There is a slight difference, in that no one (of any consequence) actually believes the Roman gods actually exist.
I used to think this kind of 'offense' was silly but now I'm not so sure. I've had one too many awkward dinner moments when a religious person asks me some question or smugly states a blatant falsehood. It *is* offensive to me. And yeah, free speech should be absolute... someone being offended should never justify an attempt to silence. But huge swaths of this country, indeed our lives (for example, our more bipolar sexual repression) are still being dictated by the offense Christians take. Is it hypocrasy or justified fire-with-fire to start vocalizing our offense?
So I think it is worth saying: this is not something worth glorying or promoting even in the most benign-seeming way. I don't have a problem with Harry Potter, but if (as some fundamentalists apparently think) a large number of people were actually going around attacking science and teaching children that waving wands actually accomplishes anything, then progressed to passing legislation to support their delusions and suppress dissenters... then yes, the Harry Potter series would grow distasteful to me as well, and I would cringe just as hard if the scientists had named this the "Horcrux Project." Or how about this: imagine an RPG where you can find a book called The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which describes, say, the Dark Elves' secret plans for genocide and world domination. It's just fiction, right? It's just a harmlessly playful reference to a work of fiction. Except that work of fiction is still being used today to justify genocidal attacks against Jewish civillians, and because of that fact the reference would rightly be considered offensive. The allusion is inherently offensive because it implies legitimacy (unless the context showed otherwise.)
I'm tired of the all the apatheic, Christian-appologizing atheists. These seemingly trivial things ARE worth bringing up, every time. It is worth reminding people (most of whom have no idea of what secularists actually do and believe) that this is a stupid myth and it DOES affect me and it's various forks are still fucking things up on a large scale all over the world. I don't have to enjoy the bible as a myth or "the greatest story every told". I do not have to preface my rejection of Christianty by saying how Jesus was an awesome guy nonetheless, because he wasn't; he was somewhat better than the average Jew of the time, but that's about it. "The Horcrux Project" would clearly be tongue in cheek. "The Lazarus Project", even if it was intended to be tongue in cheek, would be readily accepted as reference to a factual, historical event by WAY too many people in this nation. And I wouldn't do anything so asinine as try to boycott the scientists involved, but if I was at a dinner party with any of them and the subject of the name came up I would absolutely point out how ridiculous and annoying and even passively-condoning-of-evil it was.
Maybe I should have qualified that particular comment with mid to mid-high level games. At the absolute top end then yes, I'm sure you can find deeply held convictions on whether a 7-barracks or 8-barracks is preferable, with deep analyses of the long term strategic rammifications of either choice, and I'm also sure I can't possibly work up enough interest to give a crap about such tedium. I mean more of, early expansion or no, early units or teching, harassment vs. assault, etc. Are there really many more than a half dozen viable choices of this sort to make?
As a reminder, specifically excluded from the commonly accepted definition of 'strategy' is anything 'tactical', i.e. techniques for conducting any one battle. Although SC2 could use improvement there as well. (Formations anyone? Or better yet, customizable targeting rules.)
The problem is, Blizzard is just so damn good at 1. balancing radically different sides, 2. storyline, and 3. overall polish that people are willing to overlook the fact that SC2 still doesn't have strategy-enhancing features that reviewers widely bemoaned were missing in Starcraft 1. Fifteen god-damned years ago.
Once upon a time I was eagerly looking forward to Starcraft 2 and even Warcraft 3, assuming that Blizzard would finally get around to including the AI options other RTS had introduced and refined. I mean this is a 'strategy' game, right?
Wrong. It's an action game. In fact, it is so much an action game that I would argue most online FPSes are quite strategic in comparison. They actually measure player skill in APS, that's actions per second. Once you progress beyond the noob skill level, your success is almost entirely a product of your twitch, with less than a half dozen cookie-cutter strategies you must blindly follow as fast as you possibly can if you are to have any hope of success.
I loved the original SC/BW campaigns and since the singleplayer difficultly usually isn't too bad I'm sure I'll love SC 2's (I'm waiting for them to release all 3 as a bundle), but I simply don't understand the appeal of a "strategy" game that foists so much mandatory micromanagement on you that actual strategy becomes a wisp of an afterthought.
I'm pretty sure we have a right to complain even if we didn't buy it. In fact I'm pretty sure companies would rather hear us complain (quietly) so they have some idea of the sales they may be missing. And I'm pretty sure would-be buys would rather hear us complain (loudly) so they can hear the negatives and make up their own mind about whether to buy a game, or even whether to boycott a company.
I have never understood this "shut up and buy it or don't buy it" attitude. It benefits no one.
This is sheer nonsense, as I've noted above. But I've just noticed he's posted another priceless bit of nonsense here: http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3537197&cid=43145013 . He is clearly trolling this article, for whatever reason. Either that or he is laughably misinformed and being very cocky about it.
Go look at his other post, inexplicably still modded up to +4, where he claims that the radiation danger from nukes comes from the left over fissile material (U or P), not the blast itself. One insanely stupid comment can be written off to a misunderstanding, but a second comment in the same topic clearly indicates a troll: http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3537197&cid=43144999
Cruise missiles have been obsolete for many decades. The issue is, from my understanding, is twofold: they do not move fast enough and they fly at a low altitude over miles of land that could be covered with defenses. Ballistic missiles approach their targets insanely fast (some do over Mach 20) due to their parabolic flight path giving more time to accelerate downwards. Also due to their parabolic flight path, they bypass an enemy's border defenses through sheer altitude.
Now there *is* a reasonable argument that SLBMs are better than ICBMs, but as I said this is clearly a troll. Mod down.
I'm almost inclined to cut Canonical some slack here. Almost. I don't think NIH is such a horrible thing if the project in question still isn't anywhere near usable. In a situation like this, it's entirely possible that a team of paid, full time, competent programmers could start over from scratch and quickly surpass the original project. Given equal talent and effort, the Cathedral is always more efficient better than the Bazaar.
However, I haven't seen evidence that Ubuntu possesses the talent or the manpower. Time and again, I've either read about or experienced firsthand halfassed, quite unnecessary 'improvements' while watching them neglect the fundamentals.
So, like most every other thing they've done for the past five years, this decision may be fine in theory (I'm not super familiar with the issues surrounding Wayland, so I can't say for sure), but in practice will quickly become a category five disaster.
To clarify, I mean they will kill you instantly with the neutron flux produced by the Uranium-238 stage fissioning. Instantly. Not "give you radiation sickness, then you die two weeks later", I mean it will fuck up your brain's electro-chemical system enough to render you instantly dead, even if you are completely protected from the heat, blast, and have a self-contained air supply. So yes, I would say that the blast is something we do have to worry about. Depending on the weapon in question.
Um, no. Neither weapons grade plutonium nor weapons grade uranium emits dangerous levels of radiation except when critical, and the un-fissioned material loses criticality almost immediately (certainly within a millisecond of detonation.)
You are almost correct in that fallout is often the worst source of radiation, but this radioactive fallout is created by the neutron flux of the nuclear blast, not the post-critical fission material. And the largest nukes we have (so-called fission-fusion-fission, which utilize a Uranium-238 stage) easily emit enough deadly radiation to kill you even if you are safe in an airtight concrete bunker.
If you're ok with 90s graphics and the fact that this is much more an interactive novel than hack n slash, there's absolutely no reason not to check it out.
Al Qaeda was formed as an extremist religious militia from the get-go. They weren't created to fight Sadam, they were created to amass power for Osama, and force the world to kneel at the feet of Islam.
Try again. They were created to fight Soviet Russia. We provided them--along with a bunch of other anti-Soviet forces--with weapons. The US army has recovered these weapons from the dead bodies of al-Qaeda fighters. Osama didn't declare war on America and the rest of the world until after the King of Saudi Arabia laughed in his face.
If it makes you sleep better at night believing that evil humans are born evil, all evil humans are friends with each other and no one ever changes loyalties, go right ahead. You'll forgive me, though, if the first thing I aim for when the revolution comes is your head (and everyone like you.)
Oh yes, I own several guns. And I am vehemently anti-gun control. Anti-welfare, anti-abortion (gasp!) and pro-small government, too.
Re: my sig, the people at the Boston Tea party were "terrorists". Every soldier in the Revolution was a "terrorist" fighting his lawful ruler. The leaders of my government were being "terrorists" when they firebombed Dresden and Tokyo, and nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Every anti-Saddam Iraqi fighter was a 'terrorist'.
And this isn't an apology for assholes like Osama! Far from it; it's a cry for sanity and perspective. When dumbasses like yourself assume that all the evil people in the world are working in unison, we wind up with situations like the current one--a neverending war that's destroying our economy, against a (now-deposed) regime that was ENEMIES with al-Qaeda, while his birth country (Saudi Arabia) AND THE BIRTH COUNTRY OF 90% OF THE HIGHJACKERS gets rich selling us oil and the country that supported him (Afghanistan) continues its fundamentalist, theocratic ways.
The 'terrorist' label is a misdirection of epic proportions. We are assuming the wrong motives; we are fighting the wrong wars. The world is a complex place. A cry for perspective and perception is not the same as pacifism. There ARE wars we should be fighting, and I've never claimed otherwise.
But go ahead--go back to painting me as a mindless liberal. Go back to pretending that every military decision the USA government has ever made is unquestionably correct.
What the fuck nationality are you, anyway? Not enough subtlety or language skills to be a Brit. Aussie, perhaps? Expat former American?
You are speaking in the past tense of something that may or not happen in the future.
Technically, it's already happened. They've been self-governing for years now; we're just providing security. Now, I'm not saying that the potential for revolution isn't high, nor am I saying it was a good idea to invade in the first place, but at least made an EFFORT at bringing them the 'freedom' Bush is always yammering on about.
From Wikipedia. Note that the [numbers] are citations:
By 1988, bin Laden had split from Maktab al-Khidamat; while Azzam acted as support for Afghan fighters, Laden wanted a more military role. One of the main leading points to the split and the creation of al-Qaeda was the insistence of Azzam that Arab fighters be integrated among the Afghan fighting groups instead of forming their separate fighting force.[46] Bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia in 1990 as a hero of jihad, who along with his Arab legion, "had brought down the mighty superpower" of the Soviet Union.[47] However, during this time Iraq invaded Kuwait and Laden met the Sultan, and told him not to depend on non-Muslim troops and offered to help defend Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden was rebuffed and publicly denounced Saudi Arabia's dependence on US military.
Osama was the leader of al-Qaeda, and he presented them to the Sultan in order to defend Saudi Arabia from Iraqi aggression. al-Qaeda was formed as a replacement for western armies, it's true, but it was NOT formed to fight western powers, and the idea that it was loyal or friendly with Saddam is laughable.
such as the bit about Al Qaeda being an anti-sadam militia
I didn't say that. I said Osama led and presented them as such to the royal family of Saudi Arabia. A quick Wikipedia check confirms this. If you have evidence to the contrary, please present it.
It's pretty much a case of "damned if you do, damned if you don't".
Stop pretending every single anti-war advocate has the same opinions. If we installed a puppet government, I wouldn't be super happy about it but I would recognize it as the lesser of two evils. Also, note that there are plenty of ways to manipulate a forming government without outright dictating it. For example, we could have simply insisted that the new constitution not recognize sharia at all (kinda like how we insisted that members of Saddam's political party be banned from participating in the new government.)
If they actually end up executing this guy, then you might have a reason to bitch.
What the hell? I'm not allowed to bitch about a law up until SOMEONE IS PUT TO DEATH UNDER THAT LAW?? Think about what you just said there for a moment.
Anyway, I'm more pissed off about sharia being constitutionally supported. Like the rest of the country, I haven't been keeping up Afghanistan (the fact that the evening news never talks about it certainly doesn't help). If they sentenced someone to death for something as asinine as this (the overturned-sentence-on-a-technicality notwithstanding), you can be sure they've committed all kinds of other perverse atrocities already.
Sometimes you simply have to rant. Discovering that Afghanistan is a theocratic totalitarianism again is--for me--one of those times. Anyone who can calmly discuss this shit *calmly* as our economy circles the drain and the evening news continue to spew lies (six and a half years later) is a goddamn green-blooded Vulcan.
This isn't about voting. Their constitution recognizes sharia law. People don't usually vote on constitutions. We could write them a constitution if we wanted, and let them elect their own leaders under its restrictions.
And yes, I am saying that if we're going to invade a country we should not leave until we can leave behind a secular, pro-western government. If that means manhandling the politicians, so be it. I'm NOT a fan of the idea, but it's certainly better than killing a lot of people and simply leaving, just hoping they'll forgive us and build a government in our own image of their own accord.
You don't seem to understand at all. I am not saying "Afghanistan is a worse place because of our efforts." I am saying exactly what you're saying--"Little [or nothing] has changed." Given the billions of dollars spent on Afghanistan, and all of the US soldiers GAVE THEIR LIVES fighting in Afghanstian, and the fact that fighting terrorism still seems to be on everyone's top 5 priority list, I'd say this is a very bad thing.
Please, explain to me how it's not a very bad thing.
So why don't we focus on building infrastructure over there, instead of pouring hundreds of billions into rebuilding Iraq? Look at the amount of resources committed to Iraq vs. Afghanistan... it doesn't even remotely compare.
...in the real world. We installed Iraq's current government. We dictated who could and could not participate in the new government, including banning certain people from participating (including everyone who held any position in the old government or Saddam's party.) If we wanted to, we damn sure could have made sure that Afghanistan's new constitution didn't include sharia. (Constitutions aren't usually "elected", FYI.)
I'm not saying that I approve of "nation-building bullshit", as you call it. I'm just saying, if we're already engaged in it, we should have done it RIGHT. We went the extra mile in Iraq to ensure it wouldn't revert to its previous self (though it may implode in a civil war anyway, at least its CURRENT government is democratic and secular.) We apparently did NOT go the extra mile in Afghanistan.
To put it another way, I'm not arguing about morality. A lot of people think that anti-war sentiment is always a moral issue, but it's not. I'm simply saying that, if we weren't ready to stick around, make the extra effort, and install in a western-style democracy like we were in Iraq, it was a wasted effort. Wasted money, wasted soldiers' lives. The fact that we will willing to go the extra mile in Iraq (and cripple our economy in the process) and not Afghanistan is simply stagging, when you consider how Afghanistan had a very direct involvement and Iraq had no involvement in 9/11 and other terrorist attacks.
We didn't select their leaders. They selected their own leaders. The US cannot be blamed because the citizens didn't choose wisely nor know how their elected representatives would act.
That didn't stop us from setting policies in Iraq unilaterally, like banning anyone who was ever a member of the Baath party from holding any position in the new government. We installed the Coalition Provisional Authority, which ruled for over a year in Iraq. After that, a non-elected interim government ruled for (about) another year. I don't know offhand how that compares to our efforts in Afghanistan, but my point is this: we didn't relinquish control of Iraq until we were sure that relatively secular, pro-western leaders were going to take over.
And we damn sure should have done the same thing in Afghanistan, especially if we cared about the potential for them to become future terrorist producers/trainers/harborers.
No it was probably modded offtopic because, among many other reasons, this probably would have happened regardless of whether or not we invaded Afghanistan or Iraq.
Bullshit. We installed our own interim government in Iraq, kept it running for at least a year and only allowed elections to take place when we were nice and sure that reasonably progressive, pro-western powers were in place and ready to take over.
If we really wanted to--if we'd made even a QUARTER of the effort we have in Iraq--we could've ensured Afghanistan did not slide back into fundamentalist totalitarian theocracy.
As it is, we've just created another monster. In another couple decades, perhaps they'll sponsor more terrorists and we'll have to invade them again... weeee...
Someone just modded offtopic again. Seriously, are things so fucking bad that people cannot remember:
1. That we invaded Afghanistan back in '01
and
2. Our reasons for invading Afghanistan
?
Mentioning Iraq is also on-topic, because we have been using resources on Iraq that could have instead been used on Afghanistan to prevent another fucking totalitarian theocracy from coming to power.
Slashdot Mirror
There is a slight difference, in that no one (of any consequence) actually believes the Roman gods actually exist.
I used to think this kind of 'offense' was silly but now I'm not so sure. I've had one too many awkward dinner moments when a religious person asks me some question or smugly states a blatant falsehood. It *is* offensive to me. And yeah, free speech should be absolute... someone being offended should never justify an attempt to silence. But huge swaths of this country, indeed our lives (for example, our more bipolar sexual repression) are still being dictated by the offense Christians take. Is it hypocrasy or justified fire-with-fire to start vocalizing our offense?
So I think it is worth saying: this is not something worth glorying or promoting even in the most benign-seeming way. I don't have a problem with Harry Potter, but if (as some fundamentalists apparently think) a large number of people were actually going around attacking science and teaching children that waving wands actually accomplishes anything, then progressed to passing legislation to support their delusions and suppress dissenters... then yes, the Harry Potter series would grow distasteful to me as well, and I would cringe just as hard if the scientists had named this the "Horcrux Project." Or how about this: imagine an RPG where you can find a book called The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which describes, say, the Dark Elves' secret plans for genocide and world domination. It's just fiction, right? It's just a harmlessly playful reference to a work of fiction. Except that work of fiction is still being used today to justify genocidal attacks against Jewish civillians, and because of that fact the reference would rightly be considered offensive. The allusion is inherently offensive because it implies legitimacy (unless the context showed otherwise.)
I'm tired of the all the apatheic, Christian-appologizing atheists. These seemingly trivial things ARE worth bringing up, every time. It is worth reminding people (most of whom have no idea of what secularists actually do and believe) that this is a stupid myth and it DOES affect me and it's various forks are still fucking things up on a large scale all over the world. I don't have to enjoy the bible as a myth or "the greatest story every told". I do not have to preface my rejection of Christianty by saying how Jesus was an awesome guy nonetheless, because he wasn't; he was somewhat better than the average Jew of the time, but that's about it. "The Horcrux Project" would clearly be tongue in cheek. "The Lazarus Project", even if it was intended to be tongue in cheek, would be readily accepted as reference to a factual, historical event by WAY too many people in this nation. And I wouldn't do anything so asinine as try to boycott the scientists involved, but if I was at a dinner party with any of them and the subject of the name came up I would absolutely point out how ridiculous and annoying and even passively-condoning-of-evil it was.
Maybe I should have qualified that particular comment with mid to mid-high level games. At the absolute top end then yes, I'm sure you can find deeply held convictions on whether a 7-barracks or 8-barracks is preferable, with deep analyses of the long term strategic rammifications of either choice, and I'm also sure I can't possibly work up enough interest to give a crap about such tedium. I mean more of, early expansion or no, early units or teching, harassment vs. assault, etc. Are there really many more than a half dozen viable choices of this sort to make?
As a reminder, specifically excluded from the commonly accepted definition of 'strategy' is anything 'tactical', i.e. techniques for conducting any one battle. Although SC2 could use improvement there as well. (Formations anyone? Or better yet, customizable targeting rules.)
The problem is, Blizzard is just so damn good at 1. balancing radically different sides, 2. storyline, and 3. overall polish that people are willing to overlook the fact that SC2 still doesn't have strategy-enhancing features that reviewers widely bemoaned were missing in Starcraft 1. Fifteen god-damned years ago.
Once upon a time I was eagerly looking forward to Starcraft 2 and even Warcraft 3, assuming that Blizzard would finally get around to including the AI options other RTS had introduced and refined. I mean this is a 'strategy' game, right?
Wrong. It's an action game. In fact, it is so much an action game that I would argue most online FPSes are quite strategic in comparison. They actually measure player skill in APS, that's actions per second. Once you progress beyond the noob skill level, your success is almost entirely a product of your twitch, with less than a half dozen cookie-cutter strategies you must blindly follow as fast as you possibly can if you are to have any hope of success.
I loved the original SC/BW campaigns and since the singleplayer difficultly usually isn't too bad I'm sure I'll love SC 2's (I'm waiting for them to release all 3 as a bundle), but I simply don't understand the appeal of a "strategy" game that foists so much mandatory micromanagement on you that actual strategy becomes a wisp of an afterthought.
I'm pretty sure we have a right to complain even if we didn't buy it. In fact I'm pretty sure companies would rather hear us complain (quietly) so they have some idea of the sales they may be missing. And I'm pretty sure would-be buys would rather hear us complain (loudly) so they can hear the negatives and make up their own mind about whether to buy a game, or even whether to boycott a company.
I have never understood this "shut up and buy it or don't buy it" attitude. It benefits no one.
This is sheer nonsense, as I've noted above. But I've just noticed he's posted another priceless bit of nonsense here: http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3537197&cid=43145013 . He is clearly trolling this article, for whatever reason. Either that or he is laughably misinformed and being very cocky about it.
Go look at his other post, inexplicably still modded up to +4, where he claims that the radiation danger from nukes comes from the left over fissile material (U or P), not the blast itself. One insanely stupid comment can be written off to a misunderstanding, but a second comment in the same topic clearly indicates a troll: http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3537197&cid=43144999 Cruise missiles have been obsolete for many decades. The issue is, from my understanding, is twofold: they do not move fast enough and they fly at a low altitude over miles of land that could be covered with defenses. Ballistic missiles approach their targets insanely fast (some do over Mach 20) due to their parabolic flight path giving more time to accelerate downwards. Also due to their parabolic flight path, they bypass an enemy's border defenses through sheer altitude. Now there *is* a reasonable argument that SLBMs are better than ICBMs, but as I said this is clearly a troll. Mod down.
I'm almost inclined to cut Canonical some slack here. Almost. I don't think NIH is such a horrible thing if the project in question still isn't anywhere near usable. In a situation like this, it's entirely possible that a team of paid, full time, competent programmers could start over from scratch and quickly surpass the original project. Given equal talent and effort, the Cathedral is always more efficient better than the Bazaar.
However, I haven't seen evidence that Ubuntu possesses the talent or the manpower. Time and again, I've either read about or experienced firsthand halfassed, quite unnecessary 'improvements' while watching them neglect the fundamentals.
So, like most every other thing they've done for the past five years, this decision may be fine in theory (I'm not super familiar with the issues surrounding Wayland, so I can't say for sure), but in practice will quickly become a category five disaster.
To clarify, I mean they will kill you instantly with the neutron flux produced by the Uranium-238 stage fissioning. Instantly. Not "give you radiation sickness, then you die two weeks later", I mean it will fuck up your brain's electro-chemical system enough to render you instantly dead, even if you are completely protected from the heat, blast, and have a self-contained air supply. So yes, I would say that the blast is something we do have to worry about. Depending on the weapon in question.
Um, no. Neither weapons grade plutonium nor weapons grade uranium emits dangerous levels of radiation except when critical, and the un-fissioned material loses criticality almost immediately (certainly within a millisecond of detonation.) You are almost correct in that fallout is often the worst source of radiation, but this radioactive fallout is created by the neutron flux of the nuclear blast, not the post-critical fission material. And the largest nukes we have (so-called fission-fusion-fission, which utilize a Uranium-238 stage) easily emit enough deadly radiation to kill you even if you are safe in an airtight concrete bunker.
http://www.gog.com/gamecard/planescape_torment DRM free, it appears
http://thunderpeel2001.blogspot.com/2009/01/planescape-torment-fully-modded.html
Platinum rating running under Wine: http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=294
If you're ok with 90s graphics and the fact that this is much more an interactive novel than hack n slash, there's absolutely no reason not to check it out.
Al Qaeda was formed as an extremist religious militia from the get-go. They weren't created to fight Sadam, they were created to amass power for Osama, and force the world to kneel at the feet of Islam.
Try again. They were created to fight Soviet Russia. We provided them--along with a bunch of other anti-Soviet forces--with weapons. The US army has recovered these weapons from the dead bodies of al-Qaeda fighters. Osama didn't declare war on America and the rest of the world until after the King of Saudi Arabia laughed in his face.
If it makes you sleep better at night believing that evil humans are born evil, all evil humans are friends with each other and no one ever changes loyalties, go right ahead. You'll forgive me, though, if the first thing I aim for when the revolution comes is your head (and everyone like you.)
Oh yes, I own several guns. And I am vehemently anti-gun control. Anti-welfare, anti-abortion (gasp!) and pro-small government, too.
Re: my sig, the people at the Boston Tea party were "terrorists". Every soldier in the Revolution was a "terrorist" fighting his lawful ruler. The leaders of my government were being "terrorists" when they firebombed Dresden and Tokyo, and nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Every anti-Saddam Iraqi fighter was a 'terrorist'.
And this isn't an apology for assholes like Osama! Far from it; it's a cry for sanity and perspective. When dumbasses like yourself assume that all the evil people in the world are working in unison, we wind up with situations like the current one--a neverending war that's destroying our economy, against a (now-deposed) regime that was ENEMIES with al-Qaeda, while his birth country (Saudi Arabia) AND THE BIRTH COUNTRY OF 90% OF THE HIGHJACKERS gets rich selling us oil and the country that supported him (Afghanistan) continues its fundamentalist, theocratic ways.
The 'terrorist' label is a misdirection of epic proportions. We are assuming the wrong motives; we are fighting the wrong wars. The world is a complex place. A cry for perspective and perception is not the same as pacifism. There ARE wars we should be fighting, and I've never claimed otherwise.
But go ahead--go back to painting me as a mindless liberal. Go back to pretending that every military decision the USA government has ever made is unquestionably correct.
What the fuck nationality are you, anyway? Not enough subtlety or language skills to be a Brit. Aussie, perhaps? Expat former American?
You are speaking in the past tense of something that may or not happen in the future.
Technically, it's already happened. They've been self-governing for years now; we're just providing security. Now, I'm not saying that the potential for revolution isn't high, nor am I saying it was a good idea to invade in the first place, but at least made an EFFORT at bringing them the 'freedom' Bush is always yammering on about.
You have a -1 starting score. I'd say that makes you least qualified to lecture me how to post.
Or, more ironically-- -1 posters are by definition the noise on the line.
From Wikipedia. Note that the [numbers] are citations:
By 1988, bin Laden had split from Maktab al-Khidamat; while Azzam acted as support for Afghan fighters, Laden wanted a more military role. One of the main leading points to the split and the creation of al-Qaeda was the insistence of Azzam that Arab fighters be integrated among the Afghan fighting groups instead of forming their separate fighting force.[46] Bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia in 1990 as a hero of jihad, who along with his Arab legion, "had brought down the mighty superpower" of the Soviet Union.[47] However, during this time Iraq invaded Kuwait and Laden met the Sultan, and told him not to depend on non-Muslim troops and offered to help defend Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden was rebuffed and publicly denounced Saudi Arabia's dependence on US military.
Osama was the leader of al-Qaeda, and he presented them to the Sultan in order to defend Saudi Arabia from Iraqi aggression. al-Qaeda was formed as a replacement for western armies, it's true, but it was NOT formed to fight western powers, and the idea that it was loyal or friendly with Saddam is laughable.
such as the bit about Al Qaeda being an anti-sadam militia
I didn't say that. I said Osama led and presented them as such to the royal family of Saudi Arabia. A quick Wikipedia check confirms this. If you have evidence to the contrary, please present it.
It's pretty much a case of "damned if you do, damned if you don't".
Stop pretending every single anti-war advocate has the same opinions. If we installed a puppet government, I wouldn't be super happy about it but I would recognize it as the lesser of two evils. Also, note that there are plenty of ways to manipulate a forming government without outright dictating it. For example, we could have simply insisted that the new constitution not recognize sharia at all (kinda like how we insisted that members of Saddam's political party be banned from participating in the new government.)
If they actually end up executing this guy, then you might have a reason to bitch.
What the hell? I'm not allowed to bitch about a law up until SOMEONE IS PUT TO DEATH UNDER THAT LAW?? Think about what you just said there for a moment.
Anyway, I'm more pissed off about sharia being constitutionally supported. Like the rest of the country, I haven't been keeping up Afghanistan (the fact that the evening news never talks about it certainly doesn't help). If they sentenced someone to death for something as asinine as this (the overturned-sentence-on-a-technicality notwithstanding), you can be sure they've committed all kinds of other perverse atrocities already.
Also... are you SURE you're not an American?
Sometimes you simply have to rant. Discovering that Afghanistan is a theocratic totalitarianism again is--for me--one of those times. Anyone who can calmly discuss this shit *calmly* as our economy circles the drain and the evening news continue to spew lies (six and a half years later) is a goddamn green-blooded Vulcan.
This isn't about voting. Their constitution recognizes sharia law. People don't usually vote on constitutions. We could write them a constitution if we wanted, and let them elect their own leaders under its restrictions.
And yes, I am saying that if we're going to invade a country we should not leave until we can leave behind a secular, pro-western government. If that means manhandling the politicians, so be it. I'm NOT a fan of the idea, but it's certainly better than killing a lot of people and simply leaving, just hoping they'll forgive us and build a government in our own image of their own accord.
You don't seem to understand at all. I am not saying "Afghanistan is a worse place because of our efforts." I am saying exactly what you're saying--"Little [or nothing] has changed." Given the billions of dollars spent on Afghanistan, and all of the US soldiers GAVE THEIR LIVES fighting in Afghanstian, and the fact that fighting terrorism still seems to be on everyone's top 5 priority list, I'd say this is a very bad thing.
Please, explain to me how it's not a very bad thing.
So why don't we focus on building infrastructure over there, instead of pouring hundreds of billions into rebuilding Iraq? Look at the amount of resources committed to Iraq vs. Afghanistan... it doesn't even remotely compare.
...in the real world. We installed Iraq's current government. We dictated who could and could not participate in the new government, including banning certain people from participating (including everyone who held any position in the old government or Saddam's party.) If we wanted to, we damn sure could have made sure that Afghanistan's new constitution didn't include sharia. (Constitutions aren't usually "elected", FYI.)
I'm not saying that I approve of "nation-building bullshit", as you call it. I'm just saying, if we're already engaged in it, we should have done it RIGHT. We went the extra mile in Iraq to ensure it wouldn't revert to its previous self (though it may implode in a civil war anyway, at least its CURRENT government is democratic and secular.) We apparently did NOT go the extra mile in Afghanistan.
So why not clue me in? Why not confront the FACTS contained in my post and give me your interpretation of them?
To put it another way, I'm not arguing about morality. A lot of people think that anti-war sentiment is always a moral issue, but it's not. I'm simply saying that, if we weren't ready to stick around, make the extra effort, and install in a western-style democracy like we were in Iraq, it was a wasted effort. Wasted money, wasted soldiers' lives. The fact that we will willing to go the extra mile in Iraq (and cripple our economy in the process) and not Afghanistan is simply stagging, when you consider how Afghanistan had a very direct involvement and Iraq had no involvement in 9/11 and other terrorist attacks.
We didn't select their leaders. They selected their own leaders. The US cannot be blamed because the citizens didn't choose wisely nor know how their elected representatives would act.
That didn't stop us from setting policies in Iraq unilaterally, like banning anyone who was ever a member of the Baath party from holding any position in the new government. We installed the Coalition Provisional Authority, which ruled for over a year in Iraq. After that, a non-elected interim government ruled for (about) another year. I don't know offhand how that compares to our efforts in Afghanistan, but my point is this: we didn't relinquish control of Iraq until we were sure that relatively secular, pro-western leaders were going to take over.
And we damn sure should have done the same thing in Afghanistan, especially if we cared about the potential for them to become future terrorist producers/trainers/harborers.
No it was probably modded offtopic because, among many other reasons, this probably would have happened regardless of whether or not we invaded Afghanistan or Iraq.
Bullshit. We installed our own interim government in Iraq, kept it running for at least a year and only allowed elections to take place when we were nice and sure that reasonably progressive, pro-western powers were in place and ready to take over.
If we really wanted to--if we'd made even a QUARTER of the effort we have in Iraq--we could've ensured Afghanistan did not slide back into fundamentalist totalitarian theocracy.
As it is, we've just created another monster. In another couple decades, perhaps they'll sponsor more terrorists and we'll have to invade them again... weeee...
Someone just modded offtopic again. Seriously, are things so fucking bad that people cannot remember:
1. That we invaded Afghanistan back in '01
and
2. Our reasons for invading Afghanistan
?
Mentioning Iraq is also on-topic, because we have been using resources on Iraq that could have instead been used on Afghanistan to prevent another fucking totalitarian theocracy from coming to power.