"When bin Laden ordered the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 (assuming he did)"...
Assuming he did, any article that throws that in is dead on arrival.
"Although many nations have surpassed our standard of living"
I know this was a cut and paste, but evidence pleeeeeze.
"So the combined tragedies of Sept. 11 became a kind of opportunity for America. We could have turned the tables on our tormentors by proving that we were what most people of the world believed we were, a good and kind and generous nation, truly the land of the free and the home of the brave.
But we didn't do that. We did just the opposite. Under the leadership of the Honorable George W. Bush, we showed how petty we could be, how mean-spirited, and even how cowardly. We truly disgraced ourselves in the eyes of the world as, under Bush, we started the methodical destruction of our wonderful freedoms in the name of self-protection"
What does this mean? Can we get a couple actual IDEAS here, 'cause that thems the things that help direct policy and all. What should we have done to prove we were good and kind and generous? Also, apply that question to the aftermath of Pearl Harbor.
"We cringed, we cowered and, when the opportunity to do so arose, we bullied. And, when the chance came for George W. Bush to settle an old personal score with Iraq's Saddam Hussein, we thumbed our nose at the rest of the world and insulted it. "Old Europe," our leaders said, disdainfully.
We invented "freedom fries" to show our contempt for the nation that made America possible in the 18th century."
LOL, we renamed some lunch sides, and "insulted" some European countries.
BTW, France speaks French because of the U.S., debt repaid in full...
"We took a page from the despots of the world and started making people disappear. We rediscovered torture of prisoners to make them talk, either through surrogates ("The Saudis know how to deal with these kinds of problems") or using modern, scientific, non-touching methods."
Definition of disappear--<!--StartFragment --> To pass out of sight; vanish.
And yet, the status of Guantanamo detainees is being heavily debated and closely monitored by the press. Regarding torture, if we violate Geneva those found guilty should be punished, doesn't invalidate the larger war effort.
"We pushed through the USA Patriot Act, an unreadable mess of legalistic mumbo jumbo, without a single senator or representative knowing exactly what was in it. It turned out to be such a bad piece of legislation that communities around the nation passed resolutions vowing to not cooperate with it. Even librarians united to defy its unwarranted snooping terms.
The Honorable Mr. Bush and his trusty cohorts created the mammoth Department of Homeland Security, a mishmash of departments that were already so big as to become dysfunctional. "Big government is never so big that it can't become bigger and more impersonal" -- that seemed to be the logic behind "homeland" security"
Largely agree on these points...
"In short, Mr. Bush has set about finishing the job that Osama bin Laden started. Even his economic policy -- take from the poor, give to the rich -- is designed to increase monetary discrepancies between Americans, just like in bin Laden's native land."
This point is kinda confusing. I guess the presumption is that Bin Laden hates the discrepancy in wealth distribution in the U.S. and is trying to recreate it in Saudi Arabia, even though the top 1% in Saudi Arabia own a much larger percentage of national wealth than the top 1% in the U.S. But whatever, gotta make a sorta point and all...
"Nor is Mr. Bush above religious fundamentalist superstition. In what might have been a signal to bin Laden as to what kind of leadership America now has, Mr. Bush in 2001 put the clamps on stem cell research (while pretending to maintain it at low levels). His murky "logic" cramping scientific study defies rational explanation. It is Middle Ages stuff, right out of the Osama bin Laden playbook. Osama had to be pleased."
Osama doesn't really respect other religions. And you're right, he is a big Middle Ages guy, not sure what the point is here but yadda yadda...
"It seems quite possible that the absence of follow-up attacks on America can be explained by a lack of necessity for them. From bin Laden's point of view, everything in America is happening just the way he likes it. We are becoming more and more like a Middle Eastern emirate and less and less like the world's foremost democracy"
LOL, I laughed and laughed...
"Will there ever be another terrorist attack here? The experts say yes, and they're most likely right. When will it be? My guess: sometime next year, timed to draw the fearful closer to Mr. Bush and assure his re-election."
Except they were wrong, not that this should in any way impugn their soothsaying bona fides.
This essay is tripe, there are serious sources out there that can present much better anti-war arguments. It is important they be presented, because issues like this should be debated, but this crap doesn't fit the bill.
Assuming he did, any article that throws that in is dead on arrival.
"Although many nations have surpassed our standard of living"
I know this was a cut and paste, but evidence pleeeeeze.
"So the combined tragedies of Sept. 11 became a kind of opportunity for America. We could have turned the tables on our tormentors by proving that we were what most people of the world believed we were, a good and kind and generous nation, truly the land of the free and the home of the brave.
But we didn't do that. We did just the opposite. Under the leadership of the Honorable George W. Bush, we showed how petty we could be, how mean-spirited, and even how cowardly. We truly disgraced ourselves in the eyes of the world as, under Bush, we started the methodical destruction of our wonderful freedoms in the name of self-protection"
What does this mean? Can we get a couple actual IDEAS here, 'cause that thems the things that help direct policy and all. What should we have done to prove we were good and kind and generous? Also, apply that question to the aftermath of Pearl Harbor.
"We cringed, we cowered and, when the opportunity to do so arose, we bullied. And, when the chance came for George W. Bush to settle an old personal score with Iraq's Saddam Hussein, we thumbed our nose at the rest of the world and insulted it. "Old Europe," our leaders said, disdainfully.
We invented "freedom fries" to show our contempt for the nation that made America possible in the 18th century."
LOL, we renamed some lunch sides, and "insulted" some European countries.
BTW, France speaks French because of the U.S., debt repaid in full...
"We took a page from the despots of the world and started making people disappear. We rediscovered torture of prisoners to make them talk, either through surrogates ("The Saudis know how to deal with these kinds of problems") or using modern, scientific, non-touching methods."
Definition of disappear--<!--StartFragment --> To pass out of sight; vanish.
And yet, the status of Guantanamo detainees is being heavily debated and closely monitored by the press. Regarding torture, if we violate Geneva those found guilty should be punished, doesn't invalidate the larger war effort.
"We pushed through the USA Patriot Act, an unreadable mess of legalistic mumbo jumbo, without a single senator or representative knowing exactly what was in it. It turned out to be such a bad piece of legislation that communities around the nation passed resolutions vowing to not cooperate with it. Even librarians united to defy its unwarranted snooping terms.
The Honorable Mr. Bush and his trusty cohorts created the mammoth Department of Homeland Security, a mishmash of departments that were already so big as to become dysfunctional. "Big government is never so big that it can't become bigger and more impersonal" -- that seemed to be the logic behind "homeland" security"
Largely agree on these points...
"In short, Mr. Bush has set about finishing the job that Osama bin Laden started. Even his economic policy -- take from the poor, give to the rich -- is designed to increase monetary discrepancies between Americans, just like in bin Laden's native land."
This point is kinda confusing. I guess the presumption is that Bin Laden hates the discrepancy in wealth distribution in the U.S. and is trying to recreate it in Saudi Arabia, even though the top 1% in Saudi Arabia own a much larger percentage of national wealth than the top 1% in the U.S. But whatever, gotta make a sorta point and all...
"Nor is Mr. Bush above religious fundamentalist superstition. In what might have been a signal to bin Laden as to what kind of leadership America now has, Mr. Bush in 2001 put the clamps on stem cell research (while pretending to maintain it at low levels). His murky "logic" cramping scientific study defies rational explanation. It is Middle Ages stuff, right out of the Osama bin Laden playbook. Osama had to be pleased."
Osama doesn't really respect other religions. And you're right, he is a big Middle Ages guy, not sure what the point is here but yadda yadda...
"It seems quite possible that the absence of follow-up attacks on America can be explained by a lack of necessity for them. From bin Laden's point of view, everything in America is happening just the way he likes it. We are becoming more and more like a Middle Eastern emirate and less and less like the world's foremost democracy"
LOL, I laughed and laughed...
"Will there ever be another terrorist attack here? The experts say yes, and they're most likely right. When will it be? My guess: sometime next year, timed to draw the fearful closer to Mr. Bush and assure his re-election."
Except they were wrong, not that this should in any way impugn their soothsaying bona fides.
This essay is tripe, there are serious sources out there that can present much better anti-war arguments. It is important they be presented, because issues like this should be debated, but this crap doesn't fit the bill.
