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Zinegata
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Post by Zinegata » Thu Apr 08, 2010 1:34 am

> mean_liar wrote:What chaff. What tripe.
> 3000+ dead by a non-state actor is a tragedy. It is not casus belli for anyone or anything for whatever manufactured reasons are convenient.
> Your entire argument about the necessity of killing people without one word regarding how exactly that helps them is just a signpost for your profound lack of intellect. Your platitudes about might makes right is noted, but it's total bullshit so... basically you're just justifying violence with ignorance.
> Here's your million-dollar-question: if might makes right and these poor fools need America to save them, then why has might not made right?
> Go fuck yourself, for ever and ever.

Americans have no sense of their own history.
You guys went to war against Spain, because one of your ships accidentally blew up, killing a couple hundred US sailors.
But at the time people were going "Remember the Maine!" and you proceeded to kill lots and lots of Spaniards.
More recently, even before this whole War on Terror thing, you guys were bombing Somalia, Bosnia, and a whole slew of other places for "harboring terrorists", "peacekeeping", and "preventing war crimes."
America has always used force to enforce its will on the world. It's what every world power does. You can argue about the merits of how invading Afghanistan doesn't help curb terrorism. But to believe that America shouldn't - and hasn't - been bombing people for reasons of national interest before 9-11 is incredibly naive.
Big powers kick the ass of smaller ones to serve their own interests. It's been the case since the fucking Sumerians and man learned to establish armies. It's incredibly naive to think "might doesn't make right".
It does. Not because it is moral. But because the guy with the gun can just keep killing people until there is no other morality left but his own.
War does not determine who is right. War determines who is left.
And who is left determines who is right.
Last edited by Zinegata on Thu Apr 08, 2010 1:40 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Zinegata
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Post by Zinegata » Thu Apr 08, 2010 1:37 am

> PhoneLobster wrote:What conspiracy?
> The American government said "We want a new regime in Afghanistan so we can build this pipe."
> Then a bit later they conquered Afghanistan and low and behold the new Regime is letting them build the pipe.
> Again. If they are after "the terrorists", why aren't they in Saudi Arabia?

The American government has never stated they want a new regime in Afghanistan MAINLY to build this pipeline - which is th important bit because we're talking about the MAIN reason for the Afghan war. You wouldn't even acknowldge what while Osama Bin Laden is a Saudi, his powerbase was in Afghanistan because of the support of the Taliban.
In short, you're engaging in outright lies now to try and change the subject because your original statement was full of shit.
So like Gan, get off your fucking Apache helicopter and actually try to identify what the other guy is saying instead of firing off outright lies. Or, for once, be a fucking man and admit that it was stupid to argue the Afghan war is primarily an oil war.
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PhoneLobster
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Post by PhoneLobster » Thu Apr 08, 2010 1:52 am

> Zinegata wrote:You wouldn't even acknowldge what while Osama Bin Laden is a Saudi, his powerbase was in Afghanistan because of the support of the Taliban.

Because it isn't true. His power base is his funding. Which all comes from Saudi Arabia. Well. Ever since the USA stopped giving him money, weapons, and training.
Finding a place to hang out has NEVER been a problem for him. Afghanistan, Pakistan, there is no shortage of locations and he does not need ANY official or unofficial government sanction to do so.

> In short, you're engaging in outright lies now to try and change the subject because your original statement was full of shit.

Wait, I thought you were the one who said there were no oil interests in Afghanistan who is now back pedalling with lies about how a massive oil pipeline project is "no big deal" compared to an incredibly unsuccessful and inefficient imaginary man hunt scenario occurring in the wrong country.
Really, mass invasion and regime change is NOT how you capture criminals on this or any scale, even when the USA decides to illegally kidnap individuals they regard as criminals from uncooperative or unaware nations that isn't what you do.
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Juton
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Post by Juton » Thu Apr 08, 2010 2:04 am

One mistake I see a lot of people make IRL, not necessarily here, is they think that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are only about accomplishing one thing: getting oil. In reality there are a bunch of different things, power projection in the region, putting pressure on Iran and maybe radical elements in Pakistan, how currency is used for reserves, yes oil and a bunch of other things.
If the US just wanted to kill terrorists, pretty much the stated reason for the Afghan war, they would have used a bunch of bombs and special forces unit. Now they have a slew of bases in the area and they have Iran locked in a pincer, if the US wanted to it could bomb Iran effectively and with impunity from three sides. The US is also swaying some of the former soviet satellites in the area, which in turn puts pressure on Russia which some of the older generals still have a hate on for.
So the moral of the story is geopolitics is complicated, and describing any action in the middle east as having nothing to do with oil, or everything to do with oil is a massive oversimplification that obfuscates the truth.
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Zinegata
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Post by Zinegata » Thu Apr 08, 2010 2:06 am

> PhoneLobster wrote: Because it isn't true. His power base is his funding. Which all comes from Saudi Arabia. Well. Ever since the USA stopped giving him money, weapons, and training.
> Finding a place to hang out has NEVER been a problem for him. Afghanistan, Pakistan, there is no shortage of locations and he does not need ANY official or unofficial government sanction to do so.

What you're arguing is that bombing Afghanistan is a dumb thing to do. Which on some levels I agree with.
But this is not the same as arguing that taking out the Taliban and Bin Laden was not the primary reason for bombing Afghanistan.
Again, America went to war over Spain because of an accident on the Maine. A war isn't always fought for very smart reasons.
I'm not discussing whether fighting the war is dumb or not. I'm saying the reason isn't oil. People go to war for dumb reasons all the time.
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Kaelik
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Post by Kaelik » Thu Apr 08, 2010 2:07 am

> Ganbare Gincun wrote:It's painfully obvious in the video that it's not an RPG

You are a psychopath incapable of telling the difference between what you wish was true, and what is actually true. No, the picture you posted, which is a still shot of a guy holding a black object is not obviously a camera. It is a still shot of a guy holding a black object that is actually, just in that zoomed in cropped up photo, larger than the entire screen of the person who had to make a snap decision under adrenaline rush watching a non zoomed non cropped video on a tiny fucking monitor that he didn't get to pause at the important part.

> Ganbare Gincun wrote:Keep in mind that they already stated that they were going to fire on him if he "picked up a weapon". I have the sneaking suspicion that if the van hadn't come along when it did, he would have "found that weapon" and been sent to his death immediately thereafter.

Yeah, you also have a sneaking suspicion that they fired on him because he was brown, even though they managed to not fire on millions of brown people they could have just that fucking day.
Your sneaking suspicion is just you stating what you wish was true, and have no evidence whatsoever is true.

> Ganbare Gincun wrote:So the only reason that we even HAVE this footage is because someone in the unit - an anonymous hero - leaked this footage before it was destroyed by someone in the unit. So much for trying to preserve evidence, eh?

You know who's in that unit and has access to that footage? The fucking gunner.
You know who might have an actual reason to leek the footage? The fucking Gunner.
You have no idea who leaked the footage, but you have no problem just calling the gunner a racist, a liar, and a deliberate journalist murderer based on no evidence whatsoever. Why would the gunner, who was apparently a big fat asshole who hates brownies and had been given explicit permission to shoot journalist and knew he was going to destroy the footage lie on the radio? Why would he present every possible appearance of someone who genuinely thought they were a threat, even up to trying to justify his earlier assumptions when it had been discovered he was wrong?
Justifying himself to who? The people who told him to shoot journalists?

> Ganbare Gincun wrote:Maybe it's because the main reaction to this footage from the conservatives that have seen the footage that I have talked to IRL has been "who cares, we should kill all of the fucking ragheads"? Or, even better, that old chestnut "we should just glass the fucking desert". You know, the kind of shit that they say when they're "amongst friends" and not subject to any kind of public scrutiny. Gee, I wonder why I might be picking up on some "racial overtones" regarding this incident?

So in other words, the reason you are absolutely 100% certain that a lower class 20 year old black guy who lives in a city with hundreds of thousands or Arabs is racist is because an upper class 50 year old white guy who has never met aforementioned black guy is an idiot?
It's great to see your logical processes in action. It really does my belittling work for me.

> DSMatticus wrote:Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?

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Zinegata
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Post by Zinegata » Thu Apr 08, 2010 2:08 am

> Juton wrote:One mistake I see a lot of people make IRL, not necessarily here, is they think that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are only about accomplishing one thing: getting oil. In reality there are a bunch of different things, power projection in the region, putting pressure on Iran and maybe radical elements in Pakistan, how currency is used for reserves, yes oil and a bunch of other things.

Yep.

> So the moral of the story is geopolitics is complicated, and describing any action in the middle east as having nothing to do with oil, or everything to do with oil is a massive oversimplification that obfuscates the truth.

Exactly, albeit in Afghanstan I'd say the oil issue is extremely minor compared to all the other reasons, especially when Obama came into power.
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Zinegata
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Post by Zinegata » Thu Apr 08, 2010 2:14 am

> Kaelik wrote:You are a psychopath incapable of telling the difference between what you wish was true, and what is actually true.

And yet he's condemning a guy for mis-IDing an RPG.
Proof positive that you don't need a war to create psycopaths.
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The Lunatic Fringe
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Post by The Lunatic Fringe » Thu Apr 08, 2010 2:50 am

> Juton wrote:...putting pressure on Iran...

What's really ironic is that Saddam Hussein and the Taliban were Iran's biggest regional enemies.
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Juton
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Post by Juton » Thu Apr 08, 2010 3:38 am

> The Lunatic Fringe wrote:

> > Juton wrote:...putting pressure on Iran...

> What's really ironic is that Saddam Hussein and the Taliban were Iran's biggest regional enemies.

That's an interesting assertion. Iran didn't like Iraq, definitely, but Saddam had no capacity to interfere with Iran's plans. As for the Taliban, they where being funded for a while by Pakistan, it's been a while so I forget the specifics of how Iran's intelligence agencies (used to?) work with the Pakistanis, but I was always given the impression that it was partly convivial. Basically both countries wanted some where to stick their anti-progress fundies and Afghanistan fit the bill. I am not an intelligence analyst so I don't know how accurate that assessment is currently.
Iran feels its regional enemy is Israel, and Israel thinks that Iran is it's most troublesome regional opponent. The Neocons who favoured both of Bush's wars always seem to gravitate towards Israel. So I'm sure thats part of the reason they went all strong arm in the middle east and left North Korea alone.
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Post by CatharzGodfoot » Thu Apr 08, 2010 3:50 am

Then why was Israel selling weapons to Iran?
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Juton
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Post by Juton » Thu Apr 08, 2010 4:09 am

> CatharzGodfoot wrote:Then why was Israel selling weapons to Iran?

Are you thinking about Iran-Contra era shenanigans, or something more recent? I know the Israelis have been angry that Russia has been trying/succeeding in selling missiles to Iran.
It also depends on what Israel is selling to Iran. The likely scenario for an Iran-Israel conflict is Israel performing air-strikes on some hardened Iranian installations, probably something related to Iran's nascent nuclear program. Israel selling anything that would hinder their ability to do this is surprising, but tanks or assault rifles wouldn't stop an air-strike.
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CatharzGodfoot
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Post by CatharzGodfoot » Thu Apr 08, 2010 4:35 am

> Juton wrote:

> > CatharzGodfoot wrote:Then why was Israel selling weapons to Iran?

> Are you thinking about Iran-Contra era shenanigans, or something more recent? I know the Israelis have been angry that Russia has been trying/succeeding in selling missiles to Iran.
> It also depends on what Israel is selling to Iran. The likely scenario for an Iran-Israel conflict is Israel performing air-strikes on some hardened Iranian installations, probably something related to Iran's nascent nuclear program. Israel selling anything that would hinder their ability to do this is surprising, but tanks or assault rifles wouldn't stop an air-strike.

Nah, it's ancient history. I'm just being a jerk.
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The Lunatic Fringe
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Post by The Lunatic Fringe » Thu Apr 08, 2010 4:47 am

> Juton wrote:

> > The Lunatic Fringe wrote:

> > > Juton wrote:...putting pressure on Iran...

> > What's really ironic is that Saddam Hussein and the Taliban were Iran's biggest regional enemies.

> That's an interesting assertion. Iran didn't like Iraq, definitely, but Saddam had no capacity to interfere with Iran's plans.

This is partially true. While the two nations have not actually been at war for a while, Iraq shares a border with Iran and is a major regional oil producer. When Hussein was in power, Iran could do nothing. They couldn't stop Bedouins bringing banned goods over the border, they couldn't engage in back-room deals to control the price of oil. They couldn't do these things because Saddam Hussein hated them.
Basically, this is why we now see Iran trying to get its foot into the door in Iraq, by helping out with local politics:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq ... news_N.htm
They want their next door neighbor to be an ally. They couldn't have that with Hussein. Now they can.

> As for the Taliban, they where being funded for a while by Pakistan, it's been a while so I forget the specifics of how Iran's intelligence agencies (used to?) work with the Pakistanis, but I was always given the impression that it was partly convivial. Basically both countries wanted some where to stick their anti-progress fundies and Afghanistan fit the bill. I am not an intelligence analyst so I don't know how accurate that assessment is currently.

Basically, Iran wants to be the big boy in the region. Thus they support officially rebuilding efforts:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/ap ... ign-policy
And secretly train the Taliban:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... omats.html
That last article mentions something interesting: "Shia Muslim Iran is deeply suspicious of United States military intervention on its border, but is also believed to be unwilling to see an extremist Sunni Taliban regime as a neighbor." So , Iran helps the Taliban because the want the US to leave. They don't actually like the Taliban, which is why they are trying to make friends with the Northern Alliance. Basically, they want the US to leave as quickly as possible (or get mired down like the USSR) and then emerge as the patron of the Afghani government.

> Iran feels its regional enemy is Israel, and Israel thinks that Iran is it's most troublesome regional opponent. The Neocons who favoured both of Bush's wars always seem to gravitate towards Israel. So I'm sure thats part of the reason they went all strong arm in the middle east and left North Korea alone.

Iran talks a lot about Israel being its enemy, but it doesn't actually do much. Israel might bomb Iran, or do something similarly stupid, but the anti-Israel stance is almost entirely a put-on. I'm sure that they dislike Israel, but the rabid anti-semitism is just an attempt to get the rest of the Middle East to play nice. I mean, the Majlis actually has seats reserved for Jews, and they don't face any greater (legal, at least) restrictions than members of other religions. Certainly fewer than atheists.
In short, Iran is playing a big game. Saddam Hussein and Taliban Afghanistan were impediments to this game because they were powerful, close-by, and angry. The wars are opportunities for Iran to capitalize on US efforts so as to end their long isolation.
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Ganbare Gincun
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Post by Ganbare Gincun » Thu Apr 08, 2010 5:18 am

> Kaelik wrote:Yeah, you also have a sneaking suspicion that they fired on him because he was brown, even though they managed to not fire on millions of brown people they could have just that fucking day.
> Your sneaking suspicion is just you stating what you wish was true, and have no evidence whatsoever is true.

Once again, I'll reiterate: they fired on a group of people that were peacefully walking down a street and used the possession of "weapons" to justify their gunplay despite the fact that their targets were not taking any threatening actions at all whatsoever towards them. And then they murdered a bunch of civilians that showed up to help the people that they have wounded earlier. The vehicle that they were driving could have very well been an unmarked ambulance, what with Iraq being bombed into the Stone Age and all. And they shot a few children to boot. At best you can argue that they exercised poor judgment, but given their thoroughly unprofessional behavior and their obvious jubilation at gunning their targets down, this does not seem to be nearly as likely a motivator as opposed to wanting to gun down Iraqis for "payback" or shooting journalists for fun because they knew they could get away from it.
The video speaks for itself. I think that most reasonable people that watch and listen realize that their excuse for gunning down these people is a deliberate falsehood that was further compounded by a cover up. Your interpretation of events asks me to completely ignore what the people on the ground were doing before they decided to open fire, the gleeful chatter on the radio as they cut people down, and the fact that they murdered a bunch of people that tried to help the injured and dying and ended their killing spree with the quip "you shouldn't have brought your kids into a war zone".
Now if it eventually comes to light that the video is doctored or that the audio was tampered with or that there is credible evidence that clears their names, I'll be glad to withdraw my statements. But based on the evidence available, it looks like they did it for the lulz.

> Kaelik wrote:You know who's in that unit and has access to that footage? The fucking gunner.
> You know who might have an actual reason to leek the footage? The fucking Gunner.

There's a number of people who could have had access to the footage, but the gunner is the least likely person to leak it. There's still a very slim chance that shit might have been discovered by someone with a conscience, and who wants to risk a nice long stay at a federal prison?

> Kaelik wrote:You have no idea who leaked the footage, but you have no problem just calling the gunner a racist, a liar, and a deliberate journalist murderer based on no evidence whatsoever.

Kaelik, we know the gunner is a murderer. There's no question about that. These weren't insurgents - they were innocent civilians. And he killed a lot of them. And the video shows that he had a grand old time gunning those people down. Frankly, I've seen more professional World of Warcraft raids then this "military operation".

> Kaelik wrote:Why would the gunner, who was apparently a big fat asshole who hates brownies and had been given explicit permission to shoot journalist and knew he was going to destroy the footage lie on the radio? Why would he present every possible appearance of someone who genuinely thought they were a threat, even up to trying to justify his earlier assumptions when it had been discovered he was wrong?
> Justifying himself to who? The people who told him to shoot journalists

Maybe because they needed to get authorization to fire and couldn't yell out their actual intentions to the person that needed to clear them? Or the fact that it's a radio transmission that could have been overheard or intercepted by someone else? No one's gonna say "hey, I want to kill these guys because I fucking hate journalists" or "hey, I'm gonna mow these guys down because one of my buddies got killed by an IED last week and now I'm gonna make these fuckers pay". You just say that someone has an "RPG" or that you're taking "incoming fire", wink knowingly to each other, and then open fire when cleared. It's the same thing with the Pentagon - they don't just come out and say "hey, we're gonna kill all of the journalists that aren't embedded with us and broadcasting what we want them to say". No, they just say "we can't guarantee your safety" and send some rockets hurtling into your hotel building.
Alas, we still haven't reached the point where we have become so brazen and arrogant in the exercise of our military might that we are ready to have the Melian Dialogue with the Iraqi people. Some of our citizens still demand that we justify the use of force, and until they can be convinced that the usage of violence against others is a noble end in and of itself, there will always have to be a covery story - even if it is as flimsy as a Kleenex.

> Kaelik wrote:So in other words, the reason you are absolutely 100% certain that a lower class 20 year old black guy who lives in a city with hundreds of thousands or Arabs is racist is because an upper class 50 year old white guy who has never met aforementioned black guy is an idiot?

You know, one of the things that I'll always remember about 9/11 was when I went to work the afternoon of the attacks and got to hear everyone's opinions about what we should do with the Arabs and the Muslims. Some of them wanted to round them up and put them in internment camps like we did with the Japanese in WW2; some of them thought we should deport them; others still whispered to their closest confidents that we should simply murder them wholesale, like the Nazis did with the Jews. This was the very same day that the Twin Towers fell, mind you. Tempers ran high, and no one was afraid to speak their mind, no matter how outrageous and monstrous their suggestions may have been. Everyone agreed that it was their fault and that they needed to pay and that no price was too high to exact vengeance for the lives that had been lost that day.
And it wasn't just white people that were saying these things - there were folks that were blacker then Wesley Snipes that could not acknowledge the cognitive dissonance inherent in advocating that the Arabs should be rounded up and shot while completely disregarding their own ancestor's experiences with racial profiling. And as time went on, most of these people realized how foolish their words were, and they set aside their anger and moved on with their lives. But there are still some people that harbor a grudge against Muslims and Arabs to this every day. And I suspect that there are more then a few soldiers that went overseas and watched their friends get blasted to pieces that have since cultivated that attitude. Do all soldiers feel this way? Certainly not. But whenever I see a video of soldiers gunning down civilians under the flimsiest of pretenses, I have to wonder what their real motivation is, and this certainly registers as a likely possibility to me.

> Kaelik wrote:It's great to see your logical processes in action. It really does my belittling work for me.

You're one to talk. You and Zinegata are more then happy to discard both evidence and reason to support your position, all the while crowing about how "might makes right" and how "insurgents go into combat with their kids" and the like.
So call me all the names that you like. Whatever. Your opinions are meaningless to me.
Last edited by Ganbare Gincun on Fri Apr 09, 2010 4:41 am, edited 2 times in total.
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PhoneLobster
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Post by PhoneLobster » Thu Apr 08, 2010 5:36 am

> Zinegata wrote: I'm saying the reason isn't oil. People go to war for dumb reasons all the time.

Who said oil wasn't a dumb reason.
Honestly. Billions of dollars for Haliburton or one of his old mate's mate's heads on a platter.
Which do you think motivated Dick Cheney more? Especially when he was on record over this years in advance talking about how much he wanted that pipeline and wanted that Caspian oil.
About the only thing he was on record disusing when it came to fighting the forces of the mighty mighty third world was that it would be cool if they could just blow up basically anywhere as an example.
Again 7.6 billion dollars. That's just the cost to build the thing. That is not even a fraction of the wealth it is intended to siphon directly into Dick Cheney's pockets.
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Crissa
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Post by Crissa » Thu Apr 08, 2010 6:05 am

Ganbare, why are you quoting yourself?
I can't help it...

> Zinegata wrote:Exactly, albeit in Afghanstan I'd say the oil issue is extremely minor compared to all the other reasons, especially when Obama came into power.

I guess that's why Obama ordered troops to enter Afghanistan and overthrow their government.
Oh, wait, he wasn't even a Senator yet.
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Last edited by Crissa on Thu Apr 08, 2010 6:13 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Zinegata
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Post by Zinegata » Thu Apr 08, 2010 6:57 am

> PhoneLobster wrote:

> > Zinegata wrote: I'm saying the reason isn't oil. People go to war for dumb reasons all the time.

> Who said oil wasn't a dumb reason.
> Honestly. Billions of dollars for Haliburton or one of his old mate's mate's heads on a platter.
> Which do you think motivated Dick Cheney more? Especially when he was on record over this years in advance talking about how much he wanted that pipeline and wanted that Caspian oil.
> About the only thing he was on record disusing when it came to fighting the forces of the mighty mighty third world was that it would be cool if they could just blow up basically anywhere as an example.
> Again 7.6 billion dollars. That's just the cost to build the thing. That is not even a fraction of the wealth it is intended to siphon directly into Dick Cheney's pockets.

You still haven't proven that oil is the main reson for invading Afghanistan. You just spouted some half-assed speculation on how Cheney will profit from the as of yet unbuilt Caspian oil pipeline.
Just because you admit oil is a dumb reason doesn't mean it's a primary reason. You're not establishing causality here. Just taking random potshots at the war in general and the Bush administration as a whole.
Which is hilarious because you're in effect implying Obama re-escalated the Afghan war to make sure Cheney gets his oil money.
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Zinegata
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Post by Zinegata » Thu Apr 08, 2010 6:57 am

> Crissa wrote:Ganbare, why are you quoting yourself?
> I can't help it...

> > Zinegata wrote:Exactly, albeit in Afghanstan I'd say the oil issue is extremely minor compared to all the other reasons, especially when Obama came into power.

> I guess that's why Obama ordered troops to enter Afghanistan and overthrow their government.
> Oh, wait, he wasn't even a Senator yet.
> -Crissa

And here comes Crissa firing off her own 25mm pack of lies without bothering to read.
Failure to notice I said Obama escalated the war in Afghanstan, not started it. Failure to notice I never said Obama ordered the overthrow of the Taliban, but instead he's devoting more resources to finish the job.
Crissa would be a war criminal based on her own standards if this was a combat situation.
As it stands, she's just an idiot.
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Zinegata
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Post by Zinegata » Thu Apr 08, 2010 7:01 am

> Ganbare Gincun wrote:You're one to talk. You and Zinegata are more then happy to discard both evidence and reason to support your position, all the while crowing about how "might makes right" and how "insurgents go into combat with their kids" and the like.

I just agreed that US troops are generally ill-trained to recognize insurgents from civilians. That's pretty strong evidence against the US Military as a whole (albeit it in a way exonerates their pilots).
Neither Kaelik or I have discarded any evidence. in fact we've introduced a lot of new evidence regarding this case. Evidence you have consistently ignored or dismissed.
Moreover, you never fucking bother to read our post and just fire off your 25mm pack of lies from your Apache helicopter.
In a combat situation, by your own standards, you'd be a war criminal.

> So call me all the names that you like. Whatever. Your opinions are meaningless to me.

Of course they don't. Because like all war criminals you'd prefer to cover up your own stupidity instead of manning up to it.
Still, what Kaelik and I have been saying are not opinions. In this thread, you are a tool, a hack, and a moron. These are not opinions. These are statements of fact.
Last edited by Zinegata on Thu Apr 08, 2010 7:17 am, edited 1 time in total.
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PhoneLobster
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Post by PhoneLobster » Thu Apr 08, 2010 7:58 am

> Zinegata wrote:You just spouted some half-assed speculation on how Cheney will profit from the as of yet unbuilt Caspian oil pipeline.

Speculation? Only if you consider that Dick Cheney is the one on the record speculating.

> You're not establishing causality here.

Is it possible to get any better evidence of causality in this situation other than the men who did this SAID they were going to do this FOR the reason I claim they did it, THEN they did it AND it furthered the goals of the agenda they SAID they were doing it for.
I mean what the fuck better causality evidence do you want? Do I need to teleport you across time and space to witness the events in person?

> Which is hilarious because you're in effect implying Obama re-escalated the Afghan war to make sure Cheney gets his oil money.

Obama continues the war for (spurious) domestic political reasons. (Mind you suggesting that Obama wouldn't continue a war for the profit of American corporations just because Cheney is involved in that profit is rather a failure to recognize modern American politics for what it is.)
Note that those domestic political reasons were NOT the cause of the war, just it's continuation, as the domestic political support for the war that is now sustaining it was manufactured in order to create support for the war, which was about an oil pipeline.
Last edited by PhoneLobster on Thu Apr 08, 2010 8:00 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Zinegata
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Post by Zinegata » Thu Apr 08, 2010 8:25 am

> PhoneLobster wrote:

> > Zinegata wrote:You just spouted some half-assed speculation on how Cheney will profit from the as of yet unbuilt Caspian oil pipeline.

> Speculation? Only if you consider that Dick Cheney is the one on the record speculating.

That he wants a pipeline is a matter of record. Whether or not he will profit from it is currently speculation. In part because the pipeline hasn't even been built yet.
The speculation may be warranted perhaps given his record with Haliburton, but still pretty half-assed.

> Is it possible to get any better evidence of causality in this situation other than the men who did this SAID they were going to do this FOR the reason I claim they did it, THEN they did it AND it furthered the goals of the agenda they SAID they were doing it for.
> I mean what the fuck better causality evidence do you want? Do I need to teleport you across time and space to witness the events in person?

You're confusing one of Cheney's speculatve reasons for wanting to go to war with the country's main reason for going to war. Cheney was not Dictator of the United States.
You're not making a case. You're just saying Cheney is a corrupt SOB. Which, while likely true, is not relevant to the primary cause of the war.
It's just as plausible that he just took advantage of the war as opposed to going through all the trouble of starting the war for his own economic gain, especially considering he is, again, not Dictator of the United States.

> Obama continues the war for (spurious) domestic political reasons. (Mind you suggesting that Obama wouldn't continue a war for the profit of American corporations just because Cheney is involved in that profit is rather a failure to recognize modern American politics for what it is.)
> Note that those domestic political reasons were NOT the cause of the war, just it's continuation, as the domestic political support for the war that is now sustaining it was manufactured in order to create support for the war, which was about an oil pipeline.

You're still not making a case that overturns the main reason for going to war - which was whacking the Taliban for harboring Osama (stupid reason or not). You're just saying Obama is an idiot for bowing to domestic pressure. And I don't agree to that point even - there was just as much support for pulling out of Afghanistan as there was to send in more troops.
You can go off to as many wild tangents as you want, but you still haven't made the case that the Afghan War is an oil war except when piecing together bits of speculation and outright saying fuck-you to Occam's Razor.
Last edited by Zinegata on Thu Apr 08, 2010 8:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
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PhoneLobster
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Post by PhoneLobster » Thu Apr 08, 2010 10:59 am

> Zinegata wrote:Cheney was not Dictator of the United States.

Numerous other members of the Bush administration had similar ties to the corporations that intended to profit from the oil pipe line.
Others in the senate and congress received significant donations.
Major figures in the oil industry addressed your various bodies of government, directly, officially and on the public record speaking in favor of this policy.
But even outside mere corruption and personal of that it is actually US policy to both seek to further the goals of its major corporations to advance it's international economic interests as a nation AND a matter of policy that the US seeks to secure strategic energy resources.
Your government not too long prior to this mess, declared the Caspian Sea region to be a region of "strategic interest" in an official capacity, that is an official recognition by your government of those oil resources in regards to its economic and strategic resource policies.
Cheney is just a big fat giant blatant worst case example to point at because you are personally too dumb to comprehend the bigger picture without declaring it to be an imaginary fantasy.
Because I just KNOW that the second the picture gets bigger and more complex than one corrupt man you are going to blow your lid.

> You're still not making a case that overturns the main reason for going to war - which was whacking the Taliban for harboring Osama (stupid reason or not).

But that reason was manufactured.
The Taliban always said they were happy to hand Bin Laden over if appropriate evidence was provided, and ultimately they gave up on that and were happy to hand him over regardless (though frankly the idea that they could have if they wanted to is questionable).
Not that it matters as the US would typically just unilaterally bomb the specific target or have the CIA kidnap him. That is pretty standard really.
If the US goal was really Bin Laden they could have had him on a platter, they could even have done it in an actual civilized manner with actual evidence of wrong doing admissible in a court of law for an extradition process just like every other nation does.
Instead the administration specifically set their goal as outright invasion and regime change of a government only very loosely associated with Bin Laden. They lobbied for it and pushed it as the only option to get Bin Laden
But have you noticed something... it didn't work. You know why? Because that is not what you do in order to catch a guy.
It's what you do if your goal is regime change.

> You're just saying Obama is an idiot for bowing to domestic pressure.

Yes. And he is also stupid for also doing it to further and support the same standard US strategic policy on the matter. Policy that was in part formed under Clinton.
Both Obama and Clinton are more moderate on these issues and not NEARLY half as criminal as Bush and the Republicans but none of us in the outside world ever forgets that they are American regimes, and as such they WILL tow the imperial line to at least SOME degree.
And if you don't understand or believe that you are a truly stupendous moron.
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Kaelik
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Post by Kaelik » Thu Apr 08, 2010 3:10 pm

> Ganbare Gincun wrote:The video speaks for itself. I think that most reasonable people that watch and listen realize that their excuse for gunning down these people is a deliberate falsehood that was further compounded by a cover up.

And yet, most reasonable people, and even most unreasonable people believe that they exercised poor judgment, and did not make up a lie to shoot brownies.
You are literally the only person since this event has occurred that is sticking to that line.
The victim's family members call it poor judgment. Crissa recognizes it as poor judgment. Everyone in this thread except you recognizes it as poor judgment.
Your inability to look at that video under objective eyes, instead of hating the evil bastards and interpreting everything under the assumption that they are evil bastards causes you to be sound straight up fucking crazy when you say this shit. Even Crissa, who is the closest thing to "your side" recognizes you are foaming at the mouth when you attribute this to racism and intentional murder rather than poor judgment.
You are wrong. Tough shit. Deal with it, and don't attribute your stupidity to "most reasonable people" when you are literally a minority of one.

> Ganbare Gincun wrote:There's a number of people who could have had access to the footage, but the gunner is the least likely person to leak it. There's still a very slim chance that shit might have been discovered by someone with a conscience, and who wants to risk a nice long stay at a federal prison?

Alternatively, the gunner could have a fucking conscience, and could feel guilty for having accidentally killed a bunch of innocents. But your total insanity leaves you incapable of even comprehending this possibility.

> Ganbare Gincun wrote:Kaelik, we know the gunner is a murderer. There's no question about that. These weren't insurgents - they were innocent civilians. And he killed a lot of them.

No, we know the gunner accidentally killed insurgents after making a poor judgment call. That's not murder.

> Ganbare Gincun wrote:Maybe because they needed to get authorization to fire and couldn't yell out their actual intentions to the person that needed to clear them? Or the fact that it's a radio transmission that could have been overheard or intercepted by someone else? No one's gonna say "hey, I want to kill these guys because I fucking hate journalists" or "hey, I'm gonna mow these guys down because one of my buddies got killed by an IED last week and now I'm gonna make these fuckers pay". You just say that someone has an "RPG" or that you're taking "incoming fire", wink knowingly to each other, and then open fire when cleared. It's the same thing with the Pentagon - they don't just come out and say "hey, we're gonna kill all of the journalists that aren't embedded with us and broadcasting what we want them to say". No, they just say "we can't guarantee your safety" and send some rockets hurtling into your hotel building.

So once again. Your official position is that their superior officers told them to kill journalists. Why, when asking for permission to fire, do they have to lie? Why can't they say, "Hey Boss, can I gun down these journalists like you explicitly told me to do?"

> Ganbare Gincun wrote:And as time went on, most of these people realized how foolish their words were, and they set aside their anger and moved on with their lives. But there are still some people that harbor a grudge against Muslims and Arabs to this every day. And I suspect that there are more then a few soldiers that went overseas and watched their friends get blasted to pieces that have since cultivated that attitude. Do all soldiers feel this way? Certainly not. But whenever I see a video of soldiers gunning down civilians under the flimsiest of pretenses, I have to wonder what their real motivation is, and this certainly registers as a likely possibility to me.

So in other words.
Even though most people don't hate brownies, you can tell that these guys do, because they deliberately murdered them for being brown. And we can tell that they deliberately murdered them for being brown because these guys hate brownies.
Guess what dumb shit, you don't get to declare a priori that all civilian deaths must be caused by racism then pretend you have anything to say about a specific civilian death sequence.
You've made clear that any time a civilian is misidentified, you are absolutely sure it is racism.
Fuck you, you are wrong. Anyone sane, IE not you, watching that video can tell that it is not apparent that they are innocent civilians. It is also not apparent that they are insurgents. It is not apparent anything, and so what it comes down to is a judgment call.
Now most sane people, IE not Lich Loved, will probably say that it is an incorrect judgment call to choose to shoot people on a single vaguely possibly menacing action amongst many harmless ones, and that they should not have done that.

> Ganbare Gincun wrote:You're one to talk. You and Zinegata are more then happy to discard both evidence and reason to support your position, all the while crowing about how "might makes right" and how "insurgents go into combat with their kids" and the like.

See what I mean about being a fucking idiot who can't differentiate reality from fantasy?
Have I ever said "might makes right" Ever on this board, much less in this thread? Did I even mention insurgents and kids? Of course not, because you can't see any kids until after they start firing so it doesn't make any difference in discussing their judgment in shooting.

> DSMatticus wrote:Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?

The U.S. isn't a democracy and if you think it is, you are a rube.
That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.
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Zinegata
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Post by Zinegata » Fri Apr 09, 2010 1:16 am

> PhoneLobster wrote:

> > Zinegata wrote:Cheney was not Dictator of the United States.

> Numerous other members of the Bush administration had similar ties to the corporations that intended to profit from the oil pipe line.
> Others in the senate and congress received significant donations.
> Major figures in the oil industry addressed your various bodies of government, directly, officially and on the public record speaking in favor of this policy.
> But even outside mere corruption and personal of that it is actually US policy to both seek to further the goals of its major corporations to advance it's international economic interests as a nation AND a matter of policy that the US seeks to secure strategic energy resources.
> Your government not too long prior to this mess, declared the Caspian Sea region to be a region of "strategic interest" in an official capacity, that is an official recognition by your government of those oil resources in regards to its economic and strategic resource policies.
> Cheney is just a big fat giant blatant worst case example to point at because you are personally too dumb to comprehend the bigger picture without declaring it to be an imaginary fantasy.
> Because I just KNOW that the second the picture gets bigger and more complex than one corrupt man you are going to blow your lid.

Right. You are therefore claiming that the entire US Government engaged in a massive conspiracy to pretend that the Afghan War is about terrorism, including both the executive and legislative branch, both Democrats & Republicans (since they both voted for the Afghan War), and that the only reason you initially cited Cheney is because you're claiming he's merely the tip of the iceberg, depite your failure to show any evidence of any of these supposed bribery, nor your complete failure to name any other names than Cheney, Evil Dictator of the US.
And they engaged in this massive conspiracy theory for the sake of an oil pipeline whose production cost is just a drop in the bucket compared to the entire cost of the war, in order to acquire oil wealth. Oil wealth which would have made an "oil war" in Iraq unnecessary.
I go back to my first reply. You're a conspiracy theory looney.

> But that reason was manufactured.

No. You're a conspiracy theory nut. Shut up. It's embarassing.

> Both Obama and Clinton are more moderate on these issues and not NEARLY half as criminal as Bush and the Republicans but none of us in the outside world ever forgets that they are American regimes, and as such they WILL tow the imperial line to at least SOME degree.
> And if you don't understand or believe that you are a truly stupendous moron.

Given that you live in a fantasy world full of conspiracy theories, I would say that someone whose mind is in another plane of existence doesn't have the right to judge the mental capacity of others.
Last edited by Zinegata on Fri Apr 09, 2010 1:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
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