>> ^Payback:
In war, the object is to kill the enemy. As many of them as you can. As swiftly and decisively as possible. That is what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Nothing more.
Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korea.
Forgive my bluntness, but this lesson was forgotten after the end of WW2. War has become "kinder, gentler" and therefore more likely to happen. It has become a tool, part of foreign relations. War needs to be unthinkable. It demands to be unforgivable. If only to stop it from happening again.


The war then was a different war then the war now in that we needed to stop the war. Every one, even the enemy.

The wars now are for prophet, and for those in power to ensure that they still have jobs, because all they know is how to steal liberties under the false banner of democracy.

Those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither - ben franklin.

To be fair, it's mainly monotheism that causes the problems she mentions. Non-monotheistic cultures rarely have things like holy wars. (Or at least this was true prior to the rise of Marxist-Leninism. Wars for Communism certainly seem like holy wars.) In fact, Roman religion frequently stopped wars; any bad omens in the ceremonies held before going to war were seen as a sign that the war would end in defeat, and there were always numerous opportunities for bad omens.

It's also rare, for instance, for non-monotheistic religions to cause major sexual guilt for natural impulses. Rome had temple prostitutes. India had the Kama Sutra (though years of British and Muslim influence have had a serious dampening effect on Indian sexuality). Casual nudity is a regular part of Japanese advertising.

While non-monotheistic cultures seem just as prey to cultural imperialism, they tend to be more tolerant of religious dissent. The religious pluralism of Hinduism and of ancient Rome is very well known, but the tolerance in ancient and medieval China is somewhat less talked about. Records indicate that from the 8th (if not earlier) to the 19th century, there was even a substantial Jewish population. Marco Polo confirmed that there were many Jewish traders in China in the 13th century.

>> ^bcglorf:
^"If McCain is elected, any talks with Iran would follow policies that have been proven ineffective."
Isn't 'talking' itself one of the policies that have been proven ineffective in working with Iran?


No.

Condoleeza Rice struck a deal with Iran to halt uranium enrichment, which Cheney and Gates stopped. Cheney, Bush and Patreus have no interest in wide-open diplomatic relations with Iran, as they want their bullshit war-on-terror to go on indefinitely.

And a friendly Iran would stop their war machine dead in its tracks.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'ye common, bizness, puffy' to 'ye common, once again, stop the war, bizness, puffy, speak the rapper, 9 11' - edited by EDD

I don't get you guys. You don't do interviews in the middle of a march! If these people had been at their destination, perhaps they would have been ready to say something meaningful. But even so do you seriously think Fox would have let a well spoken protester stay at that microphone? One guy says "stop the torture, stop the war" and the reporter immediately turned away from him. He was there to get in the way and make the marchers look bad, that is all. Maybe I agree with their message, or maybe not if what complacentnation said was true, but the most important thing they could have possibly said in that situation was said loud and clear.

FUCK FOX NEWS!

>> ^rottenseed:
>> ^SDGundamX:
I'd say there are three big reasons why the US is still in Iraq. The first is that without someone there to monitor the situation, the country would devolve into utter chaos. You think it's the wild west right now, imagine what would happen if suddenly there was zero security and the various factions could have a go at each other unrestrained. Regardless of whether going in was right or wrong, I think leaving now would just result, in the end, in even more death.
- Who the hell cares what happens there now. they're not idiots, they'll figure it out. we can't even get our economy under control so who are we to offer help on a dime we don't have?
The second reason is that Americans really don't care one way or the other. They care just about enough to b tch about it on Internet forums and that's it. You don't see masses of people walking out of their jobs or going on hunger strikes until the President recalls the troops. American citizens could shut down the country tomorrow if they really wanted the troops home. But no, most citizens' commitment to the cause goes as far as complaining and hoping their elected officials do something. Hell, the illegal immigrants held bigger demonstrations protesting the new immigration bills than any US citizens ever have protesting the war.
- Are you kidding? walking out on our jobs? What's that gonna do? Put us further into debt that's what. And hunger strike? Wow, HAHAHA. That's rich. I'm sure we've all seen PLENTY of demonstrations. You can even find a few on the sift if you'd really like to. Furthermore, this describes little about what we're still doing there. It doesn't answer any questions other that "what are we doing about it?" (and it's a ridiculous answer at that).
The final reason Americans are still there... because even if they decided to leave right this very second it would take something like a year to actually ferry all the troops and equipment out. So at the very least the US will have some sort of presence there for the next year.

- Well let's get it started now


Congratulations for proving my point about being willing to bitch about it on an Internet forum but not do anything to get the ball rolling.

If you're not willing to show a commitment to change, then why should the administration change its policy? That's the answer to your question about why we're still there: the current administration thinks it's in our vital interests to be there and citizens like you aren't doing anything, besides flame people on the Internet, to dissuade them that they're wrong. It's not ridiculous at all to ask what citizens are doing to stop the war. Remember my example about the illegal immigrant demonstrations? Notice how no new immigration bills ever got passed? From the independence of India from Britain to the Civil Rights Movement to the end of apartheid in South Africa, peaceful (and sometimes not so peaceful) demonstrations have shown their ability to effect change. Don't be so quick to discount them.

kulpims- you are absolutely correct. That said, I'm not trying to stop the war here, I'm not trying to revisit the invasion of Iraq here. I am trying to provoke a small change to policy at a web community that I have participated in since (almost) day one. You know, the old "Think Globally, Act Locally" maxim? Though instead of environmentalism, we're talking about ethics and morality.

Telling my government to stop the war.

Ok..."stop the war".

Now what?

I'm absolutely fucking disgusted. Their excuse is that "Soldiers have been dying since March 2003" and "Everybody in this country knows that we're at war"? What the FUCK? The soldiers have been dying, thinking they were defending YOUR freedom, and all you have to say is "They've been dying" - like it doesn't fucking matter? They'd rather talk about someone that killed themselves ODing on drugs?
How do you fucking sleep at night? Then you cut half the frame to squeeze in a clip from a Ledger movie? And when it's all said and done, you break for a commercial by saying when you get back, you'll talk about his book and Heath Ledger some more?

Maybe you would care a little more about that war if it was people you knew that were dying in it. Maybe you would tell your government to stop the war if you were the ones fighting in it.





Fuck you, Fox news.

i posted it because to stop the war/s and end the neo-con police state is a good cause. it would appear there are a lot of ron paul supporters on videosift and this date is worth them knowing.

but if he was shouting "stop the war" that would be OK? just asking...

I believe the others were kicked out for wearing pink tshirts, they were members of the group or otherwise affiliated, I guess the Police just didnt want any more trouble.

According to their website "CODEPINK is a women-initiated grassroots peace and social justice movement working to end the war in Iraq, stop new wars, and redirect our resources into healthcare, education and other life-affirming activities."

What middle aged women protesting against war in Iraq has to do with 100 million deaths at the hands of communists (or the Manson family) I'll leave for you to explain.

Approaching the CIA's closet through the civil rights portal-Why? This is tantamount to stopping all war, with an International Flowers in Muzzles Day.

The same argument against (insert country here), could be attempted and would be just as ineffectual.

Gonna need a better back-door than that....

The real news, is ol' Al-misery, making the remainder of his life sir, one less stressed-out, for the obviously taxed, blood-pumping organo-mechanism....

"It's not just a days lost wages. It's going to drive up the price of EVERYTHING!"

So be it.

You fail to see that wrecking the system until it stops the war is the whole point of the exercise. We wreck the system until the system ends the war in Iraq, then we go back to work and play nice again.

This war will not end until the people on the top of the food chain start feeling some heat.

A general strike is probably the only way we can bring that about.

"I think I'll take a small war with another country first."

A person who would wish the misery of war upon another country and another people, for the sake of his own convenience, is part of the problem, not the solution.

bighead,

You are right. It's up to the young. Unfortunately, they refuse to put down their ipods and refrain from the incessant texting to do anything else. I see alot of complaining, but not much else. And, you can't really blame them because the democratic congress, who vowed to stop the war, are doing nothing. Back in my Libertarian days, I believed in a revolution every two hundred years. Perhaps we are overdue?