In an ideal situation, I'd agree with you. Your points do have merit. However, I (for one) do not believe that the United Nations has much in the way of credibility with regard to its handling of the matter of terrorism, and the equally important matter of nations that support such through financing or armament. I'll step back from the argument on that note.

And excuse me, correcting an error. The operation in planning was DOWNFALL, not OVERLORD. My mistake.

I'd argue further, but you've already convinced yourself otherwise. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were rationally planned and ethically sound (in at least one application of ethical theory; it is not ethically sound universally), but not a universally moral choice either. The same may - and I mean this particularly - be said about the 11 September attacks, but they can also be argued to have been universally immoral or amoral, given the event as a whole and how it was carried out. Also distinguishing the two is this point: the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were conducted specifically to force the war to end, whereas 11 September's events were purely provocative in nature. The reason for the bombings was simple: the war had to be ended, and it was the best course of action at the time (despite the inability to avoid civilian casualty.) The reason for 11 September, even simpler: they wanted many to die, and for those who were left to be driven into fear.

Read: "never the desired outcome" - it was that or OVERLORD, which would've resulted in a much larger loss of human life on both sides at its beginning, and possibly even more in terms of a protracted land-war against Japanese forces. It was, unfortunately, less costly in terms of human lives to use the atomic bomb on those two cities. Still doesn't mean it was the desired outcome.

Okay, that was more coherent, but there are still problems with what you're claiming here. Firstly, we never invaded Pakistan; there were drone operations that were done with (and some without) Pakistan's knowledge, as well as the operation that ultimately led to bin Laden's death (again, aspects of Pakistan's government did know.) You're confusing Pakistan with Afghanistan, which I tried to explain in the post you largely ignored. The war in Iraq was a different matter, which occurred in 2003, and was more related to Iraq's refusal to allow proper inspections by international (read: UN-sponsored) bodies such as the IAEA. No weapons of mass destruction were found; I do concede that point. However, I wish to remind you that artillery shells designed specifically for chemical-agent dispersal (capable of delivering weaponized chemical and biological agents similar to the kinds used by Saddam Hussein's military against the northern Kurds) were recovered. Lacking the weapons, they still maintained stockpiles of the means of delivery. Simple logic suggests that they wouldn't keep such means unless they were still somehow involved in production or research into chemical or biological agents. Acting like the world's police? Tell me, would you rather we sat back and did nothing, allowed terrorist organizations to continue operations unabated when it was known and/or highly likely that they were planning further attacks? The events of 11 September 2001 were, as I stated, an atrocity and an act of war. A response should have been expected for what was done that day. And one last thing... the subject of Israel (or Palestine, or whatever everyone wants to call it this week) is sore, because it's in the holy land of every Abrahamic religion, not just Islam.

I'm not denying that they exploited a soft target as opposed to well-defended ("hard") targets on 11 September. I was just set off by his wording, which to me implied that he thought that those who died that day deserved to die because of past military policy.

And how the hell your comment has a score of 2 mystifies me. Closed-minded, ignores the context of the portion that you had quoted, and blatantly inflammatory. Now, if you wanted to have a polite debate, I'd have been happy to oblige. Clearly, you don't.

Okay, let's have a bit of remedial 21st-century history. Iraq (yes, that's the correct spelling) was not the nation invaded in the beginning, and not as early as 16 September 2001. Afghanistan, a nation then ruled by the Taliban, an Islamic fundamentalist group, was invaded on 7 October of that year - actually fairly apt, because the chief architect of the 11 September attacks, one Osama bin Laden, was much later found not that far across the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, and killed in a covert-op. Regardless of how legitimate the reasons were for the 11 September attacks, their focus on American civilians (being that the World Trade Center, a civilian office complex, was the location with the most casualties that day, and four passenger-loaded civilian airliners were either plowed into the WTC towers, the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, or in the case of United Airlines #93, forced down in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, by passengers who revolted against the hijackers and sacrificed their own lives to save many others) distances the event from any interpretation as an act of retaliation or retribution, and instead leaves it fully as a war crime and human atrocity. We, as Americans, learned not to be complacent simply because two large oceans flank our nation's borders, and that our new enemies weren't necessarily entire nations, but rather distributed groups without direct national affiliation. If you can't get those things straight... then please don't lecture us on our conduct since 11 September, SIR.

You seemed to rather heavily imply that those who died deserved such, because of your rather broad wording. I'm not one to support starting crap with other countries, but I'm also not one to support a more isolationist standpoint. Of course, if people from abroad wish to kill civilians here, I support their being hunted as wild dogs.

Civilians deserved to die because of this? Nice of you to post as an AC, but civilians never deserve to die in any situation - their deaths are sometimes unavoidable, but are never the desired outcome of any fighting body other than an extremist group.

42 gallons? I thought all Latinum was gold-pressed in strips or bars, not liquefied.

It would appear so, since the client would show you your opponents if they were not visually obstructed or too distant, in a 3-D space that is rendered on each client in exactly the same way, save for each player's viewpoint. Customization via user input may be the tricky part here... unless "customization" includes "changing position information via user input."

... there goes Winter Wrap-Up. Cross that holiday off the list...

Precisely my experience with the term "ion cannon" - whole lotta good it's done against Kane himself though (KANE LIVES IN DEATH)

Of course, since rationality hasn't historically been deliverable by SQL injection :P