The are already starving, lack electricity in 95% of the country, are almost completely uneducated, and make most starving African nations look rich in comparison.
The council's historic Resolution 1718 will deprive North Korea of military hardware such as tanks, missiles, artillery systems, combat aircraft, attack helicopters and warships; freeze the financial assets of entities and individuals involved in weapons programs; impose travel and financial bans on key figures in the Pyongyang regime; and ban all trade in luxury goods, including the lobster and fine French wine cherished by supreme leader Kim Jong-il.
I think it's hard to say that list of sanctioned items will increase the suffering of the starving peasants in North Korea.
I wonder if there would be starvation in North Korea if they weren't spending 31% of their GDP on the military, including building long range missiles and nuclear weapons? (US = 4% GDP, South Korea = 2.6% GDP, People's Republic of China = 4.3% GDP, Japan = 1% GDP, Vietnam = 2.5% GDP)
Self-esteem problem? Maybe it's time you try Nu-kleeas(R), the all new "proton enhancement" solution.
Just take it 30 femtoseconds before any quantum coupling and you will see an all new you.
Ask your PhD about it today to see if the little "quantum packet" is right for you.
Warning: Side effects may include uncertainty, fission, fusion, photon emission, prolonged electron excitation, ionization, or other side effects. Tell your PhD if you are engaged in any antimatter collisions. Nu-kleeas(R) is not right for everybody.
But for South Korea, a more immediate danger may be North Korea's artillery.
The capital Seoul, only 60 km (37 miles) south of the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone that has divided the peninsula since the end of the Korean War in 1953, has long been within range of one of the world's most powerful artillery batteries.
South Korea's Defense Ministry said the North had amassed more than 13,000 pieces of artillery and multiple rocket launchers, much of it aimed at Seoul.
Jane's International Defense Review estimates that if North Korea launched an all-out barrage, it could achieve an initial fire rate of 300,000 to 500,000 shells per hour into the Seoul area -- home to about half the country's 48.5 million people.
The biggest are 170-mm self-propelled artillery guns and 240-mm multiple rocket launchers. It also has hundreds of Scud missiles that could hit any part of South Korea.
"We have reason to believe that the chemical weapons are with the forward artillery units that are targeting Seoul. If we don't get those early, we end up with chemicals on Seoul." North Korea: The War Game
When negotiators were hammering out the 1994 accord - over similar concerns about North Korea's nuclear intentions - Pyongyang also warned that it would turn the South Korean capital of Seoul into a "sea of fire".
SEOUL, South Korea -- In an unusually explicit threat to its neighbor yesterday, North Korea warned that Japan would be immersed in a "nuclear sea of fire" if the United States were to attack the North.
Speaking to the BBC's Mike Thompson in Pyongyang, Mr Ri said his government was becoming increasingly alarmed at signs that Washington planned to send more aircraft carriers, bombers and troops to the region.
He said such actions would mean that the US was either planning to invade the North or launch attacks against it.
In response, he insisted, Pyongyang would not just sit and wait, and might decide to strike first if necessary.
The country currently has a standing army of more than one million soldiers. The US has about 37,000 troops based in South Korea.
Feeling sorry for North Korea is a lot like feeling sorry for the red neck with a baseball bat, that just left his girlfriend a bloody pulp on the floor, once the cops arrive.
No, the sarin was not largely potent, it was degraded and no longer sarin at all.
The weapons found in Iraq, as the GP noted, varied in their condition and potency, from corroded empty shells to intact and still potentially quite deadly. They also included agents other than sarin, such as the famous killer of WW1, mustard gas, which still kills people in France and Belgium from time to time.
The most interesting discovery has been a 152mm binary Sarin artillery projectile containing a 40 percent concentration of Sarin which insurgents attempted to use as an Improvised Explosive Device (IED). The existence of this binary weapon not only raises questions about the number of viable chemical weapons remaining in Iraq and raises the possibility that a larger number of binary, long-lasting chemical weapons still exist.
The purity of the agent inside the munitions depends on many factors, including the manufacturing process, potential additives, and environmental storage conditions. While agents degrade over time, chemical warfare agents remain hazardous and potentially lethal.
Bush claimed that Saddam had an active program and was continuing to stockpile. This is false, and continues to be false.
What have we found and what have we not found in the first 3 months of our work?
We have discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002. The discovery of these deliberate concealment efforts have come about both through the admissions of Iraqi scientists and officials concerning information they deliberately withheld and through physical evidence of equipment and activities that ISG has discovered that should have been declared to the UN. Let me just give you a few examples of these concealment efforts, some of which I will elaborate on later:
- A clandestine network of laboratories and safehouses within the Iraqi Intelligence Service that contained equipment subject to UN monitoring and suitable for continuing CBW research.
- New research on BW-applicable agents, Brucella and Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin were not declared to the UN.
- A line of UAVs not fully declared at an undeclared production facility and an admission that they had tested one of their declared UAVs out to a range of 500 km, 350 km beyond the permissible limit.
- Continuing covert capability to manufacture fuel propellant useful only for prohibited SCUD variant missiles, a capability that was maintained at least until the end of 2001 and that cooperating Iraqi scientists have said they were told to conceal from the UN.
- Plans and advanced design work for new long-range missiles with ranges up to at least 1000 km -- well beyond the 150 km range limit imposed by the UN. Missiles of a 1000 km range would have allowed Iraq to threaten targets through out the Middle East, including Ankara, Cairo, and Abu Dhabi.
No relevent devices have been found to this day.
Plenty of banned programs, research, and equipment have been found, just no newly manufactured weapons filled with chemical or biological agents. That hardly vindicates Saddam, especia
The Dear Leader watches everything. He is all-knowing. The Dear Leader was born on Mt. Paektu the Sacred Mountain. His birth was attended simultaneously by a double rainbow and a radiant star in the heavens. Surely that's a sign of Godhood. He is the light of our lives. We are blessed to have his benevolent gaze shining over our great nation.
It's funny because it's sort of true....
Known as the 'mountain of mysterious fragrance', Mt. Myohyang ('Myohyangsan' in Korean) is one of the most beautiful places I have seen on the Korean peninsula. Thanks to the International Friendship Exhibition, it is also one of the weirdest. Though the name sounds nice enough, an exhibition of friendship, in reality the place is best described as the mecca of Kim-clan worship.
Read more to see the shrines to the Dear Leader & Great Leader....
Of course, one must pay proper respect to the demi-gods among men who are leading the country....
Also imprisoned were others who were perceived to be potential complainers and persons who purposely or inadvertently did not take proper care of photographs of the Great Leader, Kim Il Sung, or the Dear Leader, Kim Jong Il, or even of newspapers that contained photographs of the father and son. The Hidden Gulag
Of course, a "bit of heaven" like the shrines to the Kims has to be balanced by a hell on earth* in other parts of the country:
It is the widespread jailing of political prisoners' families that makes North Korea unique, according to human rights advocates.
Under a directive issued by Kim's father, North Korea's founder, Kim Il Sung, three generations of a dissident's family can be jailed simply on the basis of a denunciation.
NBC News interviewed two former prisoners and a former guard about conditions in the camps. The three spent their time at different camps. Their litany of camp brutalities is unmatched anywhere in the world, say human rights activists....
.... Kang Chol-Hwan is now a journalist with Chosun Ilbo, South Korea's most important newspaper. His recent book, "The Aquariums of Pyongyang," is the first memoir of a North Korean political prisoner. For nearly a decade, he was imprisoned because his grandfather had made complimentary statements about Japanese capitalism. He was a 9-year-old when he arrived at the Yodok camp. His grandfather was never seen again, and prison conditions killed his father....
.... The system appears to draw no distinction between those accused of the crime and their family members.
In prison, says Kwon Hyok, "there is a watchdog system in place between members of five different families. So if I were caught trying to escape, then my family and the four neighbouring families are shot to death out of collective responsibility."
An interesting contrast to life in the United States.
That's nothing compared to the way Israelis and Jews are presented on TV in Muslim countries. Nobody bats an eyelid there when Jews are presented as harvesting organs from unwitting Palestinians, or plotting to take over the world, or sacrificing Muslim children to drain their blood.
You should have added a link to the Middle East Media Research Institute so people could watch the videos or read the transcripts of the fine material broadcast in various Middle Eastern countries, like Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, etc.:
#420 - "Zahra's Blue Eyes" - Episode 1: Preparations for Stealing Palestinian Children's Organs
#538 - Producer of Anti-Semitic Iranian TV Series "Zahra's Blue Eyes": A White Zionist Ship Sails Around the World, Kidnapping Babies to Use Their Organs
#895 - Ramadan 2005 TV Shows - Al-Shatat: Jews Murder A Christian Child and Use His Blood for Passover Matzos
#962 - Lebanese Students at a Hizbullah TV Symposium: We Should Fight the Jews and Burn Them Like Hitler. Israel Should Be Wiped Off the Map
#972 - Political Analysts on Iranian TV: The Jews Killed Children and Used Their Blood for Passover
#1049 - Film Seminar on Iranian TV: Tom and Jerry - A Jewish Conspiracy to Improve the Image of Mice, because Jews Were Termed "Dirty Mice" in Europe
#1110 - Saudi Cleric Sa'd Al-Breik Complains: Whoever Says Anything Good about Hitler is Accused of Anti-Semitism
During Operation Desert Storm the Iraqi Air Force did not seek to challenge Coalition air forces, and nearly half the Iraqi Air Force fled to Iran to escape destruction. Why the IQAF fled to Iran is not precisely known, and the answer may never be fully known. In any case, Iraqi fighters and support aircraft fled for the border -- more than 120 left.
I doubt that any of Saddams WMDs went to North Korea given North Korea's existing and extensive stocks of chemical (and possibly biological) weapons. Maybe some of the know-how went there though. (Iraq's nuclear program may have been within 6-24 months from developing a nuclear bomb in 1991.)
I strongly doubt that the Iranians would not use Iranian special forces to accomplish such a mission and instead use a 15 year old kid who played the game two times. Instead they want the kid to join the Iranian military or just shut up about the poor Iranian economy.
It is kind of hard to say what they would do now. The Iranian military is much better equipped today than they were in the early '80s, but would they resort to tactics like this again? Who knows? I expect that they would if push came to shove.
During the Iran-Iraq War, the Ayatollah Khomeini imported 500,000 small plastic keys from Taiwan. The trinkets were meant to be inspirational. After Iraq invaded in September 1980, it had quickly become clear that Iran's forces were no match for Saddam Hussein's professional, well-armed military. To compensate for their disadvantage, Khomeini sent Iranian children, some as young as twelve years old, to the front lines. There, they marched in formation across minefields toward the enemy, clearing a path with their bodies. Before every mission, one of the Taiwanese keys would be hung around each child's neck. It was supposed to open the gates to paradise for them....
Martyr's mother: Compared to others, what I sacrificed is nothing. It's true I sacrificed a son, but others have sacrificed two or three. I hope more of my sons will become martyrs.
Martyr's mother: Allah be praised. I thank Allah for all the good He has bestowed upon us. He has blessed us with martyrdom. Allah willing, we too will be martyred, just as they did.
Nope. They won't learn anything more about tactics than they would reading a book.
To train tactics, you have to practice the tactics with your team. Video game characters all have the same characteristics. People do not. The biggest differences are speed and grace/clumsiness.
Simulation training isn't about "speed and grace/clumsiness", but about command, control, coordination, procedures, and rehearsal. Simulations can do a very capable job for that.
The US Army makes a heavy investment in simulation, like the other services, and has an entire command dedicated to simulation training.
Every Soldier who deploys uses some type of simulation to train critical Warfighting skills. Simulations help our Soldiers hone their skills, rehearse their missions and return to their families safely when their missions are complete. PEO STRI responds quickly to critical, emerging requirements with innovative acquisition and technology solutions and puts the power of simulation into the hands of America's Warfighters!
The three pilots in Florida continued with their training. Atta and Shehhi finished up at Huffman and earned their instrument certificates from the FAA in November. In mid-December 2000, they passed their commercial pilot tests and received their licenses. They then began training to fly large jets on a flight simulator. At about the same time, Jarrah began simulator training, also in Florida but at a different center. By the end of 2000, less than six months after their arrival, the three pilots on the East Coast were simulating flights on large jets.65
And that doesn't even address the issue that most terrorist's "tactics" at the moment are "strap on the bomb, walk to the target and detonate yourself". If you're in a CS-type firefight, you've already fucked up the mission.
So, a referee does the scoring instead of the game. Whoop.
I think it is a potentially fatal mistake to underestimate either the Iranians or the various Islamist extremist terrorists (many of whom are funded by the Iranian government).
By the way.... did you know that Iranian funded Hezbollah has agents operating in the US?
Or being the first to report on the use of white phosphorus as a chemical weapon against the Iraqi people which was latter admitted by the U.S. government:
Not correct. White Phosphorus, although a chemical, is not a chemical weapon within the meaning the the Chemical Weapons Convention:
The CWC is monitored by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, based in The Hague. Its spokesman Peter Kaiser was asked if WP was banned by the CWC and he had this to say:
"No it's not forbidden by the CWC if it is used within the context of a military application which does not require or does not intend to use the toxic properties of white phosphorus. White phosphorus is normally used to produce smoke, to camouflage movement.
"If that is the purpose for which the white phosphorus is used, then that is considered under the Convention legitimate use.
"If on the other hand the toxic properties of white phosphorus, the caustic properties, are specifically intended to be used as a weapon, that of course is prohibited, because the way the Convention is structured or the way it is in fact applied, any chemicals used against humans or animals that cause harm or death through the toxic properties of the chemical are considered chemical weapons."
WP - the arguments
So WP itself is not a chemical weapon and therefore not illegal. However, used in a certain way, it might become one. Not that "a certain way" can easily be defined, if at all.
The US can say therefore that this is not a chemical weapon and further, it argues that it is not the toxic properties but the heat from WP which causes the damage. And, this argument goes, since incendiary weapons are not covered by the CWC, therefore the use of WP against combatants is not prohibited.
White phosphorous is no more of a "chemical weapon", as normally understood, than napalm. Or course, flame weapons have been subject to controversy of their own.
As for Noam Chomsky he has been documenting U.S. war crimes in places from Nicaragua to Vietnam for 40 years now. He is an American hero and if the MSM dared to give him a voice and people were made aware of the level of violence the U.S.government has committed against the world we might see new leadership in the U.S. and live in a much more ethical country. Of course we will never see that because it would threaten the corporate bottom line.
There are otherviews about Chomsky. And it isn't the corporate bottom line I would worry so much about....
While Pol Pot was carrying out his genocide, numerous American leftists functioned as his apologists. Notable among these was the American-hating MIT professor Noam Chomsky, who viewed Pol Pot as a revolutionary hero. When news of the "killing fields" became increasingly publicized, Chomsky's faith in Pol Pot could not be shaken. He initially tried to minimize the magnitude of Pol Pot's atrocities (saying that he had killed only "a few thousand people at most").[64] He suggested that the forced expulsion of the population from Phnom Penh was most likely necessitated by the failure of the 1976 rice crop. Wrote Chomsky, "the evacuation of Phnom Penh, widely denounced at the time and since for its undoubted brutality, may actually have saved many lives."[65] In a 1977 article in The Nation, Chomsky attacked those witnesses and writers who were shedding ever-brighter rays of light on Pol Pot's holocaust; he accused them of trying to spread anti-communist propaganda. In 1980, when it was indisputable that a huge proportion of Cambodia's population had died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, Chomsky again blamed an unfortunate failure of the rice c
Notice the key point, that these trailers were cited as evidence of bio-warfare activities in a public speech two days after Pentagon experts unanimously concluded they weren't.
Notice the key point that you miss, that other teams of experts arrived at a different conclusion than the one you report (and favor?) as noted in the story you link to:
Intelligence analysts involved in high-level discussions about the trailers noted that the technical team was among several groups that analyzed the suspected mobile labs throughout the spring and summer of 2003. Two teams of military experts who viewed the trailers soon after their discovery concluded that the facilities were weapons labs, a finding that strongly influenced views of intelligence officials in Washington, the analysts said. "It was hotly debated, and there were experts making arguments on both sides," said one former senior official who spoke on the condition that he not be identified.
The technical team's findings had no apparent impact on the intelligence agencies' public statements on the trailers. A day after the team's report was transmitted to Washington -- May 28, 2003 -- the CIA publicly released its first formal assessment of the trailers, reflecting the views of its Washington analysts. That white paper, which also bore the DIA seal, contended that U.S. officials were "confident" that the trailers were used for "mobile biological weapons production."
Now, in fairness, the article notes that the team whose report you track states:
That report said the trailers were "impractical for biological agent production," lacking 11 components that would be crucial for making bioweapons. Instead, the trailers were "almost certainly designed and built for the generation of hydrogen," the survey group reported.
But this article raises the startling idea that a second trailor may have been mated to the first for specific purposes. Hmmmmmm. I wonder if you could find any of those 11 missing components in a second trailor?
I wonder why they needed growth tanks to make "hydrogen"?*
Well, experts can disagree.
What can be taken as truth about "weapons-related program activities" after the biological weapons trailers story?
Two teams of experts agreed that they were bio-labs, one team didn't. You pick the didn't side to believe, and that seems to be the activity most open to questioning.
Most of the rest is much less squishy than the debate over the probable bio-weapons trailors, namely:
New research on BW-applicable agents, Brucella and Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin were not declared to the UN.
Documents and equipment, hidden in scientists' homes, that would have been useful in resuming uranium enrichment by centrifuge and electromagnetic isotope separation (EMIS).
A line of UAVs not fully declared at an undeclared production facility and an admission that they had tested one of their declared UAVs out to a range of 500 km, 350 km beyond the permissible limit.
Continuing covert capability to manufacture fuel propellant useful only for prohibited SCUD variant missiles, a capability that was maintained at least until the end of 2001 and that cooperating Iraqi scientists have said they were told to conceal from the UN.
Plans and advanced design work for new long-range missiles with ranges up to at least 1000 km -- well beyond the 150 km range limit imposed by the UN. Missiles of a 1000 km range would have allowed Iraq to threaten targets through out the Middle East, including Ankara, Cairo, and Abu Dhabi.
If you are scared "shitless" about this, I think you need some fresh air. Your information on the collapse of WTC 7 is baloney:
Many conspiracy theorists point to FEMA's preliminary report, which said there was relatively light damage to WTC 7 prior to its collapse. With the benefit of more time and resources, NIST researchers now support the working hypothesis that WTC 7 was far more compromised by falling debris than the FEMA report indicated. "The most important thing we found was that there was, in fact, physical damage to the south face of building 7," NIST's Sunder tells PM. "On about a third of the face to the center and to the bottom--approximately 10 stories--about 25 percent of the depth of the building was scooped out." NIST also discovered previously undocumented damage to WTC 7's upper stories and its southwest corner.
NIST investigators believe a combination of intense fire and severe structural damage contributed to the collapse, though assigning the exact proportion requires more research. But NIST's analysis suggests the fall of WTC 7 was an example of "progressive collapse," a process in which the failure of parts of a structure ultimately creates strains that cause the entire building to come down. Videos of the fall of WTC 7 show cracks, or "kinks," in the building's facade just before the two penthouses disappeared into the structure, one after the other. The entire building fell in on itself, with the slumping east side of the structure pulling down the west side in a diagonal collapse.
According to NIST, there was one primary reason for the building's failure: In an unusual design, the columns near the visible kinks were carrying exceptionally large loads, roughly 2000 sq. ft. of floor area for each floor. "What our preliminary analysis has shown is that if you take out just one column on one of the lower floors," Sunder notes, "it could cause a vertical progression of collapse so that the entire section comes down."
I highly recommend the rest of the web article, or the book Debunking 9/11 Myths - Why conspiracy theories can't stand up to the facts, by Popular Mechanics.
The 9/11 attacks were a conspiracy, one planned and executed by Al Qaeda, an Islamist extremist group, international in scope, that has been attacking the United States, and many other countries*, repeatedly since the early 1990s. They took credit for the 9/11 attacks. Video has found in Afghanistan showing Bin Laden had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks. Muhammad Atta's "martyrdom video" has just surfaced.
Al Qaeda's goal is to reestablish the Islamic super-state combining government and religion, the Caliphate, over the entire region, and to spread Islam to control the entire world. They understand that it will take hundreds of years, but are willing to do their part. You can see this in Bin Laden's letter to America where his first two demands are to convert to Islam, and implement Sharia... if we don't, they will keep killing 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..... (2) The second thing we call you to, is to stop your oppression, lies, immorality and debauchery that has spread among you......
(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 pol
Dr. Rice had no experience? Her appointment was all and only about black voters? Hardly
In June 1999, she completed a six year tenure as Stanford University 's Provost, during which she was the institution's chief budget and academic officer. As Provost she was responsible for a $1.5 billion annual budget and the academic program involving 1,400 faculty members and 14,000 students.
As professor of political science, Dr. Rice has been on the Stanford faculty since 1981 and has won two of the highest teaching honors -- the 1984 Walter J. Gores Award for Excellence in Teaching and the 1993 School of Humanities and Sciences Dean's Award for Distinguished Teaching.
At Stanford, she was a member of the Center for International Security and Arms Control from 1981-1986 (currently the Center for International Security And Cooperation), a Senior Fellow of the Institute for International Studies, and a Fellow (by courtesy) of the Hoover Institution. Her books include Germany Unified and Europe Transformed (1995) with Philip Zelikow, The Gorbachev Era (1986) with Alexander Dallin, and Uncertain Allegiance: The Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Army (1984). She also has written numerous articles on Soviet and East European foreign and defense policy, and has addressed audiences in settings ranging from the U.S. Ambassador's Residence in Moscow to the Commonwealth Club to the 1992 and 2000 Republican National Conventions.
From 1989 through March 1991, the period of German reunification and the final days of the Soviet Union, she served in the Bush Administration as Director, and then Senior Director, of Soviet and East European Affairs in the National Security Council, and a Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. In 1986, while an international affairs fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations, she served as Special Assistant to the Director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In 1997, she served on the Federal Advisory Committee on Gender -- Integrated Training in the Military.
Then, the conversation fell silent. Kay thought that someone would ask questions about his work, but no one asked any questions.
Questions? Kind of like what you just stated that Clark said that Kay said had just happened... shown below? (Is that hear say?)
According to Kay, Bush asked, 'What do you need from me?' Kay answered, 'I need patience to allow me to finish my work.' Bush answered, 'I have all the patience in the world.'
Subordinate asks for time to do work..... and gets it. Wow.
Clark saying that Kay reported there were no WMDs in Iraq also leaves out a few facts, as you can see in Dr. Kay's testimoney before Congress in 2003. It is well worth reading. Just a sample:
What have we found and what have we not found in the first 3 months of our work?
We have discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002. The discovery of these deliberate concealment efforts have come about both through the admissions of Iraqi scientists and officials concerning information they deliberately withheld and through physical evidence of equipment and activities that ISG has discovered that should have been declared to the UN. Let me just give you a few examples of these concealment efforts, some of which I will elaborate on later:
A clandestine network of laboratories and safehouses within the Iraqi Intelligence Service that contained equipment subject to UN monitoring and suitable for continuing CBW research.
... New research on BW-applicable agents, Brucella and Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin were not declared to the UN.
Yes, he did.... he was still trying to mislead the rubes that would belive him as the very next paragraph in the story shows:
When asked about U.S. accusations of his "collusion" in the attacks in New York and Washington, bin Laden responded, "America has made many accusations against us and many other Muslims around the world. Its charge that we are carrying out acts of terrorism is unwarranted."
(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.
(a) The religion of the Unification of God; of freedom from associating partners with Him, and rejection of this; of complete love of Him, the Exalted; of complete submission to His Laws; and of the discarding of all the opinions, orders, theories and religions which contradict with the religion He sent down to His Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Islam is the religion of all the prophets, and makes no distinction between them - peace be upon them all.
2. Drop the Constitution and American law for Sharia, resulting in a united Islamic church and state. Of course that will result in a lot more death penalties being handed out, along with various whippings, stonings, amputations, and the occasional crucifixion.
(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?
And what if we don't all convert to Islam, jettison the Constitution for Sharia, and comply with the other sundry demands?
If you fail to respond to all these conditions, then prepare for fight with the Islamic Nation. The Nation of Monotheism, that puts complete trust on Allah and fears none other than Him. The Nation which is addressed by its Quran with the words: "Do you fear them? Allah has more right that you should fear Him if you are believers. Fight against them so that Allah will punish them by your hands and disgrace them and give you victory over them and heal the breasts of believing people.
To that end, Al Qaeda believes that it is justified in killing 4,000,000 Americans (half of them children) and rendering 10,000,000 homeless. That is entirely possible using WMD.
As an aside, Bin Laden didn't think too highly of the way the US treated President Clinton either:
Who can forget your President Clinton's immoral acts committed in the official Oval office? After that you did not even bring him to account, other than that he 'made a mistake', after which everything passed with no punishment. Is there a worse kind of event for which your name will go down in history and remembered by nations?
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the total US Federal Budget for 2006 was projected to be approximately $2,507 Billion. Of that, defense is $438 Billion, Social Security is $540 Billion, Medicare is $380 Billion, and Medicaid is $193 Billion. Social welfare dwarfs military spending now, and it will skyrocket over the next 30 years or so as the US baby boom generation is starting to retire.
Still, $438 Billion is all weapons, right? Well... no. Depending on the year, Defense spending, is about 23% for personnel (pay, benefits), 31% for operations and maintenance (fuel & parts), and 15% for R&D. Procurement is a stunning 18%. That is about 3% of the total Federal budget. But not even all of that 3% goes to buying weapons. A sizable chunk of it goes to ship building for the Navy, for example. Another chunk goes to buying ammo. There are plenty of other things, like fire fighting equipment, periscopes, and pollution control equipment, night vision gear, and construction equipment.
The Federal budget also doesn't include state income taxes for which an even smaller percentage is going to go for defense related expenses. City and county taxes don't contribute anything either.
Overall, a minute percentage of American taxes goes to new weapons.
(I guess protest signs wouldn't look so scary if they complained that the US spent 1.6% of its Federal budget on weapons.)
Just like ANY war, one of the ways to end it is diplomatically. The war they are conducting has goals that they'd like to achieve, and only the most ignorant would think that they want to simply exterminate us.
I don't think that the average American would feel that our country has lost any respect at all if we tried to figure out what is pissing those people off so much, and figured out how to address that problem to remove their reason to fight. It's the only way any lasting peace will be achieved.
We already know what they want, it has never really been a secret. As Islamist extremists, their ultimate goal is to unite all the Muslim lands under a new Caliphate (an Islamic government uniting church and state), and expand its control to the entire earth. This means that they will have to overthrow many of the existing Arab governments to install clerical rule and Sharia (Islamic law). Their plan also includes retaking control of "lost" possessions, like Spain and the formerly Muslim controlled areas from Greece to Austria. Beyond that, they want to expand Muslim control to all of Europe, Africa, Asia,... you get the picture. Unfortunately, it also requires that they will have to kill other Muslims from time to time, but generally only those who are not sufficiently pious. (Like in one of the bombings timed for prayer time at the local mosques - only bad Muslims would be away from the mosques and be in danger of being killed.)
What is "our" role in this? Their preferred outcome is that we all convert to become Muslims. That was Bin Laden's first demand in his letter to America.
(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.
He also wants us to jettison the Constitution and adopt Sharia law, stop drug & alcohol use, homosexuality, sexual immorality, sleeping around, adultery, charging interest on loans, etc., etc. At least it would be easy to remember the penalty for many of these infractions: death, death, death, etc.
(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.
(iii) You are a nation that permits the production, trading and usage of intoxicants. You also permit drugs, and only forbid the trade of them, even though your nation is the largest consumer of them.
(iv) You are a nation that permits acts of immorality, and you consider them to be pillars of personal freedom. You have continued to sink down this abyss from level to level until incest has spread amongst you, in the face of which neither your sense of honour nor your laws object.
Who can forget your President Clinton's immoral acts committed in the official Oval office? After that you did not even bring him to account, other than that he 'made a mistake', after which every
When will US conservatives realize they've been betrayed by a pack of radical facists, who favor any corporation from any nation over the rights of any individual anywhere?
You're on quite a roll in this post, you managed to get pretty much everything wrong.
Remember - Hitler was elected before he stopped holding elections, and many of his other techniques are in use today.... I especially like how Bush used the word "Nazi" this past friday as a general term to describe people who are fighting him in congress. I've never seen a blacker pot or kettle.
Bush didn't describe his oppenents in Congress as Nazis. Rumsfeld did give a speech in which he touched on the rise of fascism and the danger of appeasement. It is clear that there are countries and groups in the world today who are trying to appease the extremists. Will it work any better than it did in the 1930s?
That year -- 1919 -- turned out to be one of the pivotal junctures in modern history with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, the creation of the League of Nations, a treaty and an organization intended to make future wars unnecessary and obsolete. Indeed, 1919 was the beginning of a period where, over time, a very different set of views would come to dominate public discourse and thinking in the West.
Over the next decades, a sentiment took root that contended that if only the growing threats that had begun to emerge in Europe and Asia could be accommodated, then the carnage and the destruction of then-recent memory of World War I could be avoided.
It was a time when a certain amount of cynicism and moral confusion set in among Western democracies. When those who warned about a coming crisis, the rise of fascism and nazism, they were ridiculed or ignored. Indeed, in the decades before World War II, a great many argued that the fascist threat was exaggerated or that it was someone else's problem. Some nations tried to negotiate a separate peace, even as the enemy made its deadly ambitions crystal clear. It was, as Winston Churchill observed, a bit like feeding a crocodile, hoping it would eat you last.
There was a strange innocence about the world. Someone recently recalled one U.S. senator's reaction in September of 1939 upon hearing that Hitler had invaded Poland to start World War II. He exclaimed:
"Lord, if only I had talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided!"
I recount that history because once again we face similar challenges in efforts to confront the rising threat of a new type of fascism. Today -- another enemy, a different kind of enemy -- has made clear its intentions with attacks in places like New York and Washington, D.C., Bali, London, Madrid, Moscow and so many other places. But some seem not to have learned history's lessons.
We need to consider the following questions, I would submit:
* With the growing lethality and the increasing availability of weapons, can we truly afford to believe that somehow, some way, vicious extremists can be appeased?
Starting wars under false pretense to keep the military growing at a rate that is able to sustain a police state.
I note the plural - wars. Apparently you include Afghanistan in that. Wow. A multinational Islamist extremist terrorist organization essentially takes over a country, forming a state within a state, trains tens of thousands of terrorists who spread death and destruction around the world, attacks the US multiple times leading up the 9/11, and it is a false pretense when the US strikes back?! The minority of people that belive that is pretty small.
And by the way, the the US military is hardly growing at all, it is a mere shadow of what it was 15 years ago. The army is only about 2/3 the size. The other services are also greatly reduced
After his white supremacism was defeated in Congress, Thurmond switched to the Republican Party. Go figure...
Hard to know what to make of that, after all, the Democrats still have Robert Byrd, who formerly held the office of "Kleagle" (and possibly a higher one as well) in the Ku Klux Klan and opposed much of the civil rights agenda over the years. He was still using some disgusting language until relatively recently.
It's exactly that mentality that has allowed Bush and his cronies to drag the world into a "war" that's unwinnable by either side and results in wars, hatred, and an authoritarian wet dream.
It was Al Qaeda that dragged the world into war, not the Bush administration.
Al Qaeda became powerful enough to become a state within a state in Afghanistan, and are trying to gain similar influence in several other countries. They trained tens of thousands of Jihadis in their camps in Afghanistan. Those same Jihadis are wrecking havoc around the world. Theirs is an ideology of hatred, conquest, and holy war. They have sought and received a religious ruling that they can use WMDs, and have a goal of killing 4,000,000 Americans.
If they are not contested, they will only grow stronger and bring more of Islam under their power, and kill more people around the world. That includes, but is not limited to: Australia, Philippines, Thailand, India, Spain, Italy, Britain, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Morocco, Sudan, China, Afghanistan, and more.
Al Qaeda has been badly damaged in the war: they lost their training camps and control of Afghanistan, much of their senior leadership has been captured or killed, thousands of their fighters have been captured or killed, their finances have been greatly reduced, massive amounts of intelligence have been gathered. More of their attacks are failing or are foiled in planning.
The more frequently the terrorists lose, the more inclined people will be to turn against them. Attacking them while they are losing and weakened only reinforces their downward spiral.
You should be clear on this point: they won't go away if left alone, they will eventually come for you and what you hold dear. Their war is against everything that isn't Islamic, and is aimed at forming a Muslim super state unifying religion and government that controls the entire world. They accept the fact that it might take more than a hundred years.
You can take your pick, support the fight against them while they are weak and losing, or wait until they are strong and become a victim.
In the US, products that kill a dozen people are routinely pulled from the shelf. If you think that the US is going to stand by while its citizens are attacked and killed by the hundreds, or thousands, or even millions if they get a WMD, you are more than mistaken.
That list just goes to show that the US isn't even close to being a fascist society, neo or otherwise.
By the way... if you want to get a better idea of what a real fascist society looks like, try watching this. I recommend the higher definition versions. Much of the more interesting content came from the media in the countries themselves.
I fear more than the terrorist are laughing: friends and enemies both have lost respect for the US. Not a good thing.
No worries there, friend. Your time is coming and then we'll get to see how Canada does, and what Canadians are made of. It used to be they were stout of heart.... we'll see if you still have it in you.
Slashdot Mirror
The are already starving, lack electricity in 95% of the country, are almost completely uneducated, and make most starving African nations look rich in comparison.
I think that UN Security Council Resolution 1718 has a pretty good list:
I think it's hard to say that list of sanctioned items will increase the suffering of the starving peasants in North Korea.
I wonder if there would be starvation in North Korea if they weren't spending 31% of their GDP on the military, including building long range missiles and nuclear weapons?
(US = 4% GDP, South Korea = 2.6% GDP, People's Republic of China = 4.3% GDP, Japan = 1% GDP, Vietnam = 2.5% GDP)
I'd suggest that whatever sexual activity takes place between consenting adults (or solo, given that this is Slashdot) is their own business.
Given the range of human behavior, I don't think I can totally agree with that. There need to be some limits.
These were voluntary acts, but I think most people would say they never should have happened. (Not for the squeamish)
Cannibalism trial told of suspected new cases
3 charged in castrations in Haywood 'dungeon'
Self-esteem problem? Maybe it's time you try Nu-kleeas(R), the all new "proton enhancement" solution.
Just take it 30 femtoseconds before any quantum coupling and you will see an all new you.
Ask your PhD about it today to see if the little "quantum packet" is right for you.
Warning: Side effects may include uncertainty, fission, fusion, photon emission, prolonged electron excitation, ionization, or other side effects. Tell your PhD if you are engaged in any antimatter collisions. Nu-kleeas(R) is not right for everybody.
Bullies don't pick on those who could seriously fight back.
North Korea is a bulked up thieving bully of a criminal state with a hostage (or two, if you count the North Korean people):
North Korea warns of 'sea of fire' as US envoy arrives
North Korea warns U.S., Japan of 'nuclear sea of fire'
US shrugs off N Korea threat
Feeling sorry for North Korea is a lot like feeling sorry for the red neck with a baseball bat, that just left his girlfriend a bloody pulp on the floor, once the cops arrive.
If both lockers deserved it, it was probably the right thing to do.
The weapons found in Iraq, as the GP noted, varied in their condition and potency, from corroded empty shells to intact and still potentially quite deadly. They also included agents other than sarin, such as the famous killer of WW1, mustard gas, which still kills people in France and Belgium from time to time.
And, as noted in the unclassified overview of chemical munitions recovered in Iraq since May 2004:
Bush claimed that Saddam had an active program and was continuing to stockpile. This is false, and continues to be false.
Saddam did have active programs involving banned research into WMDs, and research, development, and manufacturing of missile technology, among others. He also retained banned materials. See David Kay's report on the activities of the Iraq Survey Group to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, as excerpted below:
No relevent devices have been found to this day.
Plenty of banned programs, research, and equipment have been found, just no newly manufactured weapons filled with chemical or biological agents. That hardly vindicates Saddam, especia
It's funny because it's sort of true....
Read more to see the shrines to the Dear Leader & Great Leader
Of course, one must pay proper respect to the demi-gods among men who are leading the country
Of course, a "bit of heaven" like the shrines to the Kims has to be balanced by a hell on earth* in other parts of the country:
And what if you try to escape the North Korean worker's paradise "prison"?
An interesting contrast to life in the United States.
The Hidden Gulag: Exposing North Korea's Prison Camps Prisoners' Testimonies and Satellite Photographs
*Of course, actual belief in hell could get you executed.
You should have added a link to the Middle East Media Research Institute so people could watch the videos or read the transcripts of the fine material broadcast in various Middle Eastern countries, like Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, etc.:
It's plausible some of Saddams WMDs went to Syria. Syria and Iraq were both Baathist party regimes. Syria has its own WMD program, and a well deserved reputation for brutality. After all, a large part of the Iraqi Air Force was "shipped" to Iran during the 1991 Gulf War to kick the Iraqi Army out of Kuwait.
I doubt that any of Saddams WMDs went to North Korea given North Korea's existing and extensive stocks of chemical (and possibly biological) weapons. Maybe some of the know-how went there though. (Iraq's nuclear program may have been within 6-24 months from developing a nuclear bomb in 1991.)
It is kind of hard to say what they would do now. The Iranian military is much better equipped today than they were in the early '80s, but would they resort to tactics like this again? Who knows? I expect that they would if push came to shove.
#908 - Iranian Animated Film for Children Promotes Suicide Bombings which aired on IRIB 3 TV on October 28, 2005.
#371 - Mothers of Hizbullah "Martyrs": We Are Very Happy And Want to Sacrifice More Children "Martyr's Day" On Hizbullah TV Al-Manar TV (Lebanon) November 11, 2004
To train tactics, you have to practice the tactics with your team. Video game characters all have the same characteristics. People do not. The biggest differences are speed and grace/clumsiness.
Simulation training isn't about "speed and grace/clumsiness", but about command, control, coordination, procedures, and rehearsal. Simulations can do a very capable job for that.
The US Army makes a heavy investment in simulation, like the other services, and has an entire command dedicated to simulation training.
It is also worth noting the the 9/11 highjackers trained on simulators in preparation for their mission.
And that doesn't even address the issue that most terrorist's "tactics" at the moment are "strap on the bomb, walk to the target and detonate yourself". If you're in a CS-type firefight, you've already fucked up the mission.
So, a referee does the scoring instead of the game. Whoop.
I think it is a potentially fatal mistake to underestimate either the Iranians or the various Islamist extremist terrorists (many of whom are funded by the Iranian government).
By the way.... did you know that Iranian funded Hezbollah has agents operating in the US?
Not correct. White Phosphorus, although a chemical, is not a chemical weapon within the meaning the the Chemical Weapons Convention:
White phosphorous is no more of a "chemical weapon", as normally understood, than napalm. Or course, flame weapons have been subject to controversy of their own.
As for Noam Chomsky he has been documenting U.S. war crimes in places from Nicaragua to Vietnam for 40 years now. He is an American hero and if the MSM dared to give him a voice and people were made aware of the level of violence the U.S.government has committed against the world we might see new leadership in the U.S. and live in a much more ethical country. Of course we will never see that because it would threaten the corporate bottom line.
There are other views about Chomsky. And it isn't the corporate bottom line I would worry so much about....
Left-Wing Monster: Pol Pot
Notice the key point that you miss, that other teams of experts arrived at a different conclusion than the one you report (and favor?) as noted in the story you link to:
Now, in fairness, the article notes that the team whose report you track states:
But this article raises the startling idea that a second trailor may have been mated to the first for specific purposes. Hmmmmmm. I wonder if you could find any of those 11 missing components in a second trailor?
I wonder why they needed growth tanks to make "hydrogen"?*
Well, experts can disagree.
What can be taken as truth about "weapons-related program activities" after the biological weapons trailers story?
Two teams of experts agreed that they were bio-labs, one team didn't. You pick the didn't side to believe, and that seems to be the activity most open to questioning.
Most of the rest is much less squishy than the debate over the probable bio-weapons trailors, namely:
Don't worry; you'll matter when you become a billionaire.
.... because it is well known that billionaire councils appoint the president?
.
It is a good thing that all of the billionaires were for Bush.... or were they?
I highly recommend the rest of the web article, or the book Debunking 9/11 Myths - Why conspiracy theories can't stand up to the facts, by Popular Mechanics.
The 9/11 attacks were a conspiracy, one planned and executed by Al Qaeda, an Islamist extremist group, international in scope, that has been attacking the United States, and many other countries*, repeatedly since the early 1990s. They took credit for the 9/11 attacks. Video has found in Afghanistan showing Bin Laden had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks. Muhammad Atta's "martyrdom video" has just surfaced.
Al Qaeda's goal is to reestablish the Islamic super-state combining government and religion, the Caliphate, over the entire region, and to spread Islam to control the entire world. They understand that it will take hundreds of years, but are willing to do their part. You can see this in Bin Laden's letter to America where his first two demands are to convert to Islam, and implement Sharia... if we don't, they will keep killing us.
Then, the conversation fell silent. Kay thought that someone would ask questions about his work, but no one asked any questions.
Questions? Kind of like what you just stated that Clark said that Kay said had just happened... shown below? (Is that hear say?)
According to Kay, Bush asked, 'What do you need from me?' Kay answered, 'I need patience to allow me to finish my work.' Bush answered, 'I have all the patience in the world.'
Subordinate asks for time to do work..... and gets it. Wow.
Clark saying that Kay reported there were no WMDs in Iraq also leaves out a few facts, as you can see in Dr. Kay's testimoney before Congress in 2003. It is well worth reading. Just a sample:
Yes, he did.... he was still trying to mislead the rubes that would belive him as the very next paragraph in the story shows:
In Bin Laden's letter to America, he drops the pretense and makes his extreme demands clear:
1. Convert to Islam (or else)
2. Drop the Constitution and American law for Sharia, resulting in a united Islamic church and state. Of course that will result in a lot more death penalties being handed out, along with various whippings, stonings, amputations, and the occasional crucifixion.
And what if we don't all convert to Islam, jettison the Constitution for Sharia, and comply with the other sundry demands?
To that end, Al Qaeda believes that it is justified in killing 4,000,000 Americans (half of them children) and rendering 10,000,000 homeless. That is entirely possible using WMD.
As an aside, Bin Laden didn't think too highly of the way the US treated President Clinton either:
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the total US Federal Budget for 2006 was projected to be approximately $2,507 Billion. Of that, defense is $438 Billion, Social Security is $540 Billion, Medicare is $380 Billion, and Medicaid is $193 Billion. Social welfare dwarfs military spending now, and it will skyrocket over the next 30 years or so as the US baby boom generation is starting to retire.
Still, $438 Billion is all weapons, right? Well... no. Depending on the year, Defense spending, is about 23% for personnel (pay, benefits), 31% for operations and maintenance (fuel & parts), and 15% for R&D. Procurement is a stunning 18%. That is about 3% of the total Federal budget. But not even all of that 3% goes to buying weapons. A sizable chunk of it goes to ship building for the Navy, for example. Another chunk goes to buying ammo. There are plenty of other things, like fire fighting equipment, periscopes, and pollution control equipment, night vision gear, and construction equipment.
The Federal budget also doesn't include state income taxes for which an even smaller percentage is going to go for defense related expenses. City and county taxes don't contribute anything either.
Overall, a minute percentage of American taxes goes to new weapons.
(I guess protest signs wouldn't look so scary if they complained that the US spent 1.6% of its Federal budget on weapons.)
I don't think that the average American would feel that our country has lost any respect at all if we tried to figure out what is pissing those people off so much, and figured out how to address that problem to remove their reason to fight. It's the only way any lasting peace will be achieved.
We already know what they want, it has never really been a secret. As Islamist extremists, their ultimate goal is to unite all the Muslim lands under a new Caliphate (an Islamic government uniting church and state), and expand its control to the entire earth. This means that they will have to overthrow many of the existing Arab governments to install clerical rule and Sharia (Islamic law). Their plan also includes retaking control of "lost" possessions, like Spain and the formerly Muslim controlled areas from Greece to Austria. Beyond that, they want to expand Muslim control to all of Europe, Africa, Asia,
What is "our" role in this? Their preferred outcome is that we all convert to become Muslims. That was Bin Laden's first demand in his letter to America.
There should be nothing novel in this. Recently, Palestinian extremists forced two Fox News reporters to "convert" to Islam after taking them hostage. There is a long history of this.
He also wants us to jettison the Constitution and adopt Sharia law, stop drug & alcohol use, homosexuality, sexual immorality, sleeping around, adultery, charging interest on loans, etc., etc. At least it would be easy to remember the penalty for many of these infractions: death, death, death, etc.
When will US conservatives realize they've been betrayed by a pack of radical facists, who favor any corporation from any nation over the rights of any individual anywhere?
Maybe when it's true?
Remember - Hitler was elected before he stopped holding elections, and many of his other techniques are in use today.... I especially like how Bush used the word "Nazi" this past friday as a general term to describe people who are fighting him in congress. I've never seen a blacker pot or kettle.
Bush didn't describe his oppenents in Congress as Nazis. Rumsfeld did give a speech in which he touched on the rise of fascism and the danger of appeasement. It is clear that there are countries and groups in the world today who are trying to appease the extremists. Will it work any better than it did in the 1930s?
Starting wars under false pretense to keep the military growing at a rate that is able to sustain a police state.
I note the plural - wars. Apparently you include Afghanistan in that. Wow. A multinational Islamist extremist terrorist organization essentially takes over a country, forming a state within a state, trains tens of thousands of terrorists who spread death and destruction around the world, attacks the US multiple times leading up the 9/11, and it is a false pretense when the US strikes back?! The minority of people that belive that is pretty small.
And by the way, the the US military is hardly growing at all, it is a mere shadow of what it was 15 years ago. The army is only about 2/3 the size. The other services are also greatly reduced
After his white supremacism was defeated in Congress, Thurmond switched to the Republican Party. Go figure...
Hard to know what to make of that, after all, the Democrats still have Robert Byrd, who formerly held the office of "Kleagle" (and possibly a higher one as well) in the Ku Klux Klan and opposed much of the civil rights agenda over the years. He was still using some disgusting language until relatively recently.
It's exactly that mentality that has allowed Bush and his cronies to drag the world into a "war" that's unwinnable by either side and results in wars, hatred, and an authoritarian wet dream.
It was Al Qaeda that dragged the world into war, not the Bush administration.
Al Qaeda became powerful enough to become a state within a state in Afghanistan, and are trying to gain similar influence in several other countries. They trained tens of thousands of Jihadis in their camps in Afghanistan. Those same Jihadis are wrecking havoc around the world. Theirs is an ideology of hatred, conquest, and holy war. They have sought and received a religious ruling that they can use WMDs, and have a goal of killing 4,000,000 Americans.
If they are not contested, they will only grow stronger and bring more of Islam under their power, and kill more people around the world. That includes, but is not limited to: Australia, Philippines, Thailand, India, Spain, Italy, Britain, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Morocco, Sudan, China, Afghanistan, and more.
Al Qaeda has been badly damaged in the war: they lost their training camps and control of Afghanistan, much of their senior leadership has been captured or killed, thousands of their fighters have been captured or killed, their finances have been greatly reduced, massive amounts of intelligence have been gathered. More of their attacks are failing or are foiled in planning.
The more frequently the terrorists lose, the more inclined people will be to turn against them. Attacking them while they are losing and weakened only reinforces their downward spiral.
You should be clear on this point: they won't go away if left alone, they will eventually come for you and what you hold dear. Their war is against everything that isn't Islamic, and is aimed at forming a Muslim super state unifying religion and government that controls the entire world. They accept the fact that it might take more than a hundred years.
You can take your pick, support the fight against them while they are weak and losing, or wait until they are strong and become a victim.
In the US, products that kill a dozen people are routinely pulled from the shelf. If you think that the US is going to stand by while its citizens are attacked and killed by the hundreds, or thousands, or even millions if they get a WMD, you are more than mistaken.
That list just goes to show that the US isn't even close to being a fascist society, neo or otherwise.
By the way... if you want to get a better idea of what a real fascist society looks like, try watching this. I recommend the higher definition versions. Much of the more interesting content came from the media in the countries themselves.
I fear more than the terrorist are laughing: friends and enemies both have lost respect for the US. Not a good thing.
No worries there, friend. Your time is coming and then we'll get to see how Canada does, and what Canadians are made of. It used to be they were stout of heart.... we'll see if you still have it in you.
Best regards....