On another front... Maybe someone can interpret this into readable English?

Who unsilenced blankflag?

Let's cover this point by point...

"while he hides behind a bulletproof glass" - What leader of the free world *isn't* protected by bulletproof glass? The are whack jobs out there that want them dead. Freedom is not a guarantee of safety.

"Free citizens of the free world are invited to keep her windows locked, may not left do her house. " - I don't know what the fuck this is supposed to mean... If you mean we keep our doors locked in a free world, well yeah. Freedom doesn't guarantee safety and security. In fact, only fascism could because, guess what, criminals in a fascist society (and any one who disagrees with the ruling powers) are executed. The people are repressed so they don't have the freedom to potentially become good or evil, just automatons surviving from day to day.

"European politicians giving themselves in this scandal naively although Echelon was known to them many years." - Not a clue. Not even a guess of a clue. What the fuck is Echelon supposed to mean here?

"Snowden who snooped about for the USA is now wanted as a spy from the spies of the government who ordered him to snooping about." - Yeah, he turned traitor or whistleblower, depending on your point of view. He hurt his country's international standing and may yet have more material he intends to release. He became a danger to the state. So what?

"Obama got the Nobel peace prize and kills many people with drones or military weapons like other presidents. " - I didn't know the President personally killed anyone. If you mean he orders military and drone strikes. Sure. We are at war after all. A war on terror. And a terrorist organization that killed *thousands* of innocent lives using commercial airliners filled with hundreds more. It wasn't a military strike like Pearl Harbor. It was a terror attack on a civilian target. so yeah, we kill them before they can kill more of us. Problem with it? You must be one of them and I hope a drone or a SEAL team or Marine Force Recon finds you and puts you out of your misery like a rabid dog.

Draugnar, You're not familiar with Project: Echelon? I'm surprised - it's been in the news several times.

I didn't know it by that name. SIGINT I knew.

# Draug

First Echelon has been known for years now. Just check it out.

As for the drones, please note that a war, even a war on terror is not a license to do anything. The drones will come back to haunt us.
It is becoming easier and easier to build, arm and pilot one. One day, and it is bound to happen, a drone will crash on purpose in a big western town. After what the USA is currently doing in Pakistan, it will be difficult to have the moral high ground unlike 9/11.

Another aspect of the question, is that the Russians and the Chineses will in the future do the same thing. I will quote myself, in this forum, 23/05 "To think that the reckless Bush "only" had under 50 missions and Obama is today over 300. And he still has 4 more years in front of him."

Even if you think it is fair game, you may be surprised that actually Obama is trying to find a way out and impose some limits. The drones are no more CIA operations but military ones, so can in theory they are more "controllable".

That was my point about the drone strikes now. They are military and not CIA so the CiC (President Obama) has more control over them. We are at war though and they are a tool in that war.

Are we at war with car accidents? Heart disease? Oh sorry, those kill too many people? How about falling furniture? Lightning strikes? Heat stroke?

@erist - Cars don't intentionally kill 6000 people in one morning. Heart disease doesn't kill 6000 people in a morning. Falling furniture doesn't kill 6000 people a year, much less a morning. Lightning doesn't kill 6000 people a year much less a morning. Heat stroke doesn't kill 6000 people a year, much less a morning.

Terrorists, on the other hand, killed 6000 people on the morning of September 11, 2001.

> Terrorists, on the other hand, killed 6000 people on the morning of September 11, 2001.

No they didn't.

Then who did?

OK, then roughly 3,000 people died. Still none of those other sources killed 3000 people in a single morning and most don't kill that many in a year.

There were typically nearly 15,000 people in the twin towers at that time of day. They *tried* to kill 15,000 people.

There were 32367 road fatalities in 2011. So only an order of magnitude more than died in 9/11.

A year versus a morning. 33000 traffic fatalities is less than 100 per day or an average of fewer than 5 an hour. The twin towers took how long to kill 3000?

Basically, in one morning, the assholes killed more than a month's worth of traffic fatalities and tried to kill nearly 6 months' worth.

I know a lot of the people posting here were in grade school or junior high, but some of us were in out mid 30s and had friends living in New York who worked in and around the WTC. Grade/Junior/High school students who aren't in New York probably didn't know anyone in New York. But once one gets out of high school, their network grows beyond their home town and they eventually have friends all over the US that they personally know (not just internet "friends"). So many of us in our 30s had friends we were worried about.

Sure, terrorists are bad, but your comparison is unreasonable. Assuming we're talking about American citizens only here, how much of them died by terrorist attacks per year? How much of traffic fatalities?

That's a fair comparison. And then still, it's pointless. Traffic fatalities are, most of the time at least, accidents.

I think it would be more fair to look at deaths by terrorists and deaths by American citizens on American citizens, including self-defence and such, but not accidents.

"What leader of the free world *isn't* protected by bulletproof glass?"

The (former) Prime Minister of Australia - youtube "Gillard sandwich"

What "free world"?

americans are, EASILY, the most brutal terrorists in the history of civilization.

Nope, Canadians are--you people burned down the White House and made Dolly Madison run around (at NIGHT!) snatching up the valuables.

For shame, Canada. For shame. That maple-syrupy politeness is all just a cover...

True that. They're also best at convincing themselves they're not though. Just wait for it...

That was about Americans being terrorists, not Canadians.

And that's just awful, nudge...granted I don't follow Aussie politics all that closely, but Gillard seems to have to put up with a lot of crap as PM...additionally so because she's a woman.

"But a guy threw a shoe at Bush!"

True, but still, I don't think anyone inappropriately named parts of their dinner menus after his sexual organs (oh God I hope not!)

But on topic--so far I agree with Draug on the 9/11-terrorism bit...

But this thread seems to be meandering (even the opening post seemed to meander) so where is this headed, exactly?

If it's about Americans being terrorists...how?

The drone strikes?

Even if we went case by case and found cases where that's wrong (and I don't at all doubt that's been the case) that doesn't make us terrorists so much as a state that's done something wrong.

The US is a legitimate state, and so I'd argue that any actions we've taken which are wrong should be judged accordingly and not as the actions of an illegitimate group, ie, a terrorist organization.

That might raise the semantic matter of what constitutes legitimacy, but as I don't think anyone here will question the US is a legitimate nation, for practical purposes I think we can shelve that, or tackle that in a spin-off thread to keep this one focused.

In addition...don't terrorists usually...well, terrorize?

I can buy that the US may have been overly-imperial and done military wrong, but I don't think the intention of such actions was to terrorize; that does NOT condone said actions, but rather recasts the issue, again, as a state's seeking other aims (wrongfully or otherwise) vs. an organization merely wishing to kill and instill terror and have THAT be the end goal.

ter·ror·ism [ter-uh-riz-uhm] noun

1. the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes.

2. the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization.

3. a terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government

Killing and instilling terror isn't the end goal of terrorism, shit-for-brains. The goal is to further an ideology.

Alright--what ideology are we furthering?

What is the Great American Ideology we're trying to further by blowing folks up?

Democracy. See the issue?