I agree with you. I was merely pointing out that Brazil may not be innocent in the NSA spying ring. As far as we know they are, but a few of those countries on the list of collaborators (like Germany) I did find rather disturbing.
Prior to understanding how electrical charges can build in clouds, we believed that the gods were angry and punishing us. We had "science" back then to back that belief, and the greatest scientists of that time were absolutely sure that's what was happening.
Centuries later, we developed science and tools further and found out that those scientists were wrong. There was no magic jar of lighting being opened in the sky.
Do you need more than one example in history of "Science" being wrong and people believing what they are told instead of trying to find facts? Or do you bow to the god of lightning?
How about the Big Bang models that required magic material and energy to work? The expanding vacuum theories proves that wrong, and plenty of people today still believe the Big Bang was an explosion of a spinning ball of mass over 270,000 light years in diameter. I guess we should all still be praying to those science gods too?
Proclaiming we can do better in detecting and measuring is the same thing as claiming lighting does not exist in your mind? That is in essence what you are claiming. Telling me I need to read and understand every book written by the prophets of Zeus would not have made those people correct either.
It makes it much easier to spy on your own citizens when you do that. They are just mad they don't have a piece of the action.
Well, they could just be trying to imply that they didn't have a piece of the action. Like the Canada, UK, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, etc.. all acted shocked and appalled until it came out that their people were cooperating and collaborating with the US Agencies.
At least Brazil in this case appears to have some intestinal fortitude. The others I listed are just praying the stories all go away and maintaining business as usual.
Just because you don't hear of "Bradley Manning" doesn't mean people weren't reporting. And, with military experience, you should know that it often isn't so easy to walk into a situation and do things. Especially if you are not ranking. Especially if the problem goes to the top.
That statement is exactly why you should understand and back what Manning did!
(Interestingly, even though technically all soldiers are instructed about JAG, the culture is such that few make use of it -- at least that was my experience. Kind of like the culture discourages treating illness in favor of staying on the books as active and ready. I saw abuse by those in power much more often than I could actually do anything about it -- never underestimate the good ole boy network amoung NCOs... JAG wants to take on cases, but can't when soldiers refuse to testify.)
Staying on the books for duty is not the same thing as ignoring illegal activities. I'm not sure how you confuse the two. When I was in, we often sat and chatted about the law when it came to combat and rules of engagement. My unit knew why we did not operate within US Borders (posse comitatus), as well as how to handle POWs we captured. It was not uncommon for our commanding officer to grill us on right vs. wrong, or our top NCOs to do the same. If you have a suggestion box, and the Army no longer does this with any regularity put in a note.
It doesn't mean we live in a 27 dimension manifold.
Doesn't mean we don't.;-)
Ummm... hang on a second. Won't any direct observation we make as 3D critters point to a 3D universe? Isn't that sort of inherent to us being only able to perceive 3D?
That is what you stated. I'm a skeptic, a realist and quite baffled that someone could believe that way. The belief is identical to that of any theology, except that your "belief" some like to call "science" though it really is not.
I have no problem if you want to believe that there are numerous dimensions. I'm pointing out that the rational behind this belief is odd at best.
Claiming that we can't prove something, and therefor have to assume it exists is not a realistic view (which is the 2nd quote). You add a ";-)" to the first. I take the emote as an indication from you that you are happy in your belief. Perhaps you are.
If you had phrased things as questioning I would probably have had a different reaction to your post. Your phrasing indicates that you are sure in your belief of an N-Dimensional Universe of which we can only see a portion.
I stated the more realist answer is to admit that we don't know instead of making up magic for what we can't understand. You can advocate magic and fairies if it makes you feel better, just don't expect me to believe in them with you. I'd much rather advocate for better tools and techniques to determine what is happening.
Your approach is to not even try to understand what's going on, and to mock any attempted explanation.
What? I said a more realistic assumption is to believe we don't know. The person I responded to, and yourself, are claiming that we have to believe in some sort of fairy magic to know what's going on.
Realist, a person that believes the glass is twice as large as it should be. Optimist, a person that believes the glass is half full. Pessimist, a person that believes the glass is half empty. Flake, a person that believes that the glass is a magical bag of holding and we can stuff as much in as possible because it goes to a magic dimension with 2xD10 cubic feet of additional space.
From the splashes around the collision, we see that things seem to have appeared out of nowhere, but if We assume that there is actually a 3rd dimension, we can perceive that the particles/energy didnt just appear, but traveled on an unseen dimension. That is what a particle collider does, if You can wrap Your head around it, but in our 4D length/width/height/moment range of observation.
You could take the more rational approach and believe that we simply lack the technology to detect and measure what really happened. Naw, you would rather claim that the particle visited an invisible magical world! Was it Charon pulling the particle across the river Styx for a visit perhaps?
I honestly hope that you never ever tell a Religious person that they are foolish for believing in something they can't see since you hold the same belief. Even if we could model something, that does not make it magically "real". We do model things all the time in cartoons in addition to Engineering, Physics, and Math. We try to find answers to the Universe through those models, we don't make the Universe exist because we built a model.
The same problems exist with the Defense Hotline as they would with chain of command or JAG. Corruption currently is extremely deep, and it does not take a scientist to figure that out.
The DOD hotline would be fine if you saw someone like your boss copying classified data and handing off thumb drives after work. When it comes to internal corruption in numerous offices, you have to go completely outside of that environment.
The DOD hotline is only for DOD contractors so Manning could not have used it, and yes I'm aware of it. In fact I built the first classified networks on DOD sites off of Military installations for a DOD contractor. I know the NISPOM and J/FAN guides better than most DSS agents.
Abu Ghraib is something I do not have enough specific details on so there is some speculation going on, but with humans you don't typically immediately jump into the abuse. It tends to be gradual. Maybe a small number of people are initially rough with detainees. Few, if any, common soldiers would likely be privy to the fact that some were detained with no substantive reason. They would "know" they were being brought "bad guys".
So you are telling me, that if you were an officer and suddenly were assigned to Abu Ghraib you would walk in the door and think "Hmm, it'll grow on me?" I think the more likely answer is, that you would hit the roof and start prosecuting people as soon as you walked in and found out what was happening.
Now consider an intelligence person that receives this same imagery. You see that the brass is mailing it around in "ha-ha" fashion. You would still not know it's wrong? You would still believe that you can trust the brass?
The Military should be policing itself, but we understand that corruption can happen high up. We used to have Q&A all the time (can't say that is currently done) where we gave hypothetical scenarios and asked people what their reaction should be. If Brass was corrupt, they tended to promote other similar people below them. This is where JAG may be of help, but when JAG fails you have no choice but to move to journalists and politicians.
Your straw man was the statement that every soldier is killing and torturing people. Try again.
That might be what they were told. That isn't what they wound up doing. They didn't get PTSD and wake up screaming because they feel bad about "protect and defend"... they get it because that is not what they were doing. And an awful lot of soldiers are coming home broken... which tells me a lot of what they are doing isn't "protect and defend".
I am a veteran, and like every other veteran I know I did not sign up to "kill" or "torture". Having PTSD is not a result of "joining up to kill and torture" as you falsely claim! Good grief go read a fucking book on PTSD and ask people why they signed the papers before insisting that you have goddamn ESP and magically know why people joined up or have illness from serving in combat duty.
As a FYI, 90% of the people join the Military because there are few civilian options. They have no money for college, no job prospects in their community, etc.. Of the remaining 10%, most of those join because their Father, Grandfather, and Great-Grandfather all served and they maintain the "family" business. About.001% of the people join to "kill people if it's that high.
I normally respect your opinions, but on this one you are absolutely wrong. The lack of thought and disrespect you are showing due to what ever bigotry you have is wrong on every level.
I can tell you that from my company, almost everyone would have done the same. It's not overly complex to know that things like Abu Grab were illegal. It's not hard to realize that media and officers covering up friendly fire incidents are also illegal. It's not hard to realize that units giving bricks of US cash to Afghanistan Poppy farmers is illegal. These are basic right and wrong considerations and take no extensive knowledge of the Constitution of the United States, let alone interpretation.
What was published by both Manning and Snowden was not a soldiers reacting in a fire fights. Those are hairy moments where soldiers don't have time to consider things like "is shooting that person with a gun shooting at me a violation of the US Constitution?" Manning and Snowden were not on the fire lines. They were intelligence people looking at intelligence data, and both of them knew what they were looking at was absolutely wrong. They probably did not know much about the Constitution or Constitutional law, and didn't have to have said knowledge.
So then you must also know that there are proper channels to file complaints when there is classified information involved. Did Manning use those channels then after getting no where decided to expose wrong doing by releasing classified information to the public.
If the chain of command is implicated in the evidence, and it is, why would he trust the chain of command to "fix" something or take appropriate action? That logic is not complex, and is exactly why whistle blowers have been protected until very recent times.
Also stop with the lies! Manning did not release anything to the public! Manning and Snowden released to Journalists. This is why journalists were also protected until very recent times.
hink the work speaks for itself. I don't think I need to participate in the torture and murder of people, or use chemical weapons on them, to arrive at the conclusion that some of the things our military has done has been very shameful.
Strawman argument diverting from the statements that you quoted. Your implication that every member of the US Armed forces participated in those acts of torture is disgusting and disturbing. The strawman does not imply that you understand what a soldier learns, or what their job is.
Unfortunately you continue that strawman in your next paragraph. Your delusion that all soldiers sign up to kill people is pure idiocy. Talk to veterans and find out why they served and you will find almost none signed up to "kill and torture", but rather they signed up and served in order to protect and defend the USA.
But if you just have a personal vendetta against the US and the military, it is inexcusable to just grab as much "classified" stuff as you can and publish it, not caring about the contents.
This statement is wrong in just about every way possible.
1. Bradley Manning did not publish a damn thing. He did what he believed was correct and gave information to journalists. The same can be said of Snowden. Now if you wish to argue that "he gave it to the wrong journalists" then you have no grasp of how deeply corrupt both the Government and US media has become. Even if you made such an argument, your statement about him publishing information is an absolute fabrication.
2. Claiming that he grabbed excess data because of a vendetta is idiocy. What you are supposing is that if a cop gets a warrant for drugs, he can search your house for drugs and anything else he finds he is supposed to leave where it is. Such as child pornography, illegal weapons, a kidnapped person chained in the closet. Don't bother spewing more nonsense about him not being a cop. He is a soldier defending his country.
Sure a lot of it shouldn't have been classified in the first place, but it seemed all he really wanted to do was cause some damage to get attention.
More fabrication based on your assumptions which, as I point out above, is worthless speculation at best.
Wrong! The first rule you learn in the US Army is that you are to uphold the Constitution and defend the citizens. You also learn that you are not to obey orders that are unlawful and therefor illegal.
Wear the Uniform and learn the job before you spout off bullshit propaganda. I proudly served my country defending it's citizens, consider myself to be pro-USA, and would have done exactly the same thing as Manning under the same circumstances.
The leaders of the so called free world promptly laid their coats over their laps after reading that little tidbit. I'm sure they were also wondering "How long till we can do that here?"
Just to be fair, I'm sure Merkel and Hillary had to cover their laps as well for similar "problems".
Where weather is concerned I agree. Where I disagree is with pollution and other ecological problems that persist and only get worse in time. Ocean dead zones do not get better without cleaning up pollution. This means places that already have food shortages will have less as population grows. It means that O2 levels continue to drop as we mass strip greenery that converts CO2 to Oxygen. We continue to lose agricultural areas due to pollution, which means that food becomes more expensive at a minimum
Your argument goes back to my initial point. You are not arguing the correct topic and diverting from the real issue.
To claim that you personally may never see a food shortage because of pollution is an insane way of looking at the world. Do you plan to have children that need to eat? How about their children? How about people in other countries?
The argument is not that we are there now, but we are surely headed in that direction by all scientific measures. If you really have no concerns for anyone else in the world besides yourself, please do society a favor and remove yourself completely from society. Go find a piece of land disconnected from the rest of us and live happily ever after all by yourself.
I realize that you are an anonymous coward, therefor prone to being mentally deficient or perhaps a sock puppet but for the benefit of others.
Why would Government that already has an EPA, FDA, and DOJ not be able to handle what is wrong? Determining environmental impact and regulation is exactly what the EPA was designed to do. The FDA is supposed to be protecting consumers food and medicines from corporate abuse. The DOJ is supposed to be prosecuting anyone that is found to be harming the public where lower courts can not or where State boundaries are crossed.
Are you implying that regulation and legal bodies we have already established are functioning as expected and that we have to increase Government because of this? I believe that you are absolutely wrong! We need to flush proverbial shit out of the proverbial pipes and demand that our Government does what it is supposed to be doing (protecting it's citizens) and further demand that established agencies do their jobs as well.
Anything to keep you from looking at the root cause of the problem. Pollution, waste, dumping, strip farming/mining, and so on and so on are never discussed. Problems that we see like the great pacific garbage dump are ignored, as are ocean dead zones and polluted water.
I don't believe 99% of what is paid to be published, because, well hell look who is paying for the media spin? The same people pushing more and more pollution in most cases.
Assad is a dictator would be a statement of fact. Assad is a "brutal" dictator is an ad hominem. If you wish to expand on the fact that he is a dictator and provide a separate opinion of him being "brutal" that would be different. As it was presented it was ad hominem. The same would be said with "Assad winning is a horrible outcome." The word horrible is not factual and not a backed opinion. Therefor it is an ad hominem. As I mentioned when I first requested you drop the ad hominem, their use is often subtle and used without much thought because other people (media) do so. Pay attention to the statement "without much thought".
To Clark's list, every country on the list he provided except for Iran has been impacted. Some with full overthrow (Egypt/Libya) and others on the verge (Syria).
You claimed that Saudi Arabia and Turkey were not as bad as Syria, I showed that this was not true. Now you claim that Turkey was a model? For what, a non revolution while remaining a tyrannical state which abuses both protestors and journalists? Outside of what media presents you, there is no difference between living in Syria and Turkey or Syria and Saudi Arabia. Yet somehow the allies of the US remain unscathed in revolution and protest.
You also missed Iraq and Afghanistan on Clark's comments.
So the Arabs weren't capable of having spontaneous revolutions on their own? I can't remember the full list of countries that Clark spoke of, but maybe they chose those countries because they had non-allied dictators and populations ripe for revolution, just the kind of countries that might take part in the Arab spring. One of the reasons the Saudi's were unaffected is because the group in power is not only the huge majority Sunni, but the very strict Wahabbi sect that extremists usually embrace. ie The extremists didn't revolt in Saudi Arabia because they were already in charge.
First, I gave the link to Clark's statements. If you don't review the evidence how can you perceive to speak rationally on the subject? On a similar track, I gave a link to an exceptional book which you deny any desire to read. If you deny evidence that provides a clear and concise opinion differing from yours and refuse to review evidence, I can only assume that you wish to maintain your belief regardless of how irrational that belief may be.
Second, you ignore the point I made. How is it that certain countries had revolts and others did not? If you wish to maintain that it was all coincidence, you are not looking very closely at reality.
I think you need to look up the definition of Ad hominem. And during peace he was fairly permissive in outside of politics, but his reactions to the protests fit the profile or brutal dictator quite well.
I have actually studied rhetoric and Philosophy for over 30 years, I know very well the definition and use of ad hominem. Claiming a person is "horrible" or "brutal" is easily within the definition and practice. A single semester in a University should make this abundantly clear, however most people today are content with reading a definition on Wiki and believing that they know how something works. Obviously that is not true, and perhaps you are not "most people". That said, your belief that it is not ad hominem is absolutely wrong.
And he's better than the Saudi rulers but definitely worse than Turkey's rulers, you do realize Turkey is mostly a democracy right?
I'm not sure you know much about Turkey. I have seen first hand thieves get their hands beaten with iron rods until they were permanently crippled, and people get eyes burned out for looking at women. You speculate because of what you hear, not because of what is real. There is plenty of evidence to show how Turkey jails journalists and protestors, and has for decades (just like Saudi Arabia). Turkey claims to be a democracy just like Saudi Arabia claims to be a monarchy. Both are tyrannical states just like most in the middle east that suffered revolts. There is no rational way of thinking that those two countries should escape revolution if in fact all of the middle east revolutions are due to a fed up populace. They are not however listed in Clark's commentary which precedes the revolts.
The Arab Spring was a cultural phenomena. Don't know exactly why the Saudi's had no major uprising but Turkey was already democratic. People were protesting against repressive governments, they're all different countries so I'm not surprised that the revolutions took off in some or barely started in others. I'm not sure what you're actually suggesting.
Plenty of evidence to the contrary on this one. In my opinion to claim it's all coincidence is foolish. Especially when you see specific patterns, such as the revolutions occurring in the exact countries where Clark was speaking of. Meanwhile, other more abusive (Saudi Arabia) countries are unscathed. There are way to many "coincidences" here to be just that.
Well Obama is ending the two major wars Bush started. Bombed, but didn't invade Libya, and might not even bomb Syria now. If you want to get Obama than realize he's fundamentally a pragmatist, he doesn't want war but can be pushed into one.
The US is currently bombing 5 countries in the Middle East in the open. Pakistan, Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Sudan. We bombed Libya, Ethiopia, Kenya and a few others on whims. All of this under Obama. Your implication that he is trying for peace denies facts and actions. The US was booted out of Iraq after 11 years of occupation. Obama was trying to renew the "peace keeping" role and Iraq refused. Afghanistan will remain a "peace keeping" operation for as long as possible, just like Iraq.
If a guy is punching you in the nose while claiming "I don't hit people" you don't believe him do you? Ignore Obama's rhetoric and look at actions.
Well no, it is where I started, you just assumed because I argued the obvious fact that Assad is a bad guy I might be in favour of the bombing strike.
Actually nobody claimed Assad was a good guy. What was presented was a much more brief version of the dialogue I have been presenting.
Where did I make an Ad hominem attack? If Assad was presenting a math proof and I said "it's wrong because Assad is a brutal dictator!" that would be an Ad hominem, but the topic here is whether Assad is a bad guy.
Ad hominem is something we tend to do without much thought. You claimed Assad would be a horrible outcome (rough quote). That is an ad hominem whether you realize it or not. Additionally, you claim contrary to historical evidence that he is a "brutal dictator".
Where you and I differ is that I don't suppose Assad to be a good guy or a bad guy. I look at what history shows he did in Syria and come to a pretty neutral opinion. He is not worse than Saudi Arabian rulers, or Turkey's rulers. He's not better than the Israeli theocracy either.
Trying to pain him in a specific light and repeating propaganda does not help determine what really happened or what's really for the best.
Slashdot Mirror
Hahaha!
I agree with you. I was merely pointing out that Brazil may not be innocent in the NSA spying ring. As far as we know they are, but a few of those countries on the list of collaborators (like Germany) I did find rather disturbing.
Prior to understanding how electrical charges can build in clouds, we believed that the gods were angry and punishing us. We had "science" back then to back that belief, and the greatest scientists of that time were absolutely sure that's what was happening.
Centuries later, we developed science and tools further and found out that those scientists were wrong. There was no magic jar of lighting being opened in the sky.
Do you need more than one example in history of "Science" being wrong and people believing what they are told instead of trying to find facts? Or do you bow to the god of lightning?
How about the Big Bang models that required magic material and energy to work? The expanding vacuum theories proves that wrong, and plenty of people today still believe the Big Bang was an explosion of a spinning ball of mass over 270,000 light years in diameter. I guess we should all still be praying to those science gods too?
Proclaiming we can do better in detecting and measuring is the same thing as claiming lighting does not exist in your mind? That is in essence what you are claiming. Telling me I need to read and understand every book written by the prophets of Zeus would not have made those people correct either.
It makes it much easier to spy on your own citizens when you do that. They are just mad they don't have a piece of the action.
Well, they could just be trying to imply that they didn't have a piece of the action. Like the Canada, UK, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, etc.. all acted shocked and appalled until it came out that their people were cooperating and collaborating with the US Agencies.
At least Brazil in this case appears to have some intestinal fortitude. The others I listed are just praying the stories all go away and maintaining business as usual.
Just because you don't hear of "Bradley Manning" doesn't mean people weren't reporting. And, with military experience, you should know that it often isn't so easy to walk into a situation and do things. Especially if you are not ranking. Especially if the problem goes to the top.
That statement is exactly why you should understand and back what Manning did!
(Interestingly, even though technically all soldiers are instructed about JAG, the culture is such that few make use of it -- at least that was my experience. Kind of like the culture discourages treating illness in favor of staying on the books as active and ready. I saw abuse by those in power much more often than I could actually do anything about it -- never underestimate the good ole boy network amoung NCOs... JAG wants to take on cases, but can't when soldiers refuse to testify.)
Staying on the books for duty is not the same thing as ignoring illegal activities. I'm not sure how you confuse the two. When I was in, we often sat and chatted about the law when it came to combat and rules of engagement. My unit knew why we did not operate within US Borders (posse comitatus), as well as how to handle POWs we captured. It was not uncommon for our commanding officer to grill us on right vs. wrong, or our top NCOs to do the same. If you have a suggestion box, and the Army no longer does this with any regularity put in a note.
It doesn't mean we live in a 27 dimension manifold.
Doesn't mean we don't. ;-)
Ummm ... hang on a second. Won't any direct observation we make as 3D critters point to a 3D universe? Isn't that sort of inherent to us being only able to perceive 3D?
That is what you stated. I'm a skeptic, a realist and quite baffled that someone could believe that way. The belief is identical to that of any theology, except that your "belief" some like to call "science" though it really is not.
I have no problem if you want to believe that there are numerous dimensions. I'm pointing out that the rational behind this belief is odd at best.
Claiming that we can't prove something, and therefor have to assume it exists is not a realistic view (which is the 2nd quote). You add a ";-)" to the first. I take the emote as an indication from you that you are happy in your belief. Perhaps you are.
If you had phrased things as questioning I would probably have had a different reaction to your post. Your phrasing indicates that you are sure in your belief of an N-Dimensional Universe of which we can only see a portion.
I stated the more realist answer is to admit that we don't know instead of making up magic for what we can't understand. You can advocate magic and fairies if it makes you feel better, just don't expect me to believe in them with you. I'd much rather advocate for better tools and techniques to determine what is happening.
Your approach is to not even try to understand what's going on, and to mock any attempted explanation.
What? I said a more realistic assumption is to believe we don't know. The person I responded to, and yourself, are claiming that we have to believe in some sort of fairy magic to know what's going on.
Realist, a person that believes the glass is twice as large as it should be. Optimist, a person that believes the glass is half full. Pessimist, a person that believes the glass is half empty. Flake, a person that believes that the glass is a magical bag of holding and we can stuff as much in as possible because it goes to a magic dimension with 2xD10 cubic feet of additional space.
I am very much a realist, while you are a flake.
From the splashes around the collision, we see that things seem to have appeared out of nowhere, but if We assume that there is actually a 3rd dimension, we can perceive that the particles/energy didnt just appear, but traveled on an unseen dimension. That is what a particle collider does, if You can wrap Your head around it, but in our 4D length/width/height/moment range of observation.
You could take the more rational approach and believe that we simply lack the technology to detect and measure what really happened. Naw, you would rather claim that the particle visited an invisible magical world! Was it Charon pulling the particle across the river Styx for a visit perhaps?
Wholly fuck we never left the dark ages did we?
I honestly hope that you never ever tell a Religious person that they are foolish for believing in something they can't see since you hold the same belief. Even if we could model something, that does not make it magically "real". We do model things all the time in cartoons in addition to Engineering, Physics, and Math. We try to find answers to the Universe through those models, we don't make the Universe exist because we built a model.
The same problems exist with the Defense Hotline as they would with chain of command or JAG. Corruption currently is extremely deep, and it does not take a scientist to figure that out.
The DOD hotline would be fine if you saw someone like your boss copying classified data and handing off thumb drives after work. When it comes to internal corruption in numerous offices, you have to go completely outside of that environment.
The DOD hotline is only for DOD contractors so Manning could not have used it, and yes I'm aware of it. In fact I built the first classified networks on DOD sites off of Military installations for a DOD contractor. I know the NISPOM and J/FAN guides better than most DSS agents.
Abu Ghraib is something I do not have enough specific details on so there is some speculation going on, but with humans you don't typically immediately jump into the abuse. It tends to be gradual. Maybe a small number of people are initially rough with detainees. Few, if any, common soldiers would likely be privy to the fact that some were detained with no substantive reason. They would "know" they were being brought "bad guys".
So you are telling me, that if you were an officer and suddenly were assigned to Abu Ghraib you would walk in the door and think "Hmm, it'll grow on me?" I think the more likely answer is, that you would hit the roof and start prosecuting people as soon as you walked in and found out what was happening.
Now consider an intelligence person that receives this same imagery. You see that the brass is mailing it around in "ha-ha" fashion. You would still not know it's wrong? You would still believe that you can trust the brass?
The Military should be policing itself, but we understand that corruption can happen high up. We used to have Q&A all the time (can't say that is currently done) where we gave hypothetical scenarios and asked people what their reaction should be. If Brass was corrupt, they tended to promote other similar people below them. This is where JAG may be of help, but when JAG fails you have no choice but to move to journalists and politicians.
Your straw man was the statement that every soldier is killing and torturing people. Try again.
That might be what they were told. That isn't what they wound up doing. They didn't get PTSD and wake up screaming because they feel bad about "protect and defend"... they get it because that is not what they were doing. And an awful lot of soldiers are coming home broken... which tells me a lot of what they are doing isn't "protect and defend".
I am a veteran, and like every other veteran I know I did not sign up to "kill" or "torture". Having PTSD is not a result of "joining up to kill and torture" as you falsely claim! Good grief go read a fucking book on PTSD and ask people why they signed the papers before insisting that you have goddamn ESP and magically know why people joined up or have illness from serving in combat duty.
As a FYI, 90% of the people join the Military because there are few civilian options. They have no money for college, no job prospects in their community, etc.. Of the remaining 10%, most of those join because their Father, Grandfather, and Great-Grandfather all served and they maintain the "family" business. About .001% of the people join to "kill people if it's that high.
I normally respect your opinions, but on this one you are absolutely wrong. The lack of thought and disrespect you are showing due to what ever bigotry you have is wrong on every level.
I can tell you that from my company, almost everyone would have done the same. It's not overly complex to know that things like Abu Grab were illegal. It's not hard to realize that media and officers covering up friendly fire incidents are also illegal. It's not hard to realize that units giving bricks of US cash to Afghanistan Poppy farmers is illegal. These are basic right and wrong considerations and take no extensive knowledge of the Constitution of the United States, let alone interpretation.
What was published by both Manning and Snowden was not a soldiers reacting in a fire fights. Those are hairy moments where soldiers don't have time to consider things like "is shooting that person with a gun shooting at me a violation of the US Constitution?" Manning and Snowden were not on the fire lines. They were intelligence people looking at intelligence data, and both of them knew what they were looking at was absolutely wrong. They probably did not know much about the Constitution or Constitutional law, and didn't have to have said knowledge.
So then you must also know that there are proper channels to file complaints when there is classified information involved. Did Manning use those channels then after getting no where decided to expose wrong doing by releasing classified information to the public.
If the chain of command is implicated in the evidence, and it is, why would he trust the chain of command to "fix" something or take appropriate action? That logic is not complex, and is exactly why whistle blowers have been protected until very recent times.
Also stop with the lies! Manning did not release anything to the public! Manning and Snowden released to Journalists. This is why journalists were also protected until very recent times.
hink the work speaks for itself. I don't think I need to participate in the torture and murder of people, or use chemical weapons on them, to arrive at the conclusion that some of the things our military has done has been very shameful.
Strawman argument diverting from the statements that you quoted. Your implication that every member of the US Armed forces participated in those acts of torture is disgusting and disturbing. The strawman does not imply that you understand what a soldier learns, or what their job is.
Unfortunately you continue that strawman in your next paragraph. Your delusion that all soldiers sign up to kill people is pure idiocy. Talk to veterans and find out why they served and you will find almost none signed up to "kill and torture", but rather they signed up and served in order to protect and defend the USA.
But if you just have a personal vendetta against the US and the military, it is inexcusable to just grab as much "classified" stuff as you can and publish it, not caring about the contents.
This statement is wrong in just about every way possible.
1. Bradley Manning did not publish a damn thing. He did what he believed was correct and gave information to journalists. The same can be said of Snowden. Now if you wish to argue that "he gave it to the wrong journalists" then you have no grasp of how deeply corrupt both the Government and US media has become. Even if you made such an argument, your statement about him publishing information is an absolute fabrication.
2. Claiming that he grabbed excess data because of a vendetta is idiocy. What you are supposing is that if a cop gets a warrant for drugs, he can search your house for drugs and anything else he finds he is supposed to leave where it is. Such as child pornography, illegal weapons, a kidnapped person chained in the closet. Don't bother spewing more nonsense about him not being a cop. He is a soldier defending his country.
Sure a lot of it shouldn't have been classified in the first place, but it seemed all he really wanted to do was cause some damage to get attention.
More fabrication based on your assumptions which, as I point out above, is worthless speculation at best.
Wrong! The first rule you learn in the US Army is that you are to uphold the Constitution and defend the citizens. You also learn that you are not to obey orders that are unlawful and therefor illegal.
Wear the Uniform and learn the job before you spout off bullshit propaganda. I proudly served my country defending it's citizens, consider myself to be pro-USA, and would have done exactly the same thing as Manning under the same circumstances.
The leaders of the so called free world promptly laid their coats over their laps after reading that little tidbit. I'm sure they were also wondering "How long till we can do that here?"
Just to be fair, I'm sure Merkel and Hillary had to cover their laps as well for similar "problems".
Where weather is concerned I agree. Where I disagree is with pollution and other ecological problems that persist and only get worse in time. Ocean dead zones do not get better without cleaning up pollution. This means places that already have food shortages will have less as population grows. It means that O2 levels continue to drop as we mass strip greenery that converts CO2 to Oxygen. We continue to lose agricultural areas due to pollution, which means that food becomes more expensive at a minimum
Your argument goes back to my initial point. You are not arguing the correct topic and diverting from the real issue.
To claim that you personally may never see a food shortage because of pollution is an insane way of looking at the world. Do you plan to have children that need to eat? How about their children? How about people in other countries?
The argument is not that we are there now, but we are surely headed in that direction by all scientific measures. If you really have no concerns for anyone else in the world besides yourself, please do society a favor and remove yourself completely from society. Go find a piece of land disconnected from the rest of us and live happily ever after all by yourself.
I realize that you are an anonymous coward, therefor prone to being mentally deficient or perhaps a sock puppet but for the benefit of others.
Why would Government that already has an EPA, FDA, and DOJ not be able to handle what is wrong? Determining environmental impact and regulation is exactly what the EPA was designed to do. The FDA is supposed to be protecting consumers food and medicines from corporate abuse. The DOJ is supposed to be prosecuting anyone that is found to be harming the public where lower courts can not or where State boundaries are crossed.
Are you implying that regulation and legal bodies we have already established are functioning as expected and that we have to increase Government because of this? I believe that you are absolutely wrong! We need to flush proverbial shit out of the proverbial pipes and demand that our Government does what it is supposed to be doing (protecting it's citizens) and further demand that established agencies do their jobs as well.
Anything to keep you from looking at the root cause of the problem. Pollution, waste, dumping, strip farming/mining, and so on and so on are never discussed. Problems that we see like the great pacific garbage dump are ignored, as are ocean dead zones and polluted water.
I don't believe 99% of what is paid to be published, because, well hell look who is paying for the media spin? The same people pushing more and more pollution in most cases.
Assad is a dictator would be a statement of fact. Assad is a "brutal" dictator is an ad hominem. If you wish to expand on the fact that he is a dictator and provide a separate opinion of him being "brutal" that would be different. As it was presented it was ad hominem. The same would be said with "Assad winning is a horrible outcome." The word horrible is not factual and not a backed opinion. Therefor it is an ad hominem. As I mentioned when I first requested you drop the ad hominem, their use is often subtle and used without much thought because other people (media) do so. Pay attention to the statement "without much thought".
To Clark's list, every country on the list he provided except for Iran has been impacted. Some with full overthrow (Egypt/Libya) and others on the verge (Syria).
You claimed that Saudi Arabia and Turkey were not as bad as Syria, I showed that this was not true. Now you claim that Turkey was a model? For what, a non revolution while remaining a tyrannical state which abuses both protestors and journalists? Outside of what media presents you, there is no difference between living in Syria and Turkey or Syria and Saudi Arabia. Yet somehow the allies of the US remain unscathed in revolution and protest.
You also missed Iraq and Afghanistan on Clark's comments.
So the Arabs weren't capable of having spontaneous revolutions on their own? I can't remember the full list of countries that Clark spoke of, but maybe they chose those countries because they had non-allied dictators and populations ripe for revolution, just the kind of countries that might take part in the Arab spring. One of the reasons the Saudi's were unaffected is because the group in power is not only the huge majority Sunni, but the very strict Wahabbi sect that extremists usually embrace. ie The extremists didn't revolt in Saudi Arabia because they were already in charge.
First, I gave the link to Clark's statements. If you don't review the evidence how can you perceive to speak rationally on the subject? On a similar track, I gave a link to an exceptional book which you deny any desire to read. If you deny evidence that provides a clear and concise opinion differing from yours and refuse to review evidence, I can only assume that you wish to maintain your belief regardless of how irrational that belief may be.
Second, you ignore the point I made. How is it that certain countries had revolts and others did not? If you wish to maintain that it was all coincidence, you are not looking very closely at reality.
I think you need to look up the definition of Ad hominem. And during peace he was fairly permissive in outside of politics, but his reactions to the protests fit the profile or brutal dictator quite well.
I have actually studied rhetoric and Philosophy for over 30 years, I know very well the definition and use of ad hominem. Claiming a person is "horrible" or "brutal" is easily within the definition and practice. A single semester in a University should make this abundantly clear, however most people today are content with reading a definition on Wiki and believing that they know how something works. Obviously that is not true, and perhaps you are not "most people". That said, your belief that it is not ad hominem is absolutely wrong.
And he's better than the Saudi rulers but definitely worse than Turkey's rulers, you do realize Turkey is mostly a democracy right?
I'm not sure you know much about Turkey. I have seen first hand thieves get their hands beaten with iron rods until they were permanently crippled, and people get eyes burned out for looking at women. You speculate because of what you hear, not because of what is real. There is plenty of evidence to show how Turkey jails journalists and protestors, and has for decades (just like Saudi Arabia). Turkey claims to be a democracy just like Saudi Arabia claims to be a monarchy. Both are tyrannical states just like most in the middle east that suffered revolts. There is no rational way of thinking that those two countries should escape revolution if in fact all of the middle east revolutions are due to a fed up populace. They are not however listed in Clark's commentary which precedes the revolts.
The Arab Spring was a cultural phenomena. Don't know exactly why the Saudi's had no major uprising but Turkey was already democratic. People were protesting against repressive governments, they're all different countries so I'm not surprised that the revolutions took off in some or barely started in others. I'm not sure what you're actually suggesting.
Plenty of evidence to the contrary on this one. In my opinion to claim it's all coincidence is foolish. Especially when you see specific patterns, such as the revolutions occurring in the exact countries where Clark was speaking of. Meanwhile, other more abusive (Saudi Arabia) countries are unscathed. There are way to many "coincidences" here to be just that.
Well Obama is ending the two major wars Bush started. Bombed, but didn't invade Libya, and might not even bomb Syria now. If you want to get Obama than realize he's fundamentally a pragmatist, he doesn't want war but can be pushed into one.
The US is currently bombing 5 countries in the Middle East in the open. Pakistan, Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Sudan. We bombed Libya, Ethiopia, Kenya and a few others on whims. All of this under Obama. Your implication that he is trying for peace denies facts and actions. The US was booted out of Iraq after 11 years of occupation. Obama was trying to renew the "peace keeping" role and Iraq refused. Afghanistan will remain a "peace keeping" operation for as long as possible, just like Iraq.
If a guy is punching you in the nose while claiming "I don't hit people" you don't believe him do you? Ignore Obama's rhetoric and look at actions.
Well no, it is where I started, you just assumed because I argued the obvious fact that Assad is a bad guy I might be in favour of the bombing strike.
Actually nobody claimed Assad was a good guy. What was presented was a much more brief version of the dialogue I have been presenting.
Where did I make an Ad hominem attack? If Assad was presenting a math proof and I said "it's wrong because Assad is a brutal dictator!" that would be an Ad hominem, but the topic here is whether Assad is a bad guy.
Ad hominem is something we tend to do without much thought. You claimed Assad would be a horrible outcome (rough quote). That is an ad hominem whether you realize it or not. Additionally, you claim contrary to historical evidence that he is a "brutal dictator".
Where you and I differ is that I don't suppose Assad to be a good guy or a bad guy. I look at what history shows he did in Syria and come to a pretty neutral opinion. He is not worse than Saudi Arabian rulers, or Turkey's rulers. He's not better than the Israeli theocracy either.
Trying to pain him in a specific light and repeating propaganda does not help determine what really happened or what's really for the best.