Ex-Commander Says Iraq Effort Is ‘a Nightmare’

[Chaossaber314]

Quote by: Grandpa Sometimes I wonder just what in the hell nunez is talking about. The US has, since its inception, utilized "genocidical, human-rights repressing, dissent-intolerant" methods of social control. In fact, that's what warfare itself generally implies.

Typically not internally as the reference was drawn toward Iraq, and certainly not in modern times.

We don't exactly keep running around digging up mass graves of political dissidents killed by the CIA, Secret Service, etc.

Whether or not the US should have invaded Iraq is another issue to debate, but I think trying to draw a comparison between Saddam Iraq and the Current Day US is a stretch at best and dishonest at worst.

[rmnunez]

Not all wars are in genocidical pursuits. Genocidical relates to an intent behind conduct aimed at erradicating an ethnic or racial group. Warfare may be premised on such an aim, but not always is, when war is aimed at erradicating a people for their ethnic or racial characteristics, then it is recognized as particularly wrongful. Do you really think the US intervened in Iraq to erradicate Iraqis for ethnic or racial reasons? Think Yugoslavia was bombed because they wanted to eliminate Serbs? Vietnam was about getting rid of these Asians?

[grandpa]

Quote by: Chaossaber314 Typically not internally as the reference was drawn toward Iraq, and certainly not in modern times. We don't exactly keep running around digging up mass graves of political dissidents killed by the CIA, Secret Service, etc.

Well, genocidal or ethnic cleansing behavior needn't only be "internal." We're finding this out about Iraqi Kurds for example. The government of Turkey (with considerable US support) considers them to be "external," but would probably like to eliminate them wherever they are.

Grandpa h.

[grandpa]

Quote by: rmnunez Not all wars are in genocidical pursuits. Genocidical relates to an intent behind conduct aimed at erradicating an ethnic or racial group.

I will not re-hash the debate in great detail, but genocidal behavior needn't only apply to ethnic
or even national "groups."

According to Wikipedia, Article 2 of the CPPCG defines genocide as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."

Of course, "religious" group may be a misleading term, as not all ideologically-linked groups need be religious.

Grandpa h.

[rmnunez]

The term genocide is derived from "genes", a genetic source. Inasmuch as individuals aren't born with religious or political beliefs, persecuting them for such beliefs wouldn't be genocide.

The only exception I can think of is with Judaism and its strong genetic element. Other religions are a matter of faith and can be adopted, converted to or assimilated by others regardless of their ethnicity.

[thx1138]

Sorry for shifting off topic but I have some questions for rmnunez.

What are your views on the North American Union and how do you feel about all citizens of the U.S., Mexico, and Canada being required to carry Radio Frequency Identification "RFID"?

Seems with your pro-bush foreign policy tendencies you might like to see this come about.

In reply to this comment..

The term genocide is derived from "genes", a genetic source.Inasmuch as individuals aren't born with religious or political beliefs, persecuting them for such beliefs wouldn't be genocide. The only exception I can think of is with Judaism and its strong genetic element. Other religions are a matter of faith and can be adopted, converted to or assimilated by others regardless of their ethnicity.

How do you feel about the Armenian genocide, does that qualifiy as genocide in your mind?

[grandpa]

Quote by: rmnunez The term genocide is derived from "genes", a genetic source. Inasmuch as individuals aren't born with religious or political beliefs, persecuting them for such beliefs wouldn't be genocide.

Actually, accoridng to Wikipedia,
"The term 'genocide' was coined by Raphael Lemkin (1900-1959), a Polish-Jewish legal scholar, in 1943, from the roots γένος genos (Greek for family, tribe or race) and -cide (Latin - occido - to massacre)."

(Wikipedia cites the following link: EuropaWorld 15/6/2001 Raphael Lemkin)

And, as I already mentioned, it has always been a broad term to describe the violent elimination of any group (again, look at Article 2 of the CPPCG). For a clearer example, it's well known that Nazi Germany didn't solely engage in "Genetic Engineering," but in the elimination of many kinds of groups in its genocide campaigns. Of course, victims of genocide campaigns aren't the least bit concerned what you label the campaigns.

Grandpa h.

[rmnunez]

Never heard of this RFID, what are the advantages? If it will enable Canadians, Mexicans and USers to more freely move about their countries, I'd support the idea. I suspect its just a novel concept being promoted by whoever is going to make money issuing the new ids and tracking the 'issuees'.

The massive slaughter of Armenians qualifies as a genocide because it was aimed at erradicating a people based on innate characteristics. This is the fundamental qualifying feature for genocide -you must be born with the feature they seek to erradicate. Killing communists, monarchists, environmentalists or pacifists -because you hate people who think that way, is not genocide -even if you kill them all (or lots of them).

[thx1138]

Never heard of this RFID, what are the advantages? If it will enable Canadians, Mexicans and USers to more freely move about their countries, I'd support the idea.

Well one advantage is that if all citizens are required to keep a card with an RFID (Radio-frequency identification) it will allow them to be tracked.

RFID Journal - RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) Technology News & Features

A crude system like this was used during WWII by Germany and developed by IBM for the tracking of people. At that time numbers were used on the arms of the people being tracked.

[thatoneguy00]

THe title of this thread states that this is an ex-commander, makes me think that he probably is an ex commander because he had no clue how to get the task completed, why are we listening to an ex commander ?

[rmnunez]

why are we listening to an ex commander?

Those who are, do so because he says its a nightmare and they think so too.

That tracking chip stuff sounds like something aimed at firing-up fringe elements of the Ruby Ridge/Waco variety who likely anticipate the government's agents tracking their individual movements at all times. I doubt any government has much interest in any of our individual movements so I couldn't care less, but we do have the technology and it sounds like this could actually be done. I'd advocate using something like this with immigrant seasonal workers so that when their visa expired they could be tracked and invited to leave, and to keep them at the general location where they'd been invited to work.

[grandpa]

Quote by: rmnunez Those who are, do so because he says its a nightmare and they think so too.

Or maybe because it's newsworthy. Do you think such people are totally irrelevant?

Quote by: rmnunez That tracking chip stuff sounds like something aimed at firing-up fringe elements of the Ruby Ridge/Waco variety who likely anticipate the government's agents tracking their individual movements at all times.

It is pretty eye-opening how some of the most paranoid-sounding predictions become horrible realities. But we shouldn't be surprised. Orwellian "dysptopias" have occured, and I'd say are currently in existence; kept at bay only by people with decent impulses.

Sometimes the mainstream is the fringe.

Grandpa h.

[rmnunez]

Such people aren't "totally irrelevant", they're just not as relevant as they think they should be.

Think about what it would take to monitor the daily movement of just 300 million RFID chips. And what would they be monitoring them for? I don't think the government should be monitoring my daily movements, what other people are around me. But it sounds like an impossible task when multiplied by the entire population of a continent.

This RFID paranoia is just the latest phobia among those fearful of black helicopters and secret world government. They tell us this 'echelon' supercomputer is tracking every electronic message, all cell-phone calls and all emails, looking for key terms like "terrorist" or "revolution" and then tagging these and anyone they communicated to forever trying to reconstruct some conspiracy. I guess so, but we've got no evidence this actually is going on or ever has.

[Zeebadee]

Quote by: rmnunez They tell us this 'echelon' supercomputer is tracking every electronic message, all cell-phone calls and all emails, looking for key terms like "terrorist" or "revolution" and then tagging these and anyone they communicated to forever trying to reconstruct some conspiracy. I guess so, but we've got no evidence this actually is going on or ever has.

Why don't you test it out by sending a few suspicious messages to some of your friends? Make it sound like you're planning something big.

[rmnunez]

How do you know I haven't?

[Muser]

Quote by: rmnunez This RFID paranoia is just the latest phobia among those fearful of black helicopters and secret world government. They tell us this 'echelon' supercomputer is tracking every electronic message, all cell-phone calls and all emails, looking for key terms like "terrorist" or "revolution" and then tagging these and anyone they communicated to forever trying to reconstruct some conspiracy. I guess so, but we've got no evidence this actually is going on or ever has.

Either someone hasn't been keeping up with the required reading or I've suddenly lost the English language and completely misunderstood what you wrote. The NSA has been wiretapping and conducting surveillance operations for decades; suggest reading The Puzzle Palace for an extremely well-researched, indepth look at the origins of the NSA. This was published in 1982 and blew the cover, so to speak, off this ultra-secret spying organization. Good place to start.

Fast-forward to today's headlines: use your powers of google-fu and read up on NSA warrantless wiretapping, FISA, Protect America Act of 2007, Russell Tice, Hepting v AT&T, Mark Klein, the TALON program, S.1959[1]

Look across the landscape, man. Thinking all of this is reserved strictly for "foreign terrorists" is the height of naivety. Or something else I'm too polite to mention.

[1] Anyone wanna bet it won't pass the Senate?[2]
[2] Didn't think so

[grandpa]

Quote by: rmnunez Think about what it would take to monitor the daily movement of just 300 million RFID chips.

This is a typical example, but Nazi Germany did a pretty good job of monitoring millions of people, as do most governments as they exist. These RFID chips would just make it easier.

Grandpa h.

[grandpa]

Quote by: Muser Either someone hasn't been keeping up with the required reading or I've suddenly lost the English language and completely misunderstood what you wrote. The NSA has been wiretapping and conducting surveillance operations for decades; suggest reading The Puzzle Palace for an extremely well-researched, indepth look at the origins of the NSA.

He also forgets that, in certain moments of US history, people have been punished if their language is a bit harsh against the state (it probably happens more often than we're led to believe). And I'm sure they prioritize monitoring the most suspect people.
If the government had its way, your real identity would be your social security number, credit report, voting record, criminal record, etc. Nothing else would be considered. Fortunately, we're not all totally duped into thinking that way; though "we" may be operating toward that ultimate goal. It seems to be all over the place now, but it could get worse.

Look both ways before you cross the street, and not just for cars.

Grandpa h.

[rmnunez]

I recently read they are going to release thousands of convicted drug dealers across the US because its been found the Federal Sentencing Guidelines discriminate against blacks (or crack dealers). Perhaps this is to make room for the thousands of Bush critics whose language exceeds whatever NSA parameters.

[thx1138]

Quote by: rmnunez I recently read they are going to release thousands of convicted drug dealers across the US because its been found the Federal Sentencing Guidelines discriminate against blacks (or crack dealers). Perhaps this is to make room for the thousands of Bush critics whose language exceeds whatever NSA parameters.

You maybe be on to something there.