You know what Americans are like - they always have to try to go one better. Not content with the Anthrax scare being over? Let's start it again, then!

Besides, didn't the whole bio-warfare thing start in America, anyway? Which would mean that... America's harbouring terrorists... which means they need to carpet bomb the states!!! Hahahaha!

Harmoneless: You're right. The jails are full of them and the syphilis wards. Don't visit them.
Braveheart my ass.

12 glen but keep it quiet ;)

good move though, lose the argument attack the arguer.

Easy to do even for stupid people.

Scotland farking rocks. Insane tattoo artists, freaking cool Fringe Festival every august with crazy antics going on 24x7 during, tons of hotties, kilts, countryside that makes England's look boring, and let's not forget really cool engineering.

The car you're driving, remember something called MacPherson struts? Oh yeah, how about the road you drive on, remember tarmac?

It's good versus evil. If the 'Good' countries start fighting amongst themselves, then the terrorists like boobies.

Goatman: When your country is brutally attacked, who are you going to call?

What an amorphous turd you are. Is there any way you can stop being such a POS?

Methinks Flat Bastard has a Mel Gibson fixation.

For a Scot to call anybody stupid is so sad.
Like a bastard child..."are you my daddy?"
No poor child, the opium dens are in China.

Glenlivid

GHOSTBUSSTTTTTTTTTTTTTTERS

This is how Harmonia argues:



He either simply answers a post with a question (thereby not having to really respond to anyone else's thoughts), OR he will simply imply that he won the previous argument and move on to his next point (again, without responding to anyone's thoughts).


Harmonia, you often imply that no one really opens their minds to another point of view, but you cannot honestly tell me that you do either.

Harmonia, the Bin Laden tape will be airing today, probably. Once people see it, we probably won't need any evidence provided by the US. All we wanted to know will have come right from the source's mouth.

I, personally, happen to agree with the administration on not giving out the evidence to the public at large, at least not until this is all over. You see, if they give out the evidence, that would give Bin Laden's associates the opporitunity to know what the US knows about their operation, and thereby mend their practices to better elude Uncle Sam.

Why are you so against the current campaign? Is there any other way to get rid of these guys, keeping in mind diplomacy will not work on a group of people sworn to destroy western civilization?

PS: Scotland is a western country. Rest assured, they hate you too, and not just us Yankee-pigs.

Glenlivid: My country is brutally attacked on a regular basis by terrorists that your country funds, thanks.

Don't come weepy with me, boy.

As soon as the bin Laden tape comes out, and as soon as people who have been crying for evidence actually GET their evidence, they will find another reason as to why we STILL don't know who did it ...

Goatman makes a point (in reference to US citizens funding the IRS); however, that funding is not exclusively American and should not be portrayed as such

ummm....IRA


yup, IRA, that's it, not IRS

RansomTheBall: That was so witty! Get Goatman's nut-sack off your forhead enough for you to see my point:

There is nothing wrong with the relationship between our countries. Okay? When we're in trouble, we rely on you. When you're in trouble....same.

Nuff said?

IRS are your own terrorists, Bass! We have the Inland Revenue.

Bass555 - we sure fund them, too, though!

Harmonia: "No connection between Afganistan and the 9-11 atrocity has yet been established."

Mr. Atta --> Osama bin Laden (al-qaida) ---> Mullah Omar (Taliban) ---> Afghanistan

Christ Almighty, he uses Taliban quotes as his basis for some of his numbers. See footnote 6.

Yes, lets look at footnote number 6, shall we?

"Taliban Says 20 Civilians Killed in Kabul," The Guardian [October 9, 2001], ""I Wish God Destroys Their Cities"
says 16 year-old bombing victim," from Torkham [October 9, 2001]

So, they're referencing an article with that *title*. What are they getting out of the article? Well, lets see where footnote 6 is mentioned.

The air attack on Afghanistan began at 4:20 G.M.T., October 7th . The following day, Reuters carried an interview with a 16-year-old ice-cream vendor from Jalalabad who said he had lost his leg and two fingers in a Cruise missile strike on an airfield near his home:

"There was just a roaring sound, and then I opened my eyes and I was in a hospital," said the boy, called Assadullah, speaking in Peshawar after being taken across the border for medical help. "I lost my leg and two fingers. There were other people hurt. People were running all over the place".6

That's *all* they got from #6. A quote. From a *guardian* article. Hmm, looking for the article, I ran into another article, here's its summary:

Opinion polls since the attacks in the United States on
September 11 show that a slim but consistent majority of Britishpeople oppose military strikes on Afghanistan if they harmcivilians or are targeted on anyone other than those directly

As I've been trying to tell you people, its only the americans who are ga-ga over this war; europe's papers actually publish civilian casualties.

Ok, anyways, here's the article he mentions:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/waronterror/story/0,1361,566008,00.html

And, here's the quote that he took from the article (remember - that's *all* he took from it)

Reuters carried an interview with a 16-year-old ice-cream vendor from Jalalabad who said he had lost his leg and two fingers in a missile strike on an airfield near his home.

"There was just a roaring sound, and then I opened my eyes and I was in a hospital," said the boy, called Assadullah, speaking in Peshawar after being taken across the border for medical help . "I lost my leg and two fingers. There were other people hurt. People were running all over the place."

Please people - if you're going to attack a source, *be responsible* about it.

That article Leonard_Cohen posted was very well researched, and took the most plausible estimates in each case from all of the possible sources. Here's an example of what he does (and he does it consistantly - he doesn't just grab the highest or lowest figures, he uses what would seem to be the most accurate figures, from the most non-politically-motivated party):

My tabulation for October 31st enters a figure of 15 civilians dying in a bombing attack of a Red Crescent hospital in Kandahar. Three different assessments were made in the aftermath:31

1. The Taliban claimed the raid killed 11 people;

2. The Pentagon said the strike missed both the hospital and another Red Crescent building nearby, and commented "it was a legitimate terrorist target, intentionally struck.."

3. Journalist later saw a large crater in the center of the clinic and hospital vehicles crushed by collapsed masonry. One doctor reported 15 dead and 25 seriously injured.32

Faced with such discrepancies, to me the most credible source is the doctor: 15 died. The similar figure is also mentioned in The Times [November 1, 2001], The Independent [October 31, 2001], and in both Reuters and AFP reports, as well as in Pakistan's leading English daily, DAWN [November 1, 2001]. In Appendix 2, I present additional detailed
analysis of discrepancies and the lying in the mainstream media.

As I mentioned, this is a very well done paper. This person was meticulous.

As for the tape, I'll wait and see.

Bin Laden may well have been behind the attack, I dont know any more than you do who did it, however turning an entire country into collatoral damage is not justified to get one man.

As for the "They wouldnt hand him over" argument. well they made an opening offer (to hand him over to a 3rd country) which was a start, but your govt was eager for a war so it could be seen to be doing something after the biggest intelligence and security failure in history.

Enough if an argument for you there Homsar, I note with interest you are not anlysing others arguments as closely as mine, perhaps I should feel flattered.

Glenlivid
"Get Goatman's nut-sack off your forhead enough for you to see my point"

Your point loses all relevence when you start making idiotic statements like that. Is this the only way you can make someone listen to you?

Actually Harmonia, it was refreshing to see a thought-out point from you, and not just you saying "Oh, you cannot beat my argument!"

Well done.

Mr. Atta --> Osama bin Laden (al-qaida) ---> Mullah Omar (Taliban) ---> Afghanistan

Your first --> is based on the fact that we've seen atta talking with known terrorists who work for the second party mentioned. The second link is based on an alliance. The third is transferring from a ruler to its entire civilian populace. Thus, we get:

Palestinean terrorists --> Arafat ---> Various US presidents ---> The United States.

Seriously, you can do better than that ;)

The really fragile links, as you'll notice, don't involve the first one. They're the second, and especially third links.

How clever of me to earn your patronisation. ;)

Damn right we were eager for a war. This is something totally different that the IRA bombings. In that US civilians were attacked with out provocation (semantics if you wish to argue). The IRA is fighitng for independence and is involved in a civl war.

Goatman: You've experienced nothing close to 9/11. If you did, I would be your best friend. Shut-it, you little troll.

I now see why people give you such a bad name; I've known 8 year olds with more maturity than you.

These threads crack me up. There is no right and wrong side to this war. Just governments (quasi or otherwise) doing bad things for semi-good reasons or semi-good things for bad reasons. All it ever comes down to is that the citizens of these erstwhile moralists take 99% of the brunt of the opposing faction. Both sides have been shady, self-serving, dishonest or outright evil so long that anyone choosing sides is coming in way too late in the discussion.

All it is is human nature, and we just can't seem to evolve en masse out of it. I have very little faith in the essential goodness of mankind. Not man himself, but mankind as a whole.

I, personally, happen to agree with the administration on not giving out the evidence to the public at large, at least not until this is all over.

I agree with that. I also *STRONGLY* disagree with bombing (especially bombing as wide of a range of targets as possible) without giving it out in a hearing-type situation, with enforced non-disclosure if necessarily.

Goatman:

What country are you from?

REI : you arguing those links is not very intelligent. Every intelligence agency in the world can give proof of those connections. Just because you don't have the info neccesary to link them together does not make t=your case stronger.

"The IRA is fighitng for independence and is involved in a civl war"

So it was ok for them to put car bombs in shoping centres on Saturday afternoons?

Its the old story, if I support them they are freedomn fighters, if you do they are terrorists.

Does anyone else want to deal with Glenlivid, or shall I tell him about Brighton, Canary Wharf, Omagh, and the sustained mainland bombing campaign that's been going on for the past century and some?

Rei: According to various sources I'm a fvcking limey cvnt, a fvcking English wanker, bloody Southern wanker, or from London England UK.

"idiotic statements" begin with Harmonia:

and end with "not a farking clue."

The eat goatcheese and are surrounded by a rei of doom and gloom. Going to lunch ,have a liter of German beer and be eternally thankful that I'm not a Scot or a terrorist hugger, Toodles

RansomTheBall: agreed. Don't take too much heart in anti-US rhetoric, or you might be telling me to take your nut sack off my face.

But it did make you listen...

Goatman264
Does anyone else want to deal with Glenlivid

Don't waste your "breath" why cast your pearls to swine.

too many of you are just

As Benjamin Franklin said: "Do not anticipate trouble or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight."

Imabmf. Wrong. The IRA are not fighting for independence, they have been under ceasefire for almost 4 years. A few units who believed in continuing the violence broke away and formed the RIRA. Get your facts straight.

Harmonia that is why the US should not be invloved. it is a civil war. British politics says whatver necessary to gain sympathy for them, and vice Versa for IRA. THey both can provide fact after fact to strength their individual cases.

Leonard_Cohen: It's just so fun, and a little addictive. A bit like a crack pipe, I suppose.

"good move though, lose the argument attack the arguer." - Harmonia 12/12/01

-----------------------
12-12-01 10:46:52 AM Harmonia
Fb junior bot, I think you are malfunctioning.

You couldnt even find Scotland on a map without help.
--------------------
12-12-01 11:08:03 AM Harmonia
Flatualant, are you Fb snr in disguise?

Apart from that brilliant bit of satire there, I declare to the world that Flatulant is the new Oscar Wilde, capital show that man

---------------------------
12-12-01 11:32:24 AM Harmonia
12 glen but keep it quiet ;)

good move though, lose the argument attack the arguer.

Easy to do even for stupid people.

-------------------------
12-12-01 09:36:48 AM Harmonia
My goodness FB junior, you can see me through yuor monitor?

Actually Im at work getting paid and killing some time. Whats your excuse?

imabitofapratwithnofriendssoiplayonthenetalldaywhereatleasticansoundinterestin g.net ?

Twit
----------------------
12-10-01 05:55:45 PM Harmonia
Always doubt troops, don't believe the hype.

Fb=Flamebait, nuff said ;)
----------------------

ok then the RIRA is something totally different. Anybody committing acts of violence for the sole purpose of violence is wrong. I don't live their and therefore don't pay a lot of attention the the current most events I apologize.

Glenlivid
"But it did make you listen..."

Only for an apology. Nothing else nothing more.

Goatman: I tried to be nice. I know about terrorism in your country; it just wasn't the slap-in-face we felt on 9/11. I wasn't trying to say the terrorist acts in my country had more necessitude; they were just more extreme.

You would agree that terrorism doesn't make a point, it only kills people.

Goatman: I tried to be nice. I know about terrorism in your country; it just wasn't the slap-in-face we felt on 9/11. I wasn't trying to say the terrorist acts in my country had more necessitude; they were just more extreme.

You might agree that terrorism doesn't make a point, it only kills people.

WorldCitizen: the attacks are lead by a group who if they succeded would turn the whole world into a muslim state of terror ruled by arcane logic. The other merley wants independence, has no whish of overtaking the world. Very different.

Damn right we were eager for a war. This is something totally different that the IRA bombings. In that US civilians were attacked with out provocation (semantics if you wish to argue). The IRA is fighitng for independence and is involved in a civl war.

War without provocation? Osama declared war on us long ago. Most americans didn't even notice (probably to his great annoyance). I'm sure he'd see your quote about "without provaction" in a very, very different light.

REI : you arguing those links is not very intelligent. Every intelligence agency in the world can give proof of those connections.

I guess you weren't paying attention: I argued for the accuracy of the links - just not the conclusion. I showed, that the more distant you get from the original source, the less justified you are in grouping them in with the original. The Palestinean Terrorists -> Arafat -> US Presidents -> US should have made that clear. I argued that the links shown *were* correct - but that the attempt at a "logical conclusion" drawn from them were not at all. Otherwise, you could keep tacking on links and get to the population of the entire world. The more distant you get from the original source, the less justified you are. 4 separate parties connected by a linear chain of links is *very* faulty.