oneof6billion comments

I'm waiting for cinema to get brave instead of cliche and depict war atrocities in a morally neutral light. Not going to happen though.

quick correction: suicide note apologizing...

This is a disturbingly common thing. It's so heartbreaking. I know of one junior high school in which these kids were bullying one kid to the point that he broke his arm. The kids who did the bullying got a stern yelling at from one of the teachers. Seemingly as a result, one of the bullies went home and jumped off of his apartment building in a suicide not apologizing for hurting his friend. It's all too sad. Japanese kids are such good kids but no culture is immune to misguided cruelty.

Not to sound too crude on this, but all he had to do was take a Southwest flight to Las Vegas, and go out into the Clark County area outside of the city limits and taken care of this problem.

I was kinda thinking the same thing. Unfortunately, America's "freemarket capitalism" isn't as free in that sector. I don't think he would have gotten the satisfaction that he was yearning for but perhaps it would have kept him to his natural death leading a life of quiet desperation. It's a cold, cruel world out there.... often we unnecessarily make it worse out of contrived value systems.

A war crime. And a cowardly act.

Your right, The Taliban should wear a uniforms and not mix themselves with civilians. Instead, they hide like cowards in villages among civilians and commit acts of savagery and brutality on those who co-operate with the allied forces. Their willful endangerment of civilians shows just how pathetic they are.

I hope that we will be able to put behind us the polarizing generalizations of the belief that America was the sole guardian of freedom or the opposite belief that America is the cause of all the ills in the world today. Both are extraordinarily ignorant. One thing about political beliefs that I never bought into is the need to create a good guy/ bad guy narrative to bolster your own political orientation. While the Nazis have been written down in our history books as the most vile and evil ideology to have ever existed, their own side of the argument has been erased. So be it. Perhaps someday China will become the hegemony of the world and history will once again not be recognizable to our vantage point. My point is that if lean to any extreme in ideology, you will fail to grasp other vantage points. Case in point is when people want to say that America has saved the world or want to say that America is the cause of all conflict today. I don't think I am being fascicle and morally relative though. America was the bulwark against the tyrannical system of communism through out the cold war. Communism was a greater evil and America did have to do some less savery tactics to insure communism didn't spread. In the end though, the world has benefited from America's fight against communism. Does America deserve thanks for that... No.. but maybe a little respect.

I really wonder about all of this. I have a friend who works as a professional evictor. He didn't have stories about being able to do much as far as getting people out of the apartments though. He must work for a legitimate company I guess. Apparently, it's not so easy to kick out the tenant in Japan and this case should be a slam dunk for the tenant. In the US there is a wide disparity between state laws. For example, my friend in Illinois bought a house and spent tens of thousands of dollars and several months fixing it up. He then made the mistake of renting it out to gypsies. Big surprise! They didn't pay the rent for 5 months but he couldn't evict them in that time. In contrast, in Texas... all you have to be is a single day late to legally evict.

I wonder what Calderon's critics would suggest? Go back to corrupt business as usual? I really wonder what goes through the minds of those who think it is better to not fight organized crime or terrorists.

Cheney is a sociopath who still today does not accept his culpability in the damage he has done to America. To Bush's credit, he seems to understand where he has been in error and ostensibly in private feels pain for it. Meanwhile though, Cheney thinks he can still rewrite reality long after his lies and distortions have come to light. He disingenuously proports to be on the side of those who serve America i.e. the troops and the CIA yet he doesn't hesitate to throw them under a bus. Cheney the chicken hawk needs to stop perfidiously hiding behind the excuse of national security and be exposed for the sick minded and even treasonous individual that he is.

Sooner or later the west is going to have to give up on Pakistan's psudo-cooperation and deem it an enemy. Given the fact that they are nuclear will also call for more extreme measures. It's like dealing with a crazed child waving a gun. Eventually you have to decide if the child is too much of a danger to everyone and the only solution is to shoot them.

n the 'real world' superheroes exist only in comics and when they don't they are called Übermenschen. Don't know what that mean? Do a google under Nazi worldview. Actually you should bother to read Nietzsche before you try to lecture others on what he meant since you obviously didn't comprehend what he wrote. I can't help to roll my eyes at someone who presumes the poster isn't more literate then they are. None the less, I also am aware of the tendency to glorify the military and how the right wing noise machine amplifies such stories. This however had nothing to do with that. The captain was overjoyed with the fact that he was going to be able to see his family again. Perhaps that's too abstract for you but people in the real world usually are very grateful when then come that close to being killed and someone helps them out. It is the role of Navies all over the world to protect against piracy. I bet you didn't know that the US navy rescued a North Korean ship from pirates 6 months ago. I bet you didn't know that the Indian navy sunk a pirate mother ship a while back or that the German, Canadian and Danish navy also recently thwarted pirates. Face it, you are trying to stick a square peg in a round whole if you are trying to say that protection of the international merchant fleet against extortionists, thieves and murderers is akin to fascism. When you make silly statements like that you join the moral level of those pirates.

As I said before, I myself have winced at the stupidity of those who glorified militarism but at the same time I also chafe at people who knee jerk condemn any military actions.

"SEALs are not superheroes, they are trained killers. Heroes don't murder children, the pirates were all kids. They should face the International court, along with the pirates." Wow! Someone lives in a glass bubble. The operative word is "should." Kids shouldn't be pirates. Terrorists "shouldn't" mix in with the civilian population. Ugly people shouldn't be treated different from pretty people. Carnivores shouldn't eat other animals. Meanwhile in the real world, the SEALS saved the life of the captain and maybe just maybe discouraged pirates from kidnapping, stealing and murder. It's a tough world out there and people who loudly proclaim what things should be and shouldn't be sound quit foolish in the face of reality.

As someone who was quite vocal about the stupidity of the Bush administration and the senselessness of invading Iraq, I am dismayed at those who think that the NATO allies should not share the burden in Afghanistan. It is as if these people are as ignorant as those who thought that Iraq had anything to do with 9/11. It is a fact that the Taliban are allies of Al Queda and provides refuge and support of Al Queda. While I do think that Bush flubbed in leadership in response to 9-11, it does not mean that the war in Afghanistan is pointless or unprovoked. The more I hear comments like the ones above from America's schadenfreuden, the more I wonder if G.W. Bush might have been right. God help us all! The ball is now in Europe's court and it looks like they are failing.