"Make the United States safer". Oh, ffs. Anyone else immediately think of Ben Franklin when you hear this bullshit line? I'll trade a 9/11 and a Boston bombing every decade for the governement staying the hell out of my phone and my computer. (Omg, am I starting to sound like goptea'er?). This crap that Obama spewed the other night, roughly "you can't have both 100% security and 100% privacy", is the ol' statue-of-liberty play. He's implying that these programs provide 100% security. You can dismiss everything he says after that because his premise is FALSE. You can dismiss everything he said before that as well, but that's another rant.

And Mika, you can't demand a "yes or no" answer when you just don't want to hear the explanation. There is a very good reason why you weren't paid as much as Joe, and you should thank your lucky stars they still let you read the intros. And stop with the huffing and tsk'ing and eyerolls. You're starting to look and sound llike one of those shrill FOX "analysts".

Willie, what a dumb question. Of course there is a difference between state secrets that do not inpinge on our freedoms and rights of privacy and those that do, you knob. Some would even say the ultimate purpose of maintaining state secrets is to assist in protecting the very American freedoms and rights that are being grossly abused by these programs. The difference between Manning and Snowden is that Manning exposed warcrimes and other abuses being committed on brown people, and Snowden exposed an invasive, Orwellian-level spying and data-mining infrastructure being used on Americans by our own government. So yeah, a little different. So what? Both heroes. And it infuriates me when our government goes after them and tries to paint them as treasonists. They have committed no crimes against America because the government is not America. It's straight-up self-preservation, and has nothing to do with protecting the citizens of this country and the tenets on which this country was founded. What Manning and Snowden did, however, does.

There was once a time when democracies around the world, whether imminent, new, or struggling, could look to the US for inspiration. Now, we could learn much today from a country like Turkey. They get it. It took a few whacks with police batons, and lots and lots of tear-gas, but they get it now. They get beat down, and get smarter and angrier. We just get dumber and dumber no matter what this government says or does.

“The IQ and the life expectancy of the average American recently passed each other in opposite directions.”
― George Carlin

“Go back to bed, America. Your government has figured out how it all transpired. Go back to bed, America. Your government is in control again. Here. Here's American Gladiators. Watch this, shut up. Go back to bed, America. Here is American Gladiators. Here is 56 channels of it! Watch these pituitary retards bang their fucking skulls together and congratulate you on living in the land of freedom. Here you go, America! You are free to do what we tell you! You are free to do what we tell you!”
― Bill Hicks

>> ^cracanata:

It's OK I can take some criticism, but still the problem is right there. What would it be the solution? How should the military respond to this, female only army? Or just recruit only feminists and hipsters, that will defeat the purpose of having a strong army. In my opinion a strong army is made of strong individuals that most of the times are just the sort of individuals that have low respect for life otherwise will be a weak army. War isn't about feelings and fairness in my opinion.
If that makes me a lunatic that has no morals so be it. Still you'll have to remember that war is shit. And I'm not even defending war or advocating for rapists, only trying to make some sense with what the subject offers.
>> ^Yogi:
>> ^cracanata:
War zone isn't a place for manners and PC, war is war on any front bringing stress and frustration and in this case the sexual frustration is showing it's teeth. Females should acknowledge the facts in respect of what the war is doing to the males before jumping into this "serving the country" boat, hell even most of men have no clue beforehand. The way I see it - war brings you closer to your natural roots in terms of instincts and needs especially for sexually troubled soon to be adults males.
To me this looks more like a calculated damage form the radical feminists, to further push the anti male agenda, the "Man are Pigs and something has to be done about it"
Also would be very interesting to know what exactly constitutes as "rape" in today's america. For my knowledge there is a very wide range of actions or situations that constitutes as rape or sexual assault in this day and age and has nothing to do with the sexual intercourse.
I might be wrong, I'm no expert, but honestly the PC is sickens me.

No what this does is acknowledge that male soldiers rape female soldiers and something must be done about it, because what's being done is trying to actively exonerate rapists. You're like a racist saying, "well black people should understand that they're property and trying to change that is wrong."
You're a lunatic that has no morals.


hmm, i think a good start would be to acknowledge the victims of rape and prosecute the perps? As previously mentioned, the fact that rape exists in the military isn't especially shocking. What is shocking and surprising is this "boys will be boys" military attitude regarding the rapes. Lets be clear here. A strong military needs proficient female soldiers. If you want the best then you better not limit yourself to 50% of the population. Women shouldn't expect to be raped for serving their country anymore than they should expect to be raped when they wear something that doesn't reach their knees...The stress of war dies not excuse rape. Rapists have demonstrated that they are capable of committing this heinous crime against their comrades - the frontline of war is the last place such a person should be unless you like inviting warcrime tribunals upon yourself.


I think that maybe you advocating for the Devil...but I do wonder why.

Cheney is fighting hard to save his ass.. simple as that. His head is (hopefully) going to be on the chopping block once the pussies in congress get off their asses and get some balls to prosecute warcrimes and abuse of power.

Cheney knows that the tide can turn against him. He has no other defense than to come out fists swinging. Fight it out, or go down in flames. He can't be any worse off than he already is.

BTW when will your God Obama be dismantling the Patriot Act and disbanding the Dept. Of Homeland?

I'm guessing as soon as he's fixed the economy and done all the other things he never promised to do?

I'd want him to do both, and to trial the Cheney/Rove/Bush regime for treason and warcrime, I'd want him to legalize pot too. But again, he never promised to do any of that stuff, and he probably never will.

Your argument is the perfect example of the strawman fallacy, where you set up an easy target that your opponent never came at you with (a strawman) and then knock it down with overwhelming force. It may look impressive, but its not. The thing is, I'm not sure if you're trying to fool everyone else with this empty babble, or if these sentences makes sense in your own head somewhere. Either way its pretty pathetic.

Actually, you cant sue Israel for warcrimes since they are 1 of the 2 countries in this world who do not recognize the international war tribunal. The other being the US BTW ;-)

Yep, he saved us from "further attacks". To quote some great programming...

That's like the babysitter letting one of the toddlers get run over in the street and then locking up all the kids in the basement in shackles until the parents come home, and saying, see, I prevented further injuries. Heckuva job Bushie.

History will remember the PDB. History will remember the warcrimes and rape of the Constitution and civil liberties. History will remember the corporate rape of the economy and environment and pension funds.

A big old fuck you.

The Shirley Temple version:

Drink everytime anyone mentions:
* Ending and abolishing torture
* Ending violence in Gaza / Iraq / Afghanistan
* Ending illegal spying on citizens
* Holdings banks and corporations accountable with bailout money
* Taxing all the corporation money being hidden in offshore accounts
* Canceling tax deductions and govt money for companies outsourcing jobs
* Penalize CEOs and corporations who move jobs overseas
* Investigating crimes of Bush Adminstration
* Warcrimes
* Prosecuting the financial crimes like 9/11 shorts, Madoff ponzi, Freddie & Fannie toxic derivatives
* Ever rebuilding NOLA and letting people move back home
* Restoring the pension funds stolen by Cheney's energy buddies in Enron scam
* Enforcing FISA, PRA, or any type of Congressional oversight
* undoing the damage done by lax or revoked EPA rules
* Returning the FCC control back to citizens and no the highest bidder
* Cracking down on monopolies (especially with media outlets)

>> ^quantumushroom:
Hamas hides munitions in mosques and schools, uses ambulances to transport armed men, fires rockets into Israel (10,000 since 2001) and then has their brave "warriors" hide among their own women and children.
Whether you support or condemn Israel is secondary to intellectual honesty. There are two sides to this story and Israel ain't the side strapping bombs to their kids.


Funny quote qm, part of that's almost verbatim from the thread in which i made you look foolish.

I worry when i see the first few posts saying "I hope people wake up to the reality" when the video is from 2002. Even if it was from the present day, what is there for american viewers to wake up to? It's none of your business. There is bad on both sides, don't get involved until it becomes absolutely undeniable that there are warcrimes going on and a peace-keeping force needs to be dispatched, and even then make sure. Because remember how it went the last time you dragged the west into a conflict based on shoddy reasons.

It's not a warcrime to destroy a medical vehicle if it's used to carry bombs, either, is it? [citation needed]

If hitler never actually put his hands on a person or committed an offence other than ordering others to do his bidding, is he innocent also?

If you see it as a war, he is probably therefore guilty of warcrimes and would be put to death anyway? (War crimes perhaps being mass murder, mistreatment of civilians/prisoners?)

>> ^gwiz665:
I can't wait till Bush is thrown out of the white house and into a court room. Oh, won't that be grand?


He actually got a bill signed into law that pardons him and his entire administration for past, present, and future warcrimes. Don't hold your breath.

> He can still be tried for warcrimes and hopefully
> for them, barnacle or not.

Would like to see Robert Di Nero try him, Cape Fear houseboat style.

He can still be tried for warcrimes and hopefully for them, barnacle or not.

Why isn't President Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and Tennet thrown straight to Hague for warcrimes or crimes against humanity? They FUCKING SHOULD!

top comments both of ya... i think this is very much a macro/micro thing.
if you look at the big picture, it's 99% clear that very naughty warcrimes have been committed, even if you support the aim and outcome, it's freaking illegal for very good historic reasons.
but if you consider this one case, it would be very unfair to say anything bad about what she did.
but personally i would be a conscientious objector unless my family was directly threatened, in which case i hope i would have the guts to fight for what i believed in... i was a cadet after all.
but never would i sign up for some random president's whim or to prevent a theoretical future crisis based on nonexistent evidence.