June 18, 2004

• more articles here, here, here, here, and here
• There ya go.
• Part of me was hoping that this story wouldn't make its way onto Mefi, Mofi, or my RSS feeds. I guess that's just asking for too much. My only response is sadness really. Actions like this are damning to all of us on some level. May his family never see any photos or, God forbid, video of his death.
• Fucken' terrorist savages. They will be hunted down and executed. And i_am_38 -- hate to tell you, but your "Off with his head" lead-in is just...wrong.
• I'm with shawnj .
• Nothing good can come of this.
• Why is MeFi in lavender?
• MonkeyFilter: Nothing good can come of this. and a third for the shawnj p.o.v.
• let me think... yes, i am indeed opposed to beheading. next topic?
• (magicians ponder beheading jokes) "Like many of you I do a head chopper in my show and I know there are a ton of stock lines for choppers. "I would like to offer some of mine and let's all pitch in and hopefully improve everyone's routine."
• . on the shawnj. Not so much on the davidmsc. Sounds like the flip side of the same coin.
• Agree with the shawnj as well. The davidmsc approach will leave the whole world blind.
• For those opposed to the davidmsc approach, what would you do instead? the shawnj approach isn't really an approach, more of an attribute of emotion. davidmsc expressed both emotion and an action. those opposed to the action (or emotion for that matter), what's the plan? And for my part, I will keep Paul's family in prayer.
• My solution? Train all the armchair anti-terrorists in how to handle your average Nato and Warsaw pact small arms, a little counter-insurgency and maybe some door-to-door combat; then send them to Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and all the other terrorist hot-spots and let them practice what they preach. If you're gung-ho for weeding 'em out, DIY.
• Hunting them down is exactly what jihadists want. What would hunting them down do other than give them more ammunition to recruit new members? Provide Justice? Please. If you want to go all Punisher on them, take surlyboi's suggestion and do it your own self in your own name, not mine.
• Improvised fuel air explosive would be the emotional choice.
• For those opposed to the davidmsc approach, what would you do instead? If the meaning of davidmsc's comment is that they should be found and brought to justice, I doubt anyone would disagree with that. But his language is reminiscent of the armchair Nazis at FreeRepublic and Late German Fascists, which a lot of people with at least two brain cells to rub together find repulsive.
• Why not just use napalm? Or for true emotional value, a tac nuke? Kill a bunch of civvies in the process and show 'em we mean business. That business being turning moderates into extremists, of course.
• Only took 17 posts before the Nazis showed up!
• tacnukes too complex for arm-chair SWATs. And expensive. Not to mention the emotional outpouring from Green Peace. napalm, I'd think, would have issues with the delivery system and the end effect would be just a slow moving fire extrememly difficult to extinguish. FAE and would be the prefered choice, IMO. It has a near tacnuke effect (city blocks), but without that nasty nasty fallout that could reduce the surrounding property values.
• That business being turning moderates into extremists, of course. The irony, of course, is that is exactly what the terrorism is doing in the first place. Turn, turn, turn my precious little viscious cycle, turn.
• oh and did you guys hear, after they were done with their chopping of head, the terrorists hacked into a california company's web site to post the video. nice guys!
• Jun 18, 2004 16:28 ET Lockheed Martin Statement on Paul M. Johnson, Jr. BETHESDA, Md., June 18 /PRNewswire/ -- All of us at Lockheed Martin are very saddened to learn the news of Paul M. Johnson, Jr., and his tragic and senseless death. Paul was a valued and respected employee who bravely carried out his duties, and the news of his loss is a shock to everyone in the Lockheed Martin family. We will keep Paul and his family, along with his many friends, in our thoughts and prayers. We grieve along with his family, and we will do everything we can to support them in their hour of need. For additional information, visit our website: http://www.lockheedmartin.com/ Source: Lockheed Martin CONTACT: Tom Jurkowsky, +1-301-897-6352, [email protected], Jeff Adams, +1-301-897-6308, [email protected], or Tom Greer, +1-301-897-6195, [email protected], all of Lockheed Martin
• davidmsc, and the others who agree with him, How can you possibly believe hunting down a few terrorists will somehow end this awful ordeal? Do you really think the U.S. truly needs to be in Iraq? They had no connections with terrorist attacks against the U.S., yet the U.S. still invades their country...bringing "justice". This "justice"...was it supported by a majority of the public in any country, apart from the U.S.? We (the U.S.) don't bring justice...we bring humiliation to ourselves, and hatred by others towards us. I'm always open to opinions, even if I don't agree with them, but I can't begin to understand your ideas in this case.
• this "awful ordeal" ended with his head severed.
• Kill 'em all.
• btw, nice username, 138
• It was an awful and brutal murder, and like any awful and brutal murder, the perpetrators should be brought to Justice. Justice. Remember the word? Everybody here in LA-LA Land was recently shocked and repulsed by a double murder in Hollywood, where the perpetrator, a drug-addicted drifter, killed two retired men he didn't even know, cutting the head off one of them. The suspect was captured five minutes after his ID was put on TV (definitive fingerprints at the scenes of the crimes) trying to break into Paramount Studios. No motive. No sense. The best way to treat the Saudi kidnapping/beheading is to separate it from the politics; find the perpetrators and treat them as if there was no motive... because, when it comes down to it, motive doesn't matter - there is no such ting as justification. In fact, I suspect the perpetrators aren't as well connected to AlQueda as they claim to be. One of the biproducts of our failed anti-terrorist policies is the creation of Terrorist Wannabes whose actions are way more random than anything an "organized terrorist network" can do. As such, I wouldn't worry about the Big Picture in relation to this ugly incident; if several more Americans in Saudi Arabia are held hostage in the next few days, we should begin to worry. But there's still no evidence that this "terrorism" is more common than getting hit by lightning - or less random. My heart goes out to the family of Paul Johnson. And to the families of Robert Lees and Dr. Morley Engelson. Keep things in perspective.
• Though this was an awful killing, I meant "this awful ordeal" as being the U.S. occupation of Iraq, and how terrible events keep occuring, not just this specific example.
• Lockheed Martin probably knows a thing or two about terrorism. It's a mad, mad world.
• Reuters are saying some of the bastards have already got what was coming to them.
• I
• (freethought, I'm really confused by the weird question-mark-in-a-diamond symbol you're using instead of an apostrophe.) BBC World News had breaking news about the apparent leader of the terrorist cell in question getting shot down near the scene of the crime. I was watching the broadcast, and the anchor was getting passed stuff.
• (freethought, I'm really confused by the weird question-mark-in-a-diamond symbol you're using instead of an apostrophe.) Strange, I've seen those on this site as well, but none are showing up in my post as I see it. Maybe one of the web gurus can answer ... maybe it's an IE versus Mozilla thing. ... back to the topic.
• You're using different character codings. Freethought types in a letter, his browser goes to a conversion table #1 to turn it into a series of bits, Sacred/Profane's browser receives the series of bits, looks it up in conversion table #2, finds nothing, plonks down a question mark instead. Kinda like looking up Spanish words in an English/French translation dictionary.
• Ok, all of your who say "kill them", are you advocating invading Saudi Arabia to do so in order to get to the killers?
• What sense would that make? Unless you're using the a-Q definition of "invading." Either way, I imagine that SA can handle its internal affairs without outside help.
• this is the first death in a while that
• Well said, Wendell.
• Wendell speaks wisely.
• This whole situation, the hostages, the killings,the whole Iraq ordeal causes me great pain. I am ashamed of our government policies concerning Iraq. My heart is full of sorrow for Paul M. Johnson, Jr. and his family, and for all who have lost someone due to this mess we call *war on terrorism*. I rarely hate anyone, but I think GWB is getting close to being added to the list. I believe his blundering policy makiing is not making our world any safer or better.
• "War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children." -Jimmy Carter
• I hear you, rocket88. I was thinking the same thing myself. I shudder to think that a day may come when I completely lose my outrage.
• What must we do to prevent desensitization? I don't ever want to be numb to the evils of the world.
• goetter: I only asked because it didn't make any sense. "We should" seeemed implied before "kill them", and the killing methods suggested would require access to military weapons and aircraft.
• The davidmsc approach will leave the whole world blind No it won't. It will leave hundreds or thousands dead terrorists in it's wake.
• Because the world was created with a fixed number of terrorists in it. Circumstance cannot create a new terrorist. Bad people do not feel terror; the relatives and neighbours of bad people do not feel terror; none of them will react against it. Once terrorists are eliminated, everything can return to normal. Terrorism is the only bad thing in the world. Death is not the enemy; death is a tool that we may use for our own purposes. Only once we learn to be the most effective users of death can we truly live. This is called progress.
• davidmsc, the terrorists are the ones that aren't white, right? It seems easy enough. I vote invade Saudi Arabia!
• "No it won't. It will leave hundreds or thousands dead terrorists in it's wake." (Sorry - I'm new and haven't figured out italics yet.) Won't this policy be viewed as a further outrage by those who already have somewhat Anti-American inclinations, generating new terrorists in some kind of crazy Hydra Effect?
• Circumstance cannot create a new terrorist. Bad people do not feel terror; ... Once terrorists are eliminated, everything can return to normal. Terrorism is the only bad thing in the world. I assume this is a joke, right? Right?!? Only once we learn to be the most effective users of death can we truly live. Oh my. I suppose not. Try this little simulation (shockwave), and see if your theory works.
• flashboy is being fairly sarcastic, I feel, zebediah.
• flashboy is wrong. The world evolved with a fixed number of terrorists in it. I thought y'all round here were smarter than this creationist crap?
• flashboy is being fairly sarcastic Yeah, I know. My response should have been more shocked. "Shocked! I'm shocked, I tell you!!!"
• dng - I agree about flashboy's hyperbole to make a point. And, while we USians have a vested interest in the safety of our citizens in the ME, the Saudis really own the solution, if there is one. They did claim that this terrorism chapter's bad guys had been executed, but other things I've read indicate that the Saudis are either pretty incompetent in this arena or aren't trying really hard. If you want a Saudi's view on that , check out http://muttawa.blogspot.com/ and scroll down at least to the June 14th entry 'Terrorism in Saudi Arabia controllable' (way past the camels, though the camel stuff was interesting in its own right.) If you read his earlier writings on Saudi attempts to capture terrorists, you'll be amazed, or upset, or something.
• And, you may all have already read this, but, just in case" http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=574&e=3&u=/nm/20040619/wl_nm/un_court_usa_dc_12
• Sacred&Profane: davidmsc, the terrorists are the ones that aren't white, right? You ignorant jackass. Nowhere have I ever claimed any racial (or ethnic or religious) basis for any actions. You, on the other hand, appear to want to introduce race into something that has nothing to do with race. Doesn't that make YOU the "racist?"
• No it won't. It will leave hundreds or thousands dead terrorists in it's wake. No it won't. It'll make more. Because the half-assed manner in which this country (and others, but especially this one) has gone about pursuing its' anti-terrorist agenda has taken more innocent lives and turned more against us than it has eliminated the root causes of terrorism. To whit: this has always been a war of the haves versus the have-nots. Until that is remedied, there will always be terrorism in some way, shape or form. Still, davidmsc, my original assertion still stands. You want to start killing terrorists yourself, be my guest. I'll even teach you how to handle an assault rifle, free of charge. Otherwise, I suggest you find some other solution.
• Surly, I don't think that David needs your training, though that's certainly very generous of you to offer. Everybody in the USAF gets basic marksmanship. Now, if you have access to a XM-8, perhaps you'd "teach" me? All I have is an AR-15, and it's semi-auto. Booooring. Glad I haven't met any Vortigaunts while carrying it.
• Goetter, seeing as the XM-8 is basically a slightly updated G36, and I'm fairly-well versed in the operation and maintenance of one of those, sure. Provided, of course, you can get your hands on an XM-8. /derail
• I ♥ my squirt gun.
• davidsmc ... can I suggest you take a look at the history of other 'wars on terrorism' ... here in the UK we had a little problem in Northern Ireland ... we spent decades trying to kill the bad guys, only to find that as soon as we'd knocked off one of them, another, slightly more pissed-off, popped up ... and the outrages got worse and worse ... then we started talking to and negotiating with the bad guys and we realised that some of them weren't so bad after all So it was when we stopped fighting, and started talking that we began to solve the problem. It's not completely better yet ... but it's a long time since the last atrocity ... I suspect the Spanish would say similar things about their struggles with ETA ... one reason ETA's on the decline is because of a backlash in public opinion ... apparently there are signs that this is happening in in the Islamic world too. let's hope so.