Here, we have the 9/11 commission's report, quoted by some guy with an axe to grind.
"[F]ormer Sudanese officials claim that Sudan offered to expel Bin Ladin to the United States. Clinton administration officials deny ever receiving such an offer. We have not found any reliable evidence to support the Sudanese claim."
It was conveniently quoted on that particular site, which was the first thing I Googled. Are you now saying that the 9/11 commission is biased, makes stuff up, etc.?
Mainly because it's such a good piece of propaganda that can be used to distract the people of those countries from the fact that their own governments kinda suck.
No, really---Israel is surrounded by dictatorships, theocracies and kleptocracies. The way those despots keep their people unified and not revolting is by blaming it all on the Jews.
When the Arab-Israeli war broke out, the Arab nations expelled their Jews. Israel took them in. When Israel expelled their Arabs, they wound up becoming refugees for three generations because Jordan, Syria and Egypt didn't want them. Does that seem right to you?
If that's the definition you could also lump in the French resistance and other underground groups as terrorists during WWII.
Well, yeah. They were fighting to overthrow a government, weren't they? But it was a bad government, an astonishingly bad one. Fighting to overthrow a democracy and impose a theocratic dictatorship is considerably less admirable.
Society? Society does not condone, all societies have minorities that are fanatics.
Then could you be so kind as to explain why you feel comfortable pinning the responsibility for various terrible acts that governments performed on their citizens, and those citizens' descendants.
Of course no society is composed of 100% animals. No one was saying that. You're attacking a strawman. What has been said is that the culture which (we seem pretty confident) perpetrated these attacks is savage, and grotesque, and sick.
See, what bothers me about honor killings more than the fact that they happen is the fact that they generally go unpunished. If society fails to condemn these acts, if the perpetrators can flaunt their barbarity without fear of reprisal or justice, then the society that permits these acts is at fault. So we can call it a fucking animal culture.
Which, incidentally, is why the government's response to news of torture bothers me far more than a few bad seeds on the night shift. That ain't us---at least, that ain't who we're supposed to be, and if we don't take action, then we've all got blood on our hands.
Anyway, my experiences with knowing Muslim folks (one sample point here, so it's not meaningful beyond anecdotal evidence) gave me the impression that he was polite, fastidiously clean, and disappointed that he couldn't go to his parents' country because it had become a dictatorship.
The world was horrified when earlier US Society seemed to condone hangiing black men from trees, and raping black women.
Really? Where? Weren't they kind of busy with lynching and raping of their own?
So, let me see if I understand you. If we fight terror, we lose. But if we ignore terror, or give into its demands, then we lose. So... what, exactly, is your strategy here?
Oh, I think the fight against terror could be fought in a much smarter way. But that doesn't mean it can't be done at all.
I don't know how accurate the population estimates at Wikipedia are, but they say about half that. So that'd be $7200 per citizen. In a country with a GDP/head of about $1600, that's rather significant.
Then again, I doubt those wacky acid-dripping, flesh-shredding, and people-disemboweling Ba'athists would have just taken the $7200 quietly. But it's a nice thought.
Yeah, the problem is that bin Laden's idea of his country keeps expanding. Currently al Qaeda is looking to make all of the Middle East into a caliphate, with an eye toward expansion into Europe.
Islam has an exciting provision for proselytizing nonbelievers. Someone who follows that belief literally will consider the entire earth their rightful domain. It won't end.
No, no. In his own words, even. "EXPEL THE INFIDELS FROM THE ARAB PENINSULA". They want to create a caliphate under shar'ia law stretching scross the entire Middle East, and return to their glory days of the Middle Ages.
So, you're saying that the Army of God represents your views fairly and has your blessing in their use of violence to express said views and attempt to influence policy?
That's a really comforting thought, but it's bullshit.
Okay, let's look at CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations. They're a large nonprofit, and whenever you see someone quoted in the media saying "Islam means peace!", there's a good chance it's a CAIR spokesperson. So, we can call CAIR a major islamic organization.
And, hey, look, they talk a lot about being peaceful and not liking terrorists. Ooh, but what's this? The Yahoo! articles have expired, but Wikipedia contains the goods. In short, CAIR's board members and higher-ups have been convicted of or pled guilty to laundering money for Hamas and of visa and bank fraud in the process of funding terrorist groups. Oh, and of toting military weapons around New York City in September 2001 and providing material support to Al Qaeda.
Condemned, yes. Distanced, hardly. I wish it weren't so.
According to costofwar.com, the Iraq war has cost, so far, about $180 billion. That's a lot of money. For a comparison, the Manhattan Project cost $20 billion in modern dollars.
$180 billion buys a lot of research and infrastructure to get us off of foreign oil. To introduce efficiencies, reduce consumption and research better methods of generation. Which would do a hell of a lot more to reduce terrorism (by slowing if not stopping the flow of money to the Saudis who fund a lot of these groups) than what has turned out to be an expensively optional war. It's possible that Iraq will end up better than it was under Saddam---I certainly hope it does---but the money could have been better spent elsewhere.
You only give out this "root causes" nonsense because you think that perhaps the terrorists have some good ideas---you dislike globalization, or you don't like the idea of American military hegemony.
You say that People generally become terrorists because they are upset about something., and go on to say that we should address the reasons that they're upset.
Fair enough. How, then, do you propose to deal with the Army of God? Shall we outlaw abortion, because it tweaks some people so hard they feel the need to murder real live adult humans to make their point about the sanctity of life?
The point of terrorism is not to inspire fear. Nobody likes fear so much that they want to go to such lengths just for that. Individual bullies, yes. Large, semi-professional organizations, no.
Terrorism is the use of fear, most commonly achieved through violence, in order to effect a political goal. Hamas's stated goal is to drive the Israelis into the sea, and make their future nation of Palestine an Arab and possibly Islamic state. Al Qaeda's stated goal is to remove the influence of the "decadent west" from Islamic lands, and halt the tide of modernization, and thence create a pan-Arab great big Muslim kingdom, sorta like they had a thousand years ago.
The Americans didn't travel all the way across the Atlantic Ocean to kill Brit civilians, in an attempt to encourage them to end the unjust colonial occupation or whatnot. Small difference, there.
If I recall, Ben Franklin went across the pond to mack it with the French ladies and drum up support there, but that was about it.
I'm all for integration and interoperability, but I don't think you're on the right tack here. Glomming a variety of applications which do fundamentally different things together seems like a brittle idea.
It's a false simplicity. Ignoring the idea of apps by sweeping them under the carpet and pretending they don't exist isn't the road to usability---it's the road to monolithic, irreducible complexity. There's a reason we have small programs that do one thing, and do them well.
On the other hand, Konqueror's KParts architecture may be part of what you're looking for. A lot of documents will simply open in Konqueror instead of launching their own applications. Is that the sort of thing you're talking about? Because that's one way of keeping things modular while still integrating them.
She: What the fuck? He: Uh, I see you've stumbled onto my vast drawer full of amateur porn. She: You've been taping us? Taping ME?! He: Yes, you see--- She: YOU SICK FUCK! He: ---it's in case you turn out to be a psycho and accuse me of raping you. She: Oh. Well, I can totally understand that, and have no desire whatsoever to stab you in the balls with a knitting needle. He: Thanks, sweetie. You're the best.
The only packages I've actually compiled were obscure little utilities that a casual user would be unlikely to use (a nifty antialiasing DVI rasterizer and a PNG optimizer). Everything else, the distribution provides. Debian has what, ten thousand packages available in its stable distribution? Unless you're running a bleeding-edge copy of transcode, when was the last time a major app (like gaim or firefox) wasn't available from your distribution?
I get FedEx packages left at my door by (gasp!) making a five-minute phone call to the FedEx company and asking the package to be left behind the screen door at my house.
Slashdot Mirror
He's clearly the ripe man for the job.
I put it in bold. I'm not sure how much more I can emphasize it. This is the 9/11 commission talking here.
"We have not found any reliable evidence to support the Sudanese claim."
So, I ask you---again---are you now saying that the 9/11 commission is biased, makes stuff up, etc.?
--grendel drago
I was conflating bin Laden personally with what I interpret as the goals of radical Islam as a whole. My bad.
I think of Theo van Gogh and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and I think of Islamism spreading into Europe. But that's not bin Laden's doing.
--grendel drago
Here, we have the 9/11 commission's report, quoted by some guy with an axe to grind.
"[F]ormer Sudanese officials claim that Sudan offered to expel Bin Ladin to the United States. Clinton administration officials deny ever receiving such an offer. We have not found any reliable evidence to support the Sudanese claim."
It was conveniently quoted on that particular site, which was the first thing I Googled. Are you now saying that the 9/11 commission is biased, makes stuff up, etc.?
--grendel drago
Mainly because it's such a good piece of propaganda that can be used to distract the people of those countries from the fact that their own governments kinda suck.
No, really---Israel is surrounded by dictatorships, theocracies and kleptocracies. The way those despots keep their people unified and not revolting is by blaming it all on the Jews.
When the Arab-Israeli war broke out, the Arab nations expelled their Jews. Israel took them in. When Israel expelled their Arabs, they wound up becoming refugees for three generations because Jordan, Syria and Egypt didn't want them. Does that seem right to you?
--grendel drago
If that's the definition you could also lump in the French resistance and other underground groups as terrorists during WWII.
Well, yeah. They were fighting to overthrow a government, weren't they? But it was a bad government, an astonishingly bad one. Fighting to overthrow a democracy and impose a theocratic dictatorship is considerably less admirable.
--grendel drago
Society? Society does not condone, all societies have minorities that are fanatics.
Then could you be so kind as to explain why you feel comfortable pinning the responsibility for various terrible acts that governments performed on their citizens, and those citizens' descendants.
Of course no society is composed of 100% animals. No one was saying that. You're attacking a strawman. What has been said is that the culture which (we seem pretty confident) perpetrated these attacks is savage, and grotesque, and sick.
See, what bothers me about honor killings more than the fact that they happen is the fact that they generally go unpunished. If society fails to condemn these acts, if the perpetrators can flaunt their barbarity without fear of reprisal or justice, then the society that permits these acts is at fault. So we can call it a fucking animal culture.
Which, incidentally, is why the government's response to news of torture bothers me far more than a few bad seeds on the night shift. That ain't us---at least, that ain't who we're supposed to be, and if we don't take action, then we've all got blood on our hands.
Anyway, my experiences with knowing Muslim folks (one sample point here, so it's not meaningful beyond anecdotal evidence) gave me the impression that he was polite, fastidiously clean, and disappointed that he couldn't go to his parents' country because it had become a dictatorship.
The world was horrified when earlier US Society seemed to condone hangiing black men from trees, and raping black women.
Really? Where? Weren't they kind of busy with lynching and raping of their own?
--grendel drago
So, let me see if I understand you. If we fight terror, we lose. But if we ignore terror, or give into its demands, then we lose. So... what, exactly, is your strategy here?
Oh, I think the fight against terror could be fought in a much smarter way. But that doesn't mean it can't be done at all.
--grendel drago
I don't know how accurate the population estimates at Wikipedia are, but they say about half that. So that'd be $7200 per citizen. In a country with a GDP/head of about $1600, that's rather significant.
Then again, I doubt those wacky acid-dripping, flesh-shredding, and people-disemboweling Ba'athists would have just taken the $7200 quietly. But it's a nice thought.
--grendel drago
Clinton had a wonderful opportunity to kill or capture bin Laden and passed on it out of fear of what it would do to his reputation
Not according to the 9/11 commission. But I suppose you'll keep spouting that soundbite, 'cause it's so darn catchy.
--grendel drago
Ah, but that beer-drinkin' will cost you some mighty jizya!
--grendel drago
Yeah, the problem is that bin Laden's idea of his country keeps expanding. Currently al Qaeda is looking to make all of the Middle East into a caliphate, with an eye toward expansion into Europe.
Islam has an exciting provision for proselytizing nonbelievers. Someone who follows that belief literally will consider the entire earth their rightful domain. It won't end.
--grendel drago
No, no. In his own words, even. "EXPEL THE INFIDELS FROM THE ARAB PENINSULA". They want to create a caliphate under shar'ia law stretching scross the entire Middle East, and return to their glory days of the Middle Ages.
--grendel drago
So, you're saying that the Army of God represents your views fairly and has your blessing in their use of violence to express said views and attempt to influence policy?
Or were you just snarking at me?
--grendel drago
That's a really comforting thought, but it's bullshit.
Okay, let's look at CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations. They're a large nonprofit, and whenever you see someone quoted in the media saying "Islam means peace!", there's a good chance it's a CAIR spokesperson. So, we can call CAIR a major islamic organization.
And, hey, look, they talk a lot about being peaceful and not liking terrorists. Ooh, but what's this? The Yahoo! articles have expired, but Wikipedia contains the goods. In short, CAIR's board members and higher-ups have been convicted of or pled guilty to laundering money for Hamas and of visa and bank fraud in the process of funding terrorist groups. Oh, and of toting military weapons around New York City in September 2001 and providing material support to Al Qaeda.
Condemned, yes. Distanced, hardly. I wish it weren't so.
--grendel drago
According to costofwar.com, the Iraq war has cost, so far, about $180 billion. That's a lot of money. For a comparison, the Manhattan Project cost $20 billion in modern dollars.
$180 billion buys a lot of research and infrastructure to get us off of foreign oil. To introduce efficiencies, reduce consumption and research better methods of generation. Which would do a hell of a lot more to reduce terrorism (by slowing if not stopping the flow of money to the Saudis who fund a lot of these groups) than what has turned out to be an expensively optional war. It's possible that Iraq will end up better than it was under Saddam---I certainly hope it does---but the money could have been better spent elsewhere.
--grendel drago
You only give out this "root causes" nonsense because you think that perhaps the terrorists have some good ideas---you dislike globalization, or you don't like the idea of American military hegemony.
You say that People generally become terrorists because they are upset about something., and go on to say that we should address the reasons that they're upset.
Fair enough. How, then, do you propose to deal with the Army of God? Shall we outlaw abortion, because it tweaks some people so hard they feel the need to murder real live adult humans to make their point about the sanctity of life?
--grendel drago
The point of terrorism is not to inspire fear. Nobody likes fear so much that they want to go to such lengths just for that. Individual bullies, yes. Large, semi-professional organizations, no.
Terrorism is the use of fear, most commonly achieved through violence, in order to effect a political goal. Hamas's stated goal is to drive the Israelis into the sea, and make their future nation of Palestine an Arab and possibly Islamic state. Al Qaeda's stated goal is to remove the influence of the "decadent west" from Islamic lands, and halt the tide of modernization, and thence create a pan-Arab great big Muslim kingdom, sorta like they had a thousand years ago.
--grendel drago
You forgot that the bad guys will (reportedly) refer to the foreign troops as "the Jews". Also, "crusaders", but "the Jews" is popular.
--grendel drago
Hey, I've got a sound bite too! "Those who beat their swords into plowshares will do the plowing for those who don't."
Fun, isn't it?
--grendel drago
The Americans didn't travel all the way across the Atlantic Ocean to kill Brit civilians, in an attempt to encourage them to end the unjust colonial occupation or whatnot. Small difference, there.
If I recall, Ben Franklin went across the pond to mack it with the French ladies and drum up support there, but that was about it.
--grendel drago
I'm all for integration and interoperability, but I don't think you're on the right tack here. Glomming a variety of applications which do fundamentally different things together seems like a brittle idea.
It's a false simplicity. Ignoring the idea of apps by sweeping them under the carpet and pretending they don't exist isn't the road to usability---it's the road to monolithic, irreducible complexity. There's a reason we have small programs that do one thing, and do them well.
On the other hand, Konqueror's KParts architecture may be part of what you're looking for. A lot of documents will simply open in Konqueror instead of launching their own applications. Is that the sort of thing you're talking about? Because that's one way of keeping things modular while still integrating them.
--grendel drago
Well, that's novel.
She: What the fuck?
He: Uh, I see you've stumbled onto my vast drawer full of amateur porn.
She: You've been taping us? Taping ME?!
He: Yes, you see---
She: YOU SICK FUCK!
He: ---it's in case you turn out to be a psycho and accuse me of raping you.
She: Oh. Well, I can totally understand that, and have no desire whatsoever to stab you in the balls with a knitting needle.
He: Thanks, sweetie. You're the best.
--grendel drago
The only packages I've actually compiled were obscure little utilities that a casual user would be unlikely to use (a nifty antialiasing DVI rasterizer and a PNG optimizer). Everything else, the distribution provides. Debian has what, ten thousand packages available in its stable distribution? Unless you're running a bleeding-edge copy of transcode, when was the last time a major app (like gaim or firefox) wasn't available from your distribution?
--grendel drago
I get FedEx packages left at my door by (gasp!) making a five-minute phone call to the FedEx company and asking the package to be left behind the screen door at my house.
You did know you could do that, right? Right?
--grendel drago