theStormWeaver,
Please read the post at the top.

Very well said. Why not just opress the people? Thats alot easier than being all covert, and blowing up our OWN buildings. And like you said, it is indeed very absurd.

StormBringer.... I just can not believe this about the World Trade Center. I don't think you're gullibkle I think you distrust and therefore fiond it easy to belive what you want when you read it.

In the 80's there was asbestos, the 80's. the PA WAS paying to clean it up. How muh of that was still there in 2001? I worked in that building and i KNOW they were doing clean up. They were vacating a whole floor at a time. Or are you going to now say they cleaned it up so that when the knocked it down it wouldnt cause a health hazard?

it fell like a building you've seen intentiojnally knocked down.. How many buildings how you seen fall unintentionally? how can you compare? When the support for the floors above failed, it colapsed, straight down like you would expect it to. I mean you think they were willing to kill all those people and have all that damage so one guy could collect on hids insurance, but they were carelful not to make too big a mess and have it fall straingth down. How thoughtful of them. And in the total bottom line i would not say that anyone made out financially. The owner (silverstein?) had to BUY the building so his insranuce would not really net him all that much if anything, the costs for clean up, rebuilding (there goes the insurance profits), and legal costs, etc.


People don't fight back because there is always that glimmer of hope. Untiol 9/11 nothing like that was done. Why would any passenger think to make himself stand out, possible be killed, just for the inconvenience of landing in a different coutry, which is what hijackers of the oppast have always done. And who's to say they thought that the terrorists ONLY had box cutters, was it said theat they thought there was a bomb? I wonder who on this bord would have been first to fight back. It was only on flight 98 that they foufght back and that was because THEY knew what was going to happen. Until thatphone call, those people went along with it too. And are you saying that all those peoiple on the planes were in on the conspiracy? Is that why they didnt fight? I'm not sure what your point was about them.

Have you ever heard of the saying "Nero fiddled while Rome burned"? If not, Google it. If so, then you should know what it is all about. How about the Reichstag fire? Have you ever heard of that one? If not, search for it as well. Both events were political attempts to sway public opinion towards what the politician wants. If Hitler wanted into office, then he needed public support since his opposition was thwarting him. What better way than to orchestrate some form of public tragedy which could then be blamed on whomever Hitler wanted 'eliminated' so to say. Same as Nero.
Do I believe that our country 'allowed' Pearl Harbor to happen? Hell yes. Do I believe that our government actually participated in 'orchestrating' the bombing? I doubt it. Our people just did not want war, no matter what Hitler was doing. What better way to get public support than to 'let' the Japanese do what they did.
I admit there are certain things which I believe that most of you do not. I would not label myself as a 'conspiracy theorist' only because I am truly not that involved the way some of those people are. There's one author, can't remember his name, who truly believes that Disney World is an Illuminati/CIA brainwashing facility, where strange rituals and child sacrifice, among other weird things, take place below the park at night. The same as I believe there is alien life out there somewhere. But I don't believe the people who claim to have been abducted, or claim they are part alien, or that they've been 'contacted' and taken off on a spaceship to travel the universe.
I do believe that we as a species are about to experience something... be it the 'end' of the world or just an end to the ideas/thoughts/mentality which we hold now, I don't know. I would like to believe that the end of the world is more about us coming together as a people and 'starting' new, a new beginning in our society as a whole, an end to the way things were. No more prejudice or greed, lust or hate... just people helping people, taking care of the Earth, and each other, and becoming 'one' with the universe. To believe these things means casting off the teachings of old, be it history or biology or physics. People who have thought 'outside' of the box have always been ridiculed, especially by their peers. But history has also shown that those same people were onto something. Those same people who were willing to go against what the majority said. The best example I can give of this for modern times is hot fusion vs. cold fusion. Mainstream scientists who have 'written the book' on hot fusion have solidified their position, their funding, and their careers by being the most knowledgeable on the subject. Now a couple of scientists, upstarts if you wish to call them that, come along and propose a new and radical concept, cold fusion. The benefits of this new technology far outweigh traditional fusion but there's a problem. If these scientists are allowed to follow through on their 'idea' they will show that 'hot fusion' is no longer needed, thus putting those scientists who 'wrote the book' out of funding, out of work, and out of the respect and admiration of their peers. Do you really think that those scientists would allow this? No. They would do everything in their power to spread disinformation and discredit the young upstarts who dared to challenge the traditional ways and system. This happens every day, be it with government, the military, city hall, NASA, colleges, museums... the list goes on and on.
Sorry if my rant 'rambles' all over the place. Too much coffee this morning.

I know about the Reichstag fire, but Im unfamiliar with the "Nero fiddled while Rome burned." About Pearl Harbor, I dont think they let it happen. Even though I dont really trust and believe everything they dish out, I find it absurd that they would just let us get bombed. Now the Disney Land thing just made me laugh. And believing in life outside Earth is rational. According to scientists, we, the Humans, are a result of nature. Who says that things like this didnt happen on other worlds? But the people who claim they were abducted, or state that the leaders are shape shifting lizards, are merely attention whores. And about starting anew, Im all for that! But believing that its gonna be caused by the Anti-Christ is ludicrous.

Couldnt we have accomplished this without losing most of our Paciffic Battleships? why were they left in port? And dont tell me thats why out carriers were out on maneuvers. Beacuse, at that time, before the war, The abattle ship was still seen as the main offensive weapon. It was only after the war was underway and we started island hoping that the carrier was view differently. So for the idea to work the battle ships should have been out and the carriers in port. I just don't belive this. Its easy to see in retrospect that they should have known. I mean we were practically already at war with japan for the oil we were denying them. Sorry dont know the deatils of prewar relations, just know they weren't good.



this i agree with completely. I'm not sure hpow far id be willing to say those people actually take it. murder? blackmail? I can't say. But I've heard, and believe that one example of this is the idea that greater fuel efficience in cars has been around a long time, but the oil comoppanies are able to lobby to keep those technologies down. Alternate fules should have been looked into 30 years ago when we had the oil crisis. By now we wouldnt be looking to iraq and kuwait and the rest. When poeple stop buying their oil I wonder how tough they'll talk. You can't eat oil. Only until recently with the highest prices of oil have car companies started to build hybrids. Is it a coincidence that all majors companies were able to put out a model so quickly? im guessing they knew all along how to make one, they were just "convinced" not to.

I'm letting this thread go for now (notice the stickied note here in the OTF), since it doesn't appear to have descended into a flamewar as yet. Take this as a friendly reminder to keep it that way; I'll be watching

great, another conspiracy to keep us down. JK Your point is taken.

You pose a good point with that and I will 'attempt' to answer with my opinion on why that would have been.
Losing Battle Ships, although costly, I believe would have been the 'dual purpose' reasoning of the military/industrial complex. First, the loss of our 'flagships' so to speak would definitely incite the general public more than the loss of aircraft carriers, since as you pointed out, they weren't deemed strategically important. So, take out our honored battleships and do us insult...
Second, the money. Lots of money could change hands if there was a need to rebuild our fleet, especially to build the large capital ships. Not only would the manufacturer make money, but the town where the company was located would obviously benefit, as would it's 'leaders' and general population as it would have provided work.
These two reasons would be good enough for me to think that our government would allow something like this to occur.

This is why it is critical to keep informed and keep an open mind. Truth in it's purest sense is actual reality. But we do get our information through filtered sources, and the mass media is driven by ad revenues. Sensationalism sells. Be careful what you hold to be "true" - it changes as our information changes. Twenty years from now we might find out Stormbringer was right - I doubt it, but it could happen.



That's called politics, and it has always worked that way. The problem is that voters are becoming less and less informed.



You are right. New, radical ideas are often discredited. Look at Galileo, Copernicus, Darwin, and Einstein. But be careful here. Not all discredited ideas are valid. I think I remember cold fusion being proven impossible since it was based on flawed science. Is it really impossible? I don't know - I'm not a physicist. But be careful with your logic.



Absolutely true. We have brought this crisis on ourselves. I think that the best thing we could do is to put a national $1 per gallon gas tax into effect, and use that money more alternate fuel research & development. That would really push conservation. Once we stop buying oil the Middle East is irrelevant. But supporting such a tax would be political suicide.

Gentlemen, think about this. In one sense, the war in Vietnam was a waste of human life. But in another sense it may have saved the world. The two superpowers used Vietnam as a Cold War surrogate battlefield instead of launching missles at each other. I think we had to take some action to stop Soviet expansionism. Was Vietnam appropriate? Well, look at where we are now. The USSR splintered into a group of smaller states because they couldn't continue to expend the economic effort needed to keep up with us in the Cold War. So, in a sense, Vietnam lead to a American victory.

...Oh, I can just hear Stormbringer's keyboard clacking away...

So it is possible that our efforts in Iraq will lead to a positive outcome in ten years.



We invaded Iraq in response to what we perceived (it's debateable, I know) as a clear and present danger in response to a threat. I think that was the right choice. The problem is how to get out. If ethnic groups want to destroy each other there is no real answer. The problem is that these groups of thugs are sitting on the resource that drives the world's economy, oil. And if we let the thugs have the oil money we might wind up with a worse leader than Saddam Hussein, so we are trying to create a stable government. That may be impossible.

We didn't topple Saddam the first time because we were only trying to liberate Kuwait and that is what we did. After we kicked his tail the first time we thought he couldn't be that dumb again.

Why do the Iraqis hate the occupation? I think they hate each other more than they hate us and we just get in the way. The suicide bombers are blowing up markets and bridges, not just US soldiers.

And as for a total disregard for the Middle East, well you're right. We just don't understand that mindset at all, and I don't think I want to. The way to end the suicide bombers is to provide them with a stable government and hope for a future. If they can't help govern themselves then we leave and they destroy themselves.

"We had to destroy the village to secure it". And we wonder why the world hates us?
But who else will set up and try to change the situation?

You know, a interesting, intelligent political debate sure beats what else I had planned for work today. Happy Friday!

The explanation I favor is that the Purple decrypts, the codebreaking operation to read the Japanese Imperial naval communications, was running two weeks behind due to a lack of trained linguists. They had to break the code and then translate the messages and it wasn't easy. They knew something was coming, but not what. So why didn't we take better measures to make Pearl Harbor safer? For the same reason we let Islamic extremists board jet planes and fly them into buildings - because we don't see the threat until it is too late.

Man, I really should do some work....

I understand that logic completely. Doesn't mean I condone the action, but I do understand the reason you say what you say. Believe it or not, my actual mindset leans towards violence and brutality, in a way, and I do not say that to boast as it is actually sad that I think that way. However, I try every day to think 'in a good way' (I don't want to go and get religious, especially in a political 'debate' )and try to find the positive reasoning behind life and my fellow man. Sounds corny, but it is truth.
As recent as a couple of weeks ago, the wife and I were watching yet another History Channel/TLC (can't always remember which channel but they're all the same) on Christianity and the Holy Crusades in the Middle East. During this program, my big 'epiphany' for the moment was to come to the conclusion that our entire recorded history is pretty much made up of warfare and violence, sadness and misery. Real cheery stuff huh?
I say all of this only because I think it's fair to 'present' myself and my opinions as honestly as I can, especially during debate/discussion (not sure which this would really be but I know Kryo is twitching over on his end )and even more so online, since you obviously have the lack of personal interaction. Anyhoo...
To counter the Vietnam 'police action' (remember, the politicians didn't want to call it a war... idiots)may have been a blessing that came years later but you can also see the flip side to Russia collapsing right? Are we now better having all of these little 'states' that have piss poor economies and dangerous weapons lying around unprotected and unaccounted for? Seems like you could say that this gives the 'terrorists' an even easier source from which to draw nukes vs. producing their own.
In a way it seems like you would condone us living in a 'Minority Report' type of society...
Our phrase for the day people... 'Preemptive Strike'!! YEAH BABY! !
I'll tell you what you're thinking before you even think it!!!!

Well, it is. Our goal would be to move to a (oh, now I'll sound like a Democrat) more enlightened, benevolent society and I think we are doing that. We still have a long way to go, but we have come a long way. Our current difficulty is probably the same one that the Romans faced - how do you protect your (relatively) enlightened, peaceful society from the barbarians? Especially when the barbarians have the oil?



I would say yes. Now we don't have the big Soviet bear hanging over us as a threat. We have new threats, though. No solution is perfect.

But, see, here is the opportunity that we have, as did the Romans and the British Empire. If we are the only superpower, then can we shape the world into and enlightened, peaceful society? I think that is what we are trying to do in Iraq, even though we are failing. Maybe this is an impossible task, but I think it is worth attempting.

The problem, of course, is that we are imposing our vision and our will on the rest of the world and that doesn't go over well. And this is probably the defense that the Crusaders used as they beheaded the Saracens, too. But we can't just build a wall on the border and hide behind it, either.

It is a very difficult question, which makes for interesting discussion, no? We're playing nice, Kryo!



LOL! Would that be "preemptive politics"? I like your style, Stormbringer, even if we disagree.

I think the part about us "imposing our vision and our will" as you said is where we as a country have failed. Our culture is probably sickening to most of the world and I can understand why. When the best people have to look forward to is 'American Idol' or one of the other, numerous 'reality' shows then what does that say about us? We try to bring Big Macs and Starbuck's to third world countries where the average citizen can't even afford one cup of coffee... after working all week! And then the politicians/corporations ( I don't even think there is a difference anymore considering what has become of the 'lobbyist' movement) have the audacity to ask why those people 'hate us' when all we were trying to do was make life a little better over there?
Try to force Paris Hilton on someone like me and I'm going to get violent as well (I mean seriously, can you even be attracted to her as idiotic as she is?).
As a side note... it is difficult to do this with any ounce of intelligent thought while posting from work.

I have also worked with some Kosovo refugees. An interesting point they made is that we assume that we are right, that the way we live our lives and govern ourselves is best. We look at our material success and point to that as proof that it is true. We really don't value differing viewpoints.

But how can killing someone based on a minor difference in religious beliefs be a "differing viewpoint"? Isn't that wrong?

Maybe not. If another culture puts so little value on a human life should we just accept that as their choice? From one viewpoint Kamikaze pilots were stupid because they would surely die. From another viewpoint their death was the ultimate expression of what they held valuable in their lives.

Now, when one's desire to kill oneself as an expression of personal belief intersects with another's desire not to be blown up, who is right? Hence the conflict.

If respecting another culture involves me giving up my life, well, I don't have that much respect then. Call me an ugly American.

So how would you bring peace to the mess that is modern Iraq? Or do we just award victory to the last man standing?



Haven't you gotten a broadband connection at home or is that still a problem for you?
[If you could only see me sticking out my tongue at the computer... ]

No, I finally broke down and actually got a 'paid' sub for online service at home (seems AOL finally caught on to my little 'free trials'... after a two year cat and mouse game of course!  )but it's still dial up, which totally sucks. Verizon's website says broadband isn't available here yet but AOL says it is. I'm sticking with what Verizon says since they're the only service provider in the area. But as you will notice from the time of my post, I try to jump online late at night or on weekends only to keep the phone bill down (yes, another one of the lovely benefits of the phone company's 'economy package') and maybe luck out on some faster speeds.  Oh, and rasberries all around for you sticking your tongue out...  

As far as bringing peace to the Middle East well, if I had an answer for that I wouldn't work in a dealership parts department now would I?  But again, my opinion would be that we can't. No one can except themselves. From my very limited knowledge of history it seems that there has been conflict in the Middle East for far longer than we existed as a country. Every nation that stuck their nose into things over there has been taught a lesson just as we are being taught one right now. Only it's our service men and women who are paying the price, not necessarily us sitting back here, 'safe' from the evil Islamic menace or whatever they would call it. It is what we have done to our soldiers that pisses me off the most about all of this. We've put them into a no win situation, all the while our politicians use the issue to sway public opinion for votes instead of doing what is right (please refrain from regurgitating if possible   ) and pulling them out. I would not look at that as 'defeat' necessarily as the times are different and so is the situation. Will violence become even more rampant at that point over there? Maybe. At least our troops won't be involved, nor will they be contributing to the violence at that point. More of a moral high ground than anything else... tactically, probably a mistake but then where are we going with this war anyways? Are we truly fighting to win at this point?
I honestly think that if we got out of their affairs that in time things would die down as they would have no choice but to either kill eachother off or deal with their problems. The countries in the area should be involved for obvious reasons but again, without our interference. If we feel the need to protect ourselves and our interests from terrorism then by all means we should. The money spent on this blunder of a war could be put to very good use back here in the US to fund programs that would protect our borders and shipyards, two of the most poorly guarded weaknesses our country has. The list could go on and on with what we could do to safeguard ourselves without sending in the troops every time someone looks at us funny.
I personally don't believe my life is in danger on a daily basis because of terrorists, but that's me. If it is and I am not prepared then shame on me since the government showed me with hurricane Katrina that I shouldn't count on them for help when the shit hits the fan. My point is I realize that you can't wait until the enemy is at your doorstep before deciding a course of action. I also realize that there are far better ways we can 'protect' ourselves as well as many things we could do to clean up our international image, thus building our diplomacy skills and kind of bringing some of this back towards the game!  Right Kryo?  

"How do you overcome that? Opportunity and prosperity". Errrr, wrong answer. Look at what happened to Lebanon, once it was one of the richest and most beutiful countries on Earth, but Muslim stubborn pride still contributed to it's downfall.

Vietnam was able to rebuild because that country did not contain competing Muslim factions.

Darn, I hate it when someone is more right than me...

My point is that if more young people in the Middle East thought that they could have a rewarding life then they would be a bit less likely to blow themselves up. Much like the inner-city "gangsta" culture - give them a chance to do something better and they might take it. That, of course, begs the question of why we are trying to fix other countries' problems when we haven't fixed our own.



My heart goes out to you, truly. Dial-up sucks. And you will have sooooo much fun trying to terminate your AOL service.



I think that is what will have to happen. Our troops were building a 12 foot high brick wall between the Shi'ite & Sunni areas. The Iraqi prime minister just told them to stop because "walls are not the solution". So I guess maybe suicide bombers are the solution.

So the best solution that we can up with is to let them all kill themselves? You would think that can't be best, but look at Kosovo and Afghanistan. And Israel, too. People have been trying to kill each other for thousands of years and noone has been able to stop that. Maybe we should present that to the UN, and let the blue-helmet peacekeepers
keep score.

You realize of course that you would get about the same action (or lack thereof) that we get from the UP in this game if we did that. I know, it sounds harsh to say, "let them all kill themselves", but what else can one do? Diplomacy gets us nowhere fast, especially with our country's lack of skill when attempting to do so. Sending in the troops pretty much alienates us all the way around. Sorry, work calls... I'll have to finish in a bit.

Yea i would have to agree that lack of opportunity wouldn't help matters much at all. However blowing things up would certainly distance Palestinians from opportunity even further. Who want's to invest in an area of unrest and conflict? No one! so it is a vicious cycle and in the end Palestinians will posses nothing more than dust and rubble for their efforts.

Division is considered a bad. In most cases it is, except for muslim factions of course!

Remember what happened to India? England had to divide that country and create the new state of Pakistan because the muslim factions there couldn't live in peace with the Hindu's.... no suprises there!!!

It is possible I have spawned By my thread a, Massive Multicultural Online Ranting Protagonist Grumpfest.

Maybe i should charge a monthly fee.

Then again, It isn't all against the spirit of my original thread, well not quite.
I think no other comment is needed.

Edit. I so agree with kryo, civil arguments are always appreciated.

To add my pennies worth to the arguments here.
There are and will always be conflicts, people in authority will never agree with the status quo, wars, bloodbaths, holocaust's are somewhat inevitable as our planets power hungry, socially uneducated and politically naive governments attempt to solve the ills of other nations.

I only wish the truth be told to us citizens and with that true motives underpin whatever actions we consider.

If this isn't possible then we should leave well alone, because policies that are purely motivated by individual, stately or militaristic thinking will only make this world more convoluted and dangerous for us all.

So I ask our governments, If you can't tell us the truth then don't bother trying to sell your lies. were not that afraid by the truth, were mostly afraid of why you need to lie

PS if the word "afraid" bothers you, i sugest "concerned by" as I am

I am surely of this way of thinking.
Anyone having the abilities to achieve high political office aren't versed with the skills that are needed to function in the position,

I'm not sure where I heard this idea before but it is a sound argument for me.

Well what motivates our government is the answer. I feel that the primary motivation of the American government invading Iraq was to avoid getting blamed for not doing enough... not that Iraq would necissarily be the one to bring harm to America otherwise, but it is all about public perception. The government wan't to be perceived as doing somthing so that when the next terror attack comes, they can say "well, look, we already invaded two countries, who can say we didn't do enough this time?".

I think this makes my point.
American and British governments (the main protagonists) both lied to it's citizens to justify the war in the first place, so our fear of Iraq was a fiction, designed to frighten us into agreeing with the war.

You seem to think that public perception has nothing to do with what our governments said before the invasion.

If they hadn't lied about the immanent threats of mass destruction from Iraq (45 minutes for an nuclear attack, chemical weapons, biological agents) then public perception and therefore the so called political will could never have existed.

Or are you trying to suggest that America invaded Iraq at random just to prove to it's people that they are determined to play hard ball?

PS. I am in total agreement with the invasion of Afghanistan, the Taliban were harboring and allowing free reign to Bin Ladenand Al Qaeda, this had to be stopped.