Repubs and warmongers, read and learn

[HansNZ]

Hehe, yes it is interesting the gems you can find on this board wedged between the "I find my cat sexually attractive" and the "who has the nicest titties" threads, LOL!

 

[clusterfoxtrot]

Hans,

Reading between the lines, that's exactly what I said. We collected the Intelligence. We are horribly understaffed. It took the government 4 hours turn off ciphering on the encrypted cellular phone networks.

The NSA had Inmarsat intercepts from Bin Laden going back months prior to 9/11 sitting in someone's inbox. An original note to that fact appeared in the Washington Times on 9/15 - it was quickly killed. The story reappeared several weeks ago in national media - it was quickly killed.

Assuming that you are in New Zealand, NZ is one of our 4 "true" allies, including Canada, England, and Australia. We operate a system called Echelon that grabs SigInt and Elint from sat, fiber, and RF on all traffic coming in and out of the 5 countries. Supercomputers and listening stations in those locations ultimately send everything back here to Ft. Meade for analysis. Unfortunately, the agency is horribly understaffed in language interpreters and cannot get to everything.]

So, to your point, we probably didn't fail in gathering the G2, only reading it. In either case, we got caught with our pants down and our asses unlubed. Thanks Klintons!

CF

 

[HansNZ]

Hans,

Reading between the lines, that's exactly what I said. We collected the Intelligence. We are horribly understaffed. It took the government 4 hours turn off ciphering on the encrypted cellular phone networks.

The NSA had Inmarsat intercepts from Bin Laden going back months prior to 9/11 sitting in someone's inbox. An original note to that fact appeared in the Washington Times on 9/15 - it was quickly killed. The story reappeared several weeks ago in national media - it was quickly killed.

Assuming that you are in New Zealand, NZ is one of our 4 "true" allies, including Canada, England, and Australia. We operate a system called Echelon that grabs SigInt and Elint from sat, fiber, and RF on all traffic coming in and out of the 5 countries. Supercomputers and listening stations in those locations ultimately send everything back here to Ft. Meade for analysis. Unfortunately, the agency is horribly understaffed in language interpreters and cannot get to everything.]

So, to your point, we probably didn't fail in gathering the G2, only reading it. In either case, we got caught with our pants down and our asses unlubed. Thanks Klintons!

CF

Yes, I am in New Zealand. It is interesting that NZ is in the intelligence loop. I know there are listening stations throughout New Zealand, the best known being in Keri Keri (I think).

But in the 1980s we had a falling out with the US because of our nuclear free policies. I thought we were still standing with our face against the wall. I hadn't realised we were back "in the club" so to speak.

 

[strongchick]

An analogy would be to a restaurant you are dining in. You complain that it is mistreating you by forgetting to salt your soup, and give you the right cutlery. You complain even more about your mistreatment because you didn't get the correct wine you ordered.

Yet all this time you haven't bothered to look around and see that the other people in the restaurant are only eating porridge, gruel, and water. Some are even having their cutlery taken away from them so that you can have the right spoon which this dispicable "anti-you" restaurant has denied you.

Best analogy I've heard to explain what I see all around.

What is worse is that a lot of the privileged in America are really NOT protected. Many of these people live on credit. The minute they lose their job or suffer a tragedy, they are poor just like the rest. Since none of us save money, most of us have no more than $10K in the bank. That doesn't go very far if you are laid off from work more than six months, which is what is happening to thousands.

Americans won't fight back until it gets much much worse. We are heading for another recessionary dip. I hope we get smashed, not because I hate my country and what it stands for, but because we have the potential for greatness and the middle class is under the illusion that they are immune, while slowly but surely we are being wiped out.

We have to take a stand together.

 

[Hangfire]

Well hangfire, I think we will have to agree to disagree, hehe.

I don't want to berate you further for your opinions or engage in any more American bashing. Generally speaking I get on very well with Americans. The USA has many admirable characteristics, but when you meet someone who walks around saying "i'm the best, i'm the greatest, everyone wants to be me, everyone wants me" then you tend to want to give them a reality check.

I also feel that you have misunderstood some of my arguments and my analogies, but never mind. I also feel that your arguments probably make sense from a perspective so prevalent among many Americans. This perspective is grounded in some rather ideologically debatable definitions of freedom or equality or whatever, and some interesting assumptions about how the world works, which people outside the US frequently find somewhat quirky.

You might be surprised to hear that I am not a socialist or a liberal. In fact the ideas that so many Americans apply the label "liberal" to are rather curious. Your arguments are an adaption of essentially liberal assumptions, but you probably wouldn't be labelled a liberal in your country.

In any case we could go on forever. There is another person on here - ttlpkg - who would share most of your opinions. We regularly get into debates, but both of us decide to let things slide once we reach a certain point. We know we'll end up going around in circles. If, however, you want to keep going, we can do so, LOL.

Hans.

Hans,
I agree that it is pointless to go around and around, and I find myself in philosophical agreement with ttlpkg more often than not. I will leave you with one last thought: do not assume that Americans are handcuffed by a parochial notion of the way the world works borne out of a lack of exposure. THAT strikes me as an arrogant position. Your ideas of socialism and liberalism may be somewhat different from mine, but please don't assume that I am too stupid to know the difference between actual liberalism and conservatism. Debating one another's ideology is pointless since neither of us will change our minds. You are a worthy opponent, but I still disagree with you. Have a great day in NZ.

 

[clusterfoxtrot]

In NZ, the GSCB operates that specific portion of the network. Most of your/our listening posts are in Tangimoana, Waihopai, and Tangimoana.

Despite NZ anti-nuc policy and their vocal acknoledgement of participation in ECHELON, they are one of the more valuable listening positions given their look-angles at a variety of Inmarsat birds (the L-band satellites which carried a lot of Bin Laden's traffic.)

As far as I know, the posts are 100% operational and NZ actively sends GSCB employees for cross training and participation in UKUSA activities.

***all information contained herewithin has been cleared and is not classified***

CF

 

[HansNZ]

Best analogy I've heard to explain what I see all around.

The analogy I think is symbolic for those in priviledged positions.

People who have always had priviledges take them for granted. Those priviledges become invisible to them. So when someone comes along and asserts their claim to equality or to question the priviledges that a chosen group has enjoyed, that group then complains of being persecuted, discriminated against, or becoming second class citizens.

The reality is quite the opposite. They are simply having their priviledge (which they take for granted and expect) challenged.

Another good example would be gay imagery versus heterosexual imagery. We are constantly surrounded by heterosexual imagery, and the portrayal of heterosexual relationships. But when one image of two men kissing makes its way into the main stream media or programmes start appearing portraying same-sex relationships then we hear all this hoopla about how the homosexual lifestyle is being shoved down people's throats.

Yet anything homosexual is portrayed in the media or our daily lives far less than the how much those homosexual behaviours are actually occuring in real life. No wonder gay people grow up thinking that they are supposed to be straight and start repressing their natural impulses for the same sex. But of course they then get told that what they are isn't "natural". But we won't go there - that is another thread entirely.

 

[HansNZ]

Hans,
I agree that it is pointless to go around and around, and I find myself in philosophical agreement with ttlpkg more often than not. I will leave you with one last thought: do not assume that Americans are handcuffed by a parochial notion of the way the world works borne out of a lack of exposure. THAT strikes me as an arrogant position. Your ideas of socialism and liberalism may be somewhat different from mine, but please don't assume that I am too stupid to know the difference between actual liberalism and conservatism. Debating one another's ideology is pointless since neither of us will change our minds. You are a worthy opponent, but I still disagree with you. Have a great day in NZ.

As an aside from our debate, it is interesting to look at the ways certain cultural attitudes are shaped by circumstances. Liberalism is an ideology that largely ignores the notion of scarcity. From the perspective of Europeans in the 1600s and later, North America was a vast continent, with plenty of resources and space and opportunity for everyone. The industrial revolution also put scarcity on a back foot.

China is a country borne of quite different circumstances. The culture has been greatly shaped by its dealings with the issue of scarcity which has lead to vastly different behaviour and values. Under such conditions, having as many children as you like isn't as personal freedom for instance, because under scarcity it impacts on the welfare of so many others.

It will be interesting to see how the West adapts to the limits and scarcity which the environmental crisis has thrown up. This is something that Western civilisation of the last 400 years has not really had to deal with.

Certainly denying the existence of the problem (as the Bush administration is doing) because it fundamentally challenges so many premises on which their ideology and system operates, and which without this denial would need to be modified, won't be able to continue forever.

 

[HansNZ]

Hangfire, just one more point:

Another reason why I took so much offense at the "America is the best" attitude has to do with a clash of cultures.

In NZ society we are generally quite deferential. We are an extremely self-critical nation which is perhaps over-critical of what we perceive as gaping failures in our country.

Unlike the US it is usually foreigners who tell us to stop putting ourselves down so much. Culturally we consider it arrogant to go around congratulating ourselves and would certainly never claim to be the "best or greatest" in the world. We'd consider ever making such an subjective claim about anything somewhat absurd and quite grandstanding.

When I go to Europe people seem to think I come from some sort of paradise, when over here we are preoccupied with our own failings. We have a tendency to be very realistic about our own shortcomings, which is not something I see reflected among most Americans, who while acknowledging token failings in their society, essentially are complacent in their assumed superiority, and in their rather delusory set of ideas about their country and its place in the world.

 

[spongebob]

As for WW2, I assume you must have learned your history from American movies. It was actually the Russians who defeated Germany. They fought them alone for years and were rolling them back across Europe for 18 months before DDay happened. Have you ever heard of the Battle of Stalingrad? All DDay did was speed up Germany's defeat.

the germans were kicking the russains asses up until stalingrad. they had pushed deep into russia reaching moscow and leningrad. yes, the major turning point was stalingrad but up until that point germany was kicking asses. the real task was to push the germans back out and in order to help facilitate that, a major offensive was launched in africa. germany was too spread out at this point and could not devote enough resources in all areas to win. that was the strategy. thats what D-day was supposed to do in 1942 but it was delayed until 1944.

You also forget that the British fought the Germans ALONE while Germany was at the height of its power. The British were the ones who prevented the Germans from conquering their country, not the self-flattering, self-important Americans.

in 1939 the US modified its neutrality act by allowing the sell of weapons to our allies. it was on the same "cash and carry" basis that was allowed for non military goods already in place. the land lease act was passed in 1941, it enabled great britain, who could no longer afford to pay cash for its military and non military supplies, and who was being bombarded nightly by the german airforce, to "borrow" the much needed supplies. the US was the MAIN supplier of oil to the allies, do you think this might have helped just a little. without oil, you have no aviation fuel or tank fuel. hardly think you could survive without that. so the allies did not fight the germans ALONE.

In fact it can be argued that the British and Russians saved YOU! Do you think that if Germany had defeated Great Britain, thereby controlling the greatest navy in the world and all of the industrial might of Western Europe, that the USA would have been safe? Your country was so unprepared for war that a German invasion would have crushed you like a fly. Even if you'd won you'd probably have lost 28 million people like the Russians did when they (not the USA) defeated Germany.

in 1940 roosevelt took steps to prepare for a possible war by creating the national defenseadvisory commission and the council of national defense. in june of the same year he brought two prominent republicans into his cabinet as the secretaries of war and navy. in the summer he traded fifty destroyers to great britain for the right to build military bases on british possessions in the atlantic. in october the congress approved a big increase in defense spending and instituted the first peacetime draft registration and conscription in american historyand another draft law, increasing draftee's service from one year to two and half years passed in august. etc. etc. to say the US was unprepared and would have been crushed is ignorant. the germans could not have successfully crossed the atlantic and done any real damage to the US. they had no where to station the needed manpower to do so. thats one reason why the US is a great location strategically. since the germans knew they could not do it that is why they entered into a military alliance with japan.

You are a typical arrogant American, typically brainwashed by propaganda designed to manipulate you for the benefit of those who ACTUALLY rule your society. Americans would rank up at the top of the list in terms of its levels of false consciousness among ordinary citizens.

you have not presented any evidence or examples to back up your post yet you resort to name calling and rhetoric and arrogance yourself. im not argueing one way or the other, who saved who's ass, thats rediculous to do when you look at the big picture.