>> ^CaptainPlanet420:
So how do you channel the terrorist videos? hmmmm


Which ones?

The IRA's? The SLA's? The Shining Path's?

Pull your fucking head out.

So how do you channel the terrorist videos? hmmmm

^ Or for them to acknowledge that Obama isn't Muslim, or that being Muslim doesn't automatically make you an evil terrorist. If they did, they'd lose half of their voters. They might go to Bob Barr or something.

>> ^BillOreilly:
I'm surprised you haven't tried that already. After all, why would anyone want differing opinions on LiberalSift? That would be outrageous!


When you dis the Sift, BillO, you aid the terrorists, hate your country, hate your president, endorse socialism, which is just the same as communism, and undermine the troops overseas who are fighting for your right to say that stupid seditious shit.

Sound familiar?

i would post them all but posting seems so futile!
either you like blur, or you like the terrorists.

In reply to this comment by alien_concept:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Yvw1R1Ykk5Y For sure, you'll get my upvote!

>> ^Pprt:
^If you're being mugged and you really, really don't like it and concentrate on channeling that emotion to the mugger, do think think he'll just turn around and hand back your wallet?

You are, perhaps intentionally, not getting the point, as well as putting words in my mouth.

The alternative to torture is not to "hope he'll be nice from now on", but to use other interrogation methods, which many experts say is more productive than torture.

To borrow your analogy, say you get mugged. The mugger gets away, but the next day you decide to go chasing after the guy. To do this, you capture his family, imprison them and torture them over the course of years in order to get information that might lead you to the capture of the mugger. You make sure there are reports about your doing this on TV on a regular basis, so that the mugger knows what you're doing to his family...

Which one of you would you call a terrorist now?

If I change the mugger into a car bomber, does that make what the hypothetical "you" did justified, or are they both people who should be locked up?

Isn't what makes a person a terrorist defined by what they do, and not who his friends are?

Or they think you are a terrorist because of your religion and where you happen to be born.

yeah literally, from Parsley's speeches replace the word "Islam" with "Christianity" and voila, you have a terrorist.

Regardless of wither there were any WMDs found in Iraq. Not only did Saddam lead his political neighbors to believe he had WMDs but it was commonly held belief among world intelligence agencies that there were factories set up for the production of them. And given his use of deadly chemical warfare in the Gulf War I don't think it would have surprised anyone if he would be willing to use them.

I've seen articles that claim both sides of the issue, there were WMDs, there were not WMDs. But the fact remains you have a terrorist who was more then willing to use deadly force against any who opposed his regime.

[edit]: Hell even the French thought there was reason to invade.

Imagine a scenario of a ruthless terrorist who has taken lives before, and claims to have rigged bombs throughout a building. He's also threating to use them if anyone tries to stop him. Do you take a chance that he's bluffing or do all in your power to save the lives of everyone in that building?

Regardless of how you feel now about the War in Iraq. The world felt a lot different about the suggestion before it happened. The UN supported it, and most of Europe did too.

You lost that on Godwin rules.

But seriously I was raised in this so called ideology you claim is so dangerous. Am not practicing muslim and I haven't met anyone who cared if I was or not so far, even though they can act all superior if they are themselves but thats besides the point.

My main complaint is that westerners are claiming Islam is so 'dangerous' without really understanding the people and the faith of close to a billion people in the world. The fastest and largest growing faith on the planet.

This 'dangerous' religion only came under the microscope now after 9/11 where a radical terrorist groups and their originating faith became suddenly a singular group. That's bullshit, its like saying Timothy McVeigh represents Christian Terrorists. No one connected Islam the faith and the radical terrorists before 9/11, but they were there in the first Trade center attack, in Israel, in PLO attacks of the 60s, in Egypt and countless other terrorist attacks.

The faith doesn't have anything to do with it, its being used just as fear is being used through films like that to cut down dialog between people, to incite fear and misunderstanding. Are you really surprised that faith based language is being used to incite conflict? What did George Bush say? Its God that told him to invade Afghanistan and Iraq. He used Christian based language countless times. What do you think those terrorists do? Same shit different words and God. They are simply using the faith as a vehicle to further their own ideas and power, the Taliban is a perfect example of this, they claim to be Islamic, but closer inspection shows that they don't know shit about Islam and impose their own hard line interpretation with Pashtun tribal overtones.

How many innocent Muslims were attacked post 9/11 for being simply Muslim? Since when is Osama Bin Laden or any of those crazy imams representative of the Islamic faith?

Its all about power and pushing people into taking complex topics to basic levels. Wilders only wants to incite hatred and division in Netherlands and gain political momentum off peoples fears, its xenophobia parallel to blaming all the problems of Germany circa 1930s and WW1 on the Jews.

Its so much easier to say its the evil Muslims!!!111 then saying perhaps our foreign policy with regards to Saudi Arabia, Israel, Palestine, Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq is and was deeply flawed. You look at the middle east with a western slant without thinking about what people in this side of the world have seen and witnessed from the great western powers, arm sales and unconditional support for Israel to kill Palestinians, support of ISI and Mujahedin to attack the USSR in Afghanistan, support for corrupt and oppressive Saudi Royal Family, support for Egypt that is 20 years under emergency dictatorship rule, support for Central Asian despots who now imprison and vilify Islam so they can rule for ever, sale of arms to Iraq and Iran. Tanks and troops spreading freedom across Iraq and Afghanistan. People don't forget.

But you people like it simple and easy to disgust and process back through "Its the faith" I guess. Islam is evil. Bush is right. War for ever against a strategy and a religion.

For people who claim a diversity of opinion you enter intellectual lock down pretty quickly.

Great comment. Thank you.

In reply to this comment by Farhad2000:
The creation of an enemy is one of the topics covered in Loss of Innocence, a documentary about the seductive appeal of War to man.

The basic argument is that the creation of an enemy is necessary for successful psychological push to convince a population that a war is beyond all means necessary. The historical record with regards to this idea is filled with evidence, consider World War 2.

Prior to Pearl Harbor, the US population did not want to engage with any war with either the 3rd Reich or Imperialist Japan. However the attack on Pearl Harbor solidified the case for war instantly, nearly a million Americans signed up, internment camps were created. Propaganda posters from the time show the Japanese as beastly beings, with slit eyes, yellow skin, fangs and claws. The enemy is dehumanized and generalized, even though in reality hegemony is never achieved, however there is a need to inherently dissolve their individuality to make them our enemies. The word 'Jap' became a derogatory term, in fact vocabulary is key in dehumanization of an enemy.

Vietnam followed the same path, with the Gulf Of Tonkin incident that made it seem like the NVA attacked US ships even though this was proven false. Vietnamese were portrayed as red communists, part of a larger threat embodied by Red China and the USSR based around the Domino theory. The words from that time - 'Gook', 'Victor Charlie', 'VC' and so on.

Iraq, Gulf War 1, the main drive for war publicly was the false testimony of Kuwait Embassy, the daughter of the ambassador was couched by a PR firm to relate a story of Iraqi troops pulling infant babies out of incubators. The public support increased instantly for going to War. The words - 'Sand nigger', 'Towel head', 'Hajji' most repeated now in the current war.

What is fascinating to me is that the enemy creation is necessary for violent acts of war, the same time it's seductive, its easy to psychologically develop an us vs them stand point, its simple. They are all guilty, they are all the enemy, so they must all perish so we can develop a better life for ourselves. But how do you tell a terrorist from a civilian? How do you not lash out at civilians who support the insurgents? Just like US troops lashed out at civilians in Vietnam because they knew or believed they helped the VC and NVA? When getting shot on a day to day basis by an unseen enemy, how does one not give into the urge to lash out against the civilians who you see everyday, there is a man there is his early 20s, he looks fiercely at your OP, his hands formed into tight fists, eyes like bullets. He bends down to pick something up, is it a stick? is it an RPG? Do I aim and pull the trigger?

To end evil we must commit great evil in kind, but we risking becoming evil ourselves for when we stare into the abyss the abyss stares back at us.

The creation of an enemy is one of the topics covered in Loss of Innocence, a documentary about the seductive appeal of War to man.

The basic argument is that the creation of an enemy is necessary for successful psychological push to convince a population that a war is beyond all means necessary. The historical record with regards to this idea is filled with evidence, consider World War 2.

Prior to Pearl Harbor, the US population did not want to engage with any war with either the 3rd Reich or Imperialist Japan. However the attack on Pearl Harbor solidified the case for war instantly, nearly a million Americans signed up, internment camps were created. Propaganda posters from the time show the Japanese as beastly beings, with slit eyes, yellow skin, fangs and claws. The enemy is dehumanized and generalized, even though in reality hegemony is never achieved, however there is a need to inherently dissolve their individuality to make them our enemies. The word 'Jap' became a derogatory term, in fact vocabulary is key in dehumanization of an enemy.

Vietnam followed the same path, with the Gulf Of Tonkin incident that made it seem like the NVA attacked US ships even though this was proven false. Vietnamese were portrayed as red communists, part of a larger threat embodied by Red China and the USSR based around the Domino theory. The words from that time - 'Gook', 'Victor Charlie', 'VC' and so on.

Iraq, Gulf War 1, the main drive for war publicly was the false testimony of Kuwait Embassy, the daughter of the ambassador was couched by a PR firm to relate a story of Iraqi troops pulling infant babies out of incubators. The public support increased instantly for going to War. The words - 'Sand nigger', 'Towel head', 'Hajji' most repeated now in the current war.

What is fascinating to me is that the enemy creation is necessary for violent acts of war, the same time it's seductive, its easy to psychologically develop an us vs them stand point, its simple. They are all guilty, they are all the enemy, so they must all perish so we can develop a better life for ourselves. But how do you tell a terrorist from a civilian? How do you not lash out at civilians who support the insurgents? Just like US troops lashed out at civilians in Vietnam because they knew or believed they helped the VC and NVA? When getting shot on a day to day basis by an unseen enemy, how does one not give into the urge to lash out against the civilians who you see everyday, there is a man there... in his early 20s combat age, he looks fiercely at your OP, his hands formed into tight fists, eyes like bullets. He bends down to pick something up, is it a stick? is it an RPG? Do I aim and pull the trigger?

To end evil we must commit great evil in kind, but we risking becoming evil ourselves for when we stare into the abyss the abyss stares back at us.

It's impossible to have the situations you outlined, a terrorist being tortured to save the lives of many others, what if you are wrong?

The situations I've outlined are impossible? Please.

I really can't make this any simpler. How many times do I have to state, in my proposed scenario, THERE IS NO DOUBT OF GUILT! Why do you keep asking, what if I am wrong? It's hypothetical. I have laid things out for you so there are no "what ifs".

I'll stop asking the questions. It's obvious no one wants to answer.

Dealing with hypothetical situations is also a form of presumption because you assume in all the situations you outlined that we know the most but not all of the information, some critical factor.

You are picking out the tree from the forest that is torture. It's impossible to have the situations you outlined, a terrorist being tortured to save the lives of many others, what if you are wrong? What if you end up torturing someone that is innocent? What if the suspect really doesn't know anything? What if all the torture only strengthens the resolve to stay silent, and you end up killing them?

This is the same reason right now the torture methods employed, the information it produced, the tapes of those events are destroyed lost or not given to the public record. Because it simply did not produce results and someone has hell to pay for violating the Geneva conventions and running the US name through the gutter.

Coercion always works better in interrogation. So far all you are doing is presenting fallacious 'what if' scenarios instead of looking at the wider picture of what the usage of such tactics would mean morally, socially and ethically for a nation that uses them. Especially for a democratic nation like the US.

But don't let logic dictate that, please go back to living in Jack Bauer's world where everything is conveniently black and white for you.

America is funny like that, they have enacted round after round of tax cuts that are basically running off the social expenditure pushed through in the 50s and 60s, for example the infrastructure that will now require billions to get back up to spec, in fact states now are thinking of privatization as one method to solve this. Lunacy.

QM mentions billions and trillions wasted on Medicare and supports Bush SCHIP veto, I mean seriously you ever do economics 101? You're arguing for fiscal responsibility from a President who gives out no bid contracts in Iraq?

Several states are suing the government for that, the fact is that cost of living for most states have risen while SCHIP benefits haven't.

While Bush claims the SCHIP would be a waste of money at the same time he is pressing for larger increases in spending to fuel two wars that are sapping the US economy of funds, but you know who cares about them darn poverty stricken kids when you gots them terrorists to hunt?