Why War?

[Lysergic]

Who all thinks it's about time to AUDIT BIG BROTHER?

For those not yet already aware, our beloved Big Brother has become blood-thirsty and extremely dangerous. War is big business, but its also big debt and at the very cost of human needs. We need to calm this monster before it is too late. Before the snowball effect becomes an avalanche noone even saw coming...

How many more people need spill blood or die in vain?
How much more do we need to RAPE the Earth of all its resources, and all its countries full of helpless 'savages?'
How much do you value true freedom?
How much more needs to be censored, recorded, or
How many more soulds need to be tortured to justify our ends?
How much longer do you want to be a enslaved by their imaginary shackles?
How much longer are you willing to stand by watching it before you do something.
HOW MUCH MORE! HOW MUCH MORE! HOW MUCH MORE!

A few thousand unfortunate people die from 9/11. A horrible and sad atrocity, but is our reaction to it any better?

Besides raping Afghanistan which was semi-justifiable, we had to go and start shit with ANOTHER previously financed fascist dictator(Not unlike our own, Bi-Partisan BULLSHIT, two heads of same coin, get the clue.)
Over 15,000 Iraqi & Afghani troops killed • Over 11,000 Iraqi & Afghani civilians killed Over 17,000 Iraqi & Afghani civilians injured

Plz don't even get me started on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, oh Sweet Jesus!
I like FIRE, no I LOVE FIRE but I absolutely detest people on FIRE, especially innocent fucking women and children, bottom line. They did start shit with us and attacked a MILITARY installation on homeland(1500 military, 500 civilian.) Another horrible and sad atrocity, but is our reaction to it any better?
Well Over 250,000+ people killed, the LARGE MAJORITY being innocent men women and children.

Oh yea if you didn't already know its PUBLIC INFORMATION(for now) that Big Brother Brainstorming Projects(Project for the New American Century, the PNAC) with people like (Dick Cheney, vice-president, Donald Rumsfeld, defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, deputy defence secretary) thought that what America needed was a new pearl harbor. Put them together, 2+2=5, can't You see. The War on Terrorism is a never ending War. I guess our new Orwellian Big Brother got some inspiration back in '84!

Ghandi once said...Eye for an Eye and soon everyone will be blind, right? But what in fucking heaven would he say about our state of affiars today? Maybe something like 'A Head for an Eye and soon everyone will just be fucking Dead.'

Ok Ok Ok, so now what you ask? Well I guess all we can do is assist eachother in the re-awakening, back to reality, back to humanity and love, etc. Oh yea and maybe an audit of the government!

Awareness->Communication->Education->Understanding->Evolution

\/ Here's a helpful start/info \/
http://www.warresisters.org/piechart.htm

[Simply Joel]

but big brother did it for you... and if not for you... at least a couple hundred million besides you.

[DVD Burner]

Lysergic, I been saying that since before I been sayin it on this board.
No one really has enough balls to take on any of PNAC's members (which by the way also includes Dan Quale....now how dumb can you get.) I really dont see what the big deal taking them on is.
And please dont tell me it's because of the money why no one does'nt take them on.

[Simply Joel]

what i can't figure is how you can assign responsibility for everything that you believe to be wrong with the world, to this administration... as if Iraqis, Iranians, North Koreans, Germany, France, Russia and any other nation or entity (please insert any given name of a jihad-ist organization) don't have some responsibility and free-will...

Additionally, I am still awaiting clear alternatives for the manner by which the USA should act throughout the world besides "we shouldn't have done anything..."

maybe the question should be posed, "Why not war?"

[Lysergic]

And please dont tell me it's because of the money why no one does'nt take them on.

Heya Burner, I think fundamentally the problem lies in organization and communication. People need to wake up to reality, and they're not going to be enlightened of this by the 6 o' clock news on tv. A people of the world need to do this soul searching. But seeing as how America, an infant in comparison, has become incredibly powerful. We the people of this once great nation need to fix things, noone else will for us.

To Joel, I don't believe I said anything about blaming the entire worlds problems on America-there's enough of that to go around! I'm just saying this nation is headed in a very dangerous path. The corruption is no longer questionable, the atrocities are no longer deniable, and the people have lost control of the very system they built to protect them.

Also if you think spending 50% of the budget every year for defense, which really isn't any fucking real Defense, or 9/11 wouldn't have happened so easily. The fact is all the money is spent on offensive measures, to build insane amounts of weapons and technology for the bloodthirsty war machine. The CIA is the war chief.

[Simply Joel]

... if you think spending 50% of the budget every year for defense, which really isn't any fucking real Defense, or 9/11 wouldn't have happened so easily. The fact is all the money is spent on offensive measures, to build insane amounts of weapons and technology for the bloodthirsty war machine.

cites? facts? or unsubstantiated opinions?




http://www.nationalreview.com/nrof_comm ... 020903.asp

March 02, 2004, 9:03 a.m.
Indefensible Non-Defense Spending
Where are the 1994 Republicans?

By Veronique de Rugy

In 1994, the Republicans gained control of Congress in part because they promised to reduce wasteful government spending and eliminate the deficit. To their credit, the GOP partially upheld its commitment to fiscal responsibility by modestly slowing down the growth rate of spending. In 1996, even with Bill Clinton in the White House, the GOP even managed to cut spending.

This led many people to hope that much-needed spending reductions would become more prevalent if Republicans also controlled the White House. Think again. Since 2001, with Republicans in the White House and in control of both houses of Congress, we have seen the opposite.

Total federal outlays will rise 29 percent between fiscal years 2001 and 2005, and real discretionary spending increases in fiscal years 2002, 2003, and 2004 are three of the five biggest annual increases in the last forty years. As Lord Acton said, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

During the Clinton years, Republicans brought quite a reforming spirit to Washington after the landmark 1994 congressional elections. They wanted to abolish the Departments of Commerce, Education, and Energy. They were committed to scale down the size of the federal government because, as Sen. Sam Brownback (R., Kan.) noted, "Not only has the government gone beyond its appropriate role but it has failed in its mission. It is time to pull the plug on the experiment." And, in fact, in 1996, the Republicans managed to cut total discretionary spending by $12 billion.

But this reforming spirit began to wane. Between fiscal years 1997 and 2001, with Clinton in the White House and Republicans in control of Congress, discretionary spending increased systematically. President Clinton requested more spending and Republicans were happy to oblige. Indeed, after going through the hands of the GOP Congress, actual spending ended up on average $10 billion higher than the amount requested, largely due to higher defense outlays.

The one noticeable exception was that during that same period, actual non-defense spending was slightly lower than what the president requested. So, even though non-defense spending continued to grow, it grew at a slower rate than what President Clinton requested. Of course, one can say that Clinton had no incentive to propose reasonable budgets, but the GOP Congress decided not to indulge in even more non-defense spending.

Unfortunately, the reforming spirit has all but disappeared. Today, Republicans control both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, and each year since 2001, the president has proposed large discretionary-spending increases, and actual spending approved by Congress has been even higher than the big budgets proposed — on average, $65 billion higher. Some observers think that increases in defense spending to fight terrorism and the war in Iraq explain the increases. They're wrong.

Between fiscal years 2002 and 2004, President Bush made no attempt to control non-defense spending. In each of these last three years, the president's budgets have requested, on average, $20 billion in increased domestic spending compared with the previous year.

But this time the Republican Congress did not resist the bipartisan temptation to spend our money on pork-barrel projects and decided to spend even more money than the president requested. As a result, actual government non-defense spending over that period will have increased at least $114 billion. The recent omnibus bill is the latest example of the spending binge.

Since 2001, the Republican performance in controlling non-defense spending has been a complete failure throughout the budget. In fiscal year 2002, the budget ended up $50 billion more than the one requested, and $30 billion more in fiscal year 2003 than originally planned. But this seems relatively minor compared to the underestimated $90 billion that Congress allocated on top of the amount proposed by the president for fiscal year 2004. Of course, some of that extra money was requested by the president himself for more operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. But Congress failed to ask for equivalent cuts in the domestic budget to offset that additional spending.

As was the case in the Reagan years, the culture of spending in Washington has prevailed over the Republican promises to cut the budget and become fiscally responsible. In fact, it is now difficult to find any commitment to smaller government. Both parties have joined hands in the big spending orgy. As Dick Armey used to say, "Three groups spend other people's money: children, thieves, politicians. All three need supervision."

— Veronique de Rugy is a fiscal policy analyst at the Cato Institute.

[Simply Joel]

http://www.newamericancentury.org/defense-20010712.htm

July 12, 2001


MEMORANDUM TO: OPINION LEADERS


FROM: WILLIAM KRISTOL & GARY SCHMITT


SUBJECT: Defense

We would like to draw your attention to an extraordinary passage in Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz’s testimony yesterday before the House Budget Committee on President Bush’s 2002 amended budget request for the Defense Department.


Wolfowitz points out that in 1950, just prior to the Korean War, President Truman refused to request from Congress the increase in miliary spending his defense team thought was necessary. Today, we face a similar situation with the White House and OMB slashing the Secretary of Defense’s and the military services’ requests for increased defense expenditures. For example, Secretary Rumsfeld came to the White House several weeks ago saying he needed at least $35 billion as a supplement to the 2002 defense budget; the White House authorized only half that amount. Right now, the Bush White House is willing to hold defense spending below the total needed because it values tax cuts more and fears cutting domestic spending further. Moreover, with the president so lukewarm on fixing the shortfall in military spending, it is virtually certain that the Defense Department will not even get from Congress the additional $18 billion it has requested for FY2002.


In his testimony, Wolfowitz suggests a goal of setting defense spending at 3.5% of GDP. As he says, “To think we can’t afford an insurance policy of roughly 3.5% of GDP today to deter the adversaries of tomorrow and underpin our prosperity, and by extension, peace and stability around the globe, is simply wrong.” But this year’s budget request is barely 3% of GDP, and OMB is now telling the Defense Department not to expect any real increase for next year. So, the clear implication of the deputy secretary of defense’s testimony is that his president’s budget is woefully insufficient, and the White House is dangerously misguided, when it comes to providing for the nation’s security and its interests around the globe.



Excerpts from Deputy Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz’s
Prepared Testimony on the FY 2002 Defense Budget
to the House Budget Committee
July 11, 2001

“I’m reminded of another point in our history when it was a challenge to make a case for increased defense spending. In 1950, General Omar Bradley urged President Truman to spend at least $18 billion on defense. The Joint Chiefs gave an even higher estimate at $23 billion, and the services' estimate was higher still at $30 billion. But the President said we couldn’t afford that much - $15 billion was as much as we could afford.


“Six months later, we were suddenly in a war in Korea. Just as suddenly we found we had no choice other than to budget some $48 billion—a 300 percent increase. How much better it would have been to have made the investment earlier. If we had done so, Dean Acheson might not have been forced to define Korea as being outside the defense perimeter of the United States—on the grounds that we did not have the forces to defend it.


“We have spent an historical average of about 8% of GDP on defense, in part because we have not spent enough in peacetime to prepare for, and deter, war. We can’t know who may challenge us in the future, or where, or when. Today, we are more in the range of 3% of GDP. But it is reckless to press our luck or gamble with our children's future. To think we can’t afford an insurance policy of roughly 3.5% of GDP today to deter the adversaries of tomorrow and underpin our prosperity, and by extension, peace and stability around the globe, is simply wrong. When compared with the cost in dollars and human lives if we fail to do so, it is cheap at that price.

“It’s interesting here to consider once again the situation in 1950. President Truman’s bottom-line figure of $15 billion represented 32 percent of the federal budget, or just 5 percent of the GDP. The jump in spending to $48 billion the war necessitated represented more than 15 percent of the GDP. If history is our guide, it suggests strongly that we are much wiser to pay the premium now than to pay in blood and treasure later.”

[Rob the Wop]

Why war? Hmmmmm....

Because it's easier to bomb a foreign country than fgiure out how to open a child-proof medicine bottle?

[cowboyangel]

Why war? Hmmmmm....

Because it's easier to bomb a foreign country than fgiure out how to open a child-proof medicine bottle?

touché Rob....excellent!!!!!

[samtzu]

Why War...? dig down deep, and what you find is a bunch of primates trying to get the best fruit off of the best tree... and they are going to kill as many of their fellow primates, or anything else that get in their way, to get that fruit.

By the way... If you want to look at one of the root motivators of war, look at the violence of the concepts that we embrace. Every shouted "Fuck You!" is a cousin to murder. That same emotion drives it all. It's just that the big boys have internalized it, turned it to 'strength', and sent other boys off to do the dying part. Primates! Fuck!

I still think it was a bad idea to come outta' the trees.

[cowboyangel]

those who know it's obsolete will not put out the mental eqiuvalent for it's support any longer (meaning most of the world)......those who support war as a concept are having their last bloody hurrah

[samtzu]

CA wrote:

......those who support war as a concept are having their last bloody hurrah

We Hope and Pray...

[Rob the Wop]

those who know it's obsolete will not put out the mental eqiuvalent for it's support any longer (meaning most of the world)......those who support war as a concept are having their last bloody hurrah

Unfortunately, he entire breadth of recorded human history says differently. Let's face it, as long as us stupid primates are around- we will throw sticks at each other. Just the size of the sticks have changed.

The only things that could chagne this would be to limit the global population, remove those things that create differences (religon, nationalism, etc.), and find a way to get rid of the 'alpha male/female' syndrome (make it impossible to consolidate power in a single individual or group).

[Lysergic]

Well those are definitely high on the priority list, but really so much has to be done. It all starts with the common person, through collective organization. The powers that be will continue to do 'anything' to keep their power. Power always corrupts. So the people need to take back the power to restructuralize and revolutionize. It's a brave new world, and soon there will be a renaissance or a catastrophre. I prefer the former...

[Rob the Wop]

So the people need to take back the power to restructuralize and revolutionize.

Been there, done that. The 'leaders' of the revolution (and there has to be leaders to confront an established unified force) then turn into the corrupt over the course of generations. Your heart is in the right place, but new governments either start from being conquered or being revolutionized. And fail. Let's face it- 'the people' as an unorganized group suck.

Why? Those in comfortable positions don't tend to look beyond the immediate needs of their family. Effective government that benefits the people has always led to corruption over time as the goals of the revolutionaries fade from the view of the common man.

[Bob]

Take up the White Man's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.

Take up the White Man's burden--
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek another's profit,
And work another's gain.

Take up the White Man's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.

Take up the White Man's burden--
No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper--
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go mark them with your living,
And mark them with your dead.

Take up the White Man's burden--
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard--
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--
"Why brought he us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?"

Take up the White Man's burden--
Ye dare not stoop to less--
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloke your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your gods and you.

Take up the White Man's burden--
Have done with childish days--
The lightly proferred laurel,
The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers!

Kipling

[BAS]

Unfortunately, Rob has several good points. At least one of the founders of the U.S.A. favored perpetual (and violent) revolution as a method to keep power from stagnating. (I want to say Jefferson, but I am not certain about that.) One of the U.S.'s stongpoints has been that regular elections help to keep a pseudo-revolution going (and having the terms staggered helps keep some stability). Another strength is the system of checks and balances. One thing which hasn't been avoided, and might not be possible to avoid, is entropy, or decay of the system(s).

Over time is has been possible for people to figure out how to hang onto power-- how to induce stagnation which favors them and their friends/relatives/families. I suppose that it is a natural human tendancy-- perhaps even a natural tendancy for all mammals, since it helps perpetuate the race/genes.

We may be seeing the decline of the United States as an actual representative democracy. I hope not, but am not certain what I can do to ensure that it is not the end.

[cowboyangel]

I'm not so sure of Rob's view of the situation after witnessing the massive peace marches all over the world before the US led Iraq invasion. Many millions of people from the US, England (1 million in Trafalgar Square alone), Germany, Spain, Italy, to mention a few, set a new landamark record for a public display of anti-war solidarity....this was nothing short of evolutionary, nothing like this had ever been seen in the world ever. Editorialists refer to this as the "new superpower"- world public opinion. Does it matter in a world of "those who have the guns rule" ...I think it does. Look what happened in Spain. The key thing to see here is the birth of the mass voice of the people. This movement is in it's infancy now, and it is growing not shrinking. That it is up against such a formidable opponent as the militaristic regimes of the world, is not cause to despair, but reason to look for hope. The fact that the new anti-war movement organized so fast as it did before the war started, is ample proof of this. This October, D.C. will see a miilion worker march. People are organizing and trying to find effective ways to make their voice heard...mass public outpourings are one way, certaintly, follow up action is just as vital, only harder to see.

When you hear of one of these marches...go join it. I support Burning Man for all of the above reasons. I have never seen 30,000 people organized so peacefully and having so much fun and producing so much incredible art anywhere! This too is historic. People in their souls are demanding and craving this...when the demand comes from that place...it is something to be reckoned with. It is something that will never be stopped.


ok. end of soapbox

[Lysergic]

Viva la revolution!

[Rob the Wop]

Admittedly, the 'revolution' has changed somewhat. The basic premises that permit the unchecked cycle of government creation to government corruption to government atrocities to revolution have remain the same.

However, the communications media has changed. One of the biggest factors of governmental control has been the propaganda machines. The Internet has made a huge change. Let's face it- you can't control the Internet by any truely effective means. Differing viewpoints and contacts mean that people can search out different media to find out information. The lowering prices of camcorders and telephone/cellphone allow more exposure to things the mass populous had no idea existed.

Top that off with a country that leads the world in the entertainment industry having freedoms that allow the Micheal Moores of the world to exist- and now the playing field has changed somewhat.

Maybe the ineffectual marches of the 60s will now give birth to the 'revolution' that should have happened back then?

In the meantime, I'll just stay locked in the basement with my guns, ammo, and food supplies until all the nasty bits blow over. Maybe scream rabidly at the walls every once in a while for good measure.

[theCryptofishist]

At least one of the founders of the U.S.A. favored perpetual (and violent) revolution as a method to keep power from stagnating. (I want to say Jefferson, but I am not certain about that.)

Yup Jefferson. He changed his tune when he became president. (Funny that.) Let's just take everything that that particular elitist pro rights for white men with property advocate said with a grain of salt. The Founding Fathers were much more radical than most--or all--of them would care to know.

[Simply Joel]

I'm not so sure of Rob's view of the situation after witnessing the massive peace marches all over the world before the US led Iraq invasion. Many millions of people from the US, England (1 million in Trafalgar Square alone), Germany, Spain, Italy, to mention a few, set a new landamark record for a public display of anti-war solidarity....this was nothing short of evolutionary, nothing like this had ever been seen in the world ever. Editorialists refer to this as the "new superpower"- world public opinion. Does it matter in a world of "those who have the guns rule" ...I think it does. Look what happened in Spain. The key thing to see here is the birth of the mass voice of the people. This movement is in it's infancy now, and it is growing not shrinking. That it is up against such a formidable opponent as the militaristic regimes of the world, is not cause to despair, but reason to look for hope. The fact that the new anti-war movement organized so fast as it did before the war started, is ample proof of this. This October, D.C. will see a miilion worker march. People are organizing and trying to find effective ways to make their voice heard...mass public outpourings are one way, certaintly, follow up action is just as vital, only harder to see.

When you hear of one of these marches...go join it. I support Burning Man for all of the above reasons. I have never seen 30,000 people organized so peacefully and having so much fun and producing so much incredible art anywhere! This too is historic. People in their souls are demanding and craving this...when the demand comes from that place...it is something to be reckoned with. It is something that will never be stopped.


ok. end of soapbox

The stories surrounding the effectiveness of the anti-war movement have been highly exaggerated... as evidenced by the continuation of hostilities that were once protested against.

I hope you anti-war folks get some effectiveness soon, 'cause your efforts have done little IMHO.

[cowboyangel]

feels so good to be quoted by Joel in such length...I feel like William Saffire now.....as usual I disagree with you Joel....hey but we agree on some things don't we......?

[stuart]

The stories surrounding the effectiveness of the anti-war movement have been highly exaggerated... as evidenced by the continuation of hostilities that were once protested against.

I gotta give Joel this one.

30,000
100,000
1,000,000

that's all well and good for a popularity contest, but shit man, take a look around. No one in power seems all that deterred. Still, elections are right around the corner. Blair will certainly get dumped.

[Simply Joel]

Safer Than You Think
The security we've enjoyed since Sept. 11 isn't just a matter of dumb luck.

By Dan Byman

Posted Monday, Aug. 2, 2004, at 1:25 PM PT

Citing "new and unusually specific information" that merited a 10 on a 1-to-10 scale of reliability, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge has issued a warning that al-Qaida has plans to attack several major financial targets in New York City and Washington, D.C., and raised the terror alert level in those areas to Code Orange. While ominous, such warnings are not new, and workers in targeted institutions were said to be "defiant" in the face of the heightened alert. After all, since the afternoon of Sept. 11, 2001, pundits and policymakers have warned that additional spectacular terrorist attacks on the United States were inevitable.

I have long been part of this pack of doomsayers. My reasoning was simple. Well before Sept. 11, al-Qaida had brutally demonstrated both its desire to kill Americans and its ability to do so. If anything, the carnage of Sept. 11 bolstered the organization's desire to kill large numbers of Americans. Al-Qaida had captured the world's attention, brought the war home to America, and inflicted considerable economic damage to boot. If this was not incentive enough, the ousting of al-Qaida's patron the Taliban, the arrest or death of many senior leaders at the hands of U.S. forces, and the worldwide hounding of al-Qaida operatives should have redoubled its determination to strike back. Indeed, a bloody al-Qaida response would have met with considerable applause in much of the Muslim world angered by the U.S. war against and occupation of Iraq.

For these reasons, I still believe an attack is likely in the years, perhaps even months, to come. And if the flight attendants and passengers aboard American Airlines Flight 63 had been a little less alert (or if Richard Reid, the "shoe bomber," had been a little less stupid), more Americans would be dead. But almost three years without an al-Qaida attack in the United States must be taken as a sign of progress, even if it is only a hiatus between Sept. 11 and another major strike. What explains this unexpected success?

The easy answer, and the wrong one, is that U.S. officials exaggerated the al-Qaida threat. By this reckoning, the Sept. 11 attacks were the devastating last gasp of a now-battered movement. Such an argument, however, ignores the fact that al-Qaida and organizations affiliated with it have become more active internationally since Sept. 11. Although the United States has, fortunately, been spared, the group or organizations linked to it have attacked in Tunisia, Yemen, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Kenya, Jordan, Russia, Indonesia, Turkey, and Spain, among others lands—to say nothing of Iraq.

Another specious argument is that the terrorists have migrated to Iraq and decided to confront America there rather than on U.S. soil. Iraq, of course, is a magnet for jihadists opposed to the United States, some of whom are linked to al-Qaida. Yet despite their zeal for killing Americans (and cooperative Iraqis) in Iraq, this has not stopped them from carrying out lethal attacks in Russia and Western Europe, among other places.

A more convincing explanation is that U.S. defenses are now better and popular vigilance is higher, making it more difficult for attackers to get through. The post-Sept. 11 FBI crackdown on potential terrorists and the increased scrutiny, however fumbling, of the various components of the Department of Homeland Security make it harder for radicals to strike. Most encouragingly, various FBI arrests do not suggest a massive logistics and recruiting infrastructure on U.S. soil.

But this is only a partial explanation, as FBI officials freely admit. The greatest blow to al-Qaida has come from the removal of its haven in Afghanistan and the disruption of the permissive environment it enjoyed in numerous countries in Europe and Asia. The leaders of the organization are under intense pressure, with killings and arrests commonplace. As a result, attacks that require meticulous planning and widespread coordination are far more difficult to carry out.

Al-Qaida has changed in response to these pressures. As former CIA Director George Tenet testified earlier this year, "Successive blows to al-Qaida's central leadership have transformed the organization into a loose collection of regional networks that operate more autonomously." Before Sept. 11, al-Qaida worked closely with various local jihadist movements, drawing on their personnel and logistics centers for its own efforts and working to knit the disparate movements together. Since 9/11, local group leaders have played a far more important role, taking the initiative in choosing targets and conducting operations, looking to al-Qaida more for inspiration than for direction.

This shift from a centralized structure to a more localized one has made the U.S. homeland safer. The United States, in contrast to many nations in Europe and Asia, does not have a strong, well-organized, radical Islamist presence on its shores. Although there are certainly jihadist sympathizers who might conduct attacks on their own or be used by foreign jihadists as local facilitators, the vast sea of disaffected young Muslim men that is present in Europe and elsewhere has no U.S. parallel. Similarly, the logistics network of forgers, scouts, recruiters, money men, and others is far less developed.

Safer does not mean safe, and the risk of less sophisticated attacks remains particularly high. Attacks on U.S. allies where jihadist networks are better organized and more resilient are a grave concern, and Americans traveling abroad are particularly vulnerable. Nor is the homeland necessarily secure, as al-Qaida has adjusted to U.S. vigilance. FBI Director Robert Mueller has warned that the organization is seeking recruits who will easily blend in to the United States. Tenet also darkly noted that for groups sympathetic to al-Qaida's ideology, attacks on the U.S. homeland remain the "brass ring."

Sadly, less sophisticated attacks do not necessarily mean less lethal ones. It is easy to kill. In the past, terrorists without a sophisticated organization behind them have used arson, car bombs, assassinations, and other low-tech means to wreak havoc. Even the complete destruction of al-Qaeda would not end this threat.

National and local leaders must walk a careful line. The threat, of course, remains quite real, and doom-saying is always the safest political strategy. Outrages in Iraq and elsewhere around the globe also demonstrate that the battle against terrorists has only just begun. While many components of the U.S. war on terrorism are failing, others may be going better than we think—a statement that remains true even if there is another major attack on U.S. soil tomorrow. At some point, Americans should recognize that the safety we've enjoyed at home comes from more than dumb luck.


Daniel Byman is an assistant professor at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and a nonresident senior fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution.

[Lysergic]

But what happens when the attack is more sophisticated. What happens when just hundreds of thousands of nukes on the planet hits home. There are many countries with nuclear technology. North Korea has declared this, and it has been shown that they've traded missile technology with Pakistan for their nuclear materials. Other countries are 'suspected' to have the technology and/or materials such as Iran, Iraq, Iraq, etc.

Adding to this, Russia has a bunch of 'unaccounted' nuclear bombs missing. The question now remains WHO has them?

What would happen if someone sailed up a boat onto Manhattan island with one of these missing Russian Nukes or a secretly manufactured one? Or hit DC for that matter, ship it over through Canada or Mexico using underground railways like they did with tons of coke, weed and immigrants/terrorists....

It wouldn't be a pretty site thats for sure, think Hiroshima x 1000. Not in terms of Megatons, but in terms of Destruction. If New York got hit, there goes the stock market, the U.N., and the entire country with it.

When Oppenheimer thought he had bloods on his hands and recalled the hindu passage "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds," did he ever realize what was inevitably to come of afterword? Without a doubt...

It's now up to Humanity to get its shit together before we destory ourselves...or maybe that is our evolutionary destiny. I don't think Mother Earth would miss us much...

[Simply Joel]

DAY TWO

By William F. Buckley Jr.

Weeks after the great awakening of 9/11, Professor Angelo Codevilla wrote in the Claremont Review of Books that we should expect repeated terrorist attacks and that there was nothing we could do about it without changing the entire playing field. Americans are in subways and football stadiums, and this is our way of life. The way of life for the terrorist, the professor admonished, is the small weapon with the hefty load. One truck, perhaps 1,000 dead.

The happy news on Monday was that we had penetrated, and therefore managed to abort, one concerted design of the terrorists, to hit five centers of congested U.S. life. But not baseball parks. Instead, centers of commerce. If you hit the New York Stock Exchange, you are aiming at 1,500 employees. But killing them is only part of the point. We are far removed from the battle of the Marne, or Gettysburg. What al-Qaida is attempting in choosing its targets is to damage the vital aorta of American life. Imagine an electrical failure in a hospital, and you see the picture in a special, gruesome light.

A commentator contrasted the high-strung composition of modern commercial life with what was so in World War II. Bombings of Berlin and Tokyo were to great effect, but not immobilizing. The World Bank, the IMF, the Stock Exchange, Citigroup and Prudential form a major artery of our economic system.


We have been three years since Professor Codevilla's apocalyptic analysis, but the crisis of Monday stresses that the threat has not dissipated since 9/11; it has increased. We focus on counterweaponry and applaud gratefully our military and intelligence network that, with the apparent cooperation of the Pakistani government, delivered the plotters to our attention. We saved the day, but learned, on the same day, the strategic reach of a sophisticated enemy who, notwithstanding that we have won one war in Afghanistan and are on the way to winning another in Iraq, is still capable of planning a subversive operation on grand-opera scale.

The totality of our engagement as addressed by President Bush and his advisers is manifest. Perhaps the day after tomorrow we will locate Osama bin Laden and fire a fine retributory bullet to take him to his dream world. But we will need to remind ourselves day after day -- especially during an election season, when central postulates are doubted -- that only comprehensive aggression against terrorist structures can give us, if not safety, such shelter as can be devised.

And this means focusing on incubation pods of terrorism. We need special attention given to Iran, and North Korea, and churning Arab cultures. We have the benefit that with perhaps the exception of North Korea, no civil government gives explicit sanction to the terrorists. They have too much to lose. Tehran is a threatening power center, and we need to face its gestating nuclear armory with strategic vision. But Iran does not want a showdown with the United States hanging on a bomb going off at Prudential headquarters in New Jersey.

The distinction between the view of reality by the Bush administration and the voices of irresolution that held forth in Boston a week ago is especially keen. There is no other word for it than that we are at war. It is a war against loosely bound but fatally well-organized forces who want to incapacitate America and are well on their way to changing the mobile freedoms by which we have lived for so long, but whose restriction now is represented by the gatekeeper who wants to see the inside of your shoe before allowing you another step.

[Simply Joel]

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August 6, 2004
OP-ED COLUMNIST
What About Iraq?
By PAUL KRUGMAN

A funny thing happened after the United States transferred sovereignty over Iraq. On the ground, things didn't change, except for the worse.

But as Matthew Yglesias of The American Prospect puts it, the cosmetic change in regime had the effect of "Afghanizing" the media coverage of Iraq.

He's referring to the way news coverage of Afghanistan dropped off sharply after the initial military defeat of the Taliban. A nation we had gone to war to liberate and had promised to secure and rebuild - a promise largely broken - once again became a small, faraway country of which we knew nothing.

Incredibly, the same thing happened to Iraq after June 28. Iraq stories moved to the inside pages of newspapers, and largely off TV screens. Many people got the impression that things had improved. Even journalists were taken in: a number of newspaper stories asserted that the rate of U.S. losses there fell after the handoff. (Actual figures: 42 American soldiers died in June, and 54 in July.)

The trouble with this shift of attention is that if we don't have a clear picture of what's actually happening in Iraq, we can't have a serious discussion of the options that remain for making the best of a very bad situation.

The military reality in Iraq is that there has been no letup in the insurgency, and large parts of the country seem to be effectively under the control of groups hostile to the U.S.-supported government.

In the spring, American forces won an impressive military victory against the Shiite forces of Moktada al-Sadr. But this victory hasn't curbed the movement; Mr. Sadr's forces, according to many reports, are the de facto government of Sadr City, a Baghdad slum with 2.5 million people, and seem to have strengthened their position in Najaf and other cities.

In Sunni areas, Falluja is enemy territory. Elsewhere in western Iraq, according to reports from Knight Ridder and The Los Angeles Times, U.S. forces have hunkered down, manning watch posts but not patrolling. In effect, this cedes control of the population to the insurgents. And everywhere, of course, the mortar attacks, bombings, kidnappings and assassinations go on.

Despite a two-month truce between Mr. Sadr and the United States military, heavy fighting broke out yesterday in Najaf, where a U.S. helicopter was shot down. There was also sporadic violence in Sadr City - where, according to reporters, American planes appeared to drop bombs - and in Basra.

Meanwhile, reconstruction has languished.

This summer, like last summer, there are severe shortages of electricity. Sewage is tainting the water supply, and typhoid and hepatitis are on the rise. Unemployment remains sky-high. Needless to say, all this undermines any chance for the new Iraqi government to gain wide support.

My point in describing all this bad news is not to be defeatist. It is to set some realistic context for the political debate.

One thing is clear: calls to "stay the course" are fatuous. The course we're on leads downhill. American soldiers keep winning battles, but we're losing the war: our military is under severe strain; we're creating more terrorists than we're killing; our reputation, including our moral authority, is damaged each month this goes on.

So am I saying we should cut and run? That's another loaded phrase. Nobody wants to see helicopters lifting the last Americans off the roofs of the Green Zone.

But we need to move quickly to end our position as "an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land," the fate that none other than former President George H. W. Bush correctly warned could be the result of an invasion of Iraq. And that means turning real power over to Iraqis.

Again and again since the early months after the fall of Baghdad - when Paul Bremer III canceled local elections in order to keep the seats warm for our favorite exiles - U.S. officials have passed up the chance to promote credible Iraqi leaders. And each time the remaining choices get worse.

Yet we're still doing it. Ayad Allawi is, probably, something of a thug. Still, it's in our interests that he succeed.

But when Mr. Allawi proposed an amnesty for insurgents - a move that was obviously calculated to show that he wasn't an American puppet - American officials, probably concerned about how it would look at home, stepped in to insist that insurgents who have killed Americans be excluded. Inevitably, this suggestion that American lives matter more than Iraqi lives led to an unraveling of the whole thing, so Mr. Allawi now looks like a puppet.

Should we cut and run? No. But we should get realistic, and look in earnest for an exit.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

[Lysergic]

Yea well the largest protest in human history, was also a pre-war protest. But did Bush give a shit? No. Did we ever find evidence of weapons of msas destruction? No. Are we ever going to leave Iraq or give up possession entirely. No.

We sure as hell can't afford going to war with the other two 'axis of evil' countries. We've already spent way too much for Iraq, taking from education, health care, etc. So where's that leave us? Up Shit Creek and everyone is starting to realize this.

Obviously war with Iraq was a 'reactive' and not 'proactive' approach to a solution. Soon we're gonna see more of a reactive approach from the new enemies we're making everyday. The fate of our civilization rests in the hands of the people, not the politicians, not the president, and certainly not the corperations.

Personally I'm gonna get my kicks before the whole shit-house goes up in flames, alright! <-- To quote Jim Morrison

[Simply Joel]

Yea well the largest protest in human history, was also a pre-war protest.

So what has the anti-war movement done since then? Why aren't there protests every week, weekend, weekday???

But did Bush give a shit? No.

Refer to my question above... maybe he, Dick and Carl figured out that the anti-war movement had/has no teeth...

Did we ever find evidence of weapons of msas destruction? No.

No, not yet... so where did all those chemicals we sold them many years ago... go to? Hmmm? and if you believe we were wrong for selling them in the first place... take it a step further... don't we have a responsibility to clean up our own dirty laundry, so to speak?

Are we ever going to leave Iraq or give up possession entirely. No.

Oh, I believe the USA will have a footprint in the middle east for the entire unforseeable future... but if we aren't there... someone less friendly than us would be there... maybe the Russians (and we all know they are kindly humanitarians)?

We sure as hell can't afford going to war with the other two 'axis of evil' countries.

Oh, you might be surprised how easily a full mobilization could be done... yup, every swinging richard and pair of breasts... DRAFTED! It could happen.

We've already spent way too much for Iraq, taking from education, health care, etc.

I don't believe there were any appropriations refused due to the war... do you have cites?

So where's that leave us? Up Shit Creek and everyone is starting to realize this.

Got a solution in mind, or what?

Obviously war with Iraq was a 'reactive' and not 'proactive' approach to a solution.

But not as non-reactive as Bill Clinton, right?[/quote]

Soon we're gonna see more of a reactive approach from the new enemies we're making everyday.

Solutions, suggestions?

The fate of our civilization rests in the hands of the people, not the politicians, not the president, and certainly not the corperations.

So politicians and the president aren't people... and corporations (properly spelled) are not comprised of people as your statement asserts?

Personally I'm gonna get my kicks before the whole shit-house goes up in flames, alright! <-- To quote Jim Morrison

Well, I am glad to see you are taking a very mature approach to this issue.