Pakistan thinking about showing secret copter to China

[fskimospy]

Sorry I did not realize it was a racial slur. I see a lot of people using it in the thread and i was tired of typing "Pakistanis"

haha..

Also it is the only country in the world that has been owned by the army for most of its post independence life. I believe in the last 60 years, civilians were in real control only for about 7 years. which other country can even come close to that.

It really depends on what you consider military control. Pakistan has a terrible history of governance, my point was that it's far from alone in this.

 

[cganesh75]

What has Pakistan ever done for anyone? Besides giving N Korea nuclear technology and harboring the worlds most wanted terrorists.

fixed it for ya

 

[Darwin333]

"Better" is subjective. I would say most, including Iraq and Syria.

Iraq and Syria aren't exactly on the top of my "best places to live" chart.

 

[routan]

Quoted so that all can enjoy the massive stupidity. Perhaps the voices in Craig's head will even tell us which of the approximately six billion humans have been killed by drone attacks.

A billion is a quantity; billions means at least two of that quantity. By your statement, roughly one person in three across the whole Earth has been killed by drone attack. Even by your weasel definition, one person in six has died in drone attacks. One person in six of the whole freakin' Earth.

my god. this is kids in a playground. he was trying to make a point to me. not trying to say billions were killed in drone attacks.

 

[routan]

Farhan Taj has a lot of ears in the region. Read the paper. She says that people like that the american are droning the terrorist bastards [like the new word droning] and they support the americans for that.

Gender research entails working with locals or do you think that gender research means just spouting off on a tech board and then passing it off a fact [fart]

What we always see in Pakistan in tons of fake bearded mullahs tramping and burning american flags and we never see/ hear what the women think of the whole drone attacks.

Farhan Taj is able to bring to the fore what people really think of the taliban / al qaeda goat fuckers getting smacked down by the drones

FarhaT Taj. "T", not "N". Farhan is a masculine name. Farhat a female name.

lol, you cant get the name right, but can speak intelligently about her work.

 

[Darwin333]

That's why nobody likes you. You waste billions of dollars on dogs while people in Africa starve to death.

Guess it is a good thing that the opinion of a person who I have never and will never meet, has zero influence over my day to day life, and is thousands of miles away doesn't even register on my give-a-shit meter.

If it makes them feel any better, instead of throwing away my leftover BBQ ribs the other night I gave them to my dog. I am sure he will get some of my wifes steak tonight too, waste not want not.

 

[routan]

The fact is, thousands, if not billions, have been killed by drone attacks.

Routan, if there is no basis at all for the 'tens of thousands' possibility, if it's clearly false, it's worth criticizing its inclusion - and inferring that you might not have a good understanding of the facts because you think it is possible. It's not a semantic argument, it's a fair one on the substance - you gave him the ammunition for it.

You can criticize him for ONLY concentrating on the issue of your 'if not tens of thousands' phrase while pretending that the 'mere' thousands are so small as not worth worrying about, but your response on the issue of that phrase IMO is not reasonable - unless you can offer any evidence that there's some reasonable chance - I'd take 10%, maybe even less, but not effectively zero - that it's correct, you should acknowledge the phrase was an error and move on to discussing the real number.

On the other hand, his knowledge of the English language is wrong when it comes to numbers.

One might think, as he says, that "tens of thousands" means at least 20 thousand, because tens of thousand is plural, meaning at least two of 'ten thousand', but that's not the accepted definition. In fact, "hundreds" starts at 101, "thousands" starts at 1001, and "tens of thousands" would start at 10,001.

I wrote "tens of thousands" as a possibilty because almost every drone attack listed in the provided link has "Other Casulties" listed as Unclear or Unknown.

Given that no one is counting the bodies, the actual number of people killed can be vastly greater than "known" accounts.

 

[Craig234]

I wrote "tens of thousands" as a possibilty because almost every drone attack listed in the provided link has "Other Casulties" listed as Unclear or Unknown.

Given that no one is counting the bodies, the actual number of people killed can be vastly greater than "known" accounts.

OK, I understand you are defending the number as plausible. I don't have the info to offer an opinion. Do you have any 'expert' sources supporting that's a correct number?

Efforts can be made, from missing persons reports, knowing who lived at an address, etc. to try to come up with an estimate - if they have done so.

 

[dabuddha]

I wrote "tens of thousands" as a possibilty because almost every drone attack listed in the provided link has "Other Casulties" listed as Unclear or Unknown.

Given that no one is counting the bodies, the actual number of people killed can be vastly greater than "known" accounts.

So if no one is counting the bodies, you're saying the numbers might be greatly inflated as well.

 

[BeauJangles]

This is an old myth that gets repeated. The confusion largely comes from the wealth gap, so it matters whether you look at absolute dollars, or share of the economy.

The US is a much wealthier nation than others; and it ends up that its gifts in absolute dollars are large, but as a share of the economy are smaller than others.

We give more than the next two countries combined. We could give more, but we already give way more in absolute dollars than any other country and those numbers don't count private giving.

I had originally asked "what is your point?" but I get your point. We could give more. Any country could always give more. The fact of the matter is that we don't have to give anyone diddley and we still contribute $26 billion dollars a year worldwide, not counting military spending, or private giving.

Here's a link to an article a few years old but I doubt it's changed much.

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2676

It doesn't even get into how much of our aid is military, is often used for repression; is require to be spent with US defense companies, etc.

That's a rather shallow way to look at it. The United States not only furnishes countries with money for weapons, but provides months of hands-on training. We teach other countries law enforcement methods, counter-terrorism methods, anti-narcotics methods, not to mention all the joint military training that goes on.

Yes, we have an interest in doing this. It brings countries closer to us, it improves global security, etc.

I guess that stuff doesn't count though because military aid isn't aid. Even though it is.

Just looking at charity, it mentions a study of the world's 22 wealthiest nations, our giving as a share of the economy was in last place the year before, then up to 21st.

21st when counting non-military aid given directly by the government. In terms of overall charitably, the United States ranks well within the top-10.

It is hard to find reliable stats about how much of that charity travels abroad, but I bet that when private and public giving are combined, there would be a change in those rankings.

And were the recipients the poor? The top two recipients of aid have long been Israel and Egypt (under Mubarak) - serving our power interests more than 'charity'.

By ODA measure, Israel isn't in the top-10 for aid from the United States. Egypt is, but so are the Palestinian territories, Sudan, South Africa, Colombia, and Ethiopia. Most of that aid is categorized as education, health and population or as other social infrastructure.

404 - war machine of repression serving our own interests not found.

The US gave $350 million in Tsunami relief, fitting the 'largest in dollars, not in share of the economy' pattern - but that was after a lot of pressure over the first $15M offer.

What is your point? Our military was one of the first responders to the crises and the country contributed a large amount of money to the disaster relief. To top it off, most of that aid money that was sent to global disaster like the tsunami or the Haiti earthquake was delivered by.... the United States.

It was our country that flew in the vast majority of aid to Haiti and it is our country that is continually a first-responder to disasters and winds up providing logistical expertise and infrastructure that no other nation is capable of offering.

That stuff doesn't count though, because it's not money directly spent on aid... even though without our infrastructure most of the giving done by the rest of the world would be less effective and arrive at a slower pace. Surely that counts for something?

It mentions how a country like Norway gives much less than the US in dollars - with 2% of the US GDP; but that it gives 0.96 of its economy, above the UN recommendation for countries of 0.7%, while the US has never come close to the 0.7% figure, and they give five times as much as Americans per person.

No, Norwegians don't "give five times as much as Americans per person," their government does. Like I said above, not counting private donations is ridiculous, considering how much money Americans give to charity every year. Plus, I'm glad the UN has recommendations, but what does it matter what their "ideal" number is for giving? Again, I'm not disputing your point that the US could give more than it does as a percentage, I'm disputing the dismissive tone your article takes with the fact that we give twice as much as the next country in raw dollars alone and that we provide critical global infrastructure which is a freaking thankless task.

Your article's point is that we should give a higher percentage of our money to other countries. My ORIGINAL point is that we give a dickload more than most countries (in both absolute and relative terms). We can argue until we're blue in the face about it, but the point remains that the United States contributes 26 billion dollars per year in taxpayer money to other countries on top of military aid and private donations as well as volunteered time and NPO operations. Those last two things are also incredibly important when considering how "generous" a country is or is not.

 

[woolfe9999]

Wow, this argument is just going into the semantics. I said:
Then I link you to the article which provides the basis for the "thousands" killed. Which is exactly what I said. I didnt say thousands yearly, I didnt say tens of thousands HAVE been killed, or average per year. I said "thousands" have been killed in drone attacks.

Common Courtesy already followed up to address the numbers issue. I want to point out something else about your wiki link. Until I read that article, I actually did not realize how effective those drone strikes have been in taking out high ranking militants of both AQ and the Taliban. I find myself more supportive of said strikes now that I have read that, and would give kudos to Obama for doubling the strikes since he came into office. Careful with your use of sources as they may just convince people of the opposite of what you're trying to convince them of.

 

[DisgruntledVirus]

I skipped everything said in this thread posted by anybody except The_Green_Bean, because I find his posts so hilariously entertaining.

 

[BeauJangles]

Common Courtesy already followed up to address the numbers issue. I want to point out something else about your wiki link. Until I read that article, I actually did not realize how effective those drone strikes have been in taking out high ranking militants of both AQ and the Taliban. I find myself more supportive of said strikes now that I have read that, and would give kudos to Obama for doubling the strikes since he came into office. Careful with your use of sources as they may just convince people of the opposite of what you're trying to convince them of.

Yeah, when you realize how effective these strikes have been, it becomes obvious why the CIA is willing to expend political capital and run the risk of pissing off a lot of people to continue them. They're basically the biggest reason AQ is so disorganized right now.

 

[Svnla]

And so if the Taliban stole that 1/3 of the US, you would have no grounds to complain?

In fact, any wrong by any nation should just be dismissed as 'not perfect'?

Short of taking 100% of a nation and killing all inhabitants, is there a much more serious wrong than aggressively stealing 1/3 of a nation by a war you start?

Maybe we should ask Ulysses Grant, who fought in it:

Maybe we should ask Abraham Lincoln, who was one of the leaders in Congress against the war as wrong.

Maybe we should recall that the war was the cause behind Henry David Thoreau's famous act and book, taught to schoolchildren ever since largely unlike the history of the leaders' above opposition, about not paying his taxes as civil disobedience, saying it was better to go to jail for civil disobedience than to be part of paying for a wrongful war.

Nah, all those people should not have stood up for any morality on war and just said any wrongful war is just 'no country is perfect' and not opposed it.

Indeed, we should have no sympathy or praise for Germans or Japanese or Italians who opposed their countries' starting WWII. No nation is perfect.

Don't even go there. Don't even use the straw man argument with me. I replied to TGB's post because he was bragging about how commie China is the REAL ally and how Pakistan should give everything to commie China. Here is the whole post in FULL context.

Originally Posted by The Green Bean
Are the idiots blaming Pakistan for being the "bad ally" drones? You invade our territory without telling us and then cry foul when we give your downed planes to our real ally? Pakistan should give everything to China and then tell the USA that they are not sorry.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Svnla = China as your REAL ally? Wow, just wow. Did you learn anything from history?

Yes, you should give everything to China and become another Tibet, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia (sovereign nations that were invaded and annexed by commie China). I don't remember the US takes any land from Pakistan, Afghan, Iraq, Kuwaitt...do you?

If you want to play game, I can go back to several thousands years of history and show you how China invaded and enslaved its smaller neighbors such as Vietnam for almost 1,000 years and on and on. How China still occupied land of Vietnam (Guangdong and Guanxi Zhuang).

I never said anything about US is all that or about Mex-US war. Nice try and thank for playing as troll, as usual, again.

Well.... he's kinda right. The Chinese don't like Muslims and converting them all into good atheist commies is a hopeless cause. Not only that, but the whole country is riddled with terrorists who would then give the Chinese no end of grief. Talk about your poison pills.

Still, the Chinese don't want anyone else moving into Pakistan either making them their strongest allies. If India or the US ever tried to take the place the Chinese would jump right into the fray. That leaves the Pakistanis free to keep giving India no end of grief, provide a home for countless terrorists who all hate the west, and still collect money and tech from the US. Beaver Clever it ain't, but they do the best they can with a bad situation.

TGB is kinda right? How so? If he just said "Pakistan is just playing all sides (India, US, China, etc.) for its own benefits, then I would have no problem with his statements. But he was bragging about China and all that so let China takes over and Pakistan could be its newest province. Maybe then he won't come in here and begging for $$$ for his own people when a disaster strikes. Let commie China takes care of everything.

 

[Craig234]

We give more than the next two countries combined. We could give more, but we already give way more in absolute dollars than any other country and those numbers don't count private giving.

I had originally asked "what is your point?" but I get your point. We could give more. Any country could always give more. The fact of the matter is that we don't have to give anyone diddley and we still contribute $26 billion dollars a year worldwide, not counting military spending, or private giving.

No, that's not my point. My point is that just saying 'the US gives more than anyone else' leaves out a big part of the story.

Coming in 21st or 22nd out of the richest 22 in giving as a percent of GOP is part of the story too, and it's not 'everyone can give more' blather.

That's a rather shallow way to look at it. The United States not only furnishes countries with money for weapons, but provides months of hands-on training. We teach other countries law enforcement methods, counter-terrorism methods, anti-narcotics methods, not to mention all the joint military training that goes on.

Yes, we have an interest in doing this. It brings countries closer to us, it improves global security, etc.

I guess that stuff doesn't count though because military aid isn't aid. Even though it is.

No, it's not, your way is. It's a little different when you realize the US doesn't always give military aid to the 'good guys', sometimes it's 'the bad guys' against the people.

That our military aid can often be seen as a substitute for our waging wrongful war on civilians for our own gain.

You need a history lesson that badly? Off the top of my head just a sampling over a century of the recipients of our military aid:

Batista, Chiang Kai-Sheck, Duvaliers, Saddam, Marcos, Pinochet, Diem, Trujillo, Mubarak, the Shah of Iran, Qadafi, Contra terrorists, D'Aubisson...

There are a lot more, including a lot who are not household names but fit the same pattern, including in places like Africa.

And our aid also included training thug security forces in repression, in torture...

Go read "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" for some idea of the type of activities our 'aid' was involved in, and then get back to me.

By ODA measure, Israel isn't in the top-10 for aid from the United States. Egypt is, but so are the Palestinian territories, Sudan, South Africa, Colombia, and Ethiopia. Most of that aid is categorized as education, health and population or as other social infrastructure.

Israel has long been the #1 recipient of the US government foreign 'aid'.

404 - war machine of repression serving our own interests not found.

Hit 'reload' after you read a little.

What is your point? Our military was one of the first responders to the crises and the country contributed a large amount of money to the disaster relief. To top it off, most of that aid money that was sent to global disaster like the tsunami or the Haiti earthquake was delivered by.... the United States.

The point isn't that the US doens't do a lot of good; we do. It was what I said, that this blanket 'we're the biggest giver' leaves out a lot of the story.

I notice you bring up the tsunami again without any response to my point that our initial response was $15 million until there was a lot of protest to raise it.

It was our country that flew in the vast majority of aid to Haiti and it is our country that is continually a first-responder to disasters and winds up providing logistical expertise and infrastructure that no other nation is capable of offering.

Yes, and we're also the country that has (our Republicans, when in power) repeatedly removed their elected President because we didn't like him.

Europe actually gave more aid than the US to Haiti.

Other nations help too - Cuba has sent hundreds of doctors *outside* of a disaster, and they were part of the first responders in the Earthquake.

Venezuela, too, has an aid program outside the earthquake, as Wiki lists:

Haiti has benefited from a solid economic partnership with Venezuela. This recently-forged friendship between Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez and Haitian president Rene Preval has resulted in various economic agreements.

After a visit by Chavez in March 2007, Venezuela and Cuba announced a $1 Billion fund to develop energy, health, and infrastructure in Haiti. As part of this deal, 4 power plants will be constructed in Port-au-Prince, Cap-Haitien, and Gonaives, increasing the country's power production by 160 MW by the end of 2007

An oil refinery will also be constructed in Haiti, with a production capacity of 10,000 barrels of oil per day. In the meantime, Venezuela has increased the amount of petroleum it provides Haiti to 14,000 barrels per day, at the same terms afforded to ALBA member countries - these terms are more favorable than the Petrocaribe terms.

That stuff doesn't count though, because it's not money directly spent on aid... even though without our infrastructure most of the giving done by the rest of the world would be less effective and arrive at a slower pace. Surely that counts for something?

Yes, it counts. It doesn't make the blanket 'the US is the largest giver' blanket statement not leave out a lot of the story.

No, Norwegians don't "give five times as much as Americans per person," their government does.

Whose money is that?

Like I said above, not counting private donations is ridiculous, considering how much money Americans give to charity every year. Plus, I'm glad the UN has recommendations, but what does it matter what their "ideal" number is for giving? Again, I'm not disputing your point that the US could give more than it does as a percentage, I'm disputing the dismissive tone your article takes with the fact that we give twice as much as the next country in raw dollars alone and that we provide critical global infrastructure which is a freaking thankless task.

And I agree the US gives the most in absolute dollars and sometimes 'provides infrastructure' (having a military with spending equal to the rest of the world combined and a global military empire of several hundred bases around the globe does allow for being in a position to offer some logistics). It's the simple blanket statement that the US 'gives more than any other country' without any mention of more of the story, like the rank by size of economy, that's the issue.

Your article's point is that we should give a higher percentage of our money to other countries. My ORIGINAL point is that we give a dickload more than most countries (in both absolute and relative terms).

21st or 22nd out of the 22 richest nations as a percent of economy isn't 'more than most countries', unless you count a lot of poor countries.

 

[Sinsear]

Given that no one is counting the bodies, the actual number of people killed can be vastly greater than "known" accounts.

I could tell you why no one is counting the bodies, but then I would get banned and not be able to post about all the great things Pakistan has contributed to the world.

 

[Craig234]

Don't even go there. Don't even use the straw man argument with me. I replied to TGB's post because he was bragging about how commie China is the REAL ally and how Pakistan should give everything to commie China. Here is the whole post in FULL context.



If you want to play game, I can go back to several thousands years of history and show you how China invaded and enslaved its smaller neighbors such as Vietnam for almost 1,000 years and on and on.

I never said anything about US is all that or about Mex-US war. Nice try and thank for playing as troll, as usual, again.



TGB is kinda right? How so? If he just said "Pakistan is just playing all sides (India, US, China, etc.) for its own benefits, then I would have no problem with his statements. But he was bragging about China and all that so let China takes over and Pakistan could be its newest province. Maybe then he won't come in here and begging for $$$ for his own people when a disaster strikes. Let commie China takes care of everything.

And you are playing the old game of saying 'all I said was', and listing the most favorable parts of your post, and not listing the things I was replying to.

In fact, I agree with the 'nice' parts you use to defend yourself, it looks like, for example the history of China's behavior.

Then you just throw in baseless name calling, leading me to say not worth more reply.

 

[Craig234]

Yeah, when you realize how effective these strikes have been, it becomes obvious why the CIA is willing to expend political capital and run the risk of pissing off a lot of people to continue them. They're basically the biggest reason AQ is so disorganized right now.

It's hard to argue with a weapon that is so cost-effective, that eliminates our casualties, while we can kill at will - right?

Funny, I think of a couple more things.

One, remember that episode of Star Trek where an 'evil Captain' had a device that let him kill any person at will, from the safety of a screen far away?

Two, remember 'absolute power corrupts absolutely'?

Why, I can't think of any problems with abuse of power that could come from one country being able to kill anyone at will anywhere in the world.

Every other nation should just say 'thank you' to us for it.

 

[routan]

So if no one is counting the bodies, you're saying the numbers might be greatly inflated as well.

For the umpteenth time, as I said, the link does not provide figures for Other Casualties. Hence the people killed could be higher. They also provide the minimum number killed, and the maximum. Almost all of those killed are lumped as militants, which is suspect.

 

[Svnla]

And you are playing the old game of saying 'all I said was', and listing the most favorable parts of your post, and not listing the things I was replying to.

In fact, I agree with the 'nice' parts you use to defend yourself, it looks like, for example the history of China's behavior.

Then you just throw in baseless name calling, leading me to say not worth more reply.

Because you have a long history of playing troll in P&N. I posted my WHOLE FULL post (Not just a part of so stop lying) to TGB in my previous post, what do you want me to do?

Again, since the creation of commie China in 1949, it annexed/invaded not one, not two, not three, but several countries. The US annexed one (Haiwaii). We heard/read about uprisings (and still going on) in those occupied countries. Did you hear any uprisings in Haiwaii lately?

 

[wuliheron]

TGB is kinda right? How so? If he just said "Pakistan is just playing all sides (India, US, China, etc.) for its own benefits, then I would have no problem with his statements. But he was bragging about China and all that so let China takes over and Pakistan could be its newest province. Maybe then he won't come in here and begging for $$$ for his own people when a disaster strikes. Let commie China takes care of everything.

Like I said, the Chinese don't like Muslims and they don't want anything to do with invading Pakistan. That's 170 million Muslims including many of the worst terrorists in the world. This isn't Mongolia or some isolated south east Asian country, but surrounded by India, Afghanistan, and Iran.

 

[cirrrocco]

FarhaT Taj. "T", not "N". Farhan is a masculine name. Farhat a female name.

lol, you cant get the name right, but can speak intelligently about her work.

wow talk about her paper man. Not her name.. gawd.. and you call this a children's playground...

anyway I am not from the region and you said you werent as well. so how the hell do you know the intricacies of masculine vs feminine names.

 

[chucky2]

Yes, but Commie China doesn't need to worry about local or 'The Rest Of The World' opinion, because they know that none of TROTW, save for Russia and the US, can - or would - do anything to stop them...and Russia or the US isn't going to lose any sleep over China going in and taking care of business in a fundi Muslim country.

India might, given it'd be surrounded by China, but then, given how F'd up Pakistan will likely be if/when China ever decides to go absorb Pakistan, one wonders if India would really mind at that point (30-70 years from now).

One thing is for sure: China isn't going to have any problems butchering up whole locales, purposefully beating up villages, etc. etc. First time China hits an IED, it's going to the local village and making a point that won't be lost on the rest of the local villages. Of course, they'll make it in a "friendly" way, unlike what the Terrorist US would do...

Chuck

 

[JSt0rm]

What i know from reading this thread is that none of you should be looking for work in diplomacy.

 

[cirrrocco]

What i know from reading this thread is that none of you should be looking for work in diplomacy.

what about all the innocent afghans and US soldiers killed in the past 5 years when OBL was fucking goats in Pakistan. fuck diplomacy