1_man_army

Okay so you dont like wikipedia..... _________________________________ Iran-Contra/Panama

The fact that anyone could go and edit Wikipedia at any time is proof enough. If I wanted to, I could go to Abraham Lincoln's Wiki and change his date of birth. Numbers can easily be changed without violating the anti-vandalism protection. That is why Wikipedia can not be trusted. I don't allow my students to turn in anything from Wiki for that reason. I went for Wikipedia because its easily accessible and it allows me to search through its mass of content easily. You're also forgetting that most articles on wikipedia (and all of the ones I posted) are referencing other material.

Okay for a start the cases mentioned in my post are not rumors, they are in fact actual historical cases I implore you to do your own research on each & every case I mention if you wish. Secondly - yes I am for nations protecting their interests but not via many of the methods that have used by USA in the past which I detailed in my post. Thirdly - many of these cases where big scandals at the time (particularly the Iran-Contra affair) others where suppressed at the time by the US government & released to thepublic years after the fact while some are just plain ignored by certain aspects of the media which are too afraid to be overtly critical of the US government. Lastly, no I don't read the National Enquirer as to the best of my knowledge it isnt sold in America. Interesting links Cuba http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orlando_Bosch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_contra Nicaragua http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_and_Contra%27s_cocaine_trafficking_in_the_US http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua_v._United_States Afghanistan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_resistance#Afghan_mujahideen Panama http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_Noriega http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Panama#International_reaction Iraq http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._support_for_Iraq_during_the_Iran-Iraq_war Israel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_nuclear_program#Nuclear_weapons_capability http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordechai_Vanunu Misc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_state_terrorism_by_United_States_of_America Now you may not want to read any of those because lets face it, it's really not what you want to hear, but they have all happened. Just because you refuse to accept it doesn't make it any less true.

Now that is categorically false. America does not have a long history of protecting repressed peoples of the world, actually America has a long history of protecting its own interests by any means available. These means include; co-operating with dictators/dictatorships as well as funding foreign guerilla/terrorist groups (in terms of munitions or via narcotics revenues). ====================================== A few examples of this would be; Nicaragua ( The Iran-Contra affair - where weapons were sold illegally to Iran in order to fund The Contra's who aimed to takeover the country. The Contra's were also funded via drug trafficking which the USA was aware of. This attempt to overthrow the Nicaraguan government was declared to be in violation of International law in the case of The Republic of Nicaragua vs. The United States of America. ---------------------------- Cuba The CIA planned to carry out terrorist attacks on American interests/citzens, and to blame it on the Cuba in order to gain enough support to mount a full scale invasion of Cuba. Among the acts proposed were the sinking of US ships in Guantanamo Bay & the placing bombsin areas populated by the Cuban exilecommunity in Florida. On top of this the USA has for many years has harbored Orlando Bosch , a self-confessed terrorist who in 1976 blew up Cubana Flight 455 which killed all 73 passengers. While he was initially charged for other crimes he commited in USA he was pardoned by George HW Bush. Remind me didnt the USA go to war with Afghanistan for harbouring terrorists? That stinks of hypocrisy. Bosch also organized the killing of Chilean former minister Orlando Letelier in 1976. On top of that the CIA co-operated with the American Mafia to assasinate Castro. ================= I'll the detailed examinations to those to for now but for future reference we could go into; US support for Iraq during the war with Iran which ignored the nature of Saddams regime & the attrocities the US was facilitating by giving Iraq equipment. Donald Rumsfeld was a keyplayer in this one The CIA's use of Panamian de facto leader Manuel Noriega as an agent. He then later siezed control of Panama & used his position to control state sponsored drug trafficking. He was only taken care of when he threatened the US with closing the Panama canal on them, which threatened US trade. The CIA's training of the forces in Afghanistan, in order to fight the Russians. Many of those soldiers that were trained (including one Osama Bin Laden) then later decided to fight America. The ultimate ideals of these people (Islamic fundamentalism) were known to the US at the time but were ignored in order to facilitate 'the greater good'. The continual blind eye that America casts upon Israel's war crimes towards the Palestinians. This includes the Mossad campaigns of targeted killing. America also ignored Israels nuclear proliferation. America's intervention in Vietnam was purely in order to protect its own interests, if America really cared about thne freedom of the Vietnamese people they would have stayed no matter what. In fact the intervention them is still making them suffer; the use of chemical weapons in the Vietnam War, particularly Agent Orange which is still killing civilians. Christ, the USA only got involved in WW2 because of Pearl Harbour in Dec. 1941. However, since then many seem to think that the USA went into WW2 as they were idealogically opposed to the Nazi's and wanted to protect the smaller nations of Europe & the Jews of Europe from the Nazi's which is false, there was no effort to protect anybody else until it was of American interest to do so. I could go on but you get what I'm trying to say, America is not the greater defender of freedom as you paint it out to be but instead it is a nation that is more than willing to ignore anything & a nation that will stoop to any means to benefit itself regardless of what happens to other nation. Dont get me wrong the US does sometimes do the right thing but usually there is something in it for them.

Well Im Scottish so my opinion will make no difference to the results in real life but for what its worth I'd like to see Barack Obama win. I like most of his policies (well the ones that I know of at the moment) and I think he has a certain charisma that has been lacking during the Bush era. I also think though that Obama should be judged purely on his policies and his skills as a leader and not on his race, I think it would be a mistake to vote for him purely to see a black man as President as demeans the whole concept of becoming President. The post should be filled by the person who is thought to be the most capable not the person who belongs to a certain demographic group that hasn't held the post before. The same principle applies to Hilary Clinton judge her on her policies not just her gender.

The American military covering up their crimes is still going on. In fact today a UK coroner found that the 'friendly fire' killing of British serviceman Matty Hull was an unlawful killing. This comes after the USA tried for months to conceal the video evidence of what had happened in order to prevent fair proceedings to go ahead. The video evidence finally had to be given up by America after a UK tabloid newspaper leaked it out to the public. The Americans today still came out today & insisted that the killing was not unlawfull despite the fact that the soldier was in a clearly marked vehicle & that the soldier who pulled the trigger clearly failed to follow the rules of engagement. If this was the other way about America would be up in arms, this whole thing stinks of hypocrisy. Links http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070317/ZNYT03/703170442 http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-fire17mar17,1,6409045.story?coll=la-headlines-world&ctrack=1&cset=true http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/tm_headline=coroner-slams-us-pilots-for-death-of-brit-soldier&method=full&objectid=18767710&siteid=66633-name_page.html

WTH are piggies? Piggies comes from the word "pigs" which is a slang term for the police.

I completely agree with you, all Im saying is that in certain circumstances it can be very hard to tell if it is a foul or a dive.

Shouldn't stop there - habitual divers should be fined and suspended each time they do. That or the club is fined. Either way it should be a "shape up or get banned till you stop" situation. Divers are the scum of the game :uhh: I agree with punishing blatant divers but there is a problem. Sometimes players who have technically been fouled do go down a little easier when its going to give them an advantage rather than to struggle to stay up and lose possesion/advantage. Also players with great pace only need a minimal ammount of contact to be dropped therefore it may appear to be a dive (as they would be okay if it had happened when they were going slower) but they have actually been fouled. On top of that, players who maybe have had a high-profile diving incident often gain a reputation (either fairly or not) which often puts them at a disadvantage when they are fouled, look at Andrew Johnson at Everton earlier in the season he had one incident and now he cant even get the most blatant of penalties to go his way. Basically what I'm saying is that in practice it is a great idea to crack down on divers but its not so easy. I do accept though that blatant incidents of diving (where there is no contact) should be punished. I hope that what I was trying to say came through there properly.

Its an idiotic idea that will virtually turn League competitions into a lottery. I agree with shootouts in one off games (such as cup finals where there is no other recourse) but in this case it's stupid in my opinion. Do the people who thought up this idea really think more people will go to games orwatch them on TV just to see a penalty shootout? Somehow I doubt it.

What 2 consenting adults do in the privacy of their own home is in no way comparable to crime, its an idiotic comparison. If somebody can do a job (any job) to the required level then they should be allowed to do so. It's funny to look back on but women had to fight against the same prejudice before they were accepted into the military and now nobody blinks an eyelid when they hear about females in the military, maybe in a few years the situation will be the same for homosexuals.

You can say the same about alcoholics and people with gambling problems. You can say the same about anyone who has an addiction that can only be sustained with money they no longer have. That "selective presentation" as you call it is FACTUAL.....no, you can not say the same about other addicts.....the study of criminal statistics show that over 80% of all violent crime in the US is drug related ....does that number sink into your brain? over 80%...you don't see gamblers going on violent killing sprees in Las Vegas, the gambling capital of the world Thats an unfair comparison and Ill try to explain why. The illegal narcotics trade is a multi-billion dollar industry that is effectively monopolised by organised crime groups, since the industry is such a huge earner for criminals there is going to be side effects such as gang violence & robbery. Now if this trade was made legal (I'm not advocating that it should be but I'm playing Devils Advocate here) it would be under strict legislation that would essentially take the money away from the criminals much in the same way as when prohibition being repealed took the alcohol trade away from criminals. The gangs who are killing each other over the drugs trade do so because of the money thats involved, the fact that the money comes from drugs is incidental - they used to kill each other over booze during prohibition. Gambling on the other hand is legal in certain areas of USA and is under strict legislation. This means large corporations can control the industry which keeps the money away from criminals and it creates a safe and controlled enviroment for gamblers. Gambling, in states where it is banned is controlled by criminals. What I'm saying is that any industry that has a sufficient demand & is made illegal will inevitably be controlled by organised crime. Basically all they're doing is filling a demand however, it does have its consequenses.

I was thinking about another Mario Bros. film, they're making another Turtles film so its possible.

Posting messages like that just make you seem like an attention seeker. You know that this thread is inevitably going to be locked.

If you try hard enough you can convince yourself of absolutely anything.

Are you saying Swiss would win in a war because they have better DEFENSES? Only one country could ever even challenge the US, and thats Russia The Vietnamese had a small and badly equipped military but they drove you out of Vietnam, the Afghan's were badly equipped, badly organised and smaller than the Russians but they won. On top of that we (the coalition) are eventually going to be pulled out of Iraq despite being so well equipped. What Im saying is that any army can be beaten regardless of how well equipped they are or how many soldiers they have.

"If I could stick my pen in my heart, I would spill it all over the stage. Would it satisfy ya, would it slide on by ya, Would you think the boy is strange? Ain't he strange?" The Rolling Stones - It's Only Rock N' Roll I know its a few lines instead of one but they're brilliant lines.

If you're into Wu Tangs solo stuff... Cuban Linx is a great album if you want to listen to a solo Raekwon album haven't heard Immobiliary though. Ghostface has some pretty good albums too (Ironman, Supreme Clientele, Fishscale) To be honest though I wasn't too keen on Method Man's Tical though

Christ, is there any post on this forum that doesn't begin with USA being mentioned & descend into an Iraq War/Bush flame war? This sort of thing happened with religious discussion & those discussions were banned for a while, it would be interesting to see any mention of USA resulting in a ban. :P

misread post will re-edit later

I like The Game and Papoose too. I can't for Pap's new album, it's gonna be sick. Some of his stuff is just the illest I've ever heard, like his lyrics from the Touch It remix. Yea, his part in Touch It Remix is crazy. Two songs that I really like of his are 'Take it to The Guns' and 'Alphabetical Slaughter'. Alphabetical Slaughter is sick. Try to listen to these somehow, they are real good. I'd add "Lets Play Monopoly" to that list of tracks:

Thats an ever so slightly stereotypical desciption of Africa. Not all of Africa is like Sudan is at the moment.

In my opinion, the reason why horror films have been disapointing recently is because they seem to follow the same basic formula. When Im at the cinema watching a horror film now I can read when/if something is about to happen which ruins the experience, the 'shocks' are no longer unexpected. Also, since the 70's & 80's pushed the envelope so much for the genre there is virtually no subject that can be completely shocking so what direction is there left to exploit that can be groundbreaking?

my parents did not hit me when i misbehafed and as far as i know i got respect for the people who deserfe it so? That might be your experience but its not the same for everybody. You can't judge things purely on personal experience or on isolated cases - different people deal with things differently. Following your logic, it is purely your experience that you were hit as a child and turned out fine. For other kids, it might just be teaching them that violence is the solution to everything. Sorry but please remind me where did I say that I was hit as I child. I didn't because I wasn't. The presence of my father was enough to put me off misbehaving too much. Next time don't make assumptions. My point is that parents should have the right to choose how to discipline their children instead of being tied up by needless and unworkable legislation.

Not only these days. There have always been great foreign films. Its true there has always been a lot of great foreign films but now with the internet its far easier to hear about them so its given foreign films more visability than they had say 15 years ago. Nowadays your average teenager might have heard of Volver where as that wouldnt be the case in the past. It's undoubtedly a good thing.