I am more spiritual than religious. Some common ground IS coming to the surface I see.

We could use some more input for other forum member.

 

I tend to discount all supersitions but, however minutely, remain open tomost possibilities...

Yep, it seems the debate was doomed the moment we acknowledged a shared humanity.

I fully agree!

 

Well dad was in a Union retired at 49 and now votes Republican because he is a Born-Again[sm=wtf.gif]

This is why i think the idea of a daily routine is a bad thing. I come from a more rural background grew-up shooting guns, riding 4-wheelers, working on cars and OMG going outside and playing instead of video games for 8 hours strait everyday. Dont get me wrong i love technology and progess but when i ask someone that lives in a urban environmoent what they do for fun they tell me the drink or party. Wow what fun.[:'(]

Yeah i dont forsee Germany being another problem do any of you or Japan for that matter?

I didnt know that do u have a link or somewhere i can read more about it?

Yeah really y is anything in Europe out problemm anymore anoyway i mean come on the EU along with other European countries that are in it are powerful and wealthy. Why does the USA have to deal with there problems?

Some say i live a sad life when it comes to my ideas on this i believe we are no more than complex life forms that when we die we simply no longer exist except in living things memories. And what i have written down these forums may oneday be my greatest gift to society.


Back to all the talk about the oil we (USA and those who need it) have excess food supplies well its obvious that the UN food for oil isnt the best idea so lets try something else. I dont really have much of an idea but i think that is were we should go on that issue even if it does mean bypassing OPEC maybe somehow getting some countries to leave OPEC. Ideas?

 

I can't remember where I read that, but you're right for calling me on it. I'll continue looking for a link. In the meantime the following shows some of the murky deals that seems to have occurred:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/MAD201A.html


[/quote]
The threat from the USSR was our excuse for the continual occupation of Europe.Yet it seems to me when DeGaule kicked us out of France in 1966, Europe was more than capable of taking careof its self. We did actually pull back a lot of troopswhile storing tanks, ammo, etc throughout Germany... But we were reluctant to pull out our nuclear weapons which were constantly shuttled all over Europe.We also kept theshort range aircraft that can deliver such devices andturnmuch of the USSR into rubble.
But, other than a shorter dilivery time to the M.E.... It seems to be a huge waste of our treasury....




[blockquote]

[/blockquote]
[quote:]ORIGINAL: Charles Munn
I tend to discount all supersitions but, however minutely, remain open tomost possibilities...[/quote]

Some say i live a sad life when it comes to my ideas on this i believe we are no more than complex life forms that when we die we simply no longer exist except in living things memories.[/quote]

I strongly suspect you may be correct.

Hmmmm, I strongly suspect, like mostcreatures, I leave no gifts to society. I will have merely enjoyed and hopefully, for the most part, lived a fearless life andwill diethe same way...





While I talk a lot and write a bit... I'm nearly certainthe only influence I have over others... is when I change myself... So for the last couple of years I've been making an effort to use alternative fuels... It's but a drop in the bucket, and my wife still drives her Lexus gasser.... But who knows... [8D]maybe in a couple of years...






[/quote]

 

The threat from the USSR was our excuse for the continual occupation of Europe.Yet it seems to me when DeGaule kicked us out of France in 1966, Europe was more than capable of taking careof its self. We did actually pull back a lot of troopswhile storing tanks, ammo, etc throughout Germany... But we were reluctant to pull out our nuclear weapons which were constantly shuttled all over Europe.We also kept theshort range aircraft that can deliver such devices andturnmuch of the USSR into rubble.
But, other than a shorter dilivery time to the M.E.... It seems to be a huge waste of our treasury....





[blockquote]

[/blockquote]
[quote:]ORIGINAL: Charles Munn
I tend to discount all supersitions but, however minutely, remain open tomost possibilities...[/quote]

I strongly suspect you may be correct.

Hmmmm, I strongly suspect, like mostcreatures, I leave no gifts to society. I will have merely enjoyed and hopefully, for the most part, lived a fearless life andwill diethe same way...





While I talk a lot and write a bit... I'm nearly certainthe only influence I have over others... is when I change myself... So for the last couple of years I've been making an effort to use alternative fuels... It's but a drop in the bucket, and my wife still drives her Lexus gasser.... But who knows... [8D]maybe in a couple of years...






[/quote]
[/quote]

 

France and Britian both have always been strong countries look through history. Of course but with the fall of the wall in 1989 and then Yeltsin in 1991 i'd say wewere well suited to leave then. But you are correct as far as the short E.T.A. to the M.E. In a modern war that trip across the Atlantic or Pacific depending on were they are coming from is a long time.

Crude Oil -Gift or Curse? My diesel is now gone everything i havethat runs on gas (except my truck that gets started once every 2 months maybe runs) on 91+ Octane gas. So i cant say anything about the Lexus. But i would like another Diesel know anyone that wants a 560sel?(cheap poke at selling a car )

I have alot of respect for that comment!

 

It now seems I gave you a valid link
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/MAD201A.html
regarding your request to back up my claim that a deal was on the table with CIA and the Taliban.

Re:
While Clinton's State Department omitted Afghanistan from the top foreign policy priority list, the Bush administration, beholden to the oil interests that pumped millions of dollars into the 2000 campaign, restored Afghanistan to the top of the list, but for all the wrong reasons. After Bush's accession to the presidency, various Taliban envoys were received at the State Department, CIA, and National Security Council. The CIA, which appears, more than ever, to be a virtual extended family of the Bush oil interests, facilitated a renewed approach to the Taliban. The CIA agent who helped set up the Afghan mujaheddin, Milt Bearden, continued to defend the interests of the Taliban. He bemoaned the fact that the United States never really bothered to understand the Taliban when he told the Washington Post last October, "We never heard what they were trying to say... We had no common language. Ours was, 'Give up bin Laden.' They were saying, 'Do something to help us give him up.' "
There were even reports that the CIA met with their old mujaheddin operative bin Laden in the months before September 11 attacks. The French newspaper Le Figaro quoted an Arab specialist named Antoine Sfeir who postulated that the CIA met with bin Laden in July in a failed attempt to bring him back under its fold. Sfeir said the CIA maintained links with bin Laden before the U.S. attacked his terrorist training camps in Afghanistan in 1998 and, more astonishingly, kept them going even after the attacks. Sfeir told the paper, "Until the last minute, CIA agents hoped bin Laden would return to U.S. command, as was the case before 1998." Bin Laden actually officially broke with the US in 1991 when US troops began arriving in Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Storm. Bin Laden felt this was a violation of the Saudi regime’s responsibility to protect the Islamic Holy Shrines of Mecca and Medina from the infidels. Bin Laden’s anti-American and anti-House of Saud rhetoric soon reached a fever pitch.
The Clinton administration made numerous attempts to kill Bin Laden. In August 1998, Al Qaeda operatives blew up several U.S. embassies in Africa. In response, Bill Clinton ordered cruise missiles to be launched from US ships in the Persian Gulf into Afghanistan, which missed Bin Laden by a few hours. The Clinton administration also devised a plan with Pakistan's ISI to send a team of assassins into Afghanistan to kill Bin Laden. But Pakistan's government was overthrown by General Musharraf, who was viewed as particularly close to the Taliban. The CIA cancelled its plans, fearing Musharraf's ISI would tip off the Taliban and Bin Laden. . The CIA's connections to the ISI in the months before September 11 and the weeks after are also worthy of a full-blown investigation. The CIA continues to maintain an unhealthy alliance with the ISI, the organization that groomed bin Laden and the Taliban. Last September, the head of the ISI, General Mahmud Ahmed, was fired by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf for his pro-Taliban leanings and reportedly after the U.S. government presented Musharraf with disturbing intelligence linking the general to the terrorist hijackers.
General Ahmed was in Washington, DC on the morning of September 11 meeting with CIA and State Department officials as the hijacked planes slammed into the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Later, both the Northern Alliance spokesman in Washington, Haron Amin, and Indian intelligence, in an apparent leak to The Times of India, confirmed that General Ahmed ordered a Pakistani-born British citizen and known terrorist named Ahmed Umar Sheik to wire $100,000 from Pakistan to the U.S. bank account of Mohammed Atta, the lead hijacker.

 

Hm I've seen to missed some important parts of this discussion but as far as Germany goes, they are shifting alot of units that are overseas back to the states, which usually mean they are about to deploy yo the ME anyways. I don't think all posts in Germany should close yet, especially the regional medical center here. Casualties get treatment alot faster, especially for critical and life threatening injuries. Trust me, the way they look coming in is not a pretty sight and if I had pictures to send ya I would if I could but lets just say the even the mostgruesome warmovies make war injuries look clean (especially when they arrive with their limbs laid on their chest), too cleanand it saves many lives, not to mention, saves the government money (probably the most important aspect of that center to them.).
But overseas bases will become less and less. The funny thing is, that we pulled troops from the DMZ in Korea and moved the bases to Seoul and below and moved most of the infantry units stateside (who is probably downrange, getting ready to go, or just coming back.)

And the taliban is no new issue, but of course money talks and oil is money to alot of people, but we accuse other countries of supporting terrorists and stuff, but we have been doing that for years. I guess the proper term is supporting terrorist that is profitable or beneficial to us is ok, while terrorist that are of no interest to us or do not bring in enough money is bad, as for the countries that supports them for the US can do no wrong because we are the God of this world and everyone must bow down. (serious sarcasm)

 

I knew the Clinton administration hired assasins,but didn't hear anything about the connections of General Ahmed, what a suprise. As for your comment of drafting 500,000 republicans, I think that's obsurd. You and I both saw the figures for who supported the war in Iraq, it was 50/50 for a while. People were still angry about 9/11 and wanted revengefrom both sides (rep and dem). Later on, the polls were about 25% who favored, most likely republicans. I don't believe republicans honestly wanted to be in the middle east or wanted Bush in office. The only other reasonablecanidate was Kerry who had lied to the peopleon countless occasions. Republicans weren't the only one's who put him into office, it had to have been a mild number of democrats who saw through Kerry. Personally, I'm neither democratic or a republican, when the race began, I thought that they were both idiots. They never addressed issues straight forward. Clinton was a good president however..

 

You obviously have on-the-ground-up-to-date-info. In anycase, what ever my politics, as an old lifer, my heart is always with the troops... and in the end.... at the point of the spear... thereare no politics... there's only the job... and whatever it takes to get it done.

It's certainlynot new to those few who have internet access and bothered to keep themselves informed, or those who happen to be livng or stationed in Europe and get to readand heara wide spectrum of true world news from a variety of perspectives, and not merely the pap spoon fed to most US citizens byso-called news people who are littlemore than 3rd rate actors.
I'd say you nailed it.