don't you think its strange

[jim c]

I keep reading these news articles and our posts on this forum. When farc catches someone they have the authority to decide whether to kill them or hold them for randsom. When they are in fear of being captured, they have the right to execute their hostages. When someone doesn't pay their randson demand, they can kill the victims' familys and even after being paid they have a right to not to return the victim or even kidnap the person delivering the money. When they are caught placing or manufacturing bombs which claim the lives of innocent people. They are arrested, held and sometimes traded for kidnap victims. But they are revolutionary patriots right? Meanwhile if the Auc kills 5 farc wearing civilian clothes it is a massacre, right? If farc destroys a villiage and 125 people it is an accident. They were only trying to get rid of the AUC terrorists who were committing atrocities in the neighborhood. I keep hearing that The Auc committs 70% of the atrocities in Colombia. Let me see is exploding car bombs murder or war? What kind of sentences are these people getting in court. Is this a S/A concept where like Chavez they can run for office in ten years. Sorry to be off subject but its begining to p*** me off. Farc has the death sentance why dosn't Colombia jim c

[Michael B]

... in response to don't  you think its strange, posted by jim c on Feb 15, 2003

See my Jan 22 2003 post -"Peacenicks" and AUC (kind of long)

There is a nationwide/worldwide "Peace Movement" (turn on your TV right now, ha ha, see them in action) that has it's own agenda and a predetermined list of 'good guys/bad guys', regardless of the facts. Quite simply put, AUC is on their 'bad guy' list, FARC isn't.

I think their logic runs something like this:
1) USA is 'bad', the evil worldwide bully
2) Legitimate government of Colombia is friends with USA (which makes them 'bad')
3) FARC is against the legitimate government of Colombia (which makes them 'good')
4 AUC is against FARC (which makes them 'bad')

...see how it works? Kind of like the 'that's good, no, that's bad' skits on the old HeeHaw TV show.

[Pete E]

... in response to Re: don't  you think its strange, posted by Michael B on Feb 15, 2003

And alot of well meaning people buy their arguments.There may be millions of peace advocates,but underlying is a very leftist leaning group of people.
I think one of the problems is some people are so afraid of war or action that they are willing to buy any arguments that will support their desire for inaction.Also,a huge factor, extremely liberal leftist thinking amoung college proffesors,who have great sway with young people who get involved.Thats where alot of these really extreme nonsense ideas about america come from.There is no good or bad.They can't tell the difference between a Saddam Housien and the US government.Its a niave simplistic,stupidly idealist point of view.And any profesor that doesn't fall in line will have to fight all the way,they will make his life very difficult.
I encountered some of this in college.What nonsensical ideas where thrown out,completely out of line with reality.But if you challenged you were in trouble,this thinking was in power.
It was easier to just say sayonara,you guys are totally out to lunch,I'm not going to fight you from within,but from without.
Everything we do or don't do has a reaction,a cost.To put your head in the sand is to ignore the cost of inaction.Fortunately,this group of people may be loud but not so large.Yes a majority of people may be fearfull of war,but most will support the president when it comes right down to it.
Look at WW2.So many people not wanting to get involved.Did you ever see that documentary of a shipload of jewish refugees that were denied entrance to the United States?The ship sat off Miami beach for weeks while they tried to gain entrance.They were close enough to hear the partying at the big hotels.The ship went back to Germany and unloaded the people there and most died in concentration camps.What a shamefull shamefull thing.Not wanting to get envolved enables the worst sort of behavior.Life,lived correctly,requires courage.Sometimes we have to stand up and do the right thing,not just try to find an excuse to avoid it as so many are now doing.
Fortuately we have leadership that understands this.Its a good thing we don't have a couple of gutless finger in the wind politicians from the past in Washington anymore.

Pete

[Ralph]

... in response to Re: Re: don't  you think its strange, posted by Pete E on Feb 15, 2003

Yes, all the world, well mostly France is now accusing us of trying to be the world's policeman. Funny really. Back during WWII would have been a MUCH better time to NOT get involved. What were the odds Germany or Japan could launch a substancial attack on US soil? Damn near zero.

Lots of US soldiers died giving france their liberty once again. Did they criticize us then?  We could have easily went isolationist back then. What would that mean now? Well if Hitler and his like conquered Europe, and thrived till today, they WOULD be able to threaten us on our soil!

If Sadam was left to conquer Iraq, and we did not get involved as many people were telling us not to back then, where would we be?

The guy has proven he has WOMD and will use them ask the Kurds. Sure he poses no "real" threat to us now. Would the same be true if he benefited from all the oil and wealth in Kuwait in all these years? I say he'd be in a better position to do REAL damage.

Doing nothing is sometimes the worst thing you can do, whether it is in europe, middel east or in Colombia. In a perfect, logical world none of this would be necessary, but as long as there are people that will abuse the system and their power, there will be a need to take action from time to time.

[moam]

... in response to Re: Re: don't  you think its strange, posted by Pete E on Feb 15, 2003

Pete, very well said!!!  Doing the right thing is usually meet with resistence from those that wish to do nothing or that are content with the status quo.  Who dares (with the use of his god given faculties, aka gray matter) to suggest that the people of Iraq, that region and the rest of the world is not better served with that Jackass Hussein removed permanently.
Those of us that can see the big picture will take no delight in saying to the "stay out of Iraq" bunch, "we told you that this could happen," after waking some morning to learn that some bunch of muslim wackos have set off a biological, radioactive or other device in one of the large metro areas of this country, I know that americans sometimes have a problem with memory, but, have the events of Sept 11, 2001 been relagated as facts of ancient history?
"New truths go through three stages.
First they are ridiculed,
second they are violently opposed and then,
finally, they are accepted as being self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer

moam

[Andean Condor]

... in response to Re: Re: don't  you think its strange, posted by Pete E on Feb 15, 2003

... Must we start all that cr@p again?  Please note, those of us who are "extremely liberal leftist thinking" people, with our "nonsensical ideas" which are "completely out of line with reality" are sick and tired of hearing all this babble.  So we disagree philosophically... so what?  There is no need to insult someone based on your stereotypes of them.  I don't go around filling my posts with the demonization of right wingers, do I?  You know, all those fat, pork barrel, tax cut and spend, corporate sleazeball, war-mongering right wingers, whose ideas are "completely out of line with reality"...
Let's get real here.  Stop calling people names and grow up a bit.
By the way, the diatribe against right leaning people above was only to be taken as an example of how certain people on this board love to bash the ideas of other people, and label them under their own pretenses.  I simply offer it to you so that you can see how brainless it is to try and categorize a whole movement and ideology.  Such childplay.

[Pete E]

... in response to Unbelievable!!!, posted by Andean Condor on Feb 16, 2003

I was not calling anyone here names,I was reffering to college professors,one in particular,who totally met the definition.Totally out of line with reality,and getting paid big bucks to be there. He was a department head.He did not want to hear about the most obvious things that did not agree with his ideas.
I don't consider anyone who has posted here more than misguided and niaeve.And a little weak in history and short on perspective.

Pete

[H2Oh]

... in response to Re: Re: don't  you think its strange, posted by Pete E on Feb 15, 2003

Well said Petey!!!! I have a very good friend that has suffered at the hands of Saddam. He has spent the last 10 years of his life trying to liberate his fellow Iraqis. He has been able to escape 6 Saddam hit men trying to kill him here in the states. Now the time is at hand when he can finally go home to his country that he can trace his ancestry back 8000 year! Sometimes we have to just do the right thing.

H2-Oh

[Pete E]

... in response to Re: Re: Re: don't  you think its strange, posted by H2Oh on Feb 15, 2003

Howie,
How you doing?Yeah I remember your friend from your wedding.That was a fun weekend in Vegas.I remember flying back,9/10/01,the day before the famous 9/11.I almost drove.I would have been kicking myself if I had tried to come back 9/11.I could have got stuck there for days.I guess there are worse places to get stuck.
It really gualls me when I hear people so worried about bombing children in Iraq.Even if Saddam put a scud missle amoung children we wouldn't take it out for fear of hitting the kids.He purposely put hundreds of people at a site he knew we would hit in the gulf war so he could try to make political points with it.And we wouldn't have hit it if we knew the people were there.We care more about his people than he does.I think once the Iraqis know we are serious about not abandoning them again they will cooperate  in droves.I thinks its very few Iraqis will really go down with Saddam.With a little luck there will be less Iraqi lives lost than would happen in the next year under Saddam.And all this talk of fighting in the streets in Bagdad.I don't think we will get in to that in anything but surgical strikes.We are too smart and value our soldiers too much for that.
And Iraqis will get their country back.They could be hugely prosperous if all that money spent on arms and presidential palaces goes for their own good.Problem.We need to try and keep it a secular society.We don't need the Muslim nuts taking over like in Iran.Actually I am very encouraged by signs in Iran.I think a fairly educated population is real tired of rule by Muslim nuts.I don't think we will have to fire a shot there.The example of a democratic Iraq will encourage them.An Iranian professor of middle east policy was saying this on Fox the other day.This might even sink in in Saudi Arabia,but I think there is a much larger illiterate society there that could be susceptable to muslim control.

Pete

[Celt]

... in response to Re: Re: Re: Re: don't  you think its str..., posted by Pete E on Feb 15, 2003

Tucked in a small corner of the Sunday N.Y. Times, in a
place where important news goes to die, was the story
that the Saudi ruling family will begin to allow Human
Rights groups to move freely in their country. Now, I
thought--or was it that I was taught?--that only by sitting
in a circle and singing "Michael row your boat ashore"
could such political breakthroughts take place.

[Michael B]

... in response to Re: Re: don't  you think its strange, posted by Pete E on Feb 15, 2003

"And alot of well meaning people buy their arguments.There may be millions of peace advocates,but underlying is a very leftist leaning group of people."

I think 95% of the people out marching today were more or less "Well, yeah, I mean who LIKES war?" and can pretty much be discounted as never doing anything for or against except marching in a parade two or three times in their life. Then there are the 4% of the sincere (albeit nieve, AKA as the 'useful idiots') peacenicks like the ones I described in my earlier post....the remaining 1% fall into your 'underlying' group and have the potential of causing great harm....BTW, when I attended the meeting I mentioned in the post, I gave them my email address, they still send me stuff, including an invitation to todays's festiviaties, but I didn't respond.

How can we tie these posts to Latin Women? Humm, let me think...I got it, Martha said "You need to send soldiers to help our country" and I said "I already told you, we already have some down there training your soldiers" and she said "True, but not enough, our country needs all the help you can give"

My self, I'm kind of getting the idea that maybe we could do the Colombian people (and ourselves, in the long run) a great favor if we just dropped a huge cache of arms and munitions right next to AUC hq with a note that says "You boys know how to use these and who to use them on, Good Luck and God's Speed"---but I haven't made up my mind if they (AUC) can be trusted to behave themselves after FARC and ELN are out of the way. Will they just say 'thank goodness that's over' and blend into civilian life or become 'too big for their britches'? That's the unknown factor of AUC.

[Celt]

... in response to You're preaching to the choir, posted by Michael B on Feb 15, 2003

Considering the secrets Carlos CastaNo knows about the
Bogota political oligarchy, they probably prefer him in
the grave, rather than in Parliament. As soon as the
AUC is the only remaining group, I expect the government
to talk peace with the AUC, but also to demand his head.

[Pete E]

... in response to don't  you think its strange, posted by jim c on Feb 15, 2003

Jim,
I agree completely.There seems to be a leftist slant to the news.I think this is true in Colombia as well as the united states.A lawyer friend who lives in Popayan says that when AUC kills some rebels the news always reports it as farmers being killed.He say AUC knows who the rebels are.Some of them are farmers,part time.This guy is not a right winger at all.He works for a group trying to bring legal justice to poor people.
Also in this country we have a huge liberal,or whiner bias in the press.Ain't it awfull.Its really been funny recently watching them whine about Fox news,which they clain is very conservative biased.I think Fox news is middle of the road,trying to be fair and balenced as they say.
The other issue is since AUC has supposedly been aided by the Colombian military,any call for aid to Colombia brings out complaints some assistance might go to AUC.
I think there has been an ambivilant attitude on the part of alot of Colombians over the years,with some sympathy or support for the rebels or at least an unwillingness to deal with them.Pastrana was a great example of the lets negotiate approach,which was really a do nothing approach.Worse than that he appeased the rebels and gave them a huge part of the country.Finally I think Colombians may have had enough of it to face the issue.Uribes election would seem to indicate that.Now they need to do something.
One thing about the Americans in the plane that was shot down or crashed.These were not just any americans as in tourists or even workers being kidnapped.It appears they were working with the Colombian military and as such could be considered combatants by FARC,even if we will not admit it.
Reminds me of AIR America,of whom I believe you will be familiar.One of my high school buddies was in the military,went to OCS school,became an officer and helicopter pilot.The next thing he was no longer in the military,but working for AIR America,a CIA front.This was early 60's and he was in Tailand.The big difference to him was all of a sudden he was making $30,000 a year instead of $200 a month.He was flying some sort of missions in Tailand,maybe even Vietnam.These guys really are US soldiers,even if we are trying to cover it up.So they can expect to be treated as such.So we really can't whine some poor citizen was abducted,it was one of our troops.But I would throw the might of the US ,at least in air cover,in behind them.Enough of this nonsense,just shoot the f--kers.
Unfortunately,there is a similarity with vietnam.Jungle.It makes our air domination less effective.
Yes the Colombian rebels are on the plate of the US for action also.Its a much more minor thing than our other challenges.It will take much less resources but probably more time.
OK Uribe,lets do something before you lose your credibility.

Pete

[chevy]

... in response to Re: don't  you think its strange, posted by Pete E on Feb 15, 2003

how about using a130 gunships with FLIR. Flying at night you can see their body signature, then shoot them .
Enough of this bs- execute them all

[Pete E]

... in response to Re: Re: don't  you think its strange, posted by chevy on Feb 15, 2003

What nags me is I don't think you even have to shoot them all.If they just knew someone was even going to make a serious effort their numbers will dwindle fast.We don't have muslim nuts here who think getting killed means 80 virgins up yonder.These people want to live.Those pictures of the chicas they are doing without also might come to mind while the sky is raining down on them.We ought to give them paid vacations to Cuba to see what they are trying to turn their country in to.
Maybe after we make quick work of Saddam their will be a little more guts to take on other terrorists and a little less guts from the terrorists to take on us and our friends.
Takes me back to Somalia though.When our guys first showed up they were the feared victors of Desert Storm.After a few months of  timid action they were ready to try and take us on.And then that night we waited 8 hours for the Italians to get ready to try and help us get our guys out.Waiting for the Italians?What is this war by commitee?Its amazing how the gutlessness of the administration crept right down the line to the military commanders.Unwillingness to act became pervasive.We squandered our reputation and let some p!ss ants abuse our troops.
And ,while I'm at it.The hero of many conservatives but not me,Reagan,sent our Marines into Lebanon with empty guns.If a liberal had done that the conservatives would have linched him.

Pete