Homestar Runner Wiki Forum

Amnesty International gets it.

While I don't exactly agree with them that Israel is guilty of war crimes (they were attacking their enemy in civillian areas, unlike the Hezzies, who were deliberately attacking civillians), I think it's great that someone in the international community stops kissing Hezbollah's butts and blaming everything on the Jews.

I wasn't aware of the ball bearings in the shells. I'm guessing that was to increase shrapnel. That's just evil (they were intentionally doing this against civillians).

I don't know how much I trust the UN to look into this, though. They seems to be a little too preoccupied with sitting on their hands watching innocent people die in Darfur (I never thought I'd say this, but "UN, LISTEN TO GEORGE CLOONEY!!")..

Ok, I've praised George Clooney and Amnesty International. WTF is wrong with me (or the world)?

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

CNN reporting that 20,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed so far this year.

By who? Their fellow countrymen or other Arabs.

You know, the ones that believe the best way to get rid of American soldiers in Iraq is by killing Iraqi civilians.

Yeah.

How long would America stand for a similar situation? A tyrannical dicatator is deposed by German military forces. Some of us get ticked that Germany is here and starts car-bombing moms and kids at malls across the country. Others come down from Canada to help kill more people, in hopes that Germany will leave.

20,000 civilian deaths later, are we STILL okay with this strategy?

Iraq is screwed up, and it has nothing to do with the fact that US soldiers are there.

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Speaking of American soldiers:

How come we badmouth the war in Iraq, yet we give a big ol' round of applause for someone who came home?

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Because you can hate the thing, but you can't hate the people invovled with the thing.

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What if the people involved kill Iraqi citizens?

Then you can hate them.

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I'm just saying that it's a little odd that we honor soldiers who didn't even want to fight in the war anyway.

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You could argue that those people deserve even more praise because they were able to put their own opinions aside to do their job as a soldier. The military prides itself on its members staying out of politics while they're still active, remaining subject to civilian authority instead of trying to influence decisions. It's one of the things that keeps our system so stable.



So is there no hope for the middle east then? It's either dictators who hate us or when you knock those down, terrorists that hate us. Forget whether or not military action is making things worse, it surely isn't solving the problem.

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ATTN: LOWER BOARD USERS HAVE MOVED TO ANOTHER FORUM. COME JOIN THE FUN!

Keep in mind, soldiers are often put in positions where they have no choice but to do things they may otherwise morally abhor.

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I suppose that depends on if the Iraqi citizen in question is sniping at American soldiers or setting car bombs to kill other Iraqi citizens.

If they are, then it's a bit harder to feel bad about them being killed.

If they are not a terrorist in any way, then American soldier killing one of them would be murder, and thus punishable by law.

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Unlike most other major US wars, it's pretty hard to say "they didn't want to fight". I mean, they DID sign up for the military. Yes, I know, they may not have signed up with the intentions of going to war, but common sense should say that, if you sign up for the military, you could go to war.

Contrast this, with Vietnam, for example where people who didn't want to go off to fight were conscripted to do so. Then, when they came back, they were spit on, attacked, and called things like "baby killer".

I've completely forgotten my point here, so I'll close by saying that we should honor our troops for thinking more of us than themselves and giving us a couple years of their youth (or their lives).

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

For the sake of topic clarity, I would suggest using terms like "non-combatants" instead of "citizens" or "civilians." Civilians who purposefully take up arms are considered combatants (lawful or unlawful, depending on how they go about it) by the Geneva Conventions.

(Sidenote: although "non-combatant" is a lot to type, avoid the term "noncom." That is shorthand for "non-commissioned officer" and might confuse some readers.)

Mike

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Logical fallacies ahoy! I'd also like to say: graaaaagh!

Ahh, but there's the rub. Do the media distinguish between civilians and non-combatants? If not, then how are we to know which of the civilians were combatants and which were not?

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One of the major benefits of terrorism is that you blend with the populace. No uniform, no official "battles". Unless you're caught actually shooting someone, it's tough to prove someone is a terrorist.

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That makes fighting terrorism a REAL pain for people who play by the rules (Geneva Conventions) and do fight under specific rules of engagement.

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

the world has always been going crazy

Communism doesn't have to be that way. It makes every person equal, and karl Marx's ideal communism had an elected government, with people having freedom. Its the Russian Bolsheviks who messed communism up.

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The dragon never works...

Communism doesn't have to be that way. It makes every person equal (which is good, isn't it?) , and karl Marx's ideal communism had an elected government, with people having freedom. Its the Russian Bolsheviks who messed communism up.

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The dragon never works...

But the problem is that Communism, in order to work as an economic reality, requires those very strict authoritarian governments to be in place. In order for the free citizens to all work for the common good, someone has to make sure than none of them are working for themselves. It's a very high ideal, and I have no doubt that it might work on a small scale with a handful of dedicated people (just as it did for St. Benedict over a thousand years before Karl Marx), but when it's implemented on a national scale, it's just not going to work. Human greed will make sure of that.

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And you didn't even mention the zombie threat


if we can be serious for a second folks, the earth is screwed. We need a great president to help us sort this mess out, and the people running don't look that good.

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(USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST)

Sen. Brownback (I think that was his name) looks as though he's pretty good, he has a good voting record... Although he might be too conservative for many.

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This isn't wholly "on-topic", but I want to say it.

What a lot of people fail to realize is that America has been dealing with Religious Extremists since Andrew Jackson was in office. And the world and all of the other democracy and even some non-democratic countries have been dealing with them even before this.

The problem is these Extremists have and they will always be around. They use religion as a cover. Now, they may believe that it is their "divine" duty to do what they do, but how can anything that puts fear into the hearts of men and tears into the eyes of mothers be divine? Its ridiculous. They want control, but they have led themselves to believe that the way the are doing it is okay. They have put it into their hearts that it is okay, and they are teaching this to everyone that has respect for the extremist figures. That is why they have and will be here forever, and the problems that come with their actions will continue to be around.

So what do we do? I'll tell you what we do. We fight for our freedom. You fight for it with every last breathe that you breathe. You fight. Never give in. All it takes for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing. So do something and fight for freedom. Never stop.

I don't know how many of you have studied more into the bombings of the trains in Spain, but if you pay attention to the events prior to the derailments, you'll see a little more light on the subject matter. Spain was about to pass a law that would hinder the progress of extremists actions in Spain. I say it would have hindered them because this law sparked the match that lit the bomb. Spain wished to put this law in affect, extremists wanted otherwise. So they blew up some stuff and left little clues around. For a time, they had been leaving clues. This made them see the cluse in a new and real light. Spain didn't pass the law and now the extremists are leaving them alone. The now have "control" over Spain. Events like this are happening in many different countries, but they are still in the small stages of it, with the small clues. Most of these countries are trying to fight. But unless we unite and fight together, they will tear the world apart, one - by - one...

All it takes for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing.

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I never heard that theory before. I can't find any info on that law you mentioned - what law is it? And when you say it was going to tackle extremism, is that Basque or Islamic extremism, or just extremism in general? Because the Aznar government seemed a lot more gung-ho about exterminating ETA than they ever were about going after Islamic extremists.

Also, I don't get what you mean when you say that the bombers didn't leave any clues. They left one massive clue in the shape of a van, with detonators and Islamic propaganda cassettes in it.

The law wasn't something directed directly at the extremists. It was just something that the extremist didn't want to have in "their" country. So they left clues why they didn't want it and who didn't want it, basically showing them who they were messing with. Spain ignored these, then the train went, *Boom*. I said they DID leave clues.

I'm talking about extremism in general. And by that I mean going to the extent of using bombs, death, and your "basic terrorism" to get what they want done. For religion or not. Thats a little too extreme, hence the term Extremist/Extremism.

Now do you understand a little more what I mean?

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I heard about it a few days before the bombing. I can't remember the details, but it was an anti-extremist law of some sort... Again, I can't remember the details...

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Okay. But from where are you getting that info? It's just that I can't find any reference of that in any of the stuff I've read about the Madrid bombings.

Mind you, I remember hearing that the Spanish authorities had suspended the bank accounts of known ETA members after September 11th. I don't know if that was extended to Spanish Islamic groups (it's not unlikely), but is that what you mean?