One would think. But lemme ask - what did America do to them that you believe would justify 9/11?

I know you never said it was a good reason or the "reason". I'm just annoyed how people don't care why, they just want revenge.

I personally don't think 9/11 is justified. I think that there were underlying causes that got exaggerated into something bigger than it actually was. I think the main reason was that America treats everyone else like shit but I'm not certain so I won't say that is the reason.

Also, just because I don't think 9/11 was justified doesn't mean it couldn't have been. Like how I don't believe Bush set up 9/11 but I won't rule it competely without definite proof.

A large portion of America is currently longing for the past, when international policy was black versus white and wars were fought against uniformed aggressors in organized armies that represented countries that issued declarations. You can hear it in the comparisons to World War II body counts ("3,000 lost isn't nearly as many as...!"), questions of why the public "isn't sacrificing more for the war effort" like "generations past", and even down to the phrase uttered many times after 9/11 that they'd "awakened the sleeping giant". It'd be so much easier if we were dealing with a country that was on a conquest for world domination instead of the complicated religious group/political spiderweb that dates back hundreds of years and why you'll continue to hear phrases like "they hate us for our freedom".

Our army isn't equipped to handle this, nor are our current policies. We can't understand why we can defeat the army and hang the dictator but cannot apply the "Mission Accomplished" label successfully, yet. A public that grew up reading the history of the defeat of the Nazis through manpower and the fall of communism thanks to a weapons race thinks the solution is to keep throwing ammunition into an age-old fire. Our actions fuel this.

America isn't a building trying to grow larger, we just don't understand why we can't fix these complex problems with air superiority and installation of a new political system. We want this, badly, to be good versus evil, not shades of gray.

I don't know if you were implying it or not but I was not talking about military action when saying stepping back. For military action I think we should "grow up" and not bully everyone around by using our force but reserve it for when we need it.

We should go start going back to our base more in our economics and civil isssues (I was talking about them in the first post but did a shitty job at getting that through). Ironically, we have never had what I am looking for in America before so it wouldn't really be going "back" as in time but just expanding our base.

Well said Kitsune.

We do know why 'they' attacked us AND it was well understood long before 11 September. This country is chock full of good, informed, honest, and responsible people (who were easily subverted by Rush Limbaugh logic and ‘big dic’ propaganda). That list of ‘good’ includes those who knew why America was being attacked, who was doing it, AND who were even 'retired' for reporting that it was coming. For example, you do know who John O'Neill was and why he was there when killed? If not, then America has another serious problem (another reason why George Jr is in Washington). Do you know this common knowledge from current events?

85% of all problems are directly traceable to top management. (That was god's 1st Commandment before Moses dropped the first tablets.) A nation with little people empowered to do their jobs therefore had a 70% approval rating throughout the world. Hell, we rescued Kuwait and got paid to do it. That's right. It cost us almost nothing. Then we elected an extremist mental midget. Those little people did not disappear. Only one thing changed. Urbane Guerrilla got just the type of leader he adores. These leaders, for example, stifled handfuls of Federal agents - any of which could have averted 11 September if permitted to do their job. Again, you can name cities those agents were located because it was well published, common knowledge, and read by those who are, by definition, American patriots.

You did read the 9/11 Commission report - because you care about America? Did you notice, in every case, who fought for (to defend) America? Not a single member of the George Jr administration is on that list. Not one. Again – common knowledge. In many cases (such as the landing of all airliners), people who did not even have authority to save lives acted anyway. Did you understand the 9/11 story as detailed in that Commission report? Did you understand what makes America so great - so strong - so loved throughout the world? Do you understand how a mental midget and his cast from the dark side – how so few - have so subverted America?

No, not just somehow know. For if you cannot say why, then you are equivalent to that Sith president. ‘Evil’ are those who don’t do their jobs as citizens: learn.

You posts reek of despair because grasp of details are woefully missing. Appreciate why this country is so strong, innovative, and was so admired. Appreciate why so many aspire to be American friends when our leaders adhere to American principles (instead of running torture chambers, approved of by both George Jr and Urbane Guerilla, in Guantanamo, Poland, Bulgaria, Afghanistan, and Abu Ghriad). Appreciate why so few can undermine so many. 85% of all problems are directly traceable to …?

Learn from current details AND from the lessons of history. To appreciate why we are where we are, read the Pentagon Papers, Making of a Quagmire, or a Bright and Shining Lie. Or watch PBS Frontline's Lost Year to appreciate how incompetant this adminstration really is. IOW first learn. Then appreciate what America did to end that tyranny 30 years ago. Your despair should be replaced with a wild craving for solutions – what is also called the American spirit. Solutions are known, available, and being stifled by a group of incompetent and politically extremist wackos.

My god … a long and aggressive list of solutions are provided in the Iraq Study Group report. Did you read it – or instead do what incompetent managers do – read the executive summary?

But again, you keep them in power if you cannot post details that include 'why'. Your posts are dreadfully devoid of that grasp - which makes one little different from America's worst president. We know why 'they' attack us. We even knew when it was coming. Defined here is the America spirit. Do you appreciate what that is and what subverts it?

But we did know how to fix these things. How many Generals were 'retired' because they accurately defined how to fix it? They were opposing a political agenda. Therefore they were retired.

Ask yourself why Rumsfeld had to reach down to a one star general - total experience was command of one division - to find a commander for all forces in Iraq? Sanchez was all he could find? Or other generals knew what the real problem was?

Remember who every general serving in Iraq and now retired have blamed for the entire Iraq mess. This includes the legendary Barry McCafferty who is on the White House 'person non-grata' list for telling the truth.

It was not inevitable. Solutions were known. Even the intelligence was not faulty. Every country adjacent to Iraq, who had spies in Iraq, and who would be most threatened by Iraq, instead, saw no threat. Just another damning fact back in 2002. Why did we ignore that reality?

The Iraq Study Group has a comprehensive set of objectives and benchmarks - the only reasonable solution we have in Iraq. Already, many of those benchmarks should have been achieved. The problem requires solutions that aggressive. Instead the mental midget wants to study this problem for many more months. Why? The solution will either work or fail by end of 2007. Instead, the mental midget needs this thing to continue well after 2008. Deja vue Richard Nixon.

Solution from the Iraq Study Group is a threat to the legacy of George Jr. Don't think for one minute otherwise. This man - just like Nixon - is so corrupt as to send more (and too few) troops only so that a defeat does not occur under his watch.

OR, they flew planes into the Word Trade Center because they failed to blow it up in '93.
Our response was to attack them in Afghanistan, which was just and proper.

Unfortunately that job was bungled by, top management
The bungling continues, but everything will be okey dokey, once they catch Bin Laden. :right:

Since we don't have and never had boat people rafting out of the United States for any available foreign shore -- I'd say compared to most undemocracies, and most democracies for that matter, we've hardly anything wrong.

An utter absence of boat people is a CLUE. That the main population question is where and how to accommodate the influx, and that we never ever have a shortage of people trying like all git-out to get in is a CLUE. These are easy clues to get; I got them just off the top of my head, without effort.

That our opposition in the GWOT all come from non-democratic social orders is yet another CLUE. Democracy's enemies must be crushed, without let or hindrance, nor even momentary inefficiency. Our cause is democracy's cause, and democracy's cause is humanity's cause. Rabid-dog fascists must convert wholeheartedly to democracy or they must die, to save the rest of humanity from their evil attentions.

Honestly, hawkeye, I must ask why your vision does not seem to pierce through what the professional anti-Americans want to pull over your eyes. Though I am seeing at least a partial answer to that in the rest of this thread. I consider, though, that the "America's the Problem" claque to have it as wrong as they've always had since they started off with that guff. They've been steadily at it since the close of the Second World War, until we are bored with the boring-from-within.

Yes, America does have another serious problem because before you mentioned John O'Neill, I had no idea who he was. I heard of his story but it was never gone into fully.

I understand what makes America so great but why do we have to settle for that? After 9/11 we had every country begging us for them to help us and Bush threw that all away and the people followed Bush. "Freedom Fries", so France didn't want to fight the war in Iraq, we competely disrespect their opinion and act call them cowards. Five years later we are all saying how it was a mistake to go to Iraq. France was right, they took years of shit from us making fun of them for them to be right. Yet, we will still be willing to go back to "Freedom Fries" the next time Bill O'Reilly mentions it. That is America's problem. I appriciate what 60% of our country stands for but I want more.

I know and appriciate this even though I will admit I take a lot of it for granted. But, I don't want to settle for great in some aspects and piss poor in others. I want America to be great in all aspects and I'm trying to point out one way I see America is lacking in "greatness".

It's funny how much you can learn all beginning from one bias ignorant post isn't it? Do you know of any reliable perferably unbias sites that report actual news?

What subverts the American spirit? Government officals that can't take the risk of admiting a mistake so they try to cover up the evidence. Americans that just accept what they hear from the evening news and don't try to sort out what is real and what isn't. Media's inability to report decent news. I think that is what you are trying to get at but I can't be sure.

I'd have something to say here except I'm afraid someone will shoot me for it. ;)

Oh c'mon Ali, I want to hear what the other side of the world thinks.

Yeah Aliantha, go for it. Even with the best technology, we can't send a bullet over the internet. Just don't tell LJ he;s not funny. ;)

Go for it. No-one likes to take criticism of their country from an outsider, but here at least people (usually) take it constructively.

And if they don't, you're probably best placed to handle any counter-attacks. The antipodeans I've known personally are so proud of their country that it's a case of I'm like rubber, you're like glue....

Which can be frustrating when you're sat in a pub listening to a Kiwi tell you that all fish in the UK isn't worth shit. For about the fifth time. Aaaaargh - go home then.... Not saying he was representative of course - he's have been a cnut wherever he was born.