Just came across this little nugget about beheading.

[Berni]

Quote:



Dr Livingstone wrote that Africans he encountered were aware that consciousness is not lost immediately. He recounts how they bent a springy sapling and tied cords from it under the ears of a man to be decapitated so that his last few moments of awareness would be of flying through the air.





Is it wrong that I find this quite sweet? :rubchin:

[Classic Jorge]

These jacky pen-knife/butter knife jobs mean you probably lose consciousness about half way through when the pain becomes too much.

You'd think with all of the arms the french pumped into that neck of the woods they could've sprung for some proper kit.

[Berni]

bleed out pretty quickly. It's still quicker than hanging by strangulation, which can take minutes. But then it's not the pain of the victim we're shocked by, I suppose. It's the depths of barbarity to which the perpetrators are prepared to sink we're supposed to be impressed by.

Anyway, I quite like the whole 'flying through the air' thing. wd the Africans.

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

There. I've said it.

[Berni]

Is it the loss of bodily integrity that freaks us out so much?

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

and efficient stroke of Madame La Veuve, imagine the mess on the carpet! Blood's a bugger to get out of the Axminster, as well.

[Classic Jorge]

...your average drone strike than there is about a beheading though.

Whole village, WHOOOOOPH! gone. Women and kids, indiscriminate.

Probably just me though.

[Classic Jorge]

[Berni]

Cutting a chap's head off brings with it a rather unpleasant sort of intimacy I don't really like.

[Classic Jorge]

I know it's not a parallel anybody is drawing over here but I'd imagine it's probably one being drawn over there

[Berni]

or indiscriminate, j? I mean, I know aid workers and journos can be a pain in the arse, but hacking their heads off doesn't seem that militarily significant an act to me.

[Classic Jorge]

I'm not sure I could behead someone but I've blown loads of stuff up with an xbox controller

[Berni]

is simply good planning. By contrast the beheading is just an act of spite. Questions of cowardice don't really come into it.

[Classic Jorge]

...I'd say it's moral cowardice at the very least.

[Berni]

Nobody believes in non-combatants anymore, j. No such animal.

[Classic Jorge]

Dead civilian women and children by and large.

And people wonder why they "hate our freedom"

[Berni]

village, it follows that the village itself is just as legitimate a target as the individuals to whom it is offering support, shelter and sustenance. The military and civilians are in a symbiotic relationship, just as they were at Dresden and Nagasaki.

'Kill them all. God will know his own', as dear old Arnaud Amaury put it.

[Classic Jorge]

[Ashberto]

to kill the taxpayers who are contributing to the enemy war effort etc.

Probably best not to take Berni too seriously around this sort of thing. A least redg would say that blowing up enemy villages is damn good fun, and wouldn't try to justify it beyond that.

[Berni]

Ultimately, they're only doing it for attention, anyway. They know our weakness - as democratic states - is public opinion. So they exploit that by pulling militarily insignificant stunts like cutting heads off bit part players to try and provoke us into hitting them with 'indiscriminate' airstrikes that kill civilians - which, of course, they will exploit to incite anti-western hatred.

And so the wheel turns.

Ultimately, it's all rather boring.

[Berni]

properly realise we're in a war. The other side have no doubts on that score and go balls out to prosecute it as effectively and mercilessly as their resources (and we) allow them to.

[Ashberto]

And if you're ok with that, then you can have no complaints about terrorism against us - if "all's fair etc"

[Berni]

I just know which side I'm on and have no time for all this wet-eyed posturing about drone strikes or what have you. My only complaint is that we're too soft on the f**kers.

[Classic Jorge]