Hi Mods

If we had CS dungeons people would be clamouring to get in there to have parties rolling on the floor laughing grin

RE: we have come a long way baby,whats wrong with that?NOTHING

Scuse me darling, we won that vote fair and square and not a moment too soon either rolling on the floor laughing tongue

RE: we have come a long way baby,whats wrong with that?NOTHING

Oh that sounds brilliant, good luck with it cheering

Hi Mods

If arguing is all you are interested in Im sure some of the other threads will be much more to your liking then and besides, who says there wont be arguing, it will just happen on a more technical level and show some of the gobby so n so's how debate is supposed to happen - arguments arent won by those who shout loudest in science, they are formulaic and purposeful and dont descend to name calling when the theories go over peoples heads, hopefully at least grin thumbs up

Hi Mods

hahaha, obviously thumbs up laugh hug

RE: There'll







grin

RE: we have come a long way baby,whats wrong with that?NOTHING

rolling on the floor laughing rolling on the floor laughing rolling on the floor laughing

Hello Mastic laugh

Hi Mods

Hey Jon, it looks like you have a good offer there from Scorpio thumbs up

Hi Mods

Its totaly up to you sweetie, some do and some dont........ no great shakes either way, I just wondered if Id missed it is all thumbs up

RE: we have come a long way baby,whats wrong with that?NOTHING

Well said thumbs up 50/50 has to be the way to go cheering

Hi Mods

we know its all in good fun sweetheart hey hug bouquet

Hi Mods

Thanks Scorpio, nice to meet you, did I miss your welcome thread or havent you done one?

Welcome anyways wave cswelcome

RE: Some Lost Soul's Prayer

Hiya Todger, long time no see to you also wave bouquet

RE: Some Lost Soul's Prayer

rolling on the floor laughing rolling on the floor laughing rolling on the floor laughing

Hiya Nuliiii - have I wished you Happy New Year yet? if I have well, here it is for a second time laugh wave hug

Hi Mods

Oh brilliant, I didnt expect such a response cheering thumbs up

Hi Mods

You cant hide that fact that you are a man hussey behind a few scientific papers you know rolling on the floor laughing hug

Hi Mods

Yeah, Im tired of arguing with them and dont want to resort to starting Atheist threads to cause more conflict - I just want to move beyond all the pettyness and see if we can open another avenue for like minded people to connect - thats all........ hug

Hi Mods

Thanks Sassy, Ill go look thumbs up

Hi Mods

Is there any chance we could have a science category please - Ive started this as a thread to see if anybody else agrees - it woudnt surprise me if this drops like a stone bey ho hum, worth a try...

I find some amazing science stuff as its actually one of my most enduring interests.

Thanks if you even consider it anyways.........

RE: do you believe in jesus?

And honey, I dont care about yours either so save your breath thumbs up

RE: do you believe in jesus?

Will you be spooning or forking Boban dunno laugh

RE: do you believe in jesus?

One of the most amusing things thats occured to me while this threads been going on is that line from the bible that says "no word of my writings shall disappear" (or similar, its James I think but cant be botherd looking) so, you do have to wonder why they keep doing the annual rewrites of said book hey rolling on the floor laughing

RE: torture?

On Monday, April 5, Wikileaks.org posted video footage from Iraq, taken from a US military Apache helicopter in July 2007 as soldiers aboard it killed 12 people and wounded two children. The dead included two employees of the Reuters news agency: photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen and driver Saeed Chmagh.

The US military confirmed the authenticity of the video.

The footage clearly shows an unprovoked slaughter, and is shocking to watch whilst listening to the casual conversation of the soldiers in the background.

As disturbing as the video is, this type of behavior by US soldiers in Iraq is not uncommon.

Truthout has spoken with several soldiers who shared equally horrific stories of the slaughtering of innocent Iraqis by US occupation forces.

"I remember one woman walking by," said Jason Washburn, a corporal in the US Marines who served three tours in Iraq. He told the audience at the Winter Soldier hearings that took place March 13-16, 2008, in Silver Spring, Maryland, "She was carrying a huge bag, and she looked like she was heading toward us, so we lit her up with the Mark 19, which is an automatic grenade launcher, and when the dust settled, we realized that the bag was full of groceries. She had been trying to bring us food and we blew her to pieces."

The hearings provided a platform for veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan to share the reality of their occupation experiences with the media in the US.

Washburn testified on a panel that discussed the rules of engagement (ROE) in Iraq, and how lax they were, to the point of being virtually nonexistent.

"During the course of my three tours, the rules of engagement changed a lot," Washburn's testimony continued, "The higher the threat the more viciously we were permitted and expected to respond. Something else we were encouraged to do, almost with a wink and nudge, was to carry 'drop weapons', or by my third tour, 'drop shovels'. We would carry these weapons or shovels with us because if we accidentally shot a civilian, we could just toss the weapon on the body, and make them look like an insurgent."

Hart Viges, a member of the 82nd Airborne Division of the Army who served one year in Iraq, told of taking orders over the radio.

"One time they said to ?re on all taxicabs because the enemy was using them for transportation.... One of the snipers replied back, 'Excuse me? Did I hear that right? Fire on all taxicabs?' The lieutenant colonel responded, 'You heard me, trooper, ?re on all taxicabs.' After that, the town lit up, with all the units ?ring on cars. This was my ?rst experience with war, and that kind of set the tone for the rest of the deployment."

Vincent Emanuele, a Marine rifleman who spent a year in the al-Qaim area of Iraq near the Syrian border, told of emptying magazines of bullets into the city without identifying targets, running over corpses with Humvees and stopping to take "trophy" photos of bodies.

"An act that took place quite often in Iraq was taking pot shots at cars that drove by," he said, "This was not an isolated incident, and it took place for most of our eight-month deployment."

Kelly Dougherty - then executive director of Iraq Veterans Against the War - blamed the behavior of soldiers in Iraq on policies of the US government.

"The abuses committed in the occupations, far from being the result of a 'few bad apples' misbehaving, are the result of our government's Middle East policy, which is crafted in the highest spheres of US power,"



Theres loads more of this at the reference link

RE: torture?

We have learned that when something is getting som much attention in the media that theres usually something else going down thats being kept quiet - I didnt dig long enough to find the dirt on the US Soldiers but heres what the British ones are up to while theyre mithering about leaked docs; Do the American soldiers get searched des anybody know cos all this heroin on our streets is getting here somehow.

Detectives investigate UK troops thought to be smuggling drugs on military planes
By Eliot Sefton
LAST UPDATED 2:58 PM, SEPTEMBER 12, 2010
Share

Military police are investigating allegations that some British troops returning from duty in Afghanistan are involved in drug trafficking, bringing heroin home with them on flights coming into RAF Brize Norton.

The MoD is taking the claims seriously, increasing the use of sniffer dogs and body and luggage searches on flights which bring 700 troops a week back from Helmand. The checks are so rigorous the MoD has apologised to innocent troops for the inconvenience.

The Hampshire-based Special Investigations branch of the MoD’s military police started their investigation after receiving a tip-off that a network of UK soldiers is buying drugs from dealers in Afghanistan. The investigation centres on British and Canadian troops based at Kandahar’s Camp Bastion.

An MoD spokesman said: “We take any such reports very seriously and we have already tightened our existing procedures, both in Afghanistan and in the UK, including through increasing the use of sniffer dogs.”

Robert Fox, The First Post's defence correspondent, said the revelation was, if anything, somewhat overdue: "If it's true, it comes as no surprise. The use of heroin - and the peddling of it - were rife in the Red Army when the Russians occupied Afghanistan.”

There is also a long tradition of profiteering among soldiers – as portrayed, fictionally, in Joseph Heller’s Catch 22 where mess officer Lt Minderbinder buys and sells his way around the globe.

Opium growing is worth £2bn a year in Afghanistan, which produces 90 per cent of the world supply. Of that, more than half is grown in Helmand province. One Afghan drug dealer spoke to the Sunday Times last year. Identified only as Aziz, he said: “Most of our other customers, apart from drug lords in foreign countries, are the military. The soldiers whose term of duty is about to finish, they give an order to our boss.

“As I have heard, they are carrying these drugs in the military airlines and they can’t be reached because they are military. They can take it to the USA or England.”

Read more:

RE: torture?

Thats what they do when they cant attack the arguments, they attack the poster instead in the hope they will make us cry and run to mummy hahaha - well, I got news for them, I never had a mommy so Im quite used to sticking it out on my own - well, actually, not on my own, Ive just had some beautiful letters thanking me for for what Ive just been saying and standing up to the bullies in here........

RE: torture?

Not today I didnt but Ive been following it since it started.......

RE: torture?

The anger spilling into the streets of Cairo, Suez, Alexandria and other cities was focused like a laser beam on President Hosni Mubarak on Friday. As the protests move forward, however, the resentment is spreading beyond Mubarak and his immediate underlings, and toward the United States and Israel.

It isn’t hard to see why. The United States has been backing the Mubarak regime to the tune of billions of dollars over the past three decades, and even with scores dead and the regime’s legitimacy in tatters, US officials are still demanding Mubarak remain in power, though maybe with some trivial reforms.

And while Israel, for its part, is staying as officially quiet as is humanly possible about a massive revolt along its western border, beyond wondering how it snuck up on them, Obama Administration officials are continually citing Israel as the reason they are opposing regime change in Egypt.

As the Obama Administration digs in more and more in supporting Mubarak, it seems that they are fueling more resentment against them and, consequently, are all the more afraid that the inevitable regime change will have negative consequences for US-Egypt relations.

oh silly me, wrong thread rolling on the floor laughing

RE: torture?

Why? Because the most embarrassing thing about the WikiLeaks disclosures is not that they happened (though this is bad enough for the American government), but the revelation - long suspected but now proven - of the yawning discrepancy between US words and actions in that most contested area, the Middle East. Cable after cable details the extraordinarily intimate and codependent relations between the US and various despotic and unpleasant Arab regimes. One Arab intelligence chief plots with the Americans to target Iranian groups, or destroy Hamas. Another undemocratic Arab leader invites US bombers to attack targets in his own territory. It is this discrepancy - between word and deed - that will keep fuel in WikiLeaks's tanks and those of others like it.

Governments around the world are convincing themselves that nothing has changed and that if they restrict the circulation of those really sensitive telegrams and glue up the USB slots in their computers, this won't happen to them. But it will. There will be more such ­revelations, not just about the US (which has so far been the main target of WikiLeaks's somewhat arbitrary attentions), but others - Britain, China, perhaps - the reality is that electronic data is formidably difficult to protect. The reason is simple. To be effective as organisations, governments and foreign offices are required to circulate sensitive data, so that their officials and diplomats know what's going on.

One reason the UN Secretariat is ineffective is because nothing is secret there, so no one circulates anything sensitive. Don't buy the argument that the really important stuff is kept "Top Secret" and hasn't been compromised. Even a cursory perusal of the WikiLeaks store reveals cables that are the very meat and drink of diplomacy - what foreign leaders and governments really think and want in their relations with the US.
WikiLeaks mission

Thus, governments are confronted with a conundrum. If they restrict and protect the data, and perhaps even stop recording the most delicate information (as no doubt some diplomats are now considering), they will inevitably reduce their operational effectiveness. If they circulate the data widely, as the US did pre-WikiLeaks, they will risk compromise on this devastating scale.

There is only one enduring solution to the WikiLeaks problem - and this is perhaps what Assange wants, if one can get past his rather confusing statements - which is that governments must close the divide between what they say and what they do. It is this divide that provokes WikiLeaks; it is this divide that will provide ample embarrassment for future leakers to exploit. The only way for governments to save their credibility is at last to do what they say, and vice versa, with the assumption that nothing they do will remain ­secret for long.

The implications of this shift are profound and, indeed, historic.

Carne Ross resigned from the Foreign Office over the Iraq war. He founded and now runs Independent Diplomat, the world's first non-profit diplomatic advisory group. He is also the author of "Independent Diplomat: Dispatches from an Unaccountable Elite" (Hurst, 2007)

RE: torture?

It will take some time, perhaps a generation, for the full impact of the WikiLeaks disclosure of thousands of US diplomatic cables to become known. For this is an event of historic importance for all governments, not only the US. While they may roar their condemnation, governments are also pretending that it's business as usual. But what we have witnessed is something very dramatic in the world of diplomacy - and thus in the way that the world runs its business. We may now date the history of world politics as pre- or post-WikiLeaks.

The press may have concentrated on Gaddafi's voluptuous nurse or Karzai's corruption (which is depicted in excruciating detail in the cables), but this event carries a much deeper significance than merely the highly embarrassing and, in some cases, destabilising revelations in the enormous hoard of documents. Neither the US State Department nor WikiLeaks can say with any confidence whether the effects of this release will be good or bad, for in truth neither of them can know. There will be manifold and long-lasting consequences; that is all we can know for sure.
Word and deed

The presumption that governments can conduct their business with one another in secret, away from the prying eyes of the public, died when the leaks started to emerge on 28 November. Diplomats and officials around the world are now realising that anything they say may hit the public sphere - ie, the internet. Governments are no doubt rushing to secure their data and hold it more tightly than ever, but it's too late. If a government as professional, technologically sophisticated and well-protected as the US can suffer a breach of this magnitude, no other is safe. Politicians can demand the prosecution of Julian Assange or - absurdly - that WikiLeaks should be designated as a terrorist organisation, but the rage is a tacit admission that a government's monopoly on its own information is now a thing of the past.

Hillary Clinton has described the WikiLeaks disclosures as an attack on the "international community". But they are something else: an ­attack on the governments that make up the current international system of diplomacy. The cultural and political assumption that governments have business that they should conduct in secret with one another has taken a massive hit. From now on, it will be ever more difficult for governments to claim one thing and do ­another. For in making such claims, they are ­making themselves vulnerable to WikiLeaks of their own.

contd

RE: torture?

Do you think so, I disagree - they still believe everything their governments and the calculating media tell them or perhaps you havent read what is said to be the truth of the Pearl Harbour debacle? They knew the attack was imminent but with the majority of people against going to war they had to have some catastrophe to change their minds so they allowed the attack to happen - this is all documented, if you have trouble finding it pm me thumbs up

This is a list of forum posts created by trish123.

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