Nelson Mandela off U.S. terrorism watch lists

Yay! Pleb is here!

I can only think of one, Portugal.

Portugal under Salazar was a Dictatorship Light.

Under the principle of self-defense..? Bullshit... absolute lies and fabrication. Does the US have evidence linking Osama to 9-11... The answer is no! definitive... they promised before going into Afghanistan that this imaginary evidence would be revealed and until now... nothing. Does the FBI officially accredit the perpetration of 9-11 to Osama or do they willing admit that they have no real evidence binding him to the crime?




more to the point... of what value was Afghanistan to the US prior to 9-11... does the Caspian Sea oil pipeline ring any bells... certainly not in the mainstream media...


Back the fuck out is their only solution... and apologise for the havok and intrusion they have caused over the last 50 years!

Pleb, you are in rare form today. Time to drop the conspiracy theory rubbish.

Let's just say Communist bloc countries - Nicolae Ceauşescu of Romania being a good example, but you could take any from East Germany to The Soviet Union, Albania, etc. Ferdinand Marcos - Remember the People Power revolution? Franco - OK he died, but the country then peacefully transitioned to a democracy. There's more, but that's probably enough to start with


Starting a war on a hunch? Pretty fucking dangerous precedent to set...

what does that mean? Tell that to the people who died in his jails or dissapeared and tell that to my grandparents and those people who died trying to escape.

edit I didnt realise that we had different grades for dictatorships, sure some are worse than others but a dictatorship is a dictatorship nonetheless and innocent people suffer.

Another good example:
Chile with Pinochet, who called for and then lost an election in 1988. There was international pressure, but no outside force

You could also argue that the English monarchy were a dictatorship for hundreds of years until they relinquished most of their powers to the elected parliament.

@ Conquistador

Thank you soooo much for revealing and correcting all the flawed reasoning used in this thread. I absolutely agree, just can't even bother to respond to some of these outrageous statements.

Just reading some of the conspiracy bs is giving me a headache...to the point that I can't even bother responding to the posts. I feel like I'm surrounded by BBC's number one fans

Salazar is not in the same league as a Ceausescu, Tito, Pol Pot, or dare I say, Saddam Hussein.

Speaking of Iraq, the only way that regime change would have ever taken place there would have been through an invasion - that's indisputable.

Sorry, but you asked for an example of a dictatorship that ended peacefully* and I gave it. you should have specified which grade of dictator you were after, after having provided me with a list of how you have graded them.

_{*Although Im pretty sure it only did because he died, his own words were that he would only leave if dead and under no other circumstances.}

Everything depends on your definition of what a dictatorship is and how oppressive it has to be to qualify as one. To insinuate that countries which are governed by autocrats can simply dissolve through outside pressure is a little naive.

Exactly - it's internal pressure that normally causes change.

...and that's surely what would have ultimately happened in Iraq.

Disagree.

Yeah, Saddam would have slipped on a bar of soap in the bathtub and his benevolent son would have taken over...

Quite possibly...I've shown enough examples of where this did occur, so why not Iraq?

And even if not, then you cannot claim that the Iraqi's are any better off now than they were before the US invasion. Who knows what'll happen when the US leaves - a new dictator might just step right into the vacancy left by Saddam hussein...

And this one may not be "Dictator light"

By the way, I can't believe that you would stick Hussein into the same league as Ceausescu, Tito or Pol Pot. He wasn't a nice man by any stretch, but he was nowhere near those other 3.

Saddam had such a grip on power and had people so scared constantly that an internal revolt would have been crushed before it even started.

Iraqis are not better off now than they were in some respects, but in others they are. Saddam kept law and order through terror, but free elections were nowhere near his agenda.

Ah yes, because he's the only dictator to have had a grip on power through fear...

Is that all you can muster... bringing out the old faithful... tinfoilhat type shit... The US's own agencies have nothing, and yet the whole country went to war on these lies... twice!

Just a moment...

They couldn't predict or even concieve of the idea that 9-11 would happen, yet they had the names of the terrorists and the organisations involved in the space of 5 days!---

"oh hold up, we found a passport of one of the terrorists in the rubble of the World Trade center... we are definitely on the right track now!"

Then within 2 months they knew exactly where to find them and off to war we go!

"Oh... well we haven't found him yet... but lord knows he's around here somewhere!... actually someone said he was in / getting assistance from Iraq, maybe we better blow the shit out a dickload of people on another hunch!"

"oh, we are actually going into Iraq because we KNOW they have WMD's and can launch a lethal strike attacking US soil within 45 mins" ... how fucking laughable!

The way you dribble out this fucking tow the line shit is amazing. Your government and mine has fed us all a load of shit and we will more than likely see the consequences of our complacency.

We are in Iraq out of self defence..! Fuck me... get a clue... do you really believe that shit or are you trying to convince yourself?

Maybe not the best source, but still it is something...

http://www.listbums.com/view_lists.php?lis...849&uid=127

Perhaps it has occurred to you that those countries who opposed taking action in Iraq did so for reasons other than the WMD issue. Think former KGB agent Putin's Russia was going to be supportive of the US (former Soviet generals designed the defenses of Baghdad for Saddam)? A geopolitical rival such as China? France? A SPD-led government in Germany? And so on...


Why not Iraq? What happened to the Marsh Arabs who revolted in 1991 (expecting support from outside Iraq that they never got)? Saddam brutally suppressed the revolt. Having this example fresh in your mind, do you think the Shiites were going to try again? The Sunnis generally benefited from Saddam's rule (or suffered much less than other groups) and the Kurds had no reason to since they had relative autonomy in the No-Fly Zone, plus they also had a history of being brutally repressed by Saddam.

A lot of Iraqis are better off, I daresay even most. Are all of them? Of course not.

Right now, I don't think the dictator path is going to happen- Iraqis have too much incentive not to risk that again. Plus, even if Obama is elected, I doubt the US will be pulling out in the next year or two while things remain fragile.

Pleb, the burden of proof lies with you, but presumably you were hibernating under a rock when Bin Laden admitted his culpability.

FYI, I opposed taking action in Iraq in 2003; however, I can understand the point about self-defense. Imagine if there had been another terror attack in the US. Bush wanted to prevent that and taking out Saddam was eminently more possible than taking out Kim Jong Il or Khamenei's thugocracy.

To the extent that he did? I am not so sure.

The very problem with Iraq under Hussein was that it was anything but a Dictatorship Light. Apart from the fact that either of his two sons would have taken over had he been killed, his entire life revolved around not getting assassinated himself. He had numerous doubles, never slept at the same place more than a couple of nights at a time and he regularly purged his intimate entourage.

The very problem with Iraq under Hussein was that it was anything but a Dictatorship Light. Apart from the fact that either of his two sons would have taken over had he been killed, his entire life revolved around not getting assassinated himself. He had numerous doubles, never slept at the same place more than a couple of nights at a time and he regularly purged members of his inner circle, which lived in constant fear of being killed.

Maybe they thought the US was fabricating evidence and any involvment would be detrimental to their future.

Sure, Pleb. And your evidence of this, e.g., speech at the UN, secret dossier found on a Paris or Moscow subway, etc?

This one is a little shorter - there are obviously thousands.. but search yourself

Just a quick search on the all beloved you tube

In what did he admit liability... Oh... are you referring to that grainy video the US presented as evidence?

Pleb, perhaps you didn't understand what I asked you for. So let's review:




Your YouTube post doesn't show any evidence to support your musing that countries which did not support US action in Iraq "thought the US was fabricating evidence and any involvement would be detrimental to their future". Do you actually have anything, or do you admit you just engaged in uniformed speculation about their position(s) on the matter?

As for your implied claim that Bin Laden is innocent, here are a few confessions (and they are not the only ones):






Time to crawl out from under that tin-foil rock, Pleb.

well of course i "just engaged in uniformed speculation about their position"... how the fuck would i know if they thought that US was fabricating evidence to justify it's position..

You used some nice big words there though... top stuff!

The you tube posts actually refer to the fact that Rumsfeld stated that they knew exactly where the weapons were...

I gotta go to soccer training.

Servus!

*Awesome*

These links are not helping your case. They are devoid of substance... so to say.

The burden of proof falls on the purveyor of the nutty conspiracy theory (that would be you, Pleb). Pleb, I don't want to misrepresent your view on Bin Laden's role in the 9/11 attacks- do you think he helped plan them and ordered them, as he claims, or do you think he is completely innocent and is either falsely accused or is lying about his role for some unexplained reason? If you think Bin Laden is innocent, who do you think is responsible for the 9/11 attacks (and please cite sources unless you make it clear that you are giving your own uninformed speculative opinion)?

Bin Laden is Emmanuel Goldstein.

Please Nick you made me laugh, although this is not funny:


This was a mock trial by the apartheid regime. Get real.

Mandela was treated just like the Guantanamo Bay "detainees". Violations against human rights!

Are you seriously trying to suggest that Mandela didn't advocate the use of violence in his campaign?

He was head of the armed wing of the ANC for Christ's sake. I suggest you give this a quick read:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_mandel...illa_activities

So i guess the question is...

when the law is obviously flawed as it has proved itself to be many times in the past century, do we follow it or do we follow our morals...

If the law allows a black man to be segregated from the white man and treated in a lesser fashion... should that law be followed? or should that law be broken with pleasure?

If a lawmaker makes a law that says all Jews must be registered even if natural born citizens of a country, should that law be followed or should that law be spit upon?

Are we so absolutely trained that we just follow the law even when it is detrimental to us?

Well, this thread isn't about the US president, it's about Mandela and his links to terrorism, but as you ask...

I would have invaded Afghanistan using international forces having built a broad coalition and achieved support from the UN. I would not have invaded Iraq, rendering most of what dominates today's news and this thread entirely moot. With the forces saved I would have captured Bin Laden and tried him for his crimes in an internationally recognised court. I would have worked to isolate Iran and North Korea from their supporters and build a consensus about how to handle them, and contain their ambitions. I would have invested heavily in the spy and intelligence services, finding mainly people and also technology that can help gather information about activities of terrorist groups. And because I'm someone who's travelled and had an education, not a blinkered brain dead cowboy who's never travelled except on AF1, I would have realised that most people with brown skin are not terrorists and have no sympathy for their extreme views and developed policies that appeal to the broad moderate base to alienate them from extremists.

Still, you seem like an intelligent person so I can't imagine you voted for Bush so I'm wondering if you think I have an anti-US bias rather than just a loathing for Bush's naieve and self-destructive policies?

yeaaaaa...now back to reality

and I REALLY like the part about you capturing Bin Laden ...

Hey, I like my ideal world. Conquistador asked, so I told. Why can't reality be like that? Why does reality mean we must waste hundreds of billions on a pointless war against a harmless country?

Edit: But I'd rather this thread went back on topic, and stayed with discussing world leaders who use violence, rather than becoming another pointless critique of US policy.
Edit2: Bush has failed to capture him, despite it being his No. 1 priority. It's often been postulated that were more troops and more American credibility available to invest in Pakistan and Afghanistan that Bin Laden would long have been captured.

harmless country??? you're kidding right? At that time intelligence suggested that they ARE a threat. Are you telling me that back then you were 100% certain that they were not?

Yes. Carefully selected and politically motivated US & UK intelligence reports said they were a threat, against the better judgement of many in those agencies and many other foreign agencies said they were farmers with pitchforks and loud mouths. Look who was right.

Nick, before I respond to your quoted Mandela violence, let me ask one very important question:

Was the July 20th plot by Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg against Hitler's regime a terrorist act? Here is the link:
Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg

I believe ANY action against the South African apartheid regime was justified. ANY includes bombs, killings etc.

If it wasn't for Mandela and his followers, these bastards would still rule in ZA.

You're just making yourself look dumb. It is pretty universally accepted that Bin Laden escaped in Tora Bora because local forces being used by US troops either were incompetent, or allowed it. This stemmed from Donald Rummsfeld's desire to run the military on smaller numbers, leaner and meaner.

In fact, most recent US military problems stem from this MBA-style doctrine of military management, so the hypothetical above isn't terribly far fetched, and it somewhat closely resembles the Powell Doctrine

But, please by all means, continue to embarrass yourself if you must.

The July 20th conspirators did not kill any civilians, whether it was deliberate or accidental.

And they targeted the source.

Here you go - the extent of Mandela's violence from your Wikipedia link:


He was never a terrorist - he was a freedom fighter.

Why limit just jews? Germany still requires all religions to be registered - even after having tried to elliminate all of the jews. And Germany outlaws other form of religions like Scientology.