Same back at ya, what was your name again?

My name is Slim Shady... Not. I'm still using my cd-rom as a cup holder.

That's just fine as long as you don't break it.... hee, hee
They put your picture up on the company bulletin board for people to throw darts at....

We really need a quoting feature.

uh oh... now I'm in for it

it would help some I think...

>> billy bob ray: earth worms must be warmed in the mouth for 20 minutes before you begin to >> fish or the Bass will snub them for a Rapella Squrillygig.

, serisouly though, is that what you mean by quoting feature Frogboy? Easier formating of the text to keep the context and flow of the posts in order?

or say /quote[blue] (name) text.....
like with
"/me"[red] (name) text....

Or just don't quote.

Korea, Korea... ummm... No, Korea borders with a) Russia and China. Then again, what would they do were the US to "preemptively strike" against Korea? Russia probably nothing. China, I don't know.

Trouble with quoting is that you'd get people quoting quoted bits and then you'd end up with such a cascade of quotes, you could just as well go for a threaded board.

Can I quote you on that?........hehe

Hey, you guys in America are missing out.
I've watched twice now since this morning the interviews with the American prisoners (as well as the gross images of the dead US soldiers, but I could have done without those); but I heard that the American networks are not going to broadcast it.
At times like this, it's nice to live in a country not directly involved in a conflict, you get more uncensored images and commentaries.

paxx: a) it is against the Geneva convention to broadcast images or film of current prisoners of war. Since the status of the US soldiers is in question, it would be wrong for US television to broadcast images of them before they are identified and their families are notified.

anyway, Al-Jazeera is sh*t ( pardon the lapse of taste, but i really, really can't find another word to use. ). They are an unprofessional, tabloid-style, terrorist mouthpiece that broadcasts propaganda and calls it news, without ever bothering to research or or verify anything.

Sorry. I'm wrong. CNN apparently DID broadcast it this morning.

Bakerstreet: that aspect of the Geneva convention has never been applied by anyone, not the US. Just a few days ago we saw images of the Iraki 51st division prisioners, with enough closup so they can quite easily be identified.
Funny that Rumsfield would mention that.

War, brought to you in living color. Coverage will be 24x7, with limited commercials.

Don't ya just love progress.

Yes, let us as out Government and President and Administration say, get behind out troops fighting this war... Except, lets us at least keep our hands away from our zippers once behind them.....

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DAV Disabled American Veterans , Magazine : you must be a paid member for the full story. But you can do a web search as I am sure there is much more on this on the web....
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House Budget Resolution Will Slash $9.7 Billion from Veterans Medical Care and $15 Billion from Disability Compensation and Other Benefit Programs
Write the Speaker of the House of Representatives to express your opposition today

By a vote along party lines, the majority members of the House Budget Committee passed and reported for a vote by the House a budget resolution that would cut $844 million from veterans’ medical care next year and $9.7 billion over the next 10 years. In addition, the budget resolution would cut $15 billion from the disability compensation and other benefit programs over the next 10 years. The House leadership are pushing these cuts to offset the cost of the President’s $1.57 trillion tax reduction plan. Send an e-mail to the Speaker of the House today. A vote on this resolution by the entire House membership could come as early as Wednesday, March 19, 2003.

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out = our

Actually, the images of dead soldiers were spooky. I don't like to see images of dead people, but I do see them regularely anyway, even in times of peace.
But, the interviews with the US soldiers were quite eloquent. Irak publicly said that POWs were going to be treated right in accordance with the Geneva convention, and from seeing the American POWs, I must say that so far Irak has kept its word. American soldiers did not seem to be scared, they had clean bandages over their wounds, their beds seemed to be clean. To me, they looked like they were treated right.
Of course, it could have been only for TV, but I don't think so.

US POWs were tortured and permanently maimed in the gulf war. They had bones purposely broken, had eardrums pierced, were subjected to daily beatings, etc. OF the bodies shown today, many had execution-style wounds, exemplifying the normal Iraqi attitude that wounded enemy prisoners should be killed instead of treated. Smugness is not an appropriate tone for any post regarding Iraq's treatment of the captured, and this string will take a very ugly turn if the usual holier-than-thou attitude is shown toward our dead and captured in Iraq.


paxx: the Iraqis you mention were displayed in the act of giving themselves up, on live television, by reporters who were standing beside the US forces who received them. At that point they *weren't* POWs, they were defecting Iraqis. If anyone in the Iraqi military turns in their weapon and never fights, we aren't treating them as POWs, and they are going home unhindered. I am unaware of any video being displayed of Iraqis being held after actual combat. On the other hand, Al-Jazeera was called to view and broadcast images of POWs for the sole use of propaganda, just as they are at the disposal of any terrorist who has something to say and needs a way to say it safely.

Communication is one of the great obstacles in making war, and Al-Jazeera is of great benefit to those terrorist organizations who want to get messages out to members and recruit new ones. As a direct tool of said terrorists, meeting with them, having open lines of communication with them, i think they should be treated as a terrorist organization. It has been my fondest hope that silencing the Al-Jazeera network would be on the short list of things-to-do in the war against terror.

I, personally, was tricked into downloading the Daniel Pearl beheading ( with Al-Jazeera watermark intact ) on an anime messageboard. It was supposed to have been a mirror to one of the new Matrix anime trailers. By the time i realized what I was seeing i had already seen it. Shame you can't un-see something.

I am personally ready to see my nation use *much* less restraint in this conflict. If Iraq operates in a mode that ensures the death and torture of our POWs, we should use more strenuous *indirect* methods for softening them before our troops are in the position to meet resistance, and less queasy about the destruction those methods cause.

Paxx, re: Iraq's adherence to the Geneva Convention regarding the treatment of EPOW's, you might want to go back and look at accounts of those coalition soldiers taken captive by Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War. I don't think you'll find much basis for equivalency between the treatment of EPOW's taken by the Iraqi's and those taken by coalition forces in the Gulf War.

As for parading and interrogating EPOW's on TV in the present I don't recall that being done by the US or the Brits. The press with the troops have shown people who surrendered without combat. But as for those designated EPOW's, who were taken in or after combat, the reporters I saw said the soldiers they were with would not allow them to be shown. There may have been instances where the press has done that anyway, but I don't specifically recall that. At any rate, I certainly don't recall any display of EPOW's equivalent to that broadcast by Iraq TV.

paxx
if you watched it twice and still feel that Iraq has kept its word, when they were shot in the head and abdomen, their bodies picked up and laughed at, I would say its not only the US that is "get more uncensored images and commentaries." as you put it.

BTW, read this article by a former volunteer human shield:

http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2003/03/23/do2305.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2003/03/23/ixop.html

The Iraqis want the US to liberate them.

I thank you for that link, Frogboy

Images are people dead in combat are always awful. There's no denying that. I don't know where you saw that they've been executed, I haven't heard that anywhere. Apparently they were attacked by Iraki troops, they engaged in combat, some were killed, some were taken prisoners. It's war. People die. That's why I hate war. Did I say it before?

As for comparing this one with 1991, me too, I've seen images of US POWS of 1991, that's why I was positively surprised to see those ones. They seemed to have been treated as one would expect POWs to be treated. I think this time Irak will treat them different. After all, they may want to prove the World that they're not such bad guys after all. That's also why I think that even if they do have chemical weapons, they won't use them, and leave them well hidden. I think they know they'll lose the war, and their only small hope is to show the US was wrong to attack them in the first place. Anyway, that's what I'd do if I was them. But obviously a egocentrist dictator may not think the same way as I do. :/

oh he'll use them if he has them and they will not show up until everyone is nice and close either...

He knows he is a dead man walking, if still alive and so do all his close advisors.
So what do they have to loose, might as well take as many as they can with them in one final
kick in the face of the world and Bush in general...

could be and probably am wrong, but, thats the feelings I get about it...

paxx : While I think you are a hopeless goofball at times, your posts do me a lot of good sometimes. I thank God that we live in a world that has corners safe and innocent enough to cultivate opinions like yours. That is the goal of conflicts like this, really; a world that can't comprehend people like Hussein.

"I think this time Irak will treat them different. After all, they may want to prove the World that they're not such bad guys after all. That's also why I think that even if they do have chemical weapons, they won't use them, and leave them well hidden. I think they know they'll lose the war, and their only small hope is to show the US was wrong to attack them in the first place. "

The only word I can come up with for that is precious. God bless ya, paxx, I hope you are right, and if you aren't, maybe a few dozen wars like this and you will be. I promise, i'm not being snide, it is just one of those shining moments when you realize that the person you are arguing with *really* believes what he is saying. I'm not gonna storm into my little girl's room and tell here there is no Santa, and I can't bring myself to argue with ya after that post.

Just as well there were no coalition personnel in the bullrushes, surrender was not an option they could have exercised eh.