Greetings from Darth Mencken

[Dr. Trainwreck]

Well, I'd point out I'm not the one who changed someone else's tag to "Disgrace," or called another listmember "Shithead" more than once already. Or how mature these acts are. But . . .

No, but you are the one who uses the insults as an excuse to avoid the argument. Guess which one is frowned upon in SDnet.

And my insults prior to my being called "Disgrace" and "Shithead" were . . . ?

Look at the rules, you obtuse fuck. And then, learn to lurk in forums before you actually post so you know how the locals behave: swearing is perfectly acceptable here. Avoiding debate because meanie Trainwreck called you a disgrace is not.

[Eleas]

As for terrorism (specifically the ones behind 9/11) being justified because of America's not-universally-welcome presence in the Mideast.

Good thing nobody has ever justified terrorism in this thread except yourself.

I don't feel this makes me a terrorist sympathizer,

What the fuck? Are you five? Is this the second coming of McCarthy, or what? How would understanding other people's viewpoint make you a sympathizer with terrorists? Tell me, when you use that epithet, do you automatically shriek it out loud? I must know.

Am I biased? Guilty as charged.

You are, but that's not the actual problem. The problem is that you buy into the most infantile talking points as if they had actual substance. The problem is that you're simply too much of a child to talk about these things. The problem is that by your own words you lack even the most basic toolkit to allow you to comprehend the difference between understanding people and sympathizing with them; you apparently think the two are one and the same, and that empathy is somehow ideologically suspect.

And now, petulantly, you will skim what I wrote, what Stark and Metahive wrote, what everyone else has written in this thread. Your eyes will latch onto the anger we display at your profoundly smug, ignorantly privileged and frankly bigoted jingoism; you will note the insults but not why they were made. You will flail against that expressed anger in the understanding that we are mean, mean people who can't take a (very racist) joke because it's "controversial" (when "reactionary" would be a far more accurate label).

You will then dismiss any points made, irrespective of their merit. After all, the way we said them hurt your self-esteem and our questions threatened to impose ambiguity upon what should be a simple, straightforward reality that made you feel good, so there's obviously no reason for you to listen. Then, you'll come up with yet another non sequitur of a rhetorical question and toss it out, telling yourself you held your own.

But it's not going to impress anyone until you've met the arguments themselves, and you refuse to. Shit, you didn't even acknowledge Ahriman's points with anything that showed comprehension of what he wrote. He took pains not to offend your delicate sensibilities, but the effort was obviously both undeserved and wasted.


You need to go and take a long, hard look at the axioms you're using. Why is it that you condone and minimalize the killing and impoverishing of entire regions of brown people, while you would gleefully participate in a culture war against said brown people if a tiny subset of them happen to attack a Western country? If the defining difference is that the attacked country in this instance is your country then you, kid, dearly need to unfuck yourself. Because if that's the level of your ethical reasoning, then your moral compass is broken.

[Dr. Trainwreck]

You are, but that's not the actual problem. The problem is that you buy into the most infantile talking points as if they had actual substance. The problem is that you're simply too much of a child to talk about these things.

Fucking yes. People, for fuck's sake, break your TV. Seriously, just toss a brick through it.

[Mr. Coffee]

Btw, I have yet to call anyone names on this list ("Disgrace to Mencken," "Shithead," and now "Darth Munchkin").

Grow some skin, kid. No one cares if you call someone a fucktard or not aound these parts.

[Darth Mencken]

How are all the kids that died in the many invasions of the many countries America fucks over responsible for the actions of their governments? Or don't they count?

I mean its obvious you don't understand how power disparity shapes conflict, but come on.

I do understand it. Does America PURPOSELY target those kids, or any non-combatants, the same way Al-Qaeda targeted the WTC? Call it splitting hairs if you will.

[Flagg]

I remember when Mike used to ban people who whined about being called names. I miss the glory days. Am I old now?

[Darth Mencken]

Btw, I have yet to call anyone names on this list ("Disgrace to Mencken," "Shithead," and now "Darth Munchkin").

Grow some skin, kid. No one cares if you call someone a fucktard or not aound these parts.

'kay, guess I've spent too much time on wussie forums (Orions Arm, etc), where hurling profanities, personal attacks, etc. was a fast track to banning.

[Losonti Tokash]

How are all the kids that died in the many invasions of the many countries America fucks over responsible for the actions of their governments? Or don't they count?

I mean its obvious you don't understand how power disparity shapes conflict, but come on.

I do understand it. Does America PURPOSELY target those kids, or any non-combatants, the same way Al-Qaeda targeted the WTC? Call it splitting hairs if you will.

The United States has deliberately targeted ambulances responding to drone strikes along with funerals for people killed by said bombings.

[madd0ct0r]

How are all the kids that died in the many invasions of the many countries America fucks over responsible for the actions of their governments? Or don't they count?

I mean its obvious you don't understand how power disparity shapes conflict, but come on.

I do understand it. Does America PURPOSELY target those kids, or any non-combatants, the same way Al-Qaeda targeted the WTC? Call it splitting hairs if you will.

from http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc ... ld/266453/

There was a flat-roofed house made of mud, with a shed used to hold goats in the crosshairs .... When he received the order to fire, he pressed a button with his left hand and marked the roof with a laser. The pilot sitting next to him pressed the trigger on a joystick, causing the drone to launch a Hellfire missile. There were 16 seconds left until impact... With seven seconds left to go, there was no one to be seen on the ground. Bryant could still have diverted the missile at that point. Then it was down to three seconds. Bryant felt as if he had to count each individual pixel on the monitor. Suddenly a child walked around the corner, he says. Second zero was the moment in which Bryant's digital world collided with the real one in a village between Baghlan and Mazar-e-Sharif. Bryant saw a flash on the screen: the explosion. Parts of the building collapsed. The child had disappeared. Bryant had a sick feeling in his stomach. "Did we just kill a kid?" he asked the man sitting next to him.

"Yeah, I guess that was a kid," the pilot replied.

"Was that a kid?" they wrote into a chat window on the monitor.

Then, someone they didn't know answered, someone sitting in a military command center somewhere in the world who had observed their attack. "No. That was a dog," the person wrote.

They reviewed the scene on video. A dog on two legs?

from: http://www.cato.org/publications/commen ... g-two-legs

Friedersdorf adds: "The United States kills a lot of ‘dogs on two legs.’ The Bureau of Investigative Journalism reported last August that in Pakistan’s tribal areas alone, there are at least 168 credible reports of children being killed in drone strikes." As for those in other countries, he adds, that’s "officially secret."

He writes: "Presidents Bush and Obama have actively prevented human-rights observers from accessing full casualty data from programs that remain officially secret, so there is no way to know the total number of children American strikes have killed in the numerous countries in which they’ve been conducted, but if we arbitrarily presume that ‘just’ 84 children have died — half the bureau’s estimate from one country — the death toll would still be more than quadruple the number of children killed in Newtown, Conn."

Are you proud, as an American, to know this?

And finally, a 67 page report on the legality, ethics and civilian cost of drone strike from the Coloumbia Law School:
http://civiliansinconflict.org/uploads/ ... _cover.pdf

let's just cherry pick that (becuase there's a LOT of examples of indiscriminate targeting)

Ten-year-old Nadia was at school when a drone strike hit her house, killing her mother and
father. Having moved in with an aunt in a nearby town, Nadia told Center for Civilians in
Conflict she had “no source of income with my parents gone… my aunt looks after me now
and I help her in the house… but I want admission to school. I want an education.”

“I was resting with my parents in one room when [the drone] hit. God saved my parents and I, but my brother, his wife, and children were all killed. I must support my aged parents now, but I earn a very little amount which can hardly meet our expenses.”

According to the BBC, a teenager called Saadullah survived a drone strike that killed three of his family members, but lost both of his legs and one eye. He said: “I wanted to be a doctor… but I can’t walk to school anymore. When I see others going, I wish I could join them.”

I guess big families shouldn't all live in one house, especially with a brother who might share a name with a suspect who was denounced by a shopkeeper during water boarding. Those dirty terrorists with their deviant 'ignorance' and so-called 'innocent family'.
fun fact from that report - in some parts of Pakistan, you can hear a drone overhead 24 hours a day.

[Mr. Coffee]

I remember when Mike used to ban people who whined about being called names. I miss the glory days. Am I old now?

Try shaking your fist at one of the youngin's posts while yelling "get off my lawn"('get the hell out of the thead' works to). Afterwards we can lean against the fence, drink beer and bitch about how back in the day we used to poke newbies with sharp sticks.

[Stark]

I do understand it. Does America PURPOSELY target those kids, or any non-combatants, the same way Al-Qaeda targeted the WTC? Call it splitting hairs if you will.

How 'on purpose' does it have to be when you blow up a power plant or water plant and people die? The missiles were meant to blow it up; if nobody knew or cared how this would affect the local population, does that excuse it? Does it make the people in the region see it less as 'America blows up water main, kids die'?

I mean when the CIA overthrows a country by encouraging a revolution or coup, is it 'on purpose' when the chaos kills heaps of people and results in decades of reduced rights or oppression? Or was that a fucking accident?

[Darth Mencken]

How are all the kids that died in the many invasions of the many countries America fucks over responsible for the actions of their governments? Or don't they count?

I mean its obvious you don't understand how power disparity shapes conflict, but come on.

I do understand it. Does America PURPOSELY target those kids, or any non-combatants, the same way Al-Qaeda targeted the WTC? Call it splitting hairs if you will.

The United States has deliberately targeted ambulances responding to drone strikes along with funerals for people killed by said bombings.

Source?

[Darth Mencken]

I do understand it. Does America PURPOSELY target those kids, or any non-combatants, the same way Al-Qaeda targeted the WTC? Call it splitting hairs if you will.

How 'on purpose' does it have to be when you blow up a power plant or water plant and people die? The missiles were meant to blow it up; if nobody knew or cared how this would affect the local population, does that excuse it? Does it make the people in the region see it less as 'America blows up water main, kids die'?

I mean when the CIA overthrows a country by encouraging a revolution or coup, is it 'on purpose' when the chaos kills heaps of people and results in decades of reduced rights or oppression? Or was that a fucking accident?

I'll admit, the US should get out of the business of playing kingmaker (a.k.a. Nation-building). At best, the results seldom seem to justify the body count.

Only good I can see, for America here, is we at least don't specifically intend for lots of civilians to die (the power plant and water plant examples above), as the 9/11 perpetrators did. And I'm not aware of Americans being largely celebratory upon the revelation that foreign non-combatants (children and otherwise) were killed as a result of an American strike.

Think Osama Bin Laden ever said to himself, "I just killed a bunch of unarmed people who had nothing to do with what's pissing me off, and now many of the people I identify with will be killed without having had anything to do with me or my actions. What I did . . . was a massively bad idea and counterproductive at best!"?

[Darth Mencken]

How are all the kids that died in the many invasions of the many countries America fucks over responsible for the actions of their governments? Or don't they count?

I mean its obvious you don't understand how power disparity shapes conflict, but come on.

I do understand it. Does America PURPOSELY target those kids, or any non-combatants, the same way Al-Qaeda targeted the WTC? Call it splitting hairs if you will.

from http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc ... ld/266453/

There was a flat-roofed house made of mud, with a shed used to hold goats in the crosshairs .... When he received the order to fire, he pressed a button with his left hand and marked the roof with a laser. The pilot sitting next to him pressed the trigger on a joystick, causing the drone to launch a Hellfire missile. There were 16 seconds left until impact... With seven seconds left to go, there was no one to be seen on the ground. Bryant could still have diverted the missile at that point. Then it was down to three seconds. Bryant felt as if he had to count each individual pixel on the monitor. Suddenly a child walked around the corner, he says. Second zero was the moment in which Bryant's digital world collided with the real one in a village between Baghlan and Mazar-e-Sharif. Bryant saw a flash on the screen: the explosion. Parts of the building collapsed. The child had disappeared. Bryant had a sick feeling in his stomach. "Did we just kill a kid?" he asked the man sitting next to him.

"Yeah, I guess that was a kid," the pilot replied.

"Was that a kid?" they wrote into a chat window on the monitor.

Then, someone they didn't know answered, someone sitting in a military command center somewhere in the world who had observed their attack. "No. That was a dog," the person wrote.

They reviewed the scene on video. A dog on two legs?

from: http://www.cato.org/publications/commen ... g-two-legs

Friedersdorf adds: "The United States kills a lot of ‘dogs on two legs.’ The Bureau of Investigative Journalism reported last August that in Pakistan’s tribal areas alone, there are at least 168 credible reports of children being killed in drone strikes." As for those in other countries, he adds, that’s "officially secret."

He writes: "Presidents Bush and Obama have actively prevented human-rights observers from accessing full casualty data from programs that remain officially secret, so there is no way to know the total number of children American strikes have killed in the numerous countries in which they’ve been conducted, but if we arbitrarily presume that ‘just’ 84 children have died — half the bureau’s estimate from one country — the death toll would still be more than quadruple the number of children killed in Newtown, Conn."

Are you proud, as an American, to know this?

And finally, a 67 page report on the legality, ethics and civilian cost of drone strike from the Coloumbia Law School:
http://civiliansinconflict.org/uploads/ ... _cover.pdf

let's just cherry pick that (becuase there's a LOT of examples of indiscriminate targeting)

Ten-year-old Nadia was at school when a drone strike hit her house, killing her mother and
father. Having moved in with an aunt in a nearby town, Nadia told Center for Civilians in
Conflict she had “no source of income with my parents gone… my aunt looks after me now
and I help her in the house… but I want admission to school. I want an education.”

“I was resting with my parents in one room when [the drone] hit. God saved my parents and I, but my brother, his wife, and children were all killed. I must support my aged parents now, but I earn a very little amount which can hardly meet our expenses.”

According to the BBC, a teenager called Saadullah survived a drone strike that killed three of his family members, but lost both of his legs and one eye. He said: “I wanted to be a doctor… but I can’t walk to school anymore. When I see others going, I wish I could join them.”

I guess big families shouldn't all live in one house, especially with a brother who might share a name with a suspect who was denounced by a shopkeeper during water boarding. Those dirty terrorists with their deviant 'ignorance' and so-called 'innocent family'.
fun fact from that report - in some parts of Pakistan, you can hear a drone overhead 24 hours a day.

[Darth Mencken]

How are all the kids that died in the many invasions of the many countries America fucks over responsible for the actions of their governments? Or don't they count?

I mean its obvious you don't understand how power disparity shapes conflict, but come on.

I do understand it. Does America PURPOSELY target those kids, or any non-combatants, the same way Al-Qaeda targeted the WTC? Call it splitting hairs if you will.

from http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc ... ld/266453/

There was a flat-roofed house made of mud, with a shed used to hold goats in the crosshairs .... When he received the order to fire, he pressed a button with his left hand and marked the roof with a laser. The pilot sitting next to him pressed the trigger on a joystick, causing the drone to launch a Hellfire missile. There were 16 seconds left until impact... With seven seconds left to go, there was no one to be seen on the ground. Bryant could still have diverted the missile at that point. Then it was down to three seconds. Bryant felt as if he had to count each individual pixel on the monitor. Suddenly a child walked around the corner, he says. Second zero was the moment in which Bryant's digital world collided with the real one in a village between Baghlan and Mazar-e-Sharif. Bryant saw a flash on the screen: the explosion. Parts of the building collapsed. The child had disappeared. Bryant had a sick feeling in his stomach. "Did we just kill a kid?" he asked the man sitting next to him.

"Yeah, I guess that was a kid," the pilot replied.

"Was that a kid?" they wrote into a chat window on the monitor.

Then, someone they didn't know answered, someone sitting in a military command center somewhere in the world who had observed their attack. "No. That was a dog," the person wrote.

They reviewed the scene on video. A dog on two legs?

from: http://www.cato.org/publications/commen ... g-two-legs

Friedersdorf adds: "The United States kills a lot of ‘dogs on two legs.’ The Bureau of Investigative Journalism reported last August that in Pakistan’s tribal areas alone, there are at least 168 credible reports of children being killed in drone strikes." As for those in other countries, he adds, that’s "officially secret."

He writes: "Presidents Bush and Obama have actively prevented human-rights observers from accessing full casualty data from programs that remain officially secret, so there is no way to know the total number of children American strikes have killed in the numerous countries in which they’ve been conducted, but if we arbitrarily presume that ‘just’ 84 children have died — half the bureau’s estimate from one country — the death toll would still be more than quadruple the number of children killed in Newtown, Conn."

Are you proud, as an American, to know this?

And finally, a 67 page report on the legality, ethics and civilian cost of drone strike from the Coloumbia Law School:
http://civiliansinconflict.org/uploads/ ... _cover.pdf

let's just cherry pick that (becuase there's a LOT of examples of indiscriminate targeting)

Ten-year-old Nadia was at school when a drone strike hit her house, killing her mother and
father. Having moved in with an aunt in a nearby town, Nadia told Center for Civilians in
Conflict she had “no source of income with my parents gone… my aunt looks after me now
and I help her in the house… but I want admission to school. I want an education.”

“I was resting with my parents in one room when [the drone] hit. God saved my parents and I, but my brother, his wife, and children were all killed. I must support my aged parents now, but I earn a very little amount which can hardly meet our expenses.”

According to the BBC, a teenager called Saadullah survived a drone strike that killed three of his family members, but lost both of his legs and one eye. He said: “I wanted to be a doctor… but I can’t walk to school anymore. When I see others going, I wish I could join them.”

I guess big families shouldn't all live in one house, especially with a brother who might share a name with a suspect who was denounced by a shopkeeper during water boarding. Those dirty terrorists with their deviant 'ignorance' and so-called 'innocent family'.
fun fact from that report - in some parts of Pakistan, you can hear a drone overhead 24 hours a day.

Think Osama Bin Laden ever felt the same way as that "Bryant" guy, about 9/11 and what it brought down on Afganistan? Think HE ever said to himself, "I just killed a bunch of people who had nothing to do with what's pissing me off. Hell, I didn't even try to single-out any who were responsible. I just blew-up a few large buildings with lotsa 'their' civilians inside. There will certainly be reprisals now, against whatever country I'm in or whichever one the Americans THINK I'm in, which will result in lots of 'our' innocent people being killed. Maybe what I did was wrong"?

[Stark]

I'll admit, the US should get out of the business of playing kingmaker (a.k.a. Nation-building). At best, the results seldom seem to justify the body count.

Only good I can see, for America here, is we at least don't specifically intend for lots of civilians to die (the power plant and water plant examples above), as the 9/11 perpetrators did. And I'm not aware of Americans being largely celebratory upon the revelation that foreign non-combatants (children and otherwise) were killed as a result of an American strike.

Think Osama Bin Laden ever said to himself, "I just killed a bunch of unarmed people who had nothing to do with what's pissing me off, and now many of the people I identify with will be killed without having had anything to do with me or my actions. What I did . . . was a massively bad idea and counterproductive at best!"?

So you're saying you're REALLY upset because a group hurts your tribe and then is proud of their attack on the strongest country in history?

Would it be better if they'd plotted their attack and then afterwards said 'oh wow, there were people inside? What a tragedy! We deeply regret this inevitable result of our policy!'?

Cause that's what America does. We blew up your country's infrastructure and people died? OH SORRY DIDN'T THINK OF THAT LOL.

[Metahive]

Wow, so Bin Laden provides the standard the US should strive to live "up" to? You know, Al-Quaeda should send you royalties for all the propaganda you so dutifully deliver for them.

[Dr. Trainwreck]

Think Osama Bin Laden ever felt the same way as that "Bryant" guy, about 9/11 and what it brought down on Afganistan? Think HE ever said to himself, "I just killed a bunch of people who had nothing to do with what's pissing me off. Hell, I didn't even try to single-out any who were responsible. I just blew-up a few large buildings with lotsa 'their' civilians inside. There will certainly be reprisals now, against whatever country I'm in or whichever one the Americans THINK I'm in, which will result in lots of 'our' innocent people being killed. Maybe what I did was wrong"?

No he did not, because he was a fanatic who thought that the holy war he was about to bring would sent him, and lots of others, to heaven as martyrs. He tied this with his real-world goal of getting the US out of his country, and that's why he attacked the US and not fucking Sweden.

Also, I don't even think the thoughts of a leader and mastermind as Osama would be the same as these of Bryant, one of the "just following orders" grunts. Let's pick an equivalent: did George Bush the Little ever show remorse for fucking up the Iraqis' shit, causing innocent death hundreds of times bigger than what 9/11 did for no good reason?

[Darth Mencken]

Think Osama Bin Laden ever felt the same way as that "Bryant" guy, about 9/11 and what it brought down on Afganistan? Think HE ever said to himself, "I just killed a bunch of people who had nothing to do with what's pissing me off. Hell, I didn't even try to single-out any who were responsible. I just blew-up a few large buildings with lotsa 'their' civilians inside. There will certainly be reprisals now, against whatever country I'm in or whichever one the Americans THINK I'm in, which will result in lots of 'our' innocent people being killed. Maybe what I did was wrong"?

No he did not, because he was a fanatic who thought that the holy war he was about to bring would sent him, and lots of others, to heaven as martyrs. He tied this with his real-world goal of getting the US out of his country, and that's why he attacked the US and not fucking Sweden.

Also, I don't even think the thoughts of a leader and mastermind as Osama would be the same as these of Bryant, one of the "just following orders" grunts. Let's pick an equivalent: did George Bush the Little ever show remorse for fucking up the Iraqis' shit, causing innocent death hundreds of times bigger than what 9/11 did for no good reason?

1) So why didn't Bin Lade strap-on a suicide vest himself, if HE wanted to be a martyr? How come he ran and hid for almost a decade instead of leading by example?

2) I don't think George Bush the Little is capable of remorse. And WTF did Iraq have to do w/ 9/11? Zilch, AFAICT.

[Darth Mencken]

Wow, so Bin Laden provides the standard the US should strive to live "up" to? You know, Al-Quaeda should send you royalties for all the propaganda you so dutifully deliver for them.

I wuz being sarcastic, bugface!

[Metahive]

I wuz trolling, bugface!

There, corrected, for free even.

1) So why didn't Bin Lade strap-on a suicide vest himself, if HE wanted to be a martyr? How come he ran and hid for almost a decade instead of leading by example?

Ordering death and destruction from safely behind the lines is, like, totally cowardous, man! Only a truly depraved man could do something as evil as, for example, use remote controlled drones to commit murder...o wait.

2) I don't think George Bush the Little is capable of remorse. And WTF did Iraq have to do w/ 9/11? Zilch, AFAICT.

Why should he feel remorse when he has blockheads like you touting the party line with all the triumphant power of a thousand braindead amoebas? Also, learn to read. Dr Trainwreck was saying that Bush the Lesser caused many times more death and misery than Bin Laden and he's right. It's just that racist shits like you don't believe that if you prick non-whites, they do bleed too.

[Dr. Trainwreck]

So why didn't Bin Lade strap-on a suicide vest himself, if HE wanted to be a martyr? How come he ran and hid for almost a decade instead of leading by example?

Errr... because we're no longer in the time of Karl of Sweden. That's my explanation. Leaders organizing the entire effort instead of just leading part of it and leaving the other things to the rest are out of style. Apparently I have to explain this.

I don't think George Bush the Little is capable of remorse. And WTF did Iraq have to do w/ 9/11? Zilch, AFAICT.

There was a psychopathic moron ordering the deaths of thousands, then bragging about it and trying to present it as his biggest achievement. At least, Bin Laden had the decency to only kill 3,000 people. Do you get it? The trained chimp got compared to fucking Osama Bin Laden, and lost.

[madd0ct0r]

since it got lost in the shuffle, McDarth also asked for evidence that ambulances were attacked by drones.

Go check out the article, it has dozens of links to supporting information.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... s-pakistan

attacking rescuers (and arguably worse, bombing funerals of America's drone victims) is now a tactic routinely used by the US in Pakistan. In February, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism documented that "the CIA's drone campaign in Pakistan has killed dozens of civilians who had gone to help rescue victims or were attending funerals." Specifically: "at least 50 civilians were killed in follow-up strikes when they had gone to help victims." That initial TBIJ report detailed numerous civilians killed by such follow-up strikes on rescuers, and established precisely the terror effect which the US government has long warned are sown by such attacks:

"Yusufzai, who reported on the attack, says those killed in the follow-up strike 'were trying to pull out the bodies, to help clear the rubble, and take people to hospital.' The impact of drone attacks on rescuers has been to scare people off, he says: 'They've learnt that something will happen. No one wants to go close to these damaged building anymore.'"

Since that first bureau report, there have been numerous other documented cases of the use by the US of this tactic: "On [4 June], US drones attacked rescuers in Waziristan in western Pakistan minutes after an initial strike, killing 16 people in total according to the BBC. On 28 May, drones were also reported to have returned to the attack in Khassokhel near Mir Ali." Moreover, "between May 2009 and June 2011, at least 15 attacks on rescuers were reported by credible news media, including the New York Times, CNN, ABC News and Al Jazeera."

[Darth Mencken]

I wuz trolling, bugface!

There, corrected, for free even.

1) So why didn't Bin Lade strap-on a suicide vest himself, if HE wanted to be a martyr? How come he ran and hid for almost a decade instead of leading by example?

Ordering death and destruction from safely behind the lines is, like, totally cowardous, man! Only a truly depraved man could do something as evil as, for example, use remote controlled drones to commit murder...o wait.

2) I don't think George Bush the Little is capable of remorse. And WTF did Iraq have to do w/ 9/11? Zilch, AFAICT.

Why should he feel remorse when he has blockheads like you touting the party line with all the triumphant power of a thousand braindead amoebas? Also, learn to read. Dr Trainwreck was saying that Bush the Lesser caused many times more death and misery than Bin Laden and he's right. It's just that racist shits like you don't believe that if you prick non-whites, they do bleed too.

Again, where have I even HINTED at race thus far?

And no, I sure as shit don't agree with more than 0.002% of Dumya's policies, if even that! Going after Bin Laden (initially - He honestly seemed to forget sometime after mid-2003), a guy who had something to do with killing thousands of Americans on American soil, was about all Dumya did that I agree with!

[Darth Mencken]

since it got lost in the shuffle, McDarth also asked for evidence that ambulances were attacked by drones.

Go check out the article, it has dozens of links to supporting information.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... s-pakistan

attacking rescuers (and arguably worse, bombing funerals of America's drone victims) is now a tactic routinely used by the US in Pakistan. In February, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism documented that "the CIA's drone campaign in Pakistan has killed dozens of civilians who had gone to help rescue victims or were attending funerals." Specifically: "at least 50 civilians were killed in follow-up strikes when they had gone to help victims." That initial TBIJ report detailed numerous civilians killed by such follow-up strikes on rescuers, and established precisely the terror effect which the US government has long warned are sown by such attacks:

"Yusufzai, who reported on the attack, says those killed in the follow-up strike 'were trying to pull out the bodies, to help clear the rubble, and take people to hospital.' The impact of drone attacks on rescuers has been to scare people off, he says: 'They've learnt that something will happen. No one wants to go close to these damaged building anymore.'"

Since that first bureau report, there have been numerous other documented cases of the use by the US of this tactic: "On [4 June], US drones attacked rescuers in Waziristan in western Pakistan minutes after an initial strike, killing 16 people in total according to the BBC. On 28 May, drones were also reported to have returned to the attack in Khassokhel near Mir Ali." Moreover, "between May 2009 and June 2011, at least 15 attacks on rescuers were reported by credible news media, including the New York Times, CNN, ABC News and Al Jazeera."

Thanx, sorta. Crud. We knew war was "morally corrosive" (what one Vietnam vet said, reflecting on his experiences). Even in person, not thru the eyes of a remote-operated drone, the definition of "enemy combatant," or other "acceptable vs. unacceptable target," can blur a little.

Seriously, unless we can DEFINITELY see things getting better there by "X" number of days in the future if we stay there, we should bring our people home before any more of them lose any more body parts.