The Political Discussion Thread

[Coco Pops]

Nah, just a stupid phase in our politics fuelled by a stupid phase in our history.

Why is this phase in our history stupid?

[The Flyattractor]

Because all points of history are stupid. Why? Because history is full of STUPID People. Stupidity is a trait that transcends race, gender and political affiliation.

[Womble]

In Iraq, Syria, US lifts rules meant to protect civilians

The White House revealed on Tuesday that its usually strict rules of engagement, intended to prevent civilian casualties of US airstrikes, have been relaxed in the current offensive against the Islamic State and other radical Islamist groups.

National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden told Yahoo News in an email that a much-publicized statement last year by President Barack Obama that US drone strikes would only be carried out if there is a “near certainty” of no civilian injuries would not apply to the US campaign against jihadi forces in Syria and Iraq.

Hayden wrote that the “near certainty” rule was intended “only when we take direct action ‘outside areas of active hostilities,’ as we noted at the time.

“That description — outside areas of active hostilities — simply does not fit what we are seeing on the ground in Iraq and Syria right now,” she continued, but added that the strikes, “like all US military operations, are being conducted consistently with the laws of armed conflict, proportionality and distinction.”

The statement came after reports that a dozen civilians, including women and children, were killed on September 23 after an errant Tomahawk cruise missile hit a house in the village of Kafr Daryan, in Syria’s Idlib province, believed to be a stronghold of al-Qaeda-linked militants.

In a briefing to the House Foreign Affairs Committee last week, Syrian rebel commanders described scenes of devastation as the bodies of women and children were pulled from the beneath the rubble of the destroyed building, which was apparently being used as a shelter for displaced civilians.

A video allegedly showing the damage from the attack was also posted on the Internet.

When asked about the incident on Tuesday, a US Central Command spokesman said that the military “did target a Khorasan group compound near this location. However, we have seen no evidence at this time to corroborate claims of civilian casualties,” Yahoo reported.

However, Hayden said that the US would “take all credible allegations seriously” and investigate such reports.

In a May 2013 speech Obama acknowledged that American drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen had killed civilians, but defended continuing the campaign while also stipulating that “there must be near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured — the highest standard we can set.”

Obama’s tighter policy on strikes, which are said to now require case-by-case presidential sign-offs, came amid rising anger over civilian deaths in the ongoing US campaign to assassinate alleged terrorist leaders in Pakistan and Yemen.

In December 2013, a wedding procession in Yemen was attacked in what was believed to be a US drone strike. Dozens of people were killed.

A former official, familiar with the rules of engagement, explained that the relaxed policy hinted at by Hayden would also give US Central Command greater freedom to order targeted strikes against the Islamic State without White House oversight.

Led by the US, a coalition of Western nations recently began an airstrike campaign against jihadi targets in Iraq and Syria, and especially the Islamic State group, which has carved out a self-declared Islamic caliphate in the territories of those countries.

Not a single American city has been bombarded by ISIS artillery so far.

[aretood2]

I would take an obscure and irrelevant BNP over a relevant and influential Tea Party any day.



Let's just let that sink in for a moment.

That's what I meant by missrepresentation et al. It's easy to look at a truely scary minority and superimpose that on the majority. The BNP is scary, and so are terrorists. But it is more than just a tad unfair to say that anything Islamic is automatically evil. I am a Christian, and for obvious reasons I don't agree with Islam. But that doesn't mean that just because some crazy lady makes a fuss over Halal food (As Catholics did with meat on Fridays over here) that many or most Muslims want to impose Sharia law.

A point of reference, there's an interesting article about how American Muslims are assimilating more than your European Muslims. Grant it, the younger ones (American born many of which are African American) aren't as patriotic as older Muslims (which many of them are recent immigrants).

So I can see why people are worried about Multiculturalism in Europe. Like Womble said, somehow we are able to handle it here in the US without giving into the craziest wing of the tea party (Which isn't that bad in reality, American media is an expert on distortions. Take Fox News' coverage on Obama for example).

Europe needs to develop a framework in which it can expect immigrants to integrate and develop a national identity along side their individual cultural identity. Part of that is for Middle Eastern groups to "chill" about their beliefs...and have much more pleasing benedictions for children to chant on the streets. Seriously, I think it gave me a headache.

[aretood2]

In Iraq, Syria, US lifts rules meant to protect civilians

The White House revealed on Tuesday that its usually strict rules of engagement, intended to prevent civilian casualties of US airstrikes, have been relaxed in the current offensive against the Islamic State and other radical Islamist groups.

National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden told Yahoo News in an email that a much-publicized statement last year by President Barack Obama that US drone strikes would only be carried out if there is a “near certainty” of no civilian injuries would not apply to the US campaign against jihadi forces in Syria and Iraq.

Hayden wrote that the “near certainty” rule was intended “only when we take direct action ‘outside areas of active hostilities,’ as we noted at the time.

“That description — outside areas of active hostilities — simply does not fit what we are seeing on the ground in Iraq and Syria right now,” she continued, but added that the strikes, “like all US military operations, are being conducted consistently with the laws of armed conflict, proportionality and distinction.”

The statement came after reports that a dozen civilians, including women and children, were killed on September 23 after an errant Tomahawk cruise missile hit a house in the village of Kafr Daryan, in Syria’s Idlib province, believed to be a stronghold of al-Qaeda-linked militants.

In a briefing to the House Foreign Affairs Committee last week, Syrian rebel commanders described scenes of devastation as the bodies of women and children were pulled from the beneath the rubble of the destroyed building, which was apparently being used as a shelter for displaced civilians.

A video allegedly showing the damage from the attack was also posted on the Internet.

When asked about the incident on Tuesday, a US Central Command spokesman said that the military “did target a Khorasan group compound near this location. However, we have seen no evidence at this time to corroborate claims of civilian casualties,” Yahoo reported.

However, Hayden said that the US would “take all credible allegations seriously” and investigate such reports.

In a May 2013 speech Obama acknowledged that American drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen had killed civilians, but defended continuing the campaign while also stipulating that “there must be near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured — the highest standard we can set.”

Obama’s tighter policy on strikes, which are said to now require case-by-case presidential sign-offs, came amid rising anger over civilian deaths in the ongoing US campaign to assassinate alleged terrorist leaders in Pakistan and Yemen.

In December 2013, a wedding procession in Yemen was attacked in what was believed to be a US drone strike. Dozens of people were killed.

A former official, familiar with the rules of engagement, explained that the relaxed policy hinted at by Hayden would also give US Central Command greater freedom to order targeted strikes against the Islamic State without White House oversight.

Led by the US, a coalition of Western nations recently began an airstrike campaign against jihadi targets in Iraq and Syria, and especially the Islamic State group, which has carved out a self-declared Islamic caliphate in the territories of those countries.

Not a single American city has been bombarded by ISIS artillery so far.

This policy is different from the one that governs drone strikes. That policy is...scary. I mean, crazy mad scary. They blew up a guy in Pakistan once solely because he was Bin Laden's height. That's it...no other evidence. The guy wasn't even a terrorist. And this wasn't an isolated incident. No one here really wants to talk about it because it is scary.

[KEK]

But it is more than just a tad unfair to say that anything Islamic is automatically evil.

It certainly would be had I actually said that. But that rationale can also be used for, if not the BNP, then certainly the EDL. These are the people the mainstream media would have you believe are Neo-Nazis:

[Coco Pops]

t seems in my country the COAL MINING lobby and other dirty polluters like that are the core donators to the LNP government which is kind of leaning in the ultra convservative / religiousity bandwagon. They think that continuing the use of coal fired power stations and not investing in renewable and alternative energy sources is the best way to go. As I stated Tony Abbott the numpty 50% voted in last September thinks "climate change" is a fad and any science related to the climate is a fad too..... He's on a crusade.

The LNP want Australia to slip back into the 1950s.

Have they stripped away the human rights board? What's become of racial villification laws? The last thing I read about them gave me the impression they had been scaled back a bit..... Bad, bad, bad..

FFS that's not modern at all it's effing retarded.

[Gatefan1976]

Coco, he is a moron, take heart in the fact that even though he is more popular than Shorten, the LNP is still behind in the polls. Once the currency he has earned over his "tough stance on ISIS" plays out, people will go back to looking at stuff like Medicare co-payment, spiralling uni costs, the gay rights movement and all the rest of the stuff this raging tosswad has done.

[Coco Pops]

Coco, he is a moron, take heart in the fact that even though he is more popular than Shorten, the LNP is still behind in the polls. Once the currency he has earned over his "tough stance on ISIS" plays out, people will go back to looking at stuff like Medicare co-payment, spiralling uni costs, the gay rights movement and all the rest of the stuff this raging tosswad has done.

They even want a RC into the Bureau Of Meteorology...... It's like we're living in some alternate universe..

[mad_gater]

Presuming RC = Roman Catholic, I don't see the problem. Catholics have worked in many mathematic and scientific fields of study. I myself am Catholic and I'll be working in a field requiring me to have a rather extensive understanding of how the human body works once I pass the NYS licensing exams for said field.

And as for this whole "climate change" business. I think it's merely an attempt to save face by environmentalists who used to call it "global warming" who were forecasting that by now our polar ice caps would be pretty much completely melted who now have to call it something else when it was recently found that the polar ice caps cover a larger area now than they did when the "global warming" alarmists made their dire predictions about polar ice melt. Climates change all the time which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Buffalo, NY climate technically changes 4 times a year though some changes are shorter and others longer. The change to our winter climate sometimes lasts a rather depressingly long number of months, esp. when that polar vortex turns up like a bad penny like it did last winter and like they say it could again this winter

[Coco Pops]

Presuming RC = Roman Catholic, I don't see the problem. Catholics have worked in many mathematic and scientific fields of study. I myself am Catholic and I'll be working in a field requiring me to have a rather extensive understanding of how the human body works once I pass the NYS licensing exams for said field.

And as for this whole "climate change" business. I think it's merely an attempt to save face by environmentalists who used to call it "global warming" who were forecasting that by now our polar ice caps would be pretty much completely melted who now have to call it something else when it was recently found that the polar ice caps cover a larger area now than they did when the "global warming" alarmists made their dire predictions about polar ice melt. Climates change all the time which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Buffalo, NY climate technically changes 4 times a year though some changes are shorter and others longer. The change to our winter climate sometimes lasts a rather depressingly long number of months, esp. when that polar vortex turns up like a bad penny like it did last winter and like they say it could again this winter

Noooooooooooooooooo RC is a Royal Comission........ An investigation

[mad_gater]

Noooooooooooooooooo RC is a Royal Comission........ An investigation

I see LOL.....just making sure

[Coco Pops]

I see LOL.....just making sure

Still kind of bizarre don't you think?

Also our PM wanted to ban burqas inside the visitors galleries in parliament house and segregate them but seeing how the voters might not like this brainfart he did a backflip.

Also more bizarre is that our PM has appointed himself Minister for women. I kid you not.

[mad_gater]

Still kind of bizarre don't you think?

Also our PM wanted to ban burqas inside the visitors galleries in parliament house and segregate them but seeing how the voters might not like this brainfart he did a backflip.

Also more bizarre is that our PM has appointed himself Minister for women. I kid you not.

I don't know how he was framing the burqa thing but I could see it being an issue from a security standpoint since because those things practically cover a person's whole body...you don't know what weapons they might be hiding underneath those burqas *shrug* (even though I think that the burqa itself is a relic of a religion with some rather violent history behind its founding and am in agreement with Alexis de Tocqueville's take on "the religion of Muhammed" having no redeeming qualities whatsoever)

that other stuff does was saying definitely seemed kinda dodgy though

[Coco Pops]

that other stuff does was saying definitely seemed kinda dodgy though

http://www.dailylife.com.au/news-and...522-38qu9.html