Here's something to think about while munching your dinner tonight...

BAGHDAD _U.S. authorities in Baghdad have received five severed fingers belonging to four Americans and an Austrian who were taken hostage more than a year ago in Iraq , U.S. officials said Wednesday.

Let's get the responsible barbarians and cut off their noses and stuff them in their mouths!


KEEP UP THE FIGHTIN' US...!  No..here's an idea... let's be civil and walk away...FIGHT FIRE WITH BIGGER FIRE...that's all :-X

Do you realize that it's screwballs like you who give the Republican party a bad name?

Do you realize that it's screwballs like you who give the Republican party a bad name?


Screwball or someone who DETESTS anyone who would harm another to make a point...my utopia would be to remove the incentive for anyone to deny human rights to another...in this case the right to KEEP all their fingers they were born with...

If they(backward thinkers with no respect for common sense),  want to act like animals, let's throw everything we got at them...
not light a candle and sing 'stop' ...

Reminds me of the guy driving around with a bumper sticker :WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER..when asked why don't you tell that to the Iraqi's who've slaughtered millions,chopping off heads and burying thousands of bodies of people they 'didn't' like... the driver was speechless...

Here's something to think about while munching your dinner tonight...

BAGHDAD _U.S. authorities in Baghdad have received five severed fingers belonging to four Americans and an Austrian who were taken hostage more than a year ago in Iraq , U.S. officials said Wednesday.

Let's get the responsible barbarians and cut off their noses and stuff them in their mouths!


KEEP UP THE FIGHTIN' US...!  No..here's an idea... let's be civil and walk away...FIGHT FIRE WITH BIGGER FIRE...that's all :-X




Well, if you want to get down to it, the men wouldn't have had their fingers cut off if the governments hadn't SENT THEM THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE. Think about THAT while you eat your dinner/drink your kool aid/whatever.

Well, if you want to get down to it, the men wouldn't have had their fingers cut off if the governments hadn't SENT THEM THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE. Think about THAT while you eat your dinner/drink your kool aid/whatever.


GOVERNMENT SENT THEM THERE?WHAT ?They didn't have free will to speak and say 'I'm not going there , it's dangerous!' Or did they say, 'Hey, I'll get $250,000 for 6 months work if I go there, it'll be a snap! ... ...Can't buy that reasoning...

GOVERNMENT SENT THEM THERE?WHAT ?They didn't have free will to speak and say 'I'm not going there , it's dangerous!' Or did they say, 'Hey, I'll get $250,000 for 6 months work if I go there, it'll be a snap! ... ...Can't buy that reasoning...




Um, hello? When you join the armed forces, the government pretty much owns your ass. I doubt any of the military would get away with saying, "F**k you, I'm not going to go fight a war YOU started on false pretenses."

And $250,000 for six months? I'm not sure what the going rate is today, but I don't think it is $40,000 a month.

Um, hello? When you join the armed forces, the government pretty much owns your ass. I doubt any of the military would get away with saying, "F**k you, I'm not going to go fight a war YOU started on false pretenses."


No, but some of our mercenaries might have.

That's something I don't fully understand.  Hell, I don't understand it at all.  Hiring Blackwater contractors at $100K/year to dig latrines (or drive fuel trucks from the coast to the inland bases) is a money-losing proposition when you can just order Pvt. Sixpack to do it.

In peacetime, it makes budgetary sense to hire one $100K/year Blackwater contractor to wash laundry and peel potatoes on Stateside bases, rather than recruiting (and ordering) four $30K/year Army Privates to do it.

In wartime, that economy goes out the window.  The Blackwater contractor is free to quit.  He may have to pay $10K for a last-minute flight home, but he can tell his manager "Gimme a raise, or screw you guys - I'm going home."  The Soldier, Sailor, Airman, or Marine doesn't have that luxury.

Paying a 100-200% premium to hire mercenaries for a brief war makes good business sense -- but for a protracted occupation, it's just plain throwing your money away.  That's what enlisted troops are for; they not only work cheaper, they can't even quit!

I suppose it ultimately comes down to the biggest strategic blunder of the war -- can you take the country with 100K enlisted and 200K mercenaries supporting them?  Or do you really need 500K enlisted available to perform double duty as either logistics or combat resources, depending on the situation on the ground?

Gen. Shinseki argued the latter and was fired for it before the war began.  Secretary Rumsfeld argued for the former on the grounds that transformation and net-centric warfare could make it work... and was also fired for it, but - and I'll insert my opinion here - after the war was lost. 

(And if we do somehow wind up rolling a natural 20 on last week's comments from Sadr, wherein he hints that he might actually retire... anyways, if we through some freakin' miracle end up winning this war, Rumsfeld's strategic blunder has still cost the US taxpayers the better part of a trillion dollars in the past two years we've spent making up for his mistakes.  We could have just bought Saddam's goddamn oil at $50/bbl; half of today's price; and we'd have still come out ahead.  Hell, at $5500/hour for Spitzer's hookers, we could have filled his rape rooms to overflowing for the past seven years and still come out ahead.)

Um, hello? When you join the armed forces, the government pretty much owns your ass. I doubt any of the military would get away with saying, "F**k you, I'm not going to go fight a war YOU started on false pretenses."

And $250,000 for six months? I'm not sure what the going rate is today, but I don't think it is $40,000 a month.


Hey, you must have a really low value of our military.

Something like 90% of the people in the military today enlisted (or re-enlisted) after the invasion of Iraq.  EVERYBODY has enlisted or re-enlisted since 9/11.

And I can assure you, the number of people refusing to go into theatre is quite low.  People are volunteering to return multiple times.

This is not Vietnam.  You do not have huge numbers of people leaving the military, nor do you have people fleeing to Canada to avoid serving overseas.  In many ways, retention is actually starting to be a problem, because to many want to re-enlist.

So while a lot of people claim that the war is unpopular, that certainly does not seem to be the case with the military.  And if anybody should have a problem, you would figure it would be those in harm's way.

Aren't the IRAQI'S the ones doing the kidnapping then cutting off of bodyparts to make a point...that has to be eradicated...hope they find the kidnappers soon...

Aren't the IRAQI'S the ones doing the kidnapping then cutting off of bodyparts to make a point...that has to be eradicated...hope they find the kidnappers soon...


Actually, the vast majority of these are not Iraqi's, but foreign nationals that sre simply fighting in Iraq.  Iranians, Saudis, Jordanians, Syrians, etc.

Iraq really has become a big attraction for every fundamentalist Islamic kook in the region.  This has become their new "Holy War", and many are flocking to the area to make themselves a martyr.  The typical indiginous Iraqi groups do not lend themselves to taking hostages and holding them for extended periods of time.  They simply kill them.

However, Iran (and groups they sponsor) have quite a history of holding hostages for as long as they have a propaganda value.  They normally only kill or release them when it suits their political needs.  And they are just about as likely to kill them as they are to release them. 

So far they know who is holding the hostages, Bagdad is the stage.

Whatever happened since the last 'MAJOR' hostage taking and the US idea of 'implanting' their soldiers or workers so when,(if they are civil workers), they can be secretly located???

All talk or did they scrap the idea?

If the US was afraid the enemy would dig out the implant, maybe booby trap it if it is tampered with,it explodes automatically ...maybe try a pill each morning to swallow in the event they were kidnapped???

Cutting off noses and stuffing them in mouths...would that be to make a point?

No, but some of our mercenaries might have.

That's something I don't fully understand.  Hell, I don't understand it at all.  Hiring Blackwater contractors at $100K/year to dig latrines (or drive fuel trucks from the coast to the inland bases) is a money-losing proposition when you can just order Pvt. Sixpack to do it.well yeah, for US it's a losing proposition, but if you're a republican administration put in office through contributions from blackwater's CEO it makes all the sense in the world. blackwater went from around a $200 million to a billion-dollar company because of the iraq war. basically iraq is why blackwater exists.

vis-a-vis fingers, the torture tactics of the fundamentalist whackjobs in iraq are thoroughly horrifying. (the things they do with powerdrills particularly crawl up in my head, personally.) whether the US's engagement in tactics like drowning torture and israeli hanging is going to disrupt such acts, or feed them, is another question entirely. we need to just get the hell out of there, man.

Hey, you must have a really low value of our military.

Something like 90% of the people in the military today enlisted (or re-enlisted) after the invasion of Iraq.  EVERYBODY has enlisted or re-enlisted since 9/11.

And I can assure you, the number of people refusing to go into theatre is quite low.  People are volunteering to return multiple times.

This is not Vietnam.  You do not have huge numbers of people leaving the military, nor do you have people fleeing to Canada to avoid serving overseas.  In many ways, retention is actually starting to be a problem, because to many want to re-enlist.

So while a lot of people claim that the war is unpopular, that certainly does not seem to be the case with the military.  And if anybody should have a problem, you would figure it would be those in harm's way.


How does saying the enlisted don't get paid $40K a month and the government owns them show I don't value the military? ???

How does saying the enlisted don't get paid $40K a month and the government owns them show I don't value the military? ???
how does it even make sense to talk about "the military" as though it were something you could stuff in a suitcase or misplace under the seat of your car? we're talking about a trillion-dollar institution made up of many dozens of agencies, branches, private-sector adjuncts, and hundreds of thousands if not millions of employees. surely a thing of such a size would have good and bad aspects and saying someone has a "low value" of such an institution is like saying someone disdains the existence of highways, or maligns, in general, the color blue?

Do you realize that it's screwballs like you who give the Republican party a bad name?

That's a question you should ask Bush and Cheney!
::)

That's a question you should ask Bush and Cheney!
::)


I wouldn't ask Cheney that. He'd probably shoot you. ;)

I wouldn't ask Cheney that. He'd probably shoot you. ;)

If you were a quail disguised as an old lawyer!
:D

If you were a quail disguised as an old lawyer!
:D



What about Dan Quail?  :D ;D ;D



Cat

However, Iran (and groups they sponsor) have quite a history of holding hostages for as long as they have a propaganda value.  They normally only kill or release them when it suits their political needs. 




...and that is spelled Guantanamo

Screwball or someone who DETESTS anyone who would harm another to make a point...my utopia would be to remove the incentive for anyone to deny human rights to another...in this case the right to KEEP all their fingers they were born with...

If they(backward thinkers with no respect for common sense),  want to act like animals, let's throw everything we got at them...
not light a candle and sing 'stop' ...

Reminds me of the guy driving around with a bumper sticker :WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER..when asked why don't you tell that to the Iraqi's who've slaughtered millions,chopping off heads and burying thousands of bodies of people they 'didn't' like... the driver was speechless...


That's very idealistic and not very realistic, but then again, so is the guy you mentioned.

Most of the time, this world isn't about right and wrong; it's about kill or be killed.  Yet, we've already played the nation-building game for the last few years.  It was just a very expensive mistake.  Now is the time to start leaving these bastards to kill each other.

No matter what we do, Iran will have a lot of control over Iraq.  We set that in motion the moment we removed Saddam.  We might as well cut our losses, regroup in Turkey, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia, while still fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan.  The war against the Taliban at least still has somewhat of a point.

...and that is spelled Guantanamo


And I have a big question:

What if we decided to release everybody held at Gitmo?

Most people are not aware that a large majority of prisoners there are facing either execution or long prison sentences in their home countries.  So if we send them to their home countries, most will be executed.  And the majority of others will more then likely spend the rest of their lives in jail (under much less humane conditions then they now have).

A large number were captured in Afganistan.  And the majority of those if returned to Afganistan will be executed.  Most of the others were captured in Iraq, where they face similar punishments.

So what do we do?  Return them to their home nations?  Return them to the nation in which they were captured?

I say we do what I suggested of a great many people.  Let them go.

Simply take them back to where they were captured, give them a fresh change of clothes and a few hundred dollars, and let them go.

I doubt that most of them would make it more then a mile before either a local mob killed them, or the government where they are released captured them (or had a tragic accident while trying to apprihend them).

So let's close all the camps.  Return the people in them to UAE, Iraq, Afganistan, or even Saudi Arabia (where they still practice beheading).

Hmmm, suddenly Gitmo does not look like such a bad place.  And I am sure that if that was the option given to them, the vast majority of people held in Gitmo would be filing law suits and be pleading to remain right where they are.

Of course, I might be a bit more sympathetic if any our servicemen taken prisoner were given even remotely humane treatment.  I find it hard to be sympathetic when every time one of our people is captured, their beheaded bodies are found in trash dumps.

And they call us barbarians.  How about a Red Cross (or Red Crescent) inspection of a POW camp controlled by Hezbollah, Al Queda, or any of the other groups.

Oh wait, I forgot.  There is no such thing.  Never has been, never will be.

ah, yes, the old "at least we're not as bad as saudi arabia" argument. ;D i think i'll go rob a bank tomorrow and when they bust me say, "hey, at least i didn't kill anybody," and maybe they'll let me off with a warning. ;D

ah, yes, the old "at least we're not as bad as saudi arabia" argument. ;D i think i'll go rob a bank tomorrow and when they bust me say, "hey, at least i didn't kill anybody," and maybe they'll let me off with a warning. ;D


But it still does not answer my basic question:  What do we do with them?

We can't just let them go.  Our normal deportation procedures have them released to either their home country, or the country they were apprehended.  And it is obvious that most would fight that ever happening.  As willing as many may be to die as martyrs, none want to be dumped into a prison forever, or executed.

And I do not hear of any nations stepping forward wanting to claim these guys.  The vast majority are Al-Queda, and no nation wants them in their country.

It is so easy to complain about places like Gitmo, but where are the solutions?

But it still does not answer my basic question:  What do we do with them?

We can't just let them go.  Our normal deportation procedures have them released to either their home country, or the country they were apprehended.  And it is obvious that most would fight that ever happening.  As willing as many may be to die as martyrs, none want to be dumped into a prison forever, or executed.

And I do not hear of any nations stepping forward wanting to claim these guys.  The vast majority are Al-Queda, and no nation wants them in their country.

It is so easy to complain about places like Gitmo, but where are the solutions?
well, you can try them, if they're found guilty you can incarcerate or execute them. or you can hold them as POWs and adhere to the geneva conventions. i dont know why we feel this need to trash an international system we spent the last century and fought two world wars to establish, and all over a ragtag bunch of ill-equipped thugs.

the solutions are already there. follow them. it's that simple.

well, you can try them, if they're found guilty you can incarcerate or execute them. or you can hold them as POWs and adhere to the geneva conventions. i dont know why we feel this need to trash an international system we spent the last century and fought two world wars to establish, and all over a ragtag bunch of ill-equipped thugs.

the solutions are already there. follow them. it's that simple.



You mean have the U.S. adhere to the law? Wow, what an amazing concept.

(oh, and karma)


Cat

well, you can try them, if they're found guilty you can incarcerate or execute them. or you can hold them as POWs and adhere to the geneva conventions. i dont know why we feel this need to trash an international system we spent the last century and fought two world wars to establish, and all over a ragtag bunch of ill-equipped thugs.

the solutions are already there. follow them. it's that simple.


OK, fine.  Follow International procedure.

Pack up the lot, and send them to face justice in Iraq, Afganistan, Saudi Arabia, or wherever they come from.  I'm sure their trials will be fair, and all will be quickly found guilty and executed.

Am I the only one in here that is finding this funny?  That the "inhumanity" of Gitmo can only be resolved by sending them back to be executed?  And that people who claim to love justice think that is exactly what should happen.

Oh, and under the Geneve Convention, the people in Gitmo are not covered as POWs.  They fall under the classification of either spies, or non-governmental combatants.  They are given the exact same protections that the members of Blackwater are given:  NONE.

In fact, legally somebody who is captured under arms wearing civilian clothes can be sumarily executed.  So maybe that is the solution.  Simply follow the Geneva Convention and execute them all as spies.

Am I the only one in here that is finding this funny? 

probably.
Oh, and under the Geneve Convention, the people in Gitmo are not covered as POWs.  They fall under the classification of either spies, or non-governmental combatants.  They are given the exact same protections that the members of Blackwater are given:  NONE.

yeah, i know that's the right wing slant on it. they refer to this as a war when they need funding or votes, but when it comes to rational treatment of those enemies captured during the thing they've called a "war", they make a big deal out of the fact that they dont wear uniforms. the way i see it, that's just yet another in a long list of tiresome technicalities the administration has cooked up to avoid accountability. if they wanted to get some lawyers together to come up with an amended brief arguing that enemy combatants in this particular war are de jure uniformed combatants and should be treated as such, i'm sure they could have. but as you yourself admit, they are given no protections -- not by the geneva conventions, which grant basic human rights to EVERYONE involved -- but by this administration, which would simply rather not be bothered by any system of accountability whatsoever.

i'm sorry but that's unacceptable to me, and it should be unacceptable to any real american. our nation is great because we hold ourselves to standards -- or at least we used to, before this whole lot got a hold of the system and ran it into the gutter.

and again, it has nothing to do with how evil these enemies are. i'm sure a bunch of them ARE evil (just like i'm sure just as many of them are regular people infuriated at the occupation of their country orchestrated by american right-wing fundamentalist christian zealots)... it has to do with the american system, and whether it used to be above all this before you guys ruined it.

Of course, I might be a bit more sympathetic if any our servicemen taken prisoner were given even remotely humane treatment.  I find it hard to be sympathetic when every time one of our people is captured, their beheaded bodies are found in trash dumps.

And they call us barbarians.  How about a Red Cross (or Red Crescent) inspection of a POW camp controlled by Hezbollah, Al Queda, or any of the other groups.

Oh wait, I forgot.  There is no such thing.  Never has been, never will be.


So what you're saying is...you can't see the difference between the Hezbollan,Al-Quaeda,ETA,any european mob or any terrorist group and The United States of America?

Guess what...i almost agree!

Aren't the IRAQI'S the ones doing the kidnapping then cutting off of bodyparts to make a point...that has to be eradicated...hope they find the kidnappers soon...



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