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Ricky
SFN Die Hard

USA
4907 Posts

Posted - 06/13/2008 :  09:31:55  Show Profile  Send Ricky an AOL message Send Ricky a Private Message  Reply with Quote
I didn't want to disturb bngbuck's thread, so I started a new one to discuss responses to his question:

Do you think that the Bush Administration would be morally and ethically capable of actually staging and executing a major "terrorist" attack on an American city; attributed to Al Quaida, one in which hundreds or thousands of innocents were killed, in order to frighten Americans into voting for John McCain?


I honestly don't understand how anyone could ever say "yes". Surely they've done awful things, and of course they are scumbags. But to stage an event that kills American citizens just to further party politics? That is several orders of magnitude above anything they have done thus far.

Why continue? Because we must. Because we have the call. Because it is nobler to fight for rationality without winning than to give up in the face of continued defeats. Because whatever true progress humanity makes is through the rationality of the occasional individual and because any one individual we may win for the cause may do more for humanity than a hundred thousand who hug their superstitions to their breast.
- Isaac Asimov

Dude
SFN Die Hard

USA
6891 Posts

Posted - 06/13/2008 :  10:05:32   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Dude a Private Message  Reply with Quote
/agree

The only way such a thing is possible is if they get some outside agency (like some fringe terror group) to do it for them, and then it would have to involve no more than one or two people inside the admin, and those people would have to have special security access and access to money.

I don't think there is any way it could be done that wouldn't end up with some treason indictments coming down.

Also, I'd hope that even this batch of scumbags would consider such an act abhorent.


Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson

"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin

Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard

USA
4907 Posts

Posted - 06/13/2008 :  10:26:33   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Send Ricky an AOL message Send Ricky a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Dude, I believe the question was meant to ask if they would do it, completely ignoring the risks involved.

Do you think that the Bush Administration would be morally and ethically capable


Not physically.

Edit: Sorry, I missed this:


Also, I'd hope that even this batch of scumbags would consider such an act abhorent.


That addresses the question.

Why continue? Because we must. Because we have the call. Because it is nobler to fight for rationality without winning than to give up in the face of continued defeats. Because whatever true progress humanity makes is through the rationality of the occasional individual and because any one individual we may win for the cause may do more for humanity than a hundred thousand who hug their superstitions to their breast.
- Isaac Asimov
Edited by - Ricky on 06/13/2008 10:29:51
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bngbuck
SFN Addict

USA
2437 Posts

Posted - 06/13/2008 :  10:26:34   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send bngbuck a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Ricky.....

I honestly don't understand how anyone could ever say "yes". Surely they've done awful things, and of course they are scumbags. But to stage an event that kills American citizens just to further party politics? That is several orders of magnitude above anything they have done thus far.
Thank you for this comment. This is exactly the type of thinking that many folks have, essentially that such an idea is "unthinkable" (not literally, of course, you and I just thought it; but rather that it is, essentially, impossble!)

There are others that are diametrically opposed to this position and feel that Bush/Cheney et al are morally totally depraved and have no morality at all - in the sense of Hitlerian or Stalinist depravity. Obviously, such a human condition is possible, there are many historical precedents of savage, mass-murdering, politicians! The question is, are Bush, Cheney, Rove et al this morally deranged?

My own position is uncertain, I would have to answer my own question Maybe. But that is irrelevant to my purpose here other than another vote for "maybe".

I am trying to amass a small data base from which to launch a controversial hypothesis about political strategies in a democracy. I hope to get to that after a little more opinion is expressed in response to my post. But I appreciate your effort here to broaden the subject, and I think we will see soon that the two threads are complimntary!




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bngbuck
SFN Addict

USA
2437 Posts

Posted - 06/13/2008 :  10:38:17   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send bngbuck a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Dude....

The only way such a thing is possible is if they get some outside agency (like some fringe terror group) to do it for them, and then it would have to involve no more than one or two people inside the admin, and those people would have to have special security access and access to money.
Yes, Ricky is right, at this point I am interested in getting opinion on would they be morally capable of doing it irrespective of responsibility. logistics, consequences, anything! Not even - is it possible - just are B, C, & R, moral monsters enough to seriously conceive such a political strategy!

Next, how could it be possible?

I plan to get to the matters of possibility and practicality of such an event, dealing with logistics next. I respect what you have said above, and it exactly mirrors some of my speculation
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filthy
SFN Die Hard

USA
14408 Posts

Posted - 06/13/2008 :  16:18:07   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send filthy a Private Message  Reply with Quote
I think that they are perfectly capable of it and there are plenty of historical examples. Hitler's invasion of Austria is a good, recent example. He lied & attacked, and a still war-weary world let him get away with it (in the short term) with their lethargy.

Whether there's any probability of them trying it, I can't say. We'll know for sure next January.

"The greatest fear of the powerful is no longer being so."




"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)

"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres


"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude

Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,

and Crypto-Communist!

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Kil
Evil Skeptic

USA
13476 Posts

Posted - 06/13/2008 :  17:21:37   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Kil's Homepage  Send Kil an AOL message  Send Kil a Yahoo! Message Send Kil a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by Ricky

I didn't want to disturb bngbuck's thread, so I started a new one to discuss responses to his question:

Do you think that the Bush Administration would be morally and ethically capable of actually staging and executing a major "terrorist" attack on an American city; attributed to Al Quaida, one in which hundreds or thousands of innocents were killed, in order to frighten Americans into voting for John McCain?


I honestly don't understand how anyone could ever say "yes". Surely they've done awful things, and of course they are scumbags. But to stage an event that kills American citizens just to further party politics? That is several orders of magnitude above anything they have done thus far.
Pax Americana is politics. The invasion of Iraq was based on that neocon concept. Iraq has left 4000 americans dead so far. All for a political concept that has been a complete failure.

I think they have done it...

And what party do you think would have benefited the most of they had pulled it off?

Sure, it's not exactly the same thing. But why quibble..?

Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.

Why not question something for a change?

Genetic Literacy Project
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Chippewa
SFN Regular

USA
1496 Posts

Posted - 06/13/2008 :  17:45:12   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Chippewa's Homepage Send Chippewa a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by Ricky

...But to stage an event that kills American citizens just to further party politics? That is several orders of magnitude above anything they have done thus far.


To "stage an event that kills American citizens," - no.

But to take political advantage of anything that actually happens or facilitate violence while saying they want peace, reinforced by lies and propaganda that in turn causes the deaths of many American citizens as well as innocent foreign civilians; - yes they have and can again.

To start a war with Iran insuring years of death, conflict and animosity for personal political gain or to launch an attack and then hand it all over to Barrack if he gets elected and then leverage it against him and democratic aims, yes they might do that too.

I'm not saying they will. Just saying they're capable of that without "staging" an attack.

Diversity, independence, innovation and imagination are progressive concepts ultimately alien to the conservative mind.

"TAX AND SPEND" IS GOOD! (TAX: Wealthy corporations who won't go poor even after taxes. SPEND: On public works programs, education, the environment, improvements.)
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