Vanir Ausf B

The given reason is that he is a flight risk because he has no strong ties to the UK and is known to move around a lot.

"Creepy" is a very subjective term, bub.

I just mulled that over. There's 5 seconds of my life I'll never get back.

Some websites block IE6. It's extremely vulnerable to exploits.

Downloading now LOL!

Heh, that's pretty cool. For a real blast from the past click on the forums link. I had almost forgotten the neon color scheme.

So it comes down to basic anti-Americanism. I appreciate your honesty. Personally, I opposed the invasion of Iraq but strongly supported going into Afghanistan. I don't see them as comparable. There was broad international support for going into Afghanistan. There is a NATO command in Afghanistan, and there are some countries -- such as Canada and France -- that refused to support the invasion of Iraq but have troops fighting in Afghanistan. The fact that you seem to lump Afghanistan and Iraq together says much about how far out in left field your views are. You state that Sharia law requires evidence. So does Western law. So why insist on Sharia, and why do you act as if one were as valid as the other? Sharia law is religious law, and there is no one single version of it any more than there is one single version of Islam. al-Qaeda justifies its attacks with Islam and depending on which teachings and interpretations are used, bin Laden may have been able to admit his part in the attacks -- as he has subsequently done -- but been found innocent on grounds that it was justifiable killing of infidels. Do you really consider Sharia law a valid means of judging bin Laden, or is it just that your anti-Americanism is so strong that anything the US wants you must oppose? But even if we were to have gone the route you suggest -- and assuming the Taliban were even serious in their offer -- and further assuming bin Laden were actually convicted in this religious court you put so much faith in, the fact remains that bin Laden is just one guy. The head guy for sure, but he's replaceable. The terrorist training camps in Afghanistan would have remained open. The Taliban never offered to shut them down. Neither did they offer to hand over bin Laden's lieutenants, nor to expel the couple thousand trained al-Qaeda volunteers serving in the Taliban army (which they were also required to do under the UN Resolution). Any why would they? Those training camps were the source of the Taliban's best soldiers. So even with bin Laden in jail the central problem would have remained.

BTW, it wasn't just the United States demanding he be handed over. Even before 9/11 the Taliban was legally required to do so under UN Resolution 1267, which was passed under Chapter VII of the UN Charter in October of 1999.

Not all that much, eh? He was already wanted prior to 9/11 for the bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi and the attack on the USS Cole. And yeah, I don't think the US was so sure that he would be convicted under Sharia law. Do you blame them? I'm frankly having a difficult time taking you position seriously. Come to think of it, I'm not sure what your position is, exactly, though the fact that the report you linked to earlier was from the "International Socialist Review" is probably a good hint.

Even that isn't news.

Yes they did... under Sharia law. bin Laden himself supported the idea, which suggests he was confident of the outcome.

In fairness, that "strategic calculation" was essentially made for the US when the group the Taliban was allied to and providing safe have to declared war and attacked, and the Taliban subsequently refused to disassociate itself from them.

The Brits only swear at football games. During combat their upper lips are too stiff for their mouths to form the words.

I probably shouldn't have said "abandoned". It's more a shift of emphasis. Anyway... Targeted Killing Is New U.S. Focus in Afghanistan

Not necessarily. Although it hasn't been announced for obvious reasons, the Coalition has mostly abandoned it's counter-insurgency strategy and is now running a counter-terror campaign. That is to say they have recognized that a hearts-and-minds campaign with the Karzai government as its centerpiece is hopeless, so they are instead focusing on inflicting as much damage as possible on the Taliban in hopes of forcing them to the negotiating table.

True, the Afghans don't care about that. But we apparently do. As for the Afghans, from what I have read when they are asked whether they would rather live under Karzai or the Taliban most of them say "C: none of the above". Unfortunately for them they probably aren't going to get that choice.

I think you have to be very careful about drawing parallels between the current conflict and the 1980s. The US and Soviet Union had rather different motivations and justifications for their respective involvements, and I think despite the many shortcomings of Karzai's government it scores lower on the oppress-o-meter than did the Taliban.

I don't see how a story that cliched, populated with characters that stereotypical, can be award-winning. Big Business has been Hollywood's favorite whipping boy -- after the Catholic church and Nazis, of course -- for ever. The Hurt Locker is so much better written and acted it's in a different league than Avatar. Avatar certainly looks a lot better. I'll give it that much.

I'm not an imperialist per se, but I don't think we need to be constantly beating ourselves up over what our forebearers did. Right or wrong, the fact is without imperialism the United States and Canada, along with a lot of other countries, would not even exist. If Avatar were just a commentary on the banana wars of the early 20th century it wouldn't be so bad. But Cameron mixes in other themes recklessly. There are many clear references to the War on Terror and the war in Iraq in particular. This is rather noxious since it buys into the far-left screed that the war is for oil (patently ridiculous as evidenced by the fact that we have been there seven years but we don't have the oil). Speaking of "greedy multinationals", I find it ironic that Avatar is making a fortune for 20th Century Fox, which is a subsidiary of News Corp, which is owned by media mogul Rupert Murdock, who's newspapers all editorialized in favor of the invasion of Iraq. Getting back to Avatar's plot, it is mentioned several times in the movie that Earth is "dying" and the resource they are after on Pandora is critical for its future. This looks like a plot hole to me since if it was really that important you would think we would send more than a few hundred Marines to secure it. And if there is more to the humans' motivation for doing what they are doing than just making a pretty penny that makes them maybe not so completely evil and Jake's betrayal perhaps not so admirable. It's too bad Cameron didn't have the guts to explore these shades of gray. But the real stars of the show are the action and special effects, so maybe I'm expecting too much.

Yeah, but I would rather see him do Battle Angel. No matter how pretty it looks Avatar is still just 2.5 hours of anti-imperialism cliches. I don't know if I can stomach that much more self-hatred.

I'll echo Boeman's comment that it does look noticeably darker and a little blurry around the edges in Dolby 3D. This bothered me some, but I think it still looked better than 2D. To gunnergoz: from what little I know about 3D it still works basically the same on the viewer's end as it always has. The innovations are mainly on the production side, so if you got a headache before you probably will again. I have the same issue to some degree because of astigmatism in one eye, but it's nothing Excedrine won't cure.

Saw it in 3D. One of the most visually impressive movies ever. The only problem with the film is that we've seen it before, just with less special effects. If you've seen Dances With Wolves or FernGully you already know the story. The less you think about it and just enjoy the visuals the more you'll like it.

Yep. I have a hunch they were thinking if they could bag a chopper with a lucky RPG it would look real cool on YouTube. I recall the Apaches were doing gun runs something like 30m from the Evac choppers as they loaded wounded.

That is not possible. The US forces on the ground continued to take heavy fire -- and several casualties -- for a couple of hours after the Apaches showed up. Even after that there was small skirmishing for the next 24 hours at least, as I noted above.

No, because the guys stepping on your mines would mostly be the locals whos hearts and minds you're trying to win over. Might be counter-productive. It all goes back to the current COIN manta that the key to winning is protection of the population and economic development, even if that means sacrificing force protection. I'll quote from the Wanat AAR: