As I see it:

General Petraeus is a wimp.
He endangers civilized nations.

Mr. L. L.

Why? You wanted to be manly and burn a Qur’an?

/P

I was more curious about this from LL.

He endangers civilized nations.

Does Mr LL make this comment as an outside observer of civilized nations ?

Gen Petraeus has one of the hardest jobs on earth - to create an exit strategy from badly managed wars.

While Mr LL does what ?

Peter C
Why would you call burning one’s bible a manly act? I would call it a cowardly act of a mentally deranged person but I think I live in a country where religious tolerance is the norm.
I would also not oppose (but condemn) the Nazi party marching in Skokie.
There is nothing manly about either items but it is used to draw attention to the racist attitude of the group.

Courlander,

I was being sarcastic. Since Gen Petraeus just spoke out against the planned Qur’an burning by a self-proclaimed pastor in Florida, and Mr LL reappeared here to declare him a wimp, that was the connection I made.

/P

Courlander-
Where do you live?

Tom
Why would that matter?

If LL’s comments on Petraeus are indeed in part because of his position on the book burning that is planned in Florida, I would assume that those who called out against Kristallnacht would also be seen as “wimps” who endangered the “civilized” Nazi state.

Boy do I wish I had an inkling as to LL’s politics…..

Into,
Thanks for doing what you obviously did to stop the stoning of the woman in Iran.  I realize this is light years from the lessons you and the rest of the world learned from Kristallnacht to speak up against evil, so thank you for your efforts. 
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/09/201098122526772598.html

ambersun - 08 September 2010 07:58 AM

Into,
Thanks for doing what you obviously did to stop the stoning of the woman in Iran.  I realize this is light years from the lessons you and the rest of the world learned from Kristallnacht to speak up against evil, so thank you for your efforts. 
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/09/201098122526772598.html

Thank you madam, first for your tireless efforts to educate me about Mr. L.L.s politics and last but not least, how to go o.t. on a thread.

Into wrote:

Thank you madam, first for your tireless efforts to educate me about Mr. L.L.s politics and last but not least, how to go o.t. on a thread.

Aw, c’mon now. Off topic? Talk about Latvia = ignore the Big World = minimize Lettish suffering = support Stalin = appease chauvinist “occupants” = exploit prostitutes in casinos = ruin the Latvian language = apologize for Putin = stone wymmin in Iran! Which leap didn’t you make, you bastard?

Greetings from cabal conference #42. Aleks and I are having a lovely late night conversation and are soon off to Poetry Days in Riga (well, I am—he goes home; there’s poetry in it) in the Dinaburgas ekspresis. It’s part of our sacred nihilistic duties.

Vysu lobu,
/P

Troll alert ! Don’t feed the trolls /p /v !

If the wimpy General (four stars yet!) Petraeus is so strongly worried about the Americans, (allegedly he did not mention the other nationalities, including Latvians, under his command, ) getting in the harms way,  why does not he arm them as needed and turn them loose on killing the enemy? 

There is no enemy?  Then why are they there?  Military is to kill and destroy.  Take them off the milk-wagon duty and send in Salvation Army. They are much better equipped to handle soup kitchens. Would Taliban kill them off?  The peace-loving Islamists? Well.

What is wrong with showing one’s displeasure by burning Koran?  This action does not kill anybody.

General Patton of WWII fame, in 1945 is allegedly reported as saying that with a few Waffen-SS divisions, especially Latvians, he would take Moscow in three months and have Stalin sue for peace.  He was assassinated a short time later.

Just a comparison.

Mr. L. L.

Mr LL
I know that Churchill was rearming the Germans to try and dispose Stalin but he was rebuffed by the intelligence core showing him that any attempt to dispose Stalin would fail for the allies had not enough military force that would even reach Moscow. This subject has been discussed in many other forums outside LOL and everyone but idiots who believed Patton that it was impossible. I would like to know your source of where Patton mentioned Latvians to use against Russians for I can not find such mention.
I am not a conspiracy idiot so unless you can show proof where Patton was killed I suggest you retreat from that idea.

Courlander-
This is why it matters.

I believe in America, but I also believe that it is extremely naive to suggest that the USA is tolerant. It is tolerant of things in the Protestant/Judeo Christian (though, not Catholic quite often) tradition, but not much else. In my own lifetime, candidates for President who were Catholic have had to assure the public that they are not beholden to the Vatican. Today Muslims are slandered, the victims of violence and the object of the latest nativist screeds.

How is the concern for the ubiquitous violence against “women” ever off-topic, especially when “sacred books” are used, as they have been historically, to justify violence against women.  I love it when the lurkers like Into come out of the woodwork to show their knee-jerk male liberal’s (distinct from feminist liberal"s) concern over today’s big issue of the threatened burning of one book that some of us consider far less sacred than the god-given life of one real woman in Iran or elsewhere who is about to be murdered because mortals in the names of gods are discarding “thou shall not kill” or “do unto others.”  It’s quite alarming to some of us that Into, Peteris, and their good world can endlessly jabber about a threatened book burning by some weirdo in Florida but seemingly ignore or disparage on LoL as off-topic the concern for the life of a woman about to die by stoning in 2010.  How about all the people so concerned with this book thing arrange a trade between the Florida nut-case and the Iranian woman.

More about “the book” and stoning:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoning
Stoning in Islam
Further information: Rajm, Namus, Qur’an, Hadith, and Sahih Bukhari

According to the Holy book of Islam the Quran all sexual intercourse outside the marital bond is considered sinful. It makes no distinction between adultery and fornication; in both case the punishment is flogging to those found guilty Quran (24:2). Some Muslim scholars take the view that stoning to death was never contemplated by Islam as a punishment for the act of adultery since the Quran does not even mention the word ‘stoning’ or ‘death by stoning’ in any of its verse,on the other hand many Islamic legal scholars and judges agree that the Quranic text does not refer to executions by stoning but state they are part of the Hadith, and go back to the Pentateuch, execution by stoning is thus in harmony with the 613 laws which make up the Mosaic laws in the Bible.

In few Muslim countries, such as Afghanistan, Iran, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia adultery is the only capital offense punishable by rajm (i.e. stoning), Since it is referred to in Sunni and Shi’a ahadiths stoning have been introduced to Islamic Sharia Law.