[Morgeruat]

I read this in GD and since this issue isn't relevent to the gun debate in that thread, but was pertinent to the issue I'm posting below, I thought I'd just make it a new thread instead of completely derailing an existing one and getting it shunted over here.

Timber Said:

Regarding CD's comment regarding "gun the military uses," I'd like to point out that, AS I SAID BEFORE, we can't own those. Semi-auto is the best your common pedestrian gunowner can get. Again, your comment is probably focusing on the cosmetics, which Felix nicely pointed out don't mean spit. Now, he made a comment about liberals in there, too, and I'd like to take the time to remind him that some liberals own guns, too, and them's fightin words. :devil: Regarding CD's comment that it is sometimes one's duty to fight one's country's military, I wholeheartedly agree. I think that time is now, today, when we should be storming D.C., but that's just me. Give me 10 or 20 thousand more like me, and I'll go Che Guevera on your ass, but that's a pipe dream. Regardless, that comment militates against his querry as to why we need such guns. I actually believe we should be allowed to own howitzers, RPGs, M16/M203 combos, tanks, etc., for that very reason. The 535 major bastards and the 1 uber bastard in D.C. should always feel like they are 10 seconds away from being quartered and drawn, as far as I'm concerned. Regarding the language in the Second Amendment and all these nice arguments about how it doesn't mean this or that, drop it. File it with your argument that you don't have to pay income taxes, and with your dissertation that West Virginia was never legally chartered as a State. Put both of them together with $1.50, and you might be able to get a Venti Starbucks coffee with it. Now, while we keep talking of America as if it were the land where you stepped off the boat and they handed you a Remington, I'd like to point out to you folks that some of us live in Socialist/Dictatorial little fiefdoms in this country, where gun ownership is nigh on illegal. And what's with Ilander acting as if he's got a monopoly on bluegrass bragging rights?

link

U.S. President George W. Bush has certified that Saudi Arabia is cooperating in the "war on terrorism," clearing the way for aid that would otherwise have been blocked under U.S. law. The move was announced late Monday in a memorandum for U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, as a close Bush aide headed to Riyadh after criticizing the kingdom's human rights record. "I hereby certify that Saudi Arabia is cooperating with efforts to combat international terrorism and that the proposed assistance will help facilitate that effort," Bush said. The White House released the document as close Bush confidante Karen Hughes, the newly minted U.S. undersecretary for public diplomacy, prepared to meet with Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah. Under a 2005 spending bill, direct U.S. aid to Saudi Arabia is forbidden unless the president certifies that Riyadh is cooperating with efforts to combat international terrorism and that the money will help that campaign. Supporters of the measure acknowledge that the overall sum of current aid is small, but say that they were principally concerned with keeping a close watch on potential future U.S. financial and military assistance to the kingdom. Hughes, U.S. undersecretary for public diplomacy, is on a regional tour aimed at improving the image of the United States, widely reviled in the Arab and Muslim world over its invasion of Iraq and support for Israel. But ahead of her arrival in the Red Sea city of Jeddah yesterday, Hughes criticized Saudi Arabia's human rights record, although she admitted that democratic reforms in the oil-rich Gulf kingdom could take time. "We are concerned, and I am going to say it in Saudi Arabia, about human rights issues in the kingdom," she told reporters accompanying her on her three-nation tour. "They've got a long journey there and a lot of work to do," she said. International rights groups and some Western countries accuse the Saudi government of rights abuses against both citizens and expatriate workers, chiefly Asians. Riyadh denies the charges. Saudi Arabia applies a strict form of Islamic law and the death penalty is meted out for murder, rape, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking. So far this year there have been 70 executions announced by Saudi authorities. The Saudi government announced earlier this month it would set up a human rights agency, the second such watchdog in the kingdom. Hughes also said that although 15 of the hijackers in the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States were Saudi nationals, the kingdom has itself been "the victim of terror attacks ... and has become an important partner of the United States in counterterrorism measures." Suspected Al-Qaeda militants have carried out a spate of shootings and bombings in Saudi Arabia since May 2003, many targeting Westerners. According to official figures, at least 90 civilians, 47 security personnel and 121 militants have died since the unrest began. Bush's envoy, who arrived from Cairo, was due to travel on next to Turkey on what has been dubbed "the listening tour" by the U.S. press. "One of my missions is to go to listen. I hope to listen, to seek to understand, to show respect," Hughes said. Hughes has so far steered clear of developments in Iraq, but last week Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal warned that the country was heading toward disintegration and blamed U.S. policies for deepening sectarian divisions and effectively handing the country to Iran. A Saudi official said that "U.S. policy in Iraq is entrenching sectarian divisions and overlooking Iranian infiltration of the country." "The kingdom fears that what is taking place in Iraq will lead to its partition and the consecration of sectarian divisions in a way threatening the country's Arab identity," he said. He also accused Iran of "seeking to spread its influence in Iraq through the Shiite community," which forms a majority in the war-torn country. Tehran has dismissed Riyadh's concerns. "Iran does not expect such remarks from its friends at such a sensitive time in the region, and considers them surprising and irrational," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said Saturday. - AFP