~Di

The lack of international news coverage about this story is enlightening, IMHO! Chirac: Nuclear Response to Terrorism Is Possible "PARIS, Jan. 19 -- President Jacques Chirac said Thursday that France was prepared to launch a nuclear strike against any country that sponsors a terrorist attack against French interests. He said his country's nuclear arsenal had been reconfigured to include the ability to make a tactical strike in retaliation for terrorism..." It's a lengthy article, so I won't post it all here. First, what do y'all think about it? Is it a bluff? Is it a threat? And most interesting of all, do you think the world stage would be this quiet about such a threat/bluff if it was George W. Bush making it?

Well everything is open to interpretation, of course, and as usual Al Jazeera has only released excerpts of the tape that it wanted to release. However, there was at least one statement ("...It is better for you not to fight the Muslims on their territory and we offer a long-term truce..." (Source) that led me to believe the offered truce would be in exchange for the USA leaving "Muslim" territory. Oh, and I particularly like the part that says, " We are a nation that will not stab people in the back. " ROFL! Nah, I don't think he gives a fat flying fig about dead footsoldiers. Plenty more where they came from. As Battlewookie pointed out (much as it pains me to agree with him on anything), there are millions in Pakistan just waiting for the word. The entire mindset of Al Qaeda is martyrdom, death and destruction... so why would getting what they claim to seek upset them? It wouldn't. I do think, however, that the recent losses of several of his inner-circle and high-echelon leaders has hurt a bit, though he'd never admit it. Even they are replaceable. The only thing I think would severely harm Al Qaeda for any length of time would be the simulataneous elimination of Bin Laden, Zawahiri, and in Iraq Zawahara(?). That would sow a bit of temporary chaos until they managed to crown a new King Killer of Infidels . Edit: The BBC has its own translation of a full text of the released message .

Same rhetoric as before, only this time he directed it to the USA; last time he directed it to Europe. No, no truce is possible. The silliness about (sic) "We're only attacking you because you're in Iraq and Afganistan, so you leave and we'll stop" is ludicrous considering the myriad Al Qaeda attacks levied against the USA over the past decades long before we had put a single bootprint in Afghanistan or Baghdad. Besides, I trust Bin Laden to keep his word about as much as I trust Bush to keep his. The newest tape just Bin Laden's way of letting his fans know he's still alive, giving Al Jazeera a well-deserved ratings boost, and handing USA intelligence agencies (which will spend the next few months pouring over every syllable in the tape) a reason to exist.

Oh hell, why didn't you say so? A woman after my own heart! Carry on.

I don't think I saw anything about where their prison sentences would be carried out. San Quentin? Where did that come from? There are myriad prisons in California. Their criminal background would have a bit to do with where they will be sent... clearly they won't be sharing accommodations... but I doubt they'll be serving their sentences in Pelican Bay, for example. I wouldn't be surprised to see Mr. Ayala end up in Folsom, and Ms. Ayala end up in Chino, though. Minimum security? With their backgrounds and previous legal scams perpetrated? I kinda doubt it. Besides, the state penal system is considerably different than the federal penal system, so anyone hoping they'll be sent to Martha's old "Club Fed" haunt will be sorely disappointed.

I do not believe it's at all excessive. Because of this fraud, dozens of Wendy's employees lost their jobs. As for the comment that it wasn't like they "killed anyone", good grief. If they had killed someone and been sentenced only to 9 and 12 years respectively I'd have been outraged. This was a premeditated fraud by a couple who have a history of such behavior, a fraud that injured dozens of innocent people. Since these two will probably be out on parole within 3-5 years, I don't believe the sentence is nearly stiff enough, to tell the truth.

There is nothing from that link that says Al Qaeda only attacks US targets, major attacks or otherwise. Please share what you are smoking. I can't download video, but I can pretty much guarantee that US soldiers don't just wander into random houses to blow stuff up. Hopefully someone who can download video will give a brief explanation of what the film really does show.

For starters you can explain how you managed to memorize exact dialogue from a television report on Belgian TV from 3 years ago... a report, according to you, that was in Dutch. So either the American soldiers were speaking Dutch, or somebody was translating... and I'm sure the translations were absolutely accurate and the documentary was done without the slightest political slant. The truth is that those "quotes" were not accurate, they were paraphrased at best, fabricated at worst. If you are going to continually make accusations that color all American soldiers ... and all Americans for that matter... as bloodthirsty murderers, you'd freaking well better be prepared to back your statements up, and simply shrugging it off as something you saw on tv three years ago flat doesn't cut it. BTW, your opinions ("Ofcourse without camera's there would have been torture involved, the US' little favorite activity...") are not facts, and shouldn't be tossed out as if they are. There's a big difference between discussing political issues and being rude, bigoted, and downright hateful. That is my point, sir.

Oddly enough, I kind of agree that Fallout 3 will probably bear little or no resemblence to the game we all know and love beyond the title and setting. I wish Obsidian had gotten the Fallout contract, but will nonetheless take a wait-and-see attitude, and hope for the best. I'm not going to bad-mouth Bethesda on something they may or may not do at some unspecified future time, though. I'm optimistic enough to hope something good might come out of it. If it sucks, oh well, we're still no worse off than we are now.

Sure. Here it is: Sorry, newspaper. If I find the article online I will post a link... Edit: I've looked at this twice, since it immediately followed the post in question; on the second glance, I believe Surreptishus was asking about a different story. If so then I misunderstood and apologize. LOL, there truly is an irony in you of all people complaining about someone flaming you. Pot, meet kettle. I did not flame you. I am annoyed with you, yes, but I did not call you names or insult your parentage, your intelligence or your country. I pointed out what appeared to be a conflict in a very detailed allegation you made without a source, and I did so for two reasons: (1) The quotes you gave were either exact, in which case you must have some kind of text reference to copy from, or they were paraphrased from memory, in which case embellishment could reasonably be inferred. If you intend to stand by your accusations, you should be expected to support them. (2) Your virulant anti-American rants have gotten on my last nerve, and I think it's wholly inappropriate behavior for a mod.

LOL, I just love this story! Finally something the world truly needs... because y'all know how difficult it is to find a 350-pound oinking hog in the dark! :D

Well. This has disentegrated nicely. Nothing like a bunch of bigoted anti-American hate mongering with my morning coffee. It's particularly enjoyable when spewed by a mod. Battlewookie: Was that detailed, quoted dialogue from a newspaper article, which you first claimed, or a television documentary, which you later claimed. Perhaps it was merely an embellished paraphrase produced from your own fertile imagination fueled by your obvious and utter hatred of not only my country, but apparently of every one of its 290 million inhabitants. You say this is a political discussion. It's not. It has become a national flamefest. Folks on this board can discuss disagreements in ideology without hurling the crap about "Americans are this [insert insult]" and "Americans think that [insert insult]" and "[insert random insulting generalization about Americans"]. If the words "Blacks" or "Jews" or heaven forbid, "Europeans" were substituted for the word "Americans" in this unpleasant little hate-fest, I suspect the resulting furor would shake the forum to its core. How would some of you feel to continually see comments like, "The choice of words is moronic and only help to increase the "we" and "them" mentality that's so inbred in the European mentality", or "Shooting people who MIGHT shoot at you... I couldn't have worded European-murder any better..." (unless y'all don't think putting 8 bullets into the brain of someone who MIGHT blow up a tube train counts as murder)... "And Eurpeans also execute... " (Srebenicia, anyone?)" The list goes on, but you get the idea. Inflammatory, insulting, unsupported hateful rhetoric does not a political discussion make. Have a nice day.

I rather doubt anyone could remotely make the connection with France in those words, particularly since said words were part of a rather pointed paragraph that referred to the USA when it opened with, "But you guys...", then launched into a diatribe about Afghanistan, VietNam, making enemies, dead soldiers, capitalism and imperialism. Nice dodge, though!

I'm sorry, I do not believe that is correct. " Israel was created in 1948, after UN Resolution 181 partitioned the territory of the British Mandate for Palestine into two states for Jews and Palestinian Arabs. The Arabs objected to the creation of the Jewish state and fought a war against it. The Arab side lost the war, and the Palestinian state never really came into being. The territory allotted to the Palestinian state by the UN partition resolution was taken over by Israel and Jordan. About 780,000 Palestinians became refugees" Source. I won't respond to your comments about the locked thread, since it was locked for a reason. Just to put in context when you drag out the old VietNam thing, you may want to keep in mind how the USA got into VietNam in the first place. You see, the USA wanted France to join NATO. France was at that time embroiled in a funny little place called VietNam. Now France, being brighter than the USA at the time, made a deal... they would join NATO if we gave them a hand in VietNam. We stupidly agreed. Within a couple of years, France left VietNam and it became the graveyard for 58,160 Americans. While you are tossing historical blame around, don't forget to include all the participants!

Aha! At last we have a point of agreement!

Well, no surprise, I don't see it that way. I do not know which holy sites you are referring to that we put bases in during the 70's. I agree we should never have supported Iraq in the war against Iran, but the USA was hardly the only country that took sides there, and around the ME for that matter. Bad choice. Hindsight is 20/20. True, the USA (and many other countries) are allies of Israel, but we certainly didn't create the country of Israel. The UN did, when the British turned over what was then British land for that purpose. Your accusation about millions of deaths is just rhetoric, IMHO. *confused* I didn't say anything about WW2. You were the one who brought up the "60 years" thing. I've never said anything about the US waging war so Europeans can be safe. I don't mind clarifying my own words and positions, but I certainly can't justify what I've never said. We agree. If, however, Bush hadn't used the lion's share of military resources barging into Iraq... illegally, I might add... then we might have had enough military might to take care of Al Qaeda years ago, and take care of Pakistan if they continued to give Al Qaeda protection. Better than getting in bed with the likes of Musharif, in my opinion. Others can disagree with my blessing.

I sincerely was not trying to bait you, and apologize if you thought otherwise. There was no reason for you to explode with personal insult, in my view. I have been honest in explaining my motives. I've apologized, and I've clarified what I meant. The rest is up to you. Anything further should be taken to PM.

Then I doubt we'll find any points of agreement, since I personally believe that members of an organization that have planned and implemented attacks killing thousands of American civilians over more than a dozen years are indeed legitimate targets. And yes, comparably speaking, today's ordinance is "extremely accurate". Not as good as a sniper bullet between the eyes, but not too shabby either. BTW, I don't watch Fox News, I am not a right-wing conservative, I did not vote for Bush and sincerely wish he'd just fall off the face of the planet, so your presumptions about me simply because I do not see everything eye to eye with you have thus far been well off the mark. I'm just saying... lol

And of course, neither you nor anyone else on this forum has ever generalized America and/or Americans based on the discussions of posters! Believe it or not, it really was an observation that I have made over many years and many forums that Europeans as a group seem to feel that have the right of free speech when it comes to insulting America in particular, yet really do go into the most indignant fits of rage when they feel they themselves have been slighted in any manner. You rather proved that. As I've said, Lucius, when I am talking to you I will make it perfectly clear that I am. If you insist on believing that you know better than I do what I meant and what my motives are despite what I have said, then I respectfully suggest you may have a bit of bias at play here. Enough said on this matter, from my perspective.

It's my understanding he is Croatian. I may be wrong, of course. That happened once.

It was a generalized observation. You know what generalized observations are, don't you? That's when an entire group and/or nation is painted with a broad brush. When I speak to you personally, kind sir, I shall either quote your post or use your name. And when I do so, I will be civil. A shame you cannot say the same. Actually your histronic insults pretty much proved the point of my original post. Have a nice day.

Maybe Zawarhiri was there, maybe not. If those houses contained Al Qaeda, then they were legitimate targets, period. Al Qaeda started this war 15 years ago. They bombed the WTC, our embassies, our barracks, put out Fatwahs calling for the death of every American man, woman and child, and eventually flew planes into the WTC and pentagon, which was basically the last straw. Now it's war, plain and simple (not talking about Iraq here, I'm talking about Al Qaeda and any country which gives them succor). Pakistan has protected Al Qaeda with impugnity long enough, in my view, because Bush is in bed with that corrupt bastard Musharif. So I don't give a fig what Pakistan thinks. Al Qaeda is our enemy, and wiping out their leadership should be our top priority. I suppose that would depend upon your definition of terrorist. *shrug* Lots of regimes have caused millions, if not billions, of innocent deaths in the past 60 years. No sense in debating each of them here. I suspect you would confess that your hatred of America has colored your opinions, just as the fact that America is my home has colored my opinions. The main difference between us is that I do not insult your country on a daily basis, nor do I wish for its destruction.

Yes, they are dead either way. But if you are trying to tell me that there is no difference, legally or morally, between someone who deliberately sets out to murder masses of innocents and someone who accidentally kills innocents while taking out a legitimate target, then we will have to agree to disagree. Quite vehemently. Yes, a bomb can take out an entire block, dropped from the sky or otherwise. It depends upon the explosive power of the bomb. As you well know, or certainly should know, the vast majority of bombs/missles and other ordinance used by the US military are extremely accurate and are designed to take out one house while leaving homes on each side unscathed. Doesn't always work as intended, but most of the time it does.

I understand the difference. However, last I heard there was no indication that our military deliberately targeted a market full of civilians to blow up for giggles. If a bunch of terrorists have a meeting in which women (who can also be terrorists, you know) and children are also present, then those women and children are being put at risk of destruction when the bomb drops. In one instance innocent civilians are being directly targeted for murder; in the other, innocent civilians are dying because terrorists have infiltrated themselves in their midst. Understand the difference?

That's not entirely true. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Of course it isn't entirely true. Hyperbole on my part, obviously. However I do believe... and some military analysts seem to confirm this... that our ability to wage a conventional war on another front is limited, to say the least. That was my point, despite my poor manner of expressing it.