A 2007 Terrorist Attack To Occur

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
You mean overthrowing a dictator and the repressive Taliban?

You mean risking the lives of our sons and daughters to try to bring democracy and freedom to repressed people?

[/quote]

Amen, Saddam had a human shredder, what we did was both right and just.

[quote]Cunnivore wrote:
“Sometimes I miss…”?
How is that even possible? I thought he had the Gawdline installed? He needs to tell the big “G” that being omniscient is overrated if HE WHO IS I AM can’t even tell us where the bomb will be.

Anyway, it doesn’t take the Almighty to tell you that Muslims will try to kill people. That’s the easy part. The tough part is convincing American liberals that we really don’t deserve to get blown up.[/quote]

Ah, but we do deserve to be destroyed! Don’t you know? We’re evil because we’re basically a happy society. Happiness is evil, so we have to be destroyed.

Repent, sinner! Why? Because a religion designed by and for gangs of desert bandits says so!!!

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Cunnivore wrote:
“Sometimes I miss…”?
How is that even possible? I thought he had the Gawdline installed? He needs to tell the big “G” that being omniscient is overrated if HE WHO IS I AM can’t even tell us where the bomb will be.

Anyway, it doesn’t take the Almighty to tell you that Muslims will try to kill people. That’s the easy part. The tough part is convincing American liberals that we really don’t deserve to get blown up.

Ah, but we do deserve to be destroyed! Don’t you know? We’re evil because we’re basically a happy society. Happiness is evil, so we have to be destroyed.

Repent, sinner! Why? Because a religion designed by and for gangs of desert bandits says so!!!

[/quote]

whereever you took the turn from “they bomb, you because you bomb them like you would not not believe”, to “they hate you because you`re free, um, a happy society”…

Carry on dude, they throw dirty bombs, you detonate freedom grenades…

You see we will not pull out of the middle east, we need to stay there many more need to die. The only way we can be there is if they have won the public, another terrorist attack like 9/11. 2007 will be an exciting year

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
And any fool that believes that the murderous, manic Islamist ideology is dependent on what other people do will enjoy a slow suicide. That mindset implies that something we can do will help mitigate the ideology - absolute nonsense.

Islamists do what they do completely independent of what anyone else thinks or does. And it plays into their hands when we allow them to capitalize on our self-loathing, so popular among those that peddle the soft Marxism.[/quote]

You don’t understand what ideologies are, how they operate, how extremists gain influence, etc.

The only possible way that radical Islam could possibly “rise up” against the West is if we did everything possible to assist it…which, thus far, we’ve been doing.

Yet even then, it’s a great stretch. That’s why it isn’t hard to believe that this entire WoT crapheap is just a pretext for something else, such as a domestic police state.

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
You mean overthrowing a dictator and the repressive Taliban?

You mean risking the lives of our sons and daughters to try to bring democracy and freedom to repressed people?[/quote]

You can’t “free” an entire nation in one, decisive step. It’s just not possible. This delusion lies at the heart of post-WWII American foreign policy and can be found on either side of the political spectrum. It never has worked and it never will. It’s nothing more than a hollow justification for wars that serve special interests.

There are extremely complex socio-economic, historical, political and other factors that influence the state of the world.

There is no such thing as a “coincidence” in international politics (or any field, really). Where there appears to be a coincidence, there is, in fact, an information gap. The scientific method was created with the purpose of dealing with such gaps in a rational and practical manner. Too bad it isn’t often utilized in the “social sciences”.

For example, there are deep-routed reasons why Africa is so poor and downtrodden. You can’t “wave a wand” or send so many food shipments and hope the problem will fix itself. It just doesn’t work that way. You don’t stand a chance of “fixing” anything until you can see the big picture. And when you do see it, you’ll often find that your previous “solutions” were woefully inadequate and did more harm than good.

Likewise, there are “reasons” why oppressive regimes exist in certain parts of the world. It isn’t arbitrary. A dictator in Southeast Asia may be necessary for a free state to exist in another part of the world. Everything in the world is linked, it exists along a single continuum.

In Iraq, it can be seen that the power of a strong and brutal dictator (Saddam) was required in order to unite the 3 opposing factions that made up the so-called “country”. In the absence of his regime, the factions would rapidly descend into civil strife, as is currently the case. There is simply no other type of government for that type of situation than a dictatorship, much like Saddam’s. And there’s a reason for THAT, too. If you dig deep enough you can always find one. The reason is quite simply that Iraq was a completely artificial state, created by the British with no regards to native ethnic territories.

Everybody deals with the situation he is thrust into. Likewise, everyone tries to get ahead in whatever way he can. Scientists (including political scientists) recognize this and study the ways in which people and countries interact with one another and adapt to different circumstances. They do not view the world through a moral lens. They are not quick to villify or to patronize, they are not naive enough to think that the world can be “fixed” with a single stroke of force administered by the appropriate agent (always their own, never another’s).

The mentality that says, “America is the defender of all that is good and pure and most of the rest of the world is evil” is disgusting, immature, dangerous, and crazed. It needs to go. I say this even though I am fully aware of the fact that it isn’t going anywhere. Indeed, it’s only growing. Out of sheer principle, I still insist on saying that it needs to go.

Good and evil simply do not exist as concrete ideals, in the “real world” – outside of books and sermons. They are as artificial and subjective as fashion trends. I could readily prove this to you, step by step, in exactly the same way that one would go about formulating any other proof in mathematics or logic, but you would not buy it. Decades of brainwashing by moral ideologues have ensured that much.

I don’t expect to change the minds of any True Believers, but everything I’ve written deserves to be stated, if for no other reason than to slightly offset the tidal wave of moralist propaganda that I’m constantly subjected to.

[quote]Nominal Prospect wrote:

You don’t understand what ideologies are, how they operate, how extremists gain influence, etc.

The only possible way that radical Islam could possibly “rise up” against the West is if we did everything possible to assist it…which, thus far, we’ve been doing.

Yet even then, it’s a great stretch. That’s why it isn’t hard to believe that this entire WoT crapheap is just a pretext for something else, such as a domestic police state.[/quote]

We’ve been through your underwhelming theory a number of times in these pages. I am focused precisely on ideology.

Your claim that the only way radical Islam can only ‘rise up’ against the West is pure bunkum - you don’t even qualify why that is. Radical Islam - like other totalitarian ideologies before it - will do whatever it wants, regardless of others’ actions. It wants dominance, it will seek dominance. There are no ‘grievances’ driving it - after all, if it were such a direct cause-and-effect situation, where are the effects of the West preventing the slaughter of Muslims in the Balkans and the billions poured into Muslim states in foreign aid?

Why are radical Islamists slaughtering black Christians and animists in the Sudan - what is the ‘blowback’ theory at work there? Short answer - there isn’t one.

And as time goes by, I can never discount the intelligence of radical Islam playing on the self-loathing of the West - blaming ourselves opens up the door to many advantages: who is easiestr to conquer and fight than those who refuse to fight back, those that have lost the will to defend themselves?

Nor can I discount the idiot reactivists who are nothing more than complicit in the advancement of this totalitarian ideology.

Your main problem is that you treat “ideologies” as if they were living, breathing things. They aren’t – people are. All people have certain basic needs that need to be fulfilled. Due to this, certain political and/or economic outcomes can be predicted with near-certainty. For instance, one outcome is that people will revolt if and when there is a prolonged shortage of food. Another is that populations will always rally to fight against foreign invaders, no matter how oppressive their own governments may be.

Knowing ideology in it’s pure, abstract form is one thing. Knowing how humans create, adapt, cope with and react to ideology is entirely another. You are missing the latter, one very sizeable chunk of the puzzle.

The topics you raise necessitate an understanding of the nature of mass movements and social dynamics. In other words, how ideology is used to get the average poor schmuck in one country to hate his neighbor in some other country.

At this point, your argument pretty much rests on the belief that a significant portion of Muslims are or will be willing to give up their lives in order to advance the cause of radical Islam.

This, unfortunately, contradicts the biological certainties that I mentioned earlier. Survival is the number one imperative, ahead of even religion or ideology.

Historically, extremists come into power during extreme and/or dire circumstances. People will sacrifice much only when they have nothing to lose. That’s why extremists always exploit certain widespread grievances in order to win popular support. This is the way it has worked since the beginning of history and it isn’t going to change now.

The best way (and indeed, the only way) of “bringing up” economically and/or politically backwards nations is through free and unfettered trade. Simply by letting capitalism run it’s course, a 3rd world nation can be brought into the fold of Western democracies. This is already happening in many parts of the world, notably China and India. Invading a nation, blockading or bombing it are the worst possible courses of action, because wars are purely destructive from an economic perspective. They only destroy wealth, they do not create it.

[quote]Nominal Prospect wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
You mean overthrowing a dictator and the repressive Taliban?

You mean risking the lives of our sons and daughters to try to bring democracy and freedom to repressed people?

You can’t “free” an entire nation in one, decisive step. It’s just not possible. This delusion lies at the heart of post-WWII American foreign policy and can be found on either side of the political spectrum. It never has worked and it never will. It’s nothing more than a hollow justification for wars that serve special interests.
[/quote]

No one has this delusion. Keep attacking those strawmen!

No kidding? Unfortunately you have recently gone on record indicating that you don’t think Muslims want to spread their religion and Sharia law and the whole war on terror is just an excuse to set up a police state. Those people in East Africa have fallen right for Bush’s clever scheme. Especially where he turns over power of a police state to the Democrats.

Earth shattering but wrong. There are plenty of coincidences unless you believe in some outlandish conspiracies such as this being all part of a master plan to create a domestic police state.

Yeah, fuck those people. Let them starve.

Heavy stuff man. I am sure glad they have the dictatorship over there so we can be free here, at least until we have our police state.

Yeah, fuck those people too.

There is a word for people that do not use a moral lens. I believe it is sociopath.

On another thread I am decried because I support tactics that are not considered good and pure. I must be two-faced.

Sounds like something Hitler said, or maybe it was Stalin.

[quote]
I don’t expect to change the minds of any True Believers, but everything I’ve written deserves to be stated, if for no other reason than to slightly offset the tidal wave of moralist propaganda that I’m constantly subjected to.[/quote]

Don’t worry, you are not changing any minds, just giving us something to laugh about.

[quote]Nominal Prospect wrote:
… Another is that populations will always rally to fight against foreign invaders, no matter how oppressive their own governments may be.

…[/quote]

Remember how hard the Japanese fought against us during our occupation after WWII? It was brutal.

[quote]PGA wrote:
According to Pat Robinson…

“I have a relatively good track record,” he said. “Sometimes I miss.”

[/quote]

Sometimes I miss? The guy claims to be talking to God. How can he miss?

Something gets lost in the translation from Hebrew?

How can you miss when you’re talking to God? Did God miss? Did Pat miss?

We must get to the bottom of this ! ! !

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Nominal Prospect wrote:
… Another is that populations will always rally to fight against foreign invaders, no matter how oppressive their own governments may be.

Remember how hard the Japanese fought against us during our occupation after WWII? It was brutal.[/quote]

You were wise enough not to hang the emperor.

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
Beowolf wrote:

Quoted for truth.

It’s not that we deserve it, it’s that we (somewhat) caused it.

And any fool that believes that the murderous, manic Islamist ideology is dependent on what other people do will enjoy a slow suicide. That mindset implies that something we can do will help mitigate the ideology - absolute nonsense.

Islamists do what they do completely independent of what anyone else thinks or does. And it plays into their hands when we allow them to capitalize on our self-loathing, so popular among those that peddle the soft Marxism.[/quote]

Cause and effect, it wreaks havoc on your world view doesn’t it?

You hate it with everything you have in you, don’t you? The logic is horrible.

How dare someone suggest you are accountable for the consequences of your actions. You’re quite right not to stand for it. What will be next?

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
No one has this delusion. Keep attacking those strawmen![/quote]

Bullshit. Those notions come straight out of the national security strategy and other official documents/positions held by the government.

It is the policy of the United States to seek and support democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss/2006/sectionI.html

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
No kidding? Unfortunately you have recently gone on record indicating that you don’t think Muslims want to spread their religion and Sharia law and the whole war on terror is just an excuse to set up a police state. Those people in East Africa have fallen right for Bush’s clever scheme. Especially where he turns over power of a police state to the Democrats.[/quote]

I never claimed to know either of those things with certainty. I have stated simply that they were relatively plausible. For the record, I think the pope wants to spread Christianity. I think the Grand Wizard of Scientology would like to spread that religion. And yes, I think that fundamentalist Muslim clerics would also like to see their ideology spread throughout the world. What I’m not willing to commit is the blind certainty on the part of some neocons that any of these groups would necessarily be willing to sacrifice themselves wholesale in order to advance their ideologies. There is simply no evidence for the latter assumption; it goes against human nature and against the facts.

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Earth shattering but wrong. There are plenty of coincidences unless you believe in some outlandish conspiracies such as this being all part of a master plan to create a domestic police state.[/quote]

How do you deal with the unknown, or the not-yet-known? That is the what lies at the root of this issue. To call something a “coincidence” is to put it into a definitive existential category. You are saying, in effect, that there can be NO causal explanation for an event, that it is purely and unalterably “random”. Yet what happens when a causal explanation surfaces, after all? Then you no longer have a coincidence. Which makes the term nearly worthless, in the first place. Hence: there are no coincidences, there are only events for which there have not yet been identified any plausible causalities. This is the mindset of a scientist versus the mindset of the average person.

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote
Yeah, fuck those people. Let them starve.[/quote]

No, they will starve anyways, regardless of whether you fuck them, hate them, love them or completely ignore them. They will continue to starve and die even if you and everyone you know commits the rest of his life to working to support them. That’s the point I’m making. You can’t change the situation. In order for Africa to truly be saved, it would take nothing less than the economic ruin of a modern, Western nation. So, now that you know the real stakes, are you willing to let America become a 3rd world nation in order to “bring up” the current 3rd world nations? Most people wouldn’t play the game if they knew the actual stakes. Needless to say, most people don’t know the stakes.

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Heavy stuff man. I am sure glad they have the dictatorship over there so we can be free here, at least until we have our police state.[/quote]

You would have no conception of what a “dictatorship” is if every nation in the world shared the Western standard of living and form of government. Conversely, you could be living under a dictatorship and have no idea how “bad” you had it if there were no existing democracies. This is all relativism of course. Relativism gets a very bad rap in the social sciences. So much so that there was even a dedicated school of political ideology designed to combat it: egalitarianism, also known as Marxism. Without relativism, that’s the only place you can end up.

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Yeah, fuck those people too.[/quote]

Who fucked who? We did when we supported Hussein’s regime in the 80’s. The British did when they created the country. Someone else did before that. Each of the groups has alternately been fucking the others for as long as they’ve been there. Once again, you have a situation that simply cannot be “fixed”, a knot that cannot be tied, if you will. What is the point of intervening in a situation like that? The only thing you can possibly do is change the balance of power and let some other group get fucked, for a change. This is “progress”? No, this is a joke. Leave them be and let the situation sort itself out. Ultimately, the only way this can possibly occur is if one group amasses enough power to wipe out the others. Sorry, but that’s reality. That is how the world works. Look at every single culture today (especially the powerful ones) and trace it’s path to it’s current position. Would America be the world’s superpower if we were still fighting the Indians for control of the continent? Hell no, we wiped out the Indians and THEN we became #1. I can’t stress enough that this is very essence of all international relations – it cannot be changed, it is forever set in stone.

Also: Where in the Constitution does it grant authority to the government to run around and try to solve the world’s problems? Or is it a “universal law”? If so, then why not let, say, China, try to solve America’s drug trafficking problems? And perhaps Sweden could justify a military occupation of the US mainland in order to help reduce the crime rates? Don’t you see how absurd and hypocritical this whole concept is? These analogies are perfectly valid. If they won’t drill the point home to you, nothing will.

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
There is a word for people that do not use a moral lens. I believe it is sociopath.[/quote]

Yes, and unfortunately, there are academic fields for idiots who feel inclined to play with advanced concepts. These include psychology/sociology, “political science”, all of the “social sciences”, and many others.

“Sociopath” is a meaningless and subjective term that is the creation of the mental health cult in this country. The psychological establishment and everything it represents is religion, not science. Given the axiom that faith is stupidity (Robert Anton Wilson), I don’t feel at all inclined to defend myself or my arguments against such tripe.

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
On another thread I am decried because I support tactics that are not considered good and pure. I must be two-faced.[/quote]

According to the neocon mindset, everything that America does is “good and pure” by default. That’s what needs to go. Obviously, the recipients of America’s “goodness and purity” often describe it in slightly different terms.

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Sounds like something Hitler said, or maybe it was Stalin.[/quote]

And they were two of the most powerful individuals in the world during their time (indeed, in all of history), so that goes to show you that there is a great deal of truth to the statements, although you will never see it if you hide behind your cloak of morality. Stalin and Hitler, like all humans ever born, were simply taking advantage of the circumstances particular to their time and place. If it hadn’t been them, it would have been someone else – because the circumstances permitted it. But by demonizing certain individuals as “living incarnations of pure evil”, you conveniently ignore the empirical circumstances which allowed those individuals to commit their acts. So, if you want to ensure that there will always be nascent Hitlers and Stalins in the world, simply treat each one as a “spawn of Satan” and make no effort to understand the real-world circumstances that allowed them to come to power and do what they did.

Three cheers for Christianity and it’s political disciple, neoconservatism!

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Don’t worry, you are not changing any minds, just giving us something to laugh about.[/quote]

I’m fine with that because I’m also getting entertainment out of this. So it’s a mutually beneficial exchange. Capitalism.

[quote]Wreckless wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
Nominal Prospect wrote:
… Another is that populations will always rally to fight against foreign invaders, no matter how oppressive their own governments may be.

Remember how hard the Japanese fought against us during our occupation after WWII? It was brutal.

You were wise enough not to hang the emperor.[/quote]

Indeed, I would have said as much, along with the fact that they had attacked first (despite having been deliberately provoked by the FDR admin in order to bring America into WWII).

[quote]Wreckless wrote:
How can you miss when you’re talking to God?[/quote]

Maybe he should get a second opinion from Allah?

[quote]Nominal Prospect wrote:
Your main problem is that you treat “ideologies” as if they were living, breathing things. They aren’t – people are. All people have certain basic needs that need to be fulfilled. Due to this, certain political and/or economic outcomes can be predicted with near-certainty. For instance, one outcome is that people will revolt if and when there is a prolonged shortage of food. Another is that populations will always rally to fight against foreign invaders, no matter how oppressive their own governments may be.[/quote]

Well, first of all, you merely ascribe my position of ‘ideology’ to me, as if we were discussing that. We weren’t.

Second, people have basic needs - and as human nature has demonstrated over and over, they are often very irrational, non-materialist needs, such as envy, honor, and status. These can be completely independent of material needs - and your boneheaded ‘prediction of certainty’ wouldn’t cover a fraction of these problems, so spare me the anarcho-capitalist pamphleteering.

This is a meaningless abstraction, but to address it, ideology in practice is precisely what I am concerned about.

Oddly, your libertarian fantasises are the stuff of pure ideology and abstraction - no human society has ever practiced the silliness you subscribe to - so how exactly can you lecture on the importance of living your way while having exactly zero earthly implementation of said ideology and theory?

Pedestrain analysis seems to be your calling card.

Actually, it doesn’t, and you keep screwing it up - radical Muslims don’t give up their lives to advance the cause of radical Islam because that is the only option available. Typical military confrontation is out of the question - of the suicide bombers had F-16s, they would use them.

My argument rests on the idea that radical Islamic ideology and the people that practice it are not ‘reactionaries’ that otherwise would not engage in their ghastly practices if only we all left them alone, or better yet, opened out arms to embrace them in a big smoochfest. My argument rests on the nature of clutures clashing.

Nonsense - human beings have consistently shown a desire to give up themselves in the name of a higher calling, and that transcends cultures and eras. Any person who marches off to war considers the fact that he might die for his cause - persons even consider this before they enlist. Survival is important, but your overall view is frighteningly naive - human beings aren’t and never were pure materialist rationalists. Pretending they are might get you hurt one day - after all, such gullibility makes for good prey.

A ridiculous claim, refuted by even the most cursory inspection of basic history.

Why then are the radical Islamists that attacked the US on 9-11 all university-educated Muslims enjoying the benefits of the gratification-oriented US? Why did they not ‘convert’ once they got over here and started living it up, no longer in the throes of poverty, neglect, and lack of opportunity?

Foolish claims. Embarrasing.

It can certainly help, but again you show your naivete. China has experienced a wealth surge, but are its people free and enjoying civil liberty? Unfettered trade does not deliver us a determinist paradise - it can help, but all trade is political, and wealth can be used to augment a totalitarian concept. The Chinese are merely learning from the playbook of the Cold War that command economies can’t match the war machine of a capitalist economy. China loves free trade only insofar as it helps them arm themselves. All while you gleefully promote this theoretical trade model as the liberator of all mankind, the real things that go bump in the night in the world are using your theories against you.

But in theory it makes everyone happier, taller, sexier, and world peace just busts out all over!!!

[quote]Nominal Prospect wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
No one has this delusion. Keep attacking those strawmen!

Bullshit. Those notions come straight out of the national security strategy and other official documents/positions held by the government.

It is the policy of the United States to seek and support democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss/2006/sectionI.html

…[/quote]

You forgot to include your original statememt:

[quote]
You can’t “free” an entire nation in one, decisive step. It’s just not possible. This delusion lies at the heart of post-WWII American foreign policy and can be found on either side of the political spectrum. It never has worked and it never will. It’s nothing more than a hollow justification for wars that serve special interests. [/quote]

I see nothing in our national policy that says anything about freeing a nation in one decisive step.

You are the one full of bullshit. Once again you are attacking a strawman.

Our intention is to support democracy wherever we can, not in a one time step like you are claiming. The fact that we have been fighting this war for a few years should indicate to you that we do not view it as a one step process.

The rest of the crap you have posted is just sheer idiocy.

To paraphrase your arguments.
“Dictatorships and sociopaths are just words man, just labels.”

Wow. Real deep and thoughtful.

[quote]pookie wrote:
Wreckless wrote:
How can you miss when you’re talking to God?

Maybe he should get a second opinion from Allah?
[/quote]

Pat said later in the year, watch it happen earlier in the year. That’s how false flag government sponsored terror usually work.

[quote]jlesk68 wrote:
Pat said later in the year, watch it happen earlier in the year. That’s how false flag government sponsored terror usually work.[/quote]

Actually, Robertson can’t lose. If anything happens during the year, he’ll claim credit for predicting it. If nothing happens, then he’ll claim God decided to give us another chance; or some other bullshit excuse. Either way, he gets tons of free publicity.