Slashdot Mirror
Harvard Study Suggests Drone Strikes Can Disrupt Terror Groups
An anonymous reader writes "Can drone strikes rid the world of terror groups? Many have argued that drones/UAVs seem to be a logical weapon of war: ground troops are not needed and strikes can be specifically targeted against terror-cell leaders (so-called 'decapitation strikes). Others have argued that such attacks only fuel more anger towards the United States and the West while also trampling on nations like Pakistan's sovereign rights and territory. Two recent studies published by Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government suggest 'On the basis of comprehensive analyses of data on multiple terrorist and insurgent organizations, these studies conclude that killing or capturing terrorist leaders can reduce the effectiveness of terrorist groups or even cause terrorist organizations to disintegrate.' It seems then drones and UAVs will be a weapon of war for a long time to come."
...it's when we miss that we cause problems.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
That a tactical nuke can disrupt a picnic... this is news?
FTA
these studies conclude that killing or capturing terrorist leaders can reduce the effectiveness of terrorist groups or even cause terrorist organizations to disintegrate
The studies conclude that killing the leaders of terrorist groups hurts the groups.
UAVs are one tool available, as are Special Forces, and traditional military force. I suppose the conclusion of the headline is correct though, UAVs are an effective weapon. Who knew?
They grow-up desiring to get revenge on the Americans for killing their parents (who were just innocent bystanders). The cycle of hate never stops.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Nice. It's just that these things don't have much to do with each other and not much more with the study's topics. A terrorist organization "disintegrating" does not mean there won't be another one.
I can't help the feeling that any study about actual politics -especially the more questionable part of it- that will be presented to the public will be in favor of the status quo.
Oh, the beautiful gloss of greality!
Killing people in an organization usually makes the organization weaker. So, too, does the expenditure of resources. These are the premises on which war is based. Whether it is done with swords, machine guns, bioweapons, nukes, or drones.
The choice of weapon may alter the truth of that premise by altering the willingness of people to fund, to assist, to kill for, or to die for those organizations. It will also alter the cost per kill.
As a tool, drones obviously help to kill people. The question is whether they are cost-effective and what the psychological consequences are.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
Let's review the distinction between terrorist and enemy combatant (although some of us may have lost sight of it):
Terrorist: member of a small group of persons who wish to cause outsize havoc in the dim hope of changing larger groups of persons
Enemy combatant: member of a large group of persons who can and do cause havoc in a rather reasonable hope of changing similarly sized groups of persons
Now, if it's not obvious already, let's realize that large groups necessarily start off small.
They are also very effective in normal building demolition.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
The atavist exploiting soft targets because the world fails to conform to his faith.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
...Ask yourself, then answer: who is the real terrorist?
The "real" terrorist is the one who uses terror (seemingly random attacks on the general population) for political ends. Al Qaeda is a terrorist organization. The US Military is not. Neither is the Taliban.
Look, the way we took down bin Laden was the RIGHT way to do it and it was the way it should have been done from the very beginning... if you have an enemy, decapitate him. But instead we treated (and treat) entire populations as if they were the enemy, which really only serves to make US the enemy instead. So I'm torn... on the one hand, if drones can do this, then good... on the other, what happens when our relatively lack of accountability in using them takes a darker turn? What happens when a peacenik (as suggested by Goering at the nuremburg trials) is denounced at a traitor and subject to 'droning,' too? Who decides who is a terrorist?
...then skynet became sentient, then we had to send a terminator back and then...ah hell, you know the rest.
Great warrior...hrmph! Wars not make one great.
Did they have any prototypes to share with TEPCO last year? The Japanese have a royal mess in Fukushima to deal with.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
what political ends? Please specify.
Check your history: al Qaeda did not exist before the Russians invaded Afghanistan. It is a list of names used by the CIA as contacts and cash funnels for the Mujahideen in the area - the name was devised by the CIA, not the names on the list. bin Laden was an ALLY back then (as nothing more than a name on that list), simply as a foil for the Communist regime.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Neither is the Taliban.
Wait a tick, the Taliban executed people in the soccer stadiums for you know, not having a sufficiently long enough beard, or for women not being with a proper male relative. Doesn't that fit the definition of terrorism?
What's that make groups like oh Hamas or Hizbullah anyway? Just names or are they actual terrorist groups too. After all they both fit your definition of terrorism pretty well. Not only that, but they pay people very well, and their families of people who strap explosives on themselves to kill large numbers of people.
Om, nomnomnom...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disciplined_Minds
"Disciplined Minds is a book by physicist Jeff Schmidt published in 2000. The book describes how professionals are made; the methods of professional and graduate schools that turn eager entering students into disciplined managerial and intellectual workers that correctly perceive and apply the employer's doctrine and outlook. Schmidt uses the examples of law, medicine, and physics, and describes methods that students and professional workers can use to preserve their personalities and independent thought."
See also:
http://disciplinedminds.tripod.com/
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199710--.htm
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/16a.htm
http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinncomrev24.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Best_and_the_Brightest
Those links explain in part how can such "smart" people totally ignore the potential for "blowback" from the violent actions they endorse (actions which include the slaughter of endless innocents, the violation of national sovereignty and probably international law, the setting of an example of ironic misuse of advanced technology that could otherwise bring material abundance to the entire world, and so on)... These links help show why these academics are willfully blind to the idea that they are endorsing polices that may be creating 100 new terrorist for every one they think they might have killed.
Never forget what one of our greatest Marine Major Generals said:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket
"War Is a Racket is the title of two works, a speech and a booklet, by retired United States Marine Corps Major General and two time Medal of Honor recipient Smedley D. Butler. In them, Butler frankly discusses from his experience as a career military officer how business interests commercially benefit from warfare."
Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan were *supposed* to be expensive quagmires so somebody's buddies coudl get lucrative "defense" contracts. These conflicts were *supposed* to drive up oil prices so somebody's buddies would see the value of their domestic oil holdings increase. And so on...
See also:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marjorie-cohn/killer-drone-attacks-ille_b_1623065.html
"Christof Heyns, the current UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary, or Arbitrary Executions, expressed grave concern about the targeted killings, saying they may constitute war crimes. He called on the Obama administration to explain how its drone strikes comport with international law, specify the bases for decisions to kill rather than capture particular individuals, and whether the State in which the killing takes place has given consent. Heyns further asked for specification of the procedural safeguards in place, if any, to ensure in advance of drone killings that they comply with international law. He also wanted to know what measures the U.S. government takes after any such killing to ensure that its legal and factual analysis was accurate and, if not, the remedial measures it would take, including justice and reparations for victims and their families. Although Heyns' predecessor made similar requests, Heyns said the United States has not provided a satisfactory response.
Heyns also called on the U.S. government to make public the number of civilians collaterally killed as a result of drone attacks, and the measures in place to prevent such casualties. Once again, Heyns said the United States has not satisfactor
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
yeah, bin Laden turned on his former allies. what is that supposed to prove?
i never understood this nonsense line of thought: "bin Laden once got stinger missiles from the CIA a long time ago in the Cold War, so the USA is responsible for everything he ever did since"
ridiculous
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Imagine what would happen if the US government or law enforcement agencies started making drone kills within our own borders, saying "we only target terrorists and drug lords; so sorry if we occasionally hit a church gathering or a country club".
After pausing to consider how that would make you feel, imagine how we're making people in other countries feel.
The problem with the Western Powers is that they're always wrapping themselves in the banner of moral "rights". If we exploit the natives and some of them react violently, we have a "right" to respond with overwhelming force. After all, "they started it".
But this focus on presumed (and self-declared) rights is utterly incompatible with actually addressing the cause of the problem.
If we want peace with the Muslim world, we need to go home and quit treating them like subjects who are illegally camped on "our" oil supply.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
because thy were the rulers at the time
terrorists seek political change from the status quo. the taliban was the status quo
so it accurate to call the taliban a brutal regime, but not terrorists. yes, terror was a tool they used: public executions, but that is not the traditional definition of terrorism: it's a not a surprise attack on innocents from a group not in power
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You said it, not me. Smell your own, first.
I didn't say anything about the circumstances surrounding bin Laden's sudden change of heart. I can't, I wasn't there, so I won't pretend to. It just seems a bit convenient that around the time massive mineral resources are discovered in the mountains of Afghanistan, suddenly he is public enemy #1!?
Something is not right.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
...Ask yourself, then answer: who is the real terrorist?
The man fighting to keep his family and his livelihood against corporate interests? Or the man who wages war from a bombproof office, nine thousand miles away, that he might steal that which does not belong to him?
Pretty sure it's the people who strap bombs to children to blow up in crowded areas and fly planes full of civilians into buildings. But your definition could be different. The end result of both actions will be just about the same.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199112--02.htm ... ..."
"There are two ways to approach the study of terrorism. One may adopt a literal approach, taking the topic seriously, or a propagandistic approach, construing the concept of terrorism as a weapon to be exploited in the service of some system of power. In each case it is clear how to proceed. Pursuing the literal approach, we begin by determining what constitutes terrorism. We then seek instances of the phenomenon -- concentrating on the major examples, if we are serious -- and try to determine causes and remedies. The propagandistic approach dictates a different course. We begin with the thesis that terrorism is the responsibility of some officially designated enemy. We then designate terrorist acts as "terrorist" just in the cases where they can be attributed (whether plausibly or not) to the required source; otherwise they are to be ignored, suppressed, or termed "retaliation" or "self-defence."
It comes as no surprise that the propagandistic approach is adopted by governments generally, and by their instruments in totalitarian states. More interesting is the fact that the same is largely true of the media and scholarship in the Western industrial democracies, as has been documented in extensive detail.1 "We must recognize," Michael Stohl observes, "that by convention -- and it must be emphasized only by convention -- great power use and the threat of the use of force is normally described as coercive diplomacy and not as a form of terrorism," though it commonly involves "the threat and often the use of violence for what would be described as terroristic purposes were it not great powers who were pursuing the very same tactic."2 Only one qualification must be added: the term "great powers" must be restricted to favored states; in the Western conventions under discussion, the Soviet Union is granted no such rhetorical license, and indeed can be charged and convicted on the flimsiest of evidence.
The message is clear: no one has the right of self-defense against US terrorist attack. The US is a terrorist state by right. That is unchallengeable doctrine.
And:
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/200205--02.htm
"The condemnations of terrorism are sound, but leave some questions unanswered. The first is: What do we mean by "terrorism"? Second: What is the proper response to the crime? Whatever the answer, it must at least satisfy a moral truism: If we propose some principle that is to be applied to antagonists, then we must agree -- in fact, strenuously insist -- that the principle apply to us as well. Those who do not rise even to this minimal level of integrity plainly cannot be taken seriously when they speak of right and wrong, good and evil."
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
This more to do with network theory. There is next to no value in killing minions. They are easily replaceable and can be promoted as martyrs. Leaders on the other hand take time to train and create a network of trust. The minions in fact are what lead to the leaders. So the minions are invaluable source of information against these terrorist groups. They are not quite as bright and they are the means the leaders interface with the real world. The more they obfuscate this link, the harder it is to do their job. Anti terrorists agencies are getting better at decifering these obfuscations and terrorist groups are becoming less effective. All they have is suicide bombing. I use the term terrorism liberally but you can insert freedom fighter.
...is with better ideas: http://www.pdfernhout.net/on-dealing-with-social-hurricanes.html ..."
"This approximately 60 page document is a ramble about ways to ensure the CIA (as well as other big organizations) remains (or becomes) accountable to human needs and the needs of healthy, prosperous, joyful, secure, educated communities. The primarily suggestion is to encourage a paradigm shift away from scarcity thinking & competition thinking towards abundance thinking & cooperation thinking within the CIA and other organizations. I suggest that shift could be encouraged in part by providing publicly accessible free "intelligence" tools and other publicly accessible free information that all people (including in the CIA and elsewhere) can, if they want, use to better connect the dots about global issues and see those issues from multiple perspectives, to provide a better context for providing broad policy advice. It links that effort to bigger efforts to transform our global society into a place that works well for (almost) everyone that millions of people are engaged in. A central Haudenosaunee story-related theme is the transformation of Tadodaho through the efforts of the Peacemaker from someone who was evil and hurtful to someone who was good and helpful.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
killing or capturing terrorist leaders can reduce the effectiveness of terrorist groups or even cause terrorist organizations to disintegrate
And all this time the US military were just doing it for the lols. How serendipitous.
Many have argued that drones/UAVs seem to be a logical weapon of war: ground troops are not needed and strikes can be specifically targeted against terror-cell leaders (so-called 'decapitation strikes). Others have argued that such attacks only fuel more anger towards the United States and the West
Hopefully some other "others" realise that it's not a binary choice and that drone strikes can in fact do both at the same time.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/faa-has-authorized-106-government-entities-fly-domestic-drones
"Since Jan. 1 of this year, according to congressional testimony presented Thursday by the Government Accountability Office, the Federal Aviation Administration has authorized 106 federal, state and local government “entities” to fly “unmanned aircraft systems,” also known as drones, within U.S. airspace."
So, if I've got this right, the study suggests that if you blow people up, they are less inclined to join terror organizations.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Who paid for this "study"?
Dog is my co-pilot.
I just want to ask one very stupid question: name one human activity which drone strikes do not disrupt?
1. Please explain the difference between "terror" and "shock and awe" campaigns that hit civilians (accidentally or intentionally, there's no serious question as to whether civilians get hit)
2. Please explain how a totally innocent person on the ground in, say, Yemen, ensures that they won't be hit by a drone strike. Pretend that somebody who lives next door to that person gets accused of terrorism in complete secrecy - the innocent guy doesn't even know that the guy next door is a target.
3. By your understanding of the word, is the Fort Hood shooting an act of terrorism? How about a suicide bomber blowing up an IDF checkpoint? How about the attack on the USS Cole?
There have been many, many attempts to come up with a consistent definition of the word "terrorism", and they've all failed because it turns out the militaries of the world have done exactly the same thing.
I am officially gone from
Wait a tick, the Taliban executed people in the soccer stadiums for you know, not having a sufficiently long enough beard, or for women not being with a proper male relative. Doesn't that fit the definition of terrorism?
Of course not. They didn't execute random people. They only executed lawbreakers. As long as you followed their laws, you had nothing to fear from them. They were repressive, totalitarian assholes, but that doesn't make them terrorists. "Terrorist" doesn't mean "bad guy."
For an organized movement to be effective it takes leadership. There need to be people who are willing to plan, organize and command actions. These leaders need charisma to convince others to join them and follow orders. It takes intelligence to plan the actions. It take courage to carry them out. Very few people have these attributes in enough abundance to convince other to follow them when the possibility of death is very high. Drone strikes work in three ways. First it they eliminate the current leaders so that the organization must look to less qualified people to lead. As the quality of leadership goes down the organization is easier to infiltrate and dismantle. Secondly, it may dawn on the people around the leaders that being near them and supporting them may not be the safest option. They may tell the leaders to go away from their homes and decrease support. Third, intelligent people who may become terrorist leader may look at their life expectancy as a terrorist leader and think of alternate means of getting their message across. Perhaps there is another solution that does not involve putting their own head in the noose.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRMV7zi4h_k
But maybe US vice-president Joe Biden would agree about the founder of Wikileaks?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/19/assange-high-tech-terrorist-biden
"Asked if he saw Assange as closer to a hi-tech terrorist than the whistleblower who released the Pentagon papers in the 1970s, which disclosed the lie on which US involvement in Vietnam was based, Biden replied: "I would argue it is closer to being a hi-tech terrorist than the Pentagon papers. But, look, this guy has done things that have damaged and put in jeopardy the lives and occupations of people in other parts of the world."
See my other posts citing Chomsky on the double-think and double-standard in defining a "terrorist", which basically comes down to a terorist being defined as anyone whom somebody influential in the USA government does not like. And that apparently includes US citizens: ... The lawsuit says: "The U.S. practice of 'targeted killing' has resulted in the deaths of thousands of people, including many hundreds of civilian bystanders. While some targeted killings have been carried out in the context of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, many have taken place outside the context of armed conflict, in countries including Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, Sudan, and the Philippines." "These killings rely on vague legal standards, a closed executive process, and evidence never presented to the courts. ... The killings violated fundamental rights afforded to all U.S. citizens, including the right not to be deprived of life without due process of law," the lawsuit says."
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/07/drone-attacks-lawsuit/
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/07/18/families-us-citizens-killed-in-yemen-drone-strikes-file-lawsuit/
"The wrongful death lawsuit, filed Wednesday, claims that the killings of U.S. citizens al-Awlaki, his 16-year-old son Abdulrahman al-Awlaki and operative Samir Khan were unconstitutional. Khan was the publisher of the terror magazine Inspire.
And see also:
http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2012/05/29/analysis-how-obama-changed-definition-of-civilian-in-secret-drone-wars/
"As the Bureau's own data on Pakistan makes clear, the very first covert drone strikes of the Obama presidency, just three days after he took office, resulted in civilian deaths in Pakistan. As many as 19 civilians â" including four children â" died in two error-filled attacks. Until now it had been thought that Obama was initially unaware of the civilian deaths. Bob Woodward has reported that the president was only told by CIA chief Michael Hayden that the strikes had missed their High Value Target but had killed 'five al Qaeda militants.' Now Newsweek correspondent Daniel Klaidman reveals that Obama knew about the civilian deaths within hours. He reports an anonymous participant at a subsequent meeting with the President: 'You could tell from his body language that he was not a happy man.' Obama is described aggressively questioning the tactics used. Until now it had been thought that President Obama was initially unaware of the civilian deaths. Yet despite the errors, the president ultimately chose to keep in place the CIA's controversial policy of using 'signature strikes' against unknown militants. That tactic has just been extended to Yemen. On another notorious occasion, the article reveals that US officials were aware at the earliest stage that civilians -- including 'dozens of women and children' -- had died in Obama's first ordered strike
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
WOW, repeat after me... Too much coffee... I'm not going to even touch the bigotry... like there aren't several million peaceful and productive Muslim's in the U.S. living theirs lives and not bothering ANYBODY. So let's just address the corporate thing. Can't speak for the guy before you, but if you knew anything about the region and its people, you could pretty much trace this whole mess back through a century and a half of corporations (mostly British in the beginning) screwing up the cultural development of the middle east for industrial and colonial purposes. I can tell reading isn't your first choice of entertainment or information (sorry, FOX News doesn't count as a source of information)... Let's try this, ever see the movie "Lawrence of Arabia" you know, arguable one of the best film ever made? Remember Larry is English? If you had any hint of history under your belt, you wouldn't even be making the statement above.
The entire mess with Islam, is a logical progression of disasters that blossoms fully with oil companies succeeded in exploiting the inhabitants of the middle-east. The social and religious impacts of sudden wealth, the conflicts arising from the invention of the State of Israel, and the protracted use of wealth by Saudi Arabia (our good buddies in the region) to export the most violent and radical of Islamic faiths around the world (and we let them, because they give us oil), has lead to the geopolitical landscape you see today. Both Gulf wars were about oil. The failed attempt to turn Iraq into an American satellite was about oil. Our current support of the infant democracy in Libya... is about, repeat after me... OIL. don't get me wrong. If we can do something genuinely decent, we absolutely will, as long as we can get the goodies while we're at it. So, let's recap. If you're talking about American foreign policy, and you can't see the exchange of currency or corporate interest, you're not looking hard enough. Thanks for playing, please take a parting gift on the way out.
wait a tick, bombing weddings with drones for political coin is terrorism. that would be the US government.
executing people for not following the law, that's just ruthless theocracy
around the time massive mineral resources are discovered in the mountains of Afghanistan, suddenly he is public enemy #1!?
Maybe, but it's also around the time he orchestrated a plot which ended in planes flying into the WTC and killing almost 4,000 people. I mean, if you're going to create some massive conspiracy to facilitate an invasion of a country, why would you choose the landlocked shithole with a long history of successfully resisting foreign occupations that is Afghanistan?
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
If you choose to believe Bin Laden - certainly his opinion holds just as much weight as people who think they know why he did it - you can get answers.
A Reddit user had a good rundown of Bin Laden's own talks: http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/wcpls/this_i_my_friends_son_being_searched_by_the_tsa/c5cabqo?context=2
Note these are reasons for 9/11 rather than why he turned specifically, but it is certainly the occasion in the public's mind.
In particular:
In conclusion, I tell you in truth, that your security is not in the hands of Kerry, nor Bush, nor al-Qaida. No. Your security is in your own hands. - Osama Bin Laden
I see that you quote Ward Churchill and use the word, "facts" in the same post. That's pointless. He's not called "Walking Eagle" for nothing.
1. Please explain the difference between "terror" and "shock and awe" campaigns
Terrorists try to maximize civilian deaths. The 2003 "shock and awe" campaign tried to minimize civilian deaths while still achieving its military objectives. If you can't see the difference, I am sorry.
Please explain how a totally innocent person on the ground in, say, Yemen, ensures that they won't be hit by a drone strike.
They can't. They also can't ensure they won't get hit by an asteroid. What is your point?
By your understanding of the word, is the Fort Hood shooting an act of terrorism?
Well, the perp had a political objective, and although most of the victims were in the military, they were shopping at the time, so I guess I would consider that terrorism (although a borderline case).
How about a suicide bomber blowing up an IDF checkpoint?
No, of course not. An attack on soldiers at a military checkpoint is not terrorism.
How about the attack on the USS Cole?
No, I would not consider that terrorism. It was a military target. We were not at war at the time, but we knew there were hostiles in the area (we were there to show our support for the current regime) and should have been more alert.
There have been many, many attempts to come up with a consistent definition of the word "terrorism", and they've all failed because it turns out the militaries of the world have done exactly the same thing.
A consistent definition is only hard if you are trying to exclude yourselves or your allies, or if you expect every case to be black and white.
Go watch the movie "Charlie Wilson's War", (yes its fictionalized, but surprisingly accurate in its portrayal of the historical events) we spent over a billion dollars arming "The Mujaheddin" to smack Russia upside the head (and line the pockets of our war industries), and all we had to do, to ensure a lasting stability in the region was follow up with 10-20 million dollars to provide schools and infrastructure for the displaces Afghani freedom fighters. The people of Afghanistan would have been forever in our debt and with modern schools the country would have transformed over night into a democratic ally. Instead, we said "Fsck Off" Saudi Arabia provided support and religious schools through the Bin Laden family and indoctrinated a generation of Afghani leaders into the strictest and most radical of Muslim orthodoxies. Travel 25 years, and we have the world as it exists today. You do know, the only planes flying on 9/11 were the planes transporting the Bin Laden family out of the country, and that they are very close friends of the entire Bush family? Does nobody even bother to fact check any more? Jeez. They just bald faced lie to us, and for the most-part, the nation just swallows, rubs its collective tummies and asks for more... really sad.
As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,—as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen [Muslims],—and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan [Muslim] nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
in the Treaty of Tripoly > and aggressively promoted secular America as an alternative to Christian Europe. When the world energy shifted from coal to oil, America was well positioned to get preferential treatment from the Arabs. American oil companies getting better deals than Dutch and Brit companies owes much to this ground laid by foresighted American diplomats
After World War II, Europe did not really want the displaced Jews to come back, and Jews also did not really want to go back to their homes in lands liberated from Nazi occupation. Half of them ended up in USA and the rest in a newly created Israel. That is the start of bad blood between the Arabs and the Americans. Still most Muslim tribes and nations were engaged in internecine warfare and they never unified to fight off the Americans or the Europeans.
In what can only be described as monumental lack of foresight, Reagan authorized CIA to arm the Muslim terrorists, teach Pakistanis how to fight proxy war using non uniformed combatants, to fight off the Russians in Afghanistan. Communism and central planning never had the ideological fervor or support among the Russians. That regime was ripe for collapse. But the Muslims are motivated by ideology and they have strong affinity. Like Prometheus bringing fire from the Gods, CIA taught the Muslims to unify, collect money, recruit volunteers and taught Pakistan to use them effective.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
In some of the intelligence pulled from his hideout, were a number of letters to his cronies about how to avoid drone strikes. Just the fact that he felt he needed to warn them seems to indicate that the strikes were effective.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
And you can trace that money straight back through the Bin Laden family, and oil money paid from your and my pockets at the gas pumps. If we were so all fired committed to ending all this nastiness, someone would actually address the fact that our friends in the middle east are at the root of these problems. Instead we get this multimedia passion play of smoke and mirrors designed to confuse and distract us all, while our collective pockets are emptied and our rights are eliminated. Welcome to the 21rst century.
Yes, attacks on civilians aiming to frighten them into changing their ways is terrorism. But attributing every such attack to "the Taliban" is a mistake (or a lazy political convenience) - the anti-occupation attacks are carried out by a wide spectrum of armed resistance.
It might also be considered terrorism to deliberately bomb civilian houses because there *might* be a Taliban commander hiding in the same village; it is a bit rich of the West to criticize the Afghan resistance for killing civilians, when Western troops do the same. Both sides consider civilians to be legitimate targets if they think they are giving "aid and comfort" to the enemy.
“In bombardments carried out by coalition forces in Logar, Kapisa, Helmand and Badghis provinces since Saturday [May 5] dozens of our innocent fellow countrymen, including women and children, lost their lives and have been martyred,”
That might sound like a quote from the Taiban - but no, it is a quote from our ally Karzai. It is a very bad sign when even your friends start to describe the victims of your actions as "martyrs".
Well, ignoring the obvious job security worries for mainstream economists stepping out of line, maybe the issue is more "religious" at this point?
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1999/03/the-market-as-god/6397/
"A few years ago a friend advised me that if I wanted to know what was going on in the real world, I should read the business pages. Although my lifelong interest has been in the study of religion, I am always willing to expand my horizons; so I took the advice, vaguely fearful that I would have to cope with a new and baffling vocabulary. Instead I was surprised to discover that most of the concepts I ran across were quite familiar.
Expecting a terra incognita, I found myself instead in the land of deja vu. The lexicon of The Wall Street Journal and the business sections of Time and Newsweek turned out to bear a striking resemblance to Genesis, the Epistle to the Romans, and Saint Augustine's City of God. Behind descriptions of market reforms, monetary policy, and the convolutions of the Dow, I gradually made out the pieces of a grand narrative about the inner meaning of human history, why things had gone wrong, and how to put them right. Theologians call these myths of origin, legends of the fall, and doctrines of sin and redemption. But here they were again, and in only thin disguise: chronicles about the creation of wealth, the seductive temptations of statism, captivity to faceless economic cycles, and, ultimately, salvation through the advent of free markets, with a small dose of ascetic belt tightening along the way, especially for the East Asian economies."
And:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/business/economy/04econ.html?pagewanted=all
"But in the wake of the recent crisis, a few economists -- like Professors Reinhart and Rogoff, and other like-minded colleagues like Barry Eichengreen and Alan Taylor -- have been encouraging others in their field to look beyond hermetically sealed theoretical models and into the historical record. "There is so much inbredness in this profession," says Ms. Reinhart. "They all read the same sources. They all use the same data sets. They all talk to the same people. There is endless extrapolation on extrapolation on extrapolation, and for years that is what has been rewarded.""
These are people who essentially deny that economic alternatives exists (or are viable, which is the same thing); contrast that with:
"The Dictionary of Alternatives: Utopianism and Organization" By Martin Parker, Valerie Fournier, Patrick Reedy
http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Dictionary_of_Alternatives.html?id=IKZVKMPEQCEC
How many millions of people have been harmed by the essentially "religious" market fundamentalism of so many mainstream economists, who turn a blind eye to externalities, systemic risks, and wealth concentration? (To be clear, it is also a weird sort of market fundamentalism in the USA mixed with protectionism for favored already "worthy" wealthy groups.)
See also:
http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue21/Stanford21.htm
"I am an economist. It is seventeen days since I last uttered the phrase "supply and demand." But the demon still lurks untamed, within me. Economics is an addiction. Every other addiction has a Twelve Step program, laced with tough love and blunt self-honesty. Why not a Twelve Step program for economists? God knows, we have done enough damage with our arrogant, drunken prescriptions. Here's how each and every economist can face up to their inner demons, and make their own small contribution to setting things right.
Step 1: Admit you have a problem. Like they say at the AA meetings, this is half the solution
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Whichever one poisons school children?
You mean the poisoning where no traces of poison was found and no one got sick and died?
Oh, how about the one that sodomizes young children as part of a millennia-long tribal tradition?
You mean Bacha Bazi, which was illegal under the Taliban and punished by execution? And which has flourished since the Taliban were defeated, including the U.S. company Dyncorp pimping young boys to Afghan policemen?
The Taliban are terrible, but there are enough truths to hold against them without making stuff up.
You nuke me, I nuke you.
You attack with a conventional army I respond in kind.
You use guerrilla warfare, I use special ops.
Use terrorism? Right back at you with drones - you never know when it will strike.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
too true. if the saudis had freedom and choice instead of a fucking kingdom (in this day and age?), they'd have far more opportunities to vent their frustration than wahabism and the like. we should be dropping porn and booze instead of bombs.
...
In Algeria the French started killing rebels, then anyone they pulled off the street that looked like they might be a rebel. They racked up a huge body count much larger than their initial, probably accurate, estimate of members of the rebellion. Instead of reducing the rebellion they were inflaming it.
In the end the entire operation backfired to the extent that military personal involved in the executions and torture decided that the French President had betrayed them, and they were good at assassinations, so why not try to kill him off too? The attempt failed and the attempted assassins were arrested, but how's that for an example of "what could possibly go wrong" when you have state sanctioned death squads in a modern democratic state?
Who doubts that sudden death from the sky "disrupts" terrorists and demoralizes them along with confounding their operations? Come on. Drones are as close to targeting specific, otherwise unreachable bad guys as we're able to get for now and as such they are a innocence-sparing, humane form of warfare. Anyone who seriously has an issue with the drone program needs to think through what alternatives there are to stopping very bad people very far away from doing very bad things.
Killing the most important nodes in a network is going to weaken the network. The trick is knowing which ones matter, and where to find them. The lesson from this isn't going to be "more drones", it's going to be "more electronic spying".
American exceptionalists always try to rationalize their hypocrisy. The U.S. has routinely hit economic targets in its various wars of choice, in addition to military ones. Guess what the WTC and the Pentagon are?
Would the lights start to flicker on if you knew that the United States considers "double taps" to be terrorist actions - attacking rescuers responding to a bombing - yet routinely engages in "double taps" overseas?
The "real" terrorist is the one who uses terror (seemingly random attacks on the general population) for political ends. Al Qaeda is a terrorist organization. The US Military is not.
Oooh, and where does "collateral damage" reside in your black-and-white world? US Military is not a terrorist organization because any time it kills someone innocent, it was really trying to kill a terrorist (strongly suspected terrorist, anyway)?
And so if Al Qaeda limits itself to attacking US military installations, they'd would stop being classified as a terrorist organization? Somehow I doubt that.
As juicy as killing a NATO soldier might be for a Taliban fighter, all of that armor (both body and vehicular) makes them into a foridable target. A bunch of would-be cadets lined up for their interviews, on the other hand are easy. They don't even have guns to shoot back with!
The fact that Islam reserves a special layer of hell for Muslims who kill fellow muslims (and another special hell for those who comit suicide,,, and pretty much forbuds killing Civilians in wartime) ....... is an entirely non-tactical question.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If somehow, somewhat, the unthinkable happens and innocent civilians get badly harmed, they can always put the blame on software bugs, and avoid all the blame the troops had got so far for their "misbehavings". AND will get another excuse for getting funds for cyberwar, you know, we got hacked so that drone hit the wrong place, better be safe and strip privacy to most internet users.
Last I checked neither side is fighting corporate interests nor claims to be.
"Kill Decision" by Daniel Suarez is about the possibility that drones will be developed as more of an autonomous vehicle. And humans won't be required to authorize the strike.
Invalid Checksum. Retrying.
How about all the sex trafficked women in the US being raped over 30 times a day sometimes as young as 14?
Not that I disagree, but did you know George Washington was considered a terrorist by some?
"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose, ..."
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
around the time massive mineral resources are discovered in the mountains of Afghanistan, suddenly he is public enemy #1!?
Because "massive mineral resources are discovered in the mountains"?
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
It's really just a hodge-podge of lhalf-baked reasons ... until the massive oil and mineral resources of those two counries et involved.... then it makes pure sense.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
If I have an oil well in my back garden that I depend on to feed my family, you bet your arse I will defend it with deadly force against some jerk in a uniform acting on orders from some other jerk with Dollar signs in his eyes and shareholders to please.
Right now kids are sick and starving in Iraq and Libya, not because the infrastructure and money wasn't there before to feed them - it was. Now, post-invasion, post-coup, there is no money, the roads are shattered, preventable diseases are running rampant and the resources of the nation are being diverted by the invading force in a self-justifying stripmining operation. What's left of the ever-dwindling amount of food and medicines that the occupying forces don't consider worth bothering with, is being fought over by the survivors - while those occupying forces stand and watch as if it were a cockfight, placing bets on which brownskin dies next.
Once those resources are gone in crates and tanks marked with the Star Spangled Banner, the desert will completely reclaim the country and what's left of its people.
I see the same thing happening in Syria right now - I wonder where those displaced during the Iraq conflicts will run to now, not to mention the extra burden of the Syrian refugees who will surely flood the desert with their numbers if and when the US/UK complex decide it's time to intervene?
I weep for the species.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Has the US actually WON either in Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan? I would think the effectiveness of drones is kind of "iffy" if the US is not strategically winning.
If I recall correctly the use of drones caused Pakistan to cut the US supply lines to Afghanistan (and probably much much worse); that is a major strategic failure in return for the targeted killing of a few hundred alleged terrorists and the civilians in their immediate surroundings. Drones in Yemen basically cause the allied government control of the country. After 10 years, a frigging decade, the most sophisticated, well equipped and trained army in the world can't master 10,000 illiterate tribesmen with 40 year old (or older) small arms, and will probably let the country go back the Taliban.
Actually you added "seeming random" to the definition of terrorism. The definition of terrorism is "The use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims." Our political aims are to disable and weaken Al Qaeda. We use remote control airplanes to fire precision high explosive missiles at targets to assassinate particular people we think need to die. Very often these attack kill LOTS of non-combatants. The only difference I can see between this and driving a truck bomb into the embassy of a nation that is occupying your home is that when we do we don't have to send our people to their deaths, and our weapons are much more high tech and work better. Oh and our government subscribes to an idea they call "American Exceptionalism" which means the rules apply to everyone except us. So when we blow up a wedding party to get that Al Qaeda guy and kill 20 other men, women, and children at a wedding, it was collateral damage, but when they drive a car full of explosives into a crowd of men who are graduating from training to fight for an occupying force it is terrorism.
Both are despicable in the extreme, but my tax dollars pay to blow up the wedding party so that's the one that really pisses me off, because I contributed to that atrocity and I feel powerless to do anything about it. I mean I voted for the hope/change guy and now I've lost hope because there's been no real change.
-- QED
I wonder if the study took into account that dropping bombs onto wedding parties radicalizes a whole generation to despise us as the cowardly evil power that hides half a planet away and drops bombs from remote control airplanes on their families.
-- QED
The Blitz disrupted England pretty heavily, but it didn't win the war for Germany did it? In fact it just taught the Brits just how important it was that they defeat the Nazis.
-- QED
So I don't get the point.
Yeah. Maybe they can interfere with terrorist cell(?) activities.
Who the fuck wouldn't worry about being bombed whenever?
If knowing drones may be over your head bombing at any time isn't terror I don't know what is.
.. and also who do we know who's the bigger terrorist? Or whatever they are used against people who "deserved it"?
In the civilized world we don't have death penalty so I guess no-one deserves it by that account. (English isn't my native language.)
You do know, the only planes flying on 9/11 were the planes transporting the Bin Laden family out of the country, and that they are very close friends of the entire Bush family?
Hold it, you lose all credibility claiming that the Bin Laden family were allowed to fly out of the country on 9/11. I'm pretty sure it was 9/12 or 9/13 when the first allowed flights were the Bin Laden's family flying to Saudi Arabia.
Next you'll be claiming that the people flying the planes that hit the WTC were predominately Saudis when everyone knows that the whole attack was orchestrated and executed by the Iraqis. Why else was the response to attack Iraq. People with their revisionist history. [/sarcasm]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Do we seriously need a Harvard study to convince people that robot airplanes can kill and or disrupt terrorists? Sorry, this strategically created study to make people feel good about drones roaming over the US skies one day hopefully won't fool too many people.
*plays the Apogee theme song music*
The actual paper is worth a read. This has nothing to do with drones. It's about taking out leaders, and what effect that has.
Assassination of political leaders by an external power has historically been a losing strategy. A new political leader soon takes power, and is generally more hostile to the external power. (When the new leader set up the assassination of the old one, that's a coup d'etat, which is a different situation.) The point of the paper is that terrorist groups tend to be held together by a charismatic leader, and killing that leader, more often than not, kills the group.
The older the group, the less likely this is to work. For a group that's only a few years old, it usually works; for one more than 20 years old, it rarely does. The half-life of terrorist groups is 15 years; half of them collapse in that time, and the survival rate of such groups follows a classic decay curve.
It doesn't work for drug and crime lords, because drug cartels are economic organizations. The organization and profit motive remain. Eliminating a leader just leaves a power vacuum at the top, which is quickly filled.
Interestingly, assassination of religious leaders is highly effective. "Although religious groups appear to be 80 percent less likely to end than nationalist groups based on ideology alone, they were almost five times as likely to end than nationalist groups after experiencing leadership decapitation." The conventional wisdom is that it is very difficult to take down a religion, short of outright extermination of all followers.. That may not be the case.
Just one correction. It is not for oil, but for oil companies.
Yes, drones can interfere with organized terrorist groups.
But the collateral damage and bad target identification and people's general dislike for foreign invaders are still making lots of enemies for the US, just as Obama's failure to fix Gitmo is continuing Bush's best source of new enemies.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Oh, how about the one that sodomizes young children as part of a millennia-long tribal tradition?
What are you talking about? The Penn State football program is only a century old!
My sister opened a computer store in Hawaii. She sells C shells by the seashore.
I'd imagine more people are posting AC because the internet is becoming a less friendly place. If you use the same handle for long enough in enough places then it becomes easier and easier to track your username back to your RL identity. With everything on the internet being logged and mined in more and more ways I can completely understand the desire to not be subjected to a permanent archive of your comments that could be used against you at some point in the future.
Much Madness is divinest Sense --
To a discerning Eye --
Much Sense -- the starkest Madness
A lot of people that I know in oz are thinking just this.
I stand corrected, the only flight to happen on 9/11 was delivering antivenom to Miami. The Bin Laden family however was flown out of the U.S. on a 747 from Miami on 9/19 while all other air traffic in the country was in full lock down and the FBI new the plane had be chartered by Osama Bin Laden. The White House managed all authorizations. You can read more about it here.
...and everybody, government and terrorists alike, will be happily interested in the Harvard study.
The people of Iraq were worse off prior to the invasion in terms of living standards. Most of the damage done to Iraq was either done before by the sanctions regime or after by the rebellion.
In terms of Libya, that uprising was rather broad. There is no strip-mining being done by foreign powers. Nor is there an occupation.
Pravda, among other news sources (that are infinitely more reputable than either Fox or the BBC), say otherwise.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Neither is the Taliban.
Wait a tick, the Taliban executed people in the soccer stadiums for you know, not having a sufficiently long enough beard, or for women not being with a proper male relative. Doesn't that fit the definition of terrorism?
What's that make groups like oh Hamas or Hizbullah anyway? Just names or are they actual terrorist groups too. After all they both fit your definition of terrorism pretty well. Not only that, but they pay people very well, and their families of people who strap explosives on themselves to kill large numbers of people.
Compared to the Taliban, Hamas are Boy Scouts.
Bombing weddings with drones is called making mistakes. There's no serious assertion that weddings were targeted to make the general populace fear the USA.
1. Please explain the difference between "terror" and "shock and awe" campaigns that hit civilians (accidentally or intentionally, there's no serious question as to whether civilians get hit) 2. Please explain how a totally innocent person on the ground in, say, Yemen, ensures that they won't be hit by a drone strike. Pretend that somebody who lives next door to that person gets accused of terrorism in complete secrecy - the innocent guy doesn't even know that the guy next door is a target. 3. By your understanding of the word, is the Fort Hood shooting an act of terrorism? How about a suicide bomber blowing up an IDF checkpoint? How about the attack on the USS Cole?
There have been many, many attempts to come up with a consistent definition of the word "terrorism", and they've all failed because it turns out the militaries of the world have done exactly the same thing.
1. "shock and awe" referred to Iraq and was supposed to be on the part of the Iranian military. They were supposed to be hit so hard that they would lay down arms rather because they would perceive opposing the USA would be futile. It wasn't to persuade the civilian population because the official claim was that the civilians hated Saddam and his brutal regime and would not fight to defend it. (It seems that the "shock and awe" business, as far as it went, was successful.)
2. So don't use drone strikes in the city.
3. The Fort Hood shooting was not an act of terrorism. Those targeted were members of the military and targeting members of an enemy military is not within any useful definition of the term terrorism.
Of course the US `foreignpolicy` is still to be the policeman of the world although the empire is crumbling and they still ignore that they cause the evils themselves for the greater part.
And then they need Harvard to confirm that a dron is a usefull tool.
As would be a B-52, team of commando's, mini-nuke, etc.
So it all looks pretty insulting towards someone with some amount of intelligence.
Get a clue, a wedding in that country doesn't look like anything else, they are quite unique. The serious assertion is made that we are terrorizing the populace of that country for greed and political coin
Why bother? The Saudi's are having no problem acquiring porn and booze now.
The 18 inch satellite dish will end Islam as a problem. MTV middle east is our best weapon.
The worst thing for them, they will live to see their grandsons as Emos.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
You meet all kinds of people in online forums you would avoid or who would otherwise be excluded from your world through a variety of processes that act as effective gate-keepers. You're one of those people.
At some point in your life, you should hear someone tell you exactly what's wrong with you. So here it is. You've bought into crank ideas, bordering on the paranoid. Basically, you have poor reality testing, and instead of critical thinking, you look for conspiracies because they're just more exciting to a certain part of your brain than the messiness that reality is ,. There's always a huge component of narcissism involved in paranoiac fantasies because it implies someone (other than yourself) is constantly thinking about you and planning fro you, albeit in a completely negative way. I have no idea where this kind of thinking comes from, perhaps from a childhood in which absolutely no one paid any attention to you. or lots of the wrong kind of attention to you.
There. Someone told you so now you can't say that you never knew, and that's why you never changed and wasted your life's energy on paranoid delusions .
HTH, no, really, HTH.
You're one for the John Birchers, or some left wing equivalent, a 9-11 truther or a Obama birth certificate lunatic.
Thaaaaat's right MKULTRA happened- 40 years ago when the CIA was run by people who were born in the 20s, nearly 100 years ago now. For THOSE people, the Civil War and slavery were closer to them than MKULTRA is to you.
I cannot speak for the AC, but I can say that the way I read his post, I figured that
either he felt compelled to say something but was not able to come up with wording that he wanted associated with his name (perhaps something was making him too angry to think clearly),
or he was concerned about the kind of retribution that might happen if the fans of the poster he was responding to were an organized and retaliatory group. It does seem like he did a little more background research than is commonly done in responding on /. Maybe something he came across got his dander up.
Or maybe he had been moderating the thread and did not want to waste the points he had spent. Although I think anyone who has been awarded moderation points knows how to say they are posting anonymously to protect them.
If he has been around for as long as some of us old timers who go back to the days of CompuServe and BBSs (the era before the Internet), he may have used anonymity to avoid today's equivalent of mail bombing, etc. Or he may have history with the Scientologists and be a bit more paranoid than some of us because of that. Hard to say. Maybe he felt compelled to put on a Guy Fawkes mask when he typed his reply.
The main thing, though, is whether the content of the post furthers the discussion. Not whether the AC is truly a coward. Even cowards can be insightful at times.
"It seems then drones and UAVs will be a weapon of war for a longtime to come."
Oh, GI. Me drone you longtime.
Intolerance for ambiguity is the mark of the authoritarian personality.
I remembered it being closer to 9/11 then 9/19 but it was quite a while ago and the point that members of the Bin Laden family as well as other prominent Saudis were allowed to leave the country while regular flights were still grounded still seems very suspicious. Your link is the first time I've heard that Osama was involved in the flight though.
Sure a lot of weird stuff about 9/11, shame we'll probably never, or at least in our lifetime, know more.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Those claims of mineral riches in Afghanistan were bullshit. I don't see anyone of note trying to mine there.
Not til the bullets stop flying, anyways. I heard a rumor that the Russians were thinking of building an oil pipeline through Afghanistan for their Siberian oil. It makes more sense than to pipe it to the (Russian) East Coast. The weather on the Indian Ocean is a helluva lot better than that on the northern Pacific Coast, plus it would be cheaper since it'd save them a couple thousand kilometers of pipeline.
And yeah, the Russians knew about the oil under Siberia back in the 80's. They just couldn't justify going after it without a decent port to tranship it from.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
Just picking example, I'd have to call the Taliban taking 40 hostages in a hotel last month domestic terrorism.
Keep in mind it's been awhile since they were the rulers of Afghanistan. Back then, they were the 'legitimate' government. Now they're not.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
Any other consideration, like making up a new term like illegal combatant, is actually an attempt to ignore the convention for nationals from countries which signed the convention.
You haven't said whether the attempt is legal or not. Everything is an attempt.
Used against me by whom? Just asking. The only time I've ever posted AC was when I had mod points and then only after someone else mentioned the possibility very recently.
"[I]t is a wise man who admits the limits of his knowledge or skill, and that pretending either causes harm." --Terry Go
On a tangent, Bin Laden didn't orchestrate the 9/11 attacks. He provided funding and inspiration for other terrorists, but he was never a tactical leader.
Unmanned the flash game. Experience the thrill of flying an unmanned drone for a living. unmanned.molleindustria.org
Who knows? A small list could include current or potential employers, advertisers/profilers, law enforcement, stalkers, and anyone else who could possibly be interested in your for the rest of your life. Perhaps a poster will want to run for public office in 30 years, only to have something they wrote come back to haunt them. Just look at what happens during congressional vetting of presidential appointees now, and imagine how bad it will be when these people come from a generation where much of their correspondence is available through either public research or rubber-stamped warrants...
Much Madness is divinest Sense --
To a discerning Eye --
Much Sense -- the starkest Madness
Master of the completely obvious.
Lets get this over with... Fuck Off