'Taliban' is a commonly used synecdoche for the very loose coalition of groups that are opposed to the Afghan government.
The entire country is not up in arms, only certain people in some areas, supported, armed, and financed by foreign groups. Most of the locals couldn't care less who's in charge of them as long as they stop getting shot, but stopping the shooting requires either NATO or the insurgents to pack it in, and you can't possibly be arguing that the people of Afghanistan would be better off returning to where they were in 2000.
the patient's suffering is unbearable with no prospect of improvement
the patient's request for euthanasia must be voluntary and persist over time (the request cannot be granted when under the influence of others, psychological illness or drugs)
the patient must be fully aware of his/her condition, prospects and options
there must be consultation with at least one other independent doctor who needs to confirm the conditions mentioned above
So either there's major malpractice going on in the Netherlands or you're wrong.
(same source):
In 2003, in the Netherlands, 1626 cases were officially reported of euthanasia in the sense of a physician assisting the death (1.2% of all deaths).
Do you have a source for claiming "over 20% of all deaths"?
Because once they are dead, they can do nothing.
They can still vote in some jurisdictions if your campaign manager knows some people.
If you spend NZ$20,000,000 to try and save 40 people, and end up with two homeless guys, a drug addict, 2 murderers, a career burglar, a man in his 80's, and 33 corpses,
If that's what you get back from 40 rescue operations, your country is messed up and you suck at rescuing. Anyway, these people will still be saved for the same reason that New Zealand, and every Western country save the US, would provide them with health care: people are members of society regardless of their perceived 'worth', and deserve the essential services that a member of society receives.
Now, a McCain/Obama or Obama/McCain ticket, I just might have been able to get behind
What about Clinton/McCain or vice versa? Iran would have been a smoking crater 48 hours after the inauguration.
The US is aiding the Afghan government in suppressing their own people.
The alternative is to give up on attempting to have a centralized state in Afghanistan, and accept a return to the previous days of terrorist-harbouring, Pakistan-destablilizing chaos.
Had a more traditional foreign news agency offered them the chance to redact sensitive info from a leak that had already happened they should have jumped at it.
Exactly. But the traditional news agencies show more respect for national security and are at least willing to compromise with the Pentagon. If the Pentagon treated Wikileaks like a traditional journalist organization, they would be conceding that the Wikileaks model is responsible and acceptable, which (for obvious reasons) is unpalatable to the Pentagon.
Sigh, the Taliban have nothing to do with what is going on in Afghanistan.
I don't understand why Americans have so much trouble understanding what war is... there's nothing going on in Afghanistan that is anything like a war.
There's not even a civil war going on. What's going on is that the government of Afghanistan is trying to keep power and expand their territory to the designated borders. There's pockets of Afghanistan that are completely cut off from the government and they can't collect taxes, hold elections, and exert their will.
For *some reason* the US is there helping the Afghanistan government to get control over their territory. I'd love to explain to you why the US is doing that but we don't know.
'Taliban' is a commonly used synecdoche for the very loose coalition of groups that are opposed to the Afghan government.
If you want to be needlessly pedantic, then Afghanistan is in the middle of a conflict, not a war. Needless pedantry tends to be frowned upon.
The US (and their allies) are helping the Afghan government because they installed that government, and have a strong interest (in terms of diplomacy, prestige, and concern for the Afghan population) in maintaining it.
In every non-trivial program there is at least one bug.
