US drone strikes may break international law: UN

Ikari · Oct 28, 2009

Charles Martel said:
That in 1984 as well?

Nope. Are there really people who haven't read that book? It's surprising.

Charles Martel said:
Tell me, the moniker I use, Charles Martel, among your library of reading material, have you read about his exploits, even know who he was?

Which one? The king of Hungry, the warship, the American librarian, or the Frankish military and political leader?

Charles Martel said:
I wonder if he concerned himself for the hearts and minds.

Education, it's a wonderful thing.

I wonder if he was fighting occupational war with entrenched and ideological combatants thousands of miles away from his home land, looking not to take over, but rather to convert and establish other forms of governments. In other words, I wonder how comparable the two situations really are.

Education is a wonderful thing, you should think about getting some.

MKULTRABOY · Oct 28, 2009

Agent Ferris said:
Um AQ was part and parcel to the Taliban government led by Mullah Omar, they had a seat on the Taliban's ministry of defense, there was a special branch of the Taliban military known as the 055 brigade which was made up exclusively of AQ fighters, and the Taliban granted them a safe haven in which to train and from which to launch attacks.

I don't know if this was your point but when people claim that the Taliban didn't attack us it's like saying that if the CIA decided to bomb a building in; say, Saudi Arabia, that it wasn't the U.S. government attacking them. The Taliban was a co-conspirator in the 9-11 attacks and are thus just as guilty as AQ proper.

But was Osama ze kommander in cheef?
::salute::

Scarecrow Akhbar · Oct 28, 2009

Ikari said:
Can you stay on target for more than 3 seconds? That's not up for debate.

Re-read the OP. Or confess to changing your tune.

Ikari said:
Sure, the firebombing of Tokyo was an atrocity,

No, it wasn't.

It was war.

Ikari said:
So it looks like the past 8 years then. We've lost, what 4K more Americans in a quagmire of wars without end? Nice.

You elected your Messiah, don't blame me.

Your Messiah has been playing basketball and golf, campaigning for socialized medicine, and pimping Chicago to get the Olympics when he should be doing his job, which to either arrive at a working definition of victory and a plan to achieve it, or developing a plan for withdrawal. That boy is getting industrial strength splinters from the fence he's straddling, and he very indecision is encouragement for our enemies.

Ikari said:
So the same as the current situation. Failure, in essence, is what we're currently doing. Awesome.

Exactly, when we should be kicking ass.

Karzai ran a corrupt election, haul his ass out to the nearest poppy field and shoot him. Now, I realize fully that Democrats don't see where crooked elections are bad, but that's what should be done.

As for what should be done militarily, we need to make it clear that we're only there to kill Taliban, but that we're going to kill them wherever we find them. Which means getting serious about our Mosque-to-Rubble Program.

Eradicating opium shouldn't be our concern, nor any issue not related to the military problem at hand.

Ikari said:
So we don't have to respect sovereignty of other nations, yet demand they respect ours.

When they're harboring enemies who've murdered 3,000 of my fellow citizens? **** no. The helper of my enemy is my enemy, and should be shot.

Ikari said:
We can engage in wars against innocent life

All life? You worried about the grass and the bacteria? BTW, you are probably not aware of this, but "innocence" has no application on the battlefield. That word is a legal word, and they're being shot at for the simple reason they're where the target is. "Innocence" and "guilt" have no business on the battlefield and the soldier flying the RPV doesn't have any reason to worry abou them.

Ikari said:
Terrorists attacked us for no reason 8 years ago. 8 years ago we started a war against Afghanistan.

No, eight years ago Aghanistan employed terrorists to attack us, thereby starting the war we are still fighting.

Agent Ferris · Oct 28, 2009

Ikari said:
So, according to you. If we claim there are unlawful combatants somewhere. We can go into any sovereign nation and bomb civilian areas. Nice.

Yes, if they are part of an organization that has attacked us and is part and parcel to the government of that country as AQ was to the Taliban government, and/or if they had a seat on that governments ministry of defense as AQ sat on the Talibans ministry of defense, and/or if there was a special branch of that governments military which was made up exclusively of those unlawful combatant fighters, and/or if these unlawful combatants were granted a safe haven in which to train and from which to launch attacks.

The Taliban was a co-conspirator in the 9-11 attacks and are thus just as guilty as AQ proper.

You know, part of the contention brought by Pakistan is that there weren't unlawful combatants at some of those places and that we are killing WAY more innocents than we are getting in "unlawful combatants".

As to Pakistan, to bad so sad, if they are unwilling on incapable of rooting out those who have attacked our country and who we are at war with then we have the right to launch attacks within their borders as per Article 51 of the UN Charter:

Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.

Scarecrow Akhbar · Oct 28, 2009

Ikari said:
Nope. Are there really people who haven't read that book? It's surprising.

What's really surprising is that there are socialists who've read the book and then voted for the Messiah.

MKULTRABOY · Oct 28, 2009

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
What's really surprising is that there are socialists who've read the book and then voted for the Messiah.

What blows my mind is that it was actually written by a communist.
:shock::shock::shock::shock::rofl

Ikari · Oct 28, 2009

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
Re-read the OP. Or confess to changing your tune.

I've read the OP and I have not changed my tune. I said from the beginning that you were deflecting.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
No, it wasn't.

It was war.

It certainly was war, but it was also quite clearly atrocity. One of the worst things humans have done, a blight upon our history. As was Dresden. War or not, atrocity is atrocity.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
You elected your Messiah, don't blame me.

Still no to the honesty eh?

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
Your Messiah has been playing basketball and golf, campaigning for socialized medicine, and pimping Chicago to get the Olympics when he should be doing his job, which to either arrive at a working definition of victory and a plan to achieve it, or developing a plan for withdrawal. That boy is getting industrial strength splinters from the fence he's straddling, and he very indecision is encouragement for our enemies.

So you can't stay on target and you can't be honest. Well don't be mad when I ignore your arguments. I expect a certain amount of intellect out of those I debate with.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
Exactly, when we should be kicking ass.

Karzai ran a corrupt election, haul his ass out to the nearest poppy field and shoot him. Now, I realize fully that Democrats don't see where crooked elections are bad, but that's what should be done.

As for what should be done militarily, we need to make it clear that we're only there to kill Taliban, but that we're going to kill them wherever we find them. Which means getting serious about our Mosque-to-Rubble Program.

Eradicating opium shouldn't be our concern, nor any issue not related to the military problem at hand.

We shouldn't be concerned with elections and governments of other countries. That's for the people of those countries to be concerned about.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
When they're harboring enemies who've murdered 3,000 of my fellow citizens? **** no. The helper of my enemy is my enemy, and should be shot.

But you wasted more than 3000 more of your fellow citizens lives to get no where. And well more than 3000 of your fellow citizens lives are lost each year to things like car accidents, heart disease, etc. We're not freaking out and starting wars over that. So 3,000 were killed, we've killed 10,000's of civilians, we've lost an additional, what 4K, we're in debt up to our ears. And somehow this seems reasonable?

I agreed with going into Afghanistan at the beginning, I thought proper response was there. We got side tracked into Iraq and now 8 years later we really haven't gotten anywhere. All we have is more dead Americas. That doesn't seem insane to you?

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
All life? You worried about the grass and the bacteria? BTW, you are probably not aware of this, but "innocence" has no application on the battlefield. That word is a legal word, and they're being shot at for the simple reason they're where the target is. "Innocence" and "guilt" have no business on the battlefield and the soldier flying the RPV doesn't have any reason to worry abou them.

You're probably not aware of this, but innocence belongs in civilian areas. You're merely trying to redefine things so you don't have to think about it or feel guilt. The people we've killed in Pakistan weren't on a battle field (more deflect and dishonesty). It was civilian targets. Innocent life. At least have the balls to own up to what you are doing for god's sake.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
No, eight years ago Aghanistan employed terrorists to attack us, thereby starting the war we are still fighting.

Eight years have gone by and we've accomplished nothing. I'm not going to support forever war under any circumstance.

Ikari · Oct 28, 2009

Agent Ferris said:
Yes, if they are part of an organization that has attacked us and is part and parcel to the government of that country as AQ was to the Taliban government, and/or if they had a seat on that governments ministry of defense as AQ sat on the Talibans ministry of defense, and/or if there was a special branch of that governments military which was made up exclusively of those unlawful combatant fighters, and/or if these unlawful combatants were granted a safe haven in which to train and from which to launch attacks.

The Taliban was a co-conspirator in the 9-11 attacks and are thus just as guilty as AQ proper.

As to Pakistan, to bad so sad, if they are unwilling on incapable of rooting out those who have attacked our country and who we are at war with then we have the right to launch attacks within their borders as per Article 51 of the UN Charter:

Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.

Well the thing I don't like is that at no point does there seem to require any proof for infringing upon the sovereignty of another country. Hell, if Mexico bombed some apartment complex in say...LA, claiming there were terrorists or something there...we'd be mad as hell. I'd say rightfully so.

Agent Ferris · Oct 28, 2009

Ikari said:
Well the thing I don't like is that at no point does there seem to require any proof for infringing upon the sovereignty of another country. Hell, if Mexico bombed some apartment complex in say...LA, claiming there were terrorists or something there...we'd be mad as hell. I'd say rightfully so.

If these terrorists had attacked Mexico and we had refused to go and arrest them for their crimes then we would have no right to get pissed at Mexico going after themselves.

jallman · Oct 28, 2009

Agent Ferris said:
Um AQ was part and parcel to the Taliban government led by Mullah Omar, they had a seat on the Taliban's ministry of defense, there was a special branch of the Taliban military known as the 055 brigade which was made up exclusively of AQ fighters, and the Taliban granted them a safe haven in which to train and from which to launch attacks.

I don't know if this was your point but when people claim that the Taliban didn't attack us it's like saying that if the CIA decided to bomb a building in; say, Saudi Arabia, that it wasn't the U.S. government attacking them. The Taliban was a co-conspirator in the 9-11 attacks and are thus just as guilty as AQ proper.

That's all true. However, to claim that OBL was the commander in chief of Afghanistan is patently false.

They were co-conspirators. That, I will concede because it is fact. Scarecrow's other drivel was just his angry kid persona talking out his ass.

Ikari · Oct 28, 2009

Agent Ferris said:
If these terrorists had attacked Mexico and we had refused to go and arrest them for their crimes then we would have no right to get pissed at Mexico going after themselves.

No, the real analogy which is applicable is that Mexico is having problems with some terrorist group. Those groups have fled across the US boarder from time to time. We haven't been able to catch all of them. Mexico claims there are terrorists in a heavily populated apartment complex in LA, bombs the **** out of it. Kills everyone. There were no terrorists, only civilians, and there was no concrete evidence in the first place as to there being large number of terrorists. Mexico still in the right?

Scarecrow Akhbar · Oct 28, 2009

SE102 said:
What blows my mind is that it was actually written by a communist.
:shock::shock::shock::shock::rofl

Orwell grew up and was no longer a socialist by the time he wrote Animal Farm and 1984.

His writing shows a clear growth in understanding of the evil of socialism and communism. The Road to Wigan Pier is clearly pro-socialist. Keep the Aspidistra Flying and A Clergyman's Daughter show the disillusionment of the socialist who learns what it really is all about. Animal Farm and 1984 are clearly anti-socialist.

Agent Ferris · Oct 28, 2009

jallman said:
That's all true. However, to claim that OBL was the commander in chief of Afghanistan is patently false.

They were co-conspirators. That, I will concede because it is fact. Scarecrow's other drivel was just his angry kid persona talking out his ass.

Well I didn't see his original post, I thought you were one of these people who go around saying that the Afghanistan war is illegal because they didn't attack us which is patently false. My bad if I misunderstood your point.

MKULTRABOY · Oct 28, 2009

Why don't islamic terrorists attack mexico?

jallman · Oct 28, 2009

Agent Ferris said:
Well I didn't see his original post, I thought you were one of these people who go around saying that the Afghanistan war is illegal because they didn't attack us which is patently false. My bad if I misunderstood your point.

No no, mistakes get made, it's all good. I'm one of those that believes we should have mopped up afghanistan first and then launched an attack against Saddam. I have no remorse that Saddam was removed from power either.

I just wish we'd finished with the Taliban first.

MKULTRABOY · Oct 28, 2009

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
Orwell grew up and was no longer a socialist by the time he wrote Animal Farm and 1984.

His writing shows a clear growth in understanding of the evil of socialism and communism. The Road to Wigan Pier is clearly pro-socialist. Keep the Aspidistra Flying and A Clergyman's Daughter show the disillusionment of the socialist who learns what it really is all about. Animal Farm and 1984 are clearly anti-socialist.

Im sorry you're going to have to show me a source proving that Orwell was anti-socialist. You claim he was anti-socialist and anti-communist whereas it is widely known he was anti-totalitarian and a communist at that. Methinks you lack acquaintance with the meanings and roots of communism itself. I doubt he ever turned on socialism rather he had a distaste for stalinism and totalitarianism, as the forms of government he anthropomorphizes in his book are meant to be reflections of totalitarian governments had through workers revolts. Im not sure thats what I remember from highschool, but your idea that he 'turned on it because he recognized its "inherent" evils' is sourceless.

Agent Ferris · Oct 28, 2009

Ikari said:
No, the real analogy which is applicable is that Mexico is having problems with some terrorist group. Those groups have fled across the US boarder from time to time. We haven't been able to catch all of them.

That is a false analogy, first of all the ISI has been infiltrated at the highest levels, in fact the head of the ISI funded the 9-11 attacks and second of all the Pakistani government refuses to go into the border regions to root out the Taliban and AQ fighters.

Mexico claims there are terrorists in a heavily populated apartment complex in LA, bombs the **** out of it.

Again using human shields does not make one immune from counterattack, and in fact in many cases the Pashtun are knowingly harboring the Taliban and AQ insurgents.

Kills everyone. There were no terrorists, only civilians, and there was no concrete evidence in the first place as to there being large number of terrorists. Mexico still in the right?

Except that there are terrorists that we are hitting so again that is a false analogy.

Scarecrow Akhbar · Oct 28, 2009

Ikari said:
I've read the OP and I have not changed my tune.

Oh, so what you're doing is hijacking the thread and changing the topic.

Ikari said:
It certainly was war, but it was also quite clearly atrocity.

No, it wasn't. You have to look at that war in context.

Ikari said:
One of the worst things humans have done, a blight upon our history.

A city burned.

A city that was the capital of the enemy that started a major war with a sneak attack, and then continued to refuse to surrender when it clearly had no means of gaining either victory or stalmate. Welcome to what war is really all about. But that was no atrocity.

The Death March of Bataan was.

Ikari said:
As was Dresden. War or not, atrocity is atrocity.

No, war is war. Dresden had the bad luck to be in Europe during a war. Life's a bitch, war is hell, and they all burned. I guess the citizens of Dresden finally had a substantial reason finally to regret their votes for Hitler.

What, you people giving up on vilifying the US for nuking Japan as too cliche?

Ikari said:
Still no to the honesty eh?

Haven't seen any from you, no.

Ikari said:
But you wasted more than 3000 more of your fellow citizens lives to get no where.

Nope, I recommended turning the entire nation of Afghanland into nuclear slag.

I didn't vote for Bush.

I didn't vote for your Messiah.

So you can leave the "we" out of this.

Ikari said:
And well more than 3000 of your fellow citizens lives are lost each year to things like car accidents, blablablablablablabla...

completely irrelevant.

Ikari said:
I agreed with going into Afghanistan at the beginning, I thought proper response was there. We got side tracked into Iraq and now 8 years later we really haven't gotten anywhere. All we have is more dead Americas. That doesn't seem insane to you?

More irrelvancies.

Dead Americans is what happens when liberals take the Presidency. The question is what to do from here.

Are you voting to run away?

Ikari said:
You're probably not aware of this, but innocence belongs in civilian areas.

Innocence belongs in civillian areas that aren't war zones.

Armies exist to break things and kill people, not to pass judgement on guilt and innocence.

Scarecrow Akhbar · Oct 28, 2009

SE102 said:
Im sorry you're going to have to show me a source proving that Orwell was anti-socialist.

You can choose to read the books, or you can remain ignorant.

Not my problem.

No honest person reading Keep The Aspidistra Flying, Animal Farm, and especially 1984 can imagine that Orwell remained sympathetic to the cause he espoused in The Road to Wigan Pier.

Outside of making it obvious that you haven't studied Orwell, what do you want from me?

Oh, okay, read his essays, notably "Politics and the English Language".

MKULTRABOY · Oct 28, 2009

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
You can choose to read the books, or you can remain ignorant.

No honest person reading Keep The Aspidistra Flying, Animal Farm, and especially 1984 can imagine that Orwell remained sympathetic to the cause he espoused in The Road to Wigan Pier.

Outside of making it obvious that you haven't studied Orwell, what do you want from me?

No, I have read both 1984 and animal farm multiple times in multiple institutions, in the American one, they choose to mute 1984 and animal farm and imply in the child's educational and cultural context that these are anti-communist books. In the international high school I went to they purposefully made it known to me that George Orwell was a communist.

Just because Orwell chose to demonize the institutions of revolutions which claimed to be communist and saw the actions of communists in wars does not in any way imply dissuasion from his proletarian cause. Do you think because he chose to demonize stalinist Russia that he was turned off to the injustices of capitalism and did a 180º turn straight into your camp?

I have not read his essays except for what I can peruse now between classes.

Scarecrow Akhbar · Oct 28, 2009

SE102 said:
No, I have read both 1984 and animal farm multiple times in multiple institutions, jerk,

Then you have no excuse for failing to understand them.

And while you're busy jerking, think about reading Keep the Aspidistra Flying.

You are clearly in no position to discuss Orwell if you haven't read him.

====

Oh, and clearly your "international" school was full of **** regarding Orwell's alleged communism:

In 1949 Orwell was approached by a friend, Celia Kirwan, who had just started working for a Foreign Office unit, the Information Research Department, which had been set up by the Labour government to publish pro-democratic and anti-communist propaganda. He gave her a list of 37 writers and artists he considered to be unsuitable as IRD authors because of their pro-communist leanings.

and

Orwell had returned from Catalonia a staunch anti-Stalinist and anti-Communist, but he remained to the end a man of the left and, in his own words, a 'democratic socialist'.

Naturally, no one reading Keep the Aspidistra Flying, in which the protagonist escapes his socialist daydream/nightmare by becoming an advertising copywriter, can believe that Orwell's avowed socialism was deep or sincere.

Ikari · Oct 28, 2009

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
Oh, so what you're doing is hijacking the thread and changing the topic.

wow. Really? Lies and distortion are your only defense here? I commented on the OP from the start. You started in with deflections about talking about other weapons when other weapons were not on topic

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
No, it wasn't. You have to look at that war in context.

No, atrocity is atrocity. In war you can commit many atrocities. You may be able to scrape together a defense of the atrocity, but it doesn't make it less of an atrocity. Atrocity is an absolute scale, it's not relative to something. You may engage in atrocity, you may even have an argument for doing so; but it doesn't take away from it. Nuking Japan was an atrocity as well. It was a horror brought to life that no one had even realized before. It's not to say there wasn't reason behind it. Or that we were wrong for doing so. But it's still a horrible event and a black mark upon humanity.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
A city burned.

A city that was the capital of the enemy that started a major war with a sneak attack, and then continued to refuse to surrender when it clearly had no means of gaining either victory or stalmate. Welcome to what war is really all about. But that was no atrocity.

It most certainly did, we killed a lot of civilians. We destroyed a lot of life, mass destruction on that scale is atrocity.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
The Death March of Bataan was.

That too. And it can be perhaps argued that it was more brutal as instead of bombing indistinguishable people from up high, it was committed face to face.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
No, war is war. Dresden had the bad luck to be in Europe during a war. Life's a bitch, war is hell, and they all burned. I guess the citizens of Dresden finally had a substantial reason finally to regret their votes for Hitler.

What, you people giving up on vilifying the US for nuking Japan as too cliche?

There's no vilifying. Stop using hyperbole. It's just an absolute truth.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
Haven't seen any from you, no.

Well I guess you're getting what you dish out.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
Nope, I recommended turning the entire nation of Afghanland into nuclear slag.

I didn't vote for Bush.

I didn't vote for your Messiah.

So you can leave the "we" out of this.

I didn't vote for Obama. So less you want to extend the same courtesy, piss off. You'll get treated as you treat others.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
completely irrelevant.

No it's not. You want me to be ok with the killing of 10,000's of people, civilans and innocents, over the loss of 3000 American lives. I'm supposed to freak out. I'm supposed to be ok with government expansion and control. I'm supposed to support forever war based on that. But that number isn't unique, lots of things kill lots of Americans. And like it or not, the car driving down the street is going to be well more dangerous to my life than terrorism ever will. So if I'm not going to freak out about cars, why should I freak out and abandon all logic for terrorism? Tell you what, when terrorism approaches the death rates for cars, I'll start to give your argument more weight. Till then, it remains low probability events, and I don't like making sweeping, global decisions on low probability events.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
More irrelvancies.

Dead Americans is what happens when liberals take the Presidency. The question is what to do from here.

Didn't those people initially die under Bush? Interesting. Dead Americans happen every day. It's just this cause [terrorism] can be used to inspire fear and irrationality amongst the people. Making it easier for government to expand its powers against the People. That's it. Otherwise, we should be freaking out more so over these other issues. But we don't because we experience these things every day and are more knowledgeable about the probabilities and outcomes of those cases. If we applied the same rationale to terrorism, no one would be freaking out.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
Are you voting to run away?

While I had initially supported Afghanistan as legitimate target (never Iraq however), in 8 years we haven't made improvements. I'm sorta stuck in performance based analysis. If something works, keep it. If something doesn't work, pitch it. The war...it ain't working.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
Innocence belongs in civillian areas that aren't war zones.

The places you propose bombing you merely define as "warzone" as to remove responsibility and guilt. But they are civilian areas. Apartment complexes, communities, etc. It's no war zone till you drop the bomb.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
Armies exist to break things and kill people, not to pass judgement on guilt and innocence.

Armies exist to defend sovereignty and freedom. Not engage in offensive, occupational wars in lands not our own for causes not our own.

Ikari · Oct 28, 2009

Agent Ferris said:
That is a false analogy, first of all the ISI has been infiltrated at the highest levels, in fact the head of the ISI funded the 9-11 attacks and second of all the Pakistani government refuses to go into the border regions to root out the Taliban and AQ fighters.

They'll work with us. You think we can't get them to work with us? We can set up a joint task force with responsibilities for policing and investigation.

Agent Ferris said:
Again using human shields does not make one immune from counterattack, and in fact in many cases the Pashtun are knowingly harboring the Taliban and AQ insurgents.

The whole "shoot the hostage" thing is getting old. Especially when there isn't proof that in what we bomb there were definitely terrorists.

Agent Ferris said:
Except that there are terrorists that we are hitting so again that is a false analogy.

Except that sometimes there weren't. And when they were, the number of civilians to terrorist dead is unacceptable.

MKULTRABOY · Oct 28, 2009

In your own quote...

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
Orwell had returned from Catalonia a staunch anti-Stalinist and anti-Communist, but he remained to the end a man of the left and, in his own words, a 'democratic socialist'.

And BTW something tells me that keep the apidastra flying has less to do with a socialist delusion and has a much closer relation to orwell's own forays into purposefully seeking low waged jobs and even encarceration to be amongst those and live the life of those whom he saw oppressed.

Idk... for dying a democratic socialist there sure is a whole ****load of socialist in being a democratic socialist. Do you see where it says

but he remained to the end a man of the left and, in his own words, a 'democratic socialist'.

Because that is a quote I would sure use in my argument that he is and was always a socialist. Which would mean that the folks in my international school were indeed not full of ****.

Orwell had returned from Catalonia a staunch anti-Stalinist and anti-Communist, but he remained to the end a man of the left and, in his own words, a 'democratic socialist'.

Naturally, no one reading Keep the Aspidistra Flying, in which the protagonist escapes his socialist daydream/nightmare by becoming an advertising copywriter, can believe that Orwell's avowed socialism was deep or sincere.

You wrote that, you're self conflicting in a very obvious way.

Agent Ferris · Oct 28, 2009

Ikari said:
They'll work with us. You think we can't get them to work with us? We can set up a joint task force with responsibilities for policing and investigation.

They are either unwilling or incapable of rooting out the unlawful combatants, in fact they won't even attempt to root them out in the Pashtun region. That's why we have to go in in the first place.

The whole "shoot the hostage" thing is getting old.

The whole "human shields" makes one immune from counterattack is getting old, and in fact demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of international law.

Especially when there isn't proof that in what we bomb there were definitely terrorists.

BS, I recall maybe on incident in which there were not militants present in one of these strategic strikes.

Except that sometimes there weren't.

Source?

And when they were, the number of civilians to terrorist dead is unacceptable.

So in your world using human shields makes one immune from attack? Sorry but international law would contradict your thesis. By your logic the air campaign against the Germans during WW2 was unacceptable because more civilians were killed than soldiers.