John Murtha

[Thon]

That's funny. I thought our military was an all volunteer force. I wouldn't really compare that to sending 15 year old girls into a civilian marketplace to blow themselves up.

so the U.S. never drafted anyone, it was just forcible volunteerism in the civil war, world war 1, world war 2, and vietnam?

jesus....tap...dancing....christ...on....crutches

[Lyion]

Well, I didn't realize Vietnam or the Civil War were CURRENT AFFAIRS.

Holy fucking tangent, Batman. Next you'll be using the Crusades and Inquisition in an argument comparing us to suicide bombers TODAY

The Arab League is a group of cowards. Today. That's my opinion.

[alezrik]

We all live with the cards we are dealt at birth, as far as what society and the rules of that society is.

In the name of Democracy we continueally do things to other cultures based on our belief system. That is our countries justification for anything, just like it is their justification based upon their belief system. Saying which is right and which is wrong is being shallow.

They hate us, because in their mind we support a Terrorist state (Israel) which to them have committed various crimes against their people. I mean we hard line them when it comes to nuclear weapons and such (which from a our national defense is completely understandable), however at the same time Israel we shake hands and help them build nukes.

Not really trying to justify what they do, tho if any of us grew up in that environment we'd be happy to blow our selves up in the name of <insert Arab religious/financial/cultural cause here>.

In the name of Democracy we have in a way told 8 year olds (in relation to how free they were prior to there 'release') that they are free to do as they wish, as long as its what mom says, where they are used to having mom insist what they do all the time. Hopefully in 20 years there society will grow up enough to handle the responsibility needed for 'freedom' and 'democracy', but until then I forsee a lost society that hopefully will not make mistakes that cost them more of there lives. And hopefully they will learn how to mold there culture with there belief system.

There culture might not mean a thing to us, but for them, its how they identify with themselves and what little uniqueness they happen to have in the world. I hope that it doesnt get overrun with various churches that destroy what little identity they have left. Otherwise think of all the religious problems we have had in our short history, Inquisition/Salem Witch Trials/Waco/Heavens Gate/Jim Jones, all in the name of 'God', if our 'democracy' could not avoid such issues when it was matureing, how will they cope with it, when they are just toddlers.

[Thon]

All you need for proof of this is to read what occured in the Seven Day War as well as the Iraqi one.

so i guess the seven day war is relevent, but vietnam(which occured later) isn't. any other moronic double standard rules i have to start arguing by?

it's stuff like this that makes my pre-deleted comment appropriate

[Lyion]

All you need for proof of this is to read what occured in the Seven Day War as well as the Iraqi one.

so i guess the seven day war is relevent, but vietnam(which occured later) isn't. any other moronic double standard rules i have to start arguing by?

Ever hear of the Golan Heights and Gaza strip? The Seven Day War never officially ended, and there are modern day issues going on which are what I was discussing.

They are called the occupied lands and there are still issues and fighting occuring there.

In other words the Israeli/Arab conflict continues. Vietnam and all your other references have been over for decades, if not centuries.

My point is how we act currently, versus how the Arab Leagues continues to act. Anyways, even with conscription included which is relevant since we could still have a draft, we still do not have a modus operandi which includes methods that most civilized countries deem cowardly and evil.

Drafting citizens in time of war still isn't comparable to the Arab Governments financing children and women as suicide bombers to me.

[Thon]

holy hosanna, so something that occured 50+ years ago still has relevence today, how bout that. but the civil war/ww1/ww2/vietnam are all in a vacuum with no relevence whatsoever i guess.

you can try and tap dance all you want, but you're wrong, you contradicted yourself, and you couldn't look any stupider if your name was Harrison.

so let's just skip the next few steps of you fuddling around and go straight to a patented <i>Lyion thread lock</i>©

[Lueyen]

in one breath you both claim suicide bombers are cowards who don't fight fair, and that war isn't fair. so is it: "there are no rules, as long as it's only us fighting dirty"? or is it just a contradiction?

There is a huge difference between denying an enemy a militaristic edge or even playing field, and targeting innocent civilians. There is a far cry difference between killing enemy combatants who are armed and who’s intent it is to kill you, and killing innocent people going about their daily lives who pose no threat to you. I'm sorry you’re too ignorant to see the difference.

now never once did i say our pilots are cowardly, so i won't be ashamed of anything. my point obviously flew higher over your head than the pilot flies over the battlefield, so i'll just spell it out:

so the suicide bomber who knows he's going to die in furtherance of his cause, is more cowardly than one of our pilots

If the pilot is not cowardly then how could someone be more or less cowardly? No you didn't state in exact words that they were performing a cowardly act, but in your question you insinuated it.

the pilot is no more brave than the terrorist. the pilot/soldier fights for us, the terrorist against us. and the only difference between a terorist and a soldier is the soldier wears a uniform. Their goal is the same, to 'win'. and trying to defeat us by going after military targets is a no-win situation.

Hello??? When the fuck did a wedding, a subway, or the world trade towers become a military target? If you are talking about enemy soldiers then use the correct term, enemy soldiers target the military, terrorists target civilians.

i'm sure if Al-Qaeda had wings of bombers that cost over a $billion each, multiple massive aircraft carriers, 70 ton tanks, cruise missles that can fly through an open window from 300 miles out, and satellites watching the battlefield from orbit, they wouldn't strap explosives to Joe Muhammad. but lo and behold, since we spend more on our military than the <b>rest of the planet combined</b>, they can't fight a 'conventional' war against us. So they'll hit at us any way they can.

And if Al-Qaeda had this massive military power at their disposal there would still be a difference between us and them. They would still be perfectly willing to specifically target and kill civilians.

as for forcing people into becoming suicide bombers, i'm sure it happens, but not on the massive scale you paint it out to be. there's no lack of wannabe martyr's out there in the Muslim world, who hate us for propping up israel for the last half century. and if it were the case, it's again not unique to muslims/arabs. wtf do you think the draft(s) were.

so it's ok for us to force people to fight in a war against their will, but when the arabs do it, it's evil?

If a draft is instituted we don't threaten to kill someone's family (or do so) if they refuse to join the fight. We certainly don't ask soldiers to kill themselves in an effort to kill innocent unarmed people going about their daily lives.

[Thon]

And if Al-Qaeda had this massive military power at their disposal there would still be a difference between us and them. They would still be perfectly willing to specifically target and kill civilians.

wtf were we pointing our 10,000+ nuclear missles at during the cold war, soviet armies or soviet cities? were they magic h-bombs that only targeted people in uniform?

If the pilot is not cowardly then how could someone be more or less cowardly? No you didn't state in exact words that they were performing a cowardly act, but in your question you insinuated it.

thank you, i'm glad you can admit your wrong, that puts you one step above Lyion.

the pilot is no more brave than the terrorist. the pilot/soldier fights for us, the terrorist against us. and the only difference between a terorist and a soldier is the soldier wears a uniform. Their goal is the same, to 'win'. and trying to defeat us by <b>going after military targets is a no-win situation</b>.

Hello??? When the fuck did a wedding, a subway, or the world trade towers become a military target? If you are talking about enemy soldiers then use the correct term, enemy soldiers target the military, terrorists target civilians.

for someone who see's a lot of insinuation in my posts you sure do miss a lot, learn to read. i've bolded the relevent parts

If a draft is instituted we don't threaten to kill someone's family (or do so) if they refuse to join the fight. We certainly don't ask soldiers to kill themselves in an effort to kill innocent unarmed people going about their daily lives.

what do we do, give em a pat on the back, or free room and board at club fed?

[Lyion]

Er, Are you saying the Arab Israeli conflict is not going on now? Or are you saying the Vietnam war is still going on now? Or the American Civil War? I'm talking about current situations and you segue on to things long over completely missing my point over and over. /boggle

You think me calling the Arab League cowards is racist, fine. You think current cultural fighting going on includes the Vietnamese and Civil wars, fine. Just keep the personal attacks out and behave like an adult, or yeah you'll see a patented timeout©

[Thon]

All you need for proof of this is to read what occured <b>in</b> the Seven Day War as well as the Iraqi one.

you didn't mention any gaza strip, you didn't mention how it impacted current affairs. you said what happend IN the war, back then. so either you don't understand what 'in' means, or you're a hypocrite. possibly both . so again, for some reason how arabs acted 50 years ago is relevent, but how americans acted 50 years ago, or 30 years ago, isn't. is that clear enough, or do i need to use smaller words? or pictures?

but if you need another history lesson with how world war 1 & 2 impacts the arab-western civilization conflict, fine, i guess i can waste a few more minutes of my life.

large swathes of arab territory were taken by the british after world war 1, as spoils from the carcass of the ottoman empire. after world war 2 the british created israel out of one such piece of their empire. tuff shit for the arabs that had lived there for centuries, under turkish, then british rule.

but i guess that's completely irrelevent to arab-israeli relations

[Arlos]

Uh, Lueyen, I hate to break it to you, but the US has had very little reluctance to attack civilians when it was convenient. Think all the people who died in Hiroshima were military personnel? How about in the firebombing of Dresden? How about in the Vietnam war, you sure all the villages we flattened were strictly populated by NVA or VC? The fact is, we quite cheerfully targeted civilians in pretty much every single war we've ever been in, going back certainly to the Civil War. (See: General Sherman & his March to the Sea through Georgia and then later up into South Carolina for one example.)

OK, now for some more recent stuff to satisfy Lyion. You think that all of the people killed by Israel when they fire missiles or tank shells in attempts to get Hamas leaders or something are all terrorists, even the 6 year old children who die in such "regrettable incidents"? As far as the arabs are concerned, the Israelis are certainly willing to slaughter innocent civilians as part of their military attacks and the US supports Israel and obviously thus condones such tactics, since we neither speak out against them nor try and stop them from happening... What conclusion can be drawn from that, hrm?

-Arlos

[Harrison]

Uh, Lueyen, I hate to break it to you, but the US has had very little reluctance to attack civilians when it was convenient. Think all the people who died in Hiroshima were military personnel? How about in the firebombing of Dresden? How about in the Vietnam war, you sure all the villages we flattened were strictly populated by NVA or VC? The fact is, we quite cheerfully targeted civilians in pretty much every single war we've ever been in, going back certainly to the Civil War. (See: General Sherman & his March to the Sea through Georgia and then later up into South Carolina for one example.)

OK, now for some more recent stuff to satisfy Lyion. You think that all of the people killed by Israel when they fire missiles or tank shells in attempts to get Hamas leaders or something are all terrorists, even the 6 year old children who die in such "regrettable incidents"? As far as the arabs are concerned, the Israelis are certainly willing to slaughter innocent civilians as part of their military attacks and the US supports Israel and obviously thus condones such tactics, since we neither speak out against them nor try and stop them from happening... What conclusion can be drawn from that, hrm?

-Arlos

There is a significant difference between intentionally killing civilians for the sake of doing so solely, and killing civilians as a side effect to your primary intent.

You are a major fool (no shit, we all knew that) if you can not differentiate between the two.

[Arlos]

Terrorists are not killing civilians for the sake of killing civilians. Only the most simplistic would think so. (gee, why am I not surprised that you do). They have specific goals and aims; objectives they wish to attain. Their primary intent is not even remotely just to whack groups of civilians, they have political or military goals they wish to accomplish, and feel that such strikes will help them achieve said goals.

When the US and Britain firebombed Dresden in WW2, it did not have some higher military purpose, it was described, even at the time, as a "Terror Raid", intended to weaken support for the war and the German government among the general populace. Didn't work in the least, but that's neither here nor there. So yes, the allies in WW2 quite cheerfully intentionally killed civilians for the sake of killing civilians.

As for the situation with Israel and blowing up kids as collateral damage, how much does it matter to the family of that kid why they died? Dead is dead. They were utterly innocent, are now dead, and it's the fault of the Israelis. If you don't think that that's going to generate serious levels of rage and serve as a massive propaganda source, you're crazy.

Don't misunderstand me, I am not condoning blowing up random civilians in the least. I can, however, UNDERSTAND, at least somewhat, why they are doing it. If you just label them as crazies and cowards, and write them off, there is 0 chance you'll ever be able to actually stop them from happening. The other thing to understand is that much of the world, ESPECIALLY the Arab world views those strikes by the Israelis as NO different than suicide bomber strikes, so as far as they're concerned, they're engaged in "eye for an eye".

-Arlos

[Lyion]

Terrorists are not killing civilians for the sake of killing civilians. Only the most simplistic would think so. (gee, why am I not surprised that you do). They have specific goals and aims; objectives they wish to attain. Their primary intent is not even remotely just to whack groups of civilians, they have political or military goals they wish to accomplish, and feel that such strikes will help them achieve said goals.

Every country has political goals. The problem is the Arab League condones acting in ways the rest of the world deems immoral and cowardly.

At the end of the day killing innocents is still killing innocents. When the US has done this in the past, we most certainly were wrong.

When the US and Britain firebombed Dresden in WW2, it did not have some higher military purpose, it was described, even at the time, as a "Terror Raid", intended to weaken support for the war and the German government among the general populace. Didn't work in the least, but that's neither here nor there. So yes, the allies in WW2 quite cheerfully intentionally killed civilians for the sake of killing civilians.

There was a strategic military purpose for the bombing of Dresden in conjunction with the war. Also, many people and voices in government had issues with this and spoke about it. The Arab League does not internally condemn the suicide bombers and killing of innocents, which is much different than being in a strategic munitions and transport city in a World War, even though the 'terror' bombing done was also in my opinion very bad.

The policies of the past are not being used today, anyways.

As for the situation with Israel and blowing up kids as collateral damage, how much does it matter to the family of that kid why they died? Dead is dead. They were utterly innocent, are now dead, and it's the fault of the Israelis. If you don't think that that's going to generate serious levels of rage and serve as a massive propaganda source, you're crazy.

It's always the fault of the Israeli's, even when most of the time it isn't.

If you just label them as crazies and cowards, and write them off, there is 0 chance you'll ever be able to actually stop them from happening. The other thing to understand is that much of the world, ESPECIALLY the Arab world views those strikes by the Israelis as NO different than suicide bomber strikes, so as far as they're concerned, they're engaged in "eye for an eye".

I've spoken to many, many Arabs in Bahrain, Jebel Ali, Dammam, Abu Dhabi, and in various other middle eastern cities and to a man they are completely sickened by suicide bombers. At the same time their governments support, financially and politically the continuing funding of the groups that conduct these.

The cycle of being raised in an environment of hatred with no democracy and theocratic or totalitarian rule makes change even more difficult.

They have been fighting there for 1000 years. They will probably still be fighting there for 100 years in the future. Until Middle Eastern countries develop the types of social education that the West has, change cannot occur.

[Martrae]

I highly doubt anyone that dropped bombs on innocent people did so 'cheerfully'.

[Thon]

<b>They have been fighting there for 1000 years</b>. They will probably still be fighting there for 100 years in the future. Until Middle Eastern countries develop the types of social education that the West has, change cannot occur.

now who's bringing up the crusades and ancient history

[Lueyen]

wtf were we pointing our 10,000+ nuclear missles at during the cold war, soviet armies or soviet cities? were they magic h-bombs that only targeted people in uniform?

How many of those missles were launched? How many soviet civilians were killed by US nuclear missles? Quite honestly if you are going to deviate from the current situation and start digging through history to try and support your argument you'd be better off citing the use of the Atom bomb on Japan.

If the pilot is not cowardly then how could someone be more or less cowardly? No you didn't state in exact words that they were performing a cowardly act, but in your question you insinuated it.

thank you, i'm glad you can admit your wrong, that puts you one step above Lyion.

Now look at my original statment:

By asking if someone is more or less cowardly then a pilot dropping bombs insinuates at the very least that they (meaning the pilots) are doing a cowardly act. Shame on you, and keep in mind that those are about the most respectful words I could come up with, and quite frankly if you really meant that insinuation your not deserving of even that level of respect in my eyes.

Not once have I said that you directly called US pilots cowards, I simply pointed out that your statment insinuated it. I was not admitting I was wrong here, just reinterating what I had already said, something you seemed to have missed.

the pilot is no more brave than the terrorist. the pilot/soldier fights for us, the terrorist against us. and the only difference between a terorist and a soldier is the soldier wears a uniform. Their goal is the same, to 'win'. and trying to defeat us by going after military targets is a no-win situation.

Hello??? When the fuck did a wedding, a subway, or the world trade towers become a military target? If you are talking about enemy soldiers then use the correct term, enemy soldiers target the military, terrorists target civilians.

for someone who see's a lot of insinuation in my posts you sure do miss a lot, learn to read. i've bolded the relevent parts

I'm sorry I did missread your statment here, I did not realize you were contradicitng yourself in the same paragraph.

If a draft is instituted we don't threaten to kill someone's family (or do so) if they refuse to join the fight. We certainly don't ask soldiers to kill themselves in an effort to kill innocent unarmed people going about their daily lives.

what do we do, give em a pat on the back, or free room and board at club fed?

No but do you fail to see the level of difference between personal consequences that do not involve death, and consequences that do and also involve family as well?

The bottom line here is that your comparisons are flawed, in that you are making assertions of similarities that are a stretch to begin with. In an effort to put the US soldier or government in the same boat as a terrorist or terrorist orginization you are ignoring the difference of how extreme the the terrorists are willing to go vs the US.

I'm not entirely sure why it is that you feel the need to try and excuse the actions and mindsets of terrorists that go well beyond extreme by trying to make comparisons to what we are doing. Perhaps you natrually gravitate toward supporting the underdog, I myself choose to support my country.

[Lueyen]

Uh, Lueyen, I hate to break it to you, but the US has had very little reluctance to attack civilians when it was convenient. Think all the people who died in Hiroshima were military personnel? How about in the firebombing of Dresden? How about in the Vietnam war, you sure all the villages we flattened were strictly populated by NVA or VC? The fact is, we quite cheerfully targeted civilians in pretty much every single war we've ever been in, going back certainly to the Civil War. (See: General Sherman & his March to the Sea through Georgia and then later up into South Carolina for one example.)

I just saw this after responding to Thon's last post. As you will note I did concede that the US targeted civilians in Japan with the US of the A-bomb. The decision to bomb Dresden was made by the British, not the Americans. And as I have already stated the fault of civilian deaths when the enemy hides it's self with civilians lies with the enemy, not the United States as is the case with the NVA and VC. I don't think we ever "quite cheerfully" target civilians. Of the instances you have sighted, I believe the most daming would be the decisions to use the atom bomb on Japanese cities. The decision to do so was not made lightly or cheerfully however. That we have targeted civilians in the past however does not hold any water in the here and now when comparisons are being made between a US soldier and a terrorist.

[Jirig]

We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the sermon on the mount. The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war that we know about peace, more about killing that we know about living.

[Lyion]

Brilliant quote from a brilliant general and an even better man.

[Kramer]

[smiley poster=crazy]If only hadn't stopped caring 15 posts ago[/smiley]

[Harrison]

If only sense you made

[Thon]

If only soo much you didn't weigh