Re: BEST WIT of the week: "virtual (but totally autonomous) sock-puppet".
Is there a reason you constantly try to insert yourself in the comments of every post with an off topic screed that attempts to draw attention to yourself rather than the issues discussed? I don't know that I've ever seen someone use the word "I" as much as you do.
Based on past experience, the safest bet is probably to lose your shit over self-perceived attacks on anything with a trigger and tell me 'Merica should murder my puppy in her sleep....
Ha! I'm not Mike, so I'm the anti-American (odd, yesterday I was accused of being a Go AMERICA Rah rah guy....) terrorist loving (odd, all I do is make fun of Iran)....
Re: Re: Re: Impressed with conspicuous waste, you 1-percenter!
There's quite a difference between saying "X amount of money is too much for a person to make" and "X amount of money is too much for a person to make....so I want my corrupt and inefficient government to take it instead."
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "chance to fish in a sea of secrets"
"Calling me an idiot may not be the best way to react dear writer."
Gee, good thing I did nothing of the sort then, huh?
"With nuance dear mr Helmet you can excuse everything."
I have no idea what this is supposed to mean....
"you yanks created Saddam"
Er, no. We actually originally opposed him and helped arm the Northern Kurds against Saddam. We only worked w/him once Iran became what it is today.
"armed him"
To some extent, yes, but our role in arming him has been vastly overblown. Two American corporations gave him 1 of 4 chemical agents he used. Most of his WMD arms came from elsewhere. The Soviet Union also armed him heavily.
"blessed him"
Against Iran, sure we did. He was a secular bulwark against theocracy. We do that all the time.
"knowing the kind of swine he was, knowing what he was capable of doing."
Exactly how were we to know that he'd commit genocide?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "chance to fish in a sea of secrets"
"Interesting to find out that Dark Helmet is one of the "USA, USA, USA!" yelling crowd, disappointing."
Oh, please, give me a break. I'm nothing of the sort, nor have I been in this thread. Try being nuanced enough to understand that you can think our govt. lying was wrong but the war was still the right thing to do. If you can't hold those two thoughts in your head at the same time, too bad for you, but I'm far from an American apologist....
Try 4500 villages, with 100k civilians killed and 90% of Kurd villages erased from the map. If you want to argue further, I suggest knowing what you're talking about first.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "chance to fish in a sea of secrets"
"Forgive me for placing more weight upon a recognized institution such as FactCheck.org than you, but in my opinion you are clearly wrong. Iraq gave up the WMD program in 1995. Any WMD that was there was already declared and was in the process of being disposed and/or was already incapable of military usage."
That's both incorrect and short-sighted. First, in 2006 hundreds of weapons munitions were found that contained mustard gas or sarin nerve gas. While you're correct that that ammunition was degraded, the agents inside them were not, and could be exploited by terrorist or the Saddam regime. Per Army Colonel John Chu: "These are chemical weapons as defined under the Chemical Weapons Convention, and yes ... they do constitute weapons of mass destruction."
"As far as Iraq having lost its sovereignty, using those same standards, Israel has also lost its sovereignty."
Interesting theory. I wasn't aware they broke all four standards. What ethnic group have they attempted to genocide? What WMDs have they used? How have they repeatedly invaded AS THE AGGRESSOR other nations around them? What international gangsters or terrorists are they actively involved with?
"The fact is the UN never approved the invasion of Iraq, as the US did not wait for Iraq to be found in violation of UNSC Resolution 1441."
That the UN doesn't have the balls to enforce their own resolutions isn't an argument not to do the right thing ourselves. That's a non-starter.
"And for the record, fuck you for saying I doomed anyone to genocide (for the record, he gassed one village, not the entire race, so your claims of genocide are a stretch)."
Get mad all you want, I'm right. If we left Saddam alone, he'd have finished off the Kurds. And, btw, you might want to educate yourself on how EVERYONE, including the Iraqi government, says what Saddam did was genocide. You can turn your nose up at the gassing of 10k civilians. I'm not going to.
"Innocent people never deserve to die, and there's a lot of killing going on all over the world, and we don't do fuck all about it."
Not being able to save the entire world isn't a reason not to save part of it. That's not an argument, it's an excuse not to do the difficult thing and go to war.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "chance to fish in a sea of secrets"
"Colin Powell stood before the UN and told them that Iraq was responsible for the Anthrax letters."
Again, yes, they lied. That isn't a reason to not go to war with Iraq, it's simply a reason to think our govt. lies.
"Sorry, Dark Helmet, but you're just wrong. Even FactCheck.org disagrees with you;"
Bullshit. That link actually says there WERE WMDs in Iraq, but they were from before the Gulf War, which is a meaningless distinction. Iraq said there were none. They lied. Period.
"If the war "had to" happen, why did we end Desert Storm before finishing the job?"
That's the right question, and the answer is that we should NOT have ended the war. We should have finished the job then and removed an international gangster from office.
"The Iraq war was unnecessary."
You can doom the Kurds to genocide if you wish. I choose not to because I don't believe in genocide.
Beyond that, I listed the four ways the UN decides that a country has lost its sovereignty. You didn't disprove a single one of them for the obvious reason that are not dis-provable. The war was a just one.
"His "stockpiles" of chemical weapons were a) severely depleted b)constantly monitored/tracked by the U.S. and others and c) had been sold to him by who? The U.S."
That may all be true, but none of it really matters. They said they didn't have WMDs, when in fact they did, period, paragraph, full stop. Besides, this is simply one of the FOUR tests the UN has for when a nation loses it's sovereignty, but at least you've admitted Iraq failed that tests. The other tests are as follows.
1. Violates the non-proliferation treaty - FAILED
2. Acts as an aggressor upon other nations in war - FAILED
3. Engages in international gangsterism/terrorism - FAILED
4. Engages in acts of genocide - FAILED
You can criticize the American government for scare-mongering, war-mongering, and lying, and you'd be right on every count, but none of that is an argument against going to war with Iraq. That war HAD to happen, and we mistaked our way into being on the right side of history on that one....
"Or that the entire Iraq war was ginned up out of nothing as has been proven by the total lack of WMD."
Wait...what? There wasn't a total lack of WMD. There was a total lack of nuclear weapons (though there was evidence that Saddam in fact DID have a nuke program several years before the invasion and he buried it in the sand once he knew the inspectors were on their way in). If you want to say the government scare mongered the public to whip up support for the war, I won't disagree with you, but let's not pretend that the Saddam regime both wasn't in possession of chemical and biological weapons programs (in fact, he'd used them against the Kurds in his own land) or that he didn't absolutely have to go....
Is there a reason you haven't responded to me on my Pro Boxer post from earlier? In case you might have missed it, I apologized for trolling you two years ago. Are you going to apologize for behaving as you have, or not? I think it's fair for all of Techdirt to know what kind of member of our community you'd like to be....
Re: @ "not unlike the kind of thing we see in our own comments section from time to time."
Yup, I was trolling you on that page w/a quote from Barack Obama, which is what you quoted above. I was actually just pulling random quotes out of my head for fun. We all do things we're not incredibly proud of at times. Sorry I trolled you.
Now that that's out of the way, you want to apologize for the constant demeaning comments, including your odd use of "Timmy", or is this apology going to be completely one-sided?
On the post: The Arab Street Responds To Fear Of Memes By Producing Tons Of Meme Videos
Re: Timmy the (blind) Middle East expert.
On the post: Blowhard UK MP Says Ban Twitter Because Grandstanding Is Fun
Re:
The paperwork he filed includes the possibility of a ban. What are you talking about?
On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
Re: BEST WIT of the week: "virtual (but totally autonomous) sock-puppet".
It's kind of sad....
On the post: Maxis: Your Reward For Buying Our Horribly Launched SimCity Is The Previous, Better Version Of It
Re:
Hold that thought....
On the post: Maxis GM: Our Vision Is More Important Than Our Customers & Lots Of People Love Our Crappy DRM
Re:
On the post: No, Sim City Debacle Doesn't Mean Gamers Need A Bill Of Rights
Re:
On the post: Iran Wants To Sue Hollywood Over Argo Somewhere, Some Time, & For Some Reason
Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Iran Wants To Sue Hollywood Over Argo Somewhere, Some Time, & For Some Reason
Re: Re:
You really didn't see Argo, did you?
On the post: Iran Wants To Sue Hollywood Over Argo Somewhere, Some Time, & For Some Reason
Re: 'my Iranian friends'
On the post: Warner Bros. Lets Veronica Mars Crew Prove Demand For A Movie Via Kickstarter
Re: Re: Re: Impressed with conspicuous waste, you 1-percenter!
On the post: NYT Former Exec Editor Misrepresents Bradley Manning
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "chance to fish in a sea of secrets"
Gee, good thing I did nothing of the sort then, huh?
"With nuance dear mr Helmet you can excuse everything."
I have no idea what this is supposed to mean....
"you yanks created Saddam"
Er, no. We actually originally opposed him and helped arm the Northern Kurds against Saddam. We only worked w/him once Iran became what it is today.
"armed him"
To some extent, yes, but our role in arming him has been vastly overblown. Two American corporations gave him 1 of 4 chemical agents he used. Most of his WMD arms came from elsewhere. The Soviet Union also armed him heavily.
"blessed him"
Against Iran, sure we did. He was a secular bulwark against theocracy. We do that all the time.
"knowing the kind of swine he was, knowing what he was capable of doing."
Exactly how were we to know that he'd commit genocide?
On the post: NYT Former Exec Editor Misrepresents Bradley Manning
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "chance to fish in a sea of secrets"
Oh, please, give me a break. I'm nothing of the sort, nor have I been in this thread. Try being nuanced enough to understand that you can think our govt. lying was wrong but the war was still the right thing to do. If you can't hold those two thoughts in your head at the same time, too bad for you, but I'm far from an American apologist....
On the post: NYT Former Exec Editor Misrepresents Bradley Manning
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "chance to fish in a sea of secrets"
"for the record, he gassed one village, not the entire race, so your claims of genocide are a stretch"
Proves you don't know what the hell you're talking about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Anfal_Campaign
Try 4500 villages, with 100k civilians killed and 90% of Kurd villages erased from the map. If you want to argue further, I suggest knowing what you're talking about first.
On the post: NYT Former Exec Editor Misrepresents Bradley Manning
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "chance to fish in a sea of secrets"
That's both incorrect and short-sighted. First, in 2006 hundreds of weapons munitions were found that contained mustard gas or sarin nerve gas. While you're correct that that ammunition was degraded, the agents inside them were not, and could be exploited by terrorist or the Saddam regime. Per Army Colonel John Chu: "These are chemical weapons as defined under the Chemical Weapons Convention, and yes ... they do constitute weapons of mass destruction."
"As far as Iraq having lost its sovereignty, using those same standards, Israel has also lost its sovereignty."
Interesting theory. I wasn't aware they broke all four standards. What ethnic group have they attempted to genocide? What WMDs have they used? How have they repeatedly invaded AS THE AGGRESSOR other nations around them? What international gangsters or terrorists are they actively involved with?
"The fact is the UN never approved the invasion of Iraq, as the US did not wait for Iraq to be found in violation of UNSC Resolution 1441."
That the UN doesn't have the balls to enforce their own resolutions isn't an argument not to do the right thing ourselves. That's a non-starter.
"And for the record, fuck you for saying I doomed anyone to genocide (for the record, he gassed one village, not the entire race, so your claims of genocide are a stretch)."
Get mad all you want, I'm right. If we left Saddam alone, he'd have finished off the Kurds. And, btw, you might want to educate yourself on how EVERYONE, including the Iraqi government, says what Saddam did was genocide. You can turn your nose up at the gassing of 10k civilians. I'm not going to.
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2010/03/08/1988-Kurdish-massacre-labeled-genocide/UPI-934 71268062566/
"Innocent people never deserve to die, and there's a lot of killing going on all over the world, and we don't do fuck all about it."
Not being able to save the entire world isn't a reason not to save part of it. That's not an argument, it's an excuse not to do the difficult thing and go to war.
On the post: NYT Former Exec Editor Misrepresents Bradley Manning
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "chance to fish in a sea of secrets"
Again, yes, they lied. That isn't a reason to not go to war with Iraq, it's simply a reason to think our govt. lies.
"Sorry, Dark Helmet, but you're just wrong. Even FactCheck.org disagrees with you;"
Bullshit. That link actually says there WERE WMDs in Iraq, but they were from before the Gulf War, which is a meaningless distinction. Iraq said there were none. They lied. Period.
"If the war "had to" happen, why did we end Desert Storm before finishing the job?"
That's the right question, and the answer is that we should NOT have ended the war. We should have finished the job then and removed an international gangster from office.
"The Iraq war was unnecessary."
You can doom the Kurds to genocide if you wish. I choose not to because I don't believe in genocide.
Beyond that, I listed the four ways the UN decides that a country has lost its sovereignty. You didn't disprove a single one of them for the obvious reason that are not dis-provable. The war was a just one.
On the post: NYT Former Exec Editor Misrepresents Bradley Manning
Re: Re: Re: "chance to fish in a sea of secrets"
That may all be true, but none of it really matters. They said they didn't have WMDs, when in fact they did, period, paragraph, full stop. Besides, this is simply one of the FOUR tests the UN has for when a nation loses it's sovereignty, but at least you've admitted Iraq failed that tests. The other tests are as follows.
1. Violates the non-proliferation treaty - FAILED
2. Acts as an aggressor upon other nations in war - FAILED
3. Engages in international gangsterism/terrorism - FAILED
4. Engages in acts of genocide - FAILED
You can criticize the American government for scare-mongering, war-mongering, and lying, and you'd be right on every count, but none of that is an argument against going to war with Iraq. That war HAD to happen, and we mistaked our way into being on the right side of history on that one....
On the post: NYT Former Exec Editor Misrepresents Bradley Manning
Re: "chance to fish in a sea of secrets"
Wait...what? There wasn't a total lack of WMD. There was a total lack of nuclear weapons (though there was evidence that Saddam in fact DID have a nuke program several years before the invasion and he buried it in the sand once he knew the inspectors were on their way in). If you want to say the government scare mongered the public to whip up support for the war, I won't disagree with you, but let's not pretend that the Saddam regime both wasn't in possession of chemical and biological weapons programs (in fact, he'd used them against the Kurds in his own land) or that he didn't absolutely have to go....
On the post: Case Study: Band Embraces Grooveshark And Catapults Its Career
Re: So... money into promotion works.
On the post: Professional Boxer Gets Trolled On Twitter, Shows Up At Guy's House
Re: @ "not unlike the kind of thing we see in our own comments section from time to time."
Now that that's out of the way, you want to apologize for the constant demeaning comments, including your odd use of "Timmy", or is this apology going to be completely one-sided?
On the post: PETA Goes After Assassin's Creed For Its Depiction Of Whaling; Ubisoft Responds With A Heaping Dose Of Sarcasm
Re: PETA Reminds StarCraft Players That Zerglings Have Feelings, Too