crwtom

If Joe Blow from across the street throws a dance and grill party to comemorate the Oklohoma City bombing or Pear Harbor that is one thing. Ignoring a certain amount of disturbed nut cases around us is part of living in a society with free expression and all that. This, however, is supposedly THE national event, taking place in the national capital, government organized and representative for the country. So basically we ARE ALL part of the event, and the event IS repersentative of us. There is no "if you don't like it stay home" - there's only "if you don't like it find yourself another country". The people whose judgment led to this fucked-up and convoluted idea are the ones in power to use the same judgement to start wars, to put hundreds of thousands in harms way, and to handle the security of hundereds of millions. Good night, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

I’d say Prove it. Jesus did. Talk is cheap. Minore permutation: Jesus did nothing but cheap talk - prove the opposite Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

Quote Because the evidence does not support the notion that the authors were insane. Quote There are also tons of stories and written accounts from those times about roman and greek gods. Northern European tribes had a their tales (actually pretty cool ones) about their ghosts, demons and gods, and, of course, the different facetts of Hinduism have such a huge variety of gods from the the big encompassing ones to the domestic pet gods that you could a telephone directory with them. You cannot prove that any of these story teller are insane. Therefore all they say is true and you have to believe in EVERY ONE of these gods. Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

Exactly the point you have been missing for the last X amount of posts. My preference? Totally irrelevant here! Just make up your mind and check ONE box. I don't care which one. I find it sad how low your oppinion of the effectiveness of the US justice system appears to be - that you think all legal principle that have carried this nation "through the fire" for centuries should be cast aside. Here the Young Judgement against Reid that has been circulated again recently by email chain letters (or glorifications thereof) In any case, this guy was effectively dealt with strict adherence to due process: The judge definitely made his check in the box. No POW status whatsoever was recognized and even dismissed as an absurdity. The guy was give no more status than a common criminal. He was found guilty by due process and was thus eliminated from society. The US did not break any of its own rules, did process this as routinely as possible, and imposed a senetence as just as iot gets. He was treated as common criminal by the letters of the book. As a result there's absolutely no way he will ever rise to the status of a hero or martyr - he was effectively neutralized and eveyr aspect of his ambitions. Nobody cares a flying wet dirt about him anymore. As many here on this forum I grew up in a country that had some serious problems with domestic terrorism for decades. Many of the blunt panic reactions I see in the US now sound like deja-vu's from the times in my childhood when terrorism was just on the rise. The nature and concepts of terrorism also made it into our government classes in high school. I remember learning as 15 year old its basic principle: Terrosits are of course too few in number and to short on resources to overthrow a government - however, they can count on getting some general population sufficiently upset about their or another government so they will take a much broader action. How do you get them upset. Well, you start attacks against the government that will provoke it into defensive actions. Most of these defensive action will have substantial potetial to be viewed negtively by a population - anyhting from restriction in civil liberties to violent or military actions of the government. Moreover, taking actions outside of its own set of principles of due process is something one would expect a government to do when it is on the brink of its own destruction. Thus, a hadnful of crminals can generate the public image of a society and government in desparation and near desintegration. This was the officially formulated strategy and philosophy within for example the German RAF, and I'm sure within a few more terrorist organizations around the world. In many western countries it was eventually realized (after the initial paics) that the justice system in place is working just fine, and affording terrorists more stature than common crimials does more harm than good. Whether islamic terror oragnizations have such a strategy as clealry formulated we can only suspect, and the populus they try to impress or disgruntle is obviouly not (or only secondarily) the US popultaion. The effect or attmepted effects on the muslim populations are, however, not hard to see and understand. Hundreds of Millions, perhaps billions, of muslim in the world are on the fence, sceptical and ambivalent what to think about the extremists that claim their religion and the western reaction to them. The side they will eventually tilt and drift towards is the real war. This shadows in magnitude anything that was there before. Gitmo would be considered a success for a terrorist organization with the above described political strategy. Gitmo has essentially no significant impact on the functionality of terror organizitaion. No Gitmo will prevent future terror attacks any better than regular intelligence gathering and law enforcement. However, it pushes all the right button in an ambivalent muslim population and, more and more, in parts of a US population. Once apprehended a treatment of terrorist suspects as crimials suspects as in the Reid case and subjecting them to a sober routine process is inifinitely more effective. That of course opens the other can - who do you find the terrorists, and I mean the real ones, not a broad and indefinite assembly of remotely possible suspects. Military action with clear cause as in Afghanistan should of course be part of the repertoire. (which was fought on the cheap and slow, I suppose, to save resources for the already planned megalomaniac world-reconstruction-experiment in Iraq). Terrorists, however, are not bound to countries and can move very quickly. (Eg Osama had no problem moving his operation from Sudan to Afghanistan, after Egytian crack-downs). Unless you have a major accumulation of terrorists in one country and know you can take them very swiftly by surprise, an invasion and even occupations of another country in a classical military fashion are pretty pointless exercise (and of course that was never the reason in Iraq). Also Gitmo will do nothing - or no more than the regular legal capabilities - to find terrorists. War on terrorism is an extremely fluid, scattered, and sophisticated animal with innumerous moving parts ranging from interntaional weapons trades, money shuffling, myrads of foreign intelligence agencies, political propaganda, infomation gathering and misinformation spreading, etc etc. Blunt tools such as invasions or dentention camps other naive conceptions aremuch more likely to help it than to beat it. The real big problem that the US has always had and, looking at the way things are going, will continueto have it the darth of human intelligence. Quite possibly this becase the US never had to deal with domestic organized terrorism for many decades and was in a narrow minded cold war mode for much too long. In any case it is breathtaking and incomprehensible how blind and an ill-organized the most powerful nation on earth is, when it comes to probably the most important tool in the war on terrorism. (After many years this being the obvious even the dim-wit in the WH acknowledges that) Also here detention camps and vaguely justified invasions do serious damage to the US intelligence's capabilities to correct a very bad situtation. Human intelligence are for most part foreign nationals who are in the system of potentially hostile governments or organizations. They usually expose themselves to pretty dangerous risks to gather and pass on information, and they really don't have to do that. While getting paid big $'s is good incentive it is still unlikely that they will volunteer if they don't (at least a little) believe in what they are doing. Now really, who would put his/her life on the line for a nation that has bombed out their neighbors and many parts of their city, that is putting their fellow contry men into detention camps, and a bunch of other such things? Somewhat analogous to human intelligence also the corporation of other governments - such as Pakistan. Even if there are willing to cooperate they can do so only as long as the disgrutlement in their own population does not boil over into a possible revolution. Pakistan, for one, is getting closer and closer to that edge. OK I REALLY should stop now and do something productive Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

so what are we talking about here - criminal suspects or prisoners of war? In case of the former - are we talking about one that is supposed to have been already found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and is awating punishment, or just a criminal suspect awaiting trial and determination of guilt or innocence. In case of the latter, when would the "hostile actions" be over and the former combatant be repatrianted and released. Which "hostile actions" exactly are we talking about and how is their temination defined? Or perhaps do they have a newly invented status of "generic evil-doer" in which case you can switch between any of the above at any time during an argument and however it pleases you? Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

I can't believe there are still people out there entering this type of debate and committing the most elementary logical fallacies . As I posted somewhere earlier I am a firm believer that the universe was created by in the Marxomosian Trinity in exacyly 723.45 days and was the result of a lost bet of them with a distant uncle of theirs. Nobody could prove me wrong. Therefore my theory must be taught in schools as a valid alternatve ! All biologists working at half-way respectable research institutions base their knowledge on evolution. This is really 101 stuff, taught in every introductory biology class of univeristies. Take that away and you can forget about modern biology altogther. Here I actually do agree very much. Science is a continuing struggle for better undertanding the world we live in, and conceptualizing, predicting und causally explaining the things we (reproducably) measure in it - by anything from a rigorous experiment to just looking at it. Continuously scientists produce new experimental data that needs to be fit into old concepts - if it doesn't the concept has to be revised or expanded. Sometimes, even without new data, people find better and more efficient ways to explain and summarize into one theory past experiments, very often by destroying "hidden" invalid preconceptions in the old theories (eg the absoluteness of time preceeding special relativity). Religion could not be more different. It rigidly puts one book (one of many, and one that is almost entirely uncorroborated) as the only truth and the end of all wisdom into place. Any questioning and hypothesis testing --- a day-by-day routine in science --- is deemed as blasphemie and people have been burned on the stake for it. It also offers absolutely no better understanding of the world around you. If you invent some mysterious entity XYZ and shovel all that you don't know into the box "Becasue XYZ wants it so" you haven't done any explaination. For example, Q:"Why does a stone drop to the ground" A:"Because XYZ wants it to be on the ground"; Q:"Why does it rain from the clouds" A:"Because XYZ makes it rain from there" Q:"How does the engine of my car work?" A:"Through XYZ's wisdom, which is incomprehensible to mortals. Q:"Why do we exist?" A:"Because XYZ created us" Not only do these answer not give any explaination - they actually try to intimidate and threaten with punishment if you try to ask further. Yes, one should teach more the way science works and how that is different fom the way religion works. You can only (dis)prove a question that in itself is well defined. There is no definition of any reasonable rigor of what this "God" thing is supposed to be. Hence the entire question is pointless. Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

as long as you don't affect my life I don't care - thiis is a free country and people believe in a lot of strabnge things without delivering the beginning of proof (... the wild conspiracy theories of the several taxi drivers and bar flies I had to listen to at least started out from real people). The sad reality though is that christians do try to imprint their phantasies onto common good and try to surround other with their sets "dos" and "don'ts". .. sounds dangerous. I try to use my eyes when I walk. That's OK. You can also stick pins into a Voodoo doll with my name on it. It should have about the same effect. so first of all I have to believe that I am threatended by that thing you call "sin" - I guess, because I am by default a bad boy and/or could not prevet myself from doing thing that are evil by someone's concocted standards. Or maybe I already am evil without doing anything just because I was born and am a human being. (I could never figure out which one it is) Then I have to be eternally grateful to a spook because the dude made some sacrifice and, as a result, through some totally incomprehensible magic and invisible chain of events all my dues are paied for. I suppose, of course, only if I submit my soul to that spirit. Good grief! ... this is one hell of a star cruise of a guilt trip - one I would never want to be on. I can decide for myself what I think is the right or wrong thing to do with my life - the word "sin" does not exist in my vocabulary .. it is void of any meaning. I certainly don't feel in any danger of becoming a "slave" of this or any other "bad habits". The paranoid phobia of one's own deep-down "immorality" (by whatever standards) seems to be a propelling reason for many to take on religion as a sort-of self-medication. How many religious people have I met who told me they had problems with substance abuse, promiscuity, masturbation, nasty thinking about others, etc, and were somehow relieved by religion? For me there are two possibilities, either I muster up the discipline myself to change my habits or I just redefine for myself a "bad habit" into an "OK habit" ... end of story ... no guilt trip needed. Finally, I definitely don't owe anything to any metaphysical being. Even if exitent, if this guy decides to slaughter his own son ... well then ... tough luck for him. I nevere told him to do so. I go through life without feeling of dept or guilt to anything or anyone, and define my own standards as I figure them myself. Your philosophy above doesn't sound anything like that. I do believe in sun sets - I can see them, and very much enjoy them. That makes me religious?? Are we pulling out the guilt and scare whip again? Just like those signs along the rural parts of some highways that warn you that hell is real and near and that you will fry in it if you don't repent and convert instantaneously. If I would put up an analogous sign for a cult that is less established than chritianity most people would seriously question my mental sanity. Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

though quite close ... those were east and west coast intellectuals that sent red state people to war (allow me for simplicity to consider the campus of the U of Chicago as part of that establishment) . Of couse one wouldn't consider the disicples of Strauss, Wohlstetter, etc has liberals. Nonetheless, the war was effectively instigated by ivy league egg heads who saw it as the adequate corollary to their polito-philosophical world thought experiments and ideological elaborations. It was intellectuals vs working class, alright - but all confined to the conservative types of each. Liberals of either flavor were hardly driving forces for (and unfortunately also not against) the path to war in either way. Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

Generally I like the idea of optimizing personal benefit through a risk - return analysis ... but I would certainly come to different conclusions I consider non-existence the far more likely scenario - especially since there's absolutely no tangible or coherent definition of this "God thing" really is, not to mention a tangible or coherent reason to assume such an existence. For me the return however in not neutral. If I only got the time between birth and death I want to experience it as crip and clear as possible, with a mind as open as possible, and experience the sensations for the reality I live in as intensly as possible - no matter whether "pleasant" of not. Given that the sum of my impressions and perceptions between these two points in time (birth/death) is all I am, there is no room for clutter or static in the channels in order to maximize benefit. Also for optimal return there is absolutly no tolerance to confine myself to some imaginative rules and conceptions of what I am supposed be about and what I am supposed to do with my life. For me, if I can't live free in my mind and need to be constantly surrounded by some "divine padding" I'd feel I was losing chunks of my life in a mental prison. I may never find out in any satisfactory approximation how I, humans and life really came about in the time I have but, at least, I'm not defining my life in as part of a made up fairy tale. From my suffocating recollection of some brief periond in my life where I was religious as well as the sensation of confinment, narrowness and submisson that I get aound religious arguments I'd consider thi s detrimental to my sense of quality of life. On the extreme often one would consider people with clinical delusional disorders or compullsive behavior to have a lower quality of life and to get less out of tit. I want to stay on the other extreme as much as possible ... for maximal benefit of course.

Think that Trudeau's bon mot for Iraq as a terrorist's Disneyland is a malicious exaggeration of reality? This tourist guide should make that idea quite a bit more concrete. Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

Iran. Hardly comparable to the war machine of the Warsaw Pact with the USSR nuclear super power at its center. At best, or rather worst, you could expect a reenactment of the eight year long aimless slaughter with Iraq as in the 1980's ... but even that is very unlikely. Iran has or should have its focus on developing its own economy, and the 80's war drained the country badly for nothing. Also sustaining an occupation of Iraq is entirely unthinkable for Iran. Further, it is not in Iran's interest to reunite the UN against itself with an openly aggressive action. Finally, the Bush Admin really tried on all conceivable excuses or "reasons" to invade Iraq - like a fashion chick would try on a gazillion shoes in a shoe store before buying any. Yet, they never came up with "protecting Iraq against an Iranian invasion" - that was to outlandish even for those guys. And this is not the only example in which the Bush Admin takes a historic "template" grossly out of context in oder to poorly immitate past grandeur. False applications with superficial understanding are a pretty good recipe for disaster. ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

A quote from the article that some of those house republicans should get into their skulls: "We aren't here trying to develop something in the sense of where the country should go with this issue. We're a reactive institution," O'Connor said in an Associated Press interview Monday. "We proceed case by case as they come to us, and not with any overarching objective that the court itself" has developed. ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

First off the DDR and CSSR were Soviet satellite states right from the end of the war. They did not "fall" to the Soviet's in the 1960's. What the Soviets did in 1953 and 1968 respectively was to use their tanks to suppress popular uprisings against existing and well established communist regimes. Those regimes came into power shortly after the war through massive pressures and often violent interventions of the Soviet occupational powers. The anti-democratic movements in West Germany after the war were minor and after the atrocities of the Nazis as well as the brutal methods of the Soviets in the DDR became more apparent to the public the political extremes were further marginalized. There were no significant internal threats against a democratic system, public order, or whatever you subsume under domestic tranquility. There were no unending strings of assassinations of politicians, and, other than "black market trading" and "coal theft", no escalations of serious crime. This can certainly not be said about Iraq. Even the preliminary government has only half a cabinet, high politicians get blown up at every corner, the full spectrum of radicals are having their input legally or violently, common crime abounds, public safety is a mess. All this despite the fact that this was supposedly a surgical war with little impact on public infra structure. The threats after WWII were from an external power, certainly not limited to Germany, basically unrelated to any problems with the west german democratic system or internal security, and would, obviously, remain as long as the Soviet regime existed. The threat was not that "Germany's stability would be shattered" but all of Germany, and together with it much of western Europe. There is no comparable external threat to Iraq. The two situations and threats are very different ones. Equating the two is, at best, a very sloppy (and, regrettably, very overused) way of arguing. ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

... and use the profits to buy your own cow. ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

Is there really evidence that (undergraduate) college students as a group are significantly more liberal than the general population of the same age ? Skimming through a bunch of polls as well as gathering my impressions at a very large University makes me think NO . Of course, as you climb up the academic ladder (graduate, post-doctoral, regular faculty) you will find less and less friends of, for example, the current administration. Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

There was virtually no "insurgency" in either Germany or Japan, despite the fact that WWII was many, many magnitudes more deadly, ferocious, and devastating. At least Germany had functional state governments only two years after the end of the war and a functional federal government after four years. The US could have easily pulled out 1948 or so if it had been only about the stability and democracy Germany. The only major reason US troops stayed in large numbers until recently was the threat of the Sovient Union, Eastern Block, and the "Cold War". Secondary and closely related were thing like the Marshall plan and other support to create also an economically strong ally at the iron curtain front as well as a useful trade partner. The situation in Japan was not very different - just replace "Soviet Union" with "Red China". Finally, I don't think US troops are in England to suppress an insurgency (like when they close the pubs too early) Interestingly much of the US presence in the Arab reigion, that ticked so many people off there, also had "Cold War" motivations - that is, to secure a southern flank against the Warsaw pact. So if you spin this a little you can eventually make Stalin resposible for 9/11. Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

... not so fast ... not so fast ... we're barely there that Confederate flags disappeared from state flags. The Georgia Legislature finally removed it with a lot of wincing in 2003, but the people of Mississippi decided in 2001 to keep a good sized confederate flag (ironically called "union square") in their state flag. Alabama's "Crimson cross of St. Andrew" also has some hard to overlook resemblance with the Confederate battle flag. Right now we should be content that burning a Confederate flag is not a capital crime (though it may draw a lynch mob) On another note - I really have to know this since my wife often gets desparate with me because I tend to use the wrong detergents for all sorts of stuff: Would it be considered a desecration of the flag if I washed it with Chlorox (rather than Woolite) and, as a result, bleach and bleed out the colors? Would they be able to prosecute me under the proposed constitutional amendment if I screw up in the laundry room? Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

so much for the myth that the Iraq invasion will inspire, spread, and sprinkle the spirits, ghosts and fairies of freedom and democracy around the region. How much does it take to put one and one together, how much does it take to learn from history? Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

As far as I understand there was -technically- a ban on long knives (and other such potential weapons) in West Berlin until 1990. This was a rule imposed by allied occupational powers in 1945, and since, technically, Berlin remained occupational zone until the 1990 reunification that ban also stayed in place. Of course, most people didn't know about this, and certainly didn't observe or enforce it. On the gun side, Germany has pretty restrictive laws that are rarely questioned. (mostly as a result of RAF terror aera in the 70's and 80's, but also a reaction to its own violent earlier history). Related or unrelated to this, firearm homicides per capita are 17 to 30 times higher in the US than in Germany. (one # from a pro-gun site, other from a pro-regulation site) Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

remember seeing a docu on TV a couple of years ago that reported about a guy who would often tell his family and friends that he never got comfortable working in the towers after the '93 bombings ... the guy died 9/11/01. Personally, I don't think I would want to have the architectural equivalent of an extended middle finger as a tomb stone for my grave - after all, the site is still a huge cemetery. T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

We're on the same wavelength here. The problem is psychological, I think. If they are not allowed to take the "easy way" out and blame gun control, then instead, they have to turn their attention inward - onto themselves. They would have to blame how adults failed to give this child proper guidance and channel his energy into positive things. They would have to blame their own Reservation management system for failing to address the kid's problems and needs. They would have to blame their own culture of alcoholism, drugs and violence.. yeah right - it's not about guns at all - it would have made no difference had the kid gone into the school with a sling shot, a steel pipe, a carving knive or a tomahawk. Same outcome - at least in the broader spiritual and psychological of self expression of anger and all that. The dead - they will understand the troubles of the mind and that not really the bullets are to blame that busted up their bodies. Gimme a break! I mean, it's really a curious picture when staunch gun advocates get all sobby about the social resposibilities in regard to mental well being. It's only because we don't cure the mentally disturbed? Any idea how many messed up people there are out there that phase in and out of delusions and paranoias and ride the edges of self-destruction - especially, in the frayed and disintegrated social environment of this culture. Sure, it'd be a noble goal to make all of these tens and hundreds of thousands of nut jobs stable, content and resposible citizens - but it's a pipe dream in another galaxy. Meanwhile, non-regulation of guns is also non-regulation for these people. Anyone whose paranoias, phobias, depressions and what not spill over into some form of destructive insanity, even if just temporarily, can act upon it instantaneously, without effort thanks to the ease and simplicity of using a gun. At least for the first couple of kills the act is abstract -more like the acting out of the mind- thanks to the convenient remote operation. Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

It's about dead people, and a child who killed them with great EASE - no more than a point and a squeeze. The physical excersion involved in offing all those people with a baseball bat could have had a positive effect on a depressive state of mind - you know, better circulation, endorphines, and all that. But, hey, what can we do - we've slid into the age of the lazy, fat and cowardish couch potatoes, everything has to work with the click of a remote control or the squeeze of a trigger. Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

It is especially mindblowing when GWB sais that the "executive and legistative brach have to err on the side of life". These are exactly the two branches of government that no frigging buisness intervening in an individual legal case. We are governed by people who don't appear to have the first clue about the most basic principes of government - separation of powers, what each branch is stands for, due process, etc. It's probably no accident that the guy occasionally invents the "administrative branch" and other curiosities. In his words - that's "Extra sad". With this amount of overstepping of competence the judges circled the wagons and protected their branch - there was no way any of them - no matter what of political couleur - could have given in to this BS. Next to the violation of sepration of power and due process I'd find the violation of state rights the lesser evil (evil nonetheless). It'd be interesting to see though if this will create a split between the "process conservatives" and the "social conservatives" Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

as an individual case it's probably not important in larger scheme of things - as a legal precedence it may well be quite important from a number of legal perspectives. But that's where I agree with your qualms about involvement of the legislature . At this point, right in the middle of a process that should be the concern of only the judicial brach, the congress has absolutely no business of interfering. This runs broadside against all fundamental ideas of due process and separation of power. This is an issue where you can legitimately have any oppinion on - it's not hard to understand the point and believes of each side and from all I understand both Schiavo's husband and her parents want to do what's best, in their minds, for her. There's no right or wrong that's obvious to everyone - but there needs to be a way to resolve it. For this purpose society has put a laws and courts in place that lay out general and uniform principles by which such situation are to be resolved and judges who do their best to understand and interpret them. Like it or not, this IS now a matter of the courts and judges only. The discussions how dead she really is and those contests about who has seen more people in a vegetative state of whatever are entirely irrelevant at this point of the process. If you don't like how this one went write a letter to your congress woman to tell her to make another law the NEXT time around that applies universally to all other cases and is agreed upon by a majority of voters or reps. Granted that formally congress left the decision in the hands of the courts - and only opened up the channel to the federal system. The intent to disrupt and take sides in a judical process of one individual case was, however, quite unconcealed. It is equally obvious that the purpose was to make polical hay with the case. Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

well ... read back a few posts in this "American thread" and you will find that the first blame was assigned to those who had been shot to pieces - that they had only themselves to blame - before any facts were known. Whatever kneejerk narrow mindedness you're talking about - there's certainly no deficit of it on this side . To me the more remarkable fact surrounding the story is the continued success of the Italian intelligence officers in the undercover negotiations much in contast to the total impotence of the supposedly so mightly US intelligence apparatus. The fact that the Italians could get their hostages free but not the US must have been a thorn in the eyes of many US agencies (- and may even fuel those conspiracy theories). The abismal state US intelligence is in, in particular with respect to negotiation capabilities, is pretty much a direct consequence of the moronic bluntness of US foreign policy and a commander in chief who isn't on top of anything. Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true