(In theory) one can replace a single cluster with an equivalent of Windows ME and you'll achieve a trainwreck of a network which will spiral out of control.
So this guy has read some news, created a graph of terrorists connections and ran some statistics on it. Result: the graph is sparse but has shortcuts. Pretty pictures, though.
Since the terrorists accomplished so much with so little, they are obviously not stupid [insane - sure, but not stupid]. The next atrocity will be carried out by a bunch of people with good old whitebread names. Anybody called Mohammed Al'whatever is under too much suspicion these days to fart in public. The next big thing will be carried out by a bunch of people with names [possibly changed by deedpole] like Joe White, Billy Bob Bobbit etc.
They can't change what they are, but they can change their names.
For years they have been doing a lot of work with prison inmates. Look for trouble from ex-cons under the direction of Islamic groups.
Yeah, well, I knew a guy named O'Halloran who looked (and sounded) just like Apu, straight out of the Kwik-e-mart. Evidently he had some ancestor who brought the name to India, and a few generations later, that was about all that was left.
One thing that should not be overlooked... For the terrorists to get new recruits, they have to make sure they are not spies. So any old fanatic wont due because the US has stepped up its human infiltration.
The next atrocity will be carried out by a bunch of people with good old whitebread names. Anybody called Mohammed Al'whatever is under too much suspicion these days to fart in public. The next big thing will be carried out by a bunch of people with names [possibly changed by deedpole] like Joe White, Billy Bob Bobbit etc.
You mean like the Oklahoma City bombing?
Wait a second, I think you're on to something. The 9/11 attacks were actually carried out by rednecks with names like Billy Bob, but they were wearing disguises to fool us! Aha!
Well, in the hours that followed the bombing, the FBI speculated in the media that they were actively searching for "Muslim terrorists." Quickly after that, several mosques were burned down by arsonists.
True, Timothy McVeigh was caught in pretty short order, but the FBI never retracted their claims. McVeigh just corrected what they believed, and people forgot about the accusation (except the Muslim-American community, who wanted an apology).
We may never know if there was a second person, or maybe McVeigh denied it and I didn't hear it. Or it could be the FBI tossed around the "possible middle-eastern" description as a way to show they weren't totally off base with the Muslim terrorist idea.
It is wrong to characterize a completely different world view (Islam, crossed with a proactive/appocolyptic/destiny-seaking streak) from that of Western Liberal Democracy as "Insane".
To belittle ones enemies like that lead to misjudgements of what they can do and why they do.
Now if you want to charaterize them as "evil", I am okay with that.
Isn't wilful "evil" a form of insanity? Anyway, the parent comment did not reference Islam at all, but the terrorists themselves. I think we can safely call them madmen with no fear of belittling them.
Seems to me that the unquestioning belief in an imaginary being is a form of insanity, or at the very least self-delusional. Rationalizing your actions on the basis that they are somehow the "will" of this delusional entity is insane.
Anybody called Mohammed Al'whatever is under too much suspicion these days to fart in public. The next big thing will be carried out by a bunch of people with names [possibly changed by deedpole] like Joe White, Billy Bob Bobbit etc.
Nah, their names are much more likely to be more like "John Aschcroft," "Dick Cheney", and "George Bush." Or are jackbooted thugs breaking down your door in the middle of the night and 'detaining' you indefinitely without charges, right to counsel, or the ability to contact your family not something you would consider "terrorizing?"
They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but a more accurate metaphore would be something on the order of:
The tools by which a flurishing democracy is turned into a living, authoritarian hell are built from good intentions.
in the uk we've had the ira, funded by?, for years, after each blast you'd just shrug, hey what can you do?
While I really hate some of the exaggeration that gets played up in the US media (comparing the WTC disaster to Hiroshima, for example), what's the largest loss of life that an IRA attack has ever caused? 29, right? ("Real IRA" car bomb in 1998)
Have one hundred incidents that bad and then tell me that the UK has had comparable experience.
Ok, I'll bite - here's some (probably out of date) death / injury tolls caused by terrorism in the UK to date:
"Over 3,280 people have been killed and over 36,000 injured since 1969 as a result of terrorist campaigns. Over 900 members of the police and Army have been murdered."
Source - UK Government web site. That number is not too far off the WTC toll, and probably accounts for a lot of incidents...
While I really hate some of the exaggeration that gets played up in the US media (comparing the WTC disaster to Hiroshima, for example), what's the largest loss of life that an IRA attack has ever caused? 29, right? ("Real IRA" car bomb in 1998)
Have one hundred incidents that bad and then tell me that the UK has had comparable experience.
2,711 [ulst.ac.uk] deaths in Northern Ireland up to 1988, versus recent figures of under 3,000 for the WTC. Close enough, I think?
If you believed everything you heard on television after 9/11, you would think that the CIA had no Afghan speakers, had no people on the ground in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and had no idea that radical Muslims were planning on hijacking planes and running them into buildings.
Of course, that's all nonsense. The CIA has been involved in Afghanistan and Pakistan since at least the early 1980's, Bush had the Taliban at his ranch that summer, gave them $50 million, and US companies and the government had been planning pipelines and other projects for years.
But it's helpful to give those impressions, to secure more money, and especially, to allow the covert agencies (CIA, NSA, FBI, NRO, NI, AI, etc, etc) a free hand and no oversight.
You just have to really WANT to believe it. You need to HAVE FAITH.
Within 15 minutes of the first attack, we were told that Osama bin whatever was the new subject of the two minute hate. A week later the Wall Street Journal had an article about how former President/Vice President/CIA director George H. W. Bush was working for the Binladen family through the Carlyle Group.
It's fun to believe this is a simple war of good vs. evil, but of course it's much more complicated. The best part is that there is a lot of information in the mainstream press, you just have to pay attention.
Sorry for the rant. Go USA! Kill USAMA BL! USA! USA! USA!
I get real tired of the "Blame America 1st" attitude. We wern't the ones who hijacked airplanes with women and children and slammed them into buildings. We have the legal and moral right to protect ourselves and bring the perpetraters to justice.
Bankrupt? Hardly. As a wiser man than I once said,
By nature's law, man is at peace with man till some aggression is committed, which, by the same law, authorizes one to destroy another as his enemy." ( Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Edmond C. Genet, 1793.)
Note that this goes both ways. However, waging war is the province of governments, not individuals. If the people of a country decide that they have just cause to wage war on another country, then they need to force their government to take action. Likewise, if they feel that war is not justified, they should insure that the lunatic fringe that insists on waging an unwanted and unauthorized war is delt with properly.
The criminal attempts of private individuals to decide for their country the question of peace or war, by commencing active and unauthorized hostilities, should be promptly and efficaciously suppressed." (Thomas Jefferson, Sixth annual message, 1806)
However, in our zeal to defend our homes, our families, and our Nation against those who seek to destroy us, we must not lose sight of what it is we are trying to defend and the ideals that make us great.
If we are forced into war, we must give up political differences of opinion and unite as one man to defend our country. But whether at the close of such a war, we should be as free as we are now, God knows. In fine, if war takes place, republicanism has everything to fear. (Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Thaddeus Kosciusko, 1799)
America is not perfect. We can and do screw up, often in a spectacular fashion. Our government doesn't always live up to the ideals on which it was founded, nor does it always follow it's own laws. It is our duty, as American citizens, to hold our government accountable when it suffers a lapse in judgement. That being said, it is my considered opinion that the US does the Right Thing more often than not; that overall we do more good than harm. I would maintain that our overall track record is better than that of any other major world power, past or present.
Just remember that America Is Always Wrong, and you and your fellow Chomskyites will have a unchallenging and intellectually safe journey through life.
I have great feelings for a culture where you are murdered for helping women. Where women are mutilated by their families because they were raped
maybe veering a little off topic here, but that reminded me of a story in our paper this morning...extract: A jealous butcher cut off his wifes leg for "exposing herself" to a gynaecologist just after giving birth to twins. Crazed Adamu Hussaini, 52, became convinced exhausted wife Amina, 27, was flirting with the doctor who examined her.
When they got home he tied her to their bed and cut off her leg with his butchers knives. Neighbours called police when they heard screams. Hussaini told police "I wanted to teach her a lesson"
Any you want to be nice to these people?
Oh really? Which country does such atrocities? What country has religious leaders (besides the Vatican)? What religion preaches hate?
I can tell you right now, those people you refer to don't follow Islam. I get the feeling you're implying Saudi Arabia, but I'm not sure, you're really generalizing. They are run by a dictatorship of royalty, not religion. Religion would be an improvement, there wouldn't be human rights violations like there are now.
Oh, and Islam doesn't preach hate. Sure, many people do hate others, but so do Christians. Just because some Muslims are more fanatical than others doesn't mean condemn the entire religion. Baptists aren't a good example of the diverse Christianity in the world, the same as Saudi's aren't a good example of a Muslim country.
these Islamic fucking whackos who dance in the streets of Gaza and Karachi when one of their ilk slams a plane full of innocents into a building
You forgot Riyadh. People danced in the streets of Saudi Arabia, as well as the streets of other Arab allies. Why did we only bomb Afghanistan, and perhaps Iraq, the latter having fuck-all to do with 9/11, and the former bombed to smithereens with no indication that we've found bin Laden or anybody worth a shit in al Qaeda except a fucking white boy from Marin County?!
Yeah there were people celebrating 911 all over the Arab world, and in parts of the non-Arab world; at least give the dancing Arabs credit for showing their feelings publicly, while the Russians and Chinese snicker behind (mostly [telegraph.co.uk]) closed doors.
Look, the mass indoctrination of Arab Muslims with hardcore ideology that teaches them that God smiles on suicide bombers as martyrs is beyond sick -- I'm not going to argue with that. But I think it's a cynical and calculated strategy on the part of the Arab leaders this benefits -- especially the Saudis -- rather than a sign of an "evil culture" (which is a construct that has no validity from any perspective).
What have we learned from extreme Islamic fundamentalism? That greedy and tyrannical assholes in positions of power in corrupt incestuous dictatorships can use a perverse bastardization of a widespread religion in order to manipulate a large group of people (whom they openly conspire to keep poor and uneducated) to cheer on a few suicide-murderers? Are we really that surprised?
There has never in human history been an entire people who publicly revel in mass murder like the current Islamic Arab/Palestinian fuck-head idiots.
Bullshit. It happens frequently after military actions, and we have to understand that they interpret 911 as a military action. Americans danced and celebrated during the inordinately one-sided Gulf War; which in spite of our precision bombing, was probably indistinguishable from mass murder from the ground. Hell, Americans celebrated the nuclear attack on Japan, when we incinerated 100,000 people in seconds. Everyone celebrates their team's military victory. Even more so if they see their (civilian) family members die every day under Israeli gunfire. So I'm not surprised Palestinians in particular celebrated, even in New York.
But when that happens, it is an accident. Unlike the terrorists, we are not intentionally targeting innocent civilians.
Or, better: unlike the terrorists, we are not ever going to admit to intentionally targeting innocent civilians. It's only an accident if you don't know it's going to happen, and it only happens when you make a mistake. How many times do we have to bomb the crap out of a country before we start to realize that innocent civilians are going to get killed every time we do it? If you're on the receiving end of an immensely one-sided bombing campaign, from a country your country never attacked, are you going to forgive the bombers because your family died and your neighborhood was destroyed in an accident?
The reason why we are at war with an entire country is (officially) because they are(or were, anyway) harboring these terrorists.
OK, so they're not anymore? So why are we at war with the entire country now? And where the hell are the terrorists who blew up our buildings? Why haven't we killed them yet, and instead killed thousands of others whose only crime appears to have been that they are easier to kill than the terrorists?
In my opinion, any regime that oppresses and kills its people should be destroyed, and replaced with a just government. This includes a lot of fundamentalist countries in the middle east (Pakistan, Iraq, etc.) and pretty much all the communist countries (China, Cuba, etc.) And the US is in the best position to do this.
Sure we are, until we squander our national wealth keeping the world under the barrel of our gun, and our empire simply disintegrates from within. If we went after all the regimes that "oppresses and kills its people" you'd have to include a lot of our "friends" in the world - Saudi Arabia, you mention Pakistan yourself, India, Colombia, Russia, and on and on. Replace it with a just government? Who decides what is just? John Ashcroft? No thanks; if you want to go on a crusade to convert the rest of the world to your ideology, go for it, but keep your filthy hands off my tax dollars.
Not a great deal. While the actual map of the terrorist organisation responsible for the 9-11 events presents us with a nice picture, what else are we to learn from this article. I found the conclusion particularly disappointing:
"To draw an accurate picture of a covert network, we need to identify task and trust ties between the conspirators. The same four relationships we often map in many business organizations would tell us much about illegal organizations. This data is occasionally difficult to unearth with cooperating clients. With covert criminals, the task is enormous, and may be impossible to complete."
To which my first reaction was "Duh...". Also:
"In my data search I came across many news accounts where one agency, or country, had data that another would have found very useful. To win this fight against terrorism it appears that the good guys have to build a better information and knowledge sharing network than the bad guys (Ronfeldt and Arquilla, 2001)."
Everyone knows about this problem these days. In short, I found this article to be rather short on insightful news, except the actual drawing of the terrorist network.
The reason that there are no new conclusions drawn from the analysis work done in the article is because of the fact that it rests on a premise that doesn't allow for expansion.
That premise is, in order to map the secret organizational network, you have to catch the terrorists first. This kind of analysis didn't exist prior to last year and wouldn't have helped prior to last year because the information we had on who hijackers may or may not have been was so sketchy as to be useless for investigative purposes.
Law enforcement might be able to make use of these kinds of charts in order to figure out which co-conspirators and associates to investigate more thoroughly, but this analysis offers no new revelations.
Were the "terrorists" really terrorists prior to their committing an act of terror? Sure, they had the will to become terrorists, but how do you catch a would-be terrorist who is technically only guilty of a thought-crime? Granted, many of the terrorists falsified their immigration paperwork, so that's a start, but that's a lot like nailing gansters for income tax evasion rather than murder, extortion, and many of the violent crimes they actually committed.
There's a highly organized terrorist group that has used violence to overthrow many democratic governments - in one incident they assassinated the military leaders of the fairly elected (and Marxist) Chilean government, and armed and trained opposition forces (in typically military skills as well as tortune and sabotage) in anticipation of a full military coup, which occured in 1973 when the terrorist groups armed and trained soldiers began a military coup that replaced the democratically elected leader with a miltary dictatorship under which thousands of civilians died.
The terrorist group is concentrated in Washington DC, Washington, United States of America. They're currently attempting to enact laws which exempt their allies from extraditing their war criminals. But of we try hard I think we can bring them to justice.
Just to recap:
n : the systematic use of violence as a means to intimidate or coerce societies or governments
An organized CIA plot with government support, and tortune school for soldiers used to overthrow the government `School of the Americas' sounds pretty systematic. There was certainly a great deal of violence used. And the objective was to coerce a society against Marxism (which they'd done by electing a Marxist in a legitamite election).
Yep, they look like a classic dictionary definition of terrorists to me.
If the intelligence community takes this article seriously, and follows the author's recommendation of pro-actively profiling peoples networks, you may find yourself under investigation (phone records, bank records, up to and including surveillance), just for knowing someone who knows a 'terrorist' suspect.
Being a member of the same Church (Mosque, Synagogue, Temple, whatever), while sharing one or two other contacts in different fields would, on the evidence of the article, be enough to put you in the frame.
There aren't so many degrees of separation between all of us that it would be inconceivable that half of all people would be under investigation at some point.
This kind of network analysis is fine as an academic plaything, but its use in the real world is potentially disastrous (there was one drug cartel that used network mapping techniques on phone billing data to identify and eliminate informers), until and unless some adequate rules of thumb on how far to spread the investigation are built up.
There is a whole lot of data hidden in the little interactions you make each day - had Hoover had this in the 40s and 50s, his files on US citizens pecadilloes and affairs would have been much richer.
The whole network analysis thing is so hungry for data that privacy is seriously endangered if this approach is taken up widely.
The quote, "Being linked to a terrorist does not prove guilt - but it does invite investigation." is utter nonsense.
To help people understand, shift groups. Should Ted Kenedy be under investigation for contact with suspected IRA members? Jessy Jackson for contact with suspected Black Panthers or their descendent groups? How about George Bush for knowing someone who knew someone who was once affiliated with Timothy McVeigh. The small world paradox, where the chances are that two strangers will have a mutual aquainance is well known, so that ALL of us can be under investigation for one reason or another.
I'm not impressed by the author's ability to assign weights to mass media associations. The same thing might be done with TV ancors and corporate sponsors. What you would see is a mathematical model of a giant conspiracy to sell soap. More offensive than the autothor's snake drawing - snake oil, how appropriate - is that I had to look at that ugly Internet Exploder at home. The author [knowinc.com] is obviously a weenie and I don't expect to see his silly VB GPL'd any time soon. Krebs, you suck but not enought to merrit further examination.
1. Terrorists Description Language (XML-based, with half of Homeland Defense drones trying to write a DTD and scheme). With mandatory UTF-8, of course. Terrorists names should be always written in their native languages, but in Unicode as opposed to their native encoding, to further insult their organizations, and to completely confuse the investigators.
2. Terrorists Modeling Language -- now Rational can call itself an anti-terorism company.
3. Terrorists Virtual Machine -- how can we use those things if we won't have a special VM to operate on them.
4. Terrorists Object Model, a Terrorists Description Language operates on, and Terrorists Virtual Machine is built around.
5. Terrorists Access Protocol, a protocol used by multiple governmental agencies to send real-time updates of the terrorists network' structure.
6. Terrorists Application Server, a program written in Terrorists Virtual Machine that is used in conjunction with an HTTP server to implement Terrorists Access Protocol over HTTP.
7. Terrorists Applications Language, a high-level Object-oriented language that compiles to Terrorists Virtual Machine. Terrorists Description Language is built in as its data structures definition, Terrorists Object Model is built into its OO design, and Terrorists Access Protocol is accessible through various operators. In fact, the design makes any data structurte accessible through (and only through, even for the program itself) through Terrorists Access Protocol.
And only then we can outsmart all those people that our politicians pissed off over decades.
I doubt it. Think of the chaos that would ensue because it would let us get our work done instead of waiting for a reboot. The terrorists would love it.
I know this sounds silly but it really isn't if you are amongst the afflicted, and one in six males has the condition.
I have fairly significant red/green colorblindness. In regards to the present charts, this made some of the "subtler" colors extremely difficult to discern and therefore some of the relationships amongst terrorists were impossible for me to understand and evaluate.
I hope that, when people make these kinds of organizational charts, they choose colors not for prettiness but for maximum contrast. It is a problem I've encountered many times and, considering how prevalent male color-blindness is, I find it very puzzling that color coding is as poorly thought out as it often seems to be.
Aside from that, an interesting article and a good first step towards a public understanding of the details of the 9/11 network.
But even better would be colors and various styles of cross hatchings.
Again, it sounds silly until one is in dark light and you're trying to hook up red and green wires, or if you're an FBI guy (I'm not but you get the idea) trying to discern patterns of relationships between terrorists.
I looked in the same way and did not find bin-laden. This made me think the author was an honest man, since there is no reliable public information connecting bin-laden except his possibly self-serving own bragging. When you parse the bragging, it is not quite a consistent claim, but an expression of pleasure.
US allies have complained that we have not made a case to them that it was bin-laden. And all our extradition cases are failing because we do not have the evidence to convince an *independent* court of law. Note that domestically our government avoids such forums.
That said, the flaw in the author's analysis is that it is the wrong technique. The first thing you should ask in case of a Riechstag fire is who benefits. In this case, it is the clash of civilizations/arc of crisis crowd. More generally, when the economy goes, you *always* get stuff like this.
In the end, nothing the feds have done would have prevented 9/11 and nothing they have done will prevent a repeat of some sort.
Mapping social networks has been done before 9/11, of course. Same with biometry, retinal scans ("Retinal scan, Xander!") and similar things.
But since 9/11, the T word is placated over anything to further interest into particular subjects, independent of the practicality of the idea or its actual field of use.
The german term for this is "modewort" ("in word"?).
Can anyone think of a farther reaching Social or Orginizational Network?
> Forward this e-mail to all your non-terrorist friends and coworkers (bcc notaterrorist@fbi.gov), and within two days you'll find the love of your life or win the lottery!
Yeah, them terrorists are really clever. They started littering every US airport with clueless people dressed in an intimidating uniform, who boldly search you, frisk you and detain you at the drop of a hat. They
forced a honest woman to drink her own breast milk [nypost.com], they pulled a women from a plane coming back from Vegas
because of a sex toy [usatoday.com]...
Their cluelessness and hardnosedness turns even the shortest travel into a horrendous wasted-day experience, from which exhausted, humiliated passengers emerge swearing they'll drive next time.
And it's working too. Look, three US airline companies are currently under Chapter 11. The damage to the US economy is staggering. Airline losses are piling up, already amounting to tens of billions of dollars.
Oh, wait. The people who turned fast-food joint rejects into unfireable Federal agents are actually the gummint, not Muslim mujahidins. Ahem. Never mind.
This reminds me of the days in University when me and my friends tried to map the University's internal computer network to figure out how to get Internet e-mail and outside connections.:-)
(Please forgive me referring to people as nodes; it makes it easier for me to explain it)
So, how do you detect the networks?
First believe they are out there. You have an approximate idea of the kind of roles needed and the places people have to be in (like near an airport or in flight schools), so you can profile people to come up with a likely set of nodes. Once you've got the nodes surveiled, rattle the network. Bring in a few of the more skittish members of the potential network in for a polite round of questioning (and I do mean POLITE -- no violence, threats or intimidation). Then watch what he does. He will activate the secret links and you will see the network sparkle into life to deal with this close call.
As you find more nodes and connections, you can begin to de-prioritize the nodes who show no signs of activity or direct connection. In your emerging network graph, you can make hypotheses about node functions which can be tested. See what happens when you try sending in an deep cover agent to talk to suspected resource network. Try offering resources which would make people interested, and see if they bite or refer you to someone else. If you can get trackable resources into the network, you can follow them to find more connections.
Another thing is to find a node (a suspect) who can be leveraged, like an invalid student visa. Bring them in and pressure them to either turn (unlikely) or expose the network and goals he knows about. Using the previous Slashdot articles on p2p networks being compromised, you can probably bring the the terrorist network to its own tipping point where they will either reorganize or disband it.
Problems with this method:
Identifying the initial nodes requires assumptions of goals and network organization. Since most of these networks will organize similarly to avoid the trouble of creating and learning a new organization, this is not unreasonable. But assuming the goals will have problems.
Profiling to find the initial nodes. Do I have to explain to a hot-bed of civil rights activists and libertines like Slashdot the evils and problems of this?
Professionalism. If the network is staffed with experience professionals (like the infamous Red Army Cell and Baider-Meinhoff were), attempts to rattle the network will fail. Your best bet is amatures recruited into the edges at critical positions, like the pilots.
Of course the best way to prevent terrorism is to remove the social conditions that encourage it. Encourage better economic opportunities for everyone and freedom from persecution and oppression. Support democracy, instead of shoring up corrupt dictatorships like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and China. Wherever there are the disaffected and miserable, the terrorists will find a home.
I did read about Baader-Meinhoff. The German cops used to consider them borderline special ops. If they weren't that competent, then the German cops may have bigger problems with Al Queda than we thought.:-)
I remember reading an article from May in the WSJ about a NYC artist named Mark Lombardi who did this type of mapping in his head.
He would read newspapers about criminal links, copy to index cards, memorize the links, and then build up his masterpiece.
He did works about various financial scandals, mapping the BCCI, Vatican Bank, and other criminal networks relating to the Savings and Loan Scandal.
He committed suicide (allegedly) in March of 2000, although some continue to speculate that someone didn't appreciate his art. His family disagrees, pointing out that he only worked from public sources, so why would anyone have a motive to kill him? (Valdis' work (no relation) shows that he was actually doing something --- running a map-generating algorithm in his head and putting the output in art galleries!)
Post 911, the FBI got interested and ask galleries for copies of his art. It seems that his work showed links between BCCI, various Saudis, and bin Laden's financial network.
Incidentally, recent articles in the Washington Post and on Stratfor suggesting that bin Laden has gotten cooperation again from his hidden bank accounts in Switzerland and managed to smuggle his gold out to Sudan are disturbing. Wars are fought with golden bullets, as one philosopher noted and as the Nazis new. The Nazis were obsessed with getting their hands on gold reserves, gold teeth of their victims, &c, because they realized gold was a strategic resource. Through banks in Switzerland, Rome, and possible even the U.S. (?) they were able to obtain financial for their war effort by moving gold onto the international market.
So, it would be interesting to see bin Laden's financial network mapped out.
The article ran on page 7 of section D of the May 1,2002 Wall Street Journal and discusses Lombardi's work, the circumstances surrounding his death, and the FBI interest. I don't have a link or a copy. Lexus Nexus also shows the July 5, 2002 New York Times as mentioning his work going on display at the CUNY art gallery.
Here are some links I get by doing a Google search on Mark Lombardi, including gifs of his work:
http://www.pierogi2000.com/flatfile/lombardi.htm l http://www.ps1.org/cut/Gny/mlombardi.html
I wrote to Valdis Krebs (no relation) about this, and he also thought this was cool.
Incidentally, recent articles in the Washington Post and on Stratfor suggesting that bin Laden has gotten cooperation again from his hidden bank accounts in Switzerland and managed to smuggle his gold out to Sudan are disturbing.
I agree as far as needing to get rid of Israel. The only reason the US is involved is because our Judeo-Christian beliefs obligate us to protect "the holy land." For pete's sake, people, it's a fucking hunk of dirt! There's nothing "holy" about it. It's fucking DIRT! Let the Arabs have it, it was theirs to begin with.
If Israel is destined to not have any homeland, so be it. And if getting rid of Israel means peace in the Middle East, I'm all for it. Being a firefighter, you learn that the best way to put a fire out is to attack it at the bottom, the root of the problem, the source of fuel for the fire. It's not rocket science. There's no room for debate. Knock out the source, and the problem goes with it.
Pick up any history book and you'll find that the leading cause of war and death throughout recorded history is RELIGION. Abolish religion, and you eliminate the biggest cause of war. Once people's minds are no longer clouded by the 3000 year old ramblings of an opium smoking camel jockey, they'll start to think for themselves. That just might lead to the realization that killing each other is stupid, and we can move a step closer to humanity coming together as a whole.
I know I'm going to get flamed to hell for this. But since I don't believe in heaven and hell, it kinda works out...
The US does not support the Israel because it is in the "holy land". The US supports Israel becuase it is a Western Liberal Democracy smacj in the middle of a geographic area surrounded by totalitarian nations. It is in the US national interest to promote Democracy (especially the Western Liberal style) throughout the world.
In fact, the only reason that US isn't stronger, is that the US gets much of its oil from those same middle eastern totalitarian nations.
If the US Government is thinking correctly they should be doing this
SHORT-TERM balancing oil needs with support with israel being low-key (keep the oil flowing, don't let israel be overrun
LONG-TERM Promote democratic movements in totalitarian middle east countries
21st Century Containmenet policy against Arab/Islamic Civilization.
Reduce Energy dependency on middle east: 1) fund oil exploration and production from Russia/Indonesia/Alaska; 2) reduce home petrol consumption (greater auto fuel efficiency, liability limits for cars using synthtuic, lower weight material); 3) Double Federal Gas Tax (force people to make economic choice against petrol consumption); 4) Tax credits for home and business use of Solar Energy; 5) Tax Credits for high energy effieciency equipment (LED for stoplights and exits signs, etc) 6) Explore Sci-fi dream of Orbital Solar Power satelites setr national goal for deployment of first operational satelite by 2015.
The conventional view of historians is that the US has historically supported Israel because there is a huge Zionist block vote in this country. Truman made some remarks to that effect - he said there were lots of Jewish votes and damn few Arab ones. (Falling into the classic trap of equating Judaism with Zionism, when the two are actually quite distinct - Judaism is not intrinsically tied to killing people for their land, after all).
However, this guy [danielpipes.org] is claiming that the earlier poster is right, that Truman initiated his policies based on his Judeo-Christian beliefs.
Anyway, I find it interesting that the post that initiated this debate is missing. Anti-Zionist posts, and posts that criticise Israel's continuing campaign of international terrorism, seem to get edited out of Slashdot rather frequently.
The US does not support the Israel because it is in the "holy land". The US supports Israel becuase it is a Western Liberal Democracy smacj in the middle of a geographic area surrounded by totalitarian nations. It is in the US national interest to promote Democracy (especially the Western Liberal style) throughout the world.
That's hogwash. The US supports many of the totalitarian nations that surround it. The US, like any other nation-state, makes its decisions about whom to support based on perceptions of rational self-interest (however misguided) rather than on the basis of ideology, no matter what our leaders say in their speeches.
"The US supports Israel becuase it is a Western Liberal Democracy smack in the middle of a geographic area surrounded by totalitarian nations."
Oh, COME ON.
So we support a parlimentary system that declares war on their entire geographic location, then seizes land belonging to other people, sets up troops, and throws people off their own land?
On top of that, Israel is in trouble with the UN for human rights violations, throwing Palestinian dissenters in prison for complaining about losing their homes.
So, Nobel Peace prize winner Yasser Arafat is elected by the Palestinians to negotiate the return of lands. Many Palestinians consider him way too gentle, and an obstacle in the way of an all-out war to get land back. On top of it, Isreal nearly assasinates him, a DEMOCRATICALLY elected Leader. That would have been horrifying, but the US might have still supported Isreal because of the high number of voters in the US supporting Isreal. (Don't forget, Hillary Clinton got her senate job by pandering to the Jewish population in NY, among other things)
The US wants to support Israel, but they don't want to anger Saudi Arabia and OPEC again. On the other hand, Israel just bombed an entire apartment building, killing a terrorist leader, AS WELL AS innocent families and children.
In short, the Palestinians are going about this like impatient children, while the Israelis are whining about how they're in the right, and doing the wrong thing by hurting people.
I agree as far as needing to get rid of Israel. The only reason the US is involved is because our Judeo-Christian beliefs obligate us to protect "the holy land." For pete's sake, people, it's a fucking hunk of dirt! There's nothing "holy" about it. It's fucking DIRT! Let the Arabs have it, it was theirs to begin with.
Ya, but where will the israelis go? Here in the US? Do you really want a population that willingly voted a mass murderer into office immigrating to the US? You can be damn sure noone else in Europe wants them.
But its all those guys you think we should be appeasing, by turning our back on a nation with values similar to ours? No thanks...
Yeah, no thanks. MUCH better to appease them by kowtowing to their regimes directly, like we do with Saudi Arabia, or by turning a blind eye to their gross abuses of human rights, like we do with Egypt and Pakistan among others.
If you think we're defending democracy in the Middle East you're a fool. The Israelis are not so dumb; they know that American support depends upon perceptions of American self interest as well as a well-funded and vocal lobby. And the Turkish are not so stupid as to believe their nation "free, democratic, and open." Especially not the Kurds in Turkey.
Turkey is the closest thing the Islamic world has produced to a free, democratic, and open society.
You obviously know little of Islamic history. Today, perhaps you have a point, though I disagree still (look at Algeria, Morocco for example - hardly democracies but not the bastions of torture and genocide that Turkey [hrw.org] has been over the years. And while these places were hardly free, open, and democratic, Egypt, Iraq, Iran were all more progressive regimes than present-day Turkey before the US got involved mucking around with their internal affairs. The fact is the US doesn't want democracy in these countries, because democratic regimes might allow the people to decide how much to sell oil for, and, more importantly, whether to develop different ways of modernizing their societies. The fact is that tyrannical Arab regimes like Saudi Arabia are good for US economic interests. If we really wanted a "regime change" in Iraq we would have supported the Iraqi democratic opposition - which existed and was quite strong and credible - back in 1990 after we got pissed off about Kuwait. But we don't want a regime change; we just want a different dictator to deal with (in one state dept official's words of the time, we want "an iron fisted junta without Saddam Hussein."
OK if we start with the really big fish (Iraq and Iran, for example), though?
Actually, Iran is modernizing and democratizing, or at least it was before we put them in the "axis of evil." And Iraq is small potatoes. They had zero to do with 911, and they're in no position to do anything but sell us cheap oil and bitch about their sovereignty being violated by no-fly zones. It's a terrible regime, and Hussein is a miserable thug, but I could say the same of our ally Musharraf. The really big fish is Saudi Arabia, and we won't stop kissing their asses until America wakes up and begins to see past all this clash of civilizations bullshit. It's not a clash of civilizations; it's a clash between rich powerful men who cynically manipulate the populations they rule.
Well, you've intentionally misinterpreted everything I wrote and then conveniently skipped over the parts you don't want to argue. Interesting. Anyway, read things like this [iranian.com] if you want to learn about democratic initiatives in Iran, and recognize that I realize this place is still a tyranny; my point was there is movement in that direction. Your comment about the Ottoman empire has nothing to do with anything I said; and I gave three examples of regimes who have historically come closer to being reasonable regimes than Turkey. Regarding Iran supporting Hezbollah -- duh!! All the Arab nations in the middle east aid Hezbollah and Hamas, overtly when they can get away with it, as well as covertly. If the US wants to stop Hezbollah and Hamas (who have no designs on the US, but that's another story) as well as al Qaeda, they need to think of something more intelligent than bombing, unless they are prepared to exterminate the Arab world, since every bomb creates more sympathizers. To think American bombs whaling on Teheran will somehow reduce Arab sympathy for Hamas is laughably naive.
Regarding Iraq, I haven't seen a credible report of Iraqi involvement in 911, and if there has been such a report, the US Administration is doing an alarmingly nice job of keeping it quiet, which seems to be completely contrary to the desire to get some of our allies to support an invasion. The meetings with Atta have not been confirmed, and US officials don't even seem to believe them [washtimes.com]. About the WMD stuff, yeah, Iraq wants WMD, but the evidence of a real nuclear threat is severely [worldnetdaily.com] lacking [smh.com.au]. But even if they were pursuing nukes -- get real. Iraq has as much right as any regime to pursue whatever policy its statecraft dictates. Why would we feel threatened by Iraqi nukes? They could never develop a capability that could seriously threaten American interests, not even indirectly; as self-aggrandizingly cruel as Saddam Hussein is, he is neither suicidal nor stupid. Keep in mind too his regime is secular - he has about as much reason to fear the al Qaeda types as we do; more in fact, since the Iraqi citizens are far more likely to take up his call to overthrow their government than American muslims, Chicago gangbangers and Marin county white kids included.
Finally, I don't know why you want to let Mr. binLaden dictate the terms of our conflict with him. Of course he says it's a "clash of civilizations" - but we don't have to buy into that; it only helps him. If we want to defeat him and his kind we need to make sure the rest of the Arab Muslim world doesn't believe it's a clash of civilizations. We won't be able to do that by bombing them to kingdom come.
If the US wants to stop Hezbollah and Hamas (who have no designs on the US, but that's another story)
The US wants to stop ETA, the Basque separatists in Spain. ETA has no designs on the US. They are officially a terrorist group according to the State Dept., and giving money to them is a felony. So, is there some massive Spanish conspiracy to secretly control the US? Or do you have a double standard when it comes to terrorist groups that threaten Jews rather than Europeans?
If you're asking me, I don't think we should be wasting our money and resources in either case. We're better off trying to encourage democratic initiatives in these places. We're never going to completely stop terrorism but the real goal should be to eliminate the conditions that make so many people sympathetic to terrorists. And I think that is true whether the terrorists threaten Jews, Spaniards, or anyone else.
We're better off trying to encourage democratic initiatives in these places.
Spain is a democracy, you fuckwit. And so is Israel. Israel has been trying to give back the West Bank and Gaza since August, 1967. Look it up. Problem is, the Arabs don't want peace; they want to kill Jews. Jews are tired of being killed whenever someone in the world is looking for a scapegoat, and are fighting back. This makes the Arabs mad and confuses the Europeans, who want to know what happened to their favorite punching bags.
You are suffering under the all-to-common belief that terrorists are some sort of misguided Robin Hoods, out to redress wrongs. They're not. They are cold-blooded murdering thugs who want to impose their beliefs on a world that would never voluntarily agree to their insane ideas. So they intimidate fools like you into believing that if you just give in to their demands, then they'll go away.
the real goal should be to eliminate the conditions that make so many people sympathetic to terrorists.
Shutting down Berkeley would be a good first step.
You haven't read a word I wrote, or you completely misinterpreted it. I never said Spain wasn't a democracy or that Israel wasn't. If we want to stop terrorism though we need to make sure the people in these places - meaning Basques and Palestinians as well as Jews and Spaniards - have reason to believe that they have some investment in the societies they are currently attacking. That's what I meant by encouraging democratic movement; I'm not just talking about holding elections.
the Arabs don't want peace; they want to kill Jews
That is the dumbest thing I've heard all day (and believe me, it's been a long day). Which Arabs want to kill which Jews? If you think all Arabs want to kill Jews, you are the "fuckwit," whatever that is. Yeah there are some who think that way (just as there are plenty of Jews who want to exterminate all Arabs). And what's worse is there are many Arabs in positions of power cynically manipulating this hatred to deflect attention away from their own brutal regimes (the Saudis come to mind). But I think the majority of any people will turn away from genocide if they're given something else to hope for in civil society.
You are suffering under the all-to-common belief that terrorists are some sort of misguided Robin Hoods, out to redress wrongs. They're not. They are cold-blooded murdering thugs
I've never said such crap, and don't put it in my mouth (or, erm, keyboard). I think terrorists are murderous thugs also, and I have no moral qualms about killing them. I do not think they are Robin Hoods and I would never recommend "giving in to their demands." But I do think a rational foreign policy (I'm talking about for the US but I think this applies to Israel even more so) would attempt to make sure there are fewer people who sympathize with the hardcore terrorists. Anyone willing to fly a plane into a building cannot be reasoned with. But when millions of otherwise reasonable people celebrate such murder, we have cause for concern. Fine, exterminate the terrorists, but let's not drive millions more into their arms.
Finally, I'm not from Berkeley, so I don't know what you mean, but if you think stifling dissent in the US will somehow win the war on terrorism then you are a complete moron. I'm not about to give up my civil liberties in this great country just because a few cowards like you are scared some college student will say something sympathetic to suicide bombers. Get ahold of yourself, man, and quit pissing your pants everytime some idiot tries to light his shoes on fire. America is great because of our civil liberties, especially our right to dissent (a right strongly regarded in Israel as well, by the way). Don't sacrifice that just because you're chickenshit that some moron will blow you up on his way to meet Allah.
have reason to believe that they have some investment in the societies they are currently attacking.
This is nonsense. The terrorists and their supporters don't want the CURRENT society. They want a different one, where they are in charge. Democratic institutions don't enter into it.
Look at the FARC in Columbia. The government gave them huge chunks of the country in a peace deal. You can't get much more buy-in than actually giving de facto control to the terrorists and their supporters. The FARC decided they wanted the rest, too.
And, heck, look at the PLO. Given self-rule and billions in funding, they stole most of the money and spent the rest on Jew-hating propaganda. If you want to be truly sickened, spend some time reading through some of the Palestinian material for their children that has been translated on MEMRI's web site. http://www.memri.org
Which Arabs want to kill which Jews? If you think all Arabs want to kill Jews, you are the "fuckwit," whatever that is.
All? No. Most? Yes. Read translations of the Arab newspapers and magazines. Read the recent release from an Arab intellectual group that called Jews "the enemies of all nations". Want to see more? Take a look at http://memri.org/antisemitism.html What, do you think they're all kidding? You are delusional. Or, perhaps more accurately, you just don't care.
But I think the majority of any people will turn away from genocide if they're given something else to hope for in civil society.
Yeah, just like the Germans did. And their willing accomplices in France, Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. Are you willfully ignorant of history or just stupid?
Fine, exterminate the terrorists, but let's not drive millions more into their arms.
As Osama bin Laden said in one of his little love notes, "when there are two horses in a race, a strong horse and weak horse, people want to be with the strong horse." The Arabs thought that the US was the weak horse and that led to 9/11. Considering the US' 20 year history of ignoring terrorist attacks and trying to kill terrorists with kindness, it's easy to understand why they thought this. I don't want them to like us, and I don't expect them to like us. I want them to fear us, to know that if we are hit, our response will be tenfold.
[I]f you think stifling dissent in the US will somehow win the war on terrorism then you are a complete moron.
I don't care about stifling dissent. The more the pro-terrorist fools open their mouths, the more foolish they look. But Berekely has been producing terrorists (and terrorist sympathizers) since the 60's. If you want to get rid of terrorist supporters, it seems like a good place to start. But like I said, I don't care about getting rid of the supporters.
All? No. Most? Yes. Read translations of the Arab newspapers and magazines.
I do read a lot of Arab news in translation. And yes some of it is hateful, and occasionally you get shit like this [memri.org], which comes from an al Qaeda affiliated source, but the fact is that the majority of stuff I read from Saudi, Iranian, Iraqi, Palestinian, Pakistani, Egyptian, and other news sources does not recommend annihilating the Jews. Sure they complain about Israel a lot - I would too if my relatives were constantly being blown to bits by Israeli bombs. But it is a far cry from opposing Jewish aggression to saying "kill all the Jews." If you think they all believe this, or that most believe this, you're deluded. Besides, what are you advocating then? That Jews kill all the Arabs? Frankly I think everyone with this viewpoint should go find an island to fight it out on and leave the rest of us alone. I would venture to say that the majority of the Arab world, like the majority of the rest of the world, wants to be let alone to live their lives.
Yeah, just like the Germans did. And their willing accomplices in France, Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. Are you willfully ignorant of history or just stupid?
I guess I'm just stupid, if that's what you mean by the fact that I'm not willing to make absurd historical analogies between phenomena that have absolutely nothing to do with one another. If there is any parallel to Nazi Germany here it is Israel, not the Palestinians, who hardly have the power to break the freakin' curfews, much less crank up the gas chambers. Even if the majority of Palestinians or Arabs wanted to kill all the Jews, they couldn't even begin to.
The Arabs thought that the US was the weak horse and that led to 9/11. Considering the US' 20 year history of ignoring terrorist attacks and trying to kill terrorists with kindness, it's easy to understand why they thought this. I don't want them to like us, and I don't expect them to like us. I want them to fear us, to know that if we are hit, our response will be tenfold.
"The Arabs" didn't think anything; OBL and his fanatical followers thought that. And frankly the Arabs know our response will be tenfold; that's why al Qaeda attacked us. They knew the response would be tenfold and they were banking on it because they knew it would destroy our prestige throughout the world and that we would give up our freedoms over the long term. And that is exactly what it is doing. Why do you insist that we should do exactly what our enemies want us to do?
But Berekely has been producing terrorists (and terrorist sympathizers) since the 60's.
You're the one with no sense of history. The only al Qaeda sympathizer to come out of northern California was the dipshit from Marin county, not Berkeley. If you're talking about leftist professors and so forth, then your mind is far too closed to listen to reason.
I'm sure that you're full of crap; that's about it. I don't think the Nazi parallels work in either direction - typical Godwin's law stuff. But the fact is that the PA is in no position to put Jews in gas chambers, whereas Israel not only destroys Palestinian homes and has checkpoints and puts them in barbed wire camps and many Israelis are openly advocating forcible relocation which essentially will entail genocide. But you're right - Israel does have strong democratic traditions - including protecting dissent - and the Nazi comparison is unfair. But it is far more fair in this case than comparing Palestinians to Nazis, since the PA will never have the power to exterminate the Israelis.
I was going to compose a long, thoughtful response to your blather. But I thought that Yosi Klein HaLevi did a far better job in the latest issue of the New York Times.
"cowardly jew hater"? I can tolerate being called a fuckwit, but this is ridiculous. The only thing cowardly is hiding behind a label like jew hater when you're losing an argument. You trivialize the memory of my people who have perished at the hands of real Jew haters when you say shit like that in this context. Not everyone who disagrees with Israel's far right is antisemitic.
People who talk about "Jewish agression" usually are antisemitic. Any other country on the planet would have exterminated the Palestinians by now. Israel just says that they won't negotiate until the murder of people while praying, eating, and dancing comes to an end. Then assholes like you call this "Jewish agression." Yeah, I'd say you have a problem with Jews, or at least with Jews who don't go like sheep to the slaughter.
You trivialize the memory of my people who have perished at the hands of real Jew haters when you say shit like that in this context.
What kind of stupid logic is this? You can't have a problem with Jews because "your people" were killed by Jew haters? That's like saying that Louis Farrikan or Jean-Marie Le Pen can't be antisemites because "their people" were killed by Jew haters, too.
You didn't read the article, did you? Nice to turn the discussion away from your mistakes to quibble over semantics. You might want to add Bernard Lewis to your reading list, too, and explain to me why you are right and he is wrong. But you won't.
People who talk about "Jewish agression" usually are antisemitic.
More accurately I should have said "Israeli aggression." I believe I was responding to something you said in context while using that phrase. Although I don't see the phrase as antisemitic when describing specific acts of aggression by Jews (e.g. the ADL leader's plans before he got busted in LA).
Any other country on the planet would have exterminated the Palestinians by now.
Bullshit. Some would have, like Israel seems poised to. Others would be slowly starving them and strangling them economically, while whining to the international media that they are being treated unfairly, as Israel has been doing. Some would have waged various campaigns to undermine their sovereignty or perhaps just make them second-class citizens (I imagine this is what would have happened in many of the Arab dictatorships who now pretend to care about the Palestinian cause). But this is all beside the point - that's why we have international law and organizations, because any individual state left alone will pursue that state's self-interest, period. In this case it will likely take international intervention to create a sovereign Palestinian state, since Israel does not seem ready to let that happen in any other way.
I wonder what your own perspective is on this; do you support the extermination of the Palestinians? Do you feel that genocide against a non-Jewish people is a worse crime than genocide against Jews? I think it is entirely justifiable that Israel will show the world that it will go to any length to prevent another holocaust, but I do have trouble with the notion that "any length" includes creating another holocaust against a different people.
Israel just says that they won't negotiate until the murder of people while praying, eating, and dancing comes to an end. Then assholes like you call this "Jewish agression."
Israel does not simply say it won't negotiate. Israel destroys entire neighborhoods. Don't whine that they are only going after terrorists and suicide bombers; they know they are hitting innocents. Since you feel the need to give me reading lists, I would direct you to Chris Hedges' "Gaza Diary [harpers.org]," published about a year ago, detailing some of the effects of Israel's aggression. I agree that suicide bombers are a problem, but the Israelis are not helping the problem with the occupation. At least some Israelis are intelligent enough to figure this out, including many soldiers [seruv.org.il] and even the former head of Shin Bet [peacenow.org].
What kind of stupid logic is this? You can't have a problem with Jews because "your people" were killed by Jew haters?
It means I'm Jewish, dumbass. In context my point was that you trivialize the real Holocaust by comparing suicide bombers to Nazis, and that you trivialize real antisemitism by calling anyone you can't beat in an argument an antisemite.
You might want to add Bernard Lewis to your reading list, too, and explain to me why you are right and he is wrong. But you won't.
I read his book Race and Slavery in the Middle East [fordham.edu] several years ago, and while I found some interesting point made, it seemed his whole purpose was to point out that Moslems had slaves too just like the White man.... I found this kind of tit-for-tat scholarship fairly banal and gave up on his work long before his recent book about "What Went Wrong," which I read a chapter of in the Atlantic [theatlantic.com] earlier this year. It's a more refined Orientalist version of Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations"; you might check out Edward Said's "Clash of Ignorance [angelfire.com]," which makes the critique of this notion far more eloquently than I care to.
But what do I know; I suppose I'm just a Jew-hater. What fascinates me is how your attitude on this issue, while common among American Jews, is far more one-sided and extreme than the debate among Jews in Israel. It's facts like that that give me hope for Israeli democracy in spite of everything else.
You're obviously a moron who isn't even going to bother to listen to my points but I'll try again...
What I find more interesting is the way you continue to repeat long-since discredited claims about civilians dying at the hands of Israelis long after even Arafat himself [washtimes.com] and Hamas [ahram.org.eg] have admitted that they were lies.
What crap; I never mentioned Jenin; and besides, a massacre of 56 people is still a massacre. In any case, I have not been "repeating long disputed claims" here.
merely because the Palestinian movements have taken a more low-tech approach to this goal, blowing up Jewish children one restaurant-full or one bus-load at a time, instead of herding them into gas chambers.
Blowing up restaurants is sick but it is hardly genocidal. Maybe you should read some history and learn what really happened in the Holocaust. But this comparison is ridiculous and you're making a fool of yourself. Just because some Palestinians want to kill Jews (after years of oppression and humiliation at Israeli hands) does not mean that all Palestinians are Nazis, which seems to be your claim.
The rest of your post descends into nonsense, such as your absurd claim that because you call yourself Jewish, none of your positions (such as your defense of genocidal murder-suicide bombers) could possibly be objectively anti-Semitic.
I never said that because I "call myself" Jewish that I can't be antisemitic; what I said was that your use of the term antisemite and Nazi to throw at anybody you can't answer with a rational argument is insulting to the memory of my relatives who perished in the Holocaust. And I would like to hear my "defense" of suicide bombers - I have never and will never "defend" that activity. Again, you're distorting my position in ways that are totally insulting just because you can't actually respond to the arguments.
Re Bernard Lewis - I am not here to debate about Western v. Eastern forms of slavery; my point was that I thought Lewis' scholarship was weak, and I still think so. As for Said throwing rocks, I didn't see the picture you're talking about. My point is based on Said's arguments, which in this particular case (the article I linked which you didn't read), seem pretty compelling to me.
This other shit about Palestinians slaughtering every Israeli -- like the Israeli soldiers I linked to, I believe Israel can and should defend itself. Continuing the occupation is not an act of legitimate national defense.
You haven't read a word I wrote. I did not defend suicide bombings; I specifically condemned them. You're conflating innocents with bombers when you suggest that the residents of Jenin "initiated" their massacre. I am actually making a distinction between Palestinians who want to kill Jews and those who don't; a distinction your genocidal mindset seems to be constitutionally incapable of perceiving. Your assertions about Israel "trying to give up" the West Bank are ridiculous -- all they have to do is leave. I do not defend or excuse genocide no matter how "successful." At least you've stopped calling me a Jew-hater, for the moment anyway.
Then you are truly a despicable human being. If those relatives of yours were alive today, they'd spit in your face and wonder what they'd done to deserve a family member who sides with those who would exterminate them. Shame on you and the way you desecrate their memory.
Or, you're a lying troll. Which still makes you despicable, but adds a note of pathos to it.
But this is all beside the point - that's why we have international law and organizations
Yeah, the great moral high ground of Europeans and world dictators, sitting in judgement of Israel. Remember Durban? Ever taken a look at the composition of the UN Human Rights Council? Anyone who talks about "international law" as some sort of moral arbiter is a fool.
Look at how America treated the American Indians. Look at the Australians and the Aboriginies. The Sami in Norway. The Tibetans, the Kurds, the Armenians, the Copts, wherever you find a native people, you find someone else who came along later and all but exterminated them, religating them to second class status.
If you were really a Jew, you wouldn't think of Israel as pushing out the natives. If you were really a Jew, you would consider Israel your homeland, which makes it absurd to claim that Jews don't have a right to live on the West Bank (or as it was known until 1948, "Judea and Samaria"). But you clearly aren't a Jew except when you find it convenient to refute your obvious hatred of Jews.
You would rather appeal to international standards and think of the Chinese, and Sudanese in the UN HRC as the moral betters of the Israelis. Never mind that Israel has far surpassed the standards set by every other country on the planet. That's not good enough for you. Maybe if you denigrate your own people enough, you will find yourself accepted by these others. Good luck.
Your mistake is to make the subtly racist assumption that people in the Arab world somehow don't want or don't deserve to be free. You suggest that `every bomb creates more sympathizers', but as can be seen by looking at the cheering crowds welcoming our march accross Afghanistan, this is simply untrue.
What a crock of shit. You think the wedding party we bombed was cheering? Yeah there was some cheering when the Taliban began withdrawing. The cheering stopped when the warlords started taking their piece and when it became clear that most of the Taliban simply switched sides. If you think Afghanistan is "free" now you're a fool. My point was not that Arabs don't want freedom - that's stupid; though I would argue that many Arabs don't agree with American notions of what freedom is, but that is neither here nor there. My point is that terrorism is conceived of as a military response to conditions that are perceived to be like war. Not for the masterminds, wealthy manipulative demagogues like bin Laden, but for the people who participate in it on a larger scale.
My own feeling is that a US victory in Iraq, followed by the establishment of a democratic government there would have reverberations accross the middle east, as people realized that they do not have to live in tyranny -- this is the real reason the Arab tyrants fear US action against Iraq.
I too would love to see democracy - or at least democratic participation - in Iraq. But only an idiot would believe that US bombs will produce that. When have US bombs ever produced democracy in a foreign country? Get real. Aside from all that, we need to keep in mind that US goals have nothing to do with democracy in Iraq. It might be nice if we went to war for democracy, but if we attack Iraq it will be to put a friendly regime in power. Not a democratic regime - you can bet US leaders fear such a regime as much as the Arab leaders do. And I agree with you about the Arab regimes fearing democratic movements. Nobody in the Arab world is going to believe that the US - who went to war with Iraq 10 years ago to protect Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, two brutal incestuous family dictatorships - has suddenly decided to promote democracy in the middle east. Americans with pseudonyms like "neocon" might believe this hogwash, but I doubt we'll see it fly on the Arab street.
You keep saying Iraq was involved in 911 but produce no evidence; if it is true, why aren't American leaders mentioning it? They supposedly want to build a case to attack Iraq; and they don't even believe the meetings you cite even occurred. I'm beginning to think I'm feeding the trolls.
Now you want to attack Iraq to preempt the strikes he has "threatened." If we attacked every tyrant that tried to impress his people with braggadocio, we would have a lot of work on our hands, starting with China and Russia (remember the Russian comment a few years ago to Clinton to beware their nuclear power? Or the Chinese military's constant blustering about Taiwan?) We can deter Iraq from attacking us for the simple fact that the Iraqis know they will be destroyed in any conflict they start with the US.
Mr. Hussein has a long track record of using WMD on his own people and on his enemies, he has threatened us and our allies with their use, and every credible source says he has them (chemical and biological weapons) and will have them soon (nuclear weapons). But you somehow divine that Mr. Hussein's intentions are peaceful, despite the fact that he himself says otherwise? Please...
Now I know you're a troll. Inner voices my ass; I linked two articles from credible sources that showed that his nuclear capabilities are widely exaggerated and that we can prevent him from developing nukes without destroying Iraq. No credible source says he has them. As for his use of CBW against his own people, this is not a "long track record" but a single instance that occurred at Halabja years before the first Gulf War - in other words, while Iraq was still a US ally. We did not even criticize it then. To use this incident, over a decade old, as an excuse to attack him now is ludicrous. Where has he threatened to use them on the US? That is also ridiculous. What he has said is that he will use them if they are used against his people - what would you expect a national leader to say? I certainly hope Mr. Bush would say the same thing to defend America if necessary.
Finally, I never said Hussein was peaceful. In fact I believe the words I used to describe him were "murderous thug." What I said was that he is not stupid or suicidal, and his longevity in power attests to that. We do not rely on leaders' peaceful intentions or good will to keep them from destroying us; we rely on their rational self-interest - and Hussein, as irrational as you might think he is, has always acted according to his perceptions of rational self-interest. I don't see him inviting nuclear obliteration just to be able to kill a few thousand Americans with anthrax or whatever.
You miss the point -- these are the terms on which Mr. Bin Laden has chosen to fight us. Just as Fascism did not go away until it was decisively defeated and shown to be impotent, Mr. Bin Laden's bizzare breed of Islamo-Fascism will not go away until the same thing occurs.
Uhh, yeah, that's exactly the point. When you let him dictate the terms of the fight - by embracing the "clash of civilizations" - then you show how potent he is. It is amazing to me that we have so much more money, resources, and military power than he does, not to mention a lot of influence over the international media, and virtual freedom of action, and yet we act as if we are so powerless to counter his narrative of Muslims vs. Jews/Crusaders. This guy does not represent the Islamic world, but if we embrace the clash of civilizations, we are saying that we believe he represents that world.
Anyway I think you're a troll and I'm done arguing with you. For now anyway....
I'm bored of this conversation because you're trolling. You basically are arguing something totally different than before (when you claimed we should bomb them to promote democracy). Then you twist everything I say. Then you ignore the most obvious arguments that destroy your position (e.g. re Iraq's 911 involvement). Then you revert to the position that we should bomb Iraq because they used chem weapons over a decade ago. You win, OK? IHBT, IHL, HAND.
1. All the money we give out every year to keep most 3rd world countries from colapsing?
2. The constant military help we give countries who need it?
3. A government run by the people for the people? Granted it could be better.
4. Having our women on equal ground with our men in every aspect of our lives?
5. Having most of our diverse religous and ethnic backgrounds get along together?
6. Having a country where a "common" class person can become the richest person in the world? Granted I don't like Bill Gates.
7. A country where EVERY child has the ability to get an education?
8. A country that thoughsands of people are fleeing to every year?
9. A country that produces enough food to not only feed themselves but a large part of the world?
10. A country where people could protest against the government and ANY political official and NOT get shot or have family members killed?
Or could it possibly be Bill Clinton? Ok, we are sorry for that one!
Nice to be able to type something like that and not have to worry about the government killing me.
I am not saying that the U.S.A. doesn't have it's problems, God knows we do, but to say the the rest of the world hates us is wrong. It would probably be better to say that a large part of the world envies the U.S.A. Some extreemist will try and turn that envy into hate. Understand though, that those people that try to turn those differences into hate, are generally just using people to make themselves more powerfull and rich. They may or may not believe in what they are preaching.
1. All the money we give out every year to keep most 3rd world countries from colapsing?
That's true - the US does prop up dictatorships like Saudi Arabia, Eygpt, Jordan, etc.
2. The constant military help we give countries who need it?
See above. Not to mention the "military help" we're about to give Iraq!
3. A government run by the people for the people? Granted it could be better.
Which people are those? Hell, in the last presidential election, they didn't even bother to count all the votes.
4. Having our women on equal ground with our men in every aspect of our lives?
One of the best things about America, and Europe, and our culture. I think we're way ahead of everyone on this one. Good call.
5. Having most of our diverse religous and ethnic backgrounds get along together?
Well, "get along" might be pushing it. But America is one of the most tolerant and liberal cultures in the world. Now if we can just keep the "conservatives" from destroying it.
6. Having a country where a "common" class person can become the richest person in the world? Granted I don't like Bill Gates.
Bill Gates was a "common" class person? Wasn't he a rich kid that went to Harvard? A few working class folks do win the lottery every year.
7. A country where EVERY child has the ability to get an education?
The schools for poor kids in America are horrible, Europe has us well beat on this one. We need to work harder. Let's show those snotty Europeans - let's triple school funding until we catch up.
8. A country that thoughsands of people are fleeing to every year?
Like Europe? Thousands of people flee to China every year too. Most people flee poor countries to rich countries, wouldn't you?
9. A country that produces enough food to not only feed themselves but a large part of the world?
Our socialist farming system has worked very well. Didn't ADM, supermarket to the world, just get a huge subsidy in the "Farm Bill" this year? Of course, America does not feed the world. Hell, most poor countries are sending us food! (See Haiti, Zimbabwe, (sp?), etc.)
10. A country where people could protest against the government and ANY political official and NOT get shot or have family members killed?
Freedom of speech is one of the things that makes America great. We are well ahead of Europe on this one. Now, let's just keep the "conservatives" from censoring political speech, and we'll be fine.
IMHO, Bill Clinton was a scumbag, but he was loved and cheered all over the world. IMHO, Bush is a scumbag, but he is booed and protested all over the world. I guess that's why he stays at his ranch and plays golf all the time.
The main reason that people around the world hate the US is not envy, its the BOMBS. Remember?
7. The schools for poor kids in America are horrible, Europe has us well beat on this one. We need to work harder. Let's show those snotty Europeans - let's triple school funding until we catch up.
I disagree about funding. I know some schools are falling apart, and have horrible teachers, so fix those. But for the general populace... I live in NH and we're really, really cheap and we don't spend all that much on education. (We have no sales or income tax, so we have rather high property taxes and cheap, state-run liquor stores on highways to take money from MA and ME "tourists.") Anyway, most people here to fairly well against most of the other states in standardized tests (and I'll be the first one to admit that this isn't a good way to compare people, but it's the only one I can really think of). I think we need to get back to teaching the basics and concepts and not teach to pass a test or just to "learn facts."
-- 1. All the money we give out every year to keep most 3rd world countries from colapsing?
-That's true - the US does prop up dictatorships like Saudi Arabia, Eygpt, Jordan, etc.
also most us aid goes on marketing of cigarettes, fronts for humint staff, scouting of territory for mcdonalds and extorting slave labour for the gap.
--2. The constant military help we give countries who need it?
-See above. Not to mention the "military help" we're about to give Iraq!
or the help you gave kosovo, or the people who need it like suharto, pinoche, etc
--3. A government run by the people for the people? Granted it could be better.
-Which people are those? Hell, in the last presidential election, they didn't even bother to count all the votes.
the us is not a democracy, it is an oligarchy.
--4. Having our women on equal ground with our men in every aspect of our lives?
-One of the best things about America, and Europe, and our culture. I think we're way ahead of everyone on this one. Good call.
but is there truly equal pay and equal opportunity for advancement for both men and women?
--5. Having most of our diverse religous and ethnic backgrounds get along together?
-Well, "get along" might be pushing it. But America is one of the most tolerant and liberal cultures in the world. Now if we can just keep the "conservatives" from destroying it.
most americans are great in person no matter theirt politics. but your leaders are a corrupt gang of thugs and killers who are lining their own pockets with the blood of millions.
--6. Having a country where a "common" class person can become the richest person in the world? Granted I don't like Bill Gates.
-Bill Gates was a "common" class person? Wasn't he a rich kid that went to Harvard? A few working class folks do win the lottery every year.
people who wil lotteries almost always regret it and end up in a worse position than when they started. steve jobs is a uni dropout who runs one of the coolest companies on earth. who would you rather be?
--7. A country where EVERY child has the ability to get an education?
-The schools for poor kids in America are horrible, Europe has us well beat on this one. We need to work harder. Let's show those snotty Europeans - let's triple school funding until we catch up.
europe is excellent. so much more depth and feeling of community here than in the us. i am sad for countries like australia that have been wavign the us flag so hard it must hurt, and iraq turned around and cancelled half a billion in wheat orders, pointing out that they can hardly go buing food from a country so beligerantly towing the us line.
--8. A country that thoughsands of people are fleeing to every year?
-Like Europe? Thousands of people flee to China every year too. Most people flee poor countries to rich countries, wouldn't you?
and australia, south america, anywhere but the middle east. the us puts their prisoners in cuba, australia puts them in nauru. britian used to put theirs in australia.
--9. A country that produces enough food to not only feed themselves but a large part of the world?
-Our socialist farming system has worked very well. Didn't ADM, supermarket to the world, just get a huge subsidy in the "Farm Bill" this year? Of course, America does not feed the world. Hell, most poor countries are sending us food! (See Haiti, Zimbabwe, (sp?), etc.)
exactly. the us didproduce terminator crops though and some poor farmer got sued for patent infringement because some seeds of some other bastard plant had fallen into his own pastures and contaminated his crops. but the us want fair trade and to give food aid. never mind the food aid given is always non-renewable. a bit like army rations,a nd probably made in manilla along with marks & spencers sandwiches and imac superdrives.
--10. A country where people could protest against the government and ANY political official and NOT get shot or have family members killed?
-Freedom of speech is one of the things that makes America great. We are well ahead of Europe on this one. Now, let's just keep the "conservatives" from censoring political speech, and we'll be fine.
oh come on. the press has been full of people in the us being lynched for their religion or creed. especially post 11/9
-IMHO, Bill Clinton was a scumbag, but he was loved and cheered all over the world.
-IMHO, Bush is a scumbag, but he is booed and protested all over the world. I guess that's why he stays at his ranch and plays golf all the time.
-The main reason that people around the world hate the US is not envy, its the BOMBS.
don't get me wrong i think americans are great and their country is beautiful. but your leaders are crazy and in charge of weapons of mass destruction and that scares people. they think about what you did to cambodia - and the fact that rummy was sec of defence then too, and kissinger is still there behind the scenes.
"Why the rest of the world hate Amercia?" I will assume you ment hates America... 1. All the money we give out every year to keep most 3rd world countries from colapsing?
You mean the money spent to prop up corrupt and failing puppet democracies?
Also, you snidely corrected a previous poster's silly grammatical error, then went on to make one yourself in the very next sentence. FYI.
2. The constant military help we give countries who need it?
You mean like Cambodia? Nicaragua? WWII was a long time ago. Since then, with one possible exception, our military interventions have almost certainly done more harm than good.
6. Having a country where a "common" class person can become the richest person in the world? Granted I don't like Bill Gates.
You're proud of this?! Professional ball players whine about only making a few million dollars a year, CEOs rake in tens of millions as they steer their companies into the ground, directors vote themselves loans that they have no intention of repaying, etc. America has many strengths but let me assure you that gross equity imbalance is not one of them!
7. A country where EVERY child has the ability to get an education?
What suburb do you live in? We're making progress towards this every year, and one day this will be true. Today, though, most parents need to start financial planning for their child's college education before the child is even born. It's sickening.
9. A country that produces enough food to not only feed themselves but a large part of the world?
I'm pretty sure that terrorists aren't plotting against us because of our agricultural output...
3. A government run by the people for the people? Granted it could be better.
4. Having our women on equal ground with our men in every aspect of our lives?
5. Having most of our diverse religous and ethnic backgrounds get along together?
8. A country that thoughsands of people are fleeing to every year?
These are different manifestations of the single greatest thing about our country. Let us never forget it.
10. A country where people could protest against the government and ANY political official and NOT get shot or have family members killed? ... Nice to be able to type something like that and not have to worry about the government killing me.
Most of those points (with the possible exception of 2) apply to western democracies in general. Look at countries like Canada, Sweden, Germany, Britain, or even Japan. They're all liberal democracies with essentially the same freedoms and advantages that you listed for the United States. However, nobody's flying planes into the CN Tower or blowing up German embassies abroad. Must be something other than envy.
I'd select as a likely candidate an overwhelming American attitude problem: "Does not play well with others." It's their way or the highway, and the good ol' US of A is in the military and economic position to back up their attitude and agenda with whatever force required.
They need oil? They'll threaten or coerce (odd or even days) $GOVERNMENT to get it. Domestic farmers and steel producers need help? They'll violate the spirit of NAFTA and the WTO to prop them up. Worried that good ol' American GIs might be called to account for their actions? Boycott the International Criminal Court! These issues, however untoward, are not what terrorists are concerned over. They're more pissed off about the US throwing its weight around in the Middle East.
Oh, and FWIW...
... but the US still owes the UN $INORDINATE_AMOUNT in back payments.
... and 'help' provided to countries that don't need it, but the US feels needs to get back in line.
... right, because the people voted for Bush two years ago.... wait, no...
... not if religious fundamentalists like Ashcroft get their way. The woman's place is in the home and all that rot.
... take a walk through the choicer parts of LA or Birmingham sometime and we'll see about that racial co-operation.
... this is a function more of the sheer bulk of the American economy and less any special characteristic of the USA.
... oh, please. Have you *seen* the state of the American public education system, or compared it to some of the other liberal democracies I listed above?
... newsflash: America Not Only Refugee Destination In The World. Toronto happens to be the second-most-popular destination for immigrants in North America.
... and happens to consume most of that food on its own soil, being the largest per-capita consumer of food and other resources in the world as well.
... perhaps not shot, but if you're being anti-American or committing the grievous sin of having dark skin, you could look forward to months of prison without trial or appeal. Land of the free (white anglo-saxon protestant).
... Making Clinton jokes does not qualify as political dissent, did you know?
> 1. All the money we give out every year to keep most 3rd world countries from colapsing?
The percentage of foreign aid as a percentage of total GNP by the US actually ranks among the lowest of all developed nations and is almost less than a tenth of the UN-recommended minimum. European countries such as Denmark and Sweden do far better. And of the paltry US aid amount, fully two-thirds of it goes to Israel and Egypt.
> 2. The constant military help we give countries who need it?
See point 1 above.
> 3. A government run by the people for the people? Granted it could be better.
The US political system is hidebound and locked in this weird two-party timewarp. You have no proportional representation and an unresponsive government almost totally controlled by special interests and lobbyists. Most social democricies evolved more inclusive political systems in the 20th century but the US system definitely dates from the early 19th. Where are your coalitions, your multi-seat districts, your party lists? Your political system scores abusmally on issues of transitivity and concordance.
> 4. Having our women on equal ground with our men in every aspect of our lives?
The gender gap for wages in the US is still pronounced. It is much less in European countries, such as Sweden, where State-sponsored universal child care facilties and generous statutory maternity and paternity leave enable women to pursue their careers with less disadvantage.
> 5. Having most of our diverse religous and ethnic backgrounds get along together?
Your US system is born of low population -- rather than deal with an interlocking, complex, mannered society you thrive on isolation and reclusiveness. European social systems are born of a much more densely inhabited continent where different cultures do not have the luxury of withdrawal or migration. It will take the US another century or two to reach European levels of social complexity.
> 6. Having a country where a "common" class person can become the richest person in the world? Granted I don't like Bill Gates.
US social mobility now ranks in the second-tier of developed nations, along with such luminaries as France and Italy. Northern European countries, less Latin in character (such as the UK and Germany) actually feature higher social mobility than the US.
> 7. A country where EVERY child has the ability to get an education?
The cost for US college education as a percentage of the average salary is far higher than in any other EU country.
> 8. A country that thoughsands of people are fleeing to every year?
All developed countries feature high immigration, or a desire for high immigration. The US has long used immigration as a strategy to fill the desolate wastes left after the genocide of the native populations. Additionally, the input of cheap immigrant labour retards the growth of salaries and wages in the US and undermines the progress of unions and collective bargaining and social compacts.
In the United States, the median real wage is about the same today as it was 28 years ago.This means that the majority of the labor force has failed to share in the gains from economic growth over the last 28 years. That is drastically different from the previous 27 years, during which the typical wage increased by about 80% in real terms. I note that this retardation of wages correlates with a dramatic increase in immigration.
> 9. A country that produces enough food to not only feed themselves but a large part of the world?
Using manifestly wasteful aquifer-draining agricultal systems that are massivley subsidized by the US taxpayer. If US food was costed to actually reflect its real inputs, it would not be able to be dumped so cheaply on international markets.
> 10. A country where people could protest against the government and ANY political official and NOT get shot or have family members killed?
Tell that to the family of MLK. There is freedom of speech in the US, but there is also repression and political assassination. In this regard, the US seems little different from the rest of the developed world.
Wow.. I don't want to repeat everything yet again, so I will answer your responses in order.
1. A LOT of trade barriors have been broken down, but it would be foolish to trade with 3rd world countries who use slave labor. Cancel 3rd world debt? The U.S.A. has canceled a lot, but WE loaned the money to these countries. We did NOT give it to them.
2. Yes the U.S.A. only helps it's friends in regard to military. Do you suggest otherwise? A lot of people dies in Vietnam.
3. Not sure what your point is. Does it take money to get elected to office. Yes. Does it help to have a common name? Yes. But there are a BUNCH of senators that came from meager beginnings. Another point would be Jimmy Carter (not that I was a fan), came from a poor family. Even Bill Clinton would have been considered "lower class" in some countries.
6. Look at where Gates started and where he is now. There are numerous other examples I could use. I don't think you disagreed with my point though...
8. Most people flee here for an opportunity to make something of their life, and it is a better country. Mexico doesn't seem to guard it's boarders from the U.S.A does it?
" Accept the Jimmy Carter point, but that was quite some time ago now. Things have got worse - demonstrably so in the case of the current Bush. Funded by companies later declared criminal, son of an ex-leader, put in power by a political appointee of his brother. Come on - it's a long way from the ideal, isn't it? "
- A (not so minor) point. The current Bush was NOT put in office by a "political appointee of his brother". Ms. Harris, the FL Secretary of State (I assumed that you didn't mean SCOTUS..)occupied a statewide ELECTED office. She did NOT serve at the pleasure of the FL Gov. I could go off on a tangent, and point out that he was elected under the then-current Florida law, but I digress.... - Also, those "criminal companies" (not arguing, though I think the term may be vauge) gave to BOTH of the major political parties...
for somone to be rich someone else has to be poor. western countries keep 3rd
world countries in poverty through foriegn debt.
While this is a common claim by the left, any serious economist would point out that economics is not, in fact, a zero sum game. A free economy tends to grow on its own, as new technologies and processes emerge -- it does not grow by taking resources from elsewhere. If this were not true, how do you explain that the world economy taken as a whole is constantly growing. Are we taking resources from other planets, too?
No, third world nations are poor because they pursue backwards and oppressive economic policies which prevent growth. It's that simple. (And if you don't believe that, note that third world countries such as India or Korea which adopted free-market economies are doing quite well, thank you).
The rest of your post simply descends into incoherence. Perhaps if you rephrase it more clearly, it will become obvious to you how silly it is...
So what's your suggestion? That we should be making policy decisions based on what we think will make a madman like Osama bin Laden like us?
Really?
I mean, what? He thinks women should be flogged if they step out of doors unescorted, and we believe in equal rights for women, so we compromise and only flog our women on tuesdays and thursdays?
Appeasement doesn't work. It never has, and it never will. It's also morally despicable.
The US shouldn't do this to appease anybody like Bin Laden, besides the fact that he's too extreme.
Instead, the US should try doing more of "the right thing." Stick up for world peace and democracy, less for money. Stop bullying other countries, and giving bad ones guns. Let dictators be replaced by their people, instead of using military to hold them there.
Pull the US troops out of places where they're not wanted, like Saudi Arabia, and Al Quaeda will crumble under its lack of issues.
I don't know if the US government has always been about doing "the right thing."
I'm tempted to bring up Vietnam, but that was another time and administration. Instead, look at the Gulf War. I don't think the US really cared much about the Kurds, it was more about creating stability in the area, so we could continue our Oil purchases. Leaving the US military in Saudi Arabia is what makes Bin Laden personally mad, they're holding him back from reforming the government there. I haven't heard much about the poor Kurds, even though Hussein wants to kill them off. Did we forget them?
Sure, our economy is strong, but look how much it ground to a halt during the Oil Crisis a while back.
Hello again neocon, I've been a bit long time no post. Sorry about that - real life has been fun for a change.
As for the post above, let me say that today it isn't the facts. Today I agree with all your calls to fact. It's just your conclusions today.
And even the conclusions are leading in the right direction. Follow the money my friend, follow the money. You're almost there!
And with that cryptic and entirely too "deep throat" sounding post, my time in this crappy internet cafe is up. Apologies. I have more and will post it another time. I have enjoyed our discussions! Being on "holiday" in a part of the world that demonstrates simply by walking out the door much of what you and I have discussed (no secret which side of the argument the real world illustrates here) makes me magnanimous! *grin*
Connect the Dots (Score:1)
(In theory) one can replace a single cluster with an equivalent of Windows ME and you'll achieve a trainwreck of a network which will spiral out of control.
Evildoers will be defeated with 9x.
yaaawn... (Score:1)
Re:yaaawn... (Score:1)
prediction (Score:2)
Or "Richard Reid" (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: "Richard Reid" (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't read too much into names.
Re: "Richard Reid" (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:prediction (Score:2)
You mean like the Oklahoma City bombing?
Wait a second, I think you're on to something. The 9/11 attacks were actually carried out by rednecks with names like Billy Bob, but they were wearing disguises to fool us! Aha!
Re:Yeah, what happened to "John Doe #2" (Score:2)
Well, in the hours that followed the bombing, the FBI speculated in the media that they were actively searching for "Muslim terrorists." Quickly after that, several mosques were burned down by arsonists.
True, Timothy McVeigh was caught in pretty short order, but the FBI never retracted their claims. McVeigh just corrected what they believed, and people forgot about the accusation (except the Muslim-American community, who wanted an apology).
We may never know if there was a second person, or maybe McVeigh denied it and I didn't hear it. Or it could be the FBI tossed around the "possible middle-eastern" description as a way to show they weren't totally off base with the Muslim terrorist idea.
Not Insane (Score:1)
To belittle ones enemies like that lead to misjudgements of what they can do and why they do.
Now if you want to charaterize them as "evil", I am okay with that.
Re:Not Insane (Score:2)
Re:Not Insane (Score:2)
No, more likely... (Score:2)
Nah, their names are much more likely to be more like "John Aschcroft," "Dick Cheney", and "George Bush." Or are jackbooted thugs breaking down your door in the middle of the night and 'detaining' you indefinitely without charges, right to counsel, or the ability to contact your family not something you would consider "terrorizing?"
They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but a more accurate metaphore would be something on the order of:
The tools by which a flurishing democracy is turned into a living, authoritarian hell are built from good intentions.
Re:prediction (Score:2)
While I really hate some of the exaggeration that gets played up in the US media (comparing the WTC disaster to Hiroshima, for example), what's the largest loss of life that an IRA attack has ever caused? 29, right? ("Real IRA" car bomb in 1998)
Have one hundred incidents that bad and then tell me that the UK has had comparable experience.
Re:prediction (Score:1)
"Over 3,280 people have been killed and over 36,000 injured since 1969 as a result of terrorist campaigns. Over 900 members of the police and Army have been murdered."
Source - UK Government web site. That number is not too far off the WTC toll, and probably accounts for a lot of incidents...
Re:prediction (Score:1)
2,711 [ulst.ac.uk] deaths in Northern Ireland up to 1988, versus recent figures of under 3,000 for the WTC. Close enough, I think?
Re:prediction (Score:1)
Of course, that's all nonsense. The CIA has been involved in Afghanistan and Pakistan since at least the early 1980's, Bush had the Taliban at his ranch that summer, gave them $50 million, and US companies and the government had been planning pipelines and other projects for years.
But it's helpful to give those impressions, to secure more money, and especially, to allow the covert agencies (CIA, NSA, FBI, NRO, NI, AI, etc, etc) a free hand and no oversight.
You just have to really WANT to believe it. You need to HAVE FAITH.
Within 15 minutes of the first attack, we were told that Osama bin whatever was the new subject of the two minute hate. A week later the Wall Street Journal had an article about how former President/Vice President/CIA director George H. W. Bush was working for the Binladen family through the Carlyle Group.
It's fun to believe this is a simple war of good vs. evil, but of course it's much more complicated. The best part is that there is a lot of information in the mainstream press, you just have to pay attention.
Sorry for the rant. Go USA! Kill USAMA BL! USA! USA! USA!
Re:prediction (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:prediction (Score:2)
Note that this goes both ways. However, waging war is the province of governments, not individuals. If the people of a country decide that they have just cause to wage war on another country, then they need to force their government to take action. Likewise, if they feel that war is not justified, they should insure that the lunatic fringe that insists on waging an unwanted and unauthorized war is delt with properly.
However, in our zeal to defend our homes, our families, and our Nation against those who seek to destroy us, we must not lose sight of what it is we are trying to defend and the ideals that make us great.
America is not perfect. We can and do screw up, often in a spectacular fashion. Our government doesn't always live up to the ideals on which it was founded, nor does it always follow it's own laws. It is our duty, as American citizens, to hold our government accountable when it suffers a lapse in judgement. That being said, it is my considered opinion that the US does the Right Thing more often than not; that overall we do more good than harm. I would maintain that our overall track record is better than that of any other major world power, past or present.Re:prediction (Score:2)
Re:prediction (Score:1)
maybe veering a little off topic here, but that reminded me of a story in our paper this morning...extract:
A jealous butcher cut off his wifes leg for "exposing herself" to a gynaecologist just after giving birth to twins. Crazed Adamu Hussaini, 52, became convinced exhausted wife Amina, 27, was flirting with the doctor who examined her.
When they got home he tied her to their bed and cut off her leg with his butchers knives. Neighbours called police when they heard screams. Hussaini told police "I wanted to teach her a lesson" Any you want to be nice to these people?
Re:prediction (Score:2)
I can tell you right now, those people you refer to don't follow Islam. I get the feeling you're implying Saudi Arabia, but I'm not sure, you're really generalizing. They are run by a dictatorship of royalty, not religion. Religion would be an improvement, there wouldn't be human rights violations like there are now.
Oh, and Islam doesn't preach hate. Sure, many people do hate others, but so do Christians. Just because some Muslims are more fanatical than others doesn't mean condemn the entire religion. Baptists aren't a good example of the diverse Christianity in the world, the same as Saudi's aren't a good example of a Muslim country.
Re:Of course they're insane (Score:2)
You forgot Riyadh. People danced in the streets of Saudi Arabia, as well as the streets of other Arab allies. Why did we only bomb Afghanistan, and perhaps Iraq, the latter having fuck-all to do with 9/11, and the former bombed to smithereens with no indication that we've found bin Laden or anybody worth a shit in al Qaeda except a fucking white boy from Marin County?!
Yeah there were people celebrating 911 all over the Arab world, and in parts of the non-Arab world; at least give the dancing Arabs credit for showing their feelings publicly, while the Russians and Chinese snicker behind (mostly [telegraph.co.uk]) closed doors.
Look, the mass indoctrination of Arab Muslims with hardcore ideology that teaches them that God smiles on suicide bombers as martyrs is beyond sick -- I'm not going to argue with that. But I think it's a cynical and calculated strategy on the part of the Arab leaders this benefits -- especially the Saudis -- rather than a sign of an "evil culture" (which is a construct that has no validity from any perspective).
What have we learned from extreme Islamic fundamentalism? That greedy and tyrannical assholes in positions of power in corrupt incestuous dictatorships can use a perverse bastardization of a widespread religion in order to manipulate a large group of people (whom they openly conspire to keep poor and uneducated) to cheer on a few suicide-murderers? Are we really that surprised?
There has never in human history been an entire people who publicly revel in mass murder like the current Islamic Arab/Palestinian fuck-head idiots.
Bullshit. It happens frequently after military actions, and we have to understand that they interpret 911 as a military action. Americans danced and celebrated during the inordinately one-sided Gulf War; which in spite of our precision bombing, was probably indistinguishable from mass murder from the ground. Hell, Americans celebrated the nuclear attack on Japan, when we incinerated 100,000 people in seconds. Everyone celebrates their team's military victory. Even more so if they see their (civilian) family members die every day under Israeli gunfire. So I'm not surprised Palestinians in particular celebrated, even in New York.
Re:Of course they're insane (Score:2)
Or how about the Communists in China massacring the Tibetan monks?
Or the Hindus in Gudjarat raping and killing innocent Muslim women and children?
Re:prediction (Score:2)
Or, better: unlike the terrorists, we are not ever going to admit to intentionally targeting innocent civilians. It's only an accident if you don't know it's going to happen, and it only happens when you make a mistake. How many times do we have to bomb the crap out of a country before we start to realize that innocent civilians are going to get killed every time we do it? If you're on the receiving end of an immensely one-sided bombing campaign, from a country your country never attacked, are you going to forgive the bombers because your family died and your neighborhood was destroyed in an accident?
The reason why we are at war with an entire country is (officially) because they are(or were, anyway) harboring these terrorists.
OK, so they're not anymore? So why are we at war with the entire country now? And where the hell are the terrorists who blew up our buildings? Why haven't we killed them yet, and instead killed thousands of others whose only crime appears to have been that they are easier to kill than the terrorists?
In my opinion, any regime that oppresses and kills its people should be destroyed, and replaced with a just government. This includes a lot of fundamentalist countries in the middle east (Pakistan, Iraq, etc.) and pretty much all the communist countries (China, Cuba, etc.) And the US is in the best position to do this.
Sure we are, until we squander our national wealth keeping the world under the barrel of our gun, and our empire simply disintegrates from within. If we went after all the regimes that "oppresses and kills its people" you'd have to include a lot of our "friends" in the world - Saudi Arabia, you mention Pakistan yourself, India, Colombia, Russia, and on and on. Replace it with a just government? Who decides what is just? John Ashcroft? No thanks; if you want to go on a crusade to convert the rest of the world to your ideology, go for it, but keep your filthy hands off my tax dollars.
What if... (Score:1)
Re:What if... (Score:1)
So what does this tell us? (Score:3, Insightful)
"To draw an accurate picture of a covert network, we need to identify task and trust ties between the conspirators. The same four relationships we often map in many business organizations would tell us much about illegal organizations. This data is occasionally difficult to unearth with cooperating clients. With covert criminals, the task is enormous, and may be impossible to complete."
To which my first reaction was "Duh...". Also:
"In my data search I came across many news accounts where one agency, or country, had data that another would have found very useful. To win this fight against terrorism it appears that the good guys have to build a better information and knowledge sharing network than the bad guys (Ronfeldt and Arquilla, 2001)."
Everyone knows about this problem these days. In short, I found this article to be rather short on insightful news, except the actual drawing of the terrorist network.
Re:So what does this tell us? (Score:3, Insightful)
That premise is, in order to map the secret organizational network, you have to catch the terrorists first. This kind of analysis didn't exist prior to last year and wouldn't have helped prior to last year because the information we had on who hijackers may or may not have been was so sketchy as to be useless for investigative purposes.
Law enforcement might be able to make use of these kinds of charts in order to figure out which co-conspirators and associates to investigate more thoroughly, but this analysis offers no new revelations.
Re:So what does this tell us? (Score:2)
Were the "terrorists" really terrorists prior to their committing an act of terror? Sure, they had the will to become terrorists, but how do you catch a would-be terrorist who is technically only guilty of a thought-crime? Granted, many of the terrorists falsified their immigration paperwork, so that's a start, but that's a lot like nailing gansters for income tax evasion rather than murder, extortion, and many of the violent crimes they actually committed.
Hrmmm... "guily of a thought-crime." Oh yeah, now I understand why NASA's working on the ability to read your brain-waves at airport counters [slashdot.org]... Still, what crime have they committed if we catch them before they board the airplane with a box-cutter?
It's a sad, Orwelian world...
I've found some terrorists! (Score:2)
n : the systematic use of violence as a means to intimidate or coerce societies or governments
Source: WordNet ® 1.6, © 1997 Princeton University
There's a highly organized terrorist group that has used violence to overthrow many democratic governments - in one incident they assassinated the military leaders of the fairly elected (and Marxist) Chilean government, and armed and trained opposition forces (in typically military skills as well as tortune and sabotage) in anticipation of a full military coup, which occured in 1973 when the terrorist groups armed and trained soldiers began a military coup that replaced the democratically elected leader with a miltary dictatorship under which thousands of civilians died.
The terrorist group is concentrated in Washington DC, Washington, United States of America. They're currently attempting to enact laws which exempt their allies from extraditing their war criminals. But of we try hard I think we can bring them to justice.
Just to recap:
n : the systematic use of violence as a means to intimidate or coerce societies or governments
An organized CIA plot with government support, and tortune school for soldiers used to overthrow the government `School of the Americas' sounds pretty systematic. There was certainly a great deal of violence used. And the objective was to coerce a society against Marxism (which they'd done by electing a Marxist in a legitamite election).
Yep, they look like a classic dictionary definition of terrorists to me.
the CIA? no way! (Score:2)
Damn Scary... (Score:4, Insightful)
Being a member of the same Church (Mosque, Synagogue, Temple, whatever), while sharing one or two other contacts in different fields would, on the evidence of the article, be enough to put you in the frame.
There aren't so many degrees of separation between all of us that it would be inconceivable that half of all people would be under investigation at some point.
This kind of network analysis is fine as an academic plaything, but its use in the real world is potentially disastrous (there was one drug cartel that used network mapping techniques on phone billing data to identify and eliminate informers), until and unless some adequate rules of thumb on how far to spread the investigation are built up.
There is a whole lot of data hidden in the little interactions you make each day - had Hoover had this in the 40s and 50s, his files on US citizens pecadilloes and affairs would have been much richer.
The whole network analysis thing is so hungry for data that privacy is seriously endangered if this approach is taken up widely.
cat sig >
Connections (Score:2)
Bill Gates [virginia.edu] has a Saddam Hussein number of 5.
Linus Torvalds [virginia.edu] has 4, like Bruce Perens [virginia.edu].
George Bush [virginia.edu] has 1.
Rob Malda [virginia.edu] has a Menachem Begin of 4.
Scarry indeed! (Score:2)
To help people understand, shift groups. Should Ted Kenedy be under investigation for contact with suspected IRA members? Jessy Jackson for contact with suspected Black Panthers or their descendent groups? How about George Bush for knowing someone who knew someone who was once affiliated with Timothy McVeigh. The small world paradox, where the chances are that two strangers will have a mutual aquainance is well known, so that ALL of us can be under investigation for one reason or another.
I'm not impressed by the author's ability to assign weights to mass media associations. The same thing might be done with TV ancors and corporate sponsors. What you would see is a mathematical model of a giant conspiracy to sell soap. More offensive than the autothor's snake drawing - snake oil, how appropriate - is that I had to look at that ugly Internet Exploder at home. The author [knowinc.com] is obviously a weenie and I don't expect to see his silly VB GPL'd any time soon. Krebs, you suck but not enought to merrit further examination.
Now we need... (Score:5, Funny)
2. Terrorists Modeling Language -- now Rational can call itself an anti-terorism company.
3. Terrorists Virtual Machine -- how can we use those things if we won't have a special VM to operate on them.
4. Terrorists Object Model, a Terrorists Description Language operates on, and Terrorists Virtual Machine is built around.
5. Terrorists Access Protocol, a protocol used by multiple governmental agencies to send real-time updates of the terrorists network' structure.
6. Terrorists Application Server, a program written in Terrorists Virtual Machine that is used in conjunction with an HTTP server to implement Terrorists Access Protocol over HTTP.
7. Terrorists Applications Language, a high-level Object-oriented language that compiles to Terrorists Virtual Machine. Terrorists Description Language is built in as its data structures definition, Terrorists Object Model is built into its OO design, and Terrorists Access Protocol is accessible through various operators. In fact, the design makes any data structurte accessible through (and only through, even for the program itself) through Terrorists Access Protocol.
And only then we can outsmart all those people that our politicians pissed off over decades.
Re:Now we need... (Score:1)
Re:Now we need... (Score:1)
Re:Now we need... (Score:1)
Re:Now we need... (Score:2)
8. Get sued by the Redmond Terrorist Squad for violating their patents.
To Uncloak a Terrorist Network... (Score:1)
Color coding of charts (Score:1)
I have fairly significant red/green colorblindness. In regards to the present charts, this made some of the "subtler" colors extremely difficult to discern and therefore some of the relationships amongst terrorists were impossible for me to understand and evaluate.
I hope that, when people make these kinds of organizational charts, they choose colors not for prettiness but for maximum contrast. It is a problem I've encountered many times and, considering how prevalent male color-blindness is, I find it very puzzling that color coding is as poorly thought out as it often seems to be.
Aside from that, an interesting article and a good first step towards a public understanding of the details of the 9/11 network.
Hey, you're right (Score:1)
Re:Hey, you're right (Score:1)
Re:Color coding of charts (Score:1)
Black
White
Bright Blue
Bright Yellow
Bright Orange
Bright Red
Light Blue
But even better would be colors and various styles of cross hatchings.
Again, it sounds silly until one is in dark light and you're trying to hook up red and green wires, or if you're an FBI guy (I'm not but you get the idea) trying to discern patterns of relationships between terrorists.
Whos missing? (Score:1)
Re:Whos missing? (Score:1)
US allies have complained that we have not made a case to them that it was bin-laden. And all our extradition cases are failing because we do not have the evidence to convince an *independent* court of law. Note that domestically our government avoids such forums.
That said, the flaw in the author's analysis is that it is the wrong technique. The first thing you should ask in case of a Riechstag fire is who benefits. In this case, it is the clash of civilizations/arc of crisis crowd. More generally, when the economy goes, you *always* get stuff like this.
In the end, nothing the feds have done would have prevented 9/11 and nothing they have done will prevent a repeat of some sort.
wow (Score:1)
Terrorist == Modewort (Score:2)
But since 9/11, the T word is placated over anything to further interest into particular subjects, independent of the practicality of the idea or its actual field of use.
The german term for this is "modewort" ("in word"?).
Uncloak? (Score:2, Funny)
Wow (Score:1)
I think "Valdis E. Krebs" is the coolest name I have ever heard.
Re:Wow (Score:1)
Chain Letter Spam (Score:1)
> Forward this e-mail to all your non-terrorist friends and coworkers (bcc notaterrorist@fbi.gov), and within two days you'll find the love of your life or win the lottery!
Cunning plan to destroy US economy (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, them terrorists are really clever. They started littering every US airport with clueless people dressed in an intimidating uniform, who boldly search you, frisk you and detain you at the drop of a hat. They forced a honest woman to drink her own breast milk [nypost.com], they pulled a women from a plane coming back from Vegas because of a sex toy [usatoday.com]...
Their cluelessness and hardnosedness turns even the shortest travel into a horrendous wasted-day experience, from which exhausted, humiliated passengers emerge swearing they'll drive next time.
And it's working too. Look, three US airline companies are currently under Chapter 11. The damage to the US economy is staggering. Airline losses are piling up, already amounting to tens of billions of dollars.
Oh, wait. The people who turned fast-food joint rejects into unfireable Federal agents are actually the gummint, not Muslim mujahidins. Ahem. Never mind.
Finding the info in the first place (Score:2)
This reminds me of the days in University when me and my friends tried to map the University's internal computer network to figure out how to get Internet e-mail and outside connections. :-)
(Please forgive me referring to people as nodes; it makes it easier for me to explain it)
So, how do you detect the networks?
First believe they are out there. You have an approximate idea of the kind of roles needed and the places people have to be in (like near an airport or in flight schools), so you can profile people to come up with a likely set of nodes. Once you've got the nodes surveiled, rattle the network. Bring in a few of the more skittish members of the potential network in for a polite round of questioning (and I do mean POLITE -- no violence, threats or intimidation). Then watch what he does. He will activate the secret links and you will see the network sparkle into life to deal with this close call.
As you find more nodes and connections, you can begin to de-prioritize the nodes who show no signs of activity or direct connection. In your emerging network graph, you can make hypotheses about node functions which can be tested. See what happens when you try sending in an deep cover agent to talk to suspected resource network. Try offering resources which would make people interested, and see if they bite or refer you to someone else. If you can get trackable resources into the network, you can follow them to find more connections.
Another thing is to find a node (a suspect) who can be leveraged, like an invalid student visa. Bring them in and pressure them to either turn (unlikely) or expose the network and goals he knows about. Using the previous Slashdot articles on p2p networks being compromised, you can probably bring the the terrorist network to its own tipping point where they will either reorganize or disband it.
Problems with this method:
Of course the best way to prevent terrorism is to remove the social conditions that encourage it. Encourage better economic opportunities for everyone and freedom from persecution and oppression. Support democracy, instead of shoring up corrupt dictatorships like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and China. Wherever there are the disaffected and miserable, the terrorists will find a home.
Re:Finding the info in the first place (Score:2)
Mark Lombardi, artist, mapped criminal networks (Score:2, Informative)
He would read newspapers about criminal links, copy to index cards, memorize the links, and then build up his masterpiece.
He did works about various financial scandals, mapping the BCCI, Vatican Bank, and other criminal networks relating to the Savings and Loan Scandal.
He committed suicide (allegedly) in March of 2000, although some continue to speculate that someone didn't appreciate his art. His family disagrees, pointing out that he only worked from public sources, so why would anyone have a motive to kill him? (Valdis' work (no relation) shows that he was actually doing something --- running a map-generating algorithm in his head and putting the output in art galleries!)
Post 911, the FBI got interested and ask galleries for copies of his art. It seems that his work showed links between BCCI, various Saudis, and bin Laden's financial network.
Incidentally, recent articles in the Washington Post and on Stratfor suggesting that bin Laden has gotten cooperation again from his hidden bank accounts in Switzerland and managed to smuggle his gold out to Sudan are disturbing. Wars are fought with golden bullets, as one philosopher noted and as the Nazis new. The Nazis were obsessed with getting their hands on gold reserves, gold teeth of their victims, &c, because they realized gold was a strategic resource. Through banks in Switzerland, Rome, and possible even the U.S. (?) they were able to obtain financial for their war effort by moving gold onto the international market.
So, it would be interesting to see bin Laden's financial network mapped out.
The article ran on page 7 of section D of the May 1,2002 Wall Street Journal and discusses Lombardi's work, the circumstances surrounding his death, and the FBI interest. I don't have a link or a copy. Lexus Nexus also shows the July 5, 2002 New York Times as mentioning his work going on display at the CUNY art gallery.
Here are some links I get by doing a Google search on Mark Lombardi, including gifs of his work:
http://www.pierogi2000.com/flatfile/lombardi.ht
http://www.ps1.org/cut/Gny/mlombardi.html
I wrote to Valdis Krebs (no relation) about this, and he also thought this was cool.
Re:Mark Lombardi, artist, mapped criminal networks (Score:2)
Can you post a link? I missed this story.
Re:Need to uncover the ISRAELI terrorist network.. (Score:1)
If Israel is destined to not have any homeland, so be it. And if getting rid of Israel means peace in the Middle East, I'm all for it. Being a firefighter, you learn that the best way to put a fire out is to attack it at the bottom, the root of the problem, the source of fuel for the fire. It's not rocket science. There's no room for debate. Knock out the source, and the problem goes with it.
Pick up any history book and you'll find that the leading cause of war and death throughout recorded history is RELIGION. Abolish religion, and you eliminate the biggest cause of war. Once people's minds are no longer clouded by the 3000 year old ramblings of an opium smoking camel jockey, they'll start to think for themselves. That just might lead to the realization that killing each other is stupid, and we can move a step closer to humanity coming together as a whole.
I know I'm going to get flamed to hell for this. But since I don't believe in heaven and hell, it kinda works out...
Re:Need to uncover the ISRAELI terrorist network.. (Score:1)
In fact, the only reason that US isn't stronger, is that the US gets much of its oil from those same middle eastern totalitarian nations.
If the US Government is thinking correctly they should be doing this
SHORT-TERM
balancing oil needs with support with israel being low-key (keep the oil flowing, don't let israel be overrun
LONG-TERM
Promote democratic movements in totalitarian middle east countries
21st Century Containmenet policy against Arab/Islamic Civilization.
Reduce Energy dependency on middle east: 1) fund oil exploration and production from Russia/Indonesia/Alaska; 2) reduce home petrol consumption (greater auto fuel efficiency, liability limits for cars using synthtuic, lower weight material); 3) Double Federal Gas Tax (force people to make economic choice against petrol consumption); 4) Tax credits for home and business use of Solar Energy; 5) Tax Credits for high energy effieciency equipment (LED for stoplights and exits signs, etc) 6) Explore Sci-fi dream of Orbital Solar Power satelites setr national goal for deployment of first operational satelite by 2015.
Re:Need to uncover the ISRAELI terrorist network.. (Score:2)
However, this guy [danielpipes.org] is claiming that the earlier poster is right, that Truman initiated his policies based on his Judeo-Christian beliefs.
Anyway, I find it interesting that the post that initiated this debate is missing. Anti-Zionist posts, and posts that criticise Israel's continuing campaign of international terrorism, seem to get edited out of Slashdot rather frequently.
Re:Need to uncover the ISRAELI terrorist network.. (Score:2)
That's hogwash. The US supports many of the totalitarian nations that surround it. The US, like any other nation-state, makes its decisions about whom to support based on perceptions of rational self-interest (however misguided) rather than on the basis of ideology, no matter what our leaders say in their speeches.
Re:Need to uncover the ISRAELI terrorist network.. (Score:2)
Oh, COME ON.
So we support a parlimentary system that declares war on their entire geographic location, then seizes land belonging to other people, sets up troops, and throws people off their own land?
On top of that, Israel is in trouble with the UN for human rights violations, throwing Palestinian dissenters in prison for complaining about losing their homes.
So, Nobel Peace prize winner Yasser Arafat is elected by the Palestinians to negotiate the return of lands. Many Palestinians consider him way too gentle, and an obstacle in the way of an all-out war to get land back. On top of it, Isreal nearly assasinates him, a DEMOCRATICALLY elected Leader. That would have been horrifying, but the US might have still supported Isreal because of the high number of voters in the US supporting Isreal. (Don't forget, Hillary Clinton got her senate job by pandering to the Jewish population in NY, among other things)
The US wants to support Israel, but they don't want to anger Saudi Arabia and OPEC again. On the other hand, Israel just bombed an entire apartment building, killing a terrorist leader, AS WELL AS innocent families and children.
In short, the Palestinians are going about this like impatient children, while the Israelis are whining about how they're in the right, and doing the wrong thing by hurting people.
Stalin and Pol Pot must have been religious. . . (Score:1)
Re:Need to uncover the ISRAELI terrorist network.. (Score:2, Informative)
Ya, but where will the israelis go? Here in the US? Do you really want a population that willingly voted a mass murderer into office immigrating to the US? You can be damn sure noone else in Europe wants them.
Re:Need to uncover the ISRAELI terrorist network.. (Score:2)
Yeah, no thanks. MUCH better to appease them by kowtowing to their regimes directly, like we do with Saudi Arabia, or by turning a blind eye to their gross abuses of human rights, like we do with Egypt and Pakistan among others.
If you think we're defending democracy in the Middle East you're a fool. The Israelis are not so dumb; they know that American support depends upon perceptions of American self interest as well as a well-funded and vocal lobby. And the Turkish are not so stupid as to believe their nation "free, democratic, and open." Especially not the Kurds in Turkey.
Re:Need to uncover the ISRAELI terrorist network.. (Score:2)
You obviously know little of Islamic history. Today, perhaps you have a point, though I disagree still (look at Algeria, Morocco for example - hardly democracies but not the bastions of torture and genocide that Turkey [hrw.org] has been over the years. And while these places were hardly free, open, and democratic, Egypt, Iraq, Iran were all more progressive regimes than present-day Turkey before the US got involved mucking around with their internal affairs. The fact is the US doesn't want democracy in these countries, because democratic regimes might allow the people to decide how much to sell oil for, and, more importantly, whether to develop different ways of modernizing their societies. The fact is that tyrannical Arab regimes like Saudi Arabia are good for US economic interests. If we really wanted a "regime change" in Iraq we would have supported the Iraqi democratic opposition - which existed and was quite strong and credible - back in 1990 after we got pissed off about Kuwait. But we don't want a regime change; we just want a different dictator to deal with (in one state dept official's words of the time, we want "an iron fisted junta without Saddam Hussein."
OK if we start with the really big fish (Iraq and Iran, for example), though?
Actually, Iran is modernizing and democratizing, or at least it was before we put them in the "axis of evil." And Iraq is small potatoes. They had zero to do with 911, and they're in no position to do anything but sell us cheap oil and bitch about their sovereignty being violated by no-fly zones. It's a terrible regime, and Hussein is a miserable thug, but I could say the same of our ally Musharraf. The really big fish is Saudi Arabia, and we won't stop kissing their asses until America wakes up and begins to see past all this clash of civilizations bullshit. It's not a clash of civilizations; it's a clash between rich powerful men who cynically manipulate the populations they rule.
Re:Need to uncover the ISRAELI terrorist network.. (Score:2)
Regarding Iraq, I haven't seen a credible report of Iraqi involvement in 911, and if there has been such a report, the US Administration is doing an alarmingly nice job of keeping it quiet, which seems to be completely contrary to the desire to get some of our allies to support an invasion. The meetings with Atta have not been confirmed, and US officials don't even seem to believe them [washtimes.com]. About the WMD stuff, yeah, Iraq wants WMD, but the evidence of a real nuclear threat is severely [worldnetdaily.com] lacking [smh.com.au]. But even if they were pursuing nukes -- get real. Iraq has as much right as any regime to pursue whatever policy its statecraft dictates. Why would we feel threatened by Iraqi nukes? They could never develop a capability that could seriously threaten American interests, not even indirectly; as self-aggrandizingly cruel as Saddam Hussein is, he is neither suicidal nor stupid. Keep in mind too his regime is secular - he has about as much reason to fear the al Qaeda types as we do; more in fact, since the Iraqi citizens are far more likely to take up his call to overthrow their government than American muslims, Chicago gangbangers and Marin county white kids included.
Finally, I don't know why you want to let Mr. binLaden dictate the terms of our conflict with him. Of course he says it's a "clash of civilizations" - but we don't have to buy into that; it only helps him. If we want to defeat him and his kind we need to make sure the rest of the Arab Muslim world doesn't believe it's a clash of civilizations. We won't be able to do that by bombing them to kingdom come.
Re:Need to uncover the ISRAELI terrorist network.. (Score:2)
The US wants to stop ETA, the Basque separatists in Spain. ETA has no designs on the US. They are officially a terrorist group according to the State Dept., and giving money to them is a felony. So, is there some massive Spanish conspiracy to secretly control the US? Or do you have a double standard when it comes to terrorist groups that threaten Jews rather than Europeans?
-jon
Re:Need to uncover the ISRAELI terrorist network.. (Score:2)
Re:Need to uncover the ISRAELI terrorist network.. (Score:2)
Spain is a democracy, you fuckwit. And so is Israel. Israel has been trying to give back the West Bank and Gaza since August, 1967. Look it up. Problem is, the Arabs don't want peace; they want to kill Jews. Jews are tired of being killed whenever someone in the world is looking for a scapegoat, and are fighting back. This makes the Arabs mad and confuses the Europeans, who want to know what happened to their favorite punching bags.
You are suffering under the all-to-common belief that terrorists are some sort of misguided Robin Hoods, out to redress wrongs. They're not. They are cold-blooded murdering thugs who want to impose their beliefs on a world that would never voluntarily agree to their insane ideas. So they intimidate fools like you into believing that if you just give in to their demands, then they'll go away.
the real goal should be to eliminate the conditions that make so many people sympathetic to terrorists.
Shutting down Berkeley would be a good first step.
-jon
fuckwit? (Score:2)
the Arabs don't want peace; they want to kill Jews
That is the dumbest thing I've heard all day (and believe me, it's been a long day). Which Arabs want to kill which Jews? If you think all Arabs want to kill Jews, you are the "fuckwit," whatever that is. Yeah there are some who think that way (just as there are plenty of Jews who want to exterminate all Arabs). And what's worse is there are many Arabs in positions of power cynically manipulating this hatred to deflect attention away from their own brutal regimes (the Saudis come to mind). But I think the majority of any people will turn away from genocide if they're given something else to hope for in civil society.
You are suffering under the all-to-common belief that terrorists are some sort of misguided Robin Hoods, out to redress wrongs. They're not. They are cold-blooded murdering thugs
I've never said such crap, and don't put it in my mouth (or, erm, keyboard). I think terrorists are murderous thugs also, and I have no moral qualms about killing them. I do not think they are Robin Hoods and I would never recommend "giving in to their demands." But I do think a rational foreign policy (I'm talking about for the US but I think this applies to Israel even more so) would attempt to make sure there are fewer people who sympathize with the hardcore terrorists. Anyone willing to fly a plane into a building cannot be reasoned with. But when millions of otherwise reasonable people celebrate such murder, we have cause for concern. Fine, exterminate the terrorists, but let's not drive millions more into their arms.
Finally, I'm not from Berkeley, so I don't know what you mean, but if you think stifling dissent in the US will somehow win the war on terrorism then you are a complete moron. I'm not about to give up my civil liberties in this great country just because a few cowards like you are scared some college student will say something sympathetic to suicide bombers. Get ahold of yourself, man, and quit pissing your pants everytime some idiot tries to light his shoes on fire. America is great because of our civil liberties, especially our right to dissent (a right strongly regarded in Israel as well, by the way). Don't sacrifice that just because you're chickenshit that some moron will blow you up on his way to meet Allah.
Re:fuckwit? (Score:2)
This is nonsense. The terrorists and their supporters don't want the CURRENT society. They want a different one, where they are in charge. Democratic institutions don't enter into it.
Look at the FARC in Columbia. The government gave them huge chunks of the country in a peace deal. You can't get much more buy-in than actually giving de facto control to the terrorists and their supporters. The FARC decided they wanted the rest, too.
And, heck, look at the PLO. Given self-rule and billions in funding, they stole most of the money and spent the rest on Jew-hating propaganda. If you want to be truly sickened, spend some time reading through some of the Palestinian material for their children that has been translated on MEMRI's web site. http://www.memri.org
Which Arabs want to kill which Jews? If you think all Arabs want to kill Jews, you are the "fuckwit," whatever that is.
All? No. Most? Yes. Read translations of the Arab newspapers and magazines. Read the recent release from an Arab intellectual group that called Jews "the enemies of all nations". Want to see more? Take a look at http://memri.org/antisemitism.html What, do you think they're all kidding? You are delusional. Or, perhaps more accurately, you just don't care.
But I think the majority of any people will turn away from genocide if they're given something else to hope for in civil society.
Yeah, just like the Germans did. And their willing accomplices in France, Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. Are you willfully ignorant of history or just stupid?
Fine, exterminate the terrorists, but let's not drive millions more into their arms.
As Osama bin Laden said in one of his little love notes, "when there are two horses in a race, a strong horse and weak horse, people want to be with the strong horse." The Arabs thought that the US was the weak horse and that led to 9/11. Considering the US' 20 year history of ignoring terrorist attacks and trying to kill terrorists with kindness, it's easy to understand why they thought this. I don't want them to like us, and I don't expect them to like us. I want them to fear us, to know that if we are hit, our response will be tenfold.
[I]f you think stifling dissent in the US will somehow win the war on terrorism then you are a complete moron.
I don't care about stifling dissent. The more the pro-terrorist fools open their mouths, the more foolish they look. But Berekely has been producing terrorists (and terrorist sympathizers) since the 60's. If you want to get rid of terrorist supporters, it seems like a good place to start. But like I said, I don't care about getting rid of the supporters.
-jon
Re:fuckwit? (Score:2)
I do read a lot of Arab news in translation. And yes some of it is hateful, and occasionally you get shit like this [memri.org], which comes from an al Qaeda affiliated source, but the fact is that the majority of stuff I read from Saudi, Iranian, Iraqi, Palestinian, Pakistani, Egyptian, and other news sources does not recommend annihilating the Jews. Sure they complain about Israel a lot - I would too if my relatives were constantly being blown to bits by Israeli bombs. But it is a far cry from opposing Jewish aggression to saying "kill all the Jews." If you think they all believe this, or that most believe this, you're deluded. Besides, what are you advocating then? That Jews kill all the Arabs? Frankly I think everyone with this viewpoint should go find an island to fight it out on and leave the rest of us alone. I would venture to say that the majority of the Arab world, like the majority of the rest of the world, wants to be let alone to live their lives.
Yeah, just like the Germans did. And their willing accomplices in France, Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. Are you willfully ignorant of history or just stupid?
I guess I'm just stupid, if that's what you mean by the fact that I'm not willing to make absurd historical analogies between phenomena that have absolutely nothing to do with one another. If there is any parallel to Nazi Germany here it is Israel, not the Palestinians, who hardly have the power to break the freakin' curfews, much less crank up the gas chambers. Even if the majority of Palestinians or Arabs wanted to kill all the Jews, they couldn't even begin to.
The Arabs thought that the US was the weak horse and that led to 9/11. Considering the US' 20 year history of ignoring terrorist attacks and trying to kill terrorists with kindness, it's easy to understand why they thought this. I don't want them to like us, and I don't expect them to like us. I want them to fear us, to know that if we are hit, our response will be tenfold.
"The Arabs" didn't think anything; OBL and his fanatical followers thought that. And frankly the Arabs know our response will be tenfold; that's why al Qaeda attacked us. They knew the response would be tenfold and they were banking on it because they knew it would destroy our prestige throughout the world and that we would give up our freedoms over the long term. And that is exactly what it is doing. Why do you insist that we should do exactly what our enemies want us to do?
But Berekely has been producing terrorists (and terrorist sympathizers) since the 60's.
You're the one with no sense of history. The only al Qaeda sympathizer to come out of northern California was the dipshit from Marin county, not Berkeley. If you're talking about leftist professors and so forth, then your mind is far too closed to listen to reason.
Re:fuckwit? (Score:2)
I'm sure that you're full of crap; that's about it. I don't think the Nazi parallels work in either direction - typical Godwin's law stuff. But the fact is that the PA is in no position to put Jews in gas chambers, whereas Israel not only destroys Palestinian homes and has checkpoints and puts them in barbed wire camps and many Israelis are openly advocating forcible relocation which essentially will entail genocide. But you're right - Israel does have strong democratic traditions - including protecting dissent - and the Nazi comparison is unfair. But it is far more fair in this case than comparing Palestinians to Nazis, since the PA will never have the power to exterminate the Israelis.
Re:fuckwit? (Score:2)
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/07/opinion/07HAL
I know that a cowardly Jew hater like yourself won't read the article or understand it, but let's see you prove me wrong.
-jon
you've got to be kidding (Score:2)
Re:you've got to be kidding (Score:2)
You trivialize the memory of my people who have perished at the hands of real Jew haters when you say shit like that in this context.
What kind of stupid logic is this? You can't have a problem with Jews because "your people" were killed by Jew haters? That's like saying that Louis Farrikan or Jean-Marie Le Pen can't be antisemites because "their people" were killed by Jew haters, too.
You didn't read the article, did you? Nice to turn the discussion away from your mistakes to quibble over semantics. You might want to add Bernard Lewis to your reading list, too, and explain to me why you are right and he is wrong. But you won't.
-jon
Re:you've got to be kidding (Score:2)
More accurately I should have said "Israeli aggression." I believe I was responding to something you said in context while using that phrase. Although I don't see the phrase as antisemitic when describing specific acts of aggression by Jews (e.g. the ADL leader's plans before he got busted in LA).
Any other country on the planet would have exterminated the Palestinians by now.
Bullshit. Some would have, like Israel seems poised to. Others would be slowly starving them and strangling them economically, while whining to the international media that they are being treated unfairly, as Israel has been doing. Some would have waged various campaigns to undermine their sovereignty or perhaps just make them second-class citizens (I imagine this is what would have happened in many of the Arab dictatorships who now pretend to care about the Palestinian cause). But this is all beside the point - that's why we have international law and organizations, because any individual state left alone will pursue that state's self-interest, period. In this case it will likely take international intervention to create a sovereign Palestinian state, since Israel does not seem ready to let that happen in any other way.
I wonder what your own perspective is on this; do you support the extermination of the Palestinians? Do you feel that genocide against a non-Jewish people is a worse crime than genocide against Jews? I think it is entirely justifiable that Israel will show the world that it will go to any length to prevent another holocaust, but I do have trouble with the notion that "any length" includes creating another holocaust against a different people.
Israel just says that they won't negotiate until the murder of people while praying, eating, and dancing comes to an end. Then assholes like you call this "Jewish agression."
Israel does not simply say it won't negotiate. Israel destroys entire neighborhoods. Don't whine that they are only going after terrorists and suicide bombers; they know they are hitting innocents. Since you feel the need to give me reading lists, I would direct you to Chris Hedges' "Gaza Diary [harpers.org]," published about a year ago, detailing some of the effects of Israel's aggression. I agree that suicide bombers are a problem, but the Israelis are not helping the problem with the occupation. At least some Israelis are intelligent enough to figure this out, including many soldiers [seruv.org.il] and even the former head of Shin Bet [peacenow.org].
What kind of stupid logic is this? You can't have a problem with Jews because "your people" were killed by Jew haters?
It means I'm Jewish, dumbass. In context my point was that you trivialize the real Holocaust by comparing suicide bombers to Nazis, and that you trivialize real antisemitism by calling anyone you can't beat in an argument an antisemite.
You might want to add Bernard Lewis to your reading list, too, and explain to me why you are right and he is wrong. But you won't.
I read his book Race and Slavery in the Middle East [fordham.edu] several years ago, and while I found some interesting point made, it seemed his whole purpose was to point out that Moslems had slaves too just like the White man.... I found this kind of tit-for-tat scholarship fairly banal and gave up on his work long before his recent book about "What Went Wrong," which I read a chapter of in the Atlantic [theatlantic.com] earlier this year. It's a more refined Orientalist version of Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations"; you might check out Edward Said's "Clash of Ignorance [angelfire.com]," which makes the critique of this notion far more eloquently than I care to.
But what do I know; I suppose I'm just a Jew-hater. What fascinates me is how your attitude on this issue, while common among American Jews, is far more one-sided and extreme than the debate among Jews in Israel. It's facts like that that give me hope for Israeli democracy in spite of everything else.
Re:you've got to be kidding (Score:2)
What I find more interesting is the way you continue to repeat long-since discredited claims about civilians dying at the hands of Israelis long after even Arafat himself [washtimes.com] and Hamas [ahram.org.eg] have admitted that they were lies.
What crap; I never mentioned Jenin; and besides, a massacre of 56 people is still a massacre. In any case, I have not been "repeating long disputed claims" here.
merely because the Palestinian movements have taken a more low-tech approach to this goal, blowing up Jewish children one restaurant-full or one bus-load at a time, instead of herding them into gas chambers.
Blowing up restaurants is sick but it is hardly genocidal. Maybe you should read some history and learn what really happened in the Holocaust. But this comparison is ridiculous and you're making a fool of yourself. Just because some Palestinians want to kill Jews (after years of oppression and humiliation at Israeli hands) does not mean that all Palestinians are Nazis, which seems to be your claim.
The rest of your post descends into nonsense, such as your absurd claim that because you call yourself Jewish, none of your positions (such as your defense of genocidal murder-suicide bombers) could possibly be objectively anti-Semitic.
I never said that because I "call myself" Jewish that I can't be antisemitic; what I said was that your use of the term antisemite and Nazi to throw at anybody you can't answer with a rational argument is insulting to the memory of my relatives who perished in the Holocaust. And I would like to hear my "defense" of suicide bombers - I have never and will never "defend" that activity. Again, you're distorting my position in ways that are totally insulting just because you can't actually respond to the arguments.
Re Bernard Lewis - I am not here to debate about Western v. Eastern forms of slavery; my point was that I thought Lewis' scholarship was weak, and I still think so. As for Said throwing rocks, I didn't see the picture you're talking about. My point is based on Said's arguments, which in this particular case (the article I linked which you didn't read), seem pretty compelling to me.
This other shit about Palestinians slaughtering every Israeli -- like the Israeli soldiers I linked to, I believe Israel can and should defend itself. Continuing the occupation is not an act of legitimate national defense.
Re:you've got to be kidding (Score:2)
Re:you've got to be kidding (Score:2)
Then you are truly a despicable human being. If those relatives of yours were alive today, they'd spit in your face and wonder what they'd done to deserve a family member who sides with those who would exterminate them. Shame on you and the way you desecrate their memory.
Or, you're a lying troll. Which still makes you despicable, but adds a note of pathos to it.
But this is all beside the point - that's why we have international law and organizations
Yeah, the great moral high ground of Europeans and world dictators, sitting in judgement of Israel. Remember Durban? Ever taken a look at the composition of the UN Human Rights Council? Anyone who talks about "international law" as some sort of moral arbiter is a fool.
Look at how America treated the American Indians. Look at the Australians and the Aboriginies. The Sami in Norway. The Tibetans, the Kurds, the Armenians, the Copts, wherever you find a native people, you find someone else who came along later and all but exterminated them, religating them to second class status.
If you were really a Jew, you wouldn't think of Israel as pushing out the natives. If you were really a Jew, you would consider Israel your homeland, which makes it absurd to claim that Jews don't have a right to live on the West Bank (or as it was known until 1948, "Judea and Samaria"). But you clearly aren't a Jew except when you find it convenient to refute your obvious hatred of Jews.
You would rather appeal to international standards and think of the Chinese, and Sudanese in the UN HRC as the moral betters of the Israelis. Never mind that Israel has far surpassed the standards set by every other country on the planet. That's not good enough for you. Maybe if you denigrate your own people enough, you will find yourself accepted by these others. Good luck.
I pity you and your self-hatred.
-jon
Re:Need to uncover the ISRAELI terrorist network.. (Score:2)
What a crock of shit. You think the wedding party we bombed was cheering? Yeah there was some cheering when the Taliban began withdrawing. The cheering stopped when the warlords started taking their piece and when it became clear that most of the Taliban simply switched sides. If you think Afghanistan is "free" now you're a fool. My point was not that Arabs don't want freedom - that's stupid; though I would argue that many Arabs don't agree with American notions of what freedom is, but that is neither here nor there. My point is that terrorism is conceived of as a military response to conditions that are perceived to be like war. Not for the masterminds, wealthy manipulative demagogues like bin Laden, but for the people who participate in it on a larger scale.
My own feeling is that a US victory in Iraq, followed by the establishment of a democratic government there would have reverberations accross the middle east, as people realized that they do not have to live in tyranny -- this is the real reason the Arab tyrants fear US action against Iraq.
I too would love to see democracy - or at least democratic participation - in Iraq. But only an idiot would believe that US bombs will produce that. When have US bombs ever produced democracy in a foreign country? Get real. Aside from all that, we need to keep in mind that US goals have nothing to do with democracy in Iraq. It might be nice if we went to war for democracy, but if we attack Iraq it will be to put a friendly regime in power. Not a democratic regime - you can bet US leaders fear such a regime as much as the Arab leaders do. And I agree with you about the Arab regimes fearing democratic movements. Nobody in the Arab world is going to believe that the US - who went to war with Iraq 10 years ago to protect Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, two brutal incestuous family dictatorships - has suddenly decided to promote democracy in the middle east. Americans with pseudonyms like "neocon" might believe this hogwash, but I doubt we'll see it fly on the Arab street.
You keep saying Iraq was involved in 911 but produce no evidence; if it is true, why aren't American leaders mentioning it? They supposedly want to build a case to attack Iraq; and they don't even believe the meetings you cite even occurred. I'm beginning to think I'm feeding the trolls.
Now you want to attack Iraq to preempt the strikes he has "threatened." If we attacked every tyrant that tried to impress his people with braggadocio, we would have a lot of work on our hands, starting with China and Russia (remember the Russian comment a few years ago to Clinton to beware their nuclear power? Or the Chinese military's constant blustering about Taiwan?) We can deter Iraq from attacking us for the simple fact that the Iraqis know they will be destroyed in any conflict they start with the US.
Mr. Hussein has a long track record of using WMD on his own people and on his enemies, he has threatened us and our allies with their use, and every credible source says he has them (chemical and biological weapons) and will have them soon (nuclear weapons). But you somehow divine that Mr. Hussein's intentions are peaceful, despite the fact that he himself says otherwise? Please...
Now I know you're a troll. Inner voices my ass; I linked two articles from credible sources that showed that his nuclear capabilities are widely exaggerated and that we can prevent him from developing nukes without destroying Iraq. No credible source says he has them. As for his use of CBW against his own people, this is not a "long track record" but a single instance that occurred at Halabja years before the first Gulf War - in other words, while Iraq was still a US ally. We did not even criticize it then. To use this incident, over a decade old, as an excuse to attack him now is ludicrous. Where has he threatened to use them on the US? That is also ridiculous. What he has said is that he will use them if they are used against his people - what would you expect a national leader to say? I certainly hope Mr. Bush would say the same thing to defend America if necessary.
Finally, I never said Hussein was peaceful. In fact I believe the words I used to describe him were "murderous thug." What I said was that he is not stupid or suicidal, and his longevity in power attests to that. We do not rely on leaders' peaceful intentions or good will to keep them from destroying us; we rely on their rational self-interest - and Hussein, as irrational as you might think he is, has always acted according to his perceptions of rational self-interest. I don't see him inviting nuclear obliteration just to be able to kill a few thousand Americans with anthrax or whatever.
You miss the point -- these are the terms on which Mr. Bin Laden has chosen to fight us. Just as Fascism did not go away until it was decisively defeated and shown to be impotent, Mr. Bin Laden's bizzare breed of Islamo-Fascism will not go away until the same thing occurs.
Uhh, yeah, that's exactly the point. When you let him dictate the terms of the fight - by embracing the "clash of civilizations" - then you show how potent he is. It is amazing to me that we have so much more money, resources, and military power than he does, not to mention a lot of influence over the international media, and virtual freedom of action, and yet we act as if we are so powerless to counter his narrative of Muslims vs. Jews/Crusaders. This guy does not represent the Islamic world, but if we embrace the clash of civilizations, we are saying that we believe he represents that world.
Anyway I think you're a troll and I'm done arguing with you. For now anyway....
Re:Need to change this silly subject line (Score:2)
Re:Ah yes, its nearly Spetember 11th (Score:1, Insightful)
I will assume you ment hates America...
Could it be
1. All the money we give out every year to keep most 3rd world countries from colapsing?
2. The constant military help we give countries who need it?
3. A government run by the people for the people? Granted it could be better.
4. Having our women on equal ground with our men in every aspect of our lives?
5. Having most of our diverse religous and ethnic backgrounds get along together?
6. Having a country where a "common" class person can become the richest person in the world? Granted I don't like Bill Gates.
7. A country where EVERY child has the ability to get an education?
8. A country that thoughsands of people are fleeing to every year?
9. A country that produces enough food to not only feed themselves but a large part of the world?
10. A country where people could protest against the government and ANY political official and NOT get shot or have family members killed?
Or could it possibly be Bill Clinton? Ok, we are sorry for that one!
Nice to be able to type something like that and not have to worry about the government killing me.
I am not saying that the U.S.A. doesn't have it's problems, God knows we do, but to say the the rest of the world hates us is wrong. It would probably be better to say that a large part of the world envies the U.S.A.
Some extreemist will try and turn that envy into hate. Understand though, that those people that try to turn those differences into hate, are generally just using people to make themselves more powerfull and rich. They may or may not believe in what they are preaching.
Re:Ah yes, its nearly Spetember 11th (Score:1)
That's true - the US does prop up dictatorships like Saudi Arabia, Eygpt, Jordan, etc.
2. The constant military help we give countries who need it?
See above. Not to mention the "military help" we're about to give Iraq!
3. A government run by the people for the people? Granted it could be better.
Which people are those? Hell, in the last presidential election, they didn't even bother to count all the votes.
4. Having our women on equal ground with our men in every aspect of our lives?
One of the best things about America, and Europe, and our culture. I think we're way ahead of everyone on this one. Good call.
5. Having most of our diverse religous and ethnic backgrounds get along together?
Well, "get along" might be pushing it. But America is one of the most tolerant and liberal cultures in the world. Now if we can just keep the "conservatives" from destroying it.
6. Having a country where a "common" class person can become the richest person in the world? Granted I don't like Bill Gates.
Bill Gates was a "common" class person? Wasn't he a rich kid that went to Harvard? A few working class folks do win the lottery every year.
7. A country where EVERY child has the ability to get an education?
The schools for poor kids in America are horrible, Europe has us well beat on this one. We need to work harder. Let's show those snotty Europeans - let's triple school funding until we catch up.
8. A country that thoughsands of people are fleeing to every year?
Like Europe? Thousands of people flee to China every year too. Most people flee poor countries to rich countries, wouldn't you?
9. A country that produces enough food to not only feed themselves but a large part of the world?
Our socialist farming system has worked very well. Didn't ADM, supermarket to the world, just get a huge subsidy in the "Farm Bill" this year? Of course, America does not feed the world. Hell, most poor countries are sending us food! (See Haiti, Zimbabwe, (sp?), etc.)
10. A country where people could protest against the government and ANY political official and NOT get shot or have family members killed?
Freedom of speech is one of the things that makes America great. We are well ahead of Europe on this one. Now, let's just keep the "conservatives" from censoring political speech, and we'll be fine.
IMHO, Bill Clinton was a scumbag, but he was loved and cheered all over the world. IMHO, Bush is a scumbag, but he is booed and protested all over the world. I guess that's why he stays at his ranch and plays golf all the time.
The main reason that people around the world hate the US is not envy, its the BOMBS. Remember?
Re:Ah yes, its nearly Spetember 11th (Score:1)
Re:Ah yes, its nearly Spetember 11th (Score:1)
-That's true - the US does prop up dictatorships like Saudi Arabia, Eygpt, Jordan, etc.
also most us aid goes on marketing of cigarettes, fronts for humint staff, scouting of territory for mcdonalds and extorting slave labour for the gap.
--2. The constant military help we give countries who need it?
-See above. Not to mention the "military help" we're about to give Iraq!
or the help you gave kosovo, or the people who need it like suharto, pinoche, etc
--3. A government run by the people for the people? Granted it could be better.
-Which people are those? Hell, in the last presidential election, they didn't even bother to count all the votes.
the us is not a democracy, it is an oligarchy.
--4. Having our women on equal ground with our men in every aspect of our lives?
-One of the best things about America, and Europe, and our culture. I think we're way ahead of everyone on this one. Good call.
but is there truly equal pay and equal opportunity for advancement for both men and women?
--5. Having most of our diverse religous and ethnic backgrounds get along together?
-Well, "get along" might be pushing it. But America is one of the most tolerant and liberal cultures in the world. Now if we can just keep the "conservatives" from destroying it.
most americans are great in person no matter theirt politics. but your leaders are a corrupt gang of thugs and killers who are lining their own pockets with the blood of millions.
--6. Having a country where a "common" class person can become the richest person in the world? Granted I don't like Bill Gates.
-Bill Gates was a "common" class person? Wasn't he a rich kid that went to Harvard? A few working class folks do win the lottery every year.
people who wil lotteries almost always regret it and end up in a worse position than when they started. steve jobs is a uni dropout who runs one of the coolest companies on earth. who would you rather be?
--7. A country where EVERY child has the ability to get an education?
-The schools for poor kids in America are horrible, Europe has us well beat on this one. We need to work harder. Let's show those snotty Europeans - let's triple school funding until we catch up.
europe is excellent. so much more depth and feeling of community here than in the us. i am sad for countries like australia that have been wavign the us flag so hard it must hurt, and iraq turned around and cancelled half a billion in wheat orders, pointing out that they can hardly go buing food from a country so beligerantly towing the us line.
--8. A country that thoughsands of people are fleeing to every year?
-Like Europe? Thousands of people flee to China every year too. Most people flee poor countries to rich countries, wouldn't you?
and australia, south america, anywhere but the middle east. the us puts their prisoners in cuba, australia puts them in nauru. britian used to put theirs in australia.
--9. A country that produces enough food to not only feed themselves but a large part of the world?
-Our socialist farming system has worked very well. Didn't ADM, supermarket to the world, just get a huge subsidy in the "Farm Bill" this year? Of course, America does not feed the world. Hell, most poor countries are sending us food! (See Haiti, Zimbabwe, (sp?), etc.)
exactly. the us didproduce terminator crops though and some poor farmer got sued for patent infringement because some seeds of some other bastard plant had fallen into his own pastures and contaminated his crops. but the us want fair trade and to give food aid. never mind the food aid given is always non-renewable. a bit like army rations,a nd probably made in manilla along with marks & spencers sandwiches and imac superdrives.
--10. A country where people could protest against the government and ANY political official and NOT get shot or have family members killed?
-Freedom of speech is one of the things that makes America great. We are well ahead of Europe on this one. Now, let's just keep the "conservatives" from censoring political speech, and we'll be fine.
oh come on. the press has been full of people in the us being lynched for their religion or creed. especially post 11/9
-IMHO, Bill Clinton was a scumbag, but he was loved and cheered all over the world.
-IMHO, Bush is a scumbag, but he is booed and protested all over the world. I guess that's why he stays at his ranch and plays golf all the time.
-The main reason that people around the world hate the US is not envy, its the BOMBS.
-Remember?
there are many reasons why people hate america [vexen.co.uk].
don't get me wrong i think americans are great and their country is beautiful. but your leaders are crazy and in charge of weapons of mass destruction and that scares people. they think about what you did to cambodia - and the fact that rummy was sec of defence then too, and kissinger is still there behind the scenes.
Re:Ah yes, its nearly Spetember 11th (Score:1)
1. All the money we give out every year to keep most 3rd world countries from colapsing?
You mean the money spent to prop up corrupt and failing puppet democracies?
Also, you snidely corrected a previous poster's silly grammatical error, then went on to make one yourself in the very next sentence. FYI.
2. The constant military help we give countries who need it?
You mean like Cambodia? Nicaragua? WWII was a long time ago. Since then, with one possible exception, our military interventions have almost certainly done more harm than good.
6. Having a country where a "common" class person can become the richest person in the world? Granted I don't like Bill Gates.
You're proud of this?! Professional ball players whine about only making a few million dollars a year, CEOs rake in tens of millions as they steer their companies into the ground, directors vote themselves loans that they have no intention of repaying, etc. America has many strengths but let me assure you that gross equity imbalance is not one of them!
7. A country where EVERY child has the ability to get an education?
What suburb do you live in? We're making progress towards this every year, and one day this will be true. Today, though, most parents need to start financial planning for their child's college education before the child is even born. It's sickening.
9. A country that produces enough food to not only feed themselves but a large part of the world?
I'm pretty sure that terrorists aren't plotting against us because of our agricultural output...
3. A government run by the people for the people? Granted it could be better.
4. Having our women on equal ground with our men in every aspect of our lives?
5. Having most of our diverse religous and ethnic backgrounds get along together?
8. A country that thoughsands of people are fleeing to every year?
These are different manifestations of the single greatest thing about our country. Let us never forget it.
10. A country where people could protest against the government and ANY political official and NOT get shot or have family members killed?
... Nice to be able to type something like that and not have to worry about the government killing me.
Amen, brother.
American Hype[tm] (Score:1)
I'd select as a likely candidate an overwhelming American attitude problem: "Does not play well with others." It's their way or the highway, and the good ol' US of A is in the military and economic position to back up their attitude and agenda with whatever force required.
They need oil? They'll threaten or coerce (odd or even days) $GOVERNMENT to get it. Domestic farmers and steel producers need help? They'll violate the spirit of NAFTA and the WTO to prop them up. Worried that good ol' American GIs might be called to account for their actions? Boycott the International Criminal Court! These issues, however untoward, are not what terrorists are concerned over. They're more pissed off about the US throwing its weight around in the Middle East.
Oh, and FWIW...
Re:Ah yes, its nearly Spetember 11th (Score:1)
I will assume you meant "meant".
Unpalatable Home Truths (Score:2)
The percentage of foreign aid as a percentage of total GNP by the US actually ranks among the lowest of all developed nations and is almost less than a tenth of the UN-recommended minimum. European countries such as Denmark and Sweden do far better. And of the paltry US aid amount, fully two-thirds of it goes to Israel and Egypt.
> 2. The constant military help we give countries who need it?
See point 1 above.
> 3. A government run by the people for the people? Granted it could be better.
The US political system is hidebound and locked in this weird two-party timewarp. You have no proportional representation and an unresponsive government almost totally controlled by special interests and lobbyists. Most social democricies evolved more inclusive political systems in the 20th century but the US system definitely dates from the early 19th. Where are your coalitions, your multi-seat districts, your party lists? Your political system scores abusmally on issues of transitivity and concordance.
> 4. Having our women on equal ground with our men in every aspect of our lives?
The gender gap for wages in the US is still pronounced. It is much less in European countries, such as Sweden, where State-sponsored universal child care facilties and generous statutory maternity and paternity leave enable women to pursue their careers with less disadvantage.
> 5. Having most of our diverse religous and ethnic backgrounds get along together?
Your US system is born of low population -- rather than deal with an interlocking, complex, mannered society you thrive on isolation and reclusiveness. European social systems are born of a much more densely inhabited continent where different cultures do not have the luxury of withdrawal or migration. It will take the US another century or two to reach European levels of social complexity.
> 6. Having a country where a "common" class person can become the richest person in the world? Granted I don't like Bill Gates.
US social mobility now ranks in the second-tier of developed nations, along with such luminaries as France and Italy. Northern European countries, less Latin in character (such as the UK and Germany) actually feature higher social mobility than the US.
> 7. A country where EVERY child has the ability to get an education?
The cost for US college education as a percentage of the average salary is far higher than in any other EU country.
> 8. A country that thoughsands of people are fleeing to every year?
All developed countries feature high immigration, or a desire for high immigration. The US has long used immigration as a strategy to fill the desolate wastes left after the genocide of the native populations. Additionally, the input of cheap immigrant labour retards the growth of salaries and wages in the US and undermines the progress of unions and collective bargaining and social compacts.
In the United States, the median real wage is about the same today as it was 28 years ago.This means that the majority of the labor force has failed to share in the gains from economic growth over the last 28 years. That is drastically different from the previous 27 years, during which the typical wage increased by about 80% in real terms. I note that this retardation of wages correlates with a dramatic increase in immigration.
> 9. A country that produces enough food to not only feed themselves but a large part of the world?
Using manifestly wasteful aquifer-draining agricultal systems that are massivley subsidized by the US taxpayer. If US food was costed to actually reflect its real inputs, it would not be able to be dumped so cheaply on international markets.
> 10. A country where people could protest against the government and ANY political official and NOT get shot or have family members killed?
Tell that to the family of MLK. There is freedom of speech in the US, but there is also repression and political assassination. In this regard, the US seems little different from the rest of the developed world.
Re:Ah yes, its nearly Spetember 11th (Score:1)
1. A LOT of trade barriors have been broken down, but it would be foolish to trade with 3rd world countries who use slave labor. Cancel 3rd world debt? The U.S.A. has canceled a lot, but WE loaned the money to these countries. We did NOT give it to them.
2. Yes the U.S.A. only helps it's friends in regard to military. Do you suggest otherwise? A lot of people dies in Vietnam.
3. Not sure what your point is. Does it take money to get elected to office. Yes. Does it help to have a common name? Yes. But there are a BUNCH of senators that came from meager beginnings. Another point would be Jimmy Carter (not that I was a fan), came from a poor family. Even Bill Clinton would have been considered "lower class" in some countries.
6. Look at where Gates started and where he is now. There are numerous other examples I could use. I don't think you disagreed with my point though...
8. Most people flee here for an opportunity to make something of their life, and it is a better country. Mexico doesn't seem to guard it's boarders from the U.S.A does it?
Anyway, got to go to lunch...
Later.
Re:Ah yes, its nearly Spetember 11th (Score:1)
- A (not so minor) point. The current Bush was NOT put in office by a "political appointee of his brother". Ms. Harris, the FL Secretary of State (I assumed that you didn't mean SCOTUS..)occupied a statewide ELECTED office. She did NOT serve at the pleasure of the FL Gov.
I could go off on a tangent, and point out that he was elected under the then-current Florida law, but I digress....
- Also, those "criminal companies" (not arguing, though I think the term may be vauge) gave to BOTH of the major political parties...
Re:Ah yes, its nearly Spetember 11th (Score:1)
Re:Ah yes, its nearly Spetember 11th (Score:1)
for somone to be rich someone else has to be poor. western countries keep 3rd world countries in poverty through foriegn debt.
While this is a common claim by the left, any serious economist would point out that economics is not, in fact, a zero sum game. A free economy tends to grow on its own, as new technologies and processes emerge -- it does not grow by taking resources from elsewhere. If this were not true, how do you explain that the world economy taken as a whole is constantly growing. Are we taking resources from other planets, too?
No, third world nations are poor because they pursue backwards and oppressive economic policies which prevent growth. It's that simple. (And if you don't believe that, note that third world countries such as India or Korea which adopted free-market economies are doing quite well, thank you).
The rest of your post simply descends into incoherence. Perhaps if you rephrase it more clearly, it will become obvious to you how silly it is...
Re:Ah yes, its nearly Spetember 11th (Score:1)
I mean, what? He thinks women should be flogged if they step out of doors unescorted, and we believe in equal rights for women, so we compromise and only flog our women on tuesdays and thursdays?
Appeasement doesn't work. It never has, and it never will. It's also morally despicable.
Re:Ah yes, its nearly Spetember 11th (Score:2)
Instead, the US should try doing more of "the right thing." Stick up for world peace and democracy, less for money. Stop bullying other countries, and giving bad ones guns. Let dictators be replaced by their people, instead of using military to hold them there.
Pull the US troops out of places where they're not wanted, like Saudi Arabia, and Al Quaeda will crumble under its lack of issues.
Re:Ah yes, its nearly Spetember 11th (Score:2)
I'm tempted to bring up Vietnam, but that was another time and administration. Instead, look at the Gulf War. I don't think the US really cared much about the Kurds, it was more about creating stability in the area, so we could continue our Oil purchases. Leaving the US military in Saudi Arabia is what makes Bin Laden personally mad, they're holding him back from reforming the government there. I haven't heard much about the poor Kurds, even though Hussein wants to kill them off. Did we forget them?
Sure, our economy is strong, but look how much it ground to a halt during the Oil Crisis a while back.
Re:Ah yes, its nearly Spetember 11th (Score:2)
As for the post above, let me say that today it isn't the facts. Today I agree with all your calls to fact. It's just your conclusions today.
And even the conclusions are leading in the right direction. Follow the money my friend, follow the money. You're almost there!
And with that cryptic and entirely too "deep throat" sounding post, my time in this crappy internet cafe is up. Apologies. I have more and will post it another time. I have enjoyed our discussions! Being on "holiday" in a part of the world that demonstrates simply by walking out the door much of what you and I have discussed (no secret which side of the argument the real world illustrates here) makes me magnanimous! *grin*