Stereotype V.0002

I have to ask, whats the point of emphasizing this?

All the radical left wing talking points aside, people in the military are in service of their country. And the argument that everyone in the military was forced in because of financial reasons is bullshit, you make a significant amount more at mcdonalds than you do as a private in the US army.... and even military families are trying to talk their kids out of joining. But it is a waste trying to make this argument, its easier for people like you to think that everyone in the military must have been suckered or forced in as opposed to having convictions they are willing to back up, so whatever floats your boat.

Being in the military doesn't automatically make you a saint, there are shitty people there just like anywhere else. Regardless if you support the war they are fighting or not, respect for people who are doing incredibly dangerous and difficult work in service of their country shouldn't be too complicated of a concept to understand. The fact that most people look down their nose at service in the military as some sort of manual labor low class job beneath them, the blind hatred or contempt many have of everyone in the military, and an ignorance of what the military is, says a lot about our society.

Absolutely, and the reasons that people in my country use to justify an immediate withdrawal from Iraq are completely idiotic....everything from pretending that the levels of violence havent changed recently, that the violence is being directly caused by the US and if we leave everyone will get along, every middle eastern army will adopt humane policies and form a peacekeeping force and run to iraq's rescue, or that if the US begins to withdraw it will put pressure on the iraqis to unify and reject violence as if they have just been dicking around the past 5 years. my healthy liver, you are just being douchey but in case you are actually not able to understand I will write it more simply. The levels of violence in iraq have gone way down there, so while this is bad for those who don't support a US presence in Iraq, for the americans who are going or may be going to iraq in the near future a lower level of violence is a good thing for them. As for the international law, take a look at the UN mandate for multi national forces-iraq, or the recent agreement signed between the US and Iraqi gov that replaced it.

Well I don't know about the 300 year quote, but here is the full 100 year one.. "as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed" just doesn't have the same ring to it! Funny stuff.

First of all it is stupid on our part to see the middle east as strictly divided between sunni and shia, just because regional powers have inflamed the masses into violence with each other for their own interests in the past few years.....there are many examples of cooperation towards a common goal. For iran- the Assad family may be shia but syria is a sunni nation that is closely allied with iran right now. Iran was supposed to be mortal enemies with the sunni taliban a decade ago, yet now they are arming them in order to kill the americans and ISAF. Iran isn't playing a role in assisting AQI, but they do harbor many high level al qaeda members who fled Afghanistan in 01 under the guise of house arrest. Anyways I am pretty sure mccain said what you were talking about once, then immediately corrected himself. But having your "misstatements" covered by the media sure beats having your actual foreign policy (or lack thereof) being just as naive and ignorant. Obama is already toning down the rapid withdrawal talk, but I still think the eventual debates between him and mccain will be entertaining.

Yeah, obama isn't playing politics at all. Good call. But let's look outside the box for a second to answer your question.... perhaps its because surge has reduced the violence in iraq and the numbers of Americans being killed, and instead of relying on their personal emotions and biased coverage of the war, they are confronted with whats actually happening.... or perhaps its because Obama and Clinton are only saying they are going to end the war when they are trying to get the highly intelligent citizens of this fine country to vote for them, and if you read the fine print they are just going to greatly reduce the numbers of American forces in Iraq and then expect them to do the same job they are doing now.

That wasn't what I was saying at all if thats the impression you got, I was saying the opposite. McCain is also the only candidate who has a kid in iraq (or recently returned) as a lower enlisted infantryman. I doubt any other candidate wouldn't be pimping that out to the maximum amount possible, while most people have never heard about it.

Well I don't really have a point, i just think its funny everywhere I look on the internet the exact same photos and similar text has popped up within the past month.....and of all the things china does in tibet that is widely known and being harped on right now, the focus is on cnn and other western news agencies mislabeling some photos? The notion that the dalai lama is some sort of CIA agent terrorist mastermind spreading death and destruction from his secret lair deep inside a volcanoe, and buddhists are really a ultra violent crazed cult bent on destroying the defenseless chinese govt, is also pretty funny. Anyway, keep on spreading the good word.

I wanted to let you know I've been following your posts, and I appreciate your efforts for keeping me entertained. You are han chinese right? What generation? I bet you live in vancouver too.... You motherfuckers are like robots, every public forum I look at in the past month that has any vague mention of china, the olympics, and the tibet crackdown, you guys spam the board with the exact same text and the exact same images of cnn misidentifying nepalese policemen. Do you guys have secret meetings and shit to plan it all out? A secret handshake?

And the only reason that the obligatory endorsements from the various fire and brimstone inbred redneck preachers is a news item is because a few weeks ago all of the conservatives, like rush limbaugh and ann coulter, were saying they would campaign for obama and clinton before they voted for mccain... they hate him because he has wrote legislation with a kennedy and other bipartisan activities (heavily frowned upon), has/used to have a realistic view on immigration, voted against the bush tax cuts (which he now says he supports), and was extremely critical of the handling of the war about a year ago (which is totally ignored today).

His dad was an admiral who ran pacific command during the vietnam war.... anyway this is something the ultra far right crowd, the anti immigration (dey steel ar jobs!!) crowd, and various conspiracy theorists love to talk about (as well as saying that the adopted kid he has is really an illegitimate BLACK!!!! child.) In reality mccain deliberately refused early release because of who his father was, and waited his turn to go home just like everyone else there. The POWs who were with him, who survived, all deny any special treatment stories....the fact that he cant raise his arms because from being hung by his thumbs for hours during interrogation is another indicator. The fact that he would be the oldest american president ever upon inauguration, and that he is generally very stubborn and has a temper, are reasons that are apparently not sexy enough to question his viability for the presidency.

Isnt this the guy that wrote an oped recently saying that all the talk about civil war/genocide etc inside iraq being inevitable with a rapid US pull out is hogwash....and we shouldn't worry about repercussions of an american withdrawal from iraq anyway, because iraq's neighbors (such as egypt and algeria), and other middle eastern armies renowned for their soft touch and emphasis on human rights, will surely deploy their conventional forces into iraq as "peacekeepers" and then do what we want them to instead of going block to block killing everyone who is in the wrong sect.......and they will automatically be successful because all the brown people are the same, and the Algerian army won't be a "foreign occupation force." He also calls for a long term US military presence, for various purposes, something all the main presidential candidates share but go about discussing in different ways.

Hearing bursts on the radio or your celly? A CCTV van parked on your street? A mysterious claymore in the headrest of your car that you don't remember putting there? If so, then you too may be making commemorative Olympic themed happymeal toys in a slave labor camp at some point in the near future!

Actually yes, the surge has been going pretty well...it has done far better than what anyone expected, yet the people who pronounced it a failure 6 months before it started are either trying to make excuses for the success other than the surge, or just downplay and deny...... its also extremely fragile and his "strategy" would kill it. But the media stopped reporting about iraq when the situation improved so americans don't find the topic important anymore, and obama can and has been taking advantage of their ignorance on the situation in iraq.

The problem is if they are locals(which would be ideal), and their country has these types of problems, most of that money is going to go to the pocket account and there is nothing you can do about it.

The venerable Richard Millhous Nixon. The rhetoric is similiar too, the "honorable peace" concept, personally meeting with our enemies and then accomplishing very little. The difference is there wasn't a strategy that was producing some (tenuous) stability in 1968. So far the policy discussed by hilldog and obama is to pull out the skeleton crew we have in iraq in a period of time that isn't possible, wrecking the recent gains which are fragile enough as it is, and leave troops for security and train the iraqis? That raises the question, what does he think the military is doing there now? What leverage are diplomats going to have without the military running things? Look at the near constant stream of rockets landing on the green zone recently or the suicide bombing attacks, how does he think a much smaller number of soldiers can improve security, and at the same time still continue to roll up al qaeda cells? And when asked about how all of that makes no sense, he basically ignores the question and criticizes the decision to go to war in the first place, which doesnt help the current situation much unless he has a time machine. But I don't want to wreck the feel good vibe in here so ill leave now.....

If obama is elected, which I think is likely, I guarantee there will still be a significant military presence in Iraq by the end of his first term. Things didn't go so well the last time we elected a president based on a vague promise to "end the war" without going into specifics of the secret plan.

And I think its really bizarre that I am explaining why osama bin laden isn't justified in murdering thousands of innocent people, seems pretty self explanatory.

If you read his declaration of war on the united states from 1996, the centerpiece of his argument is about western/US cultural influences on the middle east, especially Saudi Arabia. He thinks that the Saudi laws aren't extreme enough, he specifically cites that if a woman commits adultery and is punished, and then repents then she is forgiven. In the small section he devotes to the "Christian armies of the crusaders" attacking muslims, he lists about a dozen countries where there have been conflicts between muslims and others, that America had absolutely nothing to do with.....Chechnya is one example. America is at fault for the Russians, our lap dogs, fucking up chechnya. He actually lists the bosnia/kosovo situations, where the US really went to war against Christians in support of Muslims, as a place where "the crusader jews have shed the blood of innocent muslims." His "letter to the American people" is similiar, as is most of his propaganda. The mandatory pimping out of the palestinian cause and blaming us for the actions of our great allies like russia aside, the majority of the letter is a moronic rant about western culture, and instead of listing specific actions to rectify wrongs, he demands that we all convert to islam. I understand why people would prefer to see some sort of orderly clear reason of why a group of people on the other side of the world, who are totally ignorant of our society, would want to indiscriminately kill all of us. If you don't think his main problem is western culture, read his letter.....a few excerpts-

This is from a tape that was on his favorite channel al jazeera, he says the Israeli invasion of Lebanon is the reason for the September 11th attacks, and that he started planning the attacks in 1982....not the late 90s....which is ridiculous. In the same tape, he criticizes bush for not being "vigilant" enough to prevent the attacks.....do you think bin laden is actually upset that bush didn't pay enough attention to stop osama's attacks on the world trade center? Again, the Palestinian cause is pimped out by every nutjob in the middle east, from bin laden to saddam. Al Qaeda has never ONCE attacked Israel, they have zero presence in Lebanon or the palestinian territories, he only uses this because its hard to convince multitudes of poor people that the western world and having money is bad when you are a multi millionaire.

Yeah I would agree that the rest of the world is pissed off as a result of (mostly cold war era) US foreign policy...and in recent times alot of ill will was stirred up from the iraq war. But there are a few countries that are more pro-american than most communities in the US, because of American foreign policy.

I've only caught part 1 so far, it has been pretty objective. Armitage and Powell both come off pretty well in it, I am looking forward to the documentation of bremer's magnificent reconstruction skills. Those of you who aren't near a TV can watch here http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/bushswar/

Generations of blowing up their land and killing their families? Very few american incursions in the middle east pre 9/11, which lasted days, several of which were in places where the the al qaeda types hate the population, most of which happened before many al qaeda members were born.... the American incursions/interferences were less than what other outsiders have done, and far less than what their own governments have done to them. Whose oil have we stolen? I think that would be awesome, they wouldn't have money to launch attacks on us and we wouldn't have to pay so much for gas. Even Iraq, who we invaded to steal their oil, just signed a deal sending oil to fucking CHINA. And its about time SINBAD got involved in this election. He is fucking up hilldogs shit!

Well not arab land but its less of an opinion/theory and more of a historical fact that osama bin laden/al qaeda carried out the attacks on September 11, and claimed responsibility directly afterwards, with what he said the desired result being a massive conventional invasion of Afghanistan in retribution for the attacks. He really believed he personally defeated the soviet union and caused them to collapse, hence the "stupid and insane" description I gave of him, and he was going to do the same thing to the great satan. He was disappointed when a handful of Americans and planes at 20,000 feet chased the Taliban out of their country, but that's a different subject. I was only explaining why their claim that 9/11 was justified because America "occupied" muslim lands pre-911 was bullshit, not to explain the cause of their attacks in general. I am guessing you subscribe to the past American foreign policy is the cause of terrorism theory, which is the mainstream opinion atleast in the states. The problem is osama and friends don't give a fuck about right wing death squads in central America or most other horrific shit you can directly or indirectly link to the CIA/US gov. They are angry about the western culture of music, sexual promiscuity, girls wearing clothes that reveal more than a narrow slot for their eyes, mcdonalds, coca cola, democracy, michael jackson, chuck norris exercise commercials, swimming pools, etc etc, which infiltrates the muslim world just like everywhere else......the people responsible in their eyes is the only western "superpower". Sayyid Qutb is the granddaddy of Al Qaeda, and the creator of the philosophy AQ and similar groups follow. His ideas come from 2 years studying in the US during the 40s, where he was appalled by our culture. When the shitheads in Indonesia praise the bali bombers, they don't say the attacks were justified because of australias actions in the past, they say its because the australian tourists are "immoral." If American foreign policy is the cause of terrorism, how do you explain attacks on the most liberal European countries that don't have the same baggage as the US? When Al Qaeda states their goal, they say they want us all to convert to islam, instead of more rational specific grievances that people would prefer to believe is the root cause.