Bush blew it.

yeah, bush brought the knife to the gunfight.

-Imp

If we had, odds are you would never have been born.

Hmm. Who just voted them into control of Congress?

Hopefully, if there should be another 9/11, whoever’s in charge will strike at whoever is responsible, not someone that had nothing to do with it but happens to be sitting on a pile of oil.

Care to bet?

I would say he brought a gun to a brainfight.

You’re ignoring basic human nature.

The Stockholm Syndrome works on every type of person.

The people in the mid-east are no less human than any other type of person.

You’re grossly oversimplifying it.

Some evidence in support of this statement would not be amiss.

brainfights? one fucking bullet ends that liberal brainfart.

[size=200]VIVA LA REVOLUTION!!![/size]

-Imp

I’m not advocating anything.

My point is that Americans want a certain kind of war that isn’t realistic. They also have an attitude that isn’t fitting for war.

I’m not attacking you, but you mention that 500,000 died because of sanctions, and that’s not true. They died because their countrymen wanted them to, because they chose opposition as opposed to submission. At least that’s how you would look at it if you were a warlike person.

If you’re going to have a war, then you have to go all out. There is no unwinable war, under these circumstances.

All of this is the opposite of peace and understanding. If you set out to have those qualities, should there be any bounds?

If you put bounds on love then what are you? Are you a loving person?

If you put bounds on war, then are you a warrior?

Only if you shoot it into the right brain. Bush seems to have a problem with that one.

no, it is a left brain.

-Imp

This is an example of what I’m talking about.

In a war one man doesn’t matter very much. Imagine if someone killed the US president. Would the entire American movement end?

I certainly wouldn’t and the people would continue with new leaders. If they got killed new ones would fill their place to the point where old ladies or kids would fill the office. Only massive social destruction would make Americans forget about their concept of leader.

?

Typical limited perspective of a partisan mind.

Dependence on oil just furthers the problems, and destroying the world to get oil doesn’t make any logical sense.

But I guess shitting where you sleep is what partisanship is all about.

Welcome to America.

Emotionally, that a fine argument, but what is the west really supposed to do?

Also, why should a civilization interested in world trade and capitalism put up with the seeming irrationality of the middle-east?

Actually, no. The Manhattan Project produced three atomic bombs. One was used in a test, the other two on Japan. All we had was the knowledge of how to make nuclear weapons. Of actual nukes we had none.

More of them than in the past voted Democratic.

From fighting al-Qaeda? No one.

From Iraq? Irrelevant. Iraq was a diversion having nothing to do with the real fight before us.

No, that only proves THEM wrong.

To refine what oil?

In what fields?

That last might be useful, but the first thing we need to do is invest in improved energy efficiency. It wouldn’t be that hard to turn our current 10% efficiency into 40%, resulting in an effective quadrupling of our energy production.

al-Qaeda’s leadership is decidedly right wing.

First of all, the struggle against al-Qaeda is not a war. Wars are fought against nations, armies, government. al-Qaeda is not a nation and not a government and has no army. Calling it a “war” is at best a metaphor and at worst a species of deliberate deception.

Secondly, while Osama bin Ladin isn’t indispensible to al-Qaeda, he’s far more important to it than Saddam Hussein, in that at least he’s a member and had some responsibility for the 9/11 attack.

As already stated, improve efficiency, stop wasting so much, and produce the remaining 1/4 of current energy production that we’d still need from renewables. If the renewables fall short, which they probably wouldn’t, build a nuclear plant or two.

Because they HAVEN’T done the above, and still need the oil.

You have a scope limited by your culture.

The idea of nations and so forth are western legal concepts that apply only to those that believe they matter. You have to learn to look at issues in a very broad way. Think—practical.

You accused another of assuming, and there you go.

Capitalists are cheap and I think that you might want to consider that things are operating at nearly the best that they can. What would be the motive for wasting money.

It could be that this world is the world.

al qaeda isn’t the only target

-Imp

Nonsense, I just have a scope limited by proper use of the English language. I know what “war” means, and I know when it is being misused, which it clearly is in the phrase “war on terror.”

There is nothing impractical about approaching a problem with a tool proper to its remedy, rather than that tool’s fourth cousin twice removed, however convenient that cousin may be for sound-bite and propaganda purposes.

When the money being wasted is our money, not theirs, and goes to line their pockets, it’s not, from their view, a waste.

It could also be that I’ve studied a little more about the particular corner of “the” world under immediate discussion than you’re giving me credit for.