Comments on: Secret Court To Monitor U.S. Spy Program

Justice Dept: Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court To Govern Domestic Spying Program

[jimfinster]

And if AAAAACCCCCKKKKmed comes for me, I can handle that. Some Americans are not cowering under their beds in fear.

[panhandlpete]

jimibear,

I concur your comments. I have also wondered how this do-nothing administration and congress could have such a volumunious proposal as the "Patriot Act" presented for passage in the short time it did. Do you suppose some pre thought to the necessity of having POWER, so they could take away liberties and trample the constitution, prompted their action?

I am skeptical that this government, or any government, can make its citizens SAFE without making them prisoners in their own country. I would really feel much safer if the US focused on bringing ALL soldiers home from around the world, stopped being the world policemen, close all overseas bases (How many bases do we allow inside our borders?), and, declare a national directive to make this country energy independent within 5 years.

None of this will happen, but instead, there most likely will be SOS for another 5 years, as this Prez will dig in and transfer the mess to the next one, who will begin bringing the troops home before he/she is up for re-election in '12.

[jimibear]

"The terrorist who attacked us on 9/11, the terrorists who are beheading people all around the globe, bombing innocents in various countries,......YOU THINK I'M DEMONIZING THEM?"

I deplore the attacks on US soil, and I agree that many awful things are done in war, on both sides. I also deplore attacks on civilian targets, which also take place on both sides.

But if you define "terrorist" as "someone who fights back when his country is invaded", which is what most of these people now are, you'll find that pretty much everyone on the planet is a potential "terrorist".

Why are you so determined to hate? The most minimal research and/or interaction will teach you that the average Muslim is very much like you and me; they want to be left to live in peace.

Your attitude is, frankly, as terrifyingly fundamentalist radical as the worst of the Islamic Fundamentalists. You just point your hate the other way, that's all. You're no better.

The war on terrorism should be fought cell by cell, training camp by training camp. It has been demonstrated that the Arab world supports an effort of that sort. What they do not support are full-scale invasions and the slaughter of hundreds of thousands. Who can blame them?

[jimfinster]

hungry1968:

Very good point.

The U.S. constantly get in trouble by engaging in conflicts all over the world. Yes, some of our citizens die in ugly ways when they go. But it was their choice to go ... maybe stan7007 is planning a trip over there?

[stan7007]

I'm not going to any country in the mideast. Therefore, I don't have to worry about having my head cut off by a extremist.
********************************************

Wow. Incredible logic there. Listen up: I'll type SSSLLLLOOOOWWWW for you....

AAAAACCCCCKKKKmed is possibly living beside you as your neighbor. They have been here for years....silently building their cells.

You are the perfect "citizen" that the typical terrorist would target first...because you "think" you are safe.

You better wake up.

[jimibear]

"If our troops weren't there, they wouldn't be dying. If Nick Berg didn't go there, he wouldn't have died either."

And if we hadn't been interfering in their lives and governments for half a century to protect our oil interests (instead of developing our own oil industry and alternative energy sources) they wouldn't be pi$$ed at us in the first place.

Furthermore, if we hadn't been buying all that oil in the first place, they wouldn't have the money to fight us even if they wanted to.

And if we hadn't been selling arms all over the world, they'd find it harder to attack us as well.

It's really amazing: Give people guns, money and every imaginable reason to hate our guts, and then act all surprised and self-righteous when they attack us.

Talk about sanctimonious arrogance on a national scale.

[hungry1968]

What is with you and the beheadings - there hasn't been a beheading in years.

[stan7007]

Demonizing the enemy is tool #1 in the propagandist's tool box.

The terrorist who attacked us on 9/11, the terrorists who are beheading people all around the globe, bombing innocents in various countries,......YOU THINK I'M DEMONIZING THEM?

You better wake up and smell the blood on the sword. They don't need me to demonize them.....they are doing a great job at it all by themself.

[hungry1968]

What sort of freedom and liberty will you have to scream about when AAAACCCKKKmed has a sword to your throat?
Posted by stan7007 at 05:26 PM : Jan 17, 2007

I'll say it again - this time I'll type slower for you - I'm not going to any country in the mideast. Therefore, I don't have to worry about having my head cut off by a extremist. The extremists are in the Mideast where President Bush sent our troops. If our troops weren't there, they wouldn't be dying. If Nick Berg didn't go there, he wouldn't have died either.

[jimibear]

"Bush could not have had anything to do with 9-11, hell the man can even think clearly let alone pull off something as big as take down the towers

Posted by bviolsens at 05:29 PM : Jan 17, 2007"

True, but Bush (annoying and stupid as he is) is mostly, like all presidents, a figurehead for those who really pull the strings; moneymen of various stripes.

The Military-Industrial Complex Eisenhower warned against is firmly in charge and making money hand-over-fist by selling us (the taxpayer)the materials to fight a war they started. It's a very profitable little self-serving cycle for them.

[bildooreilly]

secret courts now lol... made up of secret judges, who sit in secret chambers legislating secret legislations.... if they have nothing to hide then why all the secrecy?

[jimibear]

"we are at war with an enemy that will do anything to behead us...their goal is the have a Mosque on every corner and have us all bowing to Mecca."

No, their goal is to be left to govern their own countries as they see fit, have the CIA stop installing puppet regimes like the Shah in Iran and yep, Saddam in Iraq (he later became "inconvenient"). They probably also would have preferred that we not kill the current combined total of ONE MILLION dead Iraqis in Gulf Wars I & II.

You are buying the party line, Stan. Demonizing the enemy is tool #1 in the propagandist's tool box.

All governments are corrupt, including ours.

[ncolsens]

Bush could not have had anything to do with 9-11, hell the man can even think clearly let alone pull off something as big as take down the towers

[jimibear]

nd BigUSAFan, please spare me the condescending false sympathy in discounting my position. It's really beneath you.

As a very avid student of history, I know enough to be suspicious of any government's statements, and of nationally-inflammatory events in general, if those statements and events have the effect of taking the nation to war.

Seriously, please read up on your world history. Allowing or even faking an enemy atrocity to "fire up the tribe" has been a time-honored tool dating back since the beginning of warfare. It can and has happened here. With the glaring discrepancies in the 9/11 story, and the way in which it has again and again been used as a rallying cry to gain popular support, people failing to at least be suspicious are not exercising due diligence as citizens of a democracy.

[hungry1968]

By the way Stan - I'm still waiting on the list of beheadings that terrorists have committed in America, and all of your financial records to be posted.

[stan7007]

hungry1968:

O.K., I admit it was a low blow...but that's the level of frustration one can get when trying to communicate with those that "don't get it"...we are at war with an enemy that will do anything to behead us...their goal is the have a Mosque on every corner and have us all bowing to Mecca.

What sort of freedom and liberty will you have to scream about when AAAACCCKKKmed has a sword to your throat?

[hungry1968]

A few hundred thousand sperm in competition, and you were the fast one?
Posted by stan7007 at 05:17 PM : Jan 17, 2007

That is just about the level of intelligent conversation I'd expect out of someone who gladly gives away his liberties and freedoms.

[jimibear]

"jimbear:

"the Bush administration deliberately allowed that attack"?

Oh my... If you really believe in your heart that George Bush deliberately allowed the deaths of those people on 9-11... I truly feel sorry for you.
Posted by bigUSAfan at 05:02 PM : Jan 17, 2007"

I don't know if he did personally, and I don't know that the scale of loss of life was anticipated. I also don't have the time to list the (frankly impossible) lapses in security that allowed the attacks. Suffice it to say that if you research it, you'll find there's really no possible way it could have happened the way the official story claims, whatever the reasons for that.

Bear in mind it would not be the first time in the short history of our country that something like this has happened. Multiple advance warnings of the attack on Pearl Harbor were ignored so that the attack could be used to take us to war. The USS Maine either sank accidentally or was deliberately scuppered, but the US blamed the attack on Spain because we wanted war so we could take Cuba. ("Remember the Maine!") In 1961, top military and intel brass proposed faking a Cuban attack on Guantanemo Bay and wiping out the garrison there, again wanting to go to war with Cuba. JFK nixed that one.

I submit that if you ignore historical precedent and engage in "It can't happen here" thinking, you are truly running the risk of allowing totalitarian government to gain a foothold.

[stan7007]

Hey hungry1968:

A few hundred thousand sperm in competition, and you were the fast one?

[hungry1968]

If I was the president, and my country was being attacked by unknown forces, of an unknown size, of an unknown scale, I wouldn't stay in an elementary school classroom reading "My Pet Goat" for eight minutes. Either he was in on it and he knew what the extent of the damage was going to be, or he's incredibly incompetent. Me personally - I believe he's that incompetent, but he's caused so much damage to this country, I can see how people would feel that way.