Democrats versus Republicans

[SailorMitch]

Originally Posted by sailaway21

Ahh!
I forgot about the liberal mind's casual acceptance of invading our Ally's sovereign territory. I hear it's much easier than invading our enemy's territory. Only the liberal mind could think it justifiable to invade an Ally's territory for the purpose of the capture of one man instead of considering the fact that, that one man is hunkered down in a cave some where living an 18th century existence and there's nowhere else on the planet he dares call home. Hard to believe that warmongerers such as us on the right over-looked the potential for invading Pakistan.

Of course, these are the same libs who decried any possibility of success in Afghanistan based upon the Red Army's experience there. As usual, the US military has put paid to that nonsense.

As for bankrupting the Treasury wasn't it just last week that you all were pillorying Rumsfeld for attempting to fight the war on the cheap? and it actually has been a pretty cheap war to fight, both in lives and dollars. I don't see any signs from the liberal left that they are overly concerned with not having money for significant expansions of the nanny state. (see presidential campaign of B. Obama, D-Ill.)

I don't think we really need to invade Iran, although it might speed up the inevitable. Funding dissident groups and targeted strikes at anything remotely nuclear would be adequate in my book. Come to think of it, it's an almost perfect time for another Iranian revolution, this one democratic in nature. Who's going to come to their aid?

See Mitch, another post focused on the events of five years ago. It's 2008 and time to clean the millennium confetti up from the living room unless you want to conserve resources by vacuuming at the end of the decade.

sway-- Bush has repeatedly violated Pakistan"s border although with musharraf in his back pocket little has come of it. musharraf has cooperated with us because we help shore up his dictatorship by suppling him with arms and no doubt cash.. Ahh-- but he was freely elected right????? Yeah sure. and note how cavalierly you mention attacking anything nuclear in iran. your double standard is showing. has iran threatened us with an attack?

so sorry i keep mentioning Bush's "gross mismanagement" as mCCain puts it in this war over the last 5 years. your sensitivity on this matter is quite understandable. and in case you haven't noticed, the taliban is still active in pakistan and afghanistan and theose countries are still the base for al qeada, yes there is still work to be done. (The Russians literally ran out of cash for thae afghan war and also faced an enemy well supplied with arms by the US. some of those arms have been used against us of course.) while things are going swimmingly in iraq right now, Bush has defeated Al Qeada in a country that group had no presence in at the beginning.. so what has he really won???

actually rummy was probably just trying to keep the body count down. I don't think cost ever entered his mind. had he listened much earlier to the commanders asking for more troops probably most of our troops would be home by now saving us billions. mccain is equally unconcered with covering the costs for his programs.

you love to rail against the tax and spend dems, but you give a free pass to the borrow and spend repubs. you also never addressed my question of how many billions of $ and how many lives we would have saved had Bush used his Yale degree and kept his eye on the ball?? thankfully the iraqi's are showing an interest in protecting their own country. Bully for them. It's about time.

I have to keep pointing out the obvious to you so that just maybe the "Right" won't keep leading us down the wrong path should mccain win. i think the country needs to learn from this debacle of invading the wrong country but obviously you don't want to learn from experience.. barack knows that lesson, but i don't think MCcain has learned it from his campaign rhetoric.

nor have you answered my question of what next for this GWOT???? who should be in our crosshairs next? or is lobbing a few cruise missiles at Iran good enough?

[SailorMitch]

[quote=chucklesR;332333]SCK, what papers do you read?
Do you have a news source that fills your head with this rubbish or do you just spout it out?
Kurdish, Shia and Sunni's have been pounding each other in Iraq long before we got there.

As to since then:

Every religion has had its martyrs—think of the early Christians and Jews defying the Roman Empire—and Islam too has its pantheon of martyrs. But the Koran categorically forbids suicide. Until al-Qaeda began turning religious texts on their heads, martyrdom was accepted only as the last resort of a cornered Muslim warrior and not as a willfully planned death. This radical change in the concept of martyrdom has been viewed by many commentators as the license for modern Islamic terrorism.

Before September 11, al-Qaeda carried out suicide missions, but it also fought its jihad on the conventional battlefield, supporting allies such as the Taliban government, the Kashmiri terrorists, and the Somali warlords. The extremists from the 1990s depicted in the books by Nasiri and Lia would never have considered throwing their lives away in a deliberate suicide attack—their lives meant too much to them and they were having too much fun spreading the global jihad around the world.

Of course al-Qaeda is still engaged in conventional guerrilla wars, fighting US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, but today, seven years after September 11, jihad for al-Qaeda and its worldwide allies increasingly means one thing—suicide bombing. This is the change that must be confronted. Now you are not a good jihadi until you kill yourself in the act of killing many others. Thus in the period after September 11 the extremist interpretation of jihad has undergone yet another metamorphosis, degenerating into a cult of suicide bombing against which there is often no plausible defense.
[\quote]
from Jihadi Suicide Bombers: The New Wave - The New York Review of Books

chuck-- you were probably out of town when I posted this. but the fellow who "wrote the book" justifying violent jihad used by OBL has changed his thinking and has issued a new Document. worth reading and following:

while waiting at the neurologist"s office the other day i picked up the june 2, 1988 issue of the new yorker. after the shock of finding a current magazine wore off I flipped through it and came upon an article about a Doctor fadl, who authored 2 works on radical/violent jihad that obl used to convince people to join al qaeda. fadl was an associate of zahawiri as well. they were both Egyptian doctors. fadl is currently in an egyptian prison and has issued a new document renouncing his old ways. here is an excerpt from one of the documents i have included links to below that explains it better than i can :

The Salafi-Jihadi ideology, the doctrine and constitution of al-Qaeda’s terrorists, is being re-evaluated by prominent Salafi-Jihadi ideologues. The same ideologues that previously sanctioned terrorist operations are now having second thoughts about the ideology behind many heinous terrorist acts. Last month Sayed Imam Abdulaziz al-Sharif, a founder of the Egyptian Jihad organization and a prominent jihad theoretician better known as “Doctor Fadl,” released a new ten-part document called Tarshid al-amal al-jihadi fi misr wa al-alam (“Rationalizing the jihadi action in Egypt and the world”) (ÇáĹÓáÇă Çáíćă, November). The treatise is expected to have a major influence on Salafi-Jihadi operatives in general and al-Qaeda in particular (aljarida.com, November 21).
Imprisoned Leader of Egypt’s Islamic Jihad Challenges al-Qaeda
Islamists Today: The Man Who Once Secretly Ruled the “Islamic Jihad” .. Speaks

those interested can google "dr fadl" and find all kinds of stuff. certainly worth following to see if any of this has an impact.

[PBzeer]

Ya gotta love it, when Newsweek attempts to explain why Obama's 8 years in the Illinois State Senate, make him better prepared to be President.

[chucklesR]

Mitch,
Not sure what your point was. One guy saying "Oops, I was wrong" means what?

[PBzeer]

While I am no fan of the American political process as it has evolved since the widespread acceptance of television, this year, the disconnect between honesty and principle, and winning an election seems to have grown beyond belief.

We are aghast when sport figures are caught cheating, yet, it has not only become acceptable in politics, as one reads the spin around Obama's choice to opt out of the federal campaign system, we are expected to believe it's not only a virtue, but that it doesn't really matter that much to voters. That winning, is more important than sticking to one's principles.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say it's anything new, I'm only pointing out how crass and overt it has become. We don't need campaign finance reform, we need character reform. We need people who mean what they say, and say what they mean. Instead we get pandering, flip-flopping candidates, whose only concern, is being president.

[cardiacpaul]

gotta love the
"I mean what I say" BS... he means it... till sumpin better comes along...

In November, 2007...
the Midwest Democracy Network, a non-partisan alliance of civic groups from five Midwestern states, released a questionnaire that asked candidates if they would "agree to forgo private funding in the general election campaign" if "your major opponents agree." Obama's response: "Yes."

He then described himself as "a longtime advocate for public financing of campaigns combined with free television and radio time as a way to reduce the influence of moneyed special interests."

"In February 2007, I proposed a novel way to preserve the strength of the public financing system in the 2008 election. My plan requires both major party candidates to agree on a fundraising truce, return excess money from donors, and stay within the public financing system for the general election. My proposal followed announcements by some presidential candidates that they would forgo public financing so they could raise unlimited funds in the general election. The Federal Election Commission ruled the proposal legal, and Senator John McCain (R-AZ) has already pledged to accept this fundraising pledge. If I am the Democratic nominee, I will aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election.

Fast forward 16 months. Both Obama and McCain have locked up their party's nominations for the presidency. Obama announces that the system of public financing "is broken," and he will rely on his well-oiled private fundraising machine.

[ebs001]

Penultimate, as any Formula 1 fan knows, means second last. I'm guessing but PB must have meant that Obama will be the second last candidate standing because John is going to win?

[chucklesR]

Everyonce in a while CP gets serious and includes quotes.

I'd like to hear one of Barry's boy's answer on that one.

[SailorMitch]

Originally Posted by chucklesR

Mitch,
Not sure what your point was. One guy saying "Oops, I was wrong" means what?

fadl was the guy who wrote the islamic spiritual underpinnings for al qeada-- the documents OBL used as recruiting tools. now fadl has recanted those ways. it's possible that at least the foot soldiers in al qaeda, if not some leaders, will realize that hey,we have not been following the koran after all.. read the links and check out the current issue of the new yorker. in short there may
(or may not be) a ray of sunshine in thr radical jihadist movement. time will tell of course. fadl's latest document was important enough for either zahawiri or OBL (can't remember which one ) to mention it in a recent message to their faithful. just something to store away.

[sailaway21]

Originally Posted by SailorMitch

fadl was the guy who wrote the islamic spiritual underpinnings for al qeada-- the documents OBL used as recruiting tools. now fadl has recanted those ways. it's possible that at least the foot soldiers in al qaeda, if not some leaders, will realize that hey,we have not been following the koran after all.. read the links and check out the current issue of the new yorker. in short there may
(or may not be) a ray of sunshine in thr radical jihadist movement. time will tell of course. fadl's latest document was important enough for either zahawiri or OBL (can't remember which one ) to mention it in a recent message to their faithful. just something to store away.

That thought coupled with defeats in the field will hopefully start a movement away from the bin Laden jihad. We can only hope that neither the world nor the Muslim world makes the past mistakes both have made with the Palestinians, implying that their terrorist activities somehow have validity. thanks for posting it again, Mitch. I thought it a good post then and wish I'd commented saying so then.