Quicksand Fans

Hugo, in one of his bat-deprivation-fits, has brought it to my attention that a rabble of psychopathic fuckwits have attempted to do naughty things involving an aeroplane-
Well, whoopie-do. You lost, assholes. Wanna know why?
"I am a member of a civilisation" (IAAMOAC)
-And that civilisation does not include room for murderous fuckwits like you, who had the perverted notion that murder in the name of a deity, any deity or cause-
because you're wrong. And the rest of us are right.
Because we believe that all humans are created equal, that they have an equal right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that the mistakes of the past will never be the atrocities of tomorrow'; that all of us should have that equality of opportunity regardless of race, colour, or creed, irrespective of nation or politics.
And the rest of us are getting on with the job, incrementally:
We used to treat women as property, children as chimney sweeps and jewish people as kindling, but this silly behavior has been swept away, buried in a dustbin under the light of reason. Which means you lost decades ago. You just haven't noticed yet.
Homo Sapiens gets better; we righted those wrongs, we keep fighting for the best we can be, motivated by an astonishing idea that wouldn't get through your thick skulls if the rest of us beat it in with a hammer:
http://thisibelieve.org/essay/16630/
The rest of us are busy with life, not the warped videogame of retribution and violence you seem to think life is. Oh, right? Life was better with twats like you in charge? Nah. Everyone else has shaken off the 'golden age syndrome' and figured that the real golden age is tomorrow and we have to build it.
we're amazing: A group of barely-evovled primates in a quiet corner of the Milky Way. But we can be extrodinary, and it's all down to us-
We are Humanity, and We KICK ASS!
Now crawl back into the hole you came from.

Season's greetings to whoever you are, wherever you may be reading.

Been doing some research along these lines.

The Taliban, Al-Qaeda, et. al. are "non-state actors." They have no central government, and are therefore non-signatories of the Geneva Conventions. Now, according to International Law, the protections of the Geneva Conventions must be extended to non-signatories. However, if those non-signatories violate the Conventions, they may, after proper warning is delivered, lose those protections.

Both the Geneva Conventions and the US Constitution permit reprisals. The Good Guys can, under carefully limited circumstances, suspend the Rules of War to punish those who broke them in the first place. Those who live by fire and steel shall perish by it.

So, there is no US or International Law that prevents the Good Guys (that's us, the civilized ones) from hunting down and killing the Bad Guys, by whatever means necessary.

So, let's get Ma Deuce, Uncle Arty, and Willie Pete on the battlefield ASAP.

Guy tried to make a bomb and instead burned his dick off. Maybe he got scammed by the guy selling him the bomb components? Now THAT would be poetic justice.
You ask me, it's time we stopped playing nice over there and turn a few cities into parking lots. It worked on the Japanese, fanatical though they were.

Not a big fan of carpet-bombing or nuking civilian targets myself. However, back in 2002 I asked my then-7 year old daughter how careful we should be about civilian casualties in the War on Terror. Her response:

"We have to be careful, but not too careful. I mean, we can't let the bad guys win- right, Dad?"

Are things so upside-down in our society that a seven-year-old could see clearly what the governments of the world still can't?

We know where the Terrorists are getting their supplies and support from. We know who is supplying and supporting them. What's stopping us from winning this stupid war? F*****g lines on a map! I knew we were s*****d when we let the objections of Turkey prevent us from opening up a second front in the second Iraq war, and that let most of Saddam's best weapons and tech be spirited across the border into Syria. Speaking of which, if we are really at war with Global Terror, why hasn't Syria been visited by any US troops? Or the tribal regions of Lebanon and Turkey? We should have landed US troops in the Eastern Med in October 2001 and marched straight towards Baghdad, killing anybody stupid enough to pick up a weapon and yell "Allah u akbar!" on the way. If the governments of Syria, Turkey, and/or Lebanon were stupid enough to put their soldiers between our soldiers and the terrorists- well, that would have been a really, really bad afternoon for those soldiers: "Yer either with us, or agin' us."

Either fish or cut bait. Either pay the price of victory in blood and treasure- or don't go to war. No, our enlightened leaders choose option #3- send in just enough troops to fight the war, but not enough to win it. Then tie their hands so they can't kill the enemy. Where have we seen this strategy before?

Good Grief, people- Sun Tzu laid out all the principles of military victory in 500 BCE- and he quotes sources which were ancient in his time! And for 2,500 years, his theories have been proven correct. But no, we're much smarter now, with our high-tech weapons and sensitivity training. That stuff is outdated.

Mynock wrote:You ask me, it's time we stopped playing nice over there and turn a few cities into parking lots. It worked on the Japanese, fanatical though they were.

nachtjaeger wrote:We know where the Terrorists are getting their supplies and support from. We know who is supplying and supporting them. What's stopping us from winning this stupid war? F*****g lines on a map!

Except, of course, that this is not a war of nation states, or even of economics. It is a war of ideas. It cannot be won by body-count (every piece of ordnance "we" use gives "them" another few recruits). It can only be won on a hearts-and-minds basis. Which is a problem, as Tony Blair had no heart, and George Dubya no mind.

Tangentially, I remember a time when our own local terrorists - the IRA - were funded by an organisation called NORAID. And where were they based? And did we bomb their homes?

Touche! R.E. NORAID

There comes a time where one grows weary of eliminating rats one by one as they scurry out of the house they reside in....
When one examines the home they are living and breeding, the infestation can become so bad the only logical recourse is to remove everything of value immediately prior to torching the structure.
If these radicals wish to die in an explosion I do believe they should have their wishes granted....FAE (fuel-air explosive) devices create one hell of a wallop. There is even a new device that remains untested to date, MADFAE (Mass Air Delivery Fuel Air Explosive)
The results would not be pretty, this type of device doesn't rely on shrapnel of any type, but rather overpressure to the tune of 60-100Psi
Translating that to non technospeak, it is very much like getting hit by a full strength swing of a sledge hammer simultaneously over the entire body

LordMuck wrote:We used to treat women as property, children as chimney sweeps and jewish people as kindling, but this silly behavior has been swept away, buried in a dustbin under the light of reason. Which means you lost decades ago. You just haven't noticed yet.

The civilized part of the world may have come a long way, but it still got a long way to go... (see eg. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male%E2%80 ... ted_States)

nachtjaeger wrote:Both the Geneva Conventions and the US Constitution permit reprisals. The Good Guys can, under carefully limited circumstances, suspend the Rules of War to punish those who broke them in the first place. Those who live by fire and steel shall perish by it.

So, there is no US or International Law that prevents the Good Guys (that's us, the civilized ones) from hunting down and killing the Bad Guys, by whatever means necessary.

I'm no expert on the subject, but with my limited knowledge of international law I see several problems with you said:
The "War on Terror" is a misnomer, because it is not actually a war (in any "legal" sense). No war, no rules of war, no reprisals. I don't know whether this is written down in an international law or treaty or such, but there is such a thing as Sovereignty. That's what usually keeps the Good Guys from sending troops wherever they please. So unless you can come up with an international law that permits sending troops to another country, doing so violates its sovereignty and may be considered an act of war.

schlamm wrote:If these radicals wish to die in an explosion I do believe they should have their wishes granted....FAE (fuel-air explosive) devices create one hell of a wallop...

I'm sure it does. But I repeat, this is not a situation that can be resolved simply by body-count. Did napalm lead to victory in Vietnam? Is the superior weaponry of Israel bringing the Palestinians round to their point of view?

Violence begets violence. Kill a hundred. Kill a thousand. Kill a million. What do you create? More enemies, thirsty for revenge.

Hearts and minds. It's the only approach that stands a chance. It'll take generations, and isn't guaranteed to work even then; but the only other option is to carry on until the whole world drowns in blood.

I'm not a big fan of civilian casualties either, but how many civilians are there really in these areas of the world? The one's not actively shooting at us are either cheering on the one's that are or helping them outright by feeding them, hiding them, growing drugs to make money to buy them more guns, etc. You really want to put a dent in Al Queda? Dump pesticide on all the poppy fields in Afganistan. No poppies, no heroin, no drug money to buy RPG's with. But of coarse we can't do that because we'd be hurting all the poor farmers (?drug suppliers?) and putting them in the poor house.....
nachtjaeger's kid has it exactly right. Don't just go shooting anything that moves, but if you have intel that some village is harboring a few operatives and a butt load of weapons, dont' be afraid to go in there with guns blazing and flatten the place. If 'innocent' people get hurt, well, that's what they get for letting terrorists into their neighborhood. Doesn't make me feel good but it has to be done.

" Why can't everyone just leave everyone else the hell alone ?"
.............Groucho Marx............/|\