The problem with going big or going home is that sometimes ....
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Is Bibi thinking of selling the West Bank withdrawal to right-wing Rabbis by waving US security guarantees over their head?
Ahmadinejad blusters: "The United States doesn't understand what war looks like. When a war starts, it knows no limits."
Senate minority blocks the repeal of DADT. Relatedly: John McCain still a hack, Tony Perkins still a dick.
The stats of a "front-runner".
Like all other religions, Christianity has a broad array of different views on moral questions, and we shouldn't take the seemingly abhorrent perspectives advocated by some and paint the entire faith with a broad brush.
Nate Silver has a comperenehsive assessment of the likely impact of the Tea Party, on election day and beyond.
A neat map that tracks the racial divides in DC.
I like how Blanche Lincoln voted to eep DADT like she has any hope of winning reelection anyways.
ReplyDeleteOne of the few time I will absolutely agree with Ahmadenijad.
ReplyDelete"One of the few time I will absolutely agree with Ahmadenijad."
ReplyDeleteReally? You are not familiar with how nations have in fact limited themselves in war in order to ensure the same self-limiting behavior by their opponents?
Basic concepts like the "prisoner of war" (instead of just killing everyone on the other side, even when they are defenseless and surrendered) have existed in international law for hundreds of years. There are limits in war.
And nations that don't accept even the most elementary limitations in war are abhorred. One of the crimes committed by the Nazi regime in World War II was the mass murder of Soviet prisoners of war.
ReplyDeleteRebecca,
ReplyDeleteThe issue raised is that the trend in the Islamic regions is that the rules of war - even those most people thought were part of the Shari'a law - are followed less and less.
Of course, it is to be noted that not only did the Nazis break the rules of war but so did all the other parties during WWII. Prisoners were shot by all parties involved, most especially after it became clear that the other side was doing so.
There were atrocities every which imaginable way. The Russians, in their conquest of eastern Germany, employed - intentionally employed - the tactic of mass rapes - tens of thousands of such events, with intentionally committed gang rapes, by the thousands, committed on the same victims.
The issue raised is that the trend in the Islamic regions is that the rules of war - even those most people thought were part of the Shari'a law - are followed less and less.
ReplyDeleteHow was that the issue raised? Ahmadinejad made a claim about all war -- not just war as lately conducted "in the Islamic regions." sonicfrog said he agreed with the claim. Rebecca and I pointed out that the claim is factually erroneous.
Prisoners were shot by all parties involved, most especially after it became clear that the other side was doing so.
The U.S. shot POWs? Source, please.
In fairness even to Nazis and Soviets, the Soviets had refused to sign the 1929 Geneva Convention governing treatment of POWs. So the Soviets technically weren't bound to treat POWs decently, and the Nazis could argue that as non-signatories, the Soviets weren't entitled to the Convention's protections.
This of course is the same argument used by conservatives today as to why Taliban, and other detainees fighting for something other than a nation-state signatory to Geneva, are not entitled to POW protections or status, but instead belong in an "enemy combatant" netherworld even when picked up off a battlefield.