On Fri, 14 Jan 2005 18:38:19 GMT, "Doug Kanter"
wrote:


"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?

How do you know that he was?


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.

Why should they? If I understand your implication correctly, it would
be the same thing as firing all the rocket scientists at NASA because
they couldn't invent warp drive in the last 5 years. Maybe it's just
not that simple.

Maybe there ISN'T a viable alternative solution. You seem to think
that there is, and since no one has pushed it, they must be
incompetent and should be fired.

But you need to seriously take off the rose colored glasses, and
consider that what we are doing may be the only course of action, that
would stand the best hope of protecting our long term survival and
interests.

Dave

On Fri, 14 Jan 2005 18:40:42 GMT, "Doug Kanter"
wrote:

"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.


You mean I'll develop the ability to read minds? Wow! I can hardly
wait......

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.

As well as arrogant, myopic and biased.

Dave

On Fri, 14 Jan 2005 19:07:40 GMT, "Doug Kanter"
wrote:

"Dave Hall" wrote in message
.. .

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.

We don't televise our combat killing. In fact we don't kidnap innocent
non-combatents and execute them as terrorist propaganda.

You (should) know the difference. The method is irrelevant. It's all
in the intent.

If you feel that what our military does is no more noble or
justifiable in its actions than what the terrorists do, then I'd say
you should leave the country, as you obviously have a very low opinion
of our military history.

Dave

On Fri, 14 Jan 2005 19:11:29 GMT, "Doug Kanter"
wrote:

"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?

So you're saying that Nixon admitted that he was a "nut case"?


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.

Where did he lie? Nixon tried to WIN the war, since it was obvious
that we had been doing little more than fighting a cat and mouse game
of stalemate during the last administrations. It was also interesting
that Johnson had ties to retired military generals, who were working
in the defense industry. An industry which was profiting from the
"quagmire".


He ended it because he had no choice.

There is always a choice.

Meanwhile, to his staff, he was
discussing the use of nuclear weapons.

I thought you said there was no other choice? Hell, I'd be discussing
the use of nukes too. Something had to be done to make a decisive
victory there, instead of continuing a stalemate. Nukes ended WWII,
they very well could have ended Vietnam too, in a far better way for
our goals.


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.

I can remember my locker combination from as far back as 7th grade, my
entire high school class schedule, my teacher's names, the "secret"
code to punch in to the video learning center to switch to the outside
antenna to receive broadcast TV. I remember my first two "steady"
girlfriends, and every thing that happened on every date. I even
remember what I was doing when word came down that Nixon resigned.

That's the problem. I can recall with a fair amount of clarity the
1970's like they were yesterday. I have clear memories back to about 5
years of age. But I have trouble remembering what I wore the day
before. I have a very good long term memory, and an increasingly
fading short term one. People tell me that's what happens when you get
old. I guess that's why my grandfather loved to talk about the 1920's,
and the stories of the old neighborhood......

Dave

On Sat, 15 Jan 2005 16:02:26 -0800, -rick- wrote:

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.

I totally understand the paranoia which drove "the red scare" from
McCarthy on. I just never heard the term "domino effect" applied to
it.

Considering the imperialistic nature of many communist states, we were
justified in much of our concern. Many countries were pulled behind
the iron curtain against their wills, and we tried to prevent it as
much as possible.

Dave

On Sun, 16 Jan 2005 01:21:48 GMT, "Doug Kanter"
wrote:


"-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) :-)

You do a very poor imitation. Certain facts are indisputable.
Scientific principles and logic for example. Other things are
reasonable hypotheses, based on fact. While others are pure
speculation, based mostly on opinion.

My level of skepticism increases in inverse proportion to the
verifiable factual content of a particular statement.

Dave

On Sat, 15 Jan 2005 16:37:09 -0800, -rick- wrote:

Dave Hall wrote:

The truth is self-evident. Opinions are not.

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

That is the definition of "truth".

Dave

"Dave Hall" wrote in message
...

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?

How do you know that he was?

I'm assuming he was because we know that some of his advisors are military
people, and we've heard polite, but smart comments from many of the brass
about how this was not exactly the best idea.

Also, what would you think of a president who did not INVITE opposing
viewpoints so he could weigh all his options? Granted, I'm painting your
leader in a favorable light which he doesn't deserve, but in theory, this is
how things should've been done.



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.

Why should they? If I understand your implication correctly, it would
be the same thing as firing all the rocket scientists at NASA because
they couldn't invent warp drive in the last 5 years. Maybe it's just
not that simple.

No, Dave. It's nothing like your analogy. If his staff included nothing but
homogenous thinkers, it should've been replaced because of their refusal to
hear other opinions.



Maybe there ISN'T a viable alternative solution. You seem to think
that there is, and since no one has pushed it, they must be
incompetent and should be fired.

But you need to seriously take off the rose colored glasses, and
consider that what we are doing may be the only course of action, that
would stand the best hope of protecting our long term survival and
interests.

If we had been attacked by the country we invaded, you would be correct.

"Dave Hall" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 14 Jan 2005 18:40:42 GMT, "Doug Kanter"
wrote:

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

"Dave Hall" wrote in message
m...

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.


You mean I'll develop the ability to read minds? Wow! I can hardly
wait......

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.

As well as arrogant, myopic and biased.

Dave


Someday, you will possess a little more perspective, simply from living
longer, and reading voluminously.

"Dave Hall" wrote in message
...

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.

We don't televise our combat killing. In fact we don't kidnap innocent
non-combatents and execute them as terrorist propaganda.

No. We stick them in a Cuban prison for 3 years and refuse to let them
communicate with the outside world.