On the fucking anniversary of the Iraq War?????

[El Supremo]

WAR! WAR! WAR!

This country is so fucked.

How many wars can we wage at one time? Why not Bahrain and Yemen while we're at it?

[Marblehead]

1. shock and awe shit

[Arkana]

2. Considering this isn't war, I'd say we were stretched to our limit.

And if you don't think the circumstances leading up to it and the underlying structure of what is actually happening in Libya is VASTLY different from what Bush pulled in Iraq, then I don't know what to tell you.

Geez, I thought we were supposed to be the side that was capable of critical thinking.

[gmaki]

7. Yeah it isn't "war"

We're just bombing the shit out out of people. That's cool.

[11 Bravo]

16. I was in a war once ... a long time ago ... trust me, this is different.

[gmaki]

20. Perhaps it's different to you

I care not about the semantics of whether it is actually a "war" or not, and I suspect neither will those killed by the bombs paid for with my tax dollars.

[El Supremo]

11. It's all for fucking oil!

Did we do anything in Sudan? How about Rawanda? Nope - no oil.

[ProSense]

24. "Did we do anything in Sudan? "

Yes.

[El Supremo]

26. Sure. But how many were exterminated first? Before Obama.

[BzaDem]

3. Why does "WAR" necessarily mean the country "is so fucked?" Why do you assume war is always and

everywhere a bad thing (assuming incorrectly that this is war, for the sake of argument)?

Isn't it possible that in a particular circumstance, a refusal to intervene would signify our country is "so fucked," rather than actually intervening?

[El Supremo]

18. I sure wish we had "refused to intervene" in Viet Nam and Iraq and Cuba...

Mexico, and on and on.

[BzaDem]

19. But that doesn't really answer the question at all, does it?

Of course there are going to be instances where refusing to intervene is a good thing. But the existence of instances where refusing to intervene would be a good thing does NOTHING to even ATTEMPT to prove that in NO case would intervening be a good thing. Your logic doesn't work.

This is why arguments against "war" per se are so silly. Sure, there are most certainly going to be arguments for and against SPECIFIC wars, and then those arguments can be debated on their merits. But arguments against war "per se" encompasses even the instances where intervening was a good thing (such as World War II), which makes them not just factually false, but logically false.

[El Supremo]

23. World War II was very preventable.

It started with fucked The Versailles Treaty. Remember? That was intended to prevent future wars. But no... nobody would listen to Wilson.

It's greed and stupidity that cause war.

[BzaDem]

30. How does that even attempt to argue that intervention was a bad thing in WW2?

[El Supremo]

31. We were attacked because our Congress was so fucked.

We brought it on ourselves. We should not have humiliated Germany. And we should have used better diplomacy with Japan. Us cutting off their supplies from America forced them to attack.

[kristopher]

29. What do you know of what Eisenhower termed the "Military Industrial Complex"?

Might be helpful to learn more about how it functions. Let's take a well known part of the MIC, the nuclear industry.

Just to get a sense of the scale of the value of the post-fossil, I did a quick calculation and the energy war between nuclear and renewables is worth about 1 quadrillion of today's dollars over the next 100 years (new nuclear plants have a design life of 60 years and, it is claimed, will last another 40 years with refurbishing). There will always be a mix of inputs besides electricity, but going forward the electric share of the total energy market, which is already dominant, is going to rise as it moves into the transportation sector via battery electric EVs. So the $1Q+ is just to show what is at stake. It isn't "winner take all, but the winner will get the lion's share of the one-plus quadrillion.

where . With that in mind I selected 100 years as the basis of a back-of-the-envelope calculation where I took today's total global energy use and converted it to be measured in kilowatts. I then assigned today's average rate of electricity in the US as the price per unit (KWH).

Everywhere where is a nuclear industry it is a quasi-governmental corporate entity. The governments, and the power structure that inflates them from within, of France, Russia, Korea, and Japan are heavily, heavily invested in nuclear power. They have divided the global market between them and corporations with home bases in the nuclear states of the US, Germany and England.

Nuclear power is a type of solution that fits the right-wing, corporate worldview that DOES use war to achieve both direct and indirect economic goals.

All policy moves, including war, are a product of a coalition of interests that band together to form a majority, so there is room for both support of military action based on genuine concern for the Libyan people's struggle to shake of a dictator, and a power block motivated by financial interests.

Of course, there is no way to "prove" cultural dynamics like this are responsible for a decision to go to war, but to not be aware of the dynamics of power that are influencing our culture is probably a bad thing for the basic concept behind a democratic form of government.

The nuclear industry has leaders. They have over the years spent literally tens of billions of mostly taxpayer dollars waging a multifaceted campaign to position nuclear power as the "energy of choice" for the next 100 years.

I certainly think the public reaction to Fukushima is, in their minds, sufficient threat that they would throw their weight behind ANY coalition advocating ANY act that is not a threat to their interests and that offered the potential for shifting the focus away from discussion of what is threatening them.

The attack on Libya by France and the US has wiped Fukushima from the media screens and replaced it with a mini-shock and awe.

So yes, the right question to ask is "WHY?" but you really should ask it of those who bang the drums of war the loudest. However, you'd better shout loud if you want to be heard over the drums.

[Joe the Revelator]

4. This isn't, nor will it turn into a war

[El Supremo]

13. I'll quote you on that next month.

When our troops are deployed.

[Joe the Revelator]

15. Please do. It's better than baseless hand wringing.

[Critters2]

27. You don't honestly believe that, do you? nt

[Joe the Revelator]

33. I do.

[corpseratemedia]

5. to legitimize that one?

war...it's a good thing


:thumbsup:

[Bluebear]

6. SHOCK AND AWE BABAY!!!

:silly:

[The Northerner]

8. It's pretty despicable, isn't it?

[KurtNYC]

9. Hey, Stop putting stuff into context !

...these are not the droids you are looking for...

[inna]

10. i know. insult to injury.

glad i'm not the only one who noticed.

[PurityOfEssence]

12. So what does the Nobel Committee give for this, oak clusters or diamonds and swords?

Maybe with a couple more invasions we can cash in some box tops and get a free assassinate-someone-you-don't-like card and all the money in the Chance pot.

I wonder how the acolytes here would like this if Junior had done it.

[Name removed]

17. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[sarcasmo]

14. Bombing good, social security and a livable wage bad.

[Name removed]

21. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Upton]

22. Excellent post El Supremo..

but I still hate the Rockies..

[El Supremo]

25. I wish baseball was all that we had to argue about.

[barbtries]

28. i didn't even think about that.

why not, after all. no, not really. why war?!??!?!?

[EFerrari]

32. Springtime!