quote:

ORIGINAL: DomKen


And if you spend the time to do the research you'll find numerous cases where people met with Omar and offered conflicting physical descriptions. You'll also find the fact that Omar was supposedly the leader of the Taliban but never appeared in public and no documents are signed by him. You'll also find that the Taliban operated mostly to support the ISI's agenda and did little else.

Which naturally brings the questions, if Omar is really a fierce freedom fighter from Afghanistan why is he so subservient to the ISI? How did a complete unknown with no family or political power become the leader of the Taliban (notie how no stories of how that happened exist)? How do you control a fractious and violent movement like the Taliban without ever speaking in public or signing anything?

quote:

ORIGINAL: VideoAdminGamma

My apologies if the conversation seems a bit disjointed in a couple of places. I refuse to delete good posts just because someone was not barefoot.

Thank you for being a part of CollarMe,
VideoAdminGamma (bare feet only)

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ORIGINAL: Anaxagoras

BTW one of the defining characteristics of terrorism is hitting soft civilian targets. Only 100 Russian civilians were killed in the entire eight/nine year conflict.

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ORIGINAL: FatDomDaddy

Yeah, that still doesn't answer the question.

Can anyone identify any of the Afghan men and source where they are now members of the Taliban or for that matter, any terrorist group??

quote:

ORIGINAL: thompsonx

quote:

ORIGINAL: Anaxagoras
BTW one of the defining characteristics of terrorism is hitting soft civilian targets. Only 100 Russian civilians were killed in the entire eight/nine year conflict.

It might be interesting to know what percentage that 100 dead russian civilians were of the total number of russian civilians in country during that time frame.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Politesub53
lets not forget many disparate groups flocked behind the Mujahideen, such as Hekmatyars group, the Pashtouns and the Northern Alliance. Much the same happened in France when both right and left wing groups fought against the Germans, and in the Irish uprising in 1916 when some of those fighting against British rule wanted to see a marxist Ireland. In both examples a murderous fight to be top dog took place after liberation between the two poles of the political spectrum.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Anaxagoras

I don't think Ireland fits the above! There was a civil war between the Free-Staters and the IRA but that was over the deal made with the British, where the six counties were lost, rather than over broad political issues.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Politesub53

quote:

ORIGINAL: Anaxagoras
I don't think Ireland fits the above! There was a civil war between the Free-Staters and the IRA but that was over the deal made with the British, where the six counties were lost, rather than over broad political issues.

Even if you are right, it doesnt alter the fact that two disparate groups joined forces to fight a common foe, which was my point.

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ORIGINAL: Politesub53
Not from what I have read on the issue. The IRA have long had marxist ideals. But I will concede so as to not get off topic.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Anaxagoras

quote:

ORIGINAL: thompsonx

quote:

ORIGINAL: Anaxagoras
BTW one of the defining characteristics of terrorism is hitting soft civilian targets. Only 100 Russian civilians were killed in the entire eight/nine year conflict.

It might be interesting to know what percentage that 100 dead russian civilians were of the total number of russian civilians in country during that time frame.

I would expect there were a goodly number of Russian civilians in the country

quote:

during a large scale ten year war

quote:

but if you doubt that I suggest you go forth and find out.

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ORIGINAL: Politesub53

The IRA have long had marxist ideals.

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ORIGINAL: Moonhead
"Nazi sympathiser" was overstating the case, but I don't think there's any doubt that Yeats and Pearse were both a bloody long way from being Marxists.

quote:

I HAVE met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
I have passed with a nod of the head
Or polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and said
Polite meaningless words,
And thought before I had done
Of a mocking tale or a gibe
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club,
Being certain that they and I
But lived where motley is worn:
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

That woman's days were spent
In ignorant good-will,
Her nights in argument
Until her voice grew shrill.
What voice more sweet than hers
When, young and beautiful,
She rode to harriers?
This man had kept a school
And rode our winged horse;
This other his helper and friend
Was coming into his force;
He might have won fame in the end,
So sensitive his nature seemed,
So daring and sweet his thought.
This other man I had dreamed
A drunken, vainglorious lout.
He had done most bitter wrong
To some who are near my heart,
Yet I number him in the song;
He, too, has resigned his part
In the casual comedy;
He, too, has been changed in his turn,
Transformed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

Hearts with one purpose alone
Through summer and winter seem
Enchanted to a stone
To trouble the living stream.
The horse that comes from the road.
The rider, the birds that range
From cloud to tumbling cloud,
Minute by minute they change;
A shadow of cloud on the stream
Changes minute by minute;
A horse-hoof slides on the brim,
And a horse plashes within it;
The long-legged moor-hens dive,
And hens to moor-cocks call;
Minute by minute they live:
The stone's in the midst of all.

Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
That is Heaven's part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death;
Was it needless death after all?
For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
I write it out in a verse -
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

quote:

Although a committed nationalist, Yeats generally disapproved of violence as a means to securing Irish independence, and as a result had strained relations with some of the figures who eventually led the uprising.[1] The deaths of these revolutionary figures at the hands of the British, however, were as much a shock to Yeats as they were to ordinary Irish people at the time, who did not expect the British response to be so harsh. Yeats was working through his feelings about the revolutionary movement in this poem, and the insistent refrain that "a terrible beauty is born" turned out to be prescient, as the execution of the leaders of the Easter Rising by the British had the opposite effect to that intended. The killings led to a reinvigoration of the Irish Republican movement rather than its dissipation.