Science Undecided on Room Temperature Superconductors

[Forty Two]

tl;dr. Invading Iraq was wrong. Invading A'stan was arguably a waste of time. Saudi Arabia is the giant elephant in the room. Nothing gets sorted in the middle east till SA gets cut off the teat.

O.k., what would you suggest would have been right to do to Saudi Arabia in late 2001-2002, and/or the ensuing years? And, what's the basis for such action? Saudi Arabian WMD? Was Saudi Arabia behind 9/11/01? (and if so, what's the evidence for it?)

"Evidence"? Lol. Umm, Iraq. Ideally no one would have been bombed or invaded, but money trails from the Saudis should have been investigated with a microscope and frozen and seized and then sanctions placed on the Saudis.

So, you have evidence of these money trails? You know they exist, and have not been addressed via counterterrorism methods?

Would there have been UN support for military action or sanctions against Saudi Arabia? If not, should the US have "gone it alone?" Why didn't Australia take such action, if it was clear that Saudi Arabia was funding Al Qaeta? Did Australia seize or freeze bank accounts?

Nice red herrings.

It's widely know SA funds Islamic terrorism. Apparently it's not widely known in Merca land where you guys are firmly ensconced up the anus of the Saudis.

It's widely known that people in Saudi Arabia fund Islamic terrorism. It is widely asserted, but not proved, that the Saudi government funds Islamic terrorism. People in the US fund Islamic terrorism too -- that doesn't mean the United States funds Islamic terrorism.

We aren't, actually, firmly ensconced up the anus of the Saudis. 40% of US oil needs are met by the United States domestically. 20% of US oil needs are met from Latin American sources (mainly South American sources) and 15% of the oil the US uses is from Canada. So, that's 75% of our oil needs are met from the western hemisphere. Another 10% comes from Africa. And, about 12% comes from the "Persian Gulf" only part of which is from Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is the biggest of the Persian Gulf purveyors, but it doesn't even come to 1/2 as much as we get from Canada.

We could lose Saudi oil and the US would have plenty of other sources of oil. And, overall, we've reduced our oil imports by about 20% in the last several years.

Australia, on the other hand, imports over 90% of its fuel. That's up from 60% in 2000. Most of its oil imports come through Singapore, which is reliant to the tune of 80% on middle east oil.

Whose up whose arse?

[Forty Two]

I suppose what they were thinking was that Saddam Hussein's regime was a rogue, totalitarian dictatorship, which was guilty of a host of international crimes

That's a bit rich. Not only has the US materially supported any and every dictator it found advantageous to support, but it also has repeatedly toppled democratically elected governments and replaced them with dictatorships.

As has the Brits - who were very big on supporting dictators and toppling governments throughout the 20th century.

Tu quo quo fallacy. Someone call the waaambulance!

The point was that the fact that the US supported this or that dictator says nothing about Saddam Hussein. I'm not arguing that what the US did was good because the Brits also supported dictators. I'm arguing that what they were thinking was that Saddam Hussein's regime was a rogue, criminal, totalitarian dictatorship, which was among the nations thought to be supporting global terrorism, thought to have access to or be bent on obtaining nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, and thought to be engaged in the trade thereof. So, as part of the global war on terrorism, such entities were to be fought, in some cases militarily and in other cases through law enforcement, politics, economics, and other means.

Saying the US propped up some other dictator doesn't change that.

[Seth]

...exactly the same argument being used by ISIS to justify their extreme behaviour.

Yes, but your moral equivalency argument fails because those against whom we take military action are, by their own actions and intentions, fundamentally and irredeemably evil cocksuckers who have no legitimate moral or ethical justification for what they do.

You have no legitimate moral or ethical justification for what you do.
Bombing villages that contain civilians can't be justified.

Of course it can, if there is a legitimate high-value military target hiding among them. And "bombing" is a misnomer in this case because it suggests indiscriminate bombing whereas drone strikes are incredibly precise and targeted specifically at the military targets precisely in order to minimize civilian casualties. But it is a recognized fact, and indeed it is recognized under the international laws of war, that collateral civilian deaths are inevitable in any conflict (God knows the Islamist fucks don't mind killing civilians intentionally, including their own) and that it is not a violation if civilians are killed so long as the attack is not deliberately aimed at killing civilians. We take stringent precautions to avoid civilian casualties in our drone strikes, but on occasions mistakes are made or the need to destroy the legitimate target resulting in the deaths of non-combatants is overwhelming and the collateral damage unavoidable.

In main, such civilian casualties are the direct result of the tactics and practices of the enemy themselves. Rather than separate themselves from civilian populations so as to prevent such harm to their own people, they deliberately, and in a most cowardly fashion, hide among civilian populations precisely in order to avoid being killed by a precision missile strike. That's also why they don't wear uniforms, which is why our ROE states that any military-age male carrying a weapon in a combat zone is a legitimate military target and may be killed. Nowadays that would include military-age females as well.

The enemy cannot be permitted to escape the conflict by hiding among civilians, particularly where the civilians themselves participate in concealing the enemy and thereby themselves become legitimate military targets as well. To eschew the use of deadly force in any circumstance where non-combatants might be killed is to lose the war. All the civilian population has to do to avoid being collateral damage is to flee from combat zones (which they are doing) or kill or turn in those who would endanger them by trying to hide among them. When civilians knowingly and voluntarily conceal terrorists among themselves, they become legitimate targets.

War is hell, and civilians die. We take great pains to limit that harm and expend enormous sums of money to track down and kill specific individuals using precision munitions in order to do so.

We could just carpet-bomb know terrorist strongholds without a second thought, just as every nation has done in the past. But we don't.

So fuck off.

[JimC]

And yet it is justified on the basis of a declared military objective (with the qualifier that they will try very hard to keep non-combatant casualties to a minimum), and the military objective is justified on the basis of its capacity to achieve a declared political/policy objective (to bring peace to the region, to protect civilians at home or abroad, etc). That's how we end up terrorising and killing innocents in far away places in their homes. Or we just declare all group members (all Muslims, all Chechens, etc) fundamentally antithetical to our values or representing an automatic existential threat, and therefore fair game (and they only have themselves to blame).

The whole situation is very murky in an ethical sense, and there is no doubt that some of the military actions have been very ill-advised, killed too many innocents and contributed to a rise in islamic radicalisation. ISIS can point to blown-up hospitals and wedding parties and say "look what the crusaders are doing to your fellow muslims"

However, it also remains true that ISIS is both killing and enslaving people in the territory they control, as well as directing or inspiring terrorist actions around the world. Doing nothing is not really an option, either. The real problem is that all those taking military action against ISIS are deeply divided, and their military actions are ad hoc and disorganised as a consequence. The Turks and the Kurds, Russia supporting Assad, the deep disquiet by the Sunni powers of the support given to Shiite militias by Iran, the list goes on and on.

Amongst that, carefully targeted drone strikes against ISIS military positions are at least preventing them from consolidating their gains and being able to reach for more...

[Seth]

And yet it is justified on the basis of a declared military objective (with the qualifier that they will try very hard to keep non-combatant casualties to a minimum), and the military objective is justified on the basis of its capacity to achieve a declared political/policy objective (to bring peace to the region, to protect civilians at home or abroad, etc). That's how we end up terrorising and killing innocents in far away places in their homes. Or we just declare all group members (all Muslims, all Chechens, etc) fundamentally antithetical to our values or representing an automatic existential threat, and therefore fair game (and they only have themselves to blame).

The whole situation is very murky in an ethical sense, and there is no doubt that some of the military actions have been very ill-advised, killed too many innocents and contributed to a rise in islamic radicalisation. ISIS can point to blown-up hospitals and wedding parties and say "look what the crusaders are doing to your fellow muslims"

Which of course ignores the salient fact that most of the Muslim non-combatants killed in the Middle East theater since, well, 862, have been killed by other Muslims, and not by US or other allied actions. They've been killing each other over which cousin of Mohammed is the authorized heir for 1300 years, so who gives a fuck how many Muslims of whatever category or classification get killed by us? They don't care so why should we?

[JimC]

And yet it is justified on the basis of a declared military objective (with the qualifier that they will try very hard to keep non-combatant casualties to a minimum), and the military objective is justified on the basis of its capacity to achieve a declared political/policy objective (to bring peace to the region, to protect civilians at home or abroad, etc). That's how we end up terrorising and killing innocents in far away places in their homes. Or we just declare all group members (all Muslims, all Chechens, etc) fundamentally antithetical to our values or representing an automatic existential threat, and therefore fair game (and they only have themselves to blame).

The whole situation is very murky in an ethical sense, and there is no doubt that some of the military actions have been very ill-advised, killed too many innocents and contributed to a rise in islamic radicalisation. ISIS can point to blown-up hospitals and wedding parties and say "look what the crusaders are doing to your fellow muslims"

Which of course ignores the salient fact that most of the Muslim non-combatants killed in the Middle East theater since, well, 862, have been killed by other Muslims, and not by US or other allied actions. They've been killing each other over which cousin of Mohammed is the authorized heir for 1300 years, so who gives a fuck how many Muslims of whatever category or classification get killed by us? They don't care so why should we?

Obviously there has been a shitload of muslim on muslim violence, but that doesn't change the fact that Islamic fundamentalists have made a great deal of political capital from the deaths of innocent bystanders at the hands of the west; it is a fundamental theme of all their recruitment on line.

If you had seen the rest of my post, I went on to say that this radicalisation effect is not an argument for ceasing air strikes (as rEv suggested), but for redoubling efforts to make them on purely ISIS or Al Quaeta military targets.

[Seth]

And yet it is justified on the basis of a declared military objective (with the qualifier that they will try very hard to keep non-combatant casualties to a minimum), and the military objective is justified on the basis of its capacity to achieve a declared political/policy objective (to bring peace to the region, to protect civilians at home or abroad, etc). That's how we end up terrorising and killing innocents in far away places in their homes. Or we just declare all group members (all Muslims, all Chechens, etc) fundamentally antithetical to our values or representing an automatic existential threat, and therefore fair game (and they only have themselves to blame).

The whole situation is very murky in an ethical sense, and there is no doubt that some of the military actions have been very ill-advised, killed too many innocents and contributed to a rise in islamic radicalisation. ISIS can point to blown-up hospitals and wedding parties and say "look what the crusaders are doing to your fellow muslims"

Which of course ignores the salient fact that most of the Muslim non-combatants killed in the Middle East theater since, well, 862, have been killed by other Muslims, and not by US or other allied actions. They've been killing each other over which cousin of Mohammed is the authorized heir for 1300 years, so who gives a fuck how many Muslims of whatever category or classification get killed by us? They don't care so why should we?

Obviously there has been a shitload of muslim on muslim violence, but that doesn't change the fact that Islamic fundamentalists have made a great deal of political capital from the deaths of innocent bystanders at the hands of the west; it is a fundamental theme of all their recruitment on line.

If you had seen the rest of my post, I went on to say that this radicalisation effect is not an argument for ceasing air strikes (as rEv suggested), but for redoubling efforts to make them on purely ISIS or Al Quaeta military targets.

I did see it, and I was merely commenting that whatever the propaganda touted by the Islamists with respect to civilian casualties it's irrelevant and I don't care because they themselves have deliberately, knowingly and intentionally killed a hundred or a thousand times the number of "innocent civilians" comprised of their own Muslim people that we have and I simply am not at all interested in debating the morality of the US blowing the ever-living shit out of Muslim terrorists wherever we find them. If their own people get in the way, well that's their own fault and I have little to no sympathy for them because they allow it to happen in the first place, or worse they set themselves up to become martyrs deliberately, in which case we should continue to accommodate them.

We should not, and do not deliberately target civilians as a part of our efforts to wipe out these scum, but it's a war and just because the bastards revel in killings THEY are directly and SOLELY responsible for because they leave us no choice is not only not a reason not to attack, but isn't even much of a reason to use nearly as much care as we presently do to avoid such casualties. We don't need to "redouble" anything nor do we need to apologize for anything at all. We didn't start this, they did, but we're sure as hell going to end it one way or another and at this point I don't much care how. They are barbaric savages who need to be dead.

Don't want to get blown up with pigs? Then don't lie down with pigs, don't live in the same house as pigs, don't visit pigs, don't let pigs visit you, don't go to weddings with pigs, don't send your kids to schools taught by pigs, don't go to church with pigs, otherwise you're going to get covered with pig-shit and pig-blood when we blow them to bits whenever and wherever we find them.

[rainbow]

Don't want to get blown up with pigs? Then don't lie down with pigs, don't live in the same house as pigs, don't visit pigs, don't let pigs visit you, don't go to weddings with pigs, don't send your kids to schools taught by pigs, don't go to church with pigs, otherwise you're going to get covered with pig-shit and pig-blood when we blow them to bits whenever and wherever we find them.

[Seth]

Don't want to get blown up with pigs? Then don't lie down with pigs, don't live in the same house as pigs, don't visit pigs, don't let pigs visit you, don't go to weddings with pigs, don't send your kids to schools taught by pigs, don't go to church with pigs, otherwise you're going to get covered with pig-shit and pig-blood when we blow them to bits whenever and wherever we find them.

Meh.

This is what we do now.

[pErvinalia]

O.k., what would you suggest would have been right to do to Saudi Arabia in late 2001-2002, and/or the ensuing years? And, what's the basis for such action? Saudi Arabian WMD? Was Saudi Arabia behind 9/11/01? (and if so, what's the evidence for it?)

"Evidence"? Lol. Umm, Iraq. Ideally no one would have been bombed or invaded, but money trails from the Saudis should have been investigated with a microscope and frozen and seized and then sanctions placed on the Saudis.

So, you have evidence of these money trails? You know they exist, and have not been addressed via counterterrorism methods?

Would there have been UN support for military action or sanctions against Saudi Arabia? If not, should the US have "gone it alone?" Why didn't Australia take such action, if it was clear that Saudi Arabia was funding Al Qaeta? Did Australia seize or freeze bank accounts?

Nice red herrings.

It's widely know SA funds Islamic terrorism. Apparently it's not widely known in Merca land where you guys are firmly ensconced up the anus of the Saudis.

It's widely known that people in Saudi Arabia fund Islamic terrorism. It is widely asserted, but not proved, that the Saudi government funds Islamic terrorism. People in the US fund Islamic terrorism too -- that doesn't mean the United States funds Islamic terrorism.

We aren't, actually, firmly ensconced up the anus of the Saudis. 40% of US oil needs are met by the United States domestically. 20% of US oil needs are met from Latin American sources (mainly South American sources) and 15% of the oil the US uses is from Canada. So, that's 75% of our oil needs are met from the western hemisphere. Another 10% comes from Africa. And, about 12% comes from the "Persian Gulf" only part of which is from Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is the biggest of the Persian Gulf purveyors, but it doesn't even come to 1/2 as much as we get from Canada.

We could lose Saudi oil and the US would have plenty of other sources of oil. And, overall, we've reduced our oil imports by about 20% in the last several years.

So what happened to all those alleged morals? Why is Saudi a US ally in the middle east??

[Forty Two]

So what happened to all those alleged morals? Why is Saudi a US ally in the middle east??

Why shouldn't Saudi be a US ally in the middle east?

Saudi Arabia is an Australian ally in the middle east, too. Saudi Arabia is one of Australia's most important trading partners -- what do you guys do? $2.5 billion dollars a year in trade with them? And, you Ozzies have been continuing to let Saudis come and study in your universities under the King Abdullah Scholarship Program - you guys have like 12,000 Saudi students in your universities every year.

Saudi Arabia is the largest Arab country in the middle east. If it's not a western ally, it will be a Russian or Chinese ally.

Did you ever play the strategy game "Diplomacy?" If you have, then you know full well why Saudi Arabia is an ally. If you haven't, give it a try a couple of times, and you'll figure it out.

[Hermit]

So what happened to all those alleged morals? Why is Saudi a US ally in the middle east??

Saudi Arabia is an Australian ally in the middle east, too.

Um, like a tu quoque makes it all moral?

[If it's not a western ally, it will be a Russian or Chinese ally.

And this makes it moral? Drug dealers don't have much luck using this line as a defence.

So, two failures to reply to the question. Would you like to try again?

[Seth]

So what happened to all those alleged morals? Why is Saudi a US ally in the middle east??

Well, because the factions within SA who give money to terrorists aren't sanctioned by the government of SA and SA allows us to garrison troops and equipment there, among other things. That fact is precisely why OBL attacked the World Trade Center. He commissioned that attack because he objected to US troops in SA, and he was personal non grata in SA because of his radicalism.

Could SA be doing more to root out Islamic radicals? Probably.

But then again, there's the oil, which has always made strange bedfellows.

Frankly I'm not aware of ANY nation on earth that refuses to trade with SA because there are Islamic terrorists and their wealthy supporters in the country.

Including Australia, NZ and the UK.

People who live in glass houses...etc.

[Hermit]

So what happened to all those alleged morals? Why is Saudi a US ally in the middle east??

Well, because the factions within SA who give money to terrorists aren't sanctioned by the government of SA and SA allows us to garrison troops and equipment there, among other things. That fact is precisely why OBL attacked the World Trade Center. He commissioned that attack because he objected to US troops in SA, and he was personal non grata in SA because of his radicalism.

Could SA be doing more to root out Islamic radicals? Probably.

But then again, there's the oil, which has always made strange bedfellows.

Frankly I'm not aware of ANY nation on earth that refuses to trade with SA because there are Islamic terrorists and their wealthy supporters in the country.

Including Australia, NZ and the UK.

People who live in glass houses...etc.

Look at that. Another right winger failing to answer the question about what happened to all those alleged morals by coming up with a tu quoque and citing Machiavelli.

[Seth]

So what happened to all those alleged morals? Why is Saudi a US ally in the middle east??

Well, because the factions within SA who give money to terrorists aren't sanctioned by the government of SA and SA allows us to garrison troops and equipment there, among other things. That fact is precisely why OBL attacked the World Trade Center. He commissioned that attack because he objected to US troops in SA, and he was personal non grata in SA because of his radicalism.

Could SA be doing more to root out Islamic radicals? Probably.

But then again, there's the oil, which has always made strange bedfellows.

Frankly I'm not aware of ANY nation on earth that refuses to trade with SA because there are Islamic terrorists and their wealthy supporters in the country.

Including Australia, NZ and the UK.

People who live in glass houses...etc.

Look at that. Another right winger failing to answer the question about what happened to all those alleged morals by coming up with a tu quoque and citing Machiavelli.

The answer is right there for those with the wit to see it. But for the intellectually beggared, here it is spelled out: Terrorists and their supporters in SA are not sanctioned by the Saudi government and our treaties are with Saudi government, which is not morally responsible for the actions of terrorists within it's borders. If the Saudi government was doing what the Iranian government does, which is to directly support international terrorism, then we would be sanctioning SA as well.

The entire moral argument you make is nothing more than a strawman argument based on false claims.