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PostPosted: Fri May 14, 2004 8:44 pm 
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Most of the time, being controversial is a prerequisite for being a DJ. I remember one time when we had some big golf tournament over here, one of the local DJs tried to enter the tournament with a chainsaw, just to test the security procedures. Needless to say, people were pretty pissed off about that for quite awhile.


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PostPosted: Sat May 15, 2004 10:08 am 
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Harry Berkowitz wrote:
...."I have become so numb to the horrific things that happen in this world that I sometimes forget there are still people who feel."....



That is me. Because all this stuff is happening all the time, all over the world. After a while, it just doesn't effect you.

Then again, since I want to be a "capital punisher" (one who kills people in an eye for an eye fashion, not yet a real job) or a cruel dictator who accomplishes alot, I suppose I'm not really one who gets into tears over the loss of human life. Sometimes it pisses me off because it is so wasteful sometimes, but I probably could behead someone in that fashion that is shown in the video (should there ever be a need to do that and I hated them and what they stood for).

I've realized our culture no longer places value on human life anymore. Face it, we don't. Why is there so much killing if we value life? Why are movies full of people killing people, or people killing intelligent things, or intelligent things killing people only to get killed back? Our video games are full of killing, and while none of this relates to real life actions, it still is a reflection of our societies values.

And I can hear you now, "oh, killing is ok in the movies/games, I would never do it in real life!". That's true, but the fact is still there that we as a culture find violence and death entertaining. Even little kids pretend to shoot each other (and in rare cases, actually DO shoot each other). And the end result are people who grow up in a culture that speaks of violence as being ok.


Blah, no sleep for a long time, which is why there is no structure in that sorta-rant. Feel free to shoot down my sleep deprived arguements.


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PostPosted: Mon May 17, 2004 5:31 am 
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ollie wrote:
by the way, the zone that the Spaniards have wussed out of is about to be occupied by 40 Commando, Royal Marines, the unit stationed a few miles from me

they'll wish the Spanish stayed once the Commandos start knocking on their doors...

edit: checking up on that i note they're sending in about 800 commandos and the SBS will supply members of Black Group from M Squadron. This force is to replace the 1300 or so cowardly Spainards in the city of Najaf, you know, the fortified city run by Muqtada al-Sadr and his millita


Everything I've everr heard about the Royal Marines is that they are among the hardests professionals on the planet. Not a group of individuals I'd rather rely on.

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PostPosted: Mon May 17, 2004 7:44 am 
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few little updates:

the Marines are off training at the moment, i drove past their camp an hour ago and it's deserted, not even a guy on guard outside, they're still aiming to deploy to Iraq as soon as they finish their refresher course.

They're normally used as elite assault troops so sending them in to 'peacekeep' indicates something of a shift up in tactics I'd say, seeing as a British Army patrol was ambushed the other day with catastrophic results it's obvious that a little more is needed to put down the hardcore elements operationg there

when i say 'catastrophic results' i mean for the ambushers, an 8 man vehicle patrol was ambushed by 40-50 insurgents armed with heavy machine guns, RPGs, morters and an IED. The patrol managed to fight their way out of the ambush killing zone and called in a 2 platoon rapid reaction force and a pair of Challenger 2 MBTs. 20 dead and 13 captured insurgents (with more being wounded but escaping) later the British Army had 2 light casulties to show for the day, officially they were shrapnel wounds, but i think they just fell off their vehicles laughing at the utter happlessness of the ambush, i mean, sheesh, you have to try really hard to be that rubbish

also, WMDs. an IED was spotted by an American patrol in the last day and identified as a 155mm artillery shell, when the bomb disposal team started working on it it was found to be a SARIN NERVE GAS shell, you know, from Saddam's WMD stockpile he claimed to have destroyed, for some reason the difusing went a little wrong and the controlled explosion was somewhat too big resulting in a number of American personel being exposed to the nerve gas in small quantities (for results think the Tokyo subway attack survivors)

the 155mm shell is designed to 'activate' the gas after being fired, while in flight the binary mixture (2 inert gasses/liquids that mix to form the actual active agent) is activated and ready to go on impact/detonation, by rigging it as an IED the thing would make a small bang and a small cloud of gas, not nice but not as bad as it could be

looks like some clever insurgent group has found a few of these shells somewhere and has decided to give them a go

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PostPosted: Mon May 17, 2004 1:32 pm 
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The Man In Black wrote:
Thinman wrote:
Objection was not that it will stop working, but that it will eventually start working in reverse, bringing more terrorists here to America


Because the army obviously deters terrorists from operating in America.

Here I was thinking we had the FBI for that, I guess Bush went and declared marshal law when I wasn't looking etc. Not to mention that you never backed that thought up with, you know, any data or even trends whatsoever, given the fact that the terrorists want to kill us all anyway, I would argue that its likely they'd all come over here and try to kill us regaurdless, better 100 do so a few years from now than 10,000 do so right now.

Deploying the army in Iraq in a deliberate attempt to provoke a terrorist response will (duh) provoke a terrorist response. An unpredictable response, as you keep pointing out. And no, there are no statistics for that, just as there are no statistics for how many attacks are currently being prevented by the war.

I'd prefer not to rely on the FBI for my day-to-day personal protection in any case.

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Thinman wrote:
and then started talking up the mutually contradictory reasons of "establishment of democracy" and "It was a giant trap" after it became apparent that they'd fucked up their initial rationale.


These were both tossed out there before etc, I guess you were too busy shouting 'illegal war if we do go' to remember those points in Bush's speeches.

Actually I was waiting to hear the real reason for manufacturing a war, and wondering how long it would be before the first suicide bomber turned up in Times square. I haven't heard either yet, but I'm still waiting.

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Thinman wrote:
And they are contradictory. One implies compromise and a conciliatory approach. The other implies deliberately provoking outrage in the Arab community.


Yes, because as we all know the arabs all love terrorists, and any democracy obviously includes terrorists who we will deal with and hand power over to.

Again, I love how a lot of opposing points are based entirely in a racist attitude of "thats how arabs are" etc.

Yeah, nice straw-man. Anyway, if the US was acts without regard for the opinion of the rest of the world, including the other Arab nations and unilaterally invades Iraq, that's a provocation. If they US attempts talks and compromise, that's a good climate for building democracy. If there's little disaffection, there's little powerbase for terrorist organizations to tap. We don't have to hand power over to them, we just need to prevent the organizations from gaining popularity and power. One way to do that is to be reasonably sensitive to the social and political climate in the area where these terrorists are coming from.

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So, the point: they go after civilians on purpose, we don't. Trying to draw equivalency is rather idiotic, I mean thats what manslaughter was invented for, not every murder is murder 1 etc.

I never said what the troops did was equivalent to the executions. I said that the lines of conflict were blurred on both sides (no matter how willingly on some parts) and that I wasn't surprised that civilians were being killed.

If you want to read some kind of "OMG AMERICANS ARE THE REAL TERRORISTS" message into that, then that's your problem.

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PostPosted: Mon May 17, 2004 2:11 pm 
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Thinman wrote:
[ Anyway, if the US was acts without regard for the opinion of the rest of the world, including the other Arab nations and unilaterally invades Iraq, that's a provocation.


Contributions from Coalition member nations range from: direct military participation, logistical and intelligence support, specialized chemical/biological response teams, over-flight rights, humanitarian and reconstruction aid, to political support.

Forty-nine countries are publicly committed to the Coalition, including:

Afghanistan
Albania
Angola
Australia
Azerbaijan
Bulgaria
Colombia
Costa Rica
Czech Republic
Denmark
Dominican Republic
El Salvador
Eritrea
Estonia
Ethiopia
Georgia
Honduras
Hungary
Iceland
Italy
Japan
Kuwait
Latvia
Lithuania
Macedonia
Marshall Islands
Micronesia
Mongolia
Netherlands
Nicaragua
Palau
Panama
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Rwanda
Singapore
Slovakia
Solomon Islands
South Korea
Spain
Tonga
Turkey
Uganda
Ukraine
United Kingdom
United States
Uzbekistan


even with Spain pulling out it's troops, that's almost 50 nations the US is acting with, they havent' just said it's ok for American to go in, they're actively helping them, the Multinational Brigade is active in heavy fighting as i type with the Mehdi Army specificly and the criminal/insurgent forces in general, and many countries not on that list are in favour of the actin at one level or another but deem it politically dangerous to jump on board and be "publicly committed" to the action

so.....?

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PostPosted: Mon May 17, 2004 3:00 pm 
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ollie wrote:
Forty-nine countries are publicly committed to the Coalition, including:

Afghanistan
Albania
Angola
Australia
Azerbaijan
Bulgaria
Colombia
Costa Rica
Czech Republic
Denmark
Dominican Republic
El Salvador
Eritrea
Estonia
Ethiopia
Georgia
Honduras
Hungary
Iceland
Italy
Japan
Kuwait
Latvia
Lithuania
Macedonia
Marshall Islands
Micronesia
Mongolia
Netherlands
Nicaragua
Palau
Panama
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Romania *(though 45% supported it only 38% opposed so I am counting it)
Rwanda
Singapore
Slovakia
Solomon Islands
South Korea
Spain
Tonga
Turkey
Uganda
Ukraine
United Kingdom
United States
Uzbekistan


For emphasis I have highlighted those countries in which the majority of the populace was in favor of the war. Those were all I could find, feel free to correct if you find info on any others.


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PostPosted: Mon May 17, 2004 3:04 pm 
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ollie wrote:
so.....?

So, you get me on poor choice of words then.

I'll point out that of the 50, Turkey refused to allow a US military presence and Kuwait is the only other neighboring nation to support the action. (And they have a rather obvious grudge)

Also, even among many of the nations that are part of the coalition, the citizenry were fairly divided on whether or not to support the war regardless of what the governments wound up doing.

But, no, it wasn't quite a unilateral action. Divisive maybe, but not unilateral.

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PostPosted: Mon May 17, 2004 3:38 pm 
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Thinman wrote:
ollie wrote:
so.....?

So, you get me on poor choice of words then.

well, it was all I had to go on, being a debate and all

Thinman wrote:
I'll point out that of the 50, Turkey refused to allow a US military presence and Kuwait is the only other neighboring nation to support the action. (And they have a rather obvious grudge)


Turkey has a long running, well, near genocidal problem with the Kurds, aka Hill Turks, aka Northern Iraqis and wanted to keep full control of it's border with Iraq to keep it's long term plans of stopping an independent 'Kurdistan' rising from the ashes of Northern Iraq and taking a chunk out of their land, this little internal strife, you'll note, is one of the main reasons that Turkey has been blocked from joining the EU for so long. It was only their tactical location to the Middle East and western former Soviet Empire that got them into NATO as a missile/spying base.

Turkey did not just flip a coin and decide not to help out America for a laugh

Thinman wrote:
Also, even among many of the nations that are part of the coalition, the citizenry were fairly divided on whether or not to support the war regardless of what the governments wound up doing.


it's called a Democracy, something the Iraqis might just get out of this little piece of history, note how most western nations are ruled by a party who was only voted in by a minority of the population, as low as 30%, my region elected a European Parliament member in on about 17% This is the nature of working popular support, if you expect 100% support on a decision then you're a dictator in a one party state

and now there's one less of them to be expecting that to happen

Thinman wrote:
But, no, it wasn't quite a unilateral action. Divisive maybe, but not unilateral.


the UN has nearly 200 member nations, when over 1/4 of the world unites and decides to do something and the other 3/4 is somewhat unsure about what, when and how to do anything then someone has to make the move.

the biggest minority = the majority

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PostPosted: Mon May 17, 2004 9:35 pm 
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Thinman wrote:
Deploying the army in Iraq in a deliberate attempt to provoke a terrorist response will (duh) provoke a terrorist response. An unpredictable response, as you keep pointing out. And no, there are no statistics for that, just as there are no statistics for how many attacks are currently being prevented by the war.


It has so far been limited to Iraq, and given a choice between sitting on our thumbs and waiting for the terrorists to come here and giving the Jihadis a chance to die for their beliefs over in Iraq, I'm taking Iraq.

Oh, and for statistics: terrorists attacks down 45% since 2001

It can be argued that its just random chance that got them down, but given all the activity there I'm guessing we're doing something right, yes?

Thinman wrote:
I'd prefer not to rely on the FBI for my day-to-day personal protection in any case.


Well then lets disband them, its not like they've foiled any terrorist plots between sept 11th and now.

(hint: yes they have)

Thinman wrote:
Actually I was waiting to hear the real reason for manufacturing a war, and wondering how long it would be before the first suicide bomber turned up in Times square. I haven't heard either yet, but I'm still waiting.


First part: Because its in our best interest to do so.

I mean really, it gets right down to that, if you won't listen etc, your fault, not mine. Democracy, terror trap etc, whatever, in the end it benefits me to have this happening, thus I'm cool with it. We can go into a discussion as soon as you bring up an actual point, rather than saying we need to come up with a 'real' reason etc.

Second part: You make no fucking sense whatsoever.

Re: 'one involves provoking outrage in the arab community.' The 'arab community' is rather inclusive, you're being racist there, I'm sorry, but "trap for terrorists" =/= provoking the 'arab community,' it means provoking the terrorists, duh?

Perhaps something new for you, not all arabs are terrorists, woah, new idea there right?

Thus, I don't see a contradiction between building democracy and trapping terrorists: the two are tied anyway, since the terrorists don't like us already, and like us being there less etc. So saying "that can't be the real reason!" is kind of silly, it'll happen whether thats the "reason" or not, so...

what was your point, again?

-MiB

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PostPosted: Tue May 18, 2004 3:22 pm 
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The Man In Black wrote:
Oh, and for statistics: terrorists attacks down 45% since 2001

It can be argued that its just random chance that got them down, but given all the activity there I'm guessing we're doing something right, yes?
You are neglecting another possibility. Terrorism is a very specific type of activity so it being down could also be the result of the perpetrators engaging in another activity (and no I don't mean ping-pong).

If large portions of Al-Qaeda and other militant groups go to Iraq or Afghanistan and wage legitimate war (that seems funny just typing) then terrorism will certainly go down. However they are still killing people in most cases, it just isn't classified as terrorism.

That being said I highly doubt that accounts for the drop entirely. Some other possibilities include
-the multitude of terrorists that were captured in Afghanistan
-the disorganization of those remaining
-a hesitancy amongst other terrorist cells due to the extreme backlash terrorism now brings


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PostPosted: Tue May 18, 2004 7:52 pm 
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The Man In Black wrote:
It can be argued that its just random chance that got them down, but given all the activity there I'm guessing we're doing something right, yes?

I never said it was a null action, I said I thought it would blow back on us. And as revolutio pointed out, there is a lot of other stuff going on in the world at the same time. Missiles falling on Hamas leaders, more governments cracking down, seizing assets, etc.

Quote:
I mean really, it gets right down to that, if you won't listen etc, your fault, not mine. Democracy, terror trap etc, whatever, in the end it benefits me to have this happening, thus I'm cool with it. We can go into a discussion as soon as you bring up an actual point, rather than saying we need to come up with a 'real' reason etc.

Here's my point, since you asked. I believe that the costs in finance, human lives, US goodwill, and political stability invading Iraq incurred greatly outweigh any of the potential benefits we're likely to reap. Despite the fact that I think our administration is stuffed with assholes, I like to believe that they are not idiots. So, I keep waiting for another unspoken motive to come to light in order to justify the tremendous costs of the war.

Admittedly wars have probably been fought for even less reason, but as Americans we expect accountability on the part of our leaders, right? So far, ollie's suggestion of not-so-subtle intimidation has made more sense than any of the other reasons I've heard.

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Re: 'one involves provoking outrage in the arab community.' The 'arab community' is rather inclusive, you're being racist there, I'm sorry, but "trap for terrorists" =/= provoking the 'arab community,' it means provoking the terrorists, duh?

I don't know why you're stuck on this, except that you seem to be trying to draw some kind of relationship between killing terrorists and pissing off Arabs..

So yeah. Most Arabs probably have little sympathy for terrorists. But they clearly <i>do</i> care about whether or not the US invades Iraq.
Invading Iraq provoked a lot of people.
Not just a few extremists.
Not just Arabs.
Not just Moslems.

But it sure does attract terrorists!

Of course, now there's no cooperation from the neighboring nations who ought to be helping get things running again. Instead of finessing the people who could help the most in rebuilding Iraq, we just bulled in. Now we're saying that we deliberately turned Iraq into a mess while we're supposed to be rebuilding a whole new kind of society?

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PostPosted: Tue May 18, 2004 8:31 pm 
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You seem to be out of touch with reality: why would dictatorships help us out with democracy in Iraq, under ANY circumstances whatsoever?!

Second, how is a "trap for terrorists" deliberately turning Iraq into "a mess"? I miss the link where waiting for the terrorists (who're coming anyway, regaurdless of whether Iraq is declared a 'trap for terrorists') involves ruining Iraq.

You keep getting stuck on "trap for terrorist" = bombing random stuff for shits and giggles, I guess it doesn't, I forgot what we gain by saying "this isn't actually a trap for terrorists," I mean, the terrorists still come, we still have to kill them, what changes...?

-MiB

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PostPosted: Tue May 18, 2004 10:35 pm 
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....

http://welcometoiraq.ytmnd.com/

....not work safe....

and MiB said I was exploiting it???

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PostPosted: Wed May 19, 2004 1:37 pm 
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So...?

-MiB

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