Gene Simmons -- A Celebrity Who Gets It?: Gene Simmons of Kiss, a man who freely admits he's to left of center politically, wrote a surprisingly powerful editorial on his homepage defending the invasion of Iraq and America itself. It was so good that I thought I should I quote a big chunk of it here on RWN...
"...I have said in this political climate, that I am ashamed of the behavior of people who call themselves either members of the Democratic Party (whose politics I usually support, incidentally) or as Liberals (funny, I always thought I was one). But, I will not hesitate to tell someone off. I believe in a form of politics that supercedes philosophical discussions. I believe in Pragmatism.
Pacifism is a beautiful word. No one wants war. Not you. Not I. But, the most passionate Pacifist is only relatively so. What I mean is, it's easy to be a Pacifist here in America. That's because Hussein and other menaces are far away. The closer a gun is pointed to your head, the less of a Pacifist you are...the more you're interested in stopping the guy pointing the gun to your head.
Granted. Saddam Hussein never pointed a gun to my head. I also never want to wait long enough for him to do so. PRE-EMPTIVE WAR is one of the realities we all have to face. There will never be another 9/11...and I could give a sh*t if there is or isn't a direct line to Hussein. He had to go. Period. That regime wouldn't think twice about giving an extremist a suitcase filled with a dirty bomb.
I am passionate about America. It has given me (and in my estimation, the world) everything I ever wanted... including the right to disagree, without winding up in a can of dog food. And, because of my passionate love of America, warts and all, I will stand up and defend her at the drop of a hat.
Is America always right? No. But for 100 years, it seems to me, it has gotten most of it right. The most powerful force the world has ever known is not conquering other countries. Previous world powers, had a colonial agenda. This included at various times in history: Rome, Greece, Nazi Germany, France, England, Communist Russia and Persia. There are more.
But, aside from the French complaining (don't they always?) about the influx of the AMERICAN CULTURE, I don't see America expanding its borders...All the countries in the world are free to rule themselves as they see fit...as long as they don't threaten anyone else.
..."America, love it or leave it?" I never subscribed to that ideal. It's actually UnAmerican. I DO believe in different opinions. But, I am also ashamed of any American especially, who gets up on stage in a different country to badmouth America, while American troops are dying in a desert country they would never want to live in.
...The war, for the most part is over. The British and the Aussies, (God bless em both,) amid a murky political situation, stood alongside Americans and did what had to be done.
The Iraqi's are free.
I suggest anyone having a problem with this war go talk to the Iraqi's. Ask them if they prefer freedom (even at the price of, initially having what seems to be chaos), or if they prefer Saddam Hussein come back and reinstates the old ways.
I DARE anyone to say the Iraqi's were better off before, under Hussein.
And, after the war dies down, and people here in America go back to normalcy, there will be people who say that they are "non-violent." You don't want to get into fights. But, what that really means is, you don't want to pick on anybody.
Problem is, the bad guys don't always agree with you. You see, if you're against violence and some guy holds a gun to your head and asks you for your money, you better re-think your position. You better become VERY VIOLENT at that moment. Or, you're dead.
Being a Pacifist, is an ideal. I subscribe to it. I'm against violence. But, only CONCEPTUALLY, if you threaten my children, I wouldn't think twice about snapping your neck on the spot. I suspect most people would take my view.
You can tell by the length of this missive, that this issue has gotten under my skin. So, I'll try to recap my feelings, in brief. Get ready, 'cause here comes the truth:
America is the world's only hope for a bright future.
Yes. I mean that. Yes, I know you live in another country and your country is cool, too. But, America is the only Superpower. There are no others. And that means, the world is a better place. Because if Nazi Germany or Communist Russia were the only superpowers, we would all be either dead or forced to live under their regimes.
America is not interested in ruling your country. If you think it does, smoking crack may be your answer.
I wasn't born here. But, I have a love for this country and its people that knows no bounds. I will forever be grateful to America for going into World War II, when it had nothing to gain, in a country that was far away...and rescued my Mother from the Nazi German Concentration Camps.
She is alive and I am alive because of America.
And, if you have a problem with America, YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH ME."
Wow, what I can say other than Gene Simmons, RWN salutes you!
Wrong from the start, Rumsfeld, Cheyne, Pearle etc DID WANT A WAR and were prepared to use any reason whether truthful or not to get that war. This wasn't a war of necessity, this was a war of choice. Al Qaeda was the threat and yet the the Bush administration cynically used 9/11 to invade a country they knew had nothing to do with the attack on America.
Simmons, like many people think that attacking Bush and his policies, is the same as attacking America. That's exactly how Bush wants people to think and why from the very beginning Bush spelled out - you're either with us or against us.
Absolutely right, H@ts. Bush and Rumsfeld DID want a war with Iraq according to many commentators in America and Britain.
Gene Simmons used the same old delerious cliches as so many Bush followers tend to do.
Pre-emptive srike is the most ridiculous concept I've ever heard. If many other countries followed the USA's paranoid stance, we'd see China invading Taiwan, India invading Pakistan, Spain invading Gibralter, Greece invading Turkey or visa versa, etc, all on the back of the mad assumption that "they're going to get us so we'll get them first"
By the same rationale, perhaps Bin Laden was practising pre-emptive strike when his Saudi cohorts slammed those planes into the Trade Centre buildings. Perhaps he thought along the same lines as the US "that we'd better get them before they get us."
And another thing, surely Gene Simmons should have asked himself "why are we not bombing Saudi Arabia?" Because 11 of those hijackers on September the 11th 2001 were Saudis. But no, Bush decided to invadea a country that had absolutely nothing to do with 11/9. The reason why the US won't attack Saudi Arabi is because Saudi Arabia is one of the USA's main suppliers of oil. Full stop.
Until the US ceases to stop the habit of selective morality it will not be taken seriously as a force for good.
"By the same rationale, perhaps Bin Laden was practising pre-emptive strike when his Saudi cohorts slammed those planes into the Trade Centre buildings. Perhaps he thought along the same lines as the US "that we'd better get them before they get us.""
h@ts said this in post #4 : "No one wants a war..."
Wrong from the start, Rumsfeld, Cheyne, Pearle etc DID WANT A WAR and were prepared to use any reason whether truthful or not to get that war. This wasn't a war of necessity, this was a war of choice. Al Qaeda was the threat and yet the the Bush administration cynically used 9/11 to invade a country they knew had nothing to do with the attack on America.
Didn't Bush give Saddam a chance to let the UN inspectors in, and turn over his power? Not a very good way to strive for war when you give the enemy such opportunities.
I'd love to see how the American government would react if the UN weapons' inspectors asked to scrutinise all of its weapons of mass destruction. The US has the biggest supply of weapons of mass destruction on the planet. And since WW2 the US military has unloaded more WMD on other nations than any other country on earth - (Agent Orange/Napalm in Vietnam, Depleted Uranium in Kosovo and Iraq, Nuclear bombs on Japan etc). According to Dr. Doug Rokke, director of the US army Depleted Uranium Project, he says that more than 10,000 US soldiers have since died from Gulf War 1 because of uranium sickness. This figure is nothing compared to Iraqi deaths: Rokke said that tens of thousands od innocent Iraqis have died through depleted uranium poisoning, because the US military left areas so "hot" with radiation that only military survey teams in protective clothing can approach them. Iraqi children, Rokke says, play in these "hot" zones because they are not fenced off. The depleted Uranium is fitted in the tips of shells.
that's why I stand my moral conviction that if you step back, forsaking your political agenda and your national pride, you will see that America has really committed more acts of terrorism than any of the people we are fighting.
Dekka00: America has really committed more acts of terrorism than any of the people we are fighting.
Mr. Cargo: The US has shown itself to be a militaristic economy over the last fifty years, with an appalling appetite for terrorising weak countries.
A shining example of the stupidity, fear and jealousy that America has had to deal with for very a long time. Thank God for George Dubya and the strength, perseverence and convictions of America! It's lonely at the top, but the view is much clearer.
Dekka00: America has really committed more acts of terrorism than any of the people we are fighting.
Mr. Cargo: The US has shown itself to be a militaristic economy over the last fifty years, with an appalling appetite for terrorising weak countries.
A shining example of the stupidity, fear and jealousy that America has had to deal with for very a long time. Thank God for George Dubya and the strength, perseverence and convictions of America! It's lonely at the top, but the view is much clearer.
Sayzak has got a decidedly warped view of Terrorism/militancy/freedom fighting. I suppose he thinks that those Palestinians who strap bombs to themselves do it because it's a hobby of theirs.
If the Palestinians where given a $3 billion yearly arms budget by the US, as is the case with Israel, then certain Palestinians wouldn't have to resort to suicide bombing. They would have the capacity to afford F16 fighters, helicopter gunships and tanks. In fact, they would have an organised army, which could then have the unmitigated muscle to fight the Israeli army on a level playing field. And could people then call the Palestinians terrorists if they were using the same type of weaponry as the Israelis? Of course not.
The Palestinians adopt a suicide bombing tactic because this is the only weapon they have got. They are not even allowed a recongnised army. They are one of the most powerless states on earth.
So if Sayzak thinks it's fun being a Palestinian suicide bomber then my advice to him is to spend the next five years living in Palestine under the occupation of the Israeli army.
Why did the US unload 3,000 tonnes of Agent Oranage on Vietnam, vandalising millions of acres of precious forests? Why did they unleash Napalm on such a beautiful country. Why did the US military use depleted uranium in Iraq in 1991 and 2003? Could you imagine how Americans would have reacted if 3,000 tonnes of Agent Orange had rained down on numerous US areas of beauty. Agent Orange is such a highly cancerous WMD. For a country that is used to attacking poorer states with its own wmd, it seems a bit hypocritical to call other countries for possessing the same nasty, unspeakable weapons.
Preston Likely, aka, the man, the myth, the legend
Sayzak said this in post #16 : I will openly admit I was redirecting your question with a question of my own.
And you should know me better by now than you even say something as silly as that.
We dropped the bomb to end a war aimed against us, our interests, and the world's interests.
Why did we drop the second one?
It doesn't matter why we targetting civilians. It's the ACT OF TARGETTING CIVILIANS that makes it terrorism. Why we did it or what it accomplished is irrelevent.
I will tell you now that I do not know why we dropped the second bomb, so you can go ahead and tell me.
BTW, you must've misread my question. It wasn't "Why did we drop the bombs?"
Here it is again:
Explain to me how targetting civilians with a WMD (Hiroshima, Nagasaki) is not an act of terrorism.
terrorismn.
The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.
We threatened "complete and utter destruction" (or something along those lines) against the Japanese government. We targetted Japanese civilians with the inention of intimidating the government into surrendering, for the goal of ending the war. There you have it.
So go ahead and tell me why we dropped the second bomb, but I doubt it's going to justify targetting civilians.
Since 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the forces of the United States and her allies had been at war with Japan. The combined land, sea and air forces of the Allies fought back against Japan until only the Japanese homeland remained in Japanese control.
On July 26, Truman issued the Potsdam Declaration, which called for Japan's unconditional surrender and listed peace terms. He had already been informed of the successful detonation of the first atomic bomb at Alamogordo, New Mexico, ten days earlier. The Japanese were warned of the consequences of continued resistance by the terms of the Potsdam Declaration, signed by President Truman and by Prime Minister Attlee of the United Kingdom and with the concurrence of Chiang Kai-Shek, President of the National Government of China.
When Japan rejected the ultimatum, Truman authorized use of the bomb. Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson felt the choice of using the atomic bomb against Japan would be the "least abhorrent choice." This would be weighed against sacrificing the lives of thousands of soldiers. Military advisers had told Truman that a potential loss of about 500,000 American soldiers was at stake.
It was vital to produce the greatest possible blow upon the Japanese, if the war was to be effectively shortened and the lives of the U.S. soldiers were to be saved. The atomic bomb provided such a blow. The cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were selected as targets after exhaustive study by military specialists. Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been virtually untouched by the U.S. and Allied bombing runs.
What the bomb had produced was concentrated chaos, from which no city or nation could easily or rapidly recover. No significant repair or reconstruction was accomplished until months later. On September 2, the Japanese government, which had seemed ready to fight to the death, surrendered unconditionally.
Winston Churchill estimated that the lives of a million Americans and two hundred and fifty British soldiers and sailors had been saved by this sudden shortening of the war.
Now, Dekka, you can go ahead and call it an act of terrorism if you so choose. Makes no difference to me or to the millions of lives that WERE spared BECAUSE of the bombing, what label you put on it.
Wow you guys really don't understand the way American's talk. Obviousely no one his blowing themselves up for "fun". No one drops bombs for fun, and that was my POINT.
terrorism n.
The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.
The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence okay, we did that
by a person or an organized group the organized group being a legitimate government in this case (US government/military)
against people or property Against Japanese people/cities
with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, we did this, and did it very well
often for ideological or political reasons. In this case, the goal being perfectly noble, the goal being saving lives.
However, this noble goal does not change the fact that it was attained through terrorism.
Well then, I suggest you alert the international community because they need to know that they have a terrorist nation right in front of their noses. And Spain would turn around and bend over backwards to please us. Works for me.
you're conveniently forgetting the that "illegal" is part of the definition of terrorism. I'm not sure whether that act, in the midst of a hot war, was an act of terrorism. The justification I have often seen is that it saved lives on BOTH sides, including civilian lives, as it prevented the US from having to invade Japan. An invasion of Japan would have been a huge human rights travesty. For one, it would have involved massive strategic bombing that would have resulted in many colateral civilian deaths. So I'm not sure I'm buying it as a terrorist act, though I can see some parallels, which is to say I can't reject the analogy entirely. I do however think it's a stretch to claim that the US has no moral authority to condemn terrorism today because of it. I also think the statement that America is the primary terrorist nation in the world today is a gross mistatement of fact.
I'm a staunch opponent of the Iraq war. I think it was one of the biggest foreign policy blunders in US history. However, I cannot go along with some of the more extreme remarks I often here that make us out to be worse than many of the dictatorships that we up against.
Dekka00 said this in post #27 : ok I suppose you have a point on the 'unlawful' part.
it just bothers me that we're fighting to annihilate, not for peace. Our way or the highway.
Yes, well, in a way I suppose we are fighting "for peace." We're just going about it the wrong way right now. This war had an awful lot to do with Mr. Bush and his familial agenda. To think otherwise is to buy into a coincidence of mamoth proportions. There's no doubt in my mind that had Gore been elected, this wouldn't have happened. There's also no doubt that even a different Republican probably would not have started this war. Score settling is not a reason to start a war, but there we have it. Now that we've created this situation, I think we have to stick it out there. American casualties or no, we can't depose a tyrannical (but stable) dictatorship and leave the place in chaos. We are now morally obligated to stablize the situation before pulling out.
Much of this had nothing to do with your post by the way. Just thinking out loud.
