Protest Warrior HQ

No.

Proper order

10 Ask questions
20 If (necessary == FALSE) GOTO 10
30 SHOOT
40 GOTO 10

It means that the world is constantly changing so we must be constantly vigilant and ready to reevaluate our decisions, especially military decisions. We must be able to not only have sound reasons for entering a war, but sound reasons for staying in a way. We must evaluate if our leaders are doing the best job they can to win the war, or if new leaders would offer better alternatives. We must be conscious of the effects of the war, but short term, like the suspension of civil liberties, and long-term, in dangerous precedents taken or debt made. We must be able to not mix up the war for the politicians.

But my point is, the discussion must always be about *winning* the war, not *quitting* the war.

No, the discussion must always be about "resolving international conflict".

If that means you need to win a war to do it, that's one thing.
If that means that the Captain Ahab drive to win a drawn-out war that is poorly implemented and breeds more terrorism than it was meant to eliminate, then perhaps a new leader would be better to resolve said conflict.

Vietnam was not lost because of tactical problems, as you have asserted, Kiamat. It was lost because the South Vietnamese hated us, the North Vietnamese hated us, the NVA didn't care about the Cambodian border, they were backed by the largest communist country in the world, they were on home turf, they had lots of expendable troops, corruption and deception in the US Military, and an overall wrong approach to fighting communism. It was not until the "containment" idealogy was dropped and a unified, diplomatic front with our allies made that the Soviet Bloc fell.

Kiamat,

Even after I and others explained why the Traitor label is both wrong and offensive you continue to use it.

So evidently you need further explainantion.

You claim liberals are spreading dissent and rooting for the other side and hoping America loses the war.

This is of course an over simplified generaltion and incorrect. There may be some Extremists who feel this way. Extremists are not "ALL LIBERALS" please read this - since you seem to refuse to aknowledge this point.

Opposition to a war during war time is not treason. Ive explained to you why. During ALL wars there have been dissenters. Shutting them up is often a goal of the adminsitration prosecuting the war.

Even were it being Done - Spreading Dissent and "rooting for the other side", and providing for means that the US does not suceed arent Treason Either the correct term is SEDITION, thank you for not understanding the difference.

Labelling protestors guilty of Sedition when they arent has a long , sad history in the United States , Invariably durring war time , the more influential Anti War Protestors are locked up under the authority of new Sedition laws. The laws are Almost always recinded after the war and most are extremely unconstitional.


SO .. you should be arguing liberals are guilty of sedition. Liberals arent. Even the more extreme liberals arent. But at least you'd be using the proper term for the behavior you are accusing people of.


As to Vietnam, America entered that war as much for economic reasons as to fight Communism. Vietnam was France's most successful colony financially. This is where Michellin Tire's rubber originated.

The Administration also used a incident the government KNEW wasnt an agressive action against the US as an excuse to broaden the war effort. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.

But in the end the reason the war was lost is America was tired of losing its young men protecting what seemed like a useless country and a war that would never end. Continuing the war to a conclusion became a Political problem. Both Sides in the 1972 Election promised an end to the war.

Well War is a misnomer. It was a war in the sense that a large number of people fought killed and died. Much like Iraq is a war in that sense.

But to be more clear. The US has not declared war since 1942.

Vietnam and Iraq both legally are not wars. They are Congressionally authorized Military Actions. And as such the President is much more limited what Constitutional guarantees he can suspend ............ which brings us to the point of protestors

By tradition many are arrested for Sedition during war time .. most were not guilty of course. But its the actual Declaration of War that gives the President Authority to do these things.

War has not been declared. Those who would accuse others as Traitors should remember that.

http://www.bartleby.com/65/al/AlienNSe.html

Fun times.

Exactly

Yes this was the first time this was done in the US, I believe. Other Sedition laws have been passed and repealed since. Im pretty certain there are some which remain in force.

The most blatant abuse of these powers was the internment of Japanese Americans During World War 2.

Also many historians feel the Lincoln administration was extremely heavy handed in imprisoning those opposed to the Civil War. It possible the dynamics of fighting in a civil war may have intensified the administration's perceived need to quell Dissent.

Once again, rather than simply confronting the issue head on, the Liberals take to the dictionary. Not surprising from a group that wanted to open a national debate on the exact definition of "sex" and "is".

So let me break this down to small, easily defined words.

If you are rooting for anything short of an American victory in any confrontation/war/police action in which we are involved, you cannot be considered a patriot. So, the question is, who are you rooting for in Iraq/Afghanistan?

And don't give me this "I'm rooting for the troops by demanding their retreat er surrender er withdrawal" garbage, either. You want to honor the dead and wounded? Win the war. You want to support our troops? Give them the money, tools, and freedom they need to win the war. Most of the troops out there right now support the war and believe in what they are fighting for. But no sooner did the war start, hell BEFORE the war started, the Liberal sedition machine was in full swing in its efforts to demoralize our troops by telling them that they are "dying for a lie".

If you don't support our reason for going to war-fine. Scream your head off to your congressperson before the war, vote them out of office during the war, and let's talk about it some more after the war. But then the war is on, it's time to pull together and root for our side to win. Period.


Kiamat Dusk
-Being Conservative Means Never Having To Say "I Surrender."

Actually, at this point, I'm much more concerned about the failure of a conservative Republican administration and conservative Republican leadership to take the Katrina disaster seriously and act with competence, conviction, and sensitivity in the immediate aftermath. By their lack of action, their focus on day-to-day activities such as fund-raisers, and their drumbeat denial of the crisis, they are largely responsible for killing hundreds, perhaps thousands of Americans who survived the hurricane, only to die from lack of attention in the days afterward. The fact that most of these Americans were poor and black is another interesting dimension in the equation, and leads me to wonder about an odd and contradictory concept: "politically and purposefully negligent genocide".

Whatever the case, the leadership of FEMA and Homeland Security need to be fired and the idea of criminal negligence should to be explored relative to various members of the Bush administration, including Mr. Bush himself. At minimum, the credibility of conservative leaders in this country have been devastated by gross incompetence, a lack of real leadership when it was needed, and a sense of priority that is stunningly immoral. I no longer have faith in this administration to act decisively and well in the face of a global terrorist threat that may encompass the destruction of American cities and strategic infrastructure.

And I am no liberal. Nor have I voted Democratic in the last two presidential elections.

The Mayor of NO and the Governor of LA should have been the front line crusaders on this issue. This is a state issue. And once the scope of the disaster was realized, the federal government acted very quickly. In fact, Bush acted preemptively (there's that term again) and had declared the area a disaster area *before* the storm even hit so that FEMA could already stage its responders and resources. Furthermore, you (and many others) are sitting back, arm chair quarterbacking a process you're not intimately aware of and complaining about how the government is dealing with an unprecedented disaster. The first one is always a learning experience.

I think all levels of governement are stepping up as quickly and as best they can, but frustration demands a scapegoat and who better than Uncle Sam?

-Kiamat Dusk
Armchair Cheerleader

Nice try, but no.

As a matter of fact, the Director of FEMA this morning annouced that he didn't learn about the levees breaking until 36 hours after they broke.

Clearly acting preemptively doesn't involve turning on a television set.

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/09/04/chertoff-learned-of-levee-failure-36-hours-after-mayor-nagin/

Minus 10 points for mindlessly repeating the Party's talking points on the matter.

How does needlessly killing even more of our troops honor those who have already died?

*bangs his head against his desk.....

"Needlessly"!? Therein lies the problem. Liberals refuse to admit that, while we found no WMDs, there are very good reasons to be in Iraq. Our troops are not, I repeat, *not* dying and being wounded needlessly. The more democracies there are in the Middle East, the better it is for the US and the world as a whole. Democracies do not make war on each other. Saddam was an evil, evil man, yet Liberals would rather compare Bush to Hitler than Saddam. It's *good* that Saddam is gone. Saddam murdered his own people. While he may not have had WMDs at the time, he sure as hell wanted them. So what? We should have waited until we had the same situation we're facing in North Korea? Or maybe we should have waited until he actually lobbed a biological or nuclear warhead at us. Tell me-how many Americans have to die before it's ok to go to war? Where would that bomb have to land? Anywhere but your neighborhood, right?

We did a good thing. Yes, we may be responsible for some civilian casualties. Some. But those were accidents. Yet Liberals want to go on and on about Bush or Rummsfeld (and therefore by extention the troops) are responsible for mudering thousands of innocent Iraqis all the while giving the real murderers a pass. Who is really killing innocent Iraqis? It's the terrorists, stupid! You know, the ones wearing suicide vests who blow themselves up while standing in a crowd of children waiting for candy? Those "freedom fighters" are intentionally targetting civilians, but the only people you can label as terrorists are Bush, Cheney, Halliburton, and the troops.

-Kiamat Dusk

I hope you're not serious.

Yes, I was serious. I know it can be difficult to tell. I'm going to take a WAG and say you don't agree....


-Kiamat Dusk
...has his own psychic hotline...

OK. I gave you your opportunity to exit without losing face. Now I'm going to reveal you for what you are: the former national campaign chairperson for George McGovern in 1972.

Go ahead. Deny it if you can.

Oh. Forgot this:

Who labelled our troops a terrorists? I didn't.

Let's ignore the whole lying to the American people thing. Let's ignore the fallacious claims that Iraq was responsible for terrorist attacks against the US, especially since it was really our kind ally, the Saudi kingdom, which succored those terrorists. Let's ignore the poor planning. Let's ignore the repeatedly missed deadlines. Let's ignore the exaggerated claims that Iraq was a direct threat. Let's ignore all of these highly important but tangential concerns, and focus on the major problem facing our troops. The problem is that our troops are in Iraq fighting a war which CANNOT BE WON. You cannot hold a gun to the head of a nation and demand that it become a democracy. The very idea is anathema to what democracy is all about. Democracy imposed by fiat is not democracy. It is an illusion. A joke. A farce. It is a fleeting dream which will disappear when the sun rises. When the sun shines once more upon the nation of Iraq, the Shi'a and the Sunni and the Kurds will all still be fighting for control of the nation, the constitution will be in tatters, and our troops will have died for naught.

Then the United States is not a democracy, because this is precisely what happened between 1775 and 1791. The American revolutionary leadership, having created a formal military organization and a rabble of militia-based terrorists across the colonies, literally held guns to the heads of the majority of colonists, forcing (1) a revolution, (2) redistribution of property from the minority of haves to the majority of have-nots, and (3) a constitution that located power in a central federated authority that was unpopular to nearly all. The American Revolution was seven-tenths civil war, with Americans killing Americans in terrorist and guerrilla actions, and three-tenths war against Britain. This is, by the way, not a personal opinion. It is well-documented fact.

One can argue that Americans, having created their own democracy in such a bloody and undemocratic manner, ought to know better than to try the same sort of thing elsewhere. But we've been inflicting nation-building on other people since the 1820s. And truthfully, what would cause more casualties - religious and ethnic civil war in Iraq, or American nation-building? Hard to say.

Better argument: The Bush administration went into Iraq without an adequate plan for postwar reconstruction... like father, like son. And as a result, the Bush administration is largely responsible for American and Iraqi deaths, along with the level of disorder in Iraq. One can say this about the so-called Founding Fathers of the United States: they were competent, ruthless, decisive, imaginative thinkers, who weren't afraid to plan the details. Not like the present American leadership at all.

Your early American history is simultaneously very thorough and extremely lacking. Praytell, what was the first form of government which resulted from the revolution? It wasn't a constitution. It wasn't a democratic nation. It was the Articles of Confederation, and they were most certainly not imposed on the sovereign people of this nation by a foreign power.

Even you appaer to recognize the difference. If this is a direct parallel to our own revolution, then why do you call it American nation-building?

And the Articles of Confederation didn't work. And they largely created conditions for the most severe economic collapse in American history until the Great Depression. And engendered dozens of further rebellions, acts of sabotage, assassination, and terrorism, this time against American authority - all of which were put down by force.

And the response of the former revolutionary leadership - which had always regarded the Articles as a basically unworkable, stopgap measure, was to take the Constitutional Convention away from the majority of Jeffersonian Republican representatives, and engineer the Constitution - which the vast majority of Americans regarded as a betrayal of the ideals of the Revolution. But the economic crisis of that time compelled them to go along with it, particularly since the constitutionalist/revolutionaries (now called Federalists), had control of the army.

So, sadly, this government was imposed on this nation's people, in much the same manner that a government is being imposed on the people of Iraq. That's how revolution occurs - it ain't ever pretty.

You fail to prove this point. How are the two situations directly analagous?

In one, we have members of the nation who go to war to free themselves from tyrrany. When the war ends, their freedom is won and they go about creating a new government. The first government they create proves to be a failure, and so they create a second government which proves to be successful.

In the other, we have a foreign nation which comes into the nation, overthrows its original, corrupt government, and frees the people from tyrrany. They then install a temporary administrator to rule over the country, while guiding them towards a democracy.