Comments on: September Elevenths http://marccooper.com/september-elevenths/ Thu, 11 Mar 2010 07:23:52 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: Bad Breath & Gum Disease Cure http://marccooper.com/september-elevenths/comment-page-1/#comment-256666 Bad Breath & Gum Disease Cure Sat, 30 Dec 2006 16:13:21 +0000 http://marccooper.com/september-elevenths/#comment-256666 <strong>bad breath home remedy...</strong> Gum Disease victims need not suffer any further. There is now a breakthrough... bad breath home remedy…

Gum Disease victims need not suffer any further. There is now a breakthrough…

]]> By: Enlightenment http://marccooper.com/september-elevenths/comment-page-1/#comment-138703 Enlightenment Sat, 14 Oct 2006 01:31:18 +0000 http://marccooper.com/september-elevenths/#comment-138703 One thing that struck me as odd in the days after 9/11 was Bush saying "We will not tolerate conspiracy theories [regarding 9/11]". Sure enough there have been some wacky conspiracy theories surrounding the events of that day. The most far-fetched and patently ridiculous one that I've ever heard goes like this: Nineteen hijackers who claimed to be devout Muslims but yet were so un-Muslim as to be getting drunk all the time, doing cocaine and frequenting strip clubs decided to hijack four airliners and fly them into buildings in the northeastern U.S., the area of the country that is the most thick with fighter bases. After leaving a Koran on a barstool at a strip bar after getting shitfaced drunk on the night before, then writing a suicide note/inspirational letter that sounded like it was written by someone with next to no knowledge of Islam, they went to bed and got up the next morning hung over and carried out their devious plan. Nevermind the fact that of the four "pilots" among them there was not a one that could handle a Cessna or a Piper Cub let alone fly a jumbo jet, and the one assigned the most difficult task of all, Hani Hanjour, was so laughably incompetent that he was the worst fake "pilot" of the bunch. Nevermind the fact that they received very rudimentary flight training at Pensacola Naval Air Station, making them more likely to have been C.I.A. assets than Islamic fundamentalist terrorists. So on to the airports. These "hijackers" somehow managed to board all four airliners with their tickets, yet not even ONE got his name on any of the flight manifests. So they hijack all four airliners and at this time passengers on United 93 start making a bunch of cell phone calls from 35,000 feet in the air to tell people what was going on. Nevermind the fact that cell phones wouldn't work very well above 4,000 feet, and wouldn't work at ALL above 8,000 feet. But the conspiracy theorists won't let that fact get in the way of a good fantasy. That is one of the little things you "aren't supposed to think about". Nevermind that one of the callers called his mom and said his first and last name, more like he was reading from a list than calling his own mom. Anyway, when these airliners each deviated from their flight plan and didn't respond to ground control, NORAD would any other time have followed standard operating procedure (and did NOT have to be told by F.A.A. that there were hijackings because they were watching the same events unfold on their own radar) which means fighter jets would be scrambled from the nearest base where they were available on standby within a few minutes, just like every other time when airliners stray off course. But of course on 9/11 this didn't happen, not even close. Somehow these "hijackers" must have used magical powers to cause NORAD to stand down, as ridiculous as this sounds because total inaction from the most high-tech and professional Air Force in the world would be necessary to carry out their tasks. So on the most important day in its history the Air Force was totally worthless. Then they had to make one of the airliners look like a smaller plane, because unknown to them the Naudet brothers had a videocamera to capture the only known footage of the North Tower crash, and this footage shows something that is not at all like a jumbo jet, but didn't have to bother with the South Tower jet disguising itself because that was the one we were "supposed to see". Anyway, as for the Pentagon they had to have Hani Hanjour fly his airliner like it was a fighter plane, making a high G-force corkscrew turn that no real airliner can do, in making its descent to strike the Pentagon. But these "hijackers" wanted to make sure Rumsfeld survived so they went out of their way to hit the farthest point in the building from where Rumsfeld and the top brass are located. And this worked out rather well for the military personnel in the Pentagon, since the side that was hit was the part that was under renovation at the time with few military personnel present compared to construction workers. Still more fortuitous for the Pentagon, the side that was hit had just before 9/11 been structurally reinforced to prevent a large fire there from spreading elsewhere in the building. Awful nice of them to pick that part to hit, huh? Then the airliner vaporized itself into nothing but tiny unidentifiable pieces no bigger than a fist, unlike the crash of a real airliner when you will be able to see at least some identifiable parts, like crumpled wings, broken tail section etc. Why, Hani Hanjour the terrible pilot flew that airliner so good that even though he hit the Pentagon on the ground floor the engines didn't even drag the ground!! Imagine that!! Though the airliner vaporized itself on impact it only made a tiny 16 foot hole in the building. Amazing. Meanwhile, though the planes hitting the Twin Towers caused fires small enough for the firefighters to be heard on their radios saying "We just need 2 hoses and we can knock this fire down" attesting to the small size of it, somehow they must have used magical powers from beyond the grave to make this morph into a raging inferno capable of making the steel on all forty-seven main support columns (not to mention the over 100 smaller support columns) soften and buckle, then all fail at once. Hmmm. Then still more magic was used to make the building totally defy physics as well as common sense in having the uppermost floors pass through the remainder of the building as quickly, meaning as effortlessly, as falling through air, a feat that without magic could only be done with explosives. Then exactly 30 minutes later the North Tower collapses in precisely the same freefall physics-defying manner. Incredible. Not to mention the fact that both collapsed at a uniform rate too, not slowing down, which also defies physics because as the uppermost floors crash into and through each successive floor beneath them they would shed more and more energy each time, thus slowing itself down. Common sense tells you this is not possible without either the hijackers' magical powers or explosives. To emphasize their telekinetic prowess, later in the day they made a third building, WTC # 7, collapse also at freefall rate though no plane or any major debris hit it. Amazing guys these magical hijackers. But we know it had to be "Muslim hijackers" the conspiracy theorist will tell you because (now don't laugh) one of their passports was "found" a couple days later near Ground Zero, miraculously "surviving" the fire that we were told incinerated planes, passengers and black boxes, and also "survived" the collapse of the building it was in. When common sense tells you if that were true then they should start making buildings and airliners out of heavy paper and plastic so as to be "indestructable" like that magic passport. The hijackers even used their magical powers to bring at least seven of their number back to life, to appear at american embassies outraged at being blamed for 9/11!! BBC reported on that and it is still online. Nevertheless, they also used magical powers to make the american government look like it was covering something up in the aftermath of this, what with the hasty removal of the steel debris and having it driven to ports in trucks with GPS locators on them, to be shipped overseas to China and India to be melted down. When common sense again tells you that this is paradoxical in that if the steel was so unimportant that they didn't bother saving some for analysis but so important as to require GPS locators on the trucks with one driver losing his job because he stopped to get lunch. Hmmmm. Yes, this whole story smacks of the utmost idiocy and fantastical far-fetched lying, but it is amazingly enough what some people believe. Even now, five years later, the provably false fairy tale of the "nineteen hijackers" is heard repeated again and again, and is accepted without question by so many Americans. Which is itself a testament to the innate psychological cowardice of the American sheeple, i mean people, and their abject willingness to believe something, ANYTHING, no matter how ridiculous in order to avoid facing a scary uncomfortable truth. Time to wake up America. One thing that struck me as odd in the days after 9/11 was Bush saying “We will not tolerate conspiracy theories [regarding 9/11]“. Sure enough there have been some wacky conspiracy theories surrounding the events of that day. The most far-fetched and patently ridiculous one that I’ve ever heard goes like this: Nineteen hijackers who claimed to be devout Muslims but yet were so un-Muslim as to be getting drunk all the time, doing cocaine and frequenting strip clubs decided to hijack four airliners and fly them into buildings in the northeastern U.S., the area of the country that is the most thick with fighter bases. After leaving a Koran on a barstool at a strip bar after getting shitfaced drunk on the night before, then writing a suicide note/inspirational letter that sounded like it was written by someone with next to no knowledge of Islam, they went to bed and got up the next morning hung over and carried out their devious plan. Nevermind the fact that of the four “pilots” among them there was not a one that could handle a Cessna or a Piper Cub let alone fly a jumbo jet, and the one assigned the most difficult task of all, Hani Hanjour, was so laughably incompetent that he was the worst fake “pilot” of the bunch. Nevermind the fact that they received very rudimentary flight training at Pensacola Naval Air Station, making them more likely to have been C.I.A. assets than Islamic fundamentalist terrorists. So on to the airports. These “hijackers” somehow managed to board all four airliners with their tickets, yet not even ONE got his name on any of the flight manifests. So they hijack all four airliners and at this time passengers on United 93 start making a bunch of cell phone calls from 35,000 feet in the air to tell people what was going on. Nevermind the fact that cell phones wouldn’t work very well above 4,000 feet, and wouldn’t work at ALL above 8,000 feet. But the conspiracy theorists won’t let that fact get in the way of a good fantasy. That is one of the little things you “aren’t supposed to think about”. Nevermind that one of the callers called his mom and said his first and last name, more like he was reading from a list than calling his own mom. Anyway, when these airliners each deviated from their flight plan and didn’t respond to ground control, NORAD would any other time have followed standard operating procedure (and did NOT have to be told by F.A.A. that there were hijackings because they were watching the same events unfold on their own radar) which means fighter jets would be scrambled from the nearest base where they were available on standby within a few minutes, just like every other time when airliners stray off course. But of course on 9/11 this didn’t happen, not even close. Somehow these “hijackers” must have used magical powers to cause NORAD to stand down, as ridiculous as this sounds because total inaction from the most high-tech and professional Air Force in the world would be necessary to carry out their tasks. So on the most important day in its history the Air Force was totally worthless. Then they had to make one of the airliners look like a smaller plane, because unknown to them the Naudet brothers had a videocamera to capture the only known footage of the North Tower crash, and this footage shows something that is not at all like a jumbo jet, but didn’t have to bother with the South Tower jet disguising itself because that was the one we were “supposed to see”. Anyway, as for the Pentagon they had to have Hani Hanjour fly his airliner like it was a fighter plane, making a high G-force corkscrew turn that no real airliner can do, in making its descent to strike the Pentagon. But these “hijackers” wanted to make sure Rumsfeld survived so they went out of their way to hit the farthest point in the building from where Rumsfeld and the top brass are located. And this worked out rather well for the military personnel in the Pentagon, since the side that was hit was the part that was under renovation at the time with few military personnel present compared to construction workers. Still more fortuitous for the Pentagon, the side that was hit had just before 9/11 been structurally reinforced to prevent a large fire there from spreading elsewhere in the building. Awful nice of them to pick that part to hit, huh? Then the airliner vaporized itself into nothing but tiny unidentifiable pieces no bigger than a fist, unlike the crash of a real airliner when you will be able to see at least some identifiable parts, like crumpled wings, broken tail section etc. Why, Hani Hanjour the terrible pilot flew that airliner so good that even though he hit the Pentagon on the ground floor the engines didn’t even drag the ground!! Imagine that!! Though the airliner vaporized itself on impact it only made a tiny 16 foot hole in the building. Amazing. Meanwhile, though the planes hitting the Twin Towers caused fires small enough for the firefighters to be heard on their radios saying “We just need 2 hoses and we can knock this fire down” attesting to the small size of it, somehow they must have used magical powers from beyond the grave to make this morph into a raging inferno capable of making the steel on all forty-seven main support columns (not to mention the over 100 smaller support columns) soften and buckle, then all fail at once. Hmmm. Then still more magic was used to make the building totally defy physics as well as common sense in having the uppermost floors pass through the remainder of the building as quickly, meaning as effortlessly, as falling through air, a feat that without magic could only be done with explosives. Then exactly 30 minutes later the North Tower collapses in precisely the same freefall physics-defying manner. Incredible. Not to mention the fact that both collapsed at a uniform rate too, not slowing down, which also defies physics because as the uppermost floors crash into and through each successive floor beneath them they would shed more and more energy each time, thus slowing itself down. Common sense tells you this is not possible without either the hijackers’ magical powers or explosives. To emphasize their telekinetic prowess, later in the day they made a third building, WTC # 7, collapse also at freefall rate though no plane or any major debris hit it. Amazing guys these magical hijackers. But we know it had to be “Muslim hijackers” the conspiracy theorist will tell you because (now don’t laugh) one of their passports was “found” a couple days later near Ground Zero, miraculously “surviving” the fire that we were told incinerated planes, passengers and black boxes, and also “survived” the collapse of the building it was in. When common sense tells you if that were true then they should start making buildings and airliners out of heavy paper and plastic so as to be “indestructable” like that magic passport. The hijackers even used their magical powers to bring at least seven of their number back to life, to appear at american embassies outraged at being blamed for 9/11!! BBC reported on that and it is still online. Nevertheless, they also used magical powers to make the american government look like it was covering something up in the aftermath of this, what with the hasty removal of the steel debris and having it driven to ports in trucks with GPS locators on them, to be shipped overseas to China and India to be melted down. When common sense again tells you that this is paradoxical in that if the steel was so unimportant that they didn’t bother saving some for analysis but so important as to require GPS locators on the trucks with one driver losing his job because he stopped to get lunch. Hmmmm. Yes, this whole story smacks of the utmost idiocy and fantastical far-fetched lying, but it is amazingly enough what some people believe. Even now, five years later, the provably false fairy tale of the “nineteen hijackers” is heard repeated again and again, and is accepted without question by so many Americans. Which is itself a testament to the innate psychological cowardice of the American sheeple, i mean people, and their abject willingness to believe something, ANYTHING, no matter how ridiculous in order to avoid facing a scary uncomfortable truth. Time to wake up America.

]]> By: Assistant Village Idiot http://marccooper.com/september-elevenths/comment-page-1/#comment-108388 Assistant Village Idiot Fri, 15 Sep 2006 01:02:17 +0000 http://marccooper.com/september-elevenths/#comment-108388 Mork, if you're still around, send me an email, please. Mork, if you’re still around, send me an email, please.

]]> By: what now toons http://marccooper.com/september-elevenths/comment-page-1/#comment-107316 what now toons Wed, 13 Sep 2006 18:24:03 +0000 http://marccooper.com/september-elevenths/#comment-107316 Jim R , yep that's me Looney left, or I would rather be considered the radical middle, since the Bush regime has taken everything to the far right, and have us hate everybody they tell us to, manipulating us with fear. My Idea of America is a two party system with checks and balances on power, privacy rights, you know, the kind of things one finds in the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution. Keep America the Land of the Free www.whatnowtoons.com Jim R , yep that’s me Looney left, or I would rather be considered the radical middle, since the Bush regime has taken everything to the far right, and have us hate everybody they tell us to, manipulating us with fear. My Idea of America is a two party system with checks and balances on power, privacy rights, you know, the kind of things one finds in the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution.
Keep America the Land of the Free
http://www.whatnowtoons.com

]]> By: Michael Turner http://marccooper.com/september-elevenths/comment-page-1/#comment-107255 Michael Turner Wed, 13 Sep 2006 16:31:59 +0000 http://marccooper.com/september-elevenths/#comment-107255 AVW writes: "I guess, reg, if it’s not clear to you that in the civil war in Islam we're on the side of the modernists of all stripes, then it is little wonder the rest of our current strategy is also opaque to you." Iraq's PM Maliki was just warmly received by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. How that makes Maliki a "modernist" of any stripe is opaque to me. AVW writes: “I guess, reg, if it’s not clear to you that in the civil war in Islam we’re on the side of the modernists of all stripes, then it is little wonder the rest of our current strategy is also opaque to you.”

Iraq’s PM Maliki was just warmly received by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. How that makes Maliki a “modernist” of any stripe is opaque to me.

]]> By: Jim R http://marccooper.com/september-elevenths/comment-page-1/#comment-107179 Jim R Wed, 13 Sep 2006 14:16:28 +0000 http://marccooper.com/september-elevenths/#comment-107179 Toons seems representative of the far left in general. Fears his own government more than those of his enemies. The fear is classic big-boogey-man-in-the-sky conspiracies theories and operatives within his own damned country. It's classic rocking chair looneyness. And if he were living in the middle east, he would be just the personality profile radical Islam would be looking for to buy into their virgins reward. Toons seems representative of the far left in general. Fears his own government more than those of his enemies. The fear is classic big-boogey-man-in-the-sky conspiracies theories and operatives within his own damned country.

It’s classic rocking chair looneyness. And if he were living in the middle east, he would be just the personality profile radical Islam would be looking for to buy into their virgins reward.

]]> By: reg http://marccooper.com/september-elevenths/comment-page-1/#comment-106582 reg Wed, 13 Sep 2006 03:24:52 +0000 http://marccooper.com/september-elevenths/#comment-106582 Opaque doesn't even begin to describe your incoherence and unhinged GWOT rhetoric. Opaque doesn’t even begin to describe your incoherence and unhinged GWOT rhetoric.

]]> By: Assistant Village Idiot http://marccooper.com/september-elevenths/comment-page-1/#comment-106565 Assistant Village Idiot Wed, 13 Sep 2006 03:09:51 +0000 http://marccooper.com/september-elevenths/#comment-106565 I guess, reg, if it's not clear to you that in the civil war in Islam we're on the side of the modernists of all stripes, then it is little wonder the rest of our current strategy is also opaque to you. I guess, reg, if it’s not clear to you that in the civil war in Islam we’re on the side of the modernists of all stripes, then it is little wonder the rest of our current strategy is also opaque to you.

]]> By: reg http://marccooper.com/september-elevenths/comment-page-1/#comment-106410 reg Tue, 12 Sep 2006 22:22:14 +0000 http://marccooper.com/september-elevenths/#comment-106410 SteveZ - thanks for your support. I'm tapped out, but since you want me to provide more for you to read, here's the complete text of War and Peace. www.bibliomania.com/0/0/52/96 SteveZ – thanks for your support. I’m tapped out, but since you want me to provide more for you to read, here’s the complete text of War and Peace.

http://www.bibliomania.com/0/0/52/96

]]> By: what now toons http://marccooper.com/september-elevenths/comment-page-1/#comment-106313 what now toons Tue, 12 Sep 2006 19:51:30 +0000 http://marccooper.com/september-elevenths/#comment-106313 It's the Homeland Fear Factor, here to terrify you into voting for them. The Authoritarians want to control all that you see and hear. They can make your world shaky and terrifying or sharpen it to crystal clarity. They will control all that you see and hear, with the commander and chief constantly linking Iraq to 9-11 buy repeating the two in addresses, like last nights part II of "Path to Lies". Don't fall for it people, they're worried they could loose the House & Senate, that's why they're pulling out all their dirty tricks right now. Don't be fooled, it's just their election campaign in action. Here's a link to my cartoon, "Homeland Fear Factor" http://www.whatnowtoons/#056 It’s the Homeland Fear Factor, here to terrify you into voting for them. The Authoritarians want to control all that you see and hear. They can make your world shaky and terrifying or sharpen it to crystal clarity. They will control all that you see and hear, with the commander and chief constantly linking Iraq to 9-11 buy repeating the two in addresses, like last nights part II of “Path to Lies”. Don’t fall for it people, they’re worried they could loose the House & Senate, that’s why they’re pulling out all their dirty tricks right now. Don’t be fooled, it’s just their election campaign in action. Here’s a link to my cartoon, “Homeland Fear Factor”
http://www.whatnowtoons/#056

]]> By: Samuel http://marccooper.com/september-elevenths/comment-page-1/#comment-106118 Samuel Tue, 12 Sep 2006 14:47:47 +0000 http://marccooper.com/september-elevenths/#comment-106118 Well, "Stevez", you're free, like reg, to say something intelligent and thought-provoking at any time. Reg is quite good at it, so you might take notes. Or you can continue to make little ankle-nipping comments that, ironically, clutter up the message board more than the longer and more informative comments of other posters. Your choice. Well, “Stevez”, you’re free, like reg, to say something intelligent and thought-provoking at any time. Reg is quite good at it, so you might take notes. Or you can continue to make little ankle-nipping comments that, ironically, clutter up the message board more than the longer and more informative comments of other posters.

Your choice.

]]> By: Stevez http://marccooper.com/september-elevenths/comment-page-1/#comment-106005 Stevez Tue, 12 Sep 2006 13:36:48 +0000 http://marccooper.com/september-elevenths/#comment-106005 I don't think we heard enough from Reg in this thread. I don’t think we heard enough from Reg in this thread.

]]> By: Michael Balter http://marccooper.com/september-elevenths/comment-page-1/#comment-105503 Michael Balter Tue, 12 Sep 2006 06:43:21 +0000 http://marccooper.com/september-elevenths/#comment-105503 Thanks for posting the Tierney piece, reg, that is one of the wisest things I have ever seen on this subject. And as for sticking your neck out, that particular post was one of your best and I agree with every sentence. Thanks for posting the Tierney piece, reg, that is one of the wisest things I have ever seen on this subject. And as for sticking your neck out, that particular post was one of your best and I agree with every sentence.

]]> By: what now toons http://marccooper.com/september-elevenths/comment-page-1/#comment-105424 what now toons Tue, 12 Sep 2006 04:54:45 +0000 http://marccooper.com/september-elevenths/#comment-105424 That's it, They did it. they try swift boated the truth. The only answer is we don't go to their theme parks, ride on their cruise ships, buy their videos, or their toys. Say Bye Bye to the Disney Kingdom. They wouldn't distribute Michael Moore's movie because they SAID they didn't want to deal with controversial subjects. So 40 million dollars later, two months before an election they want to air this pack of lies commercial free. Gee Sinclair tried this trick once before. And to top it off, It's airing unedited in New Zealand right now. What's next, a rush Halloween release of the foreign release?!!!! I think this is a GOP campaign contribution. thats my latest rant, to see my rant in cartoon form go to my website www.whatnowtoons.com That’s it, They did it. they try swift boated the truth. The only answer is we don’t go to their theme parks, ride on their cruise ships, buy their videos, or their toys. Say Bye Bye to the Disney Kingdom. They wouldn’t distribute Michael Moore’s movie because they SAID they didn’t want to deal with controversial subjects. So 40 million dollars later, two months before an election they want to air this pack of lies commercial free. Gee Sinclair tried this trick once before. And to top it off, It’s airing unedited in New Zealand right now. What’s next, a rush Halloween release of the foreign release?!!!! I think this is a GOP campaign contribution.
thats my latest rant, to see my rant in cartoon form go to my website
http://www.whatnowtoons.com

]]> By: Michael Turner http://marccooper.com/september-elevenths/comment-page-1/#comment-105416 Michael Turner Tue, 12 Sep 2006 04:46:48 +0000 http://marccooper.com/september-elevenths/#comment-105416 "... almost every one of the women, children and old people you were dropping bombs on were spending part of their day working in a factory to make bullets and explosives that would be used to kill YOUR children." Just prior to the bombing of Japan, "17 percent of Japan's total output was being devoted to direct war purposes and expansion of her munition industries, as against 2.6 percent at that time in the United States." As with any country at war, operating well short of total devastation, almost all economic activity is oriented around civilian use, and for reasons that should be pretty obvious: people need to eat, clothe themselves, have roofs over their heads. Here's a nice one: "The obvious retort,"what about the children?" is equally without real merit. Aside from the fact that the Axis powers used child labor extensively, (which would drag the children out of the realm of noncombatants) the fact remains that they, being essentially at the side of their mothers who are part of the war-making capability of the enemy, are semi-legitimate targets. Bombs, be they conventional or nuclear, do not discriminate. To be plain, that's just tough." http://hnn.us/articles/189.html "Semi-legitimate" -- I like that. I suppose a babysitter who looks after a child too young to be "drafted" into war production so that a mother and her other children can go make bullets is also a "semi-legitimate" target. As for the child getting the babysitting, well ... "that's just tough". "The reason total war is so ugly is because the choice is not _whether_ to kill children, but _whose_ children you are going to condemn to death." Being drafted is not a death sentence. Having firebombs dumped on you is. Going into battle is always a choice for a soldier, even if the alternatives are unpleasant. Staying alive after a firestorm has sucked all the oxygen out of the immediate environment is not. “… almost every one of the women, children and old people you were dropping bombs on were spending part of their day working in a factory to make bullets and explosives that would be used to kill YOUR children.”

Just prior to the bombing of Japan, “17 percent of Japan’s total output was being devoted to direct war purposes and expansion of her munition industries, as against 2.6 percent at that time in the United States.”

As with any country at war, operating well short of total devastation, almost all economic activity is oriented around civilian use, and for reasons that should be pretty obvious: people need to eat, clothe themselves, have roofs over their heads.

Here’s a nice one:

“The obvious retort,”what about the children?” is equally without real merit. Aside from the fact that the Axis powers used child labor extensively, (which would drag the children out of the realm of noncombatants) the fact remains that they, being essentially at the side of their mothers who are part of the war-making capability of the enemy, are semi-legitimate targets. Bombs, be they conventional or nuclear, do not discriminate. To be plain, that’s just tough.”

http://hnn.us/articles/189.html

“Semi-legitimate” — I like that. I suppose a babysitter who looks after a child too young to be “drafted” into war production so that a mother and her other children can go make bullets is also a “semi-legitimate” target. As for the child getting the babysitting, well … “that’s just tough”.

“The reason total war is so ugly is because the choice is not _whether_ to kill children, but _whose_ children you are going to condemn to death.”

Being drafted is not a death sentence. Having firebombs dumped on you is. Going into battle is always a choice for a soldier, even if the alternatives are unpleasant. Staying alive after a firestorm has sucked all the oxygen out of the immediate environment is not.

]]> By: reg http://marccooper.com/september-elevenths/comment-page-1/#comment-105397 reg Tue, 12 Sep 2006 04:21:33 +0000 http://marccooper.com/september-elevenths/#comment-105397 Islamo-symp, John Tierney, quoted in full because it's behind a wall. This guy - a conservative of libertarian bent, with whom I generally agree on little or nothing other than a few social issues - gets it. Maybe there's some hope... September 12, 2006 NYT's Op-Ed Columnist Osama’s Spin Lessons By JOHN TIERNEY Somewhere, Osama bin Laden must be smiling. Or at least he will be whenever his couriers deliver the next batch of press clippings. Once again he has beaten America at an American game: public relations. He may be sitting powerlessly in a cave, but his image is as scary as ever. He doesn’t even have to cut a new video. He released an old one last week, the equivalent of a fading musician putting out a greatest-hits album, only this one’s getting played every hour. Last night, President Bush paid him homage by quoting his warning that America will face “defeat and disgrace forever” it if loses in Iraq. Bush himself called the war on terror a “struggle for civilization,” and said it was essential to ”maintain the way of life enjoyed by free nations.” It was just the kind of apocalyptic language favored by bin Laden, except that, for all his delusions, he might realize that American civilization is not really in jeopardy. Americans can try to copy him, but they don’t understand his rhetorical technique. They continually misinterpret his equine theory of international relations: “When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse.” This is supposedly a reason America was attacked on Sept. 11 — it was perceived as weak for failing to respond to Al Qaeda’s earlier attacks — and why it can’t leave Iraq. If we falter in Iraq, Vice President Dick Cheney explained to Tim Russert on Sunday, the war on terror will falter because people will say: “My gosh, the United States hasn’t got the stomach for the fight. Bin Laden’s right, Al Qaeda’s right, the United States has lost its will and will not complete the mission.” But bin Laden knows something else the Bush administration hasn’t figured out: You don’t actually have to be the strong horse. You just have to look stronger. You can be weak, you can be pummeled in a fight, but as long as your opponent looks more scared than you, you can save face by simply declaring victory. As an act of war, the attack on Sept. 11 was a blunder by Al Qaeda, and not merely because of the counterattack that destroyed Al Qaeda’s training camps and ousted the Taliban. It also alienated former jihadist allies in the Arab world, and caused a rift within Al Qaeda. One of its senior members, Abu al-Walid al-Masri, broke with bin Laden and accused him of having an “extreme infatuation” with international publicity. The attack, as Fawaz Gerges notes in Foreign Policy magazine, demonstrated that “bin Laden was prepared to sacrifice Afghanistan and Mullah Omar at the altar of his public relations campaign.” But at least bin Laden knew his P.R. Al Qaeda wasn’t a serious military threat to America, but it could play one on television. As Al Qaeda’s losses mounted and America recovered from the attack, bin Laden and his cohorts didn’t let the facts get in the way of their campaign to promote fear (and themselves). They hid in caves and proclaimed themselves champions. America, meanwhile, accentuated the negative. Instead of declaring victory against terrorists after routing the Taliban and sending bin Laden into hiding, it invaded Iraq, reinvigorating Al Qaeda with a new tool for recruiting. Instead of putting the terrorist risk in perspective, Bush (with the full cooperation of Democrats and the press) set an impossible standard for making America safe. “We’re on the offense against the terrorists on every battlefront,” Bush said last week, “and we’ll accept nothing less than complete victory.” When you define victory that way, when you treat one attack from a disorganized band of fanatics as a menace to civilization, you’ve doomed yourself to defeat and caused more damage than they could. You can’t completely stop terrorism, but you can scare people into giving up liberties, wasting huge sums of money and sacrificing more lives than would be lost in a terrorist attack. Take it from bin Laden, who bragged in 2004 that it was “easy to provoke and bait this administration.” “All that we have to do,” he said, “is to send two mujahedeen to the farthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written Al Qaeda, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic and political losses.” And then Al Qaeda, no matter what losses it has suffered, will come off once again looking like the strong horse. Islamo-symp, John Tierney, quoted in full because it’s behind a wall. This guy – a conservative of libertarian bent, with whom I generally agree on little or nothing other than a few social issues – gets it. Maybe there’s some hope…

September 12, 2006
NYT’s Op-Ed Columnist
Osama’s Spin Lessons
By JOHN TIERNEY

Somewhere, Osama bin Laden must be smiling. Or at least he will be whenever his couriers deliver the next batch of press clippings.

Once again he has beaten America at an American game: public relations. He may be sitting powerlessly in a cave, but his image is as scary as ever. He doesn’t even have to cut a new video. He released an old one last week, the equivalent of a fading musician putting out a greatest-hits album, only this one’s getting played every hour.

Last night, President Bush paid him homage by quoting his warning that America will face “defeat and disgrace forever” it if loses in Iraq. Bush himself called the war on terror a “struggle for civilization,” and said it was essential to ”maintain the way of life enjoyed by free nations.”

It was just the kind of apocalyptic language favored by bin Laden, except that, for all his delusions, he might realize that American civilization is not really in jeopardy. Americans can try to copy him, but they don’t understand his rhetorical technique.

They continually misinterpret his equine theory of international relations: “When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse.” This is supposedly a reason America was attacked on Sept. 11 — it was perceived as weak for failing to respond to Al Qaeda’s earlier attacks — and why it can’t leave Iraq.

If we falter in Iraq, Vice President Dick Cheney explained to Tim Russert on Sunday, the war on terror will falter because people will say: “My gosh, the United States hasn’t got the stomach for the fight. Bin Laden’s right, Al Qaeda’s right, the United States has lost its will and will not complete the mission.”

But bin Laden knows something else the Bush administration hasn’t figured out: You don’t actually have to be the strong horse. You just have to look stronger. You can be weak, you can be pummeled in a fight, but as long as your opponent looks more scared than you, you can save face by simply declaring victory.

As an act of war, the attack on Sept. 11 was a blunder by Al Qaeda, and not merely because of the counterattack that destroyed Al Qaeda’s training camps and ousted the Taliban. It also alienated former jihadist allies in the Arab world, and caused a rift within Al Qaeda.

One of its senior members, Abu al-Walid al-Masri, broke with bin Laden and accused him of having an “extreme infatuation” with international publicity. The attack, as Fawaz Gerges notes in Foreign Policy magazine, demonstrated that “bin Laden was prepared to sacrifice Afghanistan and Mullah Omar at the altar of his public relations campaign.”

But at least bin Laden knew his P.R. Al Qaeda wasn’t a serious military threat to America, but it could play one on television. As Al Qaeda’s losses mounted and America recovered from the attack, bin Laden and his cohorts didn’t let the facts get in the way of their campaign to promote fear (and themselves). They hid in caves and proclaimed themselves champions.

America, meanwhile, accentuated the negative. Instead of declaring victory against terrorists after routing the Taliban and sending bin Laden into hiding, it invaded Iraq, reinvigorating Al Qaeda with a new tool for recruiting. Instead of putting the terrorist risk in perspective, Bush (with the full cooperation of Democrats and the press) set an impossible standard for making America safe.

“We’re on the offense against the terrorists on every battlefront,” Bush said last week, “and we’ll accept nothing less than complete victory.”

When you define victory that way, when you treat one attack from a disorganized band of fanatics as a menace to civilization, you’ve doomed yourself to defeat and caused more damage than they could. You can’t completely stop terrorism, but you can scare people into giving up liberties, wasting huge sums of money and sacrificing more lives than would be lost in a terrorist attack.

Take it from bin Laden, who bragged in 2004 that it was “easy to provoke and bait this administration.”

“All that we have to do,” he said, “is to send two mujahedeen to the farthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written Al Qaeda, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic and political losses.” And then Al Qaeda, no matter what losses it has suffered, will come off once again looking like the strong horse.

]]> By: Mavis Beacon http://marccooper.com/september-elevenths/comment-page-1/#comment-105389 Mavis Beacon Tue, 12 Sep 2006 04:14:47 +0000 http://marccooper.com/september-elevenths/#comment-105389 These kinds of things do more to stop terrorism than anything our leaders have articulated in the past five years. Not counting that smashing heal the world tour put on by the polycultural Karen Hughes. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6055951 When I listen to people like Najdat Anzour speak I am reminded that the ideals of secularism, peace, and moderation that our current administration so abhores can still be communicated to our brothers in arms. Men like Anzour, who appreciate the value of human life, are our real allies against the extremists who would resolve any conflict on the battlefield. American's are no longer buying these dichotomies - if Bin Laden is bad than Bush is good. There are better ways than fighting fire with fire, even if they don't look as manly. These kinds of things do more to stop terrorism than anything our leaders have articulated in the past five years. Not counting that smashing heal the world tour put on by the polycultural Karen Hughes.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6055951

When I listen to people like Najdat Anzour speak I am reminded that the ideals of secularism, peace, and moderation that our current administration so abhores can still be communicated to our brothers in arms. Men like Anzour, who appreciate the value of human life, are our real allies against the extremists who would resolve any conflict on the battlefield. American’s are no longer buying these dichotomies – if Bin Laden is bad than Bush is good. There are better ways than fighting fire with fire, even if they don’t look as manly.

]]> By: reg http://marccooper.com/september-elevenths/comment-page-1/#comment-105279 reg Tue, 12 Sep 2006 03:16:51 +0000 http://marccooper.com/september-elevenths/#comment-105279 "If Israel and the oil were gone", frankly none of this would matter much to the U.S. Just saying. And the belief that a "civil war within Islam" is the occasion for the U.S. to declare WW3, or whatever the nom du jour is, isn't coherent. Unless we start leaving loopy ideology, like "it's only important that they love freedom" at the door, we're going to be increasingly screwed, because the U.S. isn't going to be the vehicle for Islam to resolve their internal contradictions, elimnate their extremist elements or whatever. And when you say "civil war within Islam", I'm wondering which side we're on. Sunni ? Shia ? Any Muslim who's nice ? Just how does this civil war manifest itself ? It's obvious that the civil war we happen to be in the middle of - and arguably precipitated in it's current form - doesn't really have a side that it's in our interest to have "win", incidentally. with the possible exception of the Kurds, and I'm not 100% certain about that one, given their overlapping regional ambitions into territories controlled by other of our allies and adversaries. The very fact that this broader war is nearly impossible for it's proponents to explain coherently in the context of the actual measures they've taken and the results they've produced to date is beyond disturbing. It means that in the near term we're totally screwed and have been terribly failed by our leadership. “If Israel and the oil were gone”, frankly none of this would matter much to the U.S. Just saying.

And the belief that a “civil war within Islam” is the occasion for the U.S. to declare WW3, or whatever the nom du jour is, isn’t coherent. Unless we start leaving loopy ideology, like “it’s only important that they love freedom” at the door, we’re going to be increasingly screwed, because the U.S. isn’t going to be the vehicle for Islam to resolve their internal contradictions, elimnate their extremist elements or whatever. And when you say “civil war within Islam”, I’m wondering which side we’re on. Sunni ? Shia ? Any Muslim who’s nice ? Just how does this civil war manifest itself ? It’s obvious that the civil war we happen to be in the middle of – and arguably precipitated in it’s current form – doesn’t really have a side that it’s in our interest to have “win”, incidentally. with the possible exception of the Kurds, and I’m not 100% certain about that one, given their overlapping regional ambitions into territories controlled by other of our allies and adversaries. The very fact that this broader war is nearly impossible for it’s proponents to explain coherently in the context of the actual measures they’ve taken and the results they’ve produced to date is beyond disturbing. It means that in the near term we’re totally screwed and have been terribly failed by our leadership.

]]> By: Dan O http://marccooper.com/september-elevenths/comment-page-1/#comment-105274 Dan O Tue, 12 Sep 2006 03:15:08 +0000 http://marccooper.com/september-elevenths/#comment-105274 Churchill was a right-wing nut job, and he was England's Stalin. Please stop talking about him. Churchill was a right-wing nut job, and he was England’s Stalin. Please stop talking about him.

]]> By: Beautiful Horizons http://marccooper.com/september-elevenths/comment-page-1/#comment-105245 Beautiful Horizons Tue, 12 Sep 2006 03:03:17 +0000 http://marccooper.com/september-elevenths/#comment-105245 <strong>I really Don't Want to Write This Post . . ....</strong> I really didn't want to write anything today about the events of 9/11. When I got up this morning and went out to the bus stop, the weather reminded too much of September 11, 2001. The first thing that I... I really Don’t Want to Write This Post . . ….

I really didn’t want to write anything today about the events of 9/11. When I got up this morning and went out to the bus stop, the weather reminded too much of September 11, 2001. The first thing that I…

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