You're right. In principle, retalliatory attacks are on the same level as a fourth grade bully. But the strikes against the terrorists are not retalliatory. We are defending our country. There is a method to our attacks. We are trying to destroy or at least cripple the terrorist network, which in turn makes our country safer as well as others. Bush, Marine, and Italian made excellent points. War, unfortunately, is necessary to maintain our form of government. But it should not be put on the same level as killing a defenseless child.

The US govt needs to finish all our current ops, and at that point return to a state of isolationism.

I know that your last post was directed at Marine16, but I can not let this ignorance continue.

I can not understand how you keep comparing international warfare to a fouth grade bully fight! This is ridiculous! And "be the bigger man?" Give me a break! If we "were the bigger man" and did nothing everytime someone had attacked America and our freedom, where would we be? Well, let's see, we would have never entered WWII, Germany probably would have continued to advance it's domain, Japan would have continued offensive actions. But hey, we should be the bigger man and just let them blow up anything in our country at their lesiure.

BirdyGirl, when someone attacks a country, you need to respond. Sitting there and letting countries continue to attack you without any resistance or retaliation will not stop attacks. If you honestly think that, then I truly pity you.

We can not stand idle when our country, that protects our freedom, is attacked for whatever reason. War is the only effective action. I can not even comprehend how you can consider warfare to be "immature."

I am sorry BirdyGirl if I have offended you, but you really need to wake up. Sure, on a playground, you should "be the bigger man," and not continue to fight. However, the world is not a playground, and actions do need to be taken when our great nation is attacked.

And what do you think? Do you think that we should have never attacked the original Axis of Evil (Japan, Italy, and Germany)? Do you think that we should have let communism spread into Korea and Vietnam with no intervention? Do you think that we should have allowed the British to continue to harass the American public (pre 1776) when, obviously, word were not enough? War was needed in all of these situations to advance our great nation into what it is today, the best place to live. America, the greatest country in the world!

To me (and I'm speaking for only myself here), it appears that we are doing the same thing to them as they did to us. They rammed planes into the World Trade Center; we are bombing Taliban headquarters and Afghani villages. They killed thousands of innocent Americans; not only are we killing Taliban officers, we are killing many more Afghanis who may or may not be violent towards us. Both acts of violence; both acts of war; both acts of immaturity. In my opinion, murder is the extinguishing of a human life. It is never (and I mean NEVER ) justified to extinguish a human life.

(To not back myself into a corner here...I am against abortion in concept only. See "Yet Another Abortion Thread" topic in Zen and the Art of Mind/Body Maintenance for my full opinion on abortion.)

We are dishonoring the people that died in the WTC by doing this. How? We are trying to avenge their deaths by killing others. "An eye for an eye" is not a revenge statement; it is a karma statement, meaning that whatever you do to someone else will come back to get you in the same fashion. We are, in essence, teaching our children, "Look, if someone hurts you and your friends and you wanna get back at him, just hurl a few punches or bombs or something, and the whole thing is resolved, because you teach him a lesson." WHAT in the CRAP?!?!?!? Violence never solves anything (I'm quoting infinite after-school specials here...lol) The way to honor the people who died is to say, "Hey, I'm going to be the bigger man (or woman, as the case may be) and not hit you back, because I'm not going to bring myself to your low level and do what you did to me." That would show we've actually grown as a country and pulled together to be a strong front against terrorism. I mean, if someone does something to you personally, and it hurts like crap, don't do it to someone else, because you know how bad it hurts.

Just my opinion...y'all can agree or disagree.

Peace,

Birdy

If the US returned to an isolationist type policity that we had in the larger part of the 19th century, we'd have few problems and avoid needless daths through 'world policing'. The US should withdraw from the UN, NATO, and other allicances and focus on itself. As for you, birdygirl, the democrats as well as reublicans spport war and 'foreign intervention' You'd probably be better off associating with the libretarian party, which stands up for true freedom. Unless of course, you want to restrict rights such as freeedom of speech, right to bear arms, etc...

I can not even comprehend how someone, birdygirl, can say that no one should be punished because they killed 3,000 people. I can not even comprehend how someone, birdygirl, can say that we should only rase our morales because 3,000 of our civilians died in an act of terroism. I can not comprehend how someone, birdygirl, can say that we should just ignore the death of 3,000 americans.

Very true. You left me in the dust..

To further that, I do care what you are saying, but I don't think that you explained your point correctly.

She just threw a fit.

How about explaining why your point was proved, because I still don't think it was. Maybe metaphorically the bully situation mirrors this this, but you can't base strategy and policy on metaphors and strict philosophy.

I meant no offense! sorry if i hurt you.

Are you saying we are the bully or Alqueda?

Welllllll, I've enjoyed all your hateful posts to me, but this is only proving my point. Al Qaeda messing with us is the bully situation ON A MUCH GRANDER SCALE. I'm sorry if some of you were confused by my anecdote, because sometimes my clever wit goes over people's heads, especially those heads who don't care what I'm saying anyway. Did that hit home?

Peace,

Birdy

I stronly agree with Strangelove.

About the bully thin my story was trying to show that leaving the problem alone doesn't improve things. For instance if we let sept. 11 pass us by and forgive osma bin laden then he might have comitted another act of terror.

Ah yes, I see how BirdyGirl has oversimplified the situation comparing complex national defense stratagy against a terrorist network to a fourth grade bully picking on her. That story is simply irrelevent to this situation.

Sept 11 was a little bit more than bottle caps, maybe if you said that kid had come at you with a knife repeatedly and tried to kill you on several occasions, then maybe it would become relevent.

As for abortion: At conception, a completely different and unique DNA sequence is formed, one never seen before in the history of life itself. It is a separate entity that will grow into a full fledged human. It has human DNA, it will have a personality, it has the complete information of a new and separate individual human being.
Yes, it is reliant on the mother for support and nutrition, it cannot feel pain, or think, or support is vital organs. However the same can be said for a comatose person who is improving. Pulling the plug kills them, and (if we give the coma patient the same odds of recovering as a child being born succesfully) letting them stay on life support lets them live. It is essentialy killing a person.

Whatever it is it is NOT the mothers body, nor the mothers choice.

Let's stop talking about the bully. I mean, can you really compare Al Queda against America to a bully picking on you? No. While were on the subject, can you compare killing someone who is trying to kill you to killing an innocent defenseless baby? No. This topic is completely irrelevant. The two topics are no even comparable and to think that they are is absurd.

war and abortion are two different things.

As for the fourth grade bully thing in my experience each time you don't stop the bully they get bolder and do more stuff. I admit i've been in more than a few fights in my life. many of them have not been fair and usually it was me verse a bunch of them. I'd say after fourth grade they stopped and we've been on ok terms. I admit i rarely talk to them anymore.

Last year an A@@hole started picking on me again and i didn't stand up i just told him to stop but he didn't and eventually i just moved my seat, but it was more painful to take it then to put an imediate end to the problem.

I think that's what war does and in the end it probaly saves more lives then if the problem had continue.

We are defending ourselves from future attacks. And we ARE NOT "going over there and killing them". That is so absurd. It is a war. Military against military. We are not bombing cities and we are not masacring innocent civilians. We are killing Al Queda warriors that are set on killing innocents. We are not killing innocents. The faceless cowards that represent most Arabs are the ones that stand outside bus stops and schools and bomb them. We are finally cracking down on the evil that faces the modern world: terrorism.

And answer me a question. When does life begin? When the child can feel, when it can think, when it is able to sustain life. Answer me this question and then I'll respond.

"Freedom is not Free"-Korean War Memorial, Washington DC.

Killing a person who has a gun pointed at you and killing an unbron defensless baby are completley different and can not be put on the same level. So everyone needs to stop saying that they are the same thing because it simply reflects ignorance.

Liltrumptgirl, it seems that forgot that the terrorists attacked us first. It wasn't us thatt blew up their two most priozed buildings, it was them.

As for this arguement that revenge is 'fourth grade' and 'childish'. Are you suggesting that we should simply allow terrorists to invade our homeland and kill 3,000 civilians with absolutley no punishment? What is happening isn't 'revenge' it is justice.

we are going over and killing them. WE are taking the action. As for abortion, untill a few months before it is just a clump of cells because it cannot think. Why cant it think? Because the synapses have not connected. It connot feel because the nerves dont work. It is not living. If it were born at that time it could not sustain life. It is like putting some protiens together adn saying you shouldnt do anything to it because it is part of ahuman life. Ridiculous.

We cannot say, "We've got to show these people how being attacked feels. Oh my God, we've just got to kill all of them and be mean to them back." It's the fourth-grade recess bully all over again (anecdote from my life...).

There was this ******** in my fourth-grade class that repeatedly hit me, caused bruises, tried to choke me, and even hit me in the teeth with a thrown bottle cap, knocking one of my front teeth a little behind the other. For the record, I never struck back at him physically or verbally. I instead stood firm, and concentrated on myself. Every time he hit me, I would just try to make myself better than him, whether in my morals, in my schoolwork, or my kindness. Six years later, in 10th grade, my morals, kindness, and intellect won me a coveted place in the spring version of the Homecoming court. It was ultimate revenge for not just him, but all of the people that were awful to me. Now, because of my kindness, I have made a friend of him and many others who realized their mistake in attacking me and have grown up.

The reason for this long story is just to show that if we continue this immature strike, we are only saying that Osama got to us, that we are weak, and that we cannot stop ourselves from retaliating just because we got hit. People hit people all the time; it is human nature. We, being the victims, must overcome that part of human nature and instead concentrate on being the best we all can be. (Using an Army quote there...lol) This show of bravado and macho strength is only lowering my opinion of the United States, and I live in it.

Peace,

Birdy

Once again, Bushsupporter is making complete sense. War is a lot different from abortion. War actually has a purpose. In the case of America it is for the betterment of our society. War is defending our intrests, and indirectly, our nation. If we had sat quietly after Pearl Harbor and not attacked Japan, what could have happened? Who knows, if we did not interfer, then Japan could have and probably would have moved in on us and then what? A war on our own soil. So war is done for political reasons to insure safety in our country

Now, abortion is slaughtering an innocent child. To think, liltrumpetgirl, that you could call a fetus and unborn clump of cells, is absurd. So what am I? A born clump of cells? No, I'm a person just as a fetus is a child. Abortion is done for personal selfish reasons. Either, they made a stupid decision to have unprotected sex and now they can't live with the consequences. Or, they simply don't want to deal with a child. Anyone who think abortion is ok, is just lacking in morals. You can not compare war and abortion. One serves a purpose, and one serves self-intrest.