I know everyone's tired of Guantanamo bay...

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by queequeger

Also, I don't approve of religious indoctrination camps for evangelicals. Can I shoot them? How about white supremacists? let's shoot them on those grounds?

Queg, you're fairly new here, but if you're up for some research, you'd find that no one here has ever succeeded in baiting me, and you can add this try to the list of failures. To succeed in baiting me would first require reducing my age by two thirds, and then my IQ by a third. Sound at all likely?

[queequeger]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Queg, you're fairly new here, but if you're up for some research, you'd find that no one here has ever succeeded in baiting me, and you can add this try to the list of failures. To succeed in baiting me would first require reducing my age by two thirds, and then my IQ by a third. Sound at all likely?

Yeah, you're pretty much the most awesome poster on teh intarwebs. Are you serious when you say things like this? You sound like a cartoon super villain.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

I don't see how anyone of sense could call it "irrelevant." It's central to the Administration's entire conduct of this war against a shadowy, intercommunicative enemy.

I know that breaking the law is central to the Administration's strategy, but that is irrelevant when trying to justify it.

If the enemy communicates to coordinate, that is where they are vulnerable. We can't stymie nor defeat them unless we find ways to know their plans and their thinking, hmmm?

Then get a goddamn warrant.

I'd further point out that neither Happy Monkey nor anyone else, anyone else at all, has come up with a way to prosecute this war that is any different or any better -- better meaning that we, the democracies, are likely to win.

Better international policework. It is not possible to fight "terrorism" with military force.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

I'd further point out that neither Happy Monkey nor anyone else, anyone else at all, has come up with a way to prosecute this war ...

Let's see. Torture only made more enemies. Extraordinary rendition only made enemies even of America's friends. Lying that we are winning "Mission Accomplished" only made "Mission Accomplished" worse. "We are where we are" only got more Americans killed and created a country of 25% refugees. IOW this war has been prosecuted doing what Urbane Guerrilla recommended. As a result, even bin Laden roams free. Urbane Guerrilla does not even call for bin Laden's capture. Everything has happened according to UG's plans.

A shadowy enemy? Of course. When using fictional descriptions of an enemy, it can only exist in shadows and cannot be defeated.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by tw

Let's see. Torture only made more enemies. Extraordinary rendition only made enemies even of America's friends. Lying that we are winning "Mission Accomplished" only made "Mission Accomplished" worse. "We are where we are" only got more Americans killed and created a country of 25% refugees. IOW this war has been prosecuted doing what Urbane Guerrilla recommended. As a result, even bin Laden roams free. Urbane Guerrilla does not even call for bin Laden's capture. Everything has happened according to UG's plans.

A shadowy enemy? Of course. When using fictional descriptions of an enemy, it can only exist in shadows and cannot be defeated.

I've said before you couldn't be constructive if somebody gave you a hammer and two hacks of 2x4s, tw. You're running true to form.

Oh, you can tell how many more enemies we've got because we lean on some bad guys -- as either hard numbers or a percentage increase? You must be privy to some remarkably secret information not available to mere mortals then. Let's do the sensible thing and dismiss this contention as unprovable.

Bin Laden is nice to get -- but do you really think the bad guys will quit if we get him? I don't really. For that would be fictional.

And of course, tw, no strategist, isn't coming up with improved strategy, owing to his want of constructiveness.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Bin Laden is nice to get -- but do you really think the bad guys will quit if we get him? I don't really. For that would be fictional.

Urbane Guerrilla says we should not go after the only enemy - bin Laden. Why are Urbane Guerrilla's enemies so shadowy? Because they don't exist. Only insurgents, rising up to take back their country from an invader, are evil? Yes according to Urbane Guerrilla who has all but called for protecting bin Laden from justice.

UG, you were never officer material. You cannot see the bigger picture. They tell you who the bad guy is. You automatically believe without even asking if that bad guy exists. Shadowy enemy. It must exist. Ghosts are hard to kill with bullets.

Casper is evil. Moriarity is evil. Our enemies are hiding everywhere. Only UG can see these enemies?

[queequeger]

Hyena's sons? That's a strange one. I kind of like, it but it doesn't quite roll off the tongue.

The problem, UG, is that most of us 'good liberals' don't buy into the 'war on terror' at all because frankly, I'm not the least bit scared of another major terrorist attack on US soil. How long can the terror alert stay at 'elevated' or 'lellow'? Also, because only one of the wars we're currently fighting, and only in the beginning, was against terrorists that actually had the US's downfall as their goal.

Now all we've got is a bunch of guys thousands of miles from our borders, with no discernible leader, who we're keeping from obtaining power, but in the lands that are thousands of miles from our borders. I don't see our national security particularly wrapped up in that, can you honestly say you do?

So many get very accusative about 'conspiracy theories' and their 'crackpot ideas...' of the US in a quest for money. Can you tell me with a straight face that a faceless, multinational, largely unconnected enemy is coordinating numerous large scale attacks on US soil, and has the means to carry said attacks out? Doesn't this sound a little Illuminati to you? Does to me.

The most common lashing I receive is 'You've got your head in the sand, you don't understand the real danger.' It's been official for quite a while now: we've lost more people in wars 'taking the fight to the enemy' then we have in all the foreign terrorist attacks on US soil in recent history combined. I guess 'combined' isn't the right word, because there's only been one.

The damages I see are pretty clear: not some enemy who can "strike anywhere, anytime," but the several people I've met who've either died or been severely injured in Iraq or Afghanistan. They signed up to 'defend freedom' and protect their country. They're not fighting for our country any more than us invading, say, poland would be defending our country.

[DanaC]

A shadowy enemy? Of course. When using fictional descriptions of an enemy, it can only exist in shadows and cannot be defeated.

Succinctly put tw.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

The same was true of the Second World War by early 1943, as far as number of casualties goes in taking the fight to the enemy, Queg. Thinking in this quota-fashion is yet another road to defeatism. That is a road I will not walk, and I urge a similar course for you: the war's opponents are just so shockingly fatuous that I find their arguments ridiculous in the extreme. How do our casualties invalidate our cause? I'm not armchairing this -- I had nine years in military service myself, and my wife is retired career military. I think I have some idea what it means to be on the sharp end. (It's risky.)

I'm not so sure I'd call them faceless, and "they" are certainly motivated towards assailing us on several bogus grounds -- like doing the right thing by Israel. At the moment, they are having considerable trouble coming up with the means to attack us on our own soil, but there was a day when they did have the means, did they not? Has there been any magic to demotivate these foes? Hell no; it's all hard work.

As I've remarked elsewhere, the strategy for defending us is that of reducing the Gap. Two of the Gap nations are Afghanistan (very likely to remain a Gap nation for a very long time owing to just about zero national consciousness, more simply put as a lack of unity and scant motivation towards it) and Iraq (some of the same problem, and perhaps some radical solution will be the only tenable one -- though I'd personally like to see a confederation evolve to keep Iraq's three major ethnicities from being Finlandized by their neighboring states).

Bringing Gap nations out of the Gap and into the world's global economic Core calls for several things to happen: democratization of the sociopolitical order, education not determined by gender, and trade, cultural, and communicative connectivity with the rest of the planet. The Gap nations get called that because there's a gap between their cultures and economies and the global economy.

[DanaC]

Queg, you're fairly new here, but if you're up for some research, you'd find that no one here has ever succeeded in baiting me, and you can add this try to the list of failures.

lol

[Ibby]

Holy shit, queermeister! (sorry but thats more or less how I read your name. Coming from me, thats more praise than ridicule)
You've done it!

Youve put into words exactly what UG calls up in my mind. I havent been able to but this into words before, but you've done it, man!

Originally Posted by queequeger

You sound like a cartoon super villain.

[skysidhe]

that's funny

[Urbane Guerrilla]

And my opposition mostly sounds like wimpy, weedy fascist sympathizers, or else so completely welded to idees-fixe as to come off unhinged. Is it any wonder I put 'em down? Is there anything else they could deserve?

[DanaC]

I've said it before, I'll say it again: Urbane Guerilla is American Dad!

[skysidhe]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

And my opposition mostly sounds like wimpy, weedy fascist sympathizers, or else so completely welded to idees-fixe as to come off unhinged. Is it any wonder I put 'em down? Is there anything else they could deserve?

Just sounds like something you do for fun to me. :p

Originally Posted by DanaC

I've said it before, I'll say it again: Urbane Guerilla is American Dad!

oh no don't say DAD!


American dads are watching football and drinking beer ? Is that was UG does in his off time?

nah...
The super human comic book villain fits better.