karmakramer Posted August 16, 2011 Share Posted August 16, 2011 not that I am condoning military force, but this article is from a journalist whose actually gone to the Taliban controlled areas of Pakistan: http://www.dailytime..._2-1-2010_pg3_5 full text with bolding here is a deep abyss between the perceptions of the people of Waziristan, the most drone-hit area and the wider Pakistani society on the other side of the River Indus. For the latter, the US drone attacks on Waziristan are a violation of Pakistani’s sovereignty. Politicians, religious leaders, media analysts and anchorpersons express sensational clamour over the supposed ‘civilian casualties’ in the drone attacks. I have been discussing the issue of drone attacks with hundreds of people of Waziristan. <b>They see the US drone attacks as their liberators from the clutches of the terrorists into which, they say, their state has wilfully thrown them.</b> The purpose of today’s column is, one, to challenge the Pakistani and US media reports about the civilian casualties in the drone attacks and, two, to express the view of the people of Waziristan, who are equally terrified by the Taliban and the intelligence agencies of Pakistan. I personally met these people in the Pakhtunkhwa province, where they live as internally displaced persons (IDPs), and in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).<p>I would challenge both the US and Pakistani media to provide verifiable evidence of civilian ‘casualties’ because of drone attacks on Waziristan, i.e. names of the people killed, names of their villages, dates and locations of the strikes and, above all, the methodology of the information that they collected. If they can’t meet the challenge, I would request them to stop throwing around fabricated figures of ‘civilian casualties’ that confuse people around the world and provide propaganda material to the pro-Taliban and al Qaeda forces in the politics and media of Pakistan. I pose that challenge because no one is in a position to give a correct estimate of how many individuals have been killed so far in drone attacks. On the basis of American media estimates, 600 to 700 ‘civilian population’ have been killed. The Pakistani government, pro-Taliban political parties like Jamaat-e-Islami, Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam, Tehrik-e-Insaf, and the media are quoting the same figure. Neither the government of Pakistan nor the media have any access to the area and no system is in place to arrive at precise estimates. The Pakistani government and media take the figure appearing in the American media as an admission by the American government. The US media too do not have access to the area. Moreover, the area is simply not accessible for any kind of independent journalistic or scholarly work on drone attacks. The Taliban simply kill anyone doing so. The reason why these estimates about civilian ‘casualties’ in the US and Pakistani media are wrong is that after every attack the terrorists cordon off the area and no one, including the local villagers, is allowed to come even near the targeted place. The militants themselves collect the bodies, burry the dead and then issue the statement that all of them were innocent civilians.</b>This has been part of their propaganda to provide excuses to the pro-Taliban and al Qaeda media persons and political forces in Pakistan to generate public sympathies for the terrorists. The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) or other militants have never admitted to the killing of any important figure of al Qaeda or the TTP. One exception is the killing of Baitullah Mehsud that the TTP reluctantly admitted several days after his death. According to the people of Waziristan, the only civilians who have been killed so far in the drone attacks are women or children of the militants in whose houses/compounds they hold meetings. But that, too, used to happen in the past. Now they don’t hold meetings at places where women and children of the al Qaeda and TTP militants reside. Moreover, in this case too no one is in a position to give even an approximate number of the women and children of the terrorists killed in drone attacks. The people of Waziristan are suffering a brutal kind of occupation under the Taliban and al Qaeda. It is in this context that they would welcome anyone, Americans, Israelis, Indians or even the devil, to rid them of the Taliban and al Qaeda. Therefore, they welcome the drone attacks. Secondly, the people feel comfortable with the drones because of their precision and targeted strikes.</b> People usually appreciate drone attacks when they compare it with the Pakistan Army’s attacks, which always result in collateral damage. Especially the people of Waziristan have been terrified by the use of long-range artillery and air strikes of the Pakistan Army and Air Force. People complain that not a single TTP or al Qaeda member has been killed so far by the Pakistan Army, whereas a lot of collateral damage has taken place. Thousands of houses have been destroyed and hundreds of innocent civilians have been killed by the Pakistan Army. On the other hand, drone attacks have never targeted the civilian population except, they informed, in one case when the funeral procession of Khwazh Wali, a TTP commander, was hit. In that attack too, many TTP militants were killed including Bilal (the TTP commander of Zangara area) and two Arab members of al Qaeda. But some civilians were also killed. After the attack people got the excuse of not attending the funeral of slain TTP militants or offering them food, which they used to do out of compulsion in order to put themselves in the TTP’s good books. “It (this drone attack) was a blessing in disguise,” several people commented. I have heard people particularly appreciating the precision of drone strikes. People say that when a drone would hover over the skies, they wouldn’t be disturbed and would carry on their usual business because they would be sure that it does not target the civilians, but the same people would run for shelter when a Pakistani jet would appear in the skies because of its indiscriminate firing. They say that even in the same compound only the exact room — where a high value target (HVT) is present — is targeted. Thus others in the same compound are spared. <b>The people of Waziristan have been complaining why the drones are only restricted to targeting the Arabs. They want the drones to attack the TTP leadership, the Uzbek/Tajik/Turkmen, Punjabi and Pakhtun Taliban</b>. I have heard even religious people of Waziristan cursing the jihad and welcoming even Indian or Israeli support to help them get rid of the TTP and foreign militants. The TTP and foreign militants had made them hostages and occupied their houses by force. The Taliban have publicly killed even the religious scholars in Waziristan. I have yet to come across a non-TTP resident of Waziristan who supports the Taliban or al Qaeda. Till recently they were terrified by the TTP to the extent that they would not open their mouth to oppose them. But now, having been displaced and out of their reach, some of them speak against them openly and many more than before in private conversations. They express their fear of the intelligence agencies of Pakistan whenever speaking against the Taliban. They see the two as two sides of the same coin. What we read and hear in the print and electronic media of Pakistan about drone attacks as a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty or resulting in killing innocent civilians is not true so far as the people of Waziristan are concerned. According to them, al Qaeda and the TTP are dead scared of drone attacks and their leadership spends sleepless nights. This is a cause of pleasure for the tormented people of Waziristan. Moreover, al Qaeda and the Taliban have done everything to stop the drone attacks by killing hundreds of innocent civilians on the pretext of their being American spies. They thought that by overwhelming the innocent people of Waziristan with terror tactics they would deter any potential informer, but they have failed. On many occasions the Taliban and al Qaeda have killed the alleged US spies in front of crowds of hundreds, even thousands of tribesmen. Interestingly, no one in Pakistan has raised objection to killings of the people of Waziristan on charges of spying for the US. This, the people of Waziristan informed, is a source of torture for them that their fellow Pakistanis condemn the killing of the terrorists but fall into deadly silence over the routine murders of tribesmen accused of spying for the US by the terrorists occupying their land. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hautlle Posted August 16, 2011 Share Posted August 16, 2011 With the talk about "robots" killing people.... Every UAV is still piloted or at least monitored by a human. This is a current requirement with the US military (they actually just created a whole new "career choice" just last year just for Drone Pilots http://www.popsci.co...t-career-choice ) Second, we're only going to see more and more remotely piloted vehicles in the coming future as the tech gets cheaper. The US is already teaming up the Military with civilians through a system named UAVForge. Nice article about this stuff too http://www.fastcompa...d-future-of-war Does that make any of it right? Not necessarily, but machines, robots, and remote vehicles are all very real in current and future wars. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest disparaissant Posted August 16, 2011 Share Posted August 16, 2011 i think its a ridiculously bad path to get started down, that's for sure. i remember hearing somewhere that they pretty much designed those UAVs to be controlled like a video game, with an xbox controller which is kind of disturbing hey kids! come play REAL video games with us! and KILL people! first we'll put you through a psychological training program where we will brainwash you and teach you to hate unequivocally anyone who threatens our way of life, then VIDEO GAMES! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eugene Posted August 16, 2011 Share Posted August 16, 2011 not that I am condoning military force, but this article is from a journalist whose actually gone to the Taliban controlled areas of Pakistan: http://www.dailytime..._2-1-2010_pg3_5 full text with bolding zionist propaganda zionist propaganda zionist propaganda zionist propaganda zionist propaganda zionist propaganda zionist propaganda zionist propaganda zionist propaganda zionist propaganda zionist propaganda zionist propaganda zionist propaganda zionist propaganda zionist propaganda zionist propaganda zionist propaganda zionist propaganda zionist propaganda zionist propaganda zionist propaganda zionist propaganda zionist propaganda zionist propaganda zionist propaganda zionist propaganda zionist propaganda zionist propaganda zionist propaganda zionist propaganda zionist propaganda zionist propaganda zionist propaganda zionist propaganda zionist propaganda zionist propaganda zionist propaganda zionist propaganda zionist 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propaganda zionist propaganda zionist propaganda . fixt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest hahathhat Posted August 16, 2011 Share Posted August 16, 2011 where the fuck is she looking right through your skull, into your brain, and directly into the core of your amygdala. she SQUEEZES your amygdala as she bores down on you with that manic grin, mad with power. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GORDO Posted August 16, 2011 Share Posted August 16, 2011 Clearly (I think) Awepittance is trying to dispel the mindset that Obama is in the good (even if only by comparison) merely because he has a nicer and smarter sounding rhetoric than his republican counterparts. I'd say that it's very hard to argue against that because the solution to all the shit seems crystal clear to anyone who can see why people like Bachman are batshit insane; simply grab your balls and end all this wars and killing that Americans don't even benefit from, and while anyone can come up with tons of excuses like "he's tied by the military-industrial complex, coorporate agendas and games of power so he can't accomplish much too quick" it still translates into he's not changing anything and doesn't show a good strong will to do so. i think he's right and most people tend to just put faith on Obama without any real reason to do so, merely hope talking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J3FF3R00 Posted August 16, 2011 Author Share Posted August 16, 2011 Arguing about Obama in a thread about Michelle Bachman is like posting a thread about Pantera in the BOC subforum. Just sayin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest hahathhat Posted August 16, 2011 Share Posted August 16, 2011 i guess it depends on your religious views, then !! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hautlle Posted August 16, 2011 Share Posted August 16, 2011 i guess it depends on your religious views, then !! "Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry aren't just devout—both have deep ties to a fringe fundamentalist movement known as Dominionism, which says Christians should rule the world." http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/08/14/dominionism-michele-bachmann-and-rick-perry-s-dangerous-religious-bond.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vertsk8er419 Posted August 16, 2011 Share Posted August 16, 2011 the only question I have though.. what's the evolutionary purpose of homosexuality? seeing homosexuals as spiritual beings with free will just like you, and seeing all separating belief systems as programs that need to be shed through unity consciousness and unconditional love for all other sentient beings, their unique take on consciousness, and the manner in which they express it in this grand divine comedy we all chose to incarnate into. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest boo Posted August 16, 2011 Share Posted August 16, 2011 mustard and snooker, nice combination... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keltoi Posted August 16, 2011 Share Posted August 16, 2011 NSFW! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keltoi Posted August 16, 2011 Share Posted August 16, 2011 NSFW! NSFW! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silent Member Posted August 16, 2011 Share Posted August 16, 2011 sick. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sisforawesome Posted August 16, 2011 Share Posted August 16, 2011 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest theSun Posted August 16, 2011 Share Posted August 16, 2011 we don't know that bachmann won't get elected. people have really gotten that dumb. i don't know if the seemingly retarded evil bachman is better than corporate controlling smart evil of many other politicians, but i think many here are aware of the long history of exploitation from every western power. this is more of the same, albeit more tech savvy, using internets and cgi news for propagandas, and robots to smite foreign people. i used to think that in time, more humans (eventually the majority) would be rational thinkers, but i no longer believe that. corporate control and ignorance is too easy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
azatoth Posted August 16, 2011 Share Posted August 16, 2011 The mere fact that a nutcase like Bachmann is talked about as a possible nominee for the Presidency is telling about the sorry state of the US. In Europe a candidate like her would be laughed at and rightfully ignored, not making headlines in major news outlets. Of course there are nutcases like her in Europe, but very rarely are they looked as legit candidates for any prominent roles in a government. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest theSun Posted August 16, 2011 Share Posted August 16, 2011 maybe now it's unfiltered, but i really really don't think the internet is going to remain an impartial informational vehicle. soon enough net neutrality will happen. hopefully not next year, but i'd be really surprised if some form of it doesn't happen in 15-20 years. i see it everyday in america though, so many people simply do not have the will to learn. even with the amount of information on the internet, people still decide to watch jersey shore. knowledge and rational thinking play 2nd fiddle to veiny biceps, fake tans and fake tits. this is not the climate for a surge of rational thinkers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TwiddleBot Posted August 16, 2011 Share Posted August 16, 2011 maybe now it's unfiltered, but i really really don't think the internet is going to remain an impartial informational vehicle. soon enough net neutrality will happen. hopefully not next year, but i'd be really surprised if some form of it doesn't happen in 15-20 years. i see it everyday in america though, so many people simply do not have the will to learn. even with the amount of information on the internet, people still decide to watch jersey shore. knowledge and rational thinking play 2nd fiddle to veiny biceps, fake tans and fake tits. this is not the climate for a surge of rational thinkers. Yeah, well also humans are tribal creatures who not too long ago believed it was 'ok' to kill anyone who disagreed with them. Many people just believe whatever their friends believe because they want to fit in. That and after all, telling your friend 'you are wrong' is insulting your friend and being a major buzz-kill even if s/he is wrong. Seriously, if one's friends love to get all worked up while equating fascism, socialism, communism and the 'mass loony left conspiracy' to manage this planet's limited energy resources, most are going to go along with it and get all worked up rather than taking five minutes on the internet to research what those words actually mean and question their friends. All this while driving along their publicly-funded roads, praising their publicly-funded military, etc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
awepittance Posted August 16, 2011 Share Posted August 16, 2011 worded much better than i can Perhaps the worst outcome of the protracted obsession with presidential campaigns is how it intensifies partisan tribalism, and bolsters divisions among ordinary Americans who have far more in common than differences. I recall a conversation I had early on in the Obama presidency with a civil libertarian; at the time, progressives were rarely critical of the new President, but because civil liberties was the very first area where he so blatantly embraced Bush policies and revealed how he truly operates, that was the one area where harsh criticisms were somewhat common. I suggested in that conversation that the trend of progressive criticism of Obama would be expressed by an inverted "U": it would continuously increase as the Real Obama revealed himself in more and more areas of prime importance to progressives, and then would decline precipitously -- more or less back to its original levels -- as the 2012 election approached. I think that's being roughly borne out. Because presidential elections are such a stark either/or affair, many people feel compelled to choose one side and then elevate its victory into the overarching -- even the only -- political priority that matters. For that reason, even those willing to criticize their own side's Leader a couple of years before the election become unwilling to do so as the election approaches, on the ground that nothing matters except boosting one's own team and undermining the other. That, in tun, further reduces the already-low levels of independence, intellectual honesty, and -- most importantly -- accountability for those in power. Those depressing, destructive trends are exacerbated by the manipulative fear-mongering that drives these campaigns. Every four years, The Other Side is turned into the evil spawn of Adolf Hitler and Osama bin Laden. Each and every election cycle, each party claims that -- unlike in the past, when Responsible Moderates ruled and the "crazies" and radicals were relegated to the fringes (the Democrats were once the Party of Truman!; Ronald Reagan was a compromising moderate!) -- the other party has now been taken over by the extremists, making it More Dangerous Than Ever Before. That the Other Side is now ruled by Supreme Evil-Doers means that anything other than full-scale fealty to their defeat is viewed as heresy. Defeat of the Real Enemy is the only acceptable goal. Election-time partisan loyalty becomes the ultimate Litmus Test of whether you're on the side of Good: it's the supreme With-Us-or-With-the-Terrorists test, and few are willing to endure the punishments for failing it. It's an enforcement mechanism for Party loyalty that -- by design -- breeds slavish partisan fealty. None of this has anything to do with reality. For as long as I can remember, Republicans-- every election cycle -- have insisted that the Democratic Party has "now become more radical than ever," while Democrats insist that the GOP has now -- for the first time ever! -- been taken over by the extremists. That was what was said when Ronald Reagan was nominated in 1980 and then appointed people like Ed Messe, James Watt, and Robert Bork; it's what was said with the rise of the Moral Majority and Pat Robertson's 1988 second-place finish in the Iowa caucus (ahead of Vice President George H.W. Bush); it's what was said of the 1994 Contract with America and the Gingrich-led GOP's impeachment of Bill Clinton, and was repeated after Pat Buchanan's 1992 "culture and religious war" Convention speech in Houston and again after Buchanan's 1996 victory in the New Hampshire primary; and it's what was said repeatedly throughout the Bush/Cheney presidency. Yes, some of the leading GOP presidential candidates (Bachmann, Perry) are truly extreme -- -but no more so than was Pat Robertson, Newt Gingrich, Dick Cheney, or (in his own way) Pat Buchanan. Jesse Helms was the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and all but threatened Bill Clinton's life. The GOP is extreme now and has been extreme for 30 years. The "Tea Party" is little more than a rebranding of conservatism in the post-Bush age. That they're MORE EXTREME THAN EVER!! is a fear-mongering slogan -- hauled out every four years -- to cause Democrats to forget about, or willfully ignore, their own leader's glaring, gaping failures. The reality is that both parties' voters, early on in the process, like to flirt with candidates who present themselves as ideologues, but ultimately choose establishment-approved, establishment-serving functionaries perceived as electable (e.g., the Democrats' 2004 rejection of Dean in favor of Kerry, the GOP's 2008 embrace of the "maverick" McCain). In those rare instances when they nominate someone perceived as outside the establishment mainstream (Goldwater, McGovern), those candidates are quickly destroyed. The two-party system and these presidential campaigns are virtually guaranteed -- by design -- to produce palatable faces who perpetuate the status quo, placate the citizenry, and dutifully serve the nation's most powerful factions. They can have some differences -- they'll have genuinely different views on social issues and widely disparate cultural brands (the urbane, sophisticated, East Coast elite intellectual v. the down-home, swaggering, Southern/Texan evangelical) -- but the process ensures a convergence to establishment homogeneity. The winner-takes-all, Most-Important-Election-Ever hysteria that precedes it masks that reality, creating the illusion of fundamentally stark choices. That's what makes the 18 months of screeching, divisive, petty, trivial rancor so absurd, so distracting, so distorting. Yes, it matters in some important ways who wins and sits in the Oval Office chair, but there are things that matter much, much more than that -- all of which are suffocated into non-existence by the endless, mind-numbing election circus. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
awepittance Posted August 16, 2011 Share Posted August 16, 2011 no, i'm just ignoring it when you put words into my mouth. there's a difference. :) you're the one who wanted to bring up Hitler, lol, not i. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest hahathhat Posted August 16, 2011 Share Posted August 16, 2011 not only is that a brilliant idea, but it's superbly executed. i give this photoshop an 'A' for awesome !! like your username. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest nene multiple assgasms Posted August 16, 2011 Share Posted August 16, 2011 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest disparaissant Posted August 16, 2011 Share Posted August 16, 2011 no, i'm just ignoring it when you put words into my mouth. there's a difference. :) you're the one who wanted to bring up Hitler, lol, not i. that was hyperbole and metaphor basically you don't have a leg to stand on so you keep trying to say what i thought about bush or what i think about obama but its clear you have this blueprint in your head of what a typical liberal thinks on every issue but the fact is im not really a typical liberal at all. i actually agree with a lot of what you're saying here, but we can't just ignore someone because someone else is worse. that's fucking idiotic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest disparaissant Posted August 16, 2011 Share Posted August 16, 2011 fucking idiotic dont think i stressed how idiotic it is Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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