the US hasn't invaded Canada and Mexico simply to expand its borders.

We're much more subtle than that now. Economic pacts are the new annexations.

liberal political blogs written by people living in make-believe worlds

please don't lump the Prison Planet crowd in with "liberals", those guys are just plain insane.

You're probably going to argue that reducing the risk is a good thing. Well sure it is, unless you curtail the freedoms of some of the people living in this country. I'm sure I'm in the minority here (and I wish some of the presidential candidates had the guts to agree with me), but I would rather be at increased risk of another 9/11 than give up everything this country represents by getting into a security-obsessed mindset.

I'm at the point where I'm almost agreeing with you. However, I'd take it a few steps further. This country needs an enema starting with EVERYONE in Washington D.C. Now, I'm not saying let's get em or whatever. What I'm saying is that we start electing people that make sense, do something rather than play games, and have the ability to listen and make an informed decision based on the facts and desires of their constituents. I have found zero, 0, zip, nada, as far as a politician currently in office that can do any of that.

So, basicially because we'll never get congress, the white house, etc to ever agree on anything, stop the childish games, and actually do something for our country/world, then my opinion is precisely this: The USA needs another 9/11. Yes, innocent loss of life is bad. However, this country learned something about itself after 9/11, we learned to work together instead of bicker back and forth over everything (at least for about 9 months anyway). How soon we forget the events of that day. And until we have yet another reason to band together, I'm afraid it'll only get worse.

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WARNING!!! Do Not Feed the Trolls...

Whenever anyone invokes WW2 or Hitler when speaking about our endeavors in Afghanistan or Iraq, our leaders, or the despots we deposed they immediately lose my attention -- whether they're for the war or against it. It's a lame, childish comparison.

Looking back on my life prior to 9/11, and the lives of all of the people that I know, I can see no difference between the laws I live by today and the laws I was living by then. I haven't lost a single, solitary personal freedom as the result of the Patriot Act.

I don't know anything about your background, race, and appearance, but I'm going to assume you don't fit the "terrorist profile". Correct me if I'm wrong.

Of course your personal freedoms wouldn't be affected by the Patriot Act. Guess what? Caucasians didn't suffer from the lack of the Civil Rights Act before it was adopted into law - it affected blacks and other minorities. Conversely, the Patriot Act doesn't affect anyone who doesn't fit the "profile" either.

Unless you fit the "profile" your arguments mean nothing.

Besides, Bush wouldn't be stupid enough to make the Patriot Act affect his ardent defenders (such as yourself). He needed them to re-elect him, after all.

However, I'm glad to report that I haven't had to live through another 9/11, which is, contrary to Halo's twisted logic, precisely what the Patriot Act was invoked to do.

You deride Halo's logic, and then you drop a bomb like this. There is absolutely no way of knowing if the Patriot Act has kept us from suffering another attack on the scale of 9/11. That's like saying that somebody never got cancer because they ate healthy food. They might not have gotten it anyway.

You're probably going to argue that reducing the risk is a good thing. Well sure it is, unless you curtail the freedoms of some of the people living in this country. I'm sure I'm in the minority here (and I wish some of the presidential candidates had the guts to agree with me), but I would rather be at increased risk of another 9/11 than give up everything this country represents by getting into a security-obsessed mindset.

This comment was edited on Sep 5, 12:24.

Apparently neocons like WaltC now are equipped with a magical glass ball that can tell the future.

If you look at the history of WW2 there were many turning points in which the war could have gone in any direction. Things constantly changed. Sitting back over 60 years later and pointing the finger and saying "see! If we had only attacked here it would have been different" is moronic.

Russia could just have easily been an enemy at the time and if they had it would have been game over for us. Who should we have attacked and at what point in time? Only many years later could someone guess when the correct time to act would have be.

Neocons in their blood lust for war will try to convince you that THEY KNOW all the facts. Complete and utter bullshit. Neocons are more dangerous to public safety than our so-called enemies are.

Get real.

This comment was edited on Sep 5, 11:44.

WaltC,

Well said.

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WARNING!!! Do Not Feed the Trolls...

Oh, come on now Flo. They proved Iraq had WMD in the end. Sure, the acronym was a little off with Weapons of Minor Disturbance.

i like the one i saw at sydney during demonstrations before the APEC summit... WMD (weapons of mass distraction)

My, my, my...usually I don't respond to posts that have no redeeming social value whatever, but in this case I'll make an exception because rarely have I read a single post in which every single assertion is so horribly, horribly wrong...

9-11 was an inside job.

This war on "terror" has no real enemy and therefore can never be won. The whole point of this "War on Terror" is to maximize profits all around.

I often wonder what motivates people to such heights of lunacy. We have collected massive amounts of data on 9/11, its perpetrators, and the more than 3,000 people murdered in New York on that fateful day. Yet something motivates a very small minority of people to state that Bin Laden was in reality working for George Bush on 9/11...which would be a very amusing idea if it wasn't so dumb.

My own thought is that people like Halo are frightened by the idea that there might be deranged maniacs in the world who enjoy murdering innocent people for one reason or another--be it profit, prestige, or politics--you name it. He's so frightened by this idea that he rationalizes such events to the degree that he persuades himself that America has no enemies of the type that wish to see Americans killed for no reason at all except to satisfy their own delusions of grandeur.

Ergo, 9/11 was not "real" it was an "inside job." Believing such things undoubtedly makes Halo feel much safer than he'd feel if he was forced to believe that terrorists are real and that they have few qualms about murdering not only themselves, but anyone else they can take with them.

In Halo's philosophy of life, the US is omnipotent and everything that happens can be tracked right back to the US government. IE, when terrorists kill people in the type of wanton bloodbath they relish--in Halo's mind the terrorists are (a) simply carrying out the wishes of George Bush because George Bush isn't satisfied with the wealth he accrued during peacetime and simply wants more of it, or (b)the terrorists are justifiably striking back against the evil American government--ie, Halo might well believe the terrorists when they say, "The Americans made us do it," as if the terrorists have no will of their own.

It's far easier for Halo to blame the American government than it is for Halo to admit to himself that terrorists are very real and need to be defended against. That's the real irony in this mindset. In his gut, Halo knows that the Americans are not going to seek him out and murder him for having such opinions--because Halo knows that Americans just don't do that sort of thing. And so, Halo builds a safer world in his own imagination by telling himself that terrorism isn't real and that terrorists don't really exist.

See the problem with this logic, though? All Halo has done is to project his fear of the bad guy onto the good guy, which means that he's in just as much danger from the good guy as he actually is from the bad guy...;) IE, he hasn't helped himself at all. He's merely become very confused.

It's the same Bullshit that Hitler used to get the Nazis rolling through Europe.

In a sense, Halo is correct--though not of course in the way that he has led himself to think...;) You see, Halo, in WWII Hitler was the chief terrorist and WWII was fought because the countries he attacked did not choose to surrender to him, but chose to defy and to fight him, instead. If the world had simply surrendered to Hitler's demands then there'd have been no war. But you need to ask yourself whether you think the resulting world would have been a better place. Most people are of the opinion that had the world surrendered to Hitler's demands then the world would be an immeasurably darker place than it is today.

1- Stage an event that makes you look under attack

Again, here we have Halo fantasizing that George Bush is the terrorist instead of Bin Laden, because Halo thinks he's personally in no danger from George Bush. That's why he chooses to believe that 9/11 never actually happened the way that it did. As I pointed out, if George Bush was indeed the real terrorist, and Bin Laden was either the good guy or Bush's flunky, then Halo would in reality be living under a much more dire threat than he is. I don't think Halo has gotten that far in his reasoning--but that's the goal of the Bin Laden style of terrorism in the first place--to make people so afraid that they forget how to reason.

2- Mandate your own law and rules (Patriot act)

Along with the fantasy Halo has built about 9/11 not being a real terrorist attack on Americans, the idea that the Patriot Act is not there to protect us against future attacks, but is merely a device used by the real terrorist--George Bush--to control Americans, is an idea entirely consistent with Halo's delusion.

But as with everything else Halo has said, there are major logic problems with the idea. Looking back on my life prior to 9/11, and the lives of all of the people that I know, I can see no difference between the laws I live by today and the laws I was living by then. I haven't lost a single, solitary personal freedom as the result of the Patriot Act. However, I'm glad to report that I haven't had to live through another 9/11, which is, contrary to Halo's twisted logic, precisely what the Patriot Act was invoked to do.

Halo thinks that since 9/11 wasn't "real" and since terrorists are not real human beings living in real physical locations around the world, that therefore any laws passed to protect us from such phantoms are a sham. Does Halo believe that terrorists are shadow beings from another dimension who cannot be located and tracked in this world? Apparently he does, as he keeps saying that resistance is futile.

3- Start invading countries that you feel like blaming!

In Halo's view it is just morally wrong to try and figure out who is behind the terrorism that has killed thousands of innocent Americans, and to then take concrete steps in the real world to try and stop them. Halo in his infinite wisdom has decided that terrorists are imaginary figments existing only in the mind of the demoniacally possessed George Bush and so there's literally nobody to "blame," as he puts it.

America has been suckered in again to make the Rich Richer.

I guess it hasn't dawned on poor Halo that "the Reich" was already the richest nation on earth and has no need to start a war of any type to maintain that status. As well, in war, assets are not preserved and enlarged, they are destroyed.

Additionally, Halo seems blissfully ignorant of the fact that unlike Hitler's Germany, the US hasn't invaded Canada and Mexico simply to expand its borders.

In one thing Halo is correct, though. Hitler was a type of terrorist. Today, Hitler is no more, but we face the specter of new Hitlers arising around the world--such as the would-be dictator of an imagined Islamic Super-state--Osama bin Laden. It is precisely to avoid a situation reminiscent of WWII that it is imperative that we act to contain and stop such people before they can involve the entire world in a global war.

I would suggest to Halo that he brush up on his history of WWII, and that he stay away from liberal political blogs written by people living in make-believe worlds. The fact is that had the allies taken immediate action against Hitler right after he invaded Poland then they could have stopped him cold. Instead, they tried to negotiate with Hitler peacefully, and what we know as WWII began. The lesson is there for those who care to learn it.

Fourth, we haven't had another serious Terrorist attack since 9/11. Duh? Even the terrorists have to think twice when we have so many troops there. GET A FUCKIN' CLUE!!

you think 9/11 happened overnight? the guys who executed it were in america many years before they made a move. get a clue.

Why fight them in the USA, when they can come to us

that is so true. bin laden must be so happy to see more americans in the middle east. it only helps him recruit more fundamentalists into his organization. sad part is the bush administration has no idea what to do with iraq.

Jesus Saves... the rest of you take damage!

not what I had in mind after reading those comments, but fitting nonetheless

Jesus Saves... the rest of you take damage!

if I'm an Islamic fundamentalist, why bother getting on a plane to the USA to blow up civilians? the USA sends poorly equipped volunteers to my country to act as target practice for me every day, and we have killed over 3,000 of them since 9/11, and injured tens of thousands more. Why fight them in the USA, when they can come to us, where we know the territory, the language, the people, and we have a huge army of people to support us who resent the destruction of their country by the US and her allies.
Seriously, you are playing directly into their hands.

Zeph is either a very good troll or, if he really believes what he is saying, a very sad sad person.

9-11 was an inside job.

This war on "terror" has no real enemy and therefore can never be won. The whole point of this "War on Terror" is to maximize profits all around.

It's the same Bullshit that Hitler used to get the Nazis rolling through Europe.

1- Stage an event that makes you look under attack

2- Mandate your own law and rules (Patriot act)

3- Start invading countries that you feel like blaming!

America has been suckered in again to make the Rich Richer.

Stupid americans defend a stupid war with stupid reasons.

Are you honestly this stupid???

First of all, we want Iraq as an ally in the arab world, not an enemy. That's a good reason to invade & kill Saddam Hussein.

Second of all, Zarquawi is the reason there is a civil war there. Not us. He bombed religious mosques and started that war. We dropped 2 500 pound bombs on him & killed him. But the damage was already done.

Third, this is about oil; but we don't need the oil. We just want a friendly nation at any cost because we're fuckin' sick and tired of OPEC holding it hostage everytime they don't get their way. We *NEED* an ally.

Fourth, we haven't had another serious Terrorist attack since 9/11. Duh? Even the terrorists have to think twice when we have so many troops there. GET A FUCKIN' CLUE!!

Yeah, a pointless war.

If you're not prepared to use millions of troops and completely occupy and suppress the populace, why invade?

Oh, come on now Flo. They proved Iraq had WMD in the end. Sure, the acronym was a little off with Weapons of Minor Disturbance.

Not a bad war? It is based on lies nevertheless, WMD my ass...