I'm pretty sure there was a huge public outcry; the only things I really remember from Bush's first term were 9/11 and the ensuing invasions, and Scootergate (I was in grade school at the time, hence the not-remembering-much)
I interpreted your post as rhetorical questions for which the answer to both would be 'No'. Apparently that's the opposite of what you meant, though, so I'm sorry for my mistake.
Capital punishment is execution following the due process of law, or at least something resembling due process.
The insurgency will just pop a cap in yo ass.
The documents could already be full of fake data, and with nothing to check it against, we'd be none the wiser. Having a document full of complexity just gives it a facade of veracity. Furthermore, in a case of a document like this being faked, it wouldn't be found out by noticing that a certain house is listed as 10 m west of where it should be; it would be something like a house where there are no houses for 200 km, or mountain ranges that don't exist, or Coalition military formations that never deployed. The only result of providing exact locations for everything is that anyone with a GPS can target them with increased accuracy.
If they were fighting the locals, the war would be a lot easier because they could just carpet-bomb the village and kill 'em all. Instead they have to go house-to-house, identifying who's on what side and tracking insurgents.
In case you missed it, I'll repeat what I posted above regarding my use of 'Taliban':
'Taliban' is a commonly used synecdoche for the very loose coalition of groups that are opposed to the Afghan government.
The entire country is not up in arms, only certain people in some areas, supported, armed, and financed by foreign groups. Most of the locals couldn't care less who's in charge of them as long as they stop getting shot, but stopping the shooting requires either NATO or the insurgents to pack it in, and you can't possibly be arguing that the people of Afghanistan would be better off returning to where they were in 2000.
They've tried that; turns out the Taliban will just shoot anyone who accepts aid from the Westerners. It depends on the region, too; some provinces are fairly quiet, while others are hotbeds. The American concept of the "Three Block War" (which I know the Canadians have also drawn information from ) held that the military forces should be engaging in military operations, peacekeeping, and humanitarian missions simultaneously and in the same areas, as the situation demanded. The Provincial Reconstruction Teams are NATO groups that have military, diplomatic, and economic elements, and provide aid to the provincial governments to rebuild infrastructure and the economic system.
the patient's suffering is unbearable with no prospect of improvement
the patient's request for euthanasia must be voluntary and persist over time (the request cannot be granted when under the influence of others, psychological illness or drugs)
the patient must be fully aware of his/her condition, prospects and options
there must be consultation with at least one other independent doctor who needs to confirm the conditions mentioned above
So either there's major malpractice going on in the Netherlands or you're wrong.
(same source):
In 2003, in the Netherlands, 1626 cases were officially reported of euthanasia in the sense of a physician assisting the death (1.2% of all deaths).
Do you have a source for claiming "over 20% of all deaths"?
If you spend NZ$20,000,000 to try and save 40 people, and end up with two homeless guys, a drug addict, 2 murderers, a career burglar, a man in his 80's, and 33 corpses,
If that's what you get back from 40 rescue operations, your country is messed up and you suck at rescuing. Anyway, these people will still be saved for the same reason that New Zealand, and every Western country save the US, would provide them with health care: people are members of society regardless of their perceived 'worth', and deserve the essential services that a member of society receives.
The US is aiding the Afghan government in suppressing their own people.
The alternative is to give up on attempting to have a centralized state in Afghanistan, and accept a return to the previous days of terrorist-harbouring, Pakistan-destablilizing chaos.
Had a more traditional foreign news agency offered them the chance to redact sensitive info from a leak that had already happened they should have jumped at it.
Exactly. But the traditional news agencies show more respect for national security and are at least willing to compromise with the Pentagon. If the Pentagon treated Wikileaks like a traditional journalist organization, they would be conceding that the Wikileaks model is responsible and acceptable, which (for obvious reasons) is unpalatable to the Pentagon.
And if you drop the time, you get DD MMM YY, which is what I had (well, I went with YYYY because it improves comprehension and from my experience is common military practice).
Sigh, the Taliban have nothing to do with what is going on in Afghanistan.
I don't understand why Americans have so much trouble understanding what war is... there's nothing going on in Afghanistan that is anything like a war.
There's not even a civil war going on. What's going on is that the government of Afghanistan is trying to keep power and expand their territory to the designated borders. There's pockets of Afghanistan that are completely cut off from the government and they can't collect taxes, hold elections, and exert their will.
For *some reason* the US is there helping the Afghanistan government to get control over their territory. I'd love to explain to you why the US is doing that but we don't know.
'Taliban' is a commonly used synecdoche for the very loose coalition of groups that are opposed to the Afghan government.
If you want to be needlessly pedantic, then Afghanistan is in the middle of a conflict, not a war. Needless pedantry tends to be frowned upon.
The US (and their allies) are helping the Afghan government because they installed that government, and have a strong interest (in terms of diplomacy, prestige, and concern for the Afghan population) in maintaining it.
(for instance, there is no war in Afghanistan, the US is aiding the government to suppress it's own people),
This is the first time I've ever heard someone claim that the Taliban are actually a force of liberation, struggling to overthrow the US tyranny. In any case, that would be a civil war, so there would still be a war in Afghanistan.
You are right, I spoke a bit hastily; Canadian law enforcement was complicit in investigating Arar, so the Canadian government was at least slightly onboard.
What I haven't seen is any commentary on the Australian government's position on this. What do they think?
I'm Canadian; I sympathize with you on the having-a-small-force-in-Afghanistan front. The question of "why" is a good one for historians and political scientists, but the question we need to ask now that we're there is "how do we deal with this so that our own nation, the other nations involved, and the Afghans suffer the least?"
Slashdot Mirror
basically no public outcry
I'm pretty sure there was a huge public outcry; the only things I really remember from Bush's first term were 9/11 and the ensuing invasions, and Scootergate (I was in grade school at the time, hence the not-remembering-much)
I interpreted your post as rhetorical questions for which the answer to both would be 'No'. Apparently that's the opposite of what you meant, though, so I'm sorry for my mistake.
Capital punishment is execution following the due process of law, or at least something resembling due process.
The insurgency will just pop a cap in yo ass.
Found in fifteen minutes of browsing:
Names of surrendered Taliban
More surrendered
More
More
Names a suspected double agent
More could probably be found with a bit more looking.
But he is an Australian, and Australia has troops in Afghanistan too.
How did this get modded up? Its logical connection is tenuous and it basically strawmans the parent post without addressing it at all.
One side in this war is intentionally murdering civilians, so that side is objectively the Bad Guys.
Names of surrendered Taliban
More surrendered
More
More
Names a suspected double agent
Didn't see any bona fide civilian informants, but I only spent about fifteen minutes looking.
The documents could already be full of fake data, and with nothing to check it against, we'd be none the wiser. Having a document full of complexity just gives it a facade of veracity. Furthermore, in a case of a document like this being faked, it wouldn't be found out by noticing that a certain house is listed as 10 m west of where it should be; it would be something like a house where there are no houses for 200 km, or mountain ranges that don't exist, or Coalition military formations that never deployed. The only result of providing exact locations for everything is that anyone with a GPS can target them with increased accuracy.
In case you missed it, I'll repeat what I posted above regarding my use of 'Taliban':
'Taliban' is a commonly used synecdoche for the very loose coalition of groups that are opposed to the Afghan government.
The entire country is not up in arms, only certain people in some areas, supported, armed, and financed by foreign groups. Most of the locals couldn't care less who's in charge of them as long as they stop getting shot, but stopping the shooting requires either NATO or the insurgents to pack it in, and you can't possibly be arguing that the people of Afghanistan would be better off returning to where they were in 2000.
They've tried that; turns out the Taliban will just shoot anyone who accepts aid from the Westerners. It depends on the region, too; some provinces are fairly quiet, while others are hotbeds. The American concept of the "Three Block War" (which I know the Canadians have also drawn information from ) held that the military forces should be engaging in military operations, peacekeeping, and humanitarian missions simultaneously and in the same areas, as the situation demanded. The Provincial Reconstruction Teams are NATO groups that have military, diplomatic, and economic elements, and provide aid to the provincial governments to rebuild infrastructure and the economic system.
the patient's suffering is unbearable with no prospect of improvement
the patient's request for euthanasia must be voluntary and persist over time (the request cannot be granted when under the influence of others, psychological illness or drugs)
the patient must be fully aware of his/her condition, prospects and options
there must be consultation with at least one other independent doctor who needs to confirm the conditions mentioned above
So either there's major malpractice going on in the Netherlands or you're wrong.
(same source):
In 2003, in the Netherlands, 1626 cases were officially reported of euthanasia in the sense of a physician assisting the death (1.2% of all deaths).
Do you have a source for claiming "over 20% of all deaths"?
Because once they are dead, they can do nothing.
They can still vote in some jurisdictions if your campaign manager knows some people.
Tune in tomorrow for the shocking conclusion of "The Young and the Restless: Capitol Hill"
They do if the candidate needs a way to launder some funds.
If you spend NZ$20,000,000 to try and save 40 people, and end up with two homeless guys, a drug addict, 2 murderers, a career burglar, a man in his 80's, and 33 corpses,
If that's what you get back from 40 rescue operations, your country is messed up and you suck at rescuing. Anyway, these people will still be saved for the same reason that New Zealand, and every Western country save the US, would provide them with health care: people are members of society regardless of their perceived 'worth', and deserve the essential services that a member of society receives.
Now, a McCain/Obama or Obama/McCain ticket, I just might have been able to get behind
What about Clinton/McCain or vice versa? Iran would have been a smoking crater 48 hours after the inauguration.
I'm going to add this to the fNeat Things I Learned On Slashdot List.
Locke is the last person I would have thought to be an investor in the slave trade. What a hypocrite.
The US is aiding the Afghan government in suppressing their own people.
The alternative is to give up on attempting to have a centralized state in Afghanistan, and accept a return to the previous days of terrorist-harbouring, Pakistan-destablilizing chaos.
Had a more traditional foreign news agency offered them the chance to redact sensitive info from a leak that had already happened they should have jumped at it.
Exactly. But the traditional news agencies show more respect for national security and are at least willing to compromise with the Pentagon. If the Pentagon treated Wikileaks like a traditional journalist organization, they would be conceding that the Wikileaks model is responsible and acceptable, which (for obvious reasons) is unpalatable to the Pentagon.
And if you drop the time, you get DD MMM YY, which is what I had (well, I went with YYYY because it improves comprehension and from my experience is common military practice).
Sigh, the Taliban have nothing to do with what is going on in Afghanistan.
I don't understand why Americans have so much trouble understanding what war is... there's nothing going on in Afghanistan that is anything like a war.
There's not even a civil war going on. What's going on is that the government of Afghanistan is trying to keep power and expand their territory to the designated borders. There's pockets of Afghanistan that are completely cut off from the government and they can't collect taxes, hold elections, and exert their will.
For *some reason* the US is there helping the Afghanistan government to get control over their territory. I'd love to explain to you why the US is doing that but we don't know.
'Taliban' is a commonly used synecdoche for the very loose coalition of groups that are opposed to the Afghan government.
If you want to be needlessly pedantic, then Afghanistan is in the middle of a conflict, not a war. Needless pedantry tends to be frowned upon.
The US (and their allies) are helping the Afghan government because they installed that government, and have a strong interest (in terms of diplomacy, prestige, and concern for the Afghan population) in maintaining it.
lightspeedius is +5 insightful, mod it up
(for instance, there is no war in Afghanistan, the US is aiding the government to suppress it's own people),
This is the first time I've ever heard someone claim that the Taliban are actually a force of liberation, struggling to overthrow the US tyranny. In any case, that would be a civil war, so there would still be a war in Afghanistan.
You are right, I spoke a bit hastily; Canadian law enforcement was complicit in investigating Arar, so the Canadian government was at least slightly onboard.
What I haven't seen is any commentary on the Australian government's position on this. What do they think?
I'm Canadian; I sympathize with you on the having-a-small-force-in-Afghanistan front. The question of "why" is a good one for historians and political scientists, but the question we need to ask now that we're there is "how do we deal with this so that our own nation, the other nations involved, and the Afghans suffer the least?"