A graphic.

[Que]

...besides the "War on Women" is supposed to be one of conquest, not decimation. The object of the War on Women as explained by the paternalists in the Democratic Party is a nefarious plan secretly held by Republicans to get women pregnant and into mad-men-era outfits, sans shoes posed adjacent to a hot stove.

Except a few that are put in binders in hopes of later being unlawfully advanced over qualified male counterparts in the interest of egalitarian appearances......(Get it??? Binders CAN mean a notebook but it can ALSO mean handcuffs! Tee-Hee let's win an election over that wordplay!!!)

Because of course when Democrats need to balance out the number of women in ranking positions, they simply trash-bin all qualified white males and hope against hope that there aren't too many darker-hued men more qualified than the women left.

This causes problems though...like the statistically irrelevant, but ironically funny, lower wages that women are paid in the White House than men working there.

 

[Colonel Hogan]

You're missing the point, or at least my point.

What I'm saying is that the American people have been scared into spending trillions of dollars, and giving the lives of thousands of young people, for a threat that is an order of magnitude smaller than real and tangible threats that do exist, and we live with every day.

And of course it's a cost/benefit analysis. That's reality when funds are limited.

And the point I am making that I believe you are missing is that I fully acknowledge your point as to disproportionality. I simply dispute your implication that the disproportionality was manufactured significantly beyond whatever proportion you believe it to be. No one has ever suggested that terrorists will bring the United States into submission aircraft-by-aircraft, skyscraper-by-skyscraper one at a time. But we don't dismiss deliberate attacks against us because "only" 3,000 people died in a city of several million.

But if fighting terrorists on foreign soil is a disproportionate response, what is the appropriately proportional one?

Had Hitler won World War II, I doubt he would have attempted to exterminate the American population. Probably just the Jews.

And that would have made him only slightly less ambitious than many present day fundamentalist Islamists.

The disproportionality that we need to be mindful of is the impact which 19 terrorists had on us by wielding box cutters and hijacking four commercial airliners. This impact would have been wholly unacceptable even if we had NOT invaded Afghanistan or Iraq!

So what's the answer?

 

[Que]

And the point I am making that I believe you are missing is that I fully acknowledge your point as to disproportionality. I simply dispute your implication that the disproportionality was manufactured significantly beyond whatever proportion you believe it to be. No one has ever suggested that terrorists will bring the United States into submission aircraft-by-aircraft, skyscraper-by-skyscraper one at a time. But we don't dismiss deliberate attacks against us because "only" 3,000 people died in a city of several million.

But if fighting terrorists on foreign soil is a disproportionate response, what is the appropriately proportional one?

Had Hitler won World War II, I doubt he would have attempted to exterminate the American population. Probably just the Jews.

And that would have made him only slightly less ambitious than many present day fundamentalist Islamists.

The disproportionality that we need to be mindful of is the impact which 19 terrorists had on us by wielding box cutters and hijacking four commercial airliners. This impact would have been wholly unacceptable even if we had NOT invaded Afghanistan or Iraq!

So what's the answer?

I don't anyone has a GOOD answer.

In thinking this through, mindful of the frame above I think it is clear that WE had to do something on a fairly grand scale in keeping with our might.

If, with the vast resources at his fingertips Bush had simply made a few vague swipes in the general "Di-rection" of some likely allies of those that had brought terror to our shores it would have come across as a tepid response and emboldened them.

This has to be seen in the context of our doing next to nothing after Beriut, the Cole...etc.

The Israelis, these days can do a little surgical swatting here and there because at one time they went all in for 6 days, so no one doubts their resolve. At all.

As far as with hindsight, the actual effect of moving the stratego pieces is inconsequential. The Bathists are out, the shias have a toehold in in Iraq (I think? I can never keep that straight). Afghanistan the Taliban was bloodied and in short order will be back in power.

But at this point it takes a LOT of cash-flow to set up shop in any of the tonier 3rd world countries. Sure for next to nothing they will let you cavort in Yemen or the Sudan...but those are poor staging areas and not in a position to interrupt oil...

I think the point of all the billions was to make the point that the John Kerry's and the Jane Fondas of the world cannot render America feckless quite as quickly as they did in the 60's, and that poking the bear too hard is a bad idea.

It is human nature to consider danger only in the terms of the last attack, the last industrial accident, the last guy that took a poke at you.

If asked me at the time how do we prevent this again...I say El Al security screening courses for all airline personnel. But that just stops the plane idea.

Speaking of statistics I have always marveled at each conflict America has been in through Vietnam at least the number of bullets consumed per enemy casualty had grown exponentially.

I haven't seen numbers from the Iraq-Afghani theaters but I suspect the numbers finally dropped a bit. I don't know how you factor in the use of missiles off drones with none of us at risk, and no bullets used. The number of them versus us was pretty dramatic.

no matter who's numbers you want to believe.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War

...we definitely gave it better than we took it. I imagine similar numbers in Afghanistan. Pakistan and Yemen mostly drones as far as the public is aware. few causalities on hour side.

We also now have a battle tested (if battle weary) military and a good handle on how the toys work in actual combat, should they be needed in the future.

People not involved in the conflict are likely to think twice about doing more than minor saber-rattling. The value of that is hard to quantify.

As we scale back and go with mostly spec ops..that is wear the real peace dividends Come in...we get to keep the most lethal of our capabilities. Cannon fodder is easy to ramp of when and if it is needed.

 

[Boxlicker101]

double post

 

[Boxlicker101]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Boxlicker101 View Post

Women murder their husbands, etc. at almost the same rate and their offspring even more often.

http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/mf.pdf

From your link
Quote:

• A third of family murders involved
a female as the killer.

Did you read that whole paragraph and the next one?

• A third of family murders involved
a female as the killer. In sibling murders,
females were 15% of killers, and in
murders of parents, 18%. But in spouse
murders, women represented 41% of
killers. In murders of their offspring,
women predominated, accounting for 55%
of killers.
• Among black marital partners, wives
were just about as likely to kill their
husbands as husbands were to kill their
wives: 47% of the victims of a spouse
were husbands and 53% were wives.