Christian Forums - International Politics http://www.christianforums.com The forum for the discussion of non-US world politics. en Sat, 21 Nov 2009 13:57:43 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.christianforums.com/style/misc/rss.jpg Christian Forums - International Politics http://www.christianforums.com Russia Enshrines Ban On Death Penalty http://www.christianforums.com/t7418794/ Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:43:22 GMT And this is exactly what happens when you end up forfeiting the sovereignty of your country in order to make it along nicely with the internationalist Europeans, who no longer having clout alone kowtow those around them to fulfill their agenda:

Quote:
Russia's ban on the death penalty will remain when a current legal suspension expires on 1 January, the country's Constitutional Court has ruled.

It said the use of the death penalty was now impossible because Russia had signed international deals banning it.

Russian announced the moratorium in 1996 when it joined the Council of Europe, although it retains capital punishment in its criminal code.

Opinion polls suggest that a majority of Russians back the death penalty.

One recent survey showed that two-thirds of Russians backed the measure.
It said that one in four was against it, mainly because of the possibility that judges would make mistakes.
BBC

We have a measure that is largely backed by the Russian people yet will not be fulfilled because of diplomatic reasons.

Russia is a nation that fights very real crime problems, and with that they fight very real issues with the justice system.

Now the Kingpins who direct direct their crime rings from their cells are safe, and those who are multiple murderers can continue eeking out their existence in jails to murder any young, petty criminal who wants to leave the gang or who crosses them; and the serial rapists and murderers who wreck their victim's lives and the lives of their families without mercy will be able to live out there days playing chess and smoking cigarettes while the family members are haunted by the memory of these crimes.

It is no justice when a nation suffering extreme crime cannot even implement their justice system properly due to the predatory diplomacy of their neighbors. ]]> International Politics Verv http://www.christianforums.com/t7418794/ Dangers of Islam http://www.christianforums.com/t7418645/ Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:30:18 GMT Just look at what these fundamentalists are saying. This is despicable. An actual quote:

"I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good...Our goal is an Islamic nation. We have a duty, we are called by Allah, to conquer this country. We don't want equal time. We don't want pluralism. Our goal must be simple. We must have an Islamic nation build on the law of Allah, Sharia law. No apologies." ]]> International Politics nooneimportant http://www.christianforums.com/t7418645/ Historical Fact: The Christian Crusades were a response to the Muslim Crusades http://www.christianforums.com/t7417731/ Sun, 15 Nov 2009 07:02:46 GMT I am posting this in response to everybody who associates the Crusades with Christianity (only). I used to be one of those. PLease note I am *NOT* posting this to start an argument or to blame or to fight. I want to educate for it was a learning curve for me. So, I say from the beginning if any... I am posting this in response to everybody who associates the Crusades with Christianity (only). I used to be one of those.

PLease note I am NOT posting this to start an argument or to blame or to fight. I want to educate for it was a learning curve for me. So, I say from the beginning if any response post to this thread is confrontational or hateful, I have learnt by now that I will not respond, so don't even try for you will waste your time (at least with me), but feel free to express your opinion for that is why CF is here or contact the author I am quoting further down.

Here goes:

The moment somebody mentions Crusades or Crusaders you associate it with sword wielding, metal clad bearded Christian Crusaders as seen in the film Kingdom of Heaven".

These associations are conveniently prevalent in a lot of posts in CF. To me it is an easy way out of any historical argument.

This is from the book ''Skeptics Answered'' by D. James Kennedy:

"You see, the First Crusade was really undertaken by the Muslims when they captured the Holy Land along with all Christianity's sacred places.

Jerusalem fell to the Muslim hordes under Caliph Omar in A.D. 637, exactly fifteen years after the beginning of Islam or the Mohammedan faith. The Muslims travelled with the scimitar (the sword), and in many cases, they gave people only two choices: convert or die.

The "infidels" as the Muslims were called, captured the Holy Land; Bethlehem, the place of Christ's birth; Galilee, where He ministered ; Calvary, where He suffered and died; and the Holy Sepulchre, where He was buried and from which He rose. Over the years, some thirty thousand Christian churches or other Christian buildings in that area were destroyed by the Muslims or were converted into mosques. When the order went out to destroy the church of the Holy Sepulchre, Christians in Europe reacted by organising their own Crusade - the Second Crusade, really-to reclaim Christianity's holy places.

Don't get me wrong; I am not defending the the Crusades. Many terrible things were done on both sides,...

Again, I do not defend the Crusades, but it is only intellectually honest to place them in their historical context. The Christian Crusade was, in historical fact, a response to the Muslim Crusade, but how many times do you ever hear anyone ever talking about the Muslim Crusade? A little balance is needed for clearer understanding." - pages 115 & 116 ]]> International Politics ShabbatShalom http://www.christianforums.com/t7417731/ ACTA treaty threatens to destroy the internet. http://www.christianforums.com/t7417594/ Sat, 14 Nov 2009 18:42:46 GMT
Quote:
Wikileaks: ACTA will kill the Net

This is it. The proposal that will "fix" the rudimentary problem with the Internet (according to the have mores and the social, political elites). Namely that the Internet is at heart an anarchic model of free speech and communication. One that the same elites missed out on because they didn’t understand and once they did see it coming spent most of their effort belittling. From DailyTech

The empire strikes back; the US government’s holds secret plans to kill nonprofit torrent sites and increase user monitoring.

Wikileaks has obtained a leaked copy of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), a shadowy bill that has been being discussed in Congress behind closed doors. The new multi-lateral intellectual property measure is being pushed by Republican US Trade Representative Susan C. Schwab, who designed much of it. The ACTA bill is apparently supported by the U.S., the European Commission (well known for its recent fining of Microsoft), Japan, and Switzerland. …
Wikileaks: ACTA will kill the Net | Battleangel

Quote:
The blogosphere is abuzz over an apparently leaked document showing the United States trying to push its controversial DMCA-style notice-and-takedown process on the world. But since Threat Level already lives in the land of the DMCA, or Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we’re more bothered by the fact that the U.S. proposal goes far beyond that 1998 law, and would require Congress to alter the DMCA in a manner even more hostile to consumers. At issue is the internet section of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement being developed under a cloak of secrecy by dozens of countries. The leaked document is a three-page European Commission memo written by an unnamed EU official, which purports to summarizes a private briefing given in September by U.S. trade officials.
The language in the Sept. 30 memo shows the United States wants ISPs around the world to punish suspected, repeat downloaders with a system of “graduated response” — code for a three-strikes policy that results in the customer eventually being disconnected from the internet with the ISP alone deciding what constitutes infringement and fair use.
Copyright Treaty Is Policy Laundering at Its Finest | Threat Level | Wired.com

Quote:
People highly involved in peddling this nonsense:

U.S. Trade Representative Susan C. Schwab Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA) Rep. Mary Bono (R-CA) Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA) Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) Time Warner News Corp Sony Corp of America Walt Disney Co
To understand why this is bad, you have to understand the key word "accused". You don't have to be proven guilty! This means special interests groups can frivolously accuse people and websites they want to censor of violations, and get them shut down.

The result would be that sites like this one, IE Forums where users can upload content, could not exist since the amount of money required to bat off the fallacious accusations would be too great. You tube could not exist either. Open source community? Gone, or at least forced into underground hiding deep in IRC.

This is very bad if ACTA gets passed.

There is a petition but it only has 341 signatures. You can sign it anyways if you like: Stop ATCA Now! Petition


Note: this is posted in both non US and US politics as it is highly relevant to both. Mods can feel free to delete one if you feel otherwise. ]]> International Politics Jedah http://www.christianforums.com/t7417594/ Obamas kness get weakr again? http://www.christianforums.com/t7416319/ Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:53:47 GMT However, U.S. President Barack Obama’s switch of gears from the Roadmap Plan has left his policy in quicksand, according to influential newspaper columnists. The liberal Washington Post surprised observers this past summer with a number of editorials and op-ed articles highly critical of President... However, U.S. President Barack Obama’s switch of gears from the Roadmap Plan has left his policy in quicksand, according to influential newspaper columnists. The liberal Washington Post surprised observers this past summer with a number of editorials and op-ed articles highly critical of President Obama for driving up expectations in the Arab world by demanding Jews stop all building in eastern Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria.

www.israelnationalnews.com ]]> International Politics Carey http://www.christianforums.com/t7416319/ Al-Qaeda outwitted Bush, neocons http://www.christianforums.com/t7415760/ Sat, 07 Nov 2009 12:51:50 GMT alJazeera Magazine - Al-Qaeda outwitted Bush, neocons

Quote:
To sell the Iraq War to the American people, Bush and the neocons called it “the central front in the war on terror,” a claim that was buttressed by false information fed to the Bush administration by captured al-Qaeda operatives in the face of torture or threatened torture.


Those lies told about an Iraqi-Qaeda alliance -- whether coerced or intentionally misleading -- reflected a symbiotic relationship that had grown between the neocons and al-Qaeda, at least over their mutual desire to kill Saddam Hussein, a secular Muslim who brutally repressed extremists and also was an enemy of Israel.
By invading Iraq, Bush and the neocons gave three key gifts to al-Qaeda: they shifted U.S. military focus away from the Af-Pac border region where Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders were hiding; eliminated al-Qaeda’s rival Saddam Hussein; and intensified anti-Americanism, which helped al-Qaeda recruit more suicide bombers.


Beyond that, Bush and the neocons upgraded the prospects for extremists to destabilize the Pakistani government, whose collapse could deliver nuclear weapons into the hands of al-Qaeda terrorists, exactly the nightmare scenario that Bush and neocons cited to justify the invasion of Iraq.


How misguided the Bush-neocon Iraq strategy was comes into focus in a recently released letter by a U.S. Foreign Service officer and ex-Marine captain, Matthew Hoh, who resigned his reconstruction post in Afghanistan because he concluded that the drawn-out U.S. occupation no longer made any sense, nor offered reasonable hope of success.


“I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy,” Hoh wrote in a Sept. 10 resignation letter to a State Department superior, “but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end.



"To put simply: I fail to see the value or the worth in continued U.S. casualties or expenditures of resources in support of the Afghan government in what is truly a 35-year-old civil war.”


Hoh described the Afghan conflict as “a tragedy that not only pits tribes, valleys, clans, villages and families against one another, but … has violently and savagely pitted the urban, secular, educated and modern of Afghanistan against the rural, religious, illiterate and traditional.”


This latter group, Hoh said, is at the heart of “the Pashtun insurgency, which is composed of multiple, seemingly infinite, local groups [and] is fed by what is perceived by the Pashtun people as a continued and sustained assault, going back centuries, on Pashtun land, culture, traditions and religion by internal and external enemies.


“The U.S. and NATO presence and operations in Pashtun valleys and villages, as well as Afghan army and police units that are led and composed of non-Pashtun soldiers and police, provide an occupation force against which the insurgency is justified. …


“The United States military presence in Afghanistan greatly contributes to the legitimacy and strategic message of the Pashtun insurgency. In a like manner our backing of the Afghan government in its current form continues to distance the government from the people.”

Al-Qaeda got the better of George Bush and the neocons by bogging the U.S. down in Iraq ]]> International Politics Chipahualca http://www.christianforums.com/t7415760/ US House condemns Goldstone report http://www.christianforums.com/t7414915/ Wed, 04 Nov 2009 06:05:49 GMT US House condemns Goldstone report

Quote:
The US House of Representatives has condemned the UN Goldstone report, which accused Israel of committing war crimes in its 22-day war against the Palestinians in Gaza.

By a vote of 344 to 36, the members of the lower house of Congress approved a non-binding resolution that calls the report “irredeemably biased and unworthy of further consideration or legitimacy.”

The harshly worded resolution calls on President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton "to oppose unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration" of the critical report.

South African judge Richard Goldstone recently challenged the United States to justify its objections over his report about the December 27-January 18 Israeli war on the Gaza Strip that killed over 1,400 Palestinians, with many of the victims women and children.

Goldstone recommended that the conclusions of the report be forwarded to the Hague-based International Criminal Court if the sides involved in the Gaza war failed to conduct credible investigations within six months.

Even Amnesty International has called for an independent investigation into Israeli war crimes in the Gaza Strip ahead of a UN General Assembly meeting on the Goldstone report.
A ruthless move by US lawmakers that reminds us how deeply rooted barbarism and self-convinced hypocrisy has become to american culture. ]]> International Politics Chipahualca http://www.christianforums.com/t7414915/ <![CDATA[Brought to you by CIA : America's drug crisis]]> http://www.christianforums.com/t7414182/ Sun, 01 Nov 2009 21:15:43 GMT alJazeera Magazine - Brought to you by CIA : America's drug crisis

Quote:
Next time you see a junkie sprawled at the curb in the downtown of your nearest city, or read about someone who died of a heroin overdose, just imagine a big yellow sign posted next to him or her saying: “Your Federal Tax Dollars at Work.”

Kudos to the New York Times, and to reporters Dexter Filkins, Mark Mazzetti and James Risen, for their lead article today reporting that Ahmed Wali Karzai, brother of Afghanistan’s stunningly corrupt President Hamid Karzai, a leading drug lord in the world’s major opium-producing nation, has for eight years been on the CIA payroll.
]]> International Politics Chipahualca http://www.christianforums.com/t7414182/ Afghanistan to be graveyard of NATO alliance? http://www.christianforums.com/t7411821/ Fri, 23 Oct 2009 07:47:57 GMT Afghanistan to be graveyard of NATO alliance?

Quote:
As public support for the Afghan war rapidly falls in NATO countries, the head of the alliance has stepped up efforts to keep member-states united.

On Thursday, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen spoke before a meeting with alliance defense ministers in Bratislava on a new approach against the widening Taliban insurgency.

"We all have to achieve more in training and equipping the Afghan security forces," Rasmussen told a security conference before the ministers' meeting in the Slovak capital, which is not expected to announce decisions on troop levels.

Meanwhile, Canada's former top general has said that the setbacks in Afghanistan have greatly damaged NATO's credibility.

Almost eight years on, a continued lack of focus and resolve in Afghanistan will be NATO's undoing, retired general and former Canadian chief of defense staff Rick Hillier warned in a new book.

Hillier wrote in his autobiography, to be published next week, that "Afghanistan has revealed that NATO has reached the stage where it is a corpse, decomposing" and in need of "lifesaving" otherwise "the alliance will be done."

He said the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is vulnerable to "any major setback" in Afghanistan and faces extinction unless it can "snatch victory out of feeble efforts."

In the book, "A Soldier First: Bullets, Bureaucrats and the Politics of War," Hillier says no Western country had predicted an Afghan resurgence following the early success of the US invasion in 2001.

When Hillier took command of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) years later, "It was crystal clear from the start that there was no strategy for the mission in Afghanistan," he wrote.

"NATO had started down a road that destroyed much of its credibility and in the end eroded support for the mission in every nation in the alliance. Sadly years later, that situation remains unchanged," Hillier wrote
]]> International Politics Chipahualca http://www.christianforums.com/t7411821/