The results of not killing them -- two US soldiers killed, one gravely injured, several killed when a rescue chopper comes under fire and crashes. I couldn't even give you the Taliban body count -- my guess is at least two dozen killed by the 3 SEALs as they tried to escape, another dozen or more killed by a helicopter when it finally rescued the "Lone Survivor".

The results of killing them? Two dead Taliban, the 3 SEALs escape.

And in the annals of military history in any similar situation the two Taliban would have been killed by any scouting party or commandos lest they imperil their mission and escape.

Barry M. Rubin

Horse shit.

Iran was a pro-Western, pro-American country until we sent the CIA to overthrow their government in 1953 and installed the Shah. If you're going to quote an Israeli PJMedia/Fox News propagandist, you might want to find one with more credibility than Barry Rubin.

Is there any way for any country to earn the respect of others

Well, you start by not meddling in their politics and overthrowing their leaders, as the US did to Iran.

http://www.history.com/this-da...

It's interesting how you only say "I did it" without explaining how you did it.

Most cost estimating uses ~$100/sq ft for residential properties, which would make your stone house 70 sq. ft.

Provide some facts -- finished square feet, internal materials and features, cost of land, etc, otherwise I have to remain skeptical.

Then rejoice! Hurricane Electric [tunnelbroker.net] will give you your own /48 for free. Just set up a box to accept and route it and you can assign an IP to every single sperm in your beloved balls.

Do they also make a router that looks like Scarlett Johansson? I may find this "internet of things" acceptable after all.

Oh, and before you ask for a citation that Graham and Rubio are trying to ban online gaming specifically for Sheldon Adelson (who looks like Dr Evil's unwell uncle by the way), here is some more information:

http://www.nationaljournal.com...

Nice to see that American politicians are not the only crooks with too much power. Now what do we do about it?

When US politicians try to ban online gambling, it's not to drive business to government gambling sites, but rather to drive business to Sheldon Adelson. I guess they figure if you're going to be corrupt, you might as well be corrupt for someone who pays better than the government.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...

With all the clever hacks and workarounds people are posting, I'm ashamed to say my best is using a steak knife as a screwdriver.

Who builds a house for $7,000? Maybe 50 years ago if you did all the labor yourself and it was a two room affair with no plumbing or running water.

Even a very basic kitchen these days would cost more than that, and that would just be for cabinets, plumbing, electrical a fridge and a stove.

I'd wager that the mortar alone would cost a good chunk of the $7k by itself, if by "stone house" you mean a single floor house built with entirely stone walls to the soffits.

Don't forget, ACME smart appliances all require you to agree to letting ACME access your address book, location, browsing history and other personal information. But their website says "We take your privacy seriously".

I'll be interested in the Internet of Things as soon as I can get an IPv6 address for my balls.

It seems to me that it's a waste of resources to keep cabs in low-demand areas on the off-chance that someone's grandmother wants to use one.

It might be a "waste of resources" to give your grandmother medical care too, but as a society, we're uncomfortable with people being left out.

When the libertarian caliphate comes to power, then we can let grandma go dangle. Until then, it's probably to our benefit to look out for her.

In reality, the only way to fight a war like ISIS is to do what was done to Germany -- level all cities (and all buildings in the city) that even are rumored to have insurgents. Without the commitment to do actual, yucky warfare that completely breaks all resistance... half-ass measures just creates emboldened enemies (think "Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad!".)

This has been the weakness of the US military since at least Viet Nam and possibly even Korea.

The only way to "win" a war is to defeat the people, not just the army or the fighters. Sure, it's ugly because you kill a lot of people who don't really deserve to die in any conventional moral sense. But not doing it just causes you to lose lives for nothing.

But do they do it for humanitarian reasons or fear of punishment?

I don't know how true to life it was, but in "Lone Survivor" when the 3 SEALs capture two random Afghanis they have all manner of animated discussion about what to do with them -- if they let them go, they will likely get a whole bunch of Taliban after them, if they kill them or tie them up so they can't get away, they might end up with some kind of war crimes problem.

During their debate, it wasn't "what kind of a humanitarian are you" it was "Do you want to go to Leavenworth for the rest of your life?"

Frankly, I think they probably should have just executed them. It was pretty clear they were aligned with the enemy (one guy was carrying a two-way radio, and I don't think Afghanistan has a CB club) and the results of not killing them were kind of as predicted -- a company-size band of Taliban chasing them down and trying to kill them, succeeding at killing two of them.

It's hard to think of any other military campaign that would have allowed an operation to get compromised like that when snuffing the enemy would have been so effective.

Maybe a better future compromise is a little autoinjector they could carry with a strong dose of a short-acting (eg, 4-6 hours) but powerful sedative/hypnotic. Nighty-night for them and when they wake up, the soldiers are long gone.

Drone piolots have no doubt done somethings history won't look kindly on but so has basically every fighting man using whatever technology and tactics. Sure maybe some just do it for the pay check or lack of other options but most of the people that enlist in our volunteer armed services have some conviction about defending the nation.

I will challenge, "most". How would we know if their motivation was the defense of the nation or if they just needed a job and their best option was to enlist? And defense of the nation from what? The US hasn't fought a war in defense of the nation since the 19th century.

Let's stop romanticizing the military. This isn't GI Joe who was drafted off his daddy's farm to go fight the Fuhrer. This is a "professional military", remember? And there's a word for professional military. Mercenary. Just look at how eager these guys are to go work for Blackwater, or "Xe" or "Academi" or whatever the private contractor army is calling itself today.

I'm kind of surprised that the same people who look sideways with suspicion at anything Big Government does also romanticize the enforcement arm of that Big Government by becoming military groupies or police buffs. Every member of the military and every member of every police force in the United States fits the dictionary definition of "bureaucrat", plus they get to use deadly force. Remember that the next time you hear someone talking about those damn "government bureaucrats".