War Stories

Re: The US is Pathetic

endorendil — Tue, 20 May 2008 17:34:47 GMT

Rubma, thanks for that info. I can imagine that muslims are wealthier than the average in the US, as I mentioned muslims are recent immigrants in the US and will have a hard time getting in unless they are highly educated and/or wealthy. In Europe muslim immigration tends to be more likely to be poor and uneducated. This is not a consequence of European anti-muslim policies.

Re: The US is Pathetic

martincaruana — Sun, 18 May 2008 12:51:33 GMT

NUKE'M ???

Re: The US is Pathetic

Rubma — Thu, 15 May 2008 21:38:18 GMT

Apologies...I stand accused of not being factual in your world of anecdotes. And who the hell is UPNY42? You still have a chance to hunt-and-peck your way towards a witty retort worthy of a surface other than a shitter stall. Curious though...where did you learn that the majority is always right? Would deal a helluva blow to civil rights in this nation.

//signed//

Douchenozzle/lame player/asshole

Re: The US is Pathetic

Lash LaRue — Thu, 15 May 2008 20:49:58 GMT

"Right is right" is a good example of your hair-splitting,spin,parsing,unsupported inferences,irrelevant inclusions and sophomoric presentments of opinion as fact. More aptly put would be "Right Wing douchenozzle is a Right Wing douchenozzle". It's over. Contort some overwrought reply to self satisfy as to "got the last word". You're a lame player just like your asshole buddy UPNY42 with your forced non existent synonym contruct "majority/plurality = mob". Go spew against somebody else now. I'm done with you.

Re: The US is Pathetic

Rubma — Thu, 15 May 2008 10:18:41 GMT

So the only thing in your mind that would have made our undertakings righteous would have been the number of friends we brought with us? It would seem your definitions of worthy and unworthy depends on mob mentality. Right is right means nothing? Are you sure the views you express here are your own?

Re: The US is Pathetic

Lash LaRue — Thu, 15 May 2008 02:06:58 GMT

Look at the mess you've gotten us into NOW, Ollie.

Well done, Agent X-9.

Re: The US is Pathetic

Lash LaRue — Thu, 15 May 2008 02:03:49 GMT

Nothing "swift' was indicated or implied. The "we" could stand to be a hell of a lot more inclusive of other interested states than it's been for a long, long time.

Re: The US is Pathetic

Rubma — Tue, 13 May 2008 08:57:00 GMT

Keep your chin up then...after 60+ years of existence, the UN will one day improve beyond it's ability to generate paperwork and press conferences.

As for the "trackers", human intel takes a long time to develop. You don't just form up a coalition, walk into a lawless state, and expect to clean house of the trouble makers in one swift motion. Plan on being in it for the long haul.

Sounds incredibly similar to what we are doing already.

Re: The US is Pathetic

Lash LaRue — Mon, 12 May 2008 23:10:26 GMT

International co-operation via structures in place but under-utilized like The Arab League,The African Union and, yes, The UN to identify,isolate and render ineffectual The Bad Guys even if it means blockading the affected states so that the Noodniks don't get out while they're being tracked down and no help for them gets in. The "Trackers" should know that they're going in as cops and detectives, rather than as soldiers.

Wouldn't some real international co-operation be nice, for a change?

Re: The US is Pathetic

Rubma — Mon, 12 May 2008 09:40:54 GMT

I didn't even intend to suggest that our own nation was lacking a police force, with the largest prison population in the world...it's obvious we do some policing. And we have had several successes in finding terrorists and their supporters, and/or thwarting potential attacks. What I was pointing you towards was places such as Afghanistan, Somalia, and Iraq which really don't have a police force to combat terrorism. So in those situations, what are your alternatives to catching terrorists?

Re: The US is Pathetic

Lash LaRue — Mon, 12 May 2008 00:15:18 GMT

"assault"? Sheesh !

I forgot to mention earlier; I don't accept your contention that there is no police force here to deal with terrorism. If the FBI would stop fucking around with piddly shit like religious cultists and whatever the Hell else it is that they do; their staff and budget could be turned to the task. Many State Police forces have detective divisions and intelligence networks and co-operative and/or secondary unofficial relationships with other jurisdictions. Same for many Metro jurisdictions.

We got PLENTY cops. Can you DIG IT, .....MAN !

Re: The US is Pathetic

Rubma — Sun, 11 May 2008 21:59:55 GMT

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13733782/

Above is a story about the radicalization of Old Europe's inmates...

Arabs in the US:

"According to a 2004 telephone survey of a sample of 1846 Muslims conducted by the polling organization Zogby, the respondents were more educated and affluent than the national average, with 59% of them holding at least an undergraduate college degree.[51] Citing the Zogby survey, a 2005 Wall Street Journal editorial by Bret Stephens and Joseph Rago expressed the tendency of American Muslims to report employment in professional fields, with one in three having an income over $75,000 a year.[52]"

Re: The US is Pathetic

endorendil — Sun, 11 May 2008 21:29:45 GMT

sources: adherents.com for US figures, CSmonitor article for the numbers in europe.

Re: The US is Pathetic

endorendil — Sun, 11 May 2008 21:18:16 GMT

I think the approach of "Old" Europe is indeed better. They focus on police work to minimize terrorist attacks, which is a more difficult job than it is in the US because of the large immigrant populations from the Middle East (more chance for extremists to blend in) and the much closer and easier to traverse borders with Middle Eastern countries. They have a clearer understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian problem, and a more evenhanded approach as a consequence. They don't believe in handing their executive branch a blank check, trading their rights for security (they remember Franklin's quote, even it the GOP does not).

I'ld like to know why you say that muslims tend to be more middle class in the US than in Europe. Are there any statistics on that matter? It would make some sense, since there is a continual influx of poor, undereducated muslims into western European countries, whereas most muslims immigrant in the US are probably highly educated (doctors/engineers/...). But I don't have any data on this - do you?

I was also intrigued by your comment about the inmate population.

As far as I can tell, there are no data corroborating the assertion, but Muslim leaders do claim that about 60 to 70% of the French prison inmates are muslim. That would be 5 to 6 times as much as the rate in French society at large. Other countries in western Europe have similar high rates of muslims in jail, between 3 and 8 times that of the rate in the population at large. In some cases (especially at the lower end) it seems that these rates are more or less official.

So why does Europe prisons have 3 to 8 times as many muslims as you would expect?

One has to remember that European muslims are disproportionally African (usually black) and poor. The US prison population seems to have about 6 times as many blacks than in the general population. Perhaps this is more about race or economic circumstance than about religion? Hard to say. Surely it is hard to simply deduce that Europe jails muslims in order to fight terrorism.

But it gets stranger still. Not counting the US prisons in Guantanamo, Iraq, Afghanistan and god knows where else, muslims make up about 5 to 7% of the US prison population. That's low, but muslims make up only .5% of the US population. So, the US jails muslims disproportionally as well, even more so than France.

I'm not convinced that it's religious bias that causes the high rate of muslims in western prisons. In addition, the data show that the US has a higher discrepancy here than France. France's aggressive anti-terrorism policing does not seem to lead to a bigger bias against muslims than in the US, or at least it does not show in the prison population.

In addition, because the US simply jails many more people than France does, the incarceration rate of muslims in the US is much higher than in France. It would seem that France is a better place to be muslim, then.

So please, if there's anything backing up your comment on muslims being more middle class in the US, link it in. The stuff on the prison population doesn't help your point at all.

Re: The US is Pathetic

Rubma — Sat, 10 May 2008 21:48:18 GMT

Yeah...I got sensitive, I even shed a tear over your assault.

Moving on...I agree, terrorism is a police function. So what is your solution when a police force is lacking? By lacking I mean, non-existant. If not the military, then whom?

And no, I didn't recommend that you limit your news sources...just you may have to consider more than just your favorites. You would be amazed at how much the US makes the news on the three networks I mentioned in my last post. Tornadoes in the mid-west is news on the BBC. Our political primaries are reported on regularly on those same channels. Pretty cool to see that most of the programming on the channels such as the BFBS are American sitcoms. Our culture and our news is widely disseminated.