-_- Where is the U.S. heading?

[Hydra]

WASHINGTON - Officials in New York and Washington, the two cities targeted in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, were anything but happy after learning that Homeland Security was giving them far fewer counterterrorism dollars this year than in 2005.

New York City will receive $124 million -- the largest amount under the Urban Area Security Initiative. But that's just 60 percent of the $208 million given in 2005.

“We’re going to continue to do what it takes to keep this city safe and then worry about the money but do I think they should have given us more, I don’t think there’s any question,” New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at a news conference after the grants were announced Wednesday.

“When you stop a terrorist, they have map of New York City in their pocket, they don’t have a map of any of the other 46 places or 45 places,” the Republican mayor added, referring to the total number of cities that share the funds.

New York Gov. George Pataki, a Republican now weighing a bid for the presidency, was also critical. “They are claiming that they are doing more allocations based on threat-based analysis but I don’t think that’s the case.”

Rep. Peter King, a Republican from New York and chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, called the cut in funding “indefensible and disgraceful.”

“As far as I’m concerned the Department of Homeland Security and the administration have declared war on New York,” King added. “It’s a knife in the back to New York and I’m going to do everything I can to make them very sorry they made this decision.”

The Urban Area Security Initiative is meant to help cities and urban areas prepare for and respond to terrorist attacks and other disasters. About $710 million is being allocated to 46 cities in 2006, compared to nearly $830 million last year.

....Gonna see what opinions you have on it before I start to rant.

[darkshadow2247]

well when the United States turns in to a terrorist battle front, we'll see the results. that's American politics for you; if one isn't getting self-gain, they don't care what happens

[Spiff]

I'm pretty sure what happened was there was so much backlash about New Orleans and Katrina that the government just had to give them money to help prepare for this season. There is only one problem: there's not enough money to go around. That money has to come from somewhere, so they cut so money from one city and give it to another.

After all, New York doesn't have to worry about Hurricanes.

[Hydra]

New York basically gives them a target with all those buildings. If Clinton seized the oppertunity to capture Laden back then, none of this would've probably happened. But how was he to know? Now we have a jackass president, and terrorists. Kind of a lose-lose battle. Still, I guess all we citizens can do is wait, rant, and see the outcome.

[Triton]

Well I guess I could have seen this coming. If you look at the way we are conducting our foriegn politics it makes sense that defense expenditures at home decreases. I mean, Clinton, under his administration scaled back defense. Technically, as Colin Powell suggested in a recommendation to the Clinton administration, we need enough forces to be able to fight a two front war, just in case. However, Clinton decided to change foreign policy from primacy to cooperation. By changing US grand strategy, he scaled back our base force structure. Then Bush comes in and advocates primacy as the grand strategy (can see this in one of the press releases on administration policy). Obviously, thanks to Clinton's change we didn't have enough of a base force structure to fight a two front war. So, when Bush went into Iraq, he didn't have enough forces to go around if other problems arose, like Iran. Now, he is in a position where he needs money for the foreign front and thanks to domestic troubles like Katrina the government becomes scrapped for cash. As is, they have taken out a lot of money from many areas of the country except defense. So in order to have money for the foriegn front, you have cut backs on defense at home. Kind off an if I keep them out in the first place, I am good to go mentality. Also, politicians will be politicians and reallocate funding to their constituency. I have no clue what the solution to the problem is. If they raise taxes to cover everything, everyone gets pissed. If they get money from other programs, they risk make them fall apart. As it is Social Security and Medicare are on the rocks. Some people say we should withdraw our troops from Iraq, but if we do we get many people in the Middle East (now closer to getting Nukes) pissed at us, people in Europe looking down on us, and enemies thinking we are weak. So what the hell do we do?

[Zerlina]

This is sorta O/T but could you change from "Our country" to U.S.

I mean... there are other countries in the world that people are signing on from. We don't all like being grouped in as Americans. Especially lately.

I'm sure you meant no offense though. :)

[Tiny Bronco]

I noticed the above too. But as an U.S. Citizen I'm interested. This whole thing seems to be that there isn't enoff money to go around and people are blaiming Congress and other branches of Gov. for wasting money, which does happen. The only people that aren't being blamed are... US! The American CITIZENS! :mad: Currnet, after Baby Boom generations, like mine don't seem to understand this. We U.S. Citizens don't pay enoff taxes. Dah. For about the past 40 yearsish starting after the New Deal/Great Society programs Americans are getting way more from the government than we are paying for. :mad: No one wants to except this though because it would either mean less social programs or higher taxes. The Baby Boom/ WWII generations have caused a lot I mean A lot off debt. I think the U.S. the only superpower (though that might change) is 8 trillion dollars in debt. I don't even know how many zeros that is! :mad: And this has been cause by our ancestors/and now us because we don't want to pay higher taxes. We just want to complain and wine and point fingers. Yet we won't pay more. This is what most of America is like. Not willing or not awaire that it is our fault. And if people say "Darn. 6 trillion. We'll never pay that back. I quit" then they need to go back to 8th grade and retake History class. President Clinton got rid of U.S. debt for a 3 year period and he's a DEMOCRAT. Democrats usually lower taxes. It can be done people. If we can just stop the wars for a bit. Cut out the lesser social programs and raise taxes(not to much. Just a bit) we could pay back whoever we owe that money to in like 8 years.
Now I for one will pay higher taxes, because I'm in an upper middle class family (I can afford to loose some money) and I care about the fact that we are all hipocrits and in sooooo much debt. Its really quit sad. It seems like America is behind the times because we've had it easy for so many years. I say we become more like Europe. Get decient transportation systems instead of SUVs. Man I hate those cars. This is just my opinion. Though I do recommend checking out the library of Congress to get information on this topic. Which by now I am way off. :p :o

[Hydra]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwood

Read that... for anyone who cares, and see your government in a whole new light.
http://bbs.projectx.cyberfuturism.com/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin2.gif Wiki's down with it. =/

[darkshadow2247]

its best if i refrain from post in this thread much

[Suhiro]

I dont get your mentality ppl...you elect a president in a campaign and he sends your sons to die...for what? oil...money...bigger wallets...who in the current president office gives a shit about Osama bin laden...they just send in the troops like they`re doing something...4 years after you elect Bush the new elections start and he practicaly tells you "Im gonna kill your soldiers again, elect me!" and you still choose him...im sorry we in Croatia have a Jackass-Euro-ass-licking president but he doesnt kill us...Bush drasticaly sends the army to Iraq...for oil...all the shit Bush did he did for himself only and the citizens of the US take the blame(at least that 55%) cuz they chose him...and then the magical circle goes on...

this post isnt ment to insult USA or its people its ment to dig a hole deep enough to put Bush in it :mad: cuz i hate him...Amrica is a powerfull nation thats a factbut without good leadership it can do more damage than good to the world

[Tiny Bronco]

That was annoying how he was elected again and rather disturbing because democracy broke down in the U.S. We still for some god awful reason have an electoral college in the U.S. This means that really those people in that electoral college have all of the powers. The other guy Democrat(who I didn't like) really had more people across the U.S. vote for him yet someone bin the college said no and still voted for Bush even though he wasn't supposed to. Yet know one did anything, because this was the first time it had ever happened and no one knew what to do. To be honest though. 2004 elections both candidates were terrible picks to run a country. :mad: :( %$#$$#*& electoral college. Its power has now been limited by Congress thanfully. Just a bit to late.

[darkshadow2247]

I dont get your mentality ppl...you elect a president in a campaign and he sends your sons to die...for what? oil...money...bigger wallets...who in the current president office gives a shit about Osama bin laden...they just send in the troops like they`re doing something...4 years after you elect Bush the new elections start and he practicaly tells you "Im gonna kill your soldiers again, elect me!" and you still choose him...im sorry we in Croatia have a Jackass-Euro-ass-licking president but he doesnt kill us...Bush drasticaly sends the army to Iraq...for oil...all the shit Bush did he did for himself only and the citizens of the US take the blame(at least that 55%) cuz they chose him...and then the magical circle goes on...

this post isnt ment to insult USA or its people its ment to dig a hole deep enough to put Bush in it :mad: cuz i hate him...Amrica is a powerfull nation thats a factbut without good leadership it can do more damage than good to the world
that's what i've been trying to say, just in fewer words: politicians don't give a crap about anything unless they directly benefit from it. this is an older graph but it's dang near correct. check it...

http://www.centrists.org/images/charts_and_graphs/deficit_1980-2015.gif

it was estimated and it's almost dead on. check it son

[Zeromus_X]

Yeah, it's pretty pathetic.

@Suhiro: Ditto.

@Zerlina: Done.

[Dark FFnut]

This is sorta O/T but could you change from "Our country" to U.S.

I mean... there are other countries in the world that people are signing on from. We don't all like being grouped in as Americans. Especially lately.

I'm sure you meant no offense though. :)

Yeah, you Canadian people and your pseudo-frenchness...

Where are we headed? No clue. As far as I can tell the US is running around like it's headless. Of course, I could just be speaking because I've been playing Advance Wars a lot lately and nobody in any of those countries has any clue what's going on anyway, and I'm projecting those thoughts onto the US, but I honestly don't care.

Side note: People are geniuses. (http://www.google.com/search?q=miserable+failure&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official)

[darkshadow2247]

that miserable failure thing is not hard to do. if users manipulate the search engine to where they search those key words and que up that site everytime, you can put that at number one. hell, you can even manipulate FFnet to reach number one under miserable failure.

[Phoenix Flame]

I dont get your mentality ppl...you elect a president in a campaign and he sends your sons to die...for what? oil...money...bigger wallets...who in the current president office gives a shit about Osama bin laden...they just send in the troops like they`re doing something...4 years after you elect Bush the new elections start and he practicaly tells you "Im gonna kill your soldiers again, elect me!" and you still choose him...im sorry we in Croatia have a Jackass-Euro-ass-licking president but he doesnt kill us...Bush drasticaly sends the army to Iraq...for oil...all the shit Bush did he did for himself only and the citizens of the US take the blame(at least that 55%) cuz they chose him...and then the magical circle goes on...

this post isnt ment to insult USA or its people its ment to dig a hole deep enough to put Bush in it :mad: cuz i hate him...Amrica is a powerfull nation thats a factbut without good leadership it can do more damage than good to the world


You know... we COULD have let Hussain be, that would be a good idea too. Let him take Kuwait, but what if he didn't stop there? Let's say he got more power hungry and went after Iran. "Ok, you can have a little more power." Then he might go after Isreal...Where do you draw the line.
Now I'll be the first to agree that it was not ALL about this, of course there were alterior motives - and arguably greed for oil. But if the man wanted the entire mediterranean, began committing mass killings, etc - you have to draw the line somewhere...Go in, stomp his regiem, kill him if possible - but for God's sake, don't stay there for 3 friggin years.

Ok, I'm done ranting now :D

[Suhiro]

You know... we COULD have let Hussain be, that would be a good idea too. Let him take Kuwait, but what if he didn't stop there? Let's say he got more power hungry and went after Iran. "Ok, you can have a little more power." Then he might go after Isreal...Where do you draw the line.
Now I'll be the first to agree that it was not ALL about this, of course there were alterior motives - and arguably greed for oil. But if the man wanted the entire mediterranean, began committing mass killings, etc - you have to draw the line somewhere...Go in, stomp his regiem, kill him if possible - but for God's sake, don't stay there for 3 friggin years.

Ok, I'm done ranting now :D

technically the UN and NATO dont want to make a mistake the Allies made with Hitler...he conqured Poland, then Chec-slovakia then Austria and so on...they let him have them...just like that...they thought he would bring Germany out of the economic crisis...he did and he ruled Europe as well...major mistakes done in the past reflact on the future thats a fact but they give the big-wigs like Bush a chance to load his pockets too...