213374U

Unfulfilled affective and belongingness (believe it or not that's actually a word) needs. Gorth's post a few pages back hit the nail on the head. The guy was an immature, cowardly, lonely man that chose to turn inwards rather than clench his teeth and try harder or seek help. I'd wager that, with progressively less human contact as he devoted more and more time to his "projects", his social skills deteriorated even further as his ego and butthurt grew. A kind of psychological positive(lol) feedback, perhaps. Humans are the most social primates in the world and loneliness, self-imposed or otherwise, does very nasty things to our psyche. The pseudo-political propaganda is just a fantasy he made up -for himself, rather than anyone else- so he could avoid looking in the mirror and seeing the sore loser he is. I'm not going to hand the pathetic swine the victory that would come from wasting time reading through his poorly written 1,500-page rant, but from the excerpts Boo so kindly posted, the only element greater in magnitude than his self-centeredness is his hurt ego. Nope, not even his penchant for cheap rhetoric and plagiarism. And that's enough armchair psychology for today. More to come later, if I feel like it.

I can't seem to open HK's 2nd link. Southern hemisphere only? Shame because that Guardian piece was pretty cool. Is it? Carrying a gun and using it effectively to protect yourself in a situation like that aren't even close. As soon as the **** hits the fan, you'll probably get the shakes bad, missing all your shots -if you were lucky and your gun didn't jam straight away- and/or hit something or someone(!) else. That's assuming you weren't paralyzed by terror or just succumbed to the overwhelming impulse to GTFO. People in the police and military train for that sort of stuff for years and still fail to consistently keep a cool head under fire. Regular joes do even worse, packing or not, because we lack practice handling the violent hormonal discharge. Gun-toting pedestrians may have a mild deterrent effect, and hearing shots other than his own might have made the guy pause, but all things considered, I'd rather have just one out of control gunman.

Nice. You must have been one hell of a prosecutor.

You really are out of ideas, aren't you? Or was your little sister writing your replies for you and she got sleepy-eyed and left you in charge? Gonna take a break now. Be a good retardo and go to bed already. And don't touch your teddy in the special place, despite what you may have heard, that's not what friends do.

Yeah, I'd call you dear but you'd get ideas... sonny.

That doesn't even make sense, kid. Clearly it's way past your bedtime and it's showing. (ooh, I left myself wide open for a "your mum" comeback! that and a few more of your "no U" retorts should do it!)

What can I say, I have a soft spot for educating people who lack a chromosome.

So the point is to post random pics? Coulda fooled me. I'll see if I can find some suitably homoerotic Van Damme pics to throw in.

Hmm, no. The topic at hand was the killing of BL. You know, that's what titles are for, if you lose track. Some people were commenting on other things like the hypocrisy of celebrating, etc. You posted a badly-written, generic, undirected flamebait after Hilde, GDM and me were discussing a different aspect of the topic. The problem is that you'd have had to quote Nepenthe directly to make it clear who you were talking to, and then your 4chan-quality bait would actually become a direct personal attack on him. But on top of being stupid you have yet to grow some balls. If you can't man up over the ****ing Internet, you must really be a frightened little bitch IRL. Did you give your lunch money to the school bully before or after you blew him? Don't get out much, I take it? That would explain why you have so much trouble following conversations.

You mean the point isn't to glorify extra-judicial killings? Okay, so, what is it then?

Right, my bad. Because I made the -wrong- assumption that what you were saying wasn't just random inane babble that was aimed at nobody in particular and of no relevance or interest to the topic. Classic internet. I won't make the same mistake again!

Right. Because BL is the first and only target of assassination in this "war". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_attacks_in_Pakistan So then his trial should have been lightning fast, right? Your point is that a known terrorist is a valid target for assassination. But... there are no valid targets for assassination because murder is illegal. See, one of the most often used rationales to justify "targeted killings" is self-defense (!).

In fact, and unlike you, I read the whole thread, you stunted asswipe. See, it helps when you are trying to look cool and blend in with the crowd, to at least make clear who is the target of the random insulting remarks you are making. That may require that you first gain a modicum of reading comprehension so you get a superficial understanding of what people are actually saying, but hey, one step at a time, you oligophrenic inbred runt. Best wishes, dip****.

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!