[quote]Sifu wrote:
The US should call his bluff. There are only a few refineries that are able to refine Venezualan heavy crude and most if not all of them are in the US. [/quote]
How are they going to call his bluff? Do you think the US government owns those refineries?
[quote]lixy wrote:
Sifu wrote:
The US should call his bluff. There are only a few refineries that are able to refine Venezualan heavy crude and most if not all of them are in the US.
How are they going to call his bluff? Do you think the US government owns those refineries?[/quote]
Do you honestly think that the US couldn’t force him to honor the court order?
They can call his bluff by saying go ahead stop selling us your oil. America is the most logical consumer of their oil.
One of the things that makes their heavy crude economicaly feasible to refine is the US is just across the gulf of Mexico from Venezuala. To sell to China or India they will have to discount significantly to cover the shipping costs and they will have to wait for new refineries that can handle heavy crude can be built in those countries.
So let Chavez cut off his nose to spite his face. Without oil money to spend on the poor his base of support will evaporate.
In the long run it will cost him less to pay up instead of losing his biggest customer. This is a lesson Chavez should learn from Fidel Castro.
[quote]orion wrote:
rainjack wrote:
I guess by your dodging the bet, you are as big a coward as your brothers-in-bomb-vests. You have yet to let me down. You keep validating my disgust at your existence.
People in bomb vests are cowards?
Bomber crews and artillery personnel are heroes?
[/quote]
They don’t have bombers or artillery in Europe’s arsenal?
[quote]lixy wrote:
Let’s get this straightened out once and for all:
So if someone were to crash a hijacked plane into the Taj-Mahal you would think it was a heroic act?
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
lixy wrote:
Let’s get this straightened out once and for all:
So if someone were to crash a hijacked plane into the Taj-Mahal you would think it was a heroic act?[/quote]
not coward != heroic (is not equal to)
not heroic != coward
The words coward and heroic are extreme opposites only. That is the problem with trying to define action with such linear, polar concepts. Besides this these words don’t mean anything.
There are neither heroic nor cowardly actions. All voluntary action is directed at furthering self-interest and thus cannot be defined in such manner by an outside observer, at least with any sort of relevance.
Question: Why did you use the Taj-Mahal in your example?
[quote]orion wrote:
pat wrote:
orion wrote:
pat wrote:
I said that they are not cowards, you claim I called them heroes.
I am not responsible for the voices in your head.
Plus, they do not target civilians, they target you and the people upholding your puppet regime.
[/quote]
So we are to presume that in your Olympian reality, those who sent mentally disabled women into markets, and blew them up from afar, are not cowards, and the markets were filled only with armed American warriors buying pet birds?
You are irreparably confuse. Abandon the moral crap–relative morlity again–because you are not capable of making a respectable moral judgment. You can be opposed to American policies, but for the sake of your readers, be honest for a change and make sense.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
pat wrote:
…
Here is the latest…
Not a single American.
Damn, they missed.
But it was “near” a miltary check point so that counts in the statistics as an attack on the military.[/quote]
I farted eastward toward Mecca. I guess that’s an attack on islam.
[quote]lixy wrote:
Sifu wrote:
The US should call his bluff. There are only a few refineries that are able to refine Venezualan heavy crude and most if not all of them are in the US.
How are they going to call his bluff? Do you think the US government owns those refineries?[/quote]
No what he means is we should stop buy the oil before he “cuts us off”. You gotta get the oil to the refineries.
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Question: Why did you use the Taj-Mahal in your example?[/quote]
Because extremists targeted our Twin Towers as a symbol of our country, this is a great symbol of Islam.
It is one of the most beautiful buildings in the world, built by a Moghul Muslim Emperor and I just thought it would piss some people off to think of it being destroyed.
He he.
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Question: Why did you use the Taj-Mahal in your example?
Because extremists targeted our Twin Towers as a symbol of our country, this is a great symbol of Islam.
It is one of the most beautiful buildings in the world, built by a Moghul Muslim Emperor and I just thought it would piss some people off to think of it being destroyed.
He he.[/quote]
Wanna piss off the Muslims? Send some jets to Jeruselum and bomb the crap out of the Dome of The Rock. That’d be better than pouring pig fat on the SOB’s.
It rightly belongs to the Jews anyhow.
[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:
orion wrote:
pat wrote:
orion wrote:
pat wrote:
I said that they are not cowards, you claim I called them heroes.
I am not responsible for the voices in your head.
Plus, they do not target civilians, they target you and the people upholding your puppet regime.
So we are to presume that in your Olympian reality, those who sent mentally disabled women into markets, and blew them up from afar, are not cowards, and the markets were filled only with armed American warriors buying pet birds? [/quote]
That’s not what RJ claimed. A person remotely detonating a bomb is NOT a suicide-bomber. That’s a bomber, period. RainJack claimed that suicide bombers are cowards, and that is a claim that doesn’t pass the test of common sense. When faced with an infinitely better equipped enemy (who invaded you, might I add), a coward would not even consider sacrificing his/her life. Snipers are infinitely more cowards than suicide bombers. People flying jets over regions where the most technologically advanced weapon they got is a Katyusha could be described as cowards in comparison.
This is like calling Baruch Goldstein (the Israeli who emptied an AK-47 on inside a mosque in Hebron) a coward. If a guy tackled Georges W. Bush and jumped off a bridge with him, he is NOT a coward. And if a person did the same thing to Moqtada al-Sadr, he is still NOT a coward.
You lot are being really silly about all this. Cowards do NOT fight. When attacked, they avoid confrontation, lock themselves up or flee. Describing suicide bombers in the context of Iraq as coward is simply knee-jerk “patriotic” reaction that defies logic.
[quote]lixy wrote:
You lot are being really silly about all this. Cowards do NOT fight. When attacked, they avoid confrontation, lock themselves up or flee.[/quote]
Exactly - suicide bombers, don’t fight. They attack unsuspectingly, and then they flee in a moment’s notice - they escape retaliation. The attack and flight from confrontation are contemporaneous - they are the same act. Suicide bombing is the ultimate form of “avoiding confrontation” - their victims never see it coming, they have no chance to defend themselves, and the suicide-bombers avoid ever having to confront their opponent.
By your own definition, suicide-bombers are cowards.
Lixy - never, ever claim to use “logic” coherently again. It is a crime against nature.
[quote]lixy wrote:
Sifu wrote:
The US should call his bluff. There are only a few refineries that are able to refine Venezualan heavy crude and most if not all of them are in the US.
How are they going to call his bluff? Do you think the US government owns those refineries?[/quote]
They will call his bluff by freezing his assets and letting the courts do their jobs.
Who owns the refineries is not relevant but if Chavez doesn’t want his oil going to the US he will be sitting on a lot of oil that no one else can use.
[quote]lixy wrote:
That’s not what RJ claimed. A person remotely detonating a bomb is NOT a suicide-bomber. That’s a bomber, period. RainJack claimed that suicide bombers are cowards, and that is a claim that doesn’t pass the test of common sense. [/quote]
You haven’t the sense to come in out of the rain. I highly doubt you should be the one testing fro common sense.
Suicide bombers, in the context of terrorist attacks (which is the only context this has been discussed), are indeed cowards. They rarely attack military personnel, preferring innocent women and children.
Keep defending your brothers, lixy. It fits you.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
Suicide bombing is the ultimate form of “avoiding confrontation” - [/quote]
No, you idiot! Avoiding confrontation is sitting on your ass while foreign troops roam your land. Using one’s own body as a bomb delivery medium cannot be considered cowardice. When you don’t have stealth fighters, the “human bomb” is the next most efficient use of explosive devices. It ensures maximum damage, and demonstrates that they value their cause more than their own life.
As opposed to GBU-27s and Tomahawks?
WTF? Defend themselves? It is the Americans who attacked the Iraqi, not the other way around.
You must be on dope to think building an explosive device, finding a way to carry it on your person and going after the world’s best equipped soldiers is avoiding confrontation.
[quote]lixy wrote:
thunderbolt23 wrote:
Suicide bombing is the ultimate form of “avoiding confrontation” -
No, you idiot! Avoiding confrontation is sitting on your ass while foreign troops roam your land. Using one’s own body as a bomb delivery medium cannot be considered cowardice. When you don’t have stealth fighters, the “human bomb” is the next most efficient use of explosive devices. It ensures maximum damage, and demonstrates that they value their cause more than their own life.
their victims never see it coming,
As opposed to GBU-27s and Tomahawks?
they have no chance to defend themselves,
WTF? Defend themselves? It is the Americans who attacked the Iraqi, not the other way around.
and the suicide-bombers avoid ever having to confront their opponent.
You must be on dope to think building an explosive device, finding a way to carry it on your person and going after the world’s best equipped soldiers is avoiding confrontation.[/quote]
Your “argument” would hold much more water if these brave men actually did engage the military. But they do not. They target and kill regular folks just like themselves. Not Americans, not Jews, not Christians, not infidels, not Chinese, not gay people, etc. They target Iraqi citizens and fellow muslims. Please explain how walking in to a market where people are shopping for food and goods is a brave attack on the “invaders”?
[quote]pat wrote:
lixy wrote:
thunderbolt23 wrote:
Suicide bombing is the ultimate form of “avoiding confrontation” -
No, you idiot! Avoiding confrontation is sitting on your ass while foreign troops roam your land. Using one’s own body as a bomb delivery medium cannot be considered cowardice. When you don’t have stealth fighters, the “human bomb” is the next most efficient use of explosive devices. It ensures maximum damage, and demonstrates that they value their cause more than their own life.
their victims never see it coming,
As opposed to GBU-27s and Tomahawks?
they have no chance to defend themselves,
WTF? Defend themselves? It is the Americans who attacked the Iraqi, not the other way around.
and the suicide-bombers avoid ever having to confront their opponent.
You must be on dope to think building an explosive device, finding a way to carry it on your person and going after the world’s best equipped soldiers is avoiding confrontation.
Your “argument” would hold much more water if these brave men actually did engage the military. But they do not. They target and kill regular folks just like themselves. Not Americans, not Jews, not Christians, not infidels, not Chinese, not gay people, etc. They target Iraqi citizens and fellow muslims. Please explain how walking in to a market where people are shopping for food and goods is a brave attack on the “invaders”?[/quote]
Because they were close to a military checkpoint. Duh!
And these people shopping for food are merely propping up the evil system.
These brave souls that strap bombs to their chests so they can murder innocents are earning their 72 virgins. Just like lixy thinks he is earning his way into paradise by sending them money to buy bomb making material and trolling this website.
[quote]lixy wrote:
No, you idiot! Avoiding confrontation is sitting on your ass while foreign troops roam your land. Using one’s own body as a bomb delivery medium cannot be considered cowardice. When you don’t have stealth fighters, the “human bomb” is the next most efficient use of explosive devices. It ensures maximum damage, and demonstrates that they value their cause more than their own life.[/quote]
“Most efficient” doesn’t equal “most courageous” - it just means, “most efficient”. Planting a bomb under a mosque, setting the fuse, and running away is the “most efficient” means of slaughtering innocent people, but it has nothing to do with courage.
As for the rest of your drivel, caring for a cause greater than your own life isn’t necessarily indicative of bravery either. It might mean you are a fool, depending on the cause. Islamism most certainly is a fool’s cause.
Like everything you whine about, you want courage to be relativistic. It isn’t. Never has been.
Using your body as a delivery medium is not an act of bravery - it is the easiest way out of never having take responsibility for the intentional mass murder of innocent people. Sidestepping responsibility for an intentional evil is never, ever an act of courage - it is the very definition of cowardice.
Lixy, stop the sideshow - the innocent civilians that your pals target have no ability to defend themselves. Innocent civilians are the prime targets for your “heroes” - folks in markets, mosques, playgrounds, discos, etc.
Ultimate act of cowardice - they never get a chance to confront their attacker. An attack and then a quick escape - not brave, not brave at all.
Why constantly argue in bad faith? Don’t you realize we figured your game out long ago and are laughing at you?
Well, “sneak attacks” are definitionally attempts to avoid confrontation - else you wouldn’t do it. “Sneak attacks” are done in lieu of confrontation, so they can’t be the same thing.
And more besides, you keep whistling past the attacks on innocent civilians as part of the war - those are intentionally designed to have an effect. They are the ultimate act of cowardice, and you conveniently won’t address it.
You admire the Islamists, Lixy - we get it. They are your heroes. But even as we don’t respect you, please entertain us with some level of competent debate.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
Planting a bomb under a mosque, setting the fuse, and running away is the “most efficient” means of slaughtering innocent people, but it has nothing to do with courage. [/quote]
We’re not talking about planting bombs and running away, now are we?
Nobody argued otherwise.
Absolutely. You can call them any other name in the book, but “coward” is simply not applicable here.
Now wait a second…whoever spoke about murdering “innocent people”?
I’m talking about taking out the foreign troops. Those are not exactly innocent.
What do you mean “sidestepping responsibility”? Getting intentionally torn to bits and pieces is NOT cowardice. Throwing stones at tanks is NOT cowardice. Refusing the rule and legitimacy of a government formed after a country is gratuitously attacked is NOT cowardice.
Al-Sadr could easily win a huge number of seats if he was to participate in the elections. But he is not. Taking a stand despite overwhelming odds is NOT cowardice. Fighting to rid your country of occupiers is NOT cowardice - irrespective of what methods you use.
Again, you need to differentiate between the “targets” and what you know in your jargon as “collateral damage”.
If you’re going to keep twisting my words, I’m done with this discussion. Reread my post, and once you can find some intellectual honesty to distinguish between blowing up innocent people vs. military targets, maybe I’ll consider replying to you.