Forbidden Donut

The right to live above us.

Actually the "Pirates of Old" (17th/18th/19th Century) didn't just restrict themselves to shipping. They raided and/or blockaded coastal towns as well. Such as Blackbeard blockading Charleston Harbor in the early 18th Century. Or "Black Bart Roberts" avenging his Ship's recently fallen Captain.

There likewise are occasions of Pirates(well, privateers-- their government backed precursors) sacking some military forts as well.

But yeah, for the pirates, it was more about the money/lifestyle than it was anything else. For a number of the terrorists we're dealing with, it's about the ideology involved.

Though "ships near them" in the case of the historical pirates(not the Somali ones) is something of a misnomer. As the pirates of history went to where they thought the booty(loot) was likely to be. It just happened to have a large focus in the Caribbean because there was a lot of high value shipping moving through there.

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Moving away from the pirate discussion though:

Perfect Security doesn't exist. It is impossible to attain, and even if it was, it would not be economically viable to sustain. Anyone who claims it is possible is selling a bill of goods.

Which also isn't to mention that most people would be very unhappy to deal with what an ideally "secure" environment would look like. A "secure" movie theater for example, would be virtually impossible for you to get any type of vehicle within 60+ yards of the building(meaning they'd have to use a really freaking big bomb -- bigger than the Oklahoma City truck bomb -- to harm anyone inside the building). Comparable cases for "secure shopping environments" in other situations. While it would have some quirky benefits(people having to walk further = more exercise), and a very likely increase in the amount of "green space" seen in general... I don't think you're likely to see many people clamoring for that anytime soon. They want to be able to be dropped off/picked up curbside 10 feet away from the door. They want to be a no more than 1 to 2 minute walk from the entryway to their store of choice, or the mall entrance. Not a 1 to 2 minute walk to their store after you've managed to get out of the parking lot itself.

Corporate side, a big box store with say a 100 foot store front isn't going to be particularly thrilled at having a 100 ft x 180ft "dead zone" sitting in front of their store. As that is 18,000 square feet of dead space they could have used for parking, more sales space, or any number of other things. And that is simply the "passive" measures that would be in place given a "perfect security" environment. Then you start adding in manpower to make sure there is adequate supervision/responder capability present and you're really starting to get into some silly manpower requirements, even with the advent of modern technology making it possible to reduce the amount of supervisory manpower required, as you would still need the responders, and now people with sufficient tech-savvy to maintain all that surveillance/communication gear. However, we're still largely talking passive security at this point. Sure the observe/respond side of things is a lot more active than "dead zones" are, but it still is reactive in nature.

The proactive security measures then start getting into the realm of madness. Metal detectors, personnel to operate and maintain them, as well as crowd/flow control issues associated with that. In some respects, like with Airport Security, if I was a terrorist shortly after September 11th, and heck in some places even now, the Airports would still be a target of interest, it just wouldn't be the Airplanes or the "other side" of the airport security check point. It would be finding out when the security screening lines are at their longest(as well as possibly the boarding pass areas as well), and I'd send a small-medium sized group of people (5 to 12) armed to the teeth to go in there and cause as much mayhem in those two places as they possibly could. It's the ideal shooting gallery in the portion of the Airport Terminal between where people walk in up until they pass through security, if your goal is to wrack up a high body count that will strike a large amount of terror in the public psyche with minimal resources invested. (100 + person line of unarmed people waiting to be screened, possibly another 100-some-odd (likewise unarmed) people waiting to get their bagged checked + some of them having their friends and/or family there to see them off)

So from the security side, what should you do? Process individuals more quickly(higher chance for error)? Add more screeners so a larger volume of people can be handled in less time? (keep in mind, the facility has to have room for those additional screeners to work in, and those screeners/their equipment will cost money to have in place too...)

It isn't just airports on that front however, comparable could be achieved at many amusement parks as well. Most security measures are in place for the "deterrent effect" that the even the appearance of a security mechanism being in place can make people with ill intent go looking for somewhere else to go hit instead(that doesn't have some security precautions in place). The majority of security measures in place are grossly ineffective for what they claim to be doing, but they're effective enough at certain things that they warrant being used all the same.

And just think, all that money and security and you'd still be able to bypass it by merit of knowing what the measures are.

Instead of spending that completely ridiculous amount of energy and thought in how to protect yourself against people who want you dead, perhaps we'd be better served by people putting that amount of energy and thought into trying to get them to not want us dead anymore.

which is exactly what Bush was going for! Transforming Iraq (in the heart of the Arabic world) into a free-market democracy can serve to push Islam toward separating church and state, to increase the standard of living to discourage recruitment, and to show that the US isn't such a bad country after all. Spread such an idea throughout the Middle East and you can sweep radical Islam into the dustbin of history.

I stopped reading this thread like two pages ago when the sheer amount of dumb overwhelmed my capacity to handle it, but I must step in here and in the nicest way possible call you an idiot.

Bush did a lot of things, that you may or may not agree with. What he unequivocally did not do was improve our reputation in the middle east.

Court covered the other part. But I lol'd.

/troll?

totally unfair...

The end goal would be for the Middle East to think better of us once they have adopted democracy and capitalism and seen how much better it has made their lives. (duh this is not happening anytime soon). Saying that Iraqis have realized we aren't such a bad country anymore is not a stretch of the imagination. The Kurds love us, the Sunnis in Anbar love us for allying with them and fighting out al-Qaida in Iraq, and the Shiites are happy that we have given them a chance to rule as the majority. There are tons of examples of our troop surge causing our troops to patrol and converse with the local population more frequently. They listened to the peoples' concerns and addressed them. Iraqis who grew to trust a certain platoon and its leaders for helping push forward the community's interests got mad when a new platoon came in or when we had to leave their area. The virtue of our troops being there and acting courageously bettered their view of America. In the same way, during the Vietnam War something like 70% of South Vietnamese wanted to become the 51st state.

That's a great example. Vietnam ended well for everyone.

Yes it is a great example of our troops being somewhere and the locals liking them.

I think you need to reevaluate the opinion you feel the Kurds have of us. They may have loved us while we toppled Saddam's regime and were all buddy-buddy with them, but things change.

The Sunnis do not love us for getting rid of Al Qaeda. You see, we took their country away from them and literally brought terrorists into their backyard. Choosing to support the side that wasn't suicide bombing their public places shouldn't be construed as a sign of affection.

You are correct about the Shiites being happy that they can now have a majority stake in their own government, and they may even like the US for making that possible for them. However, you're ignoring all of the bad that had to happen to make that a possibility. In our effort to appease an extremely small portion of people, we have soiled our relationships with nearly every other person in the region. And to make matters worse, we have simultaneously chipped away at the good standing we've held for such a long time with people who we would once call our unquestioning allies.

Your insistence on justifying failure, stupidity, and gross expense by pointing out extraordinarily tiny and superficial merits baffles me. I am truly glad that some, if not many Iraqis like our troops, and I am happy that they have a government to call their own. Unfortunately, both of those "successes" do not begin to make up for the fact that we've done zero to make that region more secure or less likely to produce scores of people who hate us enough to kill thousands of innocent citizens.

It is absolutely idiotic and completely irresponsible to trivialize the whole boatload of bad we've done, and petty talking-points like the one you just put forth are an affront to rational thought.

Evestay seems to have managed to avoid the factoid that rapes increase exponentially upon the introduction of a US military base in the area.

Oh yeah I totally thought about including that factoid and decided not to. But yes that is a bad stat and I hope our military or the host country prosecutes any military members who do such a thing.

What has changed? I know we are letting Turkey be more forceful with them on the border, but by and large the Kurds appreciate us.


http://baghdadbureau.blogs.nytimes.com/200...-with/#more-311
Current Anbar Awakening leader Abu Risha has a picture with Obama and publishes it in his local newspaper. Why? Because it is a sign of approval by the US and it makes him look good in front of his people. Human nature says you are going to appreciate anybody who saves your life and puts you on the path toward success.


With whom in that region did we soil our relationships? We haven't had any sort of relationship with Iran for awhile. Ditto with Syria. Saudi Arabia is happy to have the wild-card Hussein regime gone from the region, but might have been mad if we had left Iraq and let Iran exert influence over it. Turkey would have been mad had we left and the Kurds tried to form their own country, but as it is we agree with them that Kurdish separatists are a problem and we let them fight them. Jordan and Syria might be mad about the increase in refugees but a lot of refugees are returning as Iraq becomes more stable.


Yes there has been failure, stupidity and gross expense involved in the running of this war just like there is in every war. We didn't go in with enough people, we didn't get enough international cooperation, we shouldn't have disbanded the Iraqi Army, we shouldn't have let the museums get looted, we should have changed course sooner, etc etc. It is easy for you to say the good we have done was not worth it, but it is also easy for others to say it might be worth it now (maybe dumb people simply think killing lots of militants was worth it as revenge for 9/11) or in the future (stable Middle East with no more wars and no interruption in oil supply). It is unfair to deny that a completely transformed Middle East would not be worth it. It has not happened and it probably will not happen, but if it does I would say it was worth it.

[addendum: radical Islam won't stop terrorizing people until Islam rejects the connection of church and state. Islam in general says a society should be run according to the Koran which includes religious and political rules. Radical Islamists agree but they go a step farther to say an Islamic society should be transferred all over the world through force. They quote only from the Koran to explain their beliefs. However, if you take away the underlying principle of church and state being one, then there is no longer any reason to spread Islam through the political sphere. Muslims can then be content to spread Islam on the religious sphere without wanting the political sphere to be used to help with the spread. Democratic society erodes a church and state connection because the elected officials are supposed to follow what the people want and not just look to what the Koran tells them to do. Turkey is an example of a democratic Muslim nation. However, the Turkish military is always on the lookout for Islamic encroachment into the political realm and if it happens the army steps in and starts the government over. Their military has had to do this many times. Islam inherently tries to invade the political sphere and so the army is needed to stop it. But if there is an Islamic Reformation, then Islam will no longer automatically be expected to invade the political sphere. Thus, maybe a democratic Iraq will continue to force Muslims to see how their religion tries to invade their political lives and they might be spurred to reanalyze Islam's church and state connection.]

I started to trail off there.




But they can't, and we don't. So you can probably see why host countries don't always harbor hugs and rainbows for American Neo-Imperialism. It's mostly harmless, but comes with rape.

And some other stuff. Some positive and some negative. But I can't get over the rape, really.

is there any data about the military from other countries raping civilians? i wonder if that's par for the course or if we're actually worse human beings than other nations.

I'm sure other countries soldiers rape just as much. The point is that our shit doesn't smell like cinnabon. I still can't believe anyone would bring up vietnam as an example of how much american soldiers are loved by the folks that live in other countries. Fuck.

I'd wager that the phenomenon is universal. What isn't universal is this nonsense of popping a military base up anywhere that will let us.

Thread does not deliver. For evidence, please view:

video link

Shamelessly hot. Like oily asian chicks.

Mostly local crime data I'd presume.

Keep in mind that the United States is pretty unique in its having Military Installations outside of its own national borders.

However, at least for the US(and in area's around its installations, foreign and domestic), there is a pretty strong correlation between when(and how) "Junior Enlisted" personnel get liberty/leave time off ship/base and crime statistics for that area.

I know military bases/communities in Japan saw a rather significant decline in petty/"small" crime once they put a curfew on all E-4 and below forcing them be back on base by midnight(outside of certain special conditions). This has also been demonstrated at some (primarily) training commands within the US.

Funny how putting restrictions on the group of people that is often the youngest(and "dumbest" -- sometimes "young and dumb" isn't a good pairing), and lowest paid people within a particular grouping can cause bad things to happen less often.

Also, as to the accusations of Rape on the part of service members in Iraq, some of them may have legitimate merrit, but I'd almost be willing to bet that many of those accusations were rapes "after the fact" (ie family found out, wasn't happy about it, and the female involved decides to claim she was raped)... Or in other cases, it may not have actually been a (US) service member at all, it just was convenient for Juliet to blame the US soldier(who will be relatively well protected by the Military) rather than send her extended family after her personal (local) Romeo.

That was really amazing. What you did right there.

Not knowing what the off-duty policies are at bases in Iraq it's really hard to call on a lot of that.

I'm actually very inclined to say that they're probably still very "draconian" in Iraq about who can get off base while off-duty.

Which means you're probably talking very senior enlisted and officers only. If even they are allowed to do so.

From reports of what the security situation appears to be like in some areas, it is conceivable that they are starting to allow military members off base when off duty...

But as I started out with, I'd bet its still highly restricted and structured at that(service members captured in any capacity(that would be on or off duty) are of very high value to anyone so inclined to try to take them)... To the point where I'd be extremely dubious as to the ability of a service member stationed in Iraq actually being able to accomplish what is being claimed("buddy system" would most certainly be in effect, which means that if an Iraqi female was getting raped by a US Service Member, there was at least one other who was an accomplice, if not a participant, to the act. Which is why I'm inclined to say a lot of the allegations (that involve service members) are potentially misleading.

However, there are a number of foreign national (civilian) contractors who have also been brought in to help operate American bases, and if they're not being provided with on-base accommodations, they're probably close by off-base... Which makes them a possible source for the increased crime and "disreputable actions" in the area, as they're not going to be as restricted and regulated as the US Military Personell themselves are.

..and US commanders aren't retarded, they do understand PR on some level. They are also aware of the crime data I mentioned earlier. Which is the other reason why I'm inclined to say that their mode of operation is to deny our soldiers the opportunity of doing what you're trying allege in the first place. (If they can't get off base outside of official business, they can't get themselves in trouble as easily) ...and that also isn't accounting for "resistance" types that are probably in the area to keep tabs on/potentially harass US efforts in/around that base, they have to support themselves somehow.

That and women's rights, even in Iraq, isn't anywhere near as progressed as they are in the US. So attitudes/practices towards a lot of that stuff if going to markedly different from how it would be perceived in the "Westernized World."

That was a whole lot of presuming with very little evidence-ing. Just sayin.

I'm inclined to say this thread may be possibly headed into a potentially hilarious landslide that probably maybe could conceivably have been maybe seen at the probable beginning at which this thread potentially was created. Perhaps.

/Weasel words, ftw.

... any non-emergency bill.

for the record, it's becoming abundantly clear that this is a promise he has decided not to keep. at all. meh.