Anyone else up watching things unfold?

So if it wasn't to cause a holy war why did OBL provoke the US???

 

Please tell me that was an intentionally funny remark, cos it was a good
one!

 

Unless I'm very much mistaken he will never say anything again.

And how!

Cheer up. Before Sept 11th there was no republican foreign policy!

 

According to "The Power of Nightmares" (which made a pretty good case) it
was to united Islamics against a common enemy to help restore order in
Islamic states.

It's not like that strategy hasn't been tried and tested before.


--
AndrewR, D.Bot (Celeritas)
Kawasaki ZX-6R J1
BOTAFOT#2,ITJWTFO#6,UKRMRM#1/13a,MCT#1,DFV#2,SKoGA#0 (and KotL)
BotToS#5,SBS#25,IbW#34, TEAR#3 (and KotL), DS#5, COSOC#9, KotTFSTR#
The speccy Geordie twat.

 

And despite OBL repeated requests to Muslims throughout the world to
unite and join the Jihad, this has been largely ignored, much to the
frustration of OBL.

 

And even if he wasn't very very dead, I'm sure he'd have more things
to say about Iran than Iraq, or Sunni vs Shiite ethnic differences.

 

I think that the "common enemy" approach works best when you pick an enemy
that is easier to beat up.


--
AndrewR, D.Bot (Celeritas)
Kawasaki ZX-6R J1
BOTAFOT#2,ITJWTFO#6,UKRMRM#1/13a,MCT#1,DFV#2,SKoGA#0 (and KotL)
BotToS#5,SBS#25,IbW#34, TEAR#3 (and KotL), DS#5, COSOC#9, KotTFSTR#
The speccy Geordie twat.

 

Ben Blaney says...

Non-recognition of authority does not stop bullets. Imo, if someone is
so stupid that they would use that excuse to run a checkpoint, then they
deserve the consequences.

 

(DannyBoy) wrote in

You may be thinking of Ayatollah Khomeni rather than his successor.

" The supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khameni, disqualified
thousands of reformist leaders from running, including several sitting
members of the Iranian parliament. According to CBSnews.com, Feb. 3, this
will likely assure a victory for the fundamentalist faction in Iran."

http://flathat.wm.edu/2004-02-13/story.php?type=1&aid=16

Yoorp? Isn't that south of Russia someplace?

 

1) He isn't dead. See other post.

2) Lots of Shia in southern Iraq who have long looked to Iran rather than
Beghdad for leadership.

 

No, they don't. The punishment for stupidity is not death.

 

Ben Blaney says...

It's impossible for a soldier to distinguish between stupid and
dangerous people when they are running a checkpoint.

It's simple. A man with a gun[1] tells you to stop. What do you do?

[1] It doesn't matter who the man with the gun is, or what country he's
from. He has a gun, he *will* kill you!

 

*cough* Evolution of the species? http://www.darwinawards.com/ ??

 

That doesn't make it right.

 

I'm not certain that anyone's arguing that it's 'right', just that it
will happen and should be expected if we put people into such
situations.

 

Ben Blaney says...

That's the way it is though, and those people in the area have to learn
that running a checkpoint is a bad idea.

My point is, I don't agree with soldiers who are doing their job
properly being prosecuted in civilian courts for murder, when a
checkpoint runner is shot and killed. They are soldiers who are trained
to obey the orders given to them, whether or not they agree or disagree
with those orders. If we allowed our soldiers to question the orders
they are given all the time, then half of the troops in Iraq right now
would be sitting in Warminster/Colchester/Catterick with their feet up.

As it is we have the world's best trained soldiers out there being
ordered to do things that will possibly result in them being tried for
murder, that's not right. When they signed up they voluntarily gave up
their right to question authority[1], and it seems like that authority
is now taking the piss by allowing this to happen.

[1] Our government

 

As I've said before, the Darwin awards have nothing to do with
Darwin-ism unless it's certain that the deceased did not procreate
before death.

 

This started with lozzo's post:

And I'm taking issue with it. Being in court on murder charges is all
about what is "right".

 

It is right if they murder someone.

But they didn't give up their responsibility to the law. If they
murder someone, they should go to court for it.

 

I think you're arguing the wrong point here - it's clearly[1] unfair
to put young blokes in a situation of extreme intensity where they may
be shot at or otherwise attacked, give them a gun and then expect them
to go through a 50-point checklist before deciding whether it's
allowed for them to defend themselves. To charge them with murder
because they panicked and shot some twat who decided to run the 'block
is not 'right' either.

The rights and wrongs of this are more about the placement of such
things - if you accept that there is a need for armed
roadblocks/checkpoints then you must also accept that those weapons
may be used. Conversely if you're saying they must not be used there's
no need for them to be armed in the first place. You can't have it
both ways.

So instead of arguing that soldiers swho kill a potential enemy should
be charged with murder, you'd do a lot better to argue about whether
they should be there in the first place.


[1] To me, at any rate.