World – Page 2 – Complaint Hub

Terror! Liberty! Freedom! Cookies!

Hezbollah the Loser In Battle, Bush Says

“Forces of terror see the changes that are taking place in their midst. They understand that the advance of liberty, the freedom to worship, the freedom to dissent, and the protection of human rights would be a defeat for their hateful ideology,” Bush said. “But they also know that young democracies are fragile and that this may be their last and best opportunity to stop freedom’s advance and steer newly free nations to the path of radical extremism.”

Every time I hear statements like this from Bush, I hear his imitator on Saturday Night Live talking about “strategery”. Was that Will Ferrell, or someone else? I can hear it in my head, but I can’t quite picture him. Anyway, an equally effective image that this should conjure up is Cookie Monster. “Terror bad. Liberty and freedom good! Me love cookies!”.

I don’t like making fun of the way Bush speaks, as I’ve said before, because I think it tends to be the thing that people notice and latch onto, and then they miss the fact that he’s doing terrible things to the country. But I just can’t help myself here. He just enjoys saying “terror” and “hateful” and “freedom” too much.

Oh, well. What I should be focusing on here is how he has, again, delcared victory in a fight that’s long from over. He seems to think that he gets to determine when a conflict is over, and who won. I know that whole “Mission Accomplished” banner wasn’t his fault, but the administration has talked about how we “won” the war in Iraq for years, but last time I checked, people were still dying over there. That’s not winning in my book. And neither has Israel won. There may be a temporary cease-fire, which is good, it will hopefully allow some diplomacy to happen. But if people start thinking that this is over, they haven’t been paying attention to the entire history of the region.

Weve known about the threat for a year, but just now overreact?

Tip Followed ’05 Attacks on London Transit

Apparently the group that was going to blow up some planes yesterday has been under surveillance for about a year. So now, they got too close to maybe pulling off something, and they had to be arrested. And as a result of that arrest, when theoretically the threat is the lowest it’s been in a year, we can’t bring any liquids on planes.

Cory Doctorow over at BoingBoing had an interesting post yesterday. He’s a little ticked off. Hopefully, we all are.

Until they handcuff us all nude to our seats and dart us with tranquilizers, there will always be the possibility that a passenger will do something naughty on a plane

I’m tired of having my life disturbed because of some supposed terrorist threat. I live just outside of Washington, DC. I know we’re a big target, and that if something big happened in DC, I’d be at risk. I’m willing to take that risk because I like living in this area. Sure, there are some downsides. But I choose to live here, and deal with the possible consequences. I also like to travel. I’m getting married a week from tomorrow, and we’re flying to LA then on to New Zealand next Sunday. Because of these ridiculous restrictions, I’m probably going to have to sit in lines for hours before my 14 hour flight from LA. And all for what? So everyone is extra scared so we can lose some more civil rights? If they were really concerned about our safety, they’d ban electronics, too. They were planning to set off the liquid explosives with cell phones, right? So why are the cell phones still allowed?

It’s ridiculous. I refuse to live in fear of a terrorist plot. I refuse to let some extremist nutjobs tell me how I can live my life. That includes you, President Bush.

British Police Thwart Major Terror Plot

U.S. officials raised the “threat level” for air transport to red , the highest alert. The terrorists had targeted flights operated by American Airlines, Continental Airlines and United Airlines, a U.S. official said.

Emphasis above is mine. I can certainly understand why someone would want to blow up an American Airlines flight. They probably missed out on 16 hours of bachelor party, too.

I ‘m just kidding. I understand that this is serious. But sometimes you have to joke about it or you go crazy. And since the plot was foiled by British authorities, this seems like a good time to joke.

The TSA said passengers who need to bring medicine and baby formula on board planes would need to present those items for inspection at checkpoints. In Britain, passengers were being asked to taste these liquids in the presence of security guards.

I hope that’s not the case when I fly to Australia in less than two weeks. I’ll have my nasal spray to prevent clogged eustachian tubes, and I don’t relish the thought of tasting it. I mean, I imagine it’s safe, since they can’t very well expect you to spray the stuff up your nose if you can’t swallow a little bit. But I doubt it’s terribly pleasant to taste. I’m going to stop now before this gets really unpleasant.

Anyway, the article is short on detail. It doesn’t say if this was a known terrorist group, or just a bunch of pissed off but well-organized people. I suppose more details should be forthcoming.

A thought

I was listening to NPR this morning, and they were of course talking about the conflict (War? Is it officially a war? Does it matter?) over in Israel and Lebanon. Now, I’m a little biased, since I have cousins in Israel. But NPR explained how France, and many of the other countries who might be involved in a security force, don’t wish to go in and secure the area until there is a cease-fire and Hezbollah has been disarmed. Now, set aside the fact that it seems silly to wait to send in a peace-keeping force until after there is some amount of peace. How would you feel if you were Hezbollah? This is a group fighting for power, and now the world is going to come in and pat them on the head and tell them, “If you want to be a real political power, you’re going to have to give us your guns and play by our rules”. That’s insulting, and patronizing, and it’s the kind of attitude that makes people all over the world hate us.

I don’t know enough about the situation over there to offer a solution. But I know enough about human nature to realize that disarming Hezbollah and not Israel is going to make a lot of people really mad.

Is it wrong to enjoy Husseins trial?

CNN.com – Hussein: Shoot me if found guilty – Jul 26, 2006

I can’t wait for the movie version of his capture and trial. It will be like Saving Private Ryan plus A Few Good Men, except ten times awesomer. The media coverage of this makes it sound like Hussein is playing the charismatic lunatic really well, ranting and raving and refusing to give up on his principles. Sometimes it gets easy to forget that the guy slaughtered his own people when it suited him, and that he doesn’t like us Americans very much.

But when I read that he said he should be shot like a military man, not hung like a criminal, I envision the end of _Lionheart _that I just saw on TNT the other day where Van Damme is standing over the big bad guy he just beat and the blond woman who runs things is standing next to him looking like she’s trying to inhale herself out of her dress because it’s so tense, and Van Damme is about to kill the guy, but then he doesn’t. If that guy was Saddam Hussein, and Van Damme was George Bush, and the blond woman was maybe Condi or someone . . . Hussein looks Bush in the eye and says, “Shoot me”. And for a second you think Bush is going to do it, but then he relaxes and turns around and walks away.

Or maybe you like the Lethal Weapon/Bad Boys/Die Hard ending, where they think the guy is toast, but then he has another gun and as Bush is walking away, Hussein pulls the gun out in slow motion, and then Dick Cheney shoots him in the face. Bush could smile and say, “Thanks, Dick”, and the audience would laugh. I should be a screenwriter. This would be the best movie ever.