[KevinTheOmnivore]

Originally Posted by mburbank

Okay, that's just crap Kev. I appreciattte you've developed an enoprmous chip on your shoulder due to the Bad hippies and lefty Bloggers that scared you in a gas station restroom somewhere, but they ain't me, Ziggy, or any of the people here with brains.

Nah, see I have no problem with the Geggys and the ranxers of the world. They may be wrong, and they may be nuts, but at least they have the balls to say what they really believe. I can respect that.

My main problem is with "Liberals" and "progressives" who can't come out and say it. I have a problem with "Liberals" and "progressives" who only seem to worry about human rights violations when it's America and Israel who are supposedly committing them. I have a problem with "Liberals" and "progressives" who can't figure out that we do have a clear enemy, and all of the relativist games they play won't change that.

Geggy will come out and actually say that this war is about oil and imperialism, whereas some "Liberals" and "progressives" will only call it a 'attempted Empire' or 'stab at hegemony'.

Who here said that individual attrocities committed by individual us soldiers is refelctive of the army?

I'll go out on a limb and say that there's some degree of trickle down when the secretary of defense so obviously couldn't give a crap, the Presidents lawyers call the geneva conventions quaint and the justice department turns out to have no conrete evidence against Jose Padilla that would stand up in court after three years of holding him in a navy brig without charge. But Just because I think this fish rots from the head down doesn't mean I think the vast majority of soldiers are doing anything but what they think is their job, and doing it the best they can.

What you do is far worse than simply saying all of our troops are complicit in, well, whatever it is you think they're complicit in.

No, in your version of the story only some of our soldiers are entirely evil, and the rest are just stupid doops who are too dumb to distinguish between right and wrong. I mean, Don Rumsfeld might be ordering bad things, but he can't be there ordering everybody around. So what's the ratio? Is it that the military is 30% evil and 70% retarded? Maybe it's more like 40%/60%??? You tell me.

the Presidents lawyers call the geneva conventions quaint and the justice department turns out to have no conrete evidence against Jose Padilla that would stand up in court after three years of holding him in a navy brig without charge.

And FDR inturned innocent Asian Americans, and Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War. That doesn't make it right, but it also didn't make us any less at war with very real enemies.

Considering the anarchis nature of terrorist cells, our government could be doing far worse right now. That doesn't mean Gitmo is right, or the NSA spy program is right, or whatevr else. But I thin you're seriously lacking in perspective.

That being said, no matter how awful it may be that an alleged soldier got their alleged head allegedly cut off doesn't make him a non combatant, and an allegedly little girl and an allegedly old man in an alleged wheel chair allegedly executed with alleged bullets to their alleged heads aren't combatants.

YEAH, LET'S NOT ASSUME HE GOT HIS HEAD CHOPPED OFF, GUYS. IT MAY JUST HAVE BEEN THAT THEY SLIT HIS THROAT, OR SIMPLY PLACED A BULLET IN HIS HEAD.

There's a huge difference in the absurd comparison you've just made. if our soldiers are doing things that are illegal, unethical, or against the code of conduct these men and women swear to, than they are flat out violating policy. This is why they're being investigated (unless you believe Ziggy, who thinks all of the recent charges are to appease the media and cover up the military's bloodlust for children and cripples).

As for our enemies, this is their M.O. They can't confront us head on (as you elaborated upon below), so they plant roadside bombs, they blow up mosques, and they kidnap journalists, aid workers, and soldiers.

One side criminalizes the targeting of innocent life, and the other glorifies it.

I think there's an attitude, shared by most americans of both parties, that what we do in war is civilzed and almost dainty compared to the unwashed barbarians.

And I'm glad you count yourself in the minority opinion that can't see the difference.

But when it comes down to the nitty gritty of killing people, we will always kill more and more effectively for the simple reason we can afford to. We will never, ever kill someone by cutting their head of, because that's declasse. No one should fuck with us.

And? Hey, they may be bad, but we can kill more efficiently, which really means something.

I don't think you've shared anything terribly enlightening here. If Al Qaeda could challenge our weaponry, well I'm sure they would. This is why they revert to guerilla warfare and barbarism, because they can't drop all of those baby killing bombs like we do.

We might just go off an invade some uninvolved country.

Or worse yet, we might do that, and then allow the isolationists and partisans in our country to abandon that country once we've already invaded. I think Bob Taft would love you, Max. No international engagement is ever justified unless it yields rapid and immediate benefits for America.

oh, right, right, we should be stopping genocide in Darfur instead (check out which party was more vocal on that issue b/f it became sexy to equate troop levels in Iraq with Darfur). Maybe we should withdraw, and "focus on the war on terror", whatever that means. Well hey, we should cry on and on about catching Bin Laden, but when we actually get Zarqawi (arguably a far more dangerous terrorist than Osama), let's downplay its significance. I mean, we never EVER should've invaded Iraq, but I'm NOT saying Iraq was better under Saddam. And hey, I know Islamic* extremists are bad, but we kill far better than they do or something.

I think it once again comes down to a fundamental problem, Max. You and Ziggy would rather see a Bush and co. loss than an American victory. Anything that is good is merely consequential, and anything that's bad is REALLY, REALLY bad.

But I forgot, the reason you and Ziggy rush to post about our blood thirsty troops is b/c we need transparency, and we need to hold our OWN tax supported soldiers to a higher standard. i mean, what our enemies do is irrelevant, because well, uh, we can kill better than they can.