I don't mean that in a hindsight sense, but did we have concrete goals aside from "take down the Taliban"?

Alas, it seems to be a lesson we have to relearn every generation or so. We simply can't accept that sometimes countries are hellholes, and we can't stop it. (I'm looking at you, Syria).

feeder wrote:

 Seaward wrote:
Give peace a chance, I say. We're all children of the One Love.

So true.

Right on, brother. Let's love our enemies into submission.

Agreed Polonius.

 Polonius wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Leaving Iraq aside not seeing the bad part about Afghanistan.

While nation building turned out to be stupid for that region, it was an inherent attempt at good.

That's actually a pretty valid point, and one that gets left out of a lot of the discussion. I wouldn't presume that our overall goal in Afghanistan was benevolent, but we invested heavily into trying to build something non-crappy there.

although, again, it's hard to tell what our purpose was there. I don't mean that in a hindsight sense, but did we have concrete goals aside from "take down the Taliban"?

Alas, it seems to be a lesson we have to relearn every generation or so. We simply can't accept that sometimes countries are hellholes, and we can't stop it. (I'm looking at you, Syria).

Sure. Afghanistan was a major base of operations for al-Qaeda. Our goal was to deny them that. It's hard to coordinate 9/11-scale attacks if you've got snake eaters kicking in your doors and MQ-9s Hellfiring anything related to you.

It's actually something I've been toying with, in that we are so obsessed with democracy that we forget that democracy is just a way to implement a deeper good: self determination of the people.

I think democracy is great. Ours has a few quirks I could do without (gerrymandering and wildly uneven access to voting), but it works really well for the US. But... the US had a long, long tradition of representative democracy, from early in the colonial period.

We took a lot of flack in the cold war for backing hated strongmen and dictators that opposed the communists. Now, we are worreid about elections in countries with strong islamist factions. Still, despite this, we thought that suddenly Afghanistan could bloom into a representative democracy overnight. The Taliban were terrible people, but like all regimes they had at least the silent consent of much of the population.

Facinating point Polonius.

I think there's a bona fide ethical debate about what's more important: politcal self determination, or the idea of universal human rights, especially that self determination is not a right, but a force.

There are really only a handul of peoples held against their will. Chinese Tibet is one, and I guess Chechnya is n longer defacto independent. I'm sure there are others in Afica and Asia, but the problem we've learned is that it's really, really hard to hold a hostile population for too long. The French lost Viet nam and Algeria, Rhodesians lost Zimbabwe, and those were people that fought hard to keep the land.

So self determination isn't a flowery ideal: it's a force, like gravity or globalization. You can hold it back for a while, but like the tide any conqueror will be washed away.

This is why any debate about human rights has to be weighed against not only the right of a people to self determination, but also the practical matters involved. We'd all like to stop, say, female circumcision in Africa. But can we?

Moving into murkier area, whenyou look at a place like Syria, with a madman dictator fighting islamic populists, the question isn't if we should violate Syria's sovriengty to help. the question is if there is any way we can actually help.

Don't assume he is a madman, just a dictator of the more ruthless variety.

Dreadclaw69 wrote:
Seeing as you asked - Quiet as in remembering all those who lost their lives. Not erecting a platform for cackhanded political discussion on an anniversary by a community member notorious for posting incendiary topics that he rarely contributes anything to in a meaningful way.

Dreadclaw69 wrote:
More personal attacks then Baron?

Dread, you are the utter last person in this thread who should complain about 'personal attacks'.

I feel the same about Afghanistan vs. Iraq.

I supported going into Afghanistan, but I am not sure that we had a valid plan after "kick the Taliban in the nuts". At times it feels like the whole "well, we removed the leadership of the country...I guess we need to put something better in place so that they won't just come back...". I do think we had a valid reason and good intentions when we started OEF, but between implementation of a valid plan and the reality of the situation there it has become a cluster.

I have never been a fan of OIF to begin with though.

Self Determination and Nation Building has rarely ever worked out for everybody (I want to say never, but there might be some situations that worked), and I do think that our checkered past in that regard doesn't give us credibility.

We (the nation as a whole on the international stage) like to act like the guardians and giver of democracy. But our history of supporting dictators (that were on our side) and our recent comments by many politicians who are scared of democracy in the Middle East (they might elect somebody that isn't on our side) doesn't give us much weight in that discussion.

 Ahtman wrote:
So much for one day of quiet introspection and unity. Couldn't wait till tomorrow to pour gasoline on the fire?

This. Seriously, just plain poor form.

 LordofHats wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:
So much for one day of quiet introspection and unity. Couldn't wait till tomorrow to pour gasoline on the fire?

This. Seriously, just plain poor form.

I do think it's a good day for discussion.

But there is a difference between going "How had it affected us, what decisions did we make, did we make the right ones, etc" and going "wake up sheeple! It was an inside job! The government is using everybody! SHEEPLE! <insert sheeple XKCD comic> Bush and Obama are lying to everybody"

 d-usa wrote:

We (the nation as a whole on the international stage) like to act like the guardians and giver of democracy. But our history of supporting dictators (that were on our side) and our recent comments by many politicians who are scared of democracy in the Middle East (they might elect somebody that isn't on our side) doesn't give us much weight in that discussion.

There's nothing wrong with Realpoltick. If a dictator is a good ally, he's a good ally. OTOH, there have been very, very few instances of wars between true democracies.

Generally, what happens is that a country elects a leader, who then becomes a dictator in all but name. One of the big things we forget in the US is that we are a liberal democracy, with the understanding that there are things the government cannot do, no matter how much int he public interest it may be.

Even those that realize that don't relize that other nations aren't like that. Russia elects a prime minister, but he's basically a Czar, with broad and virtually unchecked powers. there is minimal freedom of the press or due process of law. The government has few checks and balances.

Bascially, our system of government is insantely complex, with a delicate balance of central and local power, complicated power struggles among and even within the branches of government, and legitimized by transparancy and due process.

Asking people that have known politcs other than "might makes right" to step into such a system is like teaching a person to drive by taking a manual transmission car into rush hour.

Typical swoop and poop from the OP. Don't know why anyone bothers with this guy. He will not respond. Especially when you threaten his worldview of the BFEE.

 djones520 wrote:
Typical swoop and poop from the OP. Don't know why anyone bothers with this guy. He will not respond. Especially when you threaten his worldview of the BFEE.

Do you think he'd respond to me by saying this?

Hey, regarding the "Your leaders are not sad if you die" title... it's true! Christopher Stevens died in Benghazi because Obama & Co. didn't care enough! Let's fight the powah! o.O

 whembly wrote:

 djones520 wrote:
Typical swoop and poop from the OP. Don't know why anyone bothers with this guy. He will not respond. Especially when you threaten his worldview of the BFEE.

Do you think he'd respond to me by saying this?

Hey, regarding the "Your leaders are not sad if you die" title... it's true! Christophen Stevens died in Benghazi because Obama & Co. didn't care enough! Let's fight the powah! o.O

Well played

As good a read as any!

http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-6-weirdest-things-weve-learned-since-911/

Thanks for posting that, a damn good read so far.

Might as well post more things showing up on Facebook:




A big thank you to the soldier at the 5 minute mark.

 d-usa wrote:
As good a read as any!

http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-6-weirdest-things-weve-learned-since-911/

It's scary how insightful Cracked is sometimes.

 daedalus wrote:

It's scary how insightful Cracked is sometimes.

Agreed. LOL

 BaronIveagh wrote:
Agreed. LOL

Point #1 isn't something I can lol over. In fact a lot of that was a little depressing.

Its a golden opportunity for one to reflect on the past twelve years.

I forgot that today was 9/11 day

"Even those that realize that don't relize that other nations aren't like that. Russia elects a prime minister, but he's basically a Czar, with broad and virtually unchecked powers. there is minimal freedom of the press or due process of law. The government has few checks and balances."


"Elects" might be a strong word for what happens in Russia.

 xole wrote:

Point #1 isn't something I can lol over. In fact a lot of that was a little depressing.

What, that terrorism works? That's because the US has been trying to fight it like a conventional foe. It's not another nation state that can be battled. You can attack nations that support it, but then the terrorists just move someplace else in a never ending game of whackamole. To actually win the war on terror, you have to deal with the root causes and motives of terrorists. And that has been the one thing that the US has been singularly unwilling to do.