Just like yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater, or releasing the names and addresses of informants against Mafia hit men, or the names and locations of informants against Al Qaeda & Taliban cut-throats & beheaders like Wikileaks is doing.
Dead informants mean fewer people to pass on information on scum like Shahzad, who tried to bomb Times Square with a bomb like this.
Calling himself a Muslim soldier, Shahzad pleaded guilty in June to 10 terrorism and weapons counts. He said the Pakistan Taliban provided him with more than $15,000 and five days of explosives training late last year and early this year, months after he became a U.S. citizen.
Would even a Wembley stadium type attack convince even most people many on Slashdot that terrorism is a serious problem? I wonder.
Bin Laden's demand to the United States (The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam.) is that we all convert to his brand Islam, change our governments to observe Sharia, or he and his minions will continue to try to kill us. Their ultimate goal is to conquer the world for Islam, not simply get the US out of anywhere, destroy Israel, or anything else. Al Qaeda believes it is justified in killing 4,000,000 Americans in pursuit of its goal. As it is, Al Qaeda's world wide body count must be easily in the tens of thousands by now.
Meanwhile, planning continues for the next Al Qaeda assault in Europe, following up on the successful mass attacks in London and Madrid, various assassinations, and the failed attacks in Germany, France, and other places. (Hopefully there is a well placed informant or two that will survive the Wikileaks releases.)
I wonder how many on Slashdot are members of the Internet Jihad, or are otherwise radicalized and trying to influence opinion?
“I imagine how the great jihad will take place, how the Muslims will win, God willing, and rule the whole world, and establish the greatest empire once again!!!” reads another Internet posting from Mr. Abdulmutallab.
This is not the secular, political language of resistance against foreign occupation. It is the language of apocalyptic salvation. It has nothing to do with Iraq, Afghanistan or the Palestinians, although countless young Muslims identify passionately with stories of perceived injustice. Radical Islam claims that martyrdom is the ultimate act of faith – the highest duty of a believer, next to the worship of Allah itself.
1.5 million people have died as a result of our attack on Iraq. White ones, brown ones, Americans, Iraqis, mostly civilians and many of them not from bombs but from starvation after the infrastructure needed for their water, food, and medical care was destroyed.
You will be relieved to know that those figures are almost certainly not true.
Leftist billionaire George Soros underwrote the widely quoted Lancet study written by an anti-war professor. As time goes by it keeps looking worse, and worse.
I'm willing to bet there are no terrorists whatsoever, this is all just mass hysteria, induced by opportunistic politics, grabbing of attention and votes, selling tons of security equipment, services, jobs, contracts, news, etc.
Regarding your bet, don't give up your day job.
Maybe you haven't heard, but an organization called Al Qaeda declared war on the United States, and essentially the rest of the world for not following their blighted form of Islam. You can read some of the goals of their leader, Osama Bin Laden, in Bin Laden's letter to America. As you can see, he has a fundamental hostility to democracy, non-Islamic religious belief, and many of our basic freedoms. He demands that we convert to Islam, give up democracy, drop the separation of church and state, and change many aspects of our culture or he and his minions will keep trying to kill us. He demands that we stop drinking alcohol, charging interest on bank loans, start separating the sexes, punishing homosexuality, oppress Jews, etc.
The sort term goal they have is to overthrow the governments in Arab & Muslim countries to install religious dictatorships to impose their narrow brand of Islam. They also hope to limit the spread of freedom and other "Western" ideas. Ultimately they plan to take over the world in a reborn Islamic super state. It sounds far fetched, but that is their goal. They understand that it might take 1,000 years, and that they are just moving the ball forward.
You can see a limited list of their handiwork below:
I remember after the cold war there was actually serious talk about reducing the military budget from utterly ludicrous to just slightly ludicrous. That is until we found a new boogieman and started the "war on terror".
US defense spending was 6.1% of GDP in 1985, in 2000 it was 3% GDP (currently ~ 4.7%). The Army went from 18 Divisions to 10, and there were similar cutbacks in the other services. (Western Military Balance and Defense Efforts Deep cuts actually happened, you may have heard of the "Peace Dividend". Unfortunately the cuts were so deep we are now short of manpower, and its a significant burden on our military.
So, "we" started the "War on terror"? Really? Bin Laden's declaration of war, the attacks on the Cole, our two African embassies, 9/11, they didn't have anything to do with it?
Now that we're fighting an abstract concept instead of an actual definable (and beatable) enemy,
So, you can't actually figure out who we are fighting? I take it you would have had the same problem about 70 years ago after Pearl Harbor (9/11), declarations of war against us from Germany and Italy (fatwas?), when that was referred to as the war against fascism (terror)?
Wow.
. . . our military-industrial complex can continue to grow without limit forever.
That is a great trick. We should capture that magic and apply it to our social welfare programs and solve all of our budget woes. That would seem a pretty urgent issue since social welfare spending is several times larger than the total of military spending and will be bankrupting us in a few decades if some major changes aren't made soon. (Social Security alone wasn't supposed to be in the red for another 5 years or so, and it already is now. The good news is that we have all those IOUs to pay them with.)
the vast majority of the money can simply be tossed into a giant hole called "classified operations" and we don't even have to bother with all that tedious itemized budgeting we had to do with the traditional military.
The fact that you can't inspect the line itemized classified budgets doesn't mean that they don't exist. (Do we need to develop an ontological argument for the existence of classified budgets? Will be soon be arguing about invisible budgets to provide for invisible pasta creatures?)
On the other hand, at least with the old military-industrial complex we got some cool hardware that we got to see at air shows and parades.
Sort of like the Predator / Reaper and other drones? Well, most of the improvements are probably things like better analytical software, pattern matching, facial recognition, and a lot of other stuff you can't see. Still, it is probably a good thing we have them even if we can't see them. (Sort of like classified budgets?)
But hey, at least we're all safer now, right?
I would say so. It is certainly a good thing that Al Qaeda no longer effectively has sovereignty over a nation, where it can openly run training camps to turn out thousands and thousands of trained terrorists per year. Unfortunately we are going to be dealing with this problem for another 10-50 years. That is, unless someone can get the whole "cover your eyes and pretend it isn't happening" thing to work out better than the beheading or bombing it typically ends in.
We haven't had a major terrorist incident in the US for a while. Why?
A: There hasn't been any credible ability to do so by the bad guys B: Nobody wants to harm the US any more C: The counterterrorism efforts have prevented such an attack For ANY of the above choices, how do you know? I mean, REALLY know, not just guessing or trying to shout louder than the guy next to you whose opinion is different than yours?
Re:Enter the closed loop you cannot enter.
on
The Limits To Skepticism
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· Score: 5, Informative
They weren't preventing dissenting opinions from being accepting into peer reviewed journals - they expressed disappointment in the fact that the peer review process wasn't doing its job: weeding out bad science.
I don't think you've captured the true flavor of their hijinks.
This September, Mr. Mann told a New York Times reporter in one of the leaked emails that: "Those such as [Stephen] McIntyre who operate almost entirely outside of this system are not to be trusted." Mr. McIntyre is a retired Canadian businessman who checks the findings of climate scientists and often publishes the mistakes he finds on his Web site, Climateaudit.org. He holds the rare distinction of having forced Mr. Mann to publish a correction to one of his more famous papers.
As anonymous reviewers of choice for certain journals, Mr. Mann & Co. had considerable power to enforce the consensus, but it was not absolute, as they discovered in 2003. Mr. Mann noted in a March 2003 email, after the journal "Climate Research" published a paper not to Mr. Mann's liking, that "This was the danger of always criticising the skeptics for not publishing in the 'peer-reviewed literature'. Obviously, they found a solution to that--take over a journal!"
Mr. Mann went on to suggest that the journal itself be blackballed: "Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal. We would also need to consider what we tell or request of our more reasonable colleagues who currently sit on the editorial board." In other words, keep dissent out of the respected journals. When that fails, redefine what constitutes a respected journal to exclude any that publish inconvenient views.
Scientists actually are pretty skeptical people by nature,...... Most "skeptics" are nothing more than contrarians; skepticism to me implies a willingness to investigate the issue for one's self, but most of the denial movement shows such a poor grasp of the science that they clearly haven't done so.
When it comes to climate, there seems to be two groups - skeptics, and believers. It is amazingly difficult to get believers to reevaluate new data (and perhaps endanger millions in grants?).
Personal anecdote: Last spring when I was shopping around for a new source of funding, after having my funding slashed to zero 15 days after going public with a finding about natural climate variations, I kept running into funding application instructions of the following variety:
Successful candidates will: 1) Demonstrate AGW. 2) Demonstrate the catastrophic consequences of AGW. 3) Explore policy implications stemming from 1 & 2.
Follow the money -- perhaps a conspiracy is unnecessary where a carrot will suffice.
Opposing toxic pollution is not synonymous with supporting AGW.
After all, there is huge money to be made and transferred due to "Climate change", even if it all turns out to b
Also worth pointing out this gives lie to the "They hate us for our freedom" rubbish repeatedly heard from our leaders when conflicts and violence occur in unfamiliar parts of the world.
In his letter to America, Bin Laden states his demands that we must meet for Al Qaeda to stop trying to kill us:
(Q2) As for the second question that we want to answer: What are we calling you to, and what do we want from you?
(1) The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam.
Convert to Islam, or die. So much for freedom of religion.
(2) The second thing we call you to, is to stop your oppression, lies, immorality and debauchery that has spread among you.
(a) We call you to be a people of manners, principles, honour, and purity; to reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling's, and trading with interest.
We call you to all of this that you may be freed from that which you have become caught up in; that you may be freed from the deceptive lies that you are a great nation, that your leaders spread amongst you to conceal from you the despicable state to which you have reached.
(b) It is saddening to tell you that you are the worst civilization witnessed by the history of mankind:
(i) You are the nation who, rather than ruling by the Shariah of Allah in its Constitution and Laws, choose to invent your own laws as you will and desire. You separate religion from your policies, contradicting the pure nature which affirms Absolute Authority to the Lord and your Creator. You flee from the embarrassing question posed to you: How is it possible for Allah the Almighty to create His creation, grant them power over all the creatures and land, grant them all the amenities of life, and then deny them that which they are most in need of: knowledge of the laws which govern their lives?
Eliminate the separation of church and state, and implement Islamic Sharia law, or die.
To comply we will have to completely revamp our banking laws, completely change the relationship between the sexes, force women into "modest" clothes, kill homosexuals by either crushing them under walls or pushing them off buildings, kill blasphemers, chop off body parts of thieves, severely punish people who drink alcohol, take drugs, publish cartoons featuring Mohammad, and a very long list of other things. They probably won't be happy unless we also oppress Jews, kill pagans and pantheists. We will need to institute dietary laws for ceremonial purity of food, ban some types of food, pray 5 times a day, and visit Mecca at least once. Our marriage laws will need to change to allow men to marry multiple women, and divorce them by saying "I divorce you!" three times. The sex habits of Americans deeply offend them, as do pornography and much of our literature. The Taliban banned kite flying as unIslamic. We'll have to start separating men and women in many activities... at least when we allow women out of the house. The 'Burqini' (not a joke) will be the hot new swimwear.... for those wanting to avoid a whipping for immodesty. Forget concerns about if lethal injection is too harsh under the Constitution because stoning, beheading, and crucifiction will be making a comeback. Democracy is unIslamic.
Sense a pattern there? They don't like our freedoms to worship, dress, eat, marry, work, pray, read, play, and just about anything else, the way to do now, including the way we govern ourselves. If it isn't getting through to you that, yes, they (Al Qaeda) really do hate our freedoms (to live as we do now), it isn't because the evidence isn't there, and it isn't because they don't tell us. Why aren't you listening to what they say?
"there is substantial evidence of [Saddam] Hussein's associations with world terrorism before we invaded Iraq. The Iraqi dictator aided, abetted, and provided sanctuary to Abu Nidal's terrorists, Abu Abbas, and all kinds of radical Islamic terrorist groups - Hizbollah and Hamas among them."
Saddam's relationship with Abu Nidal (the nom de guerre of Palestinian terrorist Sabri al-Bana) deserves special scrutiny since, as many intelligence analysts and commentators have noted, he was "the bin Laden of the 1970s and 1980s." That is, at that time he was the most lethal and feared terrorist in the world.
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has raised the amount offered to relatives of suicide bombers from $10,000 per family to $25,000, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Wednesday.
Since Iraq upped its payments last month, 12 suicide bombers have successfully struck inside Israel, including one man who killed 25 Israelis, many of them elderly, as they sat down to a meal at a hotel to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Passover. The families of three suicide bombers said they have recently received payments of $25,000.
"Our evidence suggests that Baghdad is strengthening a relationship with al-Qaeda that dates back to the mid-1990s, when senior Iraqi intelligence officers established contact with the network in several countries."
"We have some evidence that Iraqi Intelligence has been in contact with elements in the northeastern area. And the al-Qaeda operatives there are in regular contact with other operatives located in Baghdad. The Iraqi government has also received information from other sources alerting it to the presence of al-Qaeda operatives in Baghdad."
"We have hard evidence that al-Qaeda is operating in several locations in Iraq with the knowledge and acquiescence of Saddam's regime."
The report, titled "Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents," finds that:
The Iraqi Intelligence Service in a 1993 memo to Saddam agreed on a plan to train commandos from Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the group that assassinated Anwar Sadat and was founded by Al Qaeda's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
In the same year, Saddam ordered his intelligence service to "form a group to start hunting Americans present on Arab soil; especially Somalia." At the time, Al Qaeda was working with warlords against American forces there.
Saddam's intelligence services maintained extensive support networks for a wide range of Palestinian Arab terrorist organizations, including but not limited to Hamas. Among the other Palestinian groups Saddam supported at the time was Force 17, the private arm
Q Mr. President, there's no tougher decision any President makes than to commit the nation to war. Let's talk about that first night, when you surprised us all by launching the preemptive strike against the residence of Saddam Hussein.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, they started in the Situation Room, and we had Tommy Franks on the screen with a Commander -- I think out of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait City and out of -- and a CENTCOM commander out of Tampa Bay, along with their British and Australian counterparts.
And then we had the national security team aligned on the table there. I went around to each of the commanders and said, are you happy with the strategy, do you have what it takes to win the war? They all answered affirmatively.
I then gave the instructions to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld that Operation Iraqi Freedom would commence at a time of Tommy Franks' choosing. Told Tommy, you know, for the sake of peace and security and the freedom of the Iraqi people that he's got the orders to proceed. I asked God for blessing on him and the troops. He saluted, I saluted back and left the room.
It was a -- it was an emotional moment for me because I had obviously made up my mind that if we needed to, we would use troops to get rid of weapons of mass destruction to free the Iraqi people. But the actual moment of making that decision was a heavy moment. I then went outside and walked around the grounds, just to get a little air and collect my thoughts......
Q Let me ask you about that day that the prisoners were captured. Everything played out on television. There's been probably no more televised event in the history of mankind. Suddenly you look on the screen and from Iraqi television there are five American prisoners of war, including a woman who was a cook, Shoshana Johnson.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I believe that was a Sunday. And it was a tough day. It was a tough day for America, it was a tough day for the Commander-in-Chief, who committed these young soldiers into battle in the first place. Which made their release even more joyous. But war is -- it's tough.
Yea, that may have been made up, too bad it overshadowed the very real issue of Bush's questionable National Guard service.
.... for which the linked to article notes Bush received an honorable discharge.
I find it humorous that the best that an ogranization founded by "Moveon.org's man in Austin" could do is a guy who admits:
In a telephone conference call with reporters, however, Mintz conceded that he is not certain whether he himself was present on the dates when pay records show Bush being paid for drill attendance, and he volunteered that he can't say that Bush failed to meet his military obligations:
Do you mean 'like it was in 1914 and 1939'? As in when the world wars started as opposed to when the US decided to join in?
Well, you have to remember that there was a lot of anti-war sentiment in the US despite the looming danger at the time, and it almost kept us out (until it was too late).... kind of like today.
But don't worry, anti-war sentiment in the US is growing stronger, and it seems unlikely that we will involve ourselves as the coming European crisis plays itself out, regardless of the consequences. It will be interesting to see where it begins. Maybe it already has as there are already refugees.
Holland? Amsterdam and Rotterdam are expected to be in about 2015 the first large majority-Muslim cities. Europe or Eurabia?
You're cheating people. You promise to reveal to people "monsters who would use land mines", but it just links to a story about US government policy. It is also a misleading story since it omits some important information about US policy from 2004. (Isn't that after Bush took office?)
We are proud of the U.S. role in reducing the threat to innocent civilians of landmines left in the ground after conflicts end. Since 1993 the U.S. has provided close to $1 billion dollars for these efforts. As the conferees in Nairobi mark this progress, there is important work that remains to be done. Eliminating civilian landmine casualties requires a comprehensive approach addressing landmines of every type that remain hazardous after a conflict has ended, including the larger anti-vehicle landmines that are not covered by the Ottawa Convention.
The United States' landmine policy increases funding for humanitarian mine action substantially. It includes an unconditional commitment that U.S. military forces (despite worldwide treaty commitments and major ongoing operations) will cease the use of all persistent landmines, anti-vehicle as well as anti-personnel, by the end of 2010. The United States will also eliminate from its inventory all non-detectable mines, which pose an extraordinary risk to civilians and deminers.
The U.S. applauds the initiative and commitment of those gathering in Nairobi, and we reiterate our commitment to work with the international community to accelerate progress toward an end to the humanitarian harm caused by persistent landmines. We encourage states participating in the Review Conference to:
* Increase funding for humanitarian mine action, and harmonize their efforts with other key mine action programs worldwide.
* Examine their own policies on the continued use of persistent anti-vehicle landmines, which pose substantial dangers to innocent life yet are not covered under the Ottawa Convention.
* Agree to negotiate, at the Conference on Disarmament, a ban on the sale or export of all persistent mines, including anti-vehicle mines.
* Eliminate all non-detectable landmines, which pose a particular hazard to deminers.
Some monsters... spending $1 Billion to help remove landmines and trying to get rid of more landmines than the current treaty.
I would think that if you are really concerned about landmines killing people, you would have an interest in Al Qaeda in Iraq. We regularly capture stockpiles of the landmines they use (like this stockpile). Al Qaeda's indiscriminate violence and wanton killing is costing them support even among radicals to the point of forcing them to discuss their defeat in Iraq.
It applies to foreign nationals who are being held by US enforcers (soldiers, police, whatever),
Enforcers? The police are generally concerned about matters of criminal or regulatory law. Soldiers are generally concerned about the law of war. They are separate bodies of law, the purpose, standards, and requirements tend to be quite different. We are treading a dangerous path if we are going to start confusing them or blurring the distinctions.
Andrew McCarthy was the federal prosecutor who, against all odds, secured a long prison term for Omar Abdel Rahman, the "Blind Sheikh" who plotted the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993. McCarthy's new book, Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad, recounts just how difficult that task was.
More importantly, McCarthy illustrates how it's almost impossible to foil terrorist attacks under the law enforcement model.
For the first time, McCarthy intimately reveals the real story behind the FBI's inability to stop the first World Trade Center bombing even though the bureau had an undercover informant in the operation -- the jihadists' supposed bombmaker.
In the first sentence of his hard-hitting account, the author sums up the lawyerly -- but staggeringly incomprehensive -- reason why the FBI pulled its informant out of the terrorist group even as plans were coming to a head on a major attack:
"Think of the liability!"
The first rule for government attorneys in counterintelligence in the 1990s was, McCarthy tells us, "Avoid accountable failure," Thus, when the situation demanded action, the feds copped a CYA posture, the first refuge of the bureaucrat. Willful Blindness
Then treat them as prisoners of war. That comes with its own set of rules, of course.
You got that almost right. War comes with its own rules, and you get certain protections and privileges if you obey the rules, ie the Geneva Conventions. Real POWs, lawful combatants, can't be held liable for killing your soldiers in battle (if it is according to the rules), can't be interrogated beyond their name, rank, date of birth, and service number, have to be paid a wage by your side while in captivity, have to be given the chance to prepare their own food (which means access to knives, cleavers, etc.) are free to send and receive mail, you must notify the other side that you have captured them, and other requirements. That is if you are at war and obey the rules - you don't get to pick the ones you like. Al Qaeda and their ilk don't obey the rules, so they are unlawful combatants, and don't qualify for the protections and privileges of the Geneva Conventions. The convention itself lists the rules to qualify. (Do you think those privileges and protections make sense to extend to Al Qaeda? Can't question them? Have to notify on capture?) That doesn't put them into the civilian legal system, it leaves them subject to the law of war but in jeopardy for their unlawful conduct under the law of war.
The simpler explanation is that what you wrote is false (an probably a lie on your part), but at least you demonstrated that your heart is in the right place by smearing the administration / military. Well done.
Is it possible to have POW's without a congressionally declared war?
We are at war.
For constitutional purposes, the joint resolution passed with but a single dissenting vote by Congress on Sept. 14, 2001, was the equivalent of a formal declaration of war. The Supreme Court held in 1800 (Bas v. Tingy), and again in 1801 (Talbot v. Seamen), that Congress could formally authorize war by joint resolution without passing a formal declaration of war; and in the post-U.N. Charter era no state has issued a formal declaration of war. Such declarations, in fact, have become as much an anachronism as the power of Congress to issue letters of marque and reprisal (outlawed by treaty in 1856). Formal declarations were historically only required when a state was initiating an aggressive war, which today is unlawful. --- FISA vs. the Constitution ROBERT F. TURNER, co-founder of the Center for National Security Law at the University of Virginia School of Law
Camp rules are posted in four languages -- Arabic, Farsi, Urdu, and Pashto -- in the exercise yards in each of the camps. Recently, the enclosed bulletin boards have also featured posters with information about the Afghan elections. "It talks about the fact that 10 million Afghanis freely elected their own government," Rundle said. "So it's a bit of news from home... for a chunk of the detainee population here."
Cultural sensitivity is consistently practiced in each of the camps. Respect for Islam is evident in many of the policies. For instance, in each cell in Camp 1, a Koran is stored hanging in a surgical mask from the cell wall. The purpose of the surgical mask is to hold the Muslim holy book "in a place of reverence," Padmore said.
In each cell block a painted arrow points toward Mecca, Saudi Arabia, so the detainees know which way to face during their daily prayers. During Ramadan, detainees were allowed to break their daily fast with water and dates at the appropriate time, and prayer calls are broadcast over loudspeakers five times a day.
A native of Bangladesh, Saifulislam had a lot of firsts in his 15-year Navy career, the last eight years served as a Muslim chaplain. He was the first Muslim chaplain to be assigned to the Marine Corps, at Camp Pendleton, Calif. He helped organize the Marines' first iftar, in 2005. He was the first Muslim chaplain to be sent to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to administer to detainees there.
WASHINGTON, June 29, 2005 - Members of Joint Task Force Guantanamo, Cuba, go to great lengths to respect the religious practices and beliefs of an estimated 520 enemy combatants being detained there, senior task force leaders told Congress today. Officials described a sweeping program that ranges from educating servicemembers about Muslim beliefs and sensitivities to incorporating those religious practices into nearly every aspect of camp life....
A loudspeaker at the camp signals the Muslim "call to prayer" five times a day - generally at 5:30 in the morning, 1 and 2:30 in the afternoon, and 7:30 and 9:30 at night, Mendez said.
Once the prayer call sounds, detainees get 20 minutes of uninterrupted time to practice their faith, he said. Those who choose to can take advantage of the prayer caps, beads and oil given to them as part of their basic-issue items and pray toward the Muslim holy city of Mecca, in the direction designated by arrows painted in each detainee cell and all common areas. Detainees who display good behavior and abide by camp rules receive traditional Islam prayer rugs as well, Mendez said.
The Joint Task Force Guantanamo Bay staff strives to ensure detainees aren't interrupted during the 20 minutes following the prayer call, even if they're not involved in religious activity, Mendez said.
Staff members schedule detainee medical appointments, interrogations and other activities in accordance with the prayer call schedule. They also post traffic triangles throughout Camp Delta to remind task force members not to disrupt the 20-minute observation period, Mendez explained.
Strict measures in place throughout the facility ensure appropriate treatment of the Koran, the Muslim holy book.
Every detainee at the facility is issued a personal copy of the Koran, and it is displayed in detainee cells "in plain view and above eye level," Mendez said. This serves two purposes, he said, discouraging detainees from hiding contraband inside its pages
Although this is apparently an appealing sentiment to some people, it has next to nothing to do with the current problem of Islamist terrorism. All you have to do is read Bin Laden's letter to American to understand their demands. They want to conquer the world and convert it to Islam, even if it takes a thousand years.
First - convert to Islam:
(Q2) As for the second question that we want to answer: What are we calling you to, and what do we want from you?
(1) The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam.
Second - enforce Islamic morality, replace the Constitution with Sharia, and eliminate the separation of church and state.
(2) The second thing we call you to, is to stop your oppression, lies, immorality and debauchery that has spread among you.
(a) We call you to be a people of manners, principles, honour, and purity; to reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling's, and trading with interest.........
(i) You are the nation who, rather than ruling by the Shariah of Allah in its Constitution and Laws, choose to invent your own laws as you will and desire. You separate religion from your policies, contradicting the pure nature which affirms Absolute Authority to the Lord and your Creator. You flee from the embarrassing question posed to you: How is it possible for Allah the Almighty to create His creation, grant them power over all the creatures and land, grant them all the amenities of life, and then deny them that which they are most in need of: knowledge of the laws which govern their lives?
If Israel were to disappear tomorrow and all UK troops were brought home it would have no effect because the United Kingdom is not an Islamic state subservient to the Caliphate.
Hmmmm. Uk.... terror plots.... IMs to Pakistan.... web based training.... emails to cell members.... "Jihadi" web sites.... So I guess it's funny because it could be true?
Fertiliser bomb plot: The story Five men have been convicted of plotting to build a bomb which police say could have killed hundreds of British people. The men were caught after police and MI5 launched a massive surveillance operation.
I would think most people would prefer avoiding another 7/7 attack.
Well, carry on with the snarky comments then. After all, that's what keeps us all safe, isn't it? Certainly it couldn't have anything to do with the security services based on the typical post on Slashdot. And never forget Bin Laden's gracious peace offer. All we have to do is convert to Islam as nations, abolish our respective constitutions and replace them with Sharia, start enforcing strict Islamic morality (which will mean killing homosexuals and blasphemers, no more alcohol, drugs, charging interest on loans, pornography, fornication, etc., etc.), then Bob's your uncle - peace! And look, the necessary infrastructure and supporting institutions are already coming into place, supported by leading religious figures. If converting to Islam is too high a price for you, there is even an Islamic alternative for many of you.
Andrew McCarthy, the former Assistant United States Attorney who prosecuted the 1993 World Trade Center bombers (including the "Blind Sheik"), has written The Case for Telecom Immunity . Worth reading.
"No ambiguity in the term"? When a roadside bomb attacking military vehicles is "terrorism", the word has lost all meaning.
The original post's line "No ambiguity in the term" reference was to Islamist, not terrorism. I'm not sure how that was confusing. But since you bring it up....
The fact that terrorists attack military and police units doesn't mean they aren't terrorists. The presence of a few police or soldiers at a site being attacked doesn't mean that the attack isn't terrorism.
The word terrorism hasn't lost its meaning, but some people seem to lack the ability to discuss it in a meaningful and reasonable way.
Slashdot Mirror
Free speech is causing harm!
Just like yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater, or releasing the names and addresses of informants against Mafia hit men, or the names and locations of informants against Al Qaeda & Taliban cut-throats & beheaders like Wikileaks is doing.
Dead informants mean fewer people to pass on information on scum like Shahzad, who tried to bomb Times Square with a bomb like this.
Would even a Wembley stadium type attack convince even most people many on Slashdot that terrorism is a serious problem? I wonder.
Bin Laden's demand to the United States (The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam.) is that we all convert to his brand Islam, change our governments to observe Sharia, or he and his minions will continue to try to kill us. Their ultimate goal is to conquer the world for Islam, not simply get the US out of anywhere, destroy Israel, or anything else. Al Qaeda believes it is justified in killing 4,000,000 Americans in pursuit of its goal. As it is, Al Qaeda's world wide body count must be easily in the tens of thousands by now.
Meanwhile, planning continues for the next Al Qaeda assault in Europe, following up on the successful mass attacks in London and Madrid, various assassinations, and the failed attacks in Germany, France, and other places. (Hopefully there is a well placed informant or two that will survive the Wikileaks releases.)
I wonder how many on Slashdot are members of the Internet Jihad, or are otherwise radicalized and trying to influence opinion?
1.5 million people have died as a result of our attack on Iraq. White ones, brown ones, Americans, Iraqis, mostly civilians and many of them not from bombs but from starvation after the infrastructure needed for their water, food, and medical care was destroyed.
You will be relieved to know that those figures are almost certainly not true.
ORB's "million Iraqi deaths" survey seriously flawed, new study shows. More here.
Leftist billionaire George Soros underwrote the widely quoted Lancet study written by an anti-war professor. As time goes by it keeps looking worse, and worse.
The Wikileaks contents tend to undermine them as well:
Iraqi news site in english.
I'm willing to bet there are no terrorists whatsoever, this is all just mass hysteria, induced by opportunistic politics, grabbing of attention and votes, selling tons of security equipment, services, jobs, contracts, news, etc.
Regarding your bet, don't give up your day job.
Maybe you haven't heard, but an organization called Al Qaeda declared war on the United States, and essentially the rest of the world for not following their blighted form of Islam. You can read some of the goals of their leader, Osama Bin Laden, in Bin Laden's letter to America. As you can see, he has a fundamental hostility to democracy, non-Islamic religious belief, and many of our basic freedoms. He demands that we convert to Islam, give up democracy, drop the separation of church and state, and change many aspects of our culture or he and his minions will keep trying to kill us. He demands that we stop drinking alcohol, charging interest on bank loans, start separating the sexes, punishing homosexuality, oppress Jews, etc.
The sort term goal they have is to overthrow the governments in Arab & Muslim countries to install religious dictatorships to impose their narrow brand of Islam. They also hope to limit the spread of freedom and other "Western" ideas. Ultimately they plan to take over the world in a reborn Islamic super state. It sounds far fetched, but that is their goal. They understand that it might take 1,000 years, and that they are just moving the ball forward.
You can see a limited list of their handiwork below:
The most recent attempted bombing
The Underwear bomber
African Embassy Bombing
9/11 suicide attacks
Bali bombing
Madrid bombing
7/7 bombing in London
Another of the countless bombings in Iraq
Pakistan hotel bombing
Hotel bombing in Jordan
The "shoe bomber", and his current hijinks
Plan to attack Wembley stadium
Plan to bring down seven airliners
Attempted bombing in Germany
PS - In order to cut down on the confusion, a simple rule of them you can use is that "mass hysteria" doesn't tend to leave craters and stip the walls off buildings, collapse buildings, or rips bodies apart by shrapnel.
Breaking news: MinLove reminds us that Al Qaeda still loves us, has always loved us, and many of our best friends, and wants to love us even even more in future! Al Qaeda can only love us. We should meditate on why they do not love us as often as other people. Make your holiday plans now, destinations are filling up!!
I remember after the cold war there was actually serious talk about reducing the military budget from utterly ludicrous to just slightly ludicrous. That is until we found a new boogieman and started the "war on terror".
US defense spending was 6.1% of GDP in 1985, in 2000 it was 3% GDP (currently ~ 4.7%). The Army went from 18 Divisions to 10, and there were similar cutbacks in the other services. (Western Military Balance and Defense Efforts Deep cuts actually happened, you may have heard of the "Peace Dividend". Unfortunately the cuts were so deep we are now short of manpower, and its a significant burden on our military.
So, "we" started the "War on terror"? Really? Bin Laden's declaration of war, the attacks on the Cole, our two African embassies, 9/11, they didn't have anything to do with it?
Now that we're fighting an abstract concept instead of an actual definable (and beatable) enemy,
So, you can't actually figure out who we are fighting? I take it you would have had the same problem about 70 years ago after Pearl Harbor (9/11), declarations of war against us from Germany and Italy (fatwas?), when that was referred to as the war against fascism (terror)?
Wow.
. . . our military-industrial complex can continue to grow without limit forever.
That is a great trick. We should capture that magic and apply it to our social welfare programs and solve all of our budget woes. That would seem a pretty urgent issue since social welfare spending is several times larger than the total of military spending and will be bankrupting us in a few decades if some major changes aren't made soon. (Social Security alone wasn't supposed to be in the red for another 5 years or so, and it already is now. The good news is that we have all those IOUs to pay them with.)
the vast majority of the money can simply be tossed into a giant hole called "classified operations" and we don't even have to bother with all that tedious itemized budgeting we had to do with the traditional military.
The fact that you can't inspect the line itemized classified budgets doesn't mean that they don't exist. (Do we need to develop an ontological argument for the existence of classified budgets? Will be soon be arguing about invisible budgets to provide for invisible pasta creatures?)
On the other hand, at least with the old military-industrial complex we got some cool hardware that we got to see at air shows and parades.
Sort of like the Predator / Reaper and other drones? Well, most of the improvements are probably things like better analytical software, pattern matching, facial recognition, and a lot of other stuff you can't see. Still, it is probably a good thing we have them even if we can't see them. (Sort of like classified budgets?)
But hey, at least we're all safer now, right?
I would say so. It is certainly a good thing that Al Qaeda no longer effectively has sovereignty over a nation, where it can openly run training camps to turn out thousands and thousands of trained terrorists per year. Unfortunately we are going to be dealing with this problem for another 10-50 years. That is, unless someone can get the whole "cover your eyes and pretend it isn't happening" thing to work out better than the beheading or bombing it typically ends in.
We haven't had a major terrorist incident in the US for a while. Why?
A: There hasn't been any credible ability to do so by the bad guys
B: Nobody wants to harm the US any more
C: The counterterrorism efforts have prevented such an attack
For ANY of the above choices, how do you know? I mean, REALLY know, not just guessing or trying to shout louder than the guy next to you whose opinion is different than yours?
Survey says....C!
Al Qaeda Video Asks Detroit-Area Muslims to Act
US warned of mail bomb terror tactic last month
Explosive found in Dubai, part of US terror probe
'US terrorist tried to bring slaughter to subway in Washington'
US man pleads guilty in 'South Park' terror threat
'US thrice shared non-specific inputs on Mumbai attack'
Terrorist in failed LAX attack violated prison release with gun purchase
14 Charged with Aiding Terror Group Al-Shabab
Former Staten Island Resident Nabbed in Attempt to Join Taliban
Feds: NYC Subway Plotters Targeted London, Too (From July)
And in other news....
Osama bin Laden threatens French troops, criticizes France burqa ban
Canadian sentenced for leading terrorism plot
Hotels need EU help to defend against attack
MI6 chief Sir John Sawers says secrecy is vital to keep UK safe
Eight Britons 'trained in Pakistan for European terror strikes'
New security threat at Commonwealth Games, police, army seize explosives
British bobbies get SAS training, new weapons in wake of Mumbai-style terror threats
Gunmen storm Parliament in Chechnya, 6 dead
Bomb on bus in Philippines kills 10, wounds 9
Saudis warn Europe of terr
They weren't preventing dissenting opinions from being accepting into peer reviewed journals - they expressed disappointment in the fact that the peer review process wasn't doing its job: weeding out bad science.
I don't think you've captured the true flavor of their hijinks.
Rigging a Climate 'Consensus' - About those emails and 'peer review.'
Scientists actually are pretty skeptical people by nature,...... Most "skeptics" are nothing more than contrarians; skepticism to me implies a willingness to investigate the issue for one's self, but most of the denial movement shows such a poor grasp of the science that they clearly haven't done so.
When it comes to climate, there seems to be two groups - skeptics, and believers. It is amazingly difficult to get believers to reevaluate new data (and perhaps endanger millions in grants?).
Climate of Fear - Global-warming alarmists intimidate dissenting scientists into silence.
Physics Group Splinters Over Global Warming Review
Climate change: this is the worst scientific scandal of our generation
Can most scientists afford to be skeptics?
After all, there is huge money to be made and transferred due to "Climate change", even if it all turns out to b
In his letter to America, Bin Laden states his demands that we must meet for Al Qaeda to stop trying to kill us:
Convert to Islam, or die. So much for freedom of religion.
Eliminate the separation of church and state, and implement Islamic Sharia law, or die.
To comply we will have to completely revamp our banking laws, completely change the relationship between the sexes, force women into "modest" clothes, kill homosexuals by either crushing them under walls or pushing them off buildings, kill blasphemers, chop off body parts of thieves, severely punish people who drink alcohol, take drugs, publish cartoons featuring Mohammad, and a very long list of other things. They probably won't be happy unless we also oppress Jews, kill pagans and pantheists. We will need to institute dietary laws for ceremonial purity of food, ban some types of food, pray 5 times a day, and visit Mecca at least once. Our marriage laws will need to change to allow men to marry multiple women, and divorce them by saying "I divorce you!" three times. The sex habits of Americans deeply offend them, as do pornography and much of our literature. The Taliban banned kite flying as unIslamic. We'll have to start separating men and women in many activities... at least when we allow women out of the house. The 'Burqini' (not a joke) will be the hot new swimwear.... for those wanting to avoid a whipping for immodesty. Forget concerns about if lethal injection is too harsh under the Constitution because stoning, beheading, and crucifiction will be making a comeback. Democracy is unIslamic.
Sense a pattern there? They don't like our freedoms to worship, dress, eat, marry, work, pray, read, play, and just about anything else, the way to do now, including the way we govern ourselves. If it isn't getting through to you that, yes, they (Al Qaeda) really do hate our freedoms (to live as we do now), it isn't because the evidence isn't there, and it isn't because they don't tell us. Why aren't you listening to what they say?
By the way, New Y
Apparently there wasn't room for them with all the flying pigs in the air....
Saddam Hussein and Abu Nidal, Terrorist Allies
Salaries For Suicide Bombers - Iraq Pays $25,000 To Families Of 'Martyrs'
Palestinians get Saddam funds
The Senate's Intelligence
Christopher Hitchens debates Iraq with Reagan Jr.
Report Details Saddam's Terrorist Ties
I think that you believe in nonsense.
.
I find it humorous that the best that an ogranization founded by "Moveon.org's man in Austin" could do is a guy who admits:
Do you mean 'like it was in 1914 and 1939'? As in when the world wars started as opposed to when the US decided to join in?
.... kind of like today.
Well, you have to remember that there was a lot of anti-war sentiment in the US despite the looming danger at the time, and it almost kept us out (until it was too late)
But don't worry, anti-war sentiment in the US is growing stronger, and it seems unlikely that we will involve ourselves as the coming European crisis plays itself out, regardless of the consequences. It will be interesting to see where it begins. Maybe it already has as there are already refugees.
Holland?
Amsterdam and Rotterdam are expected to be in about 2015 the first large majority-Muslim cities. Europe or Eurabia?
UK?
Muslim Britain is becoming one big no-go area
Trouble in Londonistan
France?
Muslims are waging civil war against us, claims police union
Why 112 cars are burning every day
Elsewhere?
Where did they all go? Who are they training and leading?
You're cheating people. You promise to reveal to people "monsters who would use land mines", but it just links to a story about US government policy. It is also a misleading story since it omits some important information about US policy from 2004. (Isn't that after Bush took office?)
United States Urges Landmine Treaty's Parties to Do More
Some monsters... spending $1 Billion to help remove landmines and trying to get rid of more landmines than the current treaty.
U.S. Landmine Policy
I would think that if you are really concerned about landmines killing people, you would have an interest in Al Qaeda in Iraq. We regularly capture stockpiles of the landmines they use (like this stockpile). Al Qaeda's indiscriminate violence and wanton killing is costing them support even among radicals to the point of forcing them to discuss their defeat in Iraq.
Enforcers? The police are generally concerned about matters of criminal or regulatory law. Soldiers are generally concerned about the law of war. They are separate bodies of law, the purpose, standards, and requirements tend to be quite different. We are treading a dangerous path if we are going to start confusing them or blurring the distinctions.
Then treat them as prisoners of war. That comes with its own set of rules, of course.
You got that almost right. War comes with its own rules, and you get certain protections and privileges if you obey the rules, ie the Geneva Conventions. Real POWs, lawful combatants, can't be held liable for killing your soldiers in battle (if it is according to the rules), can't be interrogated beyond their name, rank, date of birth, and service number, have to be paid a wage by your side while in captivity, have to be given the chance to prepare their own food (which means access to knives, cleavers, etc.) are free to send and receive mail, you must notify the other side that you have captured them, and other requirements. That is if you are at war and obey the rules - you don't get to pick the ones you like. Al Qaeda and their ilk don't obey the rules, so they are unlawful combatants, and don't qualify for the protections and privileges of the Geneva Conventions. The convention itself lists the rules to qualify. (Do you think those privileges and protections make sense to extend to Al Qaeda? Can't question them? Have to notify on capture?) That doesn't put them into the civilian legal system, it leaves them subject to the law of war but in jeopardy for their unlawful conduct under the law of war.
They needed room for new arrivals?
The simpler explanation is that what you wrote is false (an probably a lie on your part), but at least you demonstrated that your heart is in the right place by smearing the administration / military. Well done.
We are at war.
How about Guantanamo Bay?
Detainees Living in Varied Conditions at Guantanamo
Navy Muslim Chaplain to Help Lead White House Iftar Dinner
Joint Task Force Respects Detainees' Religious Practices
First - convert to Islam:
Second - enforce Islamic morality, replace the Constitution with Sharia, and eliminate the separation of church and state.
If Israel were to disappear tomorrow and all UK troops were brought home it would have no effect because the United Kingdom is not an Islamic state subservient to the Caliphate.
Hmmmm. Uk.... terror plots.... IMs to Pakistan.... web based training.... emails to cell members.... "Jihadi" web sites.... So I guess it's funny because it could be true?
Police have foiled 15 terror plots in Britain since the 2000, Ian Blair reveals
The suicide bombers who met at McDonald's: Image shows meeting with '7/7 terror plotter'
Car Bomb Found in London 20 Days After al Qaeda Suicide Bomber 'Graduation Ceremony'
Training camps for terrorists in UK parks
UK camps 'preparation for terror'
Men 'planned airliner explosions'
Airline terror trial shown liquid bomb exploding
[Channel 4 News] UK airline plot martyrdom videos released
Fertiliser bomb plot: The story
Five men have been convicted of plotting to build a bomb which police say could have killed hundreds of British people. The men were caught after police and MI5 launched a massive surveillance operation.
I would think most people would prefer avoiding another 7/7 attack.
Well, carry on with the snarky comments then. After all, that's what keeps us all safe, isn't it? Certainly it couldn't have anything to do with the security services based on the typical post on Slashdot. And never forget Bin Laden's gracious peace offer. All we have to do is convert to Islam as nations, abolish our respective constitutions and replace them with Sharia, start enforcing strict Islamic morality (which will mean killing homosexuals and blasphemers, no more alcohol, drugs, charging interest on loans, pornography, fornication, etc., etc.), then Bob's your uncle - peace! And look, the necessary infrastructure and supporting institutions are already coming into place, supported by leading religious figures. If converting to Islam is too high a price for you, there is even an Islamic alternative for many of you.
Andrew McCarthy, the former Assistant United States Attorney who prosecuted the 1993 World Trade Center bombers (including the "Blind Sheik"), has written The Case for Telecom Immunity . Worth reading.
There are plenty of places on the web for anyone that wants to be better informed about what is happening in Iraq. Just for starters...
Multi-National Force - Iraq website.
Today's top stories:
Iraqis Displaced from Homes Now Returning in Droves
Soccer Stadium Opens with Tourney
Mahmudiyah Hatchery Receives First Egg Shipment
Soldiers Distribute Fertilizer to Farmers
The Long War Journal
Michael Totten's web site
Michael Yon's web site (He has just published a new book: Moment of Truth in Iraq )
Some Iraqi bloggers:
Iraq Pundit
Iraq the Model
Some useful news of the war does slip through:
Al Qaeda chief slams Muslims for lack of support
Iraq: After the bombs, the tomatoes
Violence Leaves Young Iraqis Doubting Clerics
Sometimes it is enlightening to consider other viewpoints.
"No ambiguity in the term"? When a roadside bomb attacking military vehicles is "terrorism", the word has lost all meaning.
The original post's line "No ambiguity in the term" reference was to Islamist, not terrorism. I'm not sure how that was confusing. But since you bring it up....
Do you think most people could go out on a limb and agree that suicide vest attacks at funerals, car bombings of schools, mass kidnappings (where the victims are likely to end up in mass graves ), and roadside bombs targeting children are still terrorism? What about attacking worshipers at a mosque with rockets? What about when they try to destroy an entire village? What about poison gas attacks on city government?
The fact that terrorists attack military and police units doesn't mean they aren't terrorists. The presence of a few police or soldiers at a site being attacked doesn't mean that the attack isn't terrorism.
The word terrorism hasn't lost its meaning, but some people seem to lack the ability to discuss it in a meaningful and reasonable way.
So apperently the Muslims in the Netherlands are willing to show it if they can see it upfront to make sure it contains no legally libel content.
I find it interesting that they are concerned about "libel".
Muslims nations: Defame Islam, get sued?
A SLAPP Against Freedom
You saw it on TV? Wow, it must be representative of the whole Middle East then.
MERI TV has an interesting variety of translated programs from the Middle East. Check out the "Favorite Clips" for a few eye openers.