I feel so proud....

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-05-04 12:36pm

HemlockGrey wrote:Does the article say exactly how many civilians were in the mosque?

According to SCOL Supatra, who was involved in this action, there were 32 of the nutters inside the mosque (armed with rifles -- not just machetes). The non-combatants appeared to have left the mosque when the attackers demanded they leave at the beginning of the battle.

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2004-05-04 05:16pm

I've seen reports that the 'bomb' was 100 pounds or so of C4, but I'm not sure of the reliability of those reports. If this is true, my question would be where did a bunch of stumblefuck cops get a military explosive like C4?

They probably raided North Philly. Or had it shipped in from Detroit.

Nathan F · Post by **Nathan F** » 2004-05-04 06:05pm

OK, Mike, I'm going to make one last statement here:

In Thailand, innocents were not in the building. The article never mentioned any, and I was under the impression that there were none. Also, this region is basically a battleground. In this situation, it was bad enough that the ARMY had to be called out, not just the police. This was a warzone. It is a bit more understandable to blow up a building where militants who have been attacking had been holed up than it would be to blow up a building had the situation been different (eg, they hadn't been attacking people and armed forces). Even so, there were no innocents killed apparently. You're argument that I'm setting a double standard has no basis whatsoever.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-05-04 08:52pm

Nathan F wrote:OK, Mike, I'm going to make one last statement here:

In Thailand, innocents were not in the building. The article never mentioned any, and I was under the impression that there were none.

And I quote, from the first page before you decided to change your argument:

Nathan F wrote:IMHO, whenever Terrori...er...enemy militants take over a building, it becomes a free target as long as the risk of non-combatant casualties is low enough.

In other words, you used this subject as a springboard to make a GENERAL STATEMENT that as long as you have so-called acceptable risks, it's OK to blow up any building that has terrorists in it.

When called on your bullshit, you promptly decide that actually, your statement was meant to only address this particular mosque, and none other

Nathan F · Post by **Nathan F** » 2004-05-04 09:17pm

Darth Wong wrote:In other words, you used this subject as a springboard to make a GENERAL STATEMENT that as long as you have so-called acceptable risks, it's OK to blow up any building that has terrorists in it.

When called on your bullshit, you promptly decide that actually, your statement was meant to only address this particular mosque, and none other

You just absolutly love putting words in people's mouth and misquoting them, don't you? I'd think you'd be intelligent enough to be able to put 2 and 2 together in this situation. By me replying to this thread with that statement, it is obvious that I'm referring to the situation at hand. Anyways, this doesn't apply only to this mosque. Your false analogy that I didn't call you out on earlier about the Massachusettes suburb would apply as well, if the situations were similar. If there were people charging military forces with machetes and their leaders were holed up in a building with no one else in it, then by all means, blow it to kingdom come!

Mike, your entire debate is pointless, fruitless, and baseless, and this has been shown many many times by various people. I welcome anyone to join in and give a valid argument otherwise.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-05-04 09:33pm

Nathan F wrote:You just absolutly love putting words in people's mouth and misquoting them, don't you? I'd think you'd be intelligent enough to be able to put 2 and 2 together in this situation. By me replying to this thread with that statement, it is obvious that I'm referring to the situation at hand.

Bullshit. When you say "WHENEVER this happens", you are by making a general recommendation by definition. But by all means, continue backpedaling furiously.

Jadeite · Post by **Jadeite** » 2004-05-04 09:43pm

I Googled the MOVE fire, and found this article, written by some fucktard who believes that they were all really nice people who stood up for a just cause and were just trying to live peacefully.

http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/MOVE-Ph ... 4jun96.htm

BoyRocketeer · Post by **BoyRocketeer** » 2004-05-04 09:45pm

big deal, it was the Thais who blew up the mosque and not the US. They had their reasons to do it and they did it.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2004-05-04 09:45pm

BlkbrryTheGreat wrote:Actually, I remember seeing something on the Discovery channel (or something like that) that said that the Davidians didn't burn themselves down, rather it was the knockout gas, that the Firearms/Tobacco/Alcohol's tank pumped in there, igniting.

Which is complete and utter bullshit, aside from the location at which the fire started, they where using tear gas. Tear gas can only burn at preposterously high concentrations with a very high ignition temperature, say if your dropped thermite into a tank full of it. At the concentrations it would have had inside the Waco compound its effect would have been to partly smother a fire, not help one spread or be the cause of it.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2004-05-04 09:56pm

Glocksman wrote:
I've seen reports that the 'bomb' was 100 pounds or so of C4, but I'm not sure of the reliability of those reports. If this is true, my question would be where did a bunch of stumblefuck cops get a military explosive like C4?

That's bullshit, there's plenty of video of the bomb being dropped and exploded and no reason to doubt it was the 10 pounds of C-4 the police said it was. As for where they got it from, every SWAT unit in the country has C-4 and detcord for use in training and for use in breaching operations and emergency demolitions, though that last category is more blowing a hole in a ice dam to control flooding sort of thing then what it was used for in Philadelphia.

Ruby Ridge was in Idaho, and I do know enough about that incident to state that the FBI sniper who shot an unarmed woman with an infant in her arms through the head is a murderer.

Except that he wasn't aiming at her, she was behind Weaver who he was shooting at. Still the investigation did find that the Rules of Engagment for HRT where too loose.

Apparently the government agrees with me as they settled the wrongful death suit Weaver filed for several million dollars.

No it doesn't which is why the officer who fired is a free man and not in jail for murder.

Bob the Gunslinger · Post by **Bob the Gunslinger** » 2004-05-06 06:02pm

Darth Wong wrote:
Joe wrote:
Darth Wong wrote:Yup, it's OK to blow up buildings where violent enemies have taken root ... unless they're Branch Davidians in Texas or white supremacists in Montana, in which case anything which results in any deaths is a FUCKING CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY!!!!!!!
What's your point?
My point is that unless you think they should have bombed the Branch Davidian compound, it would be logically inconsistent of you to approve the use of attacks which might cause "collateral damage" in other countries.

Didn't they?

I thought that's what all those "Waco BBQ" jokes were all about...
I guess I just never gave a sufficient percentage of a shit to check it out.

Chardok · Post by **Chardok** » 2004-05-06 06:06pm

This is completely off-topic...

but I've noticed alot of usage of the suffix -ul in place of -ile and -le. (Possibul, Articul) are these genuine misspellings or have they a root in a long-standing joke I missed out on?

Bob the Gunslinger · Post by **Bob the Gunslinger** » 2004-05-06 06:22pm

Did Mike just change Nathan's title to Resident Redneck, or did Nathan choose that title?

Just curious.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2004-05-06 06:34pm

Bob the Gunslinger wrote:Did Mike just change Nathan's title to Resident Redneck, or did Nathan choose that title?

Just curious.

he's had that title for a long time. it's not recent.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-05-06 07:04pm

Bob the Gunslinger wrote:Didn't they?

I thought that's what all those "Waco BBQ" jokes were all about...
I guess I just never gave a sufficient percentage of a shit to check it out.

That's just tinfoil-hatter bullshit. The tinfoil-hatters have, over the years, developed a powerful apparatus for disseminating total lies to the point that they are widely accepted. Take the JFK assassination, for example; most of the widely cited proofs of a conspiracy are just outright lies. Same kind of situation with Waco. Police use tear-gas all the time in hostage situations, and it doesn't explode; only the tinfoil-hatters could somehow find a way to make the use of tear gas proof of arson rather than obvious proof that they were trying to take people alive.

Glocksman · Post by **Glocksman** » 2004-05-07 02:39am

Except that he wasn't aiming at her, she was behind Weaver who he was shooting at. Still the investigation did find that the Rules of Engagment for HRT where too loose.

Maybe you believe the shot to the head was an accident. I don't.

The FBI's HRT snipers are supposed to be among the best in the world, and an accidental shooting right in the head is a little difficult to swallow.

Here's an interesting tidbit from the trial on why they might have targeted Vicki.

Link

Michael Weland, then-reporter for the _Bonners Ferry Herald_,
interviewed Randy Weaver in May, 1992. Weland, now a reporter for the
_Kootenai Valley Times_, said that Randy Weaver believed he and his
family were being persecuted for their religious beliefs. Said Weland,
"He [Randy Weaver] felt he was being persecuted by a government that he
felt was sinful and controlled by Freemasons and Jews." According to
Weland, Weaver also revealed that he had considered surrendering to
federal agents, but that his family objected. Weland recalled Vicki
Weaver saying, "We won't let him go down."

After coming away from the cabin, Weland discussed his impressions to
an FBI agent developing a psychological profile of the Weaver family.
Weland told the agent that he believed Vicki Weaver was the strongest
member of the family. Presumably, this means that she held the
deciding factor in family decisions, but this was not made explicit in
the reports. Vicki Weaver was killed by an FBI sniper the very next
day - although the sniper later told a grand jury that he had been
aiming at an armed man running into the house and didn't see her
standing behind an open door when he fired. Defense attorney Gerry
Spence then asked Weland, "Did you anticipate that they [the federal
government] would separate them by killing Vicki?" Weland responded
that he didn't, but U.S. Attorney Ronald Howen objected immediately and
the objection was sustained. U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge ordered
the jury to ignore the question and the answer. Spence's obvious
implication was that killing Vicki Weaver might have been a government
strategy to eliminate the leader of the Weaver family.

There's a lot of questions still unanswered about what happened up there.

No it doesn't which is why the officer who fired is a free man and not in jail for murder.

Interestingly enough, the Grand Jury charged with investigating Weaver after the siege and a local prosecutor wanted to know if they could indict Horiuchi.

They were told no by a Federal judge who determined that Horiuchi was immune from state prosecution. He's a free man because of that immunity, not because he's not guilty.

Also interesting is the FBI's reaction later on when their 'negotiator' broadcast this over a loudspeaker.

“Good morning Mrs. Weaver,” Fred Lanceley, an FBI negotiator, called out. “We had pancakes this morning. And what did you have for breakfast? Why don't you send your children out for some pancakes, Mrs. Weaver?”

What were they trying to do, drive him to charging out with a gun so Horiuchi could finish the job?

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-05-07 02:48am

With all due respect Glocksman, you spend too much time reading government-conspiracy websites. Why is it so implausible that a sniper firing on a moving target when he gets to a doorway happens to hit someone else in that doorway?

Do you really believe that his superiors actually sat him down and instructed him to kill her and make it look like a botched attempt to kill him?

Glocksman · Post by **Glocksman** » 2004-05-07 03:18am

I don't *know* for certain that he deliberately targeted Vicki.

I believe he did, but I have no evidence beyond the psych profile the FBI worked up claiming that Vicki was the motivating force behind Randy.

I will concede that my belief could be wrong.

However, the revised ROE that mandated shooting anyone who was armed even if they posed no threat to the safety of anyone else led directly to her death. Horiuchi opened fire on Weaver and Harris without provocation in obedience to those orders.

Interestingly enough, a couple of other HRT snipers testified that they considered the revised ROE to be illegal and wouldn't follow them and would stick to the standard ROE.

Standard ROE is that deadly force can be utilized to prevent the death or grievous bodily injury to oneself or that of another.

What leads a lot of people to wonder about this is what happened to those who were responsible for the deaths.

Danny Coulson, former head of FBI headquarters, was given a letter of censure; Michael Kahoe, who had been involved in researching the rules of engagement, was censured and suspended for 15 days; Richard Rogers, head of the hostage rescue team, was censured and suspended for 10 days; Larry Potts, the man who had approved the rules of engagement, was censured; Eugene Glenn, Ruby Ridge field commander, was censured and suspended for 15 days, and Lou Horiuchi, the HRT "Blue" sniper/observer team leader, received no punishment for his actions, which resulted in the death of Vicki Weaver.

All of those involved should have lost their jobs at the very least and Larry Potts should probably have been imprisoned for civil rights violations.

Instead they all got slaps on the wrist.

And yeah, I do hang out too much at conspiracy websites sometimes.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2004-05-07 03:49am

Glocksman, from my reading of that article on the Weaver raid, the woman was holding the door open for the men to return to cover, yes? Was she even visible to the sniper? I ask because apparently the shot penetrated the wall next to the door, the womans head, and the side of one of the men. This sniper is hardly a billiards player; why couldn't he simply have been tracking a target, and fired the split second he disappeared from view?

Its still a tragedy, however a greater tragedy (in my opinion) is that the whole thing could have been avoided.