The M-240 is the 7.62mm replacement for the old M-60 of the Vietnam era. It is freaking heavy, and considered a crew-served weapon, but doesn't require a vehicle to move.
Pah. The weapon itself isn't heavy at all, it's the ammo that weighs you down. With that said though, any M-60/M-240 gunner worth his salt can man-pack it and a decent ammount of ammo without difficulty. Back when I used to carry one, I ended up at one point carrying it and 8 belts of ammo for about 14 kilometers. My #2 carried the SF kit plus another 6 belts. Wasn't a lot of fun, but it's certainly not impossible.
Cheney's not in prison because an accident is an accident. And by all accounts, it was mainly the other guy's fault. I've seen it happen before - we're conducting a live-fire exercise, I'm blasting off rounds downrange, and some dumbass weaves out of his lane and into mine. Luckily I saw him and had time to stop myself from pulling the trigger - but it was a matter of mere miliseconds. If he had moved a fraction of a second later, there's a good chance he would have ended up with a bullet in his back. In such circumstances, do you really think I'd deserve to go to prison?
"defending it's principles"... are you fucking kidding me? You're defending oil fields, no more, no less.
Bullshit. If the US wanted oil from Iraq, they would have lifted sanctions and bought it, or they would have just abused the oil-for-food program like everyone else. The lack of logic in the blood-for-oil argument is simply astounding. A simple cost/benefit analysis of how much money has been pumped into Iraq vs how much oil has been pumped out will show anyone with more than a handful of neurons that it makes no sense whatsoever to invade for oil. Moreover, even if we accept your gormless suggestion, it still doesn't exclude the possibility of individual soldiers "defending our principles". No matter what you beleive about the US governments goals in Iraq, you'd be pretty hard pressed to show that the majority of soldiers signed on to "defend oil fields".
Where were you guys in Rwanda? Somalia? Basically anywhere in Africa where a coup is actively going on?
Actually there were US soldiers in both Rwanda and Somalia. I guess you didn't see Blackhawk Down?
Rwanda was the UN's show, and it was the UN's call to scale back the number of peacekeepers and allow the Hutus to slaughter the Tutsis. It's one of the many incidents which lead to our loss of faith in the UN, and it's part of the reason why the US was willing to go to war in Iraq without UN approval.
As for Somalia, US forces initiated operations there early on in the conflict:
On December 3rd, U.N. Security Resolution 794 authorized the U.S. led intervention "to use all necessary means to establish a secure environment for humanitarian relief operations in Somalia as soon as possible." The US Army participated in Operation Restore Hope in Somalia from 03 December 1992 to 4 May 1993. On 09 December 1992 the United States Marines came shore in Mogadishu and quickly established an expeditionary infrastructure to facilitate security and the delivery of food to the starving Somalis. On December 11th, the Marines established a Civil Military Operations Center (CMOC) and collocated it with the U.N.'s Humanitarian Operations Center (HOC). By doing this, the CMOC quickly became the national focus point for NGO/U.S. military coordination.
Unfortiunately, the UN took over in 1993, and shortly afterwards things took a turn for the worse. US Delta and Rangers were involved in a massive confrontation in Mogadishu, and a secrtain Democrat president decided it was no longer politicaly prudent to have US forces operating in Somalia. Basicaly, he did what the dems have been advocating that we do in Iraq. Luckily this time there's a Republican in office, so Iraq hasn't yet turned into another cut-and-run campaign.
I would suggest that you pick up a history book once in a while.
If there is a code that can be sent, or a circuit within the unit that when energized by some source causes the machine to have approval for hitting a target, or to do the firing, then there is a possibility that that circuit will be energized from an unintended source at some time. It only takes one such incident to say kill someone or for those who justify this type of technology, to kill the solders who own the device. You would be hard pressed to justify that sort of mistake.
You could say the exact same thing about the vast majority of todays weapons systems. Sure, there's a possibility that the F-16 will fire off a Sidewinder on it's own. And there's a posibility that the sear on your M-16 will slip and fire off a round without you pulling the trigger. However, the odds of either of those things occuring are so slim as to be effectively non-existant. Human (operator) error will always be much more likely to cause an unintentional death than a mechanical failiure. Why the hell would we need to "justify" a freak accident?
Get a life. War is not glorious and death is not a legitamate moral means to an end.
Ah yes. You must be one of them moral-absolutists. I don't suppose it will do any good for me to point out that everything in nature contradicts your statement. There's nothing inherently immoral in killing - it's the natural order of things. Even warfare isn't unique to humans, nor is it neccesarily immoral; warfare is an extension of organized group violence, and such behaviour is exibited by most predatory species, as well as by primates. As with all acts in nature, the morality of warfare rests in the reasons and application, not in the act itself. Stating that all warfare is evil, or murder, is akin to saying that all sex is rape.
So while there's no dispute that the media are largely left-biased, they're just not biased enough to suit you and the rest of the "ultra-progressives". Sort of how President Bush is clearly right-wing, but not right-wing enough to suit Pat Roberts.
You know, that actually makes sense. It certainly explains why the truly insane leftists out there keep insisting that the media is actually biased in favour of the right-wing. When you're an extremist with no basis in reality, then anyone who's significantly less extreme than you will appear to be on the other side.
That's strange. Every poll ever conducted seems to show that the left wing is massively over-represented within the media organizations....yet you'd like us to beleive that the media is "censored" and reports in favour of the right wing. And who, pray tell, is oppressing and censoring all of these brave left-wing journalists?
There are other reasons as to why terror funding is hard to fight. One of them is our (USA) incompetence. We simply do not get it. You still hear folks wondering why an individual would offer himself as a sacrifice in suicide bombing.
Actually the leadership gets it just fine, but the general concensus is that poor peasants don't matter much unless they've got the funding to obtain equipment and training. So we focus on the leadership and their fund-raising efforts. If those can be shut down, then deluded individuals become irrelevant. If we were to focus on every single individual who wishes to harm us, we'd never get anywhere.
The other reason is that our leaders who might themselves be inept, think that the way America works is the way other societies work and think. In areas where terror is cultivated, folks are willing to do stuff for free...all in the hope that some divine power will reward them sometime in future.
Ah, I see. You must have some inside line to "our leaders" which tells you exactly what they're thinking and feeling.
Meanwhile, in reality, our leadership understand full well the difference between our societies. If we were fighting another democratic country, our strategy would be MUCH different. Take a look at some of the unclassified war-plans from the 50's/60's and you'll see the difference. Detailed war plans exist for confrontation with any nation which may become a threat, and they take into consideration thousands of variables. You might get a kick out of belittling military and government intelligense operatives and strategists, but you obviously have no clue as to their true competence.
The other case to consider is the fact that societies cultivating terror do their thing in the crude way. Messages are sent by horse-back and pigeons. Worse still these messages are encrypted...talk of a cold winter might mean the delivery of some important ingredients for some project. In this case, our folks at NSA simply get lost or ignore stuff like this. We also do not understand the cultures of others and are too willing to think we're the best!
Once again you express your opinions without a shred of evidence. We're quite aware of the many ways in which our enemies communicate. The fact that you beleive our intelligence operations to be of such poor quality only shows me that we're effectively hiding their true nature. The only time you hear about what we're doing to intercpet foreign intel is when some idiot reporter slaps together an incomplete conspiracy theory and decides to go public with it.
Can any slashdotter tell me why despite the fact that Katrina was known to be coming, and that it would be huge, there was so much devastation amid confusion without clear leadership? This is all part of the incompetence I mentioned above.
That one's easy, the US is intentionaly designed to be de-centralized, with municipalities handling their own problems intialy, and requestiong assistance from state and federal governments as neccesarry. You'll notice that the rest of Louisiana handled the "disaster" without much hardship, as did the neighbouring states. New Orleans was a case of too much ego, and crying wolf too many times. Every year for the last decade there have been warning that New Orleans would be wiped off the map by the newest storm, and every time the storms have shifted before they hit new orleans, and instead wiped out some other location. The people grew complacaent, and their leadership stopped preparing for the worst. It happens to everyone - get too many false alarms, and you stop caring. I've seen the same thing overseas; the first time a rocket went off in our camp, everyone was on full alert, donning their kit and getting ready to fight back. 3 months later we'd shrug our shoulders and say "eh, it wasn't close enough". That sense of complacency is what gets people killed, and unfortiunately, it's human nature. You can blame the federal government and FEMA all you
I would really appreciate it if the moron who keeps following me around and modding all my posts as "flamebait" would identify himself. You've already established that you're childish and petty, at least show me that you're not a coward.
You and your brothers have finally crossed the line (like your type always does) and you'll get a nice reckoning with the next set of elections.
Uh...yah. Damn us for constantly crossing the line. How dare we liberate Europe from the Nazis. How DARE we protect South Korea. And what were we thinking when we helped millions of Jews avoid a second holocaust. It's just one thing after another with us isn't it? Horrible. Just horrible.
You've posted two responses to my original post and you have *yet* to offer any proof that the statistics I posted are bogus or not
I don't know, nor do I care, if your statistics are right or wrong. They are irrelevant . Do you enjoy making me repeat myself?
Real men aren't afraid of a few terrorists.
That's why the best that your "real men" can accomplish is sitting at home, bitching and complaining, right?
You're blinded by what I assume is your Christian religious beliefs
Yet another display of your ignorance. Bravo. Carry on!
but you're obviously too far gone and can no longer function without a hand-holding government who will "protect you"
Wow. You've finally fallen off your rocker. Bud, I AM the government. I DO the protecting. You seem to be confused about our roles here. Calling someone a coward tends to ring a little hollow when you're speaking about someone who risks his life daily. And coming from someone like you, it's not just hollow, it's rather pathetic.
Disprove the statistics. Go ahead. Ask James Dobson what he thinks . Ask your little nitwit friends at your little pathetic goose-stepping right-wing blogs. You can't disprove the facts.
Once again, the statistics you present are irrelevant . How the hell does presenting useless figures help your case any? It looks something like this:
You: 4 out of 5 doctors reccomend Crest brand toothpaste.
Me: Yeah.....
You: Therefore the war in Iraq was wrong.
Me: But....
You: BUSH IS A NAZI!
Me: I don't see...
You: YOU CAN'T DISPROVE THE FACTS! GO AHEAD AND TRY! TRY TO DISPROVE IT!
After which I shake my head in disgust, and go out for a smoke and a coffee. Which is what I shall do now.
While I wouldn't neccesarily laugh at all veterans who oppose the conflict, I will laugh at many.
I'd certainly laugh at the ones who only joined "to go to college" thinking they'd never have to do anything. What kind of a nimrod joins an army expecting to never have to deal with violence? That's got a LOT of comedy potential right there.
Or the ones like Jeremy Hinsman, who suddenly become "consciencious objectors" because of "what they've seen". Even though what they saw consisted only of pots, pans, and the occasional toilet bucket that had to be emptied. They're certainly worth laughing at. How can you NOT laugh at someone who claims to have become opposed to violence as a result of washing dishes in a warzone?
Then there are the military families. Well, I can sum that one up in two words: Cindy Sheehan. The only way she could be more amusing is if she went out and got size 20 shoes and a red foam nose.
Granted, not all military families who oppose the war are as retarded as she is, and many do deserve respect and understanding. But losing a relative to the war does not give them some sort of moral high-ground, nor does it make their opinions any more correct. Does losing a relative to a car accident make you an expert on motorized vehicles?
Supporters of the troops? You know, saying "I support the troops" doesn't make you a supporter of the troops. Just like when the terrorists claim to beleive in the peaceful religious teachings of Islaam, it doesn't really mean their actions have anything to do with true Islam, or peace.
And your green beret link didn't work, so I'm not sure how to respond to that. However, a green beret would also fall under the category of "Iraqi war veterans", so you can just scroll up a bit and see my response to that one.
I also laugh at anyone who uses the word "progressive" to describe their beleifs, regaurdless of what their beleifs may be, simply because I get a kick out of envisioning just how much ego, ignorance, and attitude it must take to truly beleive that your beleifs are truly progressive. If conservatives insisted on refering to themselves as such I'd laugh at them too, but it's 10 times funnier when those with regressive beleifs do it.
Well, "It's not worth it to me to give up" the safety of my country and the image of power which keeps it's citizens safe, just so that some paranoid, delusional fools (yes that means you Mr. "all communications dragnet") won't feel like they're being oppressed. It's become obvious over time that people like you are never satisfied. The more we take care to limit the ammount of damage we cause, the more pain we take to avoid mistakenly targeting the innocent, the louder your complaints get and the more you accuse us of atrocities and abuse. That's fine. I can live with being unpopular amongst those who have never had to stand for anything during the entirety of their miserable existances. What I and those like me CAN'T do is give in to your complaints when it means endangering the lives of innocents, and the common beleifs which we all hold sacred. Since there's no way to please you, you'll have to get used to being ignored. At least, untill you can elect another Democrat into office, at which point we'll have to go back to biding our time, working behind the scenes, and trying to prevent another 9/11 despite the constant (if unintended) efforts of the Democratic party to achieve the opposite.
Statistics don't mean shit when it comes to setting policy. The fact that you're using them to prop up your gormless diatribe tells me all I need to know about the relevance of your thoughts on the matter.
The military's a great way to get an education, travel to new places, meet people and then shoot them.
Absolutely. So where's the downside? I'm sick and tired of people equating shooting with murder. If I were so inclined I could easily stay in my home country and shoot at people. I don't have to join the army to do that. What joining the military DOES do is give me the training and knowledge neccesary to employ force in a responsible manner. So I get an education, travel to exotic places, a decent income, amazing friendships, and the training to defend myself and others in hostile situations. And in return, I place my life on the line for my beleifs, and occasionaly blow away a couple assholes who are trying to kill me, my friends, or innocent civilians. What's so bad about that?
Every time one of you "progressives" tries to explain "the facts" to us, we get a hell of a kick out of it. Guys coming back from leave have a great time exchanging stories about how they dealt with such situations. I don't know what's more fun: being accused of being a baby-killer, or being told that I'm a deluded idiot helping prop up the Corporate Hawk Faschist War Criminal Bush And His Evil Oil Syndicates. Either way, don't worry about offending us; we have a great sense of humour, and find you extremely amusing.
Every modern military which provides it's soldiers with Internet access does so through at least two seperate networks. One network is always meant for internal traffic and protected communications between members, with access to the world wide web only being allowed for work-related purposes. As such, this network would be accessible primarily by personnel in leadership positions (not your average grunt) and are heavily monitored and filtered to avoid abuse. The second network is open to all members, and is only lightly monitored, and rarely filtered. As such, does it really matter that the "work-only" network which is inaccesible by the majority of members anyway happens to filter out some leftie websites? Especily when any member can go and log on to the public network, and access that same information without any filtering?
The US isn't the only country to do that, the Canadian, Brit and Aussie forces do it the same way.
You're also more likely to die in a car crash than you are to be murdered. What's the solution? Ban all cars and let murderers walk free?
We do everything we can to prevent accidents, yet they still occur, and always will. Likewise we must do everything possible to deter individuals from intentionaly targeting us. If tomorrow morning we took all the warning labels off of everything sold across North America, you'd see the death rate muliply tenfold overnight. Likewise, if we ignore violent actions taken against us, we will encourage further attacks by those who see us as weak and unwilling to fight back.
If your notional earthquake gets bad enough that the citizens of California cannot afford to repair the damage, those in the rest of the country who feel charitable can and will donate to charities in order to assist the citizens of California. That's why historicaly the American people are the most generous on a per capita basis - the Federal government was never intended to serve as some social experiment at forced charity, it was only meant to fill the most basic and neccesary roles, with states, municipalities, and ultimately individuals taking up the rest of the load. The rest of the world always whines and complains when the US federal government doesn't match (on a GDP basis) "donation" by other countries, however what they don't take into account is that donations by individual citizens usualy make up the difference. Would you rather have a system where 50% of your pay-cheque is taken away every month to pay for causes you don't give a crap about, or have only 10% taken away to pay for basic services, thereby giving you the other 40% to spend or donate however you wish?
China is already selling the prgans of thousands of executed prisoners a year. The US and most of the rest of the developed world, are losing jobs rapidly, and thanks to Moore's Law, the entire world may be very hard to find work in in 20 or 30 years from now.
Well, first off, what China does has no bearing on what the western world does. They're their own little micro-cosm. Secondly, jobs don't dissapear. Work is not a finite resource that gets depleted, work is a natural byproduct of human existence. Therefore jobs cannot cease to be, only the value placed on that work can fluctuate, and therefore the availability of work can move from place to place, as well as shifting between types of work. And thirdly, you just totaly raped Moore's Law. Please don't ever use it that way again.
I hear that state and federal governments are already charging prison inmates for everything associated with their stays.. What's so different about this? Its supply and demand.. the magic of the marketplace..
What? First of all, you heard wrong. There's a prison in Texas I beleive where the local head-honcho has started charging inmates for their food, yes, however the practice is far from wide-spread. That prison is the only place in the US where I've heard of such a system being implemented. Secondly, it has nothing to do with supply and demand, and everything to do with fiscal responsibility and common sense. Spending tens of thousands of dollars to care for the cancer cells in the body of our society makes no sense on any level. Prisoners are already used as cheap labour, however, the money earned goes directly to them. That's only possible in a society that's hopelesly focused on individual rights, and has no concept of personal responsibilities. Idealy all prisoners should have mandatory work quotas, the proceeds of which go to pay for their "accomodations". If after that they wish to work more, they should be given the opportunity to earn some money for themselves. Why should we allow criminals to live free of any financial responsibility, while many peaceful and honest people struggle to put food on their tables? Especialy when those same people are forced to pay taxes which go to pay for the care of the criminals.
Why not pass out organ-donor cards in Church? If the Pope were to order all churches to do a sermon on it once a month, and give the cards to anyone who's interested, it would make it clear to everyone that the church not only endorses, but encourages organ donation. That would make a bigger difference than any ammount of government spending on advertisements and educational programs.
I'll need $500, a case of beer, and about 15 minutes to clean the rust off the scissors. Oh, and a ride to the nearest Humane Society office; my car's on the frtz.
No, don't read the fine-print on that liability waiver, just sign.
Back when I was in highschool, the best damn teacher I ever had got killed by thieves while visiting Columbia. All they got was his shoes and his wifes purse.
There are very few religions that forbid organ donation. In fact, several branches of Christianity and Judaism actually encourage their followers to donate organs, and in Muslim culture charity towards others is considered to be almost a requirement. The only real problem is the millions of "not practicing" Christians/Jews/Muslims who have somehow developed the idea that it's ok not to go to church, but that donating their organs will get them sent to hell. It's ignorance that's the problem, NOT religion (for once).
No, I'm saying it's idiotic to call the US a fascist state, and then act surprised when you're investigated. And I'm pointing out that most of the people making these accusations don't really beleive in them. They're either trying to fit in, or trying to make some cash. If they truly beleived it, they'd be a lot more careful about their accusations.
To draw a crude analogy we did not "beat" communism by invading korea or vietnam we "beat" them because our way of life was accepted and won the war of ideas.
Touchy-feely ideas don't win wars. In point of fact, for winning wars a totalitarian system is more efficient than a democratic system simply because there is no room for dissention. For achieving short-term wins, you can't beat a dictatorship. We won in the long term because their economy collapsed. Their economy collapsed because our economy was more diverse and fluid, and we forced them to shovel massive ammounts of resources into their military complex. We did that by expanding our own military capabilities, and constantly engaging them on foreign soil. Make no mistake about it, if the US had not made itself a threat to the USSR, Communism would have lasted a heck of a lot longer than it had. As long as such a system can keep expanding, and as long as it has no real external competition, there's nothing to bring it down.
If you ask me (I'll agree that no-one is) we need to pull the Mohamed Ali ropa-dope on our enemies. Let them keep hitting us and hitting us and smile back and let them hit us again. When they realize our resolve of ideas remains, that is when we would have won and not before.
May Mohamed Ali beat your ass for misusing his name in such a horrible fashion. Any boxer and any fighter will tell you that fighting a purely defensive battle is the same as losing the battle.
Slashdot Mirror
The M-240 is the 7.62mm replacement for the old M-60 of the Vietnam era. It is freaking heavy, and considered a crew-served weapon, but doesn't require a vehicle to move.
Pah. The weapon itself isn't heavy at all, it's the ammo that weighs you down. With that said though, any M-60/M-240 gunner worth his salt can man-pack it and a decent ammount of ammo without difficulty. Back when I used to carry one, I ended up at one point carrying it and 8 belts of ammo for about 14 kilometers. My #2 carried the SF kit plus another 6 belts. Wasn't a lot of fun, but it's certainly not impossible.
Actually, I'm Canadian too.
Cheney's not in prison because an accident is an accident. And by all accounts, it was mainly the other guy's fault. I've seen it happen before - we're conducting a live-fire exercise, I'm blasting off rounds downrange, and some dumbass weaves out of his lane and into mine. Luckily I saw him and had time to stop myself from pulling the trigger - but it was a matter of mere miliseconds. If he had moved a fraction of a second later, there's a good chance he would have ended up with a bullet in his back. In such circumstances, do you really think I'd deserve to go to prison?
Bullshit. If the US wanted oil from Iraq, they would have lifted sanctions and bought it, or they would have just abused the oil-for-food program like everyone else. The lack of logic in the blood-for-oil argument is simply astounding. A simple cost/benefit analysis of how much money has been pumped into Iraq vs how much oil has been pumped out will show anyone with more than a handful of neurons that it makes no sense whatsoever to invade for oil. Moreover, even if we accept your gormless suggestion, it still doesn't exclude the possibility of individual soldiers "defending our principles". No matter what you beleive about the US governments goals in Iraq, you'd be pretty hard pressed to show that the majority of soldiers signed on to "defend oil fields".
Where were you guys in Rwanda? Somalia? Basically anywhere in Africa where a coup is actively going on?
Actually there were US soldiers in both Rwanda and Somalia. I guess you didn't see Blackhawk Down?
Rwanda was the UN's show, and it was the UN's call to scale back the number of peacekeepers and allow the Hutus to slaughter the Tutsis. It's one of the many incidents which lead to our loss of faith in the UN, and it's part of the reason why the US was willing to go to war in Iraq without UN approval.
As for Somalia, US forces initiated operations there early on in the conflict:
Unfortiunately, the UN took over in 1993, and shortly afterwards things took a turn for the worse. US Delta and Rangers were involved in a massive confrontation in Mogadishu, and a secrtain Democrat president decided it was no longer politicaly prudent to have US forces operating in Somalia. Basicaly, he did what the dems have been advocating that we do in Iraq. Luckily this time there's a Republican in office, so Iraq hasn't yet turned into another cut-and-run campaign.
I would suggest that you pick up a history book once in a while.
If there is a code that can be sent, or a circuit within the unit that when energized by some source causes the machine to have approval for hitting a target, or to do the firing, then there is a possibility that that circuit will be energized from an unintended source at some time. It only takes one such incident to say kill someone or for those who justify this type of technology, to kill the solders who own the device. You would be hard pressed to justify that sort of mistake.
You could say the exact same thing about the vast majority of todays weapons systems. Sure, there's a possibility that the F-16 will fire off a Sidewinder on it's own. And there's a posibility that the sear on your M-16 will slip and fire off a round without you pulling the trigger. However, the odds of either of those things occuring are so slim as to be effectively non-existant. Human (operator) error will always be much more likely to cause an unintentional death than a mechanical failiure. Why the hell would we need to "justify" a freak accident?
Get a life. War is not glorious and death is not a legitamate moral means to an end.
Ah yes. You must be one of them moral-absolutists. I don't suppose it will do any good for me to point out that everything in nature contradicts your statement. There's nothing inherently immoral in killing - it's the natural order of things. Even warfare isn't unique to humans, nor is it neccesarily immoral; warfare is an extension of organized group violence, and such behaviour is exibited by most predatory species, as well as by primates. As with all acts in nature, the morality of warfare rests in the reasons and application, not in the act itself. Stating that all warfare is evil, or murder, is akin to saying that all sex is rape.
So while there's no dispute that the media are largely left-biased, they're just not biased enough to suit you and the rest of the "ultra-progressives". Sort of how President Bush is clearly right-wing, but not right-wing enough to suit Pat Roberts.
You know, that actually makes sense. It certainly explains why the truly insane leftists out there keep insisting that the media is actually biased in favour of the right-wing. When you're an extremist with no basis in reality, then anyone who's significantly less extreme than you will appear to be on the other side.
That's strange. Every poll ever conducted seems to show that the left wing is massively over-represented within the media organizations....yet you'd like us to beleive that the media is "censored" and reports in favour of the right wing. And who, pray tell, is oppressing and censoring all of these brave left-wing journalists?
Haven't you been paying attention? It's Saturn's moon that has life now! Life on Mars is soooo last year.
There are other reasons as to why terror funding is hard to fight. One of them is our (USA) incompetence. We simply do not get it. You still hear folks wondering why an individual would offer himself as a sacrifice in suicide bombing.
Actually the leadership gets it just fine, but the general concensus is that poor peasants don't matter much unless they've got the funding to obtain equipment and training. So we focus on the leadership and their fund-raising efforts. If those can be shut down, then deluded individuals become irrelevant. If we were to focus on every single individual who wishes to harm us, we'd never get anywhere.
The other reason is that our leaders who might themselves be inept, think that the way America works is the way other societies work and think. In areas where terror is cultivated, folks are willing to do stuff for free...all in the hope that some divine power will reward them sometime in future.
Ah, I see. You must have some inside line to "our leaders" which tells you exactly what they're thinking and feeling.
Meanwhile, in reality, our leadership understand full well the difference between our societies. If we were fighting another democratic country, our strategy would be MUCH different. Take a look at some of the unclassified war-plans from the 50's/60's and you'll see the difference. Detailed war plans exist for confrontation with any nation which may become a threat, and they take into consideration thousands of variables. You might get a kick out of belittling military and government intelligense operatives and strategists, but you obviously have no clue as to their true competence.
The other case to consider is the fact that societies cultivating terror do their thing in the crude way. Messages are sent by horse-back and pigeons. Worse still these messages are encrypted...talk of a cold winter might mean the delivery of some important ingredients for some project. In this case, our folks at NSA simply get lost or ignore stuff like this. We also do not understand the cultures of others and are too willing to think we're the best!
Once again you express your opinions without a shred of evidence. We're quite aware of the many ways in which our enemies communicate. The fact that you beleive our intelligence operations to be of such poor quality only shows me that we're effectively hiding their true nature. The only time you hear about what we're doing to intercpet foreign intel is when some idiot reporter slaps together an incomplete conspiracy theory and decides to go public with it.
Can any slashdotter tell me why despite the fact that Katrina was known to be coming, and that it would be huge, there was so much devastation amid confusion without clear leadership? This is all part of the incompetence I mentioned above.
That one's easy, the US is intentionaly designed to be de-centralized, with municipalities handling their own problems intialy, and requestiong assistance from state and federal governments as neccesarry. You'll notice that the rest of Louisiana handled the "disaster" without much hardship, as did the neighbouring states. New Orleans was a case of too much ego, and crying wolf too many times. Every year for the last decade there have been warning that New Orleans would be wiped off the map by the newest storm, and every time the storms have shifted before they hit new orleans, and instead wiped out some other location. The people grew complacaent, and their leadership stopped preparing for the worst. It happens to everyone - get too many false alarms, and you stop caring. I've seen the same thing overseas; the first time a rocket went off in our camp, everyone was on full alert, donning their kit and getting ready to fight back. 3 months later we'd shrug our shoulders and say "eh, it wasn't close enough". That sense of complacency is what gets people killed, and unfortiunately, it's human nature. You can blame the federal government and FEMA all you
I would really appreciate it if the moron who keeps following me around and modding all my posts as "flamebait" would identify himself. You've already established that you're childish and petty, at least show me that you're not a coward.
You and your brothers have finally crossed the line (like your type always does) and you'll get a nice reckoning with the next set of elections.
Uh...yah. Damn us for constantly crossing the line. How dare we liberate Europe from the Nazis. How DARE we protect South Korea. And what were we thinking when we helped millions of Jews avoid a second holocaust. It's just one thing after another with us isn't it? Horrible. Just horrible.
You've posted two responses to my original post and you have *yet* to offer any proof that the statistics I posted are bogus or not
I don't know, nor do I care, if your statistics are right or wrong. They are irrelevant . Do you enjoy making me repeat myself?
Real men aren't afraid of a few terrorists.
That's why the best that your "real men" can accomplish is sitting at home, bitching and complaining, right?
You're blinded by what I assume is your Christian religious beliefs
Yet another display of your ignorance. Bravo. Carry on!
but you're obviously too far gone and can no longer function without a hand-holding government who will "protect you"
Wow. You've finally fallen off your rocker. Bud, I AM the government. I DO the protecting. You seem to be confused about our roles here. Calling someone a coward tends to ring a little hollow when you're speaking about someone who risks his life daily. And coming from someone like you, it's not just hollow, it's rather pathetic.
Disprove the statistics. Go ahead. Ask James Dobson what he thinks . Ask your little nitwit friends at your little pathetic goose-stepping right-wing blogs. You can't disprove the facts.
Once again, the statistics you present are irrelevant . How the hell does presenting useless figures help your case any? It looks something like this:
You: 4 out of 5 doctors reccomend Crest brand toothpaste.
Me: Yeah.....
You: Therefore the war in Iraq was wrong.
Me: But....
You: BUSH IS A NAZI!
Me: I don't see...
You: YOU CAN'T DISPROVE THE FACTS! GO AHEAD AND TRY! TRY TO DISPROVE IT!
After which I shake my head in disgust, and go out for a smoke and a coffee. Which is what I shall do now.
While I wouldn't neccesarily laugh at all veterans who oppose the conflict, I will laugh at many.
I'd certainly laugh at the ones who only joined "to go to college" thinking they'd never have to do anything. What kind of a nimrod joins an army expecting to never have to deal with violence? That's got a LOT of comedy potential right there.
Or the ones like Jeremy Hinsman, who suddenly become "consciencious objectors" because of "what they've seen". Even though what they saw consisted only of pots, pans, and the occasional toilet bucket that had to be emptied. They're certainly worth laughing at. How can you NOT laugh at someone who claims to have become opposed to violence as a result of washing dishes in a warzone?
Then there are the military families. Well, I can sum that one up in two words: Cindy Sheehan. The only way she could be more amusing is if she went out and got size 20 shoes and a red foam nose.
Granted, not all military families who oppose the war are as retarded as she is, and many do deserve respect and understanding. But losing a relative to the war does not give them some sort of moral high-ground, nor does it make their opinions any more correct. Does losing a relative to a car accident make you an expert on motorized vehicles?
Supporters of the troops? You know, saying "I support the troops" doesn't make you a supporter of the troops. Just like when the terrorists claim to beleive in the peaceful religious teachings of Islaam, it doesn't really mean their actions have anything to do with true Islam, or peace.
And your green beret link didn't work, so I'm not sure how to respond to that. However, a green beret would also fall under the category of "Iraqi war veterans", so you can just scroll up a bit and see my response to that one.
I also laugh at anyone who uses the word "progressive" to describe their beleifs, regaurdless of what their beleifs may be, simply because I get a kick out of envisioning just how much ego, ignorance, and attitude it must take to truly beleive that your beleifs are truly progressive. If conservatives insisted on refering to themselves as such I'd laugh at them too, but it's 10 times funnier when those with regressive beleifs do it.
Well, "It's not worth it to me to give up" the safety of my country and the image of power which keeps it's citizens safe, just so that some paranoid, delusional fools (yes that means you Mr. "all communications dragnet") won't feel like they're being oppressed. It's become obvious over time that people like you are never satisfied. The more we take care to limit the ammount of damage we cause, the more pain we take to avoid mistakenly targeting the innocent, the louder your complaints get and the more you accuse us of atrocities and abuse. That's fine. I can live with being unpopular amongst those who have never had to stand for anything during the entirety of their miserable existances. What I and those like me CAN'T do is give in to your complaints when it means endangering the lives of innocents, and the common beleifs which we all hold sacred. Since there's no way to please you, you'll have to get used to being ignored. At least, untill you can elect another Democrat into office, at which point we'll have to go back to biding our time, working behind the scenes, and trying to prevent another 9/11 despite the constant (if unintended) efforts of the Democratic party to achieve the opposite.
Statistics don't mean shit when it comes to setting policy. The fact that you're using them to prop up your gormless diatribe tells me all I need to know about the relevance of your thoughts on the matter.
The military's a great way to get an education, travel to new places, meet people and then shoot them.
Absolutely. So where's the downside? I'm sick and tired of people equating shooting with murder. If I were so inclined I could easily stay in my home country and shoot at people. I don't have to join the army to do that. What joining the military DOES do is give me the training and knowledge neccesary to employ force in a responsible manner. So I get an education, travel to exotic places, a decent income, amazing friendships, and the training to defend myself and others in hostile situations. And in return, I place my life on the line for my beleifs, and occasionaly blow away a couple assholes who are trying to kill me, my friends, or innocent civilians. What's so bad about that?
Every time one of you "progressives" tries to explain "the facts" to us, we get a hell of a kick out of it. Guys coming back from leave have a great time exchanging stories about how they dealt with such situations. I don't know what's more fun: being accused of being a baby-killer, or being told that I'm a deluded idiot helping prop up the Corporate Hawk Faschist War Criminal Bush And His Evil Oil Syndicates. Either way, don't worry about offending us; we have a great sense of humour, and find you extremely amusing.
Every modern military which provides it's soldiers with Internet access does so through at least two seperate networks. One network is always meant for internal traffic and protected communications between members, with access to the world wide web only being allowed for work-related purposes. As such, this network would be accessible primarily by personnel in leadership positions (not your average grunt) and are heavily monitored and filtered to avoid abuse. The second network is open to all members, and is only lightly monitored, and rarely filtered. As such, does it really matter that the "work-only" network which is inaccesible by the majority of members anyway happens to filter out some leftie websites? Especily when any member can go and log on to the public network, and access that same information without any filtering?
The US isn't the only country to do that, the Canadian, Brit and Aussie forces do it the same way.
You're also more likely to die in a car crash than you are to be murdered. What's the solution? Ban all cars and let murderers walk free?
We do everything we can to prevent accidents, yet they still occur, and always will. Likewise we must do everything possible to deter individuals from intentionaly targeting us. If tomorrow morning we took all the warning labels off of everything sold across North America, you'd see the death rate muliply tenfold overnight. Likewise, if we ignore violent actions taken against us, we will encourage further attacks by those who see us as weak and unwilling to fight back.
If your notional earthquake gets bad enough that the citizens of California cannot afford to repair the damage, those in the rest of the country who feel charitable can and will donate to charities in order to assist the citizens of California. That's why historicaly the American people are the most generous on a per capita basis - the Federal government was never intended to serve as some social experiment at forced charity, it was only meant to fill the most basic and neccesary roles, with states, municipalities, and ultimately individuals taking up the rest of the load. The rest of the world always whines and complains when the US federal government doesn't match (on a GDP basis) "donation" by other countries, however what they don't take into account is that donations by individual citizens usualy make up the difference. Would you rather have a system where 50% of your pay-cheque is taken away every month to pay for causes you don't give a crap about, or have only 10% taken away to pay for basic services, thereby giving you the other 40% to spend or donate however you wish?
China is already selling the prgans of thousands of executed prisoners a year. The US and most of the rest of the developed world, are losing jobs rapidly, and thanks to Moore's Law, the entire world may be very hard to find work in in 20 or 30 years from now.
Well, first off, what China does has no bearing on what the western world does. They're their own little micro-cosm. Secondly, jobs don't dissapear. Work is not a finite resource that gets depleted, work is a natural byproduct of human existence. Therefore jobs cannot cease to be, only the value placed on that work can fluctuate, and therefore the availability of work can move from place to place, as well as shifting between types of work. And thirdly, you just totaly raped Moore's Law. Please don't ever use it that way again.
I hear that state and federal governments are already charging prison inmates for everything associated with their stays.. What's so different about this? Its supply and demand.. the magic of the marketplace..
What? First of all, you heard wrong. There's a prison in Texas I beleive where the local head-honcho has started charging inmates for their food, yes, however the practice is far from wide-spread. That prison is the only place in the US where I've heard of such a system being implemented. Secondly, it has nothing to do with supply and demand, and everything to do with fiscal responsibility and common sense. Spending tens of thousands of dollars to care for the cancer cells in the body of our society makes no sense on any level. Prisoners are already used as cheap labour, however, the money earned goes directly to them. That's only possible in a society that's hopelesly focused on individual rights, and has no concept of personal responsibilities. Idealy all prisoners should have mandatory work quotas, the proceeds of which go to pay for their "accomodations". If after that they wish to work more, they should be given the opportunity to earn some money for themselves. Why should we allow criminals to live free of any financial responsibility, while many peaceful and honest people struggle to put food on their tables? Especialy when those same people are forced to pay taxes which go to pay for the care of the criminals.
Why not pass out organ-donor cards in Church? If the Pope were to order all churches to do a sermon on it once a month, and give the cards to anyone who's interested, it would make it clear to everyone that the church not only endorses, but encourages organ donation. That would make a bigger difference than any ammount of government spending on advertisements and educational programs.
I'll need $500, a case of beer, and about 15 minutes to clean the rust off the scissors. Oh, and a ride to the nearest Humane Society office; my car's on the frtz. No, don't read the fine-print on that liability waiver, just sign.
So....did ya salvage anything from Rachel Corrie? :D
Back when I was in highschool, the best damn teacher I ever had got killed by thieves while visiting Columbia. All they got was his shoes and his wifes purse.
Life's cheap in most of the world.
There are very few religions that forbid organ donation. In fact, several branches of Christianity and Judaism actually encourage their followers to donate organs, and in Muslim culture charity towards others is considered to be almost a requirement. The only real problem is the millions of "not practicing" Christians/Jews/Muslims who have somehow developed the idea that it's ok not to go to church, but that donating their organs will get them sent to hell. It's ignorance that's the problem, NOT religion (for once).
No, I'm saying it's idiotic to call the US a fascist state, and then act surprised when you're investigated. And I'm pointing out that most of the people making these accusations don't really beleive in them. They're either trying to fit in, or trying to make some cash. If they truly beleived it, they'd be a lot more careful about their accusations.
To draw a crude analogy we did not "beat" communism by invading korea or vietnam we "beat" them because our way of life was accepted and won the war of ideas.
Touchy-feely ideas don't win wars. In point of fact, for winning wars a totalitarian system is more efficient than a democratic system simply because there is no room for dissention. For achieving short-term wins, you can't beat a dictatorship. We won in the long term because their economy collapsed. Their economy collapsed because our economy was more diverse and fluid, and we forced them to shovel massive ammounts of resources into their military complex. We did that by expanding our own military capabilities, and constantly engaging them on foreign soil. Make no mistake about it, if the US had not made itself a threat to the USSR, Communism would have lasted a heck of a lot longer than it had. As long as such a system can keep expanding, and as long as it has no real external competition, there's nothing to bring it down.
If you ask me (I'll agree that no-one is) we need to pull the Mohamed Ali ropa-dope on our enemies. Let them keep hitting us and hitting us and smile back and let them hit us again. When they realize our resolve of ideas remains, that is when we would have won and not before.
May Mohamed Ali beat your ass for misusing his name in such a horrible fashion. Any boxer and any fighter will tell you that fighting a purely defensive battle is the same as losing the battle.