[Sandwich]

Irish politics (at least the part that I'm semi-familiar with) don't make sense. When you boil it down, you have Christians fighting Christians. Wasn't it some dude around 2000 years ago named Jesus who said, - referring to the theory that He was casting out demons through the use of demonic powers - that "a house divided against itself shall not stand"?

Ergo, it don't make sense.

[Rictor]

Can't the Anglicans just realize their religion is a sham and move on. I mean, it was established in order to let Henry V (err, that was him, right) get a divorce. Not the best founding upon which to establish a religion (well, sect) I found imagine. At least Jesus had some ideas, this guy just didn't want to go through the trouble of offing his wife.

Repent sinners, repent!

[neo_hermes]

...could we kill this thread...ty...

[Blaise Russel]

I'm pretty sure there was people like Martin Luther talking about something like Protestantism before Henry VIII decided that a male heir was more important than annoying the Catholic Church. That said, he had a point - one does need a strong dynasty to rule well when one is an early-modern king.

[Flipside]

I think Henry thought of it first

And Henry 8th was a very clever man, do you know how much money he stopped flowing out of the country to Italy?

[Gank]

No Luther did, because he was upset over how corrupt the Church had become. Henry just jumped on it as a way of getting another wife. He wasnt all that clever either, just a ruthless bastard.

Originally posted by Sandwich
Irish politics (at least the part that I'm semi-familiar with) don't make sense. When you boil it down, you have Christians fighting Christians. Wasn't it some dude around 2000 years ago named Jesus who said, - referring to the theory that He was casting out demons through the use of demonic powers - that "a house divided against itself shall not stand"?

Ergo, it don't make sense.

Doesnt make sense when you boil it down into religious terms, but then the church really has very little to do with the conflict. The prodestant-catholic schism only came into play halfway through the whole thing and then was only used as atool to divide and conquer. Actual religious differences have very little to do with the fight.

[Flipside]

On this subject :-

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040623/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq&cid=540&ncid=716

They didn't torture anyone at Abu Ghraib, they haven't even got involved..... It's too far now, once could be considered as fury for Abu Ghraib, twice was a bit much, but a third time? With someone from a country that has done nothing to harm Iraq? Stupid, and way way too far.

[ionia23]

Good lord.  Tell me people aren't still crying about Abu Gharib.  Most fraternity inductees go through worse tortures than that.

[Flipside]

Except less people die in Fraternity Inductions

[Tiara]

Originally posted by ionia23
Good lord.  Tell me people aren't still crying about Abu Gharib.  Most fraternity inductees go through worse tortures than that.

You are truly ignorant and naive...

Several dead and several severly injured.

Humiliation is one thing, inflicting physical harm that causes lasting effects or even death (which happens to be quite lasting) is another.

[ionia23]

Originally posted by Tiara

You are truly ignorant and naive...

Several dead and several severly injured.

Humiliation is one thing, inflicting physical harm that causes lasting effects or even death (which happens to be quite lasting) is another.

I'm neither ignorant nor naive, but thanks for the observation.

Well, I suppose if a few more hostages get beheaded then we'll be even, yes?

[Rictor]

Why is it assumed that what was reported is the worst of the lot? Thats ****ing naive, no? Or is the "a few bad apples" line still being used? The photos that were/are making all the front pages are very, very unlikely to be the worst of it...

[Knight Templar]

God, that sounds fucking wild!

*wants to know what fraternity Ionia is with

[ionia23]

Originally posted by Knight Templar
God, that sounds fucking wild!

*wants to know what fraternity Ionia is with

I avoided those.  Way too much 'man-love' for me.

[Knight Templar]

So if you can't handle man love, then why should the Iraqis?

[ionia23]

Originally posted by Knight Templar
So if you can't handle man love, then why should the Iraqis?

Pissed is one thing.  Hacking off the heads of civilians in response is another.

[Knight Templar]

Ahh, okay. So a militant group decides to do their revenge and attention grabber thing, abducting a few coalition citizens and behead them, so that makes it all cool for us to go about torturing and sodomizing captured militants as we please. Makes perfect sense now, thanks.

[ionia23]

Originally posted by Knight Templar
Ahh, okay. So a militant group decides to do their revenge and attention grabber thing, abducting a few coalition citizens and behead them, so that makes it all cool for us to go about torturing and sodomizing captured militants as we please. Makes perfect sense now, thanks.

*bows*

Always a pleasure.

[Tiara]

Iona, some of the ones that were tortured were petty shoplifters. Seriously, do they deserve it? Does ANYONE deserve it? Your talking about it as if it was a minor offense. It was murder and inflicting lasting bodily harm.

I'm not justifying the beheading... in the least. But that doesn't mean American military personell should do it. They have a moral obligation to uphold the western morals at the very least. And not like the extremist enforce them upon the enemy. They are no different then terrorists in my eyes.

May I ask your attention for this: THIS

And as Rictor said, this is probably just the mildest foto's because they are facing up to 20 years (IIRC) in jail. They wouldn't get that for 'fraternity pranks'.

[ionia23]

Originally posted by Tiara
I'm not justifying the beheading... in the least. But that doesn't mean American military personell should do it. They have a moral obligation to uphold the western morals at the very least. And not like the extremist enforce them upon the enemy. They are no different then terrorists in my eyes.

Oh, you're not?  Really.  Then explain what 'they are no different than the terrorists in my eyes' means.  You don't see a group of hooded GI's dragging some poor sod out of his store saying 'Disarm in 24 hours or we're cutting this guy's head off', and then doing it anyway so the 'enemy' knows we mean business.

Wouldn't that be interesting.....I think I'd move to Antartica.

If we're going to be bringing out the 'shock' pictures I'm all for it.  You can't show me a thing I haven't seen before, and far worse.

See, of course they're petty shoplifters.  They always are when the Americans are involved.  Always.  That could be Bin Laden in that little picture you included and people would still claim "oh...it's just an innocent farmer, oh bad USA, bad USA".  What so-and-so did or didn't do to get incarcerated doesn't mean a damn to me.  What DOES is the behavior of the guards...

Doesn't matter whether that guy was a looter or taking potshots at passing soliders while hiding out in a mosque because they know we won't blow it up.  Those soldiers were wrong in every way imagineable.  I'd like to see them sentenced to Abu Gharib after the 'handover' and let the Iraqis handle it as they see fit.  But to call them terrorists?  That's just more liberal-with-a-bazooka bull****.

War brings out the worst in people.  That's it.  As noble as we like to describe WWII, nobody talks about Dresden.  Not even my history class when I was in school.

The soldiers are busted and looking forward to a nice stay in military prison, which is just about the worst place you could possibly be.  They undermined the war effort, regardless of that whole 'following orders' defense crap, which will make them targets.  They'll pay dearly for what they did.  Even the President admonished them for it.  Of course, that was pure politics I've no doubt, but nonetheless...