inteldaily.com— The U.S. spends more for war annually than all state governments combined spend for the health, education, welfare, and safety of 308 million Americans.
Dec 25, 2009View in Crawl 4
Rasmussen has been completely discredited as a credible polling outfit in poll after poll. Nate Silver at <a class="user" href="http://fivethirtyeight.com" rel="nofollow">http://fivethirtyeight.com</a> has some pretty good data on how far off their polls are from other pollsters.
@reg You do realize, the Democrats have held the majority in both houses since 2006? You are aware that congress writes the checks? I'll grant you that Bush and a Republican congress started the war, but the Dems have had 3 years now to extricate the US by suspending funding. Who's ideology thinks it's okay to spend more on the military than the citizens? You do realize, Prez Obama has the ability to end this tomorrow? Who's ideology again?
Just to clarify, which do you need evidence for? Do you doubt that, in the USSR, people had to stand in line to buy meager amounts of things like potatoes, sugar, beets?Or are you denying that, if not for the USA standing in the way, that the Soviets would have taken over Western Europe, as they did all of Eastern Europe?
They died by the hands of people trained and funded by the USA. Back in the '80s when it looked such a good idea.And by the way, do you care to tally up the victims of American foreign policy? Direct and indirect? We're talking about 2-4 millions in just Vietnam here.
spongya77A stretch at best. First of all, we funded a wide range of groups, training and arming them to resist the Russian occupation/takeover. (Try reading Block by Block - The Challenges of Urban Operations... there is a chapter covering the Russian capture of Kabul and the Russian attempt to take Grozny and the beating they took at the hands of the Chechens). Expecting them all to be saints is alittle naive on your part and certainly was not what we expected when we funded them. Second, they sought their own training in terror tactics, information warfare, and public opinion operations... We taught them to fire a guerrilla war and resupply off the enemy.Victims of American foreign policy? Well, lets see. Vietnam... ah yes... the country which divided itself in half once the north decided it liked communism and the south didn't... And then came that whole part about the north deciding to... oh what's that word China used? Oh yes.. "Reunify" the country. Yep.. our fault they wanted to crush their southern brothers by war and we decided to help out, of course for our own motives as well. How about some other "victims" of American foreign policy? Well, there's Panama after we decided to oust the dictator... Victims? I think a couple dozen died in the shoot out with those still loyal to Noriega. Another would-be dictator down... Such a high price for freedom?I could go on but your words make it evident nothing is worth a human life, even freedom and right.
Learn your history better...Let's see. Guerilla and terrorist are only a different point of view. The French Resistance was a terrorist group for the Nazis; so was the Taliban for the Russians. You armed them, you supported them, and destabilized all and every moderate country that wasn't under direct US influence. Whenever there was a choice of supporting a fundamentalist, the US did. (Read about how the CIA systematically supported fundamentalism in the region. In their own freaking files.)Vietnam? Are you that simple? You really think it's the bad reds agains the poor southerns? Are you aware how corrupt the South Vietnamese government was? Are you aware that the whole war started as a fight against the French, and the revolutionaries first turned to the US for support? They were just like the Cubans: they got help whereever they could. If you really have no factual knowledge, at least, for christ's sake, read wikipedia about the origins of the war, ok? (And the Korean, too.)So that's 4 million. Another 1 or 2 in after the bombing of Cambodia and Laos (plus the Red Khmers were operating with the tacid support of the US. Again; historical fact.) Latin America? Panama? Really? Like Saddam, Noriega was a US henchman who got ideas of his own, and suddenly from trusted ally became an ugly monster. Nicaragua? El Salvador? Chile? Argentina? Haiti? Columbia? Thousands killed by either US supported dictators or US trained and supplied death squads. You have the audacity to talk about freedom? Exactly when did the US support freedom? When overthrew the Iranian government? (That worked out really good.) Or the Nicaraguan? (Even in WWII the supposed pillars of freedom, the US and GB... racial seggregation, colonial oppression. Some freedom, indeed.) Or god forbid, you're talking about the present little adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan?Educate yourself, because you're making a fool of yourself.
rdudeDec 26, 2009
Rasmussen has been completely discredited as a credible polling outfit in poll after poll. Nate Silver at <a class="user" href="http://fivethirtyeight.com" rel="nofollow">http://fivethirtyeight.com</a> has some pretty good data on how far off their polls are from other pollsters.
rthakidnDec 26, 2009
@reg You do realize, the Democrats have held the majority in both houses since 2006? You are aware that congress writes the checks? I'll grant you that Bush and a Republican congress started the war, but the Dems have had 3 years now to extricate the US by suspending funding. Who's ideology thinks it's okay to spend more on the military than the citizens? You do realize, Prez Obama has the ability to end this tomorrow? Who's ideology again?
Closed AccountDec 26, 2009
Don't just bury me. Answer the f**king question.
kasha34Dec 26, 2009
Just to clarify, which do you need evidence for? Do you doubt that, in the USSR, people had to stand in line to buy meager amounts of things like potatoes, sugar, beets?Or are you denying that, if not for the USA standing in the way, that the Soviets would have taken over Western Europe, as they did all of Eastern Europe?
spongya77Dec 27, 2009
They died by the hands of people trained and funded by the USA. Back in the '80s when it looked such a good idea.And by the way, do you care to tally up the victims of American foreign policy? Direct and indirect? We're talking about 2-4 millions in just Vietnam here.
vbullingerDec 31, 2009
Bush and Obama are related, so I guess that covers him, too.
pyrewyrmJan 19, 2010
You mean like we were going to have that surplus at the turn of the century before we spent it all?
pyrewyrmJan 19, 2010
spongya77A stretch at best. First of all, we funded a wide range of groups, training and arming them to resist the Russian occupation/takeover. (Try reading Block by Block - The Challenges of Urban Operations... there is a chapter covering the Russian capture of Kabul and the Russian attempt to take Grozny and the beating they took at the hands of the Chechens). Expecting them all to be saints is alittle naive on your part and certainly was not what we expected when we funded them. Second, they sought their own training in terror tactics, information warfare, and public opinion operations... We taught them to fire a guerrilla war and resupply off the enemy.Victims of American foreign policy? Well, lets see. Vietnam... ah yes... the country which divided itself in half once the north decided it liked communism and the south didn't... And then came that whole part about the north deciding to... oh what's that word China used? Oh yes.. "Reunify" the country. Yep.. our fault they wanted to crush their southern brothers by war and we decided to help out, of course for our own motives as well. How about some other "victims" of American foreign policy? Well, there's Panama after we decided to oust the dictator... Victims? I think a couple dozen died in the shoot out with those still loyal to Noriega. Another would-be dictator down... Such a high price for freedom?I could go on but your words make it evident nothing is worth a human life, even freedom and right.
spongya77Jan 20, 2010
Learn your history better...Let's see. Guerilla and terrorist are only a different point of view. The French Resistance was a terrorist group for the Nazis; so was the Taliban for the Russians. You armed them, you supported them, and destabilized all and every moderate country that wasn't under direct US influence. Whenever there was a choice of supporting a fundamentalist, the US did. (Read about how the CIA systematically supported fundamentalism in the region. In their own freaking files.)Vietnam? Are you that simple? You really think it's the bad reds agains the poor southerns? Are you aware how corrupt the South Vietnamese government was? Are you aware that the whole war started as a fight against the French, and the revolutionaries first turned to the US for support? They were just like the Cubans: they got help whereever they could. If you really have no factual knowledge, at least, for christ's sake, read wikipedia about the origins of the war, ok? (And the Korean, too.)So that's 4 million. Another 1 or 2 in after the bombing of Cambodia and Laos (plus the Red Khmers were operating with the tacid support of the US. Again; historical fact.) Latin America? Panama? Really? Like Saddam, Noriega was a US henchman who got ideas of his own, and suddenly from trusted ally became an ugly monster. Nicaragua? El Salvador? Chile? Argentina? Haiti? Columbia? Thousands killed by either US supported dictators or US trained and supplied death squads. You have the audacity to talk about freedom? Exactly when did the US support freedom? When overthrew the Iranian government? (That worked out really good.) Or the Nicaraguan? (Even in WWII the supposed pillars of freedom, the US and GB... racial seggregation, colonial oppression. Some freedom, indeed.) Or god forbid, you're talking about the present little adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan?Educate yourself, because you're making a fool of yourself.
fasttadpoleJan 21, 2010
.. and lives.