Protesters: Who do they help?

[Ax]

The current mob of protesters WILL NOT stop the war. Period.

So what else can they possibly accomplish?

They can tie up police and emergency personel during a time of heightened terror alerts. Not to mention the probability that the blocking of roads COULD prevent quick response to a number of different emergencies. This COULD cause a death or injury. So apparently they DO think there are things worth dying for.

They can make local governments (i.e. taxpayers) spend extra money to cover the costs of their protests. Money that could be used for more important things. So they don't mind wasting money on what they believe is necessary.

They can provide more inspiration to radicals around the world that the protests are working, POSSIBLY prompting them to increase the violence at their protests. (not that they need it) Even here at home where some demonstrations have become destructive or violent, these so called peace activists defend their right to do so. So they obviously believe destruction and violence has it's place too. As long as it's used for what THEY believe.

I know and agree that they have the right to protest.

They also have the right to shove a broken bottle up their a$$. That doesn't mean they should.

There is a time and place for everything.

Before the start of the war? Yes, if that's what they want to do. After the war? Yes, if that's what they want to do.

But during the war? What POSITIVE EFFECT during this time, could they have on this country?

As I said above, the current mob of protesters WILL NOT stop the war. Period.

Group hugs won't cure everything.

[just skins baby]

As long as there is a TV camera nearby, they will protest.

I just hope they continue their lifestyle, because it leaves more oil for us.

[TennesseeCarl]

I don't think protests ended the war in Vietnam either, but there is a point to it. We have the right to express our opinions.

I know it's unpopular right now, but the very thing we claim we're fighting for in Iraq - to give the Iraqi people freedom - seems to irritate the bejeezus out of some when folks here exercise those freedoms.

Many feel this is not a necessary use of military power. I'm very torn on it. I don't feel that we have been threatened by Saddam Hussein. Certainly he's far less of a threat than many regimes we're conveniently not taking on.

Reasonable minds can differ on the issue of the current action in Iraq. I hope it's over quickly. I hope we get rid of Saddam Hussein and his thug sons.

But will this action be worth the cost even if it succeeds in it's goals? I'm not convinced of it.

[NavyDave]

TC the thing is only an idiot will wait until he is threatened.

Do you need more that the N Korea situation to see why you dont wait for Saddam to get his hands on his bargaining tool?

And yes there was an Iraqi Nuke facility in 1981(courtesy of france) that thankfully the Israelis blew up

[codeorama]

Originally posted by TennesseeCarl

[/b]

I know it's unpopular right now, but the very thing we claim we're fighting for in Iraq - to give the Iraqi people freedom - seems to irritate the bejeezus out of some when folks here exercise those freedoms.

Many feel this is not a necessary use of military power. I'm very torn on it. I don't feel that we have been threatened by Saddam Hussein. Certainly he's far less of a threat than many regimes we're conveniently not taking on.

Reasonable minds can differ on the issue of the current action in Iraq. I hope it's over quickly. I hope we get rid of Saddam Hussein and his thug sons.

[/b]

I agree with you TC. Terrorists have had more weapons put in their hands by the US than most people are aware of. If you are going to say they give weapons to terrorists or there is a link to 9/11, prove it, don't just spew propaganda to scare the average joe. You take away these two points and Iraq is no threat to the US... We have created more of a threat by our actions.

[PCS]

Terrorists have had more weapons put in their hands by the US than most people are aware of. Ok code. Walk the walk. Prove it.

"Iraq is no threat to the US... " It's called pattern of behavior Code. Potential threat. In 1979, the State Department came up with a terrorism list. 4 countries were on that original list. Iraq,Syria, Libya and South Yemen. Iraq continued to back alleged terrorists throughout the '80s. The most notable was Abu Abbas, then leader of the Palestine Liberation Front, who found refuge in Baghdad after being expelled from Tunis for masterminding the 1985 hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro, which resulted in the killing of an elderly American tourist.

It's continued backing of Palestinian terrorists has been linked. It's not just about the US, it's about its allies and any other potential victims, who are more than likely to be civilians.

In 1993 Iraq was allegedly involved in a plot to assinate former President Bush. Iraq, specifically Hussein, have admitted and have been caught with, possession of weapons of mass destruction. Clearly the man is a threat not to just the US but to many other countries and their citizens as well. Just because he hasn't doesn't mean he won't.

[codeorama]

Originally posted by Park City Skins

Terrorists have had more weapons put in their hands by the US than most people are aware of. Ok code. Walk the walk. Prove it.

"Iraq is no threat to the US... " It's called pattern of behavior Code. Potential threat. In 1979, the State Department came up with a terrorism list. 4 countries were on that original list. Iraq,Syria, Libya and South Yemen. Iraq continued to back alleged terrorists throughout the '80s. The most notable was Abu Abbas, then leader of the Palestine Liberation Front, who found refuge in Baghdad after being expelled from Tunis for masterminding the 1985 hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro, which resulted in the killing of an elderly American tourist.

It's continued backing of Palestinian terrorists has been linked. It's not just about the US, it's about its allies and any other potential victims, who are more than likely to be civilians.

In 1993 Iraq was allegedly involved in a plot to assinate former President Bush. Iraq, specifically Hussein, have admitted and have been caught with, possession of weapons of mass destruction. Clearly the man is a threat not to just the US but to many other countries and their citizens as well. Just because he hasn't doesn't mean he won't.

Dude, Fox news ran a story on the threat of US stinger missles in the hands of terrorist being the biggest terrorist threat in the US right now. (their ability to use the stingers to shoot down comercial airplanes) Where did the stingers comefrom??? The US.. in the 80's when the Soviets were fighting Afghanistan, our government gave the muhjahdine (spelling) stingers and training through the CIA... the stingers are credited with sending the Soviets away...

More you ask??? Didn't our government give Iraq the scuds among other weapons including chemical weapons during the 80's so they could fight Iran?

Our country has a history of arming and supplying "terrorists" or "rebels" in order to overthrow regimes and get our puppets in power or resisting the power of our "enemies".

[PCS]

Dude. fox ran a story on Soviet made SA-7's. These were allegedly going to be used, by al Qaeda in shooting down an Israeli in Kenya. These are the weapons mainly discussed in the story. There have been roughly 50,000 of the things soldto third world nations over the past 15 years. Soviet made SA-7's. The story on this did mention US made stingers but no hard evidence was given that they are in fact being sold as well. It was an assumption, a "logical conclusion", that if the the SA-7's, left over from the Russian/ Afghan conflict are still in circulation, then certainly the Stingers are. Maybe. Maybe not. They do know for a fact about the SA-7's. Yes America, Britain, France and others supplied Iraq with chemical weapons. Yes this is coming back to bite us on the arse. (Known as blowback). However, that is hardly suppying Terrorists and does not support your claim.

Scuds Code, sigh, were first deployed by the Soviets. It's a direct decendant of the V2. The Iraq's got the Scuds, along with most of it's military hardware,(including its anit aircraft epuipment) from the Soviets. They just improved the range of the Scud some.

[codeorama]

Originally posted by Park City Skins

Dude. fox ran a story on Soviet made SA-7's. These were allegedly going to be used, by al Qaeda in shooting down an Israeli in Kenya. These are the weapons mainly discussed in the story. There have been roughly 50,000 of the things soldto third world nations over the past 15 years. Soviet made SA-7's. The story on this did mention US made stingers but no hard evidence was given that they are in fact being sold as well. It was an assumption, a "logical conclusion", that if the the SA-7's, left over from the Russian/ Afghan conflict are still in circulation, then certainly the Stingers are. Maybe. Maybe not. They do know for a fact about the SA-7's. Yes America, Britain, France and others supplied Iraq with chemical weapons. Yes this is coming back to bite us on the arse. (Known as blowback). However, that is hardly suppying Terrorists and does not support your claim.

Scuds Code, sigh, were first deployed by the Soviets. It's a direct decendant of the V2. The Iraq's got the Scuds, along with most of it's military hardware,(including its anit aircraft epuipment) from the Soviets. They just improved the range of the Scud some.

If that's true about the scuds coming from USSR, than my bad, I took someone else's word on that..... However, you can't deny that we armed the Afghans with the stingers...

You bring up a good point though... illegal weapons and WMD can be had from many many different sources. I have felt that the former soviet union poses a much greater threat than Iraq in terms of arming terrorists. That's just my opinion.

[PCS]

Hell code, that topic about the stingers was discussed when I was in the Air Force back in the 80's. Doesn't mean we're necessarily supplying terrorists, indirectly or not, with weapons.

[Glenn X]

Code, you do realize that certain members of the anti-Soviet/pro-Afghan resistance of the 1980s (who, yes, were clandestinely armed by the CIA) later coalesced into Al Qaeda, don't you? The United States never armed Al Qaeda during the '80s because Al Qaeda did not exist then. Al Qaeda did not come into being until the 1990s, and the U.S. certainly didn't arm their @sses. Moreover, the lion's share of the people who were fighting against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the '80s were native Afghans who simply wanted the Russians to get out; these folks were not terrorists.

[codeorama]

Originally posted by Glenn X

Code, you do realize that certain members of the anti-Soviet/pro-Afghan resistance of the 1980s (who, yes, were clandestinely armed by the CIA) later coalesced into Al Qaeda, don't you? The United States never armed Al Qaeda during the '80s because Al Qaeda did not exist then. Al Qaeda did not come into being until the 1990s, and the U.S. certainly didn't arm their @sses. Moreover, the lion's share of the people who were fighting against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the '80s were native Afghans who simply wanted the Russians to get out; these folks were not terrorists.

Yes I do understand that they turned into Al Qaeda... I also understand that one of the many reasons the soviets were in Afghanistan was because of terrorism.

The bottom line is that we have put arms into the hands of people that we later have problems with on quite a few occasions. Doesn't sound like a smart policy does it..

[Glenn X]

The Soviets invaded Afghanistan because they were interested in communist expansionism, pure and simple.

And please explain to me in detail when and where the United States has armed known terrorists "on quite a few occasions," code.

[codeorama]

Originally posted by Glenn X

The Soviets invaded Afghanistan because they were interested in communist expansionism, pure and simple.

And please explain to me in detail when and where the United States has armed known terrorists "on quite a few occasions," code.

http://archive.lp.org/rel/19980828-terrorists.html

=======================================

NEWS FROM THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY

2600 Virginia Avenue, NW, Suite 100

Washington DC 20037

=======================================

For release: August 28, 1998

=======================================

For additional information:

George Getz, Press Secretary

Phone: (202) 333-0008 Ext. 222

E-Mail: 76214.3676@Compuserve.com

=======================================

If we hate terrorism, why does the U.S. keep arming and training terrorists?

WASHINGTON, DC -- Before we launch a bloody, decades-long war against terrorists, Libertarians have a question: Why doesn't the U.S. government simply stop arming and training terrorists and the dictators who support them?

"When will our government learn?" asked David Bergland, the party's national chairman. "From the African embassy bombings to the Persian Gulf War to Somalia, why do we keep furnishing the guns, money, and advanced military training that terrorists and foreign soldiers use to kill Americans?"

Bergland posed those questions after American missile attacks against alleged terrorist bases in Afghanistan and Sudan caused Islamic terrorists around the world to redouble their threats against the United States.

As a result, concrete anti-bomb barriers now circle the Washington Monument, black-clad SWAT teams with automatic weapons roam the grounds of the Pentagon, and politicians warn that America must fight a "new war" against terrorists.

Lost in all the anti-terrorist frenzy, said Bergland, is the fact that most of our nation's military encounters over the past decade -- whether anti-terrorist strikes, conventional warfare, or peace-keeping missions -- have been against enemies the American government armed or trained.

For example, to fight the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, the U.S. supplied Islamic rebels in that country with over $2 billion in covert military assistance, and Afghan rebels were trained by the CIA.

The result: The "floating army of Islamic fundamentalist fighters who received weapons and training in Afghanistan [are] now mounting terrorists attacks on U.S.-backed governments in Algeria, Egypt, Israel, and Saudi Arabia," reported the World Policy Institute. "Two of the men convicted in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center had received weapons and explosives training from CIA-backed rebels in Afghanistan prior to their attack in New York City."

These same Islamic fundamentalists also provided support for the terrorists who bombed American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

But the problem goes beyond terrorism.

"The last four times the United States has sent troops into conflict in substantial numbers -- in Panama, Iraq, Somalia, and Haiti -- they faced forces on the other side that had received U.S. weapons, training, or military technology in the period leading up to the outbreak of hostilities," reported the World Policy Institute in 1995. For example:

Panama: Before the 1989 invasion to oust strongman Manuel Noriega, the United States had provided the Central American nation with $33.5 million worth of U.S. weapons, and spent $8.2 million to train Panamanian military personnel at the Pentagon's International Military Education and Training program (IMET). Even Noriega himself was a graduate of IMET.

Iraq: In the years leading up to the Gulf War in 1991, "the Reagan and Bush administrations supplied critical military technologies that were put directly to use in the construction of the Iraqi war machine," according to the World Policy Institute.

Somalia: Before sending the ill-fated peace-keeping mission to Somalia in 1991, the U.S. government furnished more than $1 billion in aid to that nation's oppressive government -- including $154 million in weapons. When American troops arrived to quell the civil war, American-supplied M-16 rifles, machine guns, mortars, howitzers, armored personnel carriers, land mines, and anti-tank missiles were used against U.S. military forces.

Haiti: Prior to U.S troops being dispatched to the impoverished Caribbean nation in 1994, the American government had delivered $2.6 million in weapons to dictator Jean Bertrand Aristide.

In all, between the end of World War II and the early 1990s, the United States government gave away more than $950 billion (in constant 1989 dollars) in foreign or military aid to "more than 100 nations," according to the Cato Institute.

"Given that 101 armed conflicts occurred around the world between 1989 and 1996, it's inevitable that our government was somehow involved -- whether by furnishing money, arms, or military personnel -- in dozens of those skirmishes and wars," said Bergland. "And every time we got involved in another nation's war, it's inevitable that we made more enemies who became more determined to strike back at us."

That's why the Libertarian Party supports a non-interventionist foreign policy, he said -- which would keep America safer by reducing the number of nations and terrorist organizations that have reason to hate our country.

"The best way to defend America is by defending America -- not by intervening in the affairs of foreign nations," said Bergland. "And the best way to live free from the threat of terrorists is by not getting into a bloody, protracted, unwinnable war with terrorists in the first place.

"The sooner we learn that, the sooner Americans can stop worrying about becoming the next target of bloodthirsty, fanatical terrorists," he said. "In a non-interventionist, Libertarian nation, we could take down the anti-bomb barriers around the Washington Monument, retire the anti-terrorist SWAT teams, and live in peace."

[Glenn X]

Nice post, code. I asked you to provide examples and you certainly did.

However, here's my problem with the (libertarian) argument that you, by way of Mr. Bergland, presented. It's buttressed by this notion that if we become strictly isolationistic, we'll face virtually no threats to our security ever again.

Well, sorry, Charlie, but this ain't the 19th century anymore, where we can just sit over here in North America in blissful ignorance, protected by those two big oceans to our east and west and relatively minor and non-threatening nations to our north and south, unconcerned with whatever dustups may be occurring in Europe or Africa or Asia.

This is the 21st century, and we're the only true superpower left on the international stage. And, like it or not, with that status comes certain responsibilities, namely with respect to the defense of our own expanded self-interests. But this is nothing new. Ever since the start of the Cold War, we've been forced into a greater level of engagement with the world than at any time prior in our history. Take Afghanistan, circa late 1970s, or Vietnam, circa early 1960s, as instances. The communist bloc (headquartered in Beijing and, formerly, Moscow) had clear designs on these nations (and their neighbors) at these moments. The communist bloc was committed to expanding its power base and, simultaneously, reducing ours.

What were we supposed to do? Just sit there and let them do this, allow them to grow stronger, unchecked, while we sat on the sidelines in some isolationistic stupor, trying to soothe ourselves by repeating over and over, mantra-like: "We're safer this way. No, really. We are. If we just stay over here, doing our own little thing, out of the way of the Soviets and the Red Chinese and everybody else, nobody will even notice us. They'll leave us alone. No, really..."

The other thing that Mr. Bergland's argument fails to take into account is that, like the sands of time, alliances, whether cobbled-together and conditional or long-standing and vital, do tend to (eventually) shift. For example, when we armed the Mujahadeen guerillas of Afghanistan, we had no way of knowing that certain portions of their ranks would later band together in a holy war against us. (It's worth noting that not all of the Mujahadeen fighters became Al Qaeda terrorists; some of them splintered off into the Northern Alliance, the same Northern Alliance that helped U.S. forces liberate Afghanistan from the clutches of the Taliban and [drum roll please] Al Qaeda.) Just as the Soviets could not have predicted their bitter defeat to a technologically inferior opponent in Afghanistan, a defeat which would come to presage the ultimate disintegration of the entire Soviet empire.

In that way, foreign relations can be quite a bit like gambling; you roll the dice and hope for the best. Sometimes you hit the jackpot... and sometimes you come up snake eyes.

[codeorama]

Glen X, I don't claim to be an authority on much of anything, but I do agree in principal to much of what was said in that article... that doesn't mean it is the gospel, but it has at least some truth in it..

I respect your view as well, I can't argue against it.

[Glenn X]

I hear what you're saying, my brotha. And I respect what you're saying.

Don't get me wrong, code. I'm certainly not advocating a U.S. foreign policy of abject nosiness here. All I'm saying is that there are times in our increasingly internationally interdependent world where a policy of isolationism, no matter how well-intentioned, simply isn't prudent or effective.