I was not trying to insult you. Why are you hiding your country of origin? Right there, to the left of this, it says what country I live in. If you don't list your country and you speak good American English, then I'll assume you're from America unless it says otherwise under your avatar. The TV show, 24, is a reality-like show about 24 hours of the life of a fictional government agent, Jack Bower, who works for a fictional government agency, Counter Terrorism Unit (something like what you'd find under the Homeland Security department for real), and tries to out-think and foil terrorists' plots. During the last season of the show various methods of torture were used in nearly every episode in order to desensitize the audience (American public) to the whole idea of torture. The goal is to make us all agree that torture, even to children, is good because it's a means to an end and the end justifies the means no matter how horrendous, painful, even terminal they may prove to be. Very recently Slick Willy (President William Jefferson Clinton) came out on some news show (Meet The Press) and said he agreed that torture such as that portrayed on "24" is an acceptable means of extracting information (or something to that effect). See here for yourself.

I stand by what I originally posted. The countries of the world such as France, USA, UK, India, Pakistan, China, Russia (USSR), and most recently, North Korea have all tested nuclear weapons above and/or below ground. Since the first atomic blasts were conducted in New Mexico (or was it Nevada?) there has been a dramatic rise in cancer rates and birth defects/ mutations throughout the world. The last thing this planet and the biological entities contained therein need is another nuclear blast.

You should have said Jack Bauer and I would have known what you were talking about we DO get that show. I watched the first few episodes and grew tired of it.



I'm not hiding anything, I just haven't had the time to write out unimportant info in my profile yet.

And by the way, it is kind of insulting that you assume I'm from America just because I know how to write english. What you're basicly saying is that only people who actually live in america knows how to use the english language. Which, besides from being totally wrong, is ignorant, arrogant and proof of the American "we're better then you" attitude.

<- Fixed.

Terrorism will never be stopped by another, equivalent use of force. Just look at what happened in Iraq and with Al Qaeda. US did oust Sadam but what's happening now? Death toll on the rise and terrorist retaliations beyond the control of the so-called "defenders of democracy". Well, freedom has its price and this could be the price the Iraqis are paying for their freedom. (Freedom based on the western culture point of view.)

I totally agree with ShadowX. Our standards may suggest that US is the freedom fighter, but what of the standards lived by extremist militants? They have their own.

War, terrorism, etc. will never have ends. We may get closer to achieving it, but it will never be reached. And I believe, the best to way to be near it is to start respecting people near us.

What I was suggesting* was not an equal use of force.


Yes, I agree to this 100% but does it go further? Yes. The US is trying to inflict their standards on everyone else in the world with balant disregard to cultural history, and so are the extremists. Both are basicly doing the same thing but with slightly different tools. Both are going for the same goal, which is to make the other side think and live like themselves.

Ofcourse, this is not limited to the US and the extremists, there are many other factions doing this exact same thing, the US vs Terrorists being the most powerful example right at this time.


Well yes and no. Get Bin Laden and Bush into a room and tell them to start respecting eachother, you think they'll shake hands and make friends?

No, ofcourse not, they hate eachother, there can never be respect between two sides which fundamentally disagrees about everthing.

What I'm hinting at here is that there isin't room for both in the world. One will need to perish or at least be reduced to a state of existance in which the stronger one can contain and control the lesser from uprise. Not before then will there be peace. What I just said might sound a bit fascistic, and it is and I don't like it myself. But it is, however cruel it may sound, logical and reasonable from a historical perspective. Humans have done this to eachother through out history. And as much as we would like to think that we are more sophisticated and smarter now then we where in the past, we are not. It is impossible to change our historical heritage.

*what I was saying in my first post was to use a much stronger force as a kind of muscle flex. Anyone with a functional brain must recognize that I wasn't being serious there, I don't support the usage of nukes any more than you do. I was simply trying to spawn a debate. Sorry if I came of as stupid and crazy.

Hardly, I was simply stating that even if the terrorists were tagged as casualties of war, the nature of a nuke (mini or otherwise) is a radial blast; not precise and not discriminatory. So unless you can gurantee that everybody within a x-mile radius is a terrorist you will be mass murdering innocent people.

Furthermore, even if you could gurantee that all the terrorsits in the world would be nuked at once, extreme action such as that would give birth to a whole new group/level of terrorist.

Ok, fine, no nukes then. There are other kinds of bombs as well which are powerful enough to wipe out a region equalent that of a small nuke, not considering the global enviromental effects a nuke has ofcourse.

A couple of innocent peolpe has to be mass murdered in order to create an omelette, if you know what I mean.



I don't belive that. Who would become a terrorist organisation because of it? The Red Cross? W.H.O.? The hippies?

I've never noticed it spelled on the show. Since I haven't read any news articles until now, I didn't know how it was spelled. Since it's pronounced the same way, I don't believe for a second you knew what I was talking about. However, now that you do, do you also believe that torture should be an accepted method of extracting information from people?

Where did I ever indicate that I thought Americans were better than you, wherever you are? How is it anything but a compliment to you that I assume that you're American based upon your English writing skills? (Notice above I specifically said "American English".) There are plenty of examples of people on this board who actually are from America who don't have as good a handle as you have on the written English word. I give them grief all the time about it. One of the very best writers on Trap17 is actually from India. So, in no way should you take that as anything but a compliment. But, for future reference, I'm quite sure I'm not the only one who might assume that you are either from the U.S. or Canada unless you indicate otherwise. Canadians are usually quite proud to state they're from Canada in their Avatar space for the whole world to see, though, so it actually didn't occur to me that you might actually be from there.


No, now you really ARE hiding your country of origin. Why?



Ok. Fair enough. Will you volunteer to be one of those innocent people who are mass-murdered to create your "omelet"?

This post has been edited by Watermonkey: Oct 4 2007, 05:14 AM

Bower and Bauer isin't pronounced the same way. Or maybe it is, depending on accent. But now that all that is cleared up, it doesn't really matter.

Besides, every other American fictional figure is named Jack so it doesn't really tell me anything.

Well, if YOU had to choose between the saving the lives of potentially hundreds of innocent people and saving the fingernails of the person who planned the attack about to happen, I'm pretty damn sure I know which one you would pick.

And no, I'm not saying torture is morally right in any given situation but I do believe that we have to pick the lesser of two evils.


I do recognize the compliment, thanks, but I still say you're arrogant for assuming I'm American and/or that English is my primary language, which it is not. Seeing as you're American I don't know if you're awere of this but everyone else in the world know that Americans think they are better then people from other countries. Which is why you invade countries that don't follow your standards of democrazy. Unless ofcourse it's a big and scary country like China.

"American English"? I'm not sure what you mean by this as the only American English I can think of if the one spoken in America (as opposed to the one in England). So you'll have to clarify this a bit or I'll have to assume you're talking about me spelling the word color like that instead of colour like they do in England, for example.

Allright fine, since you are so fixated