[QUOTE]Originally posted by Sunchild
[B]I read that the hijackers were seen getting wasted at a bar in Florida and then argued about the bar tab.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Tanqueray
[B]

It wasn't just a bar, it was a strip club.

 

"If it bleeds, we can kill it"


-Arnold

 

Maybe I'm paranoid, but...perhaps Pakistan is not a safe place to stage troops.

If you deeply hated the US, and knew that you would fall within their sights if you did not allow them to trod on your soil ANYWAY, then wouldn't you pretend to give them a safe place to stage a war and then hit them hard yourself?

 

Sunchild writes:

"How do you make a clear distinction between non-combatant civilians and combatants?"

Your question of how can you distinguish between combatants and non combatants just baffles me. Sure Afghani mujahideen were not uniformed. Sure there were children wielding weapons. What does that mean?? Does that mean that all of the 1 million Afghanis who died were legitimate casualties according to (as you put it) "the rules of war" because it was not crystal clear to the Soviets who were the soldiers and who were not?

Think of it Sunchild - 1 million people.

How many of those people do you think were killed on the battlefield?

How many of you on this thread who are screaming bloody murder and lets go make war have actually seen war?? I am not trying to dramatize this or say that I am a know it all. Far from it.

But tell me how many of you have seen human suffering up close and personal? Combatants vs. non combatants - I lost my family to that bloody conflict. Do you think the Soviets followed the "rules of war"? Or are you implying that my people made it so difficult for them to follow the "rules of war" that they just had to go ahead and massacre them since ANYONE of us could have been a soldier in disguise. I could have been the bomb wielding nine year old that just got his family killed so I guess I was a fully legitimate target as well.

Sunchild - from your posts you come across as a very educated person. Well spoken, well read with a wide perspective on many issues. But you have not seen conflict and suffering or you would not be so matter of fact about the way you discuss it.

Your assertion and implication that the Afghani people made themselves out to be legitimate targets of war by trying to resist a brutal and ruthless occupying force that openly massacred civilians is very hurtful to me.

Trust me - there is NO such thing as a clean war. There is no price for human life. There is NO acceptable loss of an innocent life.

Your previous assertions that the Afghani people have engineered themselves into the suffering they face and the oppression of the Taliban is also insulting. There has been nothing engineered about anything the Afghani people have done. The populace as a whole has had no power or say in anything - the only people with power there are the ones who make their will done at gunpoint. Let me just say one thing crystal clear - you portray the Afghani people as having made a choice to consciously move themselves in this direction. This is wrong. All the Afghani people have seen is death destruction pain and suffering. That is all there is in Afghanistan. There is No hope anywhere. Go ahead and bomb the hell out of them if it makes you happy. They have just been asking for it, haven't they?

Maybe I should just shut the f@ck up.

 

If I was Pakistan, and deep down knew that I could not tolerate Western forces setting up on my soil to state a land war in a neighboring nation that I continue to support -- say I knew that I would be within the gun-sights of the Americans anyway I just might consider letting them in, letting them think that I was being all docile and complicit, and take the opportunity to preemptively strike them hard while they camped in my back yard, when they would least expect it.

Maybe I'm just paranoid. Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. Nobody expected September, 11, 2001. The West has been clearly shown that the gloves are off, and all the dirty and unimaginable tricks are no longer off limits.

 

Moneeb,

I don't think you should just up; your viewpoint is much more valuable that those who oppose action just because of unexamined politically correct views.

You point out that there is no acceptable loss of an innocent life. If we do nothing, there will innocent lives lost forever. No one, no one, has claimed that Bin Laden and the other murderers will stop by themselves; someone will have to stop them if we don't want to live in terror forever. I believe that an open, democratic society inherently can have no viable defense against terrorism.

How can we possibly stop people who hide among civilians without endangering those civilians? The ONLY way is if those citizens help us to identify the wrong-doers...it appears that Afghanis (or at least the mullahs) are unwilling to do this. Do you have any suggestion on how this can be done that I/we have missed? Your view is that the Afghani people do not support terrorism; do you think that they will help liberate their own country, then?

Tanq

 

Only if you were extremely, extremely stupid. You have however many thousand, battle ready US troops, supported by 2 or 3 fleets in the area, and the whole of the western world backing them, and you attack them?!?!?!

Good move.... NOT

 

I'm thinking the U.S. ground forces are going to be quite prepared to defend themselves while they are in country.


A few notes on the Soviet-Afghani conflict.

It was a very ugly war, possibly worse than Vietnam. The Soviets scattered thousands of Anti-personel mines all over the country. No big deal right, except for the fact that they were made to look like TOYS! They targeted children! The mines were designed to maim, not kill so it would tie up the childs father and family so they could not fight.

Another item that was used by the USSR-chemical agents or as most people know them-Nerve gas.

The Soviets lost alot more than 15,000. There is a "Mothers of Lost Soldiers" group in Russia whose sons have never been accounted for.

 

[QUOTE]How can we possibly stop people who hide among civilians without endangering those civilians? The ONLY way is if