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Guliani just blew his presidential campaign.
For those who are from outside the US, Rudi Guliani was the mediocre/terrible mayor of New York City during the 9/11 attacks. He did help pull the city together, but I credit that more to the New Yorkers than him. Anyhow, he's been a recent republican/neo-con puppet hopeful for president....but fortunately you probably won't get elected saying stupid shit like this:
Rudy Giuliani : "Expect another 9/11 if you elect a Democrat"
Expect another 9/11? Why? You assholes going to help cause another one if a Democrat gets elected?
Rudy Giuliani : "Expect another 9/11 if you elect a Democrat"
Expect another 9/11? Why? You assholes going to help cause another one if a Democrat gets elected?
Comments
Those people seem to just use the word "Christian" like other people use the word "cool". Whoever and whatever they personally like are "Christian", and whoever or whatever they don't are not.
In fact, I ACTUALLY heard an old lady say Ted Kennedy is "going to Hell" on a nutty talk radio show a couple of years ago when he had the gall to suggest an increase in the minimum wage.
"This is not a gun."
--'nuff said
Someone needs to get out in the open and call this "war" exactly what it is: "The continuation of the Crusades"
I don't think the Arabs of the world ever got over the Crusades. Sort of like the South never getting over the Civil War (among certain elements).
I think it is likely terrorism will increase. As globalization increases, the likelihood of total war decreases, but the likelihood of terrorism increases. However, the root of terrorism in the Middle East seems to be a hatred for America (and Israel), which is blamed, at least by them, on our interventionist policies (to put it lightly).
And we have the arrogance to think greater and more hostile interventions are the solution?
I'm not saying we should do as the terrorists wish, but we really ought to acknowledge the socioeconomic conditions present in the Middle East which seem to increase the likelihood of terrorism. When you've got men with sporadic employment (at best), who know next to nothing about the real world and America, who have no one to turn to except their radical imams...is it a big surprise that new terrorists are born?
And how exactly is our war supposed to change that? Are we going to kill every imam in Iraq? The Middle East? The world? Are we then going to prevent new ones from forming? And someone prevent anyone else from getting any ideas? Are we going to invent some Orwellian society to neutralize an entire people just to stop a few radicals? Or do we think they'll give up their evil ways, in the same spirit of kindness and understanding that we threaten and invade their countries?
Nah, what am I saying; this kind of namby-pamby leftist thinking will "cause another 9/11". Wouldn't want that. I guess we should trade endless war and thousands (millions?) of lives for a few of our own (civilians that is). That couldn't possibly drive people to hate us.
Those countries are not poor!
It's certainly cheaper to build schools in a country than to occupy them. ^_~
Educate them back to the stone age! (that might not have turned out the way I meant it . . .)
Iraq is a country with a $3,600 per capita GDP, compared to our $43,555. That would rank them in 119th place out of 180 countries, just above Angola and Vietnam. Not poor? I'd like to see you live on their wages...if you could find a job and avoid a violent death.
While current data on who owns Iraq's oil is inconclusive (for obvious reasons), let's look at Saudi Arabia. 99% of their oil is owned by Saudi Aramco, a government-owned company. They sell 10% of the world's oil, over 3.3 billion barrels a year. At today's prices, that's 215 billion dollars. A lot of money, right? It accounts for over 75% of government revenues. Do you think that money is going to the 27 million people in Saudi Arabia, or the 51,843 employees of the company? The smart money's on the latter...and, more realistically, the upper 1% of that company (who are themselves government employees). What do you suppose those other 26.9 million people get?
So technically, you're probably right. "These countries", as in their governments, aren't poor. It's just all those pesky poor people who don't own oil, and don't get a paycheck from the oil companies.
The UAE is rich. The Saudi government is rich. Saddam Hussein was rich, and how he's dead. A few powerful men in all of those countries are rich.
But their people are dirt-poor. Sure, they're a step or two ahead of the worst of the worst African and Asian nations, perhaps. But they aren't exactly buying iPhones and PS3's, and I sincerely doubt their rich governments have robust education spending programs.
I'm not saying we should give them our money, but...don't be ignorant.
Even if you were to insist that a benevolent third party -- say, the United Nations -- should distribute the educational aid, the guerillas are still hanging back on the fringes to take it away as soon as the UN presence has turned its back. Without a permanent occupation, even if it is "peacekeeping" (read: PC term for American-funded and staffed invasion force), then the UN is still impotent in this situation.
This is a vicious problem, because it is cyclical; you can't throw money at these nations until you've changed the way they think, and there doesn't seem to be a way to change the way they think without throwing money at them. So what do you do? How do you put the brakes on thousands of years of backward thinking and criminal governance?