"Dave Hall" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 14 Jan 2005 14:37:10 GMT, "Doug Kanter"
wrote:

I don't have an idea, John, but the absence of an idea doesn't mean you
use
the idea that some idiot pulled out of his ass, like bombing the snot
out
of
a country just because it makes you feel good.

It's better than your idea. So what does that make you?

Dave


You're just full of contradictions, Dave.

Not at all. When you are facing a threat and you have two choices, a
military strike or doing nothing (the absence of another idea), then
I'd say the military option is the better choice.

How do you know your leader was not presented with other ideas which he
rejected?

And another question, to be answered separately, in its own paragraph:

If you could somehow prove that your leader was not given other suggestions,
do you understand why his entire staff of advisors should've been replaced
immediately? If you do not understand, explain why.

"Dave Hall" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 14 Jan 2005 14:50:02 GMT, "Doug Kanter"
wrote:

"Dave Hall" wrote in message
. ..

1) He needs to sign off on them. In order for this to happen, he'd need
to
be able to understand the ideas. No chance of that.

You have no idea what he understands. It's your bias showing.

I know exactly what he understands.

How? How can you be so arrogant as to assume to know what our leader
understands? You know nothing except what you're force fed from the
biased press.

Someday, you will be big, too, and you'll know what your leader understood.



That's a teenage mind, and totally inappropriate
for someone in a position of power.

Who are you to make that judgement call?

Grown up, and extremely smart.

On Fri, 14 Jan 2005 12:36:12 GMT, "Doug Kanter"
wrote:

"Dave Hall" wrote in message
.. .


And in their case, would end with them. You can't compromise with
fanatics. I don't think you truly understand the nature of the threat
we're facing.

With no exceptions I'm aware of, every fanatical regime in the past 200
years has been enchanted with wealth, once it was achieved. Even Stalin, who
was a fanatic about "distribution of wealth", lived just like the tsarist
leaders before him. Islamic fanatics will arrive at the same point. You'll
see.

So your "suggestion" is to throw money at the Islamic militants, and
they'll turn into yuppie consumers and forget their "Jihad"?


Your "mentality" is such that you think we're 100% entitled to our little
holy war.

I don't believe in absolutes. But I'd say we're probably 85% entitled
to our "holy war", considering that WE were the ones attacked.

Funny....you're beginning to sound like George and his gang, who, for a year
after 9/11, used the attack as the reason for virtually every new policy,
whether foreign or domestic. They repeated it so much that political
cartoonists were making fun of it as late as this past summer. Get over it.
You can't think clearly if you're stuck in the past.

The past? The war is still going on, and will continue until the
threat of these Islamic fundies is quashed.


Here's a challenge: Can you name 3 things you think we could do
better, in terms of our middle east policies, considering the failures of
the past 40 years? Among your responses, you may NOT suggest using more
military force.

Gee, I don't know, since depending on your perspective, those answers
will change. I'm sure the viewpoint of our behavior when taken from
the perspective of an Israeli will differ considerably from that of an
Islamic Mullah or cleric.

Since the Israelis aren't the enemy, remove them from your thoughts and try
harder.

But they are the sworn enemy of those who now seek to attack us. They
perceive us as Israel's greatest enabler and advocate. THAT has a
great deal to do with our present situation. You cannot realistically
remove Israel from the equation.

Should we renounce our alliance with Israel so that the Islamists will
like us better.

See the problem here? We're up to our necks in ****, and now, there's just
one thing keeping us from making fundamental changes in our foreign policy:
Ego. It's infected not just our leadership, but voters like you, too.

I see it this way; we either more forward or we move backward. I say
we move forward. We should not be made to feel that we should have to
give in or appease the demands of "people" who cut off the heads of
other people on TV.


Dave

On Fri, 14 Jan 2005 12:06:57 GMT, "Doug Kanter"
wrote:

"Dave Hall" wrote in message
.. .

On Thu, 13 Jan 2005 20:35:54 GMT, "Doug Kanter"
wrote:

"Dave Hall" wrote in message
...


It's been a long time, over 25 years ago now. I don't recall the exact
titles.

Dave

Bull****. The actual journals from many of the players weren't released
that
soon. Therefore, what you read was fiction, opinion and conjecture.


I never said that what I read was an "actual journal". And actually
it was closer to 30 years ago, when I was still in school, and the war
was part of the course study.

I never said you read the journals. Does everything need to be spelled out
for you? Here you go: Since everything we hear from the White House is
filtered, historians cannot write accurately about the inner workings of the
place until "presidential papers" are released, and that rarely happens
until years later. Then, you see books which actually quote the handwritten
notes taken by the various players.

And what insurances are there that these are truly accurate unbiased
accounts?


At the time you read anything about
Nixon, those documents had not been released. Therefore, what you (and I)
read at the time was no different than the player whose word you do not
trust now: Richard Clark.

I'm not talking about Nixon specifically, I'm talking about the
Vietnam war. You know the one started by Kennedy, escalated by
Johnson, and then finally ended by Nixon.


Nobody called Nixon a nutcase when he was still alive to defend it.

Of course they did.

Sure, pundits like Harry made opinionated accusations. But they were
no more valid then than the ones we hear about Bush now.


How old were you in 1975?

15.

Dave

"Dave Hall" wrote in message
news
See the problem here? We're up to our necks in ****, and now, there's just
one thing keeping us from making fundamental changes in our foreign
policy:
Ego. It's infected not just our leadership, but voters like you, too.

I see it this way; we either more forward or we move backward. I say
we move forward. We should not be made to feel that we should have to
give in or appease the demands of "people" who cut off the heads of
other people on TV.


Dave

Dead is dead. Doesn't matter whether your head's cut off, or a .223 round
slices open an artery in your leg and you watch yourself bleed to death. Our
methods are no more civilized than theirs.

"Dave Hall" wrote in message
...


Bull****. The actual journals from many of the players weren't released
that
soon. Therefore, what you read was fiction, opinion and conjecture.


I never said that what I read was an "actual journal". And actually
it was closer to 30 years ago, when I was still in school, and the war
was part of the course study.

I never said you read the journals. Does everything need to be spelled out
for you? Here you go: Since everything we hear from the White House is
filtered, historians cannot write accurately about the inner workings of
the
place until "presidential papers" are released, and that rarely happens
until years later. Then, you see books which actually quote the
handwritten
notes taken by the various players.

And what insurances are there that these are truly accurate unbiased
accounts?

Pay attention, Dave. I said "books which actually quote the handwritten
notes taken by the various players". By players, I'm referring to people
like Nixon & Kissinger. Are you now saying that their own notes, quoted
verbatim, are not to be trusted? Think hard. I'm getting tired of your
nonsense.



At the time you read anything about
Nixon, those documents had not been released. Therefore, what you (and I)
read at the time was no different than the player whose word you do not
trust now: Richard Clark.

I'm not talking about Nixon specifically, I'm talking about the
Vietnam war. You know the one started by Kennedy, escalated by
Johnson, and then finally ended by Nixon.

Nixon, who escalated the bombing, and lied about bombing in Cambodia. He
ended it because he had no choice. Meanwhile, to his staff, he was
discussing the use of nuclear weapons.



How old were you in 1975?

15.

If you accurately recall what was going on back then, you were a seriously
abnormal 15 year old.

Dave Hall wrote:
The domino theory as I know it is a scientific theory. I do not know
the specifics of how it applied in this case. But I do know that the
war was to prevent the spread of communism.

from:
http://www.gly.uga.edu/railsback/1122science7.html

--
In a non-scientific example, the Domino Theory was an explicit statement
of what many Americans thought would happen if a single country in a
given region (e.g. southeast Asia) had a communist government. The
implicit paradigm was that the US ought to be, and had to be, involved
in a global struggle with another superpower over what kind of political
system would dominate the world's governments.
--

You might find the rest of the page helpful also.

-rick-

Dave Hall wrote:

The truth is self-evident. Opinions are not.

The truth only becomes self evident with adequate and accurate knowledge.

"-rick-" wrote in message
...
Dave Hall wrote:
The domino theory as I know it is a scientific theory. I do not know
the specifics of how it applied in this case. But I do know that the
war was to prevent the spread of communism.

from:
http://www.gly.uga.edu/railsback/1122science7.html

--
In a non-scientific example, the Domino Theory was an explicit statement
of what many Americans thought would happen if a single country in a given
region (e.g. southeast Asia) had a communist government. The implicit
paradigm was that the US ought to be, and had to be, involved in a global
struggle with another superpower over what kind of political system would
dominate the world's governments.
--

You might find the rest of the page helpful also.

-rick-

But Rick....although the link points to a very interesting resource, it was
written by a human, so the whole thing is just one person's opinion.

(Couldn't resist being Dave Hall for a moment) :-)

Doug Kanter wrote:

But Rick....although the link points to a very interesting resource, it was
written by a human, so the whole thing is just one person's opinion.

(Couldn't resist being Dave Hall for a moment) :-)

I'm going to be optimistic that we can all continue to learn despite
evidence to the contrary. It's my favorite delusion.

-rick-