we say terrorists kill innocent people...

Not at all, everyone has an opportunity to prove me wrong merely by answering my posts with something other than speculations about my character, intelligence, etc. In my view, terrorism is the deliberate, not accidental, targetting of non-combatants. The Palestinians do it all the time. Give a recent example of American soldiers doing it when following orders. That's all. Don't keep trying to impeach my character, because it only suggests that you can't address my assertions. Just prove me wrong, that's all.

Go to Anmesty Internation, click on libaray and chose USA or Israel. Here is the list for USA in the last MONTH. Sorry really too many to sart sorting and making better reading for the thread. Israel makes much worse reading by the way.



28/07/2006 USA: UN expert body critical of US human rights record (NEWS)
AMR 51/124/2006
21/07/2006 USA (Virginia): Death penalty / Legal concern: Brandon Wayne Hedrick (m) (URGENT ACTIONS)
AMR 51/121/2006
20/07/2006 USA: Further information on legal concern/death penalty/torture/health concern (URGENT ACTIONS)
AMR 51/120/2006
19/07/2006 USA (Montana): Death penalty: David Thomas Dawson (m) (URGENT ACTIONS)
AMR 51/119/2006
18/07/2006 Syria : Further information on fear of torture/incommunicado detention: 'Abd al-Rahman al-Musa (URGENT ACTIONS)
MDE 24/050/2006
17/07/2006 USA (South Carolina): Further information on death penalty / legal concern: William Downs (m) (URGENT ACTIONS)
AMR 51/117/2006
14/07/2006 USA: Who are the Guantánamo detainees? Case sheet 17: Mohammed Al-Amin (REPORTS)
AMR 51/114/2006
14/07/2006 USA: UN Human Rights Committee to scrutinize US record at home and abroad (NEWS)
AMR 51/116/2006
14/07/2006 USA (Virginia): Death penalty / Legal concern: Brandon Wayne Hedrick (m) (URGENT ACTIONS)
AMR 51/115/2006
13/07/2006 USA (Mississippi): Further information on Death penalty / Legal concern: Bobby Glen Wilcher (URGENT ACTIONS)
AMR 51/112/2006
13/07/2006 USA (Ohio): Further information on Rocky Barton (m) (URGENT ACTIONS)
AMR 51/113/2006
13/07/2006 USA: Updated briefing to the Human Rights Committee on the implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (REPORTS)
AMR 51/111/2006
13/07/2006 USA: Updated briefing to the Human Rights Committee on the implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (REPORTS)
AMR 51/111/2006
11/07/2006 USA: Applying Common Article 3 is only one step (NEWS)
AMR 51/110/2006
06/07/2006 USA: Death penalty / Legal concern: William Downs (m) (URGENT ACTIONS)
AMR 51/106/2006
06/07/2006 USA (Mississippi): Death penalty / Legal concern: Bobby Glen Wilcher (URGENT ACTIONS)
AMR 51/105/2006
06/07/2006 USA (Ohio): Rocky Barton (m) (URGENT ACTIONS)
AMR 51/107/2006
01/07/2006 USA: Blind faith: An appeal to President George W. Bush to admit that the USA's 30-year experiment with the death penalty has failed (REPORTS)
AMR 51/100/2006
01/07/2006 The Wire, July 2006. Vol. 36, No.6. (REPORTS)
NWS 21/006/2006
01/07/2006 USA: Chicago - Host of this year's International Gay Games - Needs to Address Ongoing Problems of Police Abuse and Misconduct against LGBT People (REPORTS)
AMR 51/108/2006
30/06/2006 USA (Tennessee): Further information on Death penalty / Legal concern: Paul Dennis Reid (m) (URGENT ACTIONS)
AMR 51/103/2006
29/06/2006 USA: Supreme Court's ruling - a victory for human rights (NEWS)
AMR 51/101/2006
29/06/2006 USA: President Bush must use Supreme Court ruling as springboard for change (NEWS)
AMR 51/102/2006
28/06/2006 USA (Texas): Further information on Death penalty / Legal concern: Angel Maturino Reséndiz (m) (URGENT ACTIONS)
AMR 51/099/2006
23/06/2006 USA: Memorandum to the US Government on the report of the UN Committee Against Torture and the question of closing Guantánamo (REPORTS)
AMR 51/093/2006
23/06/2006 Amnesty International submits memorandum to the US government on torture and Guantánamo (REPORTS)
AMR 51/096/2006
23/06/2006 USA: Ending Guantanamo Bay Detentions [extract from AMR 51/093/2006] (REPORTS)
AMR 51/097/2006
22/06/2006 USA: Three years on -- Ali al-Marri remains in solitary confinement without charge or trial (NEWS)
AMR 51/095/2006
21/06/2006 USA: More about politics than child protection: The death penalty for sex crimes against children (REPORTS)
AMR 51/094/2006
20/06/2006 EU-US Summit: Clear renditions and close Guantanamo (NEWS)
IOR 61/017/2006

Thank you Michael_S
Brandon, I have not impeached your character. Your character is of no interest to me. I HAVE, however, characterized your cognitive style as simplistically governed by a manichian fixation on absolute distinctions between completely good/right and completely bad/wrong.
All societies display a continuous and dynamic mix of what I, at least, would judge to be ethically justified and unjustified actions. But I feel that I have more of an obligation to critique my own society and hope that the ethically mature individuals of other societies will do the same. You, like others of the "right", focus only on the faults of other societies and rarely, if ever, find fault with American policies and actions, as if doing so would be morally reprehensible. You say "My country right or wrong"; I say "My country right." And American politicians and their chronies (e.g., in the energy industry) who would aggress against other countries for profit and rationalize such actions with two-dimensional ethical slogans that only the morally crippled and immature would swallow should be as much the objects of our scorn as peoples of other countries who behave contrary to our interests--unless, of course, they attack our shores.

I believe that if a person loves his country then he will speak out against attrocities his country is committing. If one does not speak out or goes so far as to blindly support the attrocities, he is, in fact, the enemy of his own country.

Please post a link to this statement of mine.


I find it fascinating that you continue to flee from my request to give one example of an act of terrorism committed by US soldiers (who were not disobeying orders) during the past quarter century. Your above essay is irrelevant to the argument. Please provide a citation to such an example.

Americans need to be more like you, Nick. Then it would be a nation of true patriots, as opposed to these mindless nationalists.

Stop your squirming, Brandon; it's unbecoming.

Translation: You can't provide an example of a statement you claim I made, and you can't give an example of an act of terrorism by the US. Therefore, I win. Bye, now.

I see you can't stop the squirming.

You argue like a child. Your posts consist entirely of unsubstantiated claims and personal comments. If you cannot prove anything that you've asserted, or disprove anything that I've asserted, then by the normal standards of debate, you lose. I repeat - disprove something that I've said or withdraw.

Brandon, I have characterized your mode of thinking. I grant that it is a general--but I insist valid--impression. But your strategy is to make me and others work very hard to "prove" that you are factually wrong in your conclusions. Frankly, Brandon, I (we) cannot invest the time and effort to document what is quite obvious. I am glad that Michael_S took the time to provide evidence of our country's moral fallibility--which you will, of course, ignore.

This, then, is your method of debate. When your assertions are questioned, or when you state that another poster is wrong, you cannot "invest the time and effort" to support your position. Your method of "proof" is to state that the correctness of your position is too "obvious" to require support. Even when I asked you to simply provide a link to something you claimed I had said, you ignored the request. By the universal rules of debate, your absolute refusal to support any of your contentions simply means that you lose.

O.K., Brandon, if I must fall into your trap in order to stay viable, I'd rather just "lose." Ta ta.

Brandon

By what authority does the US police the world, invading country after country?

Could you perhaps provide me with clear orders from a terrorist leader to his terrorist follower(s) saying that they should go out and kill as many innocent civillians as they could?

Heres a link to Human rights news for yesterday (a US based organization),


Israel/Lebanon

A couple of quotes,





note the word deliberately.

I read that 750,000 Lebanese have been displaced, around a 1/4 of the total population, this disproportionate use of force, is a war crime.

This quote from Amnesty international today (your request for a 20 or 50 year time is quite unnecessary I am having trouble just discussing instances in the last week or Month).


Source No More war crimes

Please, don't get me wrong. Actually I love much of what America is about, I'm from the UK and usually I find myself on the defending side of America on discussions.

It's called self defense. Remember 9/11 ?

Real life.

B*llsh*t.
I deplore 9/11, just as everyone else does. Yet we criticize other countries for millitaristic actions, when they have been under attack much more recent then 9/11.

That's too broad a question to be answerable, and certainly off topic.

The US does not commit acts of terrorism, and neither does Israel. For the Palestinians, on the other hand, it's a trademark. You need only give a counterexample, to prove me wrong. And don't give me Hiroshima or Nagasaki, because we're debating whether the US or Israel engages in terrorism now.