Come warm yourself by the fire
Who needs rent a crowd when you have a "young nationalist" club.........well apparently that is the rumor going around lately.Originally Posted by onearmedbandit
However say they are genuine.......a few thousand people out of 22 Mil who were affected.......I would hardly call a census about that. Its like 50 people turning up to the Bikeoi........
Reactor Online. Sensors Online. Weapons Online. All Systems Nominal.
Forum whore
How about addressing the rest of my post rather than just picking out one bit.
Come warm yourself by the fire
- The nation that invented e-marketing.
- Re-read my post, I never mentioned about govt not doing enough......rather the opposite.
I hope i covered all your questions. Let me know if I missed something.
Oppps did miss one.
I talked to probably about 50 or so people from around NJ/NY/CT area. I was there on holiday not to do a survey. It more came up with conversation on their part. Similar to how we bitch about ACC here....
Last edited by avgas; 9th May 2011 at 09:56. Reason: sorry missed one point.
Reactor Online. Sensors Online. Weapons Online. All Systems Nominal.
SH1 rider
Interesting post Paul. Even in NZ we like to blame the US for our woos so how much so for those oppressed in the middle east. Watching a few documentaries on the Taliban and Osama also adds to the image, for instance that the Taliban and most of Pakistan are of the same tribe, that Osama was given protection/hosted by the Taliban leader and had to swear allegiance to the Taliban, this all according to their tribal believes, not necessarily the western understanding.
Forum whore
Thanks Paul, interesting read, and makes the opinion pieces we read on Herald website look like so much toilet paper (like i didn't know that already). Shame a lot of folks simply aren't interested in the motivation behind some these world changing events. I wonder what our kids are being taught in schools about this sort of thing?
Forum whore
I wouldnt want you to think that I dont approve of the death of Mr Bin Laden but I think that the point of wrongly ridiculing him and his followers and fanatics is a valid one. Ultimately we all are held responsible for our actions and he chose to take the war to the general populace and was certainly clever enough to know where that would head.
BUT - there is just sooo much meddling and wrong in some parts of the world that its inevitable that nature will throw up more Osama's and not understanding the whys and hows condems us into a very very long conflict. It could be said that Hitlers opportunity came from a Germany shattered from WW1 reparations and personally I think that Osama came from a similar place and within a hairs breadth of starting a similar conflict - who knows, he might have, we shall just have to wait and see. Either way, I think 'justice' as we know it has taken a pretty serious wound...
You might be interested in what Boris has to say (I really dont like him much btw)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/c...od-reason.html
Well, that's handy. We have all just learnt some useful etiquette about how to greet US Navy Seals arriving unexpectedly in your house when you have just gone to bed. If you find yourself lying there with your wife, just after turning off the lights, and there is a terrific racket from downstairs, you need to follow these essential dos and don'ts.
If the ninja-clad gunmen start charging up the stairs and shooting up your relatives, you are perfectly entitled to stick your head out of your bedroom door and have a gander. You may gawp in horror as a bullet whangs into the plaster near your ear. But if you try to dodge the next bullet, I am afraid you may be deemed to have committed a "hostile act". If you are so rash as to duck back into your bedroom, you will apparently entitle the Seals to follow you into the matrimonial chamber, shoot your wife in the leg and then blow you away with a shot in the chest and the head.
Yup, it was Osama bin Laden's "hostile act" of bullet-dodging that cost him his life, says the White House. If he had only stayed out there on the landing and taken the next bullet square on the mazzard, he would have been beyond suspicion, it seems. As an explanation for killing an unarmed man, this is starting to get embarrassing. I am reminded of the old South African police force, who used to explain deaths in custody by saying that their unarmed black detainees had launched savage attacks with their left temples and the smalls of their backs on the steel toecaps of their guards.
So why don't we all just cut the cackle and admit the groaningly obvious. It is perfectly clear why the US will not release the video footage they were all watching in the White House, and that caused Hillary to press her knuckles to her mouth. There was no firefight. Osama bin Laden did not cower behind his wife, spraying the US troops from his AK-47 like some scene from Call of Duty: Black Ops. That was a lie that went round the world faster than it took the truth to get its boots on, and the truth was that bin Laden hadn't even got his dressing gown on, let alone his boots, before he was despatched into the arms of Shaitan.
This was an assassination, a liquidation, an extra-judicial killing and a termination with extreme prejudice. Whichever way you look at it, President Obama has carried out one of the most effective whack jobs ever seen, and if he doesn't get re-elected I will be amazed. Osama is a has-bin, who sleeps with the fishes of the North Arabian sea, and it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
But when the president tells us that "justice has been done", I think he needs to be a bit fuller in his definition of "justice". It was 10 years ago this December, when the net was closing in on bin Laden in Tora Bora, that I wrote a pious piece in this very space, urging that the mass murderer should be put on trial. Read him the Miranda, give him his two telephone calls, and then arraign him for multiple homicide in New York and around the world.
It may be painful and problematic, I argued, but that is the difference between them and us. It's civilisation versus barbarism, the rule of law versus the law of the jungle. It's what we're fighting for. Fiat iustitia, ruat coelum, I said; and 10 years on I have to admit I can see why the Americans have not found it easy to follow my advice. Having pinpointed his lair, they could hardly have asked the Pakistanis to put him on trial – not when the Pakistani security services seem to be some kind of affiliate of al-Qaeda. They couldn't hold the trial in the Hague, since the US does not recognise the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.
In an ideal world, they would have put him on trial in NYC, the place of his greatest crime. And then what? A secret trial would have been deemed suspicious; so we would have endured a long, show-boating courtroom drama, with lawyers from the school of the O J Simpson defence trying to cast doubt on any connection between the accused and 9/11, and the cameras of the world would have been trained for weeks on the noble and priestly features of the accused, as he subjected America and her allies to some of his finger-wagging denunciations.
Though a New York jury would certainly have sent him down, they don't have the death penalty there – and so his place of incarceration would have become a shrine, the nearby pavements covered with the wax of cretinous candlelit vigils. Having been completely obscured by the events of the Arab spring, al-Qaeda would be back on the airwaves recruiting again – and that is perhaps where the Americans could mount a legitimate argument for what they have done. Bin Laden may represent a threat to US interests whether he is dead or alive, but the reality is that he is much less of a threat in his current subaquatic position than he would be in either a courtroom or a prison.
In so far as President Obama has a duty to protect America and Americans, he almost certainly has the necessary legal cover, provided by Congress, to remove bin Laden from the scene by any means at his disposal, and that is what he has triumphantly done. As an argument, it is not without its difficulties. If America is to go around indulging in extra-judicial liquidation of anyone who poses a threat to American interests, then we are entitled to wonder where it will end. We may be worried that the enemies of America may be spurred to symmetrical retaliation and that we will be caught up in a cycle of killing and counter-killing.
But it is at least plausible, and emotionally convincing, to say Osama bin Laden was a clear and present danger to America; he had it coming, and the president had him killed. All I ask is that we stop pussy-footing around about "hostile acts" and accept that this was an execution.
Forum whore
OBL never was a freedom fighter - unless you mean freedom from US interference in Arab countries and support for dictatorial regimes. He wanted the US out of Saudi Arabia - that was his stated aim and that he achieved when the US pulled their airbase out in 2003 - anything after that was a bonus, as far as OBL was concerned. OBL was NOT Pol Pot or the Taliban - you are getting confused with other movements (the Talibs have been around since the English were in Afghanistan.). He was not a nice man - but he was an effective fighter against the US, using whatever means he could to attack them - just as the US attack Islam (that is how a lot of Muslims see it - you attack one Islamic country - you attack them all).
Anyhow - by the time the Yanks got him, he was a tired git, smoking weed to control pain, under house arrest by the Pakistan ISI and an increasing problem for the Islamic world who are using other means to do the same thing - but a goldmine to Pakistan, who could milk the Yanks for billions in military aid, as long as OBL was "somewhere out there". The US have known about the "compound" since it was built - OBL was sold out by "trusted" couriers, under "interrogation".
Anyway, the Harawiras - believe in what they do, but, should really take a course in "how not to really piss most people off"!
“- He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.”
Hardcore Biker
If you read my post carefully, that is exactly my point. The rest of your diatribe I can't be bothered responding to. It reads kind of like the paragraph of tripe you did not bother to use in your quote.
Just faidin away!
Why look for the living among the dead?
Anarchic Wild Child
As I said, the difference between a freedom fighter and a terrorist is only in the perceptions and labels ...
Is Nelson Mandela a freedom fighter or a terrorist?
"So if you meet me, have some sympathy, have some courtesy, have some taste ..."
Anarchic Wild Child
No worries mate - I can hit a the bullseye at 600 yards with an old open sight Lee Enfield .303 ... and I know which way the selctor switch on a M16 goes ...
"So if you meet me, have some sympathy, have some courtesy, have some taste ..."
Anarchic Wild Child
Are you talking about George W Bush and co?
"So if you meet me, have some sympathy, have some courtesy, have some taste ..."
Anarchic Wild Child
Yup .. that's called Freedom ...
"So if you meet me, have some sympathy, have some courtesy, have some taste ..."
Moped rider
No I wasn't but I can see that people would agree with the sentiment there too.
Forum whore
As far as I know Nelson Mandela has never been responsible for flying planes into buildings and killing thousands in the process just to make a point.
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