>> ^bcglorf:

>> ^NetRunner:
@bcglorf that is the state of play at present. The thing is, terrorists in Pakistan or Yemmen can't hurt us until they come here, unless we go there.
It seems like things like "Homeland Security" should be able to handle that, and should be able to do well enough within the traditional legal framework of jurisprudence.
And to toss out a touch of radicalism, if they can't, then they can't, and if some attacks get through, well, no one said freedom would be easy.
Now I'm not ruling out the possibility of ever taking the fight to the terrorists, but it seems like we should completely change the whole way we look at this. We don't want a declaration of war on terrorists, that gives the U.S. President all this crazy unilateral power.
I think if we'd have viewed this as some sort of International-scale law enforcement matter, we'd have been in much better shape. And yes, we'd probably still give ourselves the right to come in with special ops and "arrest" people inside sovereign countries on our say so, but it at least should be something that comes after evidence is presented to a judge who's issuing a warrant...
And that approach would've made it clear that toppling the governments of countries and rebuilding them is completely beyond the scope of what's warranted to deal with terrorist threats.

The real trouble was the terrorists in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The terrorists in Afghanistan were able to hurt us here, and many of our interests and allies abroad as well. The formal government of Afghanistan when asked to choose sides with or against these terrorists chose to back them. Outright war with them in that context doesn't seem particularly absurd, nor even aggressive. The argument for reactive self-defense is rather strong.
You may not recall because our media avoided covering or discussing it much then and since, but Pakistan's formal government was right on the fence as well which way they would side. They still have well represented parties within Pakistan more enraged over Bin Laden's death than Benazir Bhutto's, and it's not the method or origin that offends them, but the nature of those dead. Bhutto was a moderate muslim women who was a former Pakistani PM and front runner in the upcoming elections. Bin Laden however, was to some well represented political parties a muslim hero and political ally rather than opponent. Showing that America had the will to play it's hand very strongly against the militants and terrorists hiding in Pakistan's tribal areas bordering Afghanistan I deem necessary to having encouraged Musharraf and the military leadership to at least pay lip service to siding as they have. Even now though, that may not have been enough. The militants are killing so many of our moderate Pakistani allies that there is a lot of momentum to accept a truce out of fear with them and who cares if America is still nominally at war with these militants.


And what is the root of this terrorism?

>> ^NetRunner:

@bcglorf that is the state of play at present. The thing is, terrorists in Pakistan or Yemmen can't hurt us until they come here, unless we go there.
It seems like things like "Homeland Security" should be able to handle that, and should be able to do well enough within the traditional legal framework of jurisprudence.
And to toss out a touch of radicalism, if they can't, then they can't, and if some attacks get through, well, no one said freedom would be easy.
Now I'm not ruling out the possibility of ever taking the fight to the terrorists, but it seems like we should completely change the whole way we look at this. We don't want a declaration of war on terrorists, that gives the U.S. President all this crazy unilateral power.
I think if we'd have viewed this as some sort of International-scale law enforcement matter, we'd have been in much better shape. And yes, we'd probably still give ourselves the right to come in with special ops and "arrest" people inside sovereign countries on our say so, but it at least should be something that comes after evidence is presented to a judge who's issuing a warrant...
And that approach would've made it clear that toppling the governments of countries and rebuilding them is completely beyond the scope of what's warranted to deal with terrorist threats.


The real trouble was the terrorists in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The terrorists in Afghanistan were able to hurt us here, and many of our interests and allies abroad as well. The formal government of Afghanistan when asked to choose sides with or against these terrorists chose to back them. Outright war with them in that context doesn't seem particularly absurd, nor even aggressive. The argument for reactive self-defense is rather strong.

You may not recall because our media avoided covering or discussing it much then and since, but Pakistan's formal government was right on the fence as well which way they would side. They still have well represented parties within Pakistan more enraged over Bin Laden's death than Benazir Bhutto's, and it's not the method or origin that offends them, but the nature of those dead. Bhutto was a moderate muslim women who was a former Pakistani PM and front runner in the upcoming elections. Bin Laden however, was to some well represented political parties a muslim hero and political ally rather than opponent. Showing that America had the will to play it's hand very strongly against the militants and terrorists hiding in Pakistan's tribal areas bordering Afghanistan I deem necessary to having encouraged Musharraf and the military leadership to at least pay lip service to siding as they have. Even now though, that may not have been enough. The militants are killing so many of our moderate Pakistani allies that there is a lot of momentum to accept a truce out of fear with them and who cares if America is still nominally at war with these militants.

@bcglorf that is the state of play at present. The thing is, terrorists in Pakistan or Yemmen can't hurt us until they come here, unless we go there.

It seems like things like "Homeland Security" should be able to handle that, and should be able to do well enough within the traditional legal framework of jurisprudence.

And to toss out a touch of radicalism, if they can't, then they can't, and if some attacks get through, well, no one said freedom would be easy.

Now I'm not ruling out the possibility of ever taking the fight to the terrorists, but it seems like we should completely change the whole way we look at this. We don't want a declaration of war on terrorists, that gives the U.S. President all this crazy unilateral power.

I think if we'd have viewed this as some sort of International-scale law enforcement matter, we'd have been in much better shape. And yes, we'd probably still give ourselves the right to come in with special ops and "arrest" people inside sovereign countries on our say so, but it at least should be something that comes after evidence is presented to a judge who's issuing a warrant...

And that approach would've made it clear that toppling the governments of countries and rebuilding them is completely beyond the scope of what's warranted to deal with terrorist threats.

Oh yeah, the Arab Spring revolts were such a NATO conspiracy. They really had to spread it, topple a couple of other dictators peacefully, all that to be able to... whatever it is they're scheming to do.


Yes, and remember that the Afghan war was all about a pipeline. Then for a little while it was about minerals. I don't remember what it's all about now. Oh, and the Iraq war was all about oil too. Obviously. Also, the Cold War was all fake.

The general WTC conspiracy (ie. it was all done by the US government) is complete nutbars. It imagines a kind of omniscient foresight and complete control that it is quite clear the US government (and all of its fantastic, bumbling agencies) lacks.

It can be an oddly pleasing little fiction to imagine hyper-intelligent, all-powerful string pullers manipulating world events. The reality is that the guys at the top are, well, guys like George Bush - aggressive, not to smart, motivated by emotion and family grudges, and born in the right place to the right people to one day end up in power.

And this video is clearly made by disingenuous douchebags. They don't acknowledge and counter the "official explanation" (and there is official explanations for this stuff, it's not new material) - they just kind of hand-wave it away. If they said "well, this is the official explanation but here's why we still think there's issues" then I'd have a bit of respect for them. Instead, they pretend this is stuff that hasn't been responded to; the same approach you see in, say, anti-evolution videos. Douchebags.

Humorously, the "1500 engineers agree" crap is also common in anti-evolution videos; similarly, I'm sure it would be easy to respond with 1500 engineers named Steve who accept the general "official" version. If they had good arguments, they should have led with them, instead of trotting out the same tired crap and hiding behind the "big numbers" of engineers they found.

@marbles

Oh yeah, the Arab Spring revolts were such a NATO conspiracy. They really had to spread it, topple a couple of other dictators peacefully, all that to be able to... whatever it is they're scheming to do.


Also: "It's already been admitted that NATO had special forces on the ground from the beginning of the "humanitarian mission"." --> [citation needed]

As for the WTC, people far more informed than I have debunked the numerous conspiracy theories surrounding it (first site Google offers, for some among many examples). But hey, those are all just guv'mint paid shills perpetuating the lies, and the evidence they present is really just very, very elaborate smoke screens, right?

>> ^Trancecoach:

Yeah, you're right.. These guys are clearly lying. In fact, they're not even fire fighters! They're actors working on scale.. (how else would they know what it's like to be on a movie set?)
>> ^EvilDeathBee:
I dunno about you guys, but i'm convinced. This is such a conspiracy, there is no other explanation at all.

Everybody knows that an approaching tornado sounds like an oncoming locomotive. And a path of destruction it leaves behind also looks like a train plowed through. Shouldn't there also be a claim that it's a conspiracy and they are hiding all the rogue trains while blaming tornadoes?

These firefighters might not be lying or actors, but I would not necessary take their post-traumatic descriptions of the event as facts. They just lived through perhaps their most extreme experience of their lives with 2 giant buildings collapsing around them. While they might be trained and have experience with fires, nobody there had any training or preparation or prior experience on how an 110 story building hit by a plane would collapse and what it would sound and feel like.

When the south tower started collapsing i was standing at exactly 40.705426,-74.004928 that was literally in front of the an entrance to our office building(it was demolished since). When it started collapsing from my vantage point it looked like the top simply toppled over. That was my experience of the event. Was it accurate? No. But everybody on the street at that time saw it that way.

Being the biggest backers doesn't mean it's being done for religious purposes.

I'm not debating some see it that way. You also have a bunch of people who didn't, too.

Where in that link did Tony Blair was quoted saying this was part of a Christian struggle?! It's loosely about believing it's a good versus evil thing. It's not about killing Muslims because Muslims are evil, or demoralizing Muslim culture to make room for Christian culture.. If you believe it was about killing Muslims, or advancing the interests of Christianity at the expense of Islam, you need your head examined. At no point was Blair ever on a Christian Crusade.

A VERY small group of evangelical Christian soldiers doesn't make the case.

Now, about Obama and Christianity. You do realize Obama at this point pretty much goes to church because it's a political liability if he doesn't. He quite possibly is the least religious president to ever be in office.

He is not intentionally trying to kill Civilians. #1. The statistics you sited are skewed concerning civilian casualties, although I'm not dismissing civilian casualties. Significant civilian casualties have been a mainstay in military action since WWII on all sides, after a brief reprieve in WWI and other wars leading up to it. You do the best you can to limit them while achieving your objectives. The reality is you won't achieve anything if you try to avoid any civilian casualties.

With that said, the article is discussing Predator drone casualties only, which is a small fraction of total casualties. And even then, you have a dispute on statistics, and I agree the US military is not going to give an unbiased number either. However, it's very difficult to tell what the accurate number is at this point.

See the above about civilian casualties as collateral damage. It would be difficult to achieve anything if the primary focus was to avoid them instead of achieving objectives.

Does all this add up to terrorism? No, for several reasons:

1. It isn't intentional, not any part of the objective in conducting them. Terrorist acts are specific explicit targeting of civilians. Often, the more civilians you kill, the better when you're a terrorist.
2. You sited bombings in Tripoli. Part of the objectives in that raid is to topple the oppressive regime in Libya, is it not? And yes, I completely accept that we're not just there for that. Libya has oil resources, etc. we're interested in, but it doesn't change the fact that part of the reason we're there is to free the Libyan people from an oppressive regime. It's pretty silly to site an operation that inadvertently killed civilians to achieve a better life for the Libyan people at large.

Extreme progressives are critical of Obama for many of the things you're siting. Obama isn't an extreme progressive, socialist, communist, etc. as much as QM and WP would love for you to believe. He's a moderate politician who leans to the left. If that's the indictment, I don't think anyone would disagree he's not the most liberal progressive politician since FDR. He's not. To say however he isn't progressive at all is not true either. Honestly, as much oil as there is in Libya, it's not worth military action. There's a bit of idealist progressivism to conduct air strikes against Libya.

And again, I fail to see how that's relevant to the debate of the religion of this guy. He is a Christian, there's no doubt about it. Granted, he's got a warped Christian ideology, but it is Christian. You can't say someone isn't Christian just because you don't agree with their interpretation.

>> ^marbles:

>> ^heropsycho:
The war on terror isn't being waged based on an overt Christian ideology. There's the difference. There are plenty of Muslims in the US military who see no problem fighting radical Islam. Not sure how you missed that, but it's pretty obvious. This guy performed terrorist acts because of his warped Christian ideology.
My second point is wtf does Obama and Progressivism have to do with any of this? Short answer: it doesn't. And yes, this guy is clearly a Christian of the super-nutty variety. Every religion, and even atheists, have their nuts. Why is this so shocking to anyone?
>> ^marbles:
>> ^heropsycho:
1. How so?
2. WTF does that have to do with anything in this video?!
>> ^marbles:
The war against terror is largely a "Christian" crusade and yet I don't see you guys up in arms about it.
Any "progressive" that supports Obama or the Democrat Party is about as much progressive as Breivik is Christian.


1. Christian war hawks bombing and invading Muslim countries. Do some research.
2. Does this video not suggest Breivik is a Christian terrorist?


And as far as the war on terror as a Christian crusade, you have:
-Conservative Christians as the biggest backers of the Iraq war (link)
-Pentagon officials that see the "war on terror" as a religious war between Judeo-Christian civilization and Satan, with Islam of course cast in the latter role (link)
-President Bush using Biblical prophesy to justify the war in Iraq (link)
-Prime Minister Tony Blair viewing his decisions to go to war in Iraq and Kosovo as part of a "Christian battle" (link)

-US Military trying to convert Arabs to Christianity (link)(link)
These examples are just the surface, they don't even really delve into the Zionist components of the wars.

As for your second point--short answer: it has everything to do with it. It exposes your own hypocritical POV. (along with many other's)
Obama is a self professed Christian. He indiscriminately kills civilians with military drones (some estimates put the civilian death rate at 90%, the other 10% are just suspects executed without due process)(link)
Is this not terrorism?
Is Obama not a Christian terrorist?
There is ongoing torture of uncharged suspects, many who are innocent civilians, many who we know are innocent civilians. (link)(link)(link)(link)
Just recently, NATO bombing runs in Tripoli would last for several hours, hitting civilian targets and killing innocents. (link)(link)
Is this not terrorism that is fully supported by Obama and progressives?

Wow, pamphlets and T-shirts, just what you need to topple a 150 year-old scientific theory which forms one of the foundations of modern biology.

Yeah those patriots, who would kill our country to save it. Those brave men who want to sink our economy, estinguish our good credit, and topple the dollar from its position as the worlds default reserve currency.

My 401k, house value, and weak dollar all thank these principled, delusional, stupid men. May they burn in hell for what they are doing.>> ^bobknight33:
You have some good links, thanks. It clearly points out that both parties spend like there is no tomorrow. Nothing like spending others people money.
Thank GOD that the TEA PARTY was able to infiltrate the Republican party and start holding these jackals feet to the fire. Hopefully the Democrats can get some TEA PARTY members on their side and together the TEA PARTY can stop this wasteful spending. >> ^NetRunner:
>> ^bobknight33:
To see how much the Government spends click the link
What 15 trillion dollars look like.

Where the debt actually came from:
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3490
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_by_U.S._presidential_terms

I'd watch it. For big fucking ships, aww yeah.

Just the waves that the robot would make jumping in and out of the water would topple the shit out of that little boat they were sailing in.

Yeah......something like that. Use chains to pull the supports out from a distance or push it over with something that can reach at least halfway up it's height. Better yet is a combination of both, pull the structure's supports out while pushing it in the direction the supports are gone. And throw some chains up high on it to help topple it.

They topple trees near houses by cutting a big wedge out to make it fall away from the house, cut the rest of the tree off and maintain pressure on the tree so it can't fall the other way if a big gust comes along or the tree is rotten or just some sort of freak thing where the tree tries to go wrong way. If possible they will usually cut the top off the tree off so it's easier to handle, but sometimes you can't do that when trees are unstable...like hit by lightning or broken due to storms.

And getting out of the machinery. Those things have roll cages on them that are supposed to support the weight of the vehicle if they roll over onto their side and then some. Not sure how it'd handle being punctured by rebar or narrow shafts of concrete, but it'd at least stand up to crushing better than your body.

Gee, why still all the interest in that 'dummy' Palin? Is the left desperate to topple this threat to their power? I don't recall any of these "journalists" poring over Obama's emails, stalking his friends, spying on his home, researching his "church", college and early years. Fraud Edwards got the same softball treatment when he ran in '04.

considering the trailer was still in motion right up to when he starts to swerve, it would not in any way appear, to the driver, to be a good idea to hit that at all... unless we're just talking self-sacrifice in order not to endanger anyone else.

The trailer looks like it's about to just whip around, if not topple over. Would munch his own vehicle pretty severly I would think.

...besides with his reaction time if there was another car in the other lane he probably would have slammed the breaks, spun the wheel.. done a half-doughnut, popped it into first and flew off in the other direction.

Read again. You're misquoting me all over the place.

I'm not apologizing. I'm criticizing your characterization of it as a "genocide". Killing lots of people is not a genocide. That's all. In fact, it's a civil war. The people have organized and publicly declared themselves against a well-armed government which is notorious for killing dissenters and disregarding civil rights in general. Just about everyone outside Libya sides with the rebels and hope they succeed in toppling a ruthless douchebag dictator, but it does not change the fact that the rebels are trying to overthrow a government which is bound to fight back.

Your comparison with Vietnam protesters is a poor choice. Those hippies weren't trying to overthrow the government, just change the government's foreign policy, which is anyone's legal right. I think you'll agree that if they had tried to actually overthrow government, they'd all have been arrested and/or killed. Besides, the government did kill some Vietnam protesters.>> ^bcglorf:

The Libyan protesters were overwhelmingly PEACEFUL when Gaddafi announced his intentions to cleanse them house by house. Their peaceful nature was inspite of already having been targeted for killing by Gaddafi's forces at this point already.
You are apologizing for a genocidal dictator and should be ashamed. The riots during the Vietnam war in America where every bit akin to the Libyan uprising, and contrary to your claim there was no promise of a house to house slaughter of all hippies that would include even the peaceful ones.

One has to note that the comparisons between the different military campaigns is a tad far-fetched.
I would for example not necessarily classify the military escalation in Libya and Yugoslavia as American, but rather as European or NATO-initiated in nature (a fine but distinct difference since the overall chain of command and the distribution of the "spoils of war" is another).
One might also argue that Gaddafi probably pretty much ran himself into the ground on this one.

None-the-less, the perspective from someone not part of this military union (Russia, China, the League of Arab States, etc.) must be understandably dire at this point with basically the entire region toppling into turmoil.

There's still Yemen on the lists of potential powder-kegs...