FIFA also some nationalist trolling and political debate
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We had zero reason to fear intact Iraq,
Uh-huh. Sure.
The fifth president of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, was internationally condemned for his use of chemical weapons during the 1980s against Iranian and Kurdish civilians during and after the Iran–Iraq War. In the 1980s, Saddam pursued an extensive biological weapons program and a nuclear weapons program, though no nuclear bomb was built. [1]
[2]Yeah we had no reason to fear Iraq under Saddam. None at all.
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You don't consider, for example, ISIS' activities in the Middle East a problem?
Forget that. It's a little closer to home, on a smaller scale, like the mass rapes in that English town, or the murders of cartoonists by people who don't understand there's no right not to be offended.
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Isn't that better than the constant fighting that otherwise goes on there?
Yes, definitely. But it's unclear if what worked in very clearly defined nation states Germany and Japan would work in Iraq (3 former ottoman provinces, 1 Sunni, 1 Shia, 1 Kurd, all lumped together and hating each other) with large Sunni powers (Saudis and friends), Shias (Iran and friends), and other Kurds (Turkey and elsewhere agitating for their own state including the Iraqi Kurds) all influencing parts of Iraq and it's people. AND add in the craziness in Syria, which was definitely going to spill over.I don't know. If you guys were willing to stay in Iraq, maybe things could be better there. But maybe they'd look roughly the same, with thousands more dead Americans too. I genuinely don't know.
Moving away from "what ifs", all I can say is that no one has given me any specific reason why bombing now is a good idea. It's not stopping ISIS and it is hurting civilians. So I just don't see the logic.
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Well the "do absolutely nothing at all times forever" European strategy doesn't seem superior to my eyes.
To be fair, they're not over WWI and WWII's massive losses of life. Give 'em a few more years for the memories to fade as the last survivors die off, and we'll probably see a bit more of the old ultraviolence.
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Unfortunately, I think the Middle East simply needs to suffer through it's own version of Europe's centuries of religious wars, genocides, and hatred before they emerge out the other side into democracy, on their own terms.
What do you think they've been doing for the last couple thousand years? They haven't gotten tired of it yet, unfortunately.
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I don't know. If you guys were willing to stay in Iraq, maybe things could be better there. But maybe they'd look roughly the same, with thousands more dead Americans too. I genuinely don't know.
I don't know either, but the first guy running against the current douche was willing to do it. I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have let these guys invade the way they are if we had a serious presence in the country. And while it wasn't all rainbows and unicorns between Sunni and Shiite, they were a lot better than they are now.
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Oh 1980s Saddam = scary. It was great that America kicked his ass in 1991. No arguments about that.
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Oh yeah, the whole "war for oil" bullshit people spread. There isn't a single fact to back it up
Bullshit. Every day when I fill up my car at 25¢ a gallon, it's proven true.
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If ISIS was a nation state with an economy, industry, regular troops in uniform, etc, you'd win in a week, and I'd cheer you on.
But they're not, so it's ok for them to murder people and take slaves.
Euro-thinking!
I disagree about winning in Iraq. But maybe I just have a different definition of winning. Did you want to leave troops there forever like Germany and Japan?
Shockingly, I agree with Boomzilla on this point. We pulled-out of Iraq far too early. Germany and Japan were both in much better shape than Iraq had been-- both of them only needed to be reverted to their 1920s state (ignoring Germany's economic misstep) and they were fine. Iraq had no such "clean state" to revert to-- everything there is from scratch.
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Bombing isn't necessarily the best strategy though; I can't help but think more surgical strikes would get the same or better results with less risk of civilian casualties
You do realize modern bombing is more or less surgical strikes and does cause far fewer civilian casualties, right?
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Oh 1980s Saddam = scary. It was great that America kicked his ass in 1991. No arguments about that.
And we're supposed to believe he actually changed? Or that he got better at covering his tracks? There are multiple reports that indicate he had access to WMDs in 2003. He may not have been producing them as the intel reports claimed, but it isn't that hard to find the evidence that he had access.
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You do realize modern bombing is more or less surgical strikes and does cause far fewer civilian casualties, right?
@RaceProUK said:I know some of the better ones have scary-high levels of accuracy
<a
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But they're not, so it's ok for them to murder people and take slaves.
You still refuse to tell me how Europe could help stop them. Tell me how we could help. You tell me we should help and how shit we are for not helping, but you repeatedly refuse to say what, SPECIFICALLY, we should do. Invade with 10,000 troops? 100,000? Help you guys bomb them (cos that ain't stopping them)? Go back in time and kill Sykes and/or Picot? What? What do you want us to do?
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You know perfectly well that reading the entire thread is a
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I don't believe he changed, no. He couldn't ever use them though, in the same way North Korea can't ever use their WMDs without getting smashed.
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Oh, yeah and Blatter got re elected. 4 more years! (Remember this was a FIFA thread!? :D )
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It's not stopping ISIS and it is hurting civilians.
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Is it slowing ISIS?
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Is it saving more civilians than it's killing?
Any member of the US military, BTW, would be able to tell you of the extreme precautions they use against civilian casualties. You're in here acting like we just toss the bombs out of a plane at 45,000 feet with no guidance system and shrug when they hit a hospital. No. That's an insult to our country and to our military.
One of the interesting factoids that came out during the whole police overreaction in Ferguson is that the "rules of engagement" (that is, the conditions that have to exist before a person is allowed to use deadly force) for police officers here in the US is FAR less onerous than the those for our military fighting in a war zone.
You still refuse to tell me how Europe could help stop them.
Most European countries have air forces roughly as capable as ours, if not as numerous. Most European countries have elite troops, the French actually have a really kick-ass special forces unit, as do the Russians. (Not sure about other European countries, but they can't all be losers, right?)
In short, they could participate.
I don't believe he changed, no. He couldn't ever use them though, in the same way North Korea can't ever use their WMDs without getting smashed.
Both Saddam and the various Kims are crazy enough to use the weapons despite knowing they'd be smashed.
Oh, yeah and Blatter got re elected.
I imagine they had to mop up the voting chamber due to all the Euro-weenies in there wetting themselves in fear.
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I don't believe he changed, no. He couldn't ever use them though, in the same way North Korea can't ever use their WMDs without getting smashed.
Ok, I can agree with that. MAD is a powerful deterrent, especially when you're so small that you can't even assure that your enemy will be destroyed. Though Saddam was nuts. He
may have actuallyprobably would have used them anyway.However, consider this: the Deputy Secretary of Defense under President Bush, Paul Wolfowitz, confided that there were four reasons behind the invasion of Iraq, only one of which was largely publicized:
The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy, we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on, which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason, but, there have always been three fundamental concerns. One is weapons of mass destruction, the second is support for terrorism, the third is the criminal treatment of the Iraqi people. Actually I guess you could say there's a fourth overriding one which is the connection between the first two.[1]
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He may have actually used them anyway.
It's not like he never used them before. Both on his own people and in a war. I'm not sure why anyone would be confident in him not using them in the future. Especially if the let's-do-nothing brigade is in charge of Western foreign policy.
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It's not like he never used them before. Both on his own people and in a war. I'm not sure why anyone would be confident in him not using them in the future. Especially if the let's-do-nothing brigade is in charge of Western foreign policy.
That's a good point. Having gotten away with it previously would have made him bolder, probably.
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... But I do suspect the columnist is a twit with an axe to grind who can't be bothered to do his job before he fires off a column. Giving numbers to journalists is like giving matches to small children
+1
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In short, STFU.
Actually, I should apologize in light of the fact that we appear to have rented out the Secretary of State's powers for a few years without any apparent consequences. But hey, what difference at this point does it make?
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Or how about deal with the rampart congresscreature bribery... oops, I mean "lobbying" going on?
+1 for that. The rest is debatable.
Fuck no. That stuff is the whole point of the 1st Amendment.
I like what "Mancow" (stage name for a radio host) said a few weeks ago to a caller that would possibly have even made @blakeyrat proud:
Caller: "What do you mean I'm an idiot? I thought you supported free speech?"
Mancow: "Absolutely I support free speech. You have the freedom to say whatever idiotic thing you want, and I have the freedom to call you an idiot for it. Simple!"
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Why would you give him credit for saying something a million other people have said before?
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Why would you give him credit for saying something a million other people have said before?
Because I recently heard HIM say it, the context here reminded me of it and I thought it appropriate.
If, for example, you or @boomzilla had said it, I would quote you or @boomzilla as appropriate (respectively). I have no reference to any "original quoter" precisely because it has been used a lot. The point is it's not an original quote of mine, so I do not presume to have originated it.
I specifically mentioned you because it's something in line with what you might say (in my estimation, I could be wrong) and would have been especially funny if you had said it. Coming from me, it's likely to be merely perceived with mild interest.
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However, consider this: the Deputy Secretary of Defense under President Bush, Paul Wolfowitz, confided that there were four reasons behind the invasion of Iraq, only one of which was largely publicized:
There hardly ever is a single reason to go to war. More often there are many, some of which are more strategic-level or economic-level than others. Those higher-level concerns tend to be voiced explicitly less often, but they are nonetheless very real reasons; without them, the casus belli would just attract a mighty “so what?” response.
I still think that going to war with Iraq the second time was a mistake, and that the country would have stewed in its own juices for a while there just fine without action. We should have got on with sorting out Afghanistan first.
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We should have got on with sorting out Afghanistan first.
Eh...we already had gone in to sort it out. There really were reasons to not wait too long for Iraq.
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we already had gone in to sort it out.
I know, but it meant we took our eyes off the ball there. Saddam was a true asshole (as were his sons) but he was an asshole who definitely wasn't going anywhere; he could have been left to stew. The only truly pressing reason for acting against him was the humanitarian argument, and that's a pretty shitty reason for going to war (because wars are bad for civilians in themselves; always have been).
I thought it was a mistake at the time to unnecessarily do two wars at once. I remain convinced that I was right. I also think that history is beginning to really demonstrate that I was right.
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he could have been left to stew.
Disagree.
I thought it was a mistake at the time to unnecessarily do two wars at once.
Possibly true.
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... a special meeting of FIFA’s member nations will be called to elect a new president. According to FIFA’s rules, members must be given at least four months’ notice for such a meeting, so Mr. Scala indicated that the probable window for an election is between December 2015 and March 2016.
Mr. Blatter will continue his duties in the interim, ...
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Update: Blazer's now been banned for life.
Fifa gives Blazer life football ban
Fifa bans former executive committee member Chuck Blazer from all football-related activity for life.
Filed Under: Why didn't that onebox?
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Why didn't that onebox?
Fifa gives Blazer life football ban
Fifa bans former executive committee member Chuck Blazer from all football-related activity for life.
.com TLD redirects to .co.uk - seems oneboxing can't handle
3xxredirects.Not that the onebox contains much information from the BBC.
Much like their website
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Not that the onebox contains much information from the BBC.
It gives more information than the onebox for an Amazon product:
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@rad131304 said:
Why didn't that onebox?
Fifa gives Blazer life football ban
Fifa bans former executive committee member Chuck Blazer from all football-related activity for life.
.com TLD redirects to .co.uk - seems oneboxing can't handle
3xxredirects.Not that the onebox contains much information from the BBC.
Much like their website
WTF? When I type bbc.co.uk urls into my browser, it always redirects me to bbc.com ... why would onebox have the exact opposite redirect?
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Geographic location? I get redirected from .co.uk to .com as well, but @pjh is in the UK.
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Do we use some sort of SaaS for oneboxing? I though it was just JS.
Amazon.com: Cardinal Industries Lost - The Game : Toys & Games
