Boston Marathon bombings.......

[Wolfsong]

Originally Posted by Kobi

I hear you and agree with you.

I'm glad Paul had the guts to buck the trend and ask the pertinent questions here. They need to be asked. We, as a people, need to articulate and struggle with these questions and more.

We need to struggle with our response to terrorist type acts and how we are willing to put the constitution aside to deal with them. We need to look at why we feel pride, relief, and have the need to clap when law enforcement, en masse, rolls into Boston with incredible speed and impressive military type equipment to combat a problem. (Pun intended)

Originally Posted by Kobi

We need to look at how we are becoming programmed to accept this culture of fear and the type of responses we are told are necessary to deal with real, potential, and imaged threats.

Well, if we were to do anything I honestly believe that we need to treat terrorism as an adaptation to how war is conducted. Consider this.... for hundreds of years (from God knows when and even up to the American Civil War) combatants lined up across a field from each other and in very general terms whoever had the most guy to lose ends up the victor. During the Revolutionary War the British had fits because the colonists adapted Native American battle tactics (the Natives thought it a good trade off as they adapted the use of firearms). My 20th Century Military History professor asserted that this adaptation was one of the most significant events in the history of war. I'm not certain that I disagree. So now we are facing tactics that do not fit what we know to be the conduct of war. We are now the ones having fits because it is now not on soil thousands of miles away, but happening here in our own homes. We need to find best practices for fighting this war or we will continue to die. We can start by actually acknowledging that these are acts of war and not isolated incidents of nuts with bombs.

Originally Posted by Kobi

We also need to deal with what has our country done and what does our country continues to do to spur such hatred toward its citizens. Of course that would mean filtering through the decades of rhetoric to find the truth and be willing to face it. It would mean having to take off the rose colored glasses of how we can do no wrong, come to grips with being human beings with selfish agendas that pissed off other peoples who now have the audacity to fight back. WTF is up with that. (Yes Sheldon that was sarcasm.)

Bazinga. Although Kobi I have to stop right where you said "have the audacity to fight back." Fight back?

Listen I'm not so steeped in American patriotism that I fail to recognize that some horrific things have happened and that those things have caused people to suffer needlessly. We've also participated in things that were really none of our business. Take the 1953 coup and U.S. support for the shah of Iran, and then the reversal later in supporting Iraq against Iran for example. That was all about the oil and nothing to do with human rights or preservation of freedom.

Originally Posted by Kobi

We also need to ask how Obama can reassure us this was not an intelligence error when stories are emerging to the contrary.

He can't. Obama is in an interesting position now. Short of finding something to impeach him for, he's basically untouchable. Although I am certain someone somewhere will find a reason that it is his fault. Oh hey what the hell.....a lot of people blamed the Titanic's sinking on Bruce Ismay right? It had nothing to do with the jokers actually driving the ship or the radio operators taking allowing rich passengers to overburden the system so that actual important messages are delayed in being delivered right?

I find it embarrassing and an unfortunate state of affairs that some Republicans would rather vote no on something that would better us as a people (like some of the current gun control measures - background checks) than vote yes for something that would be historically viewed as a presidential win. (Some actually admitted to this as revealed recently and aired on CNN yesterday) I think every one of those SOBs should be fired right now, just take their office key and tell them to kick rocks.

Originally Posted by Kobi

And, as an aside, we should ask why was it necessary to delve into how much and what kind of public assistance did this family receive at the time when Congress was debating the immigration bill. Coincidence or strategy?

No, that was on purpose