Video US helicopter guns down farmers

POSTED BY: GinoBiffaroni
UPDATED: Sunday, July 24, 2005 05:16
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RUE

Wednesday, July 13, 2005 2:32 AM

For what it's worth, not all people bow their heads, or more realistically bend their minds, in submission.

I was one of the very small percentage that didn't cling to Bush after 9/11 (silly me, I said the US is too big a country to be derailed by that one thing), treat the escalating rhetoric as if it was about anything real, believe there were WMDs in Iraq, or agree that we have made Iraq a better place by making it a proxy-battlefield in Bush's never-ending war.

But you don't have to stand up and get called an anti-american troop-hating commie liberal terrorist supporter if you disagree.

As SignyM once pointed out, at night when it's just you, you are free to think. And that's the strange thing - too many people are too willing to trade away their thoughts.

SIGNYM

Wednesday, July 13, 2005 5:03 AM

Quote:
I don't think it's as simple as Singy seems to suggest: either you accept personal responsibility or you're another Eichman.

I personally don't think it is a simple question. There is a whole spectrum of choices to be made and- as you so keenly point out- coercions to be endured.

In the military, you're not given orders to corral all "potential" enemies in a city and hunt them down and kill them... and in fact, almost no soldiers actually round up civilians and massacre them in cold blood. I imagine that you're given orders to secure the perimeter and turn back all suspicious people. Take that bridge. Bomb that target. Sweep the neighborhood. The responsibility is subdivided into so many small parts that from the individual soldier's point of view it may seem justified from a survival point of view. But the overall effect- which the strategists and politicians can see from their lofty viewpoint- can be quite something else.

It is very easy to be an Eichman. Remember-Eichman was just a technocrat. All he did was organize train schedules. So I guess my question is- at what point does duty end and we become little Eichmans?

SIGNYM

Wednesday, July 13, 2005 12:03 PM

Just wanted to post something else. I read two opinions in the LATimes this past weekend. One, entitled "Time is running out for the bad guys" lists a number of judicial victories in the prosecution of certain dictators (Pinochet, Milosevic, Jean Kambanda of Rwanda, and Hussein) and ends with a tepid warning to the Bush administration. That was the happy news.
www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/commentary/la-oe-brooks10jul10,0,3
481853.story?coll=la-sunday-commentary

The other, simply entitled "When", ponders the effect of a radical Islamic nuclear bomb. It says, in part-

Quote:
The United States has bombed more than a dozen countries since 1948, and recently killed tens of thousands on the pretext of chasing weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.... But the nuclear monopoly is breaking down. The making of atomic weapons — especially crude ones — has become vastly simpler than at the time of the Manhattan Project. Anger in Muslim countries at the United States has never been higher. The desire for an atomic weapon to seek vengeance — utterly immoral, foolish and suicidal though it be — is becoming ever more popular.

...The danger of a nuclear conflict comes from radicalized individuals within the (Islamic) states.... Today, the United States lives in fear of the bomb it created, because the decision to use it has already been made. Pious men with beards will decide when and where on U.S. soil atomic weapons are to be used. Shadowy groups, propelled by fanatical hatreds, scour the globe for materials. They are not in a hurry. Time is on their side. They are doubtless confident they will one day breach Fortress America.

If nuclear weapons continue to be accepted by nuclear weapon states as legitimate instruments of deterrence or war, their global proliferation — whether by other states or non-state actors — can only be slowed at best. ...

So what will happen when religious fanatics succeed in a nuclear attack? The world shall plunge headlong into a bottomless abyss of reaction and counter-reaction in a horror the human mind cannot comprehend.

www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/commentary/la-op-osamanuke10jul10,
0,6017089.story?coll=la-sunday-commentary

It is a warning that most people would interpret as a threat. But it is a realistic enough scenario that thoughtful people should ponder their response to an Islamic nuclear bomb. With foresight, we can avoid the misdirected response characterized by the Bush administration- only this time carried out with nuclear bombs.

RUE

Wednesday, July 13, 2005 7:17 PM

I have already told family members I thought it would be a good idea to put a dose of potassium iodide for each family member in the home first aid kit.

I'm not a survivalist type. You have to have a tolerance for potential personal devastation living in Southern California - earthquake, fire, flood or massive refinery accident. But you also need to prepare for things.

HKCAVALIER

Thursday, July 14, 2005 1:15 AM

This is actually a response to a post from the Carl Rove thread, but I thought it would fit better over here. Sorry for any confusion.

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
[off topic] Many Americans are living a deep contradiction. On the one hand, they feel morally and militarily superior...I believe the invasion of Iraq will have powerfully dangerous consequences for us. I suspect this will be far worse than Vietnam ever was because potential oil resources and population size can combine to create a much stronger enemy. I hope I'm wrong. [/off topic]

I see a pattern beginning to emerge with the thinking of some people on the right, some of whom post on this board (you know who you are

): a basic complacence concerning this country's moral superiority; as if there is no way on Earth that we could falter. It's not even "the ends justify the means." Now it's the country justifies the means, with this one additional criterion: as long as our worst actions can be perceived as less atrocious than the worst actions of our enemies, they seem to think we should have free reign.

Is that really how we have to play it now? Let the worst criminals in the world determine the rules of engagement? If a nuclear device were to go off on American soil, I shudder to think what kind of genocidal fury it would justify in the minds of these Americans.

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

RUE

Thursday, July 14, 2005 4:53 AM

Quote:
... as long as our worst actions can be percieved as less atrocious than the worst actions of our enemies ... we should have free reign.
Is that really how we have to play it now? Let the worst criminals in the world determine the rules of engagement?

I think you have formulated the very essence of their position and its inevitable consequence.

SIGNYM

Thursday, July 14, 2005 11:47 AM

HK- you are insightful as ever. Perhaps you and Rue should run on the same ticket.

OPTIMUS1998

Thursday, July 14, 2005 1:10 PM

ok, all sides of arguments involving the morality of the actions depicted here, blah-bity,blah-bity,blah,
all that aside..
the person progamming the webpage linked here, seems to have discovered a new unit of data storage:

Quote:
video: MPEG at 4.6 mebibytes

MEBIBYTES??? to paraphrase Marty McFly - WHAT THE HELL IS A MEBIBYTE?
one would think if one knew enough html to program a basic page like that, they would be pretty familiar with the term megabyte, more so if it is a auto generated page, the person who wrote the software that wrote the page would be pretty familiar with the word....

or am i just being to picky???

...May have been the losing side, Still not convinced it was the wrong one.

CHRISISALL

Thursday, July 14, 2005 2:38 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
If a nuclear device were to go off on American soil, I shudder to think what kind of genocidal fury it would justify in the minds of these Americans.

Okay, now I'm scared.
I've been known to lean somewhat to the left on certain issues, but all that's over now.
I'm so scared and uncomfortable with these possibilities, that I'm joining the all-Right team. Yes sir, I'm on the Conservative highway. It will make me less frightened, and give me back my faith in my government. And it will help me to see who is really bad. I need answers, dammit, and you commies pose too many questions!
Later, pinkos, I'm off to grab me a piece of emotional security!

Formerly interested in reality Chrisisall

FOCHT

Thursday, July 14, 2005 5:28 PM

I think it's funny...Well, in a sad way.

Shortly after 9/11 the entire country was in an uproar and fully behind revenge on /anyone/.

Taliban, we remember you well.

The premise for the current line of thought involving nuclear weaponry against the US is one that seems to carry the overall tone that those in charge (Regardless of who they are at the time it happens) will react in the same fashion that they would've reacted in the 60's, 70's, and 80's concerning nuclear attacks by Russian weaponry. IMO, this isn't the case. There will be no mutually assured destruction.

At best (I hope), we'll be looking at ... what? One or two "low yield" nuclear weapons. This is assuming that they don't go with the, IMO, more long range effects of a 'dirty bomb' which is /far/ easier to obtain and actually utilize.

Then what?

You have to make the strong assumption that whatever bombs go off will go off in close time proximity to each other to facilitate actually deploying the weapons while they can. National security is like Microsoft ... Well ... Maybe like Firefox ... You find a security hole, it gets exploited, you patch it. Quick.

The terrorists know that we'll patch any holes that a nuclear bomb utilizes in its deployment stateside as soon as the detonations occur and we figure out how it happened.

So, when we do get attacked ('cause it is a question of when and not if) you only really need to be concerned with who, how, and where.

I honestly don't think the government will retaliate utilizing nuclear weapons. Might seem like a rose-tinted world I'm looking at but ... Honestly. Precision munitions are more than capable of destroying what we would undoubtably target to satisfy our 'thirst for revenge'.

Then again, to play the other side of the coin, would the American people be happy not wiping out an entire country who we've deemend 'responsible'? If I'm recalling correctly, as soon as the Taliban and Afghanistan were indicated as the most possible culprits, a great deal of Americans wanted the whole country turned into a glass parking lot. So...If we /did/ utilize nuclear arms in response to a limited nuclear terrorist attack ... isn't it more likely that the American people's (See: Mob) own desire for revenge be the one main factor that would push anybody's finger on the button?

Focht

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