by bad, I'm not suggesting you're a fan of Kissinger I was making a slightly tangential argument concerning your statement "dropping nuclear weapons hastened the Japanese surrender" which is largely a myth.

As to whether or not someone (indigenous or citizen of a given land we've unlawfully invaded) "becomes an unlawful combatant" on our sayso just because they take up arms against us in civilian clothing, seems a bit fuzzy.

What if they are so "impoverished" they don't have the scratch to buy their own shiny military swag and their country has had the shit so bombed out of it they can't afford to manufacture any shiny swag and God bless em' but the now defunct commies don't have any old red army uniforms storage that they can give away, does that mean they can't lawfully defend their lands. Maybe they should send away via UPS or Fed Ex for a mail order uniform mad by a subsidiary of Halliburton. We'd get them coming and going--"buy a uniform from us and fight fair" otherwise we bomb the crap out of you or arrest you as an unlawful combatant for fighting back improperly attired.

This is kinda like I/P war logic--we (America or Israel) only legally fight those rich enough to fight back, but the rest we "liberate" by impoverishing, humiliating and exterminating in the pursuit of "terrorists" and anybody who doesn't immediately prostrate themselves to our military greatness and surrender is accordingly and by definition a "terrorist" or "terrorist sympathizer" and subject to be blowed up. Those Japanese civilians in Nagasaki and Hiroshima and those wily rock throwing Gazan teenagers and infants should just have observed the rules of war and no harm (becoming perfectly acceptable "collateral damage" statistics in the minds of the "civilized) would have befallen them.

I love the logic of "war". Anywhoo back to my original idea of loin cloths and death cage matches . . .

War is generally speaking a form of collective human madness and should be duly and summarily banned for the remainder of human existence before it brings about the premature end of human existence. It's not like there aren't better ways to resolve disputes. Like I don't know . . . laws and stuff and compromise and sharing and charity and like loving thy neighbor (even if they pray differently and are brown and wear funny clothes and hats) and treating him/her fairly and not exploiting him/her for the betterment of the few . . . oops my bad I was starting to get into the intrinsic flaws with the economic rationale and machinations of over consumptive capitalism. Vive le Marx (I don't speak french so that probably isn't grammatically correct).

Now what I can't figure out is why Zawahiri himself doesn't cut off a finger and collect the $25 million (through a proxy and of course a Swiss bank account). Now that's some diabolical shit--fake your own death, get on with your terrorist activities (assuming he engages in said alleged activities), and all of it on the American taxpayer's dime. Fucking brilliant. No wonder our little American wars over the last 50 years have been so catastrophically unsuccessful. Fighting people on their soil, for dubious moral reasons, using treasury draining overpriced mass killing devices, against people willing to die fighting us in sandals and no uniforms, all to protect their homes and lands from democratic change at the point of a gun doesn't seem like a strategy for success. The nerve of some folks. Barbarians all for thwarting our civilized advances on their lands and cultures.

War is generally an epic idiotic scam and so are the people who start and perpetuate them. No amount of historical/war analysis will change that simple fact. Man I wish I could pay the portion of my taxes that go to fuel the MIC every year in lumps of melted down pennies without getting disbarred.

My new motto: Never attack a country whose populace will fight you wearing sandals in a climate radically different from our own particularly when they wear funny headgear and fight you using weapons you at one time supplied to them--cause that's simply not a winning proposition.

go easy on the Italian Stallion. I know he tends toward the neanderthal point of view, but maybe comedy or music is the way to soften his heart and open his mind to the generally well reasoned and wise discourse that passes these lowly threads. Or he could just be chiming in with more jibberish. Not that I'm not a fan of jibberish. The toobz needs new foils otherwise our collective rapier wit becomes rather dull constantly sticking it in and out of Shooter, ihillesum, and Elephantman. Even Shooter may not be beyond salvation given he attended OS's inauguration.

investigate (including complicit Dems), if investigation reveals crimes, prosecute accordingly, convict if necessary, and sentence appropriately.

Either we are or we aren't a nation of laws. And either we are or we aren't a nation that legalizes and engages in torture. Only people that can't see that are the ass covering deluded monarchist inside the beltway watercarriers of Bush et al.

Admitting that "children were tortured for years" in our collective names makes me want to vomit every time I think about it. We as a nation need to come clean before the world and hold those responsible accountable in a meaningful way. Otherwise we'll never be the shining city on the hill just the duplicitous hypocritical festering pilonidal cyst on the ass crack of North America.

ehillesum and farragut add so little to these threads as to be approaching absolute zero at an exponential rate.

(I'm sitting here raising my hand--ehillisum and farragut feel free to raise either paw, claw, or talon as you see fit).