I spent some time down there "training" and saw first hand how well that went. Its the reason I advocate overt use of the military and spare us the shock and awe glam show. Its dirty and ugly but its the only way we can win an asymmetric war.

Use the right tool for the job at hand.

Bot

Can we have a show of hands of New Yorkers who were actually living in fear of being attacked by Al Qaida on 9/10?

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-livin' in the terminally flippant zone

Bot,

Go to Grocery, it's in the box called "cracker jack". Very reasonable price...

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-livin' in the terminally flippant zone

D, now how did you know that my name was Matthew? Granted, only my Mom calls me that. However it is, I agree with you wholeheartedly.

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-livin' in the terminally flippant zone

hmmmm, according to what I've read in this post we should attack Venezuela because it has oil. This is because we attacked Iraq because of it's oil.


crank through logic machine....



We haven't attacked Venezuela. Ergo, Iraq must not be all about the oil.

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-livin' in the terminally flippant zone

Well I'm just sorrier than a hamster's erection, li'l buddie.

I grievously mis-spoke earlier (mis-wrote?). It would have been more accurate to say "apparent support" rather than "apparent involvement," the latter being my original line.

If one felt that enough questionable circumstances surround an unsolved crime, he would be justified, IMO, in raising the question in semi-public circles: "Does this warrent further investigation?" That might be a rough definition for a hypothesis, that is a working suspicion that something might be the case, based on preliminary evidence. Here are two more definitions for hypothesis:

1: an assumption or concession made for the sake of argument; 2: an interpretation of a practical situation or condition taken as the ground for action.

Not saying "W" committed a crime.

Just that if we don't float hypotheses, we will not arrive at iron-clad theories.

Bush's antipathy to Castro is no secret, nor is his admiration for Reagan, the no-nonsense man who "brought democracy to Nic. and E. Sal. at the point of a bayonnet." Add that to the real threat that an unapologetic socialist with oil reserves, breathing economic life into Castro, no less, such as Chavez must surely pose to old school conservatives and neo too -- well then, I'd say I have grounds for looking hard at any possible manifestation of Bush's ambition. Dubya's and Condi's behavior immediately after the coup attempt assure my assiduous scrutiny.

Yes, you're right. My saying "apparent involvement" was egregiously premature and I apologize sincerely for that.

***EDIT***

Oops! More apologies. My original line WAS "apparent support." I think I had thought "apparent involvement" when writing and forgot that I had changed it. Then the fuss that came down cowed me into thinking that I had made the more serious charge -- as that is what the response would have been more appropriate to. "Support" could mean moral support, a private comment like "We'll be happy to assure the world that we'd be glad to do business w/ you," a pledge for more serious material support did the situation get sticky, sort of like what has happened in Haiti.

Sorry to get all linguistic there, but I maintain there's too much smoke here not to at least be cautious and on the lookout for a fire.

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

The point I'm making is that the communists we assisted in vanquishing did not rise up against a legitimate and functioning democracy. The feudal landlord system that many Central American peasants lived under for years, landless and at the whims of private armies were not unlike the sort of conditions that our ancestors, literal or metaphoric, left Europe to escape.

IME, very, very little of that story has filtered into American awareness (North American/Rio Grande on up)

I'll have to do some research to bolster my impudence on this one. I don't deny that various leftist aspirants from those conflicts were guilty of all sorts of mischief. There's more to the story than that.

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Please note post #67 above, and get back to me.

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

so..... Hampsters have erections?

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-livin' in the terminally flippant zone

I thought it very interesting your word choice in the above two posts. We should look "hard" and "scrutinize" at the current administration yet the leftists way down south were guilty of "mischief" as if they were a wayward child. I'm sure some others on the board here can let you in on what the "mischief" involved. For example, many of the nuns and priests can't because they were recipients of said "mischief".

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-livin' in the terminally flippant zone

I think you've got that backward. Wasn't it was "our" side that had the nuns killed in El Salvador because they were seen as aiding the Communists?

Funny you should mention this. To my knowledge, the well publicized murders of nuns and priests took place at the hands of right wing mercenaries.

Yeah mischief. Heavy handed tactics to achieve their ends. Murder perhaps. Displacement of people and businesses who felt they had a ligitimate right to what they were doing.

There is a huge amount of information somewhere that I haven't a clue about concerning what the Sandinistas did that was likely as not very poorly conceived. Latin American revolutions are always messy and hard to read.

The point I keep making and that you guys who believe that American rmilitary action is the gold standard of wise behavior never seem to even consider, is that they were driven into the arms of communist advisers by the incredible plunder and oppression of the Somoza family regime, aided and abetted by U.S. govt. and business for years.

Somoza operated eerily like Saddam and sons and any thought that the people who rose against him may have had some justification for acting or perhpas deserved a little slack and assistance in getting things right is swept under the table based on non-information such as you submit about nuns and priests falling victim to the commies. You have information to back up this claim?

I'll find some to back up mine shortly. The gauntlet is laid down. Get busy. You're going to lose this one bucko.

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Once the money was turned off several factions assembled, the US's military role after that was to take care of them . The death squads were high as hell on Coke and would kill anyone that was unarmed, they were taken care though I do know that for a fact. the drug cartels played a pretty big role in an attempt to keep the region unstable. part of the reason Noriega was taken out is because he was informing the bad guys about operations leaving from Ft. Clayton Panama thats why the US formed a couple loose bases in Honduras.

Did the US have a clear policy objective in mind when we set out to take care of these rambunctious young men?