Who here is privvy to the minds, feelings, or intents of other nations or "terrorist" groups?

We walked away from Somalia, we walked away from the Gulf War and Hati, and every time our enemies saw it as a sign of weakness, not strength.

That, among other reasons, is why we must march on.

we don't need to fight to get a point across. nor to show how strong we are, because you can show that you are strong, by walking away from a potential WW III. My dad's in the military so security was really tight, you couldn't get on or off base without i.d.'s. and now I moved to Virginia, about half an hour away from D.C. I have friends whos brothers, sisters, dads, or moms went to go fight. and I did my part as an american and a friend to help them through this dificult time. i'd like to share an exerpt from my high school newspaper, the Valkyrie,"In the past year, most Americans' perceptions of freedom have changed and we now have a renewed since of patriotism.". and it's true most do. but I ask you why fight, when we can show that we are so much smarter and stronger than that, that we'd have to retaliate? We have the power here. what would you teach the children? war or peace?
signed an American


PS. On a lighter note Vikings Rule;) yeah!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

^ I had too much fun with that ^

Come on, people, post something!!!

Peace,

Birdy

Ummmmmm....

actually...

I'm pro-choice as well.

Hmmm...makes me think I didn't state my topic well. Oopsie? Well, anyway, I was merely saying that some Republicans (especially in my neck of the woods) make it seem like American children's lives are more important and of more worth than Afghani children's lives, and not just the kids, but the parents and grandmas and grandpas and godpas and godmas and everybody else. I mean, they act like abortion is such a frigging crime, but they find no trouble with going out and shooting down 500 Afghanis a day.
That's one of the reasons I'm not Republican, BTW. (Useless info. Sorry! )

To clear it up, I am pro-choice. For my fully-fleshed-out opinion, please check out the topic entitled Yet Another Abortion Thread (my topic! Yay!!) in Zen and the Art of Mind/Body......yeeeeah. That thing.

Peace,

Birdy

No, I didn't, locutus.

Observant much?

Peace,

Birdy

You're not going to get a reply from her, she left the site.

Ok, i'm sort of the medium here. No, i do not think it is right for the us to bomb Afganistan, and kill many innocent people, who may have been secretly trying to help us. it's completely ridiculas. They are not to blame. These Taliban leaders are. But at the same time, we cannot commit murder (for that's what it really is) because someone is standing up for their belifs. I know, my blood is boiling with the rest of the Americans, and in the back of my mind, i'm thinking "bomb them!" as well, but i know that isn't right. those are their belifs, no matter how insane we find them. But at the same time, we need to do something. The ideal would be to find those few who were responsible, and punish them (by death, for killing so many Us citizens), but that isn't possible. If only war was abolished! (ok, that is so naieve of me to say, though war is horrible, some good may come out of it.)
Yes, peaceful nogoceations would be the best solution. But that hasn't worked. We're basically in a no win situation.

an extra ps to ms. birdy.
Birdy, were you trying to say you're against abortion? In that case, begin the mini debate begin. I'm for it, but not as a form of birth control. If you're young , and you tryed to prevent becoming pregnant, then it is alright to use it. Or, if by chance, you were raped. But no, you shouldn't use it as birth control. That's murder.
signed,
Andreia

by the way...U.S gets into wars to stop it from getting any bigger? you kidding me? we get into wars because we want to show how strong we are...that we are truely the only superpower country in the world. We go into wars to get something we want, or to protect something of ours...e.g...the persian gulf war...what do you think we went into that war for? no brainer.. the oil idiot..kuwait is one of the biggest supply of oil for this country...we want our economy to stay good so we keep on getting the oil for our gas guzzling suv's. Tell me something what is the one thing that every teenager dreams a think about? s e x duh? and the guys wants a car to get the girl and the girl wants a guy with a nice ride..so either way thats the truth and the u.s don't get into wars to prevent it from being big..they do the opposite..just like ww2. U.S using the nukes on japan in hiroshima and nagasaki.

I know what I'm about to say may get many of you mad, but I am going to say it anyways. The vicious attacks of 9/11 was horrifying, but I'm glad it happened. The U.S before the attacks seemed to be untouchable, that nobody would ever mess with them. But when this one incident happened, everyone single itty bitty person in the freaking world had to hear about it. It was like **** why is your incident so important to be the only news out there. Other countries around the world gets worst terrorist attacks. Look at the middle east conflict for once. Their problems is so bad that it makes the 9/11 attacks look better. Also, president bush's war on terrorism? I think it's a joke. It's just an excuse to get to iraq and take out saddam hussein. I think everyone should know that and this isn't really a war on terrorism. I think the middle east should join together and fight against the u.s even though I love this country to death. I think that would be something to look forward to.

I find your assertion that the US gets into wars because we want to "stop problems before they get bigger" incredible. I really have a hard time thinking of one instance when we did that. Or maybe we were stopping the problem of disobedience (i.e. democracy) in Nicaragua in the 1980's Contra terrorist actions. I suppose we were helping kill tens of thousands of poor peasants, committing every kind of torture imaginable, and absolutely devastating the economy to "stop problems [i.e. democracy] before they get bigger".

Also, the Europeans do "favor pacifism and plastering up problems with concessions and negotiations" to some extent. It is called following international law, although the UK and France are a close second and a distant third in the number of UN vetoes, with the US of course being at the top.

DrStrangeLove: i know that US gets into other countries wars to try to stop problems before they get bigger! and I think it is good sometimes, but I agree with you when you say that some people will get mad. yes everything works when carried properly obviously, guess sometimes its just hard. I will add the "you reap what you sow" phrase to my english vocabulary! thanks! I was trying to translate it properly but I had never heard it in english. bye

What you dont understand birdy is that i'd be murder not to attack. They would see this as a sign of weakness, and continue the attacks. Which would be worse murder haveing the people you have to protect die or killing the people who want to kill us die? Second of all were not fighting the Afghani people, but the people who want to destroy us. We take carefull precations to fight only the terrorists. If some onewas breaking into your home and was charging after some one you love you'd grab the first thing youcould get and kill the person. Why should this be any different? Self defence is vital for any country.

Aimee- Yes, I know some Veitnam vets also. I agree that we probably should not have gone into that war. But once we WERE in it, we should have tried to win, not do a half-@ssed job of it. The old quote "War is to important to be left to the generals" was made a century ago. Then, that was true. World War I proved that. However, now and during Veitnam, (to quote the fictitious General Ripper), War is to important to be left to the politicians.

0shorty0- The reason the US gets into other countries wars is for a few reasons. The main one being that we stop problems before they get bigger. Europe's ideals tend to favor pacifism and plastering up problems with concessions and negotiations. The US has never had to fight a modern war on its own soil, and maybe that does make us a little arrogant. But we will do what we have to to preserve American life. Our solution is to rip down what has gone bad and rebuild it right. This has been proven to work, if carried out properly. It will **** some people off, but those people are usually ****ed at us anyway.

"you gather what you seeded and growed."
Just for future reference, the correct translation is "you reap what you sow". Not making fun of you, just trying to help you out.

I am not from the United States, so I see things from the outside, maybe it helps me to be more objective. The thing is that killing is always wrong, both what osama and the talibans do or did, and the decision of US to attack are wrong to me. But sometimes its necessary to take action. I think, and sorry if I offend anyone by saying this, that the US as a country has taken part in other countries' problems, and that is not ok. US, as the world wide powered nation status that it has, and is, has gotten involved in other countried issues and problems, sometimes by helping the country with a problem like hunger, which is really nice, but somtimes, by taking sides and getting involved in wars between other countries, and that got some countries mad. Everyone knew this was something that would eventually happen. As they say: you gather what you seeded and growed.
p.d: i am not defending osamas and the talibans actions, I think they are absolutely wrong, I just think that what someone does affects the person, so we should all be careful with what we do.

That's about all I have to say about it. It should be the very very very last resort to stop maniac killers, or to defend ourselves. Nothing more. It's hell for the soldiers, hell for the citizens, hell for everybody. Complete hell. People are scarred for life. Look at Vietnam, I think our biggest screw up in war. Why? It's ridiculous. My friend's dad has post-traumatic stress and... it's hell. That's all I have to say about it. And I think we should get rid of the draft. Fine if you want to volunteer but don't send people unwilling to go. Nobody should have the right to do that to another person.

OK, this is a tough topic for me. I am a democrat, I do not like the military and all the spending on it and war. I hate war. But I have to admit that this is one of those extreme cases. There is no other choice but war when psychos go killing 1000's or millions of people. How do you stop a force like that? But I think it should have been thought out more carefully. I mean, I don't think this all-out war was really needed, was it? I want peace. We are looking for bin Laden, yeah, but that's it, isn't it? I think the U.S. could have just gone in and taken over pretty easily.

But I will be the first to admit that people like bin Laden and Sadam Hussein, crazy and dangerous killers with power, need to be stopped. We need to capture them and... whatever it is we do. There really isn't a choice about that. But I think the "war" in Afghanistan needs to stop.

As far as other aspects of war and the military: I hate it. We do way too much. A leader gets in we don't like, we invade. We need to take care of America first.

Forgive me for wording it this way, but BirdyGirl, are you crazy??? I hate war as much as you do, I'm sure, but your reasoning, to me, is way off! What are we supposed to do? Send a Christmas card to Bin Laden, saying "Merry Christmas! We forgive you, but please don't do it again, we didn't really like having our buildings and businesses ruined and our people roasted" and then just stand by while he kills us off? I don't think so! We did not start this war, it was Bin Laden, who seriously thinks we are evil (no matter what he says about that it's just that other Americans stand in the way of him killing off the Jews, whom he obviously believes are evil)who started this war. It's our duty to defend ourselves no matter what you think. Believe me, I cried when we bombed the Taliban! I pleaded with God that if there was any chance at all that any one person could still be saved, that He would save them! I continue to pray this prayer. I forgave them for everything. I don't know if I was ever angry with them at all. Angry with what they did, YES, but I think I was too shocked to be angry at them. But just because we forgive someone doesn't mean we forget. I used to think it did, but it doesn't. We have to stop Bin Laden before he does any more harm. We can't be letting him attack our people like that. No way! This is my country and I would do anything to protect. Anything unless it would be against my God. This is called protecting ourselves, I'm sorry if you've misinterpreted it as childish revenge.

sorry again 4 that really long post,i just thought u'd like 2 read what some ppl r sayin on the internet...when i read it,it really got me thinkin...
and plusonegirl,i have the same feelin!..(maybe not the arrival of the messiah,but the arrival of somethin!)...kindda scary...peace.

You both make really good points. America does need to retaliate. But we could have withdrawn a little by now. I have to agree with birdygirl. It was all fine at first, we WANTED them to go over to afghanistan and wipe 'em out. But now, it's just getting to be a little much. All the countries are in some sort of a war now. It says in the bible, 'And nation shall rise against nation, kingdom against kingdom.' I feel this is a signal of the coming of the messiah.