Rostere

Here ? Really ? You have an entire thread where you go on about that Oh, I'm sorry, couldn't help myself!

Was there a Muslim diaspora from Texas in the past? Dude, you don't want to enter that discussion . The Native Americans were a majority in Texas far, far more recently than the Jews were a majority in Palestine. By the logic of "DERRRP, Palestine is Jewish ancestral homeland", the entirety of the US should be wiped clean from everybody except the Native Americans. And that is obviously bizarre. I'm only trying to say that people should condemn every crime, and every war crime committed in Palestine by every actor and that the international community should take an active role in peacekeeping and preventing said crimes. I don't need to talk about Hamas - everybody here knows about all the bad stuff they do and we agree on that. Talking about their crimes would not create a discussion. But there are a lot of people who don't know about, or completely ignore all the crimes (current and historical), that Israel has been guilty of. Especially American foreign policy towards Israel is ridiculously one-sided. I can't stress how harmful it is to American image abroad, especially in Muslim countries, that American leaders are the enablers of Israeli war crimes, sitting on the UNSC vetoing everything that does not praise Israel to the skies. The fact that American taxpayers directly pay 3 billion dollars a year for the Israeli weapons which blows up Palestinian houses is just mind-boggling. This took an especially picturesque turn when a Palestinian at a rally was shot dead by direct hit of a tear gas charge bearing the large words "MADE IN THE USA". Here's an article about Palestinians decorating their Christmas trees with tear gas cartridges as a form of protest against the US. The only reason I used Muslim in the example was so that everybody could relate to the cultural differences. Not many (me included) know much about Native American culture. Yeah, I guess that's some form of poetic justice for the British handing over a country to a foreign people like that. If there was a God he'd definitely be laughing at the British right now.

Renewable energy is a good thing, but it only produces tiny, tiny, amounts of energy (even in the "best case" - real values are often lower). Any hopes of entirely replacing nuclear and carbon-based are not viable now or in the near future. That said, I applaud everyone who feels rich enough to invest in renewable energy. I think solar energy in places which have lots of sun is one of the most interesting prospects right now. This is just insane.

I don't really agree with all you children-haters... I'm finding this discussion a lot in 40K hobby as well, lots of people are really hating on "children" in the hobby. But then they kind of forget that they themselves were children once, playing 40K. I know for sure I wouldn't think 12-year old me an unworthy opponent in 40K, or chess. But of course there are also annoying children. I would mostly blame stupid parents for that, though.

The trailer looks so good I feel I might explode. Speaking of that, my only objection is aginst the gibbing zombies. It really could look more "squishy" and not like they just disappear Everything else is MARVELOUS.

Exactly, that's how it is today. Although in the nineties the government fought a larger campaign against Islamists in a situation similar to the current one between the MB and the military in Egypt.

Well. At least you're not stuck in a refugee camp, having lost all your land and possessions because religious fanatics have claimed your country as their holy land and driven you out. Think about it. Things could be worse. You could have been born a Palestinian! They're stuck in refugee camps because their brother Arabs won't lift a finger to help them, so that they can use them as a political issue. As far as being forced off their land, no one forced Arabs to attack Israel as soon as it was founded, if they didn't they'd all still be where they were. And it's not like the Palestinians wouldn't have driven the Jews into the sea if they could, in fact they've always said so. You do realize that when Israel was founded, it was on their land? Like, Arabic land, where there lives loads and loads of Arabs? It's kind of like if the Kurds would start their new Muslim and Kurd country where you live. Would you fight back? Or would you just sit idle and hope they'd let you stay where you are? You will find that it's no secret that the Zionists always wanted to kick out as many Arabs as they could (ask David Ben-Gurion, for example), how else could they have a Jewish and "democratic" country, if the majority of the population were Arabs? It's no secret that the Zionists always wanted a "Jewish" state (that is like, the definition of the ideology...), not for Jews and Arabs to live in a country for all races, like in modern South Africa. In 1900, 5% of Palestine was Jewish. The war was triggered when lots and lots of Jews immigrated illegally to Palestine after WW2, and expressed their intent to make Arabian Palestine a "Jewish" state. The started killing off the British, who tried to stop all the immigration, but eventually the British left. Only when the Brits left did the Arabs chose war, when the Jews declared their own "Jewish" state on their land. What would you have done if a minority of Muslims declared a "Muslim" state in Texas? Oh please. You mean this:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma%27an_News_Agency news page (apostrophe ****s up link - lazy forum coders)? I can say it's very credible . Don't claim otherwise, you would just appear chauvinistic for not trusting foreign news media. What are you going to do next? Stop reading about American politicians in American newspapers because they are biased? Come on. You do trust Israeli news pages I guess? Because else we're in a pickle, because there are hardly any news sources except these two on these matters. I did talk about Arab Israelis - reply to that if you're interested. It's just that "forgetting" about the others are very hypocritical. It is not at all about whether or not they should be citizens, it's about the crimes that are inflicted on them regularly by the Israeli occupiers, such as forcibly displacing civilians (it's a war crime). I think it's especially distasteful to displace occupied people with no rights, if you're making "living space" for your own citizens with full civil rights.

1) I'm not sure what I understand what you mean. But crappy situations do breed terror, as long as people come up with someone to blame for all the crap. Imagine someone gave you a lot of crap. How long would it take for you to resort to violence to protest? That is the birth of terror. And then organized terror efforts also need some ideology to go, to recruit and motivate active terrorists. 2) Yes, but crucially the state has been independent and by their own free will on the West's side (generally speaking) and not the other way around. That's pretty good for a country which fought against the West (France) during 8 years for independence. 3) Yes, exactly. This in part maybe because they might not be really clear on who they want to blame for their troubles (or lack a leader with a relevant ideology).

The point was that you made it seem like the massacre was one Jewish extremist attack, in retaliation for 1000 Palestinian attacks. That is completely misunderstanding the situation, as I've shown in the official statistics (If you wonder why there are no suicide bombings listed after 2008... That's because there have been no suicide bombings after 2008). Many, many more Palestinians are killed in this conflict. And that is just counting deaths - if we count property damage it becomes even more unproportional. A lot of this even happens under Israeli law. Did you know that the punishment for some crimes in Israel (for a Palestinian - of course not for a Jew!) used to be house demolition? That is, demolition of the entire house a person is living in, regardless of who else lives there. Nowadays, house demolitions are granted by decree, so there's no need for any criminal to be living there. I even hear that in some cases Palestinians are obligated to destroy their own houses, if they don't, they are fined tens of thousands of dollars. All in an effort to make them move to another country. This isn't even hushed down, the Israeli members of Knesset talk about the Palestinian "demographic threat" and how many families they must displace to achieve a Jewish majority in certain areas openly. What would you do if your apartment building was to be blown up? Here's a recent Israeli article about the constant ongoing abuse from Jewish far-right extremist settlers living on confiscated Palestinian land: Here's a blog post about the infamous Prawer plan, which was intended as a solution to the "Beduin problem" in the Negev Desert. The plan details how 40000 Bedouin and Druze will be forcibly relocated to internment camps similar to those in the West Bank, and 61700 acres of land belonging to Bedouins will be confiscated to be handed out to Israeli settlers. What would you say if this happened to you in your country? The government motivates this with that the Bedouin villages are not connected neither to the power grid, nor to running water. Which is because not one shekel of tax money is spent on the Beduoin by the same government, so it's highly hypocritical. What extremely strange and ironic is that two different groups have been demonstrating against the plan - the Bedouin (supported by the Israeli pro-equality parties in opposition) and the far-right Jewish settler parties. The former because it is outrageously racist, the latter because it is "too generous towards the Arabs" Now it looks as if the plan won't pass Knesset. Here's what one rightist (Likud) politician had to say: Oh, I'm sure he'll be very generous. Oh, you want to confiscate ALL the land and "lease" the rest (in contrast to land that is given to Jewish settlers!). One further irony is that many Druze who will be "relocated" actually serve in the Israeli army. They go out and might risk their life, but when they go home they will see construction crews building villas for Jewish settlers on top of their old houses, while they themselves are "relocated" to camps on "leased" land. There are blogs who collect and document all reported instances of violence against people and property in the West Bank, here's a recent "snapshot" of news from 7-8 December (I've removed doubles): Report: Israeli police volunteer ‘changes story’ about border killing - A Palestinian man is shot dead by a Israeli "police volunteer" as he is handing out invitations to his wedding Child shot dead outside school by Israeli sniper in the refugee camp al-Jalazun - A 14-year old child is shot in the back by a sniper in a tower overlooking his internment camp as he is standing outside school Israeli forces open fire on protests in Nabi Saleh, 5 injured - Israeli military disperse a peaceful demonstration in Nabi Saleh with tear gas and rubber bullets Month-old child injured during Israel raid on Kafr Qaddum Settlers assault a Palestinian child in Hebron Explosive device ‘left by Israeli forces’ injures Palestinian teen Israel and Netherlands in row over security scanner at Gaza border - This is quite funny. The Dutch donate a high-tech security scanner to make Israel capable of allowing more goods into Gaza. Israel accepts the gift but maintains that "the fact that we know nothing illegal is being smuggled does not make us ease sanctions against Gaza" Israeli tanks fire at farmers in northern Gaza Israeli forces open fire at farmers near Khan Younis Fishing under fire off the Gaza coast IDF seized West Bank house despite court ruling for Palestinian owners - Jewish settlers change locks on house they would like, leaving the owners homeless. Israeli decides in favour of the Palestinian owners, since there has been no official notice of demolition or eviction. Nevertheless, Israeli army seize the house for unclear reasons IOF soldiers threaten to fire at Yatta landowners - Farmers forbidden to farm their land under penalty of being shot at the spot by the Israeli army The high cost of Israel’s water policies - "For instance, while the fortress-like Israeli settlements surrounding Bethlehem have swimming pools and irrigated landscaping and lawns, Bethlehem can go for 10-15 days without flowing water, as residents are forced to pay for ‘empty pipes.’" Palestinian mosque in Israel vandalized with anti-Islamic graffiti That's just occurences from two days. This is the country which the US pumps three billion dollars into each year while cutting it's own welfare programs, supporting them enthusiastically in their every endeavour even more than they did South Africa back in the Apartheid days. Can you believe it? No, no, no, no. You are right only in that the wall between Israel and the West Bank was partially constructed because of security reasons. Palestinians work in Israel under no legal protection, for dump wages. Jobs in the West Bank are very scarce, because of the strict embargo-like Israeli rules for investment, import and export. Let's talk about Arabs in Israel. Yeah, you're right in that they have the "privilege" of not serving in the army which is Israel's foremost tool of harassment against the Arabs themselves and who as recently as 2009 are suspected by the UN of having committed war crimes in Gaza through the systematic killing of civilians and destruction of houses. They face harsh discrimination on issues of immigration and housing. Arabs can never unite with a person they've married from another country. Jews are automatically granted citizenship, as long as they can prove they are Jews. Palestinian refugees are forbidden from even entering Israel (that includes the West Bank). Jews (after they have proven that they belong to the Jewish "race", I could write pages about this bizarre process only) immigrating to Israel are given a place to live as encouragement. Palestinians are extremely rarely allowed construction permits, and their is confiscated on the government's whim, their homes demolished if they government finds out they are constructed without an impossible-to-get-if-you're-a-Palestinian permit. They also can't live anywhere in Israel, as some places are self-described "Jews only" cities. There are four kinds of Palestinians: those who live inside Israel "proper", those who live in the occupied West Bank, those who live in Gaza, and those who live in refugee camps around the borders of Israel after the ethnic cleansing during the war in 1948. Those who live in Gaza live in an area which is constantly under embargo by Israel. Only the most basal of food supplies, from various aid agencies, are allowed inside. There are smuggling tunnels, however. These have the same "equal rights" or "freedom" as people living in a large open air prison outside the law (think this ). Israeli surveillance drones are constantly buzzing overhead. If you get too close to the wall, a sniper will shoot you from one of the many towers (even if you are just a child playing football). Those who live in the West Bank have possibly worse living conditions than the Gazans. They live in an area intersected by endless security checks, walls and menacing sniper towers. They must carry their special Israeli-issued "Arab passport" at all times, even then they might have to wait for hours or be denied passage without any explanation. Furthermore, Arab villages are razed continously to make place for Jewish settler residences, "Jews only" roads and more walls protecting these. They are under constant attack by far-right extremist Jewish settlers who do everything from throwing rocks at children on their way to school, to slashing tyres of cars, to destroying olive groves which is basically the Palestinians' only source of income (disregarding aid money if you're a member of the Fatah mafia). Living in the West Bank as a Palestinian is definitely way worse than living as a Black African under Apartheid, there can be no doubt about that. But the comparisons can be made more direct than that. In this recent movie about a theater troupe bringing the legacy of Martin Luther King to Palestine, they try with disastrous results to ride a "Jews only"-bus. There were elections in the West Bank once. However since then, parties who disapprove of the current system have been leading, so there have been no further elections. Settlers living in the West Bank can vote in Israel, Palestinians living there have no right to vote in Israel, only for the quasi-government of the tiny so-called "Area A" Palestinian reservation. And then there are those who have been living in squalid refugee camps since 1948 waiting to return to their homeland, something which has been denied them by the Israeli government in violation of international law. I wonder you would be able to wait so long if you were driven from the US by a hostile occupier? So does that make the invasion, occupation and ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestine moral? What is your point? Yeah, Christians are having an increasingly hard time down in the Middle East right now. After the whole age of colonialism, Cold War meddling and support of unpopular dictators, the recent wars and US enthusiastic support for Israeli war crimes, they are increasingly starting to think that Christians are the source of all evil. You can forgive them a bit for thinking so when you consider it must seem that way from their perspective. If only all Arabs could go to trips to the US, they would learn that American Christians do not sit all day and plot which countries to bomb next and do high-fives when they hear the Israeli army has shot another child. In fact most American Christians are probably 100% oblivious both about which ME dictators the CIA supported during which years, how many civilians have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and about the situation in Israel. So it would be deeply unfair to characterize them as evil in any way. Well. At least you're not stuck in a refugee camp, having lost all your land and possessions because religious fanatics have claimed your country as their holy land and driven you out. Think about it. Things could be worse. You could have been born a Palestinian!

I don't understand this whole argument. It's obvious he wanted to sign the EU deal all along, he was just held economic hostage by Russia. Ukraine does have legitimate concerns in that regard, you know.

My point was that "Messianic Jews" aren't really Jews, and shouldn't call themselves such. It's a minor point, as you said yourself. Yeah, I can agree with that. They are called so but it doesn't make much sense. That's why I initially referred to them as Christians, because that's what they are, strictly speaking. I'm extremely sorry for this mess Walsingham, but you will have to trudge through another massive post if you're interested in continuing this discussion. Essentially what I'm saying is that a terrorist movement consists of two fundamentally different kinds of people. Let's talk about Islamists: Type 1 are people like Tamerlan Tsarnaev, desperate people of dubious mental health who constitute approximately 100% of those who commit terrorist acts in Western countries. Type 2 are just angry ordinary people, angry at certain injustices, who passively support the Type 1 guys and create the sense of a legitimate struggle. During the 2000's the US foreign policy was built on the idea that if we create a system to monitor suspected Type 1s at home, enter the countries where the Type 1s get their inspiration, and shoot all the bad dudes in sight, you will have solved the problem. Kind of like if terrorism was a simple infectious disease, or if terrorists were some separate species which could be made extinct. This is of course completely erroneous. Type 1 terrorists have no fundamental connection whatsoever to any specific country or regime targeted during the "War on Terror". Type 1 terrorists are motivated in part by harmful ideology (which cannot be directly brought down), but also out of their own personality (like I wrote above). So a direct "War on Type 1 Terrorists" (the ones who are actually dangerous to us, because they exist in our societies) only, without taking others into account, is very hard to wage, if not impossible. And if you were to wage such a war, your only weapons would be building a surveillance state, and constructing welfare programs to ensure nobody ever gets unhappy enough to do some sort of terrorist attack, ruining their own life. You are in part right when you write that if it were not this particular ideology, it would be some other one. But you have not understood what that really means. It doesn't mean that whatever we do, there will be a constant stream of adherents to harmful ideologies (the neo-conservative pop-a-mole model of global politics). It's not which ideology angry people choose, it's the fact there are angry people at all that is relevant. When people are upset and mad as hell, they just will flock to the easiest reachable ideology which justifies the fulfilment of vengeance. For the purpose of terrorism, militant Islamism is just "thing which justifies violence against those I'm mad at". You can't fight (as in shoot or bomb) militant Islamism in itself in any meaningful sense. It's just a flag that any Muslim who is mad as hell at people who happen to be non-Muslims can pick up. As long as this happens, militant Islamism will get more adherents. The type 2 adherent of a harmful ideology can never be fought directly, because any spilled blood on their side will just create more Type 2s. In the case of the IRA, the Type 2s were the passive supporters who were angry at current injustices. In the case of militant Islamism, the Type 2s are ordinary people in/from Islamic countries who have spent their whole life in the shadow of injustices: Western colonialism, West-backed dictators, embargos, and so on. As long as there are injustices, there will be people who support people who oppose these injustices with indiscriminate violence, following harmful ideologies. The only way you can truly fight terrorism, is to fight the injustices which cause it. I'd say that US sanctions against South Africa was the best "war" they have ever fought against terrorism (in spite of Reagan's "Israeling" of Apartheid SA), because afterwards when Nelson Mandela was released, the entire ANC were no longer "terrorists". You can't ever stop any harmful ideology in itself directly, but you can always change the circumstances which enable harmful ideologies to flourish. Let me compare two different countries. French Indo-China was languishing under barbaric French colonial rule, with it's citizens lacking equal, democratic rights. In this struggle, several Vietnamese (such as Ho Chi Minh and Phan Chu Trinh - please read about Trinh if you have never heard of the guy before) travelled to Versailles at the end of WW1, appealing to Woodrow Wilson and the French representatives for the establishment of an independent, democratic Vietnam citing the spirit of the U.S. Declaration of Independence and the French national values. They certainly made an interesting case - appealing to the "white man's burden" of the French, they wanted to obtain a democracy under French guidance. To my knowledge, this is one of the most humble attempts at gaining national independence ever. Nevertheless, they were almost entirely ignored. Ho Chi Minh and his adherents among the pro-Independence democrats were radicalized as they increasingly started to see the French as an enemy, and Western democracy as bigoted, all in contrast to the old guard (Trinh and others) who wanted to continue their peaceful path to being seen as equals in the eyes of the colonialists. So increasingly as time went on, all the Vietnamese who wanted independence were essentially pushed into the arms of the Communists, conveniently an ideology which allowed for indiscriminate violence against the "imperialist" Frenchmen. There is absolutely nothing "inherently" Communist about Vietnam, it was just fair and square the malevolent political decisions of the Western powers which created the necessary breeding ground for an extremist revolutionary ideology. Yeah, and everybody probably knows the rest of the story with the Vietnam War and everything. Obviously this was a miscalculation from France and the US - the costs of the entire Vietnam War could have been prevented (and the Allies could have gained a valuable ally during WW2 in an independent, francophile, modernized Vietnam!). Now there is another example of what could happen if you start acting differently: Algeria. During what was to become Algeria's final days as a colony (in 1963 - fighting had escalated to a civil war since initial clashes in 1954), De Gaulle went into talks with the US to assure himself of US diplomatic and military support in a protracted Algerian war of independence. However, due to either a sudden inspiration of wisdom or just some coincidence JFK gave him an entirely different answer (see this as well): "Algeria's independence will be inevitable - if we help them achieve their freedom, they will not be pushed in the arms of Communism in their struggle." (paraphrased). And lo and behold: Algeria has had mostly excellent relations with the US, and has in several ways reapproached France. Algeria mediated the release of American prisoners after the Iranian revolution in 1979, was one of the first countries to offer the US their support in fighting Al-Qaeda after 9/11, and has participated in NATO naval exercises. Considering Algeria had a 8-year independence struggle against a capitalist and democratic country, that's a pretty good outcome. Although Algeria has yet to become a paragon of democracy, they have certainly been both independent and a bulwark against extremist ideologies, both Communism and militant Islamism. In other words the only things you can ever do for or against your cause in an abstract "War on [insert harmful ideology]" is either to perpetuate injustices and thus help harmful ideologies gain (Type 2) adherents, or treat people like equals and listen to them, which does not create any supporters of harmful ideologies. Regardless of what you do here, there are always going to be the Type 1 guys. If you indirectly incapacitate the ideology they are inspired by, you might stop some most of them (who would just remain "ordinary" psychos who don't blow themselves up). Some others however might have made some kind of suicide attack anyway and the ideology is just a sticker they put on so they can pretend to be freedom fighters and not mental cases. When people talk about militant Islamism, they only talk about it as presented by the lunatic Type 1 people (concepts that come to mind are: "Global caliphate", "strict sharia law" et cetera). They never talk about the actual injustices which push people into sympathizing with such extremism in the first place. That is a pretty big issue in my mind.

Think of it like this: terrorists are the tip of an iceberg. That is true about everyone from Breivik to the Tsarnaevs. The 100 active IRA members did not exist in a vacuum. More likely the opposite was true: they were surrounded by sympathizers. Those who later become terrorists do not form their opinions in a vacuum (even if it can appear so today, now that we're all connected through the Internet). These IRA members have likely participated in family dinners where the stories of "freedom fighters" among their relatives were told again and again, went to pubs where people would talk (jokingly and seriously) about how much they wanted to shoot a British soldier, and so on and so forth. So how many people do you think passively supported the IRA (seriously enough to come across as supportive to an IRA member)? Probably a lot, maybe something like 100000 rather than 100. Now the large majority of these "supporters" were probably (at least in 1969) people who wanted to address real, actual problems. So the more problems you have, the more you will grow the bottom of the iceberg consisting of "ordinary people" who motivate their support with legitimate concerns about actual problems in society. The actual dangerous terrorists of any type, the "tip of the iceberg" probably all have one form of psychological disorder or another. In extreme and bizarre cases, there isn't even needed a proper cheer-leading group of passive sympathizers, take Charles Manson and his "family" for example. However the Internet has made making connections alarmingly simple. Breivik, who was clearly susceptible to far-right ideology 10 years before his massacre, would probably not have went to such extremes if he hadn't been able to bathe in support and sympathy on the Internet from like-minded people in all of Europe. An increasingly connected world has made such interactions easier - if you were a prospect jihadi with knowledge of Arabic you could be reading AQ propaganda and talking with like-minded extremists on a whim. If this was the 1930s, it would have been impossible to just go to an Al-Qaeda meeting and hook up. If you have read anything that Breivik has written or anything much about him, the psychological background becomes abundantly clear. Most terrorists have backgrounds which very much explain their inclinations. The Tsarnaevs came from a multi-ethnic family which was pretty much shunned by every other society they ever lived in - both brothers had also failed in their studies, and the older brother's boxing career had been cut short when he at one point could not participate in a championship, as he was not an American citizen. They had a mother who spoke positively about being willing to "die for Islam". The brothers must have felt a need to belong to a group, and then to prove their worth, in the eyes of that group and for themselves. Especially the older brother seems just the kind of outsider to become a terrorist. The militant Islamic scene on the Internet is pretty huge as I understand it. My guess is that once Tamerlan got sucked in, there was little to do to prevent him from becoming a terrorist other than putting him in jail. Breivik also had a very traumatic childhood, from Wikipedia: and had after some failures in real life he isolated himself playing WoW, writing a long Mein Kampf-type rant, while interacting only with similar extremist people on far-right blogs and forums on the Internet. He is an obvious narcissist, is a member of several "secret organizations" (which might exist only in his head), and has undergone extensive facial plastic surgery. Every account of him describes him as a loner, which is probably how he could become increasingly "pickled" in extremism, sitting alone reading far-right opinions on the web. Now let's talk about how you can possible "macro-engineer" away these circumstances which create terrorists. It's obviously very hard to macro-engineer away the circumstances which forms the personal psychological background of terrorists. But it still puts into perspective how much the small good deeds you can do actually matters. What if Dylan Klebold had not been bullied at school? What if Tamerlan had been admitted to University of Massachusetts in 2006 and had become an engineer instead of a terrorist? What if Breivik had been removed from his mother and placed in a foster family? What if Adolf Hitler (sorry Godwin, just had to mention him even though it's slightly unrelated) had passed the entry test to art school in 1907 (or even better, had the merits required to study architecture)? Obviously every single one of these occurrences changed the world, but that must have been impossible to predict at the time. So I would say that it's technically possible to macro-engineer away some terrorists by constructing a welfare state, which aims to shield its citizens from mistreatment, and empower people to pursue constructive careers instead of just sitting unemployed and becoming radicalized in their opinions. That can seem hard, but it's not undoable in principle. People might be born psychopaths, but they can just as well end up successful CEOs as they can become murderers. Then we have the other part, the passive supporters. In my opinion I think this portion of people is generally very easy to "macro-engineer" away. George Orwell would have found it very funny that most of the actual efforts directed at "macro-engineering" away the current terrorist threat - the interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq - have increased it. Even today we have drone pilots flying over Afghanistan and Pakistan, shooting people semi-randomly, slowly but steadily building international support for Al Qaeda's struggle. Now, most of the people which are targets there are not even "terrorists" in any meaningful sense, but enemy combatants aligned with the Talibans. We can safely do the approximation that zero terrorists who have attacked the US on its own soil have come from Afghanistan. However, "native" jihadis form hardcore groups, which Western jihadis will try to visit to acquire training and motivation. So from a Western perspective, the "bottom of the iceberg", the real encouraging factor for Western jihadis, basically consists of people in the Middle East, armed and unarmed, who are angry with the US for a lot of legitimate and semi-legitimate reasons: most regional AQ sympathizers probably support AQ because they're angry with the US over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Other prime reasons are US support for Israel, US military bases in the Middle East, US political interference and US-backed sanctions against Iraq during the nineties. But it's a truly a pity we don't have any Arabic-speaking members here (I think?). Those people could check out typically anti-American forums and see for themselves what they are complaining about Or maybe, we just read what Osama said himself. As far as I know, it has been every terrorist group's final undoing when the support of a large passive group went away, making it impossible to find new recruits. This always happens as the result of a new political reality. The crux here is that we afterwards don't tend to identify former terrorist groups as such, take the ANC for example. The Taliban have indeed achieved a lot of negative attention recently, but I bet that if the entire conflict there ended they would just be another overly conservative backwards people living in the ass-end of nowhere. We have no shortage of those, if we had to fight every single one we'd engulf the entire world in war. Yet the strategy of the US seems to be to fight them one at a time, while simultaneously giving arms to all the other lunatics. It seems an endless game of global pop-a-mole, only the score is measured in human lives wasted. Well, at least we can be happy this guy is not the current leader of the US. I can't make any sense out of this statement. They're supposed to be Christians, not Jews. They don't call themselves Jews. They call themselves Messianic Jews, which means "a Jew who has converted to Christianity". This response perfectly illustrates the lack of logic that your whole post possesses. An African American is still an American, no? I didn't say they were Jews, I said they call themselves Jews, which they obviously do, speaking of tautologies. Their argument is that you can be a Jew (i.e. follow Judaism) and still believe in Jesus as the Messiah. This is technically true, as most Jews believe in the coming of the Messiah and it's not specified who the Messiah is, except his name is supposed to be Joshua I think. There've been many candidates for the Messiah through the ages. Lubavitcher Jews for example believed that their chief Rabbi was the Messiah. But once you start saying that Jesus was God or son of God, then you have theological conflict with Judaism. But there are lots of Messianic Jewish sources on the net who says that it's OK to eat pork. Just Google "messianic jew pork" yourself. I can't believe you proceeded in this discussion without doing that. Of course there are those who do follow kosher rules for cultural reasons, it's just no requirement for being a Messianic Jew. Nevertheless, I don't really care about this detail, since it has nothing to do with my initial statements and arguments.

I don't really agree with the spirit of all the earlier comments about nuclear weapons... Nobody can truly "win" a modern nuclear war. Even if China managed to destroy only 10-20 of the US' largest cities, that would still be over 10% of the US population. It would result in the greatest depression in the entire US history. And 10-20 is a optimistic scenario. It doesn't really matter what would happen to China, (who will likely suffer way worse consequences), the loss for the US would be so great that it couldn't be offset by any gain I can think of. It doesn't really matter whether a country can destroy 10% or 50% of any other country's population in an initial nuclear strike. As soon as we're talking that amount of destruction, both sides are effectively losers. The nuclear weapon is essentially a fail-safe against it's own destruction by another nation. Even during the Cold War, I guess most people were not seriously contemplating actually using nuclear weapons. But if the Russians were making landfall on the coasts of the US, I can bet that desperate nationalistic voices would soon drown out any talk of restraint (compare this with what the Chinese would say in the case of a US-China war) and in the case of the Cold War, the destruction of the entire civilization as we know it would be a fact. I don't think that the US (or any relevant nation) has ever had a chance of a true effective "first strike" where your missiles would really destroy a significant amount of the enemy nation's nuclear capability before a counter-attack (possibly not even against North Korea). So of course nobody will ever launch a nuclear war over some remote isle. But that conflict could escalate, and when the conflict instead seems to be about the future existence of Communist China, a lot of irrational nationalist behaviour is bound to appear. Remember the start of WW1 which seems in hindsight like one of the most stupid acts in the entirety of humanity? If only the world leaders had sat down and coldly discussed how many lives they were prepared to sacrifice for their own vanity, and for whether or not Austria-Hungary should participate in Serbia's inquiry into the murder of Franz Ferdinand. So it is also likely that IF China participates in starting a third world war, now or in 100 years, it will be just over some minor, ridiculous territorial dispute which accidentally triggers nationalistic feelings and the vanity of autocratic leaders. Let's just be hope we get leaders who realize the potentially disastrous escalating consequences an embargo or any type of direct military intervention (from any side) could have, even with rising resentment of China as an equal competitor on the economic scene ("dey took our jebs").

It is indeed outrageous that a Christian would go speak to a Christian organization, especially as converting non-Christians is a basic tenet of the Christian faith. I also didn't see where the article said the fund raiser was specifically for converting Jews. However, if you're going to call yourself Jews, at least try to keep Kosher, Jesus did after all. Not just the fundraiser, but the entire organization's purpose is just about converting Jews. If you doubt me, visit their web page. "However, if you're going to call yourself Jews, at least try to keep Kosher, Jesus did after all." I can't make any sense out of this statement. They're supposed to be Christians, not Jews. They don't call themselves Jews. They call themselves Messianic Jews, which means "a Jew who has converted to Christianity". At least to me it's obvious that converting people of a specific race to fulfil a prophecy in the Book of Revelation is completely nuts. I know the history of Al-Qaeda perfectly well. Of course their initial formation would still have happened, but after the resolution of the war in Afghanistan they would have played out their role. Do you even know why Osama attacked the US in the first place? Because the US supports the Israeli Zionists and also because they have military bases in Saudi Arabia (yes, apparently that was a reason). AQ has EVERYTHING to do with Israel/Palestine, just look at 9/11, which was largely a byproduct of the Israel/Palestine situation. (Nowadays I sincerely think they get more recruits from the PR they must have gained from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan) They say it's because of Israel to gain more popular support amongst Arabs and other Muslims, but Jihad is a lot older than modern Israel, and their goal is to carry out global Jihad to establish a global caliphate, to overthrow current Arab regimes and replace them with revolutionary Islamist ones. US used to be an obstacle to those goals, so we got attacked on 9/11. This is so stupid I don't even know where to begin. Let me state a few more truisms for you: Communists fight to spread Communism over the entire world. Democratic governments fight to bring Democracy to the entire world. Nationalists fight to establish the primacy of their people in what is perceived as "their" nation. Of course those statements are true in a sense, but they're truisms, tautologies. It's a statement that contains no meaningful information. Now if we look at reasons why Communists exist, they draw their support from people who feel that the proletariat are abused by the capitalists. So in places where those people are very few, they don't get a lot of support. If you look at the reasons why Democracy exists, it's because people felt that autocratic leaders constantly went against the will of the people, and that the source of power should be legitimated by the will of a majority of the people. Nationalism exists because people with a subconscious inferiority complex blame other nations or peoples for the failings of their own country. (blame the Mexicans, Jews, Palestinians, et.c.) Now in prosperous countries with great social equality (or at least a decent standard of living for the poorest people), Communism is very unlikely to take root. In places where authoritarian leaders constantly make their countrymen happy and are perceived as legitimate leaders, democratic movements are unlikely to start. In old, ethnically homogeneous countries which have not been humiliated in any way, Nationalism is not very popular. Do you see where I'm heading? We are talking about the real, actual, psychological reasons of why they actually fight. Now militant Islamism is obviously a nationalist ideology (although with the basis in religion rather than in nationality). It's also a socially conservative one. The traditionally Islamic countries have been the punching bag of the world for about 100 years now, with the decline in power of the Ottoman Empire. They have contributed almost zero to scientific advancement since about the same time. This is the PERFECT breeding ground for a nationalist, socially conservative ideology. And just like the first-generation leaders of the Communists were members of the bourgeoisie who sympathized with the exploited workers of the 19th century, many jihadists have actually lived in Western countries (probably further feeding their inferiority complex). Now what are our best tools for fighting jihadism/militant Islamism? Educate the populace in the Islamic countries in order to eliminate social conservatism and the inferiority complex toward modern societies. Stop colonialist behaviour and encourage independent, modern states in the areas dominated by Islam. As long as these two goals are not met, I'm sad to say the Islamists will not stop existing. You're just like a 20th century wannabe politician who says "No, the Communists are not fighting because of inequality, they're fighting to ESTABLISH WORLD COMMUNISM". Well, duh. Guess how many followers they would have if there was no inequality. By your logic, people would be fighting all the time without any psychological reason, to establish the global reign of the Giant Spaghetti Monster and whatnot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMT36t6BADc&t=7m34s I think it's interesting to note how much some things have changed. Yet some other things still remain the same. Remember not too long ago, the US was one of South Africa's most important allies. Above is an interview from back in 1990 when things still were not ultimately decided. Mandela is in the US and is interviewed by a very condescending talk show host, who nonetheless gets laughed at by the audience repeatedly when he's trying to teach Mandela about politics and then about the current situation in South Africa. Host: [About Mandela "supporting the struggle for freedom" among Palestinians in occupied territories] "We have just heard a number of those things you said [...] this evening. Some controversial things, not necessarily things a political man says. If you were more political, you might have been more concerned about not alienating some people in this country who have it within their hands, within their power, either to continue sanctions against South Africa, or to raise those sanctions, to lift them. Why were you not a little more political? Perhaps we are too accustomed to politicians in this country..." Nelson Mandela: [After a lengthy reply] "But that does not mean to say that the enemies of Israel are our enemies. We refuse to take that position. You can call it "being political", or "a moral question", but for anybody to change his principles depending on who he is dealing with - well, that is not a man who is fit to lead a nation."

The modern global economy works like this: the more trade partners you have (with no trade restrictions), the more opportunities you will have (and also more pressure on your economy to be competitive, which is beneficial in the long term). If China and the US cease trade it will hurt both - but also be gainful to the rest of the world, since they can buy Chinese products at discount prices. Plus manufacturing countries other than China will instead get to export to the US. It's how this game works. Sanctions only ever works when a large and important country sanctions a small one, since it will relatively speaking (as a percentage of the entire economy) hurt the smaller one more. China and the US are globally speaking of equal size. Let's reiterate what I have said first: My proposed permanent UNSC member list: US, China, Japan, Germany, France The current permanent UNSC member list: US, China, France, UK, Russia So in other words, I don't think that the strength of the UK and Russia merits a place among the five most powerful countries in the world. The UK is probably at place 6 or 7. Russia at place 8-10. So I'm not trying to say that Russia should be on the UNSC either. In fact if I was forced to choose between the two I'd choose the UK over Russia. My link IS based on 2013 only, so it's not fully reflect what historically has happened. But then, what has happened 50 years ago does not necessarily matter now, that was kind of one of my original points. More importantly, the list was just used to refute the point that the UK pledging troops should warrant a seat on the UNSC. So I don't think that Bangladesh should be on the UNSC just because they pledge the world's most important and well-respected UN peacekeeping force. Nevertheless the UK has not contributed a significant amount of UN troops in recent times. Please, let's look at your list of who really pays for peacekeeping efforts because it's a good arguments for why I'm right. Top 5 sponsors of the UN: 1. US - 22% 2. Japan - 10,833% 3. Germany - 7,141% 4. France - 5,593% 5. UK - 5,179% 6. China - 5,148% I'm not even going to talk about Russia. They pay a lot less. You are right in that the UK pays 0,6% more than China, earning them the 5th place with a slim margin. If you think that paying 0,6% more to the UN trumps China having more than three times as large economy and more than a hundred times the population of the UK... Well, China will likely pay more than the UK in 2014. Nevertheless the point here was to illustrate how Japan and Germany pay more (a lot more in the case of Japan) compared to current permanent UNSC members. And then you only make vague statements, and talk about British non-UN and NATO engagements. All of this is kind of missing the point though. The UNSC is about which countries are the most powerful and important right now, not about who won WW2. (On a side note: even if you said that your military is involved in every country in the entire world, it wouldn't mean anything. Do you think the Russian intervention in Syria warrants their place on the UNSC in your opinion? The entire point of the military part of the UN is having a global consensus around peacekeeping efforts.)

50 years ago: So do you think Syria will languish under dictatorship for another 50 years?

Allegedly the first question that Dönitz was asked when interrogated by Allied commanders after the war was "Why the heck didn't you build more submarines?". I don't think this can be compared to current Chinese behaviour, but German naval strategy until Dönitz took over was pretty stupid. They could as well have sent out giant shiny piñatas at sea. But then, we must compare with other nations at the time, you can also question a lot of stuff the British did. In hindsight, it would seem that the British at the time did not fully understand the particular advantages they had over the Germans at sea, relating to aircraft carriers and naval aviation. The British Navy's initial attempt at court-martialing the commanders of the Prince of Wales after their encounter with Bismarck would be one example. When we think about the crazy German naval battleship projects, you have to keep in mind that when they were commissioned, their primary mission was interdiction of trade lanes to the British Isles. So there was a lot of sense in building a navy, it's just that it should have consisted of submarines and not battleships.

So I just found out my country has an official propaganda page: http://sweden.se/

I don't know if this is getting too off-topic, but whenever I read about 19th-century military commanders, I think about the curious absence of games inspired by that time period. There are a gazillion games in fantasy medieval settings, I would gladly throw any amount of money on a Jagged Alliance/Darklands (or maybe something on a slightly larger scale, like SotHR) type of game where you command a small military contingent in a fantasy or alternate history version of Africa or the Middle East during the Napoleonic era, or perhaps later somewhere in Europe during a revolutionary 1848.

Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart (While definitely not a general, a military chronicler and theorist who probably has influenced warfare more than many generals) He is my favourite historian in the areas of WW1 and WW2, and an early proponent of the mobile and armoured warfare which would dominate WW2 (somewhat of a British counterpart to Heinz Guderian and Mikhail Tukhachevsky). I've read several of his books and if any of you are interested in the history of warfare in the 20th and 19th century (especially WW1 and WW2), I'd recommend you do so as well. Very closely after WW1, he "sacrificed" his future military career in favour of being a freelance writer, in his own opinion allowing him to state controversial opinions which were contrary to the current views in the British military establishment, and often very damning to his former superiors in the army. Nonetheless his writings were widely read by the outbreak of the WW2, and also known among (and translated by) German military staff. One of his books (of a slightly more philosophical nature, but still from the perspective of a military theorist) is available for free on the Internet here. I think it's worthwhile to compare the above quote with the peace processes which occurred after WW1 and WW2. It can never be made clear enough that the purpose of any war is to achieve a good, stable peace. If the peace agreement is only a source for new oppression, then you are also guaranteed to get more war. WW1 gave us the peace in Versailles, which inflicted a burden of blame and severe repayment on the entire German people, all because the vanity of a small clique of their autocratic former leadership. This effectively laid the groundwork for revanchism and the slide back into autocracy. Contrast this with the Marshall Plan at the end of WW2, which cemented the relation between European countries and the US, single-handedly giving communism in Western Europe a fatal blow, firmly securing the democratic principle and quickly sentencing Soviet-style communism to obscurity among the competing ideologies. Under the circumstances of an unfortunate condition of handing half of Europe over to Soviet Russia (a country which in itself was another piece of "blowback" from WW1), the peace after WW2 must have made Wellington proud. Maybe this quote needs it's original context, but I think it's interesting to compare his conclusions with the US' policy on the Middle East. Seemingly unconditional support of Israel and Saudi Arabia (and massive military "aid" also to countries such as Egypt), while constantly making "diplomatic somersaults" for example concerning Hosni Mubarak, the Taliban and Saddam Hussein. One moment they're the darlings of the "Machiavellians" of American foreign policy, the next they're suddenly enemies. Nevertheless, I think Lidell Hart's important thesis that in order to be a Machiavelli, you've really got to have zero morals is correct, plus even if you achieve your direct objectives, you will have created a more awful world in the long run. While I am in favour of trade and openness towards nations you are sceptical towards, I would advocate only ever giving real aid to your true allies.

I was also suggesting that it's primarily a diplomatic position. The UN themselves say that the SC's primary purpose is to foster diplomatic relations. Do you think the UK is not worth anything in that regard, too? I didn't tell you the UK wasn't worth anything I merely stated my opinion that the UK is probably on position 6 or 7 out of all the countries in the world, with regards to permanent UNSC membership.

Maybe I'm just being slow, but I'm not at all sure what your point actually was. You appeared to be saying that the UK shouldn't be on the SC because it makes a negligable contribution to UN security measures. Now you seem to be saying that the fact that the UK doesn't make much of a contribution to UN security measures isn't a valid argument. I said that the UK makes a significant contribution to the UN in the form of bases, supplies, troops and so on. I wasn't actually referencing UN peacekeepers, but army regulars. They may not be directly controlled by the UN, but the vast majority of the actions are UN-mandated. Perhaps, in my turn, I should have made that clearer. No. I was making my argument on basis of the size of the economy. Then you told me that the UK was a significant military factor in peacekeeping efforts. Then I showed you that this is not the case. But let's address every point separately: Peacekeepers - already addressed Bases - none of the UK overseas territories has a UN base as far as I know (only UK or US bases). Nevertheless, this point is kind of moot, because in every part of the world there are UN countries with their own military bases. So while the UK bases might be important the the UK (and also NATO), they are largely irrelevant for UN peacekeeping efforts. Supplies - Costs for UN peacekeeping efforts are spread throughout the UN, according to a formula which among other factors is proportional to size of the economy. It might be that the UK pays more because the are in the UNSC, but even then a country with a larger ecenomy would be able to handle that bill better.

Wrong. That's a myth, get a reality check. Japan does not have zero military power. They have military expenditures comparable to France and the UK. However, if they spent as much as France or the UK in proportion to their economy, they would have the world's third highest military budget, buying about 2.5x the amount of stuff compared to the UK or France. Even then, Japan already has a larger air force than France, and only slightly smaller than that of the UK. (If Japan spent as much as the US on their military, they would have a larger military budget than the entirety of the EU combined...) But even this is solely due to convention. Japan is one of the least militarized countries in the world, but also one of the most powerful. This is solely due to them relying on their ally the US for nuclear defence, and not being interested in territorial expansion.

The trouble with using that link to counter me is that it lists the largest contributors as Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Ethiopia and Nigeria. Either that link isn't appropriate for this discussion, or those five have a better claim to sit on the UNSC than the US. Since the latter is obviously ridiculous, I can only conclude that it's not relevant. I am not saying the UK is amongst the five most powerful countries, no. I am saying that it's a diplomatic position and is not as simple as the biggest bullies in the room. No, I wouldn't claim that Bangladesh should have a permanent seat at the UNSC. I was merely dismissing your statement. Maybe I should have written as well that even if the UK happened to contribute the most men to peacekeeping efforts, it wouldn't be an argument. I don't think the exact number of soldiers sent is relevant, and neither should you. The link provided was to inform you on the facts regarding peacekeeping efforts, I'm happy you can conclude for yourself that the argument is invalid instead of calling for a permanent place for Bangladesh on the UNSC.