Richard Nixon as President was the Republican party. He was the head honcho, the main man. A pardon for him was also a pardon for the party, as I already explained.
No it wasn't. The pardon was very unpopular politically. As a result, the Republicans got pounded in the midterm elections, losing 49 seats. That is far worse than they did in the last election.
Hardly. He did what was best for the only man who elected him to the position, Richard Nixon, and their political party, the Republicans.
Ford's White House had charge of the President's papers, formerly Nixon's, now his. His staff was spending 1/4 of their time just dealing with all of the legal mess from Watergate, and he was spending large amounts of his energy. That doesn't include what was going on in Congress and elsewhere. Much of the country was fixated on it. That could have lasted for years. Ford cleared it away with his pardon power: Shazam! - Instant 25% more time to spend on little things like the energy crunch, Middle East war & peace (a big deal after the massive Yom Kippur war in 1973), South East Asia, Europe, China, the Soviet Union, global cooling, and other matters. Having 25% more time to spend on issues that are important to the current business of the nation sounds best to me.
Not unlike what happened to Clinton during his 4-5 year, $50 million investigation which only determined that like a vast majority of Americans, he lied about sex.
Actually there were a series of determinations made about various issues, and new ones just keep popping up: Whitewater, Travelgate, Filegate, the Lewinski affair, Vince Foster's death, and so on. If the white House would have cooperated instead of fighting tooth and nail, and various records hadn't mysteriously gone missing and then magically appeared years later, it might have gone quicker. And, just to be clear about it, Clinton lied about sex in a case in which his sexual behavior was an issue. It cost him an $850,000 settlement, his law license, and any reimbursement for legal expenses. Other people have gone to jail for what he did. Also, the answers were only clear after the investigations, not before.
Yes, that's called justice. It's not pretty and it can take time.
Weren't you just complaining about that in President Clinton's case? Why is it different for President Nixon?
Instead what we got was a mockery of justice that only proves well connected dirty Republicans are above the law.
Whew! I was worried, for a moment I thought it was only well connected dirty Democrats, Libertarians, and the occasional independents who get off lightly. Thank goodness we have equal justice. On second thought, if well connected dirty Republicans are above the law, how did Chuck Colson, Gordon Liddy, and various others of the White House "plumbers" go to jail, and Spiro Agnew get socked for tax evasion and bribery? Why did Nixon have to resign?
As far as I'm concerned, Ford is an accomplice to Nixon's crimes by letting him go free.
Somehow I doubt that what you are really after is justice for Nixon's part in the obstruction of justice in the Watergate affair. You do realize that Cambodia, the Christmas bombing, Kent State, Vietnam, and all of the rest, would not have played any part in the trial, or any possible punishment, don't you? Even if they would have prosecuted and convicted Nixon for obstruction of justice, I doubt that you would have found that an adequate proxy for whatever real punishment you think he really deserved.
Ford does not deserve my sympathy nor respect. If there is a hell, he is certainly burning in it.
For those too young to know better; the Watergate scandal is NOT about the break-in at the Democratic National Headquarters! Watergate is about everything that happened AFTER!
Don't be ridiculous, Watergate was about both. There wouldn't have been an "after" if there hadn't have been a "before", and all of unsavory activity that went into making it possible. The trail from the break-ins lead to the White House, but the greatest danger to Nixon personally was the cover-up.
By pardoning Nixon, Ford stopped all of the investigations and set the US up for another Imperial Presidency. Rather than putting Watergate, and it's excesses, behind the country, Ford's pardon put them into the future. Take a look around and you'll see for yourself.
That is just silly. What got Nixon in trouble wasn't an "imperial presidency", but rather conspiracy, burglary, and obstruction of justice. They did it not to serve the interests of the United States and its people, but against their political opponents in a general election to get reelected. There isn't any legal leg to stand on to make any part of Watergate legal. That is a very different situation from, for example, the precedent, case law, and Article II arguments supporting the reported NSA program against the terrorist networks by the current administration. {And any claims that the administration considers Democrats to be terrorists is fatuous, tedious crap. Sadly, there are still people who eat it up.:( }
Ford is a man who let a crook go free for the benefit of the Republican party. .... No, Ford's actions were for the benefit of the only person...: Richard Nixon.
Could you make up your mind? Or, better yet, how about we go back to the beginning: Ford did what was best for the nation.
After he became president, a quarter of the time of the White House staff was being taken up by the Watergate proceedings. That wasn't moving the country's business forward any more than Clinton's impeachment that so many on Slashdot bitterly complain about. To make it even "better", Nixon wasn't President anymore to suffer the results of his actions, Ford was. With the pardon, Ford cleared the agenda of the President, his executive staff, Congress, the FBI, CIA, and various other agencies to deal with the problems of the American people since the most important result was already accomplished: Richard Nixon was no longer the President of the United States of America, having resigned in disgrace, and many of his henchmen in jail. Although it might have been personally satisfying and politically useful to some people to pursue Nixon, it would have continued to take up large amount of time for an uncertain result: you still have to get beyond reasonable doubt, and even then you can face jury nullification or hung juries.
Your notion of a 4-5 year trial is dubious speculation and political pornography. Even with a five year trial, Ronald Reagan would have still been running against President Carter. Jimmy Carter was stuck running on his record, the economy, and events of his day. He lost then, and he almost certainly would have lost even with a trial of Nixon. A second term for President Jimmy Carter wouldn't be any more palatable for most Americans due to a jury verdict against former President Nixon, the President before the last President.
Although it may be personally satisfying to you to think of Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Bush Sr. as being ruined, that is doubtful; they didn't do anything wrong. Colson, Dean, Liddy, and the rest, went down because they did.
I think that most 'true' hard-core geeks tend to be very liberal, perhaps having something to do with reading/watching Science Fiction stories, as the best of them often emphasize compassion, understanding and attempt to acknowledge society's ills.
Slashdot has a strong Libertarian trend, and the Left is well represented as well, especially when the Europeans and expatriates start chiming in.
If you caught idiots such as them on an honest day, you will find that they intentionally push their 'views' farther 'right' than they themselves believe, as many foolish people cling to the idea that 'the truth is in the middle', and by pushing their slander they hope to shove the public to their view points. I don't believe that kind of posturing is possible on the 'left' as liberals don't seem to stand for it.
The far left equivalent of fascism isn't anarcho-socialsim, but communism in its various flavors. If you look at the list of political parties vying for power in the 2004 election, there were plenty of socialists and communists, but actual (joking aside) fascists didn't make the cut. Although today there are a few pathetic wanna-be "Nazis" and various other fascists in the United States, they are not even close to being a political force and tend to be social misfits. In the 1930s they had a small presence and influence in some ethnic communities, but not today*. After the US learned about them, fought against Japan, Italy, and Germany, and saw the results of fascism close up, especially the Nazi atrocities, support for fascism in the United States shriveled to practically nothing.
If anything, political discourse in the US tends towards the liberal side, not conservative. There are plenty of people arguing liberal and even leftist positions. Conservative positions do get fairly regular representation in various forms. Fascism, no.
Anarcho-socialism is so far out, nobody advocates for it. We live in an organized society, not the jungle. I doubt that it is even as "influential" as fascism.
* The various "fascists" and racist organizations (The Order, Aryan Nations, etc.) tend to be more of a crime problem (as in bank robbing) than a political problem.
... Everyone hates Bush, everyone hates this war. You lost, give it up. Snide, idiotic comments like this just prove you are a sore loser with too much hate in your heart.... . . .... Does it burn knowing you are in the minority? Does it burn knowing the world does not share in your hate-fest? I certainly hope so, people like you are one of the root causes of suffering in the world. We would all be better off without you. FOAD.
I take it you lack a sense of irony.....
by spun (1352) loverevolutionary.yahoo@com
....well... maybe not completely.
.... everyone hates this war.
The insurgents and Islamist extremists don't. They believe that they are fulfilling a religious duty and stand the chance of martyrdom, guaranteeing them entry into heaven and the service of 72 virgins. They think we'll quit and hand them an easy victory any time now, especially if they can push just a little harder. I get the sense that you agree with the first part of that view, that we both will and should quit Iraq as soon as possible, and are oblivious to the second part, about handing them a victory. If they gain that victory, they will be eager to repeat in other places. Their goal is to bring the entire Middle East under strict Islamic rule by a single government uniting church and state, and ultimately spread it to the rest of the world even if it takes 1,000 years.
Was President Clinton lying when he had this to say?
Remarks by President Bill Clinton, February 17, 1998 But for all our promise, all our opportunity, people in this room know very well that this is not a time free from peril -- especially as a result of reckless acts of outlaw nations and an unholy axis of terrorists, drug traffickers and organized international criminals. We have to defend our future from these predators of the 21st century. They feed on the free flow of information and technology. They actually take advantage of the freer movement of people, information, and ideas. And they will be all the more lethal if we allow them to build arsenals of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, and the missiles to deliver them. We simply cannot allow that to happen.
There is no more clear example of this threat than Saddam Hussein's Iraq. His regime threatens the safety of his people, the stability of his region, and the security of all the rest of us......
Now, instead of playing by the very rules he agreed to at the end of the Gulf War, Saddam has spent the better part of the past decade trying to cheat on this solemn commitment. Consider just some of the facts. Iraq repeatedly made false declarations about the weapons that it had left in its possession after the Gulf War. When UNSCOM would then uncover evidence that gave lie to those declarations, Iraq would simply amend the reports. For example, Iraq revised its nuclear declarations four times within just 14 months, and it has submitted six different biological warfare declarations, each of which has been rejected by UNSCOM.
In 1995, Hussein Kamel, Saddam's son-in-law and the chief organizer of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction pro
This is laughable. I agree, your post is laughable. I didn't write that one bombing constituted an insurgency, I listed the bombing as an example of an attack from it. I also specifically stated that five (5) Americans were killed in that one incident, not the mention the Germans killed. "ROTFL!" isn't really a counter-argument.
Somehow I doubt that you have any relatives that died fighting as "anti-Nazi partisans". At the very least I can't believe that you ever spoke to any survivors. If you had, I doubt that you would find the idea of Nazis engaging in post-surrender terrorism and guerilla warfare as being a subject of humor, particularly since as a minimum there would be some fascists fighting to avoid the hangman's noose for things like this. Frankly, it is you who insult their memory and sacrifice, not me.
Bullshit. There was no Nazi insurgency after WWII. Rumsfeld and Rice made that up.
You're wrong, it did in fact exist. People were being killed and intimidated well after the German surrender. Examples: On June 4, 1945, a police station in Bremen was blown up, killing five Americans and thirty-nine Germans, and injuring many more. The NKVD liquidated 42 Werewolf groups in Saxony in 1946.
What most people think of as the Abu Ghraib scandal was a small group of bored, stupid soldiers engaging in some sick thrills which mostly occurred over a period of a few days. They have been punished for it. What they did was for "fun" not policy.
Japan, Italy, and Germany are presently peaceful democracies after suffering severe violence and occupation for up to seven years. Germany did have a short lived but violent insurgency (the Werewolves) that was put down. Germany seems to have come through it OK, the Nazi pagans didn't take over. The coup attempt by the Japanese Army didn't have legs either.
The cost of the Iraq war is a pimple on the behind of either the American economy, or the US Government budget. The annual costs of the Iraq war are on the order of $100-150 billion. The US Government budget is $2 trillion. The US economy is on the order of $12 trillion. From an economic perspective, the cost of Iraq is an annoyance, nothing more. The US Army during the Vietnam war was 3x its current size. During WW2, it was 16x larger while the country was half its current size. Militarily the Iraq war is uncomfortable for the current size of the Army and the policies they want to keep, but that is about all.
Iran isn't simply provoking Israel, its President is making statements suggesting a threat of genocide that even various Arab governments condemn. Maybe you can understand why the Jewish state might be sensitive to that? Or, maybe not. I can't imagine you advocate them accepting annihilation just to keep the peace.
Europe has been taking the lead on the Iran problem*, and is failing. Is that because Europeans want oil priced in Euros, a nuclear armed Iran (soon) with missiles capable of reaching Europe (now), they are simply feckless, or maybe the Iranian government is run by fanatics who have an agenda of their own that they value above Europe's carrots & sticks?
Wars tend to start when one country attacks another. Iran has been sponsoring terrorism across the region, providing arms to Iraqi insurgents, and is making threats against other countries. That isn't a recipe for peace.
By the way, how does suicide bombing work into this? Since we "know" that religion isn't involved, but oil is, how do they convince suicide bombers to do it? Do they offer to bury the bomber's remains in pure kerosene or something?
'The prisoner died in a position known as "Palestinian hanging" ' [foxnews.com]. 'When the men lowered Jamadi to the floor, Frost told investigators, "blood came gushing out of his nose and mouth, as if a faucet had been turned on." . [newyorker.com]
The interesting things you can read in those links.....
Navy SEALs apprehended al-Jamadi as a suspect in the Oct. 27, 2003, bombing of Red Cross offices in Baghdad that killed 12 people. His alleged role in the bombing is unclear. According to court documents and testimony, the SEALs punched, kicked and struck al-Jamadi with their rifles before handing him over to the CIA early on Nov. 4. By 7 a.m., al-Jamadi was dead.
Navy prosecutors in San Diego have charged nine SEALs and one sailor with abusing al-Jamadi and others. All but two lieutenants have received nonjudicial punishment; one lieutenant is scheduled for court-martial in March, the other is awaiting a hearing before the Navy's top SEAL.
I have read a number of Chomsky books over the years and I usually check up on everything he says, not because I don't trust him, but because you shouldn't really trust what any one person writes.
Especially Chomsky. A brilliant man.... 50 years ago...when writing about linguistics.
--It would certainly go a distance in explaining the actions of some of the supposedly fundamentalist Islamic terrorists in the prelude to the grand 9-11 performance acting in ways most un-Islamic. (Booze and Cocaine and Women [gnn.tv] won't win the devout many points with Allah.) So what's the story here? Were they fundamentalist terrorists, or were they dupe mercenaries who didn't know what they were signing up for, and who were allowed to bring off their clutzy plan while the US secret services conveniently looked the other way [tvnewslies.org], while the secret/shadow government [washingtonpost.com] provided access to the remote controlled [911review.com] jets actually capable of performing the precision flying which badly-trained mercenary goof-balls could not have been asked to manage, and while the Israeli-owned security companies [whatreallyhappened.com] which held contracts at each of the airports involved during 9-11, gave them fast-lane service at the boarding check points?
Dudes with bombs and box-cutters working independently is still the false reality which needs to be understood here. The myth of terrorists is the preferred tool for building the fascist state. Luckily, this is increasingly well understood. It's the 'How' which seems to be causing some hiccups.
Here are some victories the good guys won against terrorism around the world in the last couple of weeks (this list doesn't include terrorist attacks):
Let us assume for the moment that there really was a plot. Instead of a photo-op and a few headlines, the smart thing to do would have been to continue efforts to infiltrate the group, gather more evidence and when there is a case, quietly arrest the suspects and let the justice system do it's job. Of course, I am making the huge assumption that the people in charge of the investigation were not subject to political interference at home, or abroad.
You are also assuming that they weren't on the verge of attacking. They were.
Unfortunately, the people who make homeland security policies seem to make decisions based on theater rather than plain-old boring police work. One gets you headlines, and the other gets you results. What a shame that massaging their own egos is priority #1.
In this case the result was a plot broken up just before it was launched. I rather prefer that to cleaning up after an attack.
Given enough time, you get these guys to say anything you want. Why waste all that effort to find the guilty, when you can just pick someone and beat them until they admit their guilt or agree to testify to someone else's guilt?
Why you clever fellow, that is an interesting solution: just manufacture it all with torture. There is a minor problem in that real torture isn't legal. It also has the disadvantage of getting you absolutely no useful information about real terrorists if you are just picking innocent victims to torture to confession, doesn't it? That could be a problem if there really are terrorists in the world, because they will be making plots, blowing up things, and getting away while you are working over some poor innocent bastard you picked up off the street. If there really is a terrorist problem in the world, you are doing worse than nothing about it.
So what if the actual terrorists blow up a few more things, it only confrims that you need even more power to persue them!
Well, until the voters figure out you are a bunch of knobs and put the other party in power. Democracies tend to be rather practical in that way. And when the other party comes into power, your problems are just beginning. If you've been wasting the governments efforts on torturing the innocent, instead of performing real counterterrorist investigations, the terrorists will be likely be worse off as well. See how long you are out of power then.
I'm not necessarily saying that's what happened here, but when you look at the big picture, it sure looks really bad.
Then what the hell did you write this crap for? "Why bother when you're allowed to torture people?"
How about this for an answer: Because there are real terrorists and screwing around is only going to get people killed!
Well, don't worry your pretty head too much. If we don't win, there are some folks, our would be overlords, so to speak, who will straighten out society. We may not care for it so much, but at least the rules will be clear. Torture will definitely be in the new OK list, along with beheading, stoning, amputations, crucifixion, whipping, and all of that. The underpinnings of it, Sharia, is already getting some traction in Britain: Sharia law is spreading as authority wanes. We'll have to see how the whole Londonisan thing works out.
By the way, for your edification, here are a few incidents from the last couple of weeks from all over the world where the good guys won in some fashion (I know some of you are snickering) (Note that I didn't list the ones in which the bad guys won.). What do you think this means for the question of the existence of terrorists?
When our guys die in uniform, they are heroes and patriots. When their guys die they are crazy and irrational.
I would say that is pretty much correct, but you left out some things....
When our guys win, we cheer. When their guys win, they cheer.
When our guys abuse prisoners, we boo and they go to jail. When their guys cut off heads, or use electric drills to torture prisoners before execution, they cheer, brag, and put a video on the internet.
If our guys keep winning, we get to live in liberal democracies. If their guys win, you, or someone who will be related to you, will end up living in a Muslim super state, the Caliphate, that unifies church and state, living under a harsh form of Sharia. The Taliban's interpretation might be a taste of it, given that Al Qaeda hung out with them:
Life under Taliban cuts two ways Consider the following list of edicts issued by Taliban religious scholars in Kabul in December 1996:
"To prevent music.... In shops, hotels, vehicles, and rickshaws, cassettes and music are prohibited."
"To prevent beard shaving and its cutting. After one and a half months, if anyone [is] observed who has shaved and or cut his beard, they should be arrested and imprisoned until their beard is bushy."
"To prevent kite-flying."
"To prevent idolatry. In vehicles, shops, hotels, rooms, and any other place, pictures [and] portraits should be abolished."
"To prevent washing cloth by young ladies along the water streams in the city. Violator ladies should be picked up with respectful Islamic manner, taken to their houses, and their husbands severely punished."
The struggle over sharia Is sharia harsh? Followed literally, it can be medieval. Sharia divides all human actions into five categories: obligatory, meritorious, permissible, reprehensible, and forbidden. Among the reprehensible and forbidden acts are drinking alcohol, eating pork, theft, slander, highway robbery, murder, adultery, and losing one's faith. Traditional punishments include whipping and the amputation of limbs. For the most severe crimes, the penalty can be decapitation, crucifixion, or death by stoning. In Saudi Arabia, where sharia governs civil society, these harsh penalties are still meted out. Women are shrouded and segregated from men; suggestive Western photographs censored; and criminals punished harshly. In the capital city of Riyadh, beheadings are carried out on a brick-and-marble plaza that some have dubbed "Chop-Chop Square."
Another chapter from early Islamic history -- serving as a lesson for today's Muslims at war against the West -- is the concept of the love of death. This originated at the Battle of Qadisiyya in the year 636, when the commander of the Muslim forces, Khalid ibn Al-Walid, sent an emissary with a message from Caliph Abu Bakr to the Persian commander, Khosru. The message stated: "You [Khosru and his people] should convert to Islam, and then you will be safe, for if you don't, you should know that I have come to you with an army of men that love death, as you love life." This account is recited in today's Muslim sermon
It looks like the lead article for this discussion didn't report one of the most important parts of the story:
Heathrow terror suspect set to be extradited Pakistan today cleared the way for the handover of Rashid Rauf, the Briton alleged to have masterminded the plot to blow up trans-Atlantic passenger planes, after a surprise move by a judge to drop terror charges against him.
British officials have been trying to extradite the 25-year-old from Birmingham for five months.
The dramatic ruling by a court in Rawalpindi is being seen as part of an agreement to speed up his return to the UK where Scotland Yard detectives want to question Mr Rauf about the Heathrow plot and his possible links to the 7/7 suicide bombers in London.......
The official also said they have been asked by Britain to reveal no more details about their investigations into Mr Rauf.
I thought it was now common knowledge that the whole thing was a sham.
What you refer to as "common knowledge" is more commonly referred to as disinformation.
Dry run was planned: U.S LONDON - The terrorist attack foiled by British authorities today was aimed at blowing up as many as 10 airplanes on transatlantic flights and plotters had hoped to stage a dry run within the next two days, U.S. intelligence officials said.
The actual attack would have followed within days. Early reports allege the involvement of the Pakistan-based group Lashkar-e-Taiba, or LeT.
How Britain prevented another 9/11 A British government source said an intercepted message from Pakistan telling the bombers to "go now" had triggered the arrests. Security sources said they had been planning to break up the cells in the next few days, but were forced to move earlier to prevent huge loss of life; they believed the attacks were to take place in the next two days.......
The American news network NBC quoted an unnamed counterterrorism official as saying that more than one of the plotters had prepared a martyrdom video tape, while at least one had attended a terrorist training camp in Pakistan.
Police hunt 'two dozen' terror cells in UK The full extent of the terror threat facing Britain became apparent on Saturday night as security sources revealed that 'up to two dozen' terror investigations were operating across the country and that a number of suspects associated with last week's plot to bring down 10 airliners remained at large.
Pakistani intelligence sources alleged that one of the men arrested in connection with the bomb plot had been held following the London terror attack on 7 July last year.
British security sources also linked the present investigation to that atrocity, saying the operation that led to Thursday's arrests began days after the 7 July attack. There are also claims that voicemails discovered after the first attack link the two events.
Terror detectives 'find bomb kit' Police probing an alleged plot to bring down flights have found a suitcase containing items which could be used to construct a bomb, the BBC has learned......
A police source told the BBC the case contained "everything you would need to make an improvised device".
Why do you think the French built the "force de frappe"?
French pride and the loss of her colonies as a result of defeat in Viet Nam were the most immediate reasons. The French started nuclear programs right after WW2, and they wanted to nuke the Viet Minh guerillas that surrounded, and ultimately defeated, their troops at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. Lacking nukes of their own at the time, the French almost convinced the US to do it for them, but not quite. In the 1956 Suez Crisis, the Soviet Union threatened to intervene on behalf of Egypt, and attack Paris and London with rockets. Just think of it, if the French had nuclear weapons of their own in 1954, they would have nuked the Viet Minh, kept their overseas empire, and gone into Suez with nukes, either allowing them to take what they wanted in Africa, or perhaps to have engaged in nuclear warfare in Western Europe. But, as usual, the US is the bad guy.
One of the predominate motivations for French policy toward nuclear weapons and French international policy in general stems from Charles de Gaulle and his idea of an independent nuclear striking force or force de frappe. Initially, it was de Gaulle's Provisional Government that laid the grounds for development of nuclear weapons with the creation of the Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique (Atmoic Energy Commission) in late 1945. This set the stage for later decisions by de Gaulle about France and her defense strategy.
Charles de Gaulle firmly believed that France needed to remain politically independent from all other countries. He also believed that in order for a country to truly remain independent it needed a strong defense force. More importantly, the defense force must also be independent. To support this claim, Gough has quoted de Gaulle as saying, "The defense of France must be French." It was this type of reasoning that led de Gaulle to be a driving force for the independent development of nuclear weapons, even when he was not in office, in order to have an independent nuclear force.
Official approval for developing nuclear weapons was not authorized until late 1954, even though by then the necessary plutonium production program was well advanced. Following the route of French forces at Dien Bien Phu, and the loss of then French Indochina, France's interest in nuclear weapons to bolster its national prestige took a sharp upswing. On 26 December 1954, Prime Minister Pierre Mendes-France met with his cabinet and authorized a program to develop an atomic bomb. On 28 December a new Bureau of General Studies (Bureau d'Etudes Generales) was created with General Albert Buchalet as head to pursue this option. In 1955 the Armed Forces Ministry (Ministre des Armees) began transferring funds in large amounts to this program.
In the first gulf war we did not plan to occupy iraq so we flew something like 300 sorties a day dropping an ungodly amount of bombs on the place. We targeted and destroyed all kinds of crucial civilian infrastructure such as bridges, electrical generation facilites, water treatment plants, roads, factories etc. Our goal was to make the iraqis suffer so much that they would rise up and overthrow saddam so we worked very hard at hurting as many common iraqis as possible. As a result of these efforts and the sanctions that followed we killed close to two million iraqis including hundreds of thousands of children.
Our goal in the first Gulf War wasn't to make the Iraqi people suffer, but to cripple the Iraqi war machine. Armored vehicles and supply trucks generally need bridges to cross deep water, and wars don't go well without them. Supply trucks and many military units need roads. Roads that have craters from bombs make for slow driving, assuming you can do it at all. Aircraft need landing strips to fly and fight. Airport landing strips are unusable with craters on the runway. Military units that can't move, fly, or fight are going to fail. Factories making ammunition, weapons, spare parts, and other essentials for war don't get work done without electricity. Government workers without electricity for light and computers aren't very producctive. The Coalition forces went out of their way to avoid damaging protected classes of targets. What you've written is false.
It wasn't we who killed Iraqis due to sanctions; it was Saddam. If Saddam hadn't abused the Oil for Food program to buy weapons and build palaces instead of buying food, far fewer Iraqis would have died. If you have 10 kids and spend all of your paycheck on booze and drugs, whose fault is it if your kids are starving? Is it your fault, or your employer's?
The entire reason they want the source code is to ensure that the US government can't arbitrarily disable their planes when they disagree with their use or conflict with US interests.
Yes, that would be brilliant. Assuming it even could do so, the US disabling equipment that it sold to another country would bode reallllly well for future arms sales, wouldn't it? To be able or willing to do it arbitrarily makes it even better.
A reasonable concern given the state of US politics, foreign policy, and state of the US moral compass.
And when did this state arrive? 2000? 1980? Never?
By the way, how are the Canadian troops doing in Afghanistan? I hope the Leopard tanks work out well.
The sad thing is not the nearly 3,000 coalition deaths but the estimated more than 650,0000 civilian deaths (or 2.5% of their entire population). To downplay that is insulting to the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis suffering.
No, the truly sad thing is that anybody believes those nonsense numbers. (Which, oddly enough, were released just before the US election, just like their last survey.)
However, the key to the validity of cluster sampling is to use enough cluster points. In their 2006 report, "Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: a cross-sectional sample survey," the Johns Hopkins team says it used 47 cluster points for their sample of 1,849 interviews. This is astonishing: I wouldn't survey a junior high school, no less an entire country, using only 47 cluster points.
Neither would anyone else. For its 2004 survey of Iraq, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) used 2,200 cluster points of 10 interviews each for a total sample of 21,688. True, interviews are expensive and not everyone has the U.N.'s bank account. However, even for a similarly sized sample, that is an extraordinarily small number of cluster points. A 2005 survey conducted by ABC News, Time magazine, the BBC, NHK and Der Spiegel used 135 cluster points with a sample size of 1,711--almost three times that of the Johns Hopkins team for 93% of the sample size.
What happens when you don't use enough cluster points in a survey? You get crazy results when compared to a known quantity, or a survey with more cluster points. There was a perfect example of this two years ago. The UNDP's survey, in April and May 2004, estimated between 18,000 and 29,000 Iraqi civilian deaths due to the war. This survey was conducted four months prior to another, earlier study by the Johns Hopkins team, which used 33 cluster points and estimated between 69,000 and 155,000 civilian deaths--four to five times as high as the UNDP survey, which used 66 times the cluster points.
The 2004 survey by the Johns Hopkins group was itself methodologically suspect--and the one they just published even more so.
The Iraq Body Count project strongly rejects the 650,000 number as well.
I think that there are lies told in the pursuit of "peace" that equal or exceed those claimed to have been told in the pursuit of war.
As to Iraqi suffering, I don't recall there being massive protests around the world when Saddam invaded Iran, Kuwait, gassed the Kurds, or filled various mass grave sites. That leads me to believe that very few people in "peace movements" outside Iraq are genuinely concerned about Iraqi suffering. I do remember massive protests by the "peace movement" when the large multinational coalition prepared to eject the Iraqi Army from Kuwait in 1991. The protests were against the liberation of Kuwait, which leads me to believe that few people in the "peace movement" were against the suffering of the Kuwaiti people under occupation, or against the suffering of the Iraqi people under Saddam who was waging aggressive war to incorporate Kuwait as a province of Iraq. During the period that Iraq was under sanctions, there were protests against the US and not against Saddam for misusing the corrupt Oil for Food money to buy weapons and build palaces instead of buying food. The evidence seems to point to the "peace movement" being against the US and not against Iraqi suffering.
But the thing that puts Americans over the edge is the deaths of their troops? I don't quite understand that logic. Can someone be so kind as to explain that?
Americans don't want to see other Americans killed. They understand that people are likely to die in war, but prefer that it is the enemy soldiers if it is going to be anyone. That isn't hard to understand, is it?
Slashdot Mirror
Richard Nixon as President was the Republican party. He was the head honcho, the main man. A pardon for him was also a pardon for the party, as I already explained.
No it wasn't. The pardon was very unpopular politically. As a result, the Republicans got pounded in the midterm elections, losing 49 seats. That is far worse than they did in the last election.
Hardly. He did what was best for the only man who elected him to the position, Richard Nixon, and their political party, the Republicans.
Ford's White House had charge of the President's papers, formerly Nixon's, now his. His staff was spending 1/4 of their time just dealing with all of the legal mess from Watergate, and he was spending large amounts of his energy. That doesn't include what was going on in Congress and elsewhere. Much of the country was fixated on it. That could have lasted for years. Ford cleared it away with his pardon power: Shazam! - Instant 25% more time to spend on little things like the energy crunch, Middle East war & peace (a big deal after the massive Yom Kippur war in 1973), South East Asia, Europe, China, the Soviet Union, global cooling, and other matters. Having 25% more time to spend on issues that are important to the current business of the nation sounds best to me.
Not unlike what happened to Clinton during his 4-5 year, $50 million investigation which only determined that like a vast majority of Americans, he lied about sex.
Actually there were a series of determinations made about various issues, and new ones just keep popping up: Whitewater, Travelgate, Filegate, the Lewinski affair, Vince Foster's death, and so on. If the white House would have cooperated instead of fighting tooth and nail, and various records hadn't mysteriously gone missing and then magically appeared years later, it might have gone quicker. And, just to be clear about it, Clinton lied about sex in a case in which his sexual behavior was an issue. It cost him an $850,000 settlement, his law license, and any reimbursement for legal expenses. Other people have gone to jail for what he did. Also, the answers were only clear after the investigations, not before.
Yes, that's called justice. It's not pretty and it can take time.
Weren't you just complaining about that in President Clinton's case? Why is it different for President Nixon?
Instead what we got was a mockery of justice that only proves well connected dirty Republicans are above the law.
Whew! I was worried, for a moment I thought it was only well connected dirty Democrats, Libertarians, and the occasional independents who get off lightly. Thank goodness we have equal justice. On second thought, if well connected dirty Republicans are above the law, how did Chuck Colson, Gordon Liddy, and various others of the White House "plumbers" go to jail, and Spiro Agnew get socked for tax evasion and bribery? Why did Nixon have to resign?
As far as I'm concerned, Ford is an accomplice to Nixon's crimes by letting him go free.
Somehow I doubt that what you are really after is justice for Nixon's part in the obstruction of justice in the Watergate affair. You do realize that Cambodia, the Christmas bombing, Kent State, Vietnam, and all of the rest, would not have played any part in the trial, or any possible punishment, don't you? Even if they would have prosecuted and convicted Nixon for obstruction of justice, I doubt that you would have found that an adequate proxy for whatever real punishment you think he really deserved.
Ford does not deserve my sympathy nor respect. If there is a hell, he is certainly burning in it.
You display a remarkable generosity of spirit.
For those too young to know better; the Watergate scandal is NOT about the break-in at the Democratic National Headquarters! Watergate is about everything that happened AFTER!
:( }
Don't be ridiculous, Watergate was about both. There wouldn't have been an "after" if there hadn't have been a "before", and all of unsavory activity that went into making it possible. The trail from the break-ins lead to the White House, but the greatest danger to Nixon personally was the cover-up.
By pardoning Nixon, Ford stopped all of the investigations and set the US up for another Imperial Presidency. Rather than putting Watergate, and it's excesses, behind the country, Ford's pardon put them into the future. Take a look around and you'll see for yourself.
That is just silly. What got Nixon in trouble wasn't an "imperial presidency", but rather conspiracy, burglary, and obstruction of justice. They did it not to serve the interests of the United States and its people, but against their political opponents in a general election to get reelected. There isn't any legal leg to stand on to make any part of Watergate legal. That is a very different situation from, for example, the precedent, case law, and Article II arguments supporting the reported NSA program against the terrorist networks by the current administration. {And any claims that the administration considers Democrats to be terrorists is fatuous, tedious crap. Sadly, there are still people who eat it up.
Ford is a man who let a crook go free for the benefit of the Republican party. ... ...: Richard Nixon.
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No, Ford's actions were for the benefit of the only person
Could you make up your mind? Or, better yet, how about we go back to the beginning: Ford did what was best for the nation.
After he became president, a quarter of the time of the White House staff was being taken up by the Watergate proceedings. That wasn't moving the country's business forward any more than Clinton's impeachment that so many on Slashdot bitterly complain about. To make it even "better", Nixon wasn't President anymore to suffer the results of his actions, Ford was. With the pardon, Ford cleared the agenda of the President, his executive staff, Congress, the FBI, CIA, and various other agencies to deal with the problems of the American people since the most important result was already accomplished: Richard Nixon was no longer the President of the United States of America, having resigned in disgrace, and many of his henchmen in jail. Although it might have been personally satisfying and politically useful to some people to pursue Nixon, it would have continued to take up large amount of time for an uncertain result: you still have to get beyond reasonable doubt, and even then you can face jury nullification or hung juries.
Your notion of a 4-5 year trial is dubious speculation and political pornography. Even with a five year trial, Ronald Reagan would have still been running against President Carter. Jimmy Carter was stuck running on his record, the economy, and events of his day. He lost then, and he almost certainly would have lost even with a trial of Nixon. A second term for President Jimmy Carter wouldn't be any more palatable for most Americans due to a jury verdict against former President Nixon, the President before the last President.
Although it may be personally satisfying to you to think of Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Bush Sr. as being ruined, that is doubtful; they didn't do anything wrong. Colson, Dean, Liddy, and the rest, went down because they did.
I think that most 'true' hard-core geeks tend to be very liberal, perhaps having something to do with reading/watching Science Fiction stories, as the best of them often emphasize compassion, understanding and attempt to acknowledge society's ills.
Compassion and acknowledging society's ills are hardly limited to liberals.
Slashdot has a strong Libertarian trend, and the Left is well represented as well, especially when the Europeans and expatriates start chiming in.
If you caught idiots such as them on an honest day, you will find that they intentionally push their 'views' farther 'right' than they themselves believe, as many foolish people cling to the idea that 'the truth is in the middle', and by pushing their slander they hope to shove the public to their view points. I don't believe that kind of posturing is possible on the 'left' as liberals don't seem to stand for it.
You don't have to look hard on the left to find vitriol, nutters, all manner of other ideas, various troubling developments and unbalanced views. That isn't even starting to scratch the surface.
The far left equivalent of fascism isn't anarcho-socialsim, but communism in its various flavors. If you look at the list of political parties vying for power in the 2004 election, there were plenty of socialists and communists, but actual (joking aside) fascists didn't make the cut. Although today there are a few pathetic wanna-be "Nazis" and various other fascists in the United States, they are not even close to being a political force and tend to be social misfits. In the 1930s they had a small presence and influence in some ethnic communities, but not today*. After the US learned about them, fought against Japan, Italy, and Germany, and saw the results of fascism close up, especially the Nazi atrocities, support for fascism in the United States shriveled to practically nothing.
If anything, political discourse in the US tends towards the liberal side, not conservative. There are plenty of people arguing liberal and even leftist positions. Conservative positions do get fairly regular representation in various forms. Fascism, no.
Anarcho-socialism is so far out, nobody advocates for it. We live in an organized society, not the jungle. I doubt that it is even as "influential" as fascism.
* The various "fascists" and racist organizations (The Order, Aryan Nations, etc.) tend to be more of a crime problem (as in bank robbing) than a political problem.
Yoh?
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I take it you lack a sense of irony.....
by spun (1352) loverevolutionary.yahoo@com
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The insurgents and Islamist extremists don't. They believe that they are fulfilling a religious duty and stand the chance of martyrdom, guaranteeing them entry into heaven and the service of 72 virgins. They think we'll quit and hand them an easy victory any time now, especially if they can push just a little harder. I get the sense that you agree with the first part of that view, that we both will and should quit Iraq as soon as possible, and are oblivious to the second part, about handing them a victory. If they gain that victory, they will be eager to repeat in other places. Their goal is to bring the entire Middle East under strict Islamic rule by a single government uniting church and state, and ultimately spread it to the rest of the world even if it takes 1,000 years.
The majority of Democrats were LIED TO BY BUSH!
Did President Clinton "lie" to them too? Just two years before President Bush took office, President Clinton attacked Saddam's WMD facilities, signed the Iraq Liberation Act calling for regime change, and attacked Al Qaeda with cruise missiles. You also have to wonder, were these people lying as well?
Was President Clinton lying when he had this to say?
This is laughable.
I agree, your post is laughable. I didn't write that one bombing constituted an insurgency, I listed the bombing as an example of an attack from it. I also specifically stated that five (5) Americans were killed in that one incident, not the mention the Germans killed. "ROTFL!" isn't really a counter-argument.
Somehow I doubt that you have any relatives that died fighting as "anti-Nazi partisans". At the very least I can't believe that you ever spoke to any survivors. If you had, I doubt that you would find the idea of Nazis engaging in post-surrender terrorism and guerilla warfare as being a subject of humor, particularly since as a minimum there would be some fascists fighting to avoid the hangman's noose for things like this. Frankly, it is you who insult their memory and sacrifice, not me.
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Bullshit. There was no Nazi insurgency after WWII. Rumsfeld and Rice made that up.
You're wrong, it did in fact exist. People were being killed and intimidated well after the German surrender. Examples: On June 4, 1945, a police station in Bremen was blown up, killing five Americans and thirty-nine Germans, and injuring many more. The NKVD liquidated 42 Werewolf groups in Saxony in 1946.
Werewolf! - The History of the National Socialist Geurilla Movement 1944-1946
What most people think of as the Abu Ghraib scandal was a small group of bored, stupid soldiers engaging in some sick thrills which mostly occurred over a period of a few days. They have been punished for it. What they did was for "fun" not policy.
Japan, Italy, and Germany are presently peaceful democracies after suffering severe violence and occupation for up to seven years. Germany did have a short lived but violent insurgency (the Werewolves) that was put down. Germany seems to have come through it OK, the Nazi pagans didn't take over. The coup attempt by the Japanese Army didn't have legs either.
Iraq has just reached its one-year election anniversary, the Iraqi economy is strong and growing, the Iraqi security forces are leading increasing numbers of operations, and Iraqi tribes are turning on Al Qaeda in Iraq which has lost at least 7,000 terrorists killed or captured. If the Iraqi people, government, and the Coalition Forces can start getting a handle on the surging sectarian violence, much of which seems to be emanating from Al Sadr's militia which may be spinning out of his control, Iraq could do well.
The cost of the Iraq war is a pimple on the behind of either the American economy, or the US Government budget. The annual costs of the Iraq war are on the order of $100-150 billion. The US Government budget is $2 trillion. The US economy is on the order of $12 trillion. From an economic perspective, the cost of Iraq is an annoyance, nothing more. The US Army during the Vietnam war was 3x its current size. During WW2, it was 16x larger while the country was half its current size. Militarily the Iraq war is uncomfortable for the current size of the Army and the policies they want to keep, but that is about all.
Iran isn't simply provoking Israel, its President is making statements suggesting a threat of genocide that even various Arab governments condemn. Maybe you can understand why the Jewish state might be sensitive to that? Or, maybe not. I can't imagine you advocate them accepting annihilation just to keep the peace.
Europe has been taking the lead on the Iran problem*, and is failing. Is that because Europeans want oil priced in Euros, a nuclear armed Iran (soon) with missiles capable of reaching Europe (now), they are simply feckless, or maybe the Iranian government is run by fanatics who have an agenda of their own that they value above Europe's carrots & sticks?
Wars tend to start when one country attacks another. Iran has been sponsoring terrorism across the region, providing arms to Iraqi insurgents, and is making threats against other countries. That isn't a recipe for peace.
By the way, how does suicide bombing work into this? Since we "know" that religion isn't involved, but oil is, how do they convince suicide bombers to do it? Do they offer to bury the bomber's remains in pure kerosene or something?
* Yet more evidence of US unilateralism.
'When the men lowered Jamadi to the floor, Frost told investigators, "blood came gushing out of his nose and mouth, as if a faucet had been turned on." . [newyorker.com]
The interesting things you can read in those links
I have read a number of Chomsky books over the years and I usually check up on everything he says, not because I don't trust him, but because you shouldn't really trust what any one person writes.
Especially Chomsky. A brilliant man.... 50 years ago...when writing about linguistics.
The Anti-Chomsky Reader
--It would certainly go a distance in explaining the actions of some of the supposedly fundamentalist Islamic terrorists in the prelude to the grand 9-11 performance acting in ways most un-Islamic. (Booze and Cocaine and Women [gnn.tv] won't win the devout many points with Allah.) So what's the story here? Were they fundamentalist terrorists, or were they dupe mercenaries who didn't know what they were signing up for, and who were allowed to bring off their clutzy plan while the US secret services conveniently looked the other way [tvnewslies.org], while the secret/shadow government [washingtonpost.com] provided access to the remote controlled [911review.com] jets actually capable of performing the precision flying which badly-trained mercenary goof-balls could not have been asked to manage, and while the Israeli-owned security companies [whatreallyhappened.com] which held contracts at each of the airports involved during 9-11, gave them fast-lane service at the boarding check points?
There is a great antidote to some of that confusion: Debunking 9/11 Myths
Dudes with bombs and box-cutters working independently is still the false reality which needs to be understood here. The myth of terrorists is the preferred tool for building the fascist state. Luckily, this is increasingly well understood. It's the 'How' which seems to be causing some hiccups.
Here are some victories the good guys won against terrorism around the world in the last couple of weeks (this list doesn't include terrorist attacks):
11 suspected Islamic radicals arrested in Spanish African enclave
Spain arrests Chechen rebel suspect wanted in Russia
Turkey Arrests Suspected Regional Al Qaeda Leader
Turkey arrests 10 with suspected links to al-Qaeda
Pakistan arrests 47 suspected Taliban
13 foreign nationals arrested in S. Afghanistan
Police Claim Arresting Taliban Commander in Ghazni
Pakistanis Arrest 90 Afghans at Border
Saudi detains 139 suspected militants
Security forces scrambled to disrupt Asian summit terror plots
Court freezes Islamic group's bank account
Top aide of Qaeda chief in Iraq killed
Morocco jails 14 Islamists
Eight French Islamists Returned To France
4 Dutch Muslims Convicted of Terror Plan
and another trial: Denmark: Muslim terror trial begins
Terrorist plot targeting Illinois mall foiled
Man accused in Taliban arrest ordered held without bail
And reaching back just a little further just to inc
Let us assume for the moment that there really was a plot. Instead of a photo-op and a few headlines, the smart thing to do would have been to continue efforts to infiltrate the group, gather more evidence and when there is a case, quietly arrest the suspects and let the justice system do it's job. Of course, I am making the huge assumption that the people in charge of the investigation were not subject to political interference at home, or abroad.
You are also assuming that they weren't on the verge of attacking. They were.
Unfortunately, the people who make homeland security policies seem to make decisions based on theater rather than plain-old boring police work. One gets you headlines, and the other gets you results. What a shame that massaging their own egos is priority #1.
In this case the result was a plot broken up just before it was launched. I rather prefer that to cleaning up after an attack.
Why bother when you're allowed to torture people?
Given enough time, you get these guys to say anything you want.
Why waste all that effort to find the guilty, when you can just pick someone and beat them until they admit their guilt or agree to testify to someone else's guilt?
Why you clever fellow, that is an interesting solution: just manufacture it all with torture. There is a minor problem in that real torture isn't legal. It also has the disadvantage of getting you absolutely no useful information about real terrorists if you are just picking innocent victims to torture to confession, doesn't it? That could be a problem if there really are terrorists in the world, because they will be making plots, blowing up things, and getting away while you are working over some poor innocent bastard you picked up off the street. If there really is a terrorist problem in the world, you are doing worse than nothing about it.
So what if the actual terrorists blow up a few more things, it only confrims that you need even more power to persue them!
Well, until the voters figure out you are a bunch of knobs and put the other party in power. Democracies tend to be rather practical in that way. And when the other party comes into power, your problems are just beginning. If you've been wasting the governments efforts on torturing the innocent, instead of performing real counterterrorist investigations, the terrorists will be likely be worse off as well. See how long you are out of power then.
I'm not necessarily saying that's what happened here, but when you look at the big picture, it sure looks really bad.
Then what the hell did you write this crap for? "Why bother when you're allowed to torture people?"
How about this for an answer: Because there are real terrorists and screwing around is only going to get people killed!
Well, don't worry your pretty head too much. If we don't win, there are some folks, our would be overlords, so to speak, who will straighten out society. We may not care for it so much, but at least the rules will be clear. Torture will definitely be in the new OK list, along with beheading, stoning, amputations, crucifixion, whipping, and all of that. The underpinnings of it, Sharia, is already getting some traction in Britain: Sharia law is spreading as authority wanes. We'll have to see how the whole Londonisan thing works out.
By the way, for your edification, here are a few incidents from the last couple of weeks from all over the world where the good guys won in some fashion (I know some of you are snickering) (Note that I didn't list the ones in which the bad guys won.). What do you think this means for the question of the existence of terrorists?
11 suspected Islamic radicals arrested in Spanish African enclave
Spain arrests Chechen rebel suspect wanted in Russia
Turkey Arrests Suspected Regional Al Qaeda Leader
Turkey arrests 10 with suspected links to al-Qaeda
Pakistan arrests 47 suspected Taliban
13 foreign nationals
When their guys die they are crazy and irrational.
I would say that is pretty much correct, but you left out some things....
When our guys win, we cheer.
When their guys win, they cheer.
When our guys abuse prisoners, we boo and they go to jail.
When their guys cut off heads, or use electric drills to torture prisoners before execution, they cheer, brag, and put a video on the internet.
If our guys keep winning, we get to live in liberal democracies.
If their guys win, you, or someone who will be related to you, will end up living in a Muslim super state, the Caliphate, that unifies church and state, living under a harsh form of Sharia. The Taliban's interpretation might be a taste of it, given that Al Qaeda hung out with them:
And more about Sharia here and here.
Some of us are slaves to fashion.
They want to make us slaves to them, or at the very least, dhimmis.
Our guys and their guys have very different ideas about what to love.
Dealing in Death
I thought it was now common knowledge that the whole thing was a sham.
What you refer to as "common knowledge" is more commonly referred to as disinformation.
indeed it is Truthistic! The gut be a gooder place then booksies to find wards
And I thought James Joyce was dead.
French pride and the loss of her colonies as a result of defeat in Viet Nam were the most immediate reasons. The French started nuclear programs right after WW2, and they wanted to nuke the Viet Minh guerillas that surrounded, and ultimately defeated, their troops at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. Lacking nukes of their own at the time, the French almost convinced the US to do it for them, but not quite. In the 1956 Suez Crisis, the Soviet Union threatened to intervene on behalf of Egypt, and attack Paris and London with rockets. Just think of it, if the French had nuclear weapons of their own in 1954, they would have nuked the Viet Minh, kept their overseas empire, and gone into Suez with nukes, either allowing them to take what they wanted in Africa, or perhaps to have engaged in nuclear warfare in Western Europe. But, as usual, the US is the bad guy.
Charles De Gaulle and the Force de Frappe
Origin of the Force de Frappe
In the first gulf war we did not plan to occupy iraq so we flew something like 300 sorties a day dropping an ungodly amount of bombs on the place. We targeted and destroyed all kinds of crucial civilian infrastructure such as bridges, electrical generation facilites, water treatment plants, roads, factories etc. Our goal was to make the iraqis suffer so much that they would rise up and overthrow saddam so we worked very hard at hurting as many common iraqis as possible. As a result of these efforts and the sanctions that followed we killed close to two million iraqis including hundreds of thousands of children.
Our goal in the first Gulf War wasn't to make the Iraqi people suffer, but to cripple the Iraqi war machine. Armored vehicles and supply trucks generally need bridges to cross deep water, and wars don't go well without them. Supply trucks and many military units need roads. Roads that have craters from bombs make for slow driving, assuming you can do it at all. Aircraft need landing strips to fly and fight. Airport landing strips are unusable with craters on the runway. Military units that can't move, fly, or fight are going to fail. Factories making ammunition, weapons, spare parts, and other essentials for war don't get work done without electricity. Government workers without electricity for light and computers aren't very producctive. The Coalition forces went out of their way to avoid damaging protected classes of targets. What you've written is false.
It wasn't we who killed Iraqis due to sanctions; it was Saddam. If Saddam hadn't abused the Oil for Food program to buy weapons and build palaces instead of buying food, far fewer Iraqis would have died. If you have 10 kids and spend all of your paycheck on booze and drugs, whose fault is it if your kids are starving? Is it your fault, or your employer's?
Yes, it's a funny joke, but JSF is actually written in C++.
So the real reason that the US won't force the release of the code is that it doesn't want to be accused of terrorism?
The entire reason they want the source code is to ensure that the US government can't arbitrarily disable their planes when they disagree with their use or conflict with US interests.
Yes, that would be brilliant. Assuming it even could do so, the US disabling equipment that it sold to another country would bode reallllly well for future arms sales, wouldn't it? To be able or willing to do it arbitrarily makes it even better.
A reasonable concern given the state of US politics, foreign policy, and state of the US moral compass.
And when did this state arrive? 2000? 1980? Never?
By the way, how are the Canadian troops doing in Afghanistan? I hope the Leopard tanks work out well.
No, the truly sad thing is that anybody believes those nonsense numbers. (Which, oddly enough, were released just before the US election, just like their last survey.)
655,000 War Dead? A bogus study on Iraq casualties
The Iraq Body Count project strongly rejects the 650,000 number as well.
I think that there are lies told in the pursuit of "peace" that equal or exceed those claimed to have been told in the pursuit of war.
As to Iraqi suffering, I don't recall there being massive protests around the world when Saddam invaded Iran, Kuwait, gassed the Kurds, or filled various mass grave sites. That leads me to believe that very few people in "peace movements" outside Iraq are genuinely concerned about Iraqi suffering. I do remember massive protests by the "peace movement" when the large multinational coalition prepared to eject the Iraqi Army from Kuwait in 1991. The protests were against the liberation of Kuwait, which leads me to believe that few people in the "peace movement" were against the suffering of the Kuwaiti people under occupation, or against the suffering of the Iraqi people under Saddam who was waging aggressive war to incorporate Kuwait as a province of Iraq. During the period that Iraq was under sanctions, there were protests against the US and not against Saddam for misusing the corrupt Oil for Food money to buy weapons and build palaces instead of buying food. The evidence seems to point to the "peace movement" being against the US and not against Iraqi suffering.
But the thing that puts Americans over the edge is the deaths of their troops? I don't quite understand that logic. Can someone be so kind as to explain that?
Americans don't want to see other Americans killed. They understand that people are likely to die in war, but prefer that it is the enemy soldiers if it is going to be anyone. That isn't hard to understand, is it?