At 12:18 PM 10/18/2004, James A. Donald wrote:
http://washingtontimes.com/national/20041018-124854-2279r.htm : : Despite gaining their freedom by signing pledges to : : renounce violence, at least seven former prisoners : : of the United States at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have : : returned to terrorism, at times with deadly : : consequences. : : : : At least two are believed to have died in fighting : : in Afghanistan, and a third was recaptured during a : : raid of a suspected training camp in Afghanistan, : : Lt. Cmdr. Flex Plexico, a Pentagon spokesman, said : : last week. Others are at large.
: : Additional former detainees have expressed a desire : : to rejoin the fight, be it against U.N. peacekeepers : : in Afghanistan, Americans in Iraq or Russian : : soldiers in Chechnya.
None of those things sound like terrorism to me, just basic military violence, though certainly the American and Russian militaries aren't the only ones engaging in terrorist activities in South Asia and some of these ~146 people may be among them. But most of the Warlord-vs-Warlord fighting in Afghanistan isn't terrorism, and most of the Iraqi Resistance isn't either, and I'd have expected that a staunch anti-communist like James wouldn't mind people shooting at Russian soldiers even though they're no longer Soviets. At 11:38 AM 10/18/2004, James A. Donald wrote:
Tyler Durden
Let's just state the obvious: September 11th occurred not because we had a few "crazy Muslim fundamentalists" out there that decided they "hate our freedoms". The struck us because we've been fuckin' over a large swath of the Muslim (not only Arab) world for 100 years or so
And the reason they are murdering Iraqi Christians, Filipinos, Ambionese and Timorese is?
While the ones murdering Iraqi Christians may be doing it out of religious hatred as well as the perception that the Americans are running a Christian crusade against the Muslim world, the Indonesian invasions of their neighbors such as East Timor are just good old nationalist expansion - the US has been funding the Indonesian military for ~40 years because they're our Anti-Communist buddies, and who cares about their human rights records. You didn't expect that behaviour to stop just because there were no longer any Commies around, did you?
-- http://washingtontimes.com/national/20041018-124854-2279r.htm
: : Despite gaining their freedom by signing pledges to : : renounce violence, at least seven former prisoners : : of the United States at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have : : returned to terrorism, at times with deadly : : consequences.
On 18 Oct 2004 at 21:04, Bill Stewart wrote:
None of those things sound like terrorism to me, just basic military violence,
Terrorists seldom engage in basic military violence, which requires courage. For example one of those released from Guatenamo captured several chinese foreign aid workers working in Pakistan, threatening to murder them: http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-pak13.html
though certainly the American and Russian militaries aren't the only ones engaging in terrorist activities in South Asia and some of these ~146 people may be among them. But most of the Warlord-vs-Warlord fighting in Afghanistan isn't terrorism, and most of the Iraqi Resistance isn't either,
What Al Quaeda and the Taliban do is terrorism. What the Northern Alliance does to stop them is not terrorism. When did the Northern alliance massacre civilians in territories it controlled, launch car bombs in market places, and so on and so forth?
and I'd have expected that a staunch anti-communist like James wouldn't mind people shooting at Russian soldiers even though they're no longer Soviets.
These guys prefer to shoot at children. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG qeXTtjIfy8jstPbn09dKRXMxQSVaG2t3WybJOFOP 4YnrjDudDubJLxMto2Ny0HL2d18PndoDUq+pjm+kd
James, I appreciate your valiant if futile effort to defend honorable militarism, but you appear not to understand that much of current US military doctrine is aimed at terrorizing enemy forces, en masse, into submission, not merely courageously killing each combatant, mano a mano. Carpet bombing, bunker-busting, cruise missles, stealth attacks, artillery barrages, and tactical and strategic attacks with overwhelming forces in multiples of the opposing force, the so-called "shock and awe," are intended to demoralize and terrify the opposition including civilian supporters. These attacks require little or no courage to execute, for most are accomplished with stand-off or remote-controlled platforms, guided by long-radar, GPS, and satellites, systems operated by clean-uniformed technicians who don't bear personal arms, even take showers daily and watch TV of their carnage for entertainment. This contrasts with the special forces which do aim at small scale, precision killing, and which does require courage. Not much of that goes on, way too cheap for the military- industrial empire which treasures big iron, gigantic iron, humongous iron, unbelievably expensive metal, costing millions of dollars per kill, rather imaginary deaths in the Cold War manner. Don't mistake the language and literature of war for the real thing. You find yourself 100 yards from a bomb blast, and your organs go into shutdown from the concussion, yours vision blurs, your limbs won't function, you shit and piss your britches, then another bomb falls 50 yards away and blood squirts from ears eyes and gums due to air compression of your veins and arties, you flop senselessly out of control and try to cry for momma, no air in your lungs, skin turning red from heat, then a third bomb hits 25 yards away and your body begins to come apart from the blast or being scythed by shrapnel -- if your head doesn't leave the carcass, it'll be fried by the metal helmet, your skin will sizzle, boiling blood will spray out of all your orifices, but you'll not get to appreciate this sacrifice for your country, you'll be chatting with your maker, the bodybag team scraping you memorial into the barbage bag, heading for the flag-draped tube. Back in the control room which directed the friendly fire, the boys and girls are whooping at the bomb pattern, high-fiving and fist knocking at the perfect fit of thinking machine and killing machine, no risk to the comfy killers manning the mouses, just like the gameboys taught.
-- On 19 Oct 2004 at 14:46, John Young wrote:
you appear not to understand that much of current US military doctrine is aimed at terrorizing enemy forces, en masse, into submission, not merely courageously killing each combatant, mano a mano.
Carpet bombing, bunker-busting, cruise missles, stealth attacks, artillery barrages, and tactical and strategic attacks with overwhelming forces in multiples of the opposing force, the so-called "shock and awe," are intended to demoralize and terrify the opposition including civilian supporters. These attacks require little or no courage to execute, for most are accomplished with stand-off or remote-controlled platforms, guided by long-radar, GPS, and satellites, systems operated by clean-uniformed technicians who don't bear personal arms, even take showers daily and watch TV of their carnage for entertainment.
If only it were true. That is why I recommend readily achievable goals, like stealing the oil, rather than goals that require direct involvment mano a mano. But in reality, the US government is pursuing goals such as "building democracy" that require Americans to walk the streets of Baghdad, a daily exercise of tremendous courage. Here is my prescription for winning the war on terrorism We SHOULD rely on shock and awe, administered by men in white coats far from the scene. A number of governments are disturbingly tolerant of terror. Usually they are only tolerant of terror against their non Islamic subjects, and disapprove of external terror committed by their subjects against outsiders, but the two cannot readily be separated. One leads to the other. The US government should expose and condemn these objectionable practices, subvert moderately objectionable regimes, and annihilate more objectionable regimes. The pentagon should deprive moderately objectionable regimes of economic resources, by stealing their oil, destroying their water systems, and cutting off their trade and population movements with the outside world. Syria should suffer annihilation, Iran subversion, Sudan some combination of annihilation and subversion, Saudi Arabia and similar less objectionable regimes should suffer confiscation of oil, destruction of water resources, and loss of contact with the outside world. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG e1oHDIrpt6CyLSJ0viuvD+nsJlXpjVCUxG/FZL0R 4eteebtmUGC9WtT7zAMaOVdF81wmFCSz8fug2AQef
On Tue, 19 Oct 2004, James A. Donald wrote:
Here is my prescription for winning the war on terrorism
We SHOULD rely on shock and awe, administered by men in white coats far from the scene.
<SNIP>
The US government should expose and condemn these objectionable practices, subvert moderately objectionable regimes, and annihilate more objectionable regimes. The pentagon should deprive moderately objectionable regimes of economic resources, by stealing their oil, destroying their water systems, and cutting off their trade and population movements with the outside world.
Syria should suffer annihilation, Iran subversion, Sudan some combination of annihilation and subversion, Saudi Arabia and similar less objectionable regimes should suffer confiscation of oil, destruction of water resources, and loss of contact with the outside world.
I see. I'm sure that Dubbya has his own agenda filled with Shoulds, as does Bin Ladin, as did Lenin, as did Hitler, as did Nero, as do you. Each saw (or see) their views as the way to Utopia. Trouble is, which one of you megalomaniacs is/was right? Further to the point, reality is, and what clearly "should" and makes sense to to you, clearly "doesn't" to another. The only difference between you and the others above is that you lack the power to bend reality to your whims, and IMHO, that is a very good thing. It is sad the the above list contained megalomaniacs who did possess that power and used it to cause great misery to others, and had to be removed from inflicting their whims on the world at great expense. Perhaps in a couple of weeks, US Citizens will vote one of those out the list as he's already done plenty of damage in the last four years, and save us another miserable four years. So yes, perhaps, in the fine tradition of what should be instead of what is, you, sir, should go fuck yourself. ----------------------Kaos-Keraunos-Kybernetos--------------------------- + ^ + :"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. /|\ \|/ :They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country /\|/\ <--*-->:and our people, and neither do we." -G. W. Bush, 2004.08.05 \/|\/ /|\ : \|/ + v + : War is Peace, freedom is slavery, Bush is President. -------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Tue, 19 Oct 2004, James A. Donald wrote:
The US government should expose and condemn these objectionable practices, subvert moderately objectionable regimes, and annihilate more objectionable regimes. The pentagon should deprive moderately objectionable regimes of economic resources, by stealing their oil, destroying their water systems, and cutting off their trade and population movements with the outside world.
Meanwhile, the world will get pissed, Arabian Bloc will finally agree on the concept of Monetary Jihad and switch from dollar-per-barrel to euro-per-barrel and later perhaps even to a gold-backed Islamic Dinar. Arabs have difficulties to agree on something, but give them an enemy and they flock together (not entirely unlike Americans) and make decisions. Once the switch is done, there will not be the necessity to keep so high dollar reserves anymore. The USD will lose most of its market power and gradually becomes Just Another Currency. Other countries will stop caring about unilateral embargos and will trade with the affected areas anyway, to great dismay of American planners. US will attempt to retaliate and cut trade with the offenders. However, the world is big and patents on embargoed goods aren't usually respected in the affected areas. Also don't forget that you foolishly offshored most manufacturing years ago, so patents or not, the rest of the world will keep buying Taiwan and China and Malaysia and Japan. And Ireland-made CPUs. The transnational corporations won't have the incentive to respect US-imposed rules, as they will cut into their profit; the ones that didn't made it yet will move outside of the influence of US law, with the corresponding impact on US tax revenue and the ability to finance further military adventures. Hey - even students are already increasingly choosing non-US universities and scientists are in process of moving conferences elsewhere, in long term influencing your ability of weapon research, further weakening you military-wise. Your policies are signing your own demise, and your beloved free market will stab your own back. Meanwhile, the Empire will cut itself off the world, in a failed attempt to punish the world for non-compliance. What will you do then? You can't bomb everyone. The world needs you much less than you like to think. Now, when you see PNAC won't work, what's your revised plan?
-- James A. Donald wrote:
The US government should expose and condemn these objectionable practices, subvert moderately objectionable regimes, and annihilate more objectionable regimes. The pentagon should deprive moderately objectionable regimes of economic resources, by stealing their oil, destroying their water systems, and cutting off their trade and population movements with the outside world.
Thomas Shaddack
Meanwhile, the world will get pissed, Arabian Bloc will finally agree on the concept of Monetary Jihad and switch from dollar-per-barrel to euro-per-barrel and later perhaps even to a gold-backed Islamic Dinar.
If the US has Saudi and Iraqi oil reserves, this would not be any big problem.
Arabs have difficulties to agree on something, but give them an enemy and they flock together
Like they flocked together over Israel? They unite only in words, not deeds. Look at the civil war now going on Iraq. The Iraqi insurgency has not united, but rather are busy killing each other.
Other countries will stop caring about unilateral embargos and will trade with the affected areas anyway, to great dismay of American planners.
I had in mind not paper embargos which no one ever observes anyway, least of all those proclaiming them, but rather the mining of ports, and key roads at the borders, the destruction of airports, planes, ships, and vehicles travelling on those roads. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG PqA9fV/rkBDLiQiY7Z7tvI+4ZspciWsOt6Ks6eJs 4QCdWD0mLhMSVH+y9iESXjeIvzTOTeI0fTqxiC5zy
participants (5)
-
Bill Stewart -
James A. Donald -
John Young -
Sunder -
Thomas Shaddack