Bin Laden's son calls for peace

[DrBaltar]

OK. I'm basically pro-American, but even patriotic Americans shouldn't imagine that our doo-doo never stinks.

Our doo-doo may stink, but Ziggurat is commenting on a different issue. There is a very vocal group of people in the US who either make up anti-american crap or who are so eager to point fingers at our own country that they don't find out any details before blaming America. I don't understand their motivation. Why are they so quick to believe that this is such a bad country?

Again, I am not saying we can do no wrong, but the vast majority of the blame-america-first gripes are about things that are made up, or they haven't bothered to look into the facts.

i.e. we faked the moon landings, so called Vietnam atrocities (as mentioned above), or the Bush administration had the planes flown into the WTC & Pentagon, or the Bush administration (favorite subject of the blame-america-first crowd) steered hurricane Katrina into the poor parts of New Orleans.

 

[Puppycow]

Yes I know. These are a sort of conspiricy-minded people. I'm not sure what exactly makes them tick, but there are a lot of them. They are not unique to America, but since America is the world's most powerful country, many of them obsess about America (and Israel). Maybe this kind of paranoia is a byproduct of evolution.

But I still think there is plenty about Vietnam to be critical of without making anything up. The leaders who forcibly put young 18-year-old and 19-year-old men in the position are to blame. Who wants to kill and die for the likes of the South Vietnamese Government? It was not a democracy; its own people hated it. And first and foremost: what concern was it of ours? Why did American kids have to go their to die and kill against their will?

What's going on here?:

How do they know there's no innocent people down there?

 

[DrBaltar]

Although I know basically why we went to war with North Vietnam I was 8 when we pulled out and don't know all the nuances that I would have to know to form an opinion on that war. The Iraq war is a good example of why I do not want to form an opinion. If I were uninformed about the details of the Iraq war I might believe all kinds of B.S. that the left spews about Bush, our reasons for fighting Iraq, so called atrocities in Iraq etc. The left has control of much of the media, so I would certainly be biased to believe these things, just as the left had control of much of the media during the Vietnam war. I also know that the administration has legitimate reasons for the Iraq war, and I suspect that we had legitimate reasons for the Vietnam war. But as I say, I don't know the details.

How did we know there were no innocent people down there? I have no idea. All I see is a video without any context and without any access to the specific military situation there. I do know that the N. Vietnamese engaged in guerrilla warfare and that anything was fair game to them. They might use houses to stage attacks from as Al Qaeda uses mosques to stage attacks from. They probably also armed civilians and even children, so who is innocent? The buildings may have been scouted by U.S. soldiers on the ground before bombing. Do you know enough about this attack to make any accusations?

 

[Darth Rotor]

How did we know there were no innocent people down there? I have no idea. All I see is a video without any context and without any access to the specific military situation there. I do know that the N. Vietnamese engaged in guerrilla warfare and that anything was fair game to them. They might use houses to stage attacks from as Al Qaeda uses mosques to stage attacks from. They probably also armed civilians and even children, so who is innocent? The buildings may have been scouted by U.S. soldiers on the ground before bombing. Do you know enough about this attack to make any accusations?

How rare, a thoughtful take on the sliver of informational pizza delivered to our doors by the 24/7 infotainment industry.

Here's another thought: do we, as in the general public "we," understand who is on the other side? One wonders, and the language used hardly helps. It seems to be more about symbols than reasoning. It was some years before the subtleties of Iraq's tribal societal foundation found its way into the US media, but US and other Coalition forces were deeply involved with negotiating deals via tribal elders as soon as, or even before, Saddam and Baghdad Bob left their sinking ship of state.

Why the gap in coherence, and the sustained use of "the Iraqi people" as a symbolic representation of the folks there (and a wishful thinking exercise as well)?

Here is another example of a term missing context.

Al Qaeda. This usage, this shorthand, derives from "the front" or "the base" of something, in a rough translation to English.

What the Al Qaeda group calls itself in a fuller translation:

World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders

To name a thing is to have some power over it, some say, so let this acronym better represent who the catalyst for this "War on Terror" was: (my years in the service betray me here)

WIFFJAJAC (Pronounced "Whiff-Jah-Jack)

In terms of short hand, Al Qaeda is to the WIFFJAJAC as"America" is to "The United States of America," except that a bit more critical context is missing from the short hand.

DR