Doesn't this then by nature conflict with the right to equal protection under the law?
It conflicts with common sense too, I am afraid. The main problem with "Hate Speech Laws" is that they are pretty much arbitrary, and could, in theory, be used to muzzle any criticism of certain groups, regardless of its validity. Such laws could, in theory, be perverted to allow such groups to conduct activities not allowed to the rest of us "mere mortals" coupled with punishment of anyone who complains. I am not aware of cases of this happening in Canada, but there is always a great possiblity of absue present in this, while at the same time the laws are offering a rather questionable and empirically unproven gain.
You really think all the people commenting on this story are trying to discuss whether this fine is legal or not according to Canadian law?
You cannot discuss anything on false premises.
I don't think anyone you were replying to was confused that the morality of the law and the legality of such a fine are two different discussions.
They were confused as to what actually transpired, never you mind the law in question. That is why these "facts" and "morality" of the law itself were and are separate. The law in question simply does not apply to their ficticious "facts". Ergo a separate discussion.
I do think you are confused about which one of them the rest of us are talking about.
Many of "you" were talking about a non-existant situation, i.e. a random bystander ISP being fined for activities of one of its customers.
Step 1: use an elevator in a tall building and travel to the top floor.
Step 2: obtain access to ther roof.
Step 3: Make sure not to be in possesion of any material objects on your person, nor to be in contact with any during the experiment (you do not want to call in question the data in your triumphant paper on the subject to be published afterwards). Also remove all clothing (necessary to prevent cheating and for an extra perceptual effect to the scientific observers passing below on the sidewalk). Do so quickly as to prevent interruptions from local anti-scientific luddites, who usually pretend to be cops, psychiatrists or priests. Ignore their advice and disregard the silly "Don't jump!" hollering from below (these luddites can be numerous). There will always be some true admirer of science who will encourage you anyways with his gentle and inspiring advice of "Jump! Jump!".
Step 4: Determine the aero-dynamic flight characteristics of Man by launching outwards off the edge off the roof. Attain cruising flight altitude and perform basic aerobatic manouvers, including rolls and loops. Bank left and right over rooftops admiring cheers of the spectators.
Step 5: Land back on roof.
Step 6: Collect Nobel Prize and a 10-season contract for a TV series named "Bareassman!"
Note for the lawyers: the above is satire. I live in Canada anyway. Go away.
What they are doing in acutality is selling you a car for $3,995 or some similar number for which they paid $995.
I must insist that, in this case, the term used by such upstanding, trustworthy, honest an generous businessmen, such as used car salesmen, fails to describe properly the situation at hand. If the ideas discussed in that conference were to be applied to your situation, the "car" would cost $1.5 billion and all that would actually end up being delivered would be an "artist's rendering" in 3D and on many exciting backgrounds. I urge you, modest car lot dwelling gentlemen of integrity, to stick to your trust-inspiring terminology of "Blue Sky" and leave the "Pie In The Sky" to true professionals.
Given that it was held in New Mexico, Blue Sky is appropriate.
I was referring to the imminent practicality of those ideas. There is indeed Blue Sky in New Mexico but in that conference it was mostly obsucred by cloudy pipe dreams. I do wonder if they handed out bongs at the reception.
But, regardless of who owns what, one should have a right to speak out. ( yes, i know its not legal up there, but that doesnt make it any less wrong to restrict speech )
This is indeed a different discussion. I was merely objecting to the inflamatory and misleading Slashdot summary. The impression which Slashdot "editors" wanted to create was that it was some "random, innocent bystander ISP" which was being held accountable for something on one of the million of its websites, i.e. "Panic now! Anthing anyone posts on your hosting servers will get you in Jail! Run! Scream!". In fact, it is the people responsible for the site (who happened to be the owners of the ISP) who are being held accountable.
What are you saying, that folks only have a right to speak as long as they don't own an ISP? Huh?
Again, it changes the message from "some random ISP is being held accountable for some random user's website" to "the people who operated the website are held accountible", under existing Canadian law.
If the law is "just" is a completely different discussion.
It is a feel-good nonsense put in there by politicians who were afraid to look "politically incorrect" and/or suffer the wrath of various vocal Jewish organizations. The main purpose of the law is to give raison d'etre to various self-appointed "protectors" of various minorities and religious groups.
This is one of those things which sets up Liberal Democracies like Canada for criticism from various advocates of personal liberties, with whom, in this case, I must sadly agree.
The only thing I can say in the defense of this is that so far the law has not been abused in any obvious way. But that is not really an excuse.
It would make it rediculously easy to shut down a forum you have a problem with. Just flood the forum with trash constantly.
As usual, noone reads the original article. The ISP in question was owned by one of the supremacists fined. It changes the whole perspective on things.
Once you consider TC, I think the purpose behind that effort becomes obvious: total control.
I am afraid that is indeed the long-term plan. On the bright side, we will now see a far more concentrated effort into hardware hacking, microscope-based probes, VLSI mask de-compilers and what not to defeat the TPM. Once we have the master keys extracted and our own "illicit", pin-compatible TPM chips that work for us, we are off to the races. This is one weakness of all these schemes, we still do have the target hardware in our hands, and they cannot see what we do with it... yet.
The whole point is to do a "trusted boot" so that the state of the machine can be known and reported in an unforgeable way. This allows both users and remote parties to know that the machine is running a certain configuration, with no rootkits or malware installed. This process protects the user against attacks contrary to your statement above.
A BIOS/Boot-sector "write enable" flip switch on the case of the computer does the same. Yet that is not an acceptable solution for those who want TCPA. That is because the true purpose of the technology is quite different. There is a simple test of your truthfullness: is the master TCP key available to the user in any way or not? Can he examine all the keys in the TPM, say, on an LCD display with independent of the main system hardware which would prevent any possibility of hacks? Yes/No?
This is what you don't like, you don't want to be able to make convincing attestations about your software configuration, because then remote systems might refuse to talk to you unless you are running a configuration they approve of.
Read: Something else then an approved version of Vista/IE8 = no access to Internet.
No, I don't like it and, no it is not reasonable. And that is precisely what the technology is intended to do. Anyone pretending otherwise is just lying.
That's fine if you don't like this, but don't lie about the technology and say that it doesn't help the user to trust the machine. It helps everyone trust the machine. That's why it's called Trusted Computing.
The parent is absoultely right. This technology only allows the TC Consortium members to trust the computer. The user is lucky to get some minor side-benefits, but they are not the purpose of the technology. And no, he cannot tust his computer under TCPA. That is why it is called "Trecherous Computing".
A true debate, where the the point is not just to spew soundbites and one-up the other debators* but is in fact to present your argument and all of your reasoning and basically challenge others to prove those points wrong. And even then one should come to such an event with the intention of taking the good criticisms and rolling them into your solution, thus making it stronger for effort.
I agree fully. All of these labels, like "socialism", "libertarianism" and what not are really largely meaningless when you get down to it. We use them as crutches to try to describe things without using too many words. But what matters is the exchange of indivdual ideas and the ability to reason and also an ability to admit if one is mistaken. This has all gone missing from the "politics" of late. I see today's "political" forums as nothing more then a crude approximation of professional sports. To these people it does not matter if "their" team is composed of overpaid idiots from all over the world, or what sport they play, or if they are any good at it, they are going use them as an excuse to wear face paint and be on the prowl to beat up anyone not cheering for it. It is truly depressing. And then you have some very abhorrent individuals who until now used to hang around in underground "clubs" because they could not stand any open ethical or moral scrutiny, who are now finally feeling "welcome" to slither around in broad daylight. Frightening times ahead.
Perhaps I will never find a large organization that objectively considers issues and in the case of moral ambiguity leaves the choices to the individual where they belong, rather than trying to legislate broad solutions for everyone that dehumanize and stifle us.
I think the root of the problem is the death of American Democracy brought on by the two (and soon to be one) party system. In many parts of the world, the governments are coalitions of many parties, each having their own viewpoint. Major and minor parties come and go all the time. In the last 10 years Canada has seen no less but 3 major parties appear and disappear, the current Prime Minister is of a party which did not exist 5 years ago. Compromise and debate is a daily occurence, otherwise the government simply falls apart. The US system claims "stability" (i.e. single-viewpoint) as its "feature" and thus it must, by defnition, be reduced to alienating just about everyone, with no or little input into the process. Please note that "libertarianism" is nearly uniquely US phenomenon which appeared as a (rather rush in my view) response to that state of affairs and which is being secretly prodded on by some really unpleasant characters with a view of using it as means of attaining great power and much greater wealth on the backs of hapless "libertarians". I urge you to examine closely all of the things you read, and always try to envision the "worst case" scenarios based upon these things. Play the Devil's Advocate and see if you can come up with a way to screw things up in these proposals. If you can, rest assured there would be people that could be far more selfish, devious, vicious and unscrupulous in the real world working on it.
Anyway, thanks for your excellent and reasoned reply, I had you on my friends list already for insightful posts in the past, I wish more/. posters put up fare like yours
I am afraid that you give me too much credit, but thanks anyway!
One could argue, as many conservatives do, that she displays a marxist bent.
I am afraid the Marxists do not want her either. I stand by my original assertion, she is just an opportunistic, power-hungry authocratic politician. She will do and say anything she thinks will bring her more power.
In fact Libertarianism is about opportunity for all.
An urestricted opportunity to abuse eveyone else that is. No difference between that and a jungle. Longest knives win and all that. That is not a civilised society, if you ask me.
Socialism is about small-time pitiful petty greed.
Whose greed? You mean that of the same capitalists which still run their shops and factories in any Social Democracy who would run them in a Libertarian system? Libertarian society is based on greed (and lust for personal power), masquarading as "personal responsibility" and "freedom" as its sole guide. A Social Democracy has a greed-based, reasonably free-market economic engine all the same. Only that the greed does not rule all and is put to work for the benefit of all members of that society. Greed is made to be a tool, instead of a lord-and-master as Libertarians would have it.
At it's core it's about personal responsibility, and that includes the state being run under a similar set of guidelines, as opposed to the current behemoth state that tramples our rights, privacy, and personal wealth.
That is what I understand. The problem with this approach (at least with the version of it I have heard espoused by most libertarians I've met) is that it leads to radical and unfortunately quite devastating outcomes, far outpacing the effects of any socialist abuses. For it to be successful, it, like Communism, requires that all individuals in society behave in some pre-determined way, which libertarians describe as "personal responsibility" and if that is not so, a devastating, catastrofic, society-wide scenarios unfold. Which, given human nature, is a certainty. For example, in a society devoid of any controls on business activities, it is a guaranteed outcome that an all-encompassing oligarchy of industries will from, and outright monopolies in many areas, thus destroying free markets. In the absence of social programs, those born to poverty will be guaranteed to stay poor, thus forming a permanent slavery underclass, those born sick and poor will just die horrible, painful, agonising deaths. Unfettered and unrestricted accumulation of wealth will lead to creation of de-facto nobility, and since the government is very weak in the libertarian world, also to creation of private mercenary forces and soon after feudal fiefdoms in all but name. And so on and so forth.
You may not beleive the US is already an Empire, but at the very least I'm sure you will agree it's slipping towards being one.
I do agree that the US is already an empire and it is now suffering all the hangover of
being one. The British and the French have some of that hangover still, all those years after theirs fell apart.
We do believe in less government intereference in markets, however that does not mean that capitalism be allowed to run wild until all corporations have merged into a huge monopoly. In order to function pure capitalism does require some intervention (checks and balances), else it is self-destructive.
You would be the first libertarian I ever run into claiming that. All the others were in love with dog-eat-dog, completely unrestricted free market. It seemed a religious thing with them. Are you sure you are a libertarian?
Myself, I have only recently started identifying with the Libertarians, and some are more hardcore than others (againt this is true of any political group) but I must say more than any other political ideaology I have encountered they seem to espouse my (and many other/.ers) beliefs on issues like privacy, personal responsibility, and smaller more focused and efficient (and accountable!!) government.
You would be surprised that many on the so-called "left" also want privacy, accountability for one's actions (but with a safety net so that there is a "stop loss" not involving eating one's children in case of stupid economic errors), smaller and more focused and efficient government which is strictly supervised by a set of checks and balances etc. The problem is that many so called "ideologies" claim all of these ideas as exclusively theirs. That is why it is so difficult to talk in terms of broad labels like "socialism" or "libertarianism". What really matters are the individual issues and ways of approaching them. That is why you end up claiming "libertarian" ideology as yours, and yet be in total disagreement with most of its "scholars". And I really do think that you are not one of them as your "disturbing" lack of faith in the divine, perfect, omnipotent, unerring nature of "free market" shows clearly. You would probably get booted out of any libertarian meeting as a "communist" as soon as you had mentioned the "not allowing capitalism run wild" bit.
Before you start in on what socialism is and isn't, you might actually want to spend some time living under it.
According to your definition, I do. I live in Canada. Although if you had paid attention, our (and UKs) system is described as "social democracy".
Things there are such that you just wouldn't believe it. Before I met her I never would have imagined how bad things are, how broken down and stagnant the country has become, and how dispirited and worn out the british people have become. It isn't as bad as eastern europe, but the difference is only a matter of degree.
Have you ever considered that your wife might be suffering from manic depression, or that she is telling you things to stroke your ego?
Also, do not speak of "broken down" because that is precisely what the US looks like to most of the world.
Socialism, like communism, is evil. The difference between the two in the end is that while communism will destroy a society very quickly, with socialism the nation's demise is drawn out into a long lingering death ala the UK.
If there is any nation in "throws of death" it is the US. Its democracy is crumbling into an authoritarian single-party system, the gap between its poorest and richest citizens is now near the levels which percipitated 1929 market crash, its rich are now feudal lords in all but name, its average citizens' "wealth" is increasingly comprised of debt, it has 40 million people with no health care, it has ever increasing trade imbalances which make it dependant for everything on foreign suppliers and impoverish it daily, it is staging violent campaigns of terror abroad -- in the name of wars on adjectives, the maintenance of its global empire of military bases is consuming all of its available wealth, its national debt is now so staggering that it is unlikely to be paid in our lifetimes, its government deficits are greater then that of any of your "socialist" countries -- even if the US government does not provide any of the services which others do, and so on. Do remove that plank from your eye first.
Capitalism is based upon freedom.
No. Capitalism is based on greed. Even Adam Smith, its foremost theoretician admitted so. The "freedom" you refer to is only the "freedom to excercise one's greed". For example, it is quite possible to have a totalitarian state and yet to have thriving capitalism at the same time. This was for the longest time a cornerstone of US foreign policy: to install tyrants abroad and make them open up their markets to US investment. See: Saudi Arabia, UAE, Jordan, South American dictators etc. All capitalist countries.
Socialism is based upon constraint of the individual for "their own good" or the supposed good of society.
Every system of governance, save anarchy is based on that. As soon as you have society of any sort, you will have rules which restrict its individuals from doing whatever they please to their neighbour. And you will have some sort of entity to enforce them, i.e. government.
Socialism is founded upon the notion that human nature is different from what it actually is, AND that human nature can be changed.
No it is not, you are talking about Communism. A completely different system.
The only world that I will agree to live in is one where people are free.
I assume you refer to "absolute" freedom. In which case you will be only happy living as a hermit in the mountains or in some jungle. Because as soon as you come in contact with others, your freedom will be limited to prevent you from harming them.
Where each individual has rights and freedoms that are protected, and where the ability to protect those rights is in itself a right.
That is true in any Social Democracy. Simply the list of "rights" is a saner one.
I will not live in a society where a nanny-state tries to decide what is best for me, and punishes those who do not comply with its dictates.
I think if you look back at the early '90s, you'll find that the health care reforms she was spearheading on behalf of her husband in essence was a de facto nationalization of the health care system in the U.S.
I think you have some seriously distorted view of what socialism is. Apparently to you, any attempt at a universal medical coverage would be a socialist, or I fear, even a "communist" venture. May I point out that this idea is something that is present in all top industralized countries with the exception of the US. US stands alone in its backwards stupor, throwing thousands of its citizens to death, disease or life-long debt in the name of greed. It is quite pathetic and shameful. And nothing to do with Socialism, unless you consider all of the top industralized countries to be hives of near-Bolshevik Collectivisation, and ony the poor, alone in the world, US of A being the lone Capitalist one. Wait, don't answer that...
First, socialist policies require extensive legislative power in order to enforce the key proposition that distinguishes
Untrue, all forms of central governance require legislative power, only anarchism does not.
it from the opposing conservative ideology:
Not so. Unless by "conservative" you mean "anarchist".
namely that wealth and power should be distributed in some sort of 'fair' arrangement.
Distribution of wealth is not the primary concern. The effects of insane disparities are. Power should always be distrubuted, and only a feudal lord would think otherwise. Have you heard about that thing called "democracy"?
Without extensive legislative power, and the government bureaucracy to enforce it, people would not be forced to comply with the taxation, the social policy, the powersharing or anything else and largely socialist policy would be little more than banter on Slashdot.
Again, this is true of any form of governance, save anarchy.
I would contend you can do none of those things without big government. Whether you love it or not is up to you, but you need it to have your desire.
You assume that all of the social programs must be managed directly and centrally. In fact all that is needed is some sane legislation and enforcement of thereof, no different that those applied to protection of private property or common criminal activity. In many industralized countries, including Canada -- where I live, the delivery of medical services is performed by private entities. Only the insurance plans are funded by taxation. In Canada, over 95% of family doctors are in private practice. Most hospitals are private (although they tend to be no-profit corporations). And now for the funny part: the administrative overhead is much lower here then in the US. Go figure that one out (I will link you to statistical data if you dont believe me). Does this make for a "big" government? Do you consider a single insurance company being owned by the government being "big"? How is this different then having a central national bank as virtually all countries do?
There are very few of such companies that the government needs to own or otherwise operate. Its mandate is limited to providing base, skeletal services for the society and the remaining 99.9% is up to the private industry. I cannot understand where is all that hostility against even that tiny sliver of national economy being nationalized is coming from. Never you mind that we have companies like Toyota moving their plants here, quote: "because of health care costs". Happier workers, happier industry, less overhead, humane treatment of all citizens, overall lower cost per capita (less then 50% of that of the US which has 40 million people uninsured). We do have our own problems, but they are minor and severely overblown (usually by "think-tanks" funded by US insurance inustry). People do wait for surgery, but so do they in the US, except the wait time is based here on the medical concept of "
You are correct in your definitions. I was using the term to mean a left-winger in this context. It's like the word "football", which has a different meaning in the US vs. rest of the world.
I think it is worse then that in the US, the term "liberal" (or "left-winger") has become some sort of four-letter-word used by anyone on the "opposing team". And it is looking to me more like some sort of truly insane sport match rather then politics. There is no dialogue, no exchange of ideas, no hammering out differences, only "wingnuts" fighting "moonbats" and breathless media trying to report whatever the next exciting scandal is (prefferably involving titilating sex or missing white women). Each "team" has its strange cheer-leaders (Coulter/Limbaugh/O'Rilley on one side and the likes of Moore on the other). Truly depressing.
Look for example at the "left-winger" term. Its meaningless. "Left" refers to the old French parliment where socialist-like-minded individuals used to sit on the chairs in the left wing of the assembly. Since then, you have a myriad of issues and different takes on them by the so-called "left" and yet they are still all bagged toghether in one package as "left". This has been mis-used and manipulated in the US to the point that anyone not in line with (modern) Republican view of things is now a "leftist" or "liberal". You got some seriously disturbing trends over there, and what worries me is that they seem to be spreading here, spearheaded by the so-called "mainstream" media, with its pro-corporate message (not even "conservative" one, they just want to make more money) and their completely imbecillic quality of lowest-common-denominator "infotainment" programming.
Extreme liberals believe that they are the center of the world and consider anyone who disagrees with them to be neo-conservatives.
I don't think "liberal" means what you think it means. You have been too indoctrinated to think straight. "Liberal" in much of the rest of the world means "political centre" as there are far more "socialist" parties all around, like for example the NDP here in Canada. The word "liberal" in this context refers an attempt to "not interfere" in both social (allowing abortions, gay marriage etc) and economic matters (free market but with some minor constraints to palacate the leftists) - although of course there have been deviations from this definition, sometimes extreme. Also in many places "neo-liberal" means what in the US is called "neo-classical capitalist" and is characterized by a love affair with unrestricted "free" markets (thus abandoning any pretense of leftists alliances) and military interventionism to further that cause. Tony Blair in Britain, George's best buddy, is considered a "neo-liberal" by many.
Hillary is a socialist. It's best to keep that in mind if you favor personal responsibility.
Please do not paint us social democrats with a broad brush. Hillary is not a socialist, she is just a career politican, an authocrat and... quite nuts. Socialists do not love big or powerful government (on the contrary, it seems that neo-cons do, just look at the size and deficits of that thing now!), nor do they "hate personal responsibility". They do not give a damn how the societal services are delivered as they are only concerned with the existence of such services and with the nature of the community in which they live. That is why in many countries with "socialist" systems, you will find private companies competing on delivery of such services, although they are funded by taxation. Socialists are concerned with balancing all the ill effects of capitalism (as it has many of them, regardless of its positive ones) with some sort of communal social conscience. That does not mean that they support hordes of lazy free-loaders sitting around waiting for some hard working individual to deliver their champaigne and lobster, but it does mean that they expect some basic rules of economic decency to be around and that the economic engine of the society is made to perform its work for all members of that society and not just a select few.
Contrast this with this new breed of "conservatives", "neo-classical capitalists", "anarcho capitalists" and "libertarians" (radical revolutionaries is a more fitting term for all of them) who would be happy with gargantuan inequality of wealth where few individuals literally own nations, globe spanning monopolies, corporate armies, wars for resources, being ruled by outright feudal lords and many other similar things, all in the narrow-minded name of "personal responsibility", with the view of somehow justifying their own, small-time, pitiful, petty greed (and getting eaten alive in the process by the true sharks of this game).
so the AC130, which BTW is a sitting duck(always), sees a group of unidentified personel with an object which could be a 2x4, pvc pipe, or a missile launcher fires pre-emptively, and may or may not have been wrong in doing so. Just like you don't point your finger at a cop from your jacket pocket, or make a sudden movement towards your "wallet" you don't point long cylinders at aircraft unless you want to be dead.
Not only it was 100% wrong in doing so, as per all of the Geneva Conventions, common sense, basic decency, morality and oh, honor, even if it was some sort of a weapon (fusion-powered Zorg death-ray emmiter.. or a spear, I presume, because nothing else comes to mind which would have that shape and weight) but on top of that, at no point in that clip, that thing is even pointed at anything. It is thrown carelessly on the ground and a tractor comes to pick it up.
Your attitude, matching apparently the one of that Imperial Dickhead Commando in that AC-130, and that of your "leaders", shows perfectly why the Capital of Militant Corporatism a.k.a. the US of A is at this point a black sheep of the civilized world and why nothing its troops do will be considered in any positive light not only by the inhabitants of Iraq or the Middle East in general, but also by the rest of the planet. Such belligerently, and nearly daily, repeated actions by your troops made you appear to be simply a bunch of vicious, murderous, selfish, cowardly knuckle-dragging apes, devoid of any honor or moral code, other then greed, sadism and desire to dominate, who happened to get their paws on some powerful weapons, engaged in an effort to control the world and thus in a bid to out-idiot that other band of retarded evolution rejects, Islamic Fundamentalists. Both you and them are equally abhorrent and an equally monumental threat to the future of humankind at this point. Congratulations.
We watched them run out into the field and deposit what was most likely an IED (Improvised Explosive Device), something that is already taking a big toll on our troops. On the other hand, a friendly wouldn't be out in the middle of the night, throwing a long tube into a field, and then pacing off the distance to the road.
Except there is no IED of any use which has a shape of a long stick and which weighs so little that it can be waved about merrilly while running. IEDs are usually 100lb artillery shells. A folded plastic umbrella, or some other piece of plastic junk, which you happened to borrow from that dude on the tractor (he stopped where the thing was thrown and was getting off to pick it up when his brains were blown off) fits the bill though.
The original spin by the way, now discarded -- try to keep up with CENTCOM, was that the item was an RPG-7 launcher, with the RPG itself not installed. But it is far too light for that. So CENTCOM, after some people started asking pointed questions about Geneva Conventions protecting wounded combatants (never you mind unarmed soldiers and civilians), came up with a line of bullshit about how a "convoy" was due on that road. Originally the AC-130 was supposedly on "hunt and destroy" mission against "Saddam symathisers" (this is a rather old clip). Which of course changed nothing about the utterly cowardly and unjustified behaviour of those US troops.
And suddenly, the "long tube", line of reasoning looks like a bunch of imbecillic crap that it is, no?
They are throwing a bomb in a field & pacing a blast-radius. Do they need to wave a flag that says, "Hey we're about to kill GIs!"?
They should, because apparently US convoys have a habit of randomly criss-crossing barren farmland on obscure dirt-roads and those three were clarvoyant enough to predict which field this mythical convoy will travel through (complete with 10 meter accuracy) so that they could "pace a radius" for their "bomb". But apparently not psychic enough to be concerned about US planes buzzing about (CENTCOM admitted the AC-130 could be heard loudly where they stood). And the "bomb" is mysteriously of a shape of a plastic pipe or some light-weight tall and narrow implement, which is light enough so it can be waved about in one hand while running (this by the way excludes the original "explanation" of an RPG-7-launcher-less-the-RPG, which was being foisted on us at the beginning, looong before the "convoy" skit came about). A new type of IED, made to look like a folded large ubrella, which you happened to borrow from your neighbour Hassam, who was about to come by on his tractor to pick it up, while you were chatting with that old joker Abdul, who saw you standing at the edge of your field and stopped his car to shoot shit.
And then there are those pesky Geneva Conventions, one about unarmed soldiers, the other about shooting severely wounded and incapacitated and yet another about non-combatants.
But hey, don't let any of this get in a way of a good bullshit! Bullshit is sooo much smoother and easier on one's conscience!
They fired on a bunch of farmers, pre-emptively, because they did not like them. And the farmers had a piece of pipe. That is the entire justification. I saw that clip when it was released, long ago, before the spinners had their chance to weave their appologies.
At that time the official army "explanation" (I saw the spokesman dance on TV myself) was: "ugh... they had something what could, if you squint just the right way, be an RPG launcher, without the actual RPG. Or a piece of pipe. Or a 2x4. Or a farm implement. Or something.". But the main reason was: "We could not understand what they were doing". That is a death sentence in Iraq. US troops not understanding what is going on. And this story was repeated hundreds of times, with highligts like parents getting blown to bits in front of their children.
And back then that AC-130 was on a "hunt and destroy" mission, "against dead-enders and Saddam sympathizers", not on any "convoy escort".
All the "convoy" bullcrap came much later, when it became obvious that the "2x4 of doom" explanation was not getting any traction and the story was getting big in Europe.
But apparently you missed all that fun.
Also, there are wee, "quaint", things like the Geneva Convention which forbid firing on unarmed opponents. Clearly, none of these farmers had a weapon (save for the "2x4 of doom"). And then there is another Geneva Convention which forbids shooting severely wounded and incapacitated, which the crew clearly did. And then yet another which forbids attacking civilians, which, given the farm equipment, and the obvious lack of weaponry, these victims qualified for. Congratulations, idiots! A three for one deal!
What exactly is your experience in strategy and tactics regarding convoy defense that leads you to be so sure about the aircrew's intent?
Their "intent" can clearly be judged by their actions. And by the subsequent desperate spin out of CENTCOM when the video leaked. If you are looking for heroic soldiers by the way, the one who copied and distributed that tape was the real one in this story. My hat off to him.
They were a combat aircrew providing Close Air Support for a ground convoy scheduled later that night. They were *NOT* 'murderous idiots' out for a joy ride.
See above. This show brought you by the words "gullible" and "propaganda". Look for them in the dictionary near you. Bonus sponsor: the wonderful memory span of the public, rivalling that of a particularly forgetful goldfish, on which our master-spinmeisters seem to count a lot.
Slashdot Mirror
It conflicts with common sense too, I am afraid. The main problem with "Hate Speech Laws" is that they are pretty much arbitrary, and could, in theory, be used to muzzle any criticism of certain groups, regardless of its validity. Such laws could, in theory, be perverted to allow such groups to conduct activities not allowed to the rest of us "mere mortals" coupled with punishment of anyone who complains. I am not aware of cases of this happening in Canada, but there is always a great possiblity of absue present in this, while at the same time the laws are offering a rather questionable and empirically unproven gain.
You cannot discuss anything on false premises.
I don't think anyone you were replying to was confused that the morality of the law and the legality of such a fine are two different discussions.
They were confused as to what actually transpired, never you mind the law in question. That is why these "facts" and "morality" of the law itself were and are separate. The law in question simply does not apply to their ficticious "facts". Ergo a separate discussion.
I do think you are confused about which one of them the rest of us are talking about.
Many of "you" were talking about a non-existant situation, i.e. a random bystander ISP being fined for activities of one of its customers.
I propose an experiment to verify your claim.
Step 1: use an elevator in a tall building and travel to the top floor.
Step 2: obtain access to ther roof.
Step 3: Make sure not to be in possesion of any material objects on your person, nor to be in contact with any during the experiment (you do not want to call in question the data in your triumphant paper on the subject to be published afterwards). Also remove all clothing (necessary to prevent cheating and for an extra perceptual effect to the scientific observers passing below on the sidewalk). Do so quickly as to prevent interruptions from local anti-scientific luddites, who usually pretend to be cops, psychiatrists or priests. Ignore their advice and disregard the silly "Don't jump!" hollering from below (these luddites can be numerous). There will always be some true admirer of science who will encourage you anyways with his gentle and inspiring advice of "Jump! Jump!".
Step 4: Determine the aero-dynamic flight characteristics of Man by launching outwards off the edge off the roof. Attain cruising flight altitude and perform basic aerobatic manouvers, including rolls and loops. Bank left and right over rooftops admiring cheers of the spectators.
Step 5: Land back on roof.
Step 6: Collect Nobel Prize and a 10-season contract for a TV series named "Bareassman!"
Note for the lawyers: the above is satire. I live in Canada anyway. Go away.
I must insist that, in this case, the term used by such upstanding, trustworthy, honest an generous businessmen, such as used car salesmen, fails to describe properly the situation at hand. If the ideas discussed in that conference were to be applied to your situation, the "car" would cost $1.5 billion and all that would actually end up being delivered would be an "artist's rendering" in 3D and on many exciting backgrounds. I urge you, modest car lot dwelling gentlemen of integrity, to stick to your trust-inspiring terminology of "Blue Sky" and leave the "Pie In The Sky" to true professionals.
I was referring to the imminent practicality of those ideas. There is indeed Blue Sky in New Mexico but in that conference it was mostly obsucred by cloudy pipe dreams. I do wonder if they handed out bongs at the reception.
I believe the proper technical term is: pie in the sky ideas.
This is indeed a different discussion. I was merely objecting to the inflamatory and misleading Slashdot summary. The impression which Slashdot "editors" wanted to create was that it was some "random, innocent bystander ISP" which was being held accountable for something on one of the million of its websites, i.e. "Panic now! Anthing anyone posts on your hosting servers will get you in Jail! Run! Scream!". In fact, it is the people responsible for the site (who happened to be the owners of the ISP) who are being held accountable.
Under the Canadian law it does.
What are you saying, that folks only have a right to speak as long as they don't own an ISP? Huh?
Again, it changes the message from "some random ISP is being held accountable for some random user's website" to "the people who operated the website are held accountible", under existing Canadian law.
If the law is "just" is a completely different discussion.
It is a feel-good nonsense put in there by politicians who were afraid to look "politically incorrect" and/or suffer the wrath of various vocal Jewish organizations. The main purpose of the law is to give raison d'etre to various self-appointed "protectors" of various minorities and religious groups.
This is one of those things which sets up Liberal Democracies like Canada for criticism from various advocates of personal liberties, with whom, in this case, I must sadly agree.
The only thing I can say in the defense of this is that so far the law has not been abused in any obvious way. But that is not really an excuse.
As usual, noone reads the original article. The ISP in question was owned by one of the supremacists fined. It changes the whole perspective on things.
I am afraid that is indeed the long-term plan. On the bright side, we will now see a far more concentrated effort into hardware hacking, microscope-based probes, VLSI mask de-compilers and what not to defeat the TPM. Once we have the master keys extracted and our own "illicit", pin-compatible TPM chips that work for us, we are off to the races. This is one weakness of all these schemes, we still do have the target hardware in our hands, and they cannot see what we do with it ... yet.
A BIOS/Boot-sector "write enable" flip switch on the case of the computer does the same. Yet that is not an acceptable solution for those who want TCPA. That is because the true purpose of the technology is quite different. There is a simple test of your truthfullness: is the master TCP key available to the user in any way or not? Can he examine all the keys in the TPM, say, on an LCD display with independent of the main system hardware which would prevent any possibility of hacks? Yes/No?
This is what you don't like, you don't want to be able to make convincing attestations about your software configuration, because then remote systems might refuse to talk to you unless you are running a configuration they approve of.
Read: Something else then an approved version of Vista/IE8 = no access to Internet.
No, I don't like it and, no it is not reasonable. And that is precisely what the technology is intended to do. Anyone pretending otherwise is just lying.
That's fine if you don't like this, but don't lie about the technology and say that it doesn't help the user to trust the machine. It helps everyone trust the machine. That's why it's called Trusted Computing.
The parent is absoultely right. This technology only allows the TC Consortium members to trust the computer. The user is lucky to get some minor side-benefits, but they are not the purpose of the technology. And no, he cannot tust his computer under TCPA. That is why it is called "Trecherous Computing".
I agree fully. All of these labels, like "socialism", "libertarianism" and what not are really largely meaningless when you get down to it. We use them as crutches to try to describe things without using too many words. But what matters is the exchange of indivdual ideas and the ability to reason and also an ability to admit if one is mistaken. This has all gone missing from the "politics" of late. I see today's "political" forums as nothing more then a crude approximation of professional sports. To these people it does not matter if "their" team is composed of overpaid idiots from all over the world, or what sport they play, or if they are any good at it, they are going use them as an excuse to wear face paint and be on the prowl to beat up anyone not cheering for it. It is truly depressing. And then you have some very abhorrent individuals who until now used to hang around in underground "clubs" because they could not stand any open ethical or moral scrutiny, who are now finally feeling "welcome" to slither around in broad daylight. Frightening times ahead.
Perhaps I will never find a large organization that objectively considers issues and in the case of moral ambiguity leaves the choices to the individual where they belong, rather than trying to legislate broad solutions for everyone that dehumanize and stifle us.
I think the root of the problem is the death of American Democracy brought on by the two (and soon to be one) party system. In many parts of the world, the governments are coalitions of many parties, each having their own viewpoint. Major and minor parties come and go all the time. In the last 10 years Canada has seen no less but 3 major parties appear and disappear, the current Prime Minister is of a party which did not exist 5 years ago. Compromise and debate is a daily occurence, otherwise the government simply falls apart. The US system claims "stability" (i.e. single-viewpoint) as its "feature" and thus it must, by defnition, be reduced to alienating just about everyone, with no or little input into the process. Please note that "libertarianism" is nearly uniquely US phenomenon which appeared as a (rather rush in my view) response to that state of affairs and which is being secretly prodded on by some really unpleasant characters with a view of using it as means of attaining great power and much greater wealth on the backs of hapless "libertarians". I urge you to examine closely all of the things you read, and always try to envision the "worst case" scenarios based upon these things. Play the Devil's Advocate and see if you can come up with a way to screw things up in these proposals. If you can, rest assured there would be people that could be far more selfish, devious, vicious and unscrupulous in the real world working on it.
Anyway, thanks for your excellent and reasoned reply, I had you on my friends list already for insightful posts in the past, I wish more /. posters put up fare like yours
I am afraid that you give me too much credit, but thanks anyway!
I am afraid the Marxists do not want her either. I stand by my original assertion, she is just an opportunistic, power-hungry authocratic politician. She will do and say anything she thinks will bring her more power.
An urestricted opportunity to abuse eveyone else that is. No difference between that and a jungle. Longest knives win and all that. That is not a civilised society, if you ask me.
Socialism is about small-time pitiful petty greed.
Whose greed? You mean that of the same capitalists which still run their shops and factories in any Social Democracy who would run them in a Libertarian system? Libertarian society is based on greed (and lust for personal power), masquarading as "personal responsibility" and "freedom" as its sole guide. A Social Democracy has a greed-based, reasonably free-market economic engine all the same. Only that the greed does not rule all and is put to work for the benefit of all members of that society. Greed is made to be a tool, instead of a lord-and-master as Libertarians would have it.
That is what I understand. The problem with this approach (at least with the version of it I have heard espoused by most libertarians I've met) is that it leads to radical and unfortunately quite devastating outcomes, far outpacing the effects of any socialist abuses. For it to be successful, it, like Communism, requires that all individuals in society behave in some pre-determined way, which libertarians describe as "personal responsibility" and if that is not so, a devastating, catastrofic, society-wide scenarios unfold. Which, given human nature, is a certainty. For example, in a society devoid of any controls on business activities, it is a guaranteed outcome that an all-encompassing oligarchy of industries will from, and outright monopolies in many areas, thus destroying free markets. In the absence of social programs, those born to poverty will be guaranteed to stay poor, thus forming a permanent slavery underclass, those born sick and poor will just die horrible, painful, agonising deaths. Unfettered and unrestricted accumulation of wealth will lead to creation of de-facto nobility, and since the government is very weak in the libertarian world, also to creation of private mercenary forces and soon after feudal fiefdoms in all but name. And so on and so forth.
You may not beleive the US is already an Empire, but at the very least I'm sure you will agree it's slipping towards being one.
I do agree that the US is already an empire and it is now suffering all the hangover of being one. The British and the French have some of that hangover still, all those years after theirs fell apart.
We do believe in less government intereference in markets, however that does not mean that capitalism be allowed to run wild until all corporations have merged into a huge monopoly. In order to function pure capitalism does require some intervention (checks and balances), else it is self-destructive.
You would be the first libertarian I ever run into claiming that. All the others were in love with dog-eat-dog, completely unrestricted free market. It seemed a religious thing with them. Are you sure you are a libertarian?
Myself, I have only recently started identifying with the Libertarians, and some are more hardcore than others (againt this is true of any political group) but I must say more than any other political ideaology I have encountered they seem to espouse my (and many other /.ers) beliefs on issues like privacy, personal responsibility, and smaller more focused and efficient (and accountable!!) government.
You would be surprised that many on the so-called "left" also want privacy, accountability for one's actions (but with a safety net so that there is a "stop loss" not involving eating one's children in case of stupid economic errors), smaller and more focused and efficient government which is strictly supervised by a set of checks and balances etc. The problem is that many so called "ideologies" claim all of these ideas as exclusively theirs. That is why it is so difficult to talk in terms of broad labels like "socialism" or "libertarianism". What really matters are the individual issues and ways of approaching them. That is why you end up claiming "libertarian" ideology as yours, and yet be in total disagreement with most of its "scholars". And I really do think that you are not one of them as your "disturbing" lack of faith in the divine, perfect, omnipotent, unerring nature of "free market" shows clearly. You would probably get booted out of any libertarian meeting as a "communist" as soon as you had mentioned the "not allowing capitalism run wild" bit.
According to your definition, I do. I live in Canada. Although if you had paid attention, our (and UKs) system is described as "social democracy".
Things there are such that you just wouldn't believe it. Before I met her I never would have imagined how bad things are, how broken down and stagnant the country has become, and how dispirited and worn out the british people have become. It isn't as bad as eastern europe, but the difference is only a matter of degree.
Have you ever considered that your wife might be suffering from manic depression, or that she is telling you things to stroke your ego?
Also, do not speak of "broken down" because that is precisely what the US looks like to most of the world.
Socialism, like communism, is evil. The difference between the two in the end is that while communism will destroy a society very quickly, with socialism the nation's demise is drawn out into a long lingering death ala the UK.
If there is any nation in "throws of death" it is the US. Its democracy is crumbling into an authoritarian single-party system, the gap between its poorest and richest citizens is now near the levels which percipitated 1929 market crash, its rich are now feudal lords in all but name, its average citizens' "wealth" is increasingly comprised of debt, it has 40 million people with no health care, it has ever increasing trade imbalances which make it dependant for everything on foreign suppliers and impoverish it daily, it is staging violent campaigns of terror abroad -- in the name of wars on adjectives, the maintenance of its global empire of military bases is consuming all of its available wealth, its national debt is now so staggering that it is unlikely to be paid in our lifetimes, its government deficits are greater then that of any of your "socialist" countries -- even if the US government does not provide any of the services which others do, and so on. Do remove that plank from your eye first.
Capitalism is based upon freedom.
No. Capitalism is based on greed. Even Adam Smith, its foremost theoretician admitted so. The "freedom" you refer to is only the "freedom to excercise one's greed". For example, it is quite possible to have a totalitarian state and yet to have thriving capitalism at the same time. This was for the longest time a cornerstone of US foreign policy: to install tyrants abroad and make them open up their markets to US investment. See: Saudi Arabia, UAE, Jordan, South American dictators etc. All capitalist countries.
Socialism is based upon constraint of the individual for "their own good" or the supposed good of society.
Every system of governance, save anarchy is based on that. As soon as you have society of any sort, you will have rules which restrict its individuals from doing whatever they please to their neighbour. And you will have some sort of entity to enforce them, i.e. government.
Socialism is founded upon the notion that human nature is different from what it actually is, AND that human nature can be changed.
No it is not, you are talking about Communism. A completely different system.
The only world that I will agree to live in is one where people are free.
I assume you refer to "absolute" freedom. In which case you will be only happy living as a hermit in the mountains or in some jungle. Because as soon as you come in contact with others, your freedom will be limited to prevent you from harming them.
Where each individual has rights and freedoms that are protected, and where the ability to protect those rights is in itself a right.
That is true in any Social Democracy. Simply the list of "rights" is a saner one.
I will not live in a society where a nanny-state tries to decide what is best for me, and punishes those who do not comply with its dictates.
I think you have some seriously distorted view of what socialism is. Apparently to you, any attempt at a universal medical coverage would be a socialist, or I fear, even a "communist" venture. May I point out that this idea is something that is present in all top industralized countries with the exception of the US. US stands alone in its backwards stupor, throwing thousands of its citizens to death, disease or life-long debt in the name of greed. It is quite pathetic and shameful. And nothing to do with Socialism, unless you consider all of the top industralized countries to be hives of near-Bolshevik Collectivisation, and ony the poor, alone in the world, US of A being the lone Capitalist one. Wait, don't answer that...
First, socialist policies require extensive legislative power in order to enforce the key proposition that distinguishes
Untrue, all forms of central governance require legislative power, only anarchism does not.
it from the opposing conservative ideology:
Not so. Unless by "conservative" you mean "anarchist".
namely that wealth and power should be distributed in some sort of 'fair' arrangement.
Distribution of wealth is not the primary concern. The effects of insane disparities are. Power should always be distrubuted, and only a feudal lord would think otherwise. Have you heard about that thing called "democracy"?
Without extensive legislative power, and the government bureaucracy to enforce it, people would not be forced to comply with the taxation, the social policy, the powersharing or anything else and largely socialist policy would be little more than banter on Slashdot.
Again, this is true of any form of governance, save anarchy.
I would contend you can do none of those things without big government. Whether you love it or not is up to you, but you need it to have your desire.
You assume that all of the social programs must be managed directly and centrally. In fact all that is needed is some sane legislation and enforcement of thereof, no different that those applied to protection of private property or common criminal activity. In many industralized countries, including Canada -- where I live, the delivery of medical services is performed by private entities. Only the insurance plans are funded by taxation. In Canada, over 95% of family doctors are in private practice. Most hospitals are private (although they tend to be no-profit corporations). And now for the funny part: the administrative overhead is much lower here then in the US. Go figure that one out (I will link you to statistical data if you dont believe me). Does this make for a "big" government? Do you consider a single insurance company being owned by the government being "big"? How is this different then having a central national bank as virtually all countries do?
There are very few of such companies that the government needs to own or otherwise operate. Its mandate is limited to providing base, skeletal services for the society and the remaining 99.9% is up to the private industry. I cannot understand where is all that hostility against even that tiny sliver of national economy being nationalized is coming from. Never you mind that we have companies like Toyota moving their plants here, quote: "because of health care costs". Happier workers, happier industry, less overhead, humane treatment of all citizens, overall lower cost per capita (less then 50% of that of the US which has 40 million people uninsured). We do have our own problems, but they are minor and severely overblown (usually by "think-tanks" funded by US insurance inustry). People do wait for surgery, but so do they in the US, except the wait time is based here on the medical concept of "
I think it is worse then that in the US, the term "liberal" (or "left-winger") has become some sort of four-letter-word used by anyone on the "opposing team". And it is looking to me more like some sort of truly insane sport match rather then politics. There is no dialogue, no exchange of ideas, no hammering out differences, only "wingnuts" fighting "moonbats" and breathless media trying to report whatever the next exciting scandal is (prefferably involving titilating sex or missing white women). Each "team" has its strange cheer-leaders (Coulter/Limbaugh/O'Rilley on one side and the likes of Moore on the other). Truly depressing.
Look for example at the "left-winger" term. Its meaningless. "Left" refers to the old French parliment where socialist-like-minded individuals used to sit on the chairs in the left wing of the assembly. Since then, you have a myriad of issues and different takes on them by the so-called "left" and yet they are still all bagged toghether in one package as "left". This has been mis-used and manipulated in the US to the point that anyone not in line with (modern) Republican view of things is now a "leftist" or "liberal". You got some seriously disturbing trends over there, and what worries me is that they seem to be spreading here, spearheaded by the so-called "mainstream" media, with its pro-corporate message (not even "conservative" one, they just want to make more money) and their completely imbecillic quality of lowest-common-denominator "infotainment" programming.
I don't think "liberal" means what you think it means. You have been too indoctrinated to think straight. "Liberal" in much of the rest of the world means "political centre" as there are far more "socialist" parties all around, like for example the NDP here in Canada. The word "liberal" in this context refers an attempt to "not interfere" in both social (allowing abortions, gay marriage etc) and economic matters (free market but with some minor constraints to palacate the leftists) - although of course there have been deviations from this definition, sometimes extreme. Also in many places "neo-liberal" means what in the US is called "neo-classical capitalist" and is characterized by a love affair with unrestricted "free" markets (thus abandoning any pretense of leftists alliances) and military interventionism to further that cause. Tony Blair in Britain, George's best buddy, is considered a "neo-liberal" by many.
Please do not paint us social democrats with a broad brush. Hillary is not a socialist, she is just a career politican, an authocrat and ... quite nuts. Socialists do not love big or powerful government (on the contrary, it seems that neo-cons do, just look at the size and deficits of that thing now!), nor do they "hate personal responsibility". They do not give a damn how the societal services are delivered as they are only concerned with the existence of such services and with the nature of the community in which they live. That is why in many countries with "socialist" systems, you will find private companies competing on delivery of such services, although they are funded by taxation. Socialists are concerned with balancing all the ill effects of capitalism (as it has many of them, regardless of its positive ones) with some sort of communal social conscience. That does not mean that they support hordes of lazy free-loaders sitting around waiting for some hard working individual to deliver their champaigne and lobster, but it does mean that they expect some basic rules of economic decency to be around and that the economic engine of the society is made to perform its work for all members of that society and not just a select few.
Contrast this with this new breed of "conservatives", "neo-classical capitalists", "anarcho capitalists" and "libertarians" (radical revolutionaries is a more fitting term for all of them) who would be happy with gargantuan inequality of wealth where few individuals literally own nations, globe spanning monopolies, corporate armies, wars for resources, being ruled by outright feudal lords and many other similar things, all in the narrow-minded name of "personal responsibility", with the view of somehow justifying their own, small-time, pitiful, petty greed (and getting eaten alive in the process by the true sharks of this game).
Not only it was 100% wrong in doing so, as per all of the Geneva Conventions, common sense, basic decency, morality and oh, honor, even if it was some sort of a weapon (fusion-powered Zorg death-ray emmiter .. or a spear, I presume, because nothing else comes to mind which would have that shape and weight) but on top of that, at no point in that clip, that thing is even pointed at anything. It is thrown carelessly on the ground and a tractor comes to pick it up.
Your attitude, matching apparently the one of that Imperial Dickhead Commando in that AC-130, and that of your "leaders", shows perfectly why the Capital of Militant Corporatism a.k.a. the US of A is at this point a black sheep of the civilized world and why nothing its troops do will be considered in any positive light not only by the inhabitants of Iraq or the Middle East in general, but also by the rest of the planet. Such belligerently, and nearly daily, repeated actions by your troops made you appear to be simply a bunch of vicious, murderous, selfish, cowardly knuckle-dragging apes, devoid of any honor or moral code, other then greed, sadism and desire to dominate, who happened to get their paws on some powerful weapons, engaged in an effort to control the world and thus in a bid to out-idiot that other band of retarded evolution rejects, Islamic Fundamentalists. Both you and them are equally abhorrent and an equally monumental threat to the future of humankind at this point. Congratulations.
Except there is no IED of any use which has a shape of a long stick and which weighs so little that it can be waved about merrilly while running. IEDs are usually 100lb artillery shells. A folded plastic umbrella, or some other piece of plastic junk, which you happened to borrow from that dude on the tractor (he stopped where the thing was thrown and was getting off to pick it up when his brains were blown off) fits the bill though.
The original spin by the way, now discarded -- try to keep up with CENTCOM, was that the item was an RPG-7 launcher, with the RPG itself not installed. But it is far too light for that. So CENTCOM, after some people started asking pointed questions about Geneva Conventions protecting wounded combatants (never you mind unarmed soldiers and civilians), came up with a line of bullshit about how a "convoy" was due on that road. Originally the AC-130 was supposedly on "hunt and destroy" mission against "Saddam symathisers" (this is a rather old clip). Which of course changed nothing about the utterly cowardly and unjustified behaviour of those US troops.
And suddenly, the "long tube", line of reasoning looks like a bunch of imbecillic crap that it is, no?
They should, because apparently US convoys have a habit of randomly criss-crossing barren farmland on obscure dirt-roads and those three were clarvoyant enough to predict which field this mythical convoy will travel through (complete with 10 meter accuracy) so that they could "pace a radius" for their "bomb". But apparently not psychic enough to be concerned about US planes buzzing about (CENTCOM admitted the AC-130 could be heard loudly where they stood). And the "bomb" is mysteriously of a shape of a plastic pipe or some light-weight tall and narrow implement, which is light enough so it can be waved about in one hand while running (this by the way excludes the original "explanation" of an RPG-7-launcher-less-the-RPG, which was being foisted on us at the beginning, looong before the "convoy" skit came about). A new type of IED, made to look like a folded large ubrella, which you happened to borrow from your neighbour Hassam, who was about to come by on his tractor to pick it up, while you were chatting with that old joker Abdul, who saw you standing at the edge of your field and stopped his car to shoot shit.
And then there are those pesky Geneva Conventions, one about unarmed soldiers, the other about shooting severely wounded and incapacitated and yet another about non-combatants.
But hey, don't let any of this get in a way of a good bullshit! Bullshit is sooo much smoother and easier on one's conscience!
They fired on a bunch of farmers, pre-emptively, because they did not like them. And the farmers had a piece of pipe. That is the entire justification. I saw that clip when it was released, long ago, before the spinners had their chance to weave their appologies.
At that time the official army "explanation" (I saw the spokesman dance on TV myself) was: "ugh... they had something what could, if you squint just the right way, be an RPG launcher, without the actual RPG. Or a piece of pipe. Or a 2x4. Or a farm implement. Or something.". But the main reason was: "We could not understand what they were doing". That is a death sentence in Iraq. US troops not understanding what is going on. And this story was repeated hundreds of times, with highligts like parents getting blown to bits in front of their children.
And back then that AC-130 was on a "hunt and destroy" mission, "against dead-enders and Saddam sympathizers", not on any "convoy escort".
All the "convoy" bullcrap came much later, when it became obvious that the "2x4 of doom" explanation was not getting any traction and the story was getting big in Europe.
But apparently you missed all that fun.
Also, there are wee, "quaint", things like the Geneva Convention which forbid firing on unarmed opponents. Clearly, none of these farmers had a weapon (save for the "2x4 of doom"). And then there is another Geneva Convention which forbids shooting severely wounded and incapacitated, which the crew clearly did. And then yet another which forbids attacking civilians, which, given the farm equipment, and the obvious lack of weaponry, these victims qualified for. Congratulations, idiots! A three for one deal!
What exactly is your experience in strategy and tactics regarding convoy defense that leads you to be so sure about the aircrew's intent?
Their "intent" can clearly be judged by their actions. And by the subsequent desperate spin out of CENTCOM when the video leaked. If you are looking for heroic soldiers by the way, the one who copied and distributed that tape was the real one in this story. My hat off to him.
They were a combat aircrew providing Close Air Support for a ground convoy scheduled later that night. They were *NOT* 'murderous idiots' out for a joy ride.
See above. This show brought you by the words "gullible" and "propaganda". Look for them in the dictionary near you. Bonus sponsor: the wonderful memory span of the public, rivalling that of a particularly forgetful goldfish, on which our master-spinmeisters seem to count a lot.