Moonlight Graham

agreed.

It wasn't a nationalistic celebration, it was a nationalistic remembrance. We did similar with Jack Layton a few weeks ago. You are saying 9/11 was a result of US foreign policy in the middle-east. This is true, but only part of the explanation. 9/11 also occurred because of the radical Islamic ideology that bin Laden & al-Zawahiri believed in, which was greatly based in Qutbism (google it!). Qutbism espouses offensive jihad against enemies of "true" Islam, and was key in convincing OBL to switch focus from fighting the "near enemy" (USSR in the 80's in Afghanistan, and aposate "Islamic" leaders in the M.E. etc.) to the "far-enemy" (the "Jewish-Crusader (aka US) alliance). Bin Laden was furious when the US was allowed to station military forces in Saudi Arabia near Mecca and Medina. Al-Qaeda also seeks to spread fundamental Islam across the world & create a global fundamentalist Islamic caliphate. You can't take blowback/US foreign policy as a reason for 9/11 without al-Qaeda's radical Islamic ideology as a reason as well. Like peas and carrots, very much inter-linked. Any book or journal article on al-Qaeda will say this.

No. I never said that "no good' has come from the Iraq War, and if you're talking about the sanctions before the war, those were also horrible, though a bit of progress was being made with the "oil for food" program. The previous sanctions were not sustainable, they were awful for Iraqis. If a way to contain Saddam while not starving the country was not attainable, then let the Bush admin and other govs make an honest case about invasion. Bring that rationale to the people. Don't make up horsecrap lies to invade for reasons that had nothing to do with humanitarian concern. It's not a democracy, it's a democracy-by-gunpoint. When NATO/US leaves, we'll see how long it stays a democracy, and i'm not very optimistic. But here's hoping i'm wrong. I would say an attack on al-Qaeda in Afghanistan was definitely necessary. I disagree that a full-scale regime change was wise when weighing the costs/benefits, because fighting the Taliban (who didn't even attack the West) is taking over a decade with mediocre results, and when we leave there's an excellent chance that the pseudo-democracy in place will become authoritarian via coup (possibly by the people we ourselves are training/equiping) or plain corruption. IMO NATO/US has a really stupid strategy. Why focus so much on the Taliban (a much tougher opponent), when al-Qaeda is the real threat?

This is an excellent point, one you hear very seldom, even from Americans. Though i would replace the phrase "all the ills" with "many (or most) of the ills". Maybe you (and other Americans) should explore this further, and try to list the different things the US has given to the world. Much of it may be hard to empirically quantify, but so are many of the negative influences charged to the US. I've read a good article on this subject (though at times a bit chest-thumping) by Robert Kagan, printed in the well-known scholarly journal Foreign Policy: The Benevolent Empire One thing I know for sure, i'm very grateful to have the US as the lone world superpower compared to many other nations who could have or may replace them (ie: USSR/Russia, China, Iran etc.). In 20 years people may be begging to have the US back as the hegemon if China starts to equal or surpass US power. The above article makes this point as well.

Right. He wasn't just "not very welcome" in Saudi Arabia, he was exiled from the country in the early 90's.

A friend woke me up just after the 3rd plane crashed into the Pentagon. I was off that day so i spent the day watching the news, so the 2 towers collapse live on TV. Later i found out that a poster from another message board i frequented worked in the WTC and died, that really hit it home for me.

Oops lol, too many zeros! Thank you for catching that.

As for the OP, it's hard to say they "won", but I would say their attacks on 9/11 was very successful in achieving its intent. It harmed the US and other western govs economically, dragged them into 2 large wars where they could kill them on their own soil, got people in the west to pay attention to their political grievances, and served as an excellent recruitment tool for terror groups. Some of al-Qaeda have been killed and the network weakened, but they likely see themselves as martyrs, and the US and the west are hated more than ever in the middle east and has likely certainly increased substantially the number of those who wish to attack the US/west.

It recently came out that an estimated 1 trillion dollars has been spent by the Canadian gov for extra security expenses related to 9/11. That's about $30,000 per Canadian. So yes, i'd say it has affected me!...as it has you too. edit: actually it's almost $100 billion, not 1 tril, so almost $3000 per Canadian. I don't sense any anti-Americanism in the OP. His is a fair statement, and a fair question. To say the 9/11 attacks were successful from a strategic point of view, which is where I see the OP coming from, is a fair statement. This 9/11 anniversary is for everyone to remember those who lost their lives and otherwise suffered because of the attacks, but it should also be a time when we should reflect on the actions of our governments after the attacks. We will mourn the 3000 or so who were killed in NYC/DC, but it is also tragic the tens of thousands of innocents, if not over a hundred thousand, who were killed needlessly by our govs militaries & hired guns.

Woops, sorry missed the link you posted. thanks.

What does "other costs" mean? Are we talking foreign wars re: Afghanistan

The question shouldn't be "do you feel safer?". Of course we don't feel safer post-9/11. The question should be: are we much safer having spend the extra 92 billion for security post-9/11? Or better yet, has the 92 billion been worth it in terms of security? I haven't looked at all the expenditures, but I feel we've done a decent job in terms of domestic security since 9/11.

To be replaced by who? Would the Bush, Clinton, Reagan, or Carter admins etc. have done any better? The problem is that special interests have massive influence on Congress and the White House, as well as just about every federal department. Many of these special interest groups are bipartisan, meaning they don't care which party they support as long as they go along with their demands. With every election it becomes more and more clear that it doesn't matter as much as we think if it's a Republican or Democrat in the White House, because each will be beholden in large part to the same special interests whom they rely on for money and votes etc. Big business and the banks have the government by the balls. If you vote for sellouts, you get sellouts.

If you're going to judge the effectiveness of the Bush admin simply by how many terror attacks occurred on US soil after 9/11, so be it. That's an easy thing to hide behind, because it's about the only thing they did right. I guess you forgot that 9/11 itself occurred on their watch? Effective! Anyways, the failures of the admin has been well documented thousands of times by thousands of different pundits, scholars etc., so no need repeating it.

I respect politicians who are effective, and who respect the rule of law, due process rights, y'know crazy things like that. Everyone does what they think is right. Some people are just wrong on what they think is right. One foot in hell?

2 other things of note: 1) If I ever do read Cheney's book of lies, I will borrow it from the library rather than buy it new, because there is no freaking way i'm giving a dime to that crook. 2) I find the timing of the book release quite disgusting. The guy is on death's door, so i speculate he wrote the memoir not too long after office and its been ready to ship for a while now. He & the publisher probably delayed the release so that it wouldn't compete with W. Bush's recent memoir. Whatever the case, it is obvious he and/or the publisher have chosen to release the book close to the 9/11 anniversary in order to cash-in, but smartly chose to release it far enough away not to overtly look like they were doing so (ie: if they had released it this week or next). Seems like Dick is still milking the 9/11 cow for personal gain. :angry:

Dick Cheney's final approval rating before leaving office, according to a CBS News/New York Times poll, was 13%. When virtually nobody in the country thinks you're doing your job well (even many hardcore Republicans/conservatives), the only way to preserve your ego is to "rationalize" this unpopularity by thinking things (ridiculously) the way he does, ie: "well, I made the unpopular decisions and it kept America safe from another terror attack, so in the end i'm awesome". The other reason why he doesn't care what people think of him, now or while in office, is because he's an asshole. Well, let's assume that is actually true. Because, of course, anything this man says must be taken with a grain of salt because he is a notorious and masterful liar (even for a politician), one of the most "successful" liars in modern history. Recent Daily Mail article: He backed the torture of prisoners, Guantanamo Bay and the invasion of Iraq. But now Dick Cheney has revealed that one of his greatest regrets was not related to the war on terror - it was shooting a friend on a hunting trip. The former vice president said that when he looked back at his career, the incident in 2006 when he blasted Harry Whittington leaving him injured was among 'the saddest of my life'. If Cheney isn't lying about this, it just shows how disconnected from reality the man is. Shoot a buddy in the face? Sad. Tell Georgie to drop bombs on many thousands of innocent civilians? No problem! I wonder how "sad" Dick would feel if he had to personally shoot all those now-dead Iraqis in the face? I guess Dick find it much easier to fire arms at other human beings from the comfort of his office an ocean away than to actually pull the trigger next the victim. **To others in the thread who responded to my OP, i may post a reply eventually, though it may be slow since this topic gives me a brain aneurysm.

Yes that's seems a better example than mine. There's a kind of dichotomy with Ron Paul's views, in that about half of his opinions (at least to me, and likely many others) are logical, brilliant, wonderful, and seemingly full of integrity (especially many of his foreign policy as in the OP video), while on the other hand many of his libertarian views are just wacko, idealistic, and seemingly not very reasonable. The first bit is the nice house, the latter bit the dump next door to it lol.

Oh boy! You may have seen ol' Dick making the media rounds this past week promoting his newly released memoir. I'm going to buy a copy for all my relatives this year for Christmas, it'll make for a warm cozy read with the family around the fireplace. Here's Dick on The Today Show this week: Dick! Defending the use of torture/waterboarding in the interview, Dick says: "First of all, remember we weren't dealing with American citizens." After hearing this quote, a colleague of mine put it aptly: "That line says it all right there. Violence can only flow in one direction - down the hierarchy of perceived worth."

Does this mean no more San Diego Chicken? Or Mickey Mouse at Disneyland? Or Spartacat???

BEHOLD! THE POWER OF A PIECE OF CLOTH! Oh great scarf, how thy gentle fibers divide man against each other. Fear not nuclear weapons nor climate change, for it is cloth that shall ignite the funeral pyre for the human race.

He might make a good Secretary of Defense though. Seriously, freakin' eh!...Canada will take him for Minister of National Defense if you guys don't want him lol.

Somebody offers to sell you a brand new Ferrari for $10, but the car horn sings "La Cucaracha" when u honk it. You still don't buy it?

Many US policies that are considered "domestic" also have massive implications on the rest of the world. Yes of course Americans are obviously massively affected by their gov's own domestic policies. But, given the era of globalization we have increasingly been living in, i think one could make a strong argument that the rest of the global population is, in sum, more greatly affected by US domestic policies as a whole (yes, one could of course nit-pick certain individual policies) than Americans themselves. This may even be the case with other countries as well, maybe even Canada, but since the US is by far the most powerful it also has the most influence. Fair enough point...unless a country is forced to comply to another country's will (via violent or non-violent coercion), or the threat (direct or indirect) of such.

You really think Americans would be the only ones affected by such things? History, including a look at US and global economics during the last month and a half, prove the opposite. Paul does a have a chance at POTUS, albeit a very slim one given the powers that are stacked against him as others have alluded to. The fact that he's even in the conversation and on the debating stage with the rest of them is a miracle in itself. And yes Michael Hardner, most of Paul's domestic policies are ludicrous.