Pirates

[layoutshooter]

That is part of it. Another part is it just so far over thier heads. They learned nothing in school about these matters and likely never took part in anything like it. The unknown scares them. They don't wish to learn because that would scare them even more. Most American want to watch sports and drink there "beers" and ignore anything tough. Layoutshooter

 

[Pilgrim]

Clinton governed by polls, and he knew it wouldn't be popular to take any type of military action against anyone more significant than Grenada. Look how many terrorist attacks against us happened on his watch and how many times he did nothing. He let a gang of ragged punks similar to today's "pirates" run our military out of Somalia without letting our soldiers take care of business like they were supposed to. Bin Laden was quoted as saying that was all the confirmtion he needed to go forward with the 911 attacks. He was convinced that Clinton and the US were weak and had no will to fight and take casualties. It's highly probable that if Clinton had struck back hard at the Islamic terrorists when they attacked the Cole and our embassies the attacks on Sept 11th would never have happened. Instead, Clinton reacted like the old flower child he always has been. If Obama displays this kind of weakness we can be assured of having more attacks against us in the near future.

 

[layoutshooter]

EVERY president since and including Carter has made a real mess of this. Reagan had the best chance to put a hurt on these goobers and ran. He should have sent in a couple of divisions when that marine barracks was bombed in Beruit. He should have taken that place over and fixed it. That would have put the hurt on them. Instead he turned and pulled out, the worst thing that he could have done. Remember it was not all that long ago that Beruit was known as the "Paris" of the middle east. It was THE place to go for education, shopping and cosmopolitan life. Look at it now. That is the legacy of not stepping up to the plate. That country is now in riuins. Layoutshooter

 

[greg334]

I believe you have lost your mind Greg

Thank you, I have but that does not make my comments any less valid.

President Clinton signed into law the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 which made the US official policy the following;

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Declares that it should be the policy of the United States to seek to remove the Saddam Hussein regime from power in Iraq and to replace it with a democratic government. [/FONT]

It seems that Bush did exactly that, removed Saddam and replace him with a democratic government, right?

Say it ain't so joe, say it ain't so.....

 

[copdsux]

If I buy the used school busses, and have them buried and equiped, at a place of your choosing, will you right-wing nut jobs go live in them and let the rest of us live in peace?

Mike

 

[aristotle]

If I buy the used school busses, and have them buried and equiped, at a place of your choosing, will you right-wing nut jobs go live in them and let the rest of us live in peace?

Mike

Which dastardly right-winger disturbed your liberal tranquility, FC?

 

[layoutshooter]

Sure as long as you can prove me wrong, I mean with REAL stuff, not the news monkeys things either. You know YOUR 20 years of backround in the "Business" Want to tell just what your backround is? Don't speak about what you have not any idea about. Layoutshooter

 

[DougTravels]

I was a top secret astronaut then a covert spy, but for the most part I worked with the detained aliens in Roswell, nowadays I deliver expedited yellow cakes to party stores

mmmmm yellowey

 

[copdsux]

I don't pretend to be an "expert" in any field. I do, however, believe that "Dirty Harry" was correct when he said that "a man has to know his limitations". So, I will leave the decisions regarding national security, the economy, etc. to our elected officials and military officers, that know better than I about securing our future.

I will not be caught up in an online shouting match with a bunch of "kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out" whack jobs that make Attilla the Hun look like a liberal. That kind of bunker mentality ain't for me.

BTW, I'll be 66, next month, and I'm a card carrying recipient of one of the USA's most successful socialist programs to date: Medicare.

 

[mjolnir131]

As neat, keen supercool and groovy as that sounds, they really don't. We're not at war with Somalia, or even with the pirates. Piracy is not an act of war, its not even terrorism, it's a criminal act. The US military is not a world police, we're not the 911 phone call for the world's crime problems. They can help protect shipping to a point, but only to a point. We can't invade or blow up a country because a few of its citizens are committing crimes on the high seas.

what part of "the shores of Tripoli" are you forgetting

 

[Turtle]

what part of "the shores of Tripoli" are you forgetting

None, and if we were living back then in that situation in that time, that situation would apply. It doesn't apply today. it's easy to sit back and wonder why we aren't going in there and blowing them up, but it's not like every other country hasn't considered the same thing. Yeah, it's interrupting international shipping, but the US isn't the International Shipping Police.

There is a growing consensus for action, but the US can't do it alone. Things will escalate, the pirates will get more brazen and confident and defiant, and it will get bad. It's a can't win situation fot the US. If the US goes in and starts doing things on our own, and just one non-US citizen hostage dies, we'll be vilified for overstepping our bounds and not caring about the lives of others. In the meantime, we'll be risking the lives of US military and paying through the nose to have our military playing the Maritime Police instead of being where they should be for the defense of the US.

Shippers will start arming their ships, even though most ports won't let them in as long as there are arms aboard. And pirates will be killed attempting to hijack ships. The pirates will then move to just sinking ships that have killed any of their "friends" in retaliation. It'll get worse before it gets better, and eventually other countries will pony up and either help pay for security, or become a part of providing it.

 

[Steady Eddie]

Which dastardly right-winger disturbed your liberal tranquility, FC?

He's living in peace because of a right wing nut.....BUSH!