We Are All Spaniards

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:Pm66c.32671$1p.495432@attbi_s54...
Well we do have an election in November and with their success in Spain
I
would very surprised if we don't have a major terrorism attempt in the
US
in
October.

You can bank on it, sadly.

Well, maybe not (the result, anyway). It's said, and rightfully so I
believe, that the only reason LBJ was elected, in 1964, was to refuse
justification for the JFK assassination.

At the time of his death JFK was looking at losing re-election; his
"satisfaction rating" was down around 30%. I wonder if that was a motivator
for LBJ?

"Cub Driver" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 17 Mar 2004 16:19:43 -0600, "Gig Giacona"
wrote:

Well we do have an election in November and with their success in Spain I
would very surprised if we don't have a major terrorism attempt in the US
in
October.

The Democrats will be praying very hard against that possibility!

'Splain, please?

"Friedrich Ostertag" wrote in message
...
Hi Tom,

And an effective alternative is...what?

better intelligence work could have prevented 9/11 for a start.

And what could we have done with that intelligence?

arrest the would-be pilots before they board the plane?

I would guess you realize it's not like in the James Bond movies, and
for
information to be even moderately accurate is a bonus.

what are the various agencies there for, if not to provide information
enabling such arrests?

Who is the arresting officer? The World Police Department?


I appreciate that it's not an easy job. Yet in
case of 9/11 it was found later, that such information was available.

And if it was? Send the Iraqi Secret Police to make the arrests?



Or
choosing our friends more wisely would be a good idea. E.g. not
supplying terrorists like OBL with weapons just because at the
moment
they are shooting them at people we don't like.

We supplied the Muhajeen with weapons to fight off the Soviets in
Afghanistan...that was a righteous fight. Oddly, we supplied the
Soviets
with Lend-Lease equipment 40 yers earlier. using that formula, we'd
never
had divorces between couple that once were in love but now want to
kill each
other.

It's not as if the Muhajeen had ever been in love with US or the West,
nor vice versa. They welcomed the weapons, but it was not so
unforseeable that they would just as well turn them against us.

We gave aid and weapons to South Korea and it did us very well. It turned
against us with the USSR and France, but not England.

Very little is forseeable -- hindsight is 20/20.



Who, under that measure, could we ever consider our "friends"?

People who share our values, a common conception of human rights.

Please note that I'm not ruling out military action as an option,
if
there is reason to believe that possible future terrorist acts can
be
prevented.

Prevented how?

arresting (or killing) the terrorists.

Who's going to make the arrests?


Afghanistan was justified in my view, given that the taliban
openly supported OBL, only the job was not finished (yet again!).

What would "finish" that job in your view?

To be honest, I don't know. Support in establishing a stable form of
gouvernment and also development, I suppose. It is a very difficult
job, that's for sure, but noone said it would be easy.

Well, how do we begin to "establish a stable from of government"?

BTW, recall that it took 6-8 years to get Japan and Germany back on their
feet after WW2.

Iraq
was never really about terrorism, was it?

They supplied equipment, training, military intelligence, possibly
funding.

Did they? I haven't read about any finds that back up that claim.
Wouldn't we know about that, given the short supply of WMDs as
justification for the war?

It's out there...just not in the mainstream media.

For example, two of the 9/11 terrorists met with the head of Iraqi
Intelligence shortly before they came to the US.


But even if this was the case: We should have much rather invaded Saudi
Arabia if that was our motivation.

With the resistance we had going into an obvious target like Iraq, how much
more resistance would there have been going into Saudi Arabia?


For Iraq, the US was the hurdle to his domination of the region; for
the
Islamic fundelemtalists, it was our open, free and "immoral, infidel"
society.

Yes, I agree with that.

With all the hot air about 9/11 being based on various grievances about US
policy, it's "funny" that all their spokesmen said it was NOT the case. "You
worship life, while we worship death" doesn't sound like a policy gripe.

In short, they hate our liberty, our prosperity and our immorality --see the
thread about Brittany Spears :~)

Then I hope the terrorists are better informed than most people in
this group.

Now there is something I really don't want to hang our fate upon.

No one here says they're fighting Christianity, although that is the
under-current of the conversation. But their fight goes well beyond the
"US
and its allies." Rather, it encompasses all of Western civilization
and
Western morals and standards.

It was explicitly stated that this was a religious war (see cites
below).

"Dan Luke" wrote in message
...
We are in a religious war. We didn't choose it, but we've got it.

I think you are misinterpreting Dan's proclamation. We are in a "religious
war" of the terrorist's choosing -- not our own.

What I percieve is that a lot of people in the US can't face that they
are the target because that would mean they did something to deserve
it, and that seems to be unthinkable.

Your logic escapes me. How does blowing up innocents on trains in Spain,
blowing up innocents in a night club in Bali, and blowing up innocents in a
hotel in Baghdad punish the U.S.? And how did those people "deserve" it?

If the tenuous connection is "they're all allied with the U.S." well, by
your logic this conflict will have to escalate shortly into a world war.

More importantly, nothing you have said should dissuade anyone from feeling
total and utter contempt for the animals who have perpetrated these
atrocities -- against ALL of humanity.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

But if you are so caritative that you want to help the world, what
about sending AIDS drugs and food to Africa? It would be much cheaper
and it would help many more people without killing anyone. So tell me,
why is the US not doing this? I'll tell you: because it isn't in the
interest of the US economic powers (read defense, oil, and
reconstruction bussinesses).

Guess again. The Bush Administration has proposed increasing aid to Africa
several times. This proposal has been met with overwhelming apathy by
Congress and the American electorate -- with good reason, IMHO.

The reason we don't excited about helping Africa anymore is because they
seem to have no interest in helping themselves.

In a very real sense, and in the eyes of many Americans, the Somali warlords
of Mogadishu sealed that continent's fate.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Buuut with Spaniards gone and another three countries withdrawing
their support, there would be BIIG problem. We are poor country and
sending more troops would be very unpopular, while if we won't find
replacement, the multinational division would become too weak to keep
their job.

We prefer term Central Europe from Eastern, BTW. There is more
differences between Poles and Russian than between Poles and Germans.

Thanks for your perspective. It's great to hear from the Polish aviation
community!

And, may I be the first to say, "Welcome to the group!"
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

In article HB66c.32444$Cb.525898@attbi_s51, Jay Honeck wrote:
(Same thing happened to the IRA, by the way. Had they held strictly to
fighting the British, they might have pulled it off. Instead, they started
blowing up innocent civilians, and lost public opinion worldwide.)

They (Sinn Fein) always had the ballot box, and never needed to resort
to violence.

Much of the violence in NI is purely religious hatred. No, it's not
Moslem against Christian. It's Catholic vs Protestant. They believe in
the same god and the same major revision of a particular religion, but
they still must kill each other over minor differences in beliefs.

NI doesn't just have Republican [0] terrorists, but it also has Loyalist
(pro-British rule) terrorists too (the whole group euphemistically known
as paramilitaries). Both sides have used unjustified violence.

[0] Not to be confused with the US Republican party

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

In article , JohnMcGrew wrote:
expected to loose by a wide margin before the attack. Most socialist parties
and organizations have been far more friendly to the Islamic cause than anyone
else. Expect similar just before the next election in Britain.

Let's see: Britain currently has a socialist (or at least
quasi-socialist) party in power at the moment: the Labour Party. The
Conservative Party is at least as gung-ho, if not more so about
supporting the United States. The 'special relationship' with the US
enjoys strong cross-party support in Britain. The terrorists would
likely just bring in a government with an even stronger resolve to keep
fighting.

I think those who say the Spanish changed the Government because of a
terrorist act are missing the point: the Spanish changed their
government because the one in power tried to lie and distort and spin
about the whole tragic affair and got caught. The Spanish didn't elect
the other lot to appease terrorists, they elected the other lot to
punish the incumbent for bare-faced lying.

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

Dylan Smith wrote:

I think those who say the Spanish changed the Government because of a
terrorist act are missing the point: the Spanish changed their
government because the one in power tried to lie and distort and spin
about the whole tragic affair and got caught.

Few, if any, have argued with that. The problem is that outfits like Al Quaida
will not see it this way. Even if their leaders do, they will fomulate in the
ranks the idea that their actions changed the election results and got Spanish
troops pulled out. Sorta like "Ok, you guys did real well last time, go do it
again somewhere else."

Now, if they perceive the Conservative Party as being more hawkish than Labour,
they probably will not try to influence the British elections this way, but the
way the media is beginning to spin the two parties here in the States, Al Quaida
might well feel that a victory by the Democrats would be advantageous. *If* they
come to that conclusion, they might also feel that another strike just before
the election would hand Kerry the presidency. That's two "ifs", but the Spanish
elections make that second if much more likely.

George Patterson
Battle, n; A method of untying with the teeth a political knot that would
not yield to the tongue.

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message news:8Ej6c.35875$po.318662@attbi_s52...
But if you are so caritative that you want to help the world, what
about sending AIDS drugs and food to Africa? It would be much cheaper
and it would help many more people without killing anyone. So tell me,
why is the US not doing this? I'll tell you: because it isn't in the
interest of the US economic powers (read defense, oil, and
reconstruction bussinesses).

Guess again. The Bush Administration has proposed increasing aid to Africa
several times. This proposal has been met with overwhelming apathy by
Congress and the American electorate -- with good reason, IMHO.

The reason we don't excited about helping Africa anymore is because they
seem to have no interest in helping themselves.

In a very real sense, and in the eyes of many Americans, the Somali warlords
of Mogadishu sealed that continent's fate.

Is that so? Why, then, are the brave american soldiers not fighting these warlords?