Arugmentation (Was: Re: [PLUG-TALK] Fair Use, etc.)

[Jeme A Brelin]

On Wed, 3 Apr 2002, Craighead, Scot D wrote:

> >On 14 September, 2001, Congress passed a resolution granting the President
> >sweeping powers to use military force in a broad and general way overseas
> >to a vague and ill-considered end.
> 
> ill-considered?  I think 99% if Americans would disagree with you.  

I think your appeal to democracy is grossly overinflated.

I think that if you explained to a person exactly what powers were granted
to the President more or less without limitation, the average person would
find it was overkill and that the potential for abuse is high.

Unfortunately, that would require an educated populace and MSNBC and CNN
have no interest in that.

> Earlier in this thread I said that crazy fanatics want to kill us and
> you replied "Who are they?" I didn't answer at that time because if
> you don't already know it is because you have chosen not to see.

Actually, that particular response (Who are they?) was intended to show
that one could more narrowly define "the enemy" without giving broad war
powers to the Executive Branch unchecked.

> You don't want to accept who is responsible despite their own words
> that they want Israel and the US "dead".  They have made no secret of
> it. You choose not to accept it.

Oh, I accept that the US and Israel (essentially a US client state) have
plenty of enemies.  I would also say that, for the most part, those
enemies are wholly justified in their desire to see those entities
"dead" on the world scene.

However, I'm also pretty well convinced that the Bush and Bin Laden
families have been working in concert for the past thirty years to be each
other's Great Satan in order to manipulate the public in the Arab and
Western worlds for their own selfish, greedy ends.

The arabs call it Jihad, Bush calls it Crusade.  The words mean the same
thing and it's the people that take all the death and destruction while
they get richer.

Neither has any interest in destroying the other.

US foreign policy since the 1960s has been a wholly destructive force for
everyone but the wealthiest three or five percent of the population.

Did you learn nothing from the Iran/Contra affair?

J.
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     Jeme A Brelin
    jeme at brelin.net
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