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Yes, putting people on trial for crimes is a process that causes "problems". This doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. I mean I suppose arbitrarily declaring some people to be valid targets for assassination is one way to do it, but to be ok with it here but protest it elsewhere seems odd. What's your standard for being ok with extrajudicial killing? Should KSM have been shot on sight? Was Anwar al Awlaki's killing up to par? (Sorry for the derail but this is the topic I chose for my thesis so I'm pretty interested to hear opinions) Unzip and Attack fucked around with this message at 15:57 on Jul 28, 2014 |
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Jul 28, 2014 15:55
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Unzip and Attack posted:Yes, putting people on trial for crimes is a process that causes "problems". This doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. I mean I suppose arbitrarily declaring some people to be valid targets for assassination is one way to do it, but to be ok with it here but protest it elsewhere seems odd. What's your standard for being ok with extrajudicial killing? Should KSM have been shot on sight? Was Anwar al Awlaki's killing up to par? The question is a good one and I'm certainly not a fan of how we've generally gone about this in the last decade but there are literally hundreds (thousands?) of more sympathetic cases with which to discuss the issue than OBL. You're just going to keep running into the fact that we've done this a lot and of ALL the people we've done it to gently caress bin Laden forever.
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Jul 28, 2014 16:05
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Unzip and Attack posted:Yes, putting people on trial for crimes is a process that causes "problems". This doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. I mean I suppose arbitrarily declaring some people to be valid targets for assassination is one way to do it, but to be ok with it here but protest it elsewhere seems odd. What's your standard for being ok with extrajudicial killing? Should KSM have been shot on sight? Was Anwar al Awlaki's killing up to par? When safe arrest and extraction of a dangerous enemy of the state is far too risky, I think targeted assassination is a valid option. The issue of course, being what the definition of "dangerous enemy of the state" is.
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Jul 28, 2014 16:05
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SavageBastard posted:The question is a good one and I'm certainly not a fan of how we've generally gone about this in the last decade but there are literally hundreds (thousands?) of more sympathetic cases with which to discuss the issue than OBL. You're just going to keep running into the fact that we've done this a lot and of ALL the people we've done it to gently caress bin Laden forever. This is true but on the other hand, we have a LOT of verified, well-known information about the exact crimes he committed and the specific, verified security-related details of his targeted killing. I don't have any sympathy for UBL at all as a person, but as a legal question he's a good tool because of these factors. Also when discussing the legality of actions I think it's important to leave how sympathetic a case might be at the curb. The process by which we as a collective put people on this list is far more important to me than the specific crimes they have allegedly committed. Talmonis posted:When safe arrest and extraction of a dangerous enemy of the state is far too risky, I think targeted assassination is a valid option. The issue of course, being what the definition of "dangerous enemy of the state" is. The UBL case is great for this question as well because he wasn't armed. SEALs are the type of people that are trained almost every day to distinguish legit targets from non-threatening ones. We've all seen the dramatizations of the drills they go through to hone their ability to almost instantly assess an individual as a threat or not. UBL was clearly targeted for killing and the US had no intention of capturing him. This is what I find questionable because your opinion is a valid one that was completely ignored. Extraction was not only possible for UBL, it would have been relatively easy given what we know now. Unzip and Attack fucked around with this message at 16:17 on Jul 28, 2014 |
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Jul 28, 2014 16:14
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Mister Adequate posted:A lot of people say things like "torture doesn't work", but they're missing the point. Torture works perfectly, if your objective is to cause pain and misery. Torture is very effective at getting answers from sources even if the source didn't have the answer to begin with!
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Jul 28, 2014 16:15
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Unzip and Attack posted:No what's absurd is calling people liars when 2 minutes of research would show that there are first hand accounts that claim he was not armed when he was killed and that a nearby AK 47 was planted on his body. I mean if you think the account is flawed or whatever then fine, but since when is accusing someone of willful dishonesty the first reaction in these threads? poo poo has gotten really hostile lately and it's a bummer. "How dare you accuse me of willful dishonesty for advancing a conflicted narrative that accuses those I disagree with of willful dishonesty!"
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Jul 28, 2014 16:23
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Unzip and Attack posted:Yes, putting people on trial for crimes is a process that causes "problems". This doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. I mean I suppose arbitrarily declaring some people to be valid targets for assassination is one way to do it, but to be ok with it here but protest it elsewhere seems odd. What's your standard for being ok with extrajudicial killing? Should KSM have been shot on sight? Was Anwar al Awlaki's killing up to par? Seeing as how you are distilling the point that due process was basically out the window here to mocking this for being "problems" no, I think it's pretty clear you don't give a drat about other opinions
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Jul 28, 2014 16:25
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Joementum posted:Oh, yeah, I almost forgot to mention that one of the things that might happen in American politics soon is Ron Wyden making the CIA torture report public. And the Times reported on Saturday that Brennan was already positioning to discredit and politicize this in hopes of the contents getting buried in the election cycle narrative.
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Jul 28, 2014 16:29
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Unless he literally came out hands on head holding a white flag, killing him on sight was always going to be on the table. War isn't crime, even if there are war crimes.
WhiskeyJuvenile fucked around with this message at 16:35 on Jul 28, 2014 |
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Jul 28, 2014 16:33
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WhiskeyJuvenile posted:Unless he literally came out gabs on head holding a white flag, killing him in sight was always going to be on the table. War isn't crime, even if there are war crimes. I don't disagree with this - it's just that I don't think killing him was "on the table" as much as it was "the actual primary goal of the mission". Based on him being shot while unarmed I think it's pretty safe to say even had he been shouting surrender pleas he probably still would have been executed. The SEALs know their business - they can make determinations like that very quickly and very accurately before squeezing the trigger. Unzip and Attack fucked around with this message at 16:38 on Jul 28, 2014 |
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Jul 28, 2014 16:36
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Joementum posted:The Sarah Palin Channel launched today. $9.95 a month, or $99.95 for a one year subscription... which will be a 6 month subscription when she quits halfway through.
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Jul 28, 2014 16:36
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Fried Chicken posted:$9.95 a month, or $99.95 for a one year subscription... which will be a 6 month subscription when she quits halfway through. So, you're telling me that 12 one month subscriptions is cheaper than 1 twelve month subscription?  Edit: Yup. I'm dumb. 12 is not 10. AlternateNu fucked around with this message at 19:38 on Jul 28, 2014 |
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Jul 28, 2014 16:56
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AlternateNu posted:So, you're telling me that 12 one month subscriptions is cheaper than 1 twelve month subscription? Check your math.
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Jul 28, 2014 17:01
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AlternateNu posted:So, you're telling me that 12 one month subscriptions is cheaper than 1 twelve month subscription? $99.95/12 is about $8.30 a month
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Jul 28, 2014 17:07
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Oh dear.
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Jul 28, 2014 17:09
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Unzip and Attack posted:The UBL case is great for this question as well because he wasn't armed. SEALs are the type of people that are trained almost every day to distinguish legit targets from non-threatening ones. We've all seen the dramatizations of the drills they go through to hone their ability to almost instantly assess an individual as a threat or not. UBL was clearly targeted for killing and the US had no intention of capturing him. This is what I find questionable because your opinion is a valid one that was completely ignored. Extraction was not only possible for UBL, it would have been relatively easy given what we know now. I'm honestly not sure if he was a targeted shot or simply a 'shoot/no shoot' that the guy present took the 'shoot' choice on. As things were described, if he was not Osama, and just a random supporter of his, Osama being somewhere else in the room, would he have been shot?
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Jul 28, 2014 17:13
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Magres posted:$99.95/12 is about $8.30 a month Ah, but $99.95/6 is $16.66/mo.
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Jul 28, 2014 17:20
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anonumos posted:Ah, but $99.95/6 is $16.66/mo. I'm being an optimist and assuming they'd refund your money for the time you pay for that they won't be providing service for. Don't stomp on my dreams 
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Jul 28, 2014 17:24
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Scam artists don't make money by giving back payments for their defective products or services.
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Jul 28, 2014 17:25
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So this isn't American politics per say, but it does stand to have a huge implication for America and the world. Everyone knows how America maintains preeminent dominance through military spending and positioning. Less well understood is our dominance through economic means. Which makes sense, international finance is both really complicated and really boring, and frankly the major players in it go out of their way to encourage secrecy (there are some good non corrupt reasons for this, but also a lot of corrupt ones. It is more complicated than you'd think, hence all the conspiracy theories) Anyways, the two big tools for this are the IMF and the World Bank. The IMF sets and enforces the rules and treaties for international trade, global supply chains, international investment and finance, and is pretty much the mechanism behind the free movement if capital that is central to the modern global economy. Also, due to its core position in international finance it has an outsized say in what is the global reserve currency. Like most major post WW2 international endeavors it's interests overwhelmingly align with American interests. (It's headquarters is in Washington DC) The World Bank exists to provide loans to countries for development, capital expenditures, and to (per its charter) promote "foreign investment and international trade and to the facilitation of capital investment". It gives out large loans to countries so they can do things, and it's smaller branches package that debt into bonds. Trade on those bonds and backing of the US give it a balance sheet of approximately $178 billion. While those loans are supposed to be used for poverty alleviation and given the countries where repayment is expected, and there is a debt reduction process in place for when bad loans were made so as not to overburden a developing country. But historically those tools haven't seen much in the way if effective use. Having other countries in debt has provided a great deal of leverage in international negotiations since owning the debt gives you a tool as powerful as any military - see France and Haiti for example. Though the world bank is a UN project, the goals from its charter are basically the same goals America has in the economic realm, and the fact it is headquartered in Washington DC is not exactly an accident. Now that is an extremely abbreviated summary of their role and import (each probably deserves their own thread full if effort posts and an A/T with a forensic accountant to explain it all) but it's important because of this: http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2014/07/22/a-rival-to-the-world-bank/ The BRICS (Brazil Russia India China & South Africa) have just announced the creation of a pair of institutions that will do the same job, bankrolled to the tune of $150 billion. To say this is a challenge is an understatement. This is the first rival in terms of economic hegemony since 1991. These guys represent 40% of the worlds population and 20% of its economic output. Given strategic resources available in them it would be foolish not to see that their position on the world stage will increase. It may falter depending in the vagaries if the market cycle, but in the long run they are in a good position. Yet because of how things are set up and done in the IMF and world bank they have very little say in how things are done. Which understandably pisses them off, and national pride aside it is hard to justify the system doing more to cater to the economic interests of 10.5 million Belgians than 1.3 billion Chinese. So now they are setting up a rival institution. And the thing is, it didn't have to be this way. In 2010 the BRICS came to the rest of the G20 and negotiated to come to a set of reforms for the world bank and IMF that would have changed the distribution if power to something more equitable and reflective of global interests. The holdup is that we needed the US Congress to pass those reforms for them to go into effect. The House was not cooperative. So for those keeping score, not only did the GOP destroy America's military standing with the disastrous wars, they have hurt our economic standing as well.
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Jul 28, 2014 17:29
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Warcabbit posted:I'm honestly not sure if he was a targeted shot or simply a 'shoot/no shoot' that the guy present took the 'shoot' choice on. As things were described, if he was not Osama, and just a random supporter of his, Osama being somewhere else in the room, would he have been shot? This is all Monday morning quarterbacking of course but from what I know of the raid, UBL was found on the third floor in one of (if not the) last uncleared rooms in the structure. They were there for UBL so it seems to me that if they had been sent in with orders to capture and they were coming up on the last area where he could be, they wouldn't want to be shooting any unarmed males at that point, especially not through the eye. I mean they knew the first names of almost everyone in the house, so they realized from the first body ID that they were in the right place. Of course it's possible that the SEAL just reacted and made a snap judgment to kill but that seems less likely when you look at how many snatch and grab operations they run all the time. This was the grand prize.
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Jul 28, 2014 17:29
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Here are some articles covering the new BRICS endeavor that I think are worth reading http://theconversation.com/world-bank-watch-out-the-brics-bank-is-a-game-changer-29437 http://thediplomat.com/2014/07/3-reasons-the-brics-new-development-bank-matters/ http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/7/can-brics-build-somethingnew.html Short version is this - there are other development banks out there, but none of them remotely on the scale needed to play. Their balance sheets are about 1/10th what this or the World Bank would have. But it's estimated that development finance needs $1 trillion a year to cover all the projects needed, never mind the ones countries want that aren't core critical. And the World Bank only makes about $30 billion a year in loans. So there is a large gap between need and available that will grant an absolute gently caress load of power to anyone who steps in to fill it. The flip side is it is questionable that 5 countries, some of whom have tensions with each other, will be as ideologically coherent as the American backed organizations will be. Plus those 5 owe the World Bank $66 billion as it stands, so the ability to disentangle and rival is complicated. Still, this is one of those things that is boring as hell, but could have large consequences down the road
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Jul 28, 2014 17:49
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Fried Chicken posted:Here are some articles covering the new BRICS endeavor that I think are worth reading It's a big step towards helping developing countries earnestly escape the neoliberal trap they've often ended up in for decades. Hopefully. Obviously the policies of the new institution will become clear with time and as it takes action. Thanks for posting I would've likely not seen these articles and this intersects with my future career pretty heavily.
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Jul 28, 2014 17:53
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whitey delenda est posted:It's a big step towards helping developing countries earnestly escape the neoliberal trap they've often ended up in for decades. Hopefully. Obviously the policies of the new institution will become clear with time and as it takes action. Or a big step towards helping developing countries have two different exciting options for putting themselves into an economic trap! I mean, certainly Russia and China would certainly never use economic influence to exert dominance over smaller nations, but you have to watch out for South Africa, man. It is huge news, but I don't think it's going to be helpful to developing nations in avoiding some of the debt traps that IMF/World Bank funding has led to (though to my understanding both entities are walking back the policies that allow those traps) so much as it's huge news because it's the formation of a large-scale formal economic tie between the BRICS countries that might lead to the formation of another economic bloc as a rival or counterpoint to the US/EU bloc.
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Jul 28, 2014 18:05
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Kalman posted:Or a big step towards helping developing countries have two different exciting options for putting themselves into an economic trap! I mean, certainly Russia and China would certainly never use economic influence to exert dominance over smaller nations, but you have to watch out for South Africa, man. I CAN STILL BE OPTIMISTIC 
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Jul 28, 2014 18:13
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Here is what you get with your subscription Word of the day Quote of the Day Image of the Day
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Jul 28, 2014 18:13
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Sorelosers.jpeg
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Jul 28, 2014 18:15
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Mr Ice Cream Glove posted:Here is what you get with your subscription OUR NATIONAL DEBT that came from two wars started by Republicans, but enough about that, OBAMA'S DAYS LEFT IN OFFICE.
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Jul 28, 2014 18:17
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SumYungGui posted:OUR NATIONAL DEBT that came from two wars started by Republicans,
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Jul 28, 2014 18:21
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Mr Ice Cream Glove posted:Word of the day All of which are still the same as they were yesterday.
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Jul 28, 2014 18:31
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whitey delenda est posted:It's a big step towards helping developing countries earnestly escape the neoliberal trap they've often ended up in for decades. Hopefully. Obviously the policies of the new institution will become clear with time and as it takes action. I'm not sure what could possibly make you think an organization headed by Russia and China is going to gently caress with developing countries less than the IMF did. China and India are in the best position for long term growth. Russia is utterly hosed if anything ever happens to their natural gas, or even if Europe gets its collective head out of its rear end and stops with its nuclear scare (less likely than the US getting over theirs).
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Jul 28, 2014 18:33
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Evil Fluffy posted:I'm not sure what could possibly make you think an organization headed by Russia and China is going to gently caress with developing countries less than the IMF did. From what I understand, at least with China, they tend to not gently caress with the country too terrible. China doesn't (rightfully) give a poo poo about the political make up of a country and doesn't tie loans or cooperation up with ensuring that a nation's politics are changed.
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Jul 28, 2014 18:38
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The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals just struck down gay marriage bans in Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. How many states does that bring us to now?
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Jul 28, 2014 18:43
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Mr Jaunts posted:The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals just struck down gay marriage bans in Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. How many states does that bring us to now? Oh poo poo four at once? I think that puts us almost at the halfway point.  Glorious!
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Jul 28, 2014 18:44
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As someone who was living in NC during the Amendment One bullshit... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
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Jul 28, 2014 18:46
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If you want an inside look at how a major Democratic party campaign is run, well, here's a leaked strategy book from the Nunn campaign.
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Jul 28, 2014 18:53
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Mr Jaunts posted:The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals just struck down gay marriage bans in Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. How many states does that bring us to now? Wow, the bigots are under siege on all fronts. They're gonna run out of money to keep appeals going. Hope Maggie Gallagher has deep pockets.
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Jul 28, 2014 18:55
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Mitt Romney is blogging and he'd like to share his family vacation photos, and his thoughts on the dire situations in Ukraine and Gaza.
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Jul 28, 2014 18:56
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Joementum posted:Mitt Romney is blogging and he'd like to share his family vacation photos, and his thoughts on the dire situations in Ukraine and Gaza. Oh please let this be the prelude to a second shot at the big chair.
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Jul 28, 2014 18:59
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Mister Adequate posted:Oh please let this be the prelude to a second shot at the big chair. It'd be his third shot.
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Jul 28, 2014 19:09
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