[Blueberry]

EC -- great posts.

[PrairieMule]

I looked on the web today to see highlights of protest rally. No talking points or agendas conveyed. Only thing I found was a short note that Cindy Shehan got arrested. I expected it from Foxnews but MSNBC and CNN? Maybe I should have checked out the websites Saturday but everyone in Texas were focused on Rita. I don't agree with the Anti-Bush crowd on a lot of things, but I can conceed it's not right that the Ashton Kutcher/Demi Moore wedding got more press than 300,000 people protesting.

[Specop_007]

Too bad an Islamic Insurgent didnt have a car bomb handy.
Maybe if a couple hundred of them had been blown up they'd have a better perspective of why we're fighting.

Those people disgust me.

[BabyPeanut]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnemyCombatant', 'C')orrection: It was more than 300,000.

I was there.

[Parkingtigers]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Specop_007', 'T')oo bad an Islamic Insurgent didnt have a car bomb handy.
Maybe if a couple hundred of them had been blown up they'd have a better perspective of why we're fighting.

Those people disgust me.

[julianj]

Parkingtigers: please don't feed the resident troll.

[Specop_007]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Parkingtigers', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Specop_007', 'T')oo bad an Islamic Insurgent didnt have a car bomb handy.
Maybe if a couple hundred of them had been blown up they'd have a better perspective of why we're fighting.

Those people disgust me.

[Specop_007]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('julianj', 'P')arkingtigers: please don't feed the resident troll.

[fossil_fuel]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Specop_007', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Parkingtigers', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Specop_007', 'T')oo bad an Islamic Insurgent didnt have a car bomb handy.
Maybe if a couple hundred of them had been blown up they'd have a better perspective of why we're fighting.

Those people disgust me.

[rogerhb]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Specop_007', 'T')he simple fact is this.
We are at war. We did not choose to fight this war, we did not choose to enter this war.
It was forced upon us when jetliners crashed into out buildings and offices.

This war WILL be fought, whether we want to fight it or not. We have no choice in that.

[Specop_007]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('fossil_fuel', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Specop_007', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Parkingtigers', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Specop_007', 'T')oo bad an Islamic Insurgent didnt have a car bomb handy.
Maybe if a couple hundred of them had been blown up they'd have a better perspective of why we're fighting.

Those people disgust me.

[gashole]

Spec,
We did choose to fight this war. We started it. Fighting wars is the American way and we are damned good at it. Make a lot of money at it in fact. If we were interested in retaliating for 911 then perhaps we should get busy trying to catch the guy who is allegedly responsible!

Do you really think that fighting a war in Iraq is preventing terrorism in the U.S.? I would put money on the fact that this rediculous war is actually increasing our chances of having more terrorist attacks here.

Dont get me wrong, I think terrorism is a problem. But its a problem that a braindead cowboy like King George is incapable of tackling. Hopefully he will get impeached and his successor will have the intelligence and foresight to deal with the issue logically and rationally.

Fuck King George for the mess he got us into.

[Specop_007]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gashole', 'S')pec,
We did choose to fight this war. We started it. Fighting wars is the American way and we are damned good at it. Make a lot of money at it in fact. If we were interested in retaliating for 911 then perhaps we should get busy trying to catch the guy who is allegedly responsible!

Do you really think that fighting a war in Iraq is preventing terrorism in the U.S.? I would put money on the fact that this rediculous war is actually increasing our chances of having more terrorist attacks here.

Dont get me wrong, I think terrorism is a problem. But its a problem that a braindead cowboy like King George is incapable of tackling. Hopefully he will get impeached and his successor will have the intelligence and foresight to deal with the issue logically and rationally.

Fuck King George for the mess he got us into.

[jaws]

I think Lew Rockwell's speech at the rallies yesterday sums up the intelligent position on the war quite well.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')url=http://www.mises.org/story/1923]War and Morality[/url]

By what ethical standard should we judge the state? One tradition, which we might call anti-liberal, asserts that there are special laws of morality that apply to the state alone. Another tradition, the liberal tradition, says that states must abide by the moral standards that apply to everyone in all times and all places.

The first view is the ancient one. It permitted and expected states to pillage and kill. The right and wrong of statecraft was dictated by the sword. The idea of universal moral laws and universal human rights did not find favor among the Caesars and Pharaohs, any more than this idea appealed to later dictators.

Yet the liberal tradition gradually abolished the idea of caste and special legal privilege. It asserted, more generally, that no group possesses a special license to lord it over others.

St. Augustine might have been the first to observe that the moral status of Alexander the Great's conquests was more egregious than the pirate's depredations. The pirate molests the sea, but the emperor molests the world.

The view that states can do wrong is the most powerful theory of politics in the history of the world. It led to the birth of the dream of universal freedom. Slavery, imperialism, colonialism, militarism, and authoritarianism all came to exist under a moral cloud.

At the same time, freedom and individualism unleashed human energies and, in the setting of free economies, created a prosperity beyond any ever known. This made possible the vast expansion of the world's population, and human flourishing as never seen before.

Given this history, and the central role that the American Revolution had in furthering the liberal idea, we must ask the question: what does the US government not understand about the evil of imperialism, the immorality of enslaving a foreign people, the malice of colonialism, and the intolerable brutality of authoritarianism?

In fact, the theory of the modern American regime is a throwback to the ancient view, that the US operates under special rules.

The US believes it can starve foreign countries such as Iraq by imposing killer sanctions that a high US official said were worth the lives of hundreds of thousands of children.

The US believes that it can use its weapons of mass destruction to threaten any country in the world on the very suspicion that it might be trying to defend itself. The US can then phony up intelligence, overthrow a leader, and install a regime of its choosing. Not to worry: its magical military Midas touch will transform that country into a paragon of democratic freedom — just as soon as all political opposition is silenced or destroyed.

In short, the US government believes that it operates under a different moral standard, not only from the moral standard that regular people apply to their own affairs, but even different from the moral standard that the US applies to other states.

And who pays the price for this moral hypocrisy? The victims of war.

Of all forms of collectivist central planning, war is the most egregious. It is generated by the coercive force of taxation and monetary depreciation. Its means are economic regimentation and the violation of the freedom to associate and trade. Its ends are destruction and killing — crime on a mass scale.

War leaves in its wake orphans, widows, parents without children, sickness, hatred, and spiritual and psychological trauma. It gives power to dictators on all sides. It is based on a lie that mass death can ever accord with justice. It attempts to silence those who tell the truth.

Indeed, war is a kind of totalitarianism. It is a policy without limit. It demands from us all that we have to give: our money, our children, our minds, even our souls. Too often people give it all. Too often, Americans give it all.

George Bush was brazen enough to make the doctrine explicit. If you are not for him, he says, you are for the terrorists.

He said it because the state fears the advocates of peace. It fears the truth, and those who tell the truth. It fears those who dare to judge the state by normal standards of morality.

The state fears you. Why? Because you hold the opinions that you do, and refuse to surrender your mind, your talents, your soul. By joining the resistance, you help thwart their plans. You help establish the basis for peace in the future. You help preserve and develop civilization, for the human family can only thrive in a setting of peace.

So I say to you: Keep making the sacrifice. Believe in peace. Proclaim peace. Stand up to the state. Be a dissident. Tell what is true. And do not fear the emperor-pirates. They, after all, fear you. For you help tilt the balance of history against their barbarism, and in favor of peace and freedom.

[EnemyCombatant]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')Lets fight the war and draw the terrorists to the Middle East rather then not fight the war and have them coming here.

[Hiderow]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Specop_007', 'T')oo bad an Islamic Insurgent didnt have a car bomb handy.
Maybe if a couple hundred of them had been blown up they'd have a better perspective of why we're fighting.

Those people disgust me.

[pilferage]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Specop_007', 'T')he simple fact is this. We are at war. We did not choose to fight this war, we did not choose to enter this war.

[rogerhb]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jaws', 'I') think Lew Rockwell's speech at the rallies yesterday sums up the intelligent position on the war quite well.

[EnemyCombatant]

We must not forget that the UN will turn a blind eye to war and suffering for the right price.

Wait till Clinton becomes the Secretary General.

Then you'll really see some suffering.

[rogerhb]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnemyCombatant', 'W')e must not forget that the UN will turn a blind eye to war and suffering for the right price.

Wait till Clinton becomes the Secretary General.

Then you'll really see some suffering.