Gee, I'm glad you didn't mean to insult or flame. Instead maybe you should read a history book and discover why the American led UN coalition went into Somalia in the first place. There was a mass genocide occurring there where an entire people were being starved to death. So George Bush senior sent in a huge Marine contingent to provide security while the UN fed the starving masses. But I guess that's a Euro-definition of "Bullying" isn't it? Especially in light of the fact that Africa, in large part, is a product of European Imperialism. Somalia in the first place was carved up by Italy and Britain before gaining independence. But the entire continent was fleeced, enslaved, and raped by Euro-Imperialism for hundreds of years.
Including, BTW, Germany.
Read my first posting again. Did i say anything about the genozide being a good thing or against the UN mission?
All i'm talking about was my disbelief into Sgt.Banes' theory about a bigger campaign in Somalia preventing 9/11 and why i don't believe that 9/11 could have been prevented by that.
Even with my sucking spelling, that should be obvious.
And i also didn't say anything about the "euro definition of bullying" either. I said "try to see it through the eyes of your enemy". They - those warlords in Somalia, Al Quaeda, Osama and others - they see it as bullying and that is why they would have attacked on 9/11 even with a US victory in Somalia.
Besides the other - the main - reason i pointed out in my second posting here.
Giggle, on second thought maybe you shouldn't read any German history books.
Yeah, the old "you Germans did...!"-song.
See above. Did i say anything to justify, defend or marginalize german or general european imperialism? I think not. So what is your point here?
I agree. We should expend 100% of our efforts on killing them and forget "scaring". Unless you have a better idea? The last thing we should do is go into such a country trying to feed them and save them from themselves like we did in Somalia. Maybe we should handle it like the French did in Rwanda:unknown
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6079428.stm http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/evil/etc/slaughter.html
The more people you kill, the more will stand up to resist you and to take revenge for their dead fathers, brothers and friends.
What else is there to say about this?
If you want to expand the discussion on all the bad things the europeans did, we can do that by all means, but i'm afraid on that matter we wouldn't disagree enough to have a nice quarrel.
Like i said, i only talked about Sgt.Banes' idea of preventing 9/11 by going all the way in Somalia. That has nothing to do with european imperialism.
There is, and never has been, any national sovereignty in Somalia. Its a country ran by armed gangs and thugs. More recently, and even during Restore Hope, its been a base for Al Qaeda and I personally couldn't care less if the entire place starves.
Just a little earlier in your posting you seemed quite appaled about the genozide and my typical (but non-existent) european disregard to it.
We Yanks have to get out of the habit of thinking we can "save the world". We should instead act as the Europeans do which means only in our "National interests", "and BTW the same way the rest of the world does". You think Germany would risk the blood of her sons to save some hopeless African nation from starvation?
Actually there have been german soldiers in Somalia too.
Yes, we are reluctant to send combat troops anywhere, but that is a result of our history and the rather liberal and clearly pacifistic political climate.
Germany deals with terrorism by upholding and applying its laws.
"Sentenced to life" means 15 years in Germany. The fact that this guy spend 18 years in prison must be due to the pretrial detention that usually takes years in international terrorism trials.
Only if a psychologist declares you to be a total psycho the judges have the right to put you into a special prison hospital for a longer time after this maximum of 15 years of normal prison. So if that guy wasn't walking up and down in his cell, mumbling "I want to kill more. I want to kill more.", there was no possibility to put him away longer than 15 years.
I know how strange that seems to an american, since over there you sometimes even sentence children to a life in prison if the procecutor manages to get the jury and judge worked up enough with revenge lust.
But there is no jury and thus no revenge lust and other psychological phenomenons in german courtrooms. There is only the law that has to be applied and that tells the judges what punishment has to be sentenced for the crime and this decisions have to be re-checked to make sure no judge let his personal feelings cloud his judgement, but really followed the law.
However, that is how it is, so this guy spend as much time as possible in a german prison.
Whether that is good or not might be debateable, but our liberal law and it's emphasis on protecting everybody, even criminals from arbitrariness by the state are results of our history.
Same for the fact that german law prohibits prisoners to be handed over to foreign authorities if they are likely to suffer what the german law consideres inhuman treatment or conditions, which includes a possible death sentence in the hands of those authorities.
The "journalist" who wrote the article you linked here should have checked on such facts before claiming that those stupid germans deliberately set a terrorist free because they don't like americans or because they "capitulated to terrorism".
He would have been entitled to critizise german law, but he should have gathered at least some informations before writing something about the case.
I guess we would show our commitment to the fight against terrorism better if we would just throw our laws over board and open up our own little Guantanamo Bay-like special prison where we can put people away without a trial and legal protection, right?
Yeah, i guess that would go down smoothly with the international press.
I can already see the headlines: "Germany builds new concentration camp!"
Boy some of these Europeans walk around like butter wouldnt melt in their mouths.
Some europeans open their mouth when it seems neccessary.
I'm no anti american. I got relatives and friends over there.
Sometimes friends tell you when they feel you are making a mistake, even if you don't want to hear it and they do it because they care, not because they want to insult you.
The mess in Iraq was foreseeable. The people who went to march the streets to protest the war weren't doing so because they hate the USA, but because they knew that a lot of people would die in vain.
And europeans know a bit about the middle east and arab history and culture, because we are their neighbours and shared a lot of that history. So most europeans knew how ridiculous it was to claim that Osama BinLaden and Saddam Hussein would be allies who planned 9/11 together. We knew that they hated each other more than any of them hated the USA and that Osama would like nothing more than somebody removing the headen Saddam Hussein from power so his poor supressed islamic radical buddies could finally roam Iraq free and start a civil war against shiites.
BTW Triangle, your spelling sucks!
So what. I mostly taught it to myself. And since i pretty much only use it to quarrel online with guys like you who don't bother to really read what i'm writing anyway, it doesn't matter much, does it? hehehe