DRM and Bioware - the next "smart" idea
Vincenzo Beretta
In short:
"Mass Effect PC uses SecuROM which requires an online activation for the
first time you play Mass Effect PC after installation. After the first
activation, SecuROM requires that it re-check with the server within ten
days in order to revalidate the CD key. If it can't contact the server
before the 10 days are up, the game still runs and it will re-check until it
is successful. If the check is not successfully performed within the 10 day
period, Mass Effect will not run until an online check is successful.
Each copy of Mass Effect comes with a CD Key which is used for the SecuROM
activation and for registration here at the BioWare Community.
SecuROM does not require the Mass Effect DVD to be in the drive in order to
play, it is only for installation."
I'm not making this up. The only other possibility I see is that I still
have to wake up and I'm dreaming this.
Vincenzo Beretta
"Vincenzo Beretta" <rec...@hotmail.com> ha scritto nel messaggio
news:JEbUj.34155$o06....@tornado.fastwebnet.it...
> http://masseffect.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=628724&forum=125
> I'm not making this up. The only other possibility I see is that I still
> have to wake up and I'm dreaming this.
Well, it looks that "Spore" is "sharing the dream" too:
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/52547
eddys...@hotmail.com
> "Vincenzo Beretta" <reck...@hotmail.com> ha scritto nel messaggionews:JEbUj.34155$o06....@tornado.fastwebnet.it...
>
> >http://masseffect.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=628724&foru...
> > I'm not making this up. The only other possibility I see is that I still
> > have to wake up and I'm dreaming this.
>
> Well, it looks that "Spore" is "sharing the dream" too:http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/52547
Well, that's good news actually. The more games use call-home schemes
the more people will discover what's wrong with that and the sooner
the backlash against this will gain momentum.
Starforce was only spat out by gamers after it became really popular
with game publishers.
Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx
Bloodstar
>> have to wake up and I'm dreaming this.
>
> Well, it looks that "Spore" is "sharing the dream" too:
> http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/52547
It all happened when Harkonens (USA) invaded Iraq... And they killed
Morrison, Janis Joplin and Lennon too.
;)
eddys...@hotmail.com
wrote:
>
> Starforce was only spat out by gamers after it became really popular
> with game publishers.
As a contrast - this is what Major H posted a couple of days ago in
response to a DRM question :
"The digital download purchase version of TacOps4 is not copy
protected. Neither is the CDROM purchase version.
The digital download version of TacOps4 does not use eLicensing,
activation, or any other form of copy protection. Neither does the
CDROM purchase version.
The TacOps4 digital customer ends up with an unprotected version of
the game that can be burned to a personal backup CD with no additional
"after purchase" installation password required, nor online checks nor
activation.
There is no Internet activation, no disk protection, no serial number,
no passwords, no network checks, and the CD does not need to be
inserted in order to play ... nada, zip, nothing. Also, there is no
Internet registration BS at the end of the install.
Not copy protected.
No Internet activation requirement.
Never phones home.
Cooperates with other running programs.
Does not install spyware.
Does not require CD insertion to play.
Does not search your personal LAN to see how many copies you are
using.
Clear enuf?"
-
You know what happened ? he made an *extra* sale :)
Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx
Bloodstar
"Ah! The wonderful sound of whining thieves. Hopefully all games will have
something that makes them theft-proof, sooner than later. Perhaps the
computer game design community will finally fight back. I mean, really, did
everyone think the people who are smart enough to make these fantastic works
of art we play weren't smart enough to come up with a way to keep them from
being ripped off? This is fantastic! It's wonderful! And it's a great big
ripe fuck you to the dirtbags who think they're entitled to steal because
they own a computer. I would wholeheartedly encourage anyone who finds this
concept offensive to stop buying PC games all together, and go buy a
stinking console. Welcome to the future, crack whores."
von Schmidt
wrote:
> Comments are entertaining:
>
> "Ah! The wonderful sound of whining thieves. Hopefully all games...
[snip]
> I would wholeheartedly encourage anyone who finds this
> concept offensive to stop buying PC games all together, and go buy a
> stinking console. Welcome to the future, crack whores."
Of course, the THIEVES will be playing a version of the game which
does not call home or checks how many installs are left.
Those limitations are reserved for the paying customer - you and me.
Judging by the last sentence, the comment could come from a console
marketeer!
-von Schmidt
Vincenzo Beretta
They are entertaining for sure, considering that thieves just crack and walk
away without uttering a word.
One day I'll crack a game just to be able to write:
"Do you remember when I cracked Spore XXI, made a free copy of it for every
single friend I ever had, and advertised the thing all over the internet and
all the other more traditional media - all while screaming about copy
protections and whining about DRM?
". . ."
"I thought so"
Vincenzo Beretta
[snip]
> Judging by the last sentence, the comment could come from a
> console marketeer!
Which (conspiracy theory mode/on) could be a good point, since EA (the
company behind both stunts) has recently announced that they will reduce
their sports titles on PC "'cause of the impact piratery has on sales in the
PC market". (conspiracy theory mode/off)
Here is the muddly attempt to explain the move with "a confirmed presence of
WMDs on the PC"
http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=129905
And here the ugly truth that came up few days later:
http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2008/05/01/next-up-to-blame-piracy-for-pc-gamings-decline-peter-moore
I wonder how much these people are paid to come up with gems like these. My
guess is "a lot" (my *opinion* being: "even a dollar would be too much").
For those who missed it, here is a different point of view that -
surprisingly - also quotes some facts behind the reasoning.
http://draginol.joeuser.com/article/303512/Piracy_PC_Gaming
Sum of the two lines of thoughts: it its quest to maximise profits, EA
*could* also try to make better games *and* to make people more willing to
buy them, not *less* willing: at the very least it would be an interesting
experiment.
Giftzwerg
george.w...@microsoft.com says...
> "I mean, really, did
> everyone think the people who are smart enough to make these fantastic works
> of art we play weren't smart enough to come up with a way to keep them from
> being ripped off?
Uh, the guys who build multibillion-dollar operating systems - and have
100% full access to the *very internals of the operating system itself*
aren't smart enough to keep pirates from ripping them off.
Some fucking dolt who's building a game hasn't got a prayer.
--
Giftzwerg
***
"This tiff over gas and oil taxes only highlights the intellectual
policy confusion - or perhaps we should say cynicism - of our
politicians. They want lower prices but don't want more production to
increase supply. They want oil 'independence' but they've declared off
limits most of the big sources of domestic oil that could replace
foreign imports. They want Americans to use less oil to reduce
greenhouse gases but they protest higher oil prices that reduce demand.
They want more oil company investment but they want to confiscate the
profits from that investment. And these folks want to be *President*?"
- Wall Street Journal
Giftzwerg
rec...@hotmail.com says...
> They are entertaining for sure, considering that thieves just crack and walk
> away without uttering a word.
Shoplifters *never* complain about how Best Buy wants to look at your
sales slip and merchandise as you leave the store. They've got that
beat. It only pisses off honest guys like me ... and makes me shop at
Creative Sound.
[Or just makes me fuck with them horribly. I *looooooove* the look on
one of these bag-checkers faces when they ask, "May I look in that bag,
please?" and I tell them, "No" and walk out.]
Briarroot
Jeezuz! Now we'll only renting games for 10 days at a time? Fuck that!
:-(
--
"To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of
his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare others who have not
exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first
principle of association: the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of
his industry and the fruits acquired by it." - Thomas Jefferson.
Briarroot
>
> It all happened when Harkonens (USA) invaded Iraq... And they killed
> Morrison, Janis Joplin and Lennon too.
>
How come you nutball Euros never bitch about the "invasion" of
Afghanistan? There's no real difference between what's going on in Iraq
and what's going on in Afghanistan, so why do you criticize the one and
not the other?
I'm just curious. I mean, it's not like you have any *legitimate*
complaints about either action.
Briarroot
or...
A. I won't be buying PC games that force me to rent them for 10 days at
a time.
B. I won't be buying a console.
C. I'm going to (continue to) play PC games from smaller, independent
developers who don't use onerous DRM schemes.
von Schmidt
> How come you nutball Euros never bitch about the "invasion" of
> Afghanistan? There's no real difference between what's going on in Iraq
> and what's going on in Afghanistan, so why do you criticize the one and
> not the other?
>
> I'm just curious. I mean, it's not like you have any *legitimate*
> complaints about either action.
>
Since it seems to be an honest question, this is my honest Euro-
answer.
Leaving aside that BS can hardly be seen as the spokesman for Europe:
The taleban government of Afghanistan was sheltering -and refused to
give up- Bin-Laden and other Al-Qaida ringleaders responsible for the
9/11 atrocities.
When the US invoked the NATO mutual defense agreement, the US and Euro-
allies went in together under the NATO banner.
Ignoring whether there were legitimate concerns around Saddam /WMD/UN
Resolutions: Iraq was not involved in 9/11.
As such it was not part of the NATO action.
This is a real enough difference.
Regards,
-von Schmidt
MJB
"Briarroot" <Bria...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:hoadnfYsSqmPA7zVnZ2dnUVZ_oPinZ2d@toastnet...
>> or...
>
> A. I won't be buying PC games that force me to rent them for 10 days at a
> time.
> B. I won't be buying a console.
> C. I'm going to (continue to) play PC games from smaller, independent
> developers who don't use onerous DRM schemes.
>
or...
D. I mine my collection of hardly (or never)-played computer games I bought
in 2000 through 2007 for old titles I never really gave a fair chance to.
E. I wait 18 months or even a couple of years to buy this year's vaunted
titles in a shovelware package along with five or six other titles for
19.99$
F. It's the start of summer in the northern hemisphere - which means I'll
spend the next five or six months golfing, fishing, boating and camping
instead of playing computer games anyway.
<shrug>
It's a sad state of affairs in the computer gaming market when I spend much
more time researching the DRM, copy-protection and online activation schemes
a newly researched computer game employes than I do the actual gameplay
anymore. It's reached the point where my first question isn't 'is it fun to
play?'. My first question now is 'does the manufacturer's anti-theft
measures make it even worth purchasing [game title]?'
Since I didn't buy a new game in 2007 at full price upon release nor any new
games so far this year at any price - it's safe to say the answer is now
'no'.
--
MJB
Mr. Tin's Miniature Painting Workshop:
http://web.newsguy.com/Mrtinsworkshop/
Giftzwerg
Bria...@gmail.com says...
> How come you nutball Euros never bitch about the "invasion" of
> Afghanistan? There's no real difference between what's going on in Iraq
> and what's going on in Afghanistan, so why do you criticize the one and
> not the other?
>
> I'm just curious. I mean, it's not like you have any *legitimate*
> complaints about either action.
Because they're just like Democrats; they're using their "support" for
Afghanistan to give them cover to flip out over Iraq. Don't forget,
Afghanistan only because The Good War when Iraq came along; previously,
it was the same "quagmire" and "fiasco" and "human rights disaster" that
are now attributed to Iraq.
Shit, some of these dumbasses even *say* they want to invade "Pakistan"
or "Saudi Arabia." Yeah. Right. Uh-huh. Gotcha. We'll get right on
it.
It could almost be a bumper-sticker:
"DEMOCRATS: Always fully committed to every war (even imaginary ones!)
except the one we're really fighting."
Dave Seven
> There is no Internet activation, no disk protection, no serial number,
> no passwords, no network checks, and the CD does not need to be
> inserted in order to play ... nada, zip, nothing. Also, there is no
> Internet registration BS at the end of the install.
Um, yea, but let's be realistic here. Show me one pimply faced teen that
even wants his game.
Dave Seven
> [Or just makes me fuck with them horribly. I *looooooove* the look on
> one of these bag-checkers faces when they ask, "May I look in that bag,
> please?" and I tell them, "No" and walk out.]
>
>
Where I live it is illegal for them to even do that. They have to
suspect you of shoplifting and then nab you outside the store. If you
haven't left the store then you haven't stolen anything - yet. What kind
of fucked up police state do you live in. <checks Gifty's headers>, oh
yea, the mighty 'ole U.S. of A., that last bastion of freedom.
Paul Murray
> In article <hoadnfcsSqk8ALzVnZ2dnUVZ_oOnnZ2d@toastnet>,
> Bria...@gmail.com says...
>> How come you nutball Euros never bitch about the "invasion" of
>> Afghanistan? There's no real difference between what's going on in Iraq
>> and what's going on in Afghanistan, so why do you criticize the one and
>> not the other?
A big difference between the two, from the point of the view of the rest of
the world. There was agreement amongst most of NATO that war in Afganistan
was justified and should go ahead. There was no such consensus about Iraq,
the US wanted it and forced it through.
NoSpam
"Vincenzo Beretta" <rec...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:JEbUj.34155$o06....@tornado.fastwebnet.it...
> http://masseffect.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=628724&forum=125
>
> In short:
>
> "Mass Effect PC uses SecuROM which requires an online activation for
> the first time you play Mass Effect PC after installation. After the
> first activation, SecuROM requires that it re-check with the server
> within ten days in order to revalidate the CD key. If it can't
> contact the server before the 10 days are up, the game still runs
> and it will re-check until it is successful. If the check is not
> successfully performed within the 10 day period, Mass Effect will
> not run until an online check is successful.
Well, that's another game that can shove it.
eddys...@hotmail.com
>
> How come you nutball Euros never bitch about the "invasion" of
> Afghanistan? There's no real difference between what's going on in Iraq
> and what's going on in Afghanistan, so why do you criticize the one and
> not the other?
Well, it's a bit hard to point to Afghanistan and claim BuSSh is there
to steal the oil.
Unless you want to argue the US wants to secure it's supply of dusty
rocks or heroine it's a bit hard for the loons to come up with an
alterior reason why Nato went in than the official one.
Then there's oil rich Iraq ...
It's pretty ridiculous if you realize France has been propping up
resource-rich regimes in Africa for the past 40 years without anyone
batting an eyelid.
Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx
Frank E
>On 2008-05-07, Giftzwerg <giftzw...@NOSPAMZ.hotmail.com> wrote:
>> In article <hoadnfcsSqk8ALzVnZ2dnUVZ_oOnnZ2d@toastnet>,
>> Bria...@gmail.com says...
>>> How come you nutball Euros never bitch about the "invasion" of
>>> Afghanistan? There's no real difference between what's going on in Iraq
>>> and what's going on in Afghanistan, so why do you criticize the one and
>>> not the other?
>
>A big difference between the two, from the point of the view of the rest of
>the world.
... and, last I heard, from the point of view of about 70% of the US
population.
At this point, the 'you're a god damn, terrorist loving, America
hating pussy if you don't support the war in Iraq' comeback seems to
be the only thing that republicans have left.
We'll see how well it works in a general election but my guess is that
they're going to alienate more people than they convince with that
line.
Rgds, Frank
Vincenzo Beretta
>> Morrison, Janis Joplin and Lennon too.
>>
>
> How come you nutball Euros never bitch about the "invasion" of
> Afghanistan? There's no real difference between what's going on in Iraq
> and what's going on in Afghanistan
Except that Afghanistan was an Al-Qaeda haven *before* the US invaded, while
Iraq became one *after* the US invaded.
> so why do you criticize the one and not the other?
Because it implies a subtext of "war is always wrong" or "war is always
right" which would only be childish and immature. I agreed with NATO's
action in the Balkans, back in 1999 (for reasons I already had explained
here), and I agreed with the invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11. In 2003, as
I often said, I gave to the US the benefit of doubt - i.e. "In my (it turned
out) VERY humble opinion NO ONE would have pull something so stupid without
a really *valid* reason" (I'm not talking about the unfamous laundry list of
reason put out of by the US Congress - the one that would have authorized a
preventive war against "enemies" ranging from Togo to Legoland, but a reason
on the "The Iraqi are fueling the nuclear missiles NOW"-level). It turned
out that people can be so stupid. My naiveness (*).
(*) As a side note, I remember Colin Powell "demonstration" to the UN. To
this day, Powell, who I had come to respect, is probably the only one among
the ones who were in the current US administration in 2003 I feel sorry for.
Giftzwerg
fakea...@hotmail.com says...
> >A big difference between the two, from the point of the view of the rest of
> >the world.
>
> ... and, last I heard, from the point of view of about 70% of the US
> population.
...basking in the hindsight of five years of relentless "it's a FIASCO"
media hammering...
> At this point, the 'you're a god damn, terrorist loving, America
> hating pussy if you don't support the war in Iraq' comeback seems to
> be the only thing that republicans have left.
I characterize it as;
"Dear Barack Obama et al. We know you didn't like the war in Iraq in
the first place (Except that *you* really did waffle back and forth on
this, didn'tja Barry? Get ready to go to the tape!). We got your many
memos on this subject. Good for you. Give yourself a li'l pat on the
ol' back for being so smart.
But we're *in* Iraq now. What would you like us to do *NOW*?"
We'll see, of course, but I'm not so sure that "public disliking for
Iraq war == public zeal for electing guy who wants to lose it."
Frank E
<giftzw...@NOSPAMZ.hotmail.com> wrote:
>In article <37QhSFjqHe1XMR...@4ax.com>,
>fakea...@hotmail.com says...
>
>> >A big difference between the two, from the point of the view of the rest of
>> >the world.
>>
>> ... and, last I heard, from the point of view of about 70% of the US
>> population.
>
>...basking in the hindsight of five years of relentless "it's a FIASCO"
>media hammering...
And the other 30% are the right-thinking Americans who watch Fox news?
<g>
Do we blame the media or the Bush administration for giving them
plenty of ammunition?
>> At this point, the 'you're a god damn, terrorist loving, America
>> hating pussy if you don't support the war in Iraq' comeback seems to
>> be the only thing that republicans have left.
>
>I characterize it as;
>
>"Dear Barack Obama et al. We know you didn't like the war in Iraq in
>the first place (Except that *you* really did waffle back and forth on
>this, didn'tja Barry? Get ready to go to the tape!). We got your many
>memos on this subject. Good for you. Give yourself a li'l pat on the
>ol' back for being so smart.
>
>But we're *in* Iraq now. What would you like us to do *NOW*?"
>
>We'll see, of course, but I'm not so sure that "public disliking for
>Iraq war == public zeal for electing guy who wants to lose it."
Possibly, I decided to vote McCain in the SC primary even though I
think we should get the hell out of Iraq. That doesn't necessarily
mean I'd pick him over Obama in the general but it does mean that I'm
open to the idea. Mainly because I think it's a bad idea to have the
Democrats (or Replublicans) in charge of everything and I see the Dems
picking up even more seats in Congress this time around, no matter who
wins the presidency.
Also, nobody's been able to explain to me what exactly we'd be losing
if we left Iraq right now. The only thing I see us loosing is a bill
for a $100 Billion a year.
Rgds, Frank
Paul Murray
> fakea...@hotmail.com says...
>> >A big difference between the two, from the point of the view of the rest of
>> >the world.
>> ... and, last I heard, from the point of view of about 70% of the US
>> population.
> ...basking in the hindsight of five years of relentless "it's a FIASCO"
> media hammering...
Maybe in the US, but not in the EU.
A majority of the population in pretty much all, if not actually all,
countries were against the war right from the start, even when the
governments backed it.
>> At this point, the 'you're a god damn, terrorist loving, America
>> hating pussy if you don't support the war in Iraq' comeback seems to
>> be the only thing that republicans have left.
> I characterize it as;
>
> "Dear Barack Obama et al. We know you didn't like the war in Iraq in
> the first place (Except that *you* really did waffle back and forth on
> this, didn'tja Barry? Get ready to go to the tape!). We got your many
> memos on this subject. Good for you. Give yourself a li'l pat on the
> ol' back for being so smart.
>
> But we're *in* Iraq now. What would you like us to do *NOW*?"
>
> We'll see, of course, but I'm not so sure that "public disliking for
> Iraq war == public zeal for electing guy who wants to lose it."
Now the US army is there, it needs to stay until the country is stable
enough to exist without it. To pull out now would throw away any chance
of something good coming out of the whole mess.
Bloodstar
Giftzwerg
fakea...@hotmail.com says...
> >We'll see, of course, but I'm not so sure that "public disliking for
> >Iraq war == public zeal for electing guy who wants to lose it."
>
> Possibly, I decided to vote McCain in the SC primary even though I
> think we should get the hell out of Iraq. That doesn't necessarily
> mean I'd pick him over Obama in the general but it does mean that I'm
> open to the idea. Mainly because I think it's a bad idea to have the
> Democrats (or Replublicans) in charge of everything and I see the Dems
> picking up even more seats in Congress this time around, no matter who
> wins the presidency.
>
> Also, nobody's been able to explain to me what exactly we'd be losing
> if we left Iraq right now. The only thing I see us loosing is a bill
> for a $100 Billion a year.
It doesn't make any difference. *Nobody* running for president can
possibly "just pull out." So when Obama says he's going to, he's just
lying.
Thus ... what else is to discuss?
Giftzwerg
rec...@hotmail.com says...
> > How come you nutball Euros never bitch about the "invasion" of
> > Afghanistan? There's no real difference between what's going on in Iraq
> > and what's going on in Afghanistan
>
> Except that Afghanistan was an Al-Qaeda haven *before* the US invaded, while
> Iraq became one *after* the US invaded.
Even to the degree it's even true, this is something which turns out to
have been A Good Thing. If you're going to hold a war with al-Qaeda,
what better place to hold it than Iraq?
After all, what difference does it make *when* al-Qaeda decided to go
and die by the big bucketloads in Iraq, so long as they *did* go to Iraq
and die by the big bucketloads.
Giftzwerg
says...
> > We'll see, of course, but I'm not so sure that "public disliking for
> > Iraq war == public zeal for electing guy who wants to lose it."
>
> Now the US army is there, it needs to stay until the country is stable
> enough to exist without it. To pull out now would throw away any chance
> of something good coming out of the whole mess.
Exactly. Only children reason about how they wish things are. Adults
reason about how they know things are.
So I look at the XX% of people who say, "It was a mistake to get into
Iraq in the first place" and think, "I wish I had a billion dollars and
a ten-inch schlong, but I kinda think I gotta make do with how things
are."
Vincenzo Beretta
> they're going to alienate more people than they convince with that
> line.
What never ceases to amaze me is that the writing on the war was well on the
wall in 2004 too, but it didn't made a difference when election time come
(i'll flip-flop here by saying that, however, Kerry was as convincing as an
used car salesman :o) ). If anything, things in Iraq do seem to be going
slightly better now than back then.
Vincenzo Beretta
> if we left Iraq right now. The only thing I see us loosing is a bill
> for a $100 Billion a year.
A move by Iran, the leader of the S'hia branch of Islam in the area, towards
Iraqui's S'hia majority, to create a "friendly block" of S'hia countries A)
right next to Israel, B) Controlling a good chunk of oil world reserves, and
and C) on the top of the oil-rich but population-thin Sunni Gulf countries.
Which was my original idea about the "true reason" why the US went to Iraq
in 2003.
Giftzwerg
rec...@hotmail.com says...
What's even more amazing is the "The Surge" that brought about such an
obvious bettering of conditions in all respects was *John Kerry's idea*.
It was the *Democrats* in the summer of 2004 who were advocating greatly
increased troop strength.
[Of course, they were merely *lying* - like Obama is now about just
pulling out - and the public instinctive understands such things, so
perhaps it's wrong to attribute the eventual, *actual* troops strength
increase (and strategy change) to the Dems, but sheeeeeeesh, some
fucking people have a teensy-tiny little memory for such things.]
paul...@yahoo.com
Yes. I think the next game will probably do it every time you play
then they simply add a Credit card charge every time you play.
They are trying to move to the "holy grail" that RIAA wants - every
time you play something or watch something or listen to something, you
pay.
50 buck initial fee then a couple bucks every time you play.
von Schmidt
wrote:
> On 7 mei, 08:13, "Vincenzo Beretta" <reck...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > "Vincenzo Beretta" <reck...@hotmail.com> ha scritto nel messaggionews:JEbUj.34155$o06....@tornado.fastwebnet.it...
>
> > >http://masseffect.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=628724&foru...
> > > I'm not making this up. The only other possibility I see is that I still
> > > have to wake up and I'm dreaming this.
>
>
> Well, that's good news actually. The more games use call-home schemes
> the more people will discover what's wrong with that and the sooner
> the backlash against this will gain momentum.
>
> Starforce was only spat out by gamers after it became really popular
> with game publishers.
>
> Greetz,
>
> Eddy Sterckx
It gets better:
"For clarity, though, an internet connection is not required to
install, just to activate the first time, and every 10 days after. "
http://masseffect.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=628375&forum=125&sp=16
And every 10 days after...forever. Or until the activation server is
pulled.
Welcome to the brave new world where you no longer buy a game but a
temporary, conditional user license instead.
-von Schmidt
Briarroot
>
>> How come you nutball Euros never bitch about the "invasion" of
>> Afghanistan? There's no real difference between what's going on in Iraq
>> and what's going on in Afghanistan, so why do you criticize the one and
>> not the other?
>>
>> I'm just curious. I mean, it's not like you have any *legitimate*
>> complaints about either action.
>>
von Schmidt wrote:
> Since it seems to be an honest question, this is my honest Euro-
> answer.
>
> Leaving aside that BS can hardly be seen as the spokesman for Europe:
> The taleban government of Afghanistan was sheltering -and refused to
> give up- Bin-Laden and other Al-Qaida ringleaders responsible for the
> 9/11 atrocities.
> When the US invoked the NATO mutual defense agreement, the US and Euro-
> allies went in together under the NATO banner.
>
> Ignoring whether there were legitimate concerns around Saddam /WMD/UN
> Resolutions: Iraq was not involved in 9/11.
> As such it was not part of the NATO action.
>
> This is a real enough difference.
>
Paul Murray wrote:
> A big difference between the two, from the point of the view of the rest of
> the world. There was agreement amongst most of NATO that war in Afganistan
> was justified and should go ahead. There was no such consensus about Iraq,
> the US wanted it and forced it through.
So what you guys (Paul and von Schmidt) are saying is: you have no
problem with the US making war on a government which was not actually
responsible for 9/11, but merely supported the terrorists who *were*
responsible; you have no problem with the US peremptorily destroying a
foreign culture and substituting it's own, i.e. "nation building;" you
have no problem with any alleged human rights violations or the alleged
tens of thousands of civilian deaths resulting from US actions. Your
only concern is that you gave the US *permission* to do all those things
in Afghanistan, but did not in Iraq. Uh-huh. Ok.
Vincenzo Beretta wrote:
> Except that Afghanistan was an Al-Qaeda haven *before* the US invaded, while
> Iraq became one *after* the US invaded.
>
There *were* Al-Qaeda in Iraq before 9/11, and they may have received
training in chemical warfare from Saddam's own specialists, however it
is generally conceded that neither Saddam nor his government were
complicit in or knew anything about 9/11 before it happened. But that's
not the important point because Al-Qaeda is/was not the only Islamic
terrorist group in the world, and Saddam Hussein's Iraq *was* in fact a
haven for *numerous* Islamic terrorist groups, most of which had spent
the previous few decades wreaking havoc in Europe, which leads me to
believe that either you folks can't see past the end of your nose and
you ought to be *thanking* the US for disrupting the free ride these
people had been getting from Saddam, or you simply object to everything
the US does without your expressed permission. Either way, you look
foolish.
>> > so why do you criticize the one and not the other?
>
> Because it implies a subtext of "war is always wrong" or "war is always
> right" which would only be childish and immature.
>
War is *never* right or wrong, it's just war. War is the *absence* of
morality and the classic mistake is to suggest that *some* wars are just
while some are not.
> I agreed with NATO's
> action in the Balkans, back in 1999 (for reasons I already had explained
> here), and I agreed with the invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11.
>
In other words, as long as *you* guys say it's okay, then it's okay.
Uh-huh. Yeah.
> In 2003, as
> I often said, I gave to the US the benefit of doubt - i.e. "In my (it turned
> out) VERY humble opinion NO ONE would have pull something so stupid without
> a really *valid* reason" (I'm not talking about the unfamous laundry list of
> reason put out of by the US Congress - the one that would have authorized a
> preventive war against "enemies" ranging from Togo to Legoland, but a reason
> on the "The Iraqi are fueling the nuclear missiles NOW"-level). It turned
> out that people can be so stupid. My naiveness (*).
>
Naivetč doesn't seem to be a curable affliction. :-/
> (*) As a side note, I remember Colin Powell "demonstration" to the UN. To
> this day, Powell, who I had come to respect, is probably the only one among
> the ones who were in the current US administration in 2003 I feel sorry for.
>
That's interesting. The *one* guy who as Secretary of State and a
former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, could have carried enough
weight to have told the Bush Administration: "hold on a minute, I'm not
sure this is a bad idea" and used his position to apply the brakes, is
seen by you as completely guiltless. In my view, Colin Powell
*embarrassed* himself! It was his *job* to know what was going on in
Iraq. If he failed, the blame can't be laid on anyone else's doorstep.
Briarroot
>
> Also, nobody's been able to explain to me what exactly we'd be losing
> if we left Iraq right now. The only thing I see us loosing is a bill
> for a $100 Billion a year.
>
Yup. We never should have tried to occupy Iraq, and after we made that
first mistake we should have declared "victory" and started
getting-the-hell out of there the day we captured Saddam.
Briarroot
> ...
> Now the US army is there, it needs to stay until the country is stable
> enough to exist without it. To pull out now would throw away any chance
> of something good coming out of the whole mess.
The problem with that idea is that Iraq may *never* be stable. No good
will come from this.
Briarroot
> In article <k0jUj.34712$o06....@tornado.fastwebnet.it>,
> rec...@hotmail.com says...
>
>> Iraq became one *after* the US invaded.
>
> Even to the degree it's even true, this is something which turns out to
> have been A Good Thing. If you're going to hold a war with al-Qaeda,
> what better place to hold it than Iraq?
>
> After all, what difference does it make *when* al-Qaeda decided to go
> and die by the big bucketloads in Iraq, so long as they *did* go to Iraq
> and die by the big bucketloads.
>
That *is* the one Good Thing to have resulted from this mess. We've
given Al-Qaeda a convenient place to attack us; a place where the
meanest, nastiest, best armed and trained Americans in the world are
ready and waiting to meet them. Still, I'd rather have nuked
Afghanistan *and* Iraq and been done with the whole thing. The lesson
to the surviving governments in the region would have been clear: fuck
with us or allow your people to fuck with us, and you die.
Briarroot
That's the reason subscription based MMOGs are seen as the Holy Grail.
WoW is god. :-/
Briarroot
> In article <hoadnfcsSqk8ALzVnZ2dnUVZ_oOnnZ2d@toastnet>,
> Bria...@gmail.com says...
>
>> How come you nutball Euros never bitch about the "invasion" of
>> Afghanistan? There's no real difference between what's going on in Iraq
>> and what's going on in Afghanistan, so why do you criticize the one and
>> not the other?
>>
>> I'm just curious. I mean, it's not like you have any *legitimate*
>> complaints about either action.
>
> Because they're just like Democrats; they're using their "support" for
> Afghanistan to give them cover to flip out over Iraq. Don't forget,
> Afghanistan only because The Good War when Iraq came along; previously,
> it was the same "quagmire" and "fiasco" and "human rights disaster" that
> are now attributed to Iraq.
>
And if the new Democratic Leader of the Free World pulls us out of Iraq,
then Afghanistan will immediately take front row center in the "what the
fuck are we doing there" follies. Such an eventuality might actually
provoke me enough to vote for a Dem for President if it weren't that so
many domestic issues would subsequently slap me in the chops for doing
so. :-(
> Shit, some of these dumbasses even *say* they want to invade "Pakistan"
> or "Saudi Arabia." Yeah. Right. Uh-huh. Gotcha. We'll get right on
> it.
>
> It could almost be a bumper-sticker:
>
> "DEMOCRATS: Always fully committed to every war (even imaginary ones!)
> except the one we're really fighting."
>
"DEMOCRATS: We won World War Two! (don't ask us about Korea and that
other place)" :-/
Briarroot
> On 7 mei, 14:12, Briarroot <Briarr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> How come you nutball Euros never bitch about the "invasion" of
>> Afghanistan? There's no real difference between what's going on in Iraq
>> and what's going on in Afghanistan, so why do you criticize the one and
>> not the other?
>
> Well, it's a bit hard to point to Afghanistan and claim BuSSh is there
> to steal the oil.
>
> Unless you want to argue the US wants to secure it's supply of dusty
> rocks or heroine it's a bit hard for the loons to come up with an
> alterior reason why Nato went in than the official one.
>
Heh! Try the CIA (pronounced "EVIL CIA"). When you do the math, you'll
see that a barrel of opium is worth far more than a barrel of oil and
opium is a renewable resource! <conspiratorial wink!>
> Then there's oil rich Iraq ...
>
> It's pretty ridiculous if you realize France has been propping up
> resource-rich regimes in Africa for the past 40 years without anyone
> batting an eyelid.
>
It's even more ridiculous when you review the list of Islamic terrorist
groups - not related to A-Q - that were given asylum in Iraq by Saddam
Hussein.
Bloodstar
> Al-Qaeda a convenient place to attack us; a place where the meanest,
> nastiest, best armed and trained Americans in the world are ready and
> waiting to meet them. Still, I'd rather have nuked Afghanistan *and* Iraq
> and been done with the whole thing. The lesson to the surviving
> governments in the region would have been clear: fuck with us or allow
> your people to fuck with us, and you die.
You are (?) probably aware that once you start nuking around, you will be
also nuked.
The Hiroshima and Nagasaki was done at much different circumstances (WWII).
How cool... Really - nuking around is really cool.
I guess that Russian can easily sell some nukes to some Arab nutballs and
there you go... for Damask you will end up with Chicago or New York or
Philadelfia or Vermont :) going up in flames.
With attitude like this...
Oh, and it's a word called fear, so I would not go that way if I were you.
Mario
Bloodstar
> *could* also try to make better games *and* to make people more willing to
> buy them, not *less* willing: at the very least it would be an interesting
> experiment.
Ts.. ts... ts...
Vinzenzo I know that you are not from yesterday but as you know EA is very
big corporation. They are not going into this blindly.
Firstly even if I don't approve this so much, you know that if EA starts
with this many other smaller will just follow.
Mario
von Schmidt
> Briarroot wrote:
>
> >> How come you nutball Euros never bitch about the "invasion" of
> >> Afghanistan? There's no real difference between what's going on in Iraq
> >> and what's going on in Afghanistan, so why do you criticize the one and
> >> not the other?
>
> >> I'm just curious. I mean, it's not like you have any *legitimate*
> >> complaints about either action.
>
> von Schmidt wrote:
> > Since it seems to be an honest question, this is my honest Euro-
> > answer.
>
> So what you guys (Paul and von Schmidt) are saying is: you have no
> problem with the US making war on a government which was not actually
> responsible for 9/11, but merely supported the terrorists who *were*
> responsible; you have no problem with the US peremptorily destroying a
> foreign culture and substituting it's own, i.e. "nation building;" you
> have no problem with any alleged human rights violations or the alleged
> tens of thousands of civilian deaths resulting from US actions. Your
> only concern is that you gave the US *permission* to do all those things
> in Afghanistan, but did not in Iraq. Uh-huh. Ok.
Briarroot, I am disappointed. I took you question at face-value and
gave you my answer on why (some) Euro's see Afghanistan in a different
light from Iraq.
And now you are putting words in my mouth to come to far-fetched
"conclusions" about what I apparently do and do not have "problems"
with.
Conclusions which happen to be different from my actual point of view.
Since this is not the honest discussion I though it was, I am bowing
out of this thread.
Enjoy.
-von Schmidt
Vincenzo Beretta
>
> Vinzenzo I know that you are not from yesterday but as you know EA is very
> big corporation. They are not going into this blindly.
The fact that "I'm not form yesterday" teaches me exactly the opposite: the
bigger an institution is, the higher the possibility that they will go into
something blindly. In my "other" line of work, comics, I have seen
corporations like Disney do things that a writer/artst publishing from his
cellar would have avoided as "as absurd as they are damaging" and see, as a
result, whole lines of products lose up to 90% of their public.
> Firstly even if I don't approve this so much, you know that if EA starts
> with this many other smaller will just follow.
Actually what previous experiences made in the DRM field by the "biggies"
have taught to the "smaller companies" (the smart ones anyway) is to get the
hell out of DRM Dodge. I'm a little on the brink on this one, but I tend to
agree with Eddy: if games like "Mass Effect" go the "Distant Guns" way, then
maybe the whole madness of nazi-DRM will reach a bigger audience in all its
bleak glory.
eddys...@hotmail.com
>
> That *is* the one Good Thing to have resulted from this mess. We've
> given Al-Qaeda a convenient place to attack us; a place where the
> meanest, nastiest, best armed and trained Americans in the world are
> ready and waiting to meet them.
Yup.
> Still, I'd rather have nuked
> Afghanistan *and* Iraq and been done with the whole thing. The lesson
> to the surviving governments in the region would have been clear: fuck
> with us or allow your people to fuck with us, and you die.
It worked for the Roman Empire.
Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx
eddys...@hotmail.com
> but I tend to
> agree with Eddy: if games like "Mass Effect" go the "Distant Guns" way, then
> maybe the whole madness of nazi-DRM will reach a bigger audience in all its
> bleak glory.
Noting down May 8th as the day someone finally, if somewhat
tentatively, agreed with me :)
The bigger the corporation, the bigger the mistakes they can make and
still survive. Want an example ? Some unnamed car manufacturer
launched (at great expense) a new model in a particular country where
60% of all newly sold cars are diesel engines. That new model couldn't
be gotten in a diesel version, while all their other models had one.
It took them a year to rectify this. The year thereafter upper
management published victory bulletins since sales of that model
nearly doubled ... I bet they got a nice bonus too.
Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx
Vincenzo Beretta
<eddys...@hotmail.com> ha scritto nel messaggio
news:72d8351c-62f1-4fba...@e53g2000hsa.googlegroups.com...
On 8 mei, 00:16, Briarroot <Briarr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> That *is* the one Good Thing to have resulted from this mess.
>> We've given Al-Qaeda a convenient place to attack us; a place
>> where the meanest, nastiest, best armed and trained Americans
>> in the world are ready and waiting to meet them.
"Reasoning" like this one always remind me of the boxer that claims to be
"winning" because his nose is "hitting hard" the other's fist.
Beside, Al-Qaeda main tactic isn't to fight openly in the field, but to
strike form the shadow and execute terror attacks. A cave complex in some
remote area of desolate (and very big) Iraq, with enough support among the
local population, is a perfectly fine place to be while planning for the
next attack. All the while, the US Army is forced to go around looking for
them - hitting IED etc.
Beside, with no war in 2003 Iraq couldn't have become an haven for Al-Qaeda
of the level it currently is.One thing that people (at least in the US)
*still* forget is how Saddam and Al-Qaeda were best enemies. Only dudes
drinking drown complex and thoughtful beliefs like "ragheads are all the
same" could have believed the contrary (but I daily hear people refer to
Iranians as "Arabs" or "Arabs as Musilms" everyday, so some stunningly
below-first grade preconception must be more deeply rooted that it appears).
So, without Saddam out of the picture, ye merry Al-Qaedans would have been
forced to move from Afghanistan to... where?
> Still, I'd rather have nuked
> Afghanistan *and* Iraq and been done with the whole thing.
Which is exactly what Bin-Laden did: he hit enemy targets of economic and
military importance with, unluckily, some "unusually high level of
collateral innocent civilian deaths" as a side effect. Only, if you use
nukes, on an one million times scale higher. Yu-hu!!
eddys...@hotmail.com
>
> So, without Saddam out of the picture, ye merry Al-Qaedans would have been
> forced to move from Afghanistan to... where?
Iran, Jemen, Somalia, the whole of Western Europe ?
Mr. Giftzwerg and Mr. Briarroot have it correct : Iraq now works as a
magnet for these guys. An unintentional consequence ? Most likely. But
that doesn't make it any less real. And their KIA numbers in Iraq are
a lot higher than what they would be if they were operating in the
countries listed above.
Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx
Paul Murray
> Afghanistan *and* Iraq and been done with the whole thing. The lesson
> to the surviving governments in the region would have been clear: fuck
> with us or allow your people to fuck with us, and you die.
Almost all of the people who fucked with you in the 9/11 attacks were
from Saudi Arabia, and you are still happily in bed with them. What
lesson has that sent?
Paul Murray
But there are a lot more of them than there would have been.
The invasion of Iraq helped recruit the people who then die.
Bloodstar
> have taught to the "smaller companies" (the smart ones anyway) is to get
> the hell out of DRM Dodge. I'm a little on the brink on this one, but I
> tend to agree with Eddy: if games like "Mass Effect" go the "Distant Guns"
> way, then maybe the whole madness of nazi-DRM will reach a bigger audience
> in all its bleak glory.
Hmmmmm... maybe and maybe not.
Because apart from Gifty et. al. who is screaming about DRM like the goat
who is skinned alive for barbecue preparing - we are talking here about
mainstream market.
As mainstream market is more infested with pirates it is certain that some
"outrage cries" are certanly coming from them not from legitimate customers
in 100%.
Do you really think that Sims 3 customers will errect barricades and get out
on the street because EA have put DRM on their games? I doubt that. Nor do I
think that they will boyctott EA games in sufficient numbers. Predicting
that would be too bold.
Mario
eddys...@hotmail.com
Works for me.
See, there are guys who lived in *my* country who decided to "fight
for Islam" and went to Iraq. And got shot to pieces.
I'm not weeping huge tears for our country's loss of those borderline
religious nutcases.
Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx
Paul Murray
>> A big difference between the two, from the point of the view of the rest of
>> the world. There was agreement amongst most of NATO that war in Afganistan
>> was justified and should go ahead. There was no such consensus about Iraq,
>> the US wanted it and forced it through.
> So what you guys (Paul and von Schmidt) are saying is: you have no
> problem with the US making war on a government which was not actually
> responsible for 9/11, but merely supported the terrorists who *were*
> responsible;
That bit I (sort of) said.
> you have no problem with the US peremptorily destroying a
> foreign culture and substituting it's own, i.e. "nation building;" you
> have no problem with any alleged human rights violations or the alleged
> tens of thousands of civilian deaths resulting from US actions. Your
> only concern is that you gave the US *permission* to do all those things
> in Afghanistan, but did not in Iraq. Uh-huh. Ok.
Nice strawman. I never said any of that.
The question was asked why the two are seen as different in Europe.
Before the war in Afganistan there was:
a) Clear causation.
Al-Qaeda attacked the US. The Taliban were aware of this and deliberately
aided Al-Qaeda, that made them a legitimate target.
b) Clear aims.
Damage Al-Qaeda and reduce their capability to mount further attacks. As a
side benefit, remove a government that supported them.
b) Clear consensus.
Because of a) and b) going to war in Afganistan was widely seen (at least
in western Europe) as a valid action. It wasn't the US going alone, there
was true multinational support.
None of these three things were true in the runup to the invasion of Iraq.
Noone could agree from say to day what the causation and aims of the war
were. Was it an (unproven) link between Saddam and Al-Qaeda? Was it the
(unproven) weapons of mass destruction? Was it regime change?
Why should we go to war, and how would we know when we had won?
Because of this, there was also no c). There was no international consensus,
this was a purely US war, having bullied (the infamous either with us
or against us speech) or bribed other countries to go along.
So when Europeans (as that was the question being asked, US and EU) look at
Afganistan, they accept that they supported this from the beginning, they
are part of this, where Iraq is purely the US's problem.
We (Europeans) thought was a bad idea from the beginning, and having
created the current situation the US now wants to pull out and let everything
fall apart. It feeds in to a prejudice that while the US like dropping
bombs on things from afar and enjoying the videogame-like laser guided war,
politicans and the public in general lose interest quickly when that
initial phase is over and actual US troops start dying, and they don't want
to stick around to see the job finished.
Paul Murray
>> ...
>> Now the US army is there, it needs to stay until the country is stable
>> enough to exist without it. To pull out now would throw away any chance
>> of something good coming out of the whole mess.
> The problem with that idea is that Iraq may *never* be stable. No good
> will come from this.
The end bit is what majorities in most European countries were saying from
the beginning, where 'this' is the invasion of Iraq in the first place.
eddys...@hotmail.com
>
> So when Europeans (as that was the question being asked, US and EU) look at
> Afganistan, they accept that they supported this from the beginning, they
> are part of this, where Iraq is purely the US's problem.
>
> We (Europeans) thought was a bad idea from the beginning, and having
> created the current situation the US now wants to pull out and let everything
> fall apart. It feeds in to a prejudice that while the US like dropping
> bombs on things from afar and enjoying the videogame-like laser guided war,
> politicans and the public in general lose interest quickly when that
> initial phase is over and actual US troops start dying, and they don't want
> to stick around to see the job finished.
Yup, this nicely sums up the broad view in Europe.
The one question that rarely gets asked is this :
So, ok, you've got a (mostly) US vs. religious nutcases who like to
blow-up people war in Iraq going on. Who do you support ?
Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx
Giftzwerg
Bria...@gmail.com says...
> And if the new Democratic Leader of the Free World pulls us out of Iraq,
> then Afghanistan will immediately take front row center in the "what the
> fuck are we doing there" follies. Such an eventuality might actually
> provoke me enough to vote for a Dem for President if it weren't that so
> many domestic issues would subsequently slap me in the chops for doing
> so. :-(
Lemme guess; like the "plan" to slap a *huge* tax on oil company
profits, the better to ensure that Gifty and Briar have much, much more
gasoline available at much, much lower prices?
"But that trick *never* works!!"
- Rocket J. Squirrel
Briarroot
>> That *is* the one Good Thing to have resulted from this mess. We've given
>> Al-Qaeda a convenient place to attack us; a place where the meanest,
>> nastiest, best armed and trained Americans in the world are ready and
>> waiting to meet them. Still, I'd rather have nuked Afghanistan *and* Iraq
>> and been done with the whole thing. The lesson to the surviving
>> governments in the region would have been clear: fuck with us or allow
>> your people to fuck with us, and you die.
>
> You are (?) probably aware that once you start nuking around, you will be
> also nuked.
>
Really? By whom? Pakistan???
> I guess that Russian can easily sell some nukes to some Arab nutballs and
> there you go... for Damask you will end up with Chicago or New York or
> Philadelfia or Vermont :) going up in flames.
>
After viewing the smoking ruins of Afghanistan on their southern border,
I have a hunch the Russians might not be too eager to sell nukes to
anyone - ever. The optimum time for the US to strike was in the
immediate aftermath of 9/11. Russia and China would have understood
because that's exactly what they would have wanted to do under similar
circumstances. They might have *said* of lot of nasty things about the
US, but they wouldn't have actually *done* anything.
I'm a firm believer in the idea that war should be an all-or-nothing
proposition. If you aren't ready to wipe your enemy from the face of
the earth, then don't go to war. If you are attacked, respond with
overwhelming force. Failure to act in such a manner just encourages
future attacks.
--
"Man will always be Man. We tried so hard to create a society that was
equal, where there'd be nothing to envy your neighbor. But there's
always something to envy: a smile; a friendship; something you don't
have and want to appropriate. In this world, even a Soviet one, there
will always be rich and poor; rich in gifts - poor in gifts, rich in
love - poor in love." - Comrade Commissar Danilov in "Enemy at the Gates"
Vincenzo Beretta
> management published victory bulletins since sales of that model
> nearly doubled ... I bet they got a nice bonus too.
That's the reason why I keep looking for jobs in disaster-struck areas
(disasters in the management, I mean) - you fix the three obvious things
they screwed up, and then bask in glory (either that or you bug out at the
first "but we always did it this way!" hint) :o)
Taking the reins of a succesful enterprise means to work hard (*) to stay at
the top, with only the risk to take the flak if something dire happens.
At least in normal times. Today it would seem that if you put together a
Katrina-level economic bomb like the whole subprime crisis you will bail out
with a big wad of money anyway - and, BTW, if you followed the whole chain
of events the way I did, this is not unfair, since *no one* is to blame for
it: it just happened...
(*) Always a big "no no" over here... ^__-
Briarroot
<shrug> I asked an honest question and I received honest answers. It's
not my fault that you're response leaves you open to criticism. And I
did *not* put words in your mouth.
Briarroot
A-yup; and they were eventually destroyed because they lost the will to
keep on doing what was necessary.
Vincenzo Beretta
>
> See, there are guys who lived in *my* country who decided to "fight
> for Islam" and went to Iraq. And got shot to pieces.
Uhm, somehow I still don't se why having *more* enemies to fight is a good
thing. True, this way you make the nutcases crawl out of their holes and
show up to be shot - but a bullet fired against a nutcase still isn't a
bullet fight against an "original one".
Giftzwerg
@e39g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>, eddys...@hotmail.com says...
> > So, without Saddam out of the picture, ye merry Al-Qaedans would have been
> > forced to move from Afghanistan to... where?
>
> Iran, Jemen, Somalia, the whole of Western Europe ?
>
> Mr. Giftzwerg and Mr. Briarroot have it correct : Iraq now works as a
> magnet for these guys. An unintentional consequence ? Most likely. But
> that doesn't make it any less real. And their KIA numbers in Iraq are
> a lot higher than what they would be if they were operating in the
> countries listed above.
And there's one little statistic the US military guards with religious
zeal; the number of enemy KIA. They won't talk about it, they won't
allude to it, they're forbidden from mentioning it on pain of total
excommunication.
But soldiers come home. They tell their tales. And, to paraphrase a
close friend who recently left for his third deployment to Iraq:
"You have no idea, G. You just literally cannot imagine how many of
these assholes we've killed. The number you threw out was probably 100
times too small. *Jihadis* from every corner of the region. They come
to Iraq, they're clueless zealots, and we kill them. The locals bury
them, and they're forgotten."
I understand why the US military refuses to even speculate about these
numbers ... but it strikes me that none of the ragheads who dash off to
Iraq to pursue *jihad* are the sort of folk we want to leave alive in
Jordan.
Giftzwerg
says...
> But there are a lot more of them than there would have been.
> The invasion of Iraq helped recruit the people who then die.
Anyone who *could* be recruited to travel to Iraq and slaughter
civilians and attack Coalition and Iraqi troops in the name of some
raghead killer-god is *exactly* the sort of person we wanted to flush
into the open and kakk out.
This is, in fact, the point.
Briarroot
> <eddys...@hotmail.com> ha scritto nel messaggio
> news:72d8351c-62f1-4fba...@e53g2000hsa.googlegroups.com...
> On 8 mei, 00:16, Briarroot <Briarr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> That *is* the one Good Thing to have resulted from this mess.
>>> We've given Al-Qaeda a convenient place to attack us; a place
>>> where the meanest, nastiest, best armed and trained Americans
>>> in the world are ready and waiting to meet them.
>
> "Reasoning" like this one always remind me of the boxer that claims to be
> "winning" because his nose is "hitting hard" the other's fist.
>
A flawed analogy. Diverting Al-Qaeda attacks from attacking American
civilians is actually equivalent to making the other boxer hit your
gloves, not your nose.
> Beside, Al-Qaeda main tactic isn't to fight openly in the field, but to
> strike form the shadow and execute terror attacks. A cave complex in some
> remote area of desolate (and very big) Iraq, with enough support among the
> local population, is a perfectly fine place to be while planning for the
> next attack. All the while, the US Army is forced to go around looking for
> them - hitting IED etc.
>
Al-Qaeda losses versus US forces have been catastrophic for them; so
much so that in recent months they've taken to hitting the Shia (AQ are
mostly Sunni) rather than directly attacking US troops.
> Beside, with no war in 2003 Iraq couldn't have become an haven for Al-Qaeda
> of the level it currently is. One thing that people (at least in the US)
> *still* forget is how Saddam and Al-Qaeda were best enemies. Only dudes
> drinking drown complex and thoughtful beliefs like "ragheads are all the
> same" could have believed the contrary (but I daily hear people refer to
> Iranians as "Arabs" or "Arabs as Musilms" everyday, so some stunningly
> below-first grade preconception must be more deeply rooted that it appears).
>
Irrelevant, but one point that needs to be recognized is that many of
the recently recruited Al-Qaeda fighters are not the dedicated Wahabists
that formerly made up the bulk of AQ volunteers. These new guys just
want to kill Americans. In other words, they're the *opposite* numbers
to those you depict as "Americans who think everyone in the region is an
Arab raghead."
> So, without Saddam out of the picture, ye merry Al-Qaedans would have been
> forced to move from Afghanistan to... where?
>
See above.
>> Still, I'd rather have nuked
>> Afghanistan *and* Iraq and been done with the whole thing.
>
> Which is exactly what Bin-Laden did: he hit enemy targets of economic and
> military importance with, unluckily, some "unusually high level of
> collateral innocent civilian deaths" as a side effect. Only, if you use
> nukes, on an one million times scale higher. Yu-hu!!
>
You've completely missed the point. If we had nuked Afghanistan in the
weeks following 9/11, no nation on the planet would be willing to give
Bin Laden asylum (assuming he survived) and that applies to those
nations that hate everything American as well as our potential allies.
Giftzwerg
@a70g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>, eddys...@hotmail.com says...
> > But there are a lot more of them than there would have been.
> > The invasion of Iraq helped recruit the people who then die.
>
> Works for me.
>
> See, there are guys who lived in *my* country who decided to "fight
> for Islam" and went to Iraq. And got shot to pieces.
>
> I'm not weeping huge tears for our country's loss of those borderline
> religious nutcases.
Same here. The obvious question is, "If one of my countrymen is an
Islamist nutjob who increasingly hears the call of his killer god, where
do I want him?"
(a) In Iraq, getting blown to tiny bits by US soldiers.
(b) Working at the hospital next to Mrs. G., seething about those
cartoons of Muhammed and that Koran in the crapper and the awful insults
to Islam by Salman Rushdie and Geert Wilders.
Briarroot
The difference is that the Saudis don't like the Wahabists any more than
we do and one of Al-Qaida's stated goals is to overthrow the Saudi
monarchy. In other words, the Saudi government can be counted on to
co-operate with us. Yes, I know that certain high-ranking Saudis are
secretly in league with AQ, but that just reinforces my point. They
can't openly support Bin Laden for fear of their own government.
Giftzwerg
rec...@hotmail.com says...
> >> That *is* the one Good Thing to have resulted from this mess.
> >> We've given Al-Qaeda a convenient place to attack us; a place
> >> where the meanest, nastiest, best armed and trained Americans
> >> in the world are ready and waiting to meet them.
>
> "Reasoning" like this one always remind me of the boxer that claims to be
> "winning" because his nose is "hitting hard" the other's fist.
No. It's more like "reasoning" that if I'm a pugilist in a fight with
another boxer, I want him *in the ring*, where I can parry his blows and
beat him bloody...
...not in the stands beating the crap out of my helpless wife and
children.
Paul Murray
> von Schmidt wrote:
>>> Briarroot wrote:
>>>>> How come you nutball Euros never bitch about the "invasion" of
>>>>> Afghanistan? There's no real difference between what's going on in Iraq
>>>>> and what's going on in Afghanistan, so why do you criticize the one and
>>>>> not the other?
>>>>> I'm just curious. I mean, it's not like you have any *legitimate*
>>>>> complaints about either action.
>>> von Schmidt wrote:
>>>> Since it seems to be an honest question, this is my honest Euro-
>>>> answer.
>>> problem with the US making war on a government which was not actually
>>> responsible for 9/11, but merely supported the terrorists who *were*
>>> responsible; you have no problem with the US peremptorily destroying a
>>> foreign culture and substituting it's own, i.e. "nation building;" you
>>> have no problem with any alleged human rights violations or the alleged
>>> tens of thousands of civilian deaths resulting from US actions. Your
>>> only concern is that you gave the US *permission* to do all those things
>>> in Afghanistan, but did not in Iraq. Uh-huh. Ok.
>> Briarroot, I am disappointed. I took you question at face-value and
>> gave you my answer on why (some) Euro's see Afghanistan in a different
>> light from Iraq.
>> And now you are putting words in my mouth to come to far-fetched
>> "conclusions" about what I apparently do and do not have "problems"
>> with.
>> Conclusions which happen to be different from my actual point of view.
>> Since this is not the honest discussion I though it was, I am bowing
>> out of this thread.
><shrug> I asked an honest question and I received honest answers. It's
> not my fault that you're response leaves you open to criticism. And I
> did *not* put words in your mouth.
Yes you did.
Neither of us talked about human rights violations or civilian deaths.
We both talked about about views on the decision to go to war in the first
place, not the way the war has been conducted.
eddys...@hotmail.com
> > The year thereafter upper
> > management published victory bulletins since sales of that model
> > nearly doubled ... I bet they got a nice bonus too.
>
> That's the reason why I keep looking for jobs in disaster-struck areas
> (disasters in the management, I mean) - you fix the three obvious things
> they screwed up, and then bask in glory (either that or you bug out at the
> first "but we always did it this way!" hint) :o)
Of course, there's also the Machiavellian way of letting the broken
system work in your favour.
See, our (company) current way of dealing with problems is not
focussed on solving them, but on registering, catalogueing and
reporting them. Then at some point it becomes *really* urgent and
suddenly the red tape is forgotten and I get asked to fix it
yesterday. By then I've secretly done all the preparations because I
knew it would come to that, so fixing it goes faster than anyone
anticipated. A great way to build a (largely) undeserved reputation :)
The alternative is to point out to my bosses their procedures straight
out of management books are not applicable for this or that IRL
specific reason - which makes them look like the morons they are -
which means I don't get a nice bonus.
After a carefull 2 millisecond consideration I've opted for Plan A.
In addition I'm now able to type bs in here because I'm literally
waiting on an auditable userid + password to change 1 field in 1
record in a 5 million record database. I've been called 3 times
already by 2 different persons and 2 seconds ago someone came over to
my desk (really - no kidding) to talk it over. The best part is that
I've got 3 working userid's on that database already, all unofficial,
all of which I'm not going to use as per management's orders. Unless
it becomes really critical of course :)
Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx
Paul Murray
>> On 2008-05-07, Briarroot <Bria...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Afghanistan *and* Iraq and been done with the whole thing. The lesson
>>> to the surviving governments in the region would have been clear: fuck
>>> with us or allow your people to fuck with us, and you die.
>> Almost all of the people who fucked with you in the 9/11 attacks were
>> from Saudi Arabia, and you are still happily in bed with them. What
>> lesson has that sent?
> The difference is that the Saudis don't like the Wahabists any more than
> we do and one of Al-Qaida's stated goals is to overthrow the Saudi
> monarchy.
So pretty much like Saddam then?
> In other words, the Saudi government can be counted on to
> co-operate with us.
So could Saddam 10-15 years ago.
Giftzwerg
rec...@hotmail.com says...
> > Works for me.
> >
> > See, there are guys who lived in *my* country who decided to "fight
> > for Islam" and went to Iraq. And got shot to pieces.
>
> Uhm, somehow I still don't se why having *more* enemies to fight is a good
> thing.
Because the number of enemies is a constant, unless you're one of the
loonies who imagine that Abu Musab al-Zarkawi wasn't a deadly enemy of
you, me, and the rest of civilization until the USA showed up in Iraq.
The only variable is whether Mr. Zarkawi is in Iraq / Jordan /
Afghanistan plotting to hit civilization where it hurts the most, or in
Iraq running for his life, finally to be blotted out by a bomb.
What your theory really boils down to is a very, very dangerous one; you
appear to believe that all these jihadi murderers would just stay home
and quietly work to improve the lot of humanity ... if only us
westerners would stop being so bastardly.
Wrong.
> True, this way you make the nutcases crawl out of their holes and
> show up to be shot - but a bullet fired against a nutcase still isn't a
> bullet fight against an "original one".
Who cares?
Giftzwerg
says...
> > The difference is that the Saudis don't like the Wahabists any more than
> > we do and one of Al-Qaida's stated goals is to overthrow the Saudi
> > monarchy.
>
> So pretty much like Saddam then?
al-Qaeda was working to overthrow Saddam?
Cite?
Briarroot
> On 2008-05-07, Briarroot <Bria...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Paul Murray wrote:
>>> A big difference between the two, from the point of the view of the rest of
>>> the world. There was agreement amongst most of NATO that war in Afganistan
>>> was justified and should go ahead. There was no such consensus about Iraq,
>>> the US wanted it and forced it through.
>> So what you guys (Paul and von Schmidt) are saying is: you have no
>> problem with the US making war on a government which was not actually
>> responsible for 9/11, but merely supported the terrorists who *were*
>> responsible;
>
> That bit I (sort of) said.
>
>> you have no problem with the US peremptorily destroying a
>> foreign culture and substituting it's own, i.e. "nation building;" you
>> have no problem with any alleged human rights violations or the alleged
>> tens of thousands of civilian deaths resulting from US actions. Your
>> only concern is that you gave the US *permission* to do all those things
>> in Afghanistan, but did not in Iraq. Uh-huh. Ok.
>
> Nice strawman. I never said any of that.
>
Sure you did. That's *precisely* what you said. You just use a lot of
high-minded self-serving verbiage to do so.
> The question was asked why the two are seen as different in Europe.
> Before the war in Afganistan there was:
>
> a) Clear causation.
> Al-Qaeda attacked the US. The Taliban were aware of this and deliberately
> aided Al-Qaeda, that made them a legitimate target.
>
> b) Clear aims.
> Damage Al-Qaeda and reduce their capability to mount further attacks. As a
> side benefit, remove a government that supported them.
>
> b) Clear consensus.
> Because of a) and b) going to war in Afganistan was widely seen (at least
> in western Europe) as a valid action. It wasn't the US going alone, there
> was true multinational support.
>
> None of these three things were true in the runup to the invasion of Iraq.
> Noone could agree from say to day what the causation and aims of the war
> were. Was it an (unproven) link between Saddam and Al-Qaeda? Was it the
> (unproven) weapons of mass destruction? Was it regime change?
> Why should we go to war, and how would we know when we had won?
> Because of this, there was also no c). There was no international consensus,
> this was a purely US war, having bullied (the infamous either with us
> or against us speech) or bribed other countries to go along.
>
> So when Europeans (as that was the question being asked, US and EU) look at
> Afganistan, they accept that they supported this from the beginning, they
> are part of this, where Iraq is purely the US's problem.
>
And now you've just said it again. You say the invasion of Afghanistan
was okay, because you agreed with our reasons for launching it, but the
invasion of Iraq was not okay because you didn't agree with our reasons
for launching it. There's no point in pretending you mean something
else when you've stated exactly that idea - twice now.
> We (Europeans) thought was a bad idea from the beginning, and having
> created the current situation the US now wants to pull out and let everything
> fall apart. It feeds in to a prejudice that while the US like dropping
> bombs on things from afar and enjoying the videogame-like laser guided war,
> politicans and the public in general lose interest quickly when that
> initial phase is over and actual US troops start dying, and they don't want
> to stick around to see the job finished.
>
<laughter> Where did this idea that it isn't 'honorable' or 'fair' or
'manly' to "drop bombs from afar" come from. I mean, armies used to
stand shoulder to shoulder slugging it out at distances of 100 yards,
but nearly everyone now thinks that was a stupid way to fight. The
proper idea is to fire from cover at an enemy in the open. War is not a
game played by rules. It's a life-or-death struggle.
As to the current situation in Iraq, I tend to agree with you that it's
a Mess Without a Solution, but as I also pointed out in my first post,
Afghanistan is *also* a Mess Without a Solution. It's plain to me that
European critics of the mess in Iraq are nothing but hypocrites unless
they also criticize the mess in Afghanistan.
Frank E
<rec...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> Also, nobody's been able to explain to me what exactly we'd be losing
>> if we left Iraq right now. The only thing I see us loosing is a bill
>> for a $100 Billion a year.
>
>A move by Iran, the leader of the S'hia branch of Islam in the area, towards
>Iraqui's S'hia majority, to create a "friendly block" of S'hia countries A)
>right next to Israel, B) Controlling a good chunk of oil world reserves, and
>and C) on the top of the oil-rich but population-thin Sunni Gulf countries.
>
Well, there is that inconvenient fact that most of the people in Iraq
are Shia. If they did decide to ally with Iran, who am I to tell them
that they can't and why exactly should I give a damn?
Pretty much everyone in the middle east, every Sunni government and
Israel, has a lot more invested in keeping that from happening than I
ever will. Our track record in deciding which 2-bit dictator to prop
up in 3rd world countries isn't exactly stellar so I'm quite willing
to walk away and let the locals sort things out.
Rgds, Frank
Briarroot
And no good will come from the invasion of Afghanistan either. That's
my whole point - which you keep overlooking - that Afghanistan is in
*exactly* the same condition as Iraq, yet not a peep out of you boys
about it. I'm guessing that's because you can't blame Bush for
Afghanistan, seeing has how you all agreed *that* invasion was okay.
Briarroot
Anybody but Bush. :-/
eddys...@hotmail.com
> > Works for me.
>
> > See, there are guys who lived in *my* country who decided to "fight
> > for Islam" and went to Iraq. And got shot to pieces.
>
> Uhm, somehow I still don't se why having *more* enemies to fight is a good
> thing. True, this way you make the nutcases crawl out of their holes and
> show up to be shot
Bingo.
One of them lived less than 10 Km from where I live - if his hate for
all things Western is that big that he's willing to fight for his
beliefs I'd rather have him do it over there.
My problem with Islam is that I actually believe them when they say
they intend to wipe guys like me (*) from the face of the planet. And
it's not like it's all talk and no action as 9/11 and subsequent
bombings in Madrid and London proved.
Brussels was on the highest terror alert not longer than 5 months ago
- they even cancelled the traditional fireworks at New Year's Eve
because authorities feared a bomb strike and now you're trying to tell
me I should be displeased with them packing up and fighting USA-nians
5000 km from my front door ?
If I had the name of that soldier who popped that "Belgian" guy in
Iraq I'd send him a "Thank You" postcard every X-Mas.
Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx
(*) The Koran has pretty precise instructions on how to deal with guys
who are not "People of the Book" (Christians, Jews) - it's convert or
die.
Vincenzo Beretta
Let's see. Al-Qaeda is, basically, a fundamentalist *Sunni* group (for some
reason the differences between the verious branch of the same religion are
always overlooked even if it is among the worst mistakes one can do - it was
so during the Crusades, it is the same today).
Iran is dominated by a S'hia majority - actually Iran is the leader of the
S'hia branch of Islam in the Gulf, so I don't see Iran as a good place to be
for Al-Qaeda.
Yemen... Hmmm... The main diplomatic effort by Yemen in the late '90s and in
the 2000s has been to better their relations with the international
community and the Gulf states. "Hosting" Al-Qaeda wouldn't have been so
popular. My opinion is that the government would have tried, at least
nominally, to oust them...
Which is, one could say, what is happening in Iraq. However, Iraq (after the
removal of Saddam Hussein) offered to Al-Qaeda a spread of unique "benefits"
- The natural chaos of the post-war environment (not something one could
have predicted - after all the USA *for sure* had a post-war plan, didn't
they? However, since this turned out not to be the case, why don't take
advantage of the gift?)
- A vast, desolate country with many places to hide and (for a long time) an
inadequate US presence.
- An Arab Sunni population that has *many* (and, ironically, even
contradictory) reasons to hate the West - ranging from an US supported (for
a while, cough...) Sunni but *secular* dictatorship, to the loss of such
power by the Sunni minority in the country when Saddam was toppled (aka the
Ba'athists). Not to mention all those Sunni who found themselves targets of
S'hia "attacks agains a religious enemy" - something that, at least, under
Saddam's strict dictatorship was a big "no no".
- All the Iraqi people who, no matter what their religious affiliation is,
just think that the "US and their merry friends" intervention, far from
being "The Liberation of Europe from Nazifascism - the Sequel!", just caused
to their lives to become an even worse mess.
So, sure, Al-Qaeda could have escaped from Afghanistan to "somewhere else",
but why to consider some other place, when the perfect one, Iraq, was served
to them on a golden plate?
Now it would seem that, since the last year, they are a little floundering
(who doesn't flounder in Iraq after a while?) so other possibilities can be
considered. But if Al-Qaeda planners have only a bit of brain (and, IMHO,
they on occasion showed to be able to use their whole brain) it is entirely
possibile that other countries to be used as bases are already being
considered.
Paul Murray
> In article <slrng25ob...@ZLUKB001957.eu.boc.com>, pa...@murray.net
> says...
>> > The difference is that the Saudis don't like the Wahabists any more than
>> > we do and one of Al-Qaida's stated goals is to overthrow the Saudi
>> > monarchy.
>> So pretty much like Saddam then?
> al-Qaeda was working to overthrow Saddam?
>
> Cite?
The claim was stated goal, not working to.
Without an archive of Bin Laden's speeches can I find those exact words? No
(Is there such an archive?)
The cloest I come is him calling Saddam an infidel socialist.
"And it doesn't harm in these conditions the interest of Muslims to agree
with those of the socialists in fighting against the crusaders, even though
we believe the socialists are infidels. For the socialists and the rulers
have lost their legitimacy a long time ago, and the socialists are infidels
regardless of where they are, whether in Baghdad or in Aden. ... "
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/02/11/binladen.excerpts/index.html
This is after the invasion.
Giftzwerg
says...
> >> > The difference is that the Saudis don't like the Wahabists any more than
> >> > we do and one of Al-Qaida's stated goals is to overthrow the Saudi
> >> > monarchy.
> >> So pretty much like Saddam then?
> > al-Qaeda was working to overthrow Saddam?
> >
> > Cite?
>
> The claim was stated goal, not working to.
Ah. So then, to your mind, the relentless attacks and murders al-Qaeda
has actually perpetrated on Saudi Arabia, the Saudi government, and
Saudi citizens over the years is perfectly equivalent to some al-Qaeda
guy, somewhere, who at some unknown point, *said* something somehow
seeming to want to do some bad thing to Saddam?
Yeah. Whew. What a powerful and compelling parallel. I'll bet ol'
Saddam was quaking in his boots.
Vincenzo Beretta
> was okay, because you agreed with our reasons for launching it, but the
> invasion of Iraq was not okay because you didn't agree with our reasons
> for launching it.
Er... and the big point to make, here, is?
I mean, I like TOAW because I think it is a great game (and I can list a lot
of reason why), and I don't like Sim City Societies because I think it is
horrible (and I can list a lot of reasons why). So I buy TOAW III and avoid
SC:S.
Again: the big discovery in this, being... ?
eddys...@hotmail.com
> > Iran, Jemen, Somalia, the whole of Western Europe ?
>
> Let's see. Al-Qaeda is, basically, a fundamentalist *Sunni* group (for some
> reason the differences between the verious branch of the same religion are
> always overlooked even if it is among the worst mistakes one can do - it was
> so during the Crusades, it is the same today).
You're pretty much fixated on AQ as being the only bogeyman around. My
point is that <insert nutcase splinter group of any denomination> will
always find a safe haven and some help from other denominations for
fighting the "common enemy"
If now they're drawn to Iraq it's not unlike bugs getting drawn to the
electrical zap light, with some people claiming that those bugs would
stay away if you didn't turn on the light.
From my extensive outdoor camping experience I can tell you that is
not the case and you better zap them before they zap you.
Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx
Paul Murray
> Paul Murray wrote:
>> On 2008-05-07, Briarroot <Bria...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Paul Murray wrote:
>>>> A big difference between the two, from the point of the view of the rest of
>>>> the world. There was agreement amongst most of NATO that war in Afganistan
>>>> was justified and should go ahead. There was no such consensus about Iraq,
>>>> the US wanted it and forced it through.
>>> So what you guys (Paul and von Schmidt) are saying is: you have no
>>> problem with the US making war on a government which was not actually
>>> responsible for 9/11, but merely supported the terrorists who *were*
>>> responsible;
>> That bit I (sort of) said.
>>> you have no problem with the US peremptorily destroying a
>>> foreign culture and substituting it's own, i.e. "nation building;" you
>>> have no problem with any alleged human rights violations or the alleged
>>> tens of thousands of civilian deaths resulting from US actions. Your
>>> only concern is that you gave the US *permission* to do all those things
>>> in Afghanistan, but did not in Iraq. Uh-huh. Ok.
>> Nice strawman. I never said any of that.
> Sure you did. That's *precisely* what you said. You just use a lot of
> high-minded self-serving verbiage to do so.
No. I. Didn't.
We were talking about whether different people think war should have been
declared in the first place.
What does that have to do with whether people approve of the conduct of the
war once it is underway?
> And now you've just said it again. You say the invasion of Afghanistan
> was okay, because you agreed with our reasons for launching it, but the
> invasion of Iraq was not okay because you didn't agree with our reasons
> for launching it. There's no point in pretending you mean something
> else when you've stated exactly that idea - twice now.
Um, people thought that the Afgan war was justified and had definate aims,
so supported it, people didn't think the Iraq was was justified and didn't
have definate aims, so didn't support it.
How much simpler can I make that?
>> We (Europeans) thought was a bad idea from the beginning, and having
>> created the current situation the US now wants to pull out and let everything
>> fall apart. It feeds in to a prejudice that while the US like dropping
>> bombs on things from afar and enjoying the videogame-like laser guided war,
>> politicans and the public in general lose interest quickly when that
>> initial phase is over and actual US troops start dying, and they don't want
>> to stick around to see the job finished.
><laughter> Where did this idea that it isn't 'honorable' or 'fair' or
> 'manly' to "drop bombs from afar" come from. I mean, armies used to
Words in my mouth yet again.
Never said honourable. Never said fair. Never said manly.
Said politicians and the public like to believe that wars can with won with
only the other side dying, with little or no risk to their own troops, and
never seem to realise that that will never be enough, they will eventually
have to put men on the ground, and some of those men will die.
If you start a war, some of your own people are going to die. If that isn't
acceptable, or isn't worth the gains you think you will make, then don't
start the war.
> As to the current situation in Iraq, I tend to agree with you that it's
> a Mess Without a Solution, but as I also pointed out in my first post,
> Afghanistan is *also* a Mess Without a Solution. It's plain to me that
> European critics of the mess in Iraq are nothing but hypocrites unless
> they also criticize the mess in Afghanistan.
I'm not criticising the US for how it is managing the current mess in Iraq,
I'm criticising the US for *creating* the current mess is Iraq. The US is
containing the Iraq mess reasonably well at the moment. Both countries are a
mess, it is hard to see any quick resolution to either, but at least Afganistan
accomplished something directly related to the 9/11 attacks which were meant
to be the reason for the wars, damaging Al-Qaeda.
Paul Murray
> Paul Murray wrote:
>> On 2008-05-07, Briarroot <Bria...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Paul Murray wrote:
>>>> ...
>>>> Now the US army is there, it needs to stay until the country is stable
>>>> enough to exist without it. To pull out now would throw away any chance
>>>> of something good coming out of the whole mess.
>>> The problem with that idea is that Iraq may *never* be stable. No good
>>> will come from this.
>> The end bit is what majorities in most European countries were saying from
>> the beginning, where 'this' is the invasion of Iraq in the first place.
> And no good will come from the invasion of Afghanistan either. That's
Have a lot of Al-Qaeda men and facilities been destroyed? That was the aim.
> my whole point - which you keep overlooking - that Afghanistan is in
> *exactly* the same condition as Iraq, yet not a peep out of you boys
Simply put, I think a lot of people feel that as a result of damaging
Al-Qaede in Afganistan, the likelyhood/number of further terrorist
attacks has been reduced. They feel that as a result of what is largely
seen as an unjustified attack on Iraq, they likelyhood/number of
further terrorist attacks has been increased.
Doesn't mean they are right, they might be completely wrong.
Paul Murray
>> >> > we do and one of Al-Qaida's stated goals is to overthrow the Saudi
>> >> > monarchy.
>> >> So pretty much like Saddam then?
>> > al-Qaeda was working to overthrow Saddam?
>> > Cite?
>> The claim was stated goal, not working to.
> Ah. So then, to your mind, the relentless attacks and murders al-Qaeda
> has actually perpetrated on Saudi Arabia, the Saudi government, and
> Saudi citizens over the years is perfectly equivalent to some al-Qaeda
> guy, somewhere, who at some unknown point, *said* something somehow
> seeming to want to do some bad thing to Saddam?
>
> Yeah. Whew. What a powerful and compelling parallel. I'll bet ol'
> Saddam was quaking in his boots.
if you are going to play lawyer and ask for cites, surely you should ask
for a cite of what was actually claimed?
Isn't it just as likely that Al-Qaeda doesn't really need to topple the
Saudi government, because a significant proportion support them anyway?
Giftzwerg
says...
> > Ah. So then, to your mind, the relentless attacks and murders al-Qaeda
> > has actually perpetrated on Saudi Arabia, the Saudi government, and
> > Saudi citizens over the years is perfectly equivalent to some al-Qaeda
> > guy, somewhere, who at some unknown point, *said* something somehow
> > seeming to want to do some bad thing to Saddam?
> >
> > Yeah. Whew. What a powerful and compelling parallel. I'll bet ol'
> > Saddam was quaking in his boots.
>
> if you are going to play lawyer and ask for cites, surely you should ask
> for a cite of what was actually claimed?
You were claiming that there was some sort of equivalence between Saddam
and the Saudis, vis-a-vis al-Qaeda, and implying that this was somehow
meaningful.
There wasn't. It isn't.
There are 23 distinct clauses set forth in the Congressional Resolution
authorizing force against Saddam. Exactly zero of them are honestly
applicable to the Saudi government.
> Isn't it just as likely that Al-Qaeda doesn't really need to topple the
> Saudi government, because a significant proportion support them anyway?
No. It's not. You don't fucking well topple an allied fucking
government. You only topple an enemy government.
Paul Murray
>> Saudi government, because a significant proportion support them anyway?
> No. It's not. You don't fucking well topple an allied fucking
> government. You only topple an enemy government.
And they haven't toppled them.
So?
Giftzwerg
says...
> >> Isn't it just as likely that Al-Qaeda doesn't really need to topple the
> >> Saudi government, because a significant proportion support them anyway?
> > No. It's not. You don't fucking well topple an allied fucking
> > government. You only topple an enemy government.
>
> And they haven't toppled them.
> So?
So because you're not dead, you're immortal?
Sheesh, dumbass.
I mean, I guess you're not too bright, given that al-Qaeda is *actually*
carrying out *real* acts of terrorism against the Saudi government.
You know, *TRYING* to topple them? Actively? For years? With actual
acts of terrorism? That they're really carrying out?
You know, as opposed to the imaginary shit you keep bringing up?
Here's a clue; that they haven't *yet* toppled the Saudi state is
applicable to al-Qaeda being a bunch of dumb-if-murderous-ragheads - not
because they're not trying.
Fuckwit.
Paul Murray
[...]
>I guess you're not too bright
[...]
> Fuckwit.
Parts of the discussion were interesting, but if this is the way it
is going, you can keep it to yourself.
Goodbye.
Giftzwerg
says...
> > Sheesh, dumbass.
> [...]
> >I guess you're not too bright
> >[...]imaginary shit{...]
> [...]
> > Fuckwit.
>
> Parts of the discussion were interesting, but if this is the way it
> is going, you can keep it to yourself.
TRANSLATION: "I never got beyond what I read in the Guardian! You
can't expect me to understand *logic*."
Which is about par for the course, these days.
To put it simply, we're reasonably certain that Saudi Arabia is our ally
because the same enemies who are trying to kill us and blow us up are
trying to kill and blow up Saudi Arabians.
Extending this, we're reasonably certain that Saddam's Iraq was our
enemy (even beyond the obvious fact that we were still arguably in a
state of armed conflict with Iraq, there being only a cease-fire
agreement in place since 1991) because our enemies were not only *not*
blowing up things in Iraq, but some of them were actually harboring in
Iraq.
See how easy it is to go through this calculus?
Paul Murray
>> [...]
>> >I guess you're not too bright
>> >[...]imaginary shit{...]
>> [...]
>> > Fuckwit.
>>
>> Parts of the discussion were interesting, but if this is the way it
>> is going, you can keep it to yourself.
> TRANSLATION: "I never got beyond what I read in the Guardian! You
> can't expect me to understand *logic*."
No, translation: If you want to have a discussion, fine, if you want
to rant and swear, do it by yourself.
> To put it simply, we're reasonably certain that Saudi Arabia is our ally
> because the same enemies who are trying to kill us and blow us up are
> trying to kill and blow up Saudi Arabians.
We are reasonably sure that Stalin's Russia is our ally because the same
Germans who are trying to kill up are trying to kill Russians.
We are reasonably certain the the Afgani rebels are our ally, because the
same Russians who hate us are trying to kill the Afgani rebels.
We are reasonably certain that Saddam's Iraq is our ally, because the same
Iranians who hate us are trying to kill Iraqis.
> See how easy it is to go through this calculus?
How did it work out in the long term with Stalin, the Afganis or Saddam?
The enemy of mine enemy is my friend works in the short term, but once the
common enemy is gone, you realise you have nothing else left.
These short term arrangements can be very profitable, after all Hitler was
defeated, but you have to be ready to jump off the horse when it is costing
you more than it is gaining.
Giftzwerg
says...
> > To put it simply, we're reasonably certain that Saudi Arabia is our ally
> > because the same enemies who are trying to kill us and blow us up are
> > trying to kill and blow up Saudi Arabians.
>
> We are reasonably sure that Stalin's Russia is our ally because the same
> Germans who are trying to kill up are trying to kill Russians.
Yes. Exactly. From 1941-1945, the Soviet Union was an *excellent* ally
of the United States. Couldn't have asked for a better partner in the
defeat of Nazi Germany.
Oh, this changed later. Circumstances often do. But only a total
fucking retard imagines that our beliefs and policies can't change right
along with circumstances.
> We are reasonably certain the the Afgani rebels are our ally, because the
> same Russians who hate us are trying to kill the Afgani rebels.
The *same* Russians? Or Russians from a *very* different period.
C'mon, dumbass; if you don't want to be called an idiot, then stop doing
idiotic things like making comparisions between the behavior of the USSR
during the period when they were our WW2 allies, and their behavior
during the period where they were were (at least nominally) our Cold War
enemies.
I mean, are you five friggin' years old? Do you *really* not have a
fucking clue about how things change?
[Shit, next you'll be berating America for being allied with Great
Britain - a country we *once fought a war against*!!!]
> We are reasonably certain that Saddam's Iraq is our ally, because the same
> Iranians who hate us are trying to kill Iraqis.
There's that "same" again, a woodenheaded fuck who imagines 1980 == 1991
or 1944 == 1972.
> > See how easy it is to go through this calculus?
>
> How did it work out in the long term with Stalin, the Afganis or Saddam?
See? You're a dumb douchebag who just cannot understand that things
change. Alliances break down. Friendships break down. Enemies become
friends. Friends become enemies. Some friends are worse than enemies.
Sometimes this happens slowly. Sometimes in the blink of an eye.
It's pretty complicated (not), and if you can't understand that we
really caaaan't treat the Canadians in 2008 (almost our best friends)
the way we treated them in 1812 (invading and killing them), then I
might as well just insult you, because you're too fucking stupid to talk
with.
> The enemy of mine enemy is my friend works in the short term, but once the
> common enemy is gone, you realise you have nothing else left.
And then you become enemies, maybe. Welcome to reality.
Dumbass.
> These short term arrangements can be very profitable, after all Hitler was
> defeated, but you have to be ready to jump off the horse when it is costing
> you more than it is gaining.
So we do. And then some retard starts puling about how there's
something egregious about changing attitudes or policies - and can't
figure out how Saudi Arabia is different from Saddam's Iraq.
[PREDICTION: Next you'll start bleating about how America went from
being an ally of Iran and then - for the tiny reason that the whole
Iranian government changed - became Iran's enemy. Sorry, but I know
your ilk; you'll not be able to resist this.]
Giftzwerg
news:MuEiSOpJY3sTtr...@4ax.com:
> Well, there is that inconvenient fact that most of the people in Iraq
> are Shia. If they did decide to ally with Iran, who am I to tell them
> that they can't and why exactly should I give a damn?
Not to mention the point that it wouldn't exactly matter. I mean,
unless we're proposing to make *Lutherans* out of these heeber-jeebers,
then the flavor of murder-god they worship isn't terribly interesting.
Westerners appear to be in the same unhappy position that natives of the
Americas were in the period 1500-1900; wondering whether their murderers
would be Spanish Catholics or Dutch / English protestants.
*Quelle* distinction, eh?
Giftzwerg
--
"[S]o far the Great Depression 2008 is shaping up to be a Great
Disappointment. Not so much The Grapes of Wrath as Raisins of
Mild Inconvenience."
- Gerard Baker
Vincenzo Beretta
> unless we're proposing to make *Lutherans* out of these heeber-jeebers,
> then the flavor of murder-god they worship isn't terribly interesting.
Actually it is. If religion has a strong influence on internal and foreing
policy in any area of the world, then understanding the religious nuances of
the area helps policimaker while they are trying to understand what will
happen next.
Like during the Crusades. Hadn't the crusaders bunched up the
middle-easterns as "infidels" they could have understood the complex net of
alliances and divisions that was weakening their enemy - and they could have
played these divisions for their own advantage. Some local potentates were
perfectly happy to ally with the Crusaders and allow undisturbed Pilgrimages
so to bring down the neighbour - or maybe simply because they wanted to live
in peace. Instead what the Crusaders got was to create an united front out
of former enemies - and we all know the end of *that *story.
[It is worth noticing how one of the most succesful crusades, the sixth, saw
Frederick II get a stunning result via diplomatic negotiations, while being
excommunicated and with only a token army behind him - just because he was
able to correctly read the local situation (Egypt being at war with rebels
in Syria etc.). Of course, due to this "bloodless" approach he was despised
by basically everybody - even if he probably got the best results ever in
the Holy Land since the First Crusade]
The implications of a popolous S'hia block right next to Israel and on the
top of Saudi Arabia and the other Sunni oil Gulf states can be lost to the
average dude (and to the average "politician") that bunchs up the local
population as "ragheads" - but this will not make these fundamental issues
go away (nor this kind of attitude will help the formulation of any kind of
intelligent policy for the area).
Briarroot
> In article <Xt6dnQ9p2uhzsL_V...@posted.toastnet>,
> Bria...@gmail.com says...
>
>> And if the new Democratic Leader of the Free World pulls us out of Iraq,
>> then Afghanistan will immediately take front row center in the "what the
>> fuck are we doing there" follies. Such an eventuality might actually
>> provoke me enough to vote for a Dem for President if it weren't that so
>> many domestic issues would subsequently slap me in the chops for doing
>> so. :-(
>
> Lemme guess; like the "plan" to slap a *huge* tax on oil company
> profits, the better to ensure that Gifty and Briar have much, much more
> gasoline available at much, much lower prices?
>
> "But that trick *never* works!!"
> - Rocket J. Squirrel
>
Nobody in Washington seems to understand that taxes on corporations are
paid by the customers (us) not the executives or the stockholders (also
us). All of the candidates seem to have failed Econ-101. :-/
The only possible way to reduce gasoline prices is to dramatically
increase supply, dramatically decrease consumption or (preferably) both.
Briarroot
>> Works for me.
>>
>> See, there are guys who lived in *my* country who decided to "fight
>> for Islam" and went to Iraq. And got shot to pieces.
>
> Uhm, somehow I still don't se why having *more* enemies to fight is a good
> thing. True, this way you make the nutcases crawl out of their holes and
> bullet fight against an "original one".
>
The idea is that you have drawn them out of hiding into the kill zone
where you can get at them easily. You have also diverted them from
attacking you at your most vulnerable point: your civilians.
Briarroot
>>>> Briarroot wrote:
>>>>>> How come you nutball Euros never bitch about the "invasion" of
>>>>>> Afghanistan? There's no real difference between what's going on in Iraq
>>>>>> and what's going on in Afghanistan, so why do you criticize the one and
>>>>>> not the other?
>>>>>> I'm just curious. I mean, it's not like you have any *legitimate*
>>>>>> complaints about either action.
>>>> von Schmidt wrote:
>>>>> Since it seems to be an honest question, this is my honest Euro-
>>>>> answer.
>>>> So what you guys (Paul and von Schmidt) are saying is: you have no
>>>> problem with the US making war on a government which was not actually
>>>> responsible for 9/11, but merely supported the terrorists who *were*
>>>> foreign culture and substituting it's own, i.e. "nation building;" you
>>>> have no problem with any alleged human rights violations or the alleged
>>>> tens of thousands of civilian deaths resulting from US actions. Your
>>>> only concern is that you gave the US *permission* to do all those things
>>>> in Afghanistan, but did not in Iraq. Uh-huh. Ok.
>>> gave you my answer on why (some) Euro's see Afghanistan in a different
>>> light from Iraq.
>>> And now you are putting words in my mouth to come to far-fetched
>>> "conclusions" about what I apparently do and do not have "problems"
>>> with.
>>> Conclusions which happen to be different from my actual point of view.
>>> Since this is not the honest discussion I though it was, I am bowing
>>> out of this thread.
>> <shrug> I asked an honest question and I received honest answers. It's
>> not my fault that you're response leaves you open to criticism. And I
>> did *not* put words in your mouth.
>
> Yes you did.
> Neither of us talked about human rights violations or civilian deaths.
> We both talked about about views on the decision to go to war in the first
> place, not the way the war has been conducted.
>
That's not the point and you know it - or should. The point is that
your only objection to the Iraq war is that you didn't approve of the US
government's stated reasons for invasion. In other words, your
objections are political; at which point I sit up and say "so what?"