Hey...Remember that Loathsome VP Candidate ?

[onmyknees]

Not many posts about your former VP Candidate John Edwards? I suppose the question is if Gingrich and Palin's behavior repulsed you so much....what must Edwards do to you all...or has he been conveniently erased from your memories like a bad fantasy or a former fling? So far he's just indicted, but hopefully we can call him convicted in short order. Come on...you know you had a thing for this sleaze bag....all that "Two America's " bullshit he was peddling was right up your alley. Another day...another hypocrite.

[robertlouis]

It's a valid point, but it's yesterday's, or rather 2008's, news. Who cares now, seriously?

Yes, the guy's a creep and a liar, but it's a bit like digging up dirt on Sarah Palin or John McCain right now, surely?

[trish]

John Edward's behavior was inexcusable. Not so much because he's an unfaithful womanizer, but for gambling with the faith of his supporters and risking the presidency. Bad politician! Very very bad! Just for that you ride up on the roof.

[robertlouis]

John Edward's behavior was inexcusable. Not so much because he's an unfaithful womanizer, but for gambling with the faith of his supporters and risking the presidency. Bad politician! Very very bad! Just for that you ride up on the roof.

Wow! So Romney's dog was sleeping around too??? :wiggle:

[trish]

Wow! So Romney's dog was sleeping around too??? :wiggle:No, but he had a $300.00 haircut. Bad dog!

[Prospero]

Remarkable. No one party has a monopoly on scumbags. Edwards was a 100 per cent creep. But let's not forget great Republicans like your great disgraced President Richard Nixon or Spiro T Agnew. Remember his remark when those kids were shot down on the Campus at Ohio. He called them Campus bums. Oh right - then he was caught with his hand in the till and quit.

And let's not forget the bully boy Mitt Romney from his schooldays - beating up a kid who might have been gay. And so on.....

[broncofan]

I always thought John Edwards was a fool. I didn't agree with one thing Dick Cheney said in his 2004 debate with John Edwards and still came away thinking he made Edwards look like a flake. If only Republicans could admit that the gaffe-happy Joe Biden made Sarah "I have a photographic memory for talking points" Palin look equally out of her league. Biden gets a lot of flack for saying something stupid every other minute, but in that debate he came across as a guy who has spent his entire life in public service pitted against a rank amateur who knew nothing public policy and didn't care to learn. You're right though that the two Americas speech he gave was nauseating. We all know there are two Americas, North and South.

What he did was inexcusable as a politician and as a person. But let's take a second to remember Mark Foley. Or Larry Craig? Or Ted Haggard? I don't remember Mr. Edwards taking a public stance on his betrayal as a prologue to it.

[Stavros]

Not many posts about your former VP Candidate John Edwards? I suppose the question is if Gingrich and Palin's behavior repulsed you so much....what must Edwards do to you all...or has he been conveniently erased from your memories like a bad fantasy or a former fling? So far he's just indicted, but hopefully we can call him convicted in short order. Come on...you know you had a thing for this sleaze bag....all that "Two America's " bullshit he was peddling was right up your alley. Another day...another hypocrite.

With all the challenges that face the USA in an election year, your preference is to look back at a loser whose main claim to fame was that he looked good on TV. One wonders why you didn't choose Gary Hart as your knock-a-democrat-win-a-prize game.

It's the economy, stupid.

[notdrunk]

It's a valid point, but it's yesterday's, or rather 2008's, news. Who cares now, seriously?

Yes, the guy's a creep and a liar, but it's a bit like digging up dirt on Sarah Palin or John McCain right now, surely?

Currently, John Edwards is in court facing felony charges for allegedly using campaign funds to cover-up his affair and his illegitimate child. A biiggggggg no-no!

I think that is why onmyknees has brought him up. The trial started recently.

[trish]

Then you don't know OMK. That was his excuse. His reason is that he's a fox-puppet-zombie-troll who can't ejaculate without regurgitating all their talking points and posting them up on an internet porn forum. It's a weird perversion, but to each his own. I make no judgements. Happy masturbating, OMK :)

[Stavros]

Currently, John Edwards is in court facing felony charges for allegedly using campaign funds to cover-up his affair and his illegitimate child. A biiggggggg no-no!

I think that is why onmyknees has brought him up. The trial started recently.

Ok, but what does it have to do with your forthcoming election? Presumably OMK will turn his attention to Sargent Shriver soon...running out of arguments I think is the explanation.

[Prospero]

Ok, but what does it have to do with your forthcoming election? Presumably OMK will turn his attention to Sargent Shriver soon...running out of arguments I think is the explanation.

I agree Stavros. Can you remind us about Sargent Shriver!

[trish]

(Love the Blue Velvet avatar Prospero)

[notdrunk]

Ok, but what does it have to do with your forthcoming election? Presumably OMK will turn his attention to Sargent Shriver soon...running out of arguments I think is the explanation.

I really don't think he is talking about the forthcoming election. He is just trolling because he perceives that GOP politicians get the negative attention and the shit thrown at them. So, he wants to point a Democrat that is on trial and, in his opinion, the lack of attention it is getting. Gotcha game.....

[giovanni_hotel]

I liked John Edwards and his social views economic opportunity and equality.
The Dems dodged a bullet with that guy. Way too arrogant to hold national office.

[robertlouis]

Ok, but what does it have to do with your forthcoming election? Presumably OMK will turn his attention to Sargent Shriver soon...running out of arguments I think is the explanation.

Ah, now I get it. James Buchanan who was the Democratic president before Lincoln, now THERE was a scumbag lol.

[Prospero]

What about Chester Arthur?

[robertlouis]

What about Chester Arthur?

Indeed. Not forgetting Calvin Coolidge, who was so proverbially indolent that he made even Reagan look hyperactive, and of whom Dorothy Parker said, on hearing that he had died, "How could they tell?"

[Stavros]

Every time I walk past that Plaque on Gloucester Place, Major General Benedict Arnold, American patriot, resided here from 1796 until his death, June 14, 1801....I wonder..what if?

http://www.londonremembers.com/memorials/benedict-arnold

[Ben]

Not many posts about your former VP Candidate John Edwards? I suppose the question is if Gingrich and Palin's behavior repulsed you so much....what must Edwards do to you all...or has he been conveniently erased from your memories like a bad fantasy or a former fling? So far he's just indicted, but hopefully we can call him convicted in short order. Come on...you know you had a thing for this sleaze bag....all that "Two America's " bullshit he was peddling was right up your alley. Another day...another hypocrite.

He's a despicable character. Like a lot of politicians. No argument from me.

First Person: the Case Against John Edwards - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrSJhuSDXN8)

[robertlouis]

He's a despicable character. Like a lot of politicians. No argument from me.


I agree Ben. But omk is shit-stirring again, and failing. This is old news, and why would anyone defend the two-timing lying creep anyway? Err, that's Edwards, not omk.

For once. :dancing:

[Dino Velvet]

Edwards is a scumbag but I feel sorry for the daughter that goes to court every day with him.

[Ben]

I agree Ben. But omk is shit-stirring again, and failing. This is old news, and why would anyone defend the two-timing lying creep anyway? Err, that's Edwards, not omk.

For once. :dancing:

I don't think anyone will defend Edwards.... Why would they?

[Ben]

Edwards is a scumbag but I feel sorry for the daughter that goes to court every day with him.

He's the prototypical politician. Which is: deceive the people... :)
I mean, here he is in 2007. Was any of this genuine?

John Edwards - Rebuilding New Orleans - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LoHGeR37Ko)

[Ben]

Something Stinks - John Edwards & a 30 Year Jail Term? - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=un2D7QBb3Pc&feature=plcp)

[Ben]

John Edwards: 'I did an awful, awful lot that was wrong':

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-john-edwards-sins-20120531,0,4311640.story

[onmyknees]

I don't think anyone will defend Edwards.... Why would they?



Well of course they wouldn't defend him NOW Ben....that's precisely the point, but they were sure defending him when he was humpin' that 2 America's bullshit as the liberal Veep candidate. The point of the post was not so much about Edwards...this guy was a creep from the first time I heard him....the intent was to point out that one Veep candidate was savaged, her family dragged thru the slime, and there wasn't a hint of impropriety, and one was truly a low life narcissistic scum bag and all I've heard from these hypocritical liberal smear merchants was................................you guessed it...........silence.
It's the same pathology that allowed them to bash Bush for his terror policies they saw as "unAmerican" while their guy not only adopted all of them, but increased them exponentially and now has a kill list including American citizens. Their response....................( crickets) .Get it now Ben?

[broncofan]

Well of course they wouldn't defend him NOW Ben....that's precisely the point, but they were sure defending him when he was humpin' that 2 America's bullshit as the liberal Veep candidate. The point of the post was not so much about Edwards...this guy was a creep from the first time I heard him....the intent was to point out that one Veep candidate was savaged, her family dragged thru the slime, and there wasn't a hint of impropriety, and one was truly a low life narcissistic scum bag and all I've heard from these hypocritical liberal smear merchants was................................you guessed it...........silence.
It's the same pathology that allowed them to bash Bush for his terror policies they saw as "unAmerican" while their guy not only adopted all of them, but increased them exponentially and now has a kill list including American citizens. Their response....................( crickets) .Get it now Ben?
All of this was out while he was the vp candidate? I think you're confusing the timing. You can't defend someone for something he hadn't done yet. There wasn't a hint of impropriety by Palin you say, but she was completely unqualified to hold higher office. She came across as an airhead who knew nothing about public policy, and less about simple issues such as geography. And yes there were minor improprieties in Wasilla including numerous accusations about abuses of power and filing false police reports.

The point of the post is that you have no point. He was vp candidate in 2004 and all of this business came out afterward and related to his 2008 candidacy. So the support and defense you claim took place in fact did not. It's not hypocrisy to fail to condemn someone for crimes they haven't yet committed.

[trish]

I certainly supported his issues and still do. I would've supported Edwards himself had he got the nomination (though I personally was holding my support for either Obama or Hillary) but as soon as Edwards proved he was willing to risk those issues for a fling in the hay, I wouldn't have touched him with a ten foot pole... no democrat did. That's one interesting difference between conservatives and liberals. Conservatives always put things in terms of loyalty to a person. Conservatives figure liberals worship Obama or were loyal to Edwards in the way that they're loyal to Gingrich or Palin no matter how sleazy or stupid they turn out to be. They can't seem to see past the cult of the individual. Too bad for them their stuck with Rmoney this election cycle, he's such a dull boy and difficult to idolize.

[Ben]

Well of course they wouldn't defend him NOW Ben....that's precisely the point, but they were sure defending him when he was humpin' that 2 America's bullshit as the liberal Veep candidate. The point of the post was not so much about Edwards...this guy was a creep from the first time I heard him....the intent was to point out that one Veep candidate was savaged, her family dragged thru the slime, and there wasn't a hint of impropriety, and one was truly a low life narcissistic scum bag and all I've heard from these hypocritical liberal smear merchants was................................you guessed it...........silence.
It's the same pathology that allowed them to bash Bush for his terror policies they saw as "unAmerican" while their guy not only adopted all of them, but increased them exponentially and now has a kill list including American citizens. Their response....................( crickets) .Get it now Ben?

[/QUOTE] ... bash Bush for his terror policies they saw as "unAmerican" while their guy not only adopted all of them, but increased them exponentially and now has a kill list including American citizens. Their response....................( crickets) [/QUOTE]

I agree. I mean, if it was wrong under Bush then it's wrong under Obama. And, too, blind allegiance to the dear leader is frightening in a so-called democratic society. I mean, one has stopped thinking, stopped questioning, stopped critiquing systems of power in support of their dear leader.
And, too, I think Obama is more hawkish than Bush.
The executive branch's power has, I think, become more concentrated since Bush left. And POWER is very addictive.
But Obama knows that the left and Lib-Dems have nowhere to go. They won't vote for Romney. So, he has them in his back pocket.
The left is largely silent about Obama. And/or supportive. Or just don't care. And I write this as someone of the left. (Albeit it'd be hard to pigeonhole me. As I support gun rights -- and, too, gay rights -- ha ha!:))

[Ben]

And the left, as it were, can't and shouldn't complain if a President Romney assumes the same lethal powers:

Obama's Secret Kill List (http://reason.com/archives/2012/05/31/obamas-secret-kill-list)

The essence of our values is the rule of law, not the rule of presidents.

http://reason.com/archives/2012/05/31/obamas-secret-kill-list

[Ben]

Do Not Kill List - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRnpCoUk-28)

Ron Paul: Who Else Is on Obama's Secret Kill List - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuRyOba80As)

[Ben]

Obama Order Sped Up Wave of Cyberattacks Against Iran:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/world/middleeast/obama-ordered-wave-of-cyberattacks-against-iran.html?_r=1&hp

[onmyknees]

And the left, as it were, can't and shouldn't complain if a President Romney assumes the same lethal powers:

Obama's Secret Kill List (http://reason.com/archives/2012/05/31/obamas-secret-kill-list)

The essence of our values is the rule of law, not the rule of presidents.

http://reason.com/archives/2012/05/31/obamas-secret-kill-list


Ha ha ha ha ....Don't mind me if I double over with laughter Ben. If Romney's elected, in January 2013 all those left wing civil libertarian types like Amnesty International, and many on this forum, will awaken from a 4 year slumber and pick up right where they left off in January 2009. If it's consistency you're looking for...don't look to them. Mum's the word as long as Barry's giving the execution orders. But get ready for an onslaught of horror stories about Gitmo ! Thanks for the leviity Ben.

[buttslinger]

Hey OMK, who's your favorite Republican Vice-President from the last 100 years?

[onmyknees]

And the left, as it were, can't and shouldn't complain if a President Romney assumes the same lethal powers:

Obama's Secret Kill List (http://reason.com/archives/2012/05/31/obamas-secret-kill-list)

The essence of our values is the rule of law, not the rule of presidents.

http://reason.com/archives/2012/05/31/obamas-secret-kill-list


Another interesting twist to this Ben....The NY Slime story referred to this as a "top secret program". Interesting. If it's so top secret why did Newsweek have it on Thursday, and the NY Slimes on Friday? Ya think maybe Team Obama looking at the daily tracking polls sinking like a stone made a few phone calls to friendly news outlets and gave them the story in hopes that Obama might be perceived by some undecided's as strong and decisive? ? How else would they have gotten the story ? There's only a few people in that room and the amount of detail in the article is astonishing. And the story also reveals that Obama allows his campaign director sit on these life and death meetings. This guy is so wrong on so many issues, on so many levels it's breathtaking.

Now don't get me wrong, I have no pity on Muslim terrorists, but has anyone in The West Wing ever thought about capturing some of these folks for intel...........or is that too risky? Like when Slick Willie doing the political ad for Obama's role in Bin Laden's killing told us the risk for OBAMA had something gone wrong...never mind the risk to the men on the ground.

I do give him credit for consistency. I suppose if you have no problem allowing doctors to abort a viable fetus with a partial birth abortion, what's a few rag head terrorists vaporized from long distance?

It's not so much that Obama's making the decisions on who lives and who dies, that raises enough questions......it's the fact they use that for political purposes similar to what they did with the Bin Laden killing. That's why it's a front page NY Times story.

[trish]

Hey OMK, it's Sunday morning and your a professed devout Christian. What are you doing posting to a porn forum? Shouldn't you be doing your tossing in Church about now?

[onmyknees]

All of this was out while he was the vp candidate? I think you're confusing the timing. You can't defend someone for something he hadn't done yet. There wasn't a hint of impropriety by Palin you say, but she was completely unqualified to hold higher office. She came across as an airhead who knew nothing about public policy, and less about simple issues such as geography. And yes there were minor improprieties in Wasilla including numerous accusations about abuses of power and filing false police reports.

The point of the post is that you have no point. He was vp candidate in 2004 and all of this business came out afterward and related to his 2008 candidacy. So the support and defense you claim took place in fact did not. It's not hypocrisy to fail to condemn someone for crimes they haven't yet committed.

If you can't see the point, then you don't want to see it. It's that simple. Timing? You're kidding right? So because he was doing all these despicable things while he was both a senator, and a VP candidate, but we didn't know about them....it's acceptable ? Or not worthy of comment or condemnation even afterward? You appear to be afflicted with the same disease the rest of the sycophants on here are. If he's your guy....anything goes. I was comparing the treatment by the press, and by the hypocrites on here of two VP candidates both during and after their run for office. I'll try to be charitable and say if you can't discern the hypocrisy, you're a fool. It's acceptable to say Palin was unqualified, conversely it's also acceptable to say Obama was unqualified. I think my contention has proved to be more factual than yours!!! ... although all one had to do was say those words, and it had to be because of race...but in Palin's case it went light years beyond that. Again...you see what you want to see. Go back and read some of the posts on here or the Comedy Central gigs at that time. Was that about qualifications? Get real man...you don't strike me as being that dumb. And to set the record straight, lest you be left misinformed like so many others.....none of the allegations against Palin have ever been substantiated ...they were fabricated myths, including the one about her disabled child. That's a fact...not conjecture. Why is it so hard for you libs to say your guy turned out to be a low life scum bag? Hell Trish couldn't even get the words out as Brietbart put the hammer down on that perv creep Anthony Weiner, and we rid ourselves of him once and for all. You're all hypocrites.....and that's fairly obvious.

[trish]

Jesus is waiting OMK, off to church now loser.

[Stavros]

Now don't get me wrong, I have no pity on Muslim terrorists, but has anyone in The West Wing ever thought about capturing some of these folks for intel...........or is that too risky?
I do give him credit for consistency. I suppose if you have no problem allowing doctors to abort a viable fetus with a partial birth abortion, what's a few rag head terrorists vaporized from long distance?

It's not so much that Obama's making the decisions on who lives and who dies, that raises enough questions......it's the fact they use that for political purposes similar to what they did with the Bin Laden killing. That's why it's a front page NY Times story.

Now don't get me wrong, I have no pity on Muslim terrorists, but has anyone in The West Wing ever thought about capturing some of these folks for intel...........or is that too risky?
Surely the record of your government's incarceration of innocent people in Guantanamo and its use of rendition and torture suggests that most of the time it doesn't actually know for sure who is or who is not plotting an attack on US targets inside or outside the USA.

As for intelligence gathering, the reliance on technology instead of human intelligence means that eyes in the sky score over eyes on the ground. Who was President when this obsession with technology began at the expense of agents in the field? None other than Ronald Reagan, the leader and architect of American decline. The USA had no Arabic or Turkish speaking agents in Germany throughout the 1980s and 1990s even though there were Palestinian cells aided and funded by the USSR plotting attacks against US targets (mostly aeroplanes), while a faction of the Syrian Muslim brotherhood has been based in Aachen since the 1960s, not that anyone in the CIA would know being obsessed with the Russians. Just as a Palestinian cell in Frankfurt was the HQ of the Lockerbie operation in the 1980s, so in Hamburg in the 1990s key members of the 9/11 squad met, not that the CIA knew much about it. How many CIA agents are there in Pakistan today speaking Urdu? How many in Afghanistan who speak any of the languages there, or speaking Arabic in the Arabian peninsula? And you wonder why drone attacks are alleged to kill innocent people? At some point, you might as well descibe everyone who lives in Pakistan and the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan as a 'raghead' if only to confirm you desperate lack of, well, intelligence, as well as a dismal lack of respect for other cultures.

I suppose if you have no problem allowing doctors to abort a viable fetus with a partial birth abortion, what's a few rag head terrorists vaporized from long distance?

Meanwhile, in Indiana, which is part of the USA, a Chinese-born American is facing the death penalty because she tried to commit suicide when pregnant and the baby died. There are times when the USA's understanding of the difference between life and death seem very confusing, or muddled. No society is perfect, but in this case it seems to me the woman has suffered enough.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/30/indiana-prosecuting-chinese-woman-suicide-foetus

[Stavros]

Confirmation of one's worst fears: for the USA's current eyes on the ground, add: hands in your pockets ($5,000 to be precise).


We are sleepwalking into the Drone Age, unaware of the consequences

Obama's policy of killing 'militants' in Pakistan may go down well in the US, but it is provoking an extremist backlash abroad.



Innocent civilians are being killed by US Predator drones in Waziristan despite claims by the CIA that this is not the case. Photograph: US Air Force/Getty Images

Last October I was at a jirga in Islamabad where 80 people from Waziristan had assembled to talk about the US Predator drones that buzz around overhead, periodically delivering death by Hellfire missile. A jirga is the traditional forum for discussing and resolving disputes, part parliament, part court of law. The turbaned tribal elders were joined by their young sons on a rare foray out of their region to meet outsiders and discuss the killing. The isolation of the Waziris is almost total – no western journalist has been to Miranshah for several years.
At our meeting I spoke as the representative westerner. I reported the CIA claim that not one single innocent civilian had been killed in over a year. I did not need to understand Pashtu to translate the snorts of derision when this claim was translated.
During the day I shook the hand of a 16-year-old kid from Waziristan named Tariq Aziz. One of his cousins had died in a missile strike, and he wanted to know what he could do to bring the truth to the west. At the Reprieve charity (http://www.reprieve.org/), we have a transparency project: importing cameras to the region to try to export the truth back out. Tariq wanted to take part, but I thought him too young.
Then, three days later, the CIA announced that it had eliminated "four militants". In truth there were only two victims: Tariq had been driving his 12-year-old cousin to their aunt's house when the Hellfire missile killed them both. This came just 24 hours after the CIA boasted of eliminating six other "militants" – actually, four chromite workers driving home from work. In both cases a local informant apparently tagged the car with a GPS monitor and lied to earn his fee.
Last week officials in the Obama administration (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/obama-administration) talked to the New York Times about the "Secret Kill List" drawn up for drone assassinations. Democratic strategists in an election year calculate that the article will prove a vote-winner, dispelling any notion that Barack Obama (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/barack-obama) is soft on terror. The administration voices wanted to leave the impression of an involved and committed president who reads Thomas Aquinas's theory of the "just war" in between personally vetting the kill list.
Mitt Romney dubbed Obama "Dr Strangelove" back in 2007. It may have been a rare, perceptive insight. A decision by the smartest man in the room is only as good as the information that he receives, and no matter how accurate the shiny new missile, if it's aimed at the wrong person it will hit the wrong target.
It is easy to understand how the CIA slaughtered Tariq and many other innocent victims. Those who press the Hellfire buttons are 8,000 miles away in Nevada and are dependent on local "intelligence". Just as with Guantánamo Bay, the CIA is paying bounties to those who will identify "terrorists". Five thousand dollars is an enormous sum for a Waziri informant, translating to perhaps £250,000 in London terms. The informant has a calculation to make: is it safer to place a GPS tag on the car of a truly dangerous terrorist, or to call down death on a Nobody (with the beginnings of a beard), reporting that he is a militant? Too many "militants" are just young men with stubble. At least 174 have been children.
The New York Times reports that Obama first embraced a policy of taking no prisoners in order to avoid the embarrassing sore of Guantánamo. Then he accepted a method for assessing casualties that "counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants" unless there is explicit posthumous proof of their innocence – because they are probably "up to no good".
While Obama's policies may go down a treat in the US, they are fomenting radicalism abroad, the very policy not only undermining our way of life but provoking an extremist hydra with many more heads.
Some sane voices penetrate the gloom. Starting last summer, Cameron Munter, Obama's ambassador to Islamabad, was required to give a thumbs up or down assessment of each drone attack on Pakistani turf, as if he were an emperor in the Colosseum. "He didn't realise his main job was to kill people," said a colleague. Munter is quitting his job early this month because his diplomatic mission has been rendered impossible.
The dearth of US domestic criticism is astounding. The last time a president indulged in an illegal bombing campaign in the sovereign territory of allies (Richard Nixon in 1969, in Cambodia and Laos), the policy nearly got included in the articles of impeachment. We should remember that history, as the Vietnamese capitalised on the backlash, helping to impose the genocidal Khmer Rouge on Cambodia, and a single-party regime that endures 40 years later in Laos.
Ultimately, Mitt Romney faces a dilemma: what must a Republican candidate do to outflank the extremism of his Democratic opponent? The rest of us must be concerned as well: we are sleepwalking into the Drone Age, and few people are debating the dire consequences.
Clive Stafford Smith is director of the charity Reprieve (http://www.reprieve.org.uk), which has a project intended to provoke debate on drones.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/02/drone-age-obama-pakistan

[buttslinger]

The only good terrorist is a dead terrorist.
No more National Guardsmen driving in circles looking for IEDS, pleeeze.
Drones and CIA are the future. You're not supposed to like it.

[Stavros]

Not good enough, Buttslinger. If a man who does'nt like his neighbour can pocket $5,000 of your money to see them blown to kingdom come, because of course the neighbours are 'terrorists', what happens if you have the courage to investigate what is done in your name and then find out the 'terrorist' was just a grocer, or a window cleaner who played his radio too loud and annoyed his neighbour? The lack of intelligence, in this and many cases, is not just stunning, it is lethal. What was it, more than 85% of the population in Guantanamo had been sold to the Americans for the same reason? Money. And its your taxes disappearing into their pockets that matter to Afghans, not Jihadis.

[trish]

Each new “advance” in weaponry was criticized for increasing the distance between the participants in war, making the enterprise faceless and easier to pursue. Sniper, for example, have often been shunned (not by all but a considerable minority) as murderers. Bombardiers (especially during the Vietnam war) were criticized for dropping bombs and napalm on faceless crowds of innocent civilians. And now pretty much the same criticisms are leveled against drones and their operators. Personally, I would rather have my brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews sitting behinds computer monitors in Nevada wielding joysticks and tramping through jungles and deserts filled with hostile soldiers, insurgents and terrorists. Of course I prefer they don’t have to kill anyone at all...ever...but if they have to “fight” for their country, let them have all the available advantages, please. We can rightly criticize weapons technology and their operations for their impersonal approach to war, but whoever would require them them to have skin in the game should put skin in the game themselves. The truly distant are profiteers who lobby for war and the politicians who are bought by them and have no children or relatives in harms way. Remember we entered the Iraq war not because of flawed intelligence, but because the administration ignored the intelligence. War for personal gain is our first and worst enemy.

[buttslinger]

TERRORISTS:

President of the United States Barack Hussein Stavros,...... what would you do?

[Stavros]

TERRORISTS:

President of the United States Barack Hussein Stavros,...... what would you do?

To start with, if someone is attacking you the question to ask would be: why? It beggars belief that this most simple of questions is rarely either asked or answered, or gets some politically worthless, anodyne response such as they hate us. If the record of the USA in the Middle East was not as free of political bias and political meddling as it has been, you would not have as many enemies as you do. You could go back to the days when Americans were directly or indirectly critical of the British Empire, and consider the King-Crane Report of 1920 bassed on a US Commission trip in 1919 which discovered that the people of the defeated Ottoman lands wanted their independence -what they got instead were Mandated territories created by Britain and France. Since the history of the contemporary Middle East has been about the emergence of the modern state and its impact on socieites -Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Atheist and so on, the re-structuring of the region after 1918 is crucial. Truman recognised the state of Israel, but Stalin got in there first, Eisenhower was not interested in deepening US involvement in the region until the revolution in Iraq in 1958 gradually brought the US into a region where, ultimately, it ceased to be an honest broker, and that is where a cause of the problem lies. On the one hand you have a venal state called Pakistan in which the majority of the population are shut out of the higher reaches of the economy to live as farmers or artisans or small-scale traders, the rest of the country being owned by the military and its mates -the same people who hanged Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who yes, was another corrupt politician but, odd though it seems, did want to break the monopoly of the military and was hanged instead -his nemesis, a militant Muslim called Zia ul-Haq was lioned by Ronald Reagan just as ul-Haq's mission to transform Islamic politics in Pakistan, Afghanistana and India was boosted by Reagan and the dollars from your pocket. If you don't know what the consequences of the Cold War in Afghanistan in the 1980s as been, there is no point in continuing this post. You made the bed you lie in, the dead bodies now scattered around it are as much a part of your agenda as it is theirs. But i suits you to call 12 year old boys terrorists and blow them to kingdom come because you simply don't care, and labelling innocent people as terrorists to grab your $5,000 is all that matters -its not like having made a mistake you are going to demand from this or that Ali to give the money back, now is it?

And this is called intelligence?

Pakistan's political agenda is shaped by its inability to deal with India, maybe India's conceit that it owns all the trump cards. If Pakistan must be given a slice of the pie if Afghanistan it should be asked to show us the money, for that is where the future of the country lies. As long as the NATO coalition continues to confront people with violence the violence will continue; the political solution lies with hours and months maybe years of patient words droning on and on, not drones from the sky that slaughter innocent people in exchange for $5,000.

How much is your life worth?

[Stavros]

Each new “advance” in weaponry was criticized for increasing the distance between the participants in war, making the enterprise faceless and easier to pursue. Sniper, for example, have often been shunned (not by all but a considerable minority) as murderers. Bombardiers (especially during the Vietnam war) were criticized for dropping bombs and napalm on faceless crowds of innocent civilians. And now pretty much the same criticisms are leveled against drones and their operators. Personally, I would rather have my brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews sitting behinds computer monitors in Nevada wielding joysticks and tramping through jungles and deserts filled with hostile soldiers, insurgents and terrorists. Of course I prefer they don’t have to kill anyone at all...ever...but if they have to “fight” for their country, let them have all the available advantages, please. We can rightly criticize weapons technology and their operations for their impersonal approach to war, but whoever would require them them to have skin in the game should put skin in the game themselves. The truly distant are profiteers who lobby for war and the politicians who are bought by them and have no children or relatives in harms way. Remember we entered the Iraq war not because of flawed intelligence, but because the administration ignored the intelligence. War for personal gain is our first and worst enemy.

What complacent rubbish, and what a filthy excuse for slaughter for personal gain.

Personally, I would rather have my brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews sitting behinds computer monitors in Nevada wielding joysticks and tramping through jungles and deserts filled with hostile soldiers, insurgents and terrorists

Why aren't you in the frame with your grubby hands on the joysticks slaughtering 12-year olds for $5,000 (of your money)? Moral doubt, or just simple cowardice? If you had the courage to be a pacifist, you would be able to stand up and be taken seriously, but if to you this whole thing is just a video game, it speaks volumes for the catastrophic nature of US foreign policy in the 21st century. Reminder: this is the real world, not Blade Runner. And whatever you do, don't open the box labelled Negotiations, since its obvious you don't believe in solutions that work.

[trish]

By all mean negotiate. Negotiate first. Get all the interested parties to send representatives with authoritative proxy to the table and hammer out a peace. Please.

We all know there will continue to be wars and there will continue to be violence perpetrated by loose knit political organizations (Al Qaeda is not the only one, there’s the Informal Anarchist Federation is shooting nanotube technologists, sending letter bombs and blowing up labs in around the world including Europe). I wouldn’t go quite as far as Thomas Moore who in Utopia argues that Christianity embraces political assassination of foreign heads of state or placing bounties on their heads, but for my money if you can take out the leader of a death squad from 1000 feet while sitting behind a mouse pad in Nevada, then do it. All I’m asking is, “Why does needlessly risking the life of another soldier make it better? How does giving the nineteen year old soldier a rifle instead of a joystick improve things? If two people die instead of one, is that better?”

Which brings to the matter of collateral damage that comes with all war and especially with the use of weapons that are non-discriminating such as bombs, missiles, grenades and other explosives. Often a bombardier knows innocent civilians will die as a result of carrying out his orders, yet he deliberately releases his load with the intention of destroying a military target. This amounts to the deliberate, even if untentional, killing of an innocent, non-threatening civilian. In civilian courts this would be at least second degree murder. Yet it is the expected cost of war.

So yes, by all means negotiate. I am for negotiating first, second and third. Negotiate until you’re blue in the face. Make a deal. But if you fail, don’t send my loved ones onto the field of battle when they can "fight" without risk at home. If that’s complacent, cowardly, selfish, morally reprehensible whatever, I cop to all charges.

[buttslinger]

Ok, Stavros, I don't know where this 5K bounty is coming from, I thought the bounty on Bin Laden was cowardly and unAmerican, fuckin Cheney.The Middle East is not as clear as WWII when the Nazis attacked England. There were lots of Americans who said that's not our problem. If I were president I'd offer a 5 billion dollar prize to anyone who can invent a practical non-oil burning car.
As for the Middle East, I would do EXACTLY what Obama is doing.

Churchill wanted the US to bomb Germany "til the rubble bounced" ....
The British Museum is full of what the Empire stole when the stealing was good. Your koo koo King George wanted us to pay for his European Wars.
Forget that History.
The Middle East is a sore that won't heal. Being a "nice guy" doesn't work over there. If you support Israel, you are a mortal Enemy in the eyes of the Arabs. The US goal is to kill Terrorists, do you know how hard that is?????

[Ben]

John Edwards’ Forgotten Sin:

http://www.zcommunications.org/john-edwards-forgotten-sin-by-paul-street

[Ben]

The Young Turks talks about John Edwards at the 3:30 mark.

Our Massively Politicized Justice Department - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_W_ermllD3I&feature=context-chv)

[Prospero]

It would be good to see a thread that focuses on the morality and methods for fighting "terrorism" and the range of issues around that. That would be a MOST interesting discussionh more valuable than jailbird OMK's disgraceful attempt to smear the present Democratic party with this stupid stuff about Edwards.

[Stavros]

The US goal is to kill Terrorists, do you know how hard that is?????

But is there such a thing as a terrorist? The various forms of Irish 'volunteers' who bombed and killed for more than two decades in the UK (and also in West Germany) considered themselves soldiers in an army; al-Qaeda might not be a conventional army, but Osama bin Laden declared war on the USA in 1998. You have missed a cardinal point -what is achieved by killing people? Collateral damage may well be an inevitable factor in any kind of bombing, but it may also create a bitterness and a resentment that returns some years later in another act of violence, directed against you. It isn't good enough really to look down a list of 'terrorists' and decide to kill them if half the names are actually the names which some Abdul somewhere has identified merely so he can get his hands on $5,000 -more than 80% of the men and children in Guantanamo were sold to the Americans for money; that's not war, that's business. I defy anyone to identify a six-year old too poor to wear shoes who is a threat to the United States of America, because I find that simply incredible, yet how any children have been killed to make America safe?

More to the point of something called 'Justice' -arresting people and putting them in a court of law to face a trial ought to be the aim; but the US has itself run screaming from international courts when they found the USA guilty of law-breeaking -as happened with the USA over Nicaragua in the mid-1980s: the law in this instance, Reagan decided, was worthless; it is also behind the decision Blair made to grant immunity from prosecution of the trigger-happy mercenaries hired to provide 'security' in Iraq whose contempt for human life was just as bad as what some British soldiers got up to in Basra.

The addiction to killing, whoever is addicted to it, is the problem. All conflicts, at one time or another, have been solved through negotiations; if Carter could bring two loathesome hypocrites like Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat to sign a peace treaty, and if Clinton could bring together two equally odious murderers like Yitzhak Rabin and Yassir Arafat, why is Obama scrutinising kill-lists? Peace in the Middle East is not impossible, it just hasn't been tried. Peace in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Kashmir is right there on the table, so what's the point of pussy-footing around it waiting for someone else to sit down?

[Stavros]

So yes, by all means negotiate. I am for negotiating first, second and third. Negotiate until you’re blue in the face. Make a deal. But if you fail, don’t send my loved ones onto the field of battle when they can "fight" without risk at home. If that’s complacent, cowardly, selfish, morally reprehensible whatever, I cop to all charges.

But this is the charge I would level against Obama and his administration -that they have not made a serious effort to engage the relevant parties to bring an agenda of peace and co-operation to either the Middle East or South Asia. Even if the Israeli's or the Arabs refuse to co-operate; if Pakistan, India, China, Iran and Russia refuse to move on Afghanistan, at least Obama could stand up and say 'We tried'. Where is the effort? Relations between US and Pakistan are the worst they have been since before your ally Zia ul-Haq hanged Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1979, I see no sign that anything is being done to change it. Drone killings must stop, that is surely non-negotiable. But practical action is possible, but apparently not from the Obama administration so far.

[trish]

Perhaps Al Qaeda and the Taliban insurgents and instigators from Pakistan will agree to stop throwing acid in the faces of girls and young women in Afghanistan for seeking to educate themselves (an act of terrorism perpetrated by terrorists). Surely that is non-negotiable. So how one "try" to get the active parties to the table? Perhaps offer to build more schools for girls.

Obviously I'm no expert in foreign affairs, history or diplomacy, especially in the Middle East. If Obama has made no effort to smooth relations with Pakistan, I'll take your word for it. So what is to be done?

[Prospero]

The word terrorism is rather elastic isn't it - and is generally applied to our enemies. So the PLO and its successors are described as terrorists by supprters of israel but as freedom fighters etc by others. The same with the IRA. Same with the Sandanista in Nicaragua, the Shining path in Peru etc. Probably, had the word been coined then, the British would have defined those fighting for independence from the British Government in America as terrorists.

However i would agree with Trish that acts of terror such as the blinding, disfigurement of killing of women in fundamentalist Islamic states do constitute acts of terror. But they are not ones which can be eradicated by force majeur, drones, boots on the ground and firepower. Such actions won't changed ingrained cultural attitudes (one might add to that sorry roster female circumcision by Muslims and others and the murder of children accused of witchcraft in the Congo and the bombing of abortion clinics in the USA. Islam doesn't have a cornered market in appalling treatment of those it considers to be aberrant.) So indeed what IS to be done about this? Education seems to be the only possibiity in this area.

[buttslinger]

The United States are the best "bad guys" who have ever existed!!! Ask Ireland and India!! The only reason we're having this conversation in English is because the USA incinerated the cities and yes, millions of citizens, in Germany and Japan.
Utopia doesn't have a Police Force. War is just a Radical way of earning a paycheck. Poor people cause Wars. My bullshit makes no sense? Now you're catching on.

[Stavros]

The United States are the best "bad guys" who have ever existed!!! Ask Ireland and India!! The only reason we're having this conversation in English is because the USA incinerated the cities and yes, millions of citizens, in Germany and Japan.
Utopia doesn't have a Police Force. War is just a Radical way of earning a paycheck. Poor people cause Wars. My bullshit makes no sense? Now you're catching on.

But you could have been conversing with the world in French, not English, if you know your American history. I don't understand the 'best bad guys' concept, or the connection between that claim with India. The cardinal point is that one can learn from history and develop a new or different position without relying on an historical example that leads so much to be desired, it is not desired at all - Hiroshima? Nagasaki? How many times did I hear from uninformed and not very intelligent people that the only solution for Northern Ireland and its troubles in the 1970s and 1980s was to drop a bomb on it -meaning THE bomb. They found a way out, but not through a United Ireland, underlining the political futility of all that violence and hate and bitterness, the latter of which continunes to resonate in the province and beyond. War, incidentally, often has no connection to poverty -wars are often started because the agent is confident rather than desperate: Hitler being one example, Japan another. Saddam Hussein invaded Iraq in 1980 through a confident belief that Iran would fall apart and couldn't fight, and an over-confident belief in his own armed forces. Slobodan Milosovic embarked on a Greater Serbia war in the 1990s because he was confident that nobody was going to stop him. 1914 is the classic case: six empires, none of them broke or desperate and with only the Ottoman and Russian Empires experiencing disolacting change within that would eventually have pulled them apart. By 1918 there were just two left: Britain and France, by which time they were bankrupt. As good a case against war as any other more moral one that I can think of.

[Stavros]

Using acid as a means of punishment is not confined to Islamic countries or even south Asia where it has been used by Hindus in India. The Caribbean has a woeful history of such attacks, and is not famous for being a redoubt of either female or gay emancipation. I don't know if the perpetrators consider themselves Christian, or Rastafarian, or either. I doubt acid has any connection to religious belief anyway,the social exclusion of women in Islam is contrary to faith and largely a cultural practice in the Middle East and South Asia.

[Prospero]

Using acid as a means of punishment is not confined to Islamic countries or even south Asia where it has been used by Hindus in India. The Caribbean has a woeful history of such attacks, and is not famous for being a redoubt of either female or gay emancipation. I don't know if the perpetrators consider themselves Christian, or Rastafarian, or either. I doubt acid has any connection to religious belief anyway,the social exclusion of women in Islam is contrary to faith and largely a cultural practice in the Middle East and South Asia.


Well summed up.

[trish]

Using acid as a means of punishment is not confined to Islamic countries or even south Asia where it has been used by Hindus in India. The Caribbean has a woeful history of such attacks, and is not famous for being a redoubt of either female or gay emancipation. I don't know if the perpetrators consider themselves Christian, or Rastafarian, or either. I doubt acid has any connection to religious belief anyway,the social exclusion of women in Islam is contrary to faith and largely a cultural practice in the Middle East and South Asia.
Agreed. And long distance killing via the latest technology has a long history practiced and sanctioned by most nation states and is unrestricted by geography, culture or religion. So are both negotiable then?

But I take your larger point: the US is not warring in Afghanistan and Pakistan because school girls are being mutilated with acid there. We're there on a mission that seems to be a combo of revenge, national security and nation building. But to get us out of there, some sort of assurance that Afghani schools will be secure from such attacks will likely be required...among other things.

How does one even start getting the acid throwers to the table? How does one obtain believable assurances that they won't be doing it again? I'm inclined to think that you can never trust anyone who once threw acid in a school girl's face. On the other hand I understand that one might think you can never trust anyone who ordered drones to shoot insurgents who fled across the border into Pakistan. A Westerner might argue that latter violence is directed with intent at a military target but the acid attacks are directed with intent at innocent bystanders. I suppose the insurgents would argue the school girls are in defiance of Islamic tradition and religions, siding with the west and therefore a threat to tradition and religion; that the school girls require correction and need to be made examples of. Nobody thinks that their actions are horrible, or if they do think so, they also think their actions are necessary and justified.

Sorry, for rambling. I got nothing.

[Stavros]

[QUOTE=trish;1153431

Obviously I'm no expert in foreign affairs, history or diplomacy, especially in the Middle East. If Obama has made no effort to smooth relations with Pakistan, I'll take your word for it. So what is to be done?[/QUOTE]

To summarise a complex issue:

Consider the value of a paradigm shift, and two examples of when it happened and resulted in the only two peace agreements Israel and the Arabs have signed: war doesn't solve problems = the treaty between Egypt and Israel in 1979; dialogue is possible =the Declaration of Principles based on the 1991 Oslo accords that Israel and the PLO signed n Washington DC in 1994. (Both sponsored by Democrat Presidents).

The former followed the stalemate of the October War of 1973; the latter followed precisely the kind of face-to-face dialogue which many people in the Middle East and outside had given up on. And then look at what followed: violence which has caused more problems than it has solved; dialogue that has turned into silence. A political class of worthless cowards more concerned with their bank accounts than the fate of the people they are supposed to serve.

Consider the regional issues that are critical:

1) the fate of the modern state, where there is a struggle for identity and form: the region has been dominated by military dictatorship, one party states and family affairs; the result has been a mixture of military capitalism in which the armed forces are involved in almost everty aspect of the economy, patron-client structures with an absence of free market economics, and entrepreneurial capitalism which, with the obliteration of civil society means that 'crony capitalism' thrives -who you know is more important than what you know. Capturing state power for personal gain is a major cause of the Arab Spring which seeks to replace a corrupt elite with a more egalitarian structure in which more people have access to broader forms of economic activity.

2) the Liberalisation of society. The diversity of the region's national identities and religions proves that the attempt to create a mono-cultural utopia in Turkey and Israel has failed; ditto al-watan al-Arabi. this should lead to a more inclusive and liberal social structure across the region, but this can only come about with the development of civil society independent of state power. Again, the reforms of the Arab Spring, over time, ought to deal with this issue.

3) resource management -the most important agenda in the Middle East, other than security issues, concerns population growth, food production, and water management. Population trends suggest a continuing rise to 2050; oil-rich states can -indeed have to- import food, other states are struggling, but water is the critical issue, with resources in the Yemen likely to dry up in the next 10 years. Proposals for a workable water regime in the northern tier (Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel/Palestine) have been on the table since the Ionides report of 1939 -and every expensive private or UN-sponsored plan concocted since then have all come to the same conclusion -its called sharing.

One positive area is the Eastern mediterranean where petroleum (but mostly gas) is found in sedimenatary basins north of Egypt and straddling the boundaries of Egypt, Palestine, Israel and Lebnanon. It is positive because a New Economic Zone could be created here, with a consortium made up of Egypt, Israel, Palestine and Lebanon who would then enter into a partnership on a 51-49% arrangement with Exxon, Shell, BP, Total or whoever gets the contract (BP has been the largest independent firm in Egypt since the 1960s). Egypt could also concede parts of Sinai to the new Palestinian state which would enable Gaza to expand westwards and develop a mediterranean tourist industry; water resources permitting.

It requires a paradigm shift: thinking about what is possible that is currently considered impossible, because the political leadership of the region is set in concrete. President Obama, if he is re-elected, needs to re-think the economics of the USA's commitments in the Middle East and south Asia, but cannot dictate terms. There is a way ahead, and it requires someone to bang heads together -nobody in 1975 would ever have thought it possible for Menachem Begin of all people to even talk to an Arab let alone sign a peace treaty with one. It can be done, but is Obama seen as an honest broker in the region? And if Obama can't do it, who can?

The worse it looks, the greater the opportunity for change -its the one thing they haven't tried, and its the reason why there are ingredients of hope in the Arab Spring.

[broncofan]

I think a useful definition of terrorism is one that defines it as a tactic by which an individual or organization targets innocent people as a means of making potentially guilty parties yield. It is the ultimate negative externality. The persons whose actions motivate the terrorists to kill feel none of the brunt of the terrorist's misdirected attacks.

Terrorism does not depend on the weapon of choice of the terrorist nor does it matter what the terrorists believe their ultimate cause is. The cause can be worthy or it can be based on superstition or chauvinism.

I can't understand any definition of terrorism that is based on how the party using the tactic views their own cause. The terrorist can be among the most oppressed people in the world and would not cease to be terrorists if they targetted parties who were not their oppressors. It isn't any less a terrorist act because it is engaged in pursuant to a real gripe. It wouldn't even cease to be terrorism if it were engaged in in response to terrorism.