Horrible

**major_small** · 05-12-2004

same here... I was considering signing up to see the story until I got to the "select exclusive benefits" part... I would have even gone past the "tell us about yourself" part until I saw that...

**DavidP** · 05-12-2004

just register, it takes like 30 seconds.

wow we have both webmaster and kermi active in this thread, that doesnt happen often

**major_small** · 05-12-2004

Originally Posted by DavidP

just register, it takes like 30 seconds.

I would, but like I just said, I don't like registering for things that offer a page and a half of "exclusive benefits"

**DavidP** · 05-12-2004

dude, notice that those things are opt-in and not opt-out, you dont have to mark any of them. if you dont mark any of them, then you dont get any of them. it is not that hard.

**ober** · 05-12-2004

Originally Posted by webmaster

Well I'll be darned. I sure don't remember registering. I have to finish some work, but later on I'll find those articles from another source.

You could just copy the articles and post them here for us.

**spoon_** · 05-12-2004

I came into this thread late, but I agree with Axon.

Also, if the enemy is using a mosque to hide in and attack from, I do believe the soldiers should blow the hell out of it. Unleash hell.

**harryP** · 05-12-2004

ok, besides that, what kind of problems would lay in such a solution [nuking]? there aren't any.

Hmm, let's think....nuclear war maybe. There are 50,000 nuclear weapons in the world right now all pointed at each other. If one country nukes another, it's nuclear holocaust. THAT, my dear friend, is why we don't go around nuking each other.

Brendan

**Xterria** · 05-12-2004

no, i'm just talking about nuking countries that harbor terrorists. there won't be any world wide holocaust if we just don't nuke the chinese. i mean hey, we've been taking in their goods havn't we(MADE IN CHINA)?

***webmaster*** · 05-12-2004

Originally Posted by Xterria

no, i'm just talking about nuking countries that harbor terrorists. there won't be any world wide holocaust if we just don't nuke the chinese. i mean hey, we've been taking in their goods havn't we(MADE IN CHINA)?

Okay, that's a really silly position. For the sake of argument, I'll assume that the nuclear fallout from several dozen to several hundred nuclear weapons would not be extremely deterimental to the environment.

First off, most of the inhabitants of any terrorist-harboring country aren't actually terrorists. For most people, this should be a sufficient reason not to nuke those countries. You could argue that we don't care about those people anyway. I'm not sure how you could justify this and maintain your self-respect, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you might have a really clever argument tucked away.

Now, you still have to be sure you actually kill the people you want to kill. It's not very easy to be sure that you actually kill the terrorists if you nuke the country. For instance, take Afghanistan -- unless you start to bombard every mountain and cave, you're not doing any good. But if you start using that much firepower, you're really wasting a lot of nuclear weapons. Of course, you could just do a quasi-thorough job and assume that everything will get taken care of by radiation sickness. But if you're not going to use nuclear weapons to be thorough, you might want to just use more precision-guided weapons and ground troops.

So maybe you don't want to send in ground troops for whatever reason. You still have to consider that a lot of the countries that harbor terrorists don't intend to harbor terrorists. I imagine that Pakistan has a lot of Al-Qaeda operatives, along with Saudi Arabia and probably a host of other countries. We couldn't nuke Pakistan and not risk retaliatory strikes. Plus we'd really screw up the subcontinent, especially India. If you don't like outsourcing, maybe you think this is a plus. Just remember that if your Dell breaks, you'll be in trouble. What's that? You have a Sony?

So maybe figure that the risk of upsetting Pakistan is OK. Well, don't forget that Saudi Arabia is a member of OPEC and hitting them will almost certainly curb oil production. Plus, hitting anywhere else in the Middle East would presumably result in similar cutbacks.

Shadow12345 · 05-12-2004

d = mass over volume. Subsequently xterria either a) has a lot of mass or b) not a lot of volume, because bub, you're dense.

actually, I think that you are an idiot. That is my humble opinion however.

**major_small** · 05-12-2004

yeah, but what happens when russia sees we're throwing nukes around like candy... they don't like that we're doing that, so they put their finger over the button... we're happily launching, and one nuke's trajectory looks like it may land somewhere nead russia... russia releases 20 nukes on us, we release 30 on them, and then every other country that's sick of it all releases their nukes against every other country with and without nukes... good job...

**novacain** · 05-12-2004

>>I'm not totally convinced we knew about the torture, and I certainly don't think that the war was a good idea. <<

Rumsfelt admitted he knew in January 2004. The Red Cross complained to the US admin., officially in October 2003, but starting in March 2003.

““Upon witnessing such cases, the ICRC interrupted its visits and requested an explanation from the authorities,” it said. “The military intelligence officer in charge of the interrogation explained that this practice was ‘part of the process.’ ”

Source
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4944094/

The pictures were to be used as an interrogation tool ie 'talk or this is what we will do to you'
Now it’s the seven reservists who will take the fall. Not those who ordered the acts, nor those who covered them up.

>>We give out a lot of forgien aid

BUT,
1. USA's aid, in terms of percentage of their GNP is the lowest of any industrialized nation in the world.
2. Aid has been a foreign policy tool to aid the donor not the recipient
3. Most going to Israel, the 16th richest country in the world (in arms). In 2000 $967 million of $2506 mill in US gov. aid went to Israel.

“As in previous years, Israel and Egypt are the biggest bilateral recipients under the request, accounting for nearly five billion dollars in aid between them. Of the nearly three billion dollars earmarked for Israel, most is for military credits.”

“[U.S. Senator Patrick] Leahy noted that two-thirds of US government aid goes to only two countries: Israel and Egypt. Much of the remaining third is used to promote US exports or to fight a war against drugs that could only be won by tackling drug abuse in the United States.”

Source
http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Debt/USAid.asp

>>if the enemy is using a mosque to hide in and attack from<<

These sites are the equivalent of the Vatican or Holy City. Do you think the GWB would order the Vatican to be bombed?

***kermi3*** · 05-12-2004

I'm not going to touch teh nuke issue. I thin kthe webmaster made the point....

Novacain -

Thank you for pointing out the torture issue. While they should have been doing what they are doing now to correct the problem, I can't say that I blame them for not telling. Making that kind of information public threatens the security of US troops on the ground (like the man whostarted this thread). I do want to make clear though, I do NOT think they should have tortured anyone. If upper echolans knew of the problem, they should ahve been quietly, but aggressively, addressing the problem.

I agree that the US could give more aid, and we give ti as a tool as much as anything. However, I wonder what those numbers would look like if you factored in aid given by private orginizations.

>>These sites are the equivalent of the Vatican or Holy City. Do you think the GWB would order the Vatican to be bombed?

I disagree that this is the same thing. A simple mosque equates more to a church. If there were people shooting me from a church would I shoot back? Of course. If it demanded destroying the church to protect myself would I? Yup. As for the truely holy sites, I think that caution should be used, and perhaps they shouldn't be attacked. However, I question anyone who would use their holiest sites as a military base. That doesn't seem overly religious to me.

**nvoigt** · 05-13-2004

no, i'm just talking about nuking countries that harbor terrorists. there won't be any world wide holocaust if we just don't nuke the chinese. i mean hey, we've been taking in their goods havn't we(MADE IN CHINA)?

So limited nuclear conflict is ok ?

Russia nuking Chechnya ?
India nuking parts of Pakistan ?
Pakistan nuking India back ?
How about throwing a nuke at mexico, those illegal immigrants are unnerving, right ?
Oh, and don't forget to finish of Hamburg, Germany, where a terrorist of 9/11 studied. Eradicating it once was not enough, was it ?
While you are at it, nuking the Den Hague war tribunal might be a good idea, too. Just a preemptive strike in case they ever get hold of US war criminals.
And I never liked the soccer team of Munich, can you nuke them, too ?

I don't think you are aware what a nuclear warhead does. I don't think you know what your conventional ammunition that has uranium cores does to the environment. If an Apache wastes a tank, the environment will have 8 times the maximum allowed radiation values. But we can let some kids play there, because it will go away.... in approximately 4 Billion years.

**jinx** · 05-13-2004

WOW! I don't care at all about those nukes but It is amazing that the one word description of this thread brought me here. I skimmed pages 1 and 4 just thought I would tell Lurker that he is analogous to those rightwing sensationalists in the media. GO SENSATIONALISM! WHoOoOoO!!!!! Yeah, we rock!!!