Italian News Exposing Our War Crimes

[HM-PuFFNSTuFF]

not all black people are born in Africa.

WHOA THAT WAS AMAZING. YOU TOTALLY FOUND SOME RACISM WHERE THERE WASN'T ANY AND NOONE NOTICED YOU DOING IT

i agree with the first 66.6% of this statement

[Canis]

not all black people are born in Africa.

WHOA THAT WAS AMAZING. YOU TOTALLY FOUND SOME RACISM WHERE THERE WASN'T ANY AND NOONE NOTICED YOU DOING IT

Bravo.

[HM-PuFFNSTuFF]

i didn't say you're a racist but i often wonder where you get your retarded 'impressions'

[R00k]

I don't think of that as a hurdle.

I still believe the rule should stay in place that citizens who weren't born in the US shouldn't be able to hold the office of President.

I want someone who has not only dealt with all aspects of living in America since birth, but also someone whose parents have had to deal with having and raising a child in America.

Of course, it's a bit of a stretch to say that most politicians in Washington (especially ones who reach the Presidency) have had to deal with such experiences, but that doesn't mean the rule isn't a sound one.

I dont believe so. I think that's an idealized view that has no real application to how well someone can be president (look at the current fuck-up we have going for us). I know pleanty of people born in this country who I would never trust to be a presidential figure. That rule only prevents people who're quite eligable to be president from becoming president. America has tremendous cultural diversity and to say the understanding of this diversity comes from birth location is just bizarre to me. Folks only start becoming aware of the socioeconomics of america in their late teens, so what's to say someone who moves here in childhood and becomes an american native in all respects cannot become president. It's just not right.

I didn't say anything about understanding cultural diversity. I am saying that if I moved here from another country at 25 years old, I shouldn't be eligible because I haven't experienced a large part of the spectrum of American life.

But that is only my opinion, and I am an idealist on this topic. Because I also believe Presidents should have to have attended public schools growing up, and done real work for part of their lives, and not be born into politics, etc... And I think the same about Congressmen some other public servants.

[Canis]

i didn't say you're a racist but i often wonder where you get your retarded 'impressions'

You're a sad case of hilarity. Dont back off your intentions of trying to label me as a racist. As for my 'impressions, there's nothing retarded about them. But if you must know, I got that impression from a speech he gave about his dad being a sheep herder in africa. I didnt read his bio, but since at that time there were also talks about amending the constitution to accept foreign-born people as president, I got the IMPRESSION (regardless of its correctness) from that speech that he was born in africa.

...so Puff, fuck off.

[Nightshade]

Back on the subject, a piss-weak defense of the use of white phosphorous in Fallujah.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N16599015.htm

[hax103]

Bans on biological weapons are at least clear to me in that they can mutate/spread like epidemics and basically frag a continent.

However, just for flamebait...

(1) Whats the real difference between dropping phosphor on a group of people versus having a tank aim its cannon and blow them to hell? In both cases one can imagine massive pain, scarring, burns, death, etc. Is it really consistent to allow one but not the other?

(2) The stuff women carry around and spray in the faces of muggers - mace, pepper-spray, etc. Is that a chemical weapon? The point is where do you draw the line - i.e. women can use it on civilians but soldiers can not use it on people firing on them?

WP is classed as an "incindiary device," not a weapon. That's because it was never intended to be used as a weapon.

It would be like walling in an entire city and filling it with concrete acid, and then saying "What do you mean? We didn't use anything illegal, it was just concrete acid, we use that stuff to clean our bases all the time!"

And this part of the wiki definition makes it pretty clear as well:

"any toxic chemical, regardless of its origin, is considered as a chemical weapon unless it is used for purposes that are not prohibited (an important legal definition, known as the General Purpose Criterion)."

[Nightshade]

In the link I posted, there's a definite "Well, we didn't sign the protocol, so it's not illegal" tone being used. Along with "Oh, we didn't aim right AT the civilians".

[Canis]

I don't think of that as a hurdle.

I still believe the rule should stay in place that citizens who weren't born in the US shouldn't be able to hold the office of President.

I want someone who has not only dealt with all aspects of living in America since birth, but also someone whose parents have had to deal with having and raising a child in America.

Of course, it's a bit of a stretch to say that most politicians in Washington (especially ones who reach the Presidency) have had to deal with such experiences, but that doesn't mean the rule isn't a sound one.

I dont believe so. I think that's an idealized view that has no real application to how well someone can be president (look at the current fuck-up we have going for us). I know pleanty of people born in this country who I would never trust to be a presidential figure. That rule only prevents people who're quite eligable to be president from becoming president. America has tremendous cultural diversity and to say the understanding of this diversity comes from birth location is just bizarre to me. Folks only start becoming aware of the socioeconomics of america in their late teens, so what's to say someone who moves here in childhood and becomes an american native in all respects cannot become president. It's just not right.

I didn't say anything about understanding cultural diversity. I am saying that if I moved here from another country at 25 years old, I shouldn't be eligible because I haven't experienced a large part of the spectrum of American life.

But that is only my opinion, and I am an idealist on this topic. Because I also believe Presidents should have to have attended public schools growing up, and done real work for part of their lives, and not be born into politics, etc...

I agree with that. I think a person's understanding of American socioeconomics and culture should be assessed thoroughly and should be tested (by political process? voter approval? I dunno specifically how) before they are eligable to be president. However I dont think eligability should be prevented before those tests are performed. Of course a 25 year old immigrant will fail those tests, but the current rule prevents people just born outside of the US's political borders from becoming president, and I dont agree with this. I only wish the political game could be avoided when presidents are selected, but unfortunately I think its also necessary to an extent.

[Canidae]

i didn't say you're a racist but i often wonder where you get your retarded 'impressions'

As a side note do you think Dudley Laws is a racist?
Someone on the radio called him a racist today on talk radio today in reference to him and what he had to say about the case of the 16 kids getting arrested at school for assaulting a girl over the course of the last 18 months.

[Fender]

We now admit it.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/11/ ... index.html

[R00k]

Bans on biological weapons are at least clear to me in that they can mutate/spread like epidemics and basically frag a continent.

However, just for flamebait...

(1) Whats the real difference between dropping phosphor on a group of people versus having a tank aim its cannon and blow them to hell? In both cases one can imagine massive pain, scarring, burns, death, etc. Is it really consistent to allow one but not the other?

Well the difference as far as legality, is that a cannon munition was designed for that use, so its characteristics have been studied and vetted for that purpose, and (essentially) approved.
As far as the "damage" aspect, when you are shot with tank artillery, it's like a giant, explosive bullet, and you will suffer the damage to yourself instantly. In other words, you won't be running around screaming for 10 minutes while the skin slowly melts off your body.
I agree that any death is bad death, but if you're arguing there isn't much difference to the people in the sense of respecting human decency, I believe that's just splitting hairs. Napalm was banned for a reason, and if you believe the banning of napalm is a good thing, then it's pretty hard to argue this stuff shouldn't be banned as well.

(2) The stuff women carry around and spray in the faces of muggers - mace, pepper-spray, etc. Is that a chemical weapon? The point is where do you draw the line - i.e. women can use it on civilians but soldiers can not use it on people firing on them?

Are you saying soldiers can't use mace on the battlefield? I imagine it's mostly useless in a war zone, but I find it hard to believe that it would be considered a chemical weapon.

Besides, I thought the widely accepted definition of chemical weapons included the criteria that they have to cause lasting damage?

[R00k]

We now admit it.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/11/ ... index.html

It's a positive thing that this finally forced and admission from the military - although I wonder if they would have admitted it, if they hadn't already published it in military journals.

"There is a great deal of misinformation feeding on itself about U.S. forces allegedly using `outlawed' weapons in Falluja," the [State] department said. "The facts are that U.S. forces are not using any illegal weapons in Falluja or anywhere else in Iraq."

Venable said white phosphorous shells are a standard weapon used by field artillery units and are not banned by any international weapons convention to which the United States is a signatory.

This "We don't need no stinking badges," argument drives me nuts.
They're also saying they were only used against "enemy combatants," but we've all seen how loose the definition is for that one.

[Canis]

We now admit it.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/11/ ... index.html

Good. Now we're getting somewhere, but as Rook mentioned it sucks that our media is so closed off to criticizing our government that it takes a foreign investigation to reveal that things like this are going on, even with the "imbedded journalists" being the new thing to bring us the "truth".

[R00k]

The 'embedded journalists' approach actually has the effect of giving the military MORE control over what we get to see instead of allowing us to see more of what happens. It basically just give us the impression that we really know what things are like over there.

[hax103]

Actually, the freedictionary (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/chemical+weapon), wikipedia, and more importantly the CWC (Chemical Weapons Convention) all define mace as a chemical weapon

"The Chemical Weapons Convention (or CWC) forbids the use of riot control agents like pepper spray in war"

So indeed it is true that soldiers can't use pepper spray/mace on the battlefield, but individuals and the police can use it on civilians.

[
Are you saying soldiers can't use mace on the battlefield? I imagine it's mostly useless in a war zone, but I find it hard to believe that it would be considered a chemical weapon.

Besides, I thought the widely accepted definition of chemical weapons included the criteria that they have to cause lasting damage?

[R00k]

Well if that's the case, then I have to agree it seems a little off-balance to allow killing and maiming artillery, but not mace.

But it stands to support the banning of agents like white phosphorous instead of contradicting it, so I'm not sure why you picked it as an argument.