To Murder 1 Old BAD MAN US Got Charity Banned From Pakistan

[Flagg]

NBCNews

Save The Children Expelled From Pakistan In Wake of Bin Laden Case

by Mushtaq Yusufzai, Wajahat S. Khan and F. Brinley Bruton

Pakistan has shut down global charity Save the Children's operations in the country and ordered all of its foreign employees to leave within 15 days.

"Save the Children International [has been] asked to wind-up its offices and operations in Pakistan forthwith," the government said in a letter dated Thursday seen by NBC News.

Some officials in Pakistan have accused the charity of being linked the false vaccination program used by American officials to help hunt and kill Osama bin Laden in 2011.

"It was Save the Children that hired Dr. Shakil Afridi to help CIA track down Osama bin Laden," a senior intelligence official told NBC News on condition of anonymity, referring to the doctor who worked with the U.S. to find the al Qaeda chief.

The charity, which has worked in Pakistan for 35 years and employs some 1,200 people there, has always denied any involvement in the hunt for bin Laden. Save the Children said it has no expatriate workers in the country.

While no official reason was given for shuttering one of the largest relief organizations in the country, Pakistan's Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar told reporters that the government had received "objectionable reports and intelligence" about some foreign NGOs that were operating in the country "without oversight."

He did not specifically name Save the Children, which responded to Friday's news with a strongly worded statement: "Save the Children was not served any notice to this effect. We strongly object to this action and are raising our serious concerns at the highest levels."

Starving Pakistani Child: "Why don't we have any food at all any more? Why don't the nice people that give us food and medicine not come?"
Starving Pakistani Mother: "Because the United States used them to help kill Osama Bin Laden."
Starving Pakistani Child: "But he was just an old man who no one even listened to anymore! Why would the American's care so mu-"

**MISSILE FIRED FROM U.S. DRONE DESTROYS ENTIRE CITY BLOCK KILLING 2 AL QUAEDA MEMBERS & COLLAPSES APARTMENT BUILDING WITH COLLATERAL DAMAGE BEING LOW, ONLY 12**

[Block]

So you're angry at the US instead of Pakistan why exactly? They'd rather get even for the loss of face they suffered for harboring bin Laden near their West Point than allow kids to be vaccinated and fed. Sounds like it's totally our fault.

[Adam Reynolds]

No surprise here. While it is hard to sympathize with Pakistan in many ways here, I have to say that this particular effort by the CIA is among the least ethical things they did in the hunt for Bin Laden(and this is including torture). Especially considering that it gave them nothing of value, though even if it had, I would have still said it wasn't worth it.

So you're angry at the US instead of Pakistan why exactly? They'd rather get even for the loss of face they suffered for harboring bin Laden near their West Point than allow kids to be vaccinated and fed. Sounds like it's totally our fault.

The CIA chose to use an aid organization even though they knew that this was likely. By law the CIA is forbidden to work with the US Peace Corps for exactly this reason, the loss in global good(and goodwill towards America) is not worth the temporary gains in intelligence gathering. It is in fact nearly impossible to even be employed by one if you have previously worked for the other.

[madd0ct0r]

I seem to recall that the vaccine for DNA tracing was just a cover story, Laden was sold by high ranking Pakistani officials.

[The Romulan Republic]

So you're angry at the US instead of Pakistan why exactly? They'd rather get even for the loss of face they suffered for harboring bin Laden near their West Point than allow kids to be vaccinated and fed. Sounds like it's totally our fault.

Because some people blame America for everything?

Plus Flagg's source doesn't even confirm that the Bin Laden thing was necssiarily why this charity was banned, much less that Pakistan's accusations are valid.

Now, I'm not entirely happy with how the death of Bin Laden happened. I'd have preferred it if he was arrested, brought back alive, and given a fair trial, though I recognize that that wasn't politically realistic even if they could have taken him alive. However, I also think that America had about as good a reason to go after Bin Laden as you can get, and it takes a truly insane level of America bashing to deny that, unless Flagg wants to play 911 truther.

Edit: I mean, is the argument here really "Bin Laden was involved in the murder of thousands of American civilians, but he was old so they should have just let him go?"

My follow up question is: If a Nazi war criminal guilty of killing thousands of civilians is found, should he walk because he's old? Or is it just because he killed Americans that its supposed to be forgive and forget?

[Thanas]

My follow up question is: If a Nazi war criminal guilty of killing thousands of civilians is found, should he walk because he's old?

Without making any judgement on bin Laden: This is exactly what happened multiple times.

[The Romulan Republic]

Which is unfortunate, and I hope most of us would agree.

Granted, I'm not entirely unsympathetic to the idea that because someone is old and helpless, there's no point going after him. But at the same time, I understand why America would not wish a great mass murderer of Americans, including civilians, to simply walk free. And for that matter, I'm not convinced Bin Laden was truly no longer a threat. Sure, he's old, but the threat he posed was never about him being some bad ass fighter. It was about his role as a leader. An old man can fill that role. And in any case, setting the precedent that you can kill three thousand Americans and walk is hardly going to be good for America's security.

Edit: In summary, I can criticize the details of the operation, but the basic fact of America pursuing Bin Ladin has "just cause" written all over it.

[Flagg]

The Pakistani's have been pissed off about our using someone who was, or was pretending to be, part of a charity giving out vaccines in order to try to get DNA samples from the children in the Bin Laden compound. That's what people with morals call "obscene". I believe this was also depicted in a scene from America's 'Triumph of the Will': 'Zero Dark Thirty (Or How I Stopped Caring About Morality And Learned To Love Waterboarding Even Though It had Nothing to Do With Finding Old Man Bin Laden)'. Not to mention I've seen numerous programs about the Bin Laden hit and all of them said that they tried to collect the children's DNA under the guise of vaccinations.

But it doesn't really matter. The fact is that we violated sovereign airspace with military aircraft and personnel to essentially murder someone without trial. The only positive thing that came of our actions that night was the amount of Intel we got, because it turned out Osama was pretty much out to pasture, he just didn't know it. I really don't take much issue with what Seal Team 6 did regarding the raid (aside from whoever crashed that helicopter which is now owned by the Chinese I've no doubt), especially when it came to "arresting" Bin Laden. For all they know the old bastard wore an explosive vest under his clothing 24/7, so the doubltap to ensure no possible threat is acceptable to me. The rumors of them all emptying a magazine into his corpse I don't care about either way. But we had no business invading Pakistan.

[The Romulan Republic]

Launching a raid, especially into a country we're not at war with, is not something that should be done lightly. Part of me, the part that very much believes in the rule of law, wants to say we shouldn't have done it. That we should have played by the rules even if it meant we lost. But what if that meant Bin Laden got away? What were we supposed to do? Declare war on Pakistan, a nation with nuclear weapons, just to make it proper? Or let the mass murderer we're at war with walk free?

Tough call.

I can't honestly say that how it was handled was perfect, but I do feel America had a right, based on the facts, to pursue Bin Laden regardless of his age or weather he was currently a threat, even if the specific methods were not always right.

Edit: As for the charity- well, perhaps it and those it helps are suffering as a consequence (presumably an unintended one) of the killing of Bin Laden. But its Pakistan's choice to boot a charity, apparently without proof it did anything wrong.

[Flagg]

So is calling me a 9/11 Truther and saying I don't think we should have been going after Bin Laden enough? Can a moderator now take action against the person who in every thread we're both in just lies about the facts and me personally finally have some action taken against them or am I expected to continue to do nothing, since if I defend myself I get in trouble and if I offend the wrong person I'm told not to make any more posts in a thread, despite my interest in the subject? Hell, I'll probably get a bitching at just for being unwilling to be this boards motherfucking whipping boy anymore.

And for the record, I was just as glad Osama was dead on May 1, 2011 as most Americans. So glad that I made some stupid sarcastic remarks that were HoS'd for posterity by Edi who thought I was being serious, but I never corrected him simply because I forgot to use emotes to make clear they were sarcastic and with some of the really bad shit said by some people, I could understand why he thought they were my real feelings on the matter.
But I soured on the hit after learning most of the facts. I don't take issue with hunting Bin Laden, I take issue with doing the monstrous atrocity of using or posing as aid workers giving vaccines in order to try and get DNA from children to confirm it was Bin Laden living in the compound. I take issue with invading another country with stealth copters like sneaky fucking weasels to murder a single man that we already knew wasn't of particular import beyond the propaganda value of "Fuck with us and we will find and kill you, even if it takes almost a decade." I'm glad the victims and family members of victims from the embassy bombings in '98, the people in the planes that struck the towers of the WTC and those that didn't make it out of the towers alive, the brave people who saved more lives than we'll ever know on the plane almost retaken but downed in Pennsylvania, and of course the people in the plane that struck the Pentagon. But I consider both the USS Cole and the Pentagon itself valid military targets. Al Qaeda made no secret at all of their intentions to attack the US, hell they declared war.

But I was downright outraged and sickened by the well known fact (So well known, I'm shocked anyone is challenging it. I mean the Pakistani ISI arrested the Senior Pakistani Doctor in charge of vaccinations in Abbottabad for working with the CIA! Whether that doctor was, or if the ISI just felt the need to arrest someone for doing something so awful, I have no idea, it's just more proof of my assertion) that the CIA unsuccessfully tried the ruse of giving the Bin Laden children polio vaccinations in order to obtain their DNA for testing as documented in the following articles:

NPR: CIA Says It Will No Longer Use Vaccine Programs As Cover

The Guardian: CIA organised fake vaccination drive to get Osama bin Laden's family DNA

ABCNews: The Lasting Fallout of Fake Vaccination Programs

NYTimes: C.I.A. Vaccine Ruse May Have Harmed the War on Polio

Bloomberg Business: The CIA Stops Fake Vaccinations as Real Polio Rebounds

ABC (AU): Polio resurgence in Pakistan following backlash from CIA vaccination ruse in hunt for Osama bin Laden

Boom, baby.

So you're angry at the US instead of Pakistan why exactly? They'd rather get even for the loss of face they suffered for harboring bin Laden near their West Point than allow kids to be vaccinated and fed. Sounds like it's totally our fault.

Who says it's an either/or proposition? I'm not happy with Pakistan, but I can understand why they would want to eject organizations which claim they are in their country with no political purpose, but solely to vaccinate and feed poor children, who it turns out either helped the CIA collect intelligence on Pakistani soil, or who the CIA posed as to collect intelligence on Pakistani soil. This caused a backlash not just from the government, but from the people of Pakistan which is why the rate of polio skyrocketed.
So it's not a case of Pakistan being a mad, petulant child about this, it's about them not being able to trust that (despite what the CIA has said) they've stopped. Which frankly, is the intelligent, reasonable position to take because if you believe anything the CIA says in regards to the incredibly immoral, abhorrent, and downright evil shit they do in the American people's name, I've got some great real estate in South Florida to sell you. It's a bit under sea level, but you should be fine, and in 30 years (fingers crossed) it'll be beachfront! Just hope you don't mind building a very tall stilt home!
And frankly, even assuming anything you've said about saving face is correct (sure took them a long time to do it since it's been over 4 years and a month since the hit job and they are just getting around to kicking these guys out), the CIA's actions were beyond abhorrent and completely inexcusable. Especially when Pakistan (at the time) was our supposed Ally.

[Joun_Lord]

Especially when Pakistan (at the time) was our supposed Ally.

And thats the problem I have with this whole affair. Yeah the Amerikkkans did some bad shit to find some old bad man who, to cop a internet parlance, "dindo nuffin" but our ally, the people we were and probably still are pouring billions of dollars of military aid money into, kept our number one boogeyman in a luxury condo near their own version of West Point.

Whether or not you think Bin Laden was no longer a thread or should be left alone in his luxury condo because he was just the same as that Nazi death-camp accountant in that they personally never were involved in killing people (though Bin Laden sure ordered alot of other people to kill people but thats clearly the fault of the other people for listening to his ass, clearly I'm implying here that Bin Laden's donkey was the real culprit, that dirty dirty ass) the fact is our ally was still holding him, knowingly and willfully hid him from the almighty gaze of our red white and blue balls.

That plus the numerous allegations that ISI had been continuously supporting the Taliban and other militants who were in our bases killing our dudes and in our planes killing our buildings shows that Pakistan isn't exactly the victim here.

Both countries did some pretty fucked up shit and yes it isn't an either/or proposition of who the bad guy was, other then the obvious bad guy......Bush, but I think in this case between improperly using a vaccine program and capping some old fucker in the country that is hiding him or giving a dude responsible for the deaths of thousands of civilians a hiding spot in a nice house and giving money to his followers to attack people including their own people, I think Pakistan looks worse.

Not that their isn't plenty of other shit to be pissed at the US about like the whole drone striking probably hundreds of civilians in several countries we ain't a war with.

[The Romulan Republic]

So is calling me a 9/11 Truther

I didn't do that. I basically said that it was insane to argue that America had good reason to go after Bin Laden unless you're a truther. I stand by that. It is not my problem if you don't understand the distinction.

and saying I don't think we should have been going after Bin Laden enough?

You made a big deal out of how Osama "...was just an old man who no one even listened to anymore!" At the very least, it was implied that you didn't think he was worth going after. I'm sorry if I misunderstood your position. But if you're capable of being honest, surely you can see how I might read that conclusion.

Can a moderator now take action against the person who in every thread we're both in just lies about the facts and me personally finally have some action taken against them or am I expected to continue to do nothing, since if I defend myself I get in trouble and if I offend the wrong person I'm told not to make any more posts in a thread, despite my interest in the subject? Hell, I'll probably get a bitching at just for being unwilling to be this boards motherfucking whipping boy anymore.

Has it occurred to you that if you are the subject of criticism, your conduct might play a role in that?

Of course, it would require some humility to recognize that and some sense of decency to give a shit.

God damn it, I was hoping their could actually be a thread where we disagree without you pulling this shit, but it seems that you won't permit that to be the case.

I have not lied. But you arguably have, or at the very least grossly misinterpreted what I said and falsely accused me. And you have suggested that the moderators should take action against me again. You have done this again and again. This seems to be a default debating tactic for you, and that says nothing good about your character or your intellect. Granted, I do not see you do this to anyone else, but frankly I find it fucking disturbing that you have apparently singled me out to attack in this manner.

No one else on this forum routinely finds grounds to complain that I have broken the rules. Fuck, Thanas is a moderator and he evidently did not find my initial post to be in violation of the rules (I presume he would have said so if he had rather than the comment he did post). And I was courteous and scrupulously careful to remain on topic in my initial response.

I could just ignore you. Avoid any thread you posted in. But that would effectively mean censoring myself and ceasing to participate in certain discussions, letting you silence my point of view. I don't feel that I can ethically do that.

And for the record, I was just as glad Osama was dead on May 1, 2011 as most Americans. So glad that I made some stupid sarcastic remarks that were HoS'd for posterity by Edi who thought I was being serious, but I never corrected him simply because I forgot to use emotes to make clear they were sarcastic and with some of the really bad shit said by some people, I could understand why he thought they were my real feelings on the matter.
But I soured on the hit after learning most of the facts. I don't take issue with hunting Bin Laden, I take issue with doing the monstrous atrocity of using or posing as aid workers giving vaccines in order to try and get DNA from children to confirm it was Bin Laden living in the compound. I take issue with invading another country with stealth copters like sneaky fucking weasels to murder a single man that we already knew wasn't of particular import beyond the propaganda value of "Fuck with us and we will find and kill you, even if it takes almost a decade." I'm glad the victims and family members of victims from the embassy bombings in '98, the people in the planes that struck the towers of the WTC and those that didn't make it out of the towers alive, the brave people who saved more lives than we'll ever know on the plane almost retaken but downed in Pennsylvania, and of course the people in the plane that struck the Pentagon. But I consider both the USS Cole and the Pentagon itself valid military targets. Al Qaeda made no secret at all of their intentions to attack the US, hell they declared war.

Al Qaida is not a government. What the fuck gives them the right to declare war?

But its good to know that you consider those attacks legitimate. It gives me one more reason to have utter contempt for you.

But I was downright outraged and sickened by the well known fact (So well known, I'm shocked anyone is challenging it. I mean the Pakistani ISI arrested the Senior Pakistani Doctor in charge of vaccinations in Abbottabad for working with the CIA! Whether that doctor was, or if the ISI just felt the need to arrest someone for doing something so awful, I have no idea, it's just more proof of my assertion) that the CIA unsuccessfully tried the ruse of giving the Bin Laden children polio vaccinations in order to obtain their DNA for testing as documented in the following articles:

NPR: CIA Says It Will No Longer Use Vaccine Programs As Cover

The Guardian: CIA organised fake vaccination drive to get Osama bin Laden's family DNA

ABCNews: The Lasting Fallout of Fake Vaccination Programs

NYTimes: C.I.A. Vaccine Ruse May Have Harmed the War on Polio

Bloomberg Business: The CIA Stops Fake Vaccinations as Real Polio Rebounds

ABC (AU): Polio resurgence in Pakistan following backlash from CIA vaccination ruse in hunt for Osama bin Laden

Boom, baby.

No comment on this at the moment. The vaccine accusation is something I never argued, so I don't know what you think you're proving.

[Flagg]

Hey, the American colonists weren't a country, either. So by your logic, every act of violence against The Crown was a terrorist attack, right?

[The Romulan Republic]

Not a terrorist attack unless the specific criteria of terrorism were met. To me, the term "terrorism" has a connotation not only of a violent act or threat of violence for a political/ideological cause, but of something with the goal, at least in part, of causing fear/intimidation. This is pretty much the dictionary definition from Merriam-Webster.

"The use of violent acts to frighten the people in an area as a way of trying to achieve a political goal"

www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/terrorism

While their were probably acts committed by both sides in the American Revolution (and for that matter in plenty of other wars) that I would consider terrorism, I don't consider the revolutionaries guilty of terrorism in general. Indeed, I find the notion rather preposterous.

However, I'm not convinced that the American revolutionaries were justified in doing what they did, as I believe you already know. I do accept that their are certain circumstances when the people can be justified in armed revolt against their government, but they are few and far between.

But I could have articulated my argument better since I inadvertently implied that any revolution or civil war is unjustified because the rebels aren't a legitimate government, and that's not a belief I hold.

In any case, their are so many differences between the American Revolution and Al Qaida that it is preposterous to treat the two situations as comparable. To start with, the American Revolution was a revolt by people against their own government, which should in theory be accountable to them, while Al Qaida was waging war against foreign countries. Likewise, the causes being fought for were very different, and while the Founding Fathers weren't the saints some portray them as, I have sympathy for the ideals in the Declaration of Independence and see them as something worth fighting for, unlike the oppressive fundamentalist religious wackjobbery of Al Qaida. Moreover, the wars were in different times, and I hold people in the 20th. century to a higher standard of conduct than I do people of past times before modern concepts of human rights were developed.

I'm sorry if that answer appears evasive. The question of when war is justified is highly complex and dependent on circumstances.

Edited to fix the link.

[Channel72]

I'm glad the victims and family members of victims from the embassy bombings in '98, the people in the planes that struck the towers of the WTC and those that didn't make it out of the towers alive, the brave people who saved more lives than we'll ever know on the plane almost retaken but downed in Pennsylvania, and of course the people in the plane that struck the Pentagon. But I consider both the USS Cole and the Pentagon itself valid military targets. Al Qaeda made no secret at all of their intentions to attack the US, hell they declared war.

But the World Trade Center was not a military target - it was an economic target containing thousands of innocent white-collar and blue-collar workers. Hitting it was part of Al Qaeda's operating strategy to bleed the US economy (which doesn't work very well, btw, because it turns out drones are cheap.)

And all the fucking cafes and mosques in Baghdad that these idiots blow up routinely are non-military targets as well.

Oh, and let's not forget the Radisson SAS hotel in Amman, Jordan, which they blew up - while a fucking wedding was happening, killing all the wedding party.

Al Qaeda cannot "declare war" - they are just a bunch of criminals who need to be arrested. I'm really surprised you consider anything they do in any way "legitimate".

Certainly, it's acceptable to criticize the way Bin Laden's compound was identified, if the reports are true that some of the intel was obtained via torturing Mohammed al-Qahtani. But taken in isolation, I really don't think there's anything wrong with the Seal Team 6 raid. Nobody fucking complains when Mossad drops in to Argentina to take down Eichmann.

[Thanas]

While their were probably acts committed by both sides in the American Revolution (and for that matter in plenty of other wars) that I would consider terrorism, I don't consider the revolutionaries guilty of terrorism in general. Indeed, I find the notion rather preposterous.

There were official terror campaigns against loyalists and natives. Terrorism was an accepted tactic by the Revolutionaries and widely used, as were other violations of the law of war at that time (such as using irregulars not wearing uniforms). The whole tarring and feathering and other stuff was widely acknowledged as terror tactics.

Fuck, Thanas is a moderator and he evidently did not find my initial post to be in violation of the rules (I presume he would have said so if he had rather than the comment he did post).

I as a general rule do not moderate threads I am part with or have commented on. Under no circumstances shall this be used as me finding no fault with a poster.

[The Romulan Republic]

Understandable and indeed commendable, but you had not posted in this thread prior to that point.

Regardless, it was certainly not my intention to misrepresent your position as a moderator. I'm sorry if it appeared otherwise.

As to the revolution, I am not in any way surprised by the claim that their were terroristic actions by the revolutionaries. I pretty much said as much already. I just don't consider the revolution itself, all of the revolutionaries, or everything the revolutionaries did, terrorists/terrorism. Hopefully that clarifies my position on the subject once and for all.

[Channel72]

As to the revolution, I am not in any way surprised by the claim that their were terroristic actions by the revolutionaries. I pretty much said as much already. I just don't consider the revolution itself, all of the revolutionaries, or everything the revolutionaries did, terrorists/terrorism. Hopefully that clarifies my position on the subject once and for all.

And yet, who cares, really? We all understand that these notions of country, war, revolution, terrorist, etc. are totally arbitrary human constructs, dictated mostly by post hoc thinking. The American Revolution was successful, so now we're a country. If it failed, it would have been an insurgency of minor significance. But again, who cares? Regardless of what we call them, Al Qaeda intentionally commits civilian mass murder as a matter of policy and political strategy, hence we have to try to stop or kill them.

Now, there's a lot of room for criticism regarding how we do that. Certainly, the Bush era Iraq stuff was totally counter-productive, and the current Obama drone-program is not much better because it causes innocent civilian deaths. But the key difference between the drone program and Al Qaeda is that civilian casualties are a key feature of Al Qaeda's operating strategy, whereas with the US drone program, civilian casualties are a "bug"*

* Sorry if that sounds a bit callous... I'm not trying to minimize the Pakistani and Yemeni victims of US drone policy; I'm trying to contrast what I find to be a key moral difference between killing civilians as a matter of policy vs killing civilians as a by-product of policy.

Hey, the American colonists weren't a country, either. So by your logic, every act of violence against The Crown was a terrorist attack, right?

Woah... it's like, you TOTALLY blew my mind with that PROGRESSIVE THINKING, man... it's like, who's the REAL TERRORIST, man? It's like... we're ALL terrorists, you know??? *inhales joint...*

[Flagg]

I'm glad the victims and family members of victims from the embassy bombings in '98, the people in the planes that struck the towers of the WTC and those that didn't make it out of the towers alive, the brave people who saved more lives than we'll ever know on the plane almost retaken but downed in Pennsylvania, and of course the people in the plane that struck the Pentagon. But I consider both the USS Cole and the Pentagon itself valid military targets. Al Qaeda made no secret at all of their intentions to attack the US, hell they declared war.

But the World Trade Center was not a military target - it was an economic target containing thousands of innocent white-collar and blue-collar workers. Hitting it was part of Al Qaeda's operating strategy to bleed the US economy (which doesn't work very well, btw, because it turns out drones are cheap.)

And all the fucking cafes and mosques in Baghdad that these idiots blow up routinely are non-military targets as well.

Oh, and let's not forget the Radisson SAS hotel in Amman, Jordan, which they blew up - while a fucking wedding was happening, killing all the wedding party.

Al Qaeda cannot "declare war" - they are just a bunch of criminals who need to be arrested. I'm really surprised you consider anything they do in any way "legitimate".

Certainly, it's acceptable to criticize the way Bin Laden's compound was identified, if the reports are true that some of the intel was obtained via torturing Mohammed al-Qahtani. But taken in isolation, I really don't think there's anything wrong with the Seal Team 6 raid. Nobody fucking complains when Mossad drops in to Argentina to take down Eichmann.

I made it clear that I don't consider the attack on the WTC, or the use of civilian aircraft to attack any of the 9/11 targets legitimate. I don't consider any intentional attack on civilians in any way acceptable. But Al Quaeda was a terrorist organization that openly declared war on America, flat out saying they will attack both military and civilians. So, military has fair warning, and took things pretty serious as we were hitting targets in Afghanistan and Sudan with bombings and cruise missiles. So yeah, attacking the USS Cole, while sucking for the sailors who died and were injured, I honestly wish it hadn't happened, but it was a legitimate military target. Same goes for the Pentagon. It is the epitome of a valid military target.

And while I agree, Al Quaeda should have been treated like a criminal organization and things should have been handled by law enforcement, it's waaaay too late for that. You don't get to treat them as an existential threat to our very way of life to be solved by invading countries with our military, and treat things, with few recent exceptions, as a pure military matter for over a decade, but then say "oh no, just criminals, not a country, they can't declare war", when the same can be said of the American revolutionaries who were considered a bunch of criminals who didn't represent any kind of organization that could declare war.

And a bunch of people complained about the Mossad kidnapping Eichmann. Like the entire nation of Argentina. But The Mossad kidnapped that fucker Eichmann, they didn't double tap him in the street in a mob style hit. They grabbed him, took him back to Israel, show-tried him (I assume, I mean who cares? It's Eichmann and you're at least going through the motions.) and then made him do a floorless tap dance.
And how happy do you think Americans would be if we captured Mexican drug lord who killed some Americans, but hundreds of Mexicans and the U.S. Refuses to extradite because he killed Americans and we want to try him for that, but Mexico wants him so bad they send their military across the border undetected, they attack the jail where he's being held and get him, then sneak right back into Mexico? Because the words "America Declares War, Invades Mexico" come to mind. Not that that would happen, but it's physically within the realm of possibility.

[The Romulan Republic]

As to the revolution, I am not in any way surprised by the claim that their were terroristic actions by the revolutionaries. I pretty much said as much already. I just don't consider the revolution itself, all of the revolutionaries, or everything the revolutionaries did, terrorists/terrorism. Hopefully that clarifies my position on the subject once and for all.

And yet, who cares, really? We all understand that these notions of country, war, revolution, terrorist, etc. are totally arbitrary human constructs, dictated mostly by post hoc thinking. The American Revolution was successful, so now we're a country. If it failed, it would have been an insurgency of minor significance. But again, who cares? Regardless of what we call them, Al Qaeda intentionally commits civilian mass murder as a matter of policy and political strategy, hence we have to try to stop or kill them.

I don't entirely agree that the "notions" you refer to are "...totally arbitrary human constructs...". Sure, humans came up with the terms, but the acts they describe, and, at least to some extent, their effects, are objective and verifiable.

As such things go, the American Revolution turned out fairly well (okay, not for native americans and slaves- that last issue took another war to resolve). Of course, this makes it easy to whitewash the mistakes made at the time, which is unfortunate.

Obviously, I do not disagree with you about the need to oppose Al Qaida.

Now, there's a lot of room for criticism regarding how we do that. Certainly, the Bush era Iraq stuff was totally counter-productive, and the current Obama drone-program is not much better because it causes innocent civilian deaths. But the key difference between the drone program and Al Qaeda is that civilian casualties are a key feature of Al Qaeda's operating strategy, whereas with the US drone program, civilian casualties are a "bug"*

Bush was an imbecile. Even when his goals were good (hey, everyone's right sometimes), his administration's incompetence and corruption were embarrassments and security threats to America and its allies.

* Sorry if that sounds a bit callous... I'm not trying to minimize the Pakistani and Yemeni victims of US drone policy; I'm trying to contrast what I find to be a key moral difference between killing civilians as a matter of policy vs killing civilians as a by-product of policy.

I agree that their is a difference, but I must also point out that to be blunt, the civilians are just as dead either way. I hope and suspect that we can both agree that their is an obligation to make a real effort to avoid civilian casualties, not just to be indifferent to them.

[Flagg]

Hey, the American colonists weren't a country, either. So by your logic, every act of violence against The Crown was a terrorist attack, right?

Woah... it's like, you TOTALLY blew my mind with that PROGRESSIVE THINKING, man... it's like, who's the REAL TERRORIST, man? It's like... we're ALL terrorists, you know??? *inhales joint...*

Are you mocking me, or the Historian who just a few posts up demonstrated, using examples, how the American colonists were criminals who waged horrible terror campaigns against Loyalists, who were living in the colonies just like any other colonial only because they refused to commit treason were often killed, or had themselves and their families violently thrown out of towns, villages, and what passed for cities with nothing but the clothes on their backs and only found peace back in England or in Canada?

Might want to slow down on the weed there too, lightweight. Shit, you'd probably trip out and wake up thinking you killed God if you even got a contact high from the medical grade shit I have to smoke or lie awake most of the night in agony. Not that I love sleeping, with the awful nightmares about me being forced to cut into myself and my loved ones, taking out chunks and eating them, from eyeballs to lungs. Or the ones where I have some form of molten metal dumped on me and can feel the burning and even the smell (I happen to know what burning human flesh smells like. I wouldn't recommend it. ) is accurate and I just can't wake myself any more.
But it's cool, make fun of my various illnesses and the perfectly legal and acceptable substance I use to treat some of them. Because that's perfectly acceptable now, apparently.

[Channel72]

And while I agree, Al Quaeda should have been treated like a criminal organization and things should have been handled by law enforcement, it's waaaay too late for that. You don't get to treat them as an existential threat to our very way of life to be solved by invading countries with our military, and treat things, with few recent exceptions, as a pure military matter for over a decade, but then say "oh no, just criminals, not a country, they can't declare war", when the same can be said of the American revolutionaries who were considered a bunch of criminals who didn't represent any kind of organization that could declare war.

Just because the military handles them doesn't mean they are now somehow granted the status of "nation" - not like it really matters anyway - again, all these labels like "terrorist" and "nation" are pretty arbitrary and depend greatly on how many people agree with such definitions. Al Qaeda is not a nation simply because nobody in the world believes they are - they have no UN recognition, they have no established borders, etc. (I don't even think they insist they are a nation.) In fact, Al Qaeda isn't even really a coherent organization - it's more like a franchise or a brand at this point.

Regardless, just because some "enemy organization" is handled by the military doesn't mean everyone starts calling them a "country". Various Columbian drug lords, like Pablo Escobar, were ultimately taken down by military units, yet nobody calls their cartels a "country". And the Mexican military routinely engages the cartels. There's no "rule" or something that says national militaries can only fight against other national militaries. Hell, the US National Guard, a military organization, fights against Mexican drug cartels all the time.

Of course, initially Al Qaeda was affiliated with the Taliban government of Afghanistan anyway, so the "War on Terror" sort of began as more of a conventional war, but then sort of got derailed into crazy-town when Bush decided to invade Iraq for some reason.

But really, who cares about these definitions? The key points are that Al Qaeda is an organization whose central policies involve orchestrating massive civilian casualties. And they operate mostly outside the jurisdiction of national law enforcement agencies. Therefore, it's difficult to engage them in any meaningful way without involving the military. The other option would be to respond via defensive measures only, rather than deploying troops/drones offensively - but I suppose that really isn't an option, politically, when downtown Manhattan is on fire, I guess.

Are you mocking me, or the Historian who just a few posts up demonstrated, using examples, how the American colonists were criminals who waged horrible terror campaigns against Loyalists, who were living in the colonies just like any other colonial only because they refused to commit treason were often killed, or had themselves and their families violently thrown out of towns, villages, and what passed for cities with nothing but the clothes on their backs and only found peace back in England or in Canada?

I was mocking you. Sorry if that wasn't clear. I'm not really commenting on the irrelevant tangent about American Revolutionary atrocities. I'm really not that impressed with the argument that "oh my God, people you respect like American Revolutionaries were ALSO terrorists! etc." While it's true, it's not useful, since I don't care to wage a war over definitions here. Fine, call the American Revolutionaries terrorists, who cares? Is my mind supposed to be blown or something? The labels we apply to various political entities are often pretty arbitrary, and reflect the mindset of the winning side. Who knew?

But it's cool, make fun of my various illnesses and the perfectly legal and acceptable substance I use to treat some of them. Because that's perfectly acceptable now, apparently.

What the fuck are you talking about?? I wasn't referring to anything personal, just making a generic joke. I didn't know you had an illness.

[Flagg]

So basically you have absolutely nothing but bullshit to add because you apply arbitrary labels to groups based on... What? Your subjective and not at all thought out opinion and irritation at people pointing out facts that make you so uncomfortable you accuse them of being too high on drugs to think clearly enough to form a valid fact-based opinion?

[Thanas]

As such things go, the American Revolution turned out fairly well (okay, not for native americans and slaves- that last issue took another war to resolve). Of course, this makes it easy to whitewash the mistakes made at the time, which is unfortunate.

"Mistakes"? This was deliberate policy to intimidate and terrorize Loyalist supporters. This was a feature, not a bug and not one US politician has ever apologized for it.

And I would like to see your reasons as to why the Revolution turned out fairly well.

[Gandalf]

As such things go, the American Revolution turned out fairly well (okay, not for native americans and slaves- that last issue took another war to resolve). Of course, this makes it easy to whitewash the mistakes made at the time, which is unfortunate.

To be fair, both of those "issues" took wars to "resolve." Those borders didn't move west on their own.