http://www.canada.com/montreal/montr...f-7151a0071920

Ho boy I swear all the middle eastern countries would do a jihad against the US.

Euchh....I can't help it, but I just find the sentimentalism of American politics absolutely sickening (re. the symbolic tearful embrace mentioned)

I wouldn't worry about an increased risk of jihad, I think that the Iraq war has done its damage in that respect. The only risk is that more and more Iraqi's themselves will join the fighting if conditions don't improve after the elections.

Just watching an undercover documentary in Pakistan. After the war in Afghanistan, the religious party swept 52 seats in the Pakistani elections - they'd never before got more than 4.

That's the biggest risk, if the war on terror keeps being pursued in such an unsophisticated way, anti-American feeling will become more and more 'mainstream' and legitimised to the detriment of us all :(

[ 02-03-2005, 10:38 PM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]

<font color = lightgreen>I quite agree. We have more than enough on our plate right now; we don't need to add to a list of potential future targets. [img]graemlins/idontagreeatall.gif[/img]

It wouldn't matter whether or not a timetable for a pullout from Iraq is given, because the terrorists don't care about timetables.

The war or terror cannot be won, because you cannot kill an idea. The best that can be done is to switch tactics; I have some tactics in mind but I highly doubt Washington would 1) listen to me or 2) implement said tactics.

Finally, Iraq has held her election. Give a maximum of 6 months to get their crap together and then let them restructure their own country. If they cannot stand on their own at that point I would be the first to state that the Iraq plan was an abject failure. And yes, that is definitely on the record.</font>

What was this documentary Shamrock? I'd be interested in that, as I bet others would. We never hear about Pakistani politics, at least I don't anyway.

It wasn't about Pakistani politics per se, but spent a bit of time in that area.

It's from a rather good site that was shown to me yesterday - it's by PBS news. Now, I've never heard of them apart from being mocked in the Simpsons, but I'm reliably informed by my friend that they offer the 'best' news coverage in America and I've been fairly impressed so far (having watched 3 1/2 documentaries)

You can find the page here which has links to their 'Frontline' programme.

They're about an hour long, but split up into nice little ~10 min episodes. The one I was quoting from was "The Hunt for Al-Qaeda" filmed in 2002 where this journalist travels through Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen amongst others in search of them. Really insightful stuff into the culture of the region and the grievances behind Al-Qaeda support, plus interviews with lots of top people as well.

I've also seen the very latest one "Al-Qaeda's New Front" which discussed the rise of Islamism in Europe, the splits between Europe/US attitudes about how to deal with the threat and was very illuminating.

Perhaps one thing that was really puzzling was that there are many wanted terrorists (for serious atrocities) who are having to be released through lack of evidence as America won't allow witnesses to testify.

I can't imagine what twisted national security agenda they're following - not only would it help put terrorists away for serious time rather than only trivial charges (which is, you would think, what the war on terror is about) but it's causing anger right across Europe when the only thing standing between a terrorist conviction is American intransigence.

I'd heard of it happening in Britain, but this documentary points to cases in Germany and Spain amongst others where the same has taken place.

I also watched a bit from the Wal-Mart episode and one on Missile Defence which was very interesting. It covered the Republican agenda to get a NMD, their continual questioning intelligence findings that ballistic missiles would not be a threat for many years and wasting billions of dollars developing a programme that has produced no results. Two days before September 11th, Rumsfeld threatened a presidential veto if money wasn't transferred from anti-terrorist efforts to NMD - and well, the events speak for themselves at how agenda-driven they were at the expense of the real threat. A really good insight into the current neo-con cabal taking shape.

I'm currently in the middle of the North Korea one which is also quite illuminating.

I would have posted a thread recommending that page, but I thought that two in as many days would be a bit silly [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 02-04-2005, 07:51 AM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]

Ah, cool. In terms of non-cable tv, I think PBS is the only one that shows documentaries at all, at least around here. I watch Frontline every time I remember that it's on. I've seen a few you've seen, including the Big Box (Walmart) one, which was excellent imo. Before the election they aired one featuring the two main candidates in a chronological biography style.

PBS is arguably the most in-depth coverage of the day to day news (The News Hour with Jim Lehrer), especially compared to the other non-cable networks. This means it can be off-putting, when they're talking over your head about something you know nothing about, but they do an hour of national news, generally with 3 different long segments of debates about a single subject between experts. The result is you generally gain about 15 minutes of content on whichever three subjects they pick, thereby learning a lot more.

I agree, the war on Terror can never be won. Besides, philisophically speaking without war there is no peace.

Didn't the "War on Terror" used be called the "War on Terrorism"? When did this shift happen?

Dunno. Maybe when 3 syllable buzzwords fell out of favour. [img]graemlins/heee.gif[/img]

Anybody remember the War on Communism 40 years ago? Parallels to Vietnam are frightening.

Bush decided that he should take up a more broad variety of evil ideals to destroy. Wars against Pride, Envy, Gluttony, Lust, Anger, Greed and Sloth are to follow. ;)

Bush decided that he should take up a more broad variety of evil ideals to destroy. Wars against Pride, Envy, Gluttony, Lust, Anger, Greed and Sloth are to follow. ;) </font>[/QUOTE]That's funny enough I wish I'd said it... nice one.

Well the US defence industry has got to have some boggy-man to persuade the government to buy its weapons. It has far to much influence on US foreign policy, stretching back to before the Korean War.

Methinks that the "War on Terrorism" (in particular) was expanded into the "War on Terror" (in general) to allow targets like Saddam Hussein, who wouldn't fit very well into the "War on Terrorism" alone. ;)

Saddam can't really be called a terrorist by the common definition of the term, but he sure as hell terrorized his countrymen. Ergo, the shift in terms.

How much of those theories are true? I mean, you hear people like Michael Moore banging on about it, but I'm always a bit sceptical of conspiracy theories like this.

Surely the US can't actually go to war for the benefit of a few companies...

I'm not a conspiracy theorist myself, but most wars are motivated by money on some level. The influence these companies gained in the 50's was considerable and Truman commented on the fact. It was to influence US involvement in Vietnam and other future wars. Its in history text books, not the realm of conspiracy theoists.

It's difficult to gauge the level of influence, no matter what anyone says (from either side of the debate).

I think it's too easy just to blame it all on the companies. They do have influence, but it is more from the fact that they are power players, not from some insidious bribing scheme. There are kickbacks and "perks" (see Cheney and Halliburton, for example), but I can't believe that those are the prime motivators. The people making the decisions have to believe that what they are doing is right, or at least have to justify it to themselves in some fashion. To take the invasion of Iraq for a recent example, I believe that Bush & Co really did think that Saddam had WoMD, and maybe had links to terrorist organizations.

On the other hand, one has to question the pre-existing beliefs of the administration and the extent to which contact with the military-industrial complex has shaped those views. There are enough circumstantial links between the adminstration (Bush, Cheney, Rice) and oil and the weapons companies that we must at least be aware that such contacts have molded the ways in which the administration will think about certain things.

To me, the scary thing is belief. Although we cannot know what goes on behind the scenes (absent the type of disclosure to the public of things like the Pentagon Papers, a large set of Pentagon documents relating to the Vietnam war which were stolen and published by a Pentagon employee), it appears that there is a lack of diverse thinking within the establishment about foreign policy etc. It is very possible that the weapons companies are in part responsible for that.

Oh, i'm wasn't talkin about bribes per se, just the economic influence they have over the government.