@bcglorf
this assumes there will be no consequences for breaking the rules or no structure in place to enforce those rules.this implies that if their WAS no enforcement,everybody would spend the entire day robbing,raping and causing mayhem.

so you are right,the base argument is indeed intellectually dishonest,but is also not an argument FOR a militarized police force.the real arguments is the laws themselves.

start with more humane and common sense laws and the need for a massive police force becomes irrelevant.

in an anarchal system it is the people who are the representatives who create legislation.
lets take the iraq war of 2003,where the american people were overwhelmingly against going into iraq..yet we still invaded.representative democracy? not a shot.
or in 2008 when the american people,in a massive majority,rejected the bailout and wished to see the perpetrators held accountable.well? what happened? i think you know.

anarchism is a varied and dynamic political view.its not just one simple flavor.do you see trance and i agreeing on much?my politics over-laps with trance but it does with @newtboy and @ChaosEngine as well.

the basic gist is individual liberty trumps everything and that the structures put in place should be temporary and be directed from the bottom up,not the top down.we realize that we live in a society populated by people and it should be the people who direct where that society should be going.we have no need or use for "leaders" or "rulers" and when the "representatives" have obviously jumped the shark to whore to their donors,it is time to question/criticize the system and not just replace the crack whore with a meth whore.

anarchy is simply a political philosophy,thats it.

so we would see:
zero wars of aggression
no more criminalized drug addicts or poor people
no more corporate welfare
and most likely the people would vote out the federal reserve and print its own currency.

anarchists prefer direct democracy but will accept representative if they are actually being represented.(though begrudgingly).

you should read up on some anarchy.you may find some very food ideas and while not a perfect political philosophy,the one thing it does offer that i find most appealing:if it aint working...vote it out.

Saw in the news the Supreme Court upheld the right to restrict cover (5:4), for "closely-held" corporations based on a 1993 law that limited the ability to restrict religious freedoms.

I kind of see the logic of saying that if non-profits corporations can already avoid providing it (which seems to be the case), then for profit corporations should have the same rights. But then I don't see why non-profits should have had the right to deny it either.

Either way though, I agree with John Oliver's bit. Plenty of people would have liked to veto funding for the Iraq war but obviously never had the option. To say that religious objections are specifically excluded is highly arbitrary. No employees who receive a salary should be excluded.

The "closely-held" provision is also highly arbitrary, almost implying that the court doesn't like the law and are trying to limit it's impact. Maybe it was some kind of compromise to get a majority. Either way, I imagine the notion of "closely-held" will be stretched as loosely as possible in practice.

http://time.com/2940577/supreme-court-hobby-lobby-contraception-obamacare/

@newtboy,

Who'd of thought our back and forth would wind up the civil portion of the thread?

On veracity, accuracy and demonstrable evidence please note I twice provided external links beyond my own day so. The last being to a thoroughly researched and documented account from Human Rights Watch. The only claimed verbatim quote I included was italicized to make clear what was quote versus a shorten in my own words summary. I included a link to the full document so anyone questioning my summary is very to call me out on specifics. Thus far the only in accuracy in aware of has been corrected. If you believe I'm in any other way mischaracterizing events as HRW documented it ask you to point it more specifically or failing that cease insisting that my account is anything less than very thoroughly backed by very well evidenced research.

By way of declaring lesser evils, I would ask you to be specific about worst ISIS has done that you feel so trumps the million dead of the Iran Iraq war and Saddam's multiple genocidal campaigns.

Lastly on ISIL, I don't think they are specifically the ones to stay up at night over anyways. Nouri Al-Maliki's credentials as a brutal thug are underestimated quite widely IMO and I very much expect the real nastiness will come from his crushing of Sunni Iraqis in the guise of stopping ISIL. Ugly times ahead, but I fear the guys your worried about are going to be taking it more than dishing it out, sadly leaving more Sunni Iraqi civilians dead than anyone else.

Saddam started the Iran Iraq war, which saw over a million dead, including the most prolific deployment of chemical weapons since WW1.

Saddam followed that up with the Al-Anfal campaign. Read up on it, it's one of the most brutal attempts at genocide in recent history, including chemical weapons, concentration camps, over a hundred thousand deaths and an effort to breed the Kurds out of existence through systematic rape of Kurdish women.

Saddam followed that up with the complete annexation of Kuwait. Effectively removing a UN member state and claiming at as part of his Iraq.

Saddam followed up his forced removal from Kuwait with a retaliatory genocide of Shia Iraqis again topping a hundred thousand dead again.

But yeah, he fortunately lacked the military might to succeed in such ventures for a time. He was bluffing having stocks of chemical and nuclear weapons to keep his neighbours in check. Pity he was removed from power then and we didn't wait till he could make good on his bluff.

This sounds like damage control from RT. I think the tacit deal was, you keep some independence to say what you want and in return you answer every question about RT bias by deflecting it to the general media. She's not wrong about that, but she's clearly avoiding the question which flies in the face of her apparent independence.

I would also say that the way US media censors, (1) fitting a conservative or liberal narrative because its more profitable like MSNBC and Fox News or (2) towing the government line when it has high approval ratings, as it was leading up to the Iraq war - is different to simply being directly under the thumb of government censors.

@bcglorf @Fairbs

I used to hold the same view on military intervention. If only it were applied impartially by a nation or alliance, then any would be genocidal leader would be deterred by threat of imprisonment or death.

However we all know that in reality this is stymied by the lack of altruistic intentions, the political dimensions of risking soldiers' lives in foreign wars and the unintended consequences of even fully altruistic intervention.

I can't really argue against there being a case for intervention in Rwanda or after Saddam gassed the Kurds.

A sufficiently large force by the US/NATO would have probably deterred the Hutu militias in Rwanda from waging their genocide. Had the international community demanded Kurdish sovereignty from Iraq following the gas attacks, Saddam would have probably accepted it coming off the Iran-Iraq war for fear of being attacked by Iran while he waged a civil war.

In either case I can also play devil's advocate. Would the inevitable Tutsi government set up by intervening forces in Rwanda have been seen as legitimate by its people? Would reconciliation really have been effective if it was effectively imposed by outside powers? Would civil war have reignited? Even with how things turned out in the absence, we know that Kagame's government is increasingly authoritarian and has supported militias like M23 in Congo against the remnants of Hutu militias which has itself been a source of much death and violence. In the case of the Kurds, what if calls for cession resonated in the Kurdish population in Syria and Iran and the opposition turned violent in those countries?

In most cases, while hypothetical intervention may appear the clear moral ground I just can't be certain the outcome would have been better. In the case of Rwanda, probably, a large portion of the 500,000 lives lost would have been spared. In the case of the Iraqi Kurds, no intervention would have pre-empted the initial gas attack, however inciting the situation could have resulted in more people dying in violent struggle and resistance.

It's a more sinister piece of propaganda than that though, at least in that it IS citing true facts. For all the quotes save for those from the newly elected president(which I just haven't searched) there exists written and video evidence of the attributed quotes and none of the leaders quoted would deny them.

The propaganda part is in completely leaving out the reasons for the overthrow of the Shah, who was running a brutal regime of his own over the Iranian people. If the American support for the Shah wasn't enough reason for mistrust of America, there was the American backing of Saddam in the Iran-Iraq war that saw hundreds of thousands of Iranians killed in Saddam's war of aggression. That war included some of the most prolific use of chemical weapons in, well, pretty much ever and the use was entirely against the Iranians. The public support for anti-American sentiment didn't come out of a vacuum.

That said, the mistrust cuts both ways and with Iranian leadership promising death to America and Israel for the last couple decades while steadily building up the infrastructure required to build nuclear weapons is legitimately cause for concern too.

Sorry, I think that got long and preachy.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'iraq war, marine, corruption' to 'iraq war, marine, corruption, Mike Prysner' - edited by eric3579

This country could have hardly ever been called a Representative Democracy. I had the fortune to meet quite a number of WW1 vets in the 80s. More than a few of them told me stories that were more than shades of what happened during the Vietnam war, the first Iraq war, and now the last 10 years. Men who were more than 80 who recounted being sent to battle to protect the interests of the rich. This has been going on for a very long time.

Off the start, there's a good chance I'm older than you .

My real problem isn't the moral relativism angle. It is the mindset of holding America to a higher standard not only when placing expectations on it, but when analyzing a situation and the expected results. The situation with the recent chemical weapons attack isn't at all special. War crimes are almost always committed within the fog of war. The trouble I have is people that are completely willing to accepted circumstantial evidence or even simply motive for accusations against America or an ally, but if it's the other side suddenly the burden of proof becomes much, much higher. List a heading that American forces were involved in a massacre of dozens in Iraq or Afghanistan and people just say yep, must be true. List the same heading that Assad has done the same and the response is show us the proof! That attitude and mindset is what I mean to oppose.

You asked who is 'more' evil, or which actions are more evil. Arming and training Syrian rebels, or Assad waging his campaign against them. Assad rules Syria because his father ruled Syria. His father held onto his control by massacring an entire town when the brotherhood spoke up. In the current conflict, the uprising started up as peaceful protests. Assad broke that peace by shooting the protesters when it became clear they weren't stopping.

When it comes to concern for international law, I don't understand if you've been paying attention to it for the last couple decades. When push comes to shove, NOBODY cares about international laws. Well, at least nobody making decisions on the international playing field. International laws did a great job protecting people in Darfur. International laws did a great job protecting Rwandans. International laws did a great job in Chechnya, Serbia, Somalia and on and on and on. Russia, China and Iran will respond to the situation in Syria based on the perceived benefit to them, just the same as America, Israel and everyone else, and not a one of them will waste a thought for international law at the end of the day. The only thing they will consider is what impact they expect their actions to have and they will choose the one they perceive to have the greatest benefit to them. Syria is long on it's way into a quagmire, and not a place of great value to Russia or China for long if the status quo continues. That is why you see their rhetoric softening, because they just have less to gain by maintaining their relationship with a regime that holds less and less control over it's resources.

What I would like to see if I got to play quarterback is the imposition of a no fly zone over regions of Syria, much like in Libya and northern Iraq after the first Gulf war. That alone could force enough of a line where neither Assad nor the rebels could hope to make serious in grounds upon each other. You might even persuade people to talk then but the 'cease fire', even then, would make the Israel/Palestine borders look pristine. I don't see Obama or Putin being dumb enough to each put their own boots on the ground to start anything over Syria. Neither one of them has reason to care enough. Putin, through Iran has strategic access to all of Iran and most of Iraq as it is, and solidifying relationships through Iraq is more than enough to keep Iran occupied.

i guess in the end I do not choose the non-intervention route because if you allow dictators to use chemical weapons to hold onto power, what exactly IS worth intervening for? During the Darfur genocide all the same arguments kept everyone out because you don't want to worsen a civil war. In Rwanda, same story. In Iraq it took 3 campaigns of murdering 100s of thousands before anyone finally took sides against Saddam, and even then his removal is held up as on of the worst violations of international laws and norms ever. It'd be nice for a change to at least find someone that figures starting the Iran-Iraq war and the Al-Anfal campaign against the Kurds where even worse. Far more people died, and the sole end game of them was to enhance the prestige and power of a mad man.

Yes, insisting that diplomacy is likely to stop Assad's continued campaign of murdering his own people is a problem for me. Sure, maybe I should just accept it as naive and not malicious, but people are being killed while the world stands around yet again refusing to do anything, and that makes me angry.

I'm not trying to whitewash America's role in Iraq either. If anything I'd say my picture is a lot blacker than the people I disagree with the most. The only point I think I differ on is that I DO hold Saddam even more responsible for what he did than America or Saudi Arabia or any of his other backers. I see no reason to apologize for that. Read up on Saddam's Al Anfal campaign against the Kurds, his gassing of Kurdish villages was the least of the atrocities he committed against the Kurds. Saddam had been destroying everything in Iraq the entire time he was in power, from the absolute repression that was everyday life, to the endless feeding of Iraqi bodies to into the Iran-Iraq war, to the genocide of the Kurds, to the genocide of the Shia, Saddam had killed millions of Iraqis and systematically orchestrated and encouraged sectarian hatred and divisions. All that time America continued to callously back him because America was happy to see Iraq and Iran bleed themselves out against each other. If I find some solace in finally, at long last seeing America change it's tune and finally opposing Saddam it's not for because I think America is some humanitarian entity. You list all the devastation in Iraq since the American invasion, but just what realistic alternative version of Iraq do you see could exist today if non-intervention had been held to? Iraq today would STILL be under Saddam's control today, and I would insist anyone wanting that alternative doesn't know what Saddam really was like. I also insist it must be known that the Iraqi people were NOT going to manage to liberate themselves without foreign intervention. The Kurds contemplated it once, and it ended in a campaign of genocide and systematic rape to breed the Kurds out of existence. The Shia tried it once, and it ended in genocide for them too. The Iraqi people knew exactly how opposition to Saddam ended and it was NOT going to happen without someone coming in from outside.

Maybe I just see the world as that much more awful and horrific a place. Just because things are bad and horrific doesn't mean they couldn't be a far sight worse, and in fact haven't been a far sight worse in the recent past.

I don't object to demands for caution and concern that getting involved in a conflict can lead it escalate. I object to defending dictators with impossible barriers and burdens of proof. The fact the UN teams have trouble getting evidence shouldn't be touted as reason to question Assad's involvement when he steadily interferes and endeavors to hinder the UN investigations. If we require concrete evidence before declaring Assad guilty, and Assad refuses the UN access until they have concrete evidence a problem has arisen, no?

@enoch,

If Israel is the only place you've seen evidence from then you are reading the wrong news sources. Al Jazeera's coverage and first whiff of the chemical weapon story originally came from reports by field medics in Syria observing huge numbers of dead in the area with no noticeable violent cause of death. Al Jazeera then reported on the UN inspection team set to go into the area to gather evidence of what happened, noting Assad's steadfast refusal to allow the team access to the area. When the team finally was granted much delayed access to the area they were shot at on the way by snipers within territory controlled by Assad. Now Putin is on television not to deny that chemical weapons were used, not even to deny there is sufficient evidence to conclude that they were used, but instead to make the sole denial that we lack evidence of who used the chemical weapons deployed against the civilians in a rebel stronghold. That is as much or more evidence than we had of the gassing of Iraqi Kurds or the Rwandan genocide while they were in progress. Sure, the world denied both of those as well until they were long over, but I resent that and want that willful contempt for civilian suffering to change.

As for your followup questions, I don't much care WHO goes in and punishes Assad's regime for it's crimes so long as it succeeds in discouraging him from continuing to do so. I'd support Putin sending in a limited strike against Assad's suspected chemical weapons supplies. I want to see ANYBODY step up and say using chemical weapons against civilians is sufficient crime to warrant a military response to ensure that dictators don't have more to gain than lose by doing so.

You seem to have a very perverted way of looking at things. You are so interested in America's past crimes of both action and inaction that you don't seem to actually give any though or consideration to what you'd actually WANT to see done. America supported Saddam while he waged a war with Iran that killed millions and saw extensive use of chemical weapons. America entirely ignored the genocide in Rwanda. You seem to share a contempt for those things with me. I at least assume so by you referencing the general idea behind them as a list of reasons America is no white knight or respectable global police force. If you agree those actions where horrifically wrong though, doesn't it follow that if you could turn back time, you'd be willing to advocate for American action in Rwanda? That you'd advocate for at the least American sanction on Saddam during the Iran-Iraq war, if not outright military action to stop his excessive deployment of chemical weapons?

You can't have it both ways, if you decry American action and inaction in the past, that must amount to a call for taking a different and better course.

But every single quote that TYT ran there was from the AFTER part of the article where Card has clearly stated this is the fictional account of what the future under Obama would be like in the event that he was a Stalin or Hitler. Prior to that Card just discussed his own opinion, with strong right leanings, but hardly any worse than is daily said against Bush by Cenk.

Bold face lying about what Card said is not made OK because he happens to be a republican that believes the Iraq war was justifiable and that the media outside of Fox has given Obama a free ride.

@skinnydaddy1
seriously dude?

redirect? are you even aware of the meaning of that term?
i have been very clear on my position.
i was just addressing your apparent cognitive dissonance which you just solidified in your last comment.

so i gather you are going to stick with your SECOND position and have decided to abandon your FIRST position.

ok..fine.
this is starting to bore me anyways.

1.what war crimes did he show?
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/16731-bradley-mannings-legal-duty-to-expose-war-crimes

http://pakistan.shafaqna.com/shafaq/item/10102-bradley-manning-exposed-us-%E2%80%98war-crimes%E2%80%99.html

2.what corruption did he show?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/22/iraq-war-logs-military-leaks

3.what did he do that made him your hero?
already answered.multiple times.

4.For there to be whistleblower should there not be something wrong that he has knowledge of?
see:links above

5.He stated he did not like what was being done in the United States citizens names. What exactly? And what gave him the right to claim anything in my name? anyone's name?

again,see:links above.
your consequent follow up questions deal with a subjective morality.the answer will be different for everyone and manning has already explained quite clearly his reasons.

i presume those reasons are not adequate for you and you would have chosen a different path and hold manning in contempt.
it appears you put your oath above all else.
even at the detriment of others.

on this we fundamentally disagree.

6.You and the rest of your little group keep saying the same thing and yet never manager to answer a single question. What makes him a hero?

me and my little group like to "read".

i suggest you do the same.

i am now done with this.i can already see where this is going.your desire to be "right" will over-power your ability to listen to dissenting voices contradicting your internal narrative.

any and all new information with be dealt with as somehow being inherently "wrong" for the simple fact of being in conflict with your opinion.
which will devolve any productive discussion into a quagmire of red herrings and straw man arguments.

and all of it predicated on the assumption that i wish to change your mind in regards to this particular incident.

which of course i dont.
because i dont really care what you think.

your ignorance is obvious.
your arguments are flimsy and disjointed and in direct conflict with each other.
but most of all....
you are boring.

@Confucius

thank you so very much for taking the time to clarify your position.
but i think we are in a fundamental disagreement.
and here is why:

1.manning approached wikileaks.not the other way around.
2.is manning a traitor or patriot? i guess it depends on the perspective.
but manning was quite clear his reasons behind revealing those documents and none of those reasons were of being naive' or subverted by a third party.

when you consider the oath of military responsibility,an i oath i took over 25 years ago,the line that stands out is "to protect from enemies both foreign and domestic".
could those documents be seen as subverting the american people?
and if so,would that not make revealing those documents a patriotic act?

again,perspective and i guess we disagree.

conversely, if we use your premise then we would have to view this man:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg
as a traitor.
now the 70,000 plus documents HE revealed exposed the gulf of tonkin AND extremely sensitive data concerning the vietnam war.i would go as far to say that without this mans courage (yes..courage) to expose the lies of our government,vietnam may have lasted for a much longer time.ellisberg fascillitated the beginning of the end of the vietnam war

the documents manning revealed just left the american government red faced and embarrassed but nothing of strategic value.ellisberg on the other hand revealed much MUCH more.

traitor or patriot? by your definition:traitor and a far worse one than manning.

and on that we disagree.

what we agree on is that governments lie.
we are in unison on this point but we diverge on how to deal with the situation.

you suggest to work within the bounds of journalism or becoming a politician.
now who is being the naive one?
this implies that the 4th estate is in perfect functioning order and that politicians are informed on all matters.

i submit that neither is the case.
a corporate run new media which engages mainly in sensationalism and hyperbolic opinion rhetoric and a legislature that is mostly subserviant to their financial backers( basically wall street) are not the institutions to tackle and uncover government malfeasance and outright lies.

they have been corrupted.see:iraq war

so i find it disturbing when the government hi-jacks 200 ap reporters emails and phone records.

or when a low level private reveals low level ambassador documents.

or my government's justice department prosecutes SIX people under the espionage act but not ONE indictment concerning wall street.

the message is clear:we are the US government.fuck with us and we will fuck you up.citizen or non-citizen.
there will be no journalism.
there will be no leaking of anything.
sit down and shut up.

or we will ruin you.

government by the people for the people right?