Terror Leaflet

[Phi for All]

Clinton had a much better foreign policy and a sounder grasp on domestic economics than the present administration, but in many ways, like most Democrats (including Kerry), he was more Republican than some Rebublicans. I'm not going to get into a DEM/REP battle here because I think both major parties listen to big business these days (some are just more overt about how they cuddle up to them). Mega-corps PAY to be in their offices every day, they help the pols with their humanitarian projects in exchange for tax breaks and gov contracts and a thousand other little things. The voters don't have the time or the inclination to do the same so it's no wonder the pols listen to the most vocal.

 

I still think it sucks. Especially when we are handed the same malarkey about needing to spend more on intelligence and military to defend the rights of oppressed people everywhere.

 

When my 5-year-old daughter asks me for help, the first thing I try to assess is whether or not she can help herself. Doing everything for her is a knee-jerk parental pitfall I have to try hard to avoid. It doesn't make her strong to have me solve her problems. And it doesn't make other countries strong when the US rushes to their aid with money. It just makes them dependent.

 

We are being asked to take steps to protect ourselves personally from people who want to make sensational, press-grabbing statements about their religious and political beliefs. They don't have our resources, but they don't need to defend, they only need to find the chinks in our armor to exploit. And I say there is no armor good enough to keep them out totally. Better to spend our resources diplomatically trying to find out where their funding is coming from, and trying to figure out why some of our so-called buddies are still giving the terrorists money to hurt us.

[YT2095]

As far as I'm concerned' date=' terrorism is successful when people and governments respond exactly the way the US and the UK are responding. It's virtually impossible to defend against small cells of people willing to die because they believe it insures their place in the afterlife. But we have almost a dozen different intelligence gathering agencies spending billions in resources already on the lookout. The terrorists get their funding from places that are less and less willing to leave money trails for fear of reprisal. When we start panicking about duct-tape and flashlight batteries, we help the terrorist's financing go a lot farther.

[/quote']

yup, they`ve won by default!

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Clinton had a much better foreign policy and a sounder grasp on domestic economics than the present administration, but in many ways, like most Democrats (including Kerry), he was more Republican than some Rebublicans.......

You didn't answer Blike's points.

[Phi for All]

You didn't answer Blike's points.

Why should we blame the administration?

...we are handed the same malarkey about needing to spend more on intelligence and military to defend the rights of oppressed people everywhere.

 

...We are being asked to take steps to protect ourselves personally from people who want to make sensational' date=' press-grabbing statements about their religious and political beliefs.[/quote']I suppose I could have fleshed this out a bit more. Between Bush, Cheney, Ridge and Ashcroft, we are being fed fear so private business agendas can be met. This is not mere taking advantage of opportunites, not when Bush wanted to go to Iraq before 9/11. Why didn't Bush take advantage of world sympathy for the US right after 9/11? Instead he slapped away all the helping hands that were offered and waited two more years before doing anything decisive. He'd already racked up more vacation time than any US president in history by the time 9/11 happened.

 

As for blaming Clinton, as an analogy, one of the slickest dodges in business services is to blame the original installer. The plumber who comes to fix the leak says, "Who installed these pipes? Whoever it was didn't know what he was doing!" It sets him up as an authority and puts you on the defensive for having allowed it to happen. You'll pay him almost anything to fix your pipes the right way. And that plumber can keep on blaming the original installer no matter what goes wrong in the future, once he's gotten you to take the bait the first time.

 

What is the proper response?

I say there is no armor good enough to keep them out totally. Better to spend our resources diplomatically trying to find out where their funding is coming from' date=' and trying to figure out why some of our so-called buddies are still giving the terrorists money to hurt us.[/quote']It was either Al Franken or Michael Moore who asked one of the best questions: Why did the headlines read "Terrorists Attack NY" when 15 out of 19 of the 9/11 attackers were Saudis? If 15 of 19 were North Koreans, would the headlines have read "North Korea Attacks NY"? Investigations were launched that were about as satisfying as the investigations into the Florida election scandal in 2000.