"Bang $100,000 goes up in smoke..."

[FAI]

Ah, maybe this should help

Dulce et Decorum Est

[abneo3sierra]

Originally posted by FAI:

Ah, maybe this should help

Dulce et Decorum Est

Not exactly sure what point you are trying to make there. The article is a person's opinion, do not put it up as fact.

edit: Actually, your signature explains a lot. I understand your post in context now. Well, my reply is, keep slacking. You are free to, because of those who do not. Over 3000 were killed on 9-11-01.

There indeed are enemies. I agree that Iraq couldn't threaten Guatemala's freedom, Iraq's mistakes were violating a ceasefire, which of course, erases that ceasefire, and supporting terrorism, which, in the wake of 9-11, suddenly was very clear that that was not something where we can all say "they are over there and cannot bug us"

And I am not saying"Let's you and him fight" I fight, and people who care, fight. Hopefully, that will be enough. If not, sooner or later, it will hit you, and then you will care as well.

In the meanwhile, you continue to amaze me, just as with the CIA etc..you slam the military continually, then if you can find one stoned ex vet who agrees with you, you hold them up and say"even the military agrees with ..."

[ March 26, 2008, 01:21 AM: Message edited by: abneo3sierra ]

[FAI]

Whoa, after all those time finally somebody commented on my sig. One of my lesser quest is complete, now that I've joined those countless other forumites whose sigs had been commented on....

[abneo3sierra]

ha It is actually not a bad sig, for the record.

[Bigduke6]

I'm willing to agree to disagree, but I'm not willing to accept intellectual sloppiness. This forum is, Peng aside, not a place where people can just declare things and expect every one else will accept that as unvarnished fact.

(In Peng every one is expected to be full of it, but that's Peng.)

Not exactly sure what point you are trying to make there. The article is a person's opinion, do not put it up as fact.

In my opinion, you should practice what you preach. .

edit: Actually, your signature explains a lot. I understand your post in context now. Well, my reply is, keep slacking. You are free to, because of those who do not. Over 3000 were killed on 9-11-01.

FAI is free to slack, or more generally to pursue life, liberty, and happiness as he sees fit, not because some people died in a - preventable - terrorist attack. There is no connection between FAI's rights, and the 9/11 attacks. The people that died in those attacks did not do so, so FAI could exercise his rights. You are drawing a connection that does not exist.

There indeed are enemies. I agree that Iraq couldn't threaten Guatemala's freedom, Iraq's mistakes were violating a ceasefire, which of course, erases that ceasefire,

Not according to international law it doesn't. If you violate a ceasefire, you run the risk of cancellation of the terms of the ceasefire. That is different from automatic cancellation, which is what you are saying is the inevitable result of a ceasefire violation.

In any case, the questionable casus belli of a ceasefire violation, is not nearly the same thing as rational justification to go to war. You seem to be arguing it is: they violated the ceasefire, therefore, it was necessary to attack them.

If that is your logic, then it's wrong. At best, there was a flimsy legal pretext to attack them. That is not the same thing as, there were good, sensible, justifiable grounds to attack them.

and supporting terrorism, which, in the wake of 9-11, suddenly was very clear that that was not something where we can all say "they are over there and cannot bug us"

Maybe it was clear to you. It was not clear to me, it was not clear to most of the world, and in the wake of events - US military failure, twice, because it has gone terrorist-hunting out of something resembling paranoia - that point of view of yours appears to have been flat wrong.

Do you seriously believe Saddam Hussein's regime was contemplating a strike against the US? If so, surely you can point to some evidence.

Do you seriously believe that the Pathan tribes, all 28 million of them, are the same thing as the Al Quaeda organization? If so, then surely you can point to some evidence.

You are advocating faith-based foreign policy. A threat to is not defined by evidence, but just what you choose to believe.

I am against faith-based thinking, where there are human lives concerned. Souls are a different matter.

And I am not saying"Let's you and him fight" I fight, and people who care, fight. Hopefully, that will be enough. If not, sooner or later, it will hit you, and then you will care as well.

So by implication, people who don't care, don't fight? Since when? What about rule of the majority? Right now, it is "The majority doesn't care, and they don't fight", and "The (shrinking) minority cares, and does fight."

How in the world will the fight do anything productive, when the majority is against it? Haven't you read about WW2? A populace really needs to be in favor of a war, to have a chance of winning.

Besides, what nebulous thing is it that needs to be fought, so it won't "hit" FAI? Evil terrorists? The onslaught of Communist agression? Generic bad guys? A weak dollar? The heartbreak of acne?

What is sooner or later? When does that statute of limitations run? If Switzerland doesn't screw around with repressing terrorists, and doesn't see any terrorist attacks for a couple of centuries, maybe that's a long enough period of safety to justify not going terrorist hunting in the first place.

The first rule about dealing with a threat is, identify it. Where is the threat here? What is the proof that, if you or some one like you goes to a Moslem country and "fights", FAI's life is safer? After all, if FAI decides to travel to said Moslem country, he is now a target, because you or some one like you has been killing the Moslems, which makes their relatives and friends mad.

Now, if you can point to some real threat to FAI, that you are eliminating, then good for you for going to go fight it. But it looks to me like he doesn't want you to do that. He seems to think he's not really in much danger. You seem to think that if you decide to fight, whatever you fight is automatically the enemy of people like FAI.

You might have asked him, before going to fight for him, you know.

In the meanwhile, you continue to amaze me, just as with the CIA etc..you slam the military continually, then if you can find one stoned ex vet who agrees with you, you hold them up and say"even the military agrees with ..."

Do you know that he was stoned? Can you refute his points? Isn't it possible a war veteran a good deal older than you, a participant in a much tougher war than you were in, knows more about war than you do? What grounds do you have to dismiss, at the outset, the opinions of a man like that?

Ad hominum attacks are the laziest, worst form of debating, yet that's precisely what you do here. I assume it was a temporary lapse.

Refute what the man says, if you can. If you can't, be a man yourself, and admit that you're wrong.

[abneo3sierra]

Hey Bigduke

As to the last point, I know who wrote the article he referred to. I know the man may not have been "stoned" when he actually wrote it, but it is a better than 50/50 bet.

Saddams country was providing a place for people who, indeed, were planning to attack the US, without going into retyping things, read my post about the things found there.

The rest..as I said to you in my post, if a person THINKS, themself, and comes to a conclusion, fine. I respect yours..

FAI..his whole case came to putting what someone else thought, up..that was his entire post, and as I said to you, such intellectual dishonesty, flips a switch in me, sorry FAI

edit

In all honesty, I am unsure what gives "Fred" the right to dismiss many hundreds of thousands of other war veterans, who were older than him, and participated in a tougher war than he did, as well.

[ March 26, 2008, 02:47 AM: Message edited by: abneo3sierra ]

[wolf66]

Originally posted by Bigduke6:

What's so hard about looking at the history, the terrain, the culture, what you need done, and making an intelligent decision? Take your time, use money, use diplomacy, use spies, use smart munitions, use nukes, trick the imans' children into attending western universities; the possibilities are endless. Where was it written "invasion of Afghanistan is a great idea, a brilliant policy choice, and superior to all other options?"

[/QB]

[abneo3sierra]

Originally posted by wolf66:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Bigduke6:

What's so hard about looking at the history, the terrain, the culture, what you need done, and making an intelligent decision? Take your time, use money, use diplomacy, use spies, use smart munitions, use nukes, trick the imans' children into attending western universities; the possibilities are endless. Where was it written "invasion of Afghanistan is a great idea, a brilliant policy choice, and superior to all other options?"

</font>

[wolf66]

Sure you could care less, and they could care less about YOU I'm sure, but they are the ones that get rich and do their economic "empirebuilding" at the cost of Americas reputation in the world and the lives of your professional soldiers - I know it simplifies things, but sometimes the reasons for war can be simple - like Saddam having a rug with Bush seniors face on it in front of a hotel to humiliate the former president, his son in the oval office and a vice president who is in the pocket of one of the largest oil companies ......

[abneo3sierra]

Originally posted by wolf66:

Sure you could care less, and they could care less about YOU I'm sure, but they are the ones that get rich and do their economic "empirebuilding" at the cost of Americas reputation in the world and the lives of your professional soldiers - I know it simplifies things, but sometimes the reasons for war can be simple - like Saddam having a rug with Bush seniors face on it in front of a hotel to humiliate the former president, his son in the oval office and a vice president who is in the pocket of one of the largest oil companies ......

In this case the reasons for war were not anything to do with a rug, which I even admit sounds pretty funny. I am curious if you , from Austria, agree with the rest of the post you quoted, that nuking Afghanistan would have been a viable option? It certainly would have saved American lives.

As an aside, my ancestors were from just off the Austrian border, my great grandparents. What part do you live in? Your country is far and away one of the most beautiful on the planet.

[wolf66]

Originally posted by abneo3sierra:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by wolf66:

Sure you could care less, and they could care less about YOU I'm sure, but they are the ones that get rich and do their economic "empirebuilding" at the cost of Americas reputation in the world and the lives of your professional soldiers - I know it simplifies things, but sometimes the reasons for war can be simple - like Saddam having a rug with Bush seniors face on it in front of a hotel to humiliate the former president, his son in the oval office and a vice president who is in the pocket of one of the largest oil companies ......

In this case the reasons for war were not anything to do with a rug, which I even admit sounds pretty funny. I am curious if you , from Austria, agree with the rest of the post you quoted, that nuking Afghanistan would have been a viable option? It certainly would have saved American lives.

As an aside, my ancestors were from just off the Austrian border, my great grandparents. What part do you live in? Your country is far and away one of the most beautiful on the planet. </font>

[Vanir Ausf B]

Originally posted by abneo3sierra:

BigDuke..my "access" was specific to what my unit ran into in the field, which included things such as terrorism "manuals" etc, that an intel officer, somewhere else, should have been able to put together. I myself saw that there were PLENTY of links to al Q..just in the field..THAT one point, alone, justifies the war. When you combine it with vehicles in S. Iraq being found with TEXAS license plates, and combine that with knowledge of how weak the US southern border is, even a operations person like myself, can do the math, an intel person who had ANY access, would have been able to put what all the units in the field were finding during the wars first few months, together, and the picture would show, easily, a motive for the US to go to war.

Iraq under Saddam had links to several different terrorist organizations, but al-Qaeda was not one of them according to the information we have so far.

Stolen US vehicles turning up in Iraq is a known issue. Link They were probably brought in after the invasion. They are indeed used for car bombings, but in-country rather than in the US. (If you think about it, smuggling a stolen car out of the US then back in again would be a very strange way to go about it when they could just procure everything they needed inside the US after they arrived.)

[skelley]

Sure you could care less, and they could care less about YOU I'm sure, but they are the ones that get rich and do their economic "empirebuilding" at the cost of Americas reputation in the world and the lives of your professional soldiers - I know it simplifies things, but sometimes the reasons for war can be simple - like Saddam having a rug with Bush seniors face on it in front of a hotel to humiliate the former president, his son in the oval office and a vice president who is in the pocket of one of the largest oil companies .....

So we went to war to remove a rug Saddam put of Bush on a hotel floor? I guess Haliburton duped us so that they could become more rich and we could control the world's oil. Haliburton was chosen as a contractor because No other company has its capabilities and could get up and running as fast as they could. Just because somebody was in the oil business before they became VP doesn't mean they are going to sell out the country for their friends in the oil business. How brilliant would it be to enrich a few friends at the expense of the rest of the country. Cheney actually believes in conservative Ideals and would not wreck the conservative movement to enrich friends who are already rich in the first place. Oil prices are high because China and India are doubling their oil imports every 3 years (That stat is a few years old and it may be greater than that now) and the left wants to "protect" the the frozen tundra in Alaska. If we went to war to steal oil then why the hell aren't we swimming in it? Try using some logic before throwing out these nonsensical statements.

[abneo3sierra]

Originally posted by wolf66:

[abneo3sierra]

Originally posted by Vanir Ausf B:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by abneo3sierra:

BigDuke..my "access" was specific to what my unit ran into in the field, which included things such as terrorism "manuals" etc, that an intel officer, somewhere else, should have been able to put together. I myself saw that there were PLENTY of links to al Q..just in the field..THAT one point, alone, justifies the war. When you combine it with vehicles in S. Iraq being found with TEXAS license plates, and combine that with knowledge of how weak the US southern border is, even a operations person like myself, can do the math, an intel person who had ANY access, would have been able to put what all the units in the field were finding during the wars first few months, together, and the picture would show, easily, a motive for the US to go to war.

Iraq under Saddam had links to several different terrorist organizations, but al-Qaeda was not one of them according to the information we have so far.

Stolen US vehicles turning up in Iraq is a known issue. Link They were probably brought in after the invasion. They are indeed used for car bombings, but in-country rather than in the US. (If you think about it, smuggling a stolen car out of the US then back in again would be a very strange way to go about it when they could just procure everything they needed inside the US after they arrived.) </font>

[wolf66]

Originally posted by skelley:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Sure you could care less, and they could care less about YOU I'm sure, but they are the ones that get rich and do their economic "empirebuilding" at the cost of Americas reputation in the world and the lives of your professional soldiers - I know it simplifies things, but sometimes the reasons for war can be simple - like Saddam having a rug with Bush seniors face on it in front of a hotel to humiliate the former president, his son in the oval office and a vice president who is in the pocket of one of the largest oil companies .....

So we went to war to remove a rug Saddam put of Bush on a hotel floor? I guess Haliburton duped us so that they could become more rich and we could control the world's oil. Haliburton was chosen as a contractor because No other company has its capabilities and could get up and running as fast as they could. Just because somebody was in the oil business before they became VP doesn't mean they are going to sell out the country for their friends in the oil business. How brilliant would it be to enrich a few friends at the expense of the rest of the country. Cheney actually believes in conservative Ideals and would not wreck the conservative movement to enrich friends who are already rich in the first place. Oil prices are high because China and India are doubling their oil imports every 3 years (That stat is a few years old and it may be greater than that now) and the left wants to "protect" the the frozen tundra in Alaska. If we went to war to steal oil then why the hell aren't we swimming in it? Try using some logic before throwing out these nonsensical statements. </font>

[abneo3sierra]

Originally posted by skelley:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Sure you could care less, and they could care less about YOU I'm sure, but they are the ones that get rich and do their economic "empirebuilding" at the cost of Americas reputation in the world and the lives of your professional soldiers - I know it simplifies things, but sometimes the reasons for war can be simple - like Saddam having a rug with Bush seniors face on it in front of a hotel to humiliate the former president, his son in the oval office and a vice president who is in the pocket of one of the largest oil companies .....

So we went to war to remove a rug Saddam put of Bush on a hotel floor? I guess Haliburton duped us so that they could become more rich and we could control the world's oil. Haliburton was chosen as a contractor because No other company has its capabilities and could get up and running as fast as they could. Just because somebody was in the oil business before they became VP doesn't mean they are going to sell out the country for their friends in the oil business. How brilliant would it be to enrich a few friends at the expense of the rest of the country. Cheney actually believes in conservative Ideals and would not wreck the conservative movement to enrich friends who are already rich in the first place. Oil prices are high because China and India are doubling their oil imports every 3 years (That stat is a few years old and it may be greater than that now) and the left wants to "protect" the the frozen tundra in Alaska. If we went to war to steal oil then why the hell aren't we swimming in it? Try using some logic before throwing out these nonsensical statements. </font>

[FkDahl]

As for the license plates ... are you sure the car was from the US and not just the plates? When you move from one state to the other here in the US you can keep your old plates, and certain US plates are quite popular abroad ... like in US themed bars or with people who like to renovate classic American cars...

Though driving around in Saddam's Iraq with US plates might have been really really stoopid...

[Flanker15]

So how 'bout that javelin launch, pretty cool huh?

[abneo3sierra]

Originally posted by Flanker15:

So how 'bout that javelin launch, pretty cool huh?

Very cool

[skelley]

Logic ? Logic has nothing to do with it - Money, payback and simultaneously finding a scapegoat for 9/11 were the reasons for this war IMO, but as it is your war, you can believe what you want .... pity that the Iraqis civilians are paying the bill too ... and "enrich a few friends at the expense of the rest of the country" No way could that happen

Yes Logic. Cheney is a conservative that believes the country should be run in a certain way. How do you get re-elected if you conspire against the interests of the people that elect you? Why would he wreck any chance to have his vision of a conservative political dominance, just to let some oil friends get some money they don't really need. If that sounds logical to you, then ok. To me it sounds like conspiracy theory thought up as another talking point for the anti-war types. It is nonsense as are all governmental conspiracy theories, because no group of people can keep a secret if more than 1 is still living, and our government is the worst at keeping secrets.

What is your evidence that Cheney or Bush conspired to give their oil friends anything? My guess is that you just dislike conservatives/Republicans and can see evil conspiracies in everything they do. Bush just took a ****...Because he's in bed with BIG MANURE producers! He's just enriching is Cronies.

Oil Companies are making record profits because of record oil consumption. Their Profit percentage has not gone up it is the number of oil that is being sold. If you are a car salesman, and you make X dollars on every car you sell, and you sell 2 cars, well guess what, your profits just doubled from what they would be if you sold just 1. Is that somehow underhanded and evil?

[Clavicula_Nox]

We should realise the truth, America is evil, and just start wearing Che Guevera T-Shirts.

[abneo3sierra]

Originally posted by FkDahl:

As for the license plates ... are you sure the car was from the US and not just the plates? When you move from one state to the other here in the US you can keep your old plates, and certain US plates are quite popular abroad ... like in US themed bars or with people who like to renovate classic American cars...

Though driving around in Saddam's Iraq with US plates might have been really really stoopid...

No, the car was not from the USA. The plates were. IMHO it was a dangerous situation to anyone who also knows how easy it has been to cross the US/Mex borders. And yes, as mentioned above, it could be in some ways stupid to ship a car, rather than get one here, unless it is carrying something. Still unsure on it, but have never heard yet a believable 'innocent' reason for it.

[abneo3sierra]

Originally posted by Clavicula_Nox:

We should realise the truth, America is evil, and just start wearing Che Guevera T-Shirts.

[JP76er]

Originally posted by abneo3sierra:

Bigduke..As someone who myself has a shattered leg that, hopefully, will be back to normal soon, and constant headaches, that may never be, and a shattered marriage, I deeply resent your implication that sacrifices were somehow made for the selfish reason of "combat duty" for glory, etc..I would have left a very long time ago, if I did not believe in the cause. I do..to have not acted, would have left many more dead, and would have left people such as my 5 year old son, having to "pay the bill" as it were, because, trust me, whether or not you see it, it still will come due.

Appeasement does not save lives, in the long run, sure, it may save a few now, but it strengthens the enemy, and in the end will cost far more than anyone is willing to imagine.

Hey Man,

Did you get my email? Get in touch. The Websites are to help Vets like yourself. Get back to me & I will get one of the Rangers in touch with you.