Vararam: "Discussion of the temperature of the core of the sun vs it's surface, and how fusion works, and so on would be off topic in such a thread if mentioned more than in passing."Would it? Seems to me you can focus down on a debate until it becomes meaningless and pointless, a mere list. Kobuk asked, "Should we pull out of Afghanistan?" Taken to ridiculous extremes, this could become rather like one of those dumb "RATE IT" threads you sometimes see on movie websites: "
RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK: RATE IT!"
"10!"
"7!"
"8!"
"9.5!"
"Well, there were things it did well, and things it didn't..."
"OFF TOPIC!"
To wit:
Vararam: "...I agree with Drake, we didn't get involved for corporate profit or any nonsense like that. We got involved because we got attacked, and that required action."See, there you've opened up a whole 'nother can of worms (never mind your insulting word, "nonsense"). Why were we attacked?
Were we? What about all those architects and engineers who are still running around going, "The official story stinks!" Why was Weiner Cheney* running the show that day while the President read to schoolchildren? What was the PNAC's role in all of that? Is it too amazing a coincidence that only a couple of years before, the PNAC had stated in a written report that its plans for a new American Empire were infeasible without a "galvanizing event, like a new Pearl Harbor"? How did a plane hit the Pentagon, which is under some of the most tightly controlled airspace on Earth? What is the melting point of structural steel? What is the temperature of burning jet fuel? Inside job? Outside job with the doors intentionally left open?
Was that a false flag attack?It would be remiss to allow your statement to stand unchallenged. We can't just let someone say, "We got involved because we got attacked, and that required action," because that's bone-stick-stone simplistic. It just hangs there, pretending to be self-evident when it's anything but. The American people were howling for blood, but that's to be expected after "a galvanizing event, like a new Pearl Harbor." So what? The decision to go to war is never made democratically. It just helps if the public is supportive.
Frankly, practically everything that's happened in this country since the hung election of 2000 stinks. I can even call a point earlier than that: the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
Kobuk's opening question scratches the paint on a ramshackle structure that becomes increasingly astonishing as you dig deeper into it.
*Added in Edit: LOL! The silly filter on this website won't even let me say the former Vice President's name! "Weiner Cheney!" You know, I actually like it better that way.
Oh, and y'all misspelled "wiener."