I haven't heard Sweden state that they will categorically not extradite him to the US, though.
The Swedish government has also not denied that they plan make him crown prince with a 1.000.000.000.000 SEK stipend, or that they will stick a rocket in his butt and shoot him into space to suffocate. The probability of all three isn't terribly different.
It's mostly been stopped now but I'm sure they would make an exception for someone like Assange.
One thing - how is it exactly that you think the US would get hold of Assage while he is either under the protection of Ecuador and Britain and Sweden are waiting to take him into custody? Why do you think those major European nations would agree to it for such a high profile person when ordinary legal means are available? Rendition was used for people believed to be involved in terrorism, are you claiming that Assange is a terrorist instead of a "journalist"?
As is your custom you are "sure" about highly unlikely things
It isn't an isolated problem.
Afghan Men Struggle With Sexual Identity, Study Finds
An unclassified study from a military research unit in southern Afghanistan details how homosexual behavior is unusually common among men in the large ethnic group known as Pashtuns -- though they seem to be in complete denial about it.
The study, obtained by Fox News, found that Pashtun men commonly have sex with other men, admire other men physically, have sexual relationships with boys and shun women both socially and sexually -- yet they completely reject the label of "homosexual."
Apparently, according to the report, Pashtun men interpret the Islamic prohibition on homosexuality to mean they cannot "love" another man -- but that doesn't mean they can't use men for "sexual gratification."
Most likely just the typical bullshit you get in a 3rd world country. Low education, coupled by poverty, corrupt government and when you get a health epidemic, people panic and do stupid shit
Terrorism is pretty common "bullshit" in some 3rd world countries. The culture of some groups that engage in terrorism celebrates self-sacrifice when engaging in terrorism. Indeed, there is essentially a death cult there when they state "we love death more than you love life." Terrible diseases like Ebola induce terror while killing many people. Modern air travel has reduced the what had been the travel of months to a few hours. Hmmm. Hmmm.
Maybe you haven't heard, but most Iraqis say they want peace and democracy. The Al Qaida inspired Islamist extremists are a small percentage of society, but they are willing to bomb and kill to get their way. They formed their own terrorist army to try to overthrow the peaceful democracy in Iraq. Why are you opposed to bombing the terrorist army trying to overthrow that peaceful democracy?
You might have a point though, that whole "democracy" thing does seem to have failed badly in Japan, Germany, and Italy.
Weapons aren't part of the M113, and many different types of weapons can be mounted on an M113 besides the M2
We do indeed. They were created because Republicans (and in particular, Nixon) needed a new thing to harp on for the election, and they went for "tough on crime".
Not even close. You could just as well have answered "khrushchev" with no loss of accuracy.
Attorney General’s Commission on Special Weapons and Tactics (S.W.A.T.)
Beginning in the 1960’s, local police were confronted by increasingly well-armed individuals and groups who were willing to engage in armed confrontations with the police. The traditional method of response by uniformed patrol officers placed both officers and innocent bystanders at increased risk.
In many nations of the world, such situations would likely be handled by national police forces. However, the American people have historically been very wary of deployment of federal forces within local boundaries.
It became clear that a new method of response to such complex, high-risk and often high-energy situations was needed. Such a response required expertise and weaponry beyond the normal capability of local law enforcement agencies. Thus, the concept of SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) was developed by the Los Angeles Police Department.
Originally, the SWAT concept was for counter-sniper and other high-risk situations that in the past would have provoked an inordinate number of shots being fired, often with injuries to innocent persons. Over the years, SWAT has evolved into the management of barricaded suspect situations, the service of high-risk warrants, dignitary protection, and the actual rescue of hostages.
Under the SWAT model, verbal techniques and physical tactics would combine for seamless management of volatile situations confronting local police. The primary purpose behind this concept was to reduce risk to the police forces involved, to the suspects, and to the community at large.
Most of these situations are resolved with verbal tactics utilized by trained hostage negotiators who are frequently an integral component of SWAT teams. Seldom are physical tactics necessary, and even then the actual firing of shots rarely occurs.
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And what are those "originally intended functions"?
I think that is answered above.
... there's no justification for having every police department, even those on university campuses
Whoever heard of shootings at schools or college campuses?
I'll leave it up to you to track down statistics on the practices of European gendarmes.
US military spending remains outrageous, at about the level of the rest of the world put together.
That is irrelevant to the question regarding the US defense budget rising or falling.
I assume you mean the 2013 cuts -- those have been matched, basically dollar for dollar, by increasing the "temporary" budget for Afghanistan.
Sorry, but no. US defense spending has been falling since 2010. For 2015 it will probably end up being about $120 billion less than 2010.
Major personnel cuts are happening too.
Pentagon Set to Slash Military to Pre-World War II Levels
Fundamentalism is a part of it, yes, but would never amount to anything like what we've seen were it not for widespread anti-US sentiments stemming from more pragmatic reasons
Islamist insurrections have been on-going since at least the 1950s (ignoring the earlier ones) and have been aimed at taking control of the local nation. They have nothing to do with the US. You don't know what you are talking about.
Coming from someone who apparently still believes the Iraq war had anything to do with 911
Please provide some evidence for this. You are simply engaging in cheap, misleading rhetoric.
somehow still manages to delude himself that anti-American sentiment somehow thrives in complete isolation of its international posturing
Enjoy your illusions while you still can.
Intelligence Report: Number of Islamists in Germany Grows
Germany: Islamists Infiltrating Schools in Hamburg
German interior minister warns of threat of lethal attacks by Islamists
On Wednesday, German interior minister Thomas de Maizière (Christian Democratic Union, CDU) warned of an imminent threat of terrorist attacks by Islamist “religious warriors” in Germany and throughout Europe.
“An abstract danger has become a concrete, lethal threat in Europe, with an impact on Germany,” the interior minister said at the presentation of the domestic intelligence agency’s 2013 report in Berlin. The attack at the Jewish museum in Brussels, where four people were killed by a jihadi at the end of May, had “made clear that the possibility of an attack by such forces returning from Syria has become a deadly reality,” de Maizière explained.
Domestic intelligence chief Hans-Georg Maaßen added, “Islamist terrorism represents the greatest threat to society. Germany is not far from terrorism. We continue to be a target for the planning of attacks.”
Officials Say Islamic Terrorism Is Germany's Big Domestic Security Risk
I think the point is that when the police are shooting people in great numbers -- I don't think the US has a peer in that dept -- then it might not be a great idea to give them even more destructive weaponry.
That is nonsense. Police in the US aren't routinely engaging in massacres, nor do they just shoot at random people as a standard practice. The question isn't do they have weapons, but are those weapons being used inappropriately?
Remember those billions (!) of rounds of ammo that DHS bought?
That didn't actually happen. But even if it did, the actual question is still whether they are using that supply appropriately.
In combination with the, shall we say, questionable record of accountability of police actions, tooling up to this extent seems like a disaster waiting to happen.
Maybe by routinely providing US police machine pistols (submachine guns ) as is common in Europe would help bring greater peace to society? What do you say, an MP-5 for every patrol officer?
Where do you come up with this "shall we say, questionable record of accountability of police actions" nonsense? There have been particular police departments or teams with a problem, but are you trying to claim this is a universal condition? That is nonsense.
Suppose we have an engineer of type Real on the scale of 1
Your comment is the one that is flawed. The number of bullets fired doesn't really say much about how the circumstances under which they were trained to open fire in that case specifically, let alone a more general condemnation of the police. I assume you aren't even considering the possibility that they weren't doing what they were trained to do, or may have overreacted?
It isn't hard to find examples of police officers that engaged in various forms of misconduct being sent to jail or personally sued.
It's not "overuse", it's literally 99% of what they do.... At this point we might as well conclude it's what those teams are created for.
We know why they were created so there is no reason to make up things. Were cars invented as transports to deliver pizza and kids to soccer matches?
It's not "overuse", it's literally 99% of what they do. Look up the stats that Maryland released after they passed a law mandating collection and public release of statistics on SWAT use. At this point we might as well conclude it's what those teams are created for.
From what I read about the situation in Maryland the SWAT teams were used for their originally intended functions 6% of the time, not 1%. The fact that they were used to serve other warrants doesn't negate that they also fulfilled their original purpose. It also doesn't necessarily make those other uses illegitimate.
How about if I kill two birds with one stone - here is an example of a SWAT team in action, and the reason why many police departments traded in their shotguns for AR-15s.
National Geographic Situation Critical Hollywood Shootout
Can you give a single example of such a thing? This is often bandied around as a hypothetical scenario for why you need SWAT, but how often does it actually happens, if at all?
Oh, I know! When in the last 45 years in a country of 300,000,000 people could that have happened? It's like the search for a pink unicorn, who ever heard of a SWAT team raiding a drug dealer armed with automatic weapons?
Drug Dealer Opens Fire on a SWAT Team
The things that changed, started to change in late 70s, and the militarization was mostly already completed under Reagan. Since then, not much has changed, indeed - it's just a slow but steady encroachment.
Nonsense. The US doesn't even have a gendarme as many European countries have. That is real police militarization, not the existence of a local SWAT team.
You mean other than lawsuits, formal complaints to the department, complaints to the mayor, the state, the Federal government, newspaper stories? Political campaigns to change the government that supervises the police? Demonstrations? Investigative journalism?
Rules of Engagement can certainly be to kill everything that moves, and then kill it again when it stops moving.
By the same token Rules of Engagement can be to not shoot anything even if it results in you being killed.
Should we stick to facts, or just make up BS?
And maintaining order in the elite's backyard is more high-stakes than military adventures.
I'm pretty sure that policing in the US involves more than patrolling the perimeter of the estates of billionaires.
. Even if the Rules were more restrained, where is the discipline to enforce them? When's the last time a cop faced the death penalty for misconduct?
Do you bother to check any of your wild ideas against the facts? Police officers are disciplined for misconduct, including being sent to prison when the crime is serious enough.
Does this help?
Jurors sentence ex-HPD cop to life in prison for raping waitress
He has not acquired a fortune; the fortune has acquired him. -- Bion
