War.... (Historical: 9/11 discussion thread)

[Baron Munchausen]

quote:

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Originally posted by dmm:
I can't help but rebut some comments posted here. Here goes:
... <snip> ...
5) To say that Islam is really a nice, sweet religion is pure BS. Maybe this is true of most Muslims in the West, but it certainly isn't true worldwide. Fact: there is not one Muslim country in the whole world that has real freedom of religion. Even in relatively progressive Muslim countries like Egypt or Saudi Arabia, Muslims who convert to other religions are routinely murdered and the government does nothing. Maybe the majority of Muslims in those countries don't condone that behavior, but they don't stop it either. Their reaction is never more than "tsk tsk" and a slap on the wrist. The Islamics worldwide who hate America don't hate us because of our wealth or our power -- they hate us for the same reason that they hate the Israelis: because we are not Muslims, plain and simple!

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Yeah, and how is this different from assorted Christians in the not-very-distant past hating everyone who wasn't a Christian? And specifically the exact same narrow denomination of Christian as themselves... Until the 18th Century there was not one 'Christian' country that allowed freedom of religion. You were either a member of the state denomination of Christianity or you were murdered in a public ceremony to scare everyone else into submission. It took a long time for any degree of tolerance to emerge. Meanwhile there were authorized conquerers chanting about 'Christianizing the heathens' while slaughtering, raping, and pillaging the people of the 'new' world. Hardly any less horrible than the Muslim "Jihads"...

Both of the "Monotheist" religions claiming to derive from Judaism are responsible for an incredible catalog of crimes, too many to even begin to list, many of which would qualify for the labels 'crimes against humanity' and/or 'genocide' today. Yet, there have also been both 'Christians' and 'Muslims' through history who actually read their scriptures and recognized that their religion said things like 'do not kill'. Islam may not be a "nice, sweet" religion but it's no more responsible for lunatics who use it to justify their lunacy than Christianity is to blame for the brutal conquest of the Americas or thousands of other crimes committed by criminals trying to use it as justification. Cultures have phases of development, much like people. Just think of Muslims today as Medieval Christians and you'll see there's no real difference between the religions.

[Puke]

knockout gas? why not happy gas? let us all get high on our flights, and i bet people would not hate flying as much. locking the cockpit aint a bad idea, but where would they pee? airlines ARE cheap, and another bathroom is probably a bit much to ask.

as for explosive decompression, its only explosive when you have gaping holes ripped into the plane. and low calibur sidearms, especially with frangible or hollowpoint rounds, would probably be stopped by the fusealage. tazers, shock batons, KO gas (even in a canister delivered by the skycop) or gel rounds would be perfectly effective. I would stand by bullets tho, they have a long track record for getting the job done, and sometimes the risks are sufficient to mandate their use.

hell, i dont care if he only has an expandable ASP baton, just having the guy on the plane would be an effective measure. its called a deturant force, it does not matter if he is passenger 47 or not, as long as he is one more obsticle that potential hijackers would have to deal with.

[Baron Munchausen]

quote:

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Originally posted by dmm:
I can't help but rebut some comments posted here. Here goes:
1) Israel's military occupation of the West Bank began after they defeated a bunch of enemies, INCLUDING THE PALESTINIANS, who tried to push them into the sea. Question for all you SEIV players: What do you do with a defeated enemy? Give him all his planets back, and no apology necessary?
2) This occupation has not been brutal, as alleged on this forum. In fact, the West Bank has seen unprecedented prosperity over the Last 34 years. The West Bank Palestinians are much wealthier than the Syrian or Jordanian Palestinians. And it wouldn't have gone on for 34 years if the PLO and other Palestinian Groups had not made it their mission to destroy Israel.
3) To compare the "intifada" casualties to the recent US deaths is pure BS. First, most of the intifada deaths either occurred during a riot or were assassinations of known terrorists (or harborers of terrorists). Innocent civilian deaths, although certainly tragic, have been a small minority. Second, the numbers of intifada deaths, innocent or otherwise, do not approach 30,000, not even after 34 years of supposedly brutal military occupation.
4) To compare the economic casualties of the intifada to the recent US destruction is pure BS. The whole West Bank isn't worth one World Trade Center tower.

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Now, to deal with your other comments (though this will appear before the comment on your final remark...)

You first four points actually are one single point. And not a pleasant one.

Actually, Israeli occupation begins in 1948. They NEVER HAD ANY RIGHT to the land to begin with. It's been one long invasion, just like the creation of the United States from the 'new' world, that just happened to have several million inconveniant natives. Do you challenge the historical record that the Palestinians had been living there for centuries? Or are they the wrong color to have rights to land they've occupied for centuries? They were trying to 'push them into the sea' because they CAME FROM THE SEA. They were invaders. The SE IV analogy is just as relevant on the other foot. How do you deal with an invader? Give him your territory with a smile and wander off to die? Or fight back?

The small technical differences between the Israeli occupation and some other historical parallels, that the Palestinians have not been slaughtered en masse but piecemeal, or that the people who are courageous enough to resist openly are more likely to get shot hardly makes it morally right. Living in this media-saturated age, they know they can't get away with open mass-murder. If not for the ubiquity of cameras, I have little doubt they'd find ways to reduce the population of Palestinians more quickly.

But you really betray the vulgar American mindset that makes people angry by your final comment. The 'value' of the West Bank is irrelevant. These people want the right to live their own lives, with self-determination and dignity, not performing menial labor for Israelis at pittance wages when their mood is good, and cowering in the ramshackle homes their wages can buy when their mood is bad. Human dignity is not about money, and having a lot of it doesn't make a stupid dork a better human being. Both Israelis and Americans are unable to deal effectively with the Arabs (of which the Palestinians are just one sub-division) precisely because they cannot think of them as anything but grubby primitives who don't know their place. Until this attitude changes, both nations are going to continue to have problems like the intifada and the WTC event. Not that such behavior is "justifiable" but it is pretty much inevitable when you oppress people that some of them will snap and start doing crazy things. Unfortunately, as usually happens with violence, the propogation is mostly random. The 'revenge' of some twisted true believer will end up hitting other innocents rather than the actual oppressor. The thousands of office workers in the WTC are hardly responsible for US foreign policy supporting Israeli conquest. I can only hope that the US does not continue the cycle, but takes considerable care to properly identify the individuals behind this WTC attack and acts intelligently to punish only those individuals.


[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 12 September 2001).]

[LazarusLong42]

Quick PBW note: PBW games have been set to turn over only after all turns have been uploaded, in case any players are unavailable. Also, the PBW front page has some links that may be useful in this time of crisis... although those same links are pretty much everywhere now.

LL

[geoschmo]

quote:

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Originally posted by Puke:
as for explosive decompression, its only explosive when you have gaping holes ripped into the plane. and low calibur sidearms, especially with frangible or hollowpoint rounds, would probably be stopped by the fusealage. tazers, shock batons, KO gas (even in a canister delivered by the skycop) or gel rounds would be perfectly effective. I would stand by bullets tho, they have a long track record for getting the job done, and sometimes the risks are sufficient to mandate their use.

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Dude, the reason they call it "explosive" decompression is that the hole starts out small, and gets bigger, real fast.

And even low velocity rounds will penetrate an airplanes fusealage. Commercial aircraft fuselages are designed with the least amount and lightest material available. It's not exactly reynolds wrap or anything, but is itn't much better. They aren't designed to stop bullets. A bullet that can't puncture an aircraft fuselage would break your skin to be sure, but it isn't going to have any stopping power against a person detemined to cause you bodily harm.

And even if you had the "magic bullet" that kills people and won't punch holes in the side of the plane, you haven't answered how one guy is going to stop a team of terrorists.

On at least one of the planes hijacked yesterday, the flight crew kept the cockpit locked, but opened it up when the terrorists started hurting stewardesses and passengers. What's to stop a aircop from succumbing to the same demand?

It's just not a workable solution. Sorry. That's why they stopped doing it, as much as the money reasons.

Skycops are just not an effective deterant against this kind of terrorism. They may make the passengers feel safer, but they don't actually make them safer.

Geoschmo

[This message has been edited by geoschmo (edited 12 September 2001).]

[Puke]

no. it might be explosive as you describe on a space shuttle, but there is not enough of a pressure differential on a commercial flight to rend the plane appart. the times where there have been problems is when something has taken a chunk out of the plane and the wind sheer has torn it appart. even if bullets are not used, there are plenty of non lethal methods a skycop could use, and even if he is not a superhero, the presence of one would help to discourage would be terrorists. sure they might give into the same pressures that caused the pilots to unlock the door, but its better than nothing. I think having a guy with a gas canister is the best idea anyone has had.

sufice to say, we dont have those now, and nothing we come up with is going to save the dead folks on those four airplanes. now is the time for us to become the pig of a nation that everyone hates us for. to help the political parties that we favor at the moment overthrow those that are currently inconvinent to us. now is when we should be working to dismantle ideologies that work against our best interests, and to setup new puppet governments that will hopefully serve us better than the Last batch. no matter how many kinder more sensitive advocates for individual rights chime up about basic human values, thats what we are going to do, and keep doing. America is an Empire, and so are all of our NATO allies. people only point to us in distaste because they dont like looking at themselves.

[Hotfoot]

Solutions to problems with the sleeping gas problem:

-ensure that the essential crew, pilots, co-pilots, navigators, all have an independant air supply in the case of an emergency. Even their drop-down oxygen masks could be modified for the job.

-give pilots catheder bags. I think there's a john near the cockpit anyway. You could seal off everything after that.

-if for some reason the pilots are incapacitated as well, use the regular update code I mentioned earlier. If the pilots get knocked out, autopilots take over and level the plane out and keep it locked at a specific "safe" altitude.