George Walker Bush says that "justice has been delivered" for the 2001/9/11 attacks while speaking at the pentagon-attack anniversary. Do you think "justice has been delivered"? The US certainly made sure that the impact was felt all over the world, but is the world any better now after this whole campaign and new phrases like "Axis of Evil", "War on Terror", "Shock and Awe", "Winning the Hearts and Minds"... What do you think... Is organized terrorism effectively combated by militarism, unilateralism, foreign interventionism and democratic peace theory by neoconservatist indoctrination on the US population and the world? Or is it really an asymmetrical warfare which must be handled effectively on the political, economic and social arena? For sure, the world and history will remember the 2001/9/11 attacks and the events that followed, the re-election of the Bush administration, the human rights issues, the media onslaught with "embedded journalism" and all the carefully planned "weasel words" etc. The world will also remember how a nation increasingly fed with rhetoric instilling fear, threat levels and a readily accepting action-centrist news media - all played a part in accepting increasingly tougher legislation approaching "police state" levels, and disregard for many personal and constitutional rights... And just like in the early 20th century, the population of a great nation elect a very authoritarian rule with severe foreign policy implications - after a time of chaos - the candidacy for someone promising to bring order and victory does sound ensnaringly appealing. History will no doubt remember the lessons learned, and the consensus on such temptation with dire implications. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymmetric_warfare http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_fear http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divide_and_rule http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects-Based_Operations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indoctrination http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_manipulation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embedded_journalism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denialism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militarism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unilateralism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denialism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_interventionism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation-building http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_peace_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_generation_warfare http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_intensity_conflict http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axis_of_Evil http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Terrorism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_and_awe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_occupied_Iraq http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_(2001–present) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_of_the_War_in_Afghanistan_(2001–present) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_Within:_A_Secret_White_House_History_(2006-2008) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_on_Democracy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacking_Democracy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outfoxed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearts_and_minds_(Iraq) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_revisionism_(negationism) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_revisionism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory#Criticism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_deduction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degree_of_truth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forecasting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prediction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_democracy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transparency_(humanities) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrity
Operation Net Assesment The enemy is a series of systems, military, economic, social, political and created a matrix showing how all those systems were interrelated and which links of the system are most vulnerable. We look at the full array of what we could do to affect our advesary's enviroment- political, military, economic, societal, cultural, institutional very comprehensively. I thought everyone knew this.
nutmeg, so what do you do in socioeconomic terms invading a country which is practically living off only rocks and pebbles? And what has the net socioeconomic costs been from these operations? Positive/negative outcome and implications? Was it worth losing civil liberties, was that the only way - more satisfied now? War Made Easy: How Presidents & Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8383084962209910782 (70 mins) The War on Democracy http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8028007074233952313 (92 mins)
I think the point of invading afghanistan was to dislodge a central government that was allowing the country to be used as a terrorist haven. It is still a mess clearly, and all the hearts and minds programs we can come up with will fail, simply because they do not address the tribal/religious nature of the opposition. Really, the only way you can "win" this type of fight is to annihilate the other side. Generally, western countries are not prepared to go that far. Even the Soviets were not. So about the best you can hope for is to send a message to other countries that they are screwed if they allow terroristes free reign and to try to make it impossible for terrorists to get back in control. As for the claimed loss of civil liberties, I think it is overstated. Historically, civil liberties have always been curtailed in wartime. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus. In WW I antiwar demostrators were jailed. Ditto WW II. FDR interned Japanese-Americans without proof of wrongdoing. During and aftwer the Korean war, there were widespread invstigations to uncover communist networks in the entertainment industry and in the government. We face a threat unlike any we have faced before, and we are clearly struggling to come up with defenses that are adequate but not opporessive. Taking an absolutist position that any change in civil liberties is unacceptable is unreasonable in my view, but we may have to suffer another attack to convince everyone.
AAAintheBeltway, my point is: do you think that militarism is the answer? Or do you have to rethink how you conduct foreign policy, diplomacy, protectionism, economy etc? Today, the US has far from a market economy or efficient democracy... as well as being involved in numerous destabilizing activities and low impact conflicts worldwide... How about showing a good example? Neutrality, respect, sustainability and non-aggression? But will US elections reflect any "social knowledge" or "evolution" when conservative religious influences and denialism are rampant or even dominant? Haven't the social trust then become eroded?
No, but as Justice Jackson famously said, "The Constitution is not a suicide pact." The left has invented this spectre of a wholesale obliteration of core constitutional rights. In reality, we are talking about such things as overseas phone calls to afghanistan being monitored. Or terrorists who have info about future attacks on our country getting their asses waterboarded. I can live with that.
Exactly! Should the radical left get their way America's epitaph will read...Here lay the moral elitists. They were more concerned with the rights of their enemies than the rights of their citizens.
It's shocking how the "patriots" have zero confidence that the constitution was well thought out. It seems like the "patriots" think that following the constitution is suicide. You're okay with a Democrat president having the ability to wiretap the Republicans?
Hard to say who will kill them, the "terrorists" or the ones who'd sacrifice their rights to habeus corpus. It's only a 700 year old human right, I'm confident that it was necessary to get rid of it because we know better.