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US President George W. Bush has said the September 11 revolt of passengers against their hijackers on board Flight 93 had struck the first blow of "World War III".
In an interview with the financial news network CNBC, Mr Bush said he had yet to see the recently released film of the uprising, a dramatic portrayal of events on the United Airlines plane before it crashed in a Pennsylvania field.

But he said he agreed with the description of David Beamer, whose son Todd died in the crash, who in a Wall Street Journal commentary last month called it "our first successful counter-attack in our homeland in this new global war, World War III".

Mr Bush said: "I believe that. I believe that it was the first counter-attack to World War III.

"It was, it was unbelievably heroic of those folks on the airplane to recognize the danger and save lives," he said.

Flight 93 crashed on the morning of September 11, 2001, killing the 33 passengers, seven crew members and four hijackers, after passengers stormed the cockpit and battled the hijackers for control of the aircraft.

The president has repeatedly praised the heroism of the passengers in fighting back and so launching the first blow of what he usually calls the "war on terror".

In 2002, then-White House spokesman Ari Fleischer explicitly declined to call the hunt for Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda group and its followers "World War III".

And the next World War will be fought with sticks and stones.

I just knew this would happen, it's too stupid for King George II to avoid doing. George Bush is now no longer at the top of my 'Least Favourite Americans' list... but has in fact headed beyond the top and has gone into suprahated levels. He is a fucktard and I have one question for any remaining Bush supporters; "How do you get that stupid?!"

By those standards of global war, couldn't the Cold War be considered World War III? That would make this World War IV, so it's still an idiotic statement.

Mayabird wrote:By those standards of global war, couldn't the Cold War be considered World War III? That would make this World War IV, so it's still an idiotic statement.

In fact, some people count the Napoleonic Wars as the true 'First World War'

As such, this is WWV

What... The... Fuck?!?!?

Can we get this bastard out of office next year? PLEASE?!?!

If I thought it would matter any, I'd suggest writing yor local congressman and speaking out for the impeachement of Dubya.

Of course, we know this won't occur, so we're stuck with waiting it out till 2008, when the new elections come up....

Gods what I wouldn't give to have a actual sane, reasonable person in the White House for a change.

Dark Silver wrote:If I thought it would matter any, I'd suggest writing yor local congressman and speaking out for the impeachement of Dubya.

Of course, we know this won't occur, so we're stuck with waiting it out till 2008, when the new elections come up....

Gods what I wouldn't give to have a actual sane, reasonable person in the White House for a change.

I've already wrote to Byrd about it.

Even if WWIII was fought as a nuclear exchange between two nuclear powers, you would still have industry and knowledge surviving outside of the target zones. In short, WWIV would not have been fought by sticks and stones, but rather by industral era armies to secure resources and clean living space, as current sites of great cities would be death pits.

Most of it wouldn't be from radiation (although there certain would be enough to make you want to avoid those sites for a long, long time) as it is a little known fact that modern bombs are vastly "cleaner" than the first generation A bomb that took out 2 Japanese cities. It should be noted however, that with all the rotting flesh and such that the sites of cities would in fact be the birthing zones of plauges.

Nuclear exchange doesn't mean the end of humanity but it certainly means the end of our civilianization, as the surviviors would be forced to take extreme measures to ensure the continuation of the specis (in other words, kiss all that progress in women's rights goodbye, healthy women of childbearing age before all to importent to allow to take risk). In time another civilization would arise, perhaps in a rather short time frame, say 200 years or so. But this civilization would not be ours and may very well hold ours in comtempt for committing what could only be considered a form of suicide.

There are as you can see damn good reasons to avoid a wide spread nuclear exchange, but we don't have near enough nuclear devices to cause the end of all life on earth. We didn't have enough even at the hieght of the cold war.



As for this being WWIII... I tend to view this as more in common with the Cold War, although with great differences. Our enemy this time is not monolithic, but instead is a group of extremist organizations loosely bound togather by a common idealogy and some common goals (i.e, killing westerns and killing jews) for example HAMAS and Al Qeada generally do not care for each other, they do not work well with each other (in fact HAMAS as been known to shot at Al Qeada and vice versa) but they do hate the West and Isreal slighty more than they hate each other. This means they won't be turning each other in. This is both weakness and strenght. It is weakness because they cannot coordinate effectivly, making their operations lacking in stamia. Strenght because there is no central leader or organization to kill or capture and end it. In effect they are alot like a Hyrda with a learning disability.

And then there is Iran. Iran has had marked sucess in operating outside of it's borders (Hezbollah, recent alliance with Syria, spread of extremist idealogy in central asia is a combiation/competeion of Iranian and Saudi efforts), Iran is also very aware that if it achieves nuclear weapons or makes the West think it's achieved nuclear weapons then it's an all new ball game. Iran has no problems with the idea of a Islamic superpower (also espoused by Bin Lauden) but believes that such a power should be Iranian based, Shia dominated empire. Looking back at what a nuclear Soviet Union was able to do in Eastern Europe (hungray 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968 for example) Iran may very well believe that it can carve a sphere of influence and domination from Central Asia and the Middle East if it becomes a nuclear power.

Al Qeada as been defeated in Afghanistan and is considered on the road to complete defeat in Iraq. This is not to say that next few years won't be bloody in those nations. In addition to Al Qeada there are local groups that have no where else to go and Al Qeada itself seems to prefer dying with a bang to silent withdrawl. Indeed I would suggest that we consider that 2006 and 2007 have the potential to become the bloodiest years yet as various resistence groups launch their last ditch efforts to convince the Coalition to withdraw before Iraqi security forces become strong enough to fight on their own two feet (recent reports say this may be sooner than you think).

Even if Al Qeada somehow dies en mass tomorrow this does not mean the end of the war. This war was badly named, which frankly is a continuation of a trend from this adminsteration. Afghanistan and Iraq may very well become examples of how wars are won in spite of the leadership and Jr. the Presiden who won in spite of everything he did to prevent it. This is not a war on Terror, this is a war between western liberialism and Islamic extremism. It is a conflict between two possible futures, between two views of how the world should be. The world has somehow become to small for both to exist and one must go. Frankly, I say it's the Extremist Islamic view and future that must be killed (someone will cry forlornly that you can't kill an idea, bullshit. Where is commumism and the world wide revolution now? Where is nazi myth of the over-race? In the dust bin of history clung to by a manic fringe that has no hope of power and lessing hope of continuation) and ours must live.

Agree with Frigid on this. It is a global conflict. The 'War on Terror' was just the latest in a series of 'War on X' catchphrases, and one that applied poorly to the topic at hand. But it was better, PR-wise, than 'The War on Islamic Fundamentalism', which is a conflict we are engaged in and need to actively be concerned about.

Yes, this is a global war, and it was coming long before September 11th, due to a great many catastrophically stupid policy decisions, especially those of Bush the Elder and Clinton the Groper.

The WoT is more akin to the Cold War than anything else, but like Frigid said there are some major differences.

For a start, it is completely assymetrical. It's like a 'guerilla' Cold War.

Second, the conflict isn't about secular, western ideologies (communism versus capitalism), but about different cultural values.

The term assymetrical was popular before the Iraqi War. Now it's considered a bad joke.

I am wary of calling this a cultural value war. Niether side in the end is interested in just staying within it's cultural boundaries. Instead our values of free speech, free religion and free association are considered to be universial. Their belief is that their brand of Islam is universial and deserves to take the place of ours as dominate in the world today.

Can a conflict between two universial views be considered just a culture clash? Or is it something more?

An evolutionary ideological struggle, perhaps?

a War of Paradigm

We beleive our view of the world is correct, they see thiers as correct.