>> ^StukaFox:
It's all fun and games until someone gives that cat a Zero and directions to Pearl Harbor!


That comment doesn't deserve an upvote.

It's all fun and games until someone gives that cat a Zero and directions to Pearl Harbor!

Agreed therealblankman, regardless of the amaaaazing ingenuity, the film was a full-on irritating aural assault....I am speaking of the entire script, especially the exchanges between the hero and heroine.Lame.

...and Pearl Harbor sucked sweaty, unwashed, balls.

Reminds me of the anniversary of Pearl Harbor where they brought the surviving US and Japanese veterans together. I wish I could remember where I saw it... on the History Channel, I think.

When the two sides first come face to face, one of the Japanese pilots says to one of the American sailors (and unfortunately I have to paraphrase here), "I am sorry for bombing your ship."

The American replied, "You have nothing to be sorry for. We were soldiers and we were just doing our duty."

It was really amazing to watch them come together.

This reminded me of:
http://videosift.com/video/Monty-Python-Batley-townswomen-s-guild-does-Pearl-Harbor
Which oddly wasn't sifted yet.

Interesting. I didn't know the origin of the word.

Whatever it once meant, at present, the term Neo-Con refers to Neo-Libs who have a fetish for aggressive, amoral foreign policy; probably best exemplified by the members of PNAC - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century . These are the folks that said it would take a tragedy the scale of Pearl Harbor in order to shock and awe the public into supporting their legislation.

Agreed that the term should not be applied to social and religious conservatives, but to be clear, Dick Armey's Neo-Con astroturf outfit FreedomWorks© is leading the charge against health care.

You clearly didn't read my post. The site I listed discredits the video. All I'm saying is that I wouldn't hold it past Dick Cheney to knowingly allow this to happen. The flight hit the pentagon almost an hour after the flights hit the towers. Protocol is to scramble and shoot down any civilian flight off its flight path and that isn't responding to hails, particularly if it is headed towards a high valued military target. For Dick Cheney that should be an easy call. If it wasn't, I seriously question whether he was qualified to be in that position.
At the very least, the south side of the building should have been evacuated as the target was moving in, not after.
I agree the question you pulled out is bullshit, but questions about exactly what orders were given to whom, when, are not unreasonable questions. These are even more relevant if what we'd like to understand how to avoid this sort of thing in the future.
I'm not willfully ignorant as you imply. I won't entertain fantastic stories about fly overs, or detonation squads. I just wouldn't hold it past these particular assholes to allow something like this to happen. They didn't need to do anything active, just don't give the order to fire.
In my mind... the "truthers" are getting paid/encouraged/coverage in order to keep the heat off the real question of was the negligence criminal or plain vanilla incompetence?
FDNY and all that... but the chickenhawk, neocons can go to hell. The fact of the matter is we've spent more money investigating Bill Clinton's blow job than we have the largest attack on our soil since Pearl Harbor, accusations of human rights abuses, and unconstitutional expansions of executive power by the previous administration.
I ask you sir...
srsly?

I did read your post and yes, it does discredit the video, but it brings up other questions just as absurd.

The protocol was never been to shoot down any civilian aircraft that deviates from flight plans and doesn't respond to hails. That is absolutely false and you know it. That policy may have been tightened and changed since these events, but before 9/11 there is no way that the government would shoot down a commercial airliner for those reasons. The simple fact is that no one knew what was going on and where these planes were headed until it was too late.

Like I said before, things were absolutely chaotic that day and people were trying to use their best judgment based on what information they had, which was minimal at best. Watch any of the excellent Discovery Channel or National Geographic Channel documentaries about that day and you'll see how little people had to go on. It is easy to look with hindsight and second guess what people should have done, but in the moment, things are not that simple.

Dick Cheney had no say regarding shooting down anything, so I'm not sure why you are going after him, aside from your obvious anger. Belief in conspiracy theories are so dangerous because they essentially become like a religion: people believe what they believe because they believe it and nothing can persuade them otherwise once they have decided to believe. Even a "moderate" conspiracy theorist like yourself must realize that you have no real evidence to back up your claims, especially claims that the government was complicit, passively or otherwise.

>> ^IronDwarf:
The answer to nearly all of those questions would be something to the effect of that day was utterly chaotic and the US was grossly unprepared for an attack of that kind. Other questions like "Why did Flight 77 hit a part of the building opposite from the high command and mostly empty and under renovation, with majority of victims being civilian accountants?" don't even make sense to ask after the fact. The things that happened that day happened because the people flying those planes made it happen that way.
I'm sorry, but anyone who actually buys into any of this conspiracy bullshit is not looking at all of the material available and is either purposefully or unknowingly keeping themselves ignorant. I know these videos can be persuasive, but they are not giving you all the information; they are picking and choosing what fits their particular theory. For example, I felt like I knew for a certainty what had happened on November 22, 1963 after watching Oliver Stone's "JFK", but after reading more about it I realized the theory was complete shit, no matter how well made and persuasive the movie was.


You clearly didn't read my post. The site I listed discredits the video. All I'm saying is that I wouldn't hold it past Dick Cheney to knowingly allow this to happen. The flight hit the pentagon almost an hour after the flights hit the towers. Protocol is to scramble and shoot down any civilian flight off its flight path and that isn't responding to hails, particularly if it is headed towards a high valued military target. For Dick Cheney that should be an easy call. If it wasn't, I seriously question whether he was qualified to be in that position.

At the very least, the south side of the building should have been evacuated as the target was moving in, not after.

I agree the question you pulled out is bullshit, but questions about exactly what orders were given to whom, when, are not unreasonable questions. These are even more relevant if what we'd like to understand how to avoid this sort of thing in the future.

I'm not willfully ignorant as you imply. I won't entertain fantastic stories about fly overs, or detonation squads. I just wouldn't hold it past these particular assholes to allow something like this to happen. They didn't need to do anything active, just don't give the order to fire.

In my mind... the "truthers" are getting paid/encouraged/coverage in order to keep the heat off the real question of was the negligence criminal or plain vanilla incompetence?

FDNY and all that... but the chickenhawk, neocons can go to hell. The fact of the matter is we've spent more money investigating Bill Clinton's blow job than we have the largest attack on our soil since Pearl Harbor, accusations of human rights abuses, and unconstitutional expansions of executive power by the previous administration.

I ask you sir...
srsly?

Why? To go to war.

To prepare the ground for the PNAC-like ideas that were circulating in the HardRight, various wealthy individuals and corporations helped set up far-right think-tanks, and bought up various media outlets -- newspapers, magazines, TV networks, radio talk shows, cable channels, etc. -- in support of that day when all the political tumblers would click into place and the PNAC cabal and their supporters could assume control.

This happened with the Supreme Court's selection of George W. Bush in 2000. The "outsiders" from PNAC were now powerful "insiders," placed in important positions from which they could exert maximum pressure on U.S. policy: Cheney is Vice President, Rumsfeld is Defense Secretary, Wolfowitz is Deputy Defense Secretary, I. Lewis Libby is Cheney's Chief of Staff, Elliot Abrams is in charge of Middle East policy at the National Security Council, Dov Zakheim is comptroller for the Defense Department, John Bolton is Undersecretary of State, Richard Perle is chair of the Defense Policy advisory board at the Pentagon, former CIA director James Woolsey is on that panel as well, etc. etc. (PNAC's chairman, Bill Kristol, is the editor of The Weekly Standard.) In short, PNAC had a lock on military policy-creation in the Bush Administration.

But, in order to unleash their foreign/military campaigns without taking all sorts of flak from the traditional wing of the conservative GOP -- which was more isolationist, more opposed to expanding the role of the federal government, more opposed to military adventurism abroad -- they needed a context that would permit them free rein. The events of 9/11 rode to their rescue. (In one of their major reports, written in 2000, they noted that "the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event -- like a new Pearl Harbor.")

I find it interesting that the Embargo basically caused Pearl Harbor to happen. GOOOO isolationism.

Christopher Hitchin is Cassandra..crying out warnings that no one hears. We will have to relive Pearl Harbor (a "surprise" attack..like 9/11...remember?) in order to take hold and stop this. I am not optimistic.

>> ^raverman:
It's not impossible to think these same conservatives with the same beliefs and disregard for the country or human life existing 8 years ago in the military and other right wing parts of the bush administration.


We know that there were.

They called themselves "The Project for the New American Century."

They advocated "a new Pearl Harbor" to help thier plans for the future come around more quickly.

Casualties of war; as I approach the barricade
Where's the enemy? Who do I invade?
Bullets of Teflon, bulletproof vest rip
Tear ya outta ya frame with a bag full of clips
Cause I got a family that waits for my return
To get back home is my main concern
I'ma get back to New York in one piece
but I'm bent in the sand that is hot as the city streets
Sky lights up like fireworks blind me
Bullets, whistlin over my head remind me...
President Bush said attack
Flashback to Nam, I might not make it back
Missile hits the area, screams wake me up
from a war of dreams, heat up the M-16
Basic training, trained for torture
Take no prisoners, and I just caught ya
Addicted to murder, send more bodybags
They can't identify em, leave the nametags
I get a rush when I see blood, dead bodies on the floor

Day divides the night and night divides the day
It's all hard work and no play
More than combat, it's far beyond that
Cause I got a kill or be killed kind of attack
Area's mapped out, there'll be no, Stratego
Me and my platoon make a boom wherever we go
But what are we here for? Who's on the other side of the wall?
Somebody give the President a call
But I hear warfare scream through the air
Back to the battlegrounds, it's war they declare
A Desert Storm: let's see who reigns supreme
Something like Monopoly: a government scheme
Go to the Army, be all you can be
Another dead soldier? Hell no, not me
So I start letting off ammunition in every direction
Allah is my only protection

But wait a minute, Saddam Hussein prays the same
and this is Asia, from where I came
I'm on the wrong side, so change the target
Shooting at the general; and where's the sergeant?
Blame it on John Hardy Hawkins for bringing me to America
Now it's mass hysteria
I get a rush when I see blood, dead bodies on the floor

The war is over, for now at least
Just because they lost it don't mean it's peace
It's a long way home, it's a lot to think about
Whole generation, left in doubt
Innocent families killed in the midst
It'll be more dead people after this
So I'm glad to be alive and walkin
Half of my platoon came home in coffins
Except the general, buried in the Storm
in bits and pieces no need to look for em
I played it slick and got away with it
Rigged it up so they would think they did it
Now I'm home on reserves and you can bet
when THEY call, I'm going AWOL
Cause it ain't no way I'm going back to war
when I don't know who or what I'm fighting for
So I wait for terrorists to attack
Every time a truck backfires I fire back
I look for shelter when a plane is over me
Remember Pearl Harbor? New York could be over, G
Kamikaze, strapped with bombs
No peace in the East, they want revenge for Saddam
Did I hear gunshots, or thunder?
No time to wonder, somebody's going under
Put on my fatigues and my camoflouge
Take control, cause I'm in charge
When I snapped out of it, it was blood, dead bodies on the floor

"It would be Pearl Harbor all over again", "But worse, with robots"

Hey, thanks! That's pretty damn close to my fir$t sift!

In reply to this comment by laura:
*promote