jross

LOL once we hit peak oil gun powder will be more important anyways

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Well, we already did hit peak... in the US The rest of the world, it's a little more uncertain; geopolitical and economic uncertainties have affected oil production to the point that it's not entirely clear if we've hit the peak of the Hubbert curve or not. There's actually a chance we've already peaked in the last 5 years or so... I suppose we'll know in 5 more.

I wrote a 20 page paper on a new Foreign Policy Decision Making model (FPDM Model), and used the Iraq war as my example of its application.

It was written almost a year ago, but if anyone would like me to post it here, just let me know.  It's 20 pages though, so I won't post it unsolicited.

I didn't research the topic as deeply as I could have, but reading the paper would pretty quickly allow dismissal of posts like "he told us it was for this reason so that's it" or "we went for oil, isn't it obvious?"

Not to neglect those opinions, but often times I see you guys clamoring for an "intelligent discussion"...

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Post up!

Your mom is uneducated, and your post is silly.

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No, you're a flaming retard, and people like you sicken me. Drill in the Arctic Refuge? That's the second dumbest solution to a made-up problem I've ever heard, right behind Shrub's little Social Security "Crisis". There's not enough oil in Alaska to make any difference in overall national production, I hate to break it to you. This isn't exactly another North Slope. Have you heard of a Hubbert curve? Oil is on it's way out, my friend. Rather than spending piles of cash to ruin the Arctic, we need to be investigating new energy production technologies. We've set the stage for a catalysmic energy crisis in the US... it's time people pulled their heads from the sand and started dealing in the facts.

You know what's really sad? How monkeyed up and uneducated the people of this country are. monkey drilling for oil in Alaska, monkey all the stupid pro-con arguements, everyone just shut the monkey up and go back to school, you dumb as mothermonkeying idiots.

[edit: and monkey the poking filter, too]

Kevin's just mad that facts are sneaking into the forum ;)

The hard government cheese will. The can food is trash though. I am not that big. I am just short so I look a lot bigger than I am.

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Uh-huh, and that was just a tiny sapling behind you in the pic...

I say again.  My check is government just like your foodstamps.

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Will foodstamps make us buff like you?

OK, want to hear a "bigger-picture" type of analysis of this? Not to disregard what you're saying...

But this is about the most cut-and-clear case of "war-weariness" I've read first-hand about the Iraq war. And I bet that increasing war-weariness makes us pull out of Iraq eventually, too.

Why will war-weariness continue to increase? Because we're Americans. We grow impatient if it takes more than a minute for the guy at the drive-through to get us our food. Our society is based on instant gratification, blablabla, there are a million essays and short stories about that.

So we went to Iraq for a number of reasons, none of which were strong enough to give the American people enough resolve to get beyond "OK, it's been a year, it's not over, what's the problem?" And now there's a backlash of people who think that it's taking too long and it's beyond their comfort zone of waiting. I'm not criticizing, just trying to analyze a little (because this seems to be a growing sentiment among the people I talk to).

Anyway, just something to think about.

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I agree that part of it is that we live in an instant-gratification country. Personally, if I seem war-weary, it's because I don't support this sort of thing in the first place. While I know Charles is going to delight and call me a hippie, I'm a pacifist. I don't believe in going to war, and especially not for the reasons we gave. There are peaceful alternatives that we decided not to pursue. Unfortunately, the situation would probably result in violence one way or another, but we happened to choose a route that promotes much more than is neccisary. I've got alot of family in the military, so it really irks me to see the way the current administration just seems to feel that they're there to die. Like Patton pointed out, their job isn't to die for their country, it's to make the other side die for theirs. I guess I have alot of conflicting feelings, but first and foremost is this: we shouldn't be there.

Man, you are such a tree huggin hippie! You put a disclaimer in! It's people like you that are the reason this country is going to hell. I don't agree with what she said, but I don't agree with what you said. I think we need to close off our borders and ship all that are here illegally out. Sorry, but it just needs to be done. Just MO and it's right!

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Actually, it's attitudes like that which are screwing up our country. Disclaimers? stuff, he's just trying to clarify intent. Now, before you rail against the immigrants, go educate yourself on economics and the real world.

What do you think America was like before all of the Illegal immigrants came in to this country.  White Americans still doing blue collar work.  This country would still be FINE without the illegals.  Our state's taxes and state funded businesses wouldn't be going bankrupt due to illegal's theft and abuse of American rights (and hard earned freedom and prosperity).  The Mexican's where I live (check the sig) stand on the corner for work and then refuse it when they don't get $8.00 / hour and lunch bought for them as well.  I really despise the fact that they come to this country and then manipulate our people, customs, ethics, and our system and CAN'T respect our country while they're at it.  In short: ship them out.  I know at one time my ancestors were immigrants too, but they didn't sneak over the border and use/ disrespect our country; they came through Ellis Island...and appreciated the country they moved into.

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Wow.. um. yea, wow. Go look up the facts, seriously. That's all the breath I'm going to waste on this. Go look up the facts, go read, go digging around and see if you can find a reasonable facimilie of truth. Go beyond your little world, and expand your horizions abit. You sound like you need it.

none of you will likely see iraq

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I see Iraq every day

There's that map on the wall..

and all those news pictures..

and other photos..

(I also have pictures taken by a cousin on the ground there.)

I am waiting? When has it been more calm? Less people killed per day? Less threat of major violence? Its cool and all be be 18 and have your ideals but lets hear why you feel that way.

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't over 60 people die last night from suicide bombings in just two cities in Iraq?

Why does our country insist on becoming more monkeyed up with each passing day?

Its true. They only did what we did first. They just did it better. And they also asked it be taken down before they did their own ad campaign.

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I know, I've been following that since Cuba first asked the US to remove the Christmas display. It's just sad, both that we're the bastards now, and that most of the country probably doesn't have the intelligence to grasp it.

He's a tad bit on the odd side and looks a bit funny, but there's nothing wrong with that.  www.votenader.org

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Believe me, I'm not one to judge others on looking funny. I looked into Nader 4 years ago, and looked into him again.. bit too "kooky" for me.

2-party bad, true. Nader also bad, true. Good ideas? Maybe, but crackpot.

[edit: wow, I sound like "ogg make fire. warm." My brain really is frying What I meant to say was that the two party system really is bad, but there's no really good viable 3rd option. Nader has some good ideas, but he's really something of a crackpot at times, and I don't think giving him power is a great idea. Someone like Dean would be good, but good luck with that...]

That's why I voted for Ralph Nader 

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AHH!! Get away, filthy beast!!

(seriously, why would you vote for Nader? Some good ideas there, but more of a crackpot than even Bush.. and I hate Bush... I mean, I voted Kerry in this last election, but that was because I hate him slightly less than Bush.)

^-- Sorry, brain==dead, transmission frying brain.. hurts...

Okay, so we went in to "liberate" them. Fine. They've been liberated, but oh! wait! now they want to kill us. So... why are we sticking around? Seems like a waste of taxpayer money, and more importantly, our soldier's lives. The Iraqi's don't want us, so forget those .

I'm just tired of reading about all these suicide attacks, and everything else. We pissed them off, they want us out, so why do we insist on staying? It's just a waste of lives to try and do so. Pull out, and leave them to their own devices -- they'll probably blame us for where they end up, but monkey it, they're going to blame us anyways.

I know we're not really there because we give a crap about the Iraqis, but because we want their oil. Fine, secure the oil infrastructure, and leave the rest of the country to it's own devices. It's hard to go after a dug-in enemy, especially if it's a guerilla enemy in a heavily civilain area. So let's dig in outselves, but in an open area. They wanna monkey with us still? Fine, but they can't claim they were innocent bystanders when they come to our front door looking for trouble.

monkey this stuff, man... geez.

Well you have several statements, and all of them are wrong, but your sources are to blame not you.

I'll start with trying to make a jeep into a tank.  When the war started they needed the oversized jeep, but as tactics changed by the enemy the need changed.  18 months ago about 250 of the oversized jeeps had armor, now over 15,000 have the armor, just how fast do you think things should take?

You hit the nail on the head when you said who was saying there was a total disregard for the troops.  Go figure.  Someone needs to tell the liberal press the election is over, or is this all being done for the 2008 run.

I agree with Charles, if you don't like what the liberal media is reporting or chose to believe it but want it changed, then get ahold of your Congressman/Person and have them rebuild the Army that was torn down by the last batch of Dems in office.  Rumsfeld is doing his job with what was left there to work with, he can't increase troop numbers, etc thats done by Congress.

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I hate to say it, but the media is hardly liberal.

Now, on the topic of the armored Humvees -- I think Charles is right, they're using the wrong vehicles for the mission. And that isn't something you can blame the Dems for since they still have alot of tanks and Bradleys. At least, I see a whole bunch across the street from my office so...

We're the bastards

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:(

And if the Iraqis have internet blogging, I'm sure somebody in Arabic is typing about putting a few extra AK rounds in an American to be sure he's dead. Like Mr Admin said, there are two sides, yours and theirs. However, all you really see is the flash of the muzzle from the guy shooting at you.

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Whoops, re-reading I think I got misinterpreted. "I don't think anyone did" was aimed at "I wasn't criticizing [...]", not "I just didn't [...]".

And there's more than two sides. There's alot of people who think this whole war bit is nonesense...

I wasn't criticizing the "security rounds", I just didn't like the guy's attitude.

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I don't think anyone did O_o

I know I was trying to point out the propaganda war everyone's in denial about. I don't think any of us "hippies" said the troops were in the wrong. It's combat, and the Iraqi combatants were just that -- combatants. You pick up a gun, you monkey with us, we monkey you back, and if we didn't, we monkeyed up.

No and no. Plus I do not fit on a couch

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They are, just not as groundpounders. There was at least one female combat pilot sent over when that B1-B wing shifted out to the Middle East at the start of all this.

Hey, we need to find recruits for the Navy somehow, don't we?

Honestly, I think the issue is overrated. Who cares which way they swing? Just apply the same fraternization rules to them as to heterosexuals, they're normal human beings too.

Heh.. as the board's self-nominated Hippy, I just wanna throw something out:

I agree with you

I can see a use for words like "vision impaired" but not as a substitute for "blind". If you're blind, you're blind, get over it. If you're "vision impaired", you have trouble seeing. Get over it, four-eyes (j/k).

I can see how African-Americans might want to identify themselves that way. To a certain degree, European-Americans robbed them of their identity when they shipped them over here as slaves. They (and Mexican-Americans, and Japanese-Americans, and ...) have pride in their ethnic heritage. It also moves away from the direct reference to skin-color, which has been quite historically problematic.

Being PC does tend to get carried to far, but historically, people tend to forget with time. Once upon a time, being Irish in America was a huge stigma -- they were seen as underevolved monkeys, brutes, and ruffians (this was around the 1840s, if I recall right). In fact, the term "Scotch-Irish" was coined to describe the early immigrants, who were not, strictly speaking, Irish. The British had displaced a number of lowland Scots into Ulster, Ireland as "colonists". If memory serves, they were Protestants send by the Crown to work the land; the Irish (who were largely Catholic) were prohibited from owning or renting land -- they were in a position roughly similar to that of the Russian serfs. Alot of these displaced Scotsmen eventually immigrated to the US, where they took on the title of the "Ulster Irish". As the more "common" Irish began to immigrate to the US, public sentiment began to rise against them (much as it has risen against every other immigrant group who came in large numbers :-\) and so, to differentiate themselves from the actual Irishmen, the Ulster Irish adopted the title of the "Scotch-Irish". The term did not originally suggest a blend of the Irish and Scotch bloodlines, but rather connoted the Scotch origins of the original "Irish" immigrants. Of course, this term has morphed so that now it generally refers to those of both Scotch and Irish extraction; the original Scotch-Irish had little, if any, Irish blood in them.