Yeah! He made the country safer by reading children lovely stories while the Twin Towers burned. He made the country safer by turning the whole world's sympathy for the United States into contempt and disgust by engaging in an illegal war. He made the country safer by disregarding the Geneva convention so he could torture supposed terrorists without any sort of trial. He made the country safer by sending it's young soldiers to die in a foreign land so that he might further his own interests. Anyone that criticizes Bush obviously can't fathom all the good he's done for his country...

>> ^oohahh:
As to the current fiasco: it's war and it's not a new war.

1. Israel's military equipment is provided by US taxpayers.

2. According to Geneva Convention Article 33 that no protected person (people who live in occupied territories count as "protected persons") may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed.

3. Israel's military is physically harming innocent civilians in Gaza.

1+2+3 = war crime committed with US dollars. That's the only point Kucinich was making. This is factual, independent of the history of the war.

>> ^sirex:
winston, find below required evidence of why your argument is crap.
MURDER (LATE-1990s)
EUROPE AND USA CITY MURDERS
PER 100,000
(1) Washington, D.C., USA 69.3
(2) Philadelphia, USA 27.4
(3) Dallas, USA 24.8
(4) Los Angeles, USA 22.8
(5) Chicago, USA 20.5
(6) Phoenix, USA 19.1
(7) Moscow, Russia 18.1
(8) Houston, USA 18.0
(9) New York City, USA 16.8
(10) Helsinki, Finland 12.5
(11) Lisbon, Portugal 9.7
(12) San Diego, USA 8.0
(13) Amsterdam, Netherlands 7.7
(14) Belfast, N.Ireland, UK 4.4
(15) Geneva, Switzerland 4.2
(16) Copenhagen, Denmark 4.0
(17) Berlin, Germany 3.8
(18) Paris, France 3.3
(19) Stockholm, Sweden 3.0
(20) Prague, Czechoslovakia 2.9
i've had this discussion with people on videosift before and cant be bothered getting into a flame fest about it again, but feel free to private message me and i'll link you up with a bunch more data.


You quoted some statistics, and this makes his argument invalid? Then you say, "Ive had this argument before". Appealing to past arguments as though they make you right, appealing to false authority.

Link to sources, bibliography. Until then your argument is unsustainable.

Your argument, is a very gentle Non Sequitur. It has no context, other than you had this discussion with another member. Also, linking to research does nothing unless you have good thoughts to go along with your quotes. Hence the confusion I have here.

Before you attack an argument make sure that you have your sources posted. Here is what I have from a Lt. Col. Dave Grossman Army Ret. Quoted from his book, titled On killing. "Lt. Col. Grossman a former army ranger and paratrooper taught psychology at west point is currently professor of Military Science at Arkansas State University."

The statistics are in here, and found by Interpol.
http://www.killology.com/art_weap_sum_worldwide.htm


EDIT: I do realize that your comment is flame bait.

By the way, this was really a long drawn out appeal to authority. And also a plug for the book because I think it is good!

winston, find below required evidence of why your argument is crap.

MURDER (LATE-1990s)
EUROPE AND USA CITY MURDERS
PER 100,000
(1) Washington, D.C., USA 69.3
(2) Philadelphia, USA 27.4
(3) Dallas, USA 24.8
(4) Los Angeles, USA 22.8
(5) Chicago, USA 20.5
(6) Phoenix, USA 19.1
(7) Moscow, Russia 18.1
(8) Houston, USA 18.0
(9) New York City, USA 16.8
(10) Helsinki, Finland 12.5
(11) Lisbon, Portugal 9.7
(12) San Diego, USA 8.0
(13) Amsterdam, Netherlands 7.7
(14) Belfast, N.Ireland, UK 4.4
(15) Geneva, Switzerland 4.2
(16) Copenhagen, Denmark 4.0
(17) Berlin, Germany 3.8
(18) Paris, France 3.3
(19) Stockholm, Sweden 3.0
(20) Prague, Czechoslovakia 2.9

i've had this discussion with people on videosift before and cant be bothered getting into a flame fest about it again, but feel free to private message me and i'll link you up with a bunch more data.

QM, of those "10,000" rockets how much damage or causulties have resulted from these randomly fired rockets?

How many rockets would have to be launched at your house before you become 'concerned'?

And you really think Israel wants the rockets to stop????? Which side do you think draws the first blood after a week or more of calm in the region?

I don't think Israel wants any more bloodshed and woudl prefer peaceful neighbors. Unfortunately, the rest of the world wants Israel destroyed, including the UN thugocracy.

Isn't it odd that random sifters who decry waterboarding as barbaric think Hamas breaking rule after rule of the Geneva Conventions is A-OK?

Now all that aside, do you realize the whole "paradigm" of this conflict is false?

"Palestinians" are not a people, culture or nation.
Their goal is to destroy Israel, not build or create for themselves.

"Way back on March 31, 1977, the Dutch newspaper Trouw published an interview with Palestine Liberation Organization executive committee member Zahir Muhsein. Here's what he said:

The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism.

For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."


“We will have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.” --Golda Meir

F.U. mharvey

Its disgusting to watch pigs like you wallowing in the blood of innocent people, braying at the sky and clawing the floorboards hoping for more and more dead kids.

Talking about this fucking van breaking geneva conventions? Oh no, a hangnail on a bloody corpse.

I'm not commenting on the conflict as a whole, mind you, but on this one particular video. ...

>> ^joedirt:
>> ^mharvey42:
Rougy, Palestinians dehumanize themselves by hiding in ambulances, sending children and retards to explode themselves against checkpoints, all the while painting their foes as "apes and pigs"

What I see is people loading an injured man into an ambulance and then getting into it and the vehicle is retreating from the front line.
I just don't see the problem here, was the ambulance NOT going to the rear? Is the problem that they had weapons on them? Do you think this ambulence drove these men to fight somewhere? I don't see the problem if they were transporting the injured man.


Gotta drop the guns if you want a ride in an ambulance, if you want to follow the Geneva Convention.

Yes, it is a spectacularly inefficient genocide, it is known as "slow motion genocide" and it is the same thing that happened in Darfur. It has been going on for decades. I first heard it described as this 8 or 9 years ago.

In 1998 an expert in international law called Francis Boyle told the Palestinian president to start legal proceedings against Israel in the international courts and in the Hague for breaching the Genocide Convention.

Israel has breached almost all of the 150 odd articles of the Geneva Rights Convention and committed crimes against humanity under the Nuremberg Charter - all confirmed and on record at the UN.

So if we're going to take Hamas to task on their ambulances then let's go, and unless we want to be branded as hypocrites then we'll want the Israeli government in the Hague and behind bars for their decades of war crimes against the Palestinian people as well.

And if we want to talk about Hamas' charter which calls for the destruction of Israel, then let's talk about it:

In 2006 Ismail Haniyeh became Hamas prime minister. He offered the Bush administration a truce in return for an end to the illegal Israeli occupation. He was completely ignored.

The last truce that was brokered by Egypt was broken by Israel - they sent in the IDF and wiped out 6 Hamas members. Both sides called for peace even after this, but the IDF continued hostilities.


I cannot in good conscience condemn Hamas for using medical vehicles for troops because I know too much about the sickening war crimes that have been committed by Israel against them for decades.

>> ^Irishman:
I would hope that my government would use every single dirty trick in the book if my country came under an invading army waging genocide.
You CANNOT target medical vehicles under the Geneva conventions, it is a war crime.
Similar tactics were used by the British during WW2.
5 medics have now been killed in Gaza and HALF of the medics have been injured. It's a systematic genocide.


So then I take it you don't condemn any of Israel's tactics in the war of '48? Don't have to answer right away, maybe your so far gone you even consider the Arab population to have been acting in self defense back then too.

I'm sorry, but it disgusts me to no end to see you condemning Israel for targeting medics and at the exact same time defending Hamas' use of ambulances as troop carriers. Your honestly going to look at a group of people firing rockets at civilians and then hiding in ambulances as a legitimate self defense?

Please tell me, if the IDF is trying to commit genocide against the Palestinians, why aren't they trying harder? They sure have handled their 'genocide' in a spectacularly inefficient manner compared to every other operation they normally execute. They are without doubt one of the best trained forces in the world, and yet if anything they seem to be trying to target only the militants. It almost would seem as if they were only interested in killing the militants and not civilians, shocking!

If you want a real genocide to criticize, try Pol Pot or the RGF(or their remnant in the Congo today), or even Saddam's campaign against the Kurds. All of them make even the worst of Israel's attacks on Palestinians(of which many deserve condemnation) look like a nice day at the park by comparison.

<sigh>

Guys, google "Geneva Convention Medical Transport" before you flame each other.

http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/COM/365-570043?OpenDocument
"The military authorities must take the greatest care to ensure that the red cross sign is removed as soon as a vehicle is no longer employed as medical transport, and strict orders to this effect must be given to all ranks. It is essential that the serious abuses which occurred during the Second World War should not be repeated. (2)
For although there were very good reasons for introducing the principle of a distinctive emblem which could be removed, the risk of abuse has certainly been increased as a result. After the wounded have been taken to the rear under the protection of the red cross sign, there [p.282] will be a great temptation to load the empty vehicles returning to the front with war material. If the emblem then remains on the loaded vehicles, there is a grave breach of the Convention, even if the sign has simply been left on through negligence or because there has been no time to remove it. Such cases have occurred. Constant vigilance is therefore essential."

Does "grave breach of the (Geneva) Convention" mean war crime? I'm not a human rights lawyer, but I suspect the answer is "hell yeah"...

You're sort of contradicting yourself there.

If non-medics use medical vehicles for other purposes that medically related work, I would fire on them too. They are abusing the system that have been established, so those are the measures that should be taken.

It is as much a war crime to commandeer the medical vehicle in the first place.

>> ^Irishman:
I would hope that my government would use every single dirty trick in the book if my country came under an invading army waging genocide.
You CANNOT target medical vehicles under the Geneva conventions, it is a war crime.
Similar tactics were used by the British during WW2.
5 medics have now been killed in Gaza and HALF of the medics have been injured. It's a systematic genocide.

I would hope that my government would use every single dirty trick in the book if my country came under an invading army waging genocide.

You CANNOT target medical vehicles under the Geneva conventions, it is a war crime.

Similar tactics were used by the British during WW2.

5 medics have now been killed in Gaza and HALF of the medics have been injured. It's a systematic genocide.

An overview of various clips ("categorized" by genre) from last year I liked because of the clip and the accompanying music:

Indie pop
http://www.videosift.com/video/Eccentric-night-out-Risn-Murphy-Movie-Star-2008

Indie rock
*http://www.videosift.com/video/MGMT-Electric-Feel-2008DancingDrinking-from-the-Moon
http://www.videosift.com/video/Fleet-Foxes-White-Winter-Hymnal
http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Notwist-Where-In-This-World-2008
http://www.videosift.com/video/A-Picture-Of-Our-Torn-Up-Praise-2008-by-Phosphorescent

Electro
http://www.videosift.com/video/Le-le-Breakfast-video-by-Parra
http://www.videosift.com/video/Le-Le-Ich-Clacque-dich
http://www.videosift.com/video/Slagsm-lsklubben-Sponsored-By-Destiny
http://www.videosift.com/video/Dim-Chris-No-Sucker-Official-Tecktonik-anthem
http://www.videosift.com/video/Necro-Stallar-Only-Moon-2008

Disco
http://www.videosift.com/video/Hercules-Love-Affair-Time-Will-2008
http://www.videosift.com/video/Geneva-Jacuzzi-Love-Caboose-2008
http://www.videosift.com/video/Rubies-I-Feel-Electric-2008
http://www.videosift.com/video/Moby-Disco-Lies
http://www.videosift.com/video/Cutting-edge-monster-party-Denki-Groove-Mononoke-Dance

Hiphop/rnb
*http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Tongue-feat-Dudley-Perkins-Animal-Crackers
http://www.videosift.com/video/Rapping-former-warchild-Emmanuel-Jal-Warchild-2008
http://www.videosift.com/video/T-Pain-Ft-Ludacris-Chopped-N-Skrewed-2008
http://www.videosift.com/video/Kanye-West-Love-Lockdown

Drum'n bass
*http://www.videosift.com/video/Pendulum-Propane-Nightmares-2008
http://www.videosift.com/video/Squarepusher-Planet-Gear-2008

Various electronica/rock
http://www.videosift.com/video/Bomb-the-Bass-Fuzzbox-2008
*http://www.videosift.com/video/Moby-feat-Aynzil-and-the-419-Squad-Alice-2008
http://www.videosift.com/video/Pivot-In-The-Blood-2008
http://www.videosift.com/video/Portishead-Machine-Gun

>> ^quantumushroom:
The adult view is that torture is sometimes necessary. The Gitmo scum aren't enemy soldiers or combatants fighting under an organized army's flag, which means no protection for them under the Geneva Conventions.

And what about principles and ideals? What about being above such barbaric acts? You seem to be saying we should match our enemies' crudity blow by blow; a tactic, I'll point out, that will only further validate their actions to them.

Back to something resembling my original topic; I wonder if you'd tell us who you think was a great president? In fact, let's make it more interesting...

- Greatest President of your lifetime and why you believe such.
- Greatest President of all time and why you believe such.
- A liberal or progressive President whom you admire.

How ironic is it that the nation that penned the Geneva conventions, the human rights declaration, the nation most opposed to torture during the Nuremberg trails and the cold war is now fully supports torture.

The new USSR laughs at America.