We Come In Peace

I couldn't resist, any excuse to bring back some old school goodness. If I had any sort of technical skill, I'd love to edit the guy from 3rds original video into this somehow.

But don't white folk have enough groups already that are kind of dealing with this? There was even a ballad written about it: (Nsfw)

Apparently everyone is feeling the sequester, even our alien reptilian over-lords. http://www.wired.com...reptile-aliens/

60k would get you at least most of this...

Pretty sure that's a felony. But depending on the court's ruling on DOMA, you might be okay.

:doh:

Was there an original White Panther Party?

Especially for Richard Gere... http://noobcio.wrzuta.pl/film/4WrHefiiInH/family_guy_-_richard_gere_i_jajko_wielkanocne_-_05x03

True.

Awesome band name.

...You mean because she was imaginary?

:lol:

I'm actually trying to do the opposite. Which is why I used the phrase "powers that be" rather than assigning blame. That's not an effort to stay above the fray but an effort to actually have a constructive conversation about a topic that is laced with political landmines. It became something different because none of what we were told about the need for war turned out to be accurate. THEN it became politicized. The question is, if it wasn't Bush and Cheney dragging the nation to war to fulfill their own personal agendas (and I'm willing to concede that for the sake of this conversation), then why did it go so terribly off the rails and how to we prevent that from happening again? Not the point I'm trying to get across. I've gone out of my way to say several times I'm not going to pretend to know the motives of the individuals within the administration. That's what that sentence means. Dodging the issue. These have nothing to do with the conversation. I like that analogy. But doesn't this analogy imply that Iraq, by definition, was intent on attacking the US like the Japanese carriers did? The Japanese carriers, by their very existence, posed a direct threat to the US. They were steaming to Pearl with the intent to attack and were also already waging war. Iraq on the other hand was not waging war nor in any position to threaten the US directly or indirectly -- even though the intelligence that was presented painted the opposite picture. There's also a difference between a military target, like a carrier fleet, and invading a nation. Stopping the carrier fleet has a clear end game: destroy them before they can attack Pearl. There is no clear case end game when you're talking about invading another country. In other words, the carrier problem is far easier to solve, both from a public relations angle and a geopolitical one.

So you're saying what? The reasons and justifications presented to the public and congress for the need to go to war were actually true and the WMD are in Syria? In this case I'm trying to stay above it all because I'm trying to have a discussion. I'm quite happy to roll in the mud and cut people down when needs be. The entire point that both you and 3rd and Tom are missing is, removing the issue of motive since none of us know the truth, and political bent (which apparently you nor 3rd are willing to do) what's the solution to prevent this from happening again. If Tom's point about confirmation bias is correct, that Bush and company were merely mistaken in how they chose to review the intelligence presented to them, how do we avoid that when we live in a world where there are no more "facts". Considering the amount of blood and treasure spent on the war that wound up being nothing like the one we were sold, it's our duty as citizens to figure out what went wrong so that it doesn't happen again, isn't it?

Now we're getting into the spirit!

/thread Makes sense, I mean, I know I used a lot of big words in my sentence: "I think the answer depends on the person flying the flag but it's usually one of these two choices:"

The powers that be is a pretty common phrase. However you wish to ascribe the guilt, mistakes were made and we were led into a war under false pretenses. Someone or something was responsible for that, DCTom blames it on confirmation bias, you even suggested it was Saddam himself who was the culprit. As I said earlier, I'm not going to pretend to know the motives of the administration which is why I used the phrase I did. But thank you for continuing to prove my point about people being unable to separate their own political bents when discussing this topic.

The "we" in my sentence included the president.

:lol:

That only furthers my point. The most frustrating part of trying to discuss the lead up to war with anyone is the inherent political bent that is inevitably brought into the discussion. If you bring up the topic with someone who leans right they assume it's an attack on their own politics and get defensive (like you just did above), if you bring it up with someone who leans left they lay the entirety at the feet of Bush or Cheney and refuse to discuss anything but. If what DCTom says about confirmation bias is truly what led the nation to war, then clearly blindness on the left is as dangerous as blindness on the right or in the middle. Questions are asked about the cause of the war not to attack someone's politics (at least in this case) but in order to better understand how we were so incredibly misled by the powers that be so that we can avoid repeating our mistakes. Now, you can argue that going to war with Iraq wasn't a mistake and defend it, plenty have already in this thread including the soldier's letter B posted on page 1. But the knee-jerk political reaction to it is just further proof of how brilliantly the wool was pulled over all our eyes. The question is how do we stop it from happening again?

You of all people should know that you can't believe everything you read. Especially less than a decade out from the event when the principles are still alive and still trying to earn livings. History will be able to more accurately judge given some distance. So you're going to tell me that there aren't any people in the US who believe the war in Iraq was tied to the 9/11 attacks? You reaaaaallly wanna say that?

Well... it's simplistic for sure. But is it technically incorrect? Bush did present false information in the state of the union and his proxies presented false information to both the UN and the press at large. So much so there are segments of the population that still believe the Iraq war had something to do with 9/11. The question is whether he knowingly presented false information -- and that's something we can only speculate about for now.

So... the t-shirt and clearly psychopathic behavior in the court room is going too far but shooting three people who bullied him is their fault, not his. Gotcha.

Or, you could read what I wrote instead of projecting your own issues onto me...