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Top Secret America
mahiskali writes "The Washington Post published an immense interactive website today, detailing the companies and government agencies currently doing top secret work in the United States. Everything from counter-IED operations to human intelligence is touched upon. Citing various interviews with 'super users' and through exhaustive analysis of public records for over two years, this interactive site allows users to peer into the guarded world of top secret intelligence. With more than 854,000 people currently holding a TS clearance, has the defense and intelligence world grown too big, too fast? Or has this large growth served us well, exemplified by no successful terrorist acts on US soil since 9/11? How can we judge the success of these programs, when much of it will never be known by the general public?"
Another type of right-wing terror attack: murders of doctors who save women's lives by performing abortions.
The last time I checked that Mosque had been approved by the relevant NYC zoning departments. Got any other bad comparisons that you want to make?
So there was no opposition at all? Everyone was happy to have it there?
Saying that you have respect religion in the US is a rather gross generalization - otherwise there would not have been so many people venting against the mosque
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Preventing a Shinto temple at Pearl Harbor wouldn't be an infringement on the first Amendment. The Shinto can have their temple, almost anywhere, so long as it doesn't offend the families of the men and women who were murdered at Pearl Harbor. The freedom of religion does not include freedom to offend other people with your religion. (I wish the court system would teach that lesson to the fruitcakes from that Westboro Baptist "church".)
Ditto a Mosque at Ground Zero.
And, BTW - my dad served in the Pacific. He was shipped home in a basket, and spent more than a year in the hospital before he learned how to walk and to take care of himself again.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
the stupid attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan
You mean, the attack on Saddam's regime, following his invasion of a neighboring country and his unwillingness to ever adhere to the terms of his surrender as his forces were pushed back into his own country? That attack?
No, the mass murder of over one hundred thousand civilians who's surviving relatives now live in a country that is worse in every conceivable way than it was under Saddam: More violence, less running water, etc. You know, the lives you think are meaningless and deserving of destruction because you didn't like that one guy Saddam.
That Taliban? Ask most Afghanis if they were really pleased, or not, to have their school teachers dragged into the town square (now peacefully free of heretic activities like kite flying and music playing) and shot in the head by the guys who want to see not just the middle east, but the entire world tuned up to their medieval specs.
That hasn't stopped, the Taliban are still in control of most of Afghanistan, and ask the Afghans if they want the Taliban or the foreigners to be the ones running around in tanks, bossing people around and committing atrocities. They're not happier with new boss and his shinier uniforms, people still blow up, the goats still need tending, and being subjugated to foreign rule isn't any better than the local devil they knew.
Now, getting rid of the Taliban was a good idea, it's too bad the neocons were so obsessed with invading Iraq at any cost that they didn't actually finish the job before running off where there's more oil. But don't pretend you did the Afghans of the Iraqis a favor by blowing them up and putting your bribed puppets in power. Just don't.
You can't take the sky from me...
Enough with the attempts at changing the subject. I've never held that the United States is a utopia. I've only held that we have more respect for the free practice of religion than some European countries. This is evidenced by the fact that they are removing the ability of Muslims (and Jews in the case of France, see the skullcap ban in public schools) to freely practice their faith. No amount of rationalization will change this underlying fact.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Then, I might point out that blowing up a mosque might offend you, but unless you are standing in the mosque, it hardly harms you.
Let's stop quibbling here. Much of Islam is at war against the United States. Much of Islam slyly supports Al Queda and other militant groups that claim to represent Islam. Allowing a Mosque at Ground Zero would be the equivalent of allowing the Emperor of Japan to plant his Rising Sun flag on the USS Arizon monument.
There will be no mosque at Ground Zero, unless and until Islam takes control of those extremists that claim to act for Islam. Some redneck will be around to destroy any mosque. Care to make a wager?
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Funny how in the US we could care less what the pansy Europeans think. The countries you mention aren't a major superpower that is primarily Christian. Of course the terrorists don't attack over there. They don't care about them. They think that when they've won the west it'll be real easy to get those guys to worship mohammed. They're probably right. Now go style your hair.
I don't believe in karma, I just call it like I see it.
Both Afghanistan and Iraq never attacked the US
No, Afghanistan didn't. The Taliban, who forcefully occupied it, worked together with Al Queda, who did do so, several times. So we went about removing the Taliban. The Taliban is not happy about that, certainly.
As for Iraq: they were forced out of Kuwait, which they murderously invaded for the sole purpose of taking over their infrastructure. As they were being pushed back, Saddam agreed to numerous things in order to keep his regime more or less intact. Among them, he agreed to no-fly zones. Of course, he never adhered to that in practice, and continued to have his forces shoot at the aircraft patroling those zones for years afterwards, right up until he was run out of town. He was attacking the US (and other) forces every week. He never actually ceased his own hostilities following his invasion of Kuwait. Of course, you already know that and you're just pretending not to.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.