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United States22883 Posts
On December 23 2008 14:46 kazokun wrote:Show nested quote +On December 23 2008 14:18 Savio wrote:So should soldiers kill? Its their duty right? According to Kant, the concept of “motive” is the most important factor in determining what is ethical. More specifically, Kant argued that a moral action is one that is performed out of a “sense of duty.”
For Kant, a moral action is not based upon feelings or pity. Nor is it is not based on the possibility of reward. Instead, a moral action is one based on a sense of “This is what I ought to do.” Same for police officers, etc. EDIT:
“To preserve one’s life is duty” (Groundwork…, section 1) says Kant, urging us to follow a maxim authorizing violent action only when our own life is threatened.
Like I said, unless you soften your statement, your argument is not viable. Kant argued that a moral action is one that is performed out of a “sense of duty.” We do all have a duty to not kill each other. yet, as you pointed out... “To preserve one’s life is duty” Here is the one problem with Kantian ethics which is hard to evade. Which duty is stronger? Kant gives us two different duties that are good on their own, but when there comes a situation where these two duties conflict, as when you must kill someone to save your own skin, Kant does not lay out a means by which to select the more important duty. It is up to you to decide which duty you feel is more important. Yes, you can attempt to omit yourself from any situation where there is a potential for violence (and that is good) , but if you ever come to a point of kill or be killed, it is up to you to decide which duty you are going to break. Kant reasoned for self-preservation, I myself am compelled to reason towards moral preservation. This is what I feel, your feelings can be different and still fit under the bounds of Kantian ethics.
How much have you studied Kant? Because you've talked a lot about his ethics without once mentioning the categorical imperative- the crux of his ethical theory.
We do all have a duty to not kill each other.
Justify this, because you cannot arbitrarily submit that something is a duty. It's dictated by ^, which can be used to justify both self-defense/killing, or pacifism. Kant himself supported Just War theory in Perpetual Peace so I don't see how you can claim killing is immoral in all circumstances.
Finally, for your own good, I think it would be wise not to stick to one set of ethics. The whole idea of ethics is that everything is gray and while there's some great universal things like the Harm principle, it may be foolhardy to commit to just one. They all have strengths and weaknesses. For Kant, a good one to think about is the runaway trolley.
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United States22883 Posts
Along with expertise, it also requires a great deal of organization, political power and money (people don't kill themselves for free.) Islam is not providing those and most other groups don't possess them. Kurdish terrorism in Turkey is secular, the Liberation Tigers blow themselves up in Sri Lanka without Islam, and the Viet Cong had mandates for suicide cells during the Tet Offensive.
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it is not a matter of 'going radical'
the religion is in itself radical
Okay, so then you're back at eradicating Islam as the solution the base reason.
Might as well go out and try to eradicate something like "anger" or "fear" while you're at it.
i did not say all of islam was the militant teachings, Yes you did. See above. The religion is in itself radical. Pretty clear cut.
Your presented logic is lacking a few glaring presumptions which substantially obfuscate the real issue here.
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On December 23 2008 22:17 IdrA wrote:Show nested quote +On December 23 2008 19:00 EmeraldSparks wrote:theyre not going to change. they have no desire to change. unfortunately they do have the desire to either subjugate or destroy the rest of the world. i dont really see how that attitude can be allowed. I'm pretty sure most Afghanis would settle for "US gets out" and sees "destroy NATO" as something that's (beyond being impossible) pretty far out. If we get out, I don't believe they'll just hate us forever and ever. Take Vietnam - forty years ago we incinerated, poisoned, raped, and murdered their men, women, and children. One would think that they would be thirsting for bitter vengeance forever and ever. Today? To them we're just another country; we just happen to have been in line behind China, Japan, and France. China and Japan have civil relations, and China lost twenty million civilians (that's the entire population of most countries), not to mention being subjected to horrific medical experiments, mass rapes, genocide... look where they are today. except as far as theyre concerned us not being under their control or worshipping their god is a grievous offence. china and japan did not make peace while the chinese were being mass murdered.
I don't think Afghanis have very much beef with, say, Ecuador, and Ecuador is neither under the control of nor religiously identical to Afghanistan. It's far more likely that Afghanistan's hatred for us comes from the things we do (like invading their country, among others), not who we are. Also, the first step towards Chinese-Japanese reconciliation was the cessation of hostilities (along with war crimes, mass murder, atrocities, etc.)
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Here's the Canadian response:
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/12/23/afghan-report.html
Canada's top soldier in Afghanistan on Tuesday rejected criticism of air strikes and nighttime raids by international forces in the country, saying such actions are taken only "as a last resort" and that he is confident that his soldiers are following international law.
Brig.-Gen. Denis Thompson, who is in charge of Canadian and NATO forces in the province of Kandahar, said he welcomed the findings in a 55-page report released Tuesday by the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission.
"Every precaution is taken to ensure there is a have a high degree of certainty regarding targets" when air strikes or nighttime raids are launched, Thompson said, adding he is proud of Canada's "exemplary" track record in Afghanistan.
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The U.S. fucked up Afghanistan because it was too busy also fucking up in Irak to make things right since the start.
The U.S. had a certain right to invade Afghanistan because it was clear that the Taliban was allied with Al Qaeda, so they went and took them out of power, and actually freed a people that was under a painful and fanatical regime, but after that they were uncapable of actually finishing the job, too few troops that in time allowed the Taliban to regroup, and a reconstruction effort that failed in improving the lives of ordinary afghans.
This conflict wasnt even half as hard as in Irak, because afghans actually felt they were being liberated and not just invaded, but when the U.S. failed to finish the job because it was too busy killing people for no reason in Irak the managed to defeat themselves.
Now they are going out of Irak not really defeated but no actually victorious, but with hunderds of thousands of deaths on their backs, and Afghanistan is going to hell.
So 7 years after 9/11, Osama Bin Laden is still free, Al Qaeda is weaker but islamic terrorist are probably more powerful overall and the U.S. is completly descredited world wide.
Kudos to the U.S. goverment.
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Vatican City State491 Posts
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On December 24 2008 06:40 CrimsonLotus wrote:
The U.S. fucked up Afghanistan because it was too busy also fucking up in Irak to make things right since the start.
The U.S. had a certain right to invade Afghanistan because it was clear that the Taliban was allied with Al Qaeda, so they went and took them out of power, and actually freed a people that was under a painful and fanatical regime, but after that they were uncapable of actually finishing the job, too few troops that in time allowed the Taliban to regroup, and a reconstruction effort that failed in improving the lives of ordinary afghans.
This conflict wasnt even half as hard as in Irak, because afghans actually felt they were being liberated and not just invaded, but when the U.S. failed to finish the job because it was too busy killing people for no reason in Irak the managed to defeat themselves.
Now they are going out of Irak not really defeated but no actually victorious, but with hunderds of thousands of deaths on their backs, and Afghanistan is going to hell.
So 7 years after 9/11, Osama Bin Laden is still free, Al Qaeda is weaker but islamic terrorist are probably more powerful overall and the U.S. is completly descredited world wide.
Kudos to the U.S. goverment.
If you said this to our government a year ago you would probably be told we're winning the war and everything will be fine. Now you'll hear we're leaving and going to finish the job in Afghanistan, because Iraq was a victory. In 5 years we'll still be in Afghanistan and probably partially Iraq with a new President trying to plug holes in the crisis these wars put on our country economically. Hopefully I'll be in grad school in Europe or Canada when we try to ally Pakistan to take out the rest of Afghanistan and India invades to stop us.
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HnR)hT
United States3468 Posts
Afghan pres wishes to shoot down US planes
And we installed that guy? What a faggot 
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United States22883 Posts
On December 24 2008 06:40 CrimsonLotus wrote:
The U.S. fucked up Afghanistan because it was too busy also fucking up in Irak to make things right since the start.
The U.S. had a certain right to invade Afghanistan because it was clear that the Taliban was allied with Al Qaeda, so they went and took them out of power, and actually freed a people that was under a painful and fanatical regime, but after that they were uncapable of actually finishing the job, too few troops that in time allowed the Taliban to regroup, and a reconstruction effort that failed in improving the lives of ordinary afghans.
This conflict wasnt even half as hard as in Irak, because afghans actually felt they were being liberated and not just invaded, but when the U.S. failed to finish the job because it was too busy killing people for no reason in Irak the managed to defeat themselves.
Now they are going out of Irak not really defeated but no actually victorious, but with hunderds of thousands of deaths on their backs, and Afghanistan is going to hell.
So 7 years after 9/11, Osama Bin Laden is still free, Al Qaeda is weaker but islamic terrorist are probably more powerful overall and the U.S. is completly descredited world wide.
Kudos to the U.S. goverment. The rebuilding in Afghanistan would always be much harder than Iraq because Iraq has tasted stability before and actually has stuff to rebuild.
I agree with the rest of your post though. It's interesting because Bin Ladin may very well be dead or dying and Al Qaeda is certainly weaker than before. Unless they get a hand in on Pakistan's nuke problems, the next major issue will probably be with Shiite groups like Hezbollah. If we're reasonable with Iran and Lebanon, we can avoid future catastrophe.
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On December 24 2008 08:36 HnR)hT wrote:And we installed that guy? What a faggot
Solution, re install the OS
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doubleupgradeobbies!
Australia1187 Posts
On December 24 2008 08:46 Jibba wrote:
It's interesting because Bin Ladin may very well be dead or dying and Al Qaeda is certainly weaker than before.
It's interesting to note that even if Bin Ladin is dead and Al Qaeda weakened, it makes little practical difference to the prevalence of terrorism overall.
This is why this so called 'war on terrorism' fails even under a Kantian school of ethics. While the use of physical violence is debatable ethically (clearly it's being debated even in this thread), I will not go into the ethics of this. What makes it unethical under Kantian school of ethics is not the means as such, but the effects of those means, eg. the ends.
That is to say even if 'The ends justifies the means', then this war fails ethically because the ends is not a significant reduction in terrorism.
Quite simply, terrorism is, as many people have already stated, not something you can fight with guns and bombs in any meaningful sort of way.
Terrorism, unlike a political faction, is not something with X amount of people and Y amount of resources, you cannot simply kill the X people and make the problem go away (unless your X is arbitrarily large, like, the population of the world).
Any attempt to solve terrorism through physical conflict, especially via a means involving heavy collateral damage, is quite simply ineffective. You may be killing terrorists, but you are creating just as many in the process. You will be sowing the seeds of terrorism elsewhere, and potentially being counterproductive.
A physical 'war on terror' is analogous to trying to dry clothes by flushing out the water in the clothes with more water. In this case the ends do not justify the means, because quite simply there is no end with which to justify the means with, you end up with exactly the same problem you started with.
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On December 24 2008 04:45 L wrote:Okay, so then you're back at eradicating Islam as the solution the base reason. Might as well go out and try to eradicate something like "anger" or "fear" while you're at it. Yes you did. See above. The religion is in itself radical. Pretty clear cut. Your presented logic is lacking a few glaring presumptions which substantially obfuscate the real issue here.
?
just like any holy book the qur'an is full of contradictions
it has lines preaching love for your neighbor and whatnot
but also has lines demanding jihad and martrydom. that is the radical part and that is what is being used to justify and encourage the terrorism. thats what has to be destroyed, the rest is irrelevant here.
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United States22883 Posts
On December 24 2008 09:59 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote:Show nested quote +On December 24 2008 08:46 Jibba wrote:
It's interesting because Bin Ladin may very well be dead or dying and Al Qaeda is certainly weaker than before. What makes it unethical under Kantian school of ethics is not the means as such, but the effects of those means, eg. the ends. That is to say even if 'The ends justifies the means', then this war fails ethically because the ends is not a significant reduction in terrorism. I think you mean to say that current policy fails under Kantian ethics because we are employing "the end justifies the means." The end, lack of reduction in terrorism, is irrelevant for a Kantian ethicist.
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doubleupgradeobbies!
Australia1187 Posts
On December 24 2008 10:28 Jibba wrote:Show nested quote +On December 24 2008 09:59 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote:On December 24 2008 08:46 Jibba wrote:
It's interesting because Bin Ladin may very well be dead or dying and Al Qaeda is certainly weaker than before. What makes it unethical under Kantian school of ethics is not the means as such, but the effects of those means, eg. the ends. That is to say even if 'The ends justifies the means', then this war fails ethically because the ends is not a significant reduction in terrorism. I think you mean to say that current policy fails under Kantian ethics because we are employing "the end justifies the means." The end, lack of reduction in terrorism, is irrelevant for a Kantian ethicist.
Sorry, my bad, I meant Utilitarian, as being the most often used justification.
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On December 24 2008 06:16 EmeraldSparks wrote:Show nested quote +On December 23 2008 22:17 IdrA wrote:On December 23 2008 19:00 EmeraldSparks wrote:theyre not going to change. they have no desire to change. unfortunately they do have the desire to either subjugate or destroy the rest of the world. i dont really see how that attitude can be allowed. I'm pretty sure most Afghanis would settle for "US gets out" and sees "destroy NATO" as something that's (beyond being impossible) pretty far out. If we get out, I don't believe they'll just hate us forever and ever. Take Vietnam - forty years ago we incinerated, poisoned, raped, and murdered their men, women, and children. One would think that they would be thirsting for bitter vengeance forever and ever. Today? To them we're just another country; we just happen to have been in line behind China, Japan, and France. China and Japan have civil relations, and China lost twenty million civilians (that's the entire population of most countries), not to mention being subjected to horrific medical experiments, mass rapes, genocide... look where they are today. except as far as theyre concerned us not being under their control or worshipping their god is a grievous offence. china and japan did not make peace while the chinese were being mass murdered. I don't think Afghanis have very much beef with, say, Ecuador, and Ecuador is neither under the control of nor religiously identical to Afghanistan. It's far more likely that Afghanistan's hatred for us comes from the things we do (like invading their country, among others), not who we are. Also, the first step towards Chinese-Japanese reconciliation was the cessation of hostilities (along with war crimes, mass murder, atrocities, etc.) ecuador is irrelevant as far as world affairs go, of course they focus on western europe and the us. doesnt mean they dont care about it, its just impractical.
you are correct, chinese-japan reconciliation happened after everything was over. and like i said, to the militant muslims us being free and non muslim is intolerable. not sure how you're gonna eliminate that problem except by addressing the religion itself.
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?
just like any holy book the qur'an is full of contradictions
it has lines preaching love for your neighbor and whatnot
but also has lines demanding jihad and martrydom. that is the radical part and that is what is being used to justify and encourage the terrorism. thats what has to be destroyed, the rest is irrelevant here.
Your statement was that the religion itself is radical.
You made that statement to dodge an analysis of what causes people to become part of the radical segment of the religion.
You dodged that statement because actually making that analysis causes your worldview to significantly expose its logical weaknesses.
If you retreat to the statement that the religion itself is the cause of the radical element, we're back at eliminating Islam as the proper method for solving the core issue, which you properly avoided stating because it is both impractical and largely insane.
So you're left, again, with the option of telling me why people are becoming radicals.
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United States22883 Posts
On December 24 2008 10:45 IdrA wrote:Show nested quote +On December 24 2008 06:16 EmeraldSparks wrote:On December 23 2008 22:17 IdrA wrote:On December 23 2008 19:00 EmeraldSparks wrote:theyre not going to change. they have no desire to change. unfortunately they do have the desire to either subjugate or destroy the rest of the world. i dont really see how that attitude can be allowed. I'm pretty sure most Afghanis would settle for "US gets out" and sees "destroy NATO" as something that's (beyond being impossible) pretty far out. If we get out, I don't believe they'll just hate us forever and ever. Take Vietnam - forty years ago we incinerated, poisoned, raped, and murdered their men, women, and children. One would think that they would be thirsting for bitter vengeance forever and ever. Today? To them we're just another country; we just happen to have been in line behind China, Japan, and France. China and Japan have civil relations, and China lost twenty million civilians (that's the entire population of most countries), not to mention being subjected to horrific medical experiments, mass rapes, genocide... look where they are today. except as far as theyre concerned us not being under their control or worshipping their god is a grievous offence. china and japan did not make peace while the chinese were being mass murdered. I don't think Afghanis have very much beef with, say, Ecuador, and Ecuador is neither under the control of nor religiously identical to Afghanistan. It's far more likely that Afghanistan's hatred for us comes from the things we do (like invading their country, among others), not who we are. Also, the first step towards Chinese-Japanese reconciliation was the cessation of hostilities (along with war crimes, mass murder, atrocities, etc.) and like i said, to the militant muslims us being free and non muslim is intolerable.
This is just plain wrong. I know you think you're the #1 person in the world but experts who study the area, people and culture do not come to that conclusion. I trust the judgments of top professors at Chicago, Johns Hopkins, Harvard, UCSF, UofM, etc. over you, and so should everyone else in this thread.
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On December 23 2008 17:28 IdrA wrote:
you dont want a definition, you want a way of killing the evil guys without hitting the civilians theyre hiding amongst. when we find one we'll let you know.
So killing innocent children is justified if terrorists are hiding among them? Again you contradict the Geneva Conventions and attempt to provide a rationale for war crimes.
Your disgusting nationalism couldn't be more transparent. I somehow doubt if a group of American children were killed by another nation you would accept it regardless of whether or not supposed terrorists were killed as well.
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christian apologists and moderates will tell you the earth isnt really 6000 years old
does that change the fact that the fundamentalists believe it?
look at what i said. the MILITANT muslims. just look at their actions and their statements.
+ Show Spoiler +
from the qu'ran
"Truly Allah loves those who fight in His Cause in battle array, as if they were a solid cemented structure," (Surah 61:4)
"O ye who believe! what is the matter with you, that, when ye are asked to go forth in the cause of Allah, ye cling heavily to the earth? Do ye prefer the life of this world to the Hereafter? But little is the comfort of this life, as compared with the Hereafter. Unless ye go forth, He will punish you with a grievous penalty, and put others in your place; but Him ye would not harm in the least. For Allah hath power over all things. Unless ye go forth, He will punish you with a grievous penalty, and put others in your place; but Him ye would not harm in the least. For Allah hath power over all things," (Surah 9:38-39)
from the hadith
"The Prophet said, "The person who participates in (Holy battles) in Allah's cause and nothing compels him to do so except belief in Allah and His Apostles, will be recompensed by Allah either with a reward, or booty (if he survives) or will be admitted to Paradise (if he is killed in the battle as a martyr). Had I not found it difficult for my followers, then I would not remain behind any sariya going for Jihad and I would have loved to be martyred in Allah's cause and then made alive, and then martyred and then made alive, and then again martyred in His cause."Volume 1, Book 2, Number 35
"Allah's Apostle said, "Allah guarantees (the person who carries out Jihad in His Cause and nothing compelled him to go out but Jihad in His Cause and the belief in His Word) that He will either admit him into Paradise (Martyrdom) or return him with reward or booty he has earned to his residence from where he went out." Volume 9, Book 93, Number 555:
ya theyre just taking it all out of context to justify themselves.
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EPT
