213374U

Precedent doesn't really mean anything in this context. So the bad guys outmaneuvered the US. And the solution to the emerging problem of asymmetric conflict is... to apply conventional force, to fight the last war. Is this the "new form of fighting" you're referring to? Because, clearly, it's not working. Compare with Petraeus' methods in Iraq. Yeah... that's about as "universal" as it gets, as far as defining terrorism goes. Reference.com is not, AFAIK, a source of law in any case. Then I guess you simply post random **** without really having any clue what the discussion is about or even what your point is: "Nice try", indeed.

Hello Krookie. I want to introduce you to an acquaintance of mine. She's called the Fifth Amendment to the ****ing United States Constitution. I'm sure you'll be fast friends!

Riiight. So the battlefield is the entire globe and the target can be anyone, as hit lists are only subject to Presidential review. Um, am I the only one seeing someting wrong with that?

No you're just dumb! See, I can insult people on the internet too. Yeah. But you kinda suck at it.

No. The use of the word "war" has very specific legal connotations. Whatever this is, it's not war, as there are only states on one side. It's actually closer to fighting well-armed organized crime. The first of those "new methods" should be to identify the problem and the causes. Terror attacks are just the consequence, and unless the causes of terrorism -poverty and illiteracy among others- are tackled, this "war" will never end. Yep. During wartime. Against members of enemy armed forces. Neither is the case here. Everyone does. Do you have one that's universal? guess your extreme level of morality is just 21337 for me. Naw, you're just dumb is all.

Actually, "terrorists" -aka guerrillas, persons affiliated with violent non-state actors, etc- are "unlawful combatants", which simply means they aren't afforded the same privileges as members of standing forces by the Geneva Conventions. This doesn't mean they are without rights. And while snipers may take out officers in the field of battle, if a sniper was sent to the house of an officer to take him out outside of a combat zone during peacetime, it would still be illegal.

ITT: you are a moron.

Replace the "right" there with "convenient for us", and we may be in agreement. The Cold War wasn't a check on anything. The period saw the greatest buildup of armaments -both conventional and nuclear- in history, and a lot of those weapons got used in the end, through proxies. The UN served its purpose as a venue to solve conflicts without resorting to the red button, but that's it. In fact, what I've been saying in the last few posts is that checks and balances do not work at the supranational level, and so I don't see how we can have a (self-)appointed international constable that won't end up abusing his power. I say get rid of the constabulary so it can't abuse its power; you say the constabulary is teh shiznit, and let's hope its abuses will be offset by the "order" it brings. Take a look at the world. It doesn't look very orderly to me. And I don't very well see how moral relativism is relevant here. Please elaborate. You got it backwards, Monte, old chap. He has killed many tens of thousands in the past, and so the US murdered him right back. No lives were "saved" with this op.

Yeah, the whole concept of being "at war" with anything other than a sovereign state is pretty ridiculous too -- it's just a convenient excuse invented so military force can be used and abused where otherwise it wouldn't be justified. And "military" assassination is a problem because, well, it's still an assassination and it's kind of illegal. Depending on the version you listen to, he wasn't killed as a result of a gunfight, and he most definitely wasn't an imminent threat to anyone -as evidenced by the fact that the SEALS trained in a replica house for weeks-, so the usual justifications don't fly. They simply didn't want him alive. Sorry if your feelings are hurt, but death squads are as death squads do.

What are you talking about? Does the judiciary need to have direct control over carrier groups and tank armies to prosecute a member of the executive? It's called checks and balances. Unfortunately, such a scheme doesn't work in the international arena because, to begin with, people in a country aren't going to be very happy about their leaders being tried by a foreign power. So essentially we are back to dog eat dog and the old adage of "don't mess with someone that is likely to beat you to a pulp". So can we just stop pretending that we have a monopoly on the moral high ground just because we ****ing say so?

Huh? We have the rule of law to prevent things like the Terror from repeating themselves. Yeah, yeah. It's the majority doing it so it must be right. Don't mind me, just your run of the mill professional dissident making a fuss over ethical thingamajigs that nobody seems to give a flying **** about anymore. Not even remotely relevant. The US govt has been carrying out "targeted killings" -an euphemism for assassination- for several years now, in the open. If the SEAL team had been sent to apprehend BL and he had been killed in the process, things would be different. But he was marked for death and an extra-judicial killing was carried out by a death squad. Whether he deserved it or not is irrelevant.

So... it all comes down to who does what first. BL prepares the deaths of several thousands, radical douches celebrate across the Muslim world, Americans throw a fit. A decade later, the US assassinate BL, radical douches celebrate in the US, and then throw a fit at those who dare question the legitimacy of government-sanctioned assassinations. Can't say I'm surprised, we've been hearing for years that it's A-OK to disregard the law when it's in the name of "peace and security", after all. Personally I'm glad the SOB is dead, but that doesn't make it right for supposedly democratic, free states to carry out assassinations with impunity. Surah 5:45 is alive and well, right guys? And you know what's worse than terrorism? NAZIS And you know what's worse than nazis? NAZI ZOMBIES!

It's not supposed to work, because the UN was never intended as the World Sheriff's Office -- it was meant to be a forum to give diplomacy a chance, to avert a very likely WWIII. NATO was formed as the military arm of the American containment policy. But you know that. However, with the dissolution of the Eastern Bloc, both organizations lost their raison d'

Do you feel that having a driver's license makes anyone a member of some elite?

1. Good for you. I hope you also approve of regulations to prevent the arbitrary application of a principle in the real world. There is no such thing atm. Of course, something like that is absurd and impossible. No chance of having an entity with the power to enforce law with a global scope and have it be itself subject to law in a manner that's enforceable.2. The reasons for the application of law and its conclusions are not to be considered jointly. Law and strategy are different fields with different spheres of application. That's why you have trials in absentia, for instance, and why you hold trials for people that are too old to go to jail. 3. Oh, wow. So the moral foundation of natural law is a fantasy, now? Interesting theory. I guess you are of the rare blend of positivists that don't even try to dispute the complete disconnection between law and morality in their thinking. Arguing that law should be what law can (and is) applied as is not only awfully convenient -and in this context more than a wee bit colonial, might I add- but also possibly a non-argument because of self-referencing. Law in any country where the rule of law is reasonably respected is an example of the universal character of justice*. The unavoidable shortcomings in any system designed and enforced by humans doesn't invalidate either the principle or the system nor, consequently, the example. *Within their jurisdictions. But we are discussing a global jurisdiction here, which is by definition unique - you ask for an example of something that doesn't exist in an attempt to use facticity to support your position. How things are and how they should be are different things. Either it's justice and it stems from the same moral roots as justice (adjectives are bad, m'kay), or it isn't justice and you should find another name for it. It can't be both.

I agree with everything (especially the hot women thing, time for me to get serious about those Russian lessons!), except the decaying part. Putin may be a quasi-fascist pedophile and an old skool KGB apparatchik, but there's little doubt that he's rebuilt the Russian economy. Just when I thought that you couldn't get any stupider, you go and prove me wrong. Stay strong, Krez. :salute:

@Grom: so it'll be a long time before Qaddafi (or whoever) re-establishes control over Libya. So... what? The likely retaliation will be maybe twenty years in the future. I didn't say things will be worse for the US immediately. But this is hardly working towards preserving this increasingly nebulous and all-encompassing "national security" concept, unless it doesn't mean what we're told it means. Maybe govt-contractor security would be a better term. Less punch, though. As for the comments on the US economy, I was rambling. No, a catastrophic economic collapse isn't likely, and even if it were, it doesn't guarantee anything, as the 1930's show. It's the rise of credible world title contenders that is a much more likely and realistic prospect. But yes, that's something for another thread. The ultimate proof for your argument may be that this war is neither particularly beneficial to any participant's economy nor, ostensibly, working. Or maybe it's not working because there's no real political will behind it, it will never be excessively profitable for anyone save the Russians, and your theory is just bunk. You've been defending the same thesis, insatisfactorily, over and over. When challenged about the dodgy application of humanitarian criteria to justify this war, you change topics and discuss it in terms of profit. When presented with the likelihood that economic and political factors and not (as opposed to and) humanitarian or legal reasons are behind it, you again simply suggest that some justice is better than none. However, justice is supposed to be universal and, by extension, free to those that can't afford it. In other news, Sarko wants nothing to do with the immigration wave caused partly by his antics in North Africa, and is willing to piss off his neighbors (and allies) to prevent any possible domestic political backlash that may result. He really cares about those Libyans and Tunisians, as long as they don't get too close to him.

This -and the rest of your argument- only makes sense if we tacitly accept the assumption that Qaddafi was, before the civil war, as active a terrorist sponsor as he used to be a few decades ago. That may or may not be true, but the airstrikes have almost certainly ensured he will (continue to) be in the future. I think even you will agree that the ability to come and go freely and act with state support -even if it's in a covert fashion- represents a qualitative difference for any would-be international terrorist seeking to establish a framework for operations. And with Egypt's state security apparatus being dismantled as we speak, things are only going to get easier for insurgents, guerrilla fighters and "terrorists" seeking to operate on or simply move through the region. Did you read that STRATFOR piece on Libyan arms depots being ransacked by god-knows-who, and the probable destinations for stolen hardware ranging from artillery explosives to MANPADS? Maybe you linked it here yourself, I don't really remember. 1. What ordinary people think doesn't matter. The development of the use of mass media into a science have ensured that, or rather, have ensured that ordinary people can be made to think whatever the interests that control the media want.2. If ordinary people really desired a "democratic" revolution and a change of the status quo in Libya, maybe the rebels wouldn't be losing so bad, mass defections would have occurred as has been the case in C

Okay, so do you introduce yourself like "Hi, I'm Walsingham, my hobbies include violent crime, dead infants and recidivism research", or do you keep that rather like a secret? I mean, go start a thread about cooking or something man.

That's got to be one really ****ty interstellar spacecraft if a radar can make it crash.

Quick as you are to suggest wishful thinking from others, this really stands out - especially in light of Qaddafi's history with terrorism. If you bomb someone's country -twice- and make every possible commitment -except for the one that matters- to make sure he's ousted, expecting him to just sit on his hands rebuilding infrastructure for the next decades is... not terribly realistic. Not that this is necessarily the scenario you were predicting. But maybe in fifteen years we'll get a repetition of the Afghan mujahideen-9/11 "chain", and then public opinion will be more receptive to the idea of a land intervention in Libya, for humanitarian reasons of course. That is assuming the US economy can afford it by then, which connects to the other point I was considering. By all accounts, the US economy is doing badly. And from a layman's perspective, it doesn't look like Barry is up to the task of turning it around. It's not wishful thinking either to imagine that dwindling economic power will translate into a loss of weight and influence in the international arena, in favor of players like Brazil and Russia, but mostly China. The fall of the USSR is still fresh in the memories of many people but that wasn't "normal", and that's not how great powers usually lose their status. The (western) Roman empire didn't fall overnight, either.

Yeah... but this is a discussion about religious extremism if at all, not Stalin. If you weren't suggesting a link, making veiled references to communist dictatorships makes no sense. Stalin was by all accounts a mass murderer and a political extremist, but he was also an anomaly as far as Soviet leaders go. There is no connection between extremism and organized religion in the Soviet Union, because political extremism was largely stifled after Stalin's death, and religion was banned there. What I'm saying is that this attempt to summarize the full 70 years of Soviet history as a reign of extremism by association with Stalin is pretty weak. No. I said politics are necessary as well as intrinsic, because they are a part of the social mechanisms by which anything larger than a family is run. I also said I'd love to hear any suggestions about a world without politics. You try to put this necessity at the same level as religion, but you completely fail to substantiate that argument, other than by appeal to the tried and failed argument of social inertia and tradition. You mean that there are no secular organizations running charities where you live? How is charity and social work a monopoly of religious organizations? Hey, madrasahs are both religious and educational institutions - therefore, organized religion is necessary to run the educational system, right?

facepalm.jpg I thought you weren't drawing connections between the absence of organized religion and Soviet crimes? I guess you can't help it, but you could at least man up and admit it, instead of being cute and then huffing and puffing when called on it. Yeah, Stalin was as extreme as it gets. The Soviets themselves acknowledged this, and that's why the was likely assassinated and his policies undone to a good degree before his corpse was cold. But it's convenient that you ignored the rest of my post, where I explain that we can't do away with the eternal source of problems that is politics. If you have an alternative, I'd love to hear it. While you're at it, why don't you explain what is the essential role that organized religion fills in running modern, secular countries?

And, http://www.counterpunch.org/johnstone03242011.html Also, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12660329