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Yeay! Someone disagrees with me, therefore, I'm On The Dole(TM)!

No, not because I disagree with you, but because "your logic makes no sense, you use insulting language, and your conclusion is deceptive". Furthermore, you're all over this thread, trying to dominate discussion. You give yourself +2 points on every post, and your homepage is a defunct political activism site that's registered by an individual in China (according to WHOIS).

That drone looks like nothing more than a mock up. I viewed the video before reading any comments and my first reaction was that it was fake. No detailed shots of any interior components and no rear shots. Plus the simple explanation of "we took control of it and captured it" is absolutely absurd. If I captured a piece of my enemy's advanced military technology you bet you ass I would be displaying its guts (or just enough to let them know I do in fact have it) to embarrass the secrecy of my enemy. Its akin to running ones underwear up a flagpole, embarrassing undergarments that are kept private and out of view.

One theory I have as to why the US isnt answering claim may be because the US did in fact loose a drone but not to jamming or hacking but simple failure. Lets say a critical component of the drone failed resulting in a crash. The Air Force has no idea what happened, the signal just went dead. Iran learns of the crash, goes out, picks up the pieces and then fabricates a phony mock up along with an equally phony news conference. They then claim they hacked and took control of the aircraft while showing the phony in the background. This is a pretty good idea on their part, they have created a nice little information war with the US. The US might have no idea how the UAV was downed. They cant be sure so they don't want to admit anything yet. This might lead to the Airforce grounding all UAV's for extensive testing or upgrades keeping the skies over Iran clear of UAV's. The Iranian people are given hope that their government has technology capable of defeating the enemy. And Iran can try to reverse engineer the craft or sell it to another US hostile country or China. The act also makes Iran looks technologically stronger then it actually is. Since the Stuxnet worm destroyed their uranium enrichment plant(s), they want it to look like they have tech capable of hacking US military hardware. It gives the Iranian people something to be proud of while stirring doubt within your enemy's (and the world for that fact) populace.

I see this an an information war. And Iran has the upper hand because the US isn't saying one word. Add to the fact that there are reports of cheap software being used to intercept un-encrypted video from drones as well as the US being known to have lost a few drones already. Its an attempt to discredit the US military and its technology.

From my standpoint, I find it highly unlikely they ever took any form of control of the UAV's flight electronics. I cant see how the military would not have security and encryption policies in place relating to communication with military hardware. Plus even if they could communicate with the UAV's computer, how do they know how to talk to the flight software to take control? This isn't some lame Hollywood or TV show where some hacker types furiously on a keyboard and lands the thing with an Xbox controller. You have to know how to communicate with the flight software which means you have to reverse engineer the software or steal its source code or documentation. They might have just been able to jam it or shoot it down, but that is all speculation.

There are many such "civilian" things that are considered valid military targets by the U.S.: telephone networks (when the enemy military has it's own comms networks, so destroying the civilian system does not affect them), civilian electricity infrastructure (electric plants, city substations etc.), civilian fuel supplies, factories that manufacture everything from baby milk powder to paint, the foreign embassy of a non-combatant nation (an "accident" - the only bombing in that war directed by the CIA. Hmm.), and even "unfriendly" media (actually Al Jazeera has been bombed several times, their Kabul offices were bombed, their Baghdad offices were bombed, their Basra offices were bombed, and the Basra Sheraton was bombed when the only guests were Al Jazeera journalists.) Precision guided bombs, hardly ever miss, right? And it was only 70 years ago when the Allies considered carpet bombing of the civilian population to be a valid military tactic (justified because civilians were obviously working in the factories making war items).

Also there are plenty of people who consider police stations valid targets - the Israelis have hit police stations in Gaza and the West Bank, killing numerous policemen, the IRA used to target police stations, etc.

There are many such "civilian" things that are considered valid military targets by the U.S.: telephone networks (when the enemy military has it's own comms networks, so destroying the civilian system does not affect them), civilian electricity infrastructure (electric plants, city substations etc.), civilian fuel supplies, factories that manufacture everything from baby milk powder to paint, the foreign embassy of a non-combatant nation (an "accident" - the only bombing in that war directed by the CIA. Hmm.), and even "unfriendly" media (actually Al Jazeera has been bombed several times, their Kabul offices were bombed, their Baghdad offices were bombed, their Basra offices were bombed, and the Basra Sheraton was bombed when the only guests were Al Jazeera journalists.) Precision guided bombs, hardly ever miss, right? And it was only 70 years ago when the Allies considered carpet bombing of the civilian population to be a valid military tactic (justified because civilians were obviously working in the factories making war items).

Also there are plenty of people who consider police stations valid targets - the Israelis have hit police stations in Gaza and the West Bank, killing numerous policemen, the IRA used to target police stations, etc.

Yep, very cowboyish them folks at Wikileaks.

After all they are te ones who went in guns blazing using cowboy rhetoric.

They are the ones torturing...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/5395830/Abu-Ghraib-abuse-photos-show-rape.html
Using "National Security" as a guise to protect the guilty and deny justice to the victims...
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/09/08/obama/index.html
Using political and economic presure to protect American war criminals from prosecution and force foreign governments into compliance with "extra judicial" measures...
http://www.wikileaks.org/wiki/CIA_Red_Cell_Memorandum_on_United_States_%22exporting_terrorism%22,_2_Feb_2010
And killing civilians...
http://cursor.org/stories/civilian_deaths.htm
For sport...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/09/us-soldiers-afghan-civilians-fingers

You can treat a human life as something with inherent value, greater than the value of anything else

Sure, but that would definitely and unambiguously show that US foreign policy practically always has been wrong, that all the money spent on the war on terror should have been spent on traffic safety, that intensive medical care is nonsense, that handguns should be prohibted, that every citizen should be forced to give at least 75 of his salary to africa for malaria prevention, and so on. Since most professional ethicist in the US are white, male, well-educated US citizens heavily indoctrinated and brainwashed by popular media they cannot accept these simple conclusions and constantly try to evade them by somehow valuing life very high but not greater than the value of everything and only under certain circumstances, and so on, blablabla. Another problem is that the vast majority of all ethicists don't have the math skills to develop or even understand a rational decision theory were "values can be greater than the value of anything else."

The reality is different anyway. The life of a US citizen is worth at least 3 million dollars. In contrast to this, the life of an Italian is worth around 2 million dollars, that of a Chinese citizen is worth around 150000 dollars, and that of a citizen of Afghanistan is worth around 200 dollars.

I consider the justification for the invasion of Iraq a separate topic from the question of whether the gunship crew acted correctly given the circumstances they were in and the information at their disposal.

Taking an event out of context is omission, a way to deceive. Typically this is done where one outcome is desired, see also kangaroo courts.

From the gunship's point of view, you see some armed individuals, others who are carrying items which are hard to distinguish (turns out later to be camera w/telephoto lens), and some who may be unarmed, or possibly concealing arms (a suicide belt, for example). Given that Palestinians are known to attack fully armed Israeli troops with nothing more than rocks they can throw, the idea of unarmed or lightly armed fighters approaching US troops with hostile intent is not out of the question.

Curious that you use as an example Palestinians throwing rocks against invaders with guns and bombs, since there are more than a few parallels with Iraqis; but I suppose pursuing that discussion is larger than what we want to get into here. In summary: never bring a rock to a machine gun fight, unless you're making a symbolic gesture to show a basic unfairness and injustice which the world can perceive but the gunners use as justification.

According to your description, "harmful intent" or "possibly concealing arms" is justification, so any human wearing clothing is fair game to be killed at the discretion of the shooter. If we're going to be golden-rule fair, this rule must apply equally to Iraqis, Americans, or any other nationality. Is that the guideline you want to use? Any person or vehicle possibly carrying a weapon is a fair target? It's handy, since this way the shooter can never be wrong, by definition. If you're wondering why the world finds this event and the American occupation to be morally wrong, this is one of the big reasons.

It bears mentioning that the number of civilian casualties depends on at least three primary causes in this war. 1) The accuracy with which a target can be discerned, classified, and hit. 2) The degree to which the insurgents have camouflaged and shielded themselves among civilians. 3) The frequency and lethality of insurgent strikes against civilians. The US has spent billions upon billions of dollars developing weapons systems that are ultra-precise and reliable. This is primarily done to increase the potency of America's fighting forces, but is also specifically intended to lower civilian casualties. The insurgents have made it a habit to hide among civilians as civilians. Culpability for resulting civilian casualties must also rest on them as well. The US does not, as a matter of policy, deliberately attack civilians. The insurgents do.

The primary cause of the above normal violent civilian casualties is the war. The stated reasons for the US invasion are, in chronological order: 2003) rid Iraq of WMDs, since proven false; 2004) rid Iraq of Saddam, since accomplished yet the occupation continues; 2005) get rid of terrorists and insurgents, which are instead increasing. When you start with an objective using some approach, and the opposite of that objective is happening, most people question the approach. If the approach continues to be used, then the stated objective is not the real objective. Most Iraqis, and the rest of the world, see the objective being corporate control of Iraq's natural resource (oil), imperialism, and neoliberalism (which the US calls "national security").

Are US weapons ultra-precise and reliable? Let's take an example: the bombing of Saddam that initiated the war hit not Saddam's palace but did hit nearby; blowing a hole in, literally, a neighbor's front yard. For more examples, see this long sad list of "collateral damage" from "ultra-precise" weapons. If that is considered cherry-picki

I'm sure if we spent less on the military, and more on social programs that don't work that we'd be speaking German.

Germany in 1939 was the only world superpower, and was in the process of invading everyone else and making a serious bid for world domination. They needed stopping.

However, none of the over 20 countries that the US has bombed since then has been even remotely similar. How many of them were actually a threat?

Sadly, in the eyes of the non-US countries, the role of terrorist world superpower is now in American hands rather than German. If you disagree, you might want to remind yourself what terrorism is: tactics designed to coerce people through fear. As just one example, the 'Shock and Awe' policy used in Iraq in 2003 was described by it's designers like this:

Shock and Awe must cause ... the threat and fear of action that may shut down all or part of the adversary's society or render his ability to fight useless

The fact that it is done by a state, rather than a dispersed trans-national ideological group like al Qaida makes no difference - the effect is the same. Defence spending is a very good idea, but the military spending you're talking about is used to fight wars of aggression, often with little regard for civillian caualties. That needs to stop.

This whole pacifist, Utopian, lets hold hands while the rest of the world stabs us in the back makes me throw up a little.

What exactly does 'stabs us in the back' mean? Who's bombing who here?

is now the United Gulags of America:

Patrick Cockburn reports that the U.S. is demanding of Iraq, '50 military bases, control of Iraqi airspace and legal immunity for all American soldiers and contractors,' in a deal that 'raises huge questions over our independence,' writes Ali Allawi.

The pact, which also reportedly lets the 'U.S strike any country from inside Iraq,' was denounced by two Iraqi parliamentarians at a U.S. House hearing, with one estimating that about 70 percent of Iraqis favor withdrawal of U.S. forces, and another declaring that 'The surge didn't work.'

Cordially,
K. Trout, PatRIOT

I find that the best blogs are the ones where there isn't an "original article" at all, or the "original article" is a scientific paper in a field that requires explanation, or an article that requires a lot of context to make sense of. My two favorite blogs are the Planetary Society's and Juan Cole's. In the Planetary Society's case, you get a lot of things like what the audience was asking about at conferences and what the presenters replied in addition to the meat of their presentations. A good example is this post on a presentation at LPSC on Enceladus. Juan Cole's blog is on the other side of the spectrum; he starts with articles on the Middle East, but uses his extensive knowledge of the background of the region to put them into context and fix inaccuracies. Lately, though, he's taken to more of just reporting the news, which is a shame. He shines when he serves as a *corrector* of articles, not a reporter of them. For example, his series on the inaccurate translation of Ahmadinejad as threatening to "wipe Israel off the map" (that idiom doesn't even exist in Persian; Ahmadinejad was quoting Khomeini that the "occcupying regime in Jerusalem should be erased from the pages of time" -- something he later compared to how the Soviet Union has been similarly "erased". Hardly a call for genocide like people make it out to be; it wasn't even a "threat" or call for any sort of action on the part of Iran, no more so than a Cold War-era American saying "The world would be better if the Soviet Union just disappeared" would be a threat). I also enjoyed his bit about the complexities of defining the sea lanes in the Shaat al-Arab.

I think what people are more complaining about is the Daily Kos style blog, where someone finds some obscure or not-obscure tidbit in the news and then rants on it without adding anything new that you couldn't get from reading the article and knowing the general background of the subject. If I just want that sort of info, I'd go to a place like Cursor.org where you just get a little summary of what the article's about by each one.

I am sure that Iraqis families are very happy right now about their situation. That's why Vietnam was lost but history always repeat, isn't it ?

Money and power can overthrow weaker governments, just look at your own continent and who support the various dictators alit bit on the Southern side of your continent.

Look at these happy faces they are staring at your smart bombs.

Courtesy of Cursor

The next two years are going to be "a rolling constitutional crisis," predicts Paul Krugman, arguing that a "purge of U.S. attorneys" by a president no longer able to count on Congress to do his bidding is a sign that he is more determined than ever to "claim essentially unlimited authority."

During testimony that Sen. Patrick Leahy likened to "Alice in Wonderland," Attorney General Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee that "the Constitution doesn't say that every individual in the United States or every citizen has or is assured the right of habeas corpus."

Patriotically,
Kilgore Trout, ACTIVIST

Attack Iran. They have weapons of mass destruction. More importantly, democracy and freedom are rebounding
from their lows in the 1950s when the U.S., with the help of the United Kingdom and B.P. Oil, deposed the democratically elected leader of Iran .

We'll make billions. Most U.S.citizeins, er.... subjects, are illiterate and innumerate.

Feloniously from the United Vassals of America,
President-VICE Richard B. Cheney

The page may look better in Mozilla, but it's god-awful in konqueror. I was wondering what on Earth slashdot did to make things look so horrible. The teal article header background now takes up over an entire page for the first article on the page (including in comments view). The input boxes are now way to spaced out - it looks like below (only worse):

-- Edit Comment ----

Name
Rei (Log Out)

URL
http://www.cursor.org/

Subject
Re:Kudos on a great upgrade

Comment
-blah
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Use the Preview Button! Check those URLs!

* No Karma Bonus * Post Anonymously

Plain Old Text Preview Submit

Really, it's barely usable. It looks horrible.

no, not really...

With the right setup, your servers will supply and receive data they need to complete the replication process.

Think, even though they are servers, they are all clients - rather peers. I know the protocol is entirely different - but the concepts are the same. Once again, with the right setup you can direct how the data is distributed throughout the network and when. The central server (root server) never needs to be contacted with the right setup.

I'm not trying to fight with you *smile*

BTW: Love the cursor.org!

There can be a nice connection between blogs and the media; blogs aren't always op-eds and indy reporting. For example, Cursor.org could probably be defined as a blog (published daily, packed full of links, not done by a major organization, etc), but simply serves as a "media roundup", non-editorially collecting and summarizing underreported stories from various news agencies, organizations, and occasionally, other blogs.

Other blogs can compliment traditional media in other ways - for example, Juan Cole is a professor of history with a focus on the middle east, and often adds a lot of context and detail from foreign sources into events going on and what they mean within a historical context. The implications of, for example, the election in Lebanon are a lot meaningful when the history of the leaders and tribes involved in voting, and detailed descriptions of the voting system and how it has been used/manipulated in history are available.

Not all blogs are just "Looks like Bush really was AWOL!" or "It seems that Kerry's grades were worse than Bush's!" editorial-logs.

Your links are fucked up. Haven't you heard of the "Preview" button? It's cum-drinking losers like you who are ruining this message board. Get a fucking clue, Mr. motherfucking two-incher wannabe, or Allah is going to rape you with a chain saw.
Here are the actual links:
http://www.whitehouse.org/
http://www.cursor.org/

Do you really think that the major problem for the USA in the 9/11 was the death of many people? I don't think so, it's not logic:

* 9/11

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/vict ims/main.html
USA civilian deaths: 2'898
USA military deaths: 125

Total: 3'023

* Afghanistan war

USA military deaths: 184 http://icasualties.org/oef/
Afghanian civilian deaths: 3'000 http://www.cursor.org/stories/civilian_deaths.htm

Total: 3'184

* Iraq war

USA military deaths: 1'651 http://icasualties.org/oif/
Coalition military deaths: 180
Coalition contractors: 238
Iraq old military deaths: 9'200 http://www.comw.org/pda/0310rm8exsum.html
Iraq civilian deaths: 21'795 http://www.iraqbodycount.net/database/
Iraq police deaths: 2'115 http://icasualties.org/oif/IraqiDeaths.aspx

Total: 35'179

* Conclusion

Total USA deaths in 9/11: 3'023
Total USA deaths in war: 1'835 (60% of 9/11)
USA military injured: 12'384 (409% of 9/11)
Other deaths: 30'321 (1003% of 9/11)

Probably for the CIA and the highests USA political institutions, the main problem of the 9/11 cannot be the death of many people, but it should be searched in economic and image loss, political instability and other things, but not for the deaths, at all.

If you keep in mind these things, the interest of the CIA and others defence agencies in massive network attacks is simply logic.

The obsession with low prices in this country creates a Tragedy of the Commons situation. We save money buying at walmart but in doing so, jobs move overseas and the jobs which stay here become less lucrative. Each individual saves some money by buying at walmart and that individuals own choice to buy at walmart (or buy cheap products in general) or not ultimately doesn't make much difference in whether their job gets offshored or not but collectively the behavior cuts jobs. As long as your neighbors buy the cheap stuff, your job still goes overseas. This is quite different from Henry Fords original goal to pay his workers enough money that they could afford to buy his cars. Every man for himself leaves us all vulnerable, unless we own a multinational corporation.

And as more people are unemployed or less gainfully employed we have less money to buy things so we have to buy cheap creating a vicious circle.

While the US economy appears to be growing, all this free market out of control and globalization the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The article In Praise of Prosperity points out that while GDP has gone up the real incomes of 90% of the population went down. It also points out that 7 out of 10 of the highest GDP per capita nations are social democracies. And that America's GDP went up only because we are working 25% more hours while other countries like France can sustain the same GDP growth while reducing the hours worked by 25%. So, if we both started at 40 hours a week, we are working 50 hours when the french are down to 30.

As the situation for Americans continues to deteriorate, we become ripe targets for palingenetic ultranationalist populism. And to distract people from the real problems they will redirect peoples discontent towards immigrants, sexual minorities, and other marginal groups. But there is nothing to worry about until you see campaigns to make it impossible for illegal aliens to get drivers licenses, vigilantes patrolling the border, or denying civil rights and jobs to homosexuals.
Oh... wait.

Im very surprised that noone has replied to you yet on this matter, but the gas and bio weapons Saddam used in 1991/1992 against the Kurds was purchased from the US and the UK in the 1980s, including the ability to produce more of them. Yes, the vast majority of WMD that we are looking for in Iraq are tehre because we sold them to Iraq. It is true that Germany and France also took part, as did Russia and China, but for the 1980s WMD were commonly traded arms, and the US was one of the biggest traders in them.

Source
Source
Source
Source
Source
Source
Source
Source
Source
Source

Communism and Fascism are natural political enemies. It was Communists that went off to the gas chambers along with the Jews, Gypsies and Gays systematically. Communists in the US during the rise of Hitler wrote that American Fascism, if it were to rise, would have a theocratic form of nationalism. The GOP certainly has been running for the theocratic vote.

Remember that the fascists tried to get General Butler to execute a coup d'etat against Roosevelt in the 30's. The also campaigned to leave Hitler alone. Many wealthy people, including Edward VIII of England, were personal friends of Hitler. These were the people who believed in things like Social Darwinism.

Most of the descendents of these people are now in the GOP. They tend to trend more libertarian except for Corporate Welfare, they believe that by vitue of their wealth, they are better people than the rest of us slobs. They see the theocrats as a tool to be used for their rise to power.

Anyway, here are some articles:

Rush, Newspeak and Fascism: An exegesis
Neo-fascism and the religious right
The Danger of American Fascism
Facts and Fascism by George Seldes

As wrong as communists are, they're right about one thing, Fascists.

It's called fascism

Read up on it!

I tried to take a photo of my girlfriend's office building near Times Square last year. A doorman ran out and started yelling at me that I wasn't allowed to take photos of the building. He was ready to push my camera down, but a friend convinced me to lower the camera before the doorman got in reach.

---

Another quote from Bush's press conference:

Libya was a nation that ... was dangerous because of weapons. ... By the way, they found, I think, 50 tons of mustard gas - Bush, 13 Apr. 02004

USA is estimated to have fired hundreds of tons of chemically toxic, radioactive depleted uranium ammunitions while at war:

• Afghanistan: USA fired 500-600 tons of uranium
• Kosovo, 1999: USA fired 10-200 tons of uranium
• Iraqi, 1991: USA fired 320-750 tons of uranium

The Bush administration is based on hypocrisy.

>without publicly reviewable process, or transparency of any kind.
I take it you have actually heard of Guantanamo?

As for links, how's this report for a start. You might also like to regularly check out some of the articles on Cursor.org for some of the non mainstream news, or Riverbend for real life stories from Iraq.

The technical term you are searching for is "fascism."

Introduction to Fascism

Saddam

Bin Laden

Ted

"Our country is peopled by those who left Europe to escape regulation of one kind or another. But now both America and the world are growing up. And freedom in a grown-up world is different from freedom in a pioneer world. As a nation grows and matures, the traffic inevitably gets denser, and you need more traffic lights. Those who urge the removal of trade traffic lights speak in behalf of anarchy."

Neither "fascism" nor "racism" will do us the favour of returning in such a way that we can recognise them easily. If vigilance was only a game of recognising something already well-known, then it would only be a question of remembering. Vigilance would be reduced to a social game using reminiscence and identification by recognition, a consoling illusion of an immobile history peopled with events which accord with our expectations or our fears.
-- Pierre-Andre Taguieff

The great "isms" of nineteenth-century Europe -- conservatism, liberalism, socialism -- were associated with notable rule, characterized by deference to educated leaders, learned debates, and (even in some forms of socialism) limited popular authority. Fascism is a political practice appropriate to the mass politics of the twentieth century. Moreover, it bears a different relationship to thought than do the nineteenth-century "isms." Unlike them, fascism does not rest on formal philosophical positions with claims to universal validity. There was no "Fascist Manifesto," no founding fascist thinker. Although one can deduce from fascist language implicit Social Darwinist assumptions about human nature, the need for community and authority in human society, and the destiny of nations in history, fascism does not base its claims to validity on their truth. Fascists despise thought and reason, abandon intellectual positions casually, and cast aside many intellectual fellow-travelers. They subordinate thought and reason not to faith, as did the traditional Right, but to the promptings of the blood and the historic destiny of the group. Their only moral yardstick is the prowess of the race, of the nation, of the community. They claim legitimacy by no universal standard except a Darwinian triumph of the strongest community.
-- Robert O. Paxton, Mellon Professor of Social Sciences Emeritus at Columbia University

WW2 Civilian Deaths ~30 million

Korean War Civilian Deaths ~2 million

Vietnam Civilian Deaths (both sides) less than 400,000

Gulf War I 13,000.

Yugoslavia~500

Afganistan ~3000

~2500

Clearly the number of civilian deaths is dramatically "improving". What most people don't seem to realize is that the philosophy of warefare has fundamentally changed over the course of the century. During WW2 civilians were not avoided as they were seen as an integral part of the war effort, and because there was no way to avoid them if you wanted to (due to inaccurate weapons). In modern day, we have the later, and disagree with the former. Of course, if you are one who believes that the US intentionally kills civilians, then nothing that I say will convince you otherwise.

But, now that you have, would you care to explain why, if the lives of Iraqi civilians are not as important as any other, we are going to such lengths to free them from the well-documented and oppressive rule of a genocidal megalomaniac?

That's funny... I thought this was about the weapons of mass destruction. That's what I hear, anyway.

So far, yes, the military has gone out of it's way to prevent needless Iraqi civilian deaths, as far as we can tell. Let's not forget that all that's happened is one attack of opportunity. Let's also not forget how much the United States struggled to keep the number of casualties in the first Gulf War under wraps.

Quite simply, I can't trust the government not to kill innocent civilians in Iraq when it could be avoided. Why? Afghanistan Civilian Casualties. If we do better this time, I will retract my statement. However, I suspect that as time goes on, our concern over civilian casualties will drop.

If you want news that will affect
you as a resident in the F.U.S.A. (Fascist United States of Amerika),
please read the news at Cursor

Thank you and have a John_Ashcroft-free
day!

Cheers,
W00t

> Nobody wants violence except our enemies.

Oh, yes. I can formly see Saddam jumping for joy in expectation of Persian Gulf War II.

> Even then, when we bombed Afghanistan, the precision bombs were so accurate that they could destroy the house of a terrorist without touching the surrounding houses.

First, destroy a house of a alleged terrorist. (With killing everyone in it, who just happens to be in the same house). Second, so accurate, that they accurately destroyed some allied troups.

Some food for though.

> We dont' bomb villages of innocent people.

You do. Sometimes, this is a necessary evil. Or with the words of General Patton: "The Army is not a scalpel... it's a broadsword!". War is never clean. Despite the images from CNN. Keep that both in mind. In case of Afganistan, despite the numerous civilian casualities. It was most likey necessary.

Is it in the case of Saddam Hussein?

> The potential damage he can, will, and does cause to his people and his region is reason enough to use voilence to remove him.

Potential damage should never be a reason. For this reason alone, most goverments could/should be removed.

> The fact that he has horrific weapons and harbors terrorists only adds to our cause.

He allegedly has horrific weapons. The U.S. and U.K. goverment failed to provide evidence, that he actually has such weapons. They have several information, which can be interpreted that way, but no hard evidence.

The support of terrorism probably refers to the alleged meeting of Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi agent in Prague, as this is the only link to "War on Terror". This is doubtable.

Or are you referring to the financial support to Hisbollah? The Hisbollah is responsible for a lot of terroristic acts in Israel, but is also supported by Syria and Iran.

> Your uninformed sarcasm pissses me off.

Where do you get your information? From CNN, Fox News or military briefings?

Or, for a less familiar frame of reference, 0.9% of the number of Afghan civilians directly killed by US bombs, not counting starvation deaths due to halted foreign aid caravans during the bombing.

I found the link to

Leaked
report says German and US firms supplied arms to Saddam: Baghdad's uncensored
report to UN names Western companies alleged to have developed its weapons of mass
destruction at Cursor

Enjoy,
Woot

If you want news about how your civil rights are
being eroded as the Cheney Rumsfeld Cabal
moves to engage the entire world in war, try Cursor.

Thanks and have a marijuana inspired Thanksgiving,
Woot

quite a few innocent bystanders in Afghanistan, for instance.

Over three thousand civilians.

1. "IRAQ WILL SUFFER INCREASING SHORTAGES OF PURIFIED
2. 
   WATER BECAUSE OF THE LACK OF REOUIRED CHEMICALS AND
   DESALINIZATION MEMBRANES. INCIDENCES OF DISEASE, INCLUDING
   POSSIBLE EPIDEMICS,WILL BECOME PROBABLE..."

I still recommend cursor.org tho'

Anyway, the 'Media Patrol' over at cursor.org is much more my cup of tea - it draws a lot on the mainstream press (American and foreign) but does so in a way to point out the deeper issues and expose the spin that major media puts on things.

Not exactly. Speaking of killing innocent people on purpose look how many innocent Afghani's had died as of Dec. 6th thanks to US bombing. And while that is a low estimate, and was tallied almost 2 months ago, it still supasses the number of innocents lost when the trade towers came down. Considering that the US government has ordered all news services to place a low priority on civilian deaths because they are "a normal part of war" (everything that happens in a war is generally a normal part of war, we might as well just stop reporting entirely) and even though civilian deaths haven't been the goal of our attacks, in the words of Tim Wise, "the end result has been a distinction without difference. Dead is dead, and when one's actions have entirely foreseeable consequences, it is little more than a precious and empty platitude to argue that those consequences were merely accidental."

Especially when the government specifically targets Al Jazeera's Kabul office so that they can't report on civilian deaths, you realise that the hate felt for the US is completely rational. If it weren't for an atrocious foreign policy we wouldn't have the terrorist problem (or at least it wouldn't be as big) in the first place. Remember, violence begets violence. Even if you wouldn't have joined Al Queda before, would you join it now that the US bombed your mud house with a 2000 lb. JDAM bomb (whose taxes pay for that?) and killed all of your family for reasons that you don't really even know? (See the cursor.org story.) I know I would.

Back to drugs. What if all drugs were legal? The answer can be found here. But then how would the CIA be able to fund its covert ops, and does Uncle Sam really want to give all that money spent on the WoD back to the American people? They couldn't, and Uncle Sam doesn't. The truth is that the WoD is a cash cow, and if drugs were legal then they would no longer have exorbitant black market prices (which puts people in the gutter, and supposedly funds terrorists, which I thought is what we are trying to avoid anyway).

The sad thing is that all this is just the tip of the hypothetical iceberg. The US government sucks. For the good of, well, everyone we need to reduce it to its Constitutional limitations while the people still have the power to do so without a war. Well, that or I'm out of here as soon as I'm 18.

The participation of the Northern Allicance and other groups in Afghanistan has been mentioned quite a few times already. They have taken the place of American Soldiers, so to claim that no ground fighters are involved is basically a joke.

But what is basically not mentioned is the huge amount of civilian casualties. Take a look at http://www.cursor.org/stories/civilian_deaths.htm. A total of 3,767 civilian casualties (as of 6th December 2001) is not what I would call an "unconfirmed number of casualties".

The American Media has successfully warped the truth of what is happening in Afghanistan, so as to please the White House and the Pentagon. The numbers of Afghan casualties the American Media mentions showes, that the American Media has basically given up honest reporting and has become little more than an extension of the White House Press section.

There are plenty of human casualties in the Afghan conflict. . . but the fight seems especially significant in terms of technology and military conflict.

This is reminiscent of Katz's 9/11 feature; it was technology that was most striking to him during that catastrophic loss of human life, too. Christ, Katz, please have some respect for the people who've died. While it's very possible that "...but the fight seems especially significant in terms of technology and military conflict." is a poorly worded way of expressing that this war has a technological aspect, it certainly gives the impression that you, the author, see that technological aspect as more important than the war itself. As of December 6, 2001, there were at least 3,767 people who would disagree.

There are plenty of human casualties in the Afghan conflict. . . but the fight seems especially significant in terms of technology and military conflict.

This is reminiscent of Katz's 9/11 feature; it was technology that was most striking to him during that catastrophic loss of human life, too. Christ, Katz, please have some respect for the people who've died. While it's very possible that "...but the fight seems especially significant in terms of technology and military conflict." is a poorly worded way of expressing that this war has a technological aspect, it certainly gives the impression that you, the author, see that technological aspect as more important than the war itself. As of December 6, 2001, there were at least 3,767 people who would disagree.