How many here believe "We are at War"?

[Toots]

Who do you believe we are at war with? All Arabs, all Muslims, the Commies, or how about the Gooks? I am being serious here. Do you believe "We are at War" and have an actual enemy? I realize there are numerous people of all nationalities around the world that would like nothing more than to extract some pain from the USA but that is a police matter. War has more meaning than just rounding up and/or torturing and killing a few civilians. Are Arabs not worthy people? I would venture a guess there are more than a few American Christians that fester every bit as much hatred as a few Arab Muslims. Does that make America a bad country, a rogue state? Don't let yopurself start believing the cult propaganda. I realize it is everywhere and hard not hear it but use some critical thinking Please...Arabs are not the enemy of the USA. They have been our friends for centuries and have helped us in numerous ways....

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. I think we are living in an anarchistic society. I believe there are

powerful people right now hedging their bets for the next stage our society will take. They will make sure they are in control even if the Democrats win office. As long as we continue playing by the rules, while they continue to break them, we will always be on the losing side. Even if we win elections.

What do they care if we live in chaos? The more the chaos, the higher the prices.

[BlueEyedSon]

5. On the contrary, the majority of americans are devout archists.

They support the leader(s) and power structure, no matter how incompetent or dangerously misguided.

[BlueEyedSon]

2. We are at war with the neofascists. Most peeps don't realize that yet.

They are at war with US, at any rate......

[CrazyOrangeCat]

3. The only enemy is fear.

[atreides1]

4. No

At least not with the Muslim world, if we are at war it's with the Republican party and all of its supporters, from Pat Roberts right down to those voters who cannot accept reality.

[kentuck]

6. We have a serious security problem...

and disguised it as "war" with the invasion of Iraq.

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0220-21.htm

<snip>
A hundred years from now, historians will still be regaling readers with the all-too-true tales of ignorance, arrogance, dishonesty and outright incompetence that drove our nation to invade Iraq. As stories go, nothing in our country's previous 225 years of history quite matches it. And for our children's sake, we better hope that nothing in our future comes close to it, either.

A lot of the raw material for those historians is available already in the growing number of eyewitness, inside accounts of how we got into this mess. At almost every point, those accounts contradict the version of events peddled by the Bush administration and its dwindling core of supporters.

For example, take the claim that the administration decided to invade Iraq because "Sept. 11 changed everything."

...more

[ChairmanAgnostic]

7. Al Jabr is a great example.

Al Kwarizmi wrote this in 830 CE and saved society - all of it.
Alkwarizmi was mispronounced and turned into "algorithm"
and his great work of Al Jabr was mistranslated into "algebra"

Without this work, western society would have died during the Dark Ages.

[Lindsay]

8. The rich are at war with the not-rich.

And they are winning because they are ruthless. They will lie, cheat, steal and kill to get what they want.

That's probably not the war you're talking about, but that's the one I see.

[Armstead]

9. "War " is too strong a word but we have a problem

I don't think we should doubt that there is a significant movement of dangerous fanatics who want to do us harm, and have proven they hyave the ability to do so.

We can't and should not ignore that.

However, it is not what I would call a war in the classic sense. But we are making it into one with our overreaction as a nation.

[derby378]

10. WHAT war?

The occupation of Iraq is a pathetic excuse for a war.

Now, if you want a war, there's World War II. That was one helluva war. And guess what? The Allies were facing an opposing force that actually fought back with something more than just a few assault rifles and appeals to the divine. They had planes, tanks, and entire navies, too.

[No Exit]

11. Not I!

And I'm sick of hearing the repukes mouth those words. They seem to be trying to conjure up patriotic images... if you've ever seen the movie, "It's A Wonderful Life", do you remember when the narrator says, "Then there came a war... 4-F because of his (deaf) ear, George fought the battle of Bedford Falls..."

The images of the movie go on to show real footage of stalwart, smiling American children rounding up old tires for the rubber drive, and Strong American blackout captains walking the blocks to make sure all were safe from "Hun" or Japanese bombs. The movie shows the female lead character, Mary, helping nurses roll bandages for the wounded (pardon me while I wipe a tear away...)

That, I think, is the image the repukes are trying to conjure up in people's minds when they piously say, "We're at war". :puke:

As usual, Bush and his repuke friends have smashed every idealistic picture anyone's ever had of this country...

[Ezlivin]

12. Did you see "Men in Black?"

There's a scene where an alien battle cruiser is in orbit and is threatening to destroy earth. All of this is monitored from a top secret government facility.

Why top secret? Because if the truth got out the public would panic. The government is covering up only to keep us from mass hysteria.

The Bush administration acts as if it's the MIB. It knows something so terrible that war is the only solution and then it only serves as a distraction.

What's the "top secret" that the government wants to keep from us? Alien battle cruisers? No, something much more prosaic: resources. Mainly oil, but also encompassing natural gas and water. Not just the source of these needed resources, but the method by which countries pay for them. Currently our dollar is propped up via its association with oil (petro dollars). In 2000 Saddam wished to convert to euro dollars. Iran is moving toward an oil Bourse, shunning dollars for euros.

If oil is exchanged in a currency other than dollars, the United States will quickly succumb to its deficit and will enter a steep recession/depression.

War keeps our minds off the real problems, that's all.

[unblock]

14. oh, please.

if the USD ceased to be the currency of choice for oil purchases, it might decline by 5-10%, then continue doing whatever it was going to do anyway.

in and of itself, the currency the oil is invoiced in doesn't matter a whole lot. what matters is the long-term investment opportunities and wealth-producing and preserving abilities presented in each currency.

as long as places like mexico and russia and south america and europe and china and india slowly get their respective acts together and produce reliable investment opportunities, and america continues to overspend, overborrow, overconsume, and underproduce, the USD will continue to decline.

that has far more to do with what's going on and will continue to have more to do with what's going on than which currency iran choses to invoice in.

[peacetalksforall]

13. This 'war' is a just a name for rape.

Rape of rights - ours and the Iraqis and Afghanis.

The right to raise kids with the hope they can run free in play and not get blown to bits.

Run free with the hope that they can come home to parents, good food, good shelter, good jobs.

This rape that was declared on us means that we are at war against them - the rapists.

I feel incredible kinship with the people of Iraq and Afghanistan.

We must hold hands and know that our kids are killing their kids because of the interest of those who consider that they can rape and own us.

They are the barons who hide their faces while they use others' faces to do their work against us.

This is a dominator contest. We're in the way if we are not fitting in to their plan.

Tell me why the first WTC bombing was a criminal act, successfully prosecuted in court and one of the accused hijackers is in court right now and the pretend perpetrator is in court, but the entire world must suffer because of the second WTC bombing while a few profit immensely? That is not a war. It's a Act of Rape.

[savemefromdumbya]

15. I thought the war was 'mission accomplished' a few years ago?

[unblock]

16. i believe banana republicans have coopted our armies for private gain

certain wealthy amoral elites have bought themselves a government and an army to enforce their business acquisitions for their own personal gain. WE are not at war. THEY have taken over our army and put them in harm's way for their own benefit.

in the course of this, they have created enemies abroad who hate all of us, and so we might face some retaliation, but that has not yet come to pass. they may yet draw us all into war. but for now, this is a private war on the part of banana republicans against foreign oil owners.

[hootinholler]

17. Yes, indeed we are at war.

With whom? The PNAC.

-Hoot

[Chef]

18. War

We are at war because we choose to be at war. Only Congress has the power to declare war. That hasn't happened since WWII. We have been in a state of war like activity since 1945. This allows the ones in power to manipulate the public to do their will and to keep the defense economy afloat by spending a half a trillion dollars a year and no politician, Democrat or Republican can dare say no to any weapons program for fear of being called a traitor.

If no real "enemy" existed, we would have to invent one just to keep the economy going. We have created a situation that we can't extricate ourselves from without a major disruption in our economy. At the same time, all the things we should be doing as a country go undone. The only good thing about this awful trap is that we are a relatively wealthy country where this overspending does not quite bankrupt us.

[Roland99]

19. At war with the neocons, pseudo-Christians, and the corporatists.

[rucky]

20. It looks like a war. It's destructive like a war. I say it's a war.

an Illegal War. a never-ending war against whoever the hell the dictatorship wants to wage it upon.

[HereSince1628]

21. Call it what you will, active combat sure as hell isn't peace.

Maybe we should let the rest of the world comment on that, rather than us trying to split hairs about fine distinction of declared vs undeclared war that Americans engage in.

[Avalux]

22. Agreed. We are at war with ourselves, apparently.

The WH has managed to pit one American against another - the Bushlover against the Bushhater - because if we're busy arguing amongst ourselves, we can't unite against them.

The "War on Terror" is a fabrication to control all of us. There is no real enemy and there is no timeline in this fake war, it's a way for the WH to grab power and $$ from the people. I am still hoping that those illusioned by Bush and his cronies will realize they don't care about any of us and that will allow us all to work together.

I am getting the idea your post has been spurred by the outrage over the port deal. I wrote about it yesterday and I didn't really consider the race aspect. What I considered was a foreign authoritarian country, not a private company, will have control of our ports. I considered that said country supposedly had ties to the 9/11 tragedy. I considered that the corporate entities involved and cronyism will only put more money in the pockets of the richest men in our country and probably will ultimately hurt American workers.