Today . . November 24th . .another Bali Bomb victim has emerged. . Air Paradise the Bali based airline has closed due to poor tour bookings. . *surprise - surprise*. . jobs and opportunities for the locals just disappeared in a puff of smoke. .
DEMOCRACY = Voters deciding by Poll on who will be the local member that "Big Business" will push around.
I for one don’t believe that Osama Bin Laden is genuinely interested in some form of political or religious outcome or is after restitution for the exploitation by major capitalist industries in undeveloped nations. The people he, and those of his ilk, manipulate to commit such horrible acts of terrorism may believe in some greater cause but Bin Laden doesn’t.
Bin Laden wants conflict, he wants to be a hero and legend much the same way Ariel Sharon of Israel started out his political career – their motives are purely selfish.
If Bin Laden wanted political or economic change then a few well placed suicide bombers at the homes of politicians and industry leaders would have been much more effective than attacking the civilian population.
Attacking innocent civilians just creates xenophobic reactions and facilitates the resurgence of fascist style governments that only serves to further marginalize the groups he supposedly represents. Bin Laden wants war and we gave it to him on a platter. Bin Laden does not want peace.
Opinion is ultimately determined by the feelings, and not by the intellect. Herbert Spencer
I think Herbert Spenser is right but I don't understand what it's meant to do with what cactus wrote. You can turn that same quote back on anything you yourself write, mr_p. I'm confused as a result. Was it meant as an argument against what you quoted or to agree with it?
This I just refuse to contain:
"I can quote people and put it on a forum and even make up my own quotes too." -MeanDean
I think Herbert Spenser is right but I don't understand what it's meant to do with what cactus wrote. You can turn that same quote back on anything you yourself write, mr_p. I'm confused as a result. Was it meant as an argument against what you quoted or to agree with it?
This I just refuse to contain:
"I can quote people and put it on a forum and even make up my own quotes too." -MeanDean
I agree with you Dean - any fool can quote another fool.
Airline bomb claim unravels From: By Adam Harvey in New York December 10, 2005
THE man who was shot and killed by US air marshals in Miami on Thursday appeared to suffer a panic attack and never spoke of a bomb, says a passenger who watched Rigoberto Alpizar dash up the plane's aisle. US authorities said Alpizar, 44, was shot and killed after threatening to detonate a bomb aboard an American Airlines plane.
"He threatened that he had a bomb in his backpack," Homeland Security Department spokesman Brian Doyle said.
"The officers clearly identified themselves and yelled at him to 'get down, get down'. Instead, he made a move toward the backpack."
But the incident is now being compared with July's shooting of an innocent Brazilian electrician on the London Underground.
"He just wanted to get off the plane," said passenger John McAlhany, who was sitting in the middle of the Boeing 757.
Alpizar was mentally ill, his neighbours said, but treated his condition with medication.
Alpizar's sister-in-law Jeanne Jentsch read a brief statement to the media, describing him as "a loving, gentle and caring husband, uncle, brother, son and friend who will be sorely missed by those who knew him".
Mr McAlhany told Time magazine he was sitting in the middle of the plane when he heard Alpizar arguing with his wife, saying: "I have to get off the plane."
She said: "Calm down."
Alpizar, who was sitting near the back of the plane, ran down the aisle, his wife close behind.
"She was running behind him saying, 'He's sick. He's sick. He's ill. He's got a disorder,' " Mr McAlhany recalled. "I don't know if she said bipolar disorder (as one witness has alleged). She was trying to explain to the marshals that he was ill. He just wanted to get off the plane.
"I never heard the word 'bomb' until the FBI asked me: 'Did you hear the word bomb?' "
The authorities would not mention the word "bomb", Mr McAlhany said.
"They asked: 'Did you hear anything about the B-word?'
"That's what they called it."
Mr McAlhany said it would have been difficult for Alpizar to lie on the ground as directed by agents because he had a bum bag hanging in front of his waist.
"You can't get on the ground with a fanny pack," he said. "You have to move it to the side."
By the time Alpizar made it to the front of the plane, the crew had ordered the rest of the passengers to get down between the seats.
"I didn't see him get shot," Mr McAlhany said. "They kept telling me to get down. I heard about five shots. I was on the phone with my brother. Somebody came down the aisle and put a shotgun to the back of my head and said, 'Put your hands on the seat in front of you.'
"I got my cell phone karate-chopped out of my hand. Then I realised it was an official."
Mr McAlhany said the security officers had overreacted.
"They were pointing the guns directly at us instead of pointing them to the ground," he said. "One little girl was crying. There was a lady crying all the way to the hotel."
US officials yesterday defended the shooting as a "textbook" response to a security threat.
The White House said an investigation would determine whether there were lessons to be learned from the killing.
The two federal air marshals involved in the shooting were put on paid leave pending an inquiry.
Does anyone else think that this is a classic case of Overkill (excuse the pun)?
How much of this do you believe? L.A. terror plot 'foiled' From: Reuters From correspondents in Washington February 10, 2006
THE United States and its allies thwarted an al-Qaeda plot after the September 11 attacks to use bombs hidden in shoes to breach the cockpit door of an airplane and fly it into the tallest building in Los Angeles, US President George W. Bush said. "The plot was derailed in early 2002 when a South-East Asian nation arrested a key al-Qaeda operative," Mr Bush said in a speech.
Last October, the Bush administration had disclosed a plot to attack targets on the US West Coast using hijacked planes, saying this was among 10 disrupted al-Qaeda plots, but Mr Bush provided more details.
He referred to the plot as targeting the Liberty Tower in Los Angeles, but White House aides afterward said Mr Bush had meant to say the intended target was the city's Library Tower.
Mr Bush said that in October 2001, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the September 11 attacks that year, had set in motion a plot for another attack inside the United States using shoe bombs to hijack an airplane and fly it into the tallest building on the West Coast.
Rather than use Arab hijackers as in the September 11 attack, Mohammed "sought out young men from South-East Asia whom he believed would not arouse as much suspicion," Mr Bush said.
The operatives trained in Afghanistan and met with Osama bin Laden before beginning their preparations for the attack, said Mr Bush.
"Subsequent debriefings and other intelligence operations made clear the intended target and how al-Qaeda hoped to execute it. This critical intelligence helped our allies capture the ringleaders and other known operatives who had been recruited for this plot," he said.
Not a word of it Suzi...more propoganda from Dubbya...I mean he couldn't even get the name of the damn building right...I think they come up with one of these foiled terrorist plots whenever they're planning to trample on the citizen's rights just a little bit more or when things aren't going as the lying scumbag politicans would like...and there are just enough morons who swallow it hook, line and sinker.
Cheers, BSquared There's more to politics than left and right...find out where you sit on the polical compass by taking the world's smallest political quiz at http://www.self-gov.org/quiz.html
Inmate suicides 'an act of war' From: Reuters June 11, 2006
THE commander of the US Joint Task Force Guantanamo, Rear Admiral Harry Harris has described the overnight suicide of three inmates "as an act of war".
Three foreign prisoners were found dead overnight after hanging themselves with clothing and bedsheets in the first deaths at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since the prison opened in January 2002, US defence officials said. The military said two Saudis and one Yemeni were found unresponsive and not breathing in their cells by guards and that attempts to resuscitate the detainees failed.
They were pronounced dead by a physician at Guantanamo, which holds just under 500 foreigners captured mainly in the US war against the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan
The suicides have thrown a spotlight on the camp that has drawn widespread criticism against the Bush administration from foreign countries, including some allies, and human rights advocates.
Navy Rear Admiral Harry Harris, commander of Guantanamo, described the suicides were an act of warfare.
Advertisement: "They are smart. They are creative, they are committed. They have no regard for life, neither ours nor their own. I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us," Rear Adm. Harris said. The suicides threw a fresh spotlight on the camp that has drawn widespread criticism against the Bush administration from foreign countries, including some allies, and human rights advocates.
Facing indefinite detention with none of the rights afforded formal prisoners of war or criminal suspects in the US justice system, dozens of the detainees have undertaken hunger strikes and attempted suicide.
Guantanamo has been one of string of issues that have undermined support abroad for Washington's war on terrorism, declared after the Sept. 11 attacks. The deaths come as President George W. Bush faces growing public doubt about the war in Iraq.
The US military said the bodies were being treated "with the utmost respect." An investigation has begun, it said.
A White House spokesman said Bush expressed serious concern on Saturday when he was told about the three suicides.
Spokesman Tony Snow said Bush, who is at Camp David this weekend, was told of the deaths by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
"He expressed serious concern," Snow said, adding that US officials made a round of telephone calls to notify American allies abroad.
Bush has said he would like to close the detention center and spoke of Guantanamo on Friday at a joint news conference with Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who raised concerns about it with the US president.
"We'd like it to be empty," Bush said. "And we're now in the process of working with countries to repatriate people."
Ken Roth, head of Human Rights Watch in New York, said the suicides at Guantanamo likely were driven by despair.
"Sadly suicides like these are entirely predictable when people are held outside the law with no end in sight. They despair of spending the rest of their lives detained at the whim of their jailer with no sense of when it would end," he said.
In May, the United Nations top anti-torture body told the United States that any secret jails it ran for foreign terrorism suspects, along with the Guantanamo Bay facility, were illegal and should be closed.
The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule this month on the legitimacy of special military tribunals set up at the camp to try some of the prisoners for war crimes. Ten detainees face hearings before the tribunals.
The Pentagon says the detainees come from 40 countries and the West Bank, with the largest number from Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Yemen
they are the master of Dictatorship , Barstardization, Coverups , and if the seemingly overused word "conspiracy" is ever justified, then it is with AMERICA .
how they can be so patriotic is beyond me .. ( or should that be insecurely patriotic )
proud of what .. being arseholes and self centred scaming pricks !
Terrorism is breed by the big bullies (like the US) who want to exploit the little guys in order to become rich. That is what capitalism is all about. Getting rich at the expense of the poor.
When the poor finds out he has been exploited, he gets angry. And he wants to retaliate.
By definition, the poor is not very smart, otherwise he would not be in that situation. So like the husband who use violence against his wife because he is not smart enough to think about the consequences...
The little guys decide to bomb an American Embassy, to make the point that they are not happy.
At that stage, the US decides to teach them a lesson for even trying to have a go at them and hit them with a bomb.
Now the little guys are crying "Foul Play" and want revenge. So they send two planes in the World Trade Center.
What happen next? The US takes their country "Afganistan"
Saddam Hussein was the same. A powerful childish man.
When he proclaimed in 1991 that if the US attacked It would be the Mother of all wars... I laughed my head off. The invasion took 4 days and encountered very little resistance.
In 2001, he did it again. Exact same scenario. He challenged the US by not letting the inspectors in. So we went into Iraq and took it.
You can blame the US and the coalition for everything. But at the end of the day We only went into Iraq because Saddam wanted to play "Silly Bugger". Saddam never did care about his people. He was killing them himself. Why would he care about how many of his people would be killed in a war with the US? The guy is a maniac.
After the war in 1991, we tried to help the Iraquians people to get ride of Saddam Hussein. We wanted them to do it for themselve so that it would be legit. They did not do it.
There is a terrorist sleeping in most of us. It is only a question about how far we will let the big bully push us. You could say that most criminals are terrorists as most of them do what they do because the government or system have let them down.
Terrorism is an act of desperation. You cannot control desperate people. And most of the time, you cannot raison or negociate with someone desperate either. It is like trying to talk someone out of jumping when he is standing on the ledge of his balcony on the 20th floor.
That is why those people are not afraid to die and want to die when they are captured alive.
The answer to terrorism?
Stop exploiting the poor!
In a normal world, instead of spending billions on a war, the US would give those billions to the Iraquian people so that they can build a life for themselve and be happy. No more terrorism.
But the problem with that, is that the whole US economy run on its military machine. War = Money in the US. The billions that the US government spend in Iraq actually never leaves the US. That money is spend on US military equipment and wages to its military personel.
The US has been at war every single day since World War 2. There are American soldiers in several countries around the world. War makes America the wealthy country that it is. Building war ships, war planes and tanks is one of the biggest industry in America. They would go broke if they did not had a war to go to.
Your overall gist is correct and I can see what you are getting at but you have some incorrect facts.
Quoted from Aussies_Online
Saddam Hussein was the same. A powerful childish man.
When he proclaimed in 1991 that if the US attacked It would be the Mother of all wars... I laughed my head off. The invasion took 4 days and encountered very little resistance.
I thought he said that for the second Gulf War not the first. There was no real invasion in 1991 just a bombing that wiped out 80% of Saddam's military capability so Saddam had nothing to fight with when the second Gulf War came around.
Quoted Text
In 2001, he did it again. Exact same scenario. He challenged the US by not letting the inspectors in.
That is incorrect. In the end Saddam allowed the inspectors free reign all over Iraq, even his palaces. It was America who ordered the inspectors out of Iraq as they were proving Saddam didn't have any WMD. Also as is now on the record, the inspectors were spying on Iraq to gather military information for America's invasion, which is one reason Saddam tried to block some inspections. America was going to invade no matter what happened, they had already planned it and the last thing they wanted was for the inspectors to prove their lie that Saddam had WMD, so that is why the US mislead the inspectors at every turn (even giving them faulty equipment) and eventually ordered them to leave Iraq.
Quoted Text
You can blame the US and the coalition for everything.
You can certainly blame them for a lot. Even now they are still sponsoring and supporting dictators that are just as bad as Saddam (Equatorial Gunea is a good example) just like they supported Saddam for decades knowing full well he was killing his own people. Saddam only became an enemy when he started selling his oil in Euros instead of US dollars. Look it up, it's true.
Quoted Text
But at the end of the day We only went into Iraq because Saddam wanted to play "Silly Bugger". Saddam never did care about his people. He was killing them himself. Why would he care about how many of his people would be killed in a war with the US? The guy is a maniac.
So are 64 other dictators in the world, all listed on the CIA website and some as bad or worse than Saddam, so why isn't America attacking them as well. Why was Saddam singled out, especially when he had no WMD and had no links to terrorism?
Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but some abuse the privilege.
Logged
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