On 5 Aug 2005 22:00:44 -0700,

I'm answering your response and not the previous ones because your
reply is at least responsive to the content of mine. (You didn't
mention Bushhitler chimp monkeys and the like a single time. ROFL!)


Galen Hekhuis wrote:

On 5 Aug 2005 18:21:01 -0700,

Saddam was a real terrorist. It is a false argument to say that
since we haven't actively battled every terrorist as yet, then we
are not fighting any terrorists.

Yes, I would like to see Bush escalate the war. Yes, Bush failure
to control the borders is a disgrace that could produce a million
deaths as early as tomorrow. But he's doing a far better job than
you, who would give terrorists like Saddam free reign.

This is something I've never been able to figure out. If Saddam was
such a bad man, "worse than Hitler," and such a threat to us that we
bombed a restaurant killing untold innocents in an (unsuccessful)
attempt to kill him before the war even started (remember that?),
why do we now exhibit so much respect for law and justice that we
turn him over to Iraq? If he was evil enough to bomb him then he
should be evil enough to bomb now, and so what if a few innocents
(guards and the like) perish in doing so? What changed about him?

You're probably right - it would sure save a lot of time and energy if
we buried him in an ant hill. Our gov't wants to set an example for
the future as to how civilized societies operate.

And we did so by trying to kill him with a bomb (unsuccessfully)
before the war began? Is that how civilized societies operate? We
killed a lot of people in that restaurant (not a military target, not
a contributor to Iraq's war effort in any way) and that is how we show
how civilized societies operate? By killing civilians?

(You may recall that Powell said he wasn't much of a threat, not to
us, not to his neighbors. )
http://thememoryhole.com/war/powell-no-wmd.htm

We are in Iraq because the biggest bully in the region needed to be
taken out first after we cleaned out the Afgani alqaeda training
camps.

Except they don't seem to be "taken out," not in Afghanistan. Sure,
lots of them have been destroyed, but there seems to be a remaining
resistance. It's sort of like the exterminator that claims your
house is now bug free, but you keep seeing (albeit much less)
roaches. Sure, you can keep spraying with stronger and stronger
poisons, but until you discover and address the root problem (in
this case, clean up your kitchen) you will keep having bugs.

prior to the war, everyone wrung their hands saying Afghanistan had
never lost and we wouldn't fare any better. It took us three weeks.

To do what? Get Osama? We haven't. Take control of the country? We
haven't. (We have established a series of enclaves, the largest being
around Kabul, but we hardly have control of Afghanistan, and neither
does Karzai.)

Of
course there are remnants, but they aren't much of a threat to the
security of the US.

Then why is there a terror alert? Why do we still fear Al-Qaeda? Why
do terrorists keep cropping up from that area? If it is so little a
threat as you claim, why are US troops still there, not engaged in
humanitarian or "nation building," or some such, but actively hunting
down terrorists, who, according to you, don't pose much of a threat to
the security of the US?

To answer your question a little more, if Alqaeda nukes us, you
will see some fur fly big time - if you are alive to witness it.

Who is going to tell us it was Al Qaeda? Those same fine folks who
told us about WMD in Iraq? Or perhaps the folks that assured us
that the war would not take too long and that we would be greeted as
liberators.

My guess is that we already have a quite number of targets "to send a
message" if NYC. DC, L.A., Chicago, Philadelphia, etc are struck by
nukes.

Who wins?

No, the question you failed to answer is "Who is going to tell us it
is Al Qaeda?"

No one. But the US will not sit by idly after a nuke strikes
one or more of our cities. Al Qaeda typically likes to strike multiple
targets at once. So the destruction to the US will be unfathomable
if/when it happens (I expect that it will, unless we get "lottery
ticket" lucky and thwart the attacks.)

So where, exactly, would you lash out? According to you, Afghanistan
has been cleared out. Pakistan?

When we nuke a whole bunch of places at once, you might be amazed
at how many new fatwas are handed down telling all the terrorists
that they will be beheaded if they even THINK about attacking the
US again.

Then again, maybe not. What will you do if your plan to nuke stuff
doesn't have the result you desire?

We will not sit on our hands just because the response 'might not'
work out as planned. The US will respond bigtime. What will I do? let
me put it this way, if the US gets hit, a lot of us might end up dying
from starvation, pestilence etc.

Respond how? To whom?

I'm not immune to these possibilities - I'm just as vulnerable as
anyone else. For instance, my employer's headquarters is on Long
Island. I could easily be unemployed overnight if NYC were hit, which
is a high priority for Al Qaeda.

Combine that with chaos, anarchy, looting, etc. Will there be any
food?

Have you considered a bomb shelter and stocking provisions? That was
pretty big in the 50s.

This war hasn't turned nearly as ugly as it probably will. But at
some point, this war might make WWI and WWII look like Sunday
picnics.

War, any war, never looks to me like a Sunday picnic. Maybe to you,
but to me there is nothing but horror and death in any war. I
realize you are trying to say that the future may hold conflicts
that may be even more grim than WWI or WWII, war never resembles a
picnic.

"Sunday picnic" is an expression used to contrast situations that are
worse. You surely know that. Please try not to trivialize via semantic
arguments.

Which is why I explained that I saw what you were trying to do. I
pointed out that war is never, ever analogous to a picnic, no matter
how small or insignificant it seems to another war. I wasn't trying
to trivialize anything, neither was I trying to make any sort of
"semantic" argument.

If millions are killed in several cities in seconds, and the rest of
the country is thrown into turmoil, the result will be far, far beyond
what happened in WWII.

Not only will your internet connection go dead, but you're not
going to have any food. The magnitude of this war is REAL even if
you and I are sleep walking through it at the moment.

You actually advocate killing people for your Internet connection?

Sarcasm. Look it up. A lot of folks who visit this newsgroup might
require psychotropic meds if their internet connections get shut off.

Or
killing others so that you can obtain food? Would you also scramble
over others killing them in an attempt to save yourself from a
burning building?

<sigh>But you were doing so well up until now. Did I say I would kill
someone for food?? But you can be sure that if food becomes incredibly
scarce some people will kill for it, to protect it, etc. If you have
food, don't be surprised if roving gangs come looking for it,
ransacking your house, tossing you aside or killing you for it. Maybe
you would kill them to keep the food you have. Even if you wouldn't,
many others will.

I think you may have missed the point. That is, at what point will
*you* be motivated to kill? Will it be to save your own skin? Will
it be hunger? Will it be your Internet connection? Will it be your
"way of life"? Will it be for gas or oil for your SUV? Will it be
because others tell you to? Will it be to "send a message"? You (and
others) really ought to think about it.

Galen Hekhuis NpD, JFR, GWA
ghekhuis@earthlink.net
We'll cross that bridge when it rears its ugly head

On 5 Aug 2005 22:00:44 -0700,

I'm answering your response and not the previous ones because your
reply is at least responsive to the content of mine. (You didn't
mention Bushhitler chimp monkeys and the like a single time. ROFL!)


Galen Hekhuis wrote:

On 5 Aug 2005 18:21:01 -0700,

Saddam was a real terrorist. It is a false argument to say that since
we haven't actively battled every terrorist as yet, then we are not
fighting any terrorists.

Yes, I would like to see Bush escalate the war. Yes, Bush failure to
control the borders is a disgrace that could produce a million deaths
as early as tomorrow. But he's doing a far better job than you, who
would give terrorists like Saddam free reign.

This is something I've never been able to figure out. If Saddam was such a
bad man, "worse than Hitler," and such a threat to us that we bombed a
restaurant killing untold innocents in an (unsuccessful) attempt to kill
him before the war even started (remember that?), why do we now exhibit so
much respect for law and justice that we turn him over to Iraq? If he was
evil enough to bomb him then he should be evil enough to bomb now, and so
what if a few innocents (guards and the like) perish in doing so? What
changed about him?

You're probably right - it would sure save a lot of time and energy if
we buried him in an ant hill. Our gov't wants to set an example for the
future as to how civilized societies operate.

And we did so by trying to kill him with a bomb (unsuccessfully) before the
war began? Is that how civilized societies operate?

We killed a lot of
people in that restaurant (not a military target, not a contributor to
Iraq's war effort in any way) and that is how we show how civilized
societies operate? By killing civilians?

(You may recall that Powell said he wasn't much of a threat, not to us, not
to his neighbors. ) http://thememoryhole.com/war/powell-no-wmd.htm

We are in Iraq because the biggest bully in the region needed to be
taken out first after we cleaned out the Afgani alqaeda training camps.

Except they don't seem to be "taken out," not in Afghanistan. Sure, lots
of them have been destroyed, but there seems to be a remaining resistance.
It's sort of like the exterminator that claims your house is now bug free,
but you keep seeing (albeit much less) roaches. Sure, you can keep
spraying with stronger and stronger poisons, but until you discover and
address the root problem (in this case, clean up your kitchen) you will
keep having bugs.

prior to the war, everyone wrung their hands saying Afghanistan had
never lost and we wouldn't fare any better. It took us three weeks.

To do what? Get Osama? We haven't. Take control of the country? We
haven't. (We have established a series of enclaves, the largest being
around Kabul, but we hardly have control of Afghanistan, and neither does
Karzai.)

Of
course there are remnants, but they aren't much of a threat to the
security of the US.

Then why is there a terror alert? Why do we still fear Al-Qaeda? Why do
terrorists keep cropping up from that area?

If it is so little a threat as
you claim, why are US troops still there, not engaged in humanitarian or
"nation building," or some such, but actively hunting down terrorists, who,
according to you, don't pose much of a threat to the security of the US?

To answer your question a little more, if Alqaeda nukes us, you will
see some fur fly big time - if you are alive to witness it.

Who is going to tell us it was Al Qaeda? Those same fine folks who told us
about WMD in Iraq? Or perhaps the folks that assured us that the war would
not take too long and that we would be greeted as liberators.

My guess is that we already have a quite number of targets "to send a
message" if NYC. DC, L.A., Chicago, Philadelphia, etc are struck by
nukes.

Who wins?

No, the question you failed to answer is "Who is going to tell us it is Al
Qaeda?"

No one. But the US will not sit by idly after a nuke strikes
one or more of our cities. Al Qaeda typically likes to strike multiple
targets at once. So the destruction to the US will be unfathomable
if/when it happens (I expect that it will, unless we get "lottery
ticket" lucky and thwart the attacks.)

So where, exactly, would you lash out? According to you, Afghanistan has
been cleared out. Pakistan?

When we nuke a whole bunch of places at once, you might be amazed at
how many new fatwas are handed down telling all the terrorists that
they will be beheaded if they even THINK about attacking the US again.

Then again, maybe not. What will you do if your plan to nuke stuff doesn't
have the result you desire?

We will not sit on our hands just because the response 'might not' work
out as planned. The US will respond bigtime. What will I do? let me put
it this way, if the US gets hit, a lot of us might end up dying from
starvation, pestilence etc.

Respond how? To whom?

I'm not immune to these possibilities - I'm just as vulnerable as
anyone else. For instance, my employer's headquarters is on Long
Island. I could easily be unemployed overnight if NYC were hit, which
is a high priority for Al Qaeda.

Combine that with chaos, anarchy, looting, etc. Will there be any food?

Have you considered a bomb shelter and stocking provisions? That was
pretty big in the 50s.

This war hasn't turned nearly as ugly as it probably will. But at some
point, this war might make WWI and WWII look like Sunday picnics.

War, any war, never looks to me like a Sunday picnic. Maybe to you, but to
me there is nothing but horror and death in any war. I realize you are
trying to say that the future may hold conflicts that may be even more grim
than WWI or WWII, war never resembles a picnic.

"Sunday picnic" is an expression used to contrast situations that are
worse. You surely know that. Please try not to trivialize via semantic
arguments.

Which is why I explained that I saw what you were trying to do. I pointed
out that war is never, ever analogous to a picnic, no matter how small or
insignificant it seems to another war. I wasn't trying to trivialize
anything, neither was I trying to make any sort of "semantic" argument.

If millions are killed in several cities in seconds, and the rest of
the country is thrown into turmoil, the result will be far, far beyond
what happened in WWII.

Not only will your internet connection go dead, but you're not going to
have any food. The magnitude of this war is REAL even if you and I are
sleep walking through it at the moment.

You actually advocate killing people for your Internet connection?

Sarcasm. Look it up. A lot of folks who visit this newsgroup might
require psychotropic meds if their internet connections get shut off.

Or
killing others so that you can obtain food? Would you also scramble over
others killing them in an attempt to save yourself from a burning building?

<sigh>But you were doing so well up until now. Did I say I would kill
someone for food?? But you can be sure that if food becomes incredibly
scarce some people will kill for it, to protect it, etc. If you have
food, don't be surprised if roving gangs come looking for it,
ransacking your house, tossing you aside or killing you for it. Maybe
you would kill them to keep the food you have. Even if you wouldn't,
many others will.

I think you may have missed the point. That is, at what point will *you*
be motivated to kill? Will it be to save your own skin? Will it be
hunger? Will it be your Internet connection? Will it be your "way of
life"? Will it be for gas or oil for your SUV? Will it be because others
tell you to? Will it be to "send a message"? You (and others) really
ought to think about it.