Moonbat alert: Chomksy condemns Bin Laden kill.

[funk de fino]

If they did for Allah, maybe not. Do you think that crimes in the name off an imaginary deity are punished as severely in the USA as they are in Pakistan?

You know the guy who murdered the politician for supporting the fight against blasphemy laws is going to trial dont you?

Are they punished more severly in the USA as they are in the UK?

 

[funk de fino]

If some oil company gave me enough money, I would probably sell out too.

Define selling out.

 

[dtugg]

You know the guy who murdered the politician for supporting the fight against blasphemy laws is going to trial dont you?

OK, He is given he opportunity to prove that he didn't offend Allah. So what?

Are they punished more severly in the USA as they are in the UK?

Has nothing to do with it. I never said the USA is better than the UK

 

[dtugg]

Define selling out.

Placing profits over people.

 

[bikerdruid]

Has nothing to do with it. I never said the USA is better than the UK

that's good....cuz the uk has waaaaay better beer.
(and they make whiskey outa barley)

 

[Richard Masters]

...

Anyway, Bin Laden was of the sort that would not be caught alive. He'd have blown himself up or gone the way he did.

Yeah, he was also the type who would live in a cave, not a mansion.

I'm pretty sure it was intended as an assassination, but I haven't made up my mind on whether it should be condemned.

 

[Joey McGee]

Well, until you finish constructing that mind-reading machine that it sounds like you've been working on, neither of us have any way of knowing for certain what motivated george bush and his cabinet to go to war.

What kind of argument is this? We have no way of knowing if what truly motivates anyone to do anything by your standard. We can make a case that they likely believed what they said they did, can you make a case they were lying or are you making a bold non-argument again?

You can throw as many ad hominems out as you like - fill a couple of books, it won't prove it either way. I happen to believe that the motivations for war were less than genuine. You believe they were genuine. But you've yet to explain why iraq was chosen if oil wasn't a factor, as opposed to say, zimbabwe.

Have you ever read a book or spent an afternoon learning about the war? Who cares about what anyone believes, I don't have any evidence that contradicts the official story. I have to explain why oil wasn't a factor? No, it's your conspiracy claim. Earlier in this thread I explained that I'm still waiting for evidence or a reasoned argument for the oil conspiracy. They might have done it for oil, but the fact that they didn't steal any certainly raises doubts about that. Seriously are you engaging in apologia for baseless conspiracy theories or do you have some evidence?

If the american populace had opposed the invasion, it might not have been politically possible. But they widely supported it, and regularly their reasons for supporting it were false.

No many of those reasons are still valid. Their reasons for supporting it weren't based on propaganda and manipulation from the illuminati that's for sure. Just because things turned out worse than expected (as always) doesn't by default mean that the anti-war movement was right about everything (despite their obvious infantile delusion that this is true)

What? I was there, count me among the anti-war activists. Demonstrations should motivate politicians to change their mind. As a result of failing to listen to the population, tony blairs legacy is in tatters in the uk. Hopefully, the political fallout from his going against the will of the people will be a warning to future politicians.

Yes because he made that choice totally unaware of the fact he would take a beating in the polls It's called having a backbone, really. And yeah I was looking forward to that rally, learning something and finding out what people were saying about the war, but it was really just a lot of rhetoric and hollow accusations.

Blix asked for more time. Tony blair deliberately mislead with documents. The WMD claims were not well founded.

They leaned on them excessively hard but they thought they were in the right, the inquiry is ongoing as of today though is it not?

Politicians need to know war is dangerous for the stability of the country. They were warned that the iraq war wouldn't improve the situation in iraq, and they ignored the warnings. In my eyes, this makes them responsible for the resulting shambles.

How much they are responsible for and how much better off Iraq and the world are is arguable. This has nothing to do with the fact that people resort to conspiracy theories and snapped thinking.

But the results were predictable. You can't march into a middle eastern country and enforce democracy and expect everything to be hunky dory afterwards. We already knew this, but bush and blair went in anyway.

I don't think you can make a charge that they thought everything would be fine, and just because things went bad doesn't mean the anti-war people were right about everything. And you can argue exactly where all of the individual suffering comes from, and compare that to the worst possible scenario of doing nothing. This is how real debate over the war would be conducted.

Action? He spoke out against it, those are words, not actions.

Writing words is an action.

I would say marching into a country, destroying it's infrastructure

Yes because they meant to do that and did not build a single thing afterwards.

and creating instability that results in hundreds of thousands of deaths is a deplorable action, while criticising the people that do it is not, nor is comparing it to other war crimes.

Well you always have to say "that results in" because you're ignoring the nuance that bin Laden meant to kill all of those people for terror, whereas the enemy was responsible for most of those deaths, and we went to war with Iraq because it was a justifable enemy. That's not a war crime, and the legality of the war is debatable.

Yes, i'm undecided. On the one hand, the iraqi economy was devastated. Hundreds of thousands of people died. Hundreds of thousands more were made refugees. It is quite possible that the invasion actively increased global jihadi terrorism, and may have been a motivation behind the london bombings. Images of iraqi prisoners being tortured no doubt soured middle eastern attidues towards western countries as well.

The invasion has also quite likely reduced the political will of western countries to intervene in more humanitarian situations - for example, very few western countries are willing to even consider ground troops in libya, and iraq is cited as a reason for this. The invasion also cost large amounts of money that could have gone towards improving the economies of the uk and america.

On the other hand, 9/11 directly killed 3000 people and injured thousands more, destroyed an expensive piece of infrastructure, encouraged racism in countries around the world, caused an expensive and costly war in afghanistan, furthered political will to justify torture in places such as guantanamo, and forced western countries to spend money on security that could have gone to better causes.

So yes, i'm undecided. In my eyes, both were atrocities. One was larger in scale but the motivations were dubious, while the other was smaller in scale with obviously evil motivations.

The motivations are "dubious"? Some evidence please because your relativism is the only thing that's "dubious"

 

[Virus]

Keep in mind that Christian terrorism in America has claimed seven lives over three decades while Islamic terror in Pakistan claimed 5000 lives between 2007 and 2009. So the comparison is transparently propagandistic.

By any index Pakistan is worse than America.

 

[Noztradamus]

You know the guy who murdered the politician for supporting the fight against blasphemy is going to trial dont you?

Are they punished more severly in the USA as they are in the UK?

Murdering politicians creates a precedent that makes the Rulers uncomfortable, whatever the reason.

 

[Virus]

If a citizen in Pakistan murders another citizen for dissing Allah will they not be tried?

Depends if he can buy his way out. Since the country is wracked with corruption at all levels.

 

[theprestige]

In the galaxy? So now the USA are The Space Police too? Cool, bro!

Don't look at me: I was responding to Captain.Sassy, who characterized the the US military as the most advanced in (probably) the galaxy. Where you get Space Police from this, I don't know.

Anyway, I'd settle for "the most advanced military in the world", which I think they most certainly are. Problem?

Do you know much of the history of war in Afghanistan? Every army that ever attempted to impose itself on that harsh landscape and its tribes and factions was pretty sophisticated. They all failed, the USA is failing, just as it did when it took its sophisticated army to Vietnam and got taught some serious lessons by a low-tech army in pyjamas . Shiny kit and self-belief do not win wars.

Irrelevant to my point.

My point was that Osama Bin Laden chose to wage war against an enemy that has teleporting cyborg ninjas with robot backup and warbeast sidekicks.

You start a fight like that, it's kind of silly to say things like, "I'll be just fine as long as they don't use their teleporting cyborg ninjas on me." It's also kind of silly to cry foul when they actually do use their teleporting cyborg ninjas.

You don't like the fact that hiding in a mansion in Pakistan won't save you from teleporting cyborg ninjas? Don't start a war with somebody who has them.

 

[Captain.Sassy]

Don't look at me: I was responding to Captain.Sassy, who characterized the the US military as the most advanced in (probably) the galaxy.

And I stand by my claim.

 

[Stout]

Wow

Comparing Pakistan's blasphemy laws with anti-abortion vigilantes ?

Even an accusation of dissing Allah is enough to ruin your life. Guilty...maybe death, found innocent, then leave Pakistan post haste or the mob will get you.

Apparently, The Maldives had to rescind a law that stated anyone caught with any religious paraphernalia other than Muslim could be arrested so showing up with a bible in your luggage or a cross around your neck could give you a story you'd be telling for the rest of your life.

Pragmatic minds judged this law wasn't beneficial to a country largely dependant on European tourism so now, you can have the stuff, just don't show it to anybody and don't even think of talking to anyone about "alternative" faiths.

 

[jiggeryqua]

Don't look at me: I was responding to Captain.Sassy, who characterized the the US military as the most advanced in (probably) the galaxy. Where you get Space Police from this, I don't know.

Anyway, I'd settle for "the most advanced military in the world", which I think they most certainly are. Problem?

My apologies, you're right, you merely repeated a phrase that Captain Sassy had introduced. But to claim you can't see where I get 'Space Police' from is disingenuous. We'll settle for 'World Police' then? They may be ""the most advanced military in the world", my problem lies with how they operate, and with the impotency of their technology in certain theatres.

Irrelevant to my point.

My point was that Osama Bin Laden chose to wage war against an enemy that has teleporting cyborg ninjas with robot backup and warbeast sidekicks.

You start a fight like that, it's kind of silly to say things like, "I'll be just fine as long as they don't use their teleporting cyborg ninjas on me." It's also kind of silly to cry foul when they actually do use their teleporting cyborg ninjas.

You don't like the fact that hiding in a mansion in Pakistan won't save you from teleporting cyborg ninjas? Don't start a war with somebody who has them.

Irrelevant to my point...and not just for the comic book hyperbole and the strawmen. I'd reiterate my point, but I don't believe I could say it loud enough to drown out the chants of "USA! We're Number One!"

 

[jiggeryqua]

Apparently, [...]QUOTE]

Apparantly, the EU outlawed curved bananas. That was cobblers, of course, but still gets repeated in the UK's second-rate newspapers.

'Apparantly', as was once pointed out to me, doesn't really cut it round here. Citation, please.

Oh, and the Maldives aren't in Pakistan. Apparantly, Americans are relatively ignorant of world geography...

 

[Stout]

Well, ya got me. I didn't want to admit reading Wikipedia, but since you've forced my hand.

It's open season on nutty religious laws and why they might make an idyllic sounding place seem like somewhere you might like to move to. We Canadians tend to dream of moving to warmer climes in the winter.

 

[zooterkin]

Placing profits over people.

Isn't that called capitalism? Why do you hate America?

 

[Skeptic]

Pragmatic minds judged this law wasn't beneficial to a country largely dependant on European tourism so now, you can have the stuff, just don't show it to anybody and don't even think of talking to anyone about "alternative" faiths.

Good thing Islam is the religion of peace. Can you imagine how much worse things would be like if it were not so peaceful and tolerant?

 

[dtugg]

Isn't that called capitalism? Why do you hate America?

No.

 

[Toontown]

Yeah, he was also the type who would live in a cave, not a mansion.

I'm pretty sure it was intended as an assassination, but I haven't made up my mind on whether it should be condemned.

Perhaps you will think more clearly if you keep your definitions straight.

We do not "assassinate" enemies who have declared war on us and attacked us repeatedly. We "kill" enemies with whom we are at war.

bin Laden is no different from any other enemy, and deserves no special word to define his completely justified demise. Would you have condemned bin Laden if he had 'assassinated' a Seal during the raid?