BS: Saddest news article.

Subject: RE: BS: Saddest news article.
From: Leadfingers
Date: 06 Jun 10 - 03:39 PM

I was not being Impolite to you in the thread so why are you so bloody rude to me !
I made an inferencew from other peoples posts , and you used it to attack me personally !
If that is acceptable in here I am seriously wondering about remaining a member

Subject: RE: BS: Saddest news article.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Jun 10 - 04:06 PM

I am told all effort is being made to avoid targeting non-combatants

And of course you believe what you are told.

Adrian Mitchell wrote a poem about that kind of thing in a previous war:

To Whom It May Concern

I was run over by the truth one day.
Ever since the accident I've walked this way
So stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam.

Heard the alarm clock screaming with pain,
Couldn't find myself so I went back to sleep again
So fill my ears with silver
Stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam.

Every time I shut my eyes all I see is flames.
Made a marble phone book and I carved out all the names
So coat my eyes with butter
Fill my ears with silver
Stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam.

I smell something burning, hope it's just my brains.
They're only dropping peppermints and daisy-chains
So stuff my nose with garlic
Coat my eyes with butter
Fill my ears with silver
Stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam.

Where were you at the time of the crime?
Down by the Cenotaph drinking slime
So chain my tongue with whisky
Stuff my nose with garlic
Coat my eyes with butter
Fill my ears with silver
Stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam.

You put your bombers in, you put your conscience out,
You take the human being and you twist it all about
So scrub my skin with women
Chain my tongue with whisky
Stuff my nose with garlic
Coat my eyes with butter
Fill my ears with silver
Stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam.

-- Adrian Mitchell

Subject: RE: BS: Saddest news article.
From: Lox
Date: 06 Jun 10 - 05:43 PM

Ok Leadfingers, Sorry for being rude.

Now back to your assertion that anyone here thinks "its perfectly fine for Terrorists to plant bombs and kill innocent civilians"

Do you retract that?

If not, you need to state who has said that and where.

Subject: RE: BS: Saddest news article.
From: DougR
Date: 06 Jun 10 - 06:04 PM

Kendall: do you honestly believe that if we withdrew from Afghanstan Al Quieda would quit attacking? Would quit trying to take over Afghanstan? The war with terrorism would be over?

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Saddest news article.
From: Leadfingers
Date: 06 Jun 10 - 06:46 PM

The condemnation of Drone attacks doesnt EVER seem to condemn Random Bombing by Any other group , however you want to label them ! Hence my inference !!

Subject: RE: BS: Saddest news article.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Jun 10 - 07:10 PM

Al Qaeda are foreigners in Afghanistan, Doug. Afghans are not too keen on being ruled by foreigners. Any foreigners. Al Qaeda never ran Afghanistan - they were tolerated as paying guests by the people who did. Very foolishly.
........................

A similar inference to Leadfingers' would be that anyone who denounces random bombing by any group can be assumed to support random bombing by any other group, or by any government, unless they specifically condemn these at the same time. Maybe that is true for some people, but it's not exactly a safe assumption.

Subject: RE: BS: Saddest news article.
From: Emma B
Date: 06 Jun 10 - 09:01 PM

and not just drones......

tonights news report

"US used cluster bombs on Yemen civilians"

A US cruise missile carrying cluster bombs was behind a December attack in Yemen that killed 55 people, most of them civilians, Amnesty International (AI) reports

' "A military strike of this kind against alleged militants without an attempt to detain them is at the very least unlawful," said Philip Luther, deputy director of AI's Middle East and North Africa Programme.

AI said that a Yemeni parliamentary committee reported in February that in addition to 14 alleged Al-Qaeda militants, 41 local residents, including 14 women and 21 children, were killed in the attack.

"The fact that so many of the victims were actually women and children indicates that the attack was in fact grossly irresponsible, particularly given the likely use of cluster munitions," Luther said.

The Yemen parliamentary committee had said when it visited the site that "all the homes and their contents were burnt and all that was left were traces of furniture," AI said.

Amnesty said it had obtained the photographs from its own sources, but had not released them earlier in order to ascertain their authenticity and give the United States time to respond.

The United States and Yemen have not yet signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions, a treaty designed to comprehensively ban such weapons which is due to enter into force on 1 August, 2010."

Where is the difference between this form of bombing and the terrorist suicide bomber - apart from the fact that cluster munitions have indiscriminate effects and unexploded bomblets threaten lives and livelihoods for years afterwards and these killings of innocent cibvilians are state sponsered?

Subject: RE: BS: Saddest news article.
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 02:43 AM

Like so many 'soldiers', perhaps instead of war, maybe he should have been home, the whole time, making a way for his family...that is, if he was really that great of a father, and family man.

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Saddest news article.
From: eddie1
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 03:07 AM

He said it better than I could:-

Cops of the World
By Phil Ochs

E         A          E    A
Come, get out of the way, boys
E          A          E E7
Quick, get out of the way
G            C             G    C
You'd better watch what you say, boys
G      C             B7
Better watch what you say
      E                         A
We've rammed in your harbor and tied to your port
       E                         A
And our pistols are hungry and our tempers are short
    E          B7       E             A    G#m         A
So bring your daughters around to the port
       B7                   E
'Cause we're the Cops of the World, boys
B7                   E
We're the Cops of the World

We pick and choose as please, boys
Pick and choose as please
You'd best get down on your knees, boys
Best get down on your knees
We're hairy and horny and ready to shack
We don't care if you're yellow or black
Just take off your clothes and lie down on your back
'Cause we're the Cops of the World, boys
We're the Cops of the World

Our boots are needing a shine, boys
Boots are needing a shine
But our Coca-cola is fine, boys
Coca-cola is fine
We've got to protect all our citizens fair
So we'll send a battalion for everyone there
And maybe we'll leave in a couple of years
'Cause we're the Cops of the World, boys
We're the Cops of the World

Dump the reds in a pile, boys
Dump the reds in a pile
You'd better wipe of that smile, boys
Better wipe off that smile
We'll spit through the streets of the cities we wreck
We'll find you a leader that you can't elect
Those treaties we sighned were a pain in the neck
'Cause we're the Cops of the World, boys
We're the Cops of the World

Clean the johns with a rag, boys
Clean the johns with a rag
If you like you can use your flag, boys
If you like you can use your flag
We've got too much money we're looking for toys
And guns will be guns and boys will be boys
But we'll gladly pay for all we destroy
'Cause we're the Cops of the World, boys
We're the Cops of the World

Please stay off of the grass, boys
Please stay off of the grass
Here's a kick in the ass, boys
Here's a kick in the ass
We'll smash down your doors, we don't bother to knock
We've done it before, so why all the shock?
We're the biggest and toughest kids on the block
'Cause we're the Cops of the World, boys
We're the Cops of the World

When we butchered your son, boys
When we butchered your son
Have a stick of our gum, boys
Have a stick of our buble-gum
We own half the world, oh say can you see
The name for our profits is democracy
So, like it or not, you will have to be free
'Cause we're the Cops of the World, boys
We're the Cops of the World


Eddie

Subject: RE: BS: Saddest news article.
From: Lox
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 05:42 AM

Leadfingers,

Ake has summed it up.

Your inference is based on the following logic - if someone denounces murder by group x, then it follows that they support murder by group y.

Now there is noone on here saying that they support the acts of 9/11.

There are no news articles in our media saying that it was a reason to be cheerful.

So there is no need to argue that case as everyne on here already agrees.


In addition, Al-qaeda does not claim to represent ME.

It does not fund its campaign with OUR tax dollars and pounds.


Leadfingers - are you American?

If so, then that drone blew up those children with your tax dollars.

If so, then your country has claimed to have done it in your name.


So the reason why this issue is of so much importance to me is that I reject my country's claim that it is representing my interest by murdering those children.

My country cannot say that it stands for human rights and then carelessly murder children AND THEN claim that it has won some kind of victory.

The point is that there is NO cause for celebration.

The event being discussed WAS a tragedy.

Subject: RE: BS: Saddest news article.
From: Lox
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 05:43 AM

"Like so many 'soldiers', perhaps instead of war, maybe he should have been home, the whole time, making a way for his family...that is, if he was really that great of a father, and family man."

Oh well -- in that case fuck 'em.

Subject: RE: BS: Saddest news article.
From: GUEST,Kendall
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 06:38 AM

Doug, this country of ours has meddled in the affairs of so many other countries over the years I can not list them here.
To answer your question, YES, I firmly believe that if we stop treating the Muslims like dirt, get out of their countries and mind our own business they will have no reason to hate us. They didn't attack Canada did they? Or Italy? or Switzerland? Why do they hate us? Because we are there! We invaded them and they don't want us there.

Osama Bin Laden told us in plain English what his problem is with us, but do we listen? NO we choose to listen to war mongers such as Bush and his WMDs lies!

Never mind what anyone says, look at the facts and the history going back to the Crusades, to the creation of modern Israel, to our support of their worst enemy etc. That's why they hate us, and it has fuck all to do with freedom!

Now, before BB gets his knickers in a knot let me state that Israel is here to stay and the Muslims will just have to suck it up. We all have a cross to bear. (pun intended)

Subject: RE: BS: Saddest news article.
From: Wolfgang
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 01:19 PM

Johann Georg Elsner was a very brave man (who paid with his life) attempting to kill Hitler during a speech in a big restaurant with a bomb, November 8th, 1939. Hitler left a bit too early and the bomb killed 7 people and injured about 60, many of them surely civilians.

Was he wrong in your eyes? Is it wrong to praise his attempt year after year in present day Germany?

He killed civilians and he knew he would when setting the time trigger on his bomb.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Saddest news article.
From: Lox
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 02:59 PM

Wolfgang.

1. There were no kids there.

2. He risked his life.

3. He did not have access to unlimited military resources and technology.

4. He was working with a bare minimum of intelligence/information.

In what way is a CIA operative, flying a remote control plane from a console in the USA, brave for blowing up kids, when he has access to detailed information and unlimited military resources?

Subject: RE: BS: Saddest news article.
From: Emma B
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 03:56 PM

As reported in The New Yorker in Oct last year -

"The U.S. government runs two drone programs.

The military's version, which is publicly acknowledged, operates in the recognized war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq, and targets enemies of U.S. troops stationed there. As such, it is an extension of conventional warfare.

The C.I.A.'s program is aimed at terror suspects around the world, including in countries where U.S. troops are not based.
It was initiated by the Bush Administration and, according to Juan Zarate, a counterterrorism adviser in the Bush White House, Obama has left in place virtually all the key personnel.
The program is classified as covert, and the intelligence agency declines to provide any information to the public about where it operates, how it selects targets, who is in charge, or how many people have been killed."

The covert programme has been challenged on many legal counts discussed elsewhere in the thread-

Additionally, social critics, such as Mary Dudziak, a professor at the University of Southern California's Gould School of Law, argue that the Predator strategy has a larger political cost.
As she puts it, "Drones are a technological step that further isolates the American people from military action, undermining political checks on . . . endless war."

THE PROBLEM OF DEFINING 'TARGETS'

Even if, as some lawyers have argued, America's drone program in Pakistan meets basic legal tests.......

They are nevertheless troubled, as the U.S. government keeps broadening the definition of 'acceptable high-value targets'

From the New Yorker article again -

""But, given that many of the targeted Pakistani Taliban figures were obscure in U.S. counterterrorism circles, some critics have wondered whether they were legitimate targets for a Predator strike.
"These strikes are killing a lot of low-level militants, which raises the question of whether they are going beyond the authorization to kill leaders," Peter Bergen told me.

Roger Cressey, the former National Security Council official, who remains a strong supporter of the drone program, says,
"The debate is that we've been doing this so long we're now bombing low-level guys who don't deserve a Hellfire missile up their ass." (In his view, "Not every target has to be a rock star.") "

Defining who is and who is not too tangential for the U.S. to kill can be difficult. John Radsan, a former lawyer in the C.I.A.'s office of general counsel, who is now a professor at William Mitchell College of Law, in St. Paul, Minnesota, says,

"You can't target someone just because he visited an Al Qaeda Web site. But you also don't want to wait until they're about to detonate a bomb. It's a sliding scale."

Equally fraught is the question of how many civilian deaths can be justified. "If it's Osama bin Laden in a house with a four-year-old, most people will say go ahead," Radsan says. "But if it's three or four children? Some say that's too many. And if he's in a school? Many say don't do it."
Such judgment calls are being made daily by the C.I.A., which, Radsan points out, "doesn't have much experience with killing. Traditionally, the agency that does that is the Department of Defense."

THE DRONES ARE ONLY AS GOOD AS THE INTELLIGENCE ABOUT WHERE SUSPECTED AL QAEDA TARGETS WILL BE

"if you use these tools wrong, you can lose the moral high ground, which is going to hurt you.

Inevitably, some of the intelligence is going to be wrong, so you're always rolling the dice. That's the reality of real-time intelligence."

"The development of the Predator, in the early nineteen-nineties, was supposed to help eliminate such mistakes.
The drones can hover above a target for up to forty hours before refuelling, and the precise video footage makes it much easier to identify targets.

But the strikes are only as accurate as the intelligence that goes into them.

Tips from informants on the ground are subject to error, as is the interpretation of video images. Not long before September 11, 2001, for instance, several U.S. counterterrorism officials became certain that a drone had captured footage of bin Laden in a locale he was known to frequent in Afghanistan. The video showed a tall man in robes, surrounded by armed bodyguards in a diamond formation. At that point, drones were unarmed, and were used only for surveillance. "The optics were not great, but it was him," Henry Crumpton, then the C.I.A.'s top covert-operations officer for the region, told Time. But two other former C.I.A. officers, who also saw the footage, have doubts. "It's like an urban legend," one of them told me. "They just jumped to conclusions. You couldn't see his face. It could have been Joe Schmo. Believe me, no tall man with a beard is safe anywhere in Southwest Asia." In February, 2002, along the mountainous eastern border of Afghanistan, a Predator reportedly followed and killed three suspicious Afghans, including a tall man in robes who was thought to be bin Laden. The victims turned out to be innocent villagers, gathering scrap metal.


In Afghanistan and Pakistan, the local informants, who also serve as confirming witnesses for the air strikes, are notoriously unreliable.

A former C.I.A. officer who was based in Afghanistan after September 11th told me that an Afghan source had once sworn to him that one of Al Qaeda's top leaders was being treated in a nearby clinic. The former officer said that he could barely hold off an air strike after he passed on the tip to his superiors. "They scrambled together an élite team," he recalled. "We caught hell from headquarters. They said 'Why aren't you moving on it?' when we insisted on checking it out first."
It turned out to be an intentionally false lead.

"Sometimes you're dealing with tribal chiefs," the former officer said. "Often, they say an enemy of theirs is Al Qaeda because they just want to get rid of somebody.

Or they made crap up because they wanted to prove they were valuable, so that they could make money. You couldn't take their word."

The consequences of bad ground intelligence can be tragic.

In September, a NATO air strike in Afghanistan killed between seventy and a hundred and twenty-five people, many of them civilians, who were taking fuel from two stranded oil trucks; they had been mistaken for Taliban insurgents. (The incident is being investigated by NATO.)
According to a reporter for the Guardian, the bomb strike, by an F-15E fighter plane, left such a tangle of body parts that village elders resorted to handing out pieces of unidentifiable corpses to the grieving families, so that they could have something to bury. One Afghan villager told the newspaper, "I took a piece of flesh with me home and I called it my son."


David Kilcullen, a counter-insurgency warfare expert who has advised General David Petraeus in Iraq, has said that the propaganda costs of drone attacks have been disastrously high


"Every one of these dead non-combatants represents an alienated family, a new revenge feud, and more recruits for a militant movement that has grown exponentially even as drone strikes have increased."

extracts from The Predator War
What are the risks of the C.I.A.'s covert drone program?

Subject: RE: BS: Saddest news article.
From: kendall
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 07:28 PM

For many years our Lobster fishermen thought that all they had to do to kill a Starfish was chop it in two. They were mistaken; all they did was create TWO starfish!
Same principal in killing terrorists.

Subject: RE: BS: Saddest news article.
From: GUEST,Bardan
Date: 08 Jun 10 - 06:42 AM

I would draw parallels with situations where an armed and dangerous criminal is surrounded by innocent people. I believe the police either wait until the situation has changed (while maybe negotiating) or send in people directly who can differentiate between a man holding a gun and a three year old kid. The policemen are taking a far greater risk than they would if they just sprayed the area with bullets from further out but they accept that their job will sometimes involve risking their lives so other people don't die. It's laudable to try and protect your servicemen and women, but if it's at the cost of civilian lives you're doing it wrong.
Legally speaking, for the state apparatus to kill people in a country they are not officially at war with seems very shaky to me, but I'm not a lawyer.
Finally, yes there will always be casualties in war but you can't just shrug and accept it. Only going after dangerous people should be your first priority unless you think increasing enemy recruitment is a good idea. This is a practical point so should be comprehensible even to the sort of amoral bastards high up in the intelligence pecking order and the people who worship them.

Subject: RE: BS: Saddest news article.
From: kendall
Date: 08 Jun 10 - 09:50 AM

The difference between us and them is getting very dim.

Subject: RE: BS: Saddest news article.
From: Lox
Date: 08 Jun 10 - 11:51 AM

"The difference between us and them is getting very dim."

The difference between us and them is no greater than the difference between you and me.

Subject: RE: BS: Saddest news article.
From: kendall
Date: 08 Jun 10 - 11:59 AM

Now there's a really sad thought.

Subject: RE: BS: Saddest news article.
From: mauvepink
Date: 08 Jun 10 - 12:03 PM

"The difference between us and them is getting very dim. "

What this thread shows is that the main difference is a technological one. Nothing is black and white any longer. The grey areas are enormous and getting bigger. The ensuing fog leaves us all in a murky world of death and destruction. I take strength in the fact that, at least on this thread, no-one is celebrating any kind of victory. There is a compassion for the innocent of all sides. That may be the saving grace and hope of the future.

In peace...

mp

Subject: RE: BS: Saddest news article.
From: Lox
Date: 08 Jun 10 - 12:04 PM

Yes my friend. It is.

Subject: RE: BS: Saddest news article.
From: akenaton
Date: 09 Jun 10 - 08:40 AM

If the all singing , all dancing, "liberal" Obama show, actually increases the rate of state sponsered murder, you would think we would all start to think very deeply about the "change" that we were promised?

I agree with Kendall(again).....these are not accidental civilian deaths, but the very worst sort of terrorism.....for the very worst of reasons.

Subject: RE: BS: Saddest news article.
From: GUEST,kendall
Date: 09 Jun 10 - 01:56 PM

Anyone miss Bush? I sure as hell don't, he started this didn't he?

Subject: RE: BS: Saddest news article.
From: Bert
Date: 09 Jun 10 - 03:42 PM

Do you think that we will ever learn that most Moslems are ordinary people just like us who are trying to get along?

Those I've met were kind, tolerant, loving and family oriented.

We should make all of our politicians and media moguls live in an Arab village for a couple of years before we qualify them for their jobs.

And don't forget that it is our votes that qualify them.

Subject: RE: BS: Saddest news article.
From: Lox
Date: 09 Jun 10 - 06:17 PM

"We should make all of our politicians and media moguls live in an Arab village for a couple of years before we qualify them for their jobs."

Or maybe even just a few months outside Alaska - or texas.

Subject: RE: BS: Saddest news article.
From: kendall
Date: 09 Jun 10 - 07:23 PM

I worked with a Muslim in the Police force and he was a really nice, bright well spoken young man. We discussed what was going on over there and he was appalled at the way those extremists were interpreting the Koran.

Subject: RE: BS: Saddest news article.
From: Lox
Date: 09 Jun 10 - 08:36 PM

Do we still have to explain to each other that Moslems are people too?

Are we still that far back in the dark ages?


I think back on all the Moslems I have befriended and the ones I am friends with today.


They're just some of my friends.


It upsets me to think that there are people who see them as being different, as being terrorists, or as being cannon fodder.


My Friend Shabir and his wife Hadira ran the curtain shop a few dooors down from my house on bridge road in Leicester.

They had three kids. I knew their daughters, Hadra and Mariam.

Mariam used to play with my daughter.


They used to come to the shop after school to play for two reasons.

The first was because there was a playground opposite.

The second ... or was it the first ... was because their neighbours, where they lived, used to threaten the kids with dogs, throw stones at them, and tell them to fuck off back home to Pakistan and bring their bombs with them.

Mariam was 4.


Shabir was kind, gentle, philosophical, and patient.

So was his wife.

His kids were a ray of sunshine.


They were under so much stress at home, with faeces and firecrackers being shoved through their front door, but I never saw them lose it.


Hate is just evil.

Subject: RE: BS: Saddest news article.
From: Bobert
Date: 09 Jun 10 - 08:50 PM

Yeah, hate is evil and the problem is that everything comes down to money... I didn't coin that but Bruce Springsteen did... There is alot of jockeyin' for assests in the Middle East and land is an asset... He with the land rules... It's that simple... Assets equ8al money in somew manner or another... That is why the Isreali's are pushing their "settlements" into lands once occupied by Palestinians... These aren't settlements at all but other folks assests... This is exactly what the cdolonilaists did here in the USA... They pished the native people in to camps... We call the reservations... Ha!!! Reserves for whom and by whom???

But the current problem isn't as much this imperialism as it is one people with a ton of military might controloling another group of people without that might...

Hey, if it was working for Isreal it would be one thing... Right??? No, it would never be right... But in doing this Isreal is only strengthing Hamas... Hamas has never had such support among the Palestinians...

In the words of Dr. Phil, Hey Ireal, "How's it workin' for ya'???"

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Saddest news article.
From: GUEST,kendall
Date: 10 Jun 10 - 01:29 PM

"Stereotypes afford us the luxury of not thinking; but in time they will extract the price of our not thinking." (Jean Harris, author of Stranger in Two Worlds)

Subject: RE: BS: Saddest news article.
From: Stringsinger
Date: 10 Jun 10 - 07:00 PM

The going after Al Quaeda is a political ploy. Those who are looking for a convenient enemy have found a new buzzword. It hasn't even been proven that Al Quaeda was responsible for 911. Osama took credit for it but did he really actually do the deed?

Also, seismologists have come up with readings that indicate explosions in WTC1 and WTC2 as well as the third building.

We are not going to know what really happened for some time. Present ideas are a "whitewash".''

In the meantime, Obama can placate all the hawks in government and elsewhere by putting on an air show of drones. It's politics as usual.

Subject: RE: BS: Saddest news article.
From: Lox
Date: 11 Jun 10 - 08:38 AM

Here's a Guardian Article from May 28th of British Islamophobia and Racism masquerading as ... er ... well that's it ...

EDF