Immediately explained because there is no question whatsoever that’s what it was.

You have all this fake information…but from where? I know you won’t answer because it’s embarrassing….because the answer is Twitter.
None of it resembles the official reports from police, not one detail is close to correct. It’s pure unadulterated lies you bought hook line and sinker because you want to, or that you made up yourself, not because you have a scintilla of evidence, and it’s all 100% opposed by the reality that an armed MAGgot drove to Pelosi’s house with weapons and zip ties, broke in, and beat an 82 year old man he pulled out of bed with the hammer in front of police, fully dressed, screaming “where’s Nancy”.

I think you people took the fact that he’s a nudist and pretended he was nude at the failed assassination….no, that’s almost rational, I now see Musk just made it up, tweeted it out to millions, then quietly retracted it once he planted the seed of insanity in your fertile skulls, and it grew like a weed in the manure you keep there. Every accusation you make is an admission.

Depapi is pure, undeniably MAGA. You have no evidence otherwise. Police have tons to back that up.
He is far right politically, not all over the place. There were no guards, no dogs, no cameras, no alarm, no third person, no tall wall, no attacker in his underwear. Every bit of that is made up by far right liars like yourself to try to hide from the fact that he’s absolutely one of you, just like you, a splitting image of yourself, believing every crazy conspiracy theory you believe. No evidence he’s a “doper” although that would mean nothing, most republicans are dopers, rush Limbaugh was the biggest heroin addict in recent history, Trump likes speed.
Mr Pelosi called him “friend” to calm him down, not because he was his friend you tool.
Was a failed political assasination by the far right, with prodding from politicians for years up to the “fire Pelosi with a rifle” add on the day before the failed assassination.
Funny, every place your alternative facts were put up is down, not those my info came from. Derp

You just don’t like who you are and seeing yourself in the mirror disgusts you, so you came up with a story from your own life when your gay lover beat you up. It’s so incredibly stupid, and shows you are not a bit serious, just ranting and blaming anyone but terrorist maggots.

Only the completely insane like you believe everything in the universe is on their side at all times…. all truth, all facts, all ideas, all goodness, even god….but somehow you just keep losing constantly, bigly. Maybe it’s just you!

But to recap, you don’t get to ask questions until you answer one….and you can’t.

Too bad that little insurrection interrupted them from making that case then, isn’t it?
That was the plan, object, have Pence accept and agree with their baseless already litigated and found legally invalid objections to legally certified electors, then have him accept the fraudulent slates of “electors” with their forged fraudulent documents provided by the RNC without allowing for any new objection, and declare Trump president despite his losing the vote and electoral college by a historic landslide….that’s called stealing the office, and is about as anti democratic as government gets. Even Pence sees that clearly, and he’s as sycophantic as they come.
After the failed coup, that evening the sycophants in their gibbering terror dropped their ploy and objections and let Pence move on.
Must be nice to have no memory, it allows such easy rewrites of history and your positions.

Fortunately, one violent Republican subversion of democracy got in the way of another attempted Republican subversion of democracy by fraud, and put Pence in the position of going along with the president’s mob trying to hang him, or follow the law, and the facts, and not join the coup (because it was clear if he did, he would still be hanged come Jan 21st. His actions and words that day make it clear he was certain the president himself was trying to kill him by any means….that’s why he refused to leave congress with the president’s personal secret service team. He feared assasination by Trump.).

Sorry, these quasi legal manuverings have been litigated, you lost. “Can” and “could” being operative words there….the issue being the validity of the challenges. The rights interpretation of the law and their ability to circumvent it has been rejected universally by the courts, because it is blatantly disingenuous and ridiculous, ignoring precedent and historical interpretation in favor of technical loopholes that might be valid if you just ignore the rest of the law and the requirement for honesty in court….like the ploy you describe above.

You forgot the (alleged) assasination attempt on President Maduro in Venezuela. They only had two drones.

A swarm of 5200 could take out any non hardened above ground target, including the White House, and no ballistic system in use today could stop them all. Indeed, if they are programmed to come from every direction to one point, flying low, they would almost certainly go undetected until it was too late and could deliver tons (literally) of high explosives.

@bobknight33
you realize chaos is from new zealand right?
so while the democratic party may be a disgrace,unless the party is GLOBAL,it certainly is not HIS party.

i truly do not understand your (or anybodies for that matter) continued loyalty to this broken,dysfunctional and utterly corrupt two party dictatorship.

i have no issue with you pointing out the rot that has been bleeding out the democratic parties metaphorical ass.during this election cycle the DNC was caught with their hand in the cookie jar.they were exposed as the rotten and corrupt institution we all had suspected,but couldn't prove,rigging the primaries,changing the rules of application to keep people off the primary ballot (laurence lessig),and crushing one of the most promising,and politically energized campaigns by bernie sanders.(who,just like ron paul,raised his war chest on small donations).

hell,even the recent jill stein voter recount exposed even MORE DNC voter manipulations and fraud!

but are you SERIOUSLY going to sit there,and with a straight face,attempt to make the case the republicans are better?

that they are NOT just as vile,rapacious and corrupt as the democrats?

you think the democrats are the ONLY half of this two party duopoly that engages in voter fraud?
see:crosscheck
or crushes any politician that does not tow the party line?
see:ron paul

can you REALLY,without any sense of irony or sarcasm,tell me that the republican party represents YOU?

the one thing that has given me hope during this past presidential election is that my fellow americans seem to finally be getting it,finally understanding that neither the democratic party nor the republican party represent "we the people".

they represent:wall street,big banks,the military industrial complex and multi-national corporations.

and of course....their own continued power and political domination.

binary politics does not work anymore.
this false left/right dichotomy does not work anymore.
this "lesser of two evils" is no longer acceptable..any...more.

but i gather it still works for you bob.
what a waste..
you seem a decent sort,but to continue to identify with a party that has thrown you overboard decades ago....is just sad.

and i guess you will be just like those obama voters who became disturbingly silent while obama:expanded executive powers,NDAA of 2012,zero indictments to the criminals on wall street,prosecuting more whistleblowers than any other president combined,obamacare(the biggest gimme to the health insurance industry and big pharma),assasination programs,kill lists,expanding military operations into 6 other sovereign countries,regime change in libya...

those little pussies became good little apologists,and it appears YOU ...
bob..
will become a good little pussy and do your partisan duty,and turn into a dutiful little apologist for trump and the inevitable atrocities that are most certainly heading our way.

you know,i do not always agree with chaos,but at least he has BALLS.he stands for something.
you are just rooting for a certain team,might as well be rooting for the packers.
it is just so tired and WEAK...

eh..maybe you are just messing with chaos,but if that is the case,could you bring a little more flair and energy?
your technique is a tad..stale.

so step it up BOB!
your putting the audience to sleep.

The US has made the rod for its own back - torture, murder, illegal invasions, nuclear brinkmanship, extra judicial assasinations even of US 16 year olds by killer robot..

The US is about to be China's bitch for a few centuries and you idiots have made sure the ruthless dictators can LAUGH at your protestations of acting better when you had the chance - while your kid is being tortured to death and they laugh at you..

YOU DID THIS

Kitty assasinations and kitty terrorist are adorable. *promote

@bcglorf
how come it always take you 4-5 posts to get an idea across that i can relate to?
its frustrating.

dont know how you got i feel america is some kind of 'special" place.
again i seem to have failed in conveying how wretched i think my government has been for the past few decades.

irregardless...
not american eh?
interesting.....
so you think america should play the global police?
and what exactly gives us that right?
because we have the bigger guns? bigger military?

since it cant be on moral grounds it HAS to be military might.

and america only likes to play with those countries it wants/covets/desires in order to perpetuate this global hegemony thing is has going on.

god you are confusing.
on the one hand you wish to see injustice brought to its knees and are willing to make a deal with the devil to do it.

yet on the other hand you reference history as if you have a semblance of understanding and if THAT is the case then you KNOW nothing is a delineated black vs white dynamic.
nothing is ever as simple or easy as it appears.

so you choose to use american military might to crush the religious zealots and in doing so create more...
but your argument appears to be:if we use drones LESS jihadists will be created and this is a good thing.

no.
it..is ..not.

you cant have it both ways.
you cant have your justice with zero (or less) consequences.
there will ALWAYS be consequences.

do you allow a country to work their problems out (as horrific as it can become).
OR do you go in and possibly extend the suffering of normal folk?

how long?
how long do you think it morally right to intrude on another country and most likely extend conflict,while feeding the rage and resentment creating even more fanatics and zealots who only desire is to bring the suffering to your your door?

and here is what really blows me away.
you are utterly oblivious to just how arrogant your statements are.
yes they are coming from a moral outrage.
yes they are coming from a reaction to horror.
but it is still arrogant all the same.

who are you?
who are you to dictate to anyone how or what they should do?

are there homeless in your country?
are there people starving?
is there injustice?
horrors?

or is it only the countries populated by brown people where the injustices warrant violence?
should america come to your country and clean house there as well?

hell,you wanted us in syria and now pakistan.
any other country you want us to drone?
specific people?

or is it a specific religion?
you seem awfully unsure of those muslim folk.
isreal has been doing all kinds of nasty things to the palestinians for the past 80 yrs.
how come no mention of america droning them?

are you starting to see why your argument makes no sense to me?
it is illogical.

because at the end of the day the poor and less fortunate will always pay the price.
how high a price are you willing to pay for seeing a wrong righted?
does it matter that those people you wept for and were outraged for paid an even higher price?

violence begets violence.
if history taught you anything it had to be that equation.

and a drone strike is violence.
it is intimidation.
it is assasination.
and it is wrong.
without a declaration of war passed by congress and no accountability it is wrong.

i will not make a deal with the devil to get justice today.
because when payment comes due the injustices wrought will tower over everything.
i know you disagree with me.
know that i am ok with that.

@bcglorf
1.can you provide evidence that bin laden was responsible for 9/11?

and is it your contention that if the taliban had found bin laden guilty in the 90's 9/11 would have never happened?

im not being confrontational.i am trying to follow your logic.
maybe i am missing something.

2.is it your position that the causation of the current situation cannot be rectified?so therefore we must deal with it.

i have offered no course of action.
so whatever you have taken from my commentary is assumed on your part.

i do not understand your logic.
and i mean that in the most sincerest and human way.

so our country imposes sanctions that starve millions.
lets ignore that.
our country deposes and sometimes assasinates democratically elected leaders to impose depsots and tyrants who kill,maim and murder tens of thousands.
but thats not up for discussion.
our country fabricates evidence to go to war.
millions are the death toll.
but lets not examine that.

lets examine the thousands that are killed in a country that is a fight within their own borders.

and even those borders were an arbitrary drawing by the west (england in this case),which only serves to destabilize a region that was rich in culture and a far more moderate religious state than you find it today.

it is WE who radicalized THEM.
and we did it for our corporations.for profit.
to exploit regions illfit to defend themselves.
WE are the bully.
WE are the empire in star wars.

WE have lost the right to say anything in a moral argument in regards to a countries right to self determine.
because WE have shown ourselves to be,by far,the worst perpetrator of violence,murder,covert assasinations,political manipulation and brought untold suffering to countries across the globe.

WE are the greater of those two evils.
and it is about time WE shut the fuck up and leave other sovereign countries alone.
that is a course of action.
because to do otherwise the bile of hypocrisy would drown out any sense of true morality.

ok.
i am reading your response.
and trying to follow your logic..
it is..confusing.
i do not mean that in a critical way.it literally is confusing.

so let me understand this.
you think that because people pointing out the hypocrisy on american foreign policy somehow translates to a moral relativism in regards to assad?
that one is more evil than the other?
and to point to one means to ignore the other?

ok.
which one is MORE evil:
1.the assad regime which has been brutal on its own citizens.beheadings,executions in the street.the people are in a constant state of fear.
this is a common tactic for brutal dictators.fear and intimidation and when then start getting out of control? killings and maimings.of the public kind.
assad has been on the human rights watch for decades.
he is a monster.
or.
2.america and britain have been sending weapons and training a weak rebel force (for the past few years btw).after the outbreak of violence of the arab spring and assads decending hammer of escalating violence the rebels find their ranks being filled by alqeada,muslim brotherhood and other radical muslim factions.
which has the culminative effect of not only creating the civil war but prolonging it.
death tolls of innocents rising.
displaced syrians in the millions.

which of these two are "more" evil?
both caused death.
both caused suffering.
or do you think training and arming rebel factions which only serves to prolong the conflict less evil?

while evil is an arbitrary and subjective word the answer is BOTH are evil.
on a basic and human level BOTH bear responsibility.

let us continue.

now america has had a non-interventionism policy so far.just supplying training and weapons and prolonging the civil war and henceforth:the violence,death,maiming and suffering.

then two things quietly happened.
syria russia and china (iran as well) began talks to drop the petrodollar AND assad refusing a natural gas pipeline through syria (probably in order to not piss off russia).

when you realize that americas currency is almost solely propped up by the petrodollar,the current white house rhetoric starts to make more sense.

this is why evidence on who is responsible for the chemical attacks is important because the united states government used THAT as its reason for NOT entering the conflict (even though it already was involved,but not directly).the united states didnt want to get directly involved.
until the pipeline and petrodollar talks started to surface.

and then as if by magic.
a chemical attack is executed.
now assads army was winning,on all fronts.
why would he risk international intervention if he was winning?
now i am not saying that dictators and tyrants dont do dumb things,but that is dumb on an epic level.
doesnt make sense.
doesnt add up.

so the whole drumbeats for war now.
which were non-existent a month ago...
are all about "humanitarian" and "human rights" and a new "axis of evil".

bullshit.plain and simple.

this is about oil.
about the petrodollar.
this is about big business.

bryzenscki called this 20 yrs ago in his book "the grand chessboard"

and that is my counter argument.
and by your last post on my page i think you agree in some fashion.

now,
let us discuss your "final solution".
oh my friend.you accused so many of being naive.
reading your conclusion i can only shake my head.
not that i dont appreciate your time or that i dont see maybe why you feel that way.
i just dont think you grasp the enormity of it and have listened to one too many of the uber-rights "paper tiger" argument.

if we choose the path you think is the best to put assad on his heels.
america launches a limited strike on assad forces.
and lets say those strategic targets are 100% incapacitated (unlikely,but this is hypothetical).
what then?
have you considered what the reaction of russia,china,iran,saudi arabia, might be?
because according to international LAW,without a united nations concensus.russia and china AND iran would have the right to step in,set up shop and tell you to go fuck yourself.they would dare you to cross that line.
and what then?
do you cross it? and under what grounds?
you have (and when i say YOU i mean america) already disregarded every single policy put forth in regards to international law.the irony is the you (america) were vital in the creation of those very laws.(we rocked that WW2 shit son).

so pop quiz jack.what do you do?
do you really think you can ignore russia and china?ignore the international community?
do you really think the american government gives two shits about people dying in another country?
(checks long list of historical precedent)
not..one..bit.

here are the simple facts.
YOU are a compassionate human being who is outraged over the suffering and execution of innocent people.
YOU.
and i and pretty much everybody with a soul and a heart.
but YOUR argument is coming from that outrage.and man do i wish i was your age again.
god i admire you for this alone.
but the simple,hard and ugly fact is:
this country is about its own business of empire.
they could not give a fuck who is dying or being oppressed,tortured or enslaved.
i will be happy to provide the links but please dont ask...i dont wish to see your heart break anymore than it already has.
you and i live under the banner of an empire.this is fact.
this empire only cares about its own interests.

so let us talk about the very thing that is the emotional heart of the matter shall we?
the syrian people.
how do we alleviate their suffering?
how do we quell the tidal wave of dying?

a limited strike on strategic targets would help the innocents how exactly?
by bombing them?this is your logic?
or is "collateral damage" acceptable? and if so..how much?
do you realize that there are no actual 'strategic targets".assads troops are embedded just as much as the rebels are.
so..where do you hit for maximum effect?
and how many innocent deaths are acceptable?
and if the goal is to weaken assads forces,to level the playing field,wouldnt this translate to an even MORE prolonged conflict?
and wouldnt that equal even MORE innocent people dying?

this scenario is WITHOUT russia,china or iran intervening!

you are killing more and more people that i thought you wanted to save!
what are you doing man? are you crazy!

so i ask you.
what are your goals?
is it revenge?
is it regime change?
do you wish to punish assad?

then assasination is your only true option that will get the results you want and save innocent lives.

in my opinion anyways.

this is why i choose the non-intervention or the negotiation route.
yes..there will still be violence but only to a point.
when negotiations begin there is always a cease fire.
in that single move we stopped the violence.
this will also have the effect of bringing other international players to the table and much needed food,supplies and medical for the syrian people.

all kinds of goodies for the syrian people who are in such desperate need of help.
wanna go with me? ill volunteer with ya!

so which path is better for the syrian people?
a limited strike which at the very least will prolong this vicious civil war.
or negotiations which will bring a cease fire,food,water,medical help,blankets,clothes and smiles and hugs for everyone!

are ya starting to get the picture?

i have lived on three continents.
met and lived with so many interesting and amazing people.
learned about so much and was graced and touched in ways that are still incredible for me to explain.
and you have got to be the most stubborn mule i have ever met...ever.

but kid.you got some serious heart.
so you stay awesome.
namaste.

*edit-it appears assad may be the culprit.syria just accepted russias offer to impound the chemical weapons.so we know they have them.lets see what the US does.
i still think you are going to get your wish for military action.so dont be getting all depressed on me now.

http://www.aclu.org/reform-patriot-act

http://jonathanturley.org/2012/01/15/10-reasons-the-u-s-is-no-longer-the-land-of-the-free/

http://www.npr.org/news/specials/patriotact/patriotactprovisions.html

and for the person who mentioned that congress holds the most power in our legislature:
http://www.bu.edu/law/central/jd/organizations/journals/bulr/documents/MARSHALL.pdf

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2013/06/congress-government-spying-votes-charts/65969/

http://www.civilfreedoms.org/?p=7260

i could literally do this all day.
please understand my friend i am NOT buying into any media hysteria.
i just do not trust power and the past two administrations have proven they do not deserve it.

another point i would like to make is my suspicion is not the mere fact of a metadata dragnet perpetrated by the NSA.
hell..if you have a facebook you know your info is being jacked.
no..thats not where my skepticism lies.
for while i am not wholly comfortable with a government organization scooping up massive amounts of data,what bothers me far worse is our government expressly barring (verizon in this case) from letting their customers know the very existence of the program.

i also cannot nor will i ever accept the tacit and,in my opinion,bullshit reasoning that this is all about counter-terrorism.

there is far too broad a brush that can be painted with abuse.
and it is the abuse of power that i am concerned with.

see:
patriot act 1
patriot act 2
victory act 1
victory act 2
military commissions act of 2006
NDAA of 2012

which brought us the great hits of the past decade:
torture
warrantless wiretaps
illegal wars
assasinations
persecution of whistleblowers
persecution of journalists

im sorry man but we are in fundamental disagreement on this.
you see this as a necessary tool for law enforcement and counter-terrorism
and i see a horrific landscape of possible abuses by a government i feel no longer represents the citizenry but is,in fact,an arm of wall street and multi-national corporations.

and the possibilities of abuse are massive.

HA! miss you ya goober.

i dont subscribe to everything this video pontificates on.i thought it was an interesting point of view from a christian perspective.

ya know what i find even MORE interesting?
that during the bush years all my liberal/progressive friends needed medication for the rage and offense they took to the :illegal wars,wiretapping,torture etc etc.

even here on the sift the politics channel was busting with video after video of the malfeasance and outright destruction of civil liberties perpetrated by the bush administration.

and rightly so i might add.

go look at the politics channel now.
notice anything?
its dead jim.
empty and devoid of any real substantive discussion concerning obama.(or anything for that matter,its a ghost town)
who..lets be honest..is on his way to surpassing bush jr on:destruction of civil liberties,assasinations,expansion of more illegal wars.

now why is that?
when bush did it everybodies panties got knotted up but when obama not only expands executive powers but starts killing amreican citizens abroad.no trial.no jury..executes them.
and not a peep.
not even a slight foot note.(i may have just made that up but i havent seen much,and thats the truth)

so here we have a former constitutional lawyer.smart and photogenic pushing through some of the most heinous legislation and my liberal friends are silent.

so lets be clear here.obama is a product.
just like the pilsbury dough boy or the MGM lion.
and he has OWNERS.
they tell him what to do and what is in THEIR best interest.

our government has been purchased and is now a owned subsidiary of the multi-nationals and the financial industry.
and obama is the face of that subsidiary.

do i think a "new world order" is the goal?
well..naw....i think it is a select few who wish to perpetuate their own dominance and the rest of the world be damned.
they are only interested in governments in order to get what they want and what they want is to commodify everything.
they want to own it and sell it as they see fit.
water,air,food,energy...the whole kaboodle.

so if they have to purchase a government to make stealing legal or pay off a commitee in order to be able to sell poison as medicine or make GMO foods secret and non-litigious.
thats what they will do.

some right wing folks call it oligarchy.
i find that to be inaccurate.

the correct term is plutocracy.

so if you think the government under obama has become some benevolent uncle who just wishes to pass out smiles and hugs.
well....i dont think you have been paying attention.

obama is smarter and his administration far more clever but this government has EXPANDED on what bush did years ago.

so where the FUCK are my liberal friends????
has our society become so polemic that we root for "our" team like slacked jawed zombies?
look at how those teams are voting!
they are practically indistinguishable from each other!
republican..democrat..pffft..same fucking cookie.

are we so enamored with the IDEA of american politics that we cant see the reality?
its broken kids.
busted and banged up and rotten to its core.

i just dont get the silence..i really dont...
because i think thats what bothers me the most.
the silence.

/rant off

@dystopianfutetoday
excellent question and is exactly where the discussion should be.

understand i am not against regulations i.e:background checks,licenses etc etc
i also think a gun safety course should be mandatory.responsible gun safety is just being a good citizen and neighbor.

have a mental illness with a record of violence? sorry.no guns for you.
convicted of a violent crime? no guns for you either.
but these regulations are already in place and responsible gun owners are..well...responsible.

so where is the argument REALLY centered?
unregulated .or more accurately put: weakly regulated gun shows and who benefits from these gun shows? gun manufacturers.
and where do they get their political clout? NRA.where those who are already blocked from gun purchase can skirt the system and the NRA can hide behind the second amendment.

that sound like a fairly accurate assesment?

now..onto your direct question on the downside of only the police and military being armed.
simply put: i do not trust authority or to be more precise,i do not trust power because power begets more power and seeks only to retain its own power which will always lead to you losing your power of self determination in the end.

america was never designed to have a standing army and their are articles that espouse the ending of the republic if we tried.here we are going on 60 years with a standing army.how is that working out for us?

bush had his illegal wars and surveillence and obama has his assasinations.

the police,which was born from the old town sheriffs were put in place to enforce this new and noble idea america had "all equal under law".a local citizenry trained to enforce the law and protect this "property ownership" another new and novel approach to society.

what do we have now?
defense money being spent on SWAT teams who now have high powered assault weapons and tanks...TANKS!..FFS.

do i really have to make a list?
waco
ruby ridge
the list is not short.

do you see where i am going with this?
i am not speaking about right and wrong.
i am pointing to the hypocrisy.
this is about elementary morality.
i totally agree with you that violence begets violence but if we are going to take away peoples right to own guns then we need to take them away from the police as well.

because just as some seriously damaged people have wrought death and suffering,so to has our very own government officials.
having the power of the government behind their actions does NOT make it more morally acceptable.

on a personal note i find the politicizing of the sandy hook school shooting so fucking despicable and grotesque that i literally shake with rage.this goes out to both sides of this political whoring.
the NRA can go fuck itself with a dirty razor-bladed dildo and the tree-hugging,pussified everybody-wants-to-bugger-my-lil-jonny scaredy cats can go fuck off as well.

i do not carry a gun nor am i interesting in owning one but i will fight for your right to own one.they are a weapon and as such should be monitored and regulated,but they should not be banned due to a giant fear storm and an over-abundance of "what if" pontificating.

who wants to live in a minority report world?not me.
most gun owners are responsible.
most police are good at what they do.
do not let the statistics arguments allow you to give up more of your rights.

but if we are going to protest i will be there with not a single weapon on me.

In reply to this comment by enoch:
*promote the propaganda.

a 22 minute anti-obama ad using nationalism as the vehicle.
america rah rah rah!!!
honor ...duty...and the american way.
because when we come to kill you in your sovereign country,due to you being brown,nobody should be made aware of those assasinations *cough* i mean "high priority" military targets.

this video is just one big ball of bullshit.

lets ask daniel ellsberg how he feels about leaking intelligence.

*promote the propaganda.

a 22 minute anti-obama ad using nationalism as the vehicle.
america rah rah rah!!!
honor ...duty...and the american way.
because when we come to kill you in your sovereign country,due to you being brown,nobody should be made aware of those assasinations *cough* i mean "high priority" military targets.

this video is just one big ball of bullshit.

lets ask daniel ellsberg how he feels about leaking intelligence.

The regions of which you speak belong to another era. Villages out there take days to walk to along mountain trails in some of the highest mountain ranges in the world. Is similiar to a lot of terrain in Afghanistan. Natural forts.

They've never really been conquered or been part of established empire. People are still organized along tribal lines, with the tribes engaged in continuous inter-tribe warfare. Every kid is handed a gun as soon as he's old enough to shoot and raised to abide by the honour code (pashtunwali, yes they even have a name for it). When the tribe is under attack, you don't question right or wrong, you defend the tribe. They're no electricity, television, newspapers, literacy, or any other medium that counters this message. I know it sounds racist but those boys are like klingons, the Pakistani government has never really dared to take them on.

Couple that with the decades of training provided in the arts of guerilla warfare; including drug running, weapons manufacture, crude bomb manufacture, etc. by the CIA and ISI during the cold war and the Soviet invasion, means they are a force to be reckoned with as the US is finding out in Afghanistan.

Despite all of that they've never really bothered us until the "war on terror". They've always bbeen kind of our crazy cousins. We don't wanna be around them but they're family. Most of the country is similarly undeveloped (as in people still live like 3000 years ago undeveloped) and backwards. Bringing them into the modern era is a long term project but there's a 150 million more people on that waiting list.

Since the war on terror Pakistan has taken a serious beating. This was supposed to be our decade of growth instead the economy is in shambles. We've been through yet another round of Western supported, foreign policy obsessed, military dictator leaving our civil institutions in shambles. We've lost around 4 thousand soldiers another 8.5 wounded. 40 thousand civilians killed and 3.5 million internal refugees (dirt poor and starving variety).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_North-West_Pakistan

Those are big numbers, people are angry. The Americans are unlikely to win in Afghanistan. They're putting tribe against tribe. All this talk of democracy vs. extremism/terrorism is not something the average Afghan understands. The average Afghan is illiterate and does not understand complex ideas. He understands this: foreigners, christian army, my tribe has chosen this side because we always hated those other fuckers anyways. Americans will leave, leaving Pakistan with a mess. They did it before and we've been screwed since. There's a huuuuge (as in a small city big) Afghan refugee camp near where I live that's some thirty years old, from the last time American boys were in the region playing their geopolitical monopoly game. It's horrible.

From the Pakistani perspective the War on Terror has been a disaster. It's solved nothing and created tenfold the problem it aimed to solve. The Afghans are a primitive bunch (made more so by warfare) and need to establish a government, after which they will slowly over time, maybe a century, join the civilized world. Pakistan wholeheartedly supported the Taliban (as did the US) when they took control of the country and brought peace to it. Warfare is the real bitch not how "extreme" they are. Saudi's are equally nuts and there's not a single American president who doesn't go pay a visit right away upon taking office. Best friends.

Now the government/military of Pakistan is in a tricky situation, we have to play both sides, thus the lack of trust. Either side has the ability to seriously take Pakistan on and bring it to it's knees. The government the American's have propped up in Kabul wouldn't last a month without them, is corrupt, and allied to the Indians, with whom we see ourselves as being in a state of justified war. What to do!? What to do!? (in a indian accent).

I guess my point being, we're actually not a bad bunch. Just in a shitty situation. Come sometime and I can show you around. Most of the country is safe. Safer than mexico anyways.

Sorry that was a long post





>> ^bcglorf:

>> ^FermitTheKrog:
Thanks for having a more nuanced understanding of the matter... thought I'd share a Pakistani perspective:
-Yes, no arabs here. Lots of Muslims though as in loads of other countries:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Muslim_population
-Pakistani's despise the drone strikes for the same reason we despised the Bin Laden assasination. It is a terrible loss of sovereignity to have foreign soldiers killing with impunity, racking up civilian casualties, within your borders. It makes the matter worse, Pakistan is radicalizing tremendously fast and every time the US flattens another village in Afghanistan or our border regions, everytime American troops accidentally kill ours, that pace accelerates.
-An analogy: If Mexico had drones over the US taking out gang leaders in LA, the US would flatten Mexico in response. All we do is get angry.
-Things are not that bad: Liberals are not dying off. We are in government by popular vote. The Pakistani military is not some tinpot force, it is very much in control of itself and thus of it's nukes. We will deal with the militancy problem over time; education, economic opputurnity, writ of law; not bombs. We are a third world country, Afghanistan has been a war zone forever now, these things take time, most of us still shit in fields, out people are hungry, we have bigger problems to deal with than car bombs.
-In Pakistan, conservatives want the American's gone because they are an imperial force at our doorstep. All talk of human rights and democracy is hogwash. Palestine is the example. Amongst the ultra right (3-4% of the population, I'm sure you have them too, wherever you are) the "we" is Muslims and the "them" is a collaboration of Zionists and American bible thumpers.
Liberals want the American's gone because they are an imperial force at our doorstep. All talk of human rights and democracy is hogwash. Saudi Arab is the example. If they go away we can educate our people out of the mental cesspit they seem to be headed into. American bombs make us look like traitors to our people and weaken our stance.
Thanks for listening. Open to discussion


>> ^bcglorf:
>> ^vaire2ube:
well the trick is eventually we dont tell the kids running the drones that its actually REALITY! Ahh! Ender's Game!
But by then the arabs formics will be gone.

The populations in Afghanistan and Pakistan are primarily Muslim, not Arab. There are in fact more Arabs living in America than there are in Afghanistan and Pakistan combined.
I know, not your point at all, but if you try and hash out the real news by reading through middle eastern news outlets you won't be able to make head from tails wondering why a pro-Arab outlet like Al Jazeera would willingly say anything bad about Iran. It's not until realizing that Iran is largely Persian and not Arab that it makes any sense.
I rant about this because it's crazily important and the details matter. American drone attacks have killed hundreds within Pakistan, but even by Pakistan's most anti-American media those people were largely militants responsible for killing Pakistani civilians. The Pakistani Taliban have meanwhile killed thousands of civilians, including former PM Benazir Bhutto, and there is infinitely more outrage and hatred for America's drones than for the Pakistani Taliban. It's something important to think about. What's more, there is MORE hatred in Pakistan over America's raid that killed Bin Laden than there is for the unmanned drone attacks. That's even more important to think about.
The reality is that the moderates in Pakistan are fighting an uphill struggle in Pakistan. We need them to win but they are being killed off faster than we can defend them, and even attempting to defend them is hurting their cause to boot. It's easy to declare that a strategy is bad and has horrible consequences, it's a lot more important though to propose a better alternative. Stop the attacks and do nothing means a Pakistan where the Taliban where still best friends with the military and intelligence agencies. It means a nuclear armed state that was best friends with terrorist organizations eager to use those nuclear weapons in their jihad while we lacked any way of assessing just how close and willing their partnership was. Don't dismiss this assessment as doomsday fear mongering. One of the debates in Pakistan's national assemblies after Osama's death included elected representatives bemoaning Pakistan's failure to protect a great Muslim hero like Bin Laden. Pakistan is a battle ground between extremist and moderate populations and we have a very vested interest in who wins that struggle.


Thank you for adding so much to the discussion, very much appreciated.
Yes, I do understand the sovereignty issue looms huge in the opinion of American actions within Pakistan's borders. I can really understand how that would enrage anyone with any manner of national pride. America is in a tough spot though too. The mountainous tribal regions along the Pak-Afghan border are not under the control of the Pakistani central government. On paper the border may run there, but in practice militants can relatively safely travel back and forth between the two. What's more, there still remain places within Pakistan's proper borders that are controlled by the local tribal leaders, and NOT the central Pakistani government. Those local tribal leaders are allying themselves to the Pakistani Taliban and providing them safe haven within Pakistan to launch attacks in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Afghan part does make it America's business. The Pakistani part in my humble opinion, should be a source of greater public outrage than it is.
I guess I find it worrying that extremists can be in de-facto control of large swathes of land within Pakistan's proper borders. So much so that it is still unsafe for the Pakistani police and even military to patrol there. To me, that seems like it is already an enormous sovereignty issue. America's attacks against militants in that region I can understand being a source of outrage. I don't understand why there isn't equal or greater outrage that those regions on the ground are no longer under the control of the Pakistani government at all and being used as a base of operations for launching attacks on the rest of Pakistan.
I think America's problem is knowing whom they can trust within Pakistan's power structure to work against rather than with extremists like the Taliban. Hamid Gul, former leader of Pakistan's ISI, scares the crap out of me. How many of his friends are still in the ISI that think like him? The JUI-F party declared Osama a muslim hero in Pakistan's National Assemblies. How much support has that party been able to hold onto within Pakistan still after taking that stance? Political parties like the PPP seem to share alot of moderate values, but have historically been ridden out of office by the military every few years.
Do you have good reasons that those fears are unfounded? From what I see and read(largely from "The News International") the moderates like yourself have always been in an uphill struggle against extremists and the opportunists willing to work with them.