"War on Terror"... What?

[Phlip 0]

In 50 years we'll look back and remember that the main event during the beginning of the century was "the war on terror". The main point in the presidential agenda is the "war on terror".

What did I miss?

Are people now more concerned about a "war on terror" than about education, medicare, gun control, etc? Are people more willing to spend Billions of dollars in a war that may -or may not- be usefull when their own children, friends, families are lacking basic education or health coverage?

Here are a few things borrowed from the book "The gift of fear" from Gavin de Becke that I found very disturbing:
"(...)in the past two years alone, more Americans died from gunshot wounds than were killed during the entire Vietnam war. By contrast, in all Japan (120 million people), the number of young men shot to death in a year is equal to the number killed in New York City in a single busy weekend. Our armed robbery rate is one hundred times higher than Japan's. In part that's because we are a nation with more firearms than adults, a nation where 20,000 guns enter in the stream of commerce every day.
By this time tomorrow, 400 more Americans will suffer a shooting injury, and another 1,100 will face a criminal with a gun. Within the hour, another 75 women will be raped.
(...)
While we are quick to judge the human rights record of every other country on earth, it is the civilized Americans whose murder rate is ten times that of other Western nations, we civilized Americans who kill women and children with the most alarming frequency. In (sad) fact, if a full jumbo jet crashed into a mountain killing everybody on board, and if that happened every month, month in month out, the number of people killed still wouldn't equal the number of women murdered by their husbands and boyfriends each year.
(...)
Seventy children died this week in the hand of their parents just like every week, and most of them were under 5 years old. Four million luckier children were physically abused last year, and it was not an unusual year."

Sad.

Phlip

[meltdown 0]

What you may have missed is that there is a large and growing populace out there that would like to see all of the west (particularly the US and Israel) vaporized by whatever means necessary. Many believe that they will stop at nothing in their attempts to accomplish this goal. Stopping these madmen from doing this is the focus of the "war on terror". All those things you mentioned are important, but if the people who wish to destroy us succeed, than those things don't really matter at all.

[SpeedRacer 1]

so, what's your point?

Speed Racer
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[ChasingBlueSky 0]

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so, what's your point?

My Guess? The lacking of very few real discussions on local issues, instead of this "war" that Bush only seems to care about. Kerry was more articulate about these issues, but even he was sorely lacking on these topics over the last year.

_________________________________________
you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me....
I WILL fly again.....

[Phlip 0]

Some of my points... mmmm...

The focus is on fixing problems instead of proventing them in the first place.

Every nation thinks that God is on its side. Who is right?

What goes around comes around.

[rickjump1 0]

Hopefully we will never see another 9/11. Using it as a reminder, we must never let our guard down. Somebody quoted that the war on terror will eventually be something like prostitution and the the war on drugs: something you can control but never completely eliminate. Maybe we can address the other problems you speak of when things settle down. Don't forget that this terror thing can still kill us.

Do your part for global warming: ban beans and hold all popcorn farts.

[meltdown 0]

Prevention is easy when you have a crystal ball. If you have one I'd recommend you give it to whoever ends up being our next president.

[Phlip 0]

Prevention is not impossible... and doesn't require a crystal ball. Isn't it the whole concept of intelligence gathering, polls, studies, business plans, etc.?

[billvon 3,120]

> What you may have missed is that there is a large and growing
>populace out there that would like to see all of the west (particularly the
> US and Israel) vaporized by whatever means necessary.

I think it's very funny that people think this is a new threat! I suppose a lot of people don't remember the history of the 50's and 60's, during which we had an enemy that not only said they wanted to destroy us, but had the means to do so. Compared to a terrorist threat, which might - at worst - pull off a 9/11 every ten years or so . . . we're in pretty good shape.

It's all in what you make people afraid of. The spectre of nuclear annhiliation of 20 of our largest cities has been replaced by the spectre of someone blowing up a building, or setting off a dirty bomb. Now, that's not a new threat, of course - both have been predicted by both the government and popular authors. Yet people today are as fearful as they were during the 60's. It's understandable that the government would want people afraid, but I don't understand why people so obediently fear things on command.

[mccurley 1]

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I think it's very funny that people think this is a new threat! I suppose a lot of people don't remember the history of the 50's and 60's, during which we had an enemy that not only said they wanted to destroy us, but had the means to do so. Compared to a terrorist threat, which might - at worst - pull off a 9/11 every ten years or so .

At least then you knew who and where to aim your retaiation at. Unlike today when the aleged heros and martyrs (read cowards and madmen) hide undercover and create mayhem i oyther peoples countries.
In the 50s and 60s there was a lot more political bluster aimed at gathering support for one's own cause, be it democracy or communisim. Not that the threats didn't have some basis in fact.

The cowards creating the shit today are more intrested in actually killing people.
While I'm on a bing- Why is it that most of these creeps who go around killing people in Iraq don't seem to be from Iraq?

Watch my video Fat Women
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRWkEky8GoI

[billvon 3,120]

>At least then you knew who and where to aim your retaiation at.

Yep. As unlikely as it seemed at the time, MAD worked.

>The cowards creating the shit today are more intrested in actually
>killing people.

To be fair, that's what we were told about the communists, too. They wanted to either kill or enslave all americans. Of course, it turned out that 99% of them just wanted to live their lives, know their families were safe etc. In other words they were a lot like us.

>While I'm on a bing- Why is it that most of these creeps who go around
>killing people in Iraq don't seem to be from Iraq?

Per a recent report, 75% of the terrorist attacks in Iraq are coming from the Iraqis, not from foreigners.