Threat of a 9/11 attack in the next decade..

[SaturdayGT 719]

Any bets on  time frame now?..for reference...Trump had peace in the middle east like a year before this post!

[AUGunsmith 666]

There was no peace in the middle east. There was an oppressing occupying army. 

Want the root cause of terrorist attacks? It's us interventionalism. Stop meddling in other people's business. 

[AU9377 4,977]

If Trump had peace in the Middle East, somebody forgot to tell Israel, the Palestinians, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, to name a few.

As for the oppressing occupying army in Afghanistan, it will take a few minutes before my eyes stop rolling....  Look, I did not and do not want us to be occupying Afghanistan.  That said, we were hardly oppressive.  That is, unless it is considered oppressive to build over 3,000 schools, allow women to become educated, build infrastructure for everything from utilities to sanitation, connect far reaching parts of the country with a system of highways, build hospitals and establish a public health system, to name a few things.  I'm not in favor of U.S. Taxpayer dollars being used for that, but I'm not going to pretend that doing those things harmed that God forsaken place in some way.  Now that we are about to be out, they will go back to killing each other and beating women in the streets.  Radical Islam does not respect or value anything other than brutal force. Should they once again become a safe haven for terrorist groups, we should simply deploy 100 "mother of all bombs" every day until the problem is exterminated.  They have every right to worship whomever they choose, provided that they don't use that faith as a justification to terrorize civilized people around the globe.  When they do that, they can't be tolerated and will not be tolerated.

[homersapien 11,393]

On 8/28/2021 at 11:09 AM, AU9377 said:

If Trump had peace in the Middle East, somebody forgot to tell Israel, the Palestinians, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, to name a few.

As for the oppressing occupying army in Afghanistan, it will take a few minutes before my eyes stop rolling....  Look, I did not and do not want us to be occupying Afghanistan.  That said, we were hardly oppressive.  That is, unless it is considered oppressive to build over 3,000 schools, allow women to become educated, build infrastructure for everything from utilities to sanitation, connect far reaching parts of the country with a system of highways, build hospitals and establish a public health system, to name a few things.  I'm not in favor of U.S. Taxpayer dollars being used for that, but I'm not going to pretend that doing those things harmed that God forsaken place in some way.  Now that we are about to be out, they will go back to killing each other and beating women in the streets.  Radical Islam does not respect or value anything other than brutal force. Should they once again become a safe haven for terrorist groups, we should simply deploy 100 "mother of all bombs" every day until the problem is exterminated.  They have every right to worship whomever they choose, provided that they don't use that faith as a justification to terrorize civilized people around the globe.  When they do that, they can't be tolerated and will not be tolerated.

While I agreed with gunsmith, I agree with you that our troops weren't overtly  'oppressive' and often did very constructive things.

But anytime you have armed soldiers patrolling in a foreign country - especially ones of a different religion - that is going to offend a segment of the population - in this case the Taliban.  Not to mention the inevitable 'accidental' deaths that will arise from skirmishes with a hard-to-identify enemy.

Imagine - conceptually - having a presence of a foreign army in our country who were Muslim, for example.

I agree with your point that we have done a lot of good over the last 20 years.  It will be interesting to see how the Taliban deals with a change in expectations of the populace in Kabul for instance.

Afghanistan is cursed with a large population of illiterate, religious fanatics which is obviously not something we can cure in 20 years.

(P.S.  Paragraphs are good!)

Edited August 29, 2021 by homersapien

[AU9377 4,977]

On 8/28/2021 at 1:08 PM, homersapien said:

While I agreed with gunsmith, I agree with you that our troops weren't overtly  'oppressive' and often did very constructive things.

But anytime you have armed soldiers patrolling in a foreign country - especially ones of a different religion - that is going to offend a segment of the population - in this case the Taliban.  Not to mention the inevitable 'accidental' deaths that will arise from skirmishes with a hard-to-identify enemy.

Imagine - conceptually - having a presence of a foreign army in our country who were Muslim, for example.

I agree with your point that we have done a lot of good over the last 20 years.  It will be interesting to see how the Taliban deals with a change in expectations of the populace in Kabul for instance.

Afghanistan is cursed with a large population of illiterate, religious fanatics which is obviously not something we can cure in 20 years.

P.S.  Paragraphs are good!

I agree.  I have used the example you use of being occupied many times.  The difference is that when the occupation ended, there would not have been a surrender to the most evil amongst us. We simply are not wired that way.   Even the most off the scale far extreme amongst us value life more than Islamic extremists. 

The fact is that European descendants of Germanic tribes, the Roman empire and the ancient Greeks have evolved over centuries.  The descendants of those tribes and empires have transformed the world. Along with those advances in our quality of life, we have concluded that there are basic human rights that everyone should respect.  History is littered with examples of wrongs, but it is important to also recognize that when pushed, right has prevailed over wrong when people have been willing to fight for it.

P.S. - lol I agree that paragraphs are good, but they are much easier when at home than when on the go and on a phone. 

Edited August 29, 2021 by AU9377

[homersapien 11,393]

42 minutes ago, AU9377 said:

I agree.  I have used the example you use of being occupied many times.  The difference is that when the occupation ended, there would not have been a surrender to the most evil amongst us. We simply are not wired that way.   Even the most off the scale far extreme amongst us value life more than Islamic extremists. 

The fact is that European descendants of Germanic tribes, the Roman empire and the ancient Greeks have evolved over centuries.  The descendants of those tribes and empires have transformed the world. Along with those advances in our quality of life, we have concluded that there are basic human rights that everyone should respect.  History is littered with examples of wrongs, but it is important to also recognize that when pushed, right has prevailed over wrong when people have been willing to fight for it.

P.S. - lol I agree that paragraphs are good, but they are much easier when at home than when on the go and on a phone. 

I can't imagine "typing" that much on my phone. Watching people bang things out on their phone with their thumbs blows my mind!

(I am also anal retentive about errors or even weak rhetoric. I go back and edit my old posts on a regular basis.)

[AU9377 4,977]

5 hours ago, homersapien said:

I can't imagine "typing" that much on my phone. Watching people bang things out on their phone with their thumbs blows my mind!

(I am also anal retentive about errors or even weak rhetoric. I go back and edit my old posts on a regular basis.)

Funny.... A couple of years ago I found myself editing posts like that, but it just takes too much time.  The only thing that really still makes me climb the walls is when people misuse was and were.  It certainly is not that I am better than that.  I have plenty of family members that I love dearly that wouldn't know the past tense plural form of "be" if their life depended on it.  I also used to deplore text message English, but I have found myself using it on message boards too much to complain. 

[homersapien 11,393]

14 hours ago, AU9377 said:

Funny.... A couple of years ago I found myself editing posts like that, but it just takes too much time.  The only thing that really still makes me climb the walls is when people misuse was and were.  It certainly is not that I am better than that.  I have plenty of family members that I love dearly that wouldn't know the past tense plural form of "be" if their life depended on it.  I also used to deplore text message English, but I have found myself using it on message boards too much to complain. 

LOL! 

One of my "irritant buttons" is people using "less" when they should be saying "fewer".  But that ship has sailed.  Even professional broadcasters now do it on a routine basis.