His videos are great and don't seem completely random (unlike mine), his comments are topical, insightful and witty, his presence is always well-received... spoco2, you're the coolest Aussie I've ever had the pleasure of 'knowing'.

and mind you, I happen to know an ex-SASR-(Aussie special forces)-turned-businessman.
then again he is kind of an obnoxious jerk, so I guess that's not much of a compliment, really.

You have a nice dog. (Is it even yours though?) Why is he black&white? Is that some sort of symbolism for you being colour-blind? Or was that you trying to be artistic?

OK, I'll just shut up then, shall I?

Who says they didn't poop their pants? That's not exactly what you add to the memoirs years later.

My brother is in Special Forces and has to do a jump every 90 days or so to stay Airborne qualified - he says it helps if you let a little pee out whenever you go out the door.

Add getting shot at to the mix? My pants would NOT be clean.

Jonathan Keith "Jack" Idema is an American citizen convicted in September 2004 for running a private prison in Afghanistan and torturing Afghan citizens. At the time of his arrest and conviction, Idema had been portraying himself as a U.S. government-sponsored special forces operative on a mission to apprehend terrorists. However, the U.S. government has repeatedly denied such claims. Idema was granted a pardon by Afghanistan's president Hamid Karzai in April 2007, departing Afghanistan in early June, having served three years of a ten-year sentence.
More at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Idema

The clip is from As-Sahab, the media production house of Al-Qaeda, used to relay the organization's views to the world:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As-Sahab

History repeats itself. The same thing (on a much, much larger scale) happened during the Korean War when thousands of suspected Communists were executed by Korean forces while American troops watched. I'm pretty certain in that case the Pentagon ordered troops to prevent it if possible but given how mercilessly and efficiently the Korean forces were killing it proved impossible to stop.

George Washington in fact faced a similar problem on his first military expedition. Charged with removing the French from Fort Duquesne, he ambushed and captured French forces commanded by Joseph Coulon de Jumonville. Jumonville surrendered, but to Washington's horror the Native American allies that had accompanied him on the expedition slaughtered Jumonville and a dozen other prisoners after the surrender. Just shows the problems you can face when you "ally" with the natives. Just because they're you're allies doesn't mean they're going to listen to your commands.

I agree with roughy. In a war zone, stuff like this happens. I don't agree with the Pentagon trying to pretend like it never happened (they did that in the Korean War incidents too), but I'm not really sure they're under any obligation to actually report the killings since they occurred on the Afghan forces' watch.

I have to laugh at the video eyewitness that says the Americans were in charge. It's pretty clear from other news sources that the Afghan forces at the time were led by tribal warlords that were really more interested in settling old feuds and expanding their power than freeing the country from the Taliban. If they worked with Americans, it was because it was in their own interest and I highly doubt any "command" issued by an American soldier would have had much value. I imagine the Special Forces soldiers that were there found themselves in the same situation as Washington, trying to reason with people who simply don't think the same way about such things as prisoner treatment.

mccain on using special forces in pakistan to kill bin laden:
"i'm not gonna go there, that's a sovereign nation"

oh that's cute.

Send in a special forces to infiltrate the palace(s) after a bunker buster or two-
Take out every dictator on the planet first. Leave the Nations intact.
Send same forces to the Largest corporations on the planet, take out the dictators.
Launch captured assholes in catapults, on National Television.
Party Naked.
Vote Ben Franklin's exhumed bones for President.

Iran conducted a test launch Tuesday night of the Shihab-3 intermediate-range ballistic missile, which is capable of reaching Israel and US targets in the region, Israel Radio reported. The test came hours before Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met with US President George W Bush in Washington to discuss the Iranian threat.

Military officials said it was not clear if this most recent test indicated an advance in the capabilities of the Shihab 3. They said the test was likely timed to coincide with the Washington summit and with comments made by Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah during celebrations in Beirut marking the 6th anniversary of Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon.

The Arrow missile, he said, could intercept and destroy any Iranian missile fired at Israel, including ones carrying non-conventional warheads. Experts believe that if Iran is attacked by Israel or the US, Teheran would respond by firing long-range ballistic missiles at Israel.-AP Jerusalem Post

-Hizbullah is rearming quickly, Syria feeds the hate-Iran has an insane idiot-stick for a leader, a passionate delusional with missiles-Where is the valley of Megiddo again???....Why won't these motherfuckers simply die??....I am talking about the folks who manufacture and sell them the shit as well(and their families)....some French, some Germans, some sick rich cocksuckers from all nations need killing.....

Ok, I don't get it. So which were they? Navy SEALs? Delta Force? or Special Forces (Green Berets)?

dupe?

>> ^Farhad2000:
No dictators or tyrants ever get assassinated.


Not entirely true, although there haven't been any lately, but that's because the attempts usually fail when trying to kill that type of leader. The peaceful ones are just plain easier targets. Really, who do you think would be easier to assassinate? The peaceful guy that rallies with words and protests, or the nut with the special forces unit guarding him 24/7? I think that's why tyrants and dictators tend to be taken prisoner, tried, and executed for their crimes later instead of being assassinated.

I salute Arvana for posting this. He is sincere in his beliefs, just like the Mulleted-One.

"Standing on a box is torture, so is having to choose between jumping from a skyscraper or burning to death."

If this is an analogy, its apples and oranges. If you think that the attack on the WTC is good reason or a justification for the use of torture, I say youve bought into the bullshit hook, line and sinker.

I disagree. Because if those who were supposed to be protecting out country had caught one of the would-be 9-11 hikackers in advance and needed to torture him to find out the rest of the plan, then very, very few reading these words would not at least accept we would try to extract the critical intel from the captive by any means necessary.

From the time osama hatched the 9-11 plot, it became a perfect example of a real 'ticking time bomb'. Clintonian dereliction of duty regarding national defense was why we never had our aforementioned theoretical hijacker in custody: the walking penis was too busy "erecting" walls between American law enforcement agencies in order to hide his own crimes.

As for whether torture is effective, studies lean toward concluding intel gleaned from it isn't necessarily reliable (e.g. McCain), however if you're not willing to defend your own country by any means necessary, you're going to lose everything.

I'd rather go too far than not far enough, especially with terrorists who are not "enemy combatants". Threats of hell-burning aside, I question the sanity and loyalty of those trying to secure Constitutional rights for these vermin.

Waterboarding? I'd be more interested in whether or not it WORKS rather than if it's torture. Our Special Forces soldiers are all schooled in how to survive torture by our "civilized" enemies, and they too, get a taste of waterboarding.

No one likes torture, but it still deserves its place in the arsenal. No one's being waterboarded for not returning library books.

Soldiers are generally taught to fire in burst-mode, not full auto, whenever possible because full auto is inherently inaccurate and a poor method of shooting when you're actually trying to hit people. It is irrelevant whether the AK-74 can outhit the M16 on full automatic, and I doubt the hell out of that statistic anyway.

"More thrusts per squeeze"? Huh?

They're misquoting the study about accessories added onto the rifle. The study, to the best of my knowledge, shows a correlation between more accessories and weapon malfunctions, but specifically does not imply causation. This is because the idiots who throw on as many add-ons as they can onto their rails tend to be the same kind of idiots who don't maintain their weapons properly.

"A walking man can't use sights very well, so you fire from the hip, full automatic." Right, walking people can't use sights very well, I guess that's why the IDPA and IPSC, every single police force, and every single military branch, including the special forces, of the US trains to shoot straight from the hip on full automatic, cowboy style. Oh, wait, what's that? That's completely untrue? Every single one of those groups teaches sighted fire on the move, with single shots or burst rounds? Ohhhhhhh....right.

The C-mag is better than 30-round mags? Right, wasn't this piece supposed to be about reliability and not jamming?

I can't speak for the reliability of the M16, M4 or AK74 because I don't train with any of these weapons, and hopefully I never will. However, the friends I have in the service are laughing at this video as much as I am. The M16 and M4 aren't infallible, and they can surely be improved, (and definitely certain procedures, like cleaning, need to be modified for use in a desert) but this piece is just so shitty that any criticism being leveled is worthless in context.

What a crock o' shite.

By 1970 there were over 1600 CFR members and in 1972 the Trilateral Commission was formed by Rockefeller (Chairman of the CFR). The CFR and the Trilateral Commission are not US Government created entities. The Council's first recruitment of a future president occurred in 1950 with Eisenhower. Since then every president (except Reagan) has been a CFR/Trilateral commission member and these presidents have filled their staff with other CFR members.

One example of how a presidential elect that claims he doesn't want NWO personnel in his administration, however ends up appointing such people to their cabinet is Reagan.

He was neither a CFR or Trilateral Commission member. He was neither a Skull & Bonesman or Bilderberger, however he was a Bohemian Grovesman.

When Reagan was asked who really ran the United States, Reagan admitted: "I think there is an elite in this country and they are the ones who run an elitist government (shadow government). They want a government by a handful of people because they don't believe the people themselves can run their lives... Are we going to have an elitist government that makes decisions for people's lives or are we going to believe as we have for so many decades, that the people can make these decisions for themselves?".

It also seems that Reagan was thinking along similar lines to Jimmy Carter when he gave his pre-election promise to avoid "insiders" when selecting his cabinet. When Reagan was elected, he formed a transitional team that would act as kind of a recruitment agency for the major positions in the new administration. Of the 59 people Reagan appointed for the team, 29 were members of the CFR, ten were Bilderbergers, and astonishingly, ten were from the dreaded Trilateral Commission. With George H.W. Bush as his Vice Presidential running mate, Reagan was not about to make the CFR or the Trilateral Commission or any other secret group into a campaign issue.

When Reagan entered the White House, he appointed 12 members of the Trilateral Commission, six of whom were also CFR members. As a sign of the true state of secret group influence, there were another 64 appointees who were also members of the CFR.

This from a man that stated he would take control and keep the government from being controlled by a shadow government. He appointed the exact people he vowed not to have in his office.

Today in the Bush administration, every single appointee is a CFR member. The CFR prohibits its members from disclosing anything that has been said within it's closed meetings to outsiders. A recent breakdown of the 4200+ members today reveals that 31% come from the corporate sector, 25% come from academia, 15% from charities, 13% from government, 8% from law, 6% from the media and 2% from other professions. CFR members are on the boards of the following sample of corporations: Citicorp, J.P.Morgan Chase, Boeing, Conoco, Disney, IBM, Exxon Mobil, Dow Jones, Viacom/CBS, Time Warner, Carlyle Group, Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse First Boston, Chevron Texaco, Lockheed Martin, Hailliburton, Washington Post/Newsweek.

The CFR has been the breeding grounds for future presidents and their administrations for several decades now. Whether Republican or Democrat, the men and women in power will have been schooled in foreign relations by the council. If there is a shadow government at work then you can guarantee the puppet strings pass through the Pratt House (CFR).

--------------------------------------------------------------------

If you want to read up on the CFR (and not from the CFR itself), one good source of an examination of the CFR from it's initial creation up to today is a book written by 2 authors.

One is Thom Burnett (One of Britain's leading experts on security and military affairs. He served with UK Special Forces in the 90's and has been undertaking postgraduate research in Conspiracy Theory and Military Intelligence. The other author is Alex Games - Author and journalist for the London Evening Standard, UK's Financial Times, Sunday Times, Daily Telegraph, Guardian and Independent on Sunday).

The book is called: "Who Really Runs the World?: The war between globalization and democracy". Pages 100-120 descibe many details about the CFR's history from inception to today.

It's become part of Bush's surge propaganda to equate sectarian insurgent groups in Iraq with Al-Qaeda, especially given OBL's comments in his new video.

"A numerically small but politically significant component of the insurgency is non-Iraqi, mostly in a faction called Al Qaeda-Iraq (AQ-I). Increasingly in 2007, U.S. commanders have seemed to equate AQ-I with the insurgency, even though most of the daily attacks are carried out by Iraqi Sunni insurgents. AQ-I was founded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed in a June 7, 2006, U.S. airstrike.

AQ-I has been a U.S. focus from very early on in the war because, according to U.S. commanders in April 2007, it is responsible for about 90% of the suicide bombings against both combatant and civilian targets. AQ-I is discussed in detail in CRS Report RL32217, Iraq and Al Qaeda, by Kenneth Katzman.

In large parts of Anbar Province and now increasingly in parts of other Sunni
provinces, Sunni tribes are trying to limit Al Qaeda’s influence, which they believe is detrimental to their own interests, by cooperating with U.S. counter-insurgency efforts. In other cases, there have been clashes between AQ-I and Iraqi insurgent groups, such as in June 2007 in the Amiriyah neighborhood of Baghdad, apparently representing differences over targets and AQ-I’s reported abuses of Iraqis who do not fully cooperate with AQ-I.

U.S. commanders say they are trying to enlarge this wedge between Sunni insurgents and AQ-I by selectively cooperating with Sunni insurgents - a strategy that is controversial because of the potential of the Sunni Iraqis to later resume fighting U.S. forces and Iraqi Shiites. The strategy is reported to have led to increased tensions between Maliki and the lead U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus."

- CRS Report for Congress : Iraq Post-Saddam Security and Governance.

This of course is perfect for both Bush and OBL.

After years of talking about sectarian violence, Bush can now fear monger that leaving Iraq would create a terrorist state formed of the AlQ's Caliphate, giving him more blank checks to continue the surge and the war. Think January 2009.

While OBL can garner more support from radicals since America's president is giving him such constant praises about military operations in Iraq. Sending political bombshells via videotape in safety somewhere in the area between Pakistan and Afghanistan slowly rebuilding his organization, preparing for more attacks avoiding the attention of the US military and special forces because they are all in Iraq. He even had time to color his beard.

So both are playing into each others objectives at the expense of American and Iraqi lives.

Robert Parry covers this eloquently in Bush-Bin Laden Symbiosis Reborn.

Wouldn't surprise me in the least for special forces to be wandering around there, doing their 'just in case' thing. Or maybe "just" CIA guys.

The guy does look kinda smug-ish.

Yeah, I agree with you on the training for AA. (That 20 minute special forces training was harsh.) But fortunately it only needs to be done once, and I got through it long ago.
As for how bloody a game should be, I've never really cared for excessive in-game violence, and I think it does distract from the gameplay, so having relatively clean violence (what an odd phrase) gets my approval. Besides, I think it's more on the idea of making the game more accessible to a wider audience as opposed to sanitizing the view of war. Less graphic violence will ensure a lower ESRB rating, and that will get more players. For BF2, it helps in sales, which is important to a commercial game. And for AA, the accessibility helps with the recruitment process. (Yeah, people can boo-hoo that whole idea all they want. I don't particularly care. I enjoy the game, so I play it.)

Hmmm . . . now I'm rambling.