Are we going to war?

[RandomThug]

Ok first off I am not one to take back words but I will admit that my last post was made while I was in the far reaches of Tecate and Jose Cuervo. I wasn't 100%.

Now Sleep I agree with you fully on the innocent civilians deaths should never happen, war is fought between warriors.

When I comment on the loss of lives being less by the atomic bomb being dropped, I count in deaths of humans. Considering the japanese people didnt even want to kill americans as badly as thier gov did its even worse that they had to pay the price. I am not a fan of the bombs being dropped, but as an American I must defend our reasoning behind such actions. Actions that may eventually lead to worse events.

And yes it is a scary ass thing the amount of people in control of nukes. I live in LA and know that a lot of foriegn bodies that hate US hate hollywood and such. I consider myself (in a ww3 setting) in a place of vulnerability. Will I move? Never.

I dont know if it is wrong for me to be so pro american, considering I am so much more knowledgable about our bad deeds now (Through you smart foriegn symers who help me through my ignorance). I just find myself so proud of who I am. Given I have no true blood, I am an American who is Part British, Sicilian, German, Irish, Polish etc etc. I have no coat of arms. I have no real heritage, I am an American. When I see someone unloading a truck (happened today) and an American Flag is touching the ground. I yell at them to pick that **** up and do it now, regardless if the person I yelled too was the actually head of Maintence. It matters not.

So in times of war I question my leader with my mind but my heart stays true. Are we going to war? No. We have been singled out for years and years as a target by many countries and we didnt do anything, they declared war on us a long time ago. Soon as they attacked, we let loose. Maybe its wrong to go after saddam right now. But in ten years when we look back and realize what Bush went after, after Saddam. And who followed us.

And maybe we wont re elect bush and this will all smooth over. I cant claim to know enough to judge or "make decisions" on where to go first.

One thing I do know is I am more proud of being American than I am anything else.

[fable]

We have been singled out for years and years as a target by many countries and we didnt do anything, they declared war on us a long time ago. Soon as they attacked, we let loose.

What countries? Aside from Japan during WWII, I can't think of any. We weren't attacked during the Korean War; we acted on a UN mandate to defend South Korea. It is now known that Wilson deliberately provoked an attack by Germany during WWI so as to enter on the side of Britain and France.

As for the Gulf of Tonkin incident that was used to essentially kickstart the Vietnam War, it's now known that the first attack by North Vietnamese boats was actually provoked by fire from US ships, while the second attack didn't occur. (Speaking of the Gulf of Tonkin, check out this short piece.)

So what events are you referring to that create what you wish to make out as a pattern? I honestly don't see it.

So in times of war I question my leader with my mind but my heart stays true.

That sounds good, but it doesn't make a bad war any better than it is. We lost a huge number of soldiers in Vietnam to satisfy nothing more than LBJ's failed domino theory. Hundreds of thousands of people perished on all sides. The nations that fought WWI had absolutely no purpose at all for doing so; it was a failure of political leaders, and nothing else. Millions perished. I guess what I'm suggesting is that it's better to fight against what one perceives as a bad war, than fight the war itself, and lose even one life in the process. The patriotic rhetoric of any administration-of-the-moment can't put blood back in a body or restart a heart. Ask a Viet vet how they feel about such things.

Gods, why does every other generation have to learn the same dreadful lessons about the sick horror of fighting patriotic wars without the best of clearly defined reasons as their grandparents did?

EDIT: Nothing personal meant, above. I just hate seeing anybody die before their natural time, much less for what I perceive to be the worst of callous and cynical reasons of politicians. There should be a hell reserved for politicians who use patriotism as a weapon to further their own private electoral ends.

[Mr Sleep]

Originally posted by RandomThug
I am not a fan of the bombs being dropped, but as an American I must defend our reasoning behind such actions.

That is interesting, I have nothing but derision towards Britain's genocides and other atrocities, I have no interest in supporting them. You seem to be a great deal more nationalistic and impassioned about your country than me, I kind of envy you for that, that amidst all the crap and the lying you can still keep a pride in your country.

And yes it is a scary ass thing the amount of people in control of nukes. I live in LA and know that a lot of foriegn bodies that hate US hate hollywood and such. I consider myself (in a ww3 setting) in a place of vulnerability. Will I move? Never.

Again that is where we differ, as soon as the war starts I am off to a beach somewhere, picking up Claire Forlani and Helena Christiensen along the way

And maybe we wont re elect bush and this will all smooth over. I cant claim to know enough to judge or "make decisions" on where to go first.

I think Bush has proved a somewhat inept and manipulative leader, for that alone I don't think he should be relected.

[RandomThug]

Ok first off @ Fable..

Before 9/11 we knew Al`Queda wanted to hurt Western ways of life, we knew there were others who also disliked our ways so much that they would threaten us in many different forms (Rallys, empty threats, attempted attacks etc *Not just at US, but western ways of life..*

We half assed our intelligence about it and neglected to rally against the hallow threats (Such as N.Korea making its yearly threats...) But after I believe four years of planning it came together and Al`queda did some real bad damage to the American way of life ((See going to war, see loss of personal freedoms))

Now if we are to just sit and wait another four years... You see my point there. I will agree that the war in Iraq has more spin on it than anything else, and I will agree Bush is kinda inept.

Here is my feelings on Bush. I voted for Nader hence tried to prove apoint, didnt do much. I know lots of people who didnt read into who Bush was or whatnot but just voted Republican (see my folks). And he won, well the beautiful thing about Democracy is we get too choose... and perhaps we chose WRONG. Now it is our duty to choose to elect someone else next elections... But we as a whole US got Bush into presidency (I dont even factor in the Florida crap... it wasn't a factor to me)

We choose him, now we must follow him because it was our choice and now we must follow through with it. Being American to me means never giving up, that fighting spirit that once made us so beautiful now makes us "Satan". My vote might have gone to gore and perhaps so could have many others and Bush wouldn't be in, but damned as I am he won. With that, unless I find myself in the desire to be a traitor, I will follow my victorius leader to the battle front. Call me a grunt, call me a fool. I call myself Loyal and True. America wasn't built by the weak or the second guessers, it was built by people who moved and shaked the foundations. We have done a great lot of good to this world, and a good deal bad. I will never walk away and always stick through the bad, exspecially when I had the choice to vote for Gore, and didnt.

I see many flaws that are pointed out in America, but so many less pointed out in other countries. I am glad of this, our flaws are in view for people to see. For us to want to change, to give us the power to vote against it. People always say voting doesnt count and that we cant change Bush's mind... that may be for now, but like I pointed out. We voted him in.

I will acceptingly admit that it takes a bit of ignorance to ignore the horrific things America has done in the past but my belief is that the only reason we are singled out for being "this evil" is because of our EGO. I doubt most other nations have even slightly better records. Perhaps its our fault for claiming supremecy when in reality we just have been in the right place in the right time for a long time.


@ Sleep

I attempted with all my might to enlist into the United States Airforce. I was five minutes from being sworn in (Bloodtesting, hand up yar jargin etc etc etc already done ) and got handed one of the worst things ever.

Medical Discharge from all Military Enlistment. I have never ever hated Asthma more in my damn life.

I feel sorry I cant aid my Brother and friends in thier tireless efforts to do what they can for thier country.

If I die without anything, without anyone. I will always have my Pride in being an American.

[Mr Sleep]

Originally posted by RandomThug
@ Sleep

I attempted with all my might to enlist into the United States Airforce. I was five minutes from being sworn in (Bloodtesting, hand up yar jargin etc etc etc already done ) and got handed one of the worst things ever.

Medical Discharge from all Military Enlistment. I have never ever hated Asthma more in my damn life.

I feel sorry I cant aid my Brother and friends in thier tireless efforts to do what they can for thier country.

If I die without anything, without anyone. I will always have my Pride in being an American.

I do think that it would be interesting to track the amount of immigrants that still find their way into the US and lead healthy and productive lives and go about their days unmolested. The rate is probably pretty high.

I feel for you, I have never seriously considered military life, I never could due to medical reasons, however I do think it is sad you couldn't protect your country if that is what you wish to do.

Like I say, I am not a nationalist, I don't believe in borders, I believe in countries in as much as they cause striffe but cultural borders are breaking down anyway...it's the new world order

[fable]

Bump!

[Mr Sleep]

Well here is an interesting piece I read, kind of third hand but here goes:

JOHN PILGER: BLAIR IS A COWARD
Jan 29 2003
John Pilger: His most damning verdict on Tony Blair

William Russell, the great correspondent who reported the carnage of imperial wars, may have first used the expression "blood on his hands" to describe impeccable politicians who, at a safe distance, order the mass killing of ordinary people. In my experience "on his hands" applies especially to those modern political leaders who have had no personal experience of war, like George W Bush, who managed not to serve in Vietnam, and the effete Tony Blair.

There is about them the essential cowardice of the man who causes death and suffering not by his own hand but through a chain of command that affirms his "authority". In 1946 the judges at Nuremberg who tried the Nazi leaders for war crimes left no doubt about what they regarded as the gravest crimes against humanity.

The most serious was unprovoked invasion of a sovereign state that offered no threat to one's homeland. Then there was the murder of civilians, for which responsibility rested with the "highest authority".

Blair is about to commit both these crimes, for which he is being denied even the flimsiest United Nations cover now that the weapons inspectors have found, as one put it, "zilch". Like those in the dock at Nuremberg, he has no democratic cover.

Using the archaic "royal prerogative" he did not consult parliament or the people when he dispatched 35,000 troops and ships and aircraft to the Gulf; he consulted a foreign power, the Washington regime.

Unelected in 2000, the Washington regime of George W Bush is now totalitarian, captured by a clique whose fanaticism and ambitions of "endless war" and "full spectrum dominance" are a matter of record.

All the world knows their names: Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz, Cheney and Perle, and Powell, the false liberal. Bush's State of the Union speech last night was reminiscent of that other great moment in 1938 when Hitler called his generals together and told them: "I must have war." He then had it.

To call Blair a mere "poodle" is to allow him distance from the killing of innocent Iraqi men, women and children for which he will share responsibility.

He is the embodiment of the most dangerous appeasement humanity has known since the 1930s. The current American elite is the Third Reich of our times, although this distinction ought not to let us forget that they have merely accelerated more than half a century of unrelenting American state terrorism: from the atomic bombs dropped cynically on Japan as a signal of
their new power to the dozens of countries invaded, directly or by proxy, to destroy democracy wherever it collided with American "interests", such as a voracious appetite for the world's resources, like oil.

When you next hear Blair or Straw or Bush talk about "bringing democracy to the people of Iraq", remember that it was the CIA that installed the Ba'ath Party in Baghdad from which emerged Saddam Hussein.

YELLOW: Tony Blair and George Bush

"That was my favourite coup," said the CIA man responsible. When you next hear Blair and Bush talking about a "smoking gun" in Iraq, ask why the US government last December confiscated the 12,000 pages of Iraq's weapons declaration, saying they contained "sensitive information" which needed "a
little editing".

Sensitive indeed. The original Iraqi documents listed 150 American, British and other foreign companies that supplied Iraq with its nuclear, chemical and missile technology, many of them in illegal transactions. In 2000 Peter Hain, then a Foreign Office Minister, blocked a parliamentary request to publish the full list of lawbreaking British companies. He has never explained why.

As a reporter of many wars I am constantly aware that words on the page like these can seem almost abstract, part of a great chess game unconnected to people's lives.

The most vivid images I carry make that connection. They are the end result of orders given far away by the likes of Bush and Blair, who never see, or would have the courage to see, the effect of their actions on ordinary lives: the blood on their hands.

Let me give a couple of examples. Waves of B52 bombers will be used in the attack on Iraq. In Vietnam, where more than a million people were killed in the American invasion of the 1960s, I once watched three ladders of bombs curve in the sky, falling from B52s flying in formation, unseen above the clouds.

They dropped about 70 tons of explosives that day in what was known as the "long box" pattern, the military term for carpet bombing. Everything inside a "box" was presumed destroyed.

When I reached a village within the "box", the street had been replaced by a crater. I slipped on the severed shank of a buffalo and fell hard into a ditch filled with pieces of limbs and the intact bodies of children thrown into the air by the blast.

The children's skin had folded back, like parchment, revealing veins and burnt flesh that seeped blood, while the eyes, intact, stared straight ahead. A small leg had been so contorted by the blast that the foot seemed to be growing from a shoulder. I vomited. I am being purposely graphic. This is what I saw, and often; yet even in that "media war" I never saw images of these grotesque sights on television or in the pages of a newspaper.

I saw them only pinned on the wall of news agency offices in Saigon as a kind of freaks' gallery. SOME years later I often came upon terribly deformed Vietnamese children in villages where American aircraft had sprayed a herbicide called Agent Orange.

It was banned in the United States, not surprisingly for it contained Dioxin, the deadliest known poison.

This terrible chemical weapon, which the cliche-mongers would now call a weapon of mass destruction, was dumped on almost half of South Vietnam.

Today, as the poison continues to move through water and soil and food, children continue to be born without palates and chins and scrotums or are stillborn. Many have leukaemia.

You never saw these children on the TV news then; they were too hideous for their pictures, the evidence of a great crime, even to be pinned up on a wall and they are old news now.

That is the true face of war. Will you be shown it by satellite when Iraq is attacked? I doubt it.

I was starkly reminded of the children of Vietnam when I travelled in Iraq two years ago. A paediatrician showed me hospital wards of children similarly deformed: a phenomenon unheard of prior to the Gulf war in 1991.

She kept a photo album of those who had died, their smiles undimmed on grey little faces. Now and then she would turn away and wipe her eyes.

More than 300 tons of depleted uranium, another weapon of mass destruction, were fired by American aircraft and tanks and possibly by the British.

Many of the rounds were solid uranium which, inhaled or ingested, causes cancer. In a country where dust carries everything, swirling through markets and playgrounds, children are especially vulnerable.

For 12 years Iraq has been denied specialist equipment that would allow its engineers to decontaminate its southern battlefields.

It has also been denied equipment and drugs that would identify and treat the cancer which, it is estimated, will affect almost half the population in the south.

LAST November Jeremy Corbyn MP asked the Junior Defence Minister Adam Ingram what stocks of weapons containing depleted uranium were held by British forces operating in Iraq.

His robotic reply was: "I am withholding details in accordance with
Exemption 1 of the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information."

Let us be clear about what the Bush-Blair attack will do to our fellow human beings in a country already stricken by an embargo run by America and Britain and aimed not at Saddam Hussein but at the civilian population, who are denied even vaccines for the children. Last week the Pentagon in Washington announced matter of factly that it intended to shatter Iraq "physically, emotionally and psychologically" by raining down on its people
800 cruise missiles in two days.

This will be more than twice the number of missiles launched during the entire 40 days of the 1991 Gulf War.

A military strategist named Harlan Ullman told American television: "There will not be a safe place in Baghdad. The sheer size of this has never been seen before, never been contemplated before."

The strategy is known as Shock and Awe and Ullman is apparently its proud inventor. He said: "You have this simultaneous effect, rather like the nuclear weapons at Hiroshima, not taking days or weeks but minutes."

What will his "Hiroshima effect" actually do to a population of whom almost half are children under the age of 14?

The answer is to be found in a "confidential" UN document, based on World Health Organisation estimates, which says that "as many as 500,000 people could require treatment as a result of direct and indirect injuries".

A Bush-Blair attack will destroy "a functioning primary health care system" and deny clean water to 39 per cent of the population. There is "likely [to be] an outbreak of diseases in epidemic if not pandemic proportions".

It is Washington's utter disregard for humanity, I believe, together with Blair's lies that have turned most people in this country against them, including people who have not protested before.

Last weekend Blair said there was no need for the UN weapons inspectors to find a "smoking gun" for Iraq to be attacked.

Compare that with his reassurance in October 2001 that there would be no "wider war" against Iraq unless there was "absolute evidence" of Iraqi complicity in September 11. And there has been no evidence.

[Mr Sleep]

continued...

Blair's deceptions are too numerous to list here. He has lied about the nature and effect of the embargo on Iraq by covering up the fact that Washington, with Britain's support, is withholding more than $5billion worth of humanitarian supplies approved by the Security Council.

He has lied about Iraq buying aluminium tubes, which he told Parliament were "needed to enrich uranium". The International Atomic Energy Agency has denied this outright.

He has lied about an Iraqi "threat", which he discovered only following September 11 2001 when Bush made Iraq a gratuitous target of his "war on terror". Blair's "Iraq dossier" has been mocked by human rights groups.

However, what is wonderful is that across the world the sheer force of public opinion isolates Bush and Blair and their lemming, John Howard in Australia.

So few people believe them and support them that The Guardian this week went in search of the few who do - "the hawks". The paper published a list of celebrity warmongers, some apparently shy at describing their contortion of intellect and morality. It is a small list.

IN CONTRAST the majority of people in the West, including the United States, are now against this gruesome adventure and the numbers grow every day.

It is time MPs joined their constituents and reclaimed the true authority of parliament. MPs like Tam Dalyell, Alice Mahon, Jeremy Corbyn and George Galloway have stood alone for too long on this issue and there have been too many sham debates manipulated by Downing Street.

If, as Galloway says, a majority of Labour backbenchers are against an attack, let them speak up now.

Blair's figleaf of a "coalition" is very important to Bush and only the
moral power of the British people can bring the troops home without them firing a shot.

The consequences of not speaking out go well beyond an attack on Iraq. Washington will effectively take over the Middle East, ensuring an age of terrorism other than their own.

The next American attack is likely to be Iran - the Israelis want this - and their aircraft are already in place in Turkey. Then it may be China's turn.

"Endless war" is Vice-President Cheney's contribution to our understanding.

Bush has said he will use nuclear weapons "if necessary". On March 26 last Geoffrey Hoon said that other countries "can be absolutely confident that in the right conditions we would be willing to use our nuclear weapons".

Such madness is the true enemy. What's more, it is right here at home and you, the British people, can stop it.

I can't say I support him but he is pretty outspoken.

[fable]

Bush's State of the Union speech last night was reminiscent of that other great moment in 1938 when Hitler called his generals together and told them: "I must have war." He then had it.

This is unseemly and disgusting. I am no fan of the Bush administration (surprise, surprise), but I take great exception to the typical debating trick of referencing an event from an opponent's present and tying it to a similiar event in a hated figure's past. Bush is a manipulative liar and an ideologue. This does not make him one of the most a diseased paranoid with the blood of millions on his hands.

[Mr Sleep]

Originally posted by fable
Bush's State of the Union speech last night was reminiscent of that other great moment in 1938 when Hitler called his generals together and told them: "I must have war." He then had it.

This is unseemly and disgusting. I am no fan of the Bush administration (surprise, surprise), but I take great exception to the typical debating trick of referencing an event from an opponent's present and tying it to a similiar event in a hated figure's past. Bush is a manipulative liar and an ideologue. This does not make him one of the most a diseased paranoid with the blood of millions on his hands.

I agree, his facts are mostly correct I really don't see the need to compare (even by association) Hitler to Bush, they are in quite obviously different situations and are quite obviously different people.

[RandomThug]

Interesting read mr sleep, it comes across with a punch.

I truly enjoy reading your posts (to all symers) I actually at times refer to it as "listning" to your posts because of the feeling I get when I learn something new, almost as if your talking to me.

Now I definitly agree with fable and can tell that the man who wrote that let too much of his anger seep through his work, non the less the article has brought things to my attention I did not know of before, such things that make me want to study into them.

I fear no man nor no fate that shall befall me for all is as written. By that I mean: Life is life **** happens and eventually I will die so I will just enjoy my days as much as I can and try to better myself, my family , my friends and my community. Which leaves me as a non participant in global affairs. I dont know what to make of this post... outside of my confusion right now I can clearly see myself wondering "Why" such horrible things could be let free.

Then again I do continue to spout my belief on how man is just a beast, is it true then we are evil beasts? For in the world I see there are much more motivated evil men than there are good.

Im confused this post may or may not make sense I just got out of a car accident and am currently a little tipsy turvy.

Go redskins.

[Mr Sleep]

Originally posted by RandomThug
I just got out of a car accident and am currently a little tipsy turvy.

Are you okay? I think you need a good shot of whisk(e)y and some sleep, you don't need the spoutings of some "journolist".

To be honest I wouldn't have posted something like that on this website if it was my own thoughts but he is a respected journo so I thought it might make for some interesting reading. Like I said, I don't agree with all of what he says, still it put some of it in perspective.

[RandomThug]

Oh @Sleep I am fine. My boss just lost traction on the back end of his Integra and we went a slippin and a sliden into to some curbs at about 50 mph.

And for that level of reading at my current state, well lets just say when Im freaked out I dive into Hunter S. Thompson... so I am fine.

Your right though about the journo having spots that seem too much, but other spots that seem rather dead on.. the dead highlighted.

[Mr Sleep]

Originally posted by RandomThug
Oh @Sleep I am fine. My boss just lost traction on the back end of his Integra and we went a slippin and a sliden into to some curbs at about 50 mph.

Glad to hear it was nothing more serious

And for that level of reading at my current state, well lets just say when Im freaked out I dive into Hunter S. Thompson... so I am fine.

How reassuring

Your right though about the journo having spots that seem too much, but other spots that seem rather dead on.. the dead highlighted.

The trick I think with journolism is to present the facts and just the facts, all to often journos feel they have to give their opinions, which are so often unecessary or inflammatory.

[RandomThug]

The trick I think with journolism is to present the facts and just the facts, all to often journos feel they have to give their opinions, which are so often unecessary or inflammatory.

Such is the reason why I love Hunter S. Thompson, aka Gonzo Journalism. Sure he adds to his stuff but the man enters the scene rather than reporting about it.

Heh.. .. .. no more big talky talky today.

[Mr Sleep]

Originally posted by RandomThug
Such is the reason why I love Hunter S. Thompson, aka Gonzo Journalism. Sure he adds to his stuff but the man enters the scene rather than reporting about it.

Heh.. .. .. no more big talky talky today.

I really should get around to reading some of his stuff

[RandomThug]

I'd advise to start small, no Great Shark Hunt untill you've hit up his fear and loathings.

For a great piece of fiction work he wrote try "The Rum Diary"

great book.

One that will definitly tickle someones fancy is "Hells Angels" book he did... trip.

[Mr Sleep]

Originally posted by RandomThug
I'd advise to start small, no Great Shark Hunt untill you've hit up his fear and loathings.

That's probably where I would start, after all I have seen the film so I won't be completely lost.

[RandomThug]

Hopefully you loved the film.

The book definitly is better.

The Rum Diary is being made into a movie aswell staring, guess who Johnny Depp.

Definitly going to be on my top 10 ever list.

btw WAR WAR WAR WAR WAR


spam

[InfiniteNature]

Interesting conversation all, sidenote, the nukes which were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not dropped to save American lives, that was the cover story, the Japanese were already suing for peace before all that happened. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not military targets, but purely civilian targets. No the main reason nukes were dropped was to scare of the Russians.

Also the election was not won by Bush, but by Gore, they did a recount a while back which declared Gore the winner, but old news, the majority of Americans did not vote for Bush, is that really demoracy.

Incidently it has often been the assertion that to say something bad about the US means you are automatically unpatriotic, unAmerican if you think our President is bad if you even remotely critically then you are committing something akin to treason, funny I thought in the US there was something called Freedom of Speech, remarkable how this only applied to those who say the right things, in any case there are some in this country who think it is our patriotic duty to make this country a better place, and you do this by criticizing not by blind acceptance of what the government or the media or what your religion tells you, but by seeing the truth not ignoring it and in consequence building a better country, making sure that mistakes and problems are not repeated.

As to the war in Iraq, there are many different reasons why it is a stupid idea. I'll name some of them, why is Saddam any more important then any other tin pot dictator who kills of his people and we support, well what does he have that other tin pot dictators do not have oil. Two the military reasons don't make sense, its kind of funny the Joint Chiefs who understand military matters don't support the war, while the chickenhawks who undestand nothing of war do i.e. Cheney and Bush. Three there is not international suport, four what to do afterwards, people sorta gloss over that part, five what are consequences from starting a war in that sector, six why Iraq rather then North Korea who has proven to have WMDs and is much more unstable, Seven the reasons why Bush is prosecuting this war seem less then noble i.e. greed and trying to deflect attention from his screwed up domestic policies and his failure on the war on Terrorism. Reasons why Bush wants war on Iraq, large oil reserves, easy to attack i.e. American soldiers will not get killed like they likely will in NK, and because all his other policies have screwed up why not try the proven solution to start a war to direct attention away from the real issues, be patriotic go to war ignore why you go to war and incidently those pesty problems which I have gotten you all into, don't use your brains believe what I tell you, I mean I am the President after all I'm always right, funny Bushy reminds me of a certain other president who told us the same thing who was it oh yeah Nixon.

Incidently while the American armed forces have a lot of gadgets, their armed forces themselves are as yet untested, point one the U.S. uses gadgets to preserve its superiority, I'm not saying that American troops are not well trained just saying that they are unproven in any war. Perhaps my faith in the armed forces would be better if we spent less on gadgets then on actually paying the soldiers more, which is ignored, why spend so much on silly fighter planes and new aircraft carriers if our soldiers are on food stamps, apparently the US likes its gadgets more then it likes its soldiers, this is a problem as gadgets will not always solve the problem, Drone aircraft for example are vulnerable to EMP based weaponary(new research has allowed for nonnuclear EMPs), and this is the new way the US wants to fight its wars. US troops are not trained as yet effectively in urban warfare.

One other point before I go, the casulty levels in the Gulf War were much higher then reported. There were actually 100, 000 casulties, by casulties I don't mean deaths I mean veterans who were affected by Gulf War Syndrome, something the Pentagon for years denied but fairly recently accepted existed. Many reasons why GWS exists, everything from Depleted Uranium shells to Anthrax vaccinations, all of which were produced by the US government, and as yet the US government has failed to provide these soldiers with disability care, how patriotic is that(many of these soldiers are paralyzed and have many other disabilieties none of which they had before the war, and in most cases there is no family or genetic cause which can be found.

In any case sorry for the longness of the post, if any of you have slogged through all this I'll reply to any arguments later on I gotta go back to work.