Our terrorists

[KevinTheOmnivore]

Geggy...focus! Your presence is needed in another thread.

[mburbank]

The 'option' Preech, isn't so much who we associatte, as hw much bullshit we slather on it.

The cognitive dissonance created from on the one hand W's 'moral clarity' and a US policy VS. Good guys vs. Evil Doers and on the other the embrace of terrorist groups ( not to mention our own use of kindapping and torture) is bad for the national mental health.

Also, our support of seriously bad actors and groups that lean toward terrorism hasn't worked out that well for us. I hope you won't think I'm being Geggy if I remind you that Bin Laden and Sadaam Hussein were people we backed when their agression was pointed in a direction we favored.

If I were a betting man, I'd bet that down the road some future president will have to deal with the pakistani organization we're strengthening now.

I agree that the article is light on speciffics. I'd like to see more investigative journalism. But certainly this doesn't strike anyone as outside the realm of things we do, does it?

So: Cognitive dissonance, ill advised, failure to learn from the past. Those would be my objections.

[Geggy]

Originally Posted by mburbank

So: Cognitive dissonance, ill advised, failure to learn from the past. Those would be my objections.

How many more times would the US have to continue to support the terrorists to fight for their interest before anyone start to realize its doesn't lead to failure but a deliberate effort to expand the global war on terror that "would not end in our lifetime" so says cheney? Nobody makes the same mistake twice, thrice or how ever many times they've done so in the past.

I think the fact the US may be currently supporting foreign terrorists is too much for the americans to complement but "whatever".

[mburbank]

Alright, abc, I'll tell you what. How familiar are you with the Nixon administration, most speciffically the secret war in Cambodia? I think it has a great deal of bearing, as many of our foreign policy decision makers cut their teeth their and I think made a very ugly mess. I think you'd find the book "Sideshow" by William Shawcross enlightening and it might really inform your thought process on proxy wars and the way the current administration is gearing up to use them. Once you've read it (and I'd suggest reading a few books of the bibliography as well) and can demonstrate you underatand Shawcross's main thesis and can argue we are either doing the same thing again or are not, I think you need to concider that I've 'explained' it to you and simply take everything I have to say about the matter as given.

When you've done that, I might feel motivated to cut into the time I take reading sources I find enlightening and start reading ones you find enlightening instead. I will understand if you don't want to give up your reading list for mine, because it's kind of an absurd request. But that's the big difference between you and I. You have the meglomaniacal emotional develpement of a three year old or a Donald Rumsfled, and you literally incapable of imagining a viewpoint that doesn't originate inside your own head.

I know, I know, you think your relevant. Do me a favor and at very least look up what at very least Rumsfeld and Cheney were doing and thinking during the Nixon administration, and see if you don't find any useful information. But that's just for you to thnk about. I can't see your thoughts on the matter coming up to par with my 'explanation' of it until you've finished "Sideshow".

[Abcdxxxx]

you posted a flawed article which misslabled the organization it was reporting on.

i made the correction, and suggested you research the matter.
Instead of doing that, you went on some diatribe about your distrust for me, and tried to write off the relevance of how we identify this dissident group. I again, suggested you do the research rather then take my word for it.

What's your response? "Read a book about the Nixon administration."

Max, there is no discussion unless you can figure out the importance of differentiation between a Persian, a Baluchi, or a Pakistani. If that sounds like an inconvenience to you, then you really are aiming to win the Geggy of the year award.

[mburbank]

I would say the main point that interests me is not their national origin, per se, but their methedology and our willingness to overlook it if they serve our needs.

There in lies the relevance to the Nixon administration, which I 'explained' to you, so I don't understand why you haven't cknowledged it yet.

You want to see ethnic origin as trumping kidnapping, murder, and our use of it in importance. It is of course your right to discount the entire article based on what you feel is a missues of the word Pakistani in referring to a group many of whose members were born in and are located in Pakistan. While I understand the merit of your speciffic point, I disagree with your miopic focus on it.

Alphaboy, ( and I'd call you by your name, but like everything else about you, you don't share it)there is no discussion unless you can figure out that since the administration doesn't care about their ethnic origin, only that they can be useful as a delivery system for violence, it's really no where near as important to this particular discussion as is our relationship with them . If that sounds like an inconvenience to you, then you really are aiming to win the Alphaboy award of the year award.

You seriously can't accept that people outside your head might be drawn to other things than what you immediately think of first, can you? And you really can't see how my demanding you read stuff I've read in the belief that you'd then think as I do isn't a serious demand, it's pointing out why you are insufferable and why 'arguing' with you is beyond pointless?

Why debate with someone who honestly believes he has direct access to truth and has never shown the capacity for doubt? I'd much rather poke you. It would only be a waste of time if I was waiting for you to get it, but I know you can't.

I've 'explained' it to you. That makes it true. It's frustrating that you are still arguing after it's been 'explained'. There is no discussion until you agree that I'm right and you are wrong. Once you hold only my opinions, then we can talk.

[mburbank]

Okay, Alphabatunnel vision, because I'm a contrarian by nature I went and read up on the Jundullah. Does it change what nterest me about the article I posted. No. In fact, it makes me more curious and more irate.

I agree, ABC (the news organization) could have and should have spent more time describing the group. If they had the article would have been even more alarming. I even agree that the term 'Pakistani tribal militant group' is a jourbalistically lazy and misleading way to describe them. I hope you are delerious with joy.

Having fixated on that point, you seem to loose interest (or didn't have any to begin with) in the fact that the article says both US and Pakistani sources say we are working with Jundullah, which you point out is an off shoot of Al-Quaeda. To me, the fact that we might work with, in any capacity, an Al Quaeda group, gives lie to virtually every aspect of our pubic foreign policy AND it's highly reminiscent of the way we worked with the Khmer Rouge, a subject you ought to read about because Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld were involved, it was a gross and illegal abuse of US policy and it led to massive genocide.

Do I think the ABC (the news affiliate, not the internet guy) article proved we are working with Jundullah? No. But i don't think they are making it up out of whole cloth either. Does the fact that they were shamefully lax in the description of the terrorist group we may be working with disqualifies every aspct of the article? Nope. Do I think the main area of interest of the article lies in the description of the origin and goals of the terrorist group we are allegedly working with. Strangely, even after 'fetching' for you, it does not.

Now. Having done your bidding and returned with a response, which I generally would not deign to do since as I've said (and now demonstrated) I think your views are miopic, I assume you'll do me the courtesy of reading up on at very least the actions of current administration members back when they were just starting out. My feeling having read all that is they are still just as ignorant, vicous, dangerous and arrogant as they were back then. Since their previous track record lead to genocide, I think it's instructive.

Feel free to disagree or be uninterested. I am able to accept that you are an individual with your own opinions and drives, capable of coming to conclusions you have every right to, even though you may not have read or thpought about each and every thing I have, even if I think they are relevant.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

WWMBD?

So Max, we've heard a lot about what we're doing wrong here, but I believe Preechr asked what your own alternatives might be. I think this is a relevant question, because you as a Bush critic are a small reflection of the national tone on the matter. So tell us, what would Max Burbank do?

I feel like this question has come up before, and I suppose you need to initiate the discussion making a choice about how you feel about Islamic extremism and the funding of said groups who want to harm the West and Liberalism. But Max, assuming you actually believe in the War on Terror (maybe you don't, and maybe you could make a fair argument for that), what is it you would do to confront a radical Islamic regime that funds terrorism and pursues nuclear weaponry?

If we don't try to disable the reigning regime internally by supporting rebel groups, what should we do? Bomb them? Ignore them? Do we open up appeasement talks with a regime that threatens the very right to existence of one of our democratic, liberal allies?

What do we do?