Quote:
Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
The issue is not whether the war wwas predicated on a lie. The issue is whether having the war over there is better than having it over here. Bush is at a terrible disadvantage because he can't say "I lied because I needed a pretext to take the war off our shores", but that's what he did. All these people ripping Bush for lying (of course he lied) miss the greater point. The lie was needed to make sure that the next battles with AQ take place in AQ's yard, not ours. It is significant that nothing has happened here since 9/11. That is an accomplishment.
|
This sentiment combined with this one:
Quote:
Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
You knew it was a lie. I knew it was a lie. The world knew it was a lie. We're past that point. Whats important is "Are you safer now because Bush used the lie to move the war?" I tend to think yes, but I also think AQ is shrewd. bin Laden knows Iraq is a head fake. He's not dicking around with idiots like Zarqawi. He's planning AQ's next attack on our shores.
|
is what confuses me about people.
If the terrorists who attacked us weren't connected to SH and Iraq, how is it that you can say in one breath that it is significant that nothing has happened here since 9/11 and in the next say, Osama is planning his next attack on our shores?
It seems to me that Al Quaeda was going to lay low over here after pulling off 9/11 because they're not stupid. They know we're sensitive to things we weren't sensitive to before. That happens no matter who is in office and no matter how many colors are on the terrify-people-chart.
The fact is, because of the type of attacks they engage in, we are not safer over here. They're just waiting til we get lazy again. But you can't live in a constant, indefinite state of fear, despite Cheney's best efforts. That's why terrorists choose these kinds of attacks. It's very difficult to defend.
After 9/11, for like 6 months, security was tight at my building. Everyone had to be credentialed to gain access. Security was visible and posted all over -- not just at every entrance. Now, I could swipe anyone's access card and go up because security just doesn't pay attention anymore. It's all bullshit anyway. If someone wanted to blow the building up, they wouldn't be trying to get upstairs. They'd plant the bomb in the areas everyone has unlimited access to.
Bush isn't taking the war overseas. He is engaging in this war to make people feel better. He is saying, "I'm going after those damn Ay-rabs," and watching people line up behind him happy in this fiction of safety. When he wants to energize them, he scares them. When he wants to build himself up, he talks about safety. People eat it up because they're stupid.
You can't fight a worldwide network by picking one location and trying to take it over. That makes absolutely no sense. After 9/11 we had the sympathy and support of the entire world. Every country wanted to help. Bush took that and turned it all the way around. If there are terrorist cells all over the world, it seems to me that the best plan would have been to take advantage of the good will that we had from other countries after 9/11 -- use it to hunt terrorists down and destroy them. You don't destroy that good will and, at the same time, create recruits by engaging in a crusade in a country that posed no imminent threat.
I don't want to hear the SH was a bad man argument. If that was the rationale for taking him out, Bush and friends would have used it as the justification to go to war
before we went to war. We took him out because Bush wanted to take him out. 9/11 was the excuse.
TM
