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I'm not really sure. Maybe to appease the masses that say it should be a civilian criminal court matter.

I'm baffled by it as well.

You do realize that the majority of Al-Qaeda's leadership is made up of ANY FANATIC WHO COMES IN WANTING TO DOWN THE WEST?

No. The most complicated terrorist network on the planet does not have such lose controls over what constitutes its leadership. Thats just wrong. You are wrong.


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Fateweaver wrote:I'm not really sure. Maybe to appease the masses that say it should be a civilian criminal court matter.

I'm baffled by it as well.

Maybe because terrorists are international criminals and not members of a foreign military or government, under which circumstances they are to be charged within the civilian court system? I mean, it's the law in America. Thats how it works. The fact that thats not how it was working before is what you should be confused about. Unless you don't care when your leaders break the laws they are supposed to protect and enforce, which as conservatives that wouldn't surprise me.

Maybe......

Ugh, I sort of agreed with Shuma. Time to go flog myself and repent to my lord and master Tzeentch.

Fateweaver wrote:Maybe......

Ugh, I sort of agreed with Shuma. Time to go flog myself and repent to my lord and master Tzeentch.

I worship Khorne.

You do, also, realize that the "hardliners" of each nation are, without fail, people who have suddenly appeared in the country after rabblerousing in another, yes?

Apart from the July 7th Bombers - most (if not all, one of them was from Jamaica but converted to Islam in England) of whom were born and raised in the UK. They were all 'clean', i.e. where not under suspicion for terrorist activity or connections to Al Qaida.

I suppose it depends how you define 'hardliner'.

Kanluwen wrote:hurp a durp, Dogma comes up with largely false statements espoused over and over and over again by French intelligence agencies.

I don't know what you think French intelligence agencies have said, but there is broad agreement in the information which is publicly available, from multiple sources, supporting everything I claimed; especially about the Saudi role in financing terrorism.

Kanluwen wrote:
You do realize that the majority of Al-Qaeda's leadership is made up of ANY FANATIC WHO COMES IN WANTING TO DOWN THE WEST?

Are you actually attempting to put this forward as a legitimate point, or did you just decide to give the caps lock button a test?

Yes, Al Qaeda will accept any prospective member, regardless of nationality, provided they display loyalty to their cause. No, their leadership is not especially diverse. The most senior members of the organization are Egyptian, as significant components of the early organization were all Egyptian in origin (bin Laden himself, as well as the Islamic Jihad).

To me you sound like some guy who wants to justify his xenophobic, and overly simplistic, assumptions about America's enemies; only to become irate when they are questioned, or proven incorrect.

Kanluwen wrote:
You do, also, realize that the "hardliners" of each nation are, without fail, people who have suddenly appeared in the country after rabblerousing in another, yes?

Yes, there's a lot of travel in the larger movement. But these people came from somewhere, and most of them don't leave their country of origin. We pay more attention to the ones that do, because they tend to have a greater public presence in terms of radio broadcast time, or physical publication.

Are you under the impression that extremists simply appear out of thin air? Did Al Qaeda magically appear on the island after a disagreement between bin Laden and Tupac lead to the former being exhiled to the wastes of 50 Cent and The Game?

Kanluwen wrote:
Or does that fact conveniently stay out of your way while making up garbage?

You've demonstrated several times when discussing these matters that you know very little. I suspect you're in your first or second year of BS program; with a significant chip on your shoulder because you've read a few books about terrorism. I was the same way when I was a Freshman in college, and I got my teeth kicked in by people who knew more about the subject.

The information you're describing is generally the stuff they feed you early on in strategic studies, or counter terrorism, program so that you can see the failings of overly simplistic positions.

French intelligence agencies are the ones who claimed repeatedly that they had no knowledge whatsoever of how Taliban/Al Qaeda fighters in Iraq and Afghanistan got their hands on French military grade hardware--only to have it discovered that the French were selling the stuff to the Iraqis while Iraq was still under an embargo in return for oil.

The fact that you stated that Bin Laden was Egyptian just nullifies any argument you make from this moment forth.

I'm not xenophobic. I like my Tyranid army.

As to all other xenos....kill them all.

Um, err. Wrong thread....maybe.

Are you under the impression that extremists simply appear out of thin air? Did Al Qaeda magically appear on the island after a disagreement between bin Laden and Tupac lead to the former being exhiled to the wastes of 50 Cent and The Game?

You just blew my fething mind.

(bin Laden himself, as well as the Islamic Jihad).

Bin Laden was Saudi Brosky. Islamic Jihad was egyptian but they have his records in Saudi Arabia as a child. That said the vast majority of their leadership is Egyptian in nature as it stems from the earlier islamic jihad organization.

The fact that you stated that Bin Laden was Egyptian just nullifies any argument you make from this moment forth.

I don't think that how you want these things to work. Otherwise your arguments have been null and void for months.

Sorry, but that's precisely not how it works Shuma.

When you tout yourself as an expert nonstop, and then make a statement as ridiculous as "bin Laden is Egyptian"...

Whooooooooooooooooooooooops.

And as for the "Islamic Jihad".

al-Jihad, aka Egyptian Islamic Jihad, aka Islamic Jihad, aka Jihad Group had no real ties to bin Ladin until 2001. Any "first year counterterrorism student" knows this, as it's a fairly common fact.

The problem is, stating just "Islamic Jihad" doesn't say anything. There's dozens of groups that translate as "Islamic Jihad". Hizballah also goes by the name Islamic Jihad, then you've got the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, etc.

Sorry, but that's precisely not how it works Shuma.

When you tout yourself as an expert nonstop, and then make a statement as ridiculous as "bin Laden is Egyptian"...

Not much different from mashing your face onto the caps lock button and saying that their leadership stems predominantly from any crazy that walks up to their door. Just sayin'.

al-Jihad, aka Egyptian Islamic Jihad, aka Islamic Jihad, aka Jihad Group had no real ties to bin Ladin until 2001. Any "first year counterterrorism student" knows this, as it's a fairly common fact.

Wikipedia says that it started in the late 80's.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_Islamic_Jihad

Though I suppose I then have to find where Looming Towers got the information to check further down the line of sources.

Actually, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad got its start in the late 70s(if "Terrorism and Organized Hate Crime:Intelligence Gathering, Analysis, and Investigation" is a trustworthy source). It MERGED with Bin Ladin's Al-Qaeda organization in June 2001.

That doesn't mean that from the day they got their start, Bin Ladin was giving them the great big thumbs up. Heck, he definitely wasn't when in 1981 they assassinated Anwar Sadat.

Relapse wrote:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/19/us/19detain.html?_r=1&bl

Somebody explain again to me why this is being taken from the military and being put before a civilian court?

Because a civilian that commits a civilian crime should be tried and punished under civilian law...

It really isn't complicated.

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I think this guy has it nailed:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/6725916.html

Yeah, umm, don't read Jonah Goldberg. He's an idiot.

It's more of a rhetorical question since the way the trial is being set up seems designed to trot the boy through on the way to execution.
Don't get me wrong, I can think of a hundred ways I'd like to see this guy dropped, but it seems like any attempt to hold this trial up as a showpiece of justice is a farce.

Kanluwen wrote:French intelligence agencies are the ones who claimed repeatedly that they had no knowledge whatsoever of how Taliban/Al Qaeda fighters in Iraq and Afghanistan got their hands on French military grade hardware--only to have it discovered that the French were selling the stuff to the Iraqis while Iraq was still under an embargo in return for oil.

And? A foreign intelligence agency lied. This shouldn't shock you at all. In fact you should expect it. However, the fact that an agency is willing to lie about one thing, does not mean they lie about everything. Choosing what to believe is far more important than choosing whom to believe. That's why information is only considered valid after independent verification.

Kanluwen wrote:
The fact that you stated that Bin Laden was Egyptian just nullifies any argument you make from this moment forth.

Hmmm, it seems I forgot to include 'or Saudi' in that post. After the correction my second post is consistent with my original point.

Kanluwen wrote:Actually, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad got its start in the late 70s(if "Terrorism and Organized Hate Crime:Intelligence Gathering, Analysis, and Investigation" is a trustworthy source). It MERGED with Bin Ladin's Al-Qaeda organization in June 2001.

That's incorrect. Al Qaeda was founded in 1988, in Pakistan, when Bin Laden held a meeting with senior members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad. The Egyptian Jihad then ceased to exist. The Egyptian Islamic Jihad which merged (they didn't fully merge, they simply accept funding, as do most of Al Qaeda's clients) with Al Qaeda in 2001 was an organization tangentially associated with the original Jihad; taking the same name and fighting for a similar cause.

Kanluwen wrote:
That doesn't mean that from the day they got their start, Bin Ladin was giving them the great big thumbs up. Heck, he definitely wasn't when in 1981 they assassinated Anwar Sadat.

Assuming bin Laden cared at all, he probably would have endorsed Sadat's assassination; especially when you consider his relationship with the Shah of Iran, and his role in the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty.

dogma wrote:
Incidentally, while all the various studies have criticized the Lancet methodology none of the criticisms have been particularly damning. They range from "that number is really high", which means nothing, to "there may have been a conflict of interests with respect to the nationality of the interviewers" which is valid, but not crippling.

http://blogs.independent.co.uk/openhouse/2008/04/a-little-more-t.html
Suggests the Lancet study featured insufficient sampling points (47 vs 2,000 used in UN studies).

http://www1.cedat.be/Documents/Working_Papers/CREDWPIraqMortalityJune2007.pdf
This paper goes into some good details about sampling methodology and addresses issues of oversampling violent areas and undersampling fairly peaceful ones. Covers multiple sources/estimates, not just Lancet BTW.

http://personal.rhul.ac.uk/uhte/014/Ethics%20and%20Data%20Integrity_8_09_08.pdf
50-page paper on possible ethical/integrity issues with the study, focused a bit on the refusal to release more details about their methods.

Relapse wrote:It's more of a rhetorical question since the way the trial is being set up seems designed to trot the boy through on the way to execution.
Don't get me wrong, I can think of a hundred ways I'd like to see this guy dropped, but it seems like any attempt to hold this trial up as a showpiece of justice is a farce.

And if he was tried in a military court you would complain obama isn't following the law, it just seem like your complaining for the sake of complaining

dogma wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:French intelligence agencies are the ones who claimed repeatedly that they had no knowledge whatsoever of how Taliban/Al Qaeda fighters in Iraq and Afghanistan got their hands on French military grade hardware--only to have it discovered that the French were selling the stuff to the Iraqis while Iraq was still under an embargo in return for oil.

And? A foreign intelligence agency lied. This shouldn't shock you at all. In fact you should expect it. However, the fact that an agency is willing to lie about one thing, does not mean they lie about everything. Choosing what to believe is far more important than choosing whom to believe. That's why information is only considered valid after independent verification.

Kanluwen wrote:
The fact that you stated that Bin Laden was Egyptian just nullifies any argument you make from this moment forth.

Hmmm, it seems I forgot to include 'or Saudi' in that post. After the correction my second post is consistent with my original point.

Kanluwen wrote:Actually, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad got its start in the late 70s(if "Terrorism and Organized Hate Crime:Intelligence Gathering, Analysis, and Investigation" is a trustworthy source). It MERGED with Bin Ladin's Al-Qaeda organization in June 2001.

That's incorrect. Al Qaeda was founded in 1988, in Pakistan, when Bin Laden held a meeting with senior members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad. The Egyptian Jihad then ceased to exist. The Egyptian Islamic Jihad which merged (they didn't fully merge, they simply accept funding, as do most of Al Qaeda's clients) with Al Qaeda in 2001 was an organization tangentially associated with the original Jihad; taking the same name and fighting for a similar cause.

Kanluwen wrote:
That doesn't mean that from the day they got their start, Bin Ladin was giving them the great big thumbs up. Heck, he definitely wasn't when in 1981 they assassinated Anwar Sadat.

Assuming bin Laden cared at all, he probably would have endorsed Sadat's assassination; especially when you consider his relationship with the Shah of Iran, and his role in the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty.

The Egyptian Islamic Jihad is a big point of contention, then.

Everything I'm seeing about the Al-Jihad organization states that it was founded in late 1970s, and didn't have anything to really do with Al Qaeda until 2001.

But that's the problem with figuring out these organizations. There's too many with similar names for me to keep close tabs on them.

But eh. You live, you learn. Right?

Noble713 wrote:
http://www1.cedat.be/Documents/Working_Papers/CREDWPIraqMortalityJune2007.pdf
This paper goes into some good details about sampling methodology and addresses issues of oversampling violent areas and undersampling fairly peaceful ones. Covers multiple sources/estimates, not just Lancet BTW.

Of the three, this one interests me the most. I hadn't seen it before. Thanks.


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Kanluwen wrote:
The Egyptian Islamic Jihad is a big point of contention, then.

Everything I'm seeing about the Al-Jihad organization states that it was founded in late 1970s, and didn't have anything to really do with Al Qaeda until 2001.

But that's the problem with figuring out these organizations. There's too many with similar names for me to keep close tabs on them.

But eh. You live, you learn. Right?

Yeah, for sure.

They're really messy organizations on the whole because they behave a lot like social networks, or extended families. Often times the people themselves are far more important than the organizational titles they use. Its quite a bit like a reflection of Islam in that regard, which is interesting in itself.

weird double post

...

Relapse wrote:It's more of a rhetorical question since the way the trial is being set up seems designed to trot the boy through on the way to execution.
Don't get me wrong, I can think of a hundred ways I'd like to see this guy dropped, but it seems like any attempt to hold this trial up as a showpiece of justice is a farce.

I'm not really sure what people want when they're convinced of someone's guilt. If the evidence is overwhelming what else are you supposed to do but go through the motions and then convict? Ultimately any case where guilt is obvious will have elements of a show trial.

The alternatives are to have someone somewhere decide that a trial isn't needed (and who makes that call?) or to give everyone a chance of beating the charge, despite how guilty they (6+ save to be found innocent?).

There has to be a trial because it's the law.

Holding the trial under civilian jurisdiction is the right thing both for justice and because of world public opinion.

If the evidence is convincing it will stand up in court, the defendant will be convicted and sentenced according to the law.

If the evidence is not convincing, but the defendant is convicted by a biased jury, there will be an appeal.

It was wrong for Obama to say the defendant would be tried and executed. He realised that immediately and tried to correct the slip.

Kanluwen wrote:Except those "largely hostile" areas aren't.

The average Saudi Arabian doesn't have issues with America. Nor does the average Egyptian.

The issue is that those countries have large, open religious communities with outspoken hardliners who aren't even FROM the country in question who help drive public opinion.

-Exactly the stated claim for these terrorist attacks was because US troops were in Saudi Arabia, on Arab soil. So you kill men, women, and children because we had troops to repel one Arab nation from conquering another Arab nation? Its not sane.




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sebster wrote:

Because a civilian that commits an act of terrorism should be interrogated then taken out back and hanged like all spies and saboteurs...

It really isn't complicated.

You right but in error. Fixed it for you.

Who decides who is a terrorist then frazzled?

As i said, im more right wing than left, but feth me. You cannot honestly say you want any civilised nation to have no rule of law, kangaroo courts and public hangings "out back"

Your talking about anarchy. We have the rule of law because cops and government agencies are notorious for fething things up! Have you seen the state of the CIA? They screw up almost as much as British intelligence!

(Ill happily hang them once convicted of course!)

mattyrm wrote:Who decides who is a terrorist then frazzled?

As i said, im more right wing than left, but feth me. You cannot honestly say you want any civilised nation to have no rule of law, kangaroo courts and public hangings "out back"

Your talking about anarchy. We have the rule of law because cops and government agencies are notorious for fething things up! Have you seen the state of the CIA? They screw up almost as much as British intelligence!

(Ill happily hang them once convicted of course!)

He already confessed, there is no guilt here. Treat him just like the German saboteurs we caught in WWII. This is a war, treat it as such. Cap him.

How did the US treat German saboteurs in WW2?

In the UK they were prosecuted under the Treachery Act 1940.

Kilkrazy wrote:How did the US treat German saboteurs in WW2?

In the UK they were prosecuted under the Treachery Act 1940.

They were caught, interrogated, had a short hearing, and then an even shorter rope. We have always treated saboteurs and spies in wartime in such manner, as most fo the world, including the UK (several German spies were turned after being threatened with execution, others were executed).

Well in the UK they were prosecuted under various Acts of Parliament, the 1940 one obviously covering WW2.

Kilkrazy wrote:Well in the UK they were prosecuted under various Acts of Parliament, the 1940 one obviously covering WW2.

They used the law yes. But the truth of that is that it was used as a weapon or done quickly. No city hall trial there.