HN user
The relative I was thinking of was an activist for constitutional democracy and against absolute monarchy. Don't know what happened to him in prison; he doesn't talk about it.
The wikipedia article states:
The International Court of Justice (ICJ), in its advisory opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons, issued 8 July 1996, unanimously interprets the text of Article VI as implying that
"There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control."
You find the jihadis "unreasonable".
Look, this is the list of things you could find "unreasonable":
(a) the jihadi position on God
(b) the jihadi position on US policy
(c) the jihadi method to affect change - violence
Lets deal with them one by one.
(a) is loony but pretty much irrelevant. You wouldn't feel any better if they converted to Shintoism and continued the jihad, would you?
(b) US policy is well studied so you can't really deny its lousiness. Example references:
http://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Economic-Hit-John-Perkins/...
http://www.amazon.com/Power-Systems-Conversations-Democratic...
http://www.amazon.com/Israel-Lobby-U-S-Foreign-Policy/dp/037...
(c) you can only condemn the violence if you would not do the same thing in their place.
To me, that means you should be able to sell them a peaceful method as being more effective than jihad. Well, we have a historical record.
The peaceful, liberal, pro-democratic reformers in the middle east seem to have gotten defeated and tortured by the CIA and their local satraps. Like what happened to my family.
On the other hand Jihad seems to be winning in Lebanon, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia and so on.
http://zenhuber.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/preview-bin-laden-dea...
So you don't have a very strong case.
"what you will have available maybe some time in the future"
Are you kidding me? Vietnam ended forty years ago!
They've had decades to come up with something better.
They just don't give a fuck about civilians.
Hell, they don't even care that much about US grunts, if the "hillbilly armour" and servicewoman-rape scandals are anything to go by.
It is not an excuse if the guy is ready to throw himself and an airplane into a building for it. That means the guy is pretty sincere. The word you are looking for is motive.
The fact that you do not find their motives "reasonable" intrigues me. Is it their methods you disagree with, or their grievances?
If you think their grievances are not legitimate, does it change when you substitute "gold rush" for "oil rush" and "red skin" for "rag head"?
(By the way I'm not thrilled about getting bombed. I almost lost a friend in Boston.)
I answered this above.
Occupation is one reason the kamikaze may feel like a cornered rat. Indirect occupation is another.
This can be because the perpetrator (USA) is giving weapons to the actual occupier (Israel), because the perpetrator is implementing a sanctions/embargo regime amounting to a mediaeval siege that killed half a million, mostly children (Iraq) or because the perpetrator has installed a "government" in your country to do the occupation for it (Lebanon, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, Ethiopia etc etc etc Saudi Arabia).
If you google for the jihadis' motives, you'll find that they mention all three.
Given that the actual 911 attackers were Saudis, I would have thought that US sponsored tyranny in Saudi Arabia would have been their main motive, but it appears that they were significantly motivated by fellow-feeling for Palestinians.
But they did from the Vietnamese, when the Vietnamese were occupied.
And try googling for "suicide attack India" or "suicide attack Kashmir" or "suicide attack Sri Lanka", you'll find plenty of hits.
Just because South Americans haven't done it (yet) (that we know of), it doesn't mean that it doesn't happen. Like I told you, you've had at least 2500 years warning.
Hell, there's even the American saying "Give me Liberty or give me Death!"
I have referenced academic study on this topic elsewhere, go read it.
The Moscow situation is not comparable to Afghan countryside.
If "effective" includes "not killing innocent civilians" then sleeping gas would work much better than what they are dropping now.
If smoke or CS would work better, well it's the military's responsibility, not mine, to the the R&D to pick the right tool to protect civilians as required by law.
It doesn't look like they give a fuck.
By the way, its not a "perception", it's the US backing Israeli war crimes as a point of FACT.
Don't try to justify Israel to me because you will look stupid when I list for you Israeli sources admitting Israel's aggression.
Starting with the Israeli national archives which have detailed the ethnic cleansing in 1948.
Stay on topic. Don't justify Israel. Just don't go there. Please.
Well then the idiotic vengeful angry US response to 911 is also unjustified, and also does not justify attacks on civilians.
Particularly drone "signature strikes" against first responders, which have killed MANY more people than 911.
Decide which standard you want to have, and then realize that it applies to your favoured side too.
Which by the way started most of the problems in the first place.
In the Monkey King Legend the heroes are warned not to overwhelm the monster by a reference to the Art of War by Sun Zi.
If I remember correctly, the translation is "even a rat will fight if cornered", though today we might mutter something about "asymmetric warfare" in response to "full spectrum dominance".
Sun Zi wrote in about 500BC. So it's not like you were warned yesterday. You've had 2500 years of warning.
Expect kamikaze attacks. They happen. Especially from people who feel they have nothing to lose, and feel under attack from very, very strong opponents.
keeping these decisions as local as possible
That's federalism, not nationalism.
Nationalism is "Deutschland Uber Alles"
What's the problem with nuclear weapons anyway?
As a signatory to the Non Proliferation Treaty the US is LEGALLY OBLIGED to get rid of its nuclear arsenal.
Are you telling me NO Vietcong ever launched a kamikaze attack? Maybe you should try asking the French what happened to their tank crews in Vietnam
They could have run away in defeat instead of "destroying the village to save it".
By the way, it's a really crappy air force that can't do an air strike with sleeping-gas bombs.
What, you think they are NOT mad about Palestine?
You think jihadis are in truth really pleased about how Palestinians were ethnically cleansed, how they can't get their homes back and how they're treated like dirt everyday?
That's retarded, they're mad as hell about it, and as it happens many non-terrorist Middle Easterners are mad as hell about it too. If you doubt that, read the 2004 Pentagon Defense Science Board Report.
Furthermore, many non-Middle Easterners are mad as hell about it too. Many jews are mad as hell about it as well, as you can see from looking up eg mondoweiss.net
Finally, many Americans - including veterans and ex-intelligence personnel - are mad as hell about the American money and lives being expended to harm the Middle East on Israel's behalf, which you can see by looking up eg The Council for the National Interest.
Military operations are not law enforcement.
A side that operates like this doesn't get to call itself the "Good Guys" or call its opponents "Terrorists".
As I've stated elsewhere, and as you can find by googling what jihadis actually say about their motives, the motive for 911 included the occupation of Palestine and US enabling of it.
And if they wanted to make a symbolic attack, they would have hit the Statue of Liberty, not financial and military targets like the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Furthermore it is you who are taking things off-topic.
The topic was jlgreco commenting about the Granai massacre, and how resistance in Afghanistan is because (sarcastically) "they hate us for our freedoms"
You tried to make it out that "Western Decadence" in fact was the reason, which is plain WRONG and contradicted by authorities which I have cited and provided references for.
You have repeatedly attempted to derail the point by going off on a tangent about Osama Ben Laden's psychology, or why Nicaraguans haven't reacted the same way, despite all of my efforts to stick to the topic. The 911 example is a similar red herring, because NO Afghans, Taleban or otherwise, were involved in that attack.
Just admit that you are wrong, will you?
This has actually been studied:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_to_Win:_The_Strategic_Log...
http://www.amazon.com/Dying-Win-Strategic-Suicide-Terrorism/...
TL;DR People do not run kamikaze attacks against other people for being less religiously conservative than they are, they run kamikaze attacks against occupiers.
But we do what we do because of who we are
So you are telling me that the "decadence" of modern Western society simply FORCED the USA to support the Shah, Mubarak, Ben Ali, the dictators of Bahrain etc etc etc down through history?
Like the Western world couldn't possibly have beer and miniskirts without installing dictators in or invading other countries?
Also, have you heard of crude oil? Just curious.
Are you trying frame things to make Palestine out to be a non-issue?
Ask Michael Scheuer:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xgj08e_michael-scheuer-on-b...
No, the terrorists were trying to protect their children, whom the "troops" were heroically murdering.
Do you not know about the drone "signature strikes" that bomb randomly in Yemen and Pakistan, followed by targeted strikes against first responders?
And do you not know that all it takes to become a "terrorist" is to be male, medium age, and killed in such a strike? Unless proven innocent?
Or are you under the delusion that you have to actually join AlQaeda for the US government to count you as a terrorist?
Yeah you had to delete your posts because they made you look bad.
Note to myself: beware cowardly, feminist frauds
So your bullshitting is my mental health issue now ?
Congratulations! You've upgraded from baseless assertion to ad-hominem!
Let's see what offence against logic you will commit next
"Mature adults" don't make allegations without evidence, like Swept under the rug: the hidden sexism in CS departments
why would I want
The hell with your feelings, this is about true and false. Back up what you say or shut the hell up.
where there is already a dearth of women due to the hostility they face
Where the hell did you pull that from? I suppose there's a "dearth" of men in nursing too? Can I infer an epidemic of misandry because we don't have 50% male nurses? Ludicrous.
just ask any woman
Yeah, because the plural of anecdote is data </sarcasm>
Sexism can totally be
That's just an unbacked assertion; come back with something better.
"nag" and get called a "bitch"!
If you are a nag you probably deserve to get called a bitch. I'm fairly certain if I nag like the OP, I'll get called a bitch, and I'm not a girl. If that's sexism, I supposed it's misandry if I get called a dick. Lame.
What happens when many females encounter similar attitudes in many CS work spaces
What happens is that it will be demonstrable with a valid statistical test, instead of being stretched from one anecdote to a complaint about CS DepartmentS in general, which the idiotic OP did. I'm waiting for you to produce the stats.
<crickets/>
Sexism is if you're Noether in 1915 and you can't get a faculty postion because you're a woman.
Sexism is not if you are being a nag and you get called a bitch as a result. The guy in the story just sounds like a jerk who wasn't taking his TA responsibility seriously.
Finally, even if there were sexism in that one CS departmenT it wouldn't mean that there's hidden sexism in CS departmentS. That's just stupidity and assumption.
Because one female had a problem in one CS department, she implies the same problem exists everywhere from Timbuktu to Helsinki?