Slashdot Mirror

user melted gave a short answer, but lets go:
1.0 - Washington's Man Yatsenyuk Setting Ukraine Up For Ruin
1.1 - Ukraine: One ‘Regime Change’ Too Many?
2 - Syria: From the Global Intelligence Files in 2011, about the US financing anyone available to fight against Assad (read terrorists/"rebels"), and being interested in a big humanitarian disaster. Quotes from the e-mail:

they said without saying that SOF teams (presumably from US, UK, France, Jordan, Turkey) are already on the ground focused on recce missions and training opposition forces. One Air Force intel guy (US) said very carefully that there isn't much of a Free Syrian Army to train right now anyway

So there were no rebels to train, but they were there and training them anyway.

the idea 'hypothetically' is to commit guerrilla attacks, assassination campaigns, try to break the back of the Alawite forces, elicit collapse from within

They dont believe air intervention would happen unless there was enough media attention on a massacre, like the Ghadafi move against Benghazi. They think the US would have a high tolerance for killings as long as it doesn't reach that very public stage.

Also, there is a very interesting interview with the former head of the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency):
Who is to blame for the rise of ISIL. Here is a link to the most important part: Former DIA Head Concedes US Deliberately Backed Extremists in Syria.
Finally, listen to Putin talking about the subject, most relevant part about ISIS starts around 1:30.

They want to set a precedent for this case (because "Ter'ism"!), then they can use the same technique to force Apple to crack all those other phones from drug dealers, child molesters, polluters, litterers, and jay-walkers.

They spell out what they expect pretty specifically right in the order.

Oh, and by the way, they have recently up'd the ante on the whole thing by claiming that they don't want to have to do it, but if Apple doesn't want to cooperate, next they'll just demand the source code for iOS so they can modify it themselves.

We almost have tourist defined as terrorist too but Egypt is farther along in that aspect than we are in the US
http://news.antiwar.com/2015/0...

Although I think we will have that figured out within the next 10 years.

I always find it amusing when Americans like you don't even know your own recent history. Read and learn, you smug, cretinous dumbass:

http://antiwar.com/blog/2013/0...

See also:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/...

http://news.antiwar.com/2013/0...

https://www.propublica.org/spe...

There will always be stooges in any movement

Well, the opposition to the Korean war — as I outlined from the get-go — never rose to anywhere the same pitch. Not while the war was running, not later. Soldiers returning from Vietnam war were "baby-killers", but those who came back from Korea were not. The "peace-movement" being infested by stooges is a confirmed theory that explains all of the known facts. It may be difficult for you to accept, probably, because you and/or your parents participated — without knowing, who got the ball rolling, of course, being sincere useful idiots — but that's what it is.

Yeah, I'm Canadian and I'm quite certain neither of my parents really participated in the peace movement. I would point to this fact as evidence to the fact that you're over-extrapolating from limited data and reaching erroneous conclusions.

The currently-existing "disaster" was not at all inevitable

All I can say is I consider Marc Theissen to be a terrible analyst, though going into that would be a needless diversion.

and it did not become a disaster for any of the reasons known at the time.of those coordinated protests.

I'm confused, why did you link to quotes of people supporting the war as evidence that the opponents were wrong?

Well, you may not like Michael Savage, but he certainly is not "a fringe"... And the already mentioned Justin Raimondo has his loyal following.

I don't know, I think I'd still call Savage as being on the fringe. Sure he's got a following but he's so far out that he can't even enter the UK.

There you go! NATO was meant to check USSR's advancement further into Europe — without it more countries would've shared the fate of Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and others. Because while NATO membership was voluntary, membership of the Warsaw Pact was not. And the Pact invaded those, who tried to get out. What's "unclean" about NATO, I'll never know.

Remember the Cuban missile crisis? The US isn't particularly amendable to countries in its sphere of influence allying with Russia either.

And as you just said NATO was meant to counter the USSR (ie Russia), of course they're going to react with hostility when neighbouring countries start joining a military alliance literally designed to oppose them.

Huh? If they weren't NATO-members, Baltic states would've been taken over by the same "polite" troops long ago. Moldova and Georgia were invaded before Ukraine.

Though Georgia was invaded while trying to join NATO. And the initial situations with South Ossetia and Transitivia happened in the fairly messy aftermath of the collapse of the USSR. My understanding is that the NATO expansion was interpreted by Russians as an aggressive act, and that's been responsible for the subsequent rejection of Western liberalism and the return to an adversarial mindset.

But, it is interesting... So, in your peace-loving opinion, NATO should've rejected Eastern Europe's attempts to join it to please Russia... Just how do you justify this? What sort of ethical standards do you have? What books did momma read to you? Should the wisest of the Three Pigs have rejected his brothers' attempts to hide in his masonry house — so as not to aggravate the Wolf? Wow!

There will always be stooges in any movement

Well, the opposition to the Korean war — as I outlined from the get-go — never rose to anywhere the same pitch. Not while the war was running, not later. Soldiers returning from Vietnam war were "baby-killers", but those who came back from Korea were not. The "peace-movement" being infested by stooges is a confirmed theory that explains all of the known facts. It may be difficult for you to accept, probably, because you and/or your parents participated — without knowing, who got the ball rolling, of course, being sincere useful idiots — but that's what it is.

Meanwhile, I noticed, that every post I make here gets marked as "Troll" within minutes and I'm getting tired of it. So I'm not posting again — you aren't going to admit it and the anonymous collective with too many mod-points are too cowardly to speak-up.

As it turns out it was actually a very well informed protest movement as the invasion of Iraq was by any metric a disaster.

The currently-existing "disaster" was not at all inevitable, and it did not become a disaster for any of the reasons known at the time.of those coordinated protests.

but I doubt many [Russians] are actually backing the invasion

Yes, unfortunately, many are. Though Putin's support is nowhere near he enjoys in Russia (86%), plenty in the diaspora approve of him or outright like him.

Fringe opinion-makers whom I'd never heard of. I don't think they're really affecting anything.

Well, you may not like Michael Savage, but he certainly is not "a fringe"... And the already mentioned Justin Raimondo has his loyal following.

It should be noted that the West's hands aren't completely clean in this. NATO was started as an anti-Russia alliance

There you go! NATO was meant to check USSR's advancement further into Europe — without it more countries would've shared the fate of Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and others. Because while NATO membership was voluntary, membership of the Warsaw Pact was not. And the Pact invaded those, who tried to get out. What's "unclean" about NATO, I'll never know.

expanding into former Warsaw pact countries after the end of the Cold War was absolutely moronic. Without that expansion there's a decent chance that everyone is still on relatively good terms.

Huh? If they weren't NATO-members, Baltic states would've been taken over by the same "polite" troops long ago. Moldova and Georgia were invaded before Ukraine.

But, it is interesting... So, in your peace-loving opinion, NATO should've rejected Eastern Europe's attempts to join it to please Russia... Just how do you justify this? What sort of ethical standards do you have? What books did momma read to you? Should the wisest of the Three Pigs have rejected his brothers' attempts to hide in his masonry house — so as not to aggravate the Wolf? Wow!

Again remember many grew up in the USSR, people are going to naturally defend their side.

I grew up in the USSR too, you insensitive clod.

But in a fight between Russia and Ukraine many will be drawn to defend the entity they identify more with from their youth.

Point is, their propaganda works

You're talking about the public perception of the war, UN approval forms part of that public perception.

UN's approval or lack thereof, by all appearances, was used to justify the opposition to war later, when the questions like mine here started popping up. I could find no references to UN's decision (or absence of it) as a factor. Could you?

I'm not mining quotes from 60 years ago but it certainly would have affected the perception. Korean was very much a multinational mission, Vietnam was not.

It's possible, but a far more likely factor is the fact they were very different wars at very different times.

Well, I explained, how they were similar — only a few years apart and both in far lands without evident immediate threat to the US.

The Korean war was over in 3 years. In Vietnam the US stepped into a long running conflict which ran a lot longer.

I fail to see, how the length of a conflict affects the justification of it.

Wars become more unpopular the longer they go, that's fairly basic. The public wasn't particularly anti-War at the start of the war, it became that way later on (similar to Iraq).

You've also got media actually showing the home front what the battlefield actually looks like, that's a pretty profound change from previously where media pieces were basically clips from war movies.

Yes. And the fact that media at home chose to concentrate on the negative, instead of praising the troops in general and heralding acts of valor in particular is, in my opinion, explained by (at least, in part) by the enemy's propaganda efforts.

That would be a pretty small part. The moment the media came to the conclusion they could be actual reporters instead of propagandists the friendly propaganda effort was done.

Finally you had a completely different culture in the 60's that was largely based on a rejection of authority

And where, one wonders, did that come from?

From stuff that didn't have much to do with the USSR (though many were undoubtedly interested in leftist ideas).

And where is it now, when questioning authority is not only not patriotic, but racist?

It's only racist when the complainers start blowing dog whistles. As it happens referring to Obama as a community organizer, a job he held for 3 years in his mid-twenties before going onto far more impressive things. That could be just partisan bias, but there's a definite dog whistle quality to it.

You don't need Soviet propaganda to explain the Vietnam peace movement

Well, we know for a fact (an inconvenient one), that USSR and other Communists were behind at least some of the "peace" organizations, such as the venerable World Peace Council.

The practice is still ongoing — an establishment calling itself "anti-war", for example, is calling for international approval of Russia's invasion into and annexation of Crimea — do you think, they would've approved of Kosovo or Kurdistan voting to become a United States' 51st state? Is it really over-the-board to wonder, if, perhaps, this Justin Raimondo is manipulated by Kremlin — whether he even knows it or not?

So just because the USSR tried to manipulate the peace movement therefore delegitimizes the entire peace movement? And an 'anti-war' organization that virtually no one on the left listens to or agrees with is evidence of that fact?

Israel is certainly trying to sway US public opinion, does that make you a puppet of some Jewish lobby? (for the record I say no)

You're talking about the public perception of the war, UN approval forms part of that public perception.

UN's approval or lack thereof, by all appearances, was used to justify the opposition to war later, when the questions like mine here started popping up. I could find no references to UN's decision (or absence of it) as a factor. Could you?

It's possible, but a far more likely factor is the fact they were very different wars at very different times.

Well, I explained, how they were similar — only a few years apart and both in far lands without evident immediate threat to the US.

The Korean war was over in 3 years. In Vietnam the US stepped into a long running conflict which ran a lot longer.

I fail to see, how the length of a conflict affects the justification of it.

You've also got media actually showing the home front what the battlefield actually looks like, that's a pretty profound change from previously where media pieces were basically clips from war movies.

Yes. And the fact that media at home chose to concentrate on the negative, instead of praising the troops in general and heralding acts of valor in particular is, in my opinion, explained by (at least, in part) by the enemy's propaganda efforts.

Finally you had a completely different culture in the 60's that was largely based on a rejection of authority

And where, one wonders, did that come from?

And where is it now, when questioning authority is not only not patriotic, but racist?

You don't need Soviet propaganda to explain the Vietnam peace movement

Well, we know for a fact (an inconvenient one), that USSR and other Communists were behind at least some of the "peace" organizations, such as the venerable World Peace Council.

The practice is still ongoing — an establishment calling itself "anti-war", for example, is calling for international approval of Russia's invasion into and annexation of Crimea — do you think, they would've approved of Kosovo or Kurdistan voting to become a United States' 51st state? Is it really over-the-board to wonder, if, perhaps, this Justin Raimondo is manipulated by Kremlin — whether he even knows it or not?

Occupation and annexation of Crimea already a staggering success, Russia must be looking into organizing a referendum in Alaska.

Peace-loving Americans will not be objecting — a referendum conducted under occupation going in favor of the occupying power? What "conflict of interest"?

The knuckle-dragging haters will be neutralized by polite men with Russian accents wearing indiscernible uniforms...

And more importantly, the propaganda is intended for domestic consumption, not "the world".

Oh, how one may wish, this were true! It is not. Compare, for example, the world's reaction to US invading Iraq in 2003 — it caused, what Time magazine would later call "World's biggest coordinated protest in history" — with Russia's invasion into Ukraine and annexation of a jewel of a province after a fraudulent "referendum".

What few protests in the West this caused, they were organized (and attended) mostly by Ukrainian expats — without sympathetic locals.

Because, somehow, both Left and Right in the West were providing Russia with propaganda-cover. Some called Ukraine's new government "Nazis" while others dismissed them all as "Jews" — without arguing with each other both helped Putin.

Now, are all of these people on Kremlin's payroll? Probably, not — but they were carefully fed custom-crafted lies by the Kremlin analysts, who approach the government propaganda the way Western corporations approach advertising of goods...

http://news.antiwar.com/2014/1...

I'm surprised to see all of the anti-libertarian sentiment in the comments above. I haven't seen this much anger at straw-man libertarian views outside of Salon. At least based on people's comments about libertarians, you'd think that libertarianism were some unified Kochtopus front ready to take away everything they hold dear, rather than a fairly divided set of political views and philosophies that share a few bits of common ground. I guess the angry folks don't read the same people I do.

What's funny is we're creating more and more of these terrorists because we're not winning this war. We're creating more and more people who hate the US, which if it's not Al-Qaeda it'll be ISIS or some other organization. So we've now engaged in a game of whack a mole and we'll go on indiscriminately killing people because of what we think they do vs. what they've done. These drone strikes are an easy, quick, no fuss, no muss way of killing anybody and they are creating more problems for us because of all the civilian casualties that are created and shockingly less than 2% of the kills from these according to this article are high value targets. 2% is not successful by any stretch of the imagination and they're not surgical by any means.

the Stanford-NYU report concludes:

drone strikes, which are conducted by the CIA in a country not at war with the United States, are too harmful to civilians, too sloppy, legally questionable and do more harm to U.S. interests than good.

There's lots of other interesting points in that article but I'm sorry this push button killing is too easy, it has no hope for review or for allowing the other guy to surrender. Terrorism is not a pretty thing but when you kill a US Citizen with that technology we're now saying that anybody, anywhere can be targeted. This country signed up to a little doctrine called the Geneva Conventions specifically in Protocol I which the US did sign. I'm still looking to see if the Senate actually ratified it.

Articles 51 and 54 outlaw indiscriminate attacks on civilian populations, and destruction of food, water, and other materials needed for survival. Indiscriminate attacks include directly attacking civilian (non-military) targets, but also using technology such as biological weapons, nuclear weapons and land mines, whose scope of destruction cannot be limited. A total war that does not distinguish between civilian and military targets is considered a war crime.

So we've declared total war on Terrorism but we're killing innocent civilians and therefore we're committing war crimes. Of course there'll be some sharp DoJ lawyer who's writing another memo saying "naw, we don't have to follow that even though we signed it."

While you don't believe that this could be used in a riot situation, it's now possible that it could be. Sorry, rioters can get weapons, they create loss of life and property and its more chaotic and the lines become blurred. You could ask Reginald Denny about his experience. I'm sure he felt terrorized. Oh and the fuckstick Holder, he thinks it'd be okay to use Drones on US Citizens in the US. There's your due process right out the window. Of course he says it would need to be an "extraordinary situation" with the Administration determining whatever that is. Like I said, there's already a memo sitting in a file somewhere that justifies what and when they'll be used. Of course you and I mere citizens will never see this document because it's a matter of national security and I guess we're too dumb to comprehend those conditions, but trust me it's already been discussed and put on paper so to speak.

Also take these statements into account from a battlefield commander, General McChrystal when it comes to the war on terror.

“The resentment created by American use of unmanned strikesis much greater than the average American appreciates. They are hated on a visceral level, even by people who’ve never seen one or seen the effects of one.”

“for every innocent person you kill, you create 10 ne

I.e. " Do you want to be part of russia, or not part of Ukraine".

Huh? The 1992 constitution of Crimea sees it as an autonomous republic of Ukraine. Maybe You, I or both of us are misunderstanding something here.

Regarding the Russian passports, I guess it has something to do with dual citizenships, i.e.:

[...] if [a Ukrainian] citizen acquired citizenship of (was naturalized by) another country, then in legal relations with Ukraine, the person is recognized as a citizen of Ukraine only. Thus, presently, according to the legislation of Ukraine dual citizenship is not prohibited, but also is not recognized [...]

It's also pretty much plausible and conceivable that the passport was used only for ID purposes and they had lists of eligible voters beforehand (at least that's the way it works in Germany: you just have to present a valid ID and be on the list).

And, re: "beating non russian looking voters", regardless of whether it actually happened (source?), there were not too many of those:

where they now form ~ 12% minority

(Crimean Tatars & ethnic groups in Crimea).

I'm not a jingoist. America (and any major power) is going to have black marks on it's record.

Agreed.
What I'm really trying to achieve here, is to cut through the thick fog of propaganda (from all sides) and get at the core of the issue (i.e. discrimination of a large part of the population by a (then) unelected government).
If I put myself in their shoes, I can totally understand the wish to distance themselves from a seemingly oppressive regime (not everyone welcomes their new overlords as we do here on /.), and being a semi-autonomous region (e.g. unlike Kosovo), they made use of their right to do so.

In addition, there were international observers present during the referendum.
And, as a last one, (internal Russian politics notwithstanding,) this is long but raises some interesting points: http://original.antiwar.com/ju...

"anything america is doing against russia right now is only to keep the american people happy, its not to actually get results"

Except that the polls have been saying for a couple years now that the majority of us actually want the government to settle down and be less interventionist overseas. See these recent results for instance. Commissar Nulands project has nothing to do with making Americans happy.

Everyone should be armed.

The amout of gun control in Swiss is quite high. You're restricted in what you can own and where you can shoot. Canada probably has laxer laws than the Swiss.

This is how Switzerland does it. They haven't been in a foreign war in two hundred years. Even Hitler decided not to try it.

Probably because the Swiss were hiding the Nazi's loot.

Their crime rate is very low and they actually have a civil defense plan that doesn't involve people hiding in closets and hoping somebody shows up to save them. Plus, obviously they don't need to incur all the costs of foreign wars, so they can run data centers, banking platforms, and ski resorts instead.

And having a a small (4M) population, a homogenous culture (no East vs West vs South vs North West), a good Gini coefficient, high medium incomes, and low poverty rates, having nothing to do with it. There's also mandatory military service: I think the gun culture would be very different in the US if there was mandator 2-4 year service in one of the five branches (with pacificists perhaps being assigned to the Coast Guard, or maybe the Peace Corps).

Everyone should be armed.

This is how Switzerland does it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Switzerland

"The vast majority of men between the ages of 20 and 30 are conscripted into the militia and undergo military training, including weapons training. The personal weapons of the militia are kept at home as part of the military obligations;"

A person gets trained and screened by the military. Upon leaving the military, they can be licensed. The weapons are registered. Associated ammunition is inspected regularly.

So almost entirely _unlike_ the system in the US?

Everyone should be armed.

This is how Switzerland does it. They haven't been in a foreign war in two hundred years. Even Hitler decided not to try it.

Their crime rate is very low and they actually have a civil defense plan that doesn't involve people hiding in closets and hoping somebody shows up to save them. Plus, obviously they don't need to incur all the costs of foreign wars, so they can run data centers, banking platforms, and ski resorts instead.

In the case of Iran's nuclear program, the hacking was apparently an attempt to avert a future war.

"Apparently", eh? Will your Fascist Merit Badge be revoked if you get within 20 feet of the truth, or something? Even the head of the motherfucking IDF admitts Iran has no nuclear weapons program.

A great many have indeed endorsed this strange 'theory' that the fourth amendment means what it says; and Judge Andrew Napolitano comes immediately to mind so here you go.

The main thing is that a problem is "neat".

And also money. I know some people who have gone to work for the MIC when they might have gone to work for something non-destructive except for the funding problems.

Sadly, I think this situation is unavoidable, for you always encounter the argument: "better that we build it before somebody else does". Which I suppose is a valid point

It's not. The 'arms race' towards ever more deadly weapons only serves offensive purposes. If you want to have a peaceful nation you need a massively distributed low-level capability, not a highly centralized high-level capability.

If only I hadn't been raised on a steady diet of moral platitudes

Perhaps more people need to be. The current ones here are OK with the government taking trillions of dollars from them and their progeny every year and funneling it to the war machine. Imagine if that money went instead to solving hunger, clean water, or clean energy problems. But, as long as you have psychopaths with unconquerable libido dominandi running things, that's not going to happen.

There's the issue.

What issue?

Good laugh on the former president of Iran. I enjoyed that more then you can realize.

That being said, the Zionist regime is a pejorative used by middle eastern Islamist to refer to the state of Israel. There is one situation in which Imadinnerjacket has said something that was wrote down on the transcripts of his speech differently from what people claim was actually said in the speech and people claim the entirety of the slam on Israel was a mistranslation. However, if everything was insulated to this one instance, I could agree with that presumption of a mistranslation. But that is not the case, in 2005 he called to move Israel to Eruope and boasted that it was illegitimate in the Palestine territory. In 2008, he made comments about Israel being destroyed by the surrounding nations because it wasn't legitimate. In 2012 he said "any freedom lover and justice seeker in the world must do its best for the annihilation of the Zionist regime"

The list goes on. And do not get stuck on "regime" in the term Zionist Regime. If he was talking specifically about Israel's leaders, he would have used terms like Netanyahu's regime much like we did with Saddam before Iraq. "Zionist Regime" has specifically to do with Israel as a nation, not the governing parties of it.

BTW, the division of the middle east happened after WWI with the collapse of the ottoman empire in it's defeat in WWI. I agree that there might be problems with the way it was divided but most all of the territories within the division had worked together sufficiently enough to become fully acknowledged states or countries within their own right and sovereignty. The fact that Iraq is muddled is more to the modern experience as previous as they through democratically elected government satisfied all of the west's demands for self government (remember, Saddam was elected originally).

The other thing you need to keep in mind is Iran was a modern secular country, until the CIA decided to dispose of the president and install a dictator more pliable to the USA's so called interests. And then we wonder how extremists come to power? Because they promise the people a 'saviour' from the current conditions.

Of course. It still is to a minor degree. For instance, they don't mind Christians living inside their border as long as they can tax them for being Christians and even go so far as to allow the use of alcoholic beverages in Christian rituals. But, if those Christians don't pay the tax or evangelize outside of Christians already, they go to jail.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2402254/Saeed-Abedini-U-S-pastor-sentenced-8-years-Iranian-prison-preaching-Christianity-appeal-rejected.html

But you are correct, the US did screw them over and the people rose up in opposition. We even missed an opertunity to put that behind us at the start of the Afghanistan war but feared ta possible outcome more then a likely outcome. Iran actually supported the US in it's initial invasion of Afghanistan. They wanted to send troops and supplies to help. The US thought there might be more to the package like Russia expecting to keep conquered/liberated territories after WWII, but had even grater fears of the neighboring countries seeing a middle east country (Iran) invading as a larger plot and involving them against us. Our rejection of Iran's help in this matter sparked the start of Iran's president hating the US and publicly speaking directly against us and Israel.

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/porter.php?articleid=8590

Don't let that page's bias suggest anything is untrue. It's just the first page I could find accurately reflecting the situation mixed in with all the pages about Iran's influence after we leave. I was following this closely at the time. I had a friend who

Having been on the receiving end of one such "investigation", I can say, I'm glad, the justice is not as swift these days.

But you can't ban this — not without abolishing the First Amendment...

Military analysts have a term for what you're describing: fourth generation warfare.

There is a big difference between kidnapping someone, throwing them in a secret prison and denying them access to a lawyer and looking at badly anonymized metadata. Of the two I would rather someone look at my anonymized call logs than to haul me off to a secret prison and a secret military tribunal.

He's done that, too.

As far as I'm aware Obama also hasn't manufactured evidence to send hundreds of thousands of troops into harms way resulting in a war that's killed tens of thousands of civilians and thousands of Americans and costing trillions of dollars.

Well, he did start the drone program that indiscriminately killed civillians.

I had hopes when Obama was first elected but I think it's time to judge the man by his deeds, not by the words he says. That also goes for the acts of officials he appointed, the acts of officials he allowed to be retained in the government and the acts of officials which he sanctioned or were aware of.

Let us not act like cuckolded husbands who insist all evidence to the contrary that their unfaithful wife is a virgin.

Ps. if you disagree, by all means please present your facts. I will be more than happy to be proven wrong.

I am quite upset with everyone dropping the "alleged" word and referring to them as "the bombers" instead of "the suspects."

This isn't just a legal exercise, it's an epistemological one. I keep seeing different stories about who was shot when (was it in a boat or when he was fleeing?) who was run over by whom (by a police cruiser, by his brother) who was returning fire or not, who was throwing bombs or not, when the throat injury was inflicted, who left the scene wearing a backpack or not, who stayed at the scene of an imminent bomb explosion, or not. Even the stories that are heavy on background are simultaneously flawed in analysis.

The details have been changing every day and continue to change. Hopefully the stories will converge on the truth. Frankly, I'm not going to pay close attention anymore because it's basically a waste of my time. Hopefully some journalists will do that to sell a good story and I'll read the wrap-up in a few weeks.

There may be a few people inside Boston PD who have a clear picture of the complete situation, but even that I doubt. Anybody else who claims to "know what happened" is either being fooled or is fooling themselves. It's a soup of dis- and mis-information out there right now, and we're not going to solve it on Slashdot either.

In the meantime, to declare that crowdsourcing "got it wrong" is to insist that there's an objective measure of "correct" at this point to justify such an assertion and is premature.

http://original.antiwar.com/paul/2011/10/24/tsa-releases-vipr-venom-on-tennessee-highways/

http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/10/20/2212225/tsa-doing-random-truck-searches-on-tennessee-highway

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2011/10/25/ron-paul-calls-tsa-jack-booted-thugs-in-response-to-highway-checkpoints/

The story was carried on a local television news segment, and in the segment, they were stopping automobiles, at random, as opposed to checking the trucks at the weigh stations. Those three links were among the first hits on a google search - there are lots more.

Clean hands you have there, keep that chin up and remember useful idiots like yourself are as indispensable to mass murders like Stalin, Milosevic, Assad etc as their own armies. Carry on with pride, job well done, no blood on your hands at all. How's that Syria thing working out for you?

On the other hand, the demand for hasty action leads to stupid foreign policy blunders like supporting fascist extremists conducting genocide in a war of their own aggression against relatively secular and moderate leaders like Slobodan Milosevic and Bashir Assad.

Compare Milosevic to Izetbegovic, and then read the news from Syria: the rebels receiving foreign guns and money and winning military victories are explicitly al-Qaeda, while the Free Syrian Army is only a front group that pretends to be secular in front of Western audiences.

• Biggest prison system in the world. Check.
• Due process free detention. Check.
• Due process free execution. Check.
• Glorification of the murder of "savages". Check.
• Entertainmentification of the murder "savages". Check.
• Destroying the war powers act so that the president has sole ability to engage in war. Check.
• Persecution of whistleblowers. Check

Authoritarian America, brought to you by the Adam-Lanza-in-Chief, president and leader of the New GOP (aka, Obama).

And yeah, some of you may be offended, but do note that Obama killed 14 women and 21 children exactly three years to the day prior to the Newton masacre using cluster bombs in Yemen under with the blessing of its dictatorial asshole leader, then managed to convice (personally contacted the Yemeni president) to keep the reporter who broke the story in jail. FN1. About cluster bombs, Obama tried to undermine a treaty banning, they're about as effective as landmines in blowing up innocents years after their deployment. FN2.

So the title fits: Obama is the Adam-Lanza-in-Chief. You think his tears were those of compassion? Maybe they were tears of guilt because in that masacre, Obama would play the role of shooter.

FN1: http://www.salon.com/2012/03/14/obamas_personal_role_in_a_journalists_imprisonment/

FN2: http://news.antiwar.com/2011/11/10/us-moves-to-overturn-ban-on-cluster-bombs/

Wow, you really eat this shit up.

Every single point I made (with the possible exception of the Russian government actually having control of their own intelligence agencies - I'd call that one open to debate) amounts to pure documented fact. Not speculation, not even stretching the data to fit an information vacuum.

Though, I suppose you might not remember the Iran Contra affair. You might not have flown in the past 10 years. You might not read Slashd... Oh... No, I guess you do. Huh, funny that.


You can list as many of the negatives as you wish but your argument has no merit if you only include those.

Remind me which branch of the US government controls the GCSB (in case you need a cite for that one, click on the FP link for this very thread) or the KGB? Or hey, we can throw the Mossad in there if you like. I could go on, they pretty much all have a list of publicly known sins a mile long. The US only dominates the list out of sheer volume, not as anything special.


We do have the right to [sue] AT&T et al, actually.

No, we don't, actuallydon't . I am not really sure where the whole travel point is going as it is patently incorrect.

Funny, the US Department of State seems to know what I meant. Perhaps you should re-read it if you didn't get it the first time?

Because Iran has stated a desire to wipe another sovereign nation off the map.

Except Iran said nothing whatsoever of the kind, that's a deliberate mistranslation by the press that was debunked years ago.

"We should avoid entangling alliances with european powers that could draw us into bloodshed..... rest assured while one European leader runs-around mad, and the others act as if they are halfway there themselves, we shall remain at peace here in North America." - George Washington)

Who says Americans don't do irony.

My country has been drawn into two major land wars since the turn of the century and in both cases, it was by the USA.

For more irony read what George Washington said about torture: George Washington: No Torture on My Watch. He wouldn't have allowed the water boarding of German mercenaries working for the British.

Falcon

No wonder they won as they have been greatly working with the government lately. Hell, even secretly supporting CISPA!

You need to be forked in the temple, shill.

No wonder they won as they have been greatly working with the government lately. Hell, even secretly supporting CISPA!

What violence? There's no more violence towards tax collection than there is to collect from unpaid parking tickets.

Try not going along with the abstract constructions of those who lay claim to taxes and see what happens to you. This explains the problem in 4 minutes.

This is fee for service, if you take the service and don't pay the fee it is stealing. It is reasonable though to complain that the services aren't worth the fee or that that parts of the fee are wasted.

How about that I never agreed to accept an ever-expanding number of services? Do you see an upper limit to the amount of services to which I must agree? Is 100% of my income acceptable if my most basic life-support needs are provided as services?

If you want to be a member of society then you play by society's rules.

What if the rules are laid out in contract form by the Constitution and it's the government (all three branches) that's not playing by the rules?

The US has some of the lowest tax rates for the industrialized world and yet has some of the highest whining.

Not really - the way the income tax system works, many middle class people wind up paying over half their income to the government (read up on embedded taxes). Through all sorts of social engineering constructs, the US tax system together with the monetary system transfers wealth from the middle class to the upper class (and a much smaller amount to the lower class). When you're paying $4 for gas, that's bank-bailouts you're funding (plus the income taxes of oil industry workers and executives).

Most of our taxes goes to defense, and yet the people who seem the most opposed to taxes are also the ones more in favor of keeping a huge defense budget and having useless wars in Irag/Afghanistan.

No, the people who are most strongly opposed to taxes are also strongly opposed to war. But you're right that the two are tightly linked. Switzerland has a very high standard of living and the lowest tax rate in the OECD. It also hasn't been involved in any wars for a century and a half, though it does have the best civil defense system in the world. The US playing "World Police" certainly imposes massive costs on its citizens, though they're not primarily paid for with taxes.

There's much we can learn from the Swiss.

Wait a minute - wasn't Obama supposed to fix all that? What about all these "Jesus was also a community-organizer" - stuff?

How is it possible that Obama's America becomes very much similar to the governments that Obama supports abroad?

Why does Obama start more wars all around the world than Bush, yet nobody seems to care?

Oh, and by the way, any moron who still believes that it's all the fault of R/D and that D/R would fix it: R+D are merely circus factions, both Romney and Obama are deep in the pocket of the banks, just like Bush was. And the media will do everything to prevent Ron Paul from winning.

Ok so here I read a lot of stuff about the fact that he was a US citizen. The thing is, I don't think that's what's relevant here.

The question is, how, when and if any state can execute someone (in it's soil, an ally's soil, or even enemy soil, as long as they're not in a current war, and even then...), without producing any proof, having any contradictory legal procedure, or having to justify anything to anyone other than "We're the FUSA (fucking united states of America), we decided to pown him, you better not interfere."

You see, it's not a matter of constitution, it's a matter of human rights.


So he was suspected of terrorism. It all comes down to this : he was an enemy of the interests of the FUSA, so this justifies anything, right ?
Once we cross the "fucking with my conutry !" line, most of you will not look for proof, justification, context, or due process anymore.

So, one must not cross that line, to have any rights, in practice. Am I wrong ? Sure it's not legal, but that's how it is. Let's pretend it's even remotely "civilized".

Who crosses this line, and why ? Who decides who's an enemy of FUSA's interests ?
Probably Al-Quaeda is, after all they kill innocent civilians, so anyone suspected to help them loses his right to live and defend himself in a court of law.

Of course Wikileaks is, after all it's a terrorist organization who puts our FUSA in danger by releaving war crimes, and systematic Nazi methods. So anyone related to them should die too, like FUSA's philosophical leaders like Bill O'Reilly suggested : just kill Assange illegally, after all, we can afford it.
White house said they were terrorists, so they must be.

A few years back, by having the sole political opinion that comunism was a better alternative to capitalism, you were considered an enemy of FUSA's interests.

How long until my post, criticizing FUSA's methods and violations of human rights around the world, is considered as proof that I'm nothing more than a head in a crosshair anymore, and fuck my rights ?

I say, when will we see wall street targeted by drones, senate, or even the white house ? When will we realize that they're enemies of FUSA's interests too, and are effectively destroying this country, killing innocent Americans in war and removing our freedoms more efficiently that any terrorist organization in the world ?Oh wait, right, THEY get to decide who's a bad guy. How handy.

My point is that the debate here is wheter a person who is seen as enough of a bad guy in the media, and his public reputation, deserves to die. Has rights.
The question is wheter it's OK to execute an innocent (until proven, PROVEN, not said or suspected otherwise) as long as enough people don't care because of his reputation.

If your answer is yes, congratulations, you have successfully become a terrorist by the rest of the world's standards.

TL;DR : get someone's reputation dirty enough so nobody will care about his rights anymore and you'll be free to do whatever pleases you with him. Just hope that you'll never be targeted by the medias yourself, as it's pretty much a sentence of death these days. You better be nice with Murdoch.

We've often discussed the consequences of the attack

The main consequence of the attack was that Bush/Cheney invaded Iraq. It's now over 8 years later, and we're still at war in Iraq. No WMD, no Binladen connection, or any of Bush/Cheney's other lies were ever proven anything but lies. Like "the war will pay for itself". The Iraq War has cost us well over $3 TRILLION. It has cost us almost 5000 dead Americans, over 100,000 wounded Americans, and hundreds of thousands of dead and wounded Iraqis. Not to mention the severe costs of Americans torturing so many people.

We'll memorialize 9/11/2001 for a long time. But 3/19/03? What's that? It's the date the US invaded Iraq. Nobody wants to talk about that, so the war never ends.

It's not "just" for the current hot single music and video artist copyright owners. There's a great deal of content that governments want the infrastructure to control: this especially includes embarrassing content, such as is available at Wikipedia, but also includes data for mining of their own behavior, such as the very documents the Freedom of Information Act is supposed to provide. The photographs of the torture at Abu Ghraib prison with the goofy, smiling, blonde female soldier in front of a man who'd been tortured to death (available at http://antiwar.com/news/?articleid=8560) was far more effective in exposing US misbehavior than a thousand tweets or blogs.

Control of information is vital to all organizations, and it has its uses to protect ordinary privacy of day to day operations from bothersome micromanagement by everyone in the world. But the measures in place for "copyright violation" are easily, and without court involvement under current US law, turned against arbitrary political speech. We're seeing precisely such censorship, at far more serious levels, in the Arab world during current political unrest there, we've seen it in the Communist bloc nations for decades, and it's always dangerous to citizens who lack information about what their own leaders are doing.

This sort of thing is precisely why ICANN faces profound pressure, both overseas to control speech, and in the US to control speech and money, to surrender its international status and become an entirely US corporation. Other countries are, justly, concerned about this.

Why is the war in Libya illegal? I understand why the war in Iraq is illegal, but when did the UN stop sanctioning action in Libya? [No sarcasm, I'm genuinely interested.]

Did a quick Google search: is this to what you are referring?
http://news.antiwar.com/2011/05/20/obama-misses-legal-deadline-for-us-forces-in-libya/

No :-)

In my defence, painting protests as terrorism is all too common nowadays:

• DoD Training Manual: Protests are "Low-Level Terrorism"
• Protesting as a Terrorist Offense
• Bahrain Eyes Execution for Group of Protesters
• Protesters face anti-terror action

Bin Laden is only responsible for the deaths of around 3000 Americans. George W Bush is responsible for the deaths of over 3000 Americans, and over 100,000 civilians.

Personally I trust some other sources more than mass media http://antiwar.com/orig/norouzi.php?articleid=11025. So it seems, what was reported was not what was said but hey, I am sure what was reported was calculated to sell better than what was actually said.

Back on topic of course, what is interesting is the problem of trying to get a 30 year old design to work, with Russian technology, using in part some German and US technology. Hardly surprising the first effort was not that successful when they started upping the power output to energy generation levels.

It likely would have been simpler to scrap the original plant and start from scratch, than trying to get that thirty year old design to work.

As for the military industrial complex propaganda, war, war, war, kill, kill, kill, we need to buy more shit, with which to blow up shit, so that we need to buy more shit to blow up, and of course WMD, WMD, WMD, terrorist, terrorist, terrorist, oh no alien invasion (they propagandists will get there eventually).

Oh c'mon! Could you be any more false? Everyone knows that here you get scooped up by government agents (always bad apples of course!) and sent to a third world country to be tortured. And then you die from "excited delerium" or "pre-existing conditions" (that never were noticed either by symptoms or doctor exams) or just an ol' fashion beat down. http://antiwar.com/rothschild/?articleid=2615

I'm not sure I'd want to show up for an International arrest warrant if a government official that still retains a fair bit of clout was calling for my treatment as an enemy combatant. I'm sure that a trip to Guantanamo Bay would be completely off the table, right?

Playing the devils advocate... the tragedy that was 9/11 is up-to what, ~20K deaths and counting from over 90 countries. That figure puts the tragedy at around the annual death toll for sexually transmitted diseases on the US death toll lists. I don't think I am alone in saying that it would have been more positive and beneficial for the average American to prevent more lives being lost, decrease the US led future terrorist recruitment drive and instead invest several trillion US dollars into the other top 10 preventable diseases on that list that are going to kill Americans every year, anyay.

That wasn't what was in the video. Which is my problem with wikileaks. If you want to leak information, leak it. If you want to interpret/edit it, write "agenda driven op-ed" on top of all your stuff.

There "were" armed insurgents in the video. There was a camera man as well. I don't say I agree with the decisions made in that video. But the way the video was leaked, and the slight editing done to it before it was leaked, doesn't paint the picture of "random people in the streets".

Again, you have to get over the fact that not everyone in the video was an unarmed camera man or just random people. That there was known fire coming from that area. Here's a good discussion of it and my point of Assange's sensationalism.
http://original.antiwar.com/henderson/2010/04/25/on-collateral-murder/

And that article doesn't even point out the fact that there were armed men and weapons found.

In conclusion, what do you think happens in war? Good people do bad things. That's war. You just hope it's for the right reasons. That they act callous or jovial is a human defense mechanism for the situation they're in and nearly every single one of us would resort to a similar state of mind.