Aceshardware

iiB · Joined: 20 Aug 2007 Posts: 66

P4man wrote:

Maybe you also should also try and remember how hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees ended up there.

They we're removed from Jordan who didn't want them because they threatened its security?

And if you mean how they became refugees - well I guess it's becasue they along with 6 Arab countries surrounding Israel started a war in 48' in order to 'ethnically clean' the middle east form the newly found state of Israel.

good for me we won.
I believe our fortune would have been far worse then theirs the other way around.

P4man wrote:

but Israel is no different. They assassinate and abduct Lebanese or Palestinian leadership and politicians all the time just as well. They just don't do it with carbombs, they use F16s.

Not going into that debate - at the very least - the difference i people Syria kill often do no worse then speak there mind about the Syrian occupation. none of them participates in any terrorisem or killing of Syrian occupying forces, let alone Syrian civilians.

P4man wrote:

Now I certainly don't condone Syria's meddling in Lebanon or Iran's meddling in Palestine, but unless Israel stops doing the exact same thing, and stops occupying Palestine, you should be more careful calling others hypocrites.

Really, you should compare the 'press time' Israel gets for it's wrong doings - against the lack of any for the occupation of Lebanon by Syria. for 23 years the only time someone gave a fuck about that occupation is when Syria went to far and assassinated the Lebanon's prime minister.
And to this day it goes unpunished by the international community.

P4man wrote:

In a free Lebanon, Hezbollah would probably lead the government.

It's obvious Syria and Iran are (illegally) doing everything in their power to stir the media and lebbanon in order for that to happen so it'll continue to fullfil their needs. if the media isn't free - then it's no democracy is it?
I don't think you can call it free where Syria murdering, kidnapping, and threatening journalists and where lies are being thrown on the reason's Israel went to war on July 12th 2006 as if it was preconceived by Israel and the US and not due to Hizbollah actions.

By the way, After Hamas moved to slughter fatach in gaza strip and continue aggression against Israel in the face of world seclusion - their approval ratting sharply drooped not that the civilians in Gaza will get another chance to vote...

P4man wrote:

Using that logic, Arab nations and Iran have all the reasons they need to invade Israel. Or the US for that matter.

Well so far Iranian supplied terror groups hit Israel, and not the other way around.

P4man wrote:

Weren't you the one that called the mass rape and murder of 1500 refugees "an incident"?

If you believe this was the desired result by Israel sending the Phalanges in then you might as well believe that the Phalanges who switch sides to Syria immediately after words - has committed the massacre for their alliance.
Those are 2 extremes and the truth is somewhere in between. Don't confuse carelessness and lack of proper responsibility with intent.

iiB · Joined: 20 Aug 2007 Posts: 66

Just wanted to add another thing about Ron Paul.

If he thinks that to no extent they are after us because we're free then he is deluded. They control the media, they control the internet, they arrest bloggers they try to control the media in places strategic to them like Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. And he says its not about the freedom the west exports?

It has everything to do with freedom. it has everything to do with their need to keep their population from the sort of exposure that will cause the collapse of their corrupt governments.

It has everything to do with keeping away Islamic teens from getting porn and realizing the west is having sex.
It has everything to do with keeping away the citizens of Damascus from realizing that if their government weren't corrupt they wouldn't have to put up with hours of power-outage daily, from poor health conditions etc...
It has everything to do with the people in power making sure they aren't threatened by freedom.

Demonizing the west and fueling conflicts in the middle east (being through al-qaeda, Lebanon or the Palestinian territories) is their means of doing so.

Doc Zoiberg · Joined: 31 Jul 2007 Posts: 16

I m happy to see this discussion, i m happy because even there are different views has still good level of civility and respect.

From what i can read seem people try to understand what happening, and trying is the first step.

I d like to add to discussion a personal opinion: "Good Powers does not exist"

Is not metaphysical, i mean that who has power or can use power, all the time has take the decision if using the Power in behalf of some interest and on how maintain the power.

Doing so they bend things in way to be positive for some group but at same time the same things are negative for other groups.
We ve to be so honest to check what our governments, our groups, ourself do and evaluate if that actions are more for personal/group/nation interest or respect the code of conduct that is officially adopted.

Power is not good or evil is ... power and a lot of people to have/maintain it will do everything possible.

P4man · Joined: 26 Jun 2007 Posts: 540

iiB wrote:

It has everything to do with freedom. it has everything to do with their need to keep their population from the sort of exposure that will cause the collapse of their corrupt governments.

If you truly believe that, you are either stupid, utterly ignorant, or an Israeli that wants us to believe that, because the reality is Muslim hate the US mainly for 2 reasons:

1) the lack of freedom and democracy caused by the US installed tyrannies and overthrowing of democratically elected governments throughout Arab nations and history
2) its policies towards Israel and the Palestinian issue.

Not because of our freedom, if anything they envy ours. Its the US that constantly deprives Arabs of freedom and installs and supports tyrannies in Iraq (Saddam), Pakistan (Musharraf ) , Saudi Arabia (Adbul), Iran (Shah), Egypt, Kuwait,.. those are not regimes their people chose! Those are the regimes the islamists fight against, and that is mainly what makes movements like the Iranian revolution, Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda etc popular amongst the population. They are seen as freedom fighters. I have lived in Iran, and most Iranians I know are not too fond of their regime, but they consider it paradise compared to the Shah.

This constant mantra of the US "exporting democracy" and Muslims hating our freedom is pure idiocy and hypocrisy.

From a report by a Pentagon advisory panel:

Muslims do not hate our freedom, but rather they hate our policies [the report says]. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the long-standing, even increasing, support for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan and the Gulf states. Thus, when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypocrisy.'

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1129/dailyUpdate.html

P4man · Joined: 26 Jun 2007 Posts: 540

iiB wrote:

And if you mean how they became refugees - well I guess it's becasue they along with 6 Arab countries surrounding Israel started a war in 48'

they surrounded their own houses ?

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in order to 'ethnically clean' the middle east form the newly found state of Israel.

fighting against a regime that should never have been created like that, is not the same as ethnic cleansing. South Africa was not ethnically cleansed because the appartheid regime fell. Arabs didnt want to expell all Jews from their land, they wanted (and many still want) to remove a regime they consider(ed) illegal.

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good for me we won.
I believe our fortune would have been far worse then theirs the other way around.

Maybe, maybe not. I happen to believe certainly the fortune of the Palestinians and in fact that of most of the world, including most Jews would have been much better had Israel not been created against the will of the people in the region.

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Really, you should compare the 'press time' Israel gets for it's wrong doings - against the lack of any for the occupation of Lebanon by Syria. for 23 years the only time someone gave a fuck about that occupation is when Syria went to far and assassinated the Lebanon's prime minister.
And to this day it goes unpunished by the international community.

Israel is not getting enough support from the press. Thats golden.

The Lebanese issue is too complex to argue in single paragraphs, but one of the reason people 'didnt give a fuck" for so long is probably that the Lebanese government asked the Syrians for assistance as a peace keeping force. Until 1986 at least. That doesn't excuse them for anything they did (especially after 1986) but it is kind of different than when Israel invaded and occupied Lebanon. Although of course both Syria and Israel used very similar reasons, and even now use the same excuses for meddling in Lebanon.

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It's obvious Syria and Iran are (illegally) doing everything in their power to stir the media and lebbanon in order for that to happen so it'll continue to fullfil their needs.

.. and Israel has been and is doing exactly the same thing. But if Iran supports Hezbollah, its considered arming terrorists, if Israel supports the (far more bloody handed) Phalange militia, it is not?

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I don't think you can call it free where Syria murdering, kidnapping, and threatening journalists

I never said Lebanon was free. Like the Palestinians, they are victims of powerstruggle between Iran and Syria on one hand, and the US and Israel on the other.

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and where lies are being thrown on the reason's Israel went to war on July 12th 2006 as if it was preconceived by Israel and the US and not due to Hizbollah actions.

If the abduction of 2 soldiers, or the occasional cross border rocketing/bombing is enough reason to bomb an entire country to the stone age, kill over a thousand civilians and litter the country with unexploded cluster bombs... wouldn't Hamas be 10x as justified in invading Israel? After all, not only does Israel abduct hundreds, thousands times more, bombs or rockets at least as often, it is also illegally occupying and ethnically cleansing huge parts of Palestine. How then is US arming and funding of Israel so different from Iranian support for Hamas?

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By the way, After Hamas moved to slughter fatach in gaza strip and continue aggression against Israel in the face of world seclusion - their approval ratting sharply drooped not that the civilians in Gaza will get another chance to vote...

What good is voting anyway, when Israel simply disregards the outcome and overthrows the elected government?

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If you believe this was the desired result by Israel sending the Phalanges in then you might as well believe that the Phalanges who switch sides to Syria immediately after words - has committed the massacre for their alliance.
Those are 2 extremes and the truth is somewhere in between. Don't confuse carelessness and lack of proper responsibility with intent.

Oh.. Sharon was careless ? Sure, you would call it careless to order a fox (or rather, your obedient and trained pit bull) in a chicken hen, and then lock the door, actively ensure the screaming chickens can not escape, wait for the dust to settle. I don't call that careless, I call that a premeditated slaughter.

DUCK of DEATH · Joined: 04 Sep 2007 Posts: 104

P4Man,
The British novelist Martin Amis was quoted with the following which clearly applies to you.

People of liberal sympathies, stupefied by relativism, have become the apologists for a creedal wave that is racist, misogynist, homophobic, imperialist and genocidal. To put it another way, they are up the arse of those that want them dead.

P4man · Joined: 26 Jun 2007 Posts: 540

DUCK of DEATH wrote:

P4Man,
The British novelist Martin Amis was quoted with the following which clearly applies to you.

People of liberal sympathies, stupefied by relativism, have become the apologists for a creedal wave that is racist, misogynist, homophobic, imperialist and genocidal. To put it another way, they are up the arse of those that want them dead.

Thats funny. Almost. Is that the same Martin Amis that also said:

"The Muslim community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order.’ What sort of suffering? Not letting them travel. Deportation – further down the road. Curtailing of freedoms. Strip-searching people who look like they’re from the Middle East or from Pakistan… Discriminatory stuff, until it hurts the whole community and they start getting tough with their children"

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/brainiac/2006/12/17-week/

And you are quoting that guy to prove I am (or would be an apologist for) racism? homophobia ? Genocide ? Imperialism?? What a joke. Hypocrisy would be a too mild term.

FWIW, Racist, misogynist, homophobic, imperialist and genocidal would be a fairly adequate description of quite a few religious conservatives in Washington, but I don't quite recall being an apologist for them.

DUCK of DEATH · Joined: 04 Sep 2007 Posts: 104

When a Danish Newspaper publish some cartoons poking fun at Mohammed, this was the reaction in England.

P4man · Joined: 26 Jun 2007 Posts: 540

Thanks for bringing that up, I really wasn't aware of those event :roll:
I'm not sure what you are trying to prove though. That religious nuts... are nuts ?

Muslims have no monopoly on idiocy (or homophobia for that matter, let alone imperialism or genocide as you said earlier).

But what this have to do with the situation in Iraq, Iran, Lebanon or Palestine? Or anything being discussed here for that matter.

DUCK of DEATH · Joined: 04 Sep 2007 Posts: 104

P4man wrote:

Thanks for bringing that up, I really wasn't aware of those event

You certainly seem to have little appreciation for how appalling those events were.

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I'm not sure what you are trying to prove though. That religious nuts... are nuts ?

That your woeful Islamist apologist stance that seeks to simply blame everything on US foreign policy is a crock.

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Muslims have no monopoly on idiocy (or homophobia for that matter, let alone imperialism or genocide as you said earlier).

Is not the worst place for a homosexual or a women, a Muslim dominated country?

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But what this have to do with the situation in Iraq, Iran, Lebanon or Palestine? Or anything being discussed here for that matter.

It is to highlight that your claims about Muslims being made to do horrible things is all the fault of the big bad USA.

You need to clue yourself up big time on scum like Sayyid Qutb, and the worrying influence Wahhabism, with it's paranoid and apocalyptic world view, is having on the Muslim world.

An extract about Qutb

As the Arab encounter with modernisation has proved such a dismal failure, the only ideology left standing in the Arab world is Islamism of one kind or another. The key ideological figure in the development of modern Islamism is Sayyid Qutb, who was the intellectual leader of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, the fountainhead fundamentalist organisation, in the middle of the 20th century.

Central to Qutb’s development was a trip he took to the US in 1948, on which he completed a postgraduate degree. He was wildly disturbed by the sexual licentiousness of the US. He described American churches as “entertainment centres and sexual playgrounds”.

Is it so astonishing that the London doctors wanted to attack a nightclub on ladies’ night? Is this really the result of Iraq?

Now whilst I believe it is likely you are beyong salvation, I still hope others can see what an appalling apologist for Islamic terrorism you are by quoting some extracts of pertinent essays on this matter.

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As a spokesman for the Islamic Army of Aden put it in 2002, explaining why they bombed a French oil tanker: "We would have preferred to hit a US frigate, but no problem because they are all infidels."

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Five days before the slaughter in Bali on 12 Oct 2002, nine Islamists were arrested in Paris for reportedly plotting to attack the Metro. Must be all those French troops in Iraq, right? So much for the sterling efforts of President Jacques Chirac and his Prime Minister, Dominique de Villepin, as the two chief obstructionists of Bush-Blair-Howard neo-con-Zionist warmongering these past three years.

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There are many trouble spots across the world but, as a general rule, even if one gives no more than a cursory glance at the foreign pages, it's easy to guess at least one of the sides: Muslims v Jews in Palestine, Muslims v Hindus in Kashmir, Muslims v Christians in Nigeria, Muslims v Buddhists in southern Thailand, Muslims v (your team here). Whatever one's views of the merits on a case by case basis, the ubiquitousness of one team is a fact.

Mark Steyn: Islamist way or no way

04oct05

IT'S not just the environmentalists who think globally and act locally. The jihadi who murdered Newcastle woman Jennifer Williamson, Perth teenager Brendan Fitzgerald and a couple of dozen more Australians, Indonesians, Japanese and others had certain things in common with the July 7 London Tube killers. For example, Azahari bin Husin, who police believe may be the bomb-maker behind this weekend's atrocity, completed a doctorate at England's Reading University. The contribution of the British education system to the jihad is really quite remarkable.

But, on the other hand, despite Clive Williams's game attempt to connect the two on this page yesterday, nobody seriously thinks what happened in Bali has anything to do with Iraq. There are, in the end, no root causes, or anyway not ones that can be negotiated by troop withdrawals or a Palestinian state. There is only a metastasising cancer that preys on whatever local conditions are to hand. Five days before the slaughter in Bali, nine Islamists were arrested in Paris for reportedly plotting to attack the Metro. Must be all those French troops in Iraq, right? So much for the sterling efforts of President Jacques Chirac and his Prime Minister, Dominique de Villepin, as the two chief obstructionists of Bush-Blair-Howard neo-con-Zionist warmongering these past three years.

When the suicide bombers self-detonated on Saturday, the travel section of Britain's The Sunday Telegraph had already gone to press, its lead story a feature on how Bali's economy had bounced back from the carnage of 2002. We all want to believe that: one terrorist attack is like a tsunami or hurricane, just one of those things, blows in out of the blue, then the familiar contours of the landscape return. But two attacks are a permanent feature, the way things are and will be for some years, as one by one the bars and hotels and clubs and restaurants shut up shop. Many of the Australians injured this weekend had waited to return to Bali, just to make sure it was "safe". But it isn't, and it won't be for a long time, and by the time it is it won't be the Bali that Westerners flocked to before 2002.

I found myself behind a car in Vermont, in the US, the other day; it had a one-word bumper sticker with the injunction "COEXIST". It's one of those sentiments beloved of Western progressives, one designed principally to flatter their sense of moral superiority. The C was the Islamic crescent, the O was the hippie peace sign, the X was the Star of David and the T was the Christian cross. Very nice, hard to argue with. But the reality is, it's the first of those symbols that has a problem with coexistence. Take the crescent out of the equation and you wouldn't need a bumper sticker at all. Indeed, coexistence is what the Islamists are at war with; or, if you prefer, pluralism, the idea that different groups can rub along together within the same general neighbourhood. There are many trouble spots across the world but, as a general rule, even if one gives no more than a cursory glance at the foreign pages, it's easy to guess at least one of the sides: Muslims v Jews in Palestine, Muslims v Hindus in Kashmir, Muslims v Christians in Nigeria, Muslims v Buddhists in southern Thailand, Muslims v (your team here). Whatever one's views of the merits on a case by case basis, the ubiquitousness of one team is a fact.

"Men of intemperate mind never can be free; their passions forge their fetters," wrote Edmund Burke. And, in that sense, Bali is more symbolic of the Islamofascist strategy than London or Madrid, Beslan or Istanbul. The jihad has held out against some tough enemies: the Israelis in the West Bank, the Russians in Chechnya; these are primal conflicts. But what's the beef in Bali? Oh, to be sure, to the more fastidious Islamist some of those decadent hedonist fornicating Westerners whooping it up are a little offensive. But they'd be offensive whoever they were and whatever they did. It's the reality of a pluralist enclave within the world's largest Muslim nation that offends. It's the coexistence, stupid.

So even Muslims v (your team here) doesn't quite cover it. You don't have to have a team or even be aware that you belong to any side. You can be a hippie-dippy hey-man-I-love-everybody-whatever-your-bag-is-cool backpacking Dutch stoner, and they'll blow you up with as much enthusiasm as if you were Dick Cheney. As a spokesman for the Islamic Army of Aden put it in 2002, explaining why they bombed a French oil tanker: "We would have preferred to hit a US frigate, but no problem because they are all infidels."

No problem. In our time, even the most fascistic ideologies have been savvy enough to cover their darker impulses in sappy labels. The Soviet bloc was comprised of wall-to-wall "people's republics", which is the precise opposite of what they were: a stylistic audacity Orwell caught perfectly in 1984, with its Ministry of Truth (that is, official lies). But the Islamists don't even bother going through the traditional rhetorical feints. They say what they mean and they mean what they say. "We are here as on a darkling plain ..." wrote Matthew Arnold in the famous concluding lines to Dover Beach, "where ignorant armies clash by night".

But we choose in large part to stay in ignorance. Blow up the London Underground during a G8 summit and the world's leaders twitter about how tragic and ironic it is that this should have happened just as they're taking steps to deal with the issues, as though the terrorists are upset about poverty in Africa and global warming.

So, even in a great blinding flash of clarity, we can't wait to switch the lights off and go back to fumbling around on the darkling plain. Bali three years ago and Bali three days ago light up the sky: they make unavoidable the truth that Islamism is a classic "armed doctrine"; it exists to destroy. The reality of Bali's contribution to Indonesia's economic health is irrelevant. The jihadists would rather that the country be poorer and purer than prosperous and pluralist. For one thing, it's richer soil for them. If the Islamofascists gain formal control of Indonesia, it won't be a parochial, self-absorbed dictatorship such as Suharto's but a launching pad for an Islamic superstate across Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

Can they pull it off? The reality is that there are more Muslim states than a half-century ago, many more Muslims within non-Muslim states, and many more of those Muslims are radicalised and fundamentalist. It's not hard to understand. All you have to do is take them at their word. As Bassam Tibi, a Muslim professor at Gottingen University in Germany, said in an interesting speech a few months after September 11, "Both sides should acknowledge candidly that although they might use identical terms, these mean different things to each of them. The word peace, for example, implies to a Muslim the extension of the Dar al-Islam -- or House of Islam -- to the entire world. This is completely different from the Enlightenment concept of eternal peace that dominates Western thought. Only when the entire world is a Dar al-Islam will it be a Dar a-Salam, or House of Peace."

That's why they blew up Bali in 2002, and last weekend, and why they'll keep blowing it up. It's not about Bush or Blair or Iraq or Palestine. It's about a world where everything other than Islamism lies inruins.

Mark Steyn, a columnist with the Telegraph Group, is a regular contributor to The Australian's Opinion page

GMDavis · Joined: 13 Sep 2007 Posts: 42

P4man wrote:

GMDavis wrote:

Two things:
A) the 1,000,000 number you seem to be so fond of was an OPINION poll. There was no foundation in fact other than what someone said. This poll is just like the discredited Lancet poll, which had not facts to back up its numbers.

Wrong, in 92% of the cases a death certificate was produced when requested.

No, I am right. They only asked on section of the sample population. I have a feeling many of those "Death Certificates" aren't exactly kosher.

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These "opinion polls" are the standard way to measure casualties, they are in fact, the only scientific way to do so in a crisis situation.

Again no, they are not the only "scientific" way. Iraq Body Count is doing it the scientific way. But since that number doesn't fit into your metanarrative...

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The same methodology has been used in numerous other conflicts, I never heard anyone question the outcome of similar studies in Congo or Darfour.

Actually, I have heard many question the numbers and they have been recognized as estimates at best. You on the other hand want to use them as hard and fast numbers.

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The number is not accurate to 1%, but it is the single best scientific study we have. So maybe the real number is 100.000 less (or more), it doesnt change a whole lot, does it ?

Again, it does change quite a bit. The margin of error is 225,483, high and 487,422 low. That is a 18.5% high and 39.9% low. This is not the 1% margin of error you are claiming.

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Yes, Iraq Body Count. They have counted ~80.0000 violent deaths since the invasion, but that is not a "more factual" number, it is the number of deaths that have been confirmed by either eye witness reports or by the media. (further limited to civilian deaths, caused by violence).

Actually, yes it is a more accurate number. It is based on death certificates and eyewitness accounts, not some dart on the wall guess.

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You don't have to be a genius to understand that in the current mess that Iraq is in, with no media whatsoever outside Baghdad, only a tiny fraction of all casualties would end up being reported individually, which is what they say themselves. BTW, their numbers and trendlines almost perfectly match those of the Lancet study.

And as I posted earlier the Lacnet study has been pretty well discredited. The Lancet managed to do that the first time when they linked childhood inoculations to autism.
Here is what IBC had to say about the Lancet study.

A new study has been released by the Lancet medical journal estimating over 650,000 excess deaths in Iraq. The Iraqi mortality estimates published in the Lancet in October 2006 imply, among other things, that:

1. On average, a thousand Iraqis have been violently killed every single day in the first half of 2006, with less than a tenth of them being noticed by any public surveillance mechanisms;
2. Some 800,000 or more Iraqis suffered blast wounds and other serious conflict-related injuries in the past two years, but less than a tenth of them received any kind of hospital treatment;
3. Over 7% of the entire adult male population of Iraq has already been killed in violence, with no less than 10% in the worst affected areas covering most of central Iraq;
4. Half a million death certificates were received by families which were never officially recorded as having been issued;
5. The Coalition has killed far more Iraqis in the last year than in earlier years containing the initial massive "Shock and Awe" invasion and the major assaults on Falluja.

If these assertions are true, they further imply:

* incompetence and/or fraud on a truly massive scale by Iraqi officials in hospitals and ministries, on a local, regional and national level, perfectly coordinated from the moment the occupation began
* bizarre and self-destructive behaviour on the part of all but a small minority of 800,000 injured, mostly non-combatant, Iraqis;
* the utter failure of local or external agencies to notice and respond to a decimation of the adult male population in key urban areas;
* an abject failure of the media, Iraqi as well as international, to observe that Coalition-caused events of the scale they reported during the three-week invasion in 2003 have been occurring every month for over a year.

In the light of such extreme and improbable implications, a rational alternative conclusion to be considered is that the authors have drawn conclusions from unrepresentative data. In addition, totals of the magnitude generated by this study are unnecessary to brand the invasion and occupation of Iraq a human and strategic tragedy.

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I'm not sure what your point is. The Lancet article was a peer reviewed scientific publication (in one of the most respected scientifical journals). If you are going to argue its conclusions, what is your source again ?

My point was that you demand peer-reviewed data when someone disagreed with you , as you did with global warming, but you feel you can use any questionable source you feel like in other instances. In other words you have a dual standard. There is another word for it but I wont bother

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Not the entire world uses the point as decimal separator. I thought you would have at least understood that much.

Yeah, I brain-farted. Nice of you not to be a dick about it or anything.
You know, you were much nicer to me when I was "Guest" and you didnt know who I was. As a matter of fact, you were down right nice in the Churchill thread.

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So in a political publicity stunt he gave money to people who's houses where demolished, and who lost family members in a fight with an occupation army.

It was more than a publicity stunt. He did it for years. He guaranteed that the families of suicide bombers were set for life.

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You tell me, is that supporting terrorism or charity ?

Its supporting terrorism

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How is that related to attacks on the US ?

Its not. I never said it was. Stay on track

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And how do you think these sums compare to US contributions to (state) terrorism ?

Outside of the Cold War, what contrabutions did we make?

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We shall see what happens when a crude dirty bomb goes off somewhere in Israel with uranium that allegedly came from Iran reactors. Or when a US warship gets hit by an Iranian missile. Or whatever those fruitcases intend to provoke or stage as the next pretext.

If I were you I wouldn't go around using the word fruitcase. This from the person who gets his economic theory from an artists cartoon, or the guy who buys into conspiracy theories. Kursk, Twin Towers, etc.
You see the US government as some super clandestine entity. They cant even keep a desert airbase secret. Seriously, you really need to recalibrate your thinking.

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Sure:
I am not trying to rehabilitate the character of Saddam Hussein. He has much to answer for in the area of human rights abuses. But accusing him of gassing his own people at Halabja as an act of genocide is not correct, because as far as the information we have goes, all of the cases where gas was used involved battles. These were tragedies of war. There may be justifications for invading Iraq, but Halabja is not one of them.

Yeah, I remember that article. I also seem to remember that its accuracy was disputed. Mustard gas was used right before battles, much as in WWI. This was a quiet area of the front. Most of the fighting had been going on around Basra at this time. I also seem to remember that the winds in that area run from west to east, which is why Iraq had such success with the mustard gas and why Iran had such little success with WMD's

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Sure you can bring that up, in fact, I welcome it. The Russians have certainly done their part too, even in more recent history, and they have been just as hypocritical to abuse it to invade Chechnya and commit their own massacre over there, fighting for oilfields under the pretext of fighting terrorism.

SIGH. I'm am talking about the fact that if you are going to hold the US accountable for events of the Cold War you need to take into account the events that were going around at the time.

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My point is that totally unproven accusations of a very limited (possibly not government sanctioned) "supporting of terrorism" (/freedom fighters) is not exactly a compelling reason to invade and occupy a nation, and kill hundreds of thousands of its civilians. Especially not by a country that itself is more guilty of doing that than any other nation on earth.

Oh I think you had better go study up on the Cold War some. Come back after looking at the number of people killed by Stalin, Pol Pot and Mao.
Just a bit of hyperbole?

P4man · Joined: 26 Jun 2007 Posts: 540

DUCK of DEATH wrote:

You need to clue yourself up big time on scum like Sayyid Qutb, and the worrying influence Wahhabism, with it's paranoid and apocalyptic world view, is having on the Muslim world.

Now whilst I believe it is likely you are beyong salvation, I still hope others can see what an appalling apologist for Islamic terrorism you are by quoting some extracts of pertinent essays on this matter.

You can quote as many essays as you want, but what is your point ? I'm no apologist for fundamental religious nuts of any flavor. But in your narrow minded Islamofobia, you are completely missing the big picture.

There are over a billion muslims, of course there are plenty of dangerous nutcases among them that will commit hideous crimes in the name of the Quran. Just like in Christianity. You could quote KKK clan leaders, Apartheid leaders, or countless Christian sects to prove how dangerous Christianity can be. Or go back to the dark ages. I'm no fan of any religion, and I would be delighted if one day the entire world where enlightened, but in its essence, Islam is no worse threat than Christianity. In fact, it is surprisingly similar to Christianity.

But I never heard this was a Holy war against Islam. If it where, wouldn't Saudi Arabia be a more logical target than a secular Iraq? Its funny you mention Wahabism as a threat, when Saudi Arabia is considered a key US ally, and Bush likes to walk hand in hand with Wahabi dictators. So this war has nothing to do with religion, its is a war of conquest.

If many people, even religious moderates in the middle east have sympathy for organizations like Hamas or Al Quada, its not so much because of the religious aspect, as for the fact these organizations fight what they (understandably) see as foreign aggression and interference. The IRA didn't get its support because of its spreading of Catholicism, it got it its support from fighting the British occupation. Hamas Hezbollah, Taliban, the Iranian revolution or most of the Iraqi resistance is no different in this regard. If you take away the source of hate, support for Jihadism will crumble. If instead you are going to invade a few more Muslim nations, people will flock to Jihadists as their liberators. Its a war you can't win.

P4man · Joined: 26 Jun 2007 Posts: 540

GMDavis wrote:

No, I am right. They only asked on section of the sample population.

Of course, and they only sampled a small part of the population, they didnt ask all 20 odd million. Its called statistics.

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I have a feeling many of those "Death Certificates" aren't exactly kosher.

LOL. So you think millions of Iraqi's prepared false death certificates just in case they would be sampled for this research, they could show a false one ? Gimme a break.

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Again no, they are not the only "scientific" way. Iraq Body Count is doing it the scientific way. But since that number doesn't fit into your metanarrative...

IBC is not doing any scientific research into the overall death toll in Iraq. They measure something completely different than the lancet, calling it more scientific is nonsense.

By its very concept the number IBC gets to is incorrect as an estimate of overall death toll, by definition it (grossly) underestimates the actual death toll. The ~80,000 they have counted is not an estimate of the death toll, all it tells us is that the death toll could not possibly be lower than that (assuming accurate reporting). So it doesn't contradict the Lancet study in any way. Two entirely different things are being measured, insinuating the IBC number would be a better scientific estimate of the total number of death is utterly wrong.

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Actually, I have heard many question the numbers and they have been recognized as estimates at best. You on the other hand want to use them as hard and fast numbers.

Sigh. Of course they are statistical estimates. Thats not the same as just guessing though.

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Again, it does change quite a bit. The margin of error is 225,483, high and 487,422 low. That is a 18.5% high and 39.9% low. This is not the 1% margin of error you are claiming.

Not sure where you got those numbers, nor what you call high or now but from Lancet the report:
"the confidence interval ranges from 426,369 to 793,663. That means that we are 95% certain that the correct number is between those two, and
601,027 is the statistically most probable number."

The follow up I linked to in the original post says "Calculating the affect from the margin of error we believe that the range is a minimum of 733,158 to a maximum of 1,446,063 "

If it pleases you, next time rather than claiming "1 million deaths", I will say 'an estimated 733,158 to 1,446,063 deaths (by september 2007)". Would that make you happy or would it change anything fundamentally?

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Actually, yes it is a more accurate number. It is based on death certificates and eyewitness accounts, not some dart on the wall guess.

I guess you would also call the 9 million holocaust victims just a "dart on the wal guess", and consider an on situ body count in concentration camps and grave yards to give you a more reliable figure ?

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You don't have to be a genius to understand that in the current mess that Iraq is in, with no media whatsoever outside Baghdad, only a tiny fraction of all casualties would end up being reported individually, which is what they say themselves. BTW, their numbers and trendlines almost perfectly match those of the Lancet study.

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And as I posted earlier the Lacnet study has been pretty well discredited.

LOL, I heard someone else say those exact same words. Anyway, it has not been "pretty well discredited". The methodology is absolutely sound and no on has been able to seriously discredit it. The figure is not absolute, no one claims it is, and if the sampling itself has room for improvement, I'm not against any new researches to get better results, but until then, this is the best, and in fact only scientific estimate we have. You can't just ignore it because it doesnt rhyme with your gut feeling.

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My point was that you demand peer-reviewed data when someone disagreed with you , as you did with global warming, but you feel you can use any questionable source you feel like in other instances.

?? Its the exact opposite! Yes, I demanded credible peer-reviewed data rather than gut feeling or unscientific propaganda to counter credible peer-reviewed scientific research. This is no different. Show me a peer reviewed scientific publication that refutes the Lancet's conclusions, and I will gladly look in to it. But just your gut feeling or misquoted IBC figures is not good enough.

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Outside of the Cold War, what contrabutions did we make?

That is like asking "outside of the fight against Zionism, what contribution to international terrorism did Muslims make?" The cold war is not some blanket excuse for such actions. Is it because Stalin (when he was our ally) slaughtered his own people, that Chileans had to suffer ? In 20 years, will you ask "outside the war on terrorism, what contributions did we make ?"

Anyway, to answer the question, here is a nice list of US installed or supported dictatorships around the world:
http://www.omnicenter.org/warpeacecollection/dictators.htm

Many of those do date back to the cold war, but many others are still in place and still receive US support. There are also quite a few regimes in that list that date from after the cold war. "Spreading tyranny" would be a far more accurate description of US foreign policy than "spreading democracy".

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If I were you I wouldn't go around using the word fruitcase. This from the person who gets his economic theory from an artists cartoon, or the guy who buys into conspiracy theories. Kursk, Twin Towers, etc.
You see the US government as some super clandestine entity. They cant even keep a desert airbase secret. Seriously, you really need to recalibrate your thinking.

And maybe should start asking more critical questions. Where you not one of those that believed the Iraqi WMD distortions, and if I'm not mistaken even the Niger uranium claims?

(This is where I miss the threaded model of Aces. This will go way off topic. IF you are going to continue this, I'll split the topic)

"Conspiracy theory" has a nice negative connotation to it, as if it is wrong by definition. Yet a conspiracy theory is also what the official story is, as formulated in the the 9/11 commission report is. Its a theory concerning a conspiracy. Although it may be a popular theory, keep in mind almost a third of Americans not only disbelieve it, they believe the US government either staged 9/11, or allowed it to happen. Those numbers are even higher abroad. Thats not a small fringe, that is pretty mainstream to me. And I am not even one of them, that is how fringe I am. I don't think the US government did it, but I also don't think we have all the facts, so yes, I asked questions. I still do.

For instance, I'm still looking forward to he NIST report on the collapse of building 7. For now, the best they have come up with is: "The specifics of the fires in WTC 7 and how they caused the building to collapse remain unknown at this time. Although the total diesel fuel on the premises contained massive potential energy, the best hypothesis has only a low probability of occurrence. Further research, investigation, and analyses are needed to resolve this issue."

I.O.W, they don't know. 6 years after the events, we are still waiting for sound scientific evidence that would confirm that part of the official theory. Despite there apparently being chemical evidence of explosives, that hypothesis has never even seriously examined, if for no other reason as to debunk it. Small wonder people ask questions.

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Yeah, I remember that article. I also seem to remember that its accuracy was disputed.

Hey what a surprise. You'd think anyone (like the government) would dispute an article that contradicts one of the key excuses used to invade Iraq. Shocking ;)

Anyway, if you had seen it, you are one of very few. I'm not going to debate its accuracy, I can't judge it, but it appears to have enough credibility to at least cast doubts on the claims that Saddam willingly gassed his own people.

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SIGH. I'm am talking about the fact that if you are going to hold the US accountable for events of the Cold War you need to take into account the events that were going around at the time.

I dont consider installing military dictatorships to facilitate oil imports to be "the events of the cold war". Fighting communism may have been the excuse of the day, but I don't buy it anymore as fighting terrorism now.

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Oh I think you had better go study up on the Cold War some. Come back after looking at the number of people killed by Stalin, Pol Pot and Mao.
Just a bit of hyperbole?

No. I didn't say the US was directly responsible for more innocent deaths than any other nation (indirectly they might be, I never did the math and it would be quite hard to determine), I said they where more guilty of supporting terrorism (/'"freedom fighters"/dictatorships) than any other nation. If that is a hyperbole, what country did you have in mind, that could rival the list I linked above? I don't think even the former Soviet Union could beat that.

tsayin · Joined: 02 Aug 2007 Posts: 26

The problem with coexistence is that none of the religious are particularly happy with it. The few who don't want to kill everyone who doesn't think like them want to kill everyone who might cause their children to question them. Hitchens is right, it isn't an issue wth Islam at all. The only way to handle it is to ignore beliefs until they lead to action, and then punish the action and the incitement to action. There are just too many nuts to preempt.

DevilsAdvocate · Joined: 12 Aug 2007 Posts: 38

Why start counting only in 2003 ? I bet Clinton murdered as many Iraqi's as Bush did, almost certainly many more innocent children. 500,000 children below age 5 died because of the UN embargo between the wars. FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND. That is all of the children of New York. Every single one of them killed.

For 12 years of "peace" Iraq was bombed almost every single day, killing countless civilians and littering the country with poisonous and cancerous depleted uranium. The British alone during that time dropped around 1000 tons of bombs on Iraq, "For their protection".

Dear Iraqi's, we bomb and starve your children, but it is for your security, freedom and prosperity.. honestly. We are the good guys!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,3605,232986,00.html