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242 comments on DrumBeat: December 3, 2008

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CITIZEN_ANARCHIST on December 3, 2008 - 1:10pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

"I would suggest the Defense Industry is a huge success"..??????

You're joking, right?

If not, that is one of the most insane statements I have yet to hear on this web sight.

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Geckolizard on December 3, 2008 - 1:23pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Citizen... Without a well funded defense industry, we would not have been able to train and equip Osama bin Laden's allies and we wouldn't be able to invade Iraq like we did in 2003. Not to mention things like Hiroshima and Nagasaki- all the soldiers civilians that were killed (about 250,000). Now, who wouldn't support an industry like that? /sarcasm

(In all fairness, we would not have been able to go into Afghanistan and destroy (mostly) the Taliban either without a defense industry, but this, like all other wars police actions, there are invariably civilian casualites of war).

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super390 on December 3, 2008 - 3:20pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

We didn't mostly destroy the Taliban. Its supporters have been in the Afghan senate for years and now all the talk in Kabul is of a negotiated settlement. Nor are the politicians who are supposedly Afghan democracy anyone we should be proud of supporting.

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Geckolizard on December 3, 2008 - 6:00pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I stand corrected... And the Taliban were never my favorite group of people. I don't support destroying world heritage, nor do I support rape or dismemberment as acceptable forms of punishment.

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TrueKaiser on December 3, 2008 - 11:10pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

i am of the persuasion that one deserves the government one wants, and by simply not uprising en-mass to dislodge them. they, or at least the majority of them, approved of such a government. It is of up most hubris to assume everyone yearns or desires one certain form of government.

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s_yajaman on December 4, 2008 - 3:20am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

The Taliban were not always the reviled lot that they have now become in the eyes of the US Govt. They were a vital cog in the wheel to defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan. They were set up and trained by the ISI in Pakistan with the active connivance of the CIA (why do the dirty job of fighting when someone more ruthless will do it for you?).

I remember in Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore shows a delegation of them coming to Texas sometime in 1997. I think the idea was to use Afghanistan for a Unocal pipeline from Central Asia.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/west_asia/37021.stm

http://www.mapcruzin.com/news/war111901a.htm

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/htmlContent.jhtml?html=%2Farchive%2F1997%2F12...

The Taliban were in power from 1996 to 2001. Nothing was done by the US or NATO to get rid of them. They probably had some utility value then. As long as they were good dogs, fine. Never bite the hands that feed you.

Bush has come and gone - no sign of Osama yet. He was supposed to have been smoked out in 2001.

Srivathsa

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Apuleius on December 4, 2008 - 11:17am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Yes, they were in power, and nothing was done to get rid of them. Coincidentally, they had not yet sponsored a terror attack that killed 3,000 people in New York.

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CITIZEN_ANARCHIST on December 4, 2008 - 12:10pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

The real sponsor of terror is still in the White house for a few weeks. He has killed over 5 thousand Americans.

Should we invade?????

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Apuleius on December 4, 2008 - 1:55pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Be my guest. I'll sell popcorn.

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elwoodelmore on December 3, 2008 - 1:20pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

the defense industry is one of the most succesful at looting the treasury, so on that basis successful. but the all time looting award will probably go to the banking industry. and that prediction has profound implications i.e. past peak looting.

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shaman on December 3, 2008 - 1:42pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Reading is a matter of interpretation, not just direct relation of fact.

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242 comments on DrumBeat: December 3, 2008

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