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ORIGINAL: philosophy

........taking the OP literally, and assuming that a place for criticism is a 'what america has done wrong' thread, america has made a lot of fine films, produced some excellent literature and some very tasty food. It didnt invent the internet, that was a brit. However the very finest thing that America has given the world is in the field of comedy....'The French have no word for entrepeneur', genius comedy, just a shame that so many americans confuse a good sense of humour with political nous.

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What has America done right?

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ORIGINAL: MistressDREAD


ThankYou Level, I was looking for those. Can I have an Easter Massage now ? ~smiles~

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ORIGINAL: MistressLorelei

Catching a few people will not be the demise of the organization which has only gained support since Bush took office and 9/11 was considered a success to many.  We will never win a war on terrorism.. We have to react and defend, but to seek and destroy it just isn't going to happen.  How does one 'win' a war on terror anyway?

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Terrorism was just an excuse used on scared Americans to get Sadam for Bush's Daddy and get some more Big Oil dollars for the Bush family and friends.... but I won't even go there.

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Oh and wreck our economy?  Who needs Al-Qaeda for that.. we have our government.. and they are far better at it.... just look at our national deficit.... sigh...

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ORIGINAL: DelightMachine

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ORIGINAL: MistressLorelei

Catching a few people will not be the demise of the organization which has only gained support since Bush took office and 9/11 was considered a success to many.  We will never win a war on terrorism.. We have to react and defend, but to seek and destroy it just isn't going to happen.  How does one 'win' a war on terror anyway?

We win the war on terror, to the extent it can be won, when no government anywhere lends support or refuge to terrorists and when we keep weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of terrorists. We can't prevent people from deciding to become terrorists and committing some terrorist acts, although we can limit the damage. Once we've limited the damage long enough, the potential terrorists won't think they can do any good by committing terrorism. Instead they'll do something else -- perhaps political activism.

There is a difference between winning this war on terror and ending all terrorism. We can't end all terrorism, but we can limit it to something on the order of the Oklahoma bombing carried out by Timothy McVeigh. And if we limit it to that, we will have protected many, many lives.

The great danger is that terrorists get weapons of mass destruction and kill many, many people at once. THAT is what the war on terrorism is really all about. To prevent terrorists from getting WMDs, we have to either stop governments from being willing to give those weapons to terrorists or destroy those governments. That's why we went into Iraq and that's why we'll attack other governments (such as Iran) as necessary. 

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Terrorism was just an excuse used on scared Americans to get Sadam for Bush's Daddy and get some more Big Oil dollars for the Bush family and friends.... but I won't even go there.

I see that I'm not arguing with a serious person here, and 9/11 obviously didn't make you think any harder about the problem of terrorism. Like much of the far left, you are half a step away from the tin-foil-hat crowd. For you perhaps, politics is simply something amusing. For me it's about choices we make which ultimately result in evil people and evil circumstances either being multiplied or cut down.

Lives are at stake. Therefore lack of seriousness on this issue is disgusting.

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Oh and wreck our economy?  Who needs Al-Qaeda for that.. we have our government.. and they are far better at it.... just look at our national deficit.... sigh...

This is further proof of your lack of seriousness. I make a point. You don't answer it. Instead you give a flippant response. You're wasting everyone's time.

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ORIGINAL: MistressLorelei
I am extremely serious about politics, I just decided it better to resist name calling as I read some of your ridiculous ideas, and used a hint of sarcasm to relate how ridiculous some of what you have said is, as is much of what our goverment does and does not do.

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9/11 certainly made Me think harder about terrorism, though in reality, we can not prevent it now anymore than we could in the past.  Bush has spent so much time, money and lives fighting a 'war' that we can not gain anything from.... and while doing so has ignored serious issues that we can do something about.  And I am the one not being serious... come on!

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And you are serious in believing that we are fighting terrorism so that eventually  no country will assist in supporting terrorists or their activities, and they will just eventually 'give up'.

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 And what about Timothy McVeigh?  I can't remember what we did to prevent our own home-grown terrorist from succeeding.  Terrorists are successful in scaring the heck out of us all before doing a thing, then when they do pull off a plan, getting caught or killing themselves in action is really not important.

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When we have shed every drop of blood from our soldiers, drained the economy to a point where we will not be able to recover, still have yet to find the WMD in Iraq, and Osama Bin Laden dies naturally at a ripe old age of 120 in a cave somewhere in the middle east... is that when we win the war on terrorism?

So Yes, lives are at stake, and lack of seriousness is disgusting... not so much mine, as that of our government.

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You still haven't presented an argument showing the reasons why you think we can't win the war on terror

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LMAO Cin....that's CERCKL who likes the turkish coffee.... not level.

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ORIGINAL: DelightMachine

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ORIGINAL: MistressLorelei
I am extremely serious about politics, I just decided it better to resist name calling as I read some of your ridiculous ideas, and used a hint of sarcasm to relate how ridiculous some of what you have said is, as is much of what our goverment does and does not do.

If you are serious when you think about politics, you'll demonstrate it by doing more than voicing what your opinions are -- you'll show us how you came to them. You haven't. 

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9/11 certainly made Me think harder about terrorism, though in reality, we can not prevent it now anymore than we could in the past.  Bush has spent so much time, money and lives fighting a 'war' that we can not gain anything from.... and while doing so has ignored serious issues that we can do something about.  And I am the one not being serious... come on!

No argument yet, just bald assertions ...   

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And you are serious in believing that we are fighting terrorism so that eventually  no country will assist in supporting terrorists or their activities, and they will just eventually 'give up'.

All this blather and STILL no argument ...

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 And what about Timothy McVeigh?  I can't remember what we did to prevent our own home-grown terrorist from succeeding.  Terrorists are successful in scaring the heck out of us all before doing a thing, then when they do pull off a plan, getting caught or killing themselves in action is really not important.

I addressed this -- we (probably) can't stop McVeighs, but as I said, McVeighs are not the biggest threat. Terrorists with WMDs are the big threat. (Yawn!) I'm not going to repeat myself again with you. Not worth it. 

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When we have shed every drop of blood from our soldiers, drained the economy to a point where we will not be able to recover, still have yet to find the WMD in Iraq, and Osama Bin Laden dies naturally at a ripe old age of 120 in a cave somewhere in the middle east... is that when we win the war on terrorism?

So Yes, lives are at stake, and lack of seriousness is disgusting... not so much mine, as that of our government.

Time's up. You still haven't presented an argument showing the reasons why you think we can't win the war on terror. Incidentally, defensive measures cost more than offense. We don't even have the money to protect ourselves from every contingency, even involving WMDs. Also incidentally, we spent more on World War II in terms of proportion of GNP and probably in terms of amounts of money (inflation taken into account). We didn't bankrupt ourselves by it. We saved ourselves.

And if we built children's hospitals and more cancer research centers with all the money we decided not to spend on terrorists, and when the terrorists blow them up, showing all that money was wastefully spent because we didn't do the necessary spending on terrorists (like spending the necessary amount on, say, a foundation for a building), then you'll surely blame it on Bush.

You are completely unserious.

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ORIGINAL: Arpig

As another Canadian, I admit that the US is big, and at times bossy, ugly, rude, ignorant, and so on. However, I would rather live next to you guys than anybody else on the planet, thank you very much