Hooray - Al Quaida stopped once again
- Thread starter Provolution
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Concerning this whole Hitler and christianity topic.
It's certain that he was baptized and wasn't excommunicated either during his lifetime, so technically that would make him a Christian. It's very obvious though, judging from his character alone, that he didn't believe in any higher power (that was reserved for himself obviously). Many of his statements also reflect this.
Politically though, he quickly sought the support of the church and its followers after his rise to power. Many of his first new legislations passed in 1933 gave the catholic church great benefits, swaying them on his side. Example here is the [wiki] Reichskonkordat[/wiki]. On the topic of the persecution of the Jews, Hitler once said (translated by me) "We are continuing the work of the church".
So you can't really say the whole nazi-movement that lead to the holocaust was atheist, cause it wasn't. You can't say Hitler was Christian either though
It's certain that he was baptized and wasn't excommunicated either during his lifetime, so technically that would make him a Christian. It's very obvious though, judging from his character alone, that he didn't believe in any higher power (that was reserved for himself obviously). Many of his statements also reflect this.
Politically though, he quickly sought the support of the church and its followers after his rise to power. Many of his first new legislations passed in 1933 gave the catholic church great benefits, swaying them on his side. Example here is the [wiki] Reichskonkordat[/wiki]. On the topic of the persecution of the Jews, Hitler once said (translated by me) "We are continuing the work of the church".
So you can't really say the whole nazi-movement that lead to the holocaust was atheist, cause it wasn't. You can't say Hitler was Christian either though
BasketCase
Username sez it all
Oh, by the way, Drasch--if you wish to blame a President for the (alleged) failure of the intelligence services, I should remind you that Clinton was running them until less than a year before 9/11 (and that's not my idea, either--somebody else in CFC came up with this first). Clinton had eight years to fix whatever was wrong with the system--whereas Bush Jr. had less than one.
This is all assuming that it's a President who caused the intelligence services to fail, of course. I don't make that assumption. Presidents are like the human brain--the brain doesn't actually do anything, it simply tells the rest of the body what to do. So if anybody screwed up, it was most likely the people working in the Pentagon.
But I think it much more likely that the pieces to the puzzle, while visible, were simply scattered all over the place. Just as with an ordinary jigsaw puzzle: all the pieces are right there on the table. You can SEE the entire puzzle. But it takes a lot of time to put it all together.
This is all assuming that it's a President who caused the intelligence services to fail, of course. I don't make that assumption. Presidents are like the human brain--the brain doesn't actually do anything, it simply tells the rest of the body what to do. So if anybody screwed up, it was most likely the people working in the Pentagon.
But I think it much more likely that the pieces to the puzzle, while visible, were simply scattered all over the place. Just as with an ordinary jigsaw puzzle: all the pieces are right there on the table. You can SEE the entire puzzle. But it takes a lot of time to put it all together.
BasketCase
Username sez it all
Because Presidents get told all the above things all the time. I know this simply from reading the daily paper. We've had numerous false alarms of major terrorist attacks, most of them long before 9/11. And, no--the 9/11 warnings were no more clear or specific than any of these others. And what happens when the President does respond to a false alarm? People like you yell at him for crying "wolf".
Oh, and I need to revisit this one again real quick:
I already posted this, but it's worth repeating: Clinton had eight years to do the above. Why didn't he? Or, perhaps those agencies were already doing what I claimed way earlier in this thread: that they were already working together as closely as our byzantine legal system allows.
Actually, I have seen such evidence, and more. I discounted it. <Edit: shouldn't have used past tense here. I still discount it today.>
Wrong. You have to examine the incident from the viewpoints of people BEFORE the incident happened. Otherwise you introduce an unfair bias into your investigation.
You will never admit it, but you know I'm right--simply from the last time YOU screwed something up. You should have double-checked those numbers when balancing your checkbook. Or you should have gone through the whole house a fourth time to make damn sure all the windows were locked before you left to go to that party. Or you should have had jumper cables in the trunk.
Then, when you bounced that check, or your house got broken into, or your car suddenly died on the freeway--the plain fact is, you screwed up. How did you rationalize it?? Because you didn't know something was going to go wrong.
Ok, here's a question, BasketCase, just what would consider incompetent handling of a terrorist situation? What sort of warnings would have to be ignored, etc?
Side note: It's well-known in Washington that the CIA and FBI don't cooperate together on their own. There's a difference between that and a President getting them to work together on specific issues (which Clinton did).
Side note: It's well-known in Washington that the CIA and FBI don't cooperate together on their own. There's a difference between that and a President getting them to work together on specific issues (which Clinton did).
Quiet Sound
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Every one of those quotes apparently comes from the book "Hitler's Secret Conversations" and seems to have no source save for the author, as might be expected from the title. On the other hand we have public speeches and the like and countless Nazi items displaying Christian symbolism. Also I've seen repeatedly, though unsourced, that when Hitler spoke of Christianity he was speaking of organized religion rather than the doctrines of the religion and thus he never denounced Jesus or God or previously espoused beliefs.
Sorry for the delay. Been otherwise occupied.
Peng Qi
Emperor
Every leader who has ever been in power in a Christian nation takes full advantage of religious devotion to spread his particular doctrinal beliefs. I'd imagine that Hitler's Secret Conversations has sources listed within itself.
BasketCase
Username sez it all
Ooh, that's an extremely difficult one to answer. Bout time somebody posted me a challenge around here.
It's a tough question because terrorism is extremely difficult to deal with; the entire modus operandi of a terrorist is centered around making sure governments and police can't deal with it. Either the terrorist gets what he wants, or something goes kaboom; the terrorist tries his darnedest to make all other options impossible.
In a nation saddled with "innocent until proven guilty", many criminals are not apprehended until after a crime is committed; in the case of terrorism, that means something has already gone kaboom. Anti-terrorist intelligence gathering is therefore heavily dosed with guesswork. And take a look at what happens when the CIA guesses wrong: the government got lambasted for violating civil rights because it interred a bunch of possibly-innocent people at Guantanamo.
So the government is under extremely intense pressure to guess correctly. To complicate their job further, sending false positives is a common paramilitary tactic; the guy you're trying to corner will do everything he can to throw you off, hoping to keep you from finding him until his bomb goes off.
So the only real answer is this: a person is incompetent at handling terrorist incidents if he repeatedly botches them again and again and again. And there haven't been enough major terrorist attacks to judge U.S. authorities on this standard; we've had only three major hits in our entire history. We have had a large number of smaller ones such as airplane hijackings, but most of the smaller incidents get foiled. On the side, it's almost impossible to know how many major terrorist attacks have been attempted; a lot of the measurement of scale regarding terrorist attacks comes from the amount of sensationalism generated. 9/11 is universally considered "bigger" than the FIRST attack on the World Trade Center, but only because the second attempt succeeded. The first attack on the towers in 1993 had the same intent as the second: to DESTROY both towers.
Disagree there. Clinton was no different than any other President. And I'll remind you once again that whatever allegedly great things Clinton did for the intelligence agencies, they still missed 9/11. The intelligence framework in the U.S. on September the 10th was almost entirely Clinton's making. Personally, I think they did the best job they could under the circumstances.
Peng Qi
Emperor
Yeah, confound that logic and reason, making it difficult to convince rational people that something totally off-the-wall insane is the truth!
Yeah, confound that logic and reason, making it difficult to convince rational people that something totally off-the-wall insane is the truth!
If you think proposing that the Bush Administration is incompetent is "of-the-wall insane" then you haven't been paying attention to what's been going on for the last 7 years.
Peng Qi
Emperor
No, I think that proposing that Clinton should get a pass on 9/11 and that all the blame is on Bush is "off the wall insane," because it is. No president ever did anything about terrorism, and both Clinton and Bush had warnings given to them. The difference? The Bush Administration only let one terrorist attack though. The Clinton Administration let about five go through.
Quiet Sound
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A second off the top of my head: the anthrax mailings. Arguably, the Beltway Snipers are a third.
Peng Qi
Emperor
I'm talking about big kaboom terrorist attacks that destroyed hardware or infrastructure. If we're going to talk about random killings then we might as well take the murder rate into account, too.
Quiet Sound
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Suit yourself. 
Well, if you are going by that, then consider that 9/11 easily trumps all previous terrorist attacks on the United States put together, AFAIK. Bigger and grander plots are easier to catch as well, because they inherently involve more people. Also, IIRC, most of the Clinton attacks you refer to happened outside of the continental U.S., and embassies are a lot harder to protect than things inside the U.S. proper.
Again, most plots you can't catch a year before they go off, so I don't see how you can blame Clinton. His administration tried to pass information on to Bush & Co., but they wouldn't listen -- didn't want to listen. To expect Clinton to be able to stop an attack so far in advance (or anyone else) is rather crazy, imho, the best you can do is pass on info so the person who will be closer to the event can do the job. Clinton did that.
Peng Qi
Emperor
9/11 wasn't bigger or grander. It was just more successful. Clinton also had an attack on the WTC if you remember correctly, as well as the Oklahoma City bombing, so he allowed more terrorist attacks on US soil than any other president in history.
Oh, so he tried to pass info to Bush, but I guess he just didn't feel like acting on that info. I see. So he's grossly negligent and lazy. That, or the info wasn't enough and expecting Bush to use the SAME INFO that Clinton didn't have the ability to stop the attacks with to stop the attacks is moronic.
BasketCase
Username sez it all
Seemed?
That would be one reason, right there, for you and me to pack it up. Misunderstandings. Maybe you should go back through my posts and try to figure out what I was really saying. If you're not sure, ask.
In the meantime: Everybody thinks they've got it all nailed down as to how the real world should work. Since everybody has different visions of How The World Should Work, it's most likely they've all got it wrong.
Now, here's a way in which I differ from convention, and am therefore more likely to have got it right: allow me to remind you that I, a flaming conservative, had an opportunity to nail Bill Clinton to a wall and did not take it???
Bill Clinton missed a major terrorist attack. Yet, what was my assessment of Clinton's performance? That he did the best he could under the circumstances.
Why do you suppose that is.....? When a liberal President is on the mat, conservatives are supposed to jump him. Yet I didn't. Why???
Peng Qi
Emperor
It's all part of the global conservative conspiracy to revoke everyone's civil rights and re-institute slavery so they can get cheap oil.
BasketCase
Username sez it all
Damn, I got found out. 
Oh well, too late for you all. Perfection and I are about to take over the world.
Oh well, too late for you all. Perfection and I are about to take over the world.
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