Please do give us a closer look at ISIS is doing. Massacres, torture, rape, collective punishment and on, correct? Maybe killing what, 100 people at a time in the worst instances? That doesn't distinguish them from Saddam. Within Saddam's rule those crimes are what guys like yourself colloquially referred to as Saddam's 'firm' hand. They are his, so to speak, lesser and more routine crimes. I'd left them beneath mention thus far.

If you must insist on parroting your ignorance of Saddams al-Anfal campaign I'll resort to posting excerpts as evidence that the gassing was but a small part of it.

4,500 Kurdish villages were destroyed by Saddam, that's entire villages turned to rubble.
182,000 dead civilians by counts gleaned from Saddam's own records of how many Kurds his forces had succeeded in eliminating.
The concentration camps Saddam ran were pretty clearly modeled after Hitler's:
With only minor variations ... the standard pattern for sorting new arrivals [at Topzawa was as follows]. Men and women were segregated on the spot as soon as the trucks had rolled to a halt in the base's large central courtyard or parade ground. The process was brutal ... A little later, the men were further divided by age, small children were kept with their mothers, and the elderly and infirm were shunted off to separate quarters. Men and teenage boys considered to be of an age to use a weapon were herded together.

The conditions within the camp were terrible and torture, abuse and beatings were routine. The men of fighting age though were sorted for the express purpose to later drive them out into the desert by bus or truck for mass execution. This is how Saddam carried his genocide of the inhabitants of the 4,500 villages he'd destroyed.

Anyone interested in more or questioning the veracity of the above account can find more and endless references and evidence here:
http://www.hrw.org/reports/1993/iraqanfal/index.htm#TopOfPage

As for American policy, I don't quite see where I suddenly bear personal responsibility to clean up the world if I choose to form my opinions on world events independently of it's 'fit' to American policy.

I don't care much if it was Bush or Putin that took Saddam out of power aside from hedging on which would leave a better Iraq, either would be tough not to be an improvement from Saddam. Similarly for Sudan or the Congo, I'd be rather glad if world powers finally cared enough to try and spare the people there suffering under brutal military repression and endless war crimes. I'm not quite sure why you wouldn't share such a view?

He's better at getting a heli into courtyard that Navy Seals.

"Their plane was shot down and the two men were captured by hostile forces. Denton and Tschudy were both held as prisoners of war for almost eight years, four of which were spent in solitary confinement...

"Denton was part of a group of about 11 prisoners known as the "Alcatraz Gang"... which was separated from other captives and placed in solitary confinement for their leadership in resisting their captors. "Alcatraz" was a special facility in a courtyard behind the North Vietnamese Ministry of National Defense, located about one mile away from Hoa Lo Prison.

"In Alcatraz, each of the 11 men were kept in solitary confinement, where cells measured 3 feet by 9 feet and had a light bulb kept on around the clock; the prisoners were locked each night in irons by a guard."

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

Too bad they weren't sweeping hysterically, that courtyard would be gleaming in no time!

This is a very different performance It's filmed in the open, in the courtyard out the back of a house, which gives a quite unusual sound, but it's good.

http://collateralmurder.com/

Pretty graphic--an Apache vs. a man is a pretty brutal confrontation. Taken out of context it's easy to assume that it was a cold-blooded murder, but I'm not sure I'd have made different calls if I were circling above that courtyard. Those cameras looked like they might have been weapons.

It's not clear in the video, but if that group had been designated as terrorists, it does not matter how hostile they seem, they're legitimate targets. The problem being, of course, that they may have been mis-identified.

Also, I think that the Apache pilots assumed they were operating under a time constraint, and that they'd lose the opportunity to strike if they had to appeal to a high level for approval to engage. If it is indeed a time issue, the approval authority to strike is at a lower level, making the strike much more likely to occur.

I want to roast neuralnoise so so bad...but, god I just can't bring myself to do it. First I thought, hey, siftbot has more character, than this no-name nobody. After reading his roast prep, though I realized I was wrong. He comes off as one of those men of latin descent that are both very passionate, but also in touch with their feminine side. Enough so, that he can cry openly. Maybe like a character from "Y Tu Mama Tambien." I think roasting him would bring him to cry and cry. And then to relieve his anguish, he'll play some Flamenco on the guitar or maybe sip on some sangria in the courtyard of his Spanish style villa. Maybe he'll even do a couple lines of cocaine he picked up at the local farmer's market.

Fact of the matter is, his life is probably 20 times better than any of you jizz-tarts...

Not my place to comment on her psychology, I don't know the lady. What I do know is that I work in opposite of some of the generalizations. I don't like fear right about as much as I don't like pain. If I have a nightmare that keeps me up, I don't think about how awesome it was that I had that one instead of some other one that might of been worse; would or rather not had one at all.

I also don't mind moving out of my comfort zone per say. If there was a banana peal in a courtyard, I would make straight for it and trip on purpose to get a laugh at my own expense. Generally, being thought a fool I find very amusing even though it is rather awkward feeling.

I also didn't learn that I was a "white boy" until I was in 6th grade. Then, when I learned I was, I didn't know that was a pejorative!

I remember watching a program on human evolution where it was looking at monkeys and social groupings. The larger the brain of a monkey, the larger social groups they would form. If you carried the trend up to humans, our social networks would be at a max of about 120 people. I thought that was kind of interesting that human evolution might of really only prepared us for small town/tribal living and our brains really aren't capable of handling city living.

I experience that when I walk down a crowded street, how could I possibly be nice to all these people. More over, would I want to, that guy might be an asshole! Though I find certain individuals as actually identifying with groups, that is strange to me. I have never understood cheering for sports teams, you don't even know those people? I think some people do submit themselves to much to a group dynamic so that it suppresses their own rational individual ethos, some people just aren't that transcendent.

For my own opinion, it appears from the outside looking in that the first lady is pointing out that not being transcendent is bad, but she also seems to fail her own litmus test...it's hard to be a human for sure. Public people suffer from not only being human, but the subject of scrutiny for the rest of us.

>> ^legacy0100:

This month you only give 1 call on your cellphone. Next month you gave 20 calls. And it's still gonna cost you 35 dollars monthly.
So if it's available, why not use it? But that being said, I wish they did a better job... Half-assed flyers, half-assed drop. They missed their target (the courtyard) by 30 feet.
No wonder their team is losing tisk tisk


Well they *are* cadets - they're still learning. When they attack your country's enemies with napalm be confident they'll improve their aim. Hopefully.

>> ^rougy:
It's bullshit saying that the world is better off without Saddam.
Total fucking bullshit.
He was a paper tiger by the time we invaded, and his crimes pale in comparison to what Bushco has done to that country.
You're an apologist.
You will always sugar coat our invasion to suit your contrived conclusions.


Then I must be ignorant of the crimes that Bushco has done that make the following crimes described by Human Rights Watch pale by comparison:

With only minor variations ... the standard pattern for sorting new arrivals [at Topzawa was as follows]. Men and women were segregated on the spot as soon as the trucks had rolled to a halt in the base's large central courtyard or parade ground. The process was brutal ... A little later, the men were further divided by age, small children were kept with their mothers, and the elderly and infirm were shunted off to separate quarters. Men and teenage boys considered to be of an age to use a weapon were herded together. Roughly speaking, this meant males of between fifteen and fifty, but there was no rigorous check of identity documents, and strict chronological age seems to have been less of a criterion than size and appearance. A strapping twelve-year-old might fail to make the cut; an undersized sixteen-year-old might be told to remain with his female relatives. ... It was then time to process the younger males. They were split into smaller groups. ... Once duly registered, the prisoners were hustled into large rooms, or halls, each filled with the residents of a single area. ... Although the conditions at Topzawa were appalling for everyone, the most grossly overcrowded quarter seem to have been those where the male detainees were held. ... For the men, beatings were routine.

After a few days in the camp, without a single known exception, the men were sent out and executed:

Some groups of prisoners were lined up, shot from the front, and dragged into predug mass graves; others were made to lie down in pairs, sardine-style, next to mounds of fresh corpses, before being killed; still others were tied together, made to stand on the lip of the pit, and shot in the back so that they would fall forward into it -- a method that was presumably more efficient from the point of view of the killers. Bulldozers then pushed earth or sand loosely over the heaps of corpses. Some of the grave sites contained dozens of separate pits and obviously contained the bodies of millions of victims. (Iraq's Crime of Genocide, p. 12.)


If you'd like to enlighten me on what exactly it is Bush has done since the invasion that matches that please tell me, I'd hate to be defending something that horrific.

Whether they did this or not, the money is still being injected into the system.

This month you only give 1 call on your cellphone. Next month you gave 20 calls. And it's still gonna cost you 35 dollars monthly.

So if it's available, why not use it? But that being said, I wish they did a better job... Half-assed flyers, half-assed drop. They missed their target (the courtyard) by 30 feet.

No wonder their team is losing *tisk tisk*

For those of you not Fearing of the living God , and think we who are , are insane, just consider the lessons of history to see if there is really divine intervention in matters of SIN gone wild, take the Roman city Pompeii for just one example, read the following facts.
Walking into homes and shops in Pompeii is to marvel at the fully-intact buildings. You expect to meet the toga-clad owner asking where you are from.

When excavation started in earnest in 1860, scientists were shocked at the level of preservation -- and perversion.

Walls in the town are often covered in sexually-explicit graffiti. If you know Latin, visitors can read who was doing what to whom almost 2000 years ago.

The brothels of Pompeii are open to tourists -- although no longer carrying on business. The erotic frescoes found inside one brothel would make a sailor blush. The two-storey house, called Lupanare, is the top draw in the town. The services offered and a price list was displayed in the street.

The "House of the Vettii" is a luxurious and well-preserved private home not far from the brothel. Surrounding two courtyards, Vettii is rich in decoration and colour. The house looks remarkably like the set of a Hollywood film about Rome.

Finally, head to the town’s forum. In Roman times, it was the centre of public and political life of any Roman city. The large square is enclosed by colonnades and has a spectacular view of Mount Vesuvius.

After a full day of walking the site, jumping back on the train to Naples will be welcomed. Next morning, consider a visit to the National Museum in Naples to view some of the artifacts found in Pompeii that needed to be preserved off site. Also consider a trip to the volcano which caused Pompeii's misfortune -- buses leave from the Naples train station for Mount Vesuvius about once an hour. Don’t worry, Vesuvius is safe now…mind you, they probably thought that 2000 years ago too.
DIVINE INTRVENTION OR COINCIDENCE, THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE !

I have seen the factory girls of Guangzhou, in rows of hundreds making shoes. I have seen them standing at attention in the courtyards. I wondered if they felt like androids, now I wonder if they listen to Fiona Sit in their dormitories.

Great post - I've been searching, searching, searching for a similar thing I saw on C4 here in the UK last year called something like 'The Dead Body Squad', which was fascinating.
My friend in central London came face to face with them in April this year, when it turned out that the Glaswegian junkie across the courtyard from her flat had O.D.'d and not been discovered for 10 weeks.