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Is the war on terror real, or not?

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dsc Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-07-07 08:21 PM
Original message
Is the war on terror real, or not?
At the GOP debate two days ago, the Republicans unamimously agreed that gays and lesbians shouldn't be able to openly serve their country in the military. This despite the fact, as the host pointed out, that gays who speak Arabic have been kicked out by the bucketful. So which is it? Is this war so serious that we have to sacrifice our troops and our freedoms, or is it so unserious that we can kick out Arabic speakers willy nilly? This inquiring mind wants to know.
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dweller Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-07-07 08:25 PM
Response to Original message
1. if this were a poll
Not.


dp
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MadMaddie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-07-07 08:27 PM
Response to Original message
2. What we as the Democratic Party need to point out
Is that the 8 Republican nominees have put their specific Church, their God, their faith and their Religious beliefs before National Security and before the Constitution.

No the war is on any American that doesn't fit their profile. The So called War on terror is a veil to hide their agenda ithas enabled them to openly and viciously attack Americans and the Constitution.

Everyone should have seen it coming when * took office and the first thing he and the Repuke Congress did was to try to pass the Marriage Ammendment.

I believe their are people out there that want to attack our country but I can honestly say this administration is responible for increasing that number exponentially by this false war.
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glowing Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-07-07 08:27 PM
Response to Original message
3. #1 War on terror is false.. its made up.
#2 And because of their little "war on terror", they should be willing to take anyone actually willing to joing the military. I don't know too many gay or straight who are willing to serve right now.
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mike_c Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-07-07 08:27 PM
Response to Original message
4. it is a scam....
eom
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Ghost in the Machine Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-07-07 08:32 PM
Response to Original message
5. It's a total crock of BS!
"Terror" is a feeling.. an emotion, like fright. "She was so scared, she was shaking in terror."
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sunny6275 Donating Member (1 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-07-07 08:44 PM
Response to Reply #5
10. War On Terror
My son was one of the first to go to Iraq.  He was the first
Michigan soldier killed in Iraq 4/2/03.  He told me before
leaving from Christmas of 2002 that what the
"administration" was saying to the American public
was not the orders they were receiving!  We must not forget
that this was started on lies, continues on lies and the
"administration" has said "so what I lied, get
over it!".  Well as I have since my son's death, I keep
saying the same things.  

I am the mother featured in Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit
9/11.  Someone last month on this web site asked what happened
to me.  I am here.  I came home and decided to keep up the
fight.  I still speak, I am a Precinct Delegate, I am a
Commissioner for the Human Relations Commission for my City. 
I visit schools often.  I at least now can be in the same
restaurant with "Military Recruiters" without
tearing into them.  They have a job to do that same as my Son
did.  

I encourage each of you to continue to make the most change
you can in your little corners of this world.  We must tire. 
Our Troops are not!  We must bring them home, we must take
care of them once they are home and we must stay in congress'
face!  We must hold them accountable!  So that takes
"ACTION" not just talk.

Peace and Blessings!
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Ghost in the Machine Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-07-07 08:55 PM
Response to Reply #10
17. I'm sorry for your loss. Words escape me.
Edited on Thu Jun-07-07 08:56 PM by Ghost in the Machine
Some gave all. This Country owes a debt to every single service member who made the ultimate sacrifice and paid the ultimate price.

We must continue to fight this criminal regime with everything we've got. Thank you for speaking up, and my condolences to you and your family.

Any way I can help get the word out, let me know, ok? Every voice counts.

Ghost

On Edit: I forgot to welcome you to DU. Please forgive me, and welcome!
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libnnc Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-07-07 09:02 PM
Response to Reply #10
20. I am honored to welcome you to DU
Thank you for your work and your courage.
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greenbriar Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-07-07 10:03 PM
Response to Reply #10
26. YOu have such spirit
and I thank you for the courage it took to talk about Michael on F9/11


You really touched my heart all 8 times I saw it in the theater
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dsc Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jun-08-07 04:38 AM
Response to Reply #10
27. I am so honored to have you respond to my thread
First, i am so sorry for your loss. I work with kids somewhat younger than yours was and I know how I would feel if one of them were killed so I can only imagine your sense of loss.

Second, Thank you for turning that sense of loss into such a positive thing. Instead of, as you were entitled to, staying inside yourself and becoming bitter you turned your loss into a chance to affect positive change. Not many would be as strong as you are.
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Patsy Stone Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-07-07 08:34 PM
Response to Original message
6. It's fake.
Not the need to protect us from our enemies, secure our ports and borders, and keep the citizens safe while smoking out the bad guy through reasoned investigation and savvy law enforcement, that's real. But the "War on Terror" is a advertising slogan which, ironically enough, advertises a product exactly the opposite of that.
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Strelnikov_ Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-07-07 08:35 PM
Response to Original message
7. The 'War On Terror' Is About Oil
Specifically, Peak Oil.

Recycled screed follows:

+++++++++

The purpose of the 'War On Terror' and all of its subsidiaries are related to Peak Oil as follows:

- By maintaining a constant state of tension, high petroleum prices can be explained away as a temporary spike due to politics. This way, the publics attention can kept from the accelerating supply problems worldwide, thus preventing them from starting to make other arrangements for a post-carbon world (they can't have the addicts kicking too soon).

- Whoever controls the remaining (cheap) petroleum reserves stands to make a fortune in the years immediately following the peak of production. Even the most optimistic scenarios indicate it would take twenty years to mitigate the loss of petroleum production following peak. During this period of transition, the 'addicts' will have no choice but to pay, and pay, and pay.

- Nearly 70% of the worlds remaining petroleum and 40% of natural gas reserves are located in the Middle East. If we throw in the Caspian Region, which is predominately Muslim, we probably approach 80%/60% of remaining reserves in predominately Muslim regions.

The demonization of Muslims to raise ‘fear of the other’ to a high state is needed to desensitize the public to the wars of aggression and carnage required to seize and/or maintain hegemony over these resources.

Cheney as much acknowledged that peak will occur in the latter part of this decade at a speech in 1999 when he was still an 'official' oilman. Yet the Reich-wing media and echo chamber spouts the party line that additional supplies will come on line. All one has to do is read about the wildly exaggerated EIA estimates to know that the facts are being covered up.

The peaking of worldwide conventional (high EROEI) petroleum is real, and will probably occur within the next few years. During the initial 10 yrs.+ following peak oil, petroleum will still be readily available. But with demand chronically outstripping supply, prices will go through the roof, and the profits for those selling the oil will be massive.

And if this bunch did not believe Peak Oil is looming, why are they throwing money at highly risky resources such as Russia (nationalization), Deep-Water and Artic (mother nature, limits of technology, limited net energy).

Consider the following statement:

From the standpoint of the oil industry obviously - and I'll talk a little later on about gas - for over a hundred years we as an industry have had to deal with the pesky problem that once you find oil and pump it out of the ground you've got to turn around and find more or go out of business. Producing oil is obviously a self-depleting activity. Every year you've got to find and develop reserves equal to your output just to stand still, just to stay even. This is as true for companies as well in the broader economic sense it is for the world. A new merged company like Exxon-Mobil will have to secure over a billion and a half barrels of new oil equivalent reserves every year just to replace existing production. It's like making one hundred per cent interest; discovering another major field of some five hundred million barrels equivalent every four months or finding two Hibernias a year. For the world as a whole, oil companies are expected to keep finding and developing enough oil to offset our seventy one million plus barrel a day of oil depletion, but also to meet new demand. By some estimates there will be an average of two per cent annual growth in global oil demand over the years ahead along with conservatively a three per cent natural decline in production from existing reserves. That means by 2010 we will need on the order of an additional fifty million barrels a day. So where is the oil going to come from? Governments and the national oil companies are obviously in control of about ninety per cent of the assets. Oil remains fundamentally a government business. While many regions of the world often greet oil opportunities, the Middle East with two thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies, even though companies are anxious for greater access there, progress continues to be slow..

- Cheney At London Institute of Petroleum, 1999

Puts a whole new spin on the Cheney 'Energy' task force, doesn't it.


Following is an article that sums up the peak oil/WOT link. I do not necessarily agree with all of the points, but I feel it provides a decent big picture view.

Energy Depletion And The US Descent Into Fascism
http://www.mountainsentinel.com/#energyfascism


Following is an older article that sums up the motives of ‘Big Oil’ and their Quislings in politics regarding the NOC’s.


Crude Dudes
The Toronto Star
Sep. 20, 2004

http://www.energybulletin.net/2156.html

. . .

Gheit just smiles at the notion that oil wasn't a factor in the U.S. invasion of Iraq. He compares Iraq to Russia, which also has large undeveloped oil reserves. But Russia has nuclear weapons. "We can't just go over and ... occupy (Russian) oil fields," says Gheit. "It's a different ballgame." Iraq, however, was defenceless, utterly lacking, ironically, in weapons of mass destruction. And its location, nestled in between Saudi Arabia and Iran, made it an ideal place for an ongoing military presence, from which the U.S. would be able to control the entire Gulf region. Gheit smiles again: "Think of Iraq as a military base with a very large oil reserve underneath .... You can't ask for better than that."

. . .

One reason that regime change in Iraq was seen as offering significant benefits for Big Oil was that it promised to open up a treasure chest which had long been sealed — private ownership of Middle Eastern oil. A small group of major international oil companies once privately owned the oil industries of the Middle East. But that changed in the 1970s when most Middle Eastern countries (and some elsewhere) nationalized their oil industries. Today, state-owned companies control the vast majority of the world's oil resources. The major international oil companies control a mere 4 per cent.

The majors have clearly prospered in the new era, as developers rather than owners, but there's little doubt that they'd prefer to regain ownership of the oil world's Garden of Eden. "(O)ne of the goals of the oil companies and the Western powers is to weaken and/or privatize the world's state oil companies," observes New York-based economist Michael Tanzer, who advises Third World governments on energy issues.

. . .


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bluerum Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-07-07 08:37 PM
Response to Original message
8. It's a real political tool used to control the masses. eom
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Mark Twain Girl Donating Member (410 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-07-07 08:40 PM
Response to Original message
9. How could a concept as asinine as a "war on terror" be anything but a scam? n/t
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Ioo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-07-07 08:45 PM
Response to Original message
11. It is Not Real, it is only a means to an end...
that end being the USA.
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treestar Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-07-07 08:48 PM
Response to Original message
12. Just shows how insane the RW is
As of 911, the first thing they needed was Arabic translators - who gives a rat's ass if they are gay or even, Allah forbid, Arabic in origin?

Just proves that Bushco are liars. They don't give a damn about security. Only about controlling us all according to their religious insanity.
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Selatius Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-07-07 08:48 PM
Response to Original message
13. About as real and as idiotic as the War on Drugs n/t
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sutz12 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-07-07 08:49 PM
Response to Original message
14. Religious idiots thrive on paradox.....
Apologies to the rational religious people around here, but I'm referring to the idiots that support and nurture these Republican assholes.

A paradox like the one asked in the OP just goes right over their heads. How else can they sustain the notion that Bush is a genius, or that he would be 'nice to have a beer with', or that he has any real compassion at all for anybody outside of his narrow bigoted world?
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WilliamPitt Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-07-07 08:52 PM
Response to Original message
15. Not
It's a payday for war-profiteers, a situation better handled by police and professional investigators...oh, and congress, who could have cut off terrorism funding by fiat in 1996 but chose instead to keep the clearing-houses of cash free from interference.

But yeah, the stability of the American economy isn't a myth or anything...
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tom_paine Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-07-07 08:52 PM
Response to Original message
16. Not real. It is a cover on the War Against the American People and their Constitution
THAT war, which is the ONLY war the Loyal and Royal Bushies are interested in pursuing, is still going along very successfully at almost full tilt.
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dysfunctional press Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-07-07 08:57 PM
Response to Original message
18. not
the military-industrial complex has a new product.
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TahitiNut Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-07-07 09:02 PM
Response to Original message
19. Subterfuge for a power grab under the (so-called) War Powers Act.
... one of the worst pieces of shit legislation in the last 50 years.
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reprehensor Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-07-07 09:18 PM
Response to Original message
21. Not.
The "War on Terror" is a slogan. As fake as the "War on Drugs".

This is not a simple conclusion to jump to, however.

Do radical Muslims exist who wish harm on those who reject Islamic fundamentalism? Sure. Do radical Christians exist who wish harm on those who reject Christian fundamentalism? Sure.

The question is, are radical groups infiltrated, controlled and manipulated by Western Intelligence agencies, (and by proxy, Arab Intelligence agencies from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia who work in tandem with MI6, CIA and private sector operatives), and why do they always seem to pop up where Uncle Sam wants to be, justifying military action, especially post-9/11?

Most recently, we have the US "arms-length" funding of http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=989580">Jundullah. A radical Islamist group with ties to "al Qaeda", committing acts of terror on US taxpayer dimes.

Al Qaeda's latest spokesman, Adam Gadahn, born Adam Pearlman, is an American. Michael Schuer says that "al-Qaeda's video arm, Al-Sahab Productions" makes "Azzam the American's" videos. Great, how about following the courier that drops the tape off back to the spot where he picked it up from? Don't wanna make that drive down to Langley, or what?

Another thing to be aware of is the role of NATO intelligence in Operation Gladio during the cold war, it seems like Western Intel was ginning up acts of terror to demonize the Left in several countries in Western Europe, notably Italy.

US duplicity in the role of facilitating radical Islam goes back decades and crosses administrations. Even Clinton carries some blame in this, and his penis had nothing to do with it. FOR THE RECORD! ;)

British researcher Nafeez Ahmed contends that the US has facilitated and benefited from the actions of "al Qaeda" continously since the end of the Cold War. A strong accusation, but he backs it up with three solid books and several online essays.

Feel free to PM me if you would like more research resources on this.
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and-justice-for-all Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-07-07 09:33 PM
Response to Original message
22. As real as Santa Clause..nt
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ThomWV Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-07-07 09:35 PM
Response to Original message
23. Not
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burrowowl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-07-07 09:58 PM
Response to Original message
24. How can you
make war on a noun?
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KG Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-07-07 10:02 PM
Response to Original message
25. it's a major scam.
only a populace as willfully ingnorant as americas would fall for it.
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maine_raptor Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jun-08-07 05:05 AM
Response to Original message
28. It's real alright.
The problem is, it's misguided.

Terror as a political tactic should be done away with. By doing so, we would raise the level of political interaction. Mutually agreed solutions to political problem should be the goal of humans. And the way to reach that goal should be reasoned discussion, not bomb flinging.

But in the current language ("9-11" and all that), the "War on Terror" is just a convenient way to destroy liberty.
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DinahMoeHum Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jun-08-07 09:18 AM
Response to Original message
29. I call it "The War Against Terror" - it's acronym best describes it.
:evilfrown:
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leftofthedial Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jun-08-07 09:37 AM
Response to Original message
30. it is a brand name
a marketing campaign
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applegrove Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jun-08-07 05:49 PM
Response to Original message
31. It is now bigger than ever. But it did exist before the Iraq war. Al Qaeda
tried Jihad by attacking civilians in Middle Eastern nations but that didn't garner them many supporters (I wonder why). So they then decided to attack the USA as a way of garnering more support. And it has worked for them.

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