Michele Bachmann: Spectacle or Prophet?

[MF Perm tha Fineass]

whether it's "pinned" on the right or not, the fact is Christians are fucked up too and not just muslims. generalizing is bad, saying muslims want to destroy america is completely retarded with that in mind.

christians are not better than muslims

christians are doing a better job destroying america anyways lol

[Leif]

I'm educating you about the US involvement in Central/Latin America. You will only get my perspective on this bit of history. My sources. Etc.

No, as you so put it, you're scanning books and pages and claiming you've made and argument.

Tell me what your points are and I will be happy to respond to them. You don't get to copy-paste a book onto a forum and say "respond to this. if you don't you lose."


And if you're still going with the "I've done that already, I refuse", humor me once and do it again. If we go along with your story, all you should have to do it copy-paste what you've already written.

christians are doing a better job destroying america anyways lol

They built America. Christians support the family unit, morals, and personal responsibility.

Liberals don't.

[Correction]

No, as you so put it, you're scanning books and pages and claiming you've made and argument.

You said:

Yes, because the other "religious crazies" don't kill people like Muslims do.

Which, in the context of the support Pat Robertson's televangelist army for scores dead under the rule of Efrain Rios Montt, is wrong. They kill people just like Muslims do, with a crazed sort of religious justification for the violence, and an attempt to segregate Muslim violence as barbaric simply because they don't use the 700 Club to wage it is two-faced.

He also provided ample evidence that radical Zionists are responsible for scores dead, again based on 'god gave me this land,' etc. etc.

'But they aren't blowing up our buildings in america!' is your typical retort, but when you look at the state of American interests in South/Central America and the Middle East, the damage their activities cause (remember the word blowback?) is comparable. The argument is that the terrorist tactics just make easier to digest news, pretty bullet lists for you to jerk off to, etc. An examination of other types of radicalism require critical thinking about manipulations of different types of power structures but result in just as much death and suffering. At the end of the day you can't ignore one and call the other barbaric as an excuse to label it as subhuman, worthy of nothing but jail and death.

you also said

What negative effects of religion on politics?

If we only talk about Islam then we might have a discussion, but religion?

Which is hilariously lacking your precious evidence and sources for proper debate, especially in light of Elvis's presentation.

[Kuya]

I need to go peddle a kill the gays bill in some country in Africa.

[Correction]

I need to go peddle a kill the gays bill in some country in Africa.

Better hurry while supplies last

[Beckwin]

I don’t have the bandwidth to check the actual deaths in those 3 mini wars, but I wouldn’t say the death toll was in the millions for them (I may be wrong). And following the trend for WW1 -> WW2, WW3 could have been HUNDREDS of millions. By that logic, nuclear weapons reduced the death toll by 99% or greater via transformation of global wars into proxy battles of tactical economic pressure.

First off: Vietnam death toll ranges from 2.5 to 5 million. Up to you if you want to add in the Khmer Rouge's 1.7 to 3 million.

Data for Iraq2:
Source Iraqi casualties March 2003 to... Iraq Family Health Survey 151,000 violent deaths. June 2006 Lancet survey 601,027 violent deaths out of 654,965 excess deaths. June 2006 Opinion Research Business survey 1,033,000 violent deaths as a result of the conflict. August 2007 Associated Press 110,600 violent deaths April 2009 Iraq Body Count 94,902 – 103,549 violent civilian deaths as a result of the conflict. December 2009sauce: wiki

That's not including the first Iraq war nor the results of sanctions/bombings during the Clinton years.

Afghanistan looks to be over 10k civilian deaths. Up to you how you want to count what's classed as "militants" and if you want to consider coalition/contractor deaths as well.

The argument that nuclear weapons saved 100s of millions of lives is a purely theoretical one. There's nothing to say for sure to say that a WWIII would've happened like you're imagining; in fact the lethality of a potential WWIII was motivated and created by the arms race. However, the important fact to note here, is that we didn't use nuclear weapons to save lives. We potentially saved lives, and certainly deterred major military action against us, by not using them.

This is a nice segue into your comment about making sure the Chinese can't dominate our airpower/defenses, navy, etc. that's a fair argument and one I'd somewhat agree with, however, making sure the Chinese can't steamroll us is mutually exclusive from actively using that same technology to (fairly indiscriminately, at times) bomb the fuck out of third world countries who pose little threat to us, if any at all (see: Iraq).

So, Neo, I don't think you are trying to kill little baby Awkmed. I don't think your boss or your boss's boss is trying to either. I think that in general, military ethics have improved since the Vietnam era, aside from several documented incidents. But the decisions from the very top (even if that's just the bosses of the military itself, if that makes you feel better) clearly do not demonstrate much care for innocent/ignorant lives.

And now I think our discussion arrives at the next question: does the use of our highly-advanced military technology and our projection of military power keep us safer and save lives, or does it instigate animosity and violence toward us in certain regions?

You might be able to claim that new tech means Afghanistan won't have the civilian death toll of Vietnam, but can you really say that this prolonged action in Afghanistan is going to the heart of the problem?

However, Ive directly seen such intel acted on (good intel on location of an insurgent leader), had that leader killed, and saw a direct decrease in enemy activity (IEDs/small armed fire) by about 80% for weeks due to that attack (directly resulting in a 20-30% decrease in lives lost).

The question is, was the leader/enemy activity replaced after those weeks?

[Leif]

Which, in the context of the support Pat Robertson's televangelist army for scores dead under the rule of Efrain Rios Montt, is wrong.

This does not make sense. This is not a sentence. I honestly cannot comprehend the point you are trying to make here.

They kill people just like Muslims do, with a crazed sort of religious justification for the violence, and an attempt to segregate Muslim violence as barbaric simply because they don't use the 700 Club to wage it is two-faced.

I don't know of evidence of [whoever "they" is] killing people like Muslims.

He also provided ample evidence that radical Zionists are responsible for scores dead, again based on 'god gave me this land,' etc. etc.

Who is "he"?

'But they aren't blowing up our buildings in america!' is your typical retort, but when you look at the state of American interests in South/Central America and the Middle East, the damage their activities cause (remember the word blowback?) is comparable.

Really? How so? (This question is answered with evidence.)

The argument is that the terrorist tactics just make easier to digest news, pretty bullet lists for you to jerk off to, etc. An examination of other types of radicalism require critical thinking about manipulations of different types of power structures but result in just as much death and suffering. At the end of the day you can't ignore one and call the other barbaric as an excuse to label it as subhuman, worthy of nothing but jail and death.

This doesn't really make sense unless you explain the other stuff you posted.

Which is hilariously lacking your precious evidence and sources for proper debate, especially in light of Elvis's presentation.

His presentation was so good that you were able to easily understand the material and put together a coherent argument with complete sentences and ideas!

Boy, sarcasm is fun!

[Correction]

You said 'quote' which in the context of Elvis' posts about Pat Robertson and the religious' right's complicity/support for a civil war massacre, is wrong.

Don't blame me for your illiteracy.

[Leif]

You said 'quote' which in the context of Elvis' posts about Pat Robertson and the religious' right's complicity/support for a civil war massacre, is wrong.

Don't blame me for your illiteracy.

I don't know what you're talking about. I haven't used the word "quote" in many posts.

Please make me not stupid.

[Correction]

Please make me not stupid.

I wish I could, I really do, but now that we've reached the 'I'm not reading your posts but I'll make fun of your grammar even after the structure is spelled out' stage you're probably completely out of trolling ammunition anyway.

[Leif]

I'm getting really tired of this stupid discussion.

I just have one question. Are you going to post an argument or not?


Respond to this anyway you want. Return it with an insult or an accusation that I keep avoiding debate. Whatever.

It's not worth it to keep coming back to this thread looking for something to respond to. So I'll come back once more and then I'll go away until an actual argument is posted.

[Kuya]

Leif, what do you think, is the right way to call it soda or pop?

[Correction]

What negative effects of religion on politics?

If we only talk about Islam then we might have a discussion, but religion?

Everthing stems from this. You single out Islam as holding some monopoly on negatively impacting the politics of a state. Elvis provided two very solid examples in the Middle East and in Central America where extremist Christian and Zionist interests, with equal religious fervor, proved disastrous for the politics of each region respectively, resulting in countless civilian deaths.

Basically, you were wrong when you wrote this. There isn't anything special about Christianity or Judaism that makes them 'good' for politics while Islam is 'bad' for politics. You keep circling around for some 'evidence' or arguments but Elvis gave you what he had and you still rejected it. At this point I doubt anything short of literally shoving your face in the corpses of those killed in the last 50 years in the name/with the blessing of radicalized Christians/Jews is going to convince you. Religion is terrible for politics, stop trying to demonize just that one you don't like in order to justify treating them as barbaric subhumans unworthy of anything other than death or a cage in Guantanamo. But for the happy accident that Jews/Christians have protected legal processes that have immunized them from the same criticism or media coverage levied at radical islam, they'd all be imprisoned in Guantanamo.

[6souls]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vh-ob24hC5o
The Michele Bachmann Rap

http://biasedliberalmedia.com/sitebu...g.w560h849.jpg

http://biasedliberalmedia.com/sitebu...g.w560h280.jpg

http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j1...7/bachman6.jpg

the incident that made her (in)famous (April, 2005)

Today Minnesota Senator Michele Bachmann thought it would be fun to circumvent the Senate Committee process and force a floor vote of the amendment to end domestic partnerships, and ban civil unions and same-sex marriage while we were outside rallying for our rights. Even Senate Republicans thought it was in poor taste to try to go around Senate rules on the same day GLBT citizens were making their voice heard. Her move was overwhelmingly defeated:

"The state Senate on Thursday rejected an effort to force a floor vote on a constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage as thousands of ban opponents rallied outside the Capitol. Sen. Michele Bachmann, the Stillwater Republican who's led the push for the ban, said Senate Democrats have denied her repeated efforts to get the bill heard. Senate leaders countered that Bachmann, a candidate for the U.S. House, is flouting Senate rules to advance her own political career. At the same time, about 2,500 gays, lesbians and their supporters attended a rally on the Capitol grounds just a few hundred yards away, organized by OutFront Minnesota."

After the move didn't pan out, Michele took to hiding in the bushes to watch the queers rally. A reader tip:

"I know you're no fan of Michele. And therefore, you might be
interested in a few pics I took at the JustFair rally on Thursday of
her hiding behind the bushes watching us from afar before I scared her away with the camera."

http://mielikkisrealm.files.wordpres...hes1-thumb.jpg
http://www.first-draft.com/images/20...bachmann_4.jpg

In 1993, Bachmann helped open the New Heights Charter School in Stillwater, Minnesota. The school offered a standard curriculum. You know, classes like biology, algebra, and creationism. Bachmann and the board of directors advocated that the "12 Christian Principles" be taught. These are very similar to the commonly taught Bill of Rights, with the exception of the fact that teaching them violates the First Amendment. Bachmann and other school officials also refused to allow an in-school screening of "Aladdin," feeling that it endorsed witchcraft and promoted paganism.

Rep. Michele Bachmann’s Wackiest Moments

Lately, the Republican representative from Minnesota is rivaling Vice President Biden and GOP Chairman Michael Steele for inappropriate public comments. But Michele Bachmann’s “psycho-talk” began years ago—here are 12 incidents you may have missed.

She’s the gaffe-prone congresswoman who made waves last week for wondering aloud about the Democrats’ role in the swine-flu epidemic. But long before U.S. Representative Michele Bachmann became infamous for her outrageous public statements, she was just a gay-bashing, God-fearing pol from Minnesota who sometimes said and did things that caused even her fellow home-state public servants to call her assertions “psycho-talk.” From hiding in the bushes at a gay-rights rally to boasting about the marriageability of her 13-year-old daughter, Bachmann has the gift of gab that keeps on giving. Here are 12 of her greatest hits.

Spoiler: show

Her Divine Calling

Michele Bachmann has friends in high places. Pastor Mac Hammond of the Living World Christian Center, a mega-church in suburban Minneapolis, twice risked his church’s nonprofit status for Bachmann’s campaigns. When he offered her his pulpit during her first run for the House in 2006, she took the opportunity to talk about an even more powerful friend who had endorsed her candidacies: the Lord in Heaven. After God chose her husband for her and then told her she should “submit” to him (he, in turn, told her to study tax law), she says God “called me to run for the Minnesota Senate… God then called me to run for the United States Congress. And I thought, ‘What in the world would that be for?’ And my husband said, ‘You need to do this,’ and I wasn’t so sure. And we took three days, and we fasted and we prayed, and we said, ‘Lord, is this what you want? Is this your will?’ And long about the afternoon of day two, he made that calling sure.”

“False Imprisonment” by Lesbians

Shortly after sponsoring an amendment to ban same-sex marriage in April 2005, Bachmann attended a meeting at a community center in Scandia, Minnesota. At a certain point, witnesses heard a series of “piercing screams” before witnessing the congresswoman emerge from the restroom “in a crouching run” while crying, “I was being held against my will!” Bachmann filed a report with the county sheriff about two women “believed to be part of a LGBT group.” According to the report:

Bachmann said both women stood in front of the bathroom door and then one woman put her hand on top of the door and her other hand on the door handle and leaned her body weight toward the door to hold it shut. The other woman put her hand on the door as well. … [Bachmann said she] was absolutely terrified and has never been that terrorized before as she had no idea what those two women were going to do to her.

The women in question denied holding the door shut and said they were merely chatting with their local senator while waiting in line. Bachmann’s complaint was eventually dismissed.

Dr. Bachmann’s Christian Counseling Center

Perhaps Bachmann’s imprisonment scare in Scandia is connected to her husband’s Christian counseling center, Bachmann & Associates, which specializes in “men’s & women’s issues,” “abuse issues,” “spiritual issues,” and “shame.” Minneapolis’ City Pages magazine spoke to Minneapolis resident Curt Prins in 2006, who attended a Minnesota Pastors’ Summit where both Marcus and Michele Bachmann spoke:

For Marcus Bachmann's session, Prins says there were more than 100 people crammed in a room at Grace, and most of the presentation involved stereotypes of gays. "He was saying how homosexuality was a choice, that it was not genetics," Prins says. "He was claiming there was a high predominance of sexual abuse in the LGBT community. There was no research to back any of this up." (Marcus Bachmann refused to answer questions about the seminar.)

The climax of the presentation was when, according to Prins, Bachmann brought up "three ex-gays, like part of a PowerPoint presentation." The trio, two white men and a black woman, all testified that they had renounced their homosexuality. "One of them said, 'If I was born gay, then I'll have to be born again,'" Prins recalls. "The crowd went crazy."

”Listening to him," Prins surmises, "it becomes clear that he's had a huge impact on her. He might be the spearhead of this whole religious/gay issue."

Dr. Bachmann told City Pages that converting gay people is not the purpose of his practice. "Am I aware that the perception is out there? I can't comment on that." He continued, "If someone is interested in talking to us about their homosexuality, we are open to talking about that. But if someone comes in a homosexual and they want to stay homosexual, I don't have a problem with that."

Her Children’s Marriageability

In a three-page Christmas letter from 2003 acquired by a local blog, Bachmann waxed optimistic on her four children’s suitability as spouses. 13-year-old Elisa “was born to be the perfect wife… Future mates will have to apply as she does not advertise herself.” After marveling at the way her daughter Caroline “pulls her jeans over her 14-inch hips,” Bachmann noted that “King Henry had his six wives, and if our Caroline had been one of them, I think she would have been called Caroline the Vibrant.” She described her son, Harrison, as “utter perfection” and a “female fantasy treasure.” And her eldest son, Lucas, got a cheeky personal ad: “Chick magnate [sic] needs wife to put him through med school, clean house, pay bills and run his life. Must be willing to gamble against onslaught of socialized medicine diminishing return on investment.”

Equating Homosexuality with Pedophilia

Just last week Bachmann spoke on the House floor about the dangers of hate-crimes legislation. Protecting victims of homophobic crime, she explains, means protecting pedophiles:

People who are practicing pedophiles would be considered protected under this legislation, but not, I understand, veterans, not, I understand, pregnant women, not, I understand, 85-year-old grandmothers would be protected under this law. But who would be protected? A pedophile, someone who considers themselves gay, someone who considers themselves transgender, someone who considers themselves a cross-dresser? That is who is protected.

It wasn’t the first time Bachmann equated gays with child molesters. In 2004, she told a talk-radio host that same-sex marriage is dangerous because “it is our children who are the prize for this community, they are specifically targeting our children.”

Even Jesse Ventura Thinks She’s Wacky

Bachmann got her political start with Minnesota’s Maple River Education Coalition, of which former Governor Jesse Ventura once said, “That Maple River group, they think UFOs are landing next month. They think it’s some big government federal conspiracy!” This from a ex-professional wrestler who’s on the record as saying bipartisan America is “East Berlin” and that 9/11 was an inside job.

Partially Obscured at a Gay-Rights Rally

Another bizarre Bachmann moment caught on camera: the time she appears to have hidden behind a bush at a gay-rights rally. In 2005, at a protest of her proposed constitutional amendment outlawing same-sex marriage, a student activist caught sight of Bachmann and her posse crouched behind the shrubbery—and had the presence of mind to snap a few pictures, which he posted on his blog. Reached by the Minneapolis Star Tribune for comment, Bachmann pleaded sore feet. “I had high heels on and I just couldn’t stand anymore. I was not in the bushes.” Why was she at the rally? A rumor that “I was going to be a focus of the rally” felt “fairly personal,” she said.

Her Secret Knowledge of a Plan to Give Iraq to Iran

In 2007, Bachmann told Minnesota's St. Cloud Times newspaper that she had knowledge of an “agreement made” between Iraq and Iran: “They are going to get half of Iraq, and that is going to be a terrorist safe-haven zone where they can go ahead and bring about more attacks in the Middle East, and come against the United States.” This was why, she said, Iran wanted the U.S. to pull out of Iraq. Bachmann declined to specify how she learned of the partitioning plan, but noted that it was all part of “their natural cultural ties, the long history of Iran and Iraq wars, and regional security.” The St. Cloud Times posted the interview on their Web site on February 10, but the peculiar Iran-Iraq discourse didn’t find its way into the national press for almost two weeks.

Fears Fellow Congressman Keith Ellison Is a Terrorist. (Actually, He’s Just a Muslim)

In an interview with a San Francisco talk-radio station last month, Bachmann asserted that her colleague, Minnesota Representative Keith Ellison, consorts with known terrorists. Referencing a group of imams arrested in the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport three years ago, she explained, “The imams, the imams, were actually attending, ah, Congressman Keith Ellison’s victory celebration, when he won as a member of Congress.” She went on to talk about terror-related accusations that had been made against the six imams, not mentioning that these allegations had since been disproven. (Nervous airline passengers had apparently misinterpreted the imams’ praying as reminiscent of the 9/11 hijackers’ “patterns.”) Furthermore, the imams were in Minnesota to attend an imam conference—not an Ellison victory party. On MSNBC, Ellison fired back: “This is not true. I think it could even be psycho-talk.” A Bachmann spokesman defended her statement while admitting that “the details may be a little rough.”

Her Gay Stepsister

A surprise visitor came to one of Bachmann’s anti-gay speeches in the Minnesota Capitol: her stepsister Helen LaFave, who attended the event with her same-sex partner of 20 years. At the time, Bachmann claimed she had polled her family members on the gay-marriage ban, and that they’d voted 6-3 in the ban’s favor. But two siblings say she never discussed the issue with them. Stepbrother Michael LaFave notes that, though he’s “proud” of Bachmann, he wishes she “would have been honest. Dick Cheney had the good sense to do that with his daughter…. He knew how much it would hurt his daughter.” Michele Bachmann, more ruthless than Dick Cheney? Perhaps she took it as a compliment.

The Bush Hug That Wouldn’t End

Remember that freshman representative who was so elated to meet President Bush during a State of the Union address that she squeezed his hand, arm, and shoulder for more than 30 seconds, grinning wildly at the camera and clinging to him “like a teenage girl meeting Justin Timberlake”? That’s our belle, Michele.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_uiudt_Kiw

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-a...-moments/full/

[Zalius]

politics and religion are the same thing you ignorant dipshits

[Faris]

so i searched for islam, and this thread came up.
cool story bro.

[Kuya]

Since i already posted info on how the attempt to train Afghan troops (the most important part of "winning" the war there) is currently a total failure, let me let TomDispatch express to the rest of you the absurdity of this "war on terror":

In his book on World War II in the Pacific, War Without Mercy, John Dower tells an extraordinary tale about the changing American image of the Japanese fighting man. In the period before the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, it was well accepted in military and political circles that the Japanese were inferior fighters on the land, in the air, and at sea -- “little men,” in the phrase of the moment. It was a commonplace of “expert” opinion, for instance, that the Japanese had supposedly congenital nearsightedness and certain inner-ear defects, while lacking individualism, making it hard to show initiative. In battle, the result was poor pilots in Japanese-made (and so inferior) planes, who could not fly effectively at night or launch successful attacks.

In the wake of their precision assault on Pearl Harbor, their wiping out of U.S. air power in the Philippines in the first moments of the war, and a sweeping set of other victories, the Japanese suddenly went from “little men” to supermen in the American imagination (without ever passing through a human phase). They became “invincible” -- natural-born jungle- and night-fighters, as well as “utterly ruthless, utterly cruel and utterly blind to any of the values which make up our civilization.”

Sound familiar? It should. Following September 11, 2001, news headlines screamed “A NEW DAY OF INFAMY,” and the attacks were instantly labeled “the Pearl Harbor of the twenty-first century.” Soon enough, al-Qaeda, like the Japanese in 1941, went from a distant threat -- the Bush administration, on coming into office, paid next to no attention to al-Qaeda’s possible plans -- to a team of arch-villains with little short of superpowers. After all, they had already destroyed some of the mightiest buildings on the planet, were known to be on the verge of seizing weapons of mass destruction, and, if nothing was done, might soon enough turn the Muslim world into their “caliphate.”

Assessing al-Qaeda’s “Troops”

According to U.S. intelligence estimates, there are currently about 100 al-Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan, as well as “several hundred” in Pakistan and, so the latest reports tell us, a similar number in Yemen. Members of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (Algeria, Mali, and Mauritania) and those based in Somalia undoubtedly fall into the same category at several hundred each. According to authorities from the Iraq Study Group to the U.S. State Department, even at the height of the insurgency and civil war in Iraq, al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia never had more than 1,300-4,000 active fighters. Today, it is believed to consist only of “small, roving cells.”

Combined, these groups -- think of them as al-Qaeda’s shock troops -- add up to perhaps 2,100 fighters, about one-fifth the number of U.S. troops now based in Italy. As the 9/11 attacks, the intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, and the failure to disrupt the underwear-bomber’s plot indicate, U.S. intelligence has long been flying blind, but even if al-Qaeda turned out to have sleeper cells with 300 additional committed members in every nation on Earth, its clandestine operatives would only moderately exceed the number of U.S. forces now based in Germany.

Al-Qaeda does, of course, have some “training camps” in the backlands of countries like Yemen, and it has civilian supporters, financiers, and other scattered allies. Over the years, and sometimes with good reason, Washington has lumped Taliban fighters in Afghanistan and Pakistan with al-Qaeda and counted various militant groups, including Somalia’s al-Shabab Islamic rebels, as al-Qaeda affiliates. Add such fighters in and you would swell these numbers by many thousands.

Additionally, al-Qaeda has an arsenal of weaponry. Members have access to rocket-propelled grenades, small arms of various sorts, the materials for making deadly roadside bombs, car bombs, and of course underwear bombs.

Assessing America’s Troops

U.S. efforts to crush al-Qaeda have certainly not failed for lack of resources. The U.S. military has spent about one trillion dollars on its post-9/11 wars so far. It has an Army, a Navy, an Air Force, and a Marine Corps which, like the Navy, has its very own air force. It possesses trillions of dollars in weapons, materiel, and other assets. It can mobilize spy satellites, advanced fighter planes and bombers, high-tech drones and helicopters, fleets of trucks, tanks, and other armored vehicles. It has advanced missiles and smart bombs, aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines, and state-of-the-art ships in all shapes and sizes.

It also has incredibly well-trained special operations forces -- almost 56,000 elite troops, including Army Rangers and Special Forces, Navy SEALs and Special Boat Teams, Air Force Special Tactics Teams, and Marine Corps Special Operations Battalions, armed with incredibly advanced weaponry. It has military academies that churn out highly-educated officers and specialized training camps, schools, and universities. It has more than half-a-million buildings and structures on more than 800 bases sitting on millions of acres of prime real estate scattered around the world, including in or near lands where various branches of al-Qaeda operate.

In addition, the U.S. military has manpower -- lots of it. All told, the United States has approximately 1.4 million active duty men and women under arms and another 1.3 million reserve personnel. It employs more than 700,000 civilians in support roles -- from stocking shelves and serving food at stateside bases to assisting in intelligence analysis in war zones -- and utilizes untold tens of thousands of private security hired-guns and various other kinds of private contractors all around the globe. These numbers would be further swelled by intelligence agents who aid military efforts, including 100,000 members of the civilian intelligence community. And then there are the allies the U.S. can draw on ranging, in Afghanistan alone, from the Afghan army and police to tens of thousands of NATO and other foreign allied troops from more than 40 countries.

In these years, new al-Qaeda “affiliates” like al-Qaeda in Iraq/Mesopotamia have nonetheless sprung to life regularly and, as in Yemen, have even been officially crushed, only to be reborn. These groups have often made up their own “al-Qaeda” membership requirements, and focused on their own chosen targets. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda wannabes and look-alikes have proliferated and the organization (or those sympathetic to it or praising it) has reportedly spurred further attacks in the U.S. and encouraged men from New York to California, Nigeria to Jordan, to join the movement, and then work, fight, kill, and die for it, sometimes in attacks on Americans.

Al-Qaeda has no tanks, Humvees, nuclear submarines, or aircraft carriers, no fleets of attack helicopters or fighter jets. Al-Qaeda has never launched a spy satellite and isn’t developing advanced drone technology (although it may be hacking into U.S. video feeds). Al-Qaeda specializes in low-budget operations ranging from the incredibly deadly to the incredibly ineffectual -- from murderous car bombs and airplanes-used-as-missiles to faulty shoe- and underwear-explosives.

Of course, comparisons of the strengths of the U.S. military and al-Qaeda “at war” would be absurd, if it weren’t for the fact that the United States actually went to war against such a group. It was a decision about as effective as firing a machine gun at a swarm of gnats. Some may die, but the process is visibly self-defeating.

In the present War on Terror, called by whatever name (or, as at present, by no name at all), the two “sides” might as well be in different worlds. After all, al-Qaeda today isn’t even an organization in the normal sense of the term, no less a fighting bureaucracy. It is a loose collection of ideas and a looser collection of individuals waging open-source warfare.

Isn’t it time, then, to stop imagining al-Qaeda as a complex organization of terrorist supermen capable of committing super-deeds, or as an organization that bears any resemblance to a traditional enemy military force? With al-Qaeda, the path of war has undoubtedly been the road to perdition -- as we should have discovered by now, more than one trillion dollars later.

Though my point in this entire thread was to point out that Neo's soapbox is full of holes, i mind as well destroy the notion that this war is "winnable".

So let's see, the training of afghan troops, a prerequisite for US troops being able to leave, shows little to no sign of progress, and it would seem the US military is trying to kill ideas with bullets. How precious.

[Elvis]

I don't know what you're talking about. I haven't used the word "quote" in many posts.

Please make me not stupid.

See, I don't think Leif is all troll. I think he truly is this dense.

For instance, when he quoted Correction's post, he did so in pieces. Thus, he removed the context of each segment of the post and kept saying he didn't 'understand' what Correction was saying.

Correction was quoting you in segments, Leif, and then responding to each part. Hence, to make sense of the post, you have to include what he quoted from you.

Anyways, this doesn't even need to be said. I think any reasonable person who was reading your little exchange w/ him just now probably slammed their head into the keyboard in frustration. You lack common sense.

In the time since my last post, I just Google'd some additional stuff on the subject. I emailed Grandin and Chomsky as well. Both have written on it, but it's Grandin's area.

I came across a series of books on the Christian Right by a former adjunct professor at U.C. Berkeley, Sara Rose Diamond.

Diamond is now an attorney-at-law in Berkeley, CA. I emailed her actually, and she told me that the Spiritual Warriors (the book that had my attention atm) was written in 1989. She wrote 3 more on the Christian Right after that, and then retired to become a lawyer.

She donated all of her archives to U.C. Berkeley's Bancroft Library.

I'm actually interested in taking a look at the primary documents myself. I don't maintain the same level of inane skepticism as Leif though.

Here's an excerpt from the Library:

Sara Diamond Collection on the U.S. Right

This ongoing collection, already comprising over 75 linear feet, is the result of a 14-year documentation of the Christian Right and other rightwing movements by sociologist and author Sara Diamond (Ph.D. UCB, 1993). Gathered in the course of writing four books, the collection is probably the largest private collection of such primary source material and a significant complement to the library’s Social Protest Collection.

When Diamond donated her research to the Berkeley Library, they issued this press release (1998 ):

http://berkeley.edu/news/media/relea...9-28-1998.html

Excerpt, which explains what the documentation consists of:

The Sara Diamond Collection on the U.S. Right consists of mostly primary source material - publications, newsletters and other documents - published by and gathered directly from right-wing organizations. Diamond also included her notes from many conservative meetings and rallies she attended over the years.

"I kept the things I knew I probably had the only remaining copy of," she said.

Most of the material dates from the last two decades, with some going back to the 1940s and 1950s. Contents include all of the early newsletters from the Christian Coalition, an entire box of anti-gay conservative propaganda, and two cartons on anti-abortion movements, and even "pro-violence" groups, said Diamond.

I'll post more later, just found this semi-interesting. Still though, I think this is a ridiculous level of investigation on my part. And I'm essentially doing it for a guy who knows nothing about the topic.

[Neosutra]

Though my point in this entire thread was to point out that Neo's soapbox is full of holes, i mind as well destroy the notion that this war is "winnable".

This isnt a debate on the effectiveness of the "war on terror". OEF (operation enduring freedom) has very little to do with the "war on terror" beyond the initial motivation for entry. Referencing terrorist cells as unorganized and ununited and thus categorizing them as a "non enemy" of the US because they dont fall into the same league as our military is ignorant of the direct military organization and funding that took place in afghanistan (with support of the Taliban) previous to our attack (which was the reason for our invasion in the first place).

Disruption (i.e. near total destruction) of Al'queda organizational operations in the region and taliban/extremist funding has significantly reduced the effectiveness of such cells and their ability to operate internationally. The "war on terror" is just a poor choice of words and simply expresses the never ending persistance that the US (and any other country) must have to guard itself from domestic terrorism by organizations/states without the ability to wage war by conventional means.

You see to be missing the point of the debate and going off on some rant in another direction to express your frustration for a situation you dont seem to understand.

So let's see, the training of afghan troops, a prerequisite for US troops being able to leave, shows little to no sign of progress, and it would seem the US military is trying to kill ideas with bullets. How precious.

You are basing that statement off no actual facts. Ive seen the afghan army 8 years ago(or what was left of it), ive seen the afghan army now (a trained force of competant soldiers), and there have been huge leaps and bounds. Comparing surgical SF training of Al'queda operatives to the massive organizational training of entire brigades of nationalist afghanies is rediculous. Half the operations we do here are lead/coled by the ANA, and they are getting better at it every day. Assuming the US is just "killing ideas with bullets" instead of fighting a complex battle to win the hearts and minds of a complex group of people in a dangerous region with multiple outside influences is naive and just plain silly. I hope you arent that ignorant of what is going on here and what both sides of the fight are really about.

[Xno Kappa]

It's the "age of the teh internetz" where anyone who reads a couple of articles has firsthand knowledge of what's going on in any given situation.