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Noliving

Listed below are comments made by Noliving between Wednesday, 19th August 2009 and Tuesday, 22nd September 2009.

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Obama's dilemma over carts and horses 10:32pm on 22 Sep 2009 #33: Yes the US military is the most powerful military in the entire world but that is the whole military, your talking about only around 60k american troops that are under resourced and spread thinly in an environment that makes it very difficult for armored vehicles to move and be effective. You are also talking about a group that knows the lay out of the land a lot better. I think you are severely over estimating what 60k troops can do. Remember to effectively fight a guerrilla war you need to have about at least a 1:10 ratio of either law enforcement or military to civilian population

Also insurgent doesn't mean civilian, it just means someone in an armed uprising against a lawful authority, for example if the US navy were to go into armed rebellion against the USA government they would meet the definition of insurgent.
Liveblogging Obama's climate change speech 9:54pm on 22 Sep 2009 simon21: "Cool summers may speak loudly - New Orleans (another Bush triumph) speaks a lot louder don't you think?"

Hurricane Katrina is not seen by Americans to have been caused or affected by global warming. It's just seen as a normal category 3(when it made landfall in Louisiana) hurricane, that happened during hurricane season.
Conservatives against Obama's war? 10:50pm on 12 Sep 2009 "Our troops could be based in a "friendly" country in the region such as Jordan, Turkey or even in Diego Garcia. They could also be based aboard an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf ready for deployment on short notice."

By friendly you mean friendly government?

Wouldn't this though go against what you previously said:

"Contrary to what some believe, we don't have a subliminal right to invade Third World countries and impose our will on them, regardless of whether they agree with our values and way of life or not;"

What if they are located in Iran, syria, libya, or sudan? We would most likely not have permission to do these types of attack/raids. That would require us then to violate their soverignty, doesn't that go against what you said that we don't have the right to force our policies/will on them?

"but we also have an obligation to protect our people and 9/11, Madrid, London, Bali and other places throughout the world prove that negotiations or appeasement when dealing with radical terrorists is naive and futile"

What if the attacks are not against US soil but against US interests in these countries?

"The organization that has our troops pinned down in Afghanistan is the Taliban. The reason for their ability to succeed against a much larger and well trained military force is that they enjoy popular support...and we don't."

Not exactly true, the Afghan public have higher approval ratings for ISAF/NATO forces then the taliban, for example in a poll for 2008 by the wpo the Nato forces had 57% approval rating, that is down though from 67% from the previous year in 2007 and in a seperate poll only around 9-11% of afghans support the taliban, so to say that Nato forces don't enjoy popular support is not true. The taliban though are successful in waging a psychological war that they have the ability to hit anyone at anytime, they also threaten to kill anyone cooperates with NATO forces, the reason why the taliban are so successful has more to do with intimidation more then popular support along with afghan government corruption, along with having the advantage of knowing the terrain.

Here is what one former taliban offical said in 2007: "One former Taliban official and Afghan author on the group says the Taliban's goal at this stage is not to take over Afghanistan — which they neither have the manpower nor popular support for — but to force the ouster of Western troops from Afghanistan."

Even the taliban admit they don't have the popular support, but they don't need the popular support.

" think it is important to differentiate between an organization determined to inflict pain on anyone who does not share their radical views and one whose goal is to impose Islamic fundamentalism on its people. As a Westerner, I find both offensive, but while I endorse the need to destroy the former I don't see why it is any of our business to persecute, kill, and marginalize the latter."

Agreed for the most part, however though when it comes to latter and marginalize, well the worlds going to do it no matter what, I think you will be hard press to have europeans for example wanting to lift the ban on afghans competing in the olympics that will most surely be put back on if the taliban take back control of afghanistan and treat women the same way.

"What the Afghans want to do with their lives is their business, not ours. I think it is also important to consider that not a single Afghan was involved in the planning, funding, and execution of the 9/11 attack - or subsequent attacks. The overwhelming majority of the terrorists involved in those reprehensible acts were from Saudi Arabia, with some radical elements from Egypt, Yemen, UAE, and Morocco also involved."

Agreed, however though if they do allow terrorist camps to form in afghanitan then we do have to take concern. It's important to note to that all those radical elements from those countries merged onto one location and that is Afghanistan.

"I think it is disturbing to see our government conduct business as usual - and in some cases give preferential treatment - to the countries most responsible for 9/11, while we engage people who had nothing to do with that event and, in the case of Iraq, were actually targets of the same gang of criminals that attacked us. It seems to me that Judas is not the only one who sold his soul for a handful of coins... "

Unless you can show that those countries governments had a role in 9/11 it isn't exactly wise to punish entire countries because of what someone did who just happens to have that countries nationality. The Afghan people really had nothing to do with the event but the taliban did and they were based in Afghanistan and since AQ was based in Afghanistan at the time its makes more sense to engage Afghanistan rather then egypt, saudi arabia, yemen, uae, morocco.
Conservatives against Obama's war? 03:03am on 12 Sep 2009 "Infiltrating the organization would allow us to locate its leaders"

How do you plan on doing that? The CIA has even said that AQ has pretty much become nearly impossible to infilitrate.

"at which time a rapid deployment commando force could be deployed to deal with them."

With US forces withdrawed where would you base them? Keep in mind that the Taliban pretty much has US forces under 24/7 survallience, so as soon as the commando force leaves they will be alerted.

Most soldiers as soon as they leave the base are under small arms fire

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/eight-years-after-911.htm

Plus about 2-4 weeks ago they shot down a UK SAS helicopter.

If you send in a rapid response commando team you are going to need some serious air power because just sending in helicopters will get them shot down.

""Collateral damage" would be minimal and we would avoid exacerbating the legitimate aspirations of people in the region to restore their sovereignty. "

But if you withdraw and then just send commando teams when ever you end up just violating their sovereignty and just cause further resentment then.
Conservatives against Obama's war? 02:30am on 11 Sep 2009 #49 "The best thing President Obama could do is to declare an end to the hostilities and withdraw our troops. The best way to deal with Al Qaeda is using spies and commando forces, not a large military contingent the terrorists can see and avoid by hiding among the civilian population."

So your not really ending hostilities your just changing the primary way of waging hostility.

"The Taleban has evolved from a political to a popular movement that is gaining strength while we remain bogged down in that inhospitable contry, taking casualties and spending billions of dollars with nothing to show for it."

Technically they have always been a popular movement, that is how they were able to effectively rule Afghanistan especially the southern parts before 9/11.
Time to say goodbye 00:42am on 23 Aug 2009 134 fluffy: Also your example of evidence that there is a lack of crime reporting in the US is because your town that you live in that is a town you have yet to identify in the US doesn't report crime as a result it applies to all of the US? You do realize that for example over the past decade there has been a steady drop in the number of incidents involving guns in the US, it use to be around 1 million but it is now around 400k.

Here is a chart from the department of justice showing that reporting of crime has actually been increasing for the past decade or two. So you can't really say that the US violent crime rate is so low compared to the UK violent crime rate because the US doesn't report them, that just isn't true.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/reportingtype.htm
Time to say goodbye 00:22am on 23 Aug 2009 I still disagree simon that they were very keen on government considering the fact that the articles of confederation were so weak. When you look at the amount of checks an balances in the constitution you can see they were not keen on government and the weakness of the articles of confederation that preceded it they were not.
Time to say goodbye 00:13am on 23 Aug 2009 134: fluffy, whether or not you wish to accept it the statistics show that the violent crime rate of UK is nearly around 5 times that of the USA, your answer is that of course is because the US doesn't have as high of reporting of crime such as gun crime or knife crime, or some things such as weilding a knife in public are not crimes like in the states as a result it is lower, however though I seriuosly doubt that because of those reasons its is nearly 5 times lower then that of the UK.

You don't seem to get it with the line. Neither one is right and neither one is wrong. It is all based upon culture, there is no real such thing as right or wrong it is all cultural. You actually did call me in a sense "nomorals" in a post previous to your 134 one by suggesting that type of behavior that I was explaining/defending as immoral. Whether your wish to accept it or not you would be considered a rude person in east asia.

As for the indian example, you really don't understand indian culture. It really has nothing to do with a foreigner making a demand that makes the native mad. If you were an indian and asked another indian the same question they would give you the same response. Another example would be from japan. Lets say your japanese, using sarcasm is generally seen as impolite in all situations, even though a lot of cultures in the west use it for humor. Another example from japan would be if you want to fly and the plane is full, they won't tell you the plane is full they will suggest that they think it is better if you take the train or something else, why? Because being so direct with the word no or with some type of negative response is generally considered rude.
Time to say goodbye 11:12pm on 22 Aug 2009 I disagree saintdominick, the demonization of government began with the founding fathers.
Time to say goodbye 8:26pm on 19 Aug 2009 I think you will find this to be interesting fluffy.

This link deals with the violent crime rates in countries, the UK violent crime rate is nearly 5 times that of the US.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/07/02/article-1196941-05900DF7000005DC-677_468x636.jpg

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/u-k-crime-statistics-hit-record-high/

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