• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

When were we safer?

SENSIBLE PATRIO said:
Except for the fact that they do not understand and do not care about mutual deterrence based on mutual destruction they do not care! My gosh you are dense people sometimes
Click to expand...

Density of the mind depends on where you stand I suppose...

Seems fanatics are just as populous on the CON side as any terrorist crowd. When push comes to shove the claim is always- they don't care- be it about human life, their life or the lives of their families.

Bull crap!

They care, but like soldiers on our side they are willing to risk their lives in their cause. But once Japan was considered the ultimate in death before surrender- they did however surrender without a single American Assault Troop setting foot on their sacred soil.

Now on your rather cherry picked concept of weak vs strong policies...

Reagan stage managed 'invasions' like Grenada, huge cluster-f***s like Beirut and Iran Contra, and turned our creditor nation into a debtor nation gaining a Pyrrhic victory over the E-Vile USSR.

BushI locked us into a debacle in Somalia, another stage play called Panama, and first uttered peace dividend.

Clinton was a mixed bag with a success in Bosnia and a swing and a miss at al-Queera (the former CON boogy man who neither feared death nor would stop until the good ol' USofA was wiped from the planet with everything from soda pop bottle chem weapons to old USSR suitcase bombs- oh and don't forget the constant CON drumbeat of prayer mats in the Arizona desert under BushII's regime)

Now 'strong' BushII- he was arrogant/ignorant enough to try and plant democracy in the Arab desert.

I'd say it isn't a matter of strong vs weak- but how you pick your battles.
 
notquiteright said:
Density of the mind depends on where you stand I suppose...

Seems fanatics are just as populous on the CON side as any terrorist crowd. When push comes to shove the claim is always- they don't care- be it about human life, their life or the lives of their families.

Bull crap!

They care, but like soldiers on our side they are willing to risk their lives in their cause. But once Japan was considered the ultimate in death before surrender- they did however surrender without a single American Assault Troop setting foot on their sacred soil.

Now on your rather cherry picked concept of weak vs strong policies...

Reagan stage managed 'invasions' like Grenada, huge cluster-f***s like Beirut and Iran Contra, and turned our creditor nation into a debtor nation gaining a Pyrrhic victory over the E-Vile USSR.

BushI locked us into a debacle in Somalia, another stage play called Panama, and first uttered peace dividend.

Clinton was a mixed bag with a success in Bosnia and a swing and a miss at al-Queera (the former CON boogy man who neither feared death nor would stop until the good ol' USofA was wiped from the planet with everything from soda pop bottle chem weapons to old USSR suitcase bombs- oh and don't forget the constant CON drumbeat of prayer mats in the Arizona desert under BushII's regime)

Now 'strong' BushII- he was arrogant/ignorant enough to try and plant democracy in the Arab desert.

I'd say it isn't a matter of strong vs weak- but how you pick your battles.
Click to expand...


Somalia was Bush 1's fault? what a bunch of whooey! Bush 2 kept us safe after 911 which was a result in the weakening of our intelligence via Clinton, wake up seriously.
 
jet57 said:
So, please spare me the "it's all Clinton's fault" routine. .
Click to expand...

>" But your most disgraceful case was in Somalia; where- after vigorous propaganda about the power of the USA and its post cold war leadership of the new world order- you moved tens of thousands of international force, including twenty eight thousands American solders into Somalia. However, when tens of your solders were killed in minor battles and one American Pilot was dragged in the streets of Mogadishu you left the area carrying disappointment, humiliation, defeat and your dead with you. Clinton appeared in front of the whole world threatening and promising revenge , but these threats were merely a preparation for withdrawal. You have been disgraced by Allah and you withdrew; the extent of your impotence and weaknesses became very clear. It was a pleasure for the “heart” of every Muslim and a remedy to the “chests” of believing nations to see you defeated in the three Islamic cities of Beirut , Aden and Mogadishu.

I say to Secretary of Defence: The sons of the land of the two Holy Places had come out to fight against the Russian in Afghanistan, the Serb in Bosnia-Herzegovina and today they are fighting in Chechenia and -by the Permission of Allah- they have been made victorious over your partner, the Russians. By the command of Allah, they are also fighting in Tajakistan..."<

Bin Laden's Fatwa | PBS NewsHour




Al-Qaeda: Declarations & Acts of War
Al-Qaeda declared war on the United States and its allies two times before the attacks on September 11, 2001. Those two declarations came in the form of fatwas, a type of Islamic religious decree.

Al-Qaeda: Declarations & Acts of War
 
SENSIBLE PATRIO said:
Somalia was Bush 1's fault? what a bunch of whooey! Bush 2 kept us safe after 911 which was a result in the weakening of our intelligence via Clinton, wake up seriously.
Click to expand...

Ah yes, the great whooey rebuttal... :doh

BushI got us into an open ended commitment on 4 dec 1992. BushI admitted he would have to pass the hot mess to Clinton after BushI failed to win a second term.

Now as for who needs to quit hitting the snooze alarm and leave a BS CON fantasy...

Our 'intellegence' services have been notoriously flawed waaaay before Clinton. Reagan's crowd were caught flat-footed when the Berlin Wall fell... not to mention the poor intel on suicide bombers in Lebanon that got almost 300 Marines killed in a high rise barracks. Then of course the highly bogus 'intel' on how big and bad the Roosian weapons were....

wake up, seriously... :peace
 
jet57 said:
You don't have the slightest idea how you can reconcile that allegation. Our troubles in the Middle East started when the CIA overthrew the government of Iran and installed the Shah in 1953. This led directly to the Iranian revolution and radical Islam took center stage and we've been dealing wth it ever since.

Ronald Reagan for his part turned his back on the Arab ME in favor of complete Israel which further alienated us in the region, and after the PLO headquarters were attacked (in Beirut Lebanon) by Isreal, Reagan sends over The Marines and 229 of our servicemen die in a suicide attack. So, please spare me the "it's all Clinton's fault" routine. Our involvement in the Middle East post WWII has been nothing but a violent commerical enterprise ala "cowboys and Indians" and the chickens have come home to roost. It was that blithering idiot GW Bush who put the final nail in the coffin when we had the ME by the short hairs follwing 911 and that idiot and his henchmen went into Iraq. Now we have ISIS. I would strongly suggest that you spend more time reading and less time being "very conservative".
Click to expand...
Well said worth repeating.
 
SENSIBLE PATRIO said:
Oh I forgot they are the JV team how could I forget, wonder how they took so much territory in Iraq and Syria being the JV, RAG TAG
Click to expand...

Because the Assad Regime used them as a tool against other rebels. Notice how they're getting literally blown to bits because the Syrian Air Force is now being used against them. They took ground against the Peshmerga because the Kurds were spread thin. Now with Kurdish forces being reinforced by both additional units, Iraqi regular military and US Air Force assets, the ISIS is on the run.

Furthermore, capacity to take land is not even remotely comparable to capacity to build nuclear weapons.

You're changing the subject because you cannot address my argument
 
~SAL said:
Well

Women are almost equal.
There is no child labour.
Children are becoming "more" equal.
Slavery is illegal.
Blacks are becoming "more" equal.
We are living longer and in a healthier way. (That will end though due to the obesity trend which is currentlty prevalent.
We are not starving.
We have running water and hygienic living conditions for many
We are not in the middle of a cold war with Russia

these are off the cuff

Safety is relative.

What are you looking for?
Click to expand...

All true.

However in terms of national security the US has not been as exposed since Pearl Harbor and an already scared nation, founded in fear, is quaking at anything remotely a threat. The US has invaded or attacked consistently through the last 13 years and it is escalating.

Meanwehile, Europe and Canada polls show people consider themselves more free than they have ever been, and you are right, thos values we fought for in the60's and 70's are here, now. We won.

Women can get into any law school, so can Jews and blacks and Hispanics. The US chose to have a black president over a woman, while Canada, Britain, Germany and a host of countries have had women heads of state when the only one ever elected was Indira Ghandi when we started out.

But, the US is more afraid than ever, with more troops deployed than most of the last 100 years.
 
Fearandloathing said:
All true.

However in terms of national security the US has not been as exposed since Pearl Harbor and an already scared nation, founded in fear, is quaking at anything remotely a threat. The US has invaded or attacked consistently through the last 13 years and it is escalating.

Meanwehile, Europe and Canada polls show people consider themselves more free than they have ever been, and you are right, thos values we fought for in the60's and 70's are here, now. We won.

Women can get into any law school, so can Jews and blacks and Hispanics. The US chose to have a black president over a woman, while Canada, Britain, Germany and a host of countries have had women heads of state when the only one ever elected was Indira Ghandi when we started out.

But, the US is more afraid than ever, with more troops deployed than most of the last 100 years.
Click to expand...

Frankly the US government is a bigger threat to the people than any outside entity.
 
jet57 said:
You don't have the slightest idea how you can reconcile that allegation. Our troubles in the Middle East started when the CIA overthrew the government of Iran and installed the Shah in 1953. This led directly to the Iranian revolution and radical Islam took center stage and we've been dealing wth it ever since.

Ronald Reagan for his part turned his back on the Arab ME in favor of complete Israel which further alienated us in the region, and after the PLO headquarters were attacked (in Beirut Lebanon) by Isreal, Reagan sends over The Marines and 229 of our servicemen die in a suicide attack. So, please spare me the "it's all Clinton's fault" routine. Our involvement in the Middle East post WWII has been nothing but a violent commerical enterprise ala "cowboys and Indians" and the chickens have come home to roost. It was that blithering idiot GW Bush who put the final nail in the coffin when we had the ME by the short hairs follwing 911 and that idiot and his henchmen went into Iraq. Now we have ISIS. I would strongly suggest that you spend more time reading and less time being "very conservative".
Click to expand...

Name ONE US administration that ever did anything good for the middle east.

You can't lay it all on Regan's doorstep, who was it deposed the elected leader and installed the Shah dictator for life? Who began the capitulation to the House of Saud?

Regan I suspect did less damage in the region because he ignored it...he had other fish to fry, like bringing down the Soviet Union to the surprise of the CIA who have been calling the shots in the ME....


need I say more?
 
Fearandloathing said:
All true.

However in terms of national security the US has not been as exposed since Pearl Harbor and an already scared nation, founded in fear, is quaking at anything remotely a threat. The US has invaded or attacked consistently through the last 13 years and it is escalating.

Meanwehile, Europe and Canada polls show people consider themselves more free than they have ever been, and you are right, thos values we fought for in the60's and 70's are here, now. We won.

Women can get into any law school, so can Jews and blacks and Hispanics. The US chose to have a black president over a woman, while Canada, Britain, Germany and a host of countries have had women heads of state when the only one ever elected was Indira Ghandi when we started out.

But, the US is more afraid than ever, with more troops deployed than most of the last 100 years.
Click to expand...

agreed as this thread reflects...much more fear....I don't know what drives it but you are right

and more troops coming home with PTSD and suicidal...it needs investigation at a deeper level, as something is terribly wrong.
 
Gaius46 said:
Frankly the US government is a bigger threat to the people than any outside entity.
Click to expand...

This I feel is generally true of all countries. People nowdays have much more to fear from their own government than a foreign power. Ukraine being an exception obviously, and perhaps Japan with China, but for the most part, especially in America that is true.

Ferugson is a good example of why we do not combine the military and police. William Adama said this: "There's a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people." And we are militarizing our police.
 
APACHERAT said:
>" But your most disgraceful case was in Somalia; where- after vigorous propaganda about the power of the USA and its post cold war leadership of the new world order- you moved tens of thousands of international force, including twenty eight thousands American solders into Somalia. However, when tens of your solders were killed in minor battles and one American Pilot was dragged in the streets of Mogadishu you left the area carrying disappointment, humiliation, defeat and your dead with you. Clinton appeared in front of the whole world threatening and promising revenge , but these threats were merely a preparation for withdrawal. You have been disgraced by Allah and you withdrew; the extent of your impotence and weaknesses became very clear. It was a pleasure for the “heart” of every Muslim and a remedy to the “chests” of believing nations to see you defeated in the three Islamic cities of Beirut , Aden and Mogadishu.

I say to Secretary of Defence: The sons of the land of the two Holy Places had come out to fight against the Russian in Afghanistan, the Serb in Bosnia-Herzegovina and today they are fighting in Chechenia and -by the Permission of Allah- they have been made victorious over your partner, the Russians. By the command of Allah, they are also fighting in Tajakistan..."<

Bin Laden's Fatwa | PBS NewsHour




Al-Qaeda: Declarations & Acts of War
Al-Qaeda declared war on the United States and its allies two times before the attacks on September 11, 2001. Those two declarations came in the form of fatwas, a type of Islamic religious decree.

Al-Qaeda: Declarations & Acts of War
Click to expand...

You're not seeing the forest for the trees: the Samali decission by Bill Clinton was made at almost the order of the American public. What he did or did not do; by that time, was going to have no effect on the opinions of our enemies in the ME. Nothing happens in a vacuum and you are forgetting that following WWII, there was a series of events that took place, based on corporate hegemony that led straight to 911 and now ISIS. Reagan, while he did nothing outright to attack areas of the ME, he did nothing to better the situation. I would go so far to say that the US became a direct target of Radical Islam immediately following our capitulation in Vietnam. If nothing else, that alone showed our enemies that our political system could not tolerate violent interloping at any scale. There was nothing altrusitic about Vietnam. There were no clear delineations of any kind, and just like our decision to go into Iraq, the entire enterprise was a failure. The lesson is, don't pull a knife unless you're going to use it. It could be argued, that now that we have ensnared ourselves in the ME and due to ISIS, the war hawks are going to get exactly what they've wanted.
 
Fearandloathing said:
Name ONE US administration that ever did anything good for the middle east.

You can't lay it all on Regan's doorstep, who was it deposed the elected leader and installed the Shah dictator for life? Who began the capitulation to the House of Saud?

Regan I suspect did less damage in the region because he ignored it...he had other fish to fry, like bringing down the Soviet Union to the surprise of the CIA who have been calling the shots in the ME....


need I say more?
Click to expand...

I haven't laid anything at the doorstep of Reagan. He;s just the republican version of the same BS that's been goin on over there; really since 1919. For western powers it's been about the financial driver that is provided by our energy policies, pure and simple. The whole thing's about fiancial power as it is!

Our society has decided what our energy policy is going to be; and that does not necessarily mean the use of gas an oil, but the entire paradigm and the actions that said paradigm has caused. We're responsible for ur own troubles in the ME. We should have walked away from that dessert a long time ago. Oil isn't worth a damn thng if'n no one buys it.
 
Terrorism, especially in the USA, is unlikely to directly harm more than a few thousand people in a year. A large scale nuclear war could destroy the continent or the planet. Overall we are safer now, at least for the near term.


The doomsday clock is currently at five minutes to midnight. During the Reagan era it was at three or four minutes to midnight. Two was the lowest number ever, in 1953. The highest number was a 17 in 1991 when the United States and Soviet Union signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty and the Soviet Union dissolved. (This is the clock's earliest setting since its inception.)

"The Doomsday Clock is a universally-recognized symbolic clock face, representing a countdown to possible political related global catastrophe (nuclear war or climate change). It has been maintained since 1947 by the members of the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists,[1] who are in turn advised by the Governing Board and the Board of Sponsors, including 18 Nobel Laureates. The closer they set the Clock to midnight, the closer the scientists believe the world is to the global disaster.

Originally, the Clock, which hangs on a wall in a Bulletin's office in the University of Chicago,[2] represented an analogy for the threat of global nuclear war; however, since 2007 it has also reflected climate change[3] and new developments in the life sciences and technology that could inflict irrevocable harm to humanity.[4] The most recent officially announced setting—five minutes to midnight (11:55pm)—was made on January 14, 2014.[5]"
Doomsday Clock - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
jet57 said:
I haven't laid anything at the doorstep of Reagan. He;s just the republican version of the same BS that's been goin on over there; really since 1919. For western powers it's been about the financial driver that is provided by our energy policies, pure and simple. The whole thing's about fiancial power as it is!

Our society has decided what our energy policy is going to be; and that does not necessarily mean the use of gas an oil, but the entire paradigm and the actions that said paradigm has caused. We're responsible for ur own troubles in the ME. We should have walked away from that dessert a long time ago. Oil isn't worth a damn thng if'n no one buys it.
Click to expand...

Your post was highly critical and selective. American foreign policy is bad no matter who is at the helm...

Reagan did end the cold war.
 
jet57 said:
You're not seeing the forest for the trees: the Samali decission by Bill Clinton was made at almost the order of the American public. What he did or did not do; by that time, was going to have no effect on the opinions of our enemies in the ME. Nothing happens in a vacuum and you are forgetting that following WWII, there was a series of events that took place, based on corporate hegemony that led straight to 911 and now ISIS. Reagan, while he did nothing outright to attack areas of the ME, he did nothing to better the situation. I would go so far to say that the US became a direct target of Radical Islam immediately following our capitulation in Vietnam. If nothing else, that alone showed our enemies that our political system could not tolerate violent interloping at any scale. There was nothing altrusitic about Vietnam. There were no clear delineations of any kind, and just like our decision to go into Iraq, the entire enterprise was a failure. The lesson is, don't pull a knife unless you're going to use it. It could be argued, that now that we have ensnared ourselves in the ME and due to ISIS, the war hawks are going to get exactly what they've wanted.
Click to expand...

There's more to the Somali story, don't you remember ?

The Army requested armor, Clinton over ruled his military advisers and commanders in the field. If the Army were to have had the armor they requested, there never would have been a "Black Hawk Down."

But when we retreated from Somali and Bill Clinton yelling that we would revenge the death of American soldiers and there was no revenge, is when Bin Laden came to the conclusion that America was just a paper tiger. This is when Bin Laden decided to attack America on it's own soil (9-11-01) and believing that America's response would be no more that launching a hundred Tomahawk cruise missiles.

Bin Laden ****ed up, on 9-11-01 G.W. Bush was POTUS and Bush was no Clinton. Bush invaded Afghanistan by putting American boots on the ground.

A couple of years later Bush put 200,000 boots on the border in Kuwait ready to invade Iraq. Saddam Hussein thought Bush was bluffing. No way would America go to war against Iraq with Clinton's military of 200,000 troops. Where as Bush 41 went to war against Iraq during Desert Storm with Reagan's military with 500,000 boots on the ground. Bush 43 wasn't bluffing.
Saddam Hussein Talks to the FBI
 
Fearandloathing said:
Your post was highly critical and selective. American foreign policy is bad no matter who is at the helm...

Reagan did end the cold war.
Click to expand...

My post was in reply to one that was highly crytical of Democratic leadership wih respect to the ME. And the ending of the cold war was not through anything that Reagan did by the wave of his hand. The cold war had been foughte outright since 1946. Gorbachev didn't just wake up one morning and think that Reagan was too tough for him. We had been out spending and out racing the USSR since for a generation by the time Reagan took office; they'd just plain had it and teh Russian people were sick of the Soviets.
 
APACHERAT said:
There's more to the Somali story, don't you remember ?

The Army requested armor, Clinton over ruled his military advisers and commanders in the field. If the Army were to have had the armor they requested, there never would have been a "Black Hawk Down."

But when we retreated from Somali and Bill Clinton yelling that we would revenge the death of American soldiers and there was no revenge, is when Bin Laden came to the conclusion that America was just a paper tiger. This is when Bin Laden decided to attack America on it's own soil (9-11-01) and believing that America's response would be no more that launching a hundred Tomahawk cruise missiles.

Bin Laden ****ed up, on 9-11-01 G.W. Bush was POTUS and Bush was no Clinton. Bush invaded Afghanistan by putting American boots on the ground.

A couple of years later Bush put 200,000 boots on the border in Kuwait ready to invade Iraq. Saddam Hussein thought Bush was bluffing. No way would America go to war against Iraq with Clinton's military of 200,000 troops. Where as Bush 41 went to war against Iraq during Desert Storm with Reagan's military with 500,000 boots on the ground. Bush 43 wasn't bluffing.
Saddam Hussein Talks to the FBI
Click to expand...

You're missing the point: Smalia had ZERO to do with what we face these days in the ME: it was another failed effort.
 
APACHERAT said:
Those Somalian who dragged that Army pilot through the streets were Al Qaeda.
Click to expand...

They were most likely Habr Gadr clan members who were the tribal members of Mohammed Farah Aidid... The guy they were there to catch.

Nothing to do with Al Qaeda.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom