I agree with you Nedd
My use of the word commanders was loose. Any individual who is involved in terror from the top down, including those who "legitimately" licence arms to terror states need to be legally dealt with one way or another.
Part of the problem is the US's gun culture.
Common sense and experience shows us that armed militant groups create fear. Take the gun away from general circulation within a society and people can be governed properly by State Law, providing this is not corrupt.
The trouble is that the civilised world can not insist on the demilitarisation of groups because the US's gun culture is “acceptable”. I know there are exceptions such as Switzerland, where every household has a gun, but that is an example of a highly stable and moderate society. But right now it is the US that is asserting its strong arm and, unfortunately, it does not have enough of a moral high ground to do so without hypocrisy.
How can any country be equipped to deal with people who are prepared to kill themselves and kill innocent children who have no influence on politics? People who are callous enough to stab a little kid with a bayonet just because he wants a drink of water? People have always been prepared to die for their cause but to take other people with them - that's the bit I don't understand
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Originally posted by ceridwen1977 How can any country be equipped to deal with people who are prepared to kill themselves and kill innocent children who have no influence on politics? People who are callous enough to stab a little kid with a bayonet just because he wants a drink of water? People have always been prepared to die for their cause but to take other people with them - that's the bit I don't understand
Murdering children, and then giving up your own life is to have an influence on politics. It's just not an influence that you will live to see expressed. But the influence has been pretty tectonic in this case.
History is littered with those who gave their lives in the belief they were doing the right thing, and those who slaughtered countless innocents and justified themselves in terms of their ends.
When two national entities find themselves in armed combat, but one has missiles and jets, whilst the other has kalashnikovs, SAM7s and RPGs, the inequality can be balanced by "asymetrical warfare" aka hitting civilian targets with unconventional weapons.
Of course the chief difference between destroying a block of flats with helicopter gunships and holding hundreds of children hostage with little prospect of being released alive is that one is covered up with no advance notice whilst the other is staged for maximum media coverage, giving world networks plenty of time to get live TV coverage from the scene.
Apart from that, both acts are equally heinous crimes against humanity.
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Man the Lifeboats ! Tell the band to play on! Women and Children First!
Many of you will recognise the following though it is a summary of what is published. For me it has put a few things into perspective in relation to all attacks since 9/11 and all actions taken since.
Quote:
The goal of terrorism is to create terror and fear. Fear undermines the establishment. It weakens the enemy from within...causing unrest in the masses.
Terrorism is not an expression of rage. Terrorism is a political weapon. Remove a government's facade of infallibility, and you remove it's peoples faith
Originally posted by Hadron Perhaps we should give Birmingham up as an independent muslim state before they start to assassinate people here.
I don't think the Chechens want to move to Birmingham ffs! And how would killing people in the UK influence the Russian government in to allowing Chechnya to become independent
Yet again, try looking in to who was actually behind this attack and their motives (i.e. re-read this thread and see story below) before you jump in and post something cr*p like that... doesn't help anyone.
Moscow has declared top Chechen rebel leaders Shamil Basayev and Aslan Maskhadov equally culpable in the Beslan tragedy. But in reality the pair share little other than the goal of driving Russian forces from Chechnya - and a habit of speaking quietly.BBC
Some people will always take the eneny's side in any war/conflict no matter how repugnant that enemy is. This has been demonstarted time and time again, whether it is the IRA, Saddam Hussain, The Soviet Union etc etc etc.
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satirising political correctness since 2004
Originally posted by slimsid2000 Some people will always take the eneny's side in any war/conflict no matter how repugnant that enemy is. This has been demonstarted time and time again, whether it is the IRA, Saddam Hussain, The Soviet Union etc etc etc.
Not sure if you will read this as you seem to post without bothering to read other people's posts, but tell me - who exactly is taking the enemy's side in this particular instance? There has been worldwide condemnation of the attacks and I've yet to see anyone praise the actions of the terrorists... perhaps you know better!?
I think that a lead must be taken by "free and democratic states" which should adopt REAL ethical foreign policies.
They must not support regimes which are run by human rights abusers, murderers, dictators and the corrupt. No aid, no military equipment. They should put collective/coersive pressure on regimes engaged in torture, political repression etc.
Allies who flout human rights themselves or support repression by "clients"should be pressured into mending their ways.
eg Blair should have said "No" to Bush, The UN should have demanded Russian withdrawal fron Chechnya years ago (likewise Israel from the occupied territories)
If states which claim to promote freedom and democracy also support despotic and criminal regimes in the world, they are guilty of sowing the seeds of desperate acts of terrorism.
Political and economic expediency is one of the prime catalysts for terrorism. Politicians who cynically engage in this expediency risk bringing terror to our own shores. Unfortunately the "retribution" will fall on the innocents here as it does everywhere else. Those that bring down the wrath of the desperate, dispossessd and fanatical will of course receive maximum protection not afforded to the rest of us. Mr Putin would be the first to acknowledge that I'm sure.
Originally posted by slimsid2000 Some people will always take the eneny's side in any war/conflict no matter how repugnant that enemy is. This has been demonstrated time and time again, whether it is the IRA, Saddam Hussain, The Soviet Union etc etc etc.
Quite true, quite true. There are always refuseniks - our whole system of government (adversarial politics) depends on this tradition.
Some people will also always look behind the block headlines and tabloid style op-ed and take a bit of history into context, as well as trying to evaluate an event without without resorting to the meaningless shorthand of news speak.
And some people will swallow the simplest story possible that assuages the cognitive dissonance of believing that "this country is always right in war" but experiencing something quite different.
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Man the Lifeboats ! Tell the band to play on! Women and Children First!
[quote]Originally posted by Geoff It depresses me to see the general chat forum being used for such topics as "Slappers bring you joy" and "Britain's Fattest City". While I appreciate the need to lighten the mood from time to time... it depresses me that not many people want to discuss more mature/serious topics.
For example, did anyone see the footage of the storming of the Russian school at lunch time? This was horrific, seeing children pouring water on each other's badly burnt backs. It would appear that the whole thing is yet another chaotic 'storm' by Russia's apparent 'special' forces. At the moment the death toll from the raid stands at around 10, but there is a whopping 150 injured children so far.
Perhaps some of the forum's less mature users could take a break for a day or two and allow more serious items to take some of the lime light. This is a 'general' forum after all, which means both serious and fun... and it's all be the latter recently. [/QUOTE
]Hi to say thay where special forces is a joke
the operation was poorly planed no flash bangs the public
getting in to firefights thay shoud take a look at the SAS.
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"Those who have long enjoyed such privleges as we do today forget in time that men have died to win them."
And how would killing people in the UK influence the Russian government in to allowing Chechnya to become independent 
