Hello righty's:

I didn't know we declared war on Yemen, or even Pakistan for that matter. Can we just drop bombs wherever we want? I think it's going to come back to bite us, don't you?

You have, of course, read about the 30 suspected militants that "may" have been killed by an attack we perpetrated in Yemen... For sure it "struck a blow" to Al Quaida. Who could argue with the rightness of that? Al Quaida DID attack us, after all, and ANY country that harbors them is our enemy, right??

Yes, it's too bad that some civilians got killed too. Bummer. But, as Alan Dershowitz said, "civilians" in close enough proximity to a top terrorist themselves, may very well bear some degree of culpability.. " so there. Besides, we GOT the bad guy (maybe), and that's all that counts... for us...

But, not for them... Here, in our country of course, we celebrate the demise of the bad guy... But, in the Muslim world, they lament the actual consequences of our actions. Pictures of the corpses of innocent men, women and children being pulled from the rubble are widely disseminated in the Muslim world, yet they're barely mentioned by our media - even the elite left wing ones...

Then we walk around, dazed and confused, about why they don't like us much. We wonder why there's such a grave disparity in perception between our rational, free and well-informed selves, versus those irrational, mislead, paranoid, and primitive Muslims.

I don't wonder why...

I suspect, of course, that your natural righty reaction to a post such as this, is to accuse me of apologizing, and that I'm just bad and wrong for doing so. Personally, however, I think we've started a war against the Muslims, and the only ones who don't know about it are us.

excon

Of course we're the bad guys, Ex. You draftees always think so. As far as whether we're at war, ask these folks:
AII POW-MIA Iran Hostage Crisis List
CASUALTIES IN THE INCIDENT ON USS COLE
Nick Berg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Originally Posted by Catsmine

Of course we're the bad guys, Ex. You draftees always think so. As far as whether we're at war, ask these folks:
AII POW-MIA Iran Hostage Crisis List
CASUALTIES IN THE INCIDENT ON USS COLE
Nick Berg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Hello again, Cast:

Yeah, I KNOW they're bad... But, I didn't know we lowered ourselves to the level of our enemy. So, I suppose your answer to my question is, that we can bomb 'em where we find 'em, no matter WHICH country we find 'em in.

excon

It is some of the same issues esp when the enemy does not use military bases but merely run their operation form neigborhoods, perhaps hide weapons in places of worship or even schools.

Reminds me of Vietnam where the photos of "kids" killed were in the papers, but they forgot to mention that at 10 they were often soldiers and by 14 they were seasoned soldiers many times, And at least then, they even tied bombs to the babies to kill soldiers trying to help the infants.

And of course if the enemy have their famies in their headquarters families get killed.
This is not the same warfare like everyone wants, since the enemy will not operate under standard rules of wars

I agree with FR_Chuck. Our enemies put their own people in danger like the cowards they are, instead of waging war on proper grounds. It's sad for any innocent child to be put within the battlegrounds, but they do so themselves. They are to blame for their own casualties.

Where do you think Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab got the explosives he used in his failed attempt yesterday ?
Northwest Bomb Plot Planned by al Qaeda in Yemen - ABC News

So who is starting wars again?

And of course the attacks by cruise missiles were approved by the Yemeni gvt. So it's not really the way you described it.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...121804785.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/19/wo...emen.html?_r=2

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Originally Posted by excon

I didn't know we lowered ourselves to the level of our enemy.

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War is hell - WT Sherman, MajGen. USA

Hello again, Cats:

You're full of "war is hell" and look what they did to us, as though those are good enough reasons for our behavior. They're not.

There ARE rules to civilized warfare, and we can't break 'em just because war is hell. When we do, the war we are unleashing isn't one we can win.

excon

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Originally Posted by excon

civilized warfare

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Oxymoron.

It is no longer possible to put on the red coats and blue coats and march onto the field. The Continental Army demonstrated that in 1789. Sherman and Grant re-proved it in 1864. Maginot forgot in 1914. Patton and Bradley remembered in 1945. MacArthur and Westmoreland forgot in '50 and '70. Shwarzkopf remembered.

Whoever coined the phrase "War is the continuation of diplomacy by non-diplomatic means" was the biggest liar ever.

What exactly is uncivilized in dropping bombs on an enemy camp ?

A grouping of hardline Muslim insurgents in Yemen, responsible for the attacks on the USS Cole in 2000 and the kidnap and deaths of western tourists two years earlier, appeared to have burnt itself out after a government crackdown.
However, earlier this year a group calling itself Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) emerged in Yemen. It has been responsible for multiple attacks in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the US army officer who killed more than a dozen people at Fort Hood last month, corresponded with Anwar al-Awlaki. The radical cleric was born in the United States but moved in 2002 to Yemen, where he was hiding with AQAP.

Al-Awlaki and his deputy Saeed al-Shehri it is claimed(unconfirmed.. a friend of al-Awlaki told the AP that he was not among those killed. ) were killed in this cruise missile raid on a meeting of high-level Al-Qaeda operatives.

Shehri it is alleged recruited Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab for the Christmas day attack on Northwest Airlines flight 253 over Detroit .

If AQ is moving or basing some of their operations in Yemen then it is within our right of civilized warfare to pursue them there.

Again,given the fact that we were working in alliance with the Yemeni government in the attack it is wrong to claim we are declaring war on Yemen.


Abdulmutallab attempted to blow up Northwest Airlines 253 using 80 grams of PETN.He had a seat strategically located over the fuel tank of the plane .This video shows what 10g of PETN is capable of.
YouTube - 10g PETN on a tree

Notice that it flames prior to detonation. His device did not fail . If he was not attacked and subdued by passanger Jaspar Schuringa ,278 passangers at least would be dead.

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Originally Posted by tomder55

What exactly is uncivilized in dropping bombs on an enemy camp

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Hello tom:

Because we kill MORE civilian innocent people than we do the bad guys. I know you don't understand that, so I'm going to stop trying to learn you.

excon

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Originally Posted by excon

civilian innocent people

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Innocent of what, precisely?

Letting bad guys hide amongst them - guilty

Supporting Wahabist and Jihadist clerics - guilty

Raising their kids to admire and aspire to become bad guys - maybe

Dancing in the streets when the twin towers fell - maybe

Promoting order and the rule of law - probably innocent of that one.

Now this also makes the assumption that the civilians were killed by the cruise missile attack and not by the coordinated Yemeni army strike. I don't know that to be the case but I'll accept the premise for now .


Strategic bombing in WWII destroyed 67 Japanese cities and claimed about 1/2 million civilians. These were attacks where there was no military targets to justify the attacks.

Yet no one then questioned the need .
When we launched our attack on Normandy there was no hesitation because French civilians would be killed. We destroyed the friendly city ofBologne to achieve our goals.

In this case a remote desert location AQ camps were pin pointed . If it is the case that AQ has shifted the center of their planning operations from the very hot Af-Paki ;then according to the established Bush doctrine ,the war has to follow them there .

Hello again, tom, and you too, Cats:

Your responses appear to indicate that we can bomb ANY country we please, and if we kill a few children in the process, they should have known better.. I get it...

More importantly, the Muslims know it, and that is my point.

I'm not saying they're wonderful people. I'm saying we can't do war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and maybe even Somolia...

However, instead of your right wing platitudes, I'm willing to listen to REAL LIFE solutions, where you guys don't seem to dwell much...

The dufus doctrine of opened ended pre-emptive war against an "ism" is self defeating.

excon

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Originally Posted by excon

we can bomb ANY country we please

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Nope, just the ones where the bad guys are, and normally in conjunction with the duly constituted civil authorities. That's our job nowadays, as the UN policemen of the world that your CNN types want us to be.

The real shame is that Military forces make lousy policemen. They have a tendency to do the job effectively rather than politically.

This isn't open ended premption . This cruise missile attack was in coordination with an allied nation against a common enemy that has made a base of operations in their nation. The common enemy has used this base of operations to plan and execute attacks against the US as recently as Christmas day and the Fort Hood attack .

I expect our country to continue to put all the pressure on AQ and jihadist leaders as possible. I don't want them sleeping at night . I want the last sound they hear is the woosh of air before a predator launch gives them a proctological examination .

The reason for this is that as you pick off their top leadership their ability to train terrorists decreases and you get sloppier attacks like the Christmas Day attempt. Had Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab better training then perhaps he would've succeeded .

Finally ,this isn't a war against an ism. This is a war against a defined enemy who has a vision of recreating the califate throughout the world ,and wants to make all non-believers converts or dhimmi ;and has declared war on us. Did we not fight the Japanese in the Philippines ? Did we not fight the Germans in North Africa ? What's the difference ? No one would've argued we were at war against France because we fought the Germans there . AQ is changing the theater of operations not us.

So if there's a possibility of collateral damage we shouldn't strike at an enemy determined to destroy us? What is YOUR real life solution?

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Originally Posted by excon

I think we've started a war against the Muslims, and the only ones who don't know about it are us.

excon

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Yes ex that's what happened, at least the Muslims think so, and targeting village people in remote places with remote guided rockets, whether Taliban or not, does a great deal to convince them it is so. You guys are all cut up when they succeed in knocking off some of your intelligence people in a secure base, but it is just one more failure in your security. You have the advantage in firepower but you really suck at intelligence and security. Problem is you have been believing your own brand of BS for so long you actually think it is truth.

The truth is you are behaving like terrorists and assassins and children playing video games. The Muslims know this because they are on the receiving end of it and also on the end of the retaliatory attacks which kill many more of them than they do of you.

Here is an interesting statistic for you to ponder ex. In 2009 about the same number of US service personnel were killed as in 2008, but the emphasis shifted from Iraq to Afghanistan. The numbers just about reversed between the two years and two theatres but when you consider the troop populations the losses were much more serious in Afghanistan. So the Muslims might be winning this war at the moment but at a terrible cost in civilian lives, but what the hell, they aren't americans, are they?

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Originally Posted by paraclete

at least the Muslims think so,

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Really? All of them? The Malaysians, the Libyans, the Croats? Or just the western Asians who want the Caliphate back because they're not the envy of the world anymore?

Hello again,

The Yemeni government today warned that any direct U.S. military action in that country "could bolster the popularity of Islamic militants" and "would strengthen Al Qaeda." For reasons that are obvious to everyone BUT you, that's how it works: not only in Yemen, but generally.

In fact, I'm sure to you righty's, this report means that we should gear up for bombing Yemen right away...

washingtonpost.com

excon