jackattack

Na it's ocean beach.

^^ How has KSM become a martyr for the cause?

^ how can we not be? Who else does anything? Who gives more aid than the 65 billion the U.S. is giving? When the tsunami hit who was there with aid? When the cyclone hit myanmar who almost forced aid on them? What other country gives as much aid as we do? Just because the word terror is in it doesn't mean anything that causes terror is terrorism. I guess Stephen King is a terrorist then. At least I'm not taking the DOD's definition out of context. Prisoners get a fair trial. They all get lawyers. The ones they don't have enough evidence to convict are released. Thats why 400 of 500 prisoners at gitmo have been released. Even though 1 in 8 goes has been confirmed to go back to terrorism. The ones they still have are either too dangerous to release of they are still building the case against them. One question to you. Do you approve of the use of waterboarding on khalid sheikh mohammed? If your the interrogator. He has a document that would lead you to believe where osama bin laden is. It's pretty soon after 9/11 and another attack could be coming and you've got one of the top al qaeda leaders. Would you waterboard him? Or just give him cookies and hope he tells you how they were going to bring down the largest building on the Left Coast?

Dude some of you guys got some real gorgeous views. Heres a pic of about a medium length walk from my house. My backdoor isn't anything special. [hide=][/hide] EDIT: BTW I didn't take this.

^^ Well I wouldn't call an attack against a military target terrorism.

^^ I would define terrorism as a non governmental organization purposely targeting civilians. Ginger you are honestly comparing waterboarding a mass murderer with purposely killing thousands of innocent civilians? You really have a problem with CIA waterboarding him? Oh and Ginger you left a little bit off the end of you definition..."to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological"

^^ Whats with that music? Anyway they only waterboarded 3 people. One of them was khalid sheikh mohammed. Especially when they only did it to him for less than 45 seconds and got information that stopped a plot to take down the largest building on the West Coast? And they thought he knew where bin laden was. Is that really a problem to you?

How can you jail someone for being part of a terrorist organization outside the USA who have done no crime towards America? If they've done no crime towards the USA then what legally allows you to jail them? That's like me arresting a member of the "KKK" just for example and throwing them into a Irish jail without trial. It's not jailing. If they sentenced them to life in prison that would be jailing. They are holding them because they are still dangerous and it is a time of war. Even the U.N. has acknowledged our right to do that. Of the 500 or so people that were at gitmo 400 have been released. 1 in 8 has been confirmed to go back to terrorism. Should they let the other hundred (the really bad ones) go? Staggering. You despise this supposedly new-found ideology of 'terrorism', and here you are giving apathetic reactions to methods of prison torture which instill terror into people who have never even had a fair trial. How on Earth can you lecture us about the dangers of terrorism when you cannot even sort your own country out? Absolutely unbelievable hypocrisy. Your really equating terrorism to putting designs that give prisoners headaches in a jail cell? I wouldn't call that torture. EDIT:OT President Bush just reached an agreement with Maliki for the timetable he wanted. This is a smart timetable where it can be changed based on the conditions on the ground. This just shows how much progress that we have made. Not just that the Iraqis asked for it but also that Bush agreed to it. Lucky those Nancy boys in congress didn't get there way.

Ya your right. They have no reason at all for being there.

^^Oh I feel terrible. Narrow cells? How barbaric. The prisoners are forced to look at the cell walls? I bet those evil guards cut their eyelids off. I feel so bad for those poor poor terrorists. Those are really inhuman living conditions.

^^ Falsely imprisoned? If thats the guy I'm thinking of he has admitted giving money to terrorists. So I'm not sure I'd believe him. There is a huge difference between counter-terrorism work and police work. It's stopping the next attack vs. punishing a crime already committed. They can't give terrorists the same rights as regular criminals. Of the 500 or so people that were ever held there around 400 have been released. Of those 50 have been confirmed to have gone back to terrorism by the Pentagon. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ... a-pics.htm Does that look all that bad to you? Every room has an arrow pointing to Mecca. When that sheriff in Arizona is keeping prisoners in tents in the desert I don't feel all to bad for terrorists.

Thats not what political correctness means if your unaware of the definition. What exactly is wrong with Guantanamo bay?

What?

That's utter rubbish. We have reports of Islamist terror groups all the time. The front page of the BBC website today had a story about the overturning of a conviction against the Islamist terrorists who allegedly conducted the Madrid train bombings. It could have been the statistics about crime in this country which were published today. Could have been about Robert Murat. But no, absolutely nothing to do with us at all, but it was still on there. Whenever a Muslim is arrested, it's "A Muslim man has been arrested for burglary". Right, so he burgled because he was a Muslim? I doubt it. On the other hand, you never hear, "An atheist man has been arrested...". There is still a quite blatant stereotype, even if people don't realise they have it. You're more likely to get run over by a car, but all we ever hear about is terrorism. I for one only call someone an Islamophobe when they make wholly unjustified remarks about Muslims. Remarks such as "They don't really come here to work", or "They just sponge off the state", or "They're all ticking timebombs". I've no problems with people connecting terrorism to Islamic Fundamentalism. Maybe in europe. In the U.S. we are overrun by political correctness.

You mean we retreated to a supervising role? Not quite the same as abandoning. The Iraqi Army has to stand up on its own if we're to withdraw at any point. And you know, we're pretty trained when it comes to training armies in foreign territories. We only built the biggest Empire in human history by doing exactly that. Deaths in the British Army are also proportionately lower than the American loses, probably due to an emphasis on cooperation with those who do want to abide by law and rebuild infrastructure, providing aid to those whose lives we have upturned through our actions, as opposed to the American attitude which appears to be "we'll storm into a city and shoot dead anyone who opposes us" which inevitably creates more hostiles, not less. Kofi Annan's stance on terrorism is spot on. Yes, be vigilant, but the way to stop terrorism is to deprive them of the sanctuaries they thrive in. This involves improving the quality of life and opportunities of those who are likely to turn to extremist groups for salvation; not blowing their cities up with a vague promise of 'democracy' and allowing your home country's media to effectively allow an intolerance towards Muslims. No the british left Basra to al sadr before the ISF were prepared to take it. Hell of a job you guys did training the ISf there. I guess that's why 1000 ISF deserted at the first sign of a battle. British deaths are lower because The U.S. Has taken all the tough areas. And how can you say our media allows intolerance towards muslims? It's totally the opposite. At any criticism of a muslim or islam they cry islamophobia. They won't use any term that links islam with terrorism anymore.

^^ john kerry. And President Bush has done a pretty good job getting the north koreans to back down. They just recently destroyed that water cooling tower. We are lucky we left troops there or the whole peninsula would be north korea.

^^ Except for the south koreans? That's half of them. And I'd bet that a hell of a lot of north koreans would love to live in south korea. And look at what happened when we left Vietnam. Should we let the same thing happen to the Iraqis?

And if the shop-owner just wants you out of the shop before you cause more disruption, what then? You just get out before you cause more offence. Once again, you're taking the American attitude of self-responsibility and applying it to Iraqis who have a completely different view. Furthermore, you except your allies in the world to do the same. Why should British troops die on a daily basis, when most Britons are against the war and do not believe it's justified, just to fulfil your police-like position in the world? You claim you're building democracy. That's totally un-democratic. Why do you keep saying that the Iraqis want us out immediately? As far as I'm aware not even the sadirist members of the Iraqi parliament have said that. They've asked for a timetable but that could be 5 years and they would probably be happy. Not that were gonna be there for 5 years. Once we start to draw down and the ISF take the lead on all 18 provinces they probably will be happy without a timetable. And don't give me that garbage about the British. They are the one who abandoned Basra to the Mahdi army.

^^ Thats easy but thats not right. Mike Huckabee's pretty much right. "You break it, you buy it"

Because after Bush claimed there was masses of WMD's there and their objective was to dismantle them / destroy them, yet this turned out to be false, if I remember correctly not even 1 WMD was found by coalition forces. Their second objective happened, the overturning of Saddam, also the most remembered image of Iraq was of the American tank pulling down the statue of Saddam in Baghdad. This often made people think that the coalition force's prime objective was to overturn Saddam. Who thought that? And to all the people who say we don't care about Africa who's seen the $50 billion in aids relief we just approved for Africa? Even Joe Biden said the President deserves recognition for that.

MULAN!! :thumbsup: That songs pretty good.

Sorry I feel the urge to jump in and defend my country :P The American Population - roughly 300,000,000 people. (Source - https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/us.html) The British Population - roughly 70,000,000 people. (Source - https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/uk.html) Therefore, even if you make up for the difference in population; 70 million goes into 300 million let's say 5 (I know, it's actually four and a bit...) times, multiply 19 by five is less than a hundred people. I'm pretty sure that's correct but I'm not very good at maths! Assuming it is, theoretically even if Britain had the same sized population as America, over 5000 more American children would have died due to firearms. Yes Britain is having big problems with gun/knife crime, 20 teenagers have been killed in the last year, but that's not very much in comparison to over 35 university students killed in university shooting sprees alone. Also the illegality of guns and knifes make it easier for police to crack down on. If someone can own a gun, the police can't do anything until it's too late. If guns were illegal in the US, they could at least attempt to stop the problem before it takes place. Since you need to mention the university shooting, just for the record that was in a gun free zone. If a student or teacher had a gun they wouldn't have been helpless. If more people were in the NRA there would be less gun deaths among children.

^^ We didn't go in for only that reason. But that is the reason for staying. Are you honestly suggesting that we should withdraw immediately and leave the Iraqis to fend for themselves? How does it go against me? I can locate it, and I know it exists. The fact that I am American really doesn't mean much to me. Check my Nationalism thread. We all know you hate America.

^^ I'm pretty sure I've seen that. Is that the one about 9/11 being set up by the U.S. and and nafta turning into a north American union and then a one world government? Ya thats probably the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. Probably worse than loose change. The only good point is that income taxes are probably unconstitutional.

When I flew down to L.A. over the 4th I got a pretty good view of the Big Sur fire. And this weekend I was up in Chico with some friends. It was pretty smoky.