>> ^BillOreilly:
and once again Canada's training exercises fail miserably


Canada wouldn't waste their time building something like this.

...not that I'm attempting to *promote naval build-up or anything...

>> ^mharvey42:
It is a modern democratic republic, until recently the only one in the Middle East (Now joined by Iraq of course). Arabs are citizens within the country: vote, own property and businesses and have members in the Knesset.
Arabs have more liberty and prosperity in Israel than any Muslim country. Within the so-called occupied territories there are the Arabs calling themselves "Palestinian" who refuse to join Israeli society, or disperse around the region, or live in peace.
Israel does have a strong armed force: to defend against these belligerants, and to protect from the neighboring countries that periodically wage illegal wars of intended genocide on her.


You mean Arab jews of course. Do you consider Palestinians to be Arab? Because the treatment of millions of Palestinians kind of negates any "good" treatment of Arabs who live in Israel. I also think you mistake Arab jews treatment, which isn't the same.

Everything you say is beyond bizarrely ignorant.. THe so-called occupied territories.. they silly Palestinians "refuse" to join Israeli society... or "disperse"... You are completely ignorant of all modern history??!!

Israel wages illegal wars, both of the pre-emptive kind and also the regular justified kind where UN & Geneva conventions are shit upon. So if your point is that these other countries are waging illegal war, then you fail because Israel is ten times more illegal in it's military offenses. How often are these neighboring countries illegally killing international aide workers or attacking ships in the Mediterranean? In fact, Israel is probably the last country military to destroy a US naval ship.

Water displacement is the foundation of naval travel, but in most of these videos it seems these people are taken by surprise when the big waves of displaced water wash over them.

>> ^Retroboy:
They're dumbasses because they could have jumped in the driver's seat and claimed it by way of salvage rights.
er.. maybe I've been reading too much naval fiction lately.


I <3 unlicensed salvage operations.

They're dumbasses because they could have jumped in the driver's seat and claimed it by way of salvage rights.

er.. maybe I've been reading too much naval fiction lately.

>> ^bcglorf:
Finally, I must insist that Israeli aid to the region must not be ignored either. If Israel really wants the region cleansed, why are they still the largest individual provider of humanitarian aid to the region? You know what the biggest complaints where when the borders where closed? Access to Israeli hospitals that where previously available to Palestinians living on the border. And for unemployment caused by closing the border, it was because a great many living in Gaza were working in Israel.


Err? Israel imposed a blockade on Gaza since 2007.

U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes said that while Israel had been letting some relief supplies into Gaza, with 60 truckloads entering on Monday, that was "wholly inadequate", as about 100 truckloads a day of flour or grain alone were needed. Stocks of fuel were "more or less zero", meaning Gaza's power plant might have to shut down at any time, while medical supplies were "just about enough to cope", Holmes said.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LV538165.htm

A boat delivering 3.5 tonnes of Cypriot medical aid to the Gaza Strip has been rammed by Israeli naval vessels in international waters, activists say.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7805075.stm

"The Commissioner-General of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), Karen AbuZayd, on Monday warned that new restrictions Israel planned to impose on the West Bank could force the agency to curtail its humanitarian aid to the Palestinian territory."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/925748.html

Billions of aid dollars pledged to the Palestinians to bolster peace talks with Israel are having a muted economic impact because of Israeli restrictions on travel and trade, the World Bank said on Sunday.
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL2616242520080427

The United Nations is accusing Israel of imposing arbitrary taxes on humanitarian relief supplies - including food and medicine - being ferried to Palestinians in occupied territories. The levies charged by Israel were "unreasonable and unique", Peter Hansen, commissioner-general of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestine Refugees, told a meeting of donors Wednesday.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/ngos/aid/2002/0925israel.htm

On average, the U.S gave more than $6.8 million* to Israel each day and
gave $0.3 million** to the Palestinians each day during Fiscal Year 2007.
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/stats/usaid.html

honestly, thanks for the grain of salt

it really just looks like a couple of nervy nitwits' "theories" ... with a cultured british accent thrown over that and stock video taken out of context and rather coincidentally rearranged

shouldn't be too hard for me to provide another "grain" for all of us to consider rubbing together with the former...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda#History_of_the_name

http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2108588&postcount=9

there you go...

something else just occurred to me from the video's mention of the "military-industrial complex" -- this being that we often don't consider much of the context of that particularly insightful eisenhower speech:

here's a gem that just precedes the now-iconic reference...

"Throughout America's adventure in free government, our basic purposes have been to keep the peace; to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity and integrity among people and among nations. To strive for less would be unworthy of a free and religious people. Any failure traceable to arrogance, or our lack of comprehension or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us grievous hurt both at home and abroad.

Progress toward these noble goals is persistently threatened by the conflict now engulfing the world. It commands our whole attention, absorbs our very beings. We face a hostile ideology -- global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method. Unhappily the danger it poses promises to be of indefinite duration. To meet it successfully, there is called for, not so much the emotional and transitory sacrifices of crisis, but rather those which enable us to carry forward steadily, surely, and without complaint the burdens of a prolonged and complex struggle -- with liberty the stake. Only thus shall we remain, despite every provocation, on our charted course toward permanent peace and human betterment."

http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/indust.html

now *that's* thought-provoking =)

expounding on that in a much-later newspaper editorial is ike's close friend and former naval aide to the president:

"The science community is paralyzed by a phony, egotistical self-
guilt, and the technophobes in academia have had a field day for a
generation, teaching our young people to scorn the sciences and feel
guilty for being Americans. Aided by a couple of administration in
which "social engineering" was more fashionable than science, techno-
logical leadership is passing from the United States to nations who
have struck a more rational balance."

http://www.fortfreedom.org/n09.htm

heh heh, i think something really "got his goat"

anyway, i've always felt that the surest way of losing an argument is to overstate it... i guess i feel that that's exactly what the first video does

here's what we can take from it, at least overwhelmingly so (in the court of public opinion)

- america's "reaction" to the attacks of september 11th made al-qaeda both a household name *and* target #1 of the us government (durr)

- this most likely helped consolidate bin laden's organization, and surely polarized islamic radicalism ever further, thus increasing al-qaeda's magenetism to ends both in funding and recruiting

- prolonged military action in the "war on terror" is CONTINUING to make our "military-industrial complex" lots of money (do you really think that strong ties between "death merchantry" and government didn't exist before 2001... or even long before ike's speech??)

- america's (and the world's) "military-industrial complex" will continue to thrive until (ha) there is peace... and then probably a bit longer

- the "war on terror" probably won't end even if we get every member of al-qaeda into the same denny's restaurant and then nuke it (in a similar fashion as to arresting al capone not ending the fbi's war on organized crime)

- this will continue to make both you and me sad, and the "desth merchants" happy

...

but maybe, just maybe, we should take note of what ike first said we *should* be... STRONG ... and *then* consider our thinking on maintaining the BALANCE he warned us all should be sought in his now-pop-culture reference

>> ^bcglorf:
>> ^Irishman:
Free Palestine. End the illegal occupation. Stop the oppression.

If only it could be that simple.
How is ending the occupation defined?
-Removal of all troops?
-Lifting aerial and naval blockades?
-Granting right of return?
-The elimination of the Israeli state and restoration of historic Palestine?
Hamas founders and charter define it is all the above by the way.
What borders define Palestine?
-1946?
-1948?
-1967?
-1973?
-Current Day?
Finally, in the -ahem- unlikely -ahem- event that rocket and suicide attacks on Israel(if it is still allowed to exist) continue for years afterwards, what is Israel expected to do?


Well, it's an ugly, ugly mess down there. It was a mistake to create Israel in the first place, because there was no historic basis for it. It was just done. And the borders have even fluctuated pretty wildly, as you already indicated.

There are no easy solutions.

One solution is for the involved parties to duke it out, so to speak, at the cost of many innocent lives.
Another is for the rest of the world to take a side and either force an agreement (and risk another uprising) or wipe out one side (which is virtually impossible, and also genocide).

There are no laws for the world, so we have no real jurisdiction to arbitrate their conflict, so natural conclusion is to isolate the countries from the rest of the world and let them have their fight, and to the victor goes the spoils. This is of course tremendously unfair, because we've already helped one side pretty damn much, and it's also very inhumane because many, many lives are wasted.

As I said, there are no easy solutions. Can you think of reasonable solutions?

(I hesitate to add this, but at the heart of this conflict is once again the elephant in the room - religion. If people were reasonable, this would not be nearly as bad as it is.)

>> ^Irishman:
Free Palestine. End the illegal occupation. Stop the oppression.


If only it could be that simple.

How is ending the occupation defined?
-Removal of all troops?
-Lifting aerial and naval blockades?
-Granting right of return?
-The elimination of the Israeli state and restoration of historic Palestine?
Hamas founders and charter define it is all the above by the way.

What borders define Palestine?
-1946?
-1948?
-1967?
-1973?
-Current Day?

Finally, in the -ahem- unlikely -ahem- event that rocket and suicide attacks on Israel(if it is still allowed to exist) continue for years afterwards, what is Israel expected to do?

I think the gist of this is spot on.

The money makers and the big-time usurers have never given a shit about anybody but themselves.

They'll giddily collapse a nation if it means it will either make them more money, increase their span of influence, or undermine whomever they consider a rival.

America may have declared the War of 1812, but it was the British warships prohibiting trade between the U.S. and France, and Britain's “impressment” of U.S. naval crew members, that lead to that declaration.

They're both natural born citizens.

First Congress, on March 26, 1790, approved an act that declared, "The children of citizens of the United States that may be born beyond sea, or outside the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural-born citizens of the United States." That would seem to include McCain, whose parents were both citizens and whose father was a Navy officer stationed at the U.S. naval base in Panama at the time of John's birth in 1936.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalization_Act_of_1790
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural-born_citizen

I'll give three:

Fox news puts some guy on the air in the last 24 hours who fraudulently claims he had gay sex with Obama.

Cheney orders a "false flag" attack on U.S. Naval forces by Marines pretending to be Iranians.

Osama bin Laden releases a tape reportedly saying "I'm so glad you're about to elect my dear friend Barak Hussein Mohammed Obama, he has been such a valuable member of Al Qaeda." Nov 6th we find out that he was really just giving a shout out to Bush for all the help he's given him over the last several years. Oops.

Though I'm thinking the same as blankfist -- they've already shot their wad. I doubt we'll make it through next week without more ads that bring up Rev. Wright, and I'll bet Bush will bump up the terror alert level for no good reason, but mostly I think all of the above would either be ignored, or push people towards Obama.

When Clinton was elected, to be honest, I didn't care. I was in Naval school getting training in communications and trying to bang the only hot chick in the whole place. I'm sad to report I did not have sex with her.

Brilliant film. Back in the 90's, they were actually using it at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis as a starting point for discussion in the officer ethics classes.