Why do so many Americans believe that FIGHTING and using our military resources make us so much better than other countries? Why have we become such a militant, aggressive nation?

I saw this at another site, and thought it would be interesting to see what TVNL members' reactions would be to the question of WHY ARE WE REALLY FIGHTING?



http://irregulartimes.com/diaries/2006/ ... lly-fight/

(If you go to the link, you'll be incensed at the responses this fellow got from right wingers!)

Catherine

No matter hos you look at the bible it has an answer for every question. It is an apologists dream. Why I can even apply it to answering your questions. Take these quotes, and realise that these are just a few of the many axioms that seem to fit our greedy violent nature, that can cover our true intentions, and be used as interpretives for any situation. It is a well designed self contradicting philosophical dichotic apologists utensil and is wielded by skilled craftsmen to mold and shape us to their desired effects.

Because we’re afraid. .....Yea though I walk throught the valley of death, I will fear no evil... Tells us not to be afraid, but we are anyway.
Because we don’t have the bravery to take a blow and not respond. Something about turning the other cheek? Revenge is so much sweeter though.
Because we don’t have the creativity to figure out any alternatives. He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city. Proverbs (ch. XVI, v. 32) It is easier to believe our leaders are doing the right thing than forcing them to do the right thing.
Because it helps a lot of corporations make a lot of money. A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth. [Luke 12:15] But it helps to believe that TOYS ARE US.
Because it helps keep incumbent politicians in power. . . . it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. Acts (ch. IX, v. 5) But if you try, you might still hit the balls!
Because it’s a convenient excuse for taking away our freedom. Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counsellers there is safety. Proverbs (ch. XI, v. 14) What did Franklin say about trading freedom and liberty for security?
Because it looks good on television. And you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. [John 8:32]. And the truth is on TV and in the MSM and drilled into our heads!
Because we’d rather wave flags than ask our government hard questions. I am the LORD thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before Me. First COMMANDMENT. Obey your leader and revere him as LORD.
Because fighting is easier than thinking. As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. [Proverbs 23:7]. We are a violence solution based culture.
… and if I put a picture of an American flag next to what I write, it must be true. Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, nor any manner of likeness, of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth;
thou shalt not bow down unto them, nor serve them; for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me; Second and Third COMMANDMENTS. But we revere the flag as if it were more than a scrap of cloth. Like the constitution which is slowly being shredded, it is a meaning and purpose of something greater than its symbolism. Don't forget his fatherly jealousy with such quotes as "You're either with us or the terrorists". This makes us choose sides. Bush says- I trust god is speaking through me. People listen to this and have faith in his truth. Uneducated fools with no direction being fooled by a group of educated madmen with a plan.

Here's some quotes as well that describe the dilemma we find ourselves in. It is going to take a reversal of influence and propaganda to get us out of our preconceived notion about faith in a greater power being our guide. It is going to take a real mindset change to transform our direction and fear and revenge must be put aside. Time to adopt trust, sharing and caring as the only solution.

"My country, right or wrong," is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, "My mother, drunk or sober." Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Very few people in the world would care to listen to the real defense of their own characters. The real defense, the defense which belongs to the Day of Judgment, would make such damaging admissions, would clear away so many artificial virtues, would tell such tragedies of weakness and failure, that a man would sooner be misunderstood and censured by the world than exposed to that awful and merciless eulogy. Gilbert Keith Chesterton

The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children's games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up. And one of the games to which it is most attached is called, ''Keep tomorrow dark,'' and which is also named (by the rustics in Shropshire, I have no doubt) ''Cheat the Prophet.'' The players listen very carefully and respectfully to all that the clever men have to say about what is to happen in the next generation. The players then wait until all the clever men are dead, and bury them nicely. Then they go and do something else. That is all. For a race of simple tastes, however, it is great fun. Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Without education we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously. Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another. Gilbert Keith Chesterton
http://www.chesterton.org/discover/who.html


There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured with what is right in America. Henry Clay

Somehow we must capture what is right with America and exorcise forever what is wrong.

DO.g's, please see my post in the ACTIVISM forum about religious-oriented businesses endangering the Constitution.

Catherine

What a great start to a paragraph.

DO.g's, you are a font of wisdom!

We Fight Why?

Israel's raid on common sense

Posted on Monday, July 17, 2006. By Ken Silverstein.

SourcesA column published Sunday in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz by Gideon Levy, former spokesman for Shimon Peres, compared the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) to a neighborhood bully. “A soldier was abducted in Gaza? All of Gaza will pay,” wrote Levy. “Eight soldiers are killed and two abducted to Lebanon? All of Lebanon will pay. One and only one language is spoken by Israel, the language of force.”

Now contrast that with the Washington Post's lead editorial from last Friday: "There can be no doubt that Iran and Syria, Hezbollah's chief sponsors, bear responsibility for what has instantly become the most lethal and dangerous eruption of cross-border fighting in the Middle East in recent years.”

Aside from the dubious assertion that Hezbollah acted on the orders of Iran and Syria, the editorial reflects the general thrust of most American coverage of the latest fighting between Israel and its neighbors—namely that the history of the Middle East conflict can be traced to the recent capture of Israeli soldiers.

The Post's approach is fairly standard. Consider this line from a CNN story: “Israeli warplanes were blasting the southern suburbs of Beirut in an attempt to destroy Hezbollah strongholds.” Yes, the southern suburbs are a Hezbollah “stronghold” in the sense that many of its roughly half-million Shiite residents support or sympathize with the group—and in that sense Israel's bombing runs will only make it more of a stronghold. But does that mean it's just fine for Israel to pummel the neighborhood, as CNN seems to suggest?

I spoke to Bob Baer—a former CIA officer who spent most of his career in the Middle East and the author of the new book Blow the House Down—about Israel's attacks on Beirut's civilian infrastructure. “Hezbollah gets power from the power grid,” he said sarcastically. “I guess that makes the power grid a fair military target.”

And what will all this collective punishment in Lebanon buy Israel? Not much, wrote Henry Siegman, the former president of the American Jewish Congress and Senior Fellow and Director for the U.S./Middle East Project at the Council on Foreign Relations, in an interesting op-ed on the conflict published in the U.K.'s the Guardian. Siegman wrote that Israel's military campaigns in Gaza and Lebanon will not provide protection to its citizens but “may well further undermine their security by destabilizing the wider region,” and that the country's “political and military leaders remain addicted to the notion that, whatever they have a right to do, they have a right to overdo.” Siegman also takes a longer view of history than most of the American media, saying, “No matter how one judges the rights and wrongs of the recent Hamas assaults and Israeli reprisals, in Gaza the fundamental casus belli is Israel's occupation that has now lasted for nearly 40 years.”


In his column, Gideon Levy called Israel's military campaign “unequivocally a war of choice” and asked, “Are we at war in Lebanon? With Hezbollah? Nobody knows for sure. If the goal is to remove Hezbollah from the border, did we try hard enough over the last two years through diplomatic channels? And what's the connection between destroying half of Lebanon and that goal?”

As to Gaza, he wrote, “[A] soldier is abducted from the army of a state that frequently abducts civilians from their homes and locks them up for years with or without a trial—but only we're allowed to do that. And only we're allowed to bomb civilian population centers . . . The concept that we have totally forgotten is proportionality. While we're in no hurry to get to the negotiating table, we're eager to get to the battlefield and the killing without delay.”

Levy and Siegman are hardly radicals, and viewpoints like theirs are commonly expressed in the media abroad. But I'd bet there are few major American newspapers that would have published their articles, and I'd be even more surprised to see either (especially Levy) appear on the wasteland of cable news.

And what of the Bush Administration's laissez-faire attitude toward Israel's military campaign? Ex-CIA officer Baer believes that Israel would never have embarked on its current course of action without first running it by the Bush Administration. “They have a green light from Rumsfeld and Cheney to flatten their enemies,” he said. “They're taking advantage of that now because they don't know what's coming after Bush. They might have to deal with a responsible secretary of state who doesn't think chaos in the Middle East is such a great idea.”

“Bush has basically mortgaged your house,” Baer said regarding the administration's general Middle East policy, “and now he's gone to the roulette table.”

Both Israel and Hezbollah should be condemned for the deaths of civilians, but the toll is far higher in Lebanon than in Israel, which you'd never know based on the photographs being run in U.S. newspapers. The Angry Arab website ran a series photos of victims in southern Lebanon, which were taken by the AP, according to the website, but which I have not seen thus far in U.S. newspapers.


Links: http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2006/07/i ... tures.html

http://harpers.org/rapture-ready-20060718001.html

Catherine

well, at least we know it isn't about the oil.....

oh, shit, wait a sec.....didn't anyone tell this moron:

Lieberman

“If we walk away, then the Iranians will — as sure as I am talking to you — surge into Iraq, certainly take over the south and the oil that’s there,” he said. “We’ll be paying six or seven bucks a gallon. And that’ll just be the tip of it. I mean, there’ll be instability and war throughout the Middle East. We’ve got to wake up to this. It is the test, unfortunately, of not just this generation of American leaders, but of the next generation as well, because this enemy ain’t going away.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/23/nyreg ... ref=slogin

Poor old shaney couldn't think of anything else last evening to hit us with, so he posted that silly spam in several forums. The other spams went to his Phantom Zone in the appropriate forum, but this one I decided to leave so those who wanted to play with shaney could see what an outstanding intellect they're up against.

Catherine

Like I told you Catheter, I'm just trying to fit in, here on TvNewRULES.org. I'm tired of being an 'outsider'! I figured the 'MONGO' quote is a pretty good summary of the prevailing thought on this site. Wouldn't you agree? Geez! I TRY and go-with-the-flow, and I STILL get critcized!



"Bill was so messed up that night, he slid down the wall into a garbage can,"--Sharlene Wilson

Like I said...real high intellect.

Catherine

Catherine-
The reasons on an individual basis number almost as many reasons as there are people. Those who know the fighting and war is wrong and say nothing fear the labeling of wimp, coward, etc. There are too the blind followers of the Bush regime. The Bush regime is making up for lost time. In the first Gulf War the military still performed their jobs in the traditional way, i.e. they controlled their own logistics, they were responsible for feeding their own troops, Army Engineers oversaw reconstruction using local labor, and so forth. This Bush administration privatized all these functions. We now have nearly as many contractors in country as soldiers. Most of these are no-bid cost-plus contracts. Many have gone over budget and never been completed. The contracts have gone to friends of the administration. So why are we fight? GREED! PROFIT! No other reason is apparent, sadly true.