That participle is hanging, hanging, hanging, . . . . .no, it’s gone, gone, gone into grammatical Hades.

Uh, accidental killing of civilian human shields? What evidence does he have for that?

Evidence? Time’s blog of the year does not need evidence, puny mortal!

Uh, accidental killing of civilian human shields? What evidence does he have for that?

“along with terrorists” – what evidence does he have for that?

(You know, unless we adopt the “everyone with a gun who opposes our Glorious Conquering Horde is a terrorist” and “there must be someone with a gun or else we wouldn’t have bombed ‘cos we’re the Good Guys” standards)

spent the day with the kids at the zoo, there’s something about polar bears belly-flopping onto chunks of ice that drives the young-uns into hysterics. me too. all in all, i felt pretty good about the world.

then i come home and flip on the bbc and watch them carry body after children’s body out of a pile of rubble, and i want to divorce myself from the human race. and this prick has the audacity to say, “the accidental killing of civilian human shields, along with terrorists”.

i’ve been away for a while, and i’ve never been very informed about powerline and its crew of slugs. i’m sure they’ve gone over the edge before, but this must be a new low.

50+ women and children are killed, and this scum is “curious about the logistics of pro-terrorist demonstrations”. i’d say he should be ashamed, but what’s the use.

Ooo, Ooo … I know, I know!

He had it backwards. It wasn’t “demonstrators” “protesting,” it was protestors demonstrating.

Truth to tell, Brad, it pisses me off. These people’s lack of respect for human life is appalling. It’s like he’s talking about getting orkin to solve his roach problem. Just enough recognition that these are PEOPLE, for fucks sake, with lives and families and loves and fears, just enought acknowledgement that some people actually value life that he bothers to even hang some artificial blame on them. Human shields. Asshole. I’d like to call a fire mission on his neighborhood. Gee, sorry John, but I needed to eliminate the terrorist threat embedded in your neighborhood. There was some, er, collateral damage.

Look. Israel’s actions in Lebanon are beyond criminal. If they don’t have consequences, there is simply no justice. It is incumbent upon a civilized society to NOT murder women and children, no matter what the goal. If it is true that Hezbollah targets are embedded in the civilian population, here’s a complex fucking idea. DON’T FUCKING DROP BOMBS ON THEM. Find another way to deal with the problem. If you blow up innocent woment and children to try to kill a few militants in that neighborhood, you have given up your membership in the human race. You no longer have the rights and priveledges that go with membership. It’s like a drive-by shooting in a drug-turf battle. It kills innocents in your community. Find another way to protect your turf, thug.

If you cannot figure out how to protect your nation while retaining your humanity, you have to be a part of some other society. You are no longer welcome in this one…

mikey

Fuck Powerline.

Powerline’s been so spot on about everything else that, um, blah blah blah.

Grammar and ignorance aside, John thinks them A rabs haven’t heard of printing presses and rush orders.

What evidence does he have for that?

This, possibly. Or maybe it was this. I can’t begin to tell you, either, how painful it is for me to say “maybe Hinderaker has a point for once.” Life’s a bitch, etc.

If that were a sentence, then I’m sure there would be a great deal to comment on. However…

Look. Israel’s actions in Lebanon are beyond criminal.

I say that charges be bought against them under the Nuremberg precedents.

Even if it doesn’t get anywhere, the poetic justice might be sobering.

If you blow up innocent woment and children to try to kill a few militants in that neighborhood, you have given up your membership in the human race.

I agree with the principle here, but I always cringe a little at the “innocent women and children” thing. Part of it is the use of the word “innocent,” because scary people like Gary from the earlier thread like to define terrorism as “intentionally killing innocent people in order to advance your cause,” which in his mind exonerates everyone he agrees with and damns everyone he doesn’t, since he himself, of course, is on the side of the innocent and pure.

The other thing about the “innocent women and children” thing is that it somehow leaves open the possibility that men aren’t innocent, or that we shouldn’t complain when men are blown up in these godawful attacks.

I dunno. It just seems to me that when people are going about their business, living their lives, putting in a day’s work, coming home exhausted to the people they love, thinking about dinner, thinking about bed . . . well, nobody should blow them up — no matter their age or gender.

I dunno. It just seems to me that when people are going about their business, living their lives, putting in a day’s work, coming home exhausted to the people they love, thinking about dinner, thinking about bed . . . well, nobody should blow them up — no matter their age or gender.

Yep. In the context of military conflict, this is an excellent definition of innocent. Innocent of of being a combatant. Thats all it means. All I’m asking for is to err on the side of using lethal combat power on opposing fighters rather than on people who just happen to fucking live there…

mikey

…well, nobody should blow them up — no matter their age or gender.

Yeah, but “women and children” tug harder at the heart strings, especially when the men are more than likely to be the ones blowing them up.

Oh, and “Military Aged Men” have always been targets for elimination. Always. But it’s ok. It’s one of the prices of being born with balls. There ARE upsides. And we all understand this is in the rulebook. Was it some kind of weird co-inkydinky that NO villiage in South Vietnam in the late sixties/early seventies EVER contained a “military aged male”? Uh, no, we killed them. Oh, sorry, does that offend you? It oughta. It’s murder. It’s ancient. And it’s up to you all to stop it…

mikey

All I’m asking for is to err on the side of using lethal combat power on opposing fighters rather than on people who just happen to fucking live there…

Yeah, I know. I know that’s what you meant. My finger hovered over “submit comment,” knowing that I wasn’t quite sure how to say what I wanted to say, but I clicked anyway. Probably shouldn’t have. For what it’s worth, I don’t think being expendable is a reasonable price to pay for owning a pair of testicles . . . but my opinion on this matter is purely academic.

Hey, Mort, I 100% agree. Historically, the owners of said testicles have never had a vote on their dispensation. Here’s to hope for the future. Slainte!!

mikey

mikey, no sarcasm intended, but did we really kill that many–e.g., all or nearly all–the young men in Viet Nam? I

ilyka. NOt to sound cras, but that first link? “hiding heavey weapons in residential areas”? Uhhh, no, they have the AAA parked in the street. and those gunmen look pretty muck like they’re standing around outside of the city.
Maybe it’s like childrens television, where they’re like, “Where’s The Cheat hiding?” and we’re all like, “He’s behind the box. In fact, he’s… barely obscured by the box…”
In fact, now that i think about it, his story doesn’t even makes sense. He’s obviously close enough to these Hezbollah dudes to take pictures of them and their vehicles. No one is making ANY move to, like, stop him, or do anything. The guy taking the pics is a “visiting journalist”, and judging from the quality of the pictures, he’s not snapping them with Kodak disposable hidden in his jacket. Then, “within minutes”, IAF jets bomb the area?
So, according to the site, these guys whipped out their AAA, the journalist ran up, too some good pics, ran away, place got bombed, he runs back, takes MORE pics, then leaves unmolested within, say half an hour?
I call BS.
These guys aren’t getting ready to shoot down incoming aircraft. They’re chilling.
But no matter.
People are complaining that forces that are, let’s say, less then first rate, are hiding out in civie areas? You think? Here’s an idea: instead of whining about how they’re not playing fair, maybe you should work on ways to beat that method of warfare. Like, not carpet bombing a city block. This maybe be crazy leftie-speak, but how about designing smaller homing rockets that only blow up what you want blown up? If that armed truck is a good indicator of the bulk of Hezbollah forces, I would imagine a well-place water balloon could destroy it.

Very few males 14-59 were ever found. When you did, it actually was a reasonable conclusion that he was charley. You just didn’t find young men who weren’t part of the resistance.

But the short answer is yes. There was only two options. You took them and handed them off (pain in the ass, quite honestly) or you shot them. If something compelled you (officers, journalists, some happenstance), you took them. Otherwise? Nah.

Look, when you’re in the field it isn’t a hobby. You do have to make more life/death decisions in a lazy afternoon than you will over the rest of your natural life. We didn’t really do a whole lot differently than the roman legions did. You were a warrior. War WAS, to be fair, what we did….

mikey

Let me see here… John says the rally was “protesting the accidental killing…” – meaning the rally wanted it to have been more deliberate? A Freudian slip there?

Are you certain it wasn’t a Rice ’08 rally?

People are complaining that forces that are, let’s say, less then first rate, are hiding out in civie areas? You think?

Hey, look on the bright side.

By this logic, wingnuts will be happy for Hizbollah to use nuclear weapons on Israeli cities. After all, every Israeli city must contain some soldiers, right?

It’s one of the prices of being born with balls. There ARE upsides.

Hmm… All I got is “can pee standing up.”

Oh, and the consolidation of all wealth and power.

Also Sunday, a U.S. F-16 jet dropped two precision-guided bombs on a building near Baghdad used by militants affiliated with a group believed responsible a mortar-and-rocket attack in Baghdad’s mostly Shiite district of Karradah last week that killed at least 31 people, U.S. officials said.

Two militants and a child were killed in the airstrike, and four suspects were arrested, the United States said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060731/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq;_ylt=Amy.olhqw.2iOOTQfNCoJaas0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3OTB1amhuBHNlYwNtdHM-

I’m so glad the U.S. is waaaayyy different from Israel.

“Military Aged Men� have always been targets for elimination. Always. But it’s ok. It’s one of the prices of being born with balls. There ARE upsides.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think being expendable is a reasonable price to pay for owning a pair of testicles.

You know, I never really caught on to the undercurrent of hatred and mistrust of men beneath the hypermasculine and misogynist rhetoric of the 101st Fighting Keyboarders before, but wow, these two comments shine a bright light on it.

The whining chickenhawks never bat an eye when non-children or non-women are killed or captured: the assumption is just like Mikey said: military aged male = enemy (or for the 101stFK, “terrorist”), hence there is absolutely nothing wrong with blowing them up, detaining them indefinitely, torturing them, whatever. They deserve it–they are obviously terrorists, anyone can see that, no need for an investigation or a trial or anything.
But the only “obvious” crime at the time of arrest is that they have testicles, and like Mortician said, this kind of treatment isn’t a resonable price to pay.

The level of fear coming out of the 101stFK has baffled me for a while now. How can they be so afraid, to such a ridiculous level given the provocation? It’s beyond fear, even really beyond a phobia: it’s at the paranoia stage, now: a threat in every stray sound and flickering shadow. Why?

And then these comments make me think: are the 101stFK actually just afraid of “other” men? And by this, I mean “The Other”: men who are not part of their “tribe”, men who don’t display proper subservience to the Alpha Male, men who might (gasp!) break into their homes and STEAL THEIR FEMALES!

It makes more sense to think of it as a dog pack, where you basically have the Alpha Males, the submissive males who hope to be lucky enough to scrounge off any mates the alpha doesn’t want, and the pre-adolescent males. As males approach puberty, they either submit, or they are driven away–locked up in prison, maybe, or sent away to fight the other scary males of that other pack that is sitting on the best hunting land. If a younger male tries to “pack jump” or move up in standing, he has to be forced back into place (this might explain the reaction to New Orleans: who are these lower caste men to question the wisdom of our Alpha? They might be getting ready to pack jump! Quick! Fight them down! Drive them off!)

When the Alpha starts to display weakness, social tension in the pack increases. If the hierarchy is uncertain or in flux, pack members can get paranoid, neurotic, even unpredictably violent. (If you’ve ever had a dog completely freak out when a new person enters the household, you know what I mean: he doesn’t know his place anymore.) And the bulk of this agression is usually directed at other males who are perceived as a challenge to the hierarchy.

In the case of the 101stFK pack, anyone with a pair of balls and a brain and an opinion is an immediate and “obvious” threat. If you don’t kiss W’s Alpha ass or roll over onto your back whenever he looks at you, you are An Enemy and “objectively pro-terrorist”. Likewise, feminists and homosexuals cause immediate panic in the 101stFK pack, because they threaten the actual infrastructure of the hierarchy itself. (If “women” are socially equal to “men” then we can’t argue that “men” are expendable anymore, can we? In the case of homosexuals, if we can’t use the hope of cast off females to keep submissive males in line, why, there’s no telling what might happen!)

So they sit behind their keyboards and whine and howl and snarl, all the while licking a foot raw and peeing on the bitch’s shoes when she’s not looking.

Tag close. (At least it wasn’t mine…)

It’s one of the prices of being born with balls. There ARE upsides.

Our society is a little bit of an exception, but historically, one of the upsides, and indeed causal factors, is that the people with the testicles are more likely to be allowed weapons and training with which to defend themselves. They’re also less likely to get executed by their own government for trying.

You chicks? The fact that he was trying to rape you has historically been very little defense against killing or injuring some guy. And, really, you should hope no one finds out about it, because having *been* raped has generally been a good way to be killed by your government or male family members, too. Really, your only option throughout time has not been self defense, but screaming for the help of the guys allowed to do the defending, and hoping they don’t just join in.

I love men, really. But every time I hear guys wondering exactly what the patriarchy provides them, I find it hard not to scream that it’s your system so if you don’t liek it change it. The only thing that really keeps me from doing so is the understanding that Americans bitching about global politics are in much the same untenable position: I don’t like it, but I benefit in ways from it, and I bear some responsibility for it, but then again there’s really not that much I can do to change it. Society, be it a superpower or a patriarchy, has some momentum behind it. And for the most part, you guys who like women and don’t like the way they’re often treated have very little influence over the system itself, which is changing, slowly, due at least in part to their cumulative efforts over time.

I know that, but it can take a conscious effort to know that.

there

Dorothy, I suspect you’re right. But I suspect it’s a horrible, tangled mess of fetid neuroses and pathologies.

Part of it, I suspect, is that realization that as the folks with testicles, they would be considered fair game by the terrorists and any occupying army and in general anyone who, uh, thinks exactly like the wingnuts do. They know damned well the wingnuts on the other side would respond with exactly the same “Ha ha, they deserve it, they’re all terrorists, let’s go make some more funny t-shirts” attitude in the event of their own deaths.

Women, therefore, are apparently the only people who do not automatically deserve killing, and there’s a great deal of resentment there. Which probably leads to a lot of panicky stuff about “Am I wishing I was a woman so I wouldn’t be a target or because I like the underwear?” and then the homophobia and the bullshit about strict gender rules kicks in.

The inside of your typical wingnut’s head must be like a chronic tooth abscess. It’s amazing they can be happy about *anything*, *ever*.

just the idea of a giant image of condaleeza rice, anywhere at all in the world, is upsetting to me.

You know, I get incensed at the “justification” of killing civilians — yes, men as well as women and kids — that goes “Well, if only they’d gotten out of the way this wouldn’t have happened to them.”

.

close tag?

well fooey sorry, i tried

Yeah, but “women and childrenâ€? tug harder at the heart strings…

Not for me. Unless a particular man is guilty of a particular crime, men are no less “innocent” than women or children.

If Assrocket were obliterated by a bunker-buster, at least there would be no loss of innocent life.

This “human shields” line was already put forth by valiant VDH. Did they all get the same fax, or something? One day the line is “different levels of civilianity”, the next is that the victims are all Rachel Corries.

The general message is that It’s OK If They’re Arabs (IOKITA).

now?

Wasn’t their an episode of Star Trek where the ship’s computer was taken over by an evil force and Spock told the computer to grammatically parse that inscrutable sentence, which absorbed all the computer’s resources in a futile task, saving the Enterprise?

Or maybe it was it the coffee.

People, people, people–we peons are helpless to close an open tag. We can’t do it. Only teh boiz wit’ teh keys to teh kingdom can, and on rare occasion in the past, they have. So, address your entreaties to Brad, Gavin, Travis, Retardo, or Seb.

This AFP photograph shows Beirut demonstrators with a giant poster of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that was used in a rally protesting the accidental killing of civilian human shields, along with terrorists, in Qana.

Oh, see, it’s *easy* to see where Assmissile is coming from in this instance. The three and four year old kids were obviously the “terrorists,” and everyone else were the “human shields.” There. Cleared up!

This just in: The Minnesota Bar ponders adding an English composition element to their admittance requirements.

[…] My god, people. I need to read more sites on the intertubes, I think, cuz I always find myself linking to S,N! Good thread on it here, tho.  […]

Powerline are paid polemicists- plain and simple. Unfortunately, this is becoming more and more commonplace in both left and right sides of the blogosphere. What makes the Powerline boys particularly smarmy and foul is their disregard for human life and for their fellow Americans who happen to be on the left of the spectrum.

Redleg said his is becoming more and more commonplace in both left and right sides of the blogosphere.

You gonna back that statement up, or are you just going for the “I’m so even handed, I blame Hitler and the jews” award?

> Are you certain it wasn’t a Rice ‘08 rally?

Oh, wouldn’t that be a brilliant move. “What? Criticising President Condi? You’re racist and sexist!!!”