1 BINGO!!!

2 i have talked to quite a few of my friends, neighbors and co-workers and a few of them who support Bush, still feel that he is being too nice, too easy going on the terrorists and Mulsim rabble rousers...i understand with his born again Christian ways that feels that reaching out and being forgiving and friendly to these troubkle makers will turn them into the US's friends and that is President Bush's right, but when many of his supporters feel otherwise he should be thinking about what the people want, after all thats his job... to listen and obey the will of the majority of the people

3 I'm very unhappy with the way the GWOT is being handled. First, the President should declare a national state of emergency, declare martial law, and expel all Arabs and muslims from the US, as well as exile and imprison leftards and moonbats who give aid and comfort to the enemy. Oh yeah, and put Jimmy Carter, Ted Kennedy, George Soros, John Kerry, Billary Clinton, Sandy Berger, et al, on trial for treason, then hang them in public and leave them for the crows. Simultaneously, we need to send two mechanized divisions to crush Syria and exterminate their military to the last man, raze their cities, and salt the earth, then turn east to Iran, and invade with two divisions from Iraq and two from Afghanistan. Then, once Iran lies in smoking ruin, roll back across Afghanistan into Pakistan and lay waste there, in a coordinated effort with India. Then, to the Arabian peninsula, where every member of every royal family or ruling junta, along with every imam and mullah should be shot on sight and their cities flattened. Across the Sinai into Egypt, Sudan, etc., until every enemy lies crushed. If this were done right, there would be hundreds of millions dead at the end of the campaign, and islam would be returned to the dark ages, where it belongs. These people, and I use the term loosely, are savages incapable of understanding or appreciating civilization, and should be purged for the good of humanity. So yeah, I'm not happy with the way Bush is handling things.

4 well IM, sorry to say it, but we dont have a General George S. Patton to do all that, cause thats the kind of man it would take to be that ruthless with our enemies...too many politically correct generals out there now, after all, God forbid if we should hurt some poor Muslim terrorists feelings

5 Um, I dont think Patton would take that job- at least not the really creepy parts that IM proposes inside our own country. But hey, everyones got their own take on this mess. My wish- one bullet/bomb through SH's head would have saved alot of trouble.

6 Martial law in the US was the main thing that kept the domestic situation in hand during the war. Don't think for a second that all the people supported the war effort, not for one second. There were a lot of enemy agents and sympathizers in the US, not to mention communists, anarchists, and all sorts of n'er-do-wells who wanted our enemies to win, just like today. I despise FDR's social agenda, but he ran that war right for the most part, except that he didn't lock up enough people. And as for lacking generals to do the job, that's not the problem, it's the lack of political backbone in Washington. Enemies don't need to be pacified or negotiated with, they need to be killed, even if it means genocide. Kill them until they stop causing trouble, that's the only option, because wars aren't won by half-measures.

7 Thanos: after all thats his job... to listen and obey the will of the majority of the people Actually, it's not... any more than it's your boss's job to listen to you and then do everything you decide is correct. Granted, once every four years you have the opportunity to choose your boss... but that the limit of your say-so, so use it wisely. Improb: We've got lots of degrees of freedom to waste before we ever get close to what you suggest, but were it ever to come to that there are less personnel-costly ways of accomplishing that objective. Also, if you've read Wretchard's latest you'd know that the jihadists have compelled us to unleash a set of genies that won't be easy to get back in the bottle once the threat is over, no matter how effective we are at defeating the enemy. It'll be a "brave new world," alright.

8 We managed to get all the genies back in the bottle after WW2, so much so, in fact, that we almost let the commies take over. Also, given our recent history, i.e., Ruby Ridge, Waco, et al, where government forces basically murdered civilians and walked away with impunity, aren't we really already pretty far down the road to tyranny? I mean, come on now, why is it not at all a problem when the government wants to murder and terrorize white Christians, but if they even think about trying to fight against muslims who are in open war against us, everyone starts screaming about their rights? This country is fucked up, and I don't know the we'll ever get it straight again. Don't read the Bible or an FBI sniper will murder your wife, but if you want to kill Americans for Allah, well shucks, it's your First Amendment right!

9 I'm sorry Improb, but you lost me. The events you mention were no more (in fact, were a good deal less) intrusive than the Alien and Sedition Acts (and more importantly, their consequences in terms of arrests) which began in 1798. Very few believe that the Alien and Sedition Acts could pass the SCOTUS now, but I'm not so sure.

10 A&S was poorly worded and probably intended to be used against internal political enemies moreso than against foreign agents, which is why it was overturned. A modern version could be written to protect the nation from traitors and enemy agents, yet still not infringe on the spirit of the Bill of Rights. Back to my reference to Ruby Ridge and Waco: Weaver was targeted by the FBI and BATF simply because he was a white man with fringe Christian beliefs who wanted to live seperately from the rest of a decadent society. Okay, nothing illegal about that. Unsocial maybe, but not illegal in any way, but the Feds went after him like he was Dr. Evil or something, they set him up, entrapped him, and then murdered his wife and son in cold blood. Lon Hoiriuchi, a world class sniper, shot his wife standing in the door of the cabin with her baby in her arms. He said he missed. At 200 yards. Right. I would love to get my hands on that piece of shit, I'd like to see how long he could live without any skin. But I digress... Compare this to today, where we have foreign nationals illegally in the country, preaching hatred and murder of Americans, and the government can do, will do, nothing but wring its collective hands and implore us to remember that islam is a religion of peace while they worry over every detail of every warrant, and try their best not to offend any of these poor, misunderstood people. Too bad the Weavers and the Branch Davidians didn't get that kind of treatment, but what the hell, they were only white Christian Americans, right? So they didn't matter. It's time to face the facts people, we are beset by two enemies; muslims on the one hand, who are doing everything they can to destroy civilization, and the liberal-run government on the other, who are doing everything they can to help them. Our only choice is to kill them before they kill us, there is no other option but to accept conquest and dhimmitude.

11 disapproval of bush also comes from folks - like me - who think te is too sift too liberal to pacoifist too multilateral. IOW: from the right. but we'd NEVER EVER vote for a dem/lefty. this is true when things get sour/tough in iraq: we think he should stop fighting them there with a blindfold on and a hand behind our back. LET'S WHACK 'EM GOOD! and cut spending. anyhow, this is why approval/disapproval numbers are total BUNK!

12 Demonsophist: Well spoken and true. My personal belief is that if we have 100% of Iraq in total agreement with us, we would still have a problem with the Islamofacists. I did expect us to take Syria and Iran out of the equation by now. That soft hearted sissy Bush. He stopped to soon. Just like his old man. Clinton (aka JB on the job) would have nuked half of the middle east by now. If it turned out popular and got votes he would nuke the other half. Monica would be Secretary of State. In case of an air pocket no female with buck teeth would be allowed on Airforce. One.

13 Improb: Fair enough that Ruby Ridge and Waco might have been grievous mistakes, although OK City suggests that the notion of dangerous religio/racist Christian cults might not be all that benign. Still, that doesn't justify what was done (even if the final stage of Waco was mostly a series of tragic errors by both sides). I do know something about cults, since I've been an anti-cult activist for years, and Christian cults can be damn near as dangerous as Muslim ones. It's just that they're far smaller and more isolated. But as capabilities for using very destructive weapons advance, being small and isolated may not be a disadvantage... and it certainly makes the marginalized group a lot angrier. I suggest you read Jerrold Posts's Political Paranoia. He understands Al Qaeda about as well as anyone I know, and he also has a pretty good grasp of certain American extremist groups (not all of which are dangerous). Anyway, my impression of those two events (assuming they were as you characterize them) is that they were very isolated examples of very bad judgment, of the sort that all governments make from time to time. They are not examples of a totalitarian Ur-myth having pervaded the institutions of the State. After all, the third example you did not mention was Jim Jones, and the State erred on the side of caution and inaction there. That might go a long way to explaining their later zeal with the Branch Davidians, at least. Very badly handled, but we didn't handle the aftermath of the Iraq Invasion, very well either. Nor did we handle the daylight bombing campaign against the Nazis very well. My uncle died over Bremen as a result of some of those stupid ineffective and wasteful tactics. We threw away a lot of lives there.