Afghan president wishes he could shoot down U.S. planes Vancouver Sun Wednesday, November 26, 2008
KABUL - Afghan President Hamid Karzai said on Wednesday he would bring down U.S. planes bombing villages if he could, in a sign of growing tension between Afghanistan and its Western backers as the Taliban insurgency grows in strength.
As Western dissatisfaction with Karzai has grown over his failure to crack down on corruption and govern effectively, the Afghan president, facing elections next year, has hit back over the killing of dozens of civilians in foreign air strikes.
In recent weeks, Karzai has repeatedly blamed the West for the worsening security in Afghanistan, saying NATO failed to target Taliban and Al- Qaida sanctuaries in Pakistan and calling for the war to be taken out of Afghan villages.
"We have no other choice, we have no power to stop the planes, if we could, if I could ... we would stop them and bring them down," Karzai told a news conference.
He said that if he had something like the rock attached to a piece of string, known as a chelak in Dari, used to bring down kites in Afghanistan, he would use it.
"If we had a chelak, we would throw it and stop the American aircraft. We have no radar to stop them in the sky, we have no planes," he said. "I wish I could intercept the planes that are going to bomb Afghan villages, but that's not in my hands."
Afghanistan has suffered its worst violence this year since U.S.-led and Afghan forces overthrew the Taliban in 2001, with at least 4,000 people killed, around a third of them civilians.
Despite the presence of 65,000 foreign troops backing 130,000 Afghan security forces, Taliban insurgents have grown increasingly confident in their traditional heartland in the south and east and have also extended their influence close to the capital, Kabul.
(Reporting by Sayed Salahuddin; Writing by Jon Hemming; Editing by Giles Elgood)
Using air strikes to fight insurgents in occupied areas is retarded.
"Using air strikes to fight insurgents in occupied areas is retarded" Its not retarded, its the American way. Its because of this that the states aren't allowed to go into Pakistan.
On December 22 2008 15:16 EmeraldSparks wrote: Using air strikes to fight insurgents in occupied areas is retarded.
How else do you expect them to fight a bunch of guerillas? Send in troops and have them die? I think we should just pull out of Afghanistan at this point. The Taliban was actually being defeated and had no operating HQ until the USA invaded Iraq and made the insurgency grow.
Yeah, but, I'm sure the Canadian Army is reluctant to send in troops and have them die needlessly to a bunch of terrorists. Even the Americans are. Hence the solution is to bomb the spots they are in.
It's a terrible solution that is ineffective towards achieving American goals in Afghanistan. If casualties are not acceptable, don't invade in the first place (or withdraw, as you say.) If the US and Co. want to get the job done, they're going to need to commit troops. The vast majority of counter-insurgency / anti-resistance / guerrilla warfare has not relied heavily on air strikes, and for good reason.
First of all I believe you can't defeat terrorists just with air strikes you usually have to rely on ground forces as well. But that doesn't mean bombing from the air isn't a good idea.
Emerald, I am shocked how lightly you treat the death of your soldiers as if it was some movie or Starcraft. If you don't think your war there is right than just go back and defend as best you can against future terrorist attacks on your civillians.
don't send your own troops needlessly to die because your enemy is hiding among civilians.
The civilians who will die are the moral responsibility of the terrorists, not you. It must be clear that western armies will kill terrorists wherever they are. Only that way they will be defeated and stop using civilians as shelter. The blood of the soldiers you send to die and the life of their families is your moral responsibility, they must only be sent to die when there is no other way.
On December 22 2008 17:04 Locke. wrote: First of all I believe you can't defeat terrorists just with air strikes you usually have to rely on ground forces as well. But that doesn't mean bombing from the air isn't a good idea.
Emerald, I am shocked how lightly you treat the death of your soldiers as if it was some movie or Starcraft. If you don't think your war there is right than just go back and defend as best you can against future terrorist attacks on your civillians.
don't send your own troops needlessly to die because your enemy is hiding among civilians.
The civilians who will die are the moral responsibility of the terrorists, not you. It must be clear that western armies will kill terrorists wherever they are. Only that way they will be defeated and stop using civilians as shelter. The blood of the soldiers you send to die and the life of their families is your moral responsibility, they must only be sent to die when there is no other way.
...So are you trying to justify the bombing of civilians just because terrorists use them as shields?
Ugh, I really don't blame the president at all. His people are being killed all for the anti-terrorism cause. Killing civilians only causes more problems. It provides fuel for the terrorists to ensue more hate, and get more support.
On December 22 2008 15:16 EmeraldSparks wrote: Using air strikes to fight insurgents in occupied areas is retarded.
How else do you expect them to fight a bunch of guerillas? Send in troops and have them die? I think we should just pull out of Afghanistan at this point. The Taliban was actually being defeated and had no operating HQ until the USA invaded Iraq and made the insurgency grow.
pull out and let the taliban regain complete control?
On December 22 2008 17:04 Locke. wrote: First of all I believe you can't defeat terrorists just with air strikes you usually have to rely on ground forces as well. But that doesn't mean bombing from the air isn't a good idea.
Emerald, I am shocked how lightly you treat the death of your soldiers as if it was some movie or Starcraft. If you don't think your war there is right than just go back and defend as best you can against future terrorist attacks on your civillians.
don't send your own troops needlessly to die because your enemy is hiding among civilians.
The civilians who will die are the moral responsibility of the terrorists, not you. It must be clear that western armies will kill terrorists wherever they are. Only that way they will be defeated and stop using civilians as shelter. The blood of the soldiers you send to die and the life of their families is your moral responsibility, they must only be sent to die when there is no other way.
...So are you trying to justify the bombing of civilians just because terrorists use them as shields?
Ugh, I really don't blame the president at all. His people are being killed all for the anti-terrorism cause. Killing civilians only causes more problems. It provides fuel for the terrorists to ensue more hate, and get more support.
logically locke is correct, the civilians should be blaming the terrorists since they are using them as human shields, theyre the reason theyre being bombed.
unfortunately rationality doesnt always work so we're left with a lose lose situation.
So if a bunch of terrorist live in america, does it justify the american government to bomb the shit out of their own country? of course not.. and hell they wont. Its just wrong in so many ways, I dont see how it is justified. The Afghan president dude just wants to save a few innocent lives, how is it so hard for people to understand that. Solving the terrorist problem is one thing, but doing so by killing innocent people in the process is just irony.
On December 22 2008 17:04 Locke. wrote: First of all I believe you can't defeat terrorists just with air strikes you usually have to rely on ground forces as well. But that doesn't mean bombing from the air isn't a good idea.
Emerald, I am shocked how lightly you treat the death of your soldiers as if it was some movie or Starcraft. If you don't think your war there is right than just go back and defend as best you can against future terrorist attacks on your civillians.
don't send your own troops needlessly to die because your enemy is hiding among civilians.
The civilians who will die are the moral responsibility of the terrorists, not you. It must be clear that western armies will kill terrorists wherever they are. Only that way they will be defeated and stop using civilians as shelter. The blood of the soldiers you send to die and the life of their families is your moral responsibility, they must only be sent to die when there is no other way.
...So are you trying to justify the bombing of civilians just because terrorists use them as shields?
Ugh, I really don't blame the president at all. His people are being killed all for the anti-terrorism cause. Killing civilians only causes more problems. It provides fuel for the terrorists to ensue more hate, and get more support.
Yes I do. it is the only way to fight terrorist who are willing to act as inhumanely as that.
when the civilians understand that having terrorists next to them equals death to themselves and their children they will be hostile towards them. When they will see western armies fully attacking the terrorists and most of them either brought to justice or dead they will have the courage to stand up to them.
As long as the terrorists are ruling I don't blame the civilians for supporting them, you are executed if you oppose them.
On December 22 2008 15:39 Dazed_Spy wrote: Shoot the fucking retard and replace him with someone a bit more sane. Ungrateful buffoon.
Ungrateful for what? For hundreds of deads on a daily basis? For a country routed in chaos after an idiotic war decided by an idiotic president? Nobody asked them to go to Afghanistan in the first place, it was a war routed in economical and geopolitical interests that destroyed the lives of thousands of people, it's unbelievable how naive some of the general public actually believe the war on "terror" had any higher moralic value, what it did was anger the majority of the arabic people, and increased the probability of a terroristic attack.
They carry out strikes against specific targets. Sometimes civilians die and that's tragic.
But sending in the marines would be a quagmire. And the taliban must be stopped. The Afghan government is not up to the task. Should they even have a government? What's the point of sovereignty when it only serves to draw some imaginary line that can't be defended, internally or externally? Respecting afghan sovereignty, that is, halting all operations there, is effectively giving terrorists a safe headquarters. No thanks!
On December 22 2008 15:39 Dazed_Spy wrote: Shoot the fucking retard and replace him with someone a bit more sane. Ungrateful buffoon.
Ungrateful for what? For hundreds of deads on a daily basis? For a country routed in chaos after an idiotic war decided by an idiotic president? Nobody asked them to go to Afghanistan in the first place, it was a war routed in economical and geopolitical interests that destroyed the lives of thousands of people, it's unbelievable how naive some of the general public actually believe the war on "terror" had any higher moralic value, what it did was anger the majority of the arabic people, and increased the probability of a terroristic attack.
That post was a waste, you're just gonna get a similarly retarded one liner as a reply.
On December 22 2008 17:30 dinmsab wrote: So if a bunch of terrorist live in america, does it justify the american government to bomb the shit out of their own country? of course not.. and hell they wont. Its just wrong in so many ways, I dont see how it is justified. The Afghan president dude just wants to save a few innocent lives, how is it so hard for people to understand that. Solving the terrorist problem is one thing, but doing so by killing innocent people in the process is just irony.
Elections are coming up. US can't vote. If he is seen to publicly represent the interests of the people it'll help him.
On December 22 2008 17:32 HeadBangaa wrote: They carry out strikes against specific targets. Sometimes civilians die and that's tragic.
But sending in the marines would be a quagmire. And the taliban must be stopped. The Afghan government is not up to the task. Should they even have a government? What's the point of sovereignty when it only serves to draw some imaginary line that can't be defended, internally or externally? Respecting afghan sovereignty, that is, halting all operations there, is effectively giving terrorists a safe headquarters. No thanks!
what the fuck since when are your opinions rational
Karzai's got to say whatever he's got to say to appease his own people and remain in power. US diplomats understand the situation and back him because they'd rather not face the alternative. If he didn't say such things, he'd be in trouble. If he actually shot down planes, he would also be in trouble. He's playing the game for his own sake, but it suits us just fine in the name of stability.
On December 22 2008 17:04 Locke. wrote: The civilians who will die are the moral responsibility of the terrorists, not you.
That is just plain wrong.
how so
Look, there's two pov's that you can take.
There's the utilitarian pov, and the argument for that basically boils down to the US having to bomb Afghanistan because killing terrorists (even with some civilian casualties resulting from it) means less deaths in the future. This meets the utilitarian view of the least harm for the least amount of people.
Then, there's the Kantian pov, and the argument for that is that the actions, not the consequences that result from those actions, are what is most important. In the mind of a deontologist/kantian-ethicist it does not matter that you are potentially saving lives by killing terrorists (and harming civies in the process), what matters is that you are nixing your morality and have decided to kill people. Once again, the end result is not important to a deontologist, only the means by which it is reached.
I hold the second point of view, of the deontologist. I believe it is just plain wrong to kill, and that it must never be done because doing so means you are violating your own moral code, and that is much worse than not doing anything.
Now, I can see why it would be politically sound to have a utilitarian foreign policy, but bombs are a horrible way to handle a situation no matter what side you're in.
On December 22 2008 17:04 Locke. wrote: The civilians who will die are the moral responsibility of the terrorists, not you.
That is just plain wrong.
how so
Look, there's two pov's that you can take.
There's the utilitarian pov, and the argument for that basically boils down to the US having to bomb Afghanistan because killing terrorists (even with some civilian casualties resulting from it) means less deaths in the future. This meets the utilitarian view of the least harm for the least amount of people.
Then, there's the Kantian pov, and the argument for that is that the actions, not the consequences that result from those actions, are what is most important. In the mind of a deontologist/kantian-ethicist it does not matter that you are potentially saving lives by killing terrorists (and harming civies in the process), what matters is that you are nixing your morality and have decided to kill people. Once again, the end result is not important to a deontologist, only the means by which it is reached.
I hold the second point of view, of the deontologist. I believe it is just plain wrong to kill, and that it must never be done because doing so means you are violating your own moral code, and that is much worse than not doing anything.
well thats pretty stupid the end results are what actually affect the real world. if your inaction causes more deaths than your action would it doesnt matter if you have the moral high ground, you've done a disservice to the world.
On December 22 2008 17:41 Myrmidon wrote: Karzai's got to say whatever he's got to say to appease his own people and remain in power. US diplomats understand the situation and back him because they'd rather not face the alternative. If he didn't say such things, he'd be in trouble. If he actually shot down planes, he would also be in trouble. He's playing the game for his own sake, but it suits us just fine in the name of stability.
This. He's just playing the game. Hell, he probably phoned up the US representative and asked permission before he said it.
It's kind of sad because the terrorists are just using our weapons against us. While it's sad that the Afghani people are going through this, it is the insurgents that are at fault for this.
On December 22 2008 17:04 Locke. wrote: The civilians who will die are the moral responsibility of the terrorists, not you.
That is just plain wrong.
how so
Look, there's two pov's that you can take.
There's the utilitarian pov, and the argument for that basically boils down to the US having to bomb Afghanistan because killing terrorists (even with some civilian casualties resulting from it) means less deaths in the future. This meets the utilitarian view of the least harm for the least amount of people.
Then, there's the Kantian pov, and the argument for that is that the actions, not the consequences that result from those actions, are what is most important. In the mind of a deontologist/kantian-ethicist it does not matter that you are potentially saving lives by killing terrorists (and harming civies in the process), what matters is that you are nixing your morality and have decided to kill people. Once again, the end result is not important to a deontologist, only the means by which it is reached.
I hold the second point of view, of the deontologist. I believe it is just plain wrong to kill, and that it must never be done because doing so means you are violating your own moral code, and that is much worse than not doing anything.
well thats pretty stupid the end results are what actually affect the real world. if your inaction causes more deaths than your action would it doesnt matter if you have the moral high ground, you've done a disservice to the world.
I do not see how using irrational (unethical) actions to quell irrational actions is doing a service to the world. But yeah, judging by the way you responded, I am going to guess you're a full-on utilitarian? I just wanna ask, to what morally vacant ends are you willing to see America reach to assure a victory in Afghanistan? Would you be willing to bomb a village, with ample warning beforehand of course, just to kill some terrorists? Man, it's on your head, not mine, bud.
On December 22 2008 17:04 Locke. wrote: The civilians who will die are the moral responsibility of the terrorists, not you. It must be clear that western armies will kill terrorists wherever they are. Only that way they will be defeated and stop using civilians as shelter. The blood of the soldiers you send to die and the life of their families is your moral responsibility, they must only be sent to die when there is no other way.
Oh cool, I heard some Palestinian extrimists hide near your house, may I kill you?
If Taliban attack US-Soldiers and kill civilians it's murder (not talking about assassinations which afaik also happen).
If US-Soldiers attack Taliban and kill civilians it's colleteral damage (bombing civilian buildings is not much better then directly targeting civilians from the get go).
Ya, right.
Oh, and one more thing. The US is not fighting terrorists in Afghanistan, you fight a war against a clear defined faction, the Taliban. Calling your enemy terrorist makes things probably easyer...
Don't missunderstand me, the Taliban are bastards... But the moral issue is a bit one sided with the * totally ultra hardcore evil* Taliban and *oh so good flower throwing* western forces.
On December 22 2008 17:32 HeadBangaa wrote: They carry out strikes against specific targets. Sometimes civilians die and that's tragic.
But sending in the marines would be a quagmire. And the taliban must be stopped. The Afghan government is not up to the task. Should they even have a government? What's the point of sovereignty when it only serves to draw some imaginary line that can't be defended, internally or externally? Respecting afghan sovereignty, that is, halting all operations there, is effectively giving terrorists a safe headquarters. No thanks!
what the fuck since when are your opinions rational
When I agree with you, easy. When is anybody ever rational, IdrA? Duh.
On December 22 2008 18:07 Velr wrote: Oh, and one more thing. The US is not fighting terrorists in Afghanistan, you fight a war against a clear defined faction, the Taliban. Calling your enemy terrorist makes things probably easyer...
They carry out terrorist activities, therefore they are terrorists! I don't see what difference it makes calling them a faction or terrorist, but they still fight like guerrillas, they still use IEDs, and they still strap bombs to women and make them walk into a market full of people. They are a disgusting group with a backwards ideology and deserved to be brutally suppressed.
On December 22 2008 17:41 Myrmidon wrote: Karzai's got to say whatever he's got to say to appease his own people and remain in power.
lol
You realize how stupid this is. You got it totally backwards Who put him in power? The US or the Afghan people? Only reason Karzai is in power is because of warlords that support him and that are protected from what they call the 'taliban' by the US.
We already lost the war in Afghanistan. There's not much more to do then to pull out and watch the taliban take over again and put into pratice their cruel laws again. But we tolerate them in Saudi Arabia, so I don't see the issue with that.
On December 22 2008 17:41 Myrmidon wrote: Karzai's got to say whatever he's got to say to appease his own people and remain in power.
lol
You realize how stupid this is. You got it totally backwards Who put him in power? The US or the Afghan people?
We already lost the war in Afghanistan. There's not much more to do then to pull out and watch the taliban take over again and put into pratice their cruel laws again. But we tolerate them in Saudi Arabia, so I don't see the issue with that.
I don't see how we lost. Whenever I watch news about the war in Afghanistan it usually tells me that every firefight Taliban fighters are dying with little or no casualties on our side. We need to really implement a strong anti-terrorist police force in Afghanistan while rebuilding their country if there is any hope there. From what I hear, the Canadian army is really helping them rebuild villages, getting the people back in there safely, and keeping good relations with the villages.
There is also a good documentary coming out about the war in Afghanistan and shows footage of firefights and all the like. Check out At War. Not sure when it is coming out, but it should be soon. It even shows a couple firefights with our famous Canadian Red Devils unit.
On December 22 2008 17:04 Locke. wrote: The civilians who will die are the moral responsibility of the terrorists, not you. It must be clear that western armies will kill terrorists wherever they are. Only that way they will be defeated and stop using civilians as shelter. The blood of the soldiers you send to die and the life of their families is your moral responsibility, they must only be sent to die when there is no other way.
Oh cool, I heard some Palestinian extrimists hide near your house, may I kill you?
On December 22 2008 17:04 Locke. wrote: The civilians who will die are the moral responsibility of the terrorists, not you. It must be clear that western armies will kill terrorists wherever they are. Only that way they will be defeated and stop using civilians as shelter. The blood of the soldiers you send to die and the life of their families is your moral responsibility, they must only be sent to die when there is no other way.
Oh cool, I heard some Palestinian extrimists hide near your house, may I kill you?
Locke lives in a country that is not impotent against terrorism, so the jurisdiction is not yours. Get it?
On December 22 2008 17:41 Myrmidon wrote: Karzai's got to say whatever he's got to say to appease his own people and remain in power.
lol
You realize how stupid this is. You got it totally backwards Who put him in power? The US or the Afghan people?
We already lost the war in Afghanistan. There's not much more to do then to pull out and watch the taliban take over again and put into pratice their cruel laws again. But we tolerate them in Saudi Arabia, so I don't see the issue with that.
I don't see how we lost. Whenever I watch news about the war in Afghanistan it usually tells me that every firefight Taliban fighters are dying with little or no casualties on our side. We need to really implement a strong anti-terrorist police force in Afghanistan while rebuilding their country if there is any hope there. From what I hear, the Canadian army is really helping them rebuild villages, getting the people back in there safely, and keeping good relations with the villages.
There is also a good documentary coming out about the war in Afghanistan and shows footage of firefights and all the like. Check out At War. Not sure when it is coming out, but it should be soon. It even shows a couple firefights with our famous Canadian Red Devils unit.
You can´t win this war by firefights only, you have to win the hearts of the afghan population, and I fear that war is already lost. The majority of the afghan people is young, they are easily tampered with, and naturally, people of their own or similar cultures have more influence on them. They live in a totally different environment and therefore can´t understand our reasoning or assess our motives. For them our troops are invaders, simple as that, for they are outsiders that tell Afghanis what to do with their country. Those bombing raids make them feel helpless, and helplessness leads to anger. That statement of their "president" tells this.
On December 22 2008 17:04 Locke. wrote: The civilians who will die are the moral responsibility of the terrorists, not you.
That is just plain wrong.
how so
Look, there's two pov's that you can take.
There's the utilitarian pov, and the argument for that basically boils down to the US having to bomb Afghanistan because killing terrorists (even with some civilian casualties resulting from it) means less deaths in the future. This meets the utilitarian view of the least harm for the least amount of people.
Then, there's the Kantian pov, and the argument for that is that the actions, not the consequences that result from those actions, are what is most important. In the mind of a deontologist/kantian-ethicist it does not matter that you are potentially saving lives by killing terrorists (and harming civies in the process), what matters is that you are nixing your morality and have decided to kill people. Once again, the end result is not important to a deontologist, only the means by which it is reached.
I hold the second point of view, of the deontologist. I believe it is just plain wrong to kill, and that it must never be done because doing so means you are violating your own moral code, and that is much worse than not doing anything.
well thats pretty stupid the end results are what actually affect the real world. if your inaction causes more deaths than your action would it doesnt matter if you have the moral high ground, you've done a disservice to the world.
I do not see how using irrational (unethical) actions to quell irrational actions is doing a service to the world. But yeah, judging by the way you responded, I am going to guess you're a full-on utilitarian? I just wanna ask, to what morally vacant ends are you willing to see America reach to assure a victory in Afghanistan? Would you be willing to bomb a village, with ample warning beforehand of course, just to kill some terrorists? Man, it's on your head, not mine, bud.
the actions are neither irrational or unethical. inaction that causes harm is just as bad as action that causes harm, therefore it would be unethical to not act in a situation where not acting causes more damage than acting.
if there were terrorists setting the next 9/11 in motion hiding in the village, hell yes. are you saying you wouldnt? i take back what i said, i dont see how you can claim the moral high ground in this situation.
obviously 9/11 is an extreme example, but yes if i believed allowing the terrorists to survive would cost more lives than the collateral damage of the bombing, i would.
On December 22 2008 18:25 rushz0rz wrote: I don't see how we lost. Whenever I watch news about the war in Afghanistan it usually tells me that every firefight Taliban fighters are dying with little or no casualties on our side.
That's how 'we' are losing. We have been winning basically every battle for years and years but in the overall war we are further away from success than ever.
The fact that you make this comment shows the ignorance of these types of wars. Did you think the Russians lost many battles?
We need to really implement a strong anti-terrorist police force in Afghanistan
terrorists? There's just primitive tribes on the one side and primitive tribes on the other side supported by the US/NATO and the Kabul government.
...while rebuilding their country if there is any hope there.
Rebuilding what? There was never anything in most of these parts that need to be 'rebuild'. These people have lived the same way for thousands of years with little change. Just now they have some old pickup trucks instead of horses and cows and some AKs instead of spears.
From what I hear, the Canadian army is really helping them rebuild villages, getting the people back in there safely, and keeping good relations with the villages.
I'm sure they are trying hard. But it's all irrelevant. I know the Dutch are now basically lasting out the time they have left.
Every NATO partner has their own strategy. Often totally opposite. And if they couldn't all put into practice the strategies they favour their wouldn't be support to be there in the first place.
I know the Canadians were pissed off that the Dutch didn't want to risk and casualties any basically didn't do their 'job' as they saw it. I know the Dutch are pissed off just as much at the US bombing and blowing up stuffas Karzai is. And I know the people in the region that sympathise with the Taliban think the Dutch are just as bad in their excessive violence as the US.
In the mean time the 'Taliban' are just normal Afghan people. Just the more primitive type that's on the other side. Beating the Taliban basically means committing genocide at this point. And you have to do it across the border as well.
Not to mention the huge opium production issues and the contradicting strategies and views among the NATO allies.
Only way these wars are working is give people that want to fight jihad a place to go to and kill NATO soldiers. And then we NATO can kill them and claim we do stuff about 'terrorist' jihadists. The 'rather fight them abroad than in the US'-line of thought.
I guess this way both get the fight they want but at the cost of the people there.
On December 22 2008 17:04 Locke. wrote: The civilians who will die are the moral responsibility of the terrorists, not you. It must be clear that western armies will kill terrorists wherever they are. Only that way they will be defeated and stop using civilians as shelter. The blood of the soldiers you send to die and the life of their families is your moral responsibility, they must only be sent to die when there is no other way.
Oh cool, I heard some Palestinian extrimists hide near your house, may I kill you?
Israel doesn't have extremists hiding in kindergartens and hospitals, shooting rockets on civilians from there. The Palestinians do. Extremely hypothetically if there were terrorists around here and my house was used as a hiding place for terrorists I would face the danger of being hurt as well.
That's a pretty outrageous statement right there. I don't see this whole Afghanistan escapade ending any time soon and my brother is due to ship there in Nov 2009.
On December 22 2008 17:04 Locke. wrote: The civilians who will die are the moral responsibility of the terrorists, not you. It must be clear that western armies will kill terrorists wherever they are. Only that way they will be defeated and stop using civilians as shelter. The blood of the soldiers you send to die and the life of their families is your moral responsibility, they must only be sent to die when there is no other way.
Oh cool, I heard some Palestinian extrimists hide near your house, may I kill you?
Israel doesn't have extremists hiding in kindergartens and hospitals, shooting rockets on civilians from there. The Palestinians do. Extremely hypothetically if there were terrorists around here and my house was used as a hiding place for terrorists I would face the danger of being hurt as well.
On December 22 2008 15:16 EmeraldSparks wrote: Using air strikes to fight insurgents in occupied areas is retarded.
How else do you expect them to fight a bunch of guerillas? Send in troops and have them die? I think we should just pull out of Afghanistan at this point. The Taliban was actually being defeated and had no operating HQ until the USA invaded Iraq and made the insurgency grow.
pull out and let the taliban regain complete control?
It's already a failed state, it's always been a failed state and it's not a winnable situation. Iraq has the potential to turn out 1000000000x better than Afghanistan does.
It's a shitdump of a country with a massive porous border which is simply impossible to control. We're relying on a prop government in Pakistan to do it, which will probably collapse sometime soon (that'll be a fun race to the nukes) and the ISI is still in bed with the Taliban.
All we've done is occupy big cities, exactly like the Soviets did, and we've completely failed to secure the country side which is where all the problems are occurring and where resupplying has to come through. Just recently, two supply missions got ambushed and there's little we can do about it. If there is a chance to save it, it'll be with bottom-up efforts which means the bombing campaign is counter productive.
EDIT: There's obviously a major humanitarian problem if you pull out but wars usually don't get fought over that. For realism and the rest of the IR stuff, it's pretty senseless, and our troop strength would be more valuable elsewhere or simply resting until Pakistan or Somalia really get out of hand. Our intelligence in the country has been shored up a great deal and we've still got hunter killer teams deployed to take out leaders and such. The 30,000 troops aren't accomplishing much.
On December 22 2008 17:04 Locke. wrote: The civilians who will die are the moral responsibility of the terrorists, not you.
That is just plain wrong.
how so
Look, there's two pov's that you can take.
There's the utilitarian pov, and the argument for that basically boils down to the US having to bomb Afghanistan because killing terrorists (even with some civilian casualties resulting from it) means less deaths in the future. This meets the utilitarian view of the least harm for the least amount of people.
Then, there's the Kantian pov, and the argument for that is that the actions, not the consequences that result from those actions, are what is most important. In the mind of a deontologist/kantian-ethicist it does not matter that you are potentially saving lives by killing terrorists (and harming civies in the process), what matters is that you are nixing your morality and have decided to kill people. Once again, the end result is not important to a deontologist, only the means by which it is reached.
I hold the second point of view, of the deontologist. I believe it is just plain wrong to kill, and that it must never be done because doing so means you are violating your own moral code, and that is much worse than not doing anything.
well thats pretty stupid the end results are what actually affect the real world. if your inaction causes more deaths than your action would it doesnt matter if you have the moral high ground, you've done a disservice to the world.
I do not see how using irrational (unethical) actions to quell irrational actions is doing a service to the world. But yeah, judging by the way you responded, I am going to guess you're a full-on utilitarian? I just wanna ask, to what morally vacant ends are you willing to see America reach to assure a victory in Afghanistan? Would you be willing to bomb a village, with ample warning beforehand of course, just to kill some terrorists? Man, it's on your head, not mine, bud.
the actions are neither irrational or unethical. inaction that causes harm is just as bad as action that causes harm, therefore it would be unethical to not act in a situation where not acting causes more damage than acting.
if there were terrorists setting the next 9/11 in motion hiding in the village, hell yes. are you saying you wouldnt? i take back what i said, i dont see how you can claim the moral high ground in this situation.
obviously 9/11 is an extreme example, but yes if i believed allowing the terrorists to survive would cost more lives than the collateral damage of the bombing, i would.
This utilitarian calculation is a load of garbage, for every way that utilitarianism always is when it comes to war.
On December 22 2008 17:04 Locke. wrote: The civilians who will die are the moral responsibility of the terrorists, not you. It must be clear that western armies will kill terrorists wherever they are. Only that way they will be defeated and stop using civilians as shelter. The blood of the soldiers you send to die and the life of their families is your moral responsibility, they must only be sent to die when there is no other way.
Oh cool, I heard some Palestinian extrimists hide near your house, may I kill you?
Israel doesn't have extremists hiding in kindergartens and hospitals, shooting rockets on civilians from there. The Palestinians do. Extremely hypothetically if there were terrorists around here and my house was used as a hiding place for terrorists I would face the danger of being hurt as well.
If you were one of the fucking idiots moving to settlements there might be. Honestly, how hard is it to stop making new settlements?
On December 22 2008 17:04 Locke. wrote: The civilians who will die are the moral responsibility of the terrorists, not you.
That is just plain wrong.
how so
Look, there's two pov's that you can take.
There's the utilitarian pov, and the argument for that basically boils down to the US having to bomb Afghanistan because killing terrorists (even with some civilian casualties resulting from it) means less deaths in the future. This meets the utilitarian view of the least harm for the least amount of people.
Then, there's the Kantian pov, and the argument for that is that the actions, not the consequences that result from those actions, are what is most important. In the mind of a deontologist/kantian-ethicist it does not matter that you are potentially saving lives by killing terrorists (and harming civies in the process), what matters is that you are nixing your morality and have decided to kill people. Once again, the end result is not important to a deontologist, only the means by which it is reached.
I hold the second point of view, of the deontologist. I believe it is just plain wrong to kill, and that it must never be done because doing so means you are violating your own moral code, and that is much worse than not doing anything.
well thats pretty stupid the end results are what actually affect the real world. if your inaction causes more deaths than your action would it doesnt matter if you have the moral high ground, you've done a disservice to the world.
I do not see how using irrational (unethical) actions to quell irrational actions is doing a service to the world. But yeah, judging by the way you responded, I am going to guess you're a full-on utilitarian? I just wanna ask, to what morally vacant ends are you willing to see America reach to assure a victory in Afghanistan? Would you be willing to bomb a village, with ample warning beforehand of course, just to kill some terrorists? Man, it's on your head, not mine, bud.
the actions are neither irrational or unethical. inaction that causes harm is just as bad as action that causes harm, therefore it would be unethical to not act in a situation where not acting causes more damage than acting.
if there were terrorists setting the next 9/11 in motion hiding in the village, hell yes. are you saying you wouldnt? i take back what i said, i dont see how you can claim the moral high ground in this situation.
obviously 9/11 is an extreme example, but yes if i believed allowing the terrorists to survive would cost more lives than the collateral damage of the bombing, i would.
So you're saying I'm immoral for not supporting the death of innocents? How can you support actions that fuel the motives of the terrorists more? Come dusk, the Afghans know that the bombs dropped on their village were American. To whom are they to put the blame? How will you be able to tell them that their deaths were for their own benefit? These people see the United States as a threat, not an ally. Why are we allowed to impose on their lives when they cannot do the same to us?
For every village that the government bombs there is going to be at least one child who looks at the burning pile of rubble and body parts, forever compelled to go to any lengths to destroy the entity who destroyed his or her home.
Each bomb plants the seeds for dissent. The bigger the bomb, the more helpless they will feel and the more drastic measures they will take to retaliate.
Why support violence when it only breeds more violence? Even from a Utilitarian point of view, this course of action seems rash and improvised. The true Utilitarian would not advocate these useless forms of violence, so it is assumed that those who support the American style of diplomacy are themselves rash.
Then we must assume that the American course of action was not born out of calculated necessity but out of the anger and frustration stemming from the tragic loss of life on September 11th. It is out of this blind rage that nearly a decade of disastrous foreign policy was enacted. We have treaded onto an immense minefield that we now don't see ourselves getting safetly out of. We have done this to ourselves because we could not think beyond the cold hard statistics of "getting even". We have traded our morality for the insanity of attrition. "All is well as long as they're dead and we're not," one would say. "Kill them all."
On December 22 2008 17:04 Locke. wrote: The civilians who will die are the moral responsibility of the terrorists, not you. It must be clear that western armies will kill terrorists wherever they are. Only that way they will be defeated and stop using civilians as shelter. The blood of the soldiers you send to die and the life of their families is your moral responsibility, they must only be sent to die when there is no other way.
Oh cool, I heard some Palestinian extrimists hide near your house, may I kill you?
Israel doesn't have extremists hiding in kindergartens and hospitals, shooting rockets on civilians from there. The Palestinians do. Extremely hypothetically if there were terrorists around here and my house was used as a hiding place for terrorists I would face the danger of being hurt as well.
If you were one of the fucking idiots moving to settlements there might be. Honestly, how hard is it to stop making new settlements?
Why do you care so much if they are building houses and living there? How can you honestly believe that the Arab violence will stop just because some Jews won't build their houses.
Why should we stop building "settlments" in the land of our ancestors? Judea and Samaria are as much Israel as Tel Aviv is. Jerusalem (Israel's capitol) is IN Judea and a part of it was taken back in the 1967, it doesn't give Jordan any claim on it.
Do you know who we "occupied" those territories from? It wasn't the Palestinian people it was Jordan, Syria and Egypt. The "Palestinian" people didn't fight them for independence they fought us. Their "liberation front" was formed 4 years before 1967 in order to free Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem (equivalent of New York, Los Angeles and Washington), meaning the destruction of Israel.
BTW Hebron is considered a "settlment". The jewish population in there had land and houses legally bought going back to the 1600s (not to mention earlier). They where violently thrown away in the brutal 1929 massacre. Many current Arab houses in Hebron belonged to victims of that massacre. Shouldn't they return their occupied territory?
On December 22 2008 17:04 Locke. wrote: The civilians who will die are the moral responsibility of the terrorists, not you. It must be clear that western armies will kill terrorists wherever they are. Only that way they will be defeated and stop using civilians as shelter. The blood of the soldiers you send to die and the life of their families is your moral responsibility, they must only be sent to die when there is no other way.
Oh cool, I heard some Palestinian extrimists hide near your house, may I kill you?
Israel doesn't have extremists hiding in kindergartens and hospitals, shooting rockets on civilians from there. The Palestinians do. Extremely hypothetically if there were terrorists around here and my house was used as a hiding place for terrorists I would face the danger of being hurt as well.
I think this should be reason enough to go nuke yourself. K thx.
Amazing list. Thank you. I see no reason to nuke myself.. But yea Israel should be way more harsher against Arab terrorism. Unfortunately our government is letting the Hamas and Hizbollah gather a huge amount of weapons and the future of Israel is in danger.
On December 22 2008 17:04 Locke. wrote: The civilians who will die are the moral responsibility of the terrorists, not you. It must be clear that western armies will kill terrorists wherever they are. Only that way they will be defeated and stop using civilians as shelter. The blood of the soldiers you send to die and the life of their families is your moral responsibility, they must only be sent to die when there is no other way.
Oh cool, I heard some Palestinian extrimists hide near your house, may I kill you?
Israel doesn't have extremists hiding in kindergartens and hospitals, shooting rockets on civilians from there. The Palestinians do. Extremely hypothetically if there were terrorists around here and my house was used as a hiding place for terrorists I would face the danger of being hurt as well.
If you were one of the fucking idiots moving to settlements there might be. Honestly, how hard is it to stop making new settlements?
Why should we stop building "settlments" in the land of our ancestors? Judea and Samaria are as much Israel as Tel Aviv is. Jerusalem (Israel's capitol) is IN Judea and a part of it was taken back in the 1967, it doesn't give Jordan any claim on it.
This is just fucking absurd. Because there's a few supposed scraps of animal skin from a contract Abraham signed, Israelis have a right to the land? Absolute bullshit.
There was no inherent right to the land. They could've just as well taken a chunk out of South America and almost did. Ben Gurion and Co. admitted they were simply taking land from another group of people and he said they were essentially terrorists at the time (which the British wholly believe); that the Palestinian anger was justified. The only right Israel has tot he land is that it's already there and it's impossible to move it.
All the crap you're talking about is the same stuff repeated for years from From Time Immemorial, basically a piece of academic fraud. I suggest you start reading some Finkelstein for a better take on the history.
On December 22 2008 17:04 Locke. wrote: The civilians who will die are the moral responsibility of the terrorists, not you.
That is just plain wrong.
how so
Look, there's two pov's that you can take.
There's the utilitarian pov, and the argument for that basically boils down to the US having to bomb Afghanistan because killing terrorists (even with some civilian casualties resulting from it) means less deaths in the future. This meets the utilitarian view of the least harm for the least amount of people.
Then, there's the Kantian pov, and the argument for that is that the actions, not the consequences that result from those actions, are what is most important. In the mind of a deontologist/kantian-ethicist it does not matter that you are potentially saving lives by killing terrorists (and harming civies in the process), what matters is that you are nixing your morality and have decided to kill people. Once again, the end result is not important to a deontologist, only the means by which it is reached.
I hold the second point of view, of the deontologist. I believe it is just plain wrong to kill, and that it must never be done because doing so means you are violating your own moral code, and that is much worse than not doing anything.
well thats pretty stupid the end results are what actually affect the real world. if your inaction causes more deaths than your action would it doesnt matter if you have the moral high ground, you've done a disservice to the world.
I do not see how using irrational (unethical) actions to quell irrational actions is doing a service to the world. But yeah, judging by the way you responded, I am going to guess you're a full-on utilitarian? I just wanna ask, to what morally vacant ends are you willing to see America reach to assure a victory in Afghanistan? Would you be willing to bomb a village, with ample warning beforehand of course, just to kill some terrorists? Man, it's on your head, not mine, bud.
the actions are neither irrational or unethical. inaction that causes harm is just as bad as action that causes harm, therefore it would be unethical to not act in a situation where not acting causes more damage than acting.
if there were terrorists setting the next 9/11 in motion hiding in the village, hell yes. are you saying you wouldnt? i take back what i said, i dont see how you can claim the moral high ground in this situation.
obviously 9/11 is an extreme example, but yes if i believed allowing the terrorists to survive would cost more lives than the collateral damage of the bombing, i would.
So you're saying I'm immoral for not supporting the death of innocents? How can you support actions that fuel the motives of the terrorists more? Come dusk, the Afghans know that the bombs dropped on their village were American. To whom are they to put the blame? How will you be able to tell them that their deaths were for their own benefit? These people see the United States as a threat, not an ally. Why are we allowed to impose on their lives when they cannot do the same to us?
For every village that the government bombs there is going to be at least one child who looks at the burning pile of rubble and body parts, forever compelled to go to any lengths to destroy the entity who destroyed his or her home.
Each bomb plants the seeds for dissent. The bigger the bomb, the more helpless they will feel and the more drastic measures they will take to retaliate.
Why support violence when it only breeds more violence? Even from a Utilitarian point of view, this course of action seems rash and improvised. The true Utilitarian would not advocate these useless forms of violence, so it is assumed that those who support the American style of diplomacy are themselves rash.
Then we must assume that the American course of action was not born out of calculated necessity but out of the anger and frustration stemming from the tragic loss of life on September 11th. It is out of this blind rage that nearly a decade of disastrous foreign policy was enacted. We have treaded onto an immense minefield that we now don't see ourselves getting safetly out of. We have done this to ourselves because we could not think beyond the cold hard statistics of "getting even". We have traded our morality for the insanity of attrition. "All is well as long as they're dead and we're not," one would say. "Kill them all."
It's wrong, unjustifiable, and heinous.
the only will we are imposing on them is that they are not allowed to impose their will on us, which seems perfectly fine to me. we arent telling them how to live their lives or who to pray to, just that they cant blow themselves up in our buildings if we make a comic about allah.
bombing villages does indeed create potential terrorists, as does allowing those children to grow up in the islamic terrorist environment. you seem to miss the point that there is no good solution when dealing with an enemy like this. we cant simply pack up and go home and expect them to ignore us. it is a war of cultures that cannot coexist as they stand, we either beat them into submission and force them to become acceptable members of the world, or we live under the constant threat of another bin laden. i personally dont think thats acceptable, and i dont see them voluntarily changing any time soon.
Well the problem is that this military pressure isn't stopping a future bin Laden. Part of it is just that search-and-destroy missions or air strikes mostly alienate the population without doing anything useful. Secondly, most halfway competent modern terrorist organizations operate in a cell structure, where realistically it means jack squat if you kill bin Laden or Zawahiri or any number of al-Qaeda number twos, since it's not a standard top-down control structure. In other words, what we're doing in Afghanistan is not keeping us safe from a pragmatist level, and ideologically just makes it even easier for the world to hate us.
On December 22 2008 17:04 Locke. wrote: The civilians who will die are the moral responsibility of the terrorists, not you. It must be clear that western armies will kill terrorists wherever they are. Only that way they will be defeated and stop using civilians as shelter. The blood of the soldiers you send to die and the life of their families is your moral responsibility, they must only be sent to die when there is no other way.
Oh cool, I heard some Palestinian extrimists hide near your house, may I kill you?
Israel doesn't have extremists hiding in kindergartens and hospitals, shooting rockets on civilians from there. The Palestinians do. Extremely hypothetically if there were terrorists around here and my house was used as a hiding place for terrorists I would face the danger of being hurt as well.
If you were one of the fucking idiots moving to settlements there might be. Honestly, how hard is it to stop making new settlements?
Why should we stop building "settlments" in the land of our ancestors? Judea and Samaria are as much Israel as Tel Aviv is. Jerusalem (Israel's capitol) is IN Judea and a part of it was taken back in the 1967, it doesn't give Jordan any claim on it.
This is just fucking absurd. Because there's a few supposed scraps of animal skin from a contract Abraham signed, Israelis have a right to the land? Absolute bullshit.
There was no inherent right to the land. They could've just as well taken a chunk out of South America and almost did. Ben Gurion and Co. admitted they were simply taking land from another group of people and he said they were essentially terrorists at the time (which the British wholly believe); that the Palestinian anger was justified. The only right Israel has tot he land is that it's already there and it's impossible to move it.
All the crap you're talking about is the same stuff repeated for years from From Time Immemorial, basically a piece of academic fraud. I suggest you start reading some Finkelstein for a better take on the history.
You got it plain wrong. This is our country first of all because it is the land of the Jews, the fact that we're here and it's hard to move us comes after.
First of all before the Jews started coming back to Israel the land was basically empty, read Mark Twain's book on his visit to Israel. Second through the years, and we're talking around 2000 years there wasn't a single period of time where the few local inhabitants defined themselves as Palestinians or wanted to have a country for themselves.
As for the occupation in 67. Who did we occupy it from? Egypt, Syria, Jordan - not the "Palestinians".The "Palestinians" never asked Egypt, Syria or Jordan for independence, why is that?
"On May 23, 2008, Finkelstein was denied entry to Israel because ..."he had contact with elements 'hostile' to Israel"... He was banned from entering Israel for 10 years.[6]" - academic objectivity at its best
Why do you care so much if they are building houses and living there? How can you honestly believe that the Arab violence will stop just because some Jews won't build their houses.
I'd care if someone was making swiss cheese out of my territory with an admitted aim of pushing me to go live in jordan or egypt, with the tasty side effects of restricting my access to health care, work, education, and so on. I also might also be a little less incensed if my house wasn't bulldozed to make way for a settlement.
On December 22 2008 17:04 Locke. wrote: First of all I believe you can't defeat terrorists just with air strikes you usually have to rely on ground forces as well. But that doesn't mean bombing from the air isn't a good idea.
Emerald, I am shocked how lightly you treat the death of your soldiers as if it was some movie or Starcraft. If you don't think your war there is right than just go back and defend as best you can against future terrorist attacks on your civillians.
don't send your own troops needlessly to die because your enemy is hiding among civilians.
The civilians who will die are the moral responsibility of the terrorists, not you. It must be clear that western armies will kill terrorists wherever they are. Only that way they will be defeated and stop using civilians as shelter. The blood of the soldiers you send to die and the life of their families is your moral responsibility, they must only be sent to die when there is no other way.
...So are you trying to justify the bombing of civilians just because terrorists use them as shields?
Ugh, I really don't blame the president at all. His people are being killed all for the anti-terrorism cause. Killing civilians only causes more problems. It provides fuel for the terrorists to ensue more hate, and get more support.
logically locke is correct, the civilians should be blaming the terrorists since they are using them as human shields, theyre the reason theyre being bombed.
unfortunately rationality doesnt always work so we're left with a lose lose situation.
Your insane rationale for killing civilians contradicts international law. "Terrorists are using them as human shields" doesn't justify killing innocent children.
"Oh cool, I heard some Palestinian extrimists hide near your house, may I kill you?"
I was answering to this. I didn't bring Israel in, I just responded. If people say things I find wrong I will respond, I have no wish in making this a discussion about Israel.
L., Shouldn't we worry that the PLO official declaration speaks about deporting all Jews who didn't live in Israel before 1917 (leaving all the 90 year old around), and describes their goal as controlling all the Israeli territories including Tel Aviv and Jerusalem?
Unfortunately this is a war. The Palestinians want to destroy Israel and their leaders are openly saying that (before there were any settlments and before the "occupation" in 67). Why should Israel bring them health care and education if they want to destroy us? Or better yet, HOW can we do that when they send suicide bombers to blow up buses and constantly fire rockets on our cities.
The ironic part is that Arab Israelis (as opposed to Palestinians) receive health care, education and have far more rights than in any other Arab country.
Locke Israel has been preferring expansion over security for the last 30 years. Israel was offered peace for the first time in 1971 by president Sadat of Egypt, almost exactly in the terms of the official us goverment policy at the time. Israel recognised it to be a genuine peace offer. The cabinet considered it and decided to reject it. It was a choice they preferred expansion to security. That would have meant security, it would have meant the end of the international conflict. Expansion at that time was primarily into the northeastern sinai where israel had expelled thousand of farmers driven them into the desert and detroyed towns, mosques and cemetaries. Levelled the place in order to establish a new city. An all jew city called Yamit. The real question was how the us would react and would it continue with it's earlier policy therefore supporting egypts peace offer or would it shift and support Israeli expansion. There was a discussion Kissinger prevailed the national security advisor at the time and the united states adopted his policy of what he called stalemate meaning no negotiations just force that led directly to the 1973 war.
On December 22 2008 18:07 Velr wrote: Oh, and one more thing. The US is not fighting terrorists in Afghanistan, you fight a war against a clear defined faction, the Taliban. Calling your enemy terrorist makes things probably easyer...
They carry out terrorist activities, therefore they are terrorists! I don't see what difference it makes calling them a faction or terrorist, but they still fight like guerrillas, they still use IEDs, and they still strap bombs to women and make them walk into a market full of people. They are a disgusting group with a backwards ideology and deserved to be brutally suppressed.
What else can they do? I love the language of the idiots who call people fighting for their own country "terrorists". Some of them are taliban, but Im sure that a lot of them are actually families of innocent people who died during the war. A lot of them probably think that they fight for their own freedom. Talibs made their lives pitiful, but at least they would not be randomly bombarded and ALIVE! If someone would bomb my house while "searching for terrorists" I would want fucking revenge and it doesnt have anything to do with religion. What are the numbers actually? How many "terrorists" have been killed? And how many civilians?
Can you englighten me what other tactics can they use apart from guerrilla warfare? Perhaps melee attacks? Or blitzkrieg - but they dont have tanks as far as I know. Air strikes? No, they have planes.. They fight the only way they can. Of course, diplomacy? Democracy? What if they would vote for the Talibs? Take a look at Turkey - the army has made coupe the etats after many elections... As I understand, if the Japs would invade your country during WW2 you would not use guerrilla warfare, but rather get slaughtered in some sort of open attack?
btw. Arent people who download music from the internet considered terrorists according to the US law? One day they might bomb your house too...
On December 22 2008 17:04 Locke. wrote: The civilians who will die are the moral responsibility of the terrorists, not you. It must be clear that western armies will kill terrorists wherever they are. Only that way they will be defeated and stop using civilians as shelter. The blood of the soldiers you send to die and the life of their families is your moral responsibility, they must only be sent to die when there is no other way.
Oh cool, I heard some Palestinian extrimists hide near your house, may I kill you?
It's so funny that someone from Israel claims that fighting the terrorists is the moral responsibility of the innocent people. First of all, if you think so, then all the Jews (or at least you) should simply live the Palestine and go away (e.g. to Germany - the words of the Iranian president actually have sense) - "because this is your moral responsibility" and "otherwise people will die". In addition, I really like the fact that you think that during the war, you can easily snitch on the Talibs to the US soldiers and be not punished for that. These people are bombed by USA and shot by talibs if they decide to cooperate... It doesnt work like in WW2, when the Germans would come to a village, tell all the Jews to gather on the central spot and then send them to Auschwitz. Unfortunately the "terrorists" seem not to be willing to cooperate.
To be honest I despise religion in general, and hate talibs, but I find it retarded that they are called terrorists. Call them talibs, call them guerilla, call them idiots - but they are not terrorists. In theory few of them flew into the world trade center, which has been rejected by many people. Maybe it was even supported by your own government, just like they knew about Pearl Harbour, because "big explosions" are a good way to control the sheep. I think around 3000 people died during the WTC attack. How many died during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? 100 000? 200 000? 500 000? Not that Saddam or the Talibs were nice, or anything, but seriously, it so damn easy to judge people by sitting in your cosy condo, while they can die any day; probably lost their jobs and struggle to get basic items. And if they will fight "the terrorists", these terrorists will simply shoot them. Maybe USA will reintroduce draft, this way you guys could see the war and perhaps learn something. Not everyone in Afghanistan is a Talib. Some people just want to be alive.
It would probably be best if they chose democracy, or rather the type of democracy which happens in Turkey - everything controlled by the army. But is this a democracy, if we talk about morals?
Vega your point is? We evacuated Sinai in 1976 (arguably a bad mistake) and destroyed Yamit for a "peace" with Egypt. They are currently supplying Hamas huge amounts of weapons and their national TV has a prime time show which is an adaptation of the Zion Elders Protocols - an antisemite book used by many including Hitler.
We might have "peace" on the paper with Egypt but I will be in danger if I would go as a Jew to Cairo.
I only listened to the last video, I have to admit I find it nonsense. He speaks elegantly but it's nonsense. But he sums it up very well when he says in the end the he is a hypocrite and no one should take him seriously when he speaks about morality.
"Everyone, myself included ...is such a total hypocrite ... that to even talk about right and wrong is a disgrace" - Chomsky
BTW that's the tie Sadat used when he came to visit Israel
On December 22 2008 17:04 Locke. wrote: The civilians who will die are the moral responsibility of the terrorists, not you. It must be clear that western armies will kill terrorists wherever they are. Only that way they will be defeated and stop using civilians as shelter. The blood of the soldiers you send to die and the life of their families is your moral responsibility, they must only be sent to die when there is no other way.
Oh cool, I heard some Palestinian extrimists hide near your house, may I kill you?
Locke lives in a country that is not impotent against terrorism, so the jurisdiction is not yours. Get it?
But I heard they are hiding weapons of mass destruction somewhere. That overrides jurisdiction last time I heard. Because:
"If we don't do it, who will?"
Basically, international jurisdiction is determined solely by one organization - the United Nations. But that doesn't even matter because nothing warrants bombings of civilian areas and blaming some other people on that. You order the strike - you take the responsibility, that simple. Whatever babbling about "it's their fault" makes exactly zero sense. Sitting in a soft chair in some room with flags and president portrait might make you deluded about how you can sacrifice some unknown muslim fellas to warrant the safety of your citizens, make some pretty speeches with a worried face and get away with that, but here's the reality: murder is murder. Americans murder people all over the world to feel safe. Murder is murder because murder equals murder. M equals M, U equals U and so on, you must get it. Call murder a necessity and it still continues to be murder. Remeber why? Yeah, right, because murder is murder. A comparison of an object or entity with itself always returns true, even if you rename it, try to remember that, it's a very useful thing, will save you a lot of time in the future.
Oh, I almost evaded the stupidity of your reply - so if I somehow get a document (let's assume I have a senate, I won't be asking anyone outside, you know) stating that a state is impotent against terrorism, I may kill it's people for fun because they're hiding terrorists?
Here you are:
The sovegrein staet of Israle (where the fuck is that?) is imptotent against terrorrists. I may kill Locke.
Signed by Me, Oll Korrekt.
I have a "paid" stamp somewhere, that will make it official.
lol dude, that's the second time you offered to kill me
if your country and the west thought like you we would all sing one anthem and have one beloved Fuhrer. Or when it's your country at risk it's fine to kill millions?
The utilitarian argument doesn't even work because causing collateral damage when fighting insurgency won't even end up reducing the number of militants. The Nazis tried fighting their resistances with collective punishment. Unless you can completely obliterate the local population's fighting spirit, like we did with the Phillipines (in response to an attack, you entirely obliterate a village) or like a few other similar cases where the occupied country had zero chance it's a bad idea. Of course (don't get me wrong) in principle collateral damage and collective punishment differ markedly, but it has the same effect on the victims; to poison their minds against the invading force.
This, of course, ignoring the fact that killing civilians is bad in and of itself.
On December 22 2008 17:04 Locke. wrote: The civilians who will die are the moral responsibility of the terrorists, not you.
That is just plain wrong.
how so
Look, there's two pov's that you can take.
There's the utilitarian pov, and the argument for that basically boils down to the US having to bomb Afghanistan because killing terrorists (even with some civilian casualties resulting from it) means less deaths in the future. This meets the utilitarian view of the least harm for the least amount of people.
Then, there's the Kantian pov, and the argument for that is that the actions, not the consequences that result from those actions, are what is most important. In the mind of a deontologist/kantian-ethicist it does not matter that you are potentially saving lives by killing terrorists (and harming civies in the process), what matters is that you are nixing your morality and have decided to kill people. Once again, the end result is not important to a deontologist, only the means by which it is reached.
I hold the second point of view, of the deontologist. I believe it is just plain wrong to kill, and that it must never be done because doing so means you are violating your own moral code, and that is much worse than not doing anything.
well thats pretty stupid the end results are what actually affect the real world. if your inaction causes more deaths than your action would it doesnt matter if you have the moral high ground, you've done a disservice to the world.
I do not see how using irrational (unethical) actions to quell irrational actions is doing a service to the world. But yeah, judging by the way you responded, I am going to guess you're a full-on utilitarian? I just wanna ask, to what morally vacant ends are you willing to see America reach to assure a victory in Afghanistan? Would you be willing to bomb a village, with ample warning beforehand of course, just to kill some terrorists? Man, it's on your head, not mine, bud.
the actions are neither irrational or unethical. inaction that causes harm is just as bad as action that causes harm, therefore it would be unethical to not act in a situation where not acting causes more damage than acting.
if there were terrorists setting the next 9/11 in motion hiding in the village, hell yes. are you saying you wouldnt? i take back what i said, i dont see how you can claim the moral high ground in this situation.
obviously 9/11 is an extreme example, but yes if i believed allowing the terrorists to survive would cost more lives than the collateral damage of the bombing, i would.
So you're saying I'm immoral for not supporting the death of innocents? How can you support actions that fuel the motives of the terrorists more? Come dusk, the Afghans know that the bombs dropped on their village were American. To whom are they to put the blame? How will you be able to tell them that their deaths were for their own benefit? These people see the United States as a threat, not an ally. Why are we allowed to impose on their lives when they cannot do the same to us?
For every village that the government bombs there is going to be at least one child who looks at the burning pile of rubble and body parts, forever compelled to go to any lengths to destroy the entity who destroyed his or her home.
Each bomb plants the seeds for dissent. The bigger the bomb, the more helpless they will feel and the more drastic measures they will take to retaliate.
Why support violence when it only breeds more violence? Even from a Utilitarian point of view, this course of action seems rash and improvised. The true Utilitarian would not advocate these useless forms of violence, so it is assumed that those who support the American style of diplomacy are themselves rash.
Then we must assume that the American course of action was not born out of calculated necessity but out of the anger and frustration stemming from the tragic loss of life on September 11th. It is out of this blind rage that nearly a decade of disastrous foreign policy was enacted. We have treaded onto an immense minefield that we now don't see ourselves getting safetly out of. We have done this to ourselves because we could not think beyond the cold hard statistics of "getting even". We have traded our morality for the insanity of attrition. "All is well as long as they're dead and we're not," one would say. "Kill them all."
It's wrong, unjustifiable, and heinous.
the only will we are imposing on them is that they are not allowed to impose their will on us, which seems perfectly fine to me. we arent telling them how to live their lives or who to pray to, just that they cant blow themselves up in our buildings if we make a comic about allah.
bombing villages does indeed create potential terrorists, as does allowing those children to grow up in the islamic terrorist environment. you seem to miss the point that there is no good solution when dealing with an enemy like this. we cant simply pack up and go home and expect them to ignore us. it is a war of cultures that cannot coexist as they stand, we either beat them into submission and force them to become acceptable members of the world, or we live under the constant threat of another bin laden. i personally dont think thats acceptable, and i dont see them voluntarily changing any time soon.
We aren't telling the civilians how to live their lives, sure, but we are telling them how they're going to die. We are also telling them that their tribal way of government, which had been their way of life for hundreds if not thousands of years, is wrong and that democracy is the only suitable way to govern in a land who's people have no clear understanding of what it even means to be partial to everyone. We perceive their hard way of life as undesirable and thus do not see them as equal to us. You seem to have missed the point that we have made them into the enemy through making revenge politics a reality. The American people are too proud and stubborn to even try to understand the plight of people who aren't them.
We need to pack up and go home BECAUSE we came in and wrecked the place. I do not think that the Afghani people would hate us even more if we left. I believe that their animosity towards us would in fact cool down. Yeah, maybe in fifty years they might like us again if we leave them alone, so we must.
"It is a war of cultures that cannot coexist as they stand, we either beat them into submission and force them to become acceptable members of the world, or we live under the constant threat of another bin laden." -IdrA
Do you know how mad that sounds? People are not like animals, you cannot beat a person into obedience, you cannot pummel little villages into the ground and have their people accept you as their rulers. They'll hate you every second of their lives for it, and rightfully so. If you want people to change, you have to let them change. Any other way just grounds their belief that you're imposing your will onto them. I don't know how that doesn't make sense to you.
I see you as a person of results. You want to hear at the end of the day that things got done and that's it. You don't really care how it's done, you just want it done. Fast and easy. You also prefer to shift the blame onto other people. Perhaps that is the reason why you can legitimize killing innocents, and perhaps you will forever be incapable of seeing that as wrong. If you have no qualms with that, then perhaps all is lost.
I hate how you say there is no good solution when "dealing" with these people, as if they were some sort of pest that you need to exterminate.
L., Shouldn't we worry that the PLO official declaration speaks about deporting all Jews who didn't live in Israel before 1917 (leaving all the 90 year old around), and describes their goal as controlling all the Israeli territories including Tel Aviv and Jerusalem?
You should.
Does that give Israel carte blanche to do whatever you want with regards to settlements on land which is not in your country?
On December 22 2008 17:04 Locke. wrote: The civilians who will die are the moral responsibility of the terrorists, not you. It must be clear that western armies will kill terrorists wherever they are. Only that way they will be defeated and stop using civilians as shelter. The blood of the soldiers you send to die and the life of their families is your moral responsibility, they must only be sent to die when there is no other way.
Oh cool, I heard some Palestinian extrimists hide near your house, may I kill you?
Locke lives in a country that is not impotent against terrorism, so the jurisdiction is not yours. Get it?
But I heard they are hiding weapons of mass destruction somewhere. That overrides jurisdiction last time I heard. Because:
"If we don't do it, who will?"
They aren't "hiding weapons of mass destruction". Everyone knows Israel is nuclear, along with USA, Russia, etc. I understand that you're trying to mock the American-Iraq war, but you're just regurgitating buzz phrases that aren't applicable to Israel's situation. I'm not even going to read the rest of your post since it started so wrongly.
On December 23 2008 03:43 Locke. wrote: You got it plain wrong. This is our country first of all because it is the land of the Jews, the fact that we're here and it's hard to move us comes after.
First of all before the Jews started coming back to Israel the land was basically empty, read Mark Twain's book on his visit to Israel. Second through the years, and we're talking around 2000 years there wasn't a single period of time where the few local inhabitants defined themselves as Palestinians or wanted to have a country for themselves.
As for the occupation in 67. Who did we occupy it from? Egypt, Syria, Jordan - not the "Palestinians".The "Palestinians" never asked Egypt, Syria or Jordan for independence, why is that?
"On May 23, 2008, Finkelstein was denied entry to Israel because ..."he had contact with elements 'hostile' to Israel"... He was banned from entering Israel for 10 years.[6]" - academic objectivity at its best
The belief that Jews are entitled to the land and that the settlements are fair is as much religious fanaticism as anything else going on in the world. There was a group of several hundred thousand people living there, even a couple hundred years ago, and Israel displaced them.
The banning of Finkelstein reveals just what type of democracy Israel is these days. He's a pre-eminent scholar, only denied tenure by the deep pockets and loud mouth of an asshole like Dershowitz. The accusation of Finkelstein is akin to the accusation of Obama "paling around with terrorists." They've even called him an anti-semite, despite being born to Holocaust survivors and being one of the top authors on the subject.
On December 22 2008 17:04 Locke. wrote: The civilians who will die are the moral responsibility of the terrorists, not you.
That is just plain wrong.
how so
Look, there's two pov's that you can take.
There's the utilitarian pov, and the argument for that basically boils down to the US having to bomb Afghanistan because killing terrorists (even with some civilian casualties resulting from it) means less deaths in the future. This meets the utilitarian view of the least harm for the least amount of people.
Then, there's the Kantian pov, and the argument for that is that the actions, not the consequences that result from those actions, are what is most important. In the mind of a deontologist/kantian-ethicist it does not matter that you are potentially saving lives by killing terrorists (and harming civies in the process), what matters is that you are nixing your morality and have decided to kill people. Once again, the end result is not important to a deontologist, only the means by which it is reached.
I hold the second point of view, of the deontologist. I believe it is just plain wrong to kill, and that it must never be done because doing so means you are violating your own moral code, and that is much worse than not doing anything.
well thats pretty stupid the end results are what actually affect the real world. if your inaction causes more deaths than your action would it doesnt matter if you have the moral high ground, you've done a disservice to the world.
I do not see how using irrational (unethical) actions to quell irrational actions is doing a service to the world. But yeah, judging by the way you responded, I am going to guess you're a full-on utilitarian? I just wanna ask, to what morally vacant ends are you willing to see America reach to assure a victory in Afghanistan? Would you be willing to bomb a village, with ample warning beforehand of course, just to kill some terrorists? Man, it's on your head, not mine, bud.
the actions are neither irrational or unethical. inaction that causes harm is just as bad as action that causes harm, therefore it would be unethical to not act in a situation where not acting causes more damage than acting.
if there were terrorists setting the next 9/11 in motion hiding in the village, hell yes. are you saying you wouldnt? i take back what i said, i dont see how you can claim the moral high ground in this situation.
obviously 9/11 is an extreme example, but yes if i believed allowing the terrorists to survive would cost more lives than the collateral damage of the bombing, i would.
So you're saying I'm immoral for not supporting the death of innocents? How can you support actions that fuel the motives of the terrorists more? Come dusk, the Afghans know that the bombs dropped on their village were American. To whom are they to put the blame? How will you be able to tell them that their deaths were for their own benefit? These people see the United States as a threat, not an ally. Why are we allowed to impose on their lives when they cannot do the same to us?
For every village that the government bombs there is going to be at least one child who looks at the burning pile of rubble and body parts, forever compelled to go to any lengths to destroy the entity who destroyed his or her home.
Each bomb plants the seeds for dissent. The bigger the bomb, the more helpless they will feel and the more drastic measures they will take to retaliate.
Why support violence when it only breeds more violence? Even from a Utilitarian point of view, this course of action seems rash and improvised. The true Utilitarian would not advocate these useless forms of violence, so it is assumed that those who support the American style of diplomacy are themselves rash.
Then we must assume that the American course of action was not born out of calculated necessity but out of the anger and frustration stemming from the tragic loss of life on September 11th. It is out of this blind rage that nearly a decade of disastrous foreign policy was enacted. We have treaded onto an immense minefield that we now don't see ourselves getting safetly out of. We have done this to ourselves because we could not think beyond the cold hard statistics of "getting even". We have traded our morality for the insanity of attrition. "All is well as long as they're dead and we're not," one would say. "Kill them all."
It's wrong, unjustifiable, and heinous.
the only will we are imposing on them is that they are not allowed to impose their will on us, which seems perfectly fine to me. we arent telling them how to live their lives or who to pray to, just that they cant blow themselves up in our buildings if we make a comic about allah.
bombing villages does indeed create potential terrorists, as does allowing those children to grow up in the islamic terrorist environment. you seem to miss the point that there is no good solution when dealing with an enemy like this. we cant simply pack up and go home and expect them to ignore us. it is a war of cultures that cannot coexist as they stand, we either beat them into submission and force them to become acceptable members of the world, or we live under the constant threat of another bin laden. i personally dont think thats acceptable, and i dont see them voluntarily changing any time soon.
We aren't telling the civilians how to live their lives, sure, but we are telling them how they're going to die. We are also telling them that their tribal way of government, which had been their way of life for hundreds if not thousands of years, is wrong and that democracy is the only suitable way to govern in a land who's people have no clear understanding of what it even means to be partial to everyone. We perceive their hard way of life as undesirable and thus do not see them as equal to us. You seem to have missed the point that we have made them into the enemy through making revenge politics a reality. The American people are too proud and stubborn to even try to understand the plight of people who aren't them.
we're telling them that if they cant control the terrorists in their midst theyre going to die because those terrorists will otherwise kill us. i agree with you that its not right to force democracy on them if they dont want it, but we're not pushing democracy in favor of the tribal governments, but in favor of the totalitarian regimes that ruled the countries before we invaded. they are already an enemy because of their ideology, in some cases the motive may be revenge ideology, that doesnt mean the action that results from it is necessarily wrong. look at iraq, blair and bush use scare tactics with the wmd's to support taking down saddam. it was wrong of them to do that, but still right to attack.
We need to pack up and go home BECAUSE we came in and wrecked the place. I do not think that the Afghani people would hate us even more if we left. I believe that their animosity towards us would in fact cool down. Yeah, maybe in fifty years they might like us again if we leave them alone, so we must.
ya sounds plausible when exactly did we drop bombs on the homes of the 9/11 hijackers?
"It is a war of cultures that cannot coexist as they stand, we either beat them into submission and force them to become acceptable members of the world, or we live under the constant threat of another bin laden." -IdrA
Do you know how mad that sounds? People are not like animals, you cannot beat a person into obedience, you cannot pummel little villages into the ground and have their people accept you as their rulers. They'll hate you every second of their lives for it, and rightfully so. If you want people to change, you have to let them change. Any other way just grounds their belief that you're imposing your will onto them. I don't know how that doesn't make sense to you.
once again the only will we're imposing is that they arent allowed to impose theirs on us. 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 see you as a person of results. You want to hear at the end of the day that things got done and that's it. You don't really care how it's done, you just want it done. Fast and easy. You also prefer to shift the blame onto other people. Perhaps that is the reason why you can legitimize killing innocents, and perhaps you will forever be incapable of seeing that as wrong. If you have no qualms with that, then perhaps all is lost. I hate how you say there is no good solution when "dealing" with these people, as if they were some sort of pest that you need to exterminate.
so its ok when innocents are killed by the terrorist attacks, but not in attempts to kill the terrorists? they are 'pests'. people who choose to blow themselves up in public places give up their humanity. they are scum who should be exterminated. its questionable to call those who harbor and support them innocent in the first place.
On December 22 2008 17:04 Locke. wrote: The civilians who will die are the moral responsibility of the terrorists, not you. It must be clear that western armies will kill terrorists wherever they are. Only that way they will be defeated and stop using civilians as shelter. The blood of the soldiers you send to die and the life of their families is your moral responsibility, they must only be sent to die when there is no other way.
Oh cool, I heard some Palestinian extrimists hide near your house, may I kill you?
Locke lives in a country that is not impotent against terrorism, so the jurisdiction is not yours. Get it?
But I heard they are hiding weapons of mass destruction somewhere. That overrides jurisdiction last time I heard. Because:
"If we don't do it, who will?"
They aren't "hiding weapons of mass destruction". Everyone knows Israel is nuclear, along with USA, Russia, etc. I understand that you're trying to mock the American-Iraq war, but you're just regurgitating buzz phrases that aren't applicable to Israel's situation. I'm not even going to read the rest of your post since it started so wrongly.
Pardon? Israel's nuclear program is actually one of the main controversial points in the Middle East. How is that not applicable? Personally, I think the situation is, the world's a fucked up place. The US has garnered an incredible amount of international hate (deserved or not) so the Afgan situation is a catch-22. But your right wing views are borderline Fox news at this point. I think some Americans really need to open their eyes at just what some of the things it's government has done over the past 30-40 years.
they are 'pests'. people who choose to blow themselves up in public places give up their humanity. they are scum who should be exterminated. its questionable to call those who harbor and support them innocent in the first place.
On December 22 2008 17:04 Locke. wrote: The civilians who will die are the moral responsibility of the terrorists, not you. It must be clear that western armies will kill terrorists wherever they are. Only that way they will be defeated and stop using civilians as shelter. The blood of the soldiers you send to die and the life of their families is your moral responsibility, they must only be sent to die when there is no other way.
Oh cool, I heard some Palestinian extrimists hide near your house, may I kill you?
Locke lives in a country that is not impotent against terrorism, so the jurisdiction is not yours. Get it?
But I heard they are hiding weapons of mass destruction somewhere. That overrides jurisdiction last time I heard. Because:
"If we don't do it, who will?"
They aren't "hiding weapons of mass destruction". Everyone knows Israel is nuclear, along with USA, Russia, etc. I understand that you're trying to mock the American-Iraq war, but you're just regurgitating buzz phrases that aren't applicable to Israel's situation. I'm not even going to read the rest of your post since it started so wrongly.
Pardon? Israel's nuclear program is actually one of the main controversial points in the Middle East. How is that not applicable?
He said they are hiding. They are not hiding. Learn to fucking read.
On December 22 2008 17:04 Locke. wrote: The civilians who will die are the moral responsibility of the terrorists, not you. It must be clear that western armies will kill terrorists wherever they are. Only that way they will be defeated and stop using civilians as shelter. The blood of the soldiers you send to die and the life of their families is your moral responsibility, they must only be sent to die when there is no other way.
Oh cool, I heard some Palestinian extrimists hide near your house, may I kill you?
Locke lives in a country that is not impotent against terrorism, so the jurisdiction is not yours. Get it?
But I heard they are hiding weapons of mass destruction somewhere. That overrides jurisdiction last time I heard. Because:
"If we don't do it, who will?"
They aren't "hiding weapons of mass destruction". Everyone knows Israel is nuclear, along with USA, Russia, etc. I understand that you're trying to mock the American-Iraq war, but you're just regurgitating buzz phrases that aren't applicable to Israel's situation. I'm not even going to read the rest of your post since it started so wrongly.
Pardon? Israel's nuclear program is actually one of the main controversial points in the Middle East. How is that not applicable?
He said they are hiding. They are not hiding. Learn to fucking read.
Reading comprehension generally involves knowing what a person is talking about in context. You nitpick one sentence and expect to tangent a point from there so perhaps it's you who needs to take up that advice?
they are 'pests'. people who choose to blow themselves up in public places give up their humanity. they are scum who should be exterminated. its questionable to call those who harbor and support them innocent in the first place.
You were good until you got up to here.
how can you consider them anything else? they fully believe theyre going to live in paradise with 70 virgins for blowing themselves up and taking out as many infidels as they can win them and nothing can shake that belief.
pest and scum is a flattering term for something like that, its downright scary. you cant deal with an enemy like that, whos indoctrinated into such blind unshakeable hatred that theyre happy to kill themselves to do damage to you.
they are 'pests'. people who choose to blow themselves up in public places give up their humanity. they are scum who should be exterminated. its questionable to call those who harbor and support them innocent in the first place.
You were good until you got up to here.
how can you consider them anything else? they fully believe theyre going to live in paradise with 70 virgins for blowing themselves up and taking out as many infidels as they can win them and nothing can shake that belief.
pest and scum is a flattering term for something like that, its downright scary. you cant deal with an enemy like that, whos indoctrinated into such blind unshakeable hatred that theyre happy to kill themselves to do damage to you.
I don't think all suicide bombers believe that Idra. For example, in World War II, Chinese tank hunters had to blow up Japanese tanks by literally planting them on them and setting them off. Similarly, Japanese kamikaze pilots employ likewise methods. There are a lot of people who think martyrdom for their country is an applicable path. I don't agree with this but I also don't think it's so cut and dry for every suicide bomber. Like it or not, each terrorist, freedom fighter, insurgent, what have you is a human person. The fact that people term them under labels to give them flat faces is what causes these problems. There are just as many people out there who think all Americans are greedy pigfaced bastards. Like I said, it's not a pretty place and if the solution was so easily fixed, we'd have done so already. Unfortunately, we're all part of societies where the government plays this huge RTS with each other.
Here's the problem, IdrA. First, it's easy to abuse anything "for the greater good" (see: PATRIOT Act.) Second, our intelligence is and will always be extremely imperfect. The cost/benefit analysis for "possibly killing terrorists in caves" fails, because we are terrible at predicting the cost (see: Afghanistan 1979/Somalia 2005) and the benefits are unpredictable as well.
Our weapons are extremely accurate, but the decision making is not. The collateral damage we've caused is enormous and hasn't been effective and it may not even be particularly beneficial. The Taliban is essentially a greater threat to Afghanis than it is to the US. Like Saddam, their major intent is to avoid rocking the boat in international waters and retain control of the country. If they, or anyone for that matter, wanted to attack the United States, it could be done fairly easily. Two rednecks in Oklahoma did a pretty good job, and they chose a terrible target. Numerous independent studies have shown that we're not safer from any type of attack than we were 10 years ago. Remember, who trained the 9/11 pilots- a Florida flight school.
If you want to make the case that we should do it for humanitarian reasons, then fine. Afghanis don't deserve the miserable treatment the Taliban will inflict, just like Iraqis didn't deserve what Saddam gave them. Still, this is an even more difficult battle to win than Iraq is, because we have too few troops (Soviets failed with 600,000), little internal support (this is an anarchic/tribal territory), ridiculously mountainous borders to control and there's nothing to cover the costs. Afghanistan has deserts, mountains, rocks and a few opium/rose fields- it's a shitty place to live. Not only will the conflict hemorrhage us financially, but it's also taken our attention away from the nearly failed state next door, that actually has nuclear weapons.
It'd be great if we could punish the groups that attacked us, and one could even argue the government has an obligation to attempt to, but eventually you have to realize that it was a failed state that drained an empire, and it's currently a failed state that's draining an empire.
On December 23 2008 11:35 Jibba wrote: Here's the problem, IdrA. First, it's easy to abuse anything "for the greater good" (see: PATRIOT Act.) Second, our intelligence is and will always be extremely imperfect. The cost/benefit analysis for "possibly killing terrorists in caves" fails, because we are terrible at predicting the cost (see: Afghanistan 1979/Somalia 2005) and the benefits are unpredictable as well.
Our weapons are extremely accurate, but the decision making is not. The collateral damage we've caused is enormous and hasn't been effective and it may not even be particularly beneficial. The Taliban is essentially a greater threat to Afghanis than it is to the US. Like Saddam, their major intent is to avoid rocking the boat in international waters and retain control of the country. If they, or anyone for that matter, wanted to attack the United States, it could be done fairly easily. Two rednecks in Oklahoma did a pretty good job, and they chose a terrible target. Numerous independent studies have shown that we're not safer from any type of attack than we were 10 years ago. Remember, who trained the 9/11 pilots- a Florida flight school.
If you want to make the case that we should do it for humanitarian reasons, then fine. Afghanis don't deserve the miserable treatment the Taliban will inflict, just like Iraqis didn't deserve what Saddam gave them. Still, this is an even more difficult battle to win than Iraq is, because we have too few troops (Soviets failed with 600,000), little internal support (this is an anarchic/tribal territory), ridiculously mountainous borders to control and there's nothing to cover the costs. Afghanistan has deserts, mountains, rocks and a few opium/rose fields- it's a shitty place to live. Not only will the conflict hemorrhage us financially, but it's also taken our attention away from the nearly failed state next door, that actually has nuclear weapons.
It'd be great if we could punish the groups that attacked us, and one could even argue the government has an obligation to attempt to, but eventually you have to realize that it was a failed state that drained an empire, and it's currently a failed state that's draining an empire.
they are 'pests'. people who choose to blow themselves up in public places give up their humanity. they are scum who should be exterminated. its questionable to call those who harbor and support them innocent in the first place.
You were good until you got up to here.
how can you consider them anything else? they fully believe theyre going to live in paradise with 70 virgins for blowing themselves up and taking out as many infidels as they can win them and nothing can shake that belief.
pest and scum is a flattering term for something like that, its downright scary. you cant deal with an enemy like that, whos indoctrinated into such blind unshakeable hatred that theyre happy to kill themselves to do damage to you.
Blaiming "faith" is the easy way out of the problem but it doesn't actually identify what's going on. It's a severe type of socialization, fueled by extreme poverty and embarrassment, usually started when they're young children or bored teenagers. Peer pressure and nationalism are also a big part of it, as are financial benefits or threats for the individual's family.
It also happens to be extremely effective. Air raids are not.
“[T]he taproot of suicide terrorism is nationalism” not religion (79). It is “an extreme strategy for national liberation” (80). This explains how the local community can be persuaded to re-define acts of suicide and murder as acts of martyrdom on behalf of the community (81-83). Pape proposes a nationalist theory of suicide terrorism, seen from the point of view of terrorists. He analyzes the notions of occupation (83-84), homeland (84-85), identity (85-87), religious difference as a contributor to a sense of “alien” occupation (87-88), foreign occupation reverses the relative importance of religion and language (88-92), and the widespread perception of the method as a “last resort” (92-94). A statistical demonstration leads to the conclusion that a “linear” rather than “self-reinforcing spiral” explanation of suicide terrorism is best (94-100). However, different future developments of the phenomenon of suicide terrorism are very possible, and more study of the role of religion is needed (101).
There's the utilitarian pov, and the argument for that basically boils down to the US having to bomb Afghanistan because killing terrorists (even with some civilian casualties resulting from it) means less deaths in the future. This meets the utilitarian view of the least harm for the least amount of people.
Then, there's the Kantian pov, and the argument for that is that the actions, not the consequences that result from those actions, are what is most important. In the mind of a deontologist/kantian-ethicist it does not matter that you are potentially saving lives by killing terrorists (and harming civies in the process), what matters is that you are nixing your morality and have decided to kill people. Once again, the end result is not important to a deontologist, only the means by which it is reached.
I hold the second point of view, of the deontologist. I believe it is just plain wrong to kill, and that it must never be done because doing so means you are violating your own moral code, and that is much worse than not doing anything.
well thats pretty stupid the end results are what actually affect the real world. if your inaction causes more deaths than your action would it doesnt matter if you have the moral high ground, you've done a disservice to the world.
I do not see how using irrational (unethical) actions to quell irrational actions is doing a service to the world. But yeah, judging by the way you responded, I am going to guess you're a full-on utilitarian? I just wanna ask, to what morally vacant ends are you willing to see America reach to assure a victory in Afghanistan? Would you be willing to bomb a village, with ample warning beforehand of course, just to kill some terrorists? Man, it's on your head, not mine, bud.
the actions are neither irrational or unethical. inaction that causes harm is just as bad as action that causes harm, therefore it would be unethical to not act in a situation where not acting causes more damage than acting.
if there were terrorists setting the next 9/11 in motion hiding in the village, hell yes. are you saying you wouldnt? i take back what i said, i dont see how you can claim the moral high ground in this situation.
obviously 9/11 is an extreme example, but yes if i believed allowing the terrorists to survive would cost more lives than the collateral damage of the bombing, i would.
So you're saying I'm immoral for not supporting the death of innocents? How can you support actions that fuel the motives of the terrorists more? Come dusk, the Afghans know that the bombs dropped on their village were American. To whom are they to put the blame? How will you be able to tell them that their deaths were for their own benefit? These people see the United States as a threat, not an ally. Why are we allowed to impose on their lives when they cannot do the same to us?
For every village that the government bombs there is going to be at least one child who looks at the burning pile of rubble and body parts, forever compelled to go to any lengths to destroy the entity who destroyed his or her home.
Each bomb plants the seeds for dissent. The bigger the bomb, the more helpless they will feel and the more drastic measures they will take to retaliate.
Why support violence when it only breeds more violence? Even from a Utilitarian point of view, this course of action seems rash and improvised. The true Utilitarian would not advocate these useless forms of violence, so it is assumed that those who support the American style of diplomacy are themselves rash.
Then we must assume that the American course of action was not born out of calculated necessity but out of the anger and frustration stemming from the tragic loss of life on September 11th. It is out of this blind rage that nearly a decade of disastrous foreign policy was enacted. We have treaded onto an immense minefield that we now don't see ourselves getting safetly out of. We have done this to ourselves because we could not think beyond the cold hard statistics of "getting even". We have traded our morality for the insanity of attrition. "All is well as long as they're dead and we're not," one would say. "Kill them all."
It's wrong, unjustifiable, and heinous.
the only will we are imposing on them is that they are not allowed to impose their will on us, which seems perfectly fine to me. we arent telling them how to live their lives or who to pray to, just that they cant blow themselves up in our buildings if we make a comic about allah.
bombing villages does indeed create potential terrorists, as does allowing those children to grow up in the islamic terrorist environment. you seem to miss the point that there is no good solution when dealing with an enemy like this. we cant simply pack up and go home and expect them to ignore us. it is a war of cultures that cannot coexist as they stand, we either beat them into submission and force them to become acceptable members of the world, or we live under the constant threat of another bin laden. i personally dont think thats acceptable, and i dont see them voluntarily changing any time soon.
We aren't telling the civilians how to live their lives, sure, but we are telling them how they're going to die. We are also telling them that their tribal way of government, which had been their way of life for hundreds if not thousands of years, is wrong and that democracy is the only suitable way to govern in a land who's people have no clear understanding of what it even means to be partial to everyone. We perceive their hard way of life as undesirable and thus do not see them as equal to us. You seem to have missed the point that we have made them into the enemy through making revenge politics a reality. The American people are too proud and stubborn to even try to understand the plight of people who aren't them.
we're telling them that if they cant control the terrorists in their midst theyre going to die because those terrorists will otherwise kill us. i agree with you that its not right to force democracy on them if they dont want it, but we're not pushing democracy in favor of the tribal governments, but in favor of the totalitarian regimes that ruled the countries before we invaded. they are already an enemy because of their ideology, in some cases the motive may be revenge ideology, that doesnt mean the action that results from it is necessarily wrong. look at iraq, blair and bush use scare tactics with the wmd's to support taking down saddam. it was wrong of them to do that, but still right to attack.
We need to pack up and go home BECAUSE we came in and wrecked the place. I do not think that the Afghani people would hate us even more if we left. I believe that their animosity towards us would in fact cool down. Yeah, maybe in fifty years they might like us again if we leave them alone, so we must.
ya sounds plausible when exactly did we drop bombs on the homes of the 9/11 hijackers?
"It is a war of cultures that cannot coexist as they stand, we either beat them into submission and force them to become acceptable members of the world, or we live under the constant threat of another bin laden." -IdrA
Do you know how mad that sounds? People are not like animals, you cannot beat a person into obedience, you cannot pummel little villages into the ground and have their people accept you as their rulers. They'll hate you every second of their lives for it, and rightfully so. If you want people to change, you have to let them change. Any other way just grounds their belief that you're imposing your will onto them. I don't know how that doesn't make sense to you.
once again the only will we're imposing is that they arent allowed to impose theirs on us. 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 see you as a person of results. You want to hear at the end of the day that things got done and that's it. You don't really care how it's done, you just want it done. Fast and easy. You also prefer to shift the blame onto other people. Perhaps that is the reason why you can legitimize killing innocents, and perhaps you will forever be incapable of seeing that as wrong. If you have no qualms with that, then perhaps all is lost. I hate how you say there is no good solution when "dealing" with these people, as if they were some sort of pest that you need to exterminate.
so its ok when innocents are killed by the terrorist attacks, but not in attempts to kill the terrorists? they are 'pests'. people who choose to blow themselves up in public places give up their humanity. they are scum who should be exterminated. its questionable to call those who harbor and support them innocent in the first place.
"so its ok when innocents are killed by the terrorist attacks, but not in attempts to kill the terrorists?"
It is never ok to kill anyone under any circumstances, ever. Once you understand this, you too will be considered a rational and moralistic being.
The "us vs them" argument is propaganda bullshit to make you believe there is a definite and present threat to humanity in this world that needs to be extinguished.
"when exactly did we drop bombs on the homes of the 9/11 hijackers?"
Lets just forget about the decades of disatrous foreign intervention that might have spawned a terrorist organization in the first place.
"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. "
"they are 'pests'. people who choose to blow themselves up in public places give up their humanity. they are scum who should be exterminated."
On December 22 2008 17:04 Locke. wrote: The civilians who will die are the moral responsibility of the terrorists, not you. It must be clear that western armies will kill terrorists wherever they are. Only that way they will be defeated and stop using civilians as shelter. The blood of the soldiers you send to die and the life of their families is your moral responsibility, they must only be sent to die when there is no other way.
Oh cool, I heard some Palestinian extrimists hide near your house, may I kill you?
Locke lives in a country that is not impotent against terrorism, so the jurisdiction is not yours. Get it?
But I heard they are hiding weapons of mass destruction somewhere. That overrides jurisdiction last time I heard. Because:
"If we don't do it, who will?"
They aren't "hiding weapons of mass destruction". Everyone knows Israel is nuclear, along with USA, Russia, etc. I understand that you're trying to mock the American-Iraq war, but you're just regurgitating buzz phrases that aren't applicable to Israel's situation. I'm not even going to read the rest of your post since it started so wrongly.
Pardon? Israel's nuclear program is actually one of the main controversial points in the Middle East. How is that not applicable?
He said they are hiding. They are not hiding. Learn to fucking read.
Reading comprehension generally involves knowing what a person is talking about in context. You nitpick one sentence and expect to tangent a point from there so perhaps it's you who needs to take up that advice?
As threads often go, we were focusing on a brief tangent. "Israel is not hiding nuclear weapons." Your point of contention questioning the validity of their possession of nukes was completely non-sequiter. And yeah, that's worth nit-picking because it had nothing to do with what we were discussing, and it's a shifty tactic to change subjects like that on an internet forum discussion, rather than concede a point; you couldn't get away with it IRL, so why should you here?
On December 22 2008 17:04 Locke. wrote: The civilians who will die are the moral responsibility of the terrorists, not you. It must be clear that western armies will kill terrorists wherever they are. Only that way they will be defeated and stop using civilians as shelter. The blood of the soldiers you send to die and the life of their families is your moral responsibility, they must only be sent to die when there is no other way.
Oh cool, I heard some Palestinian extrimists hide near your house, may I kill you?
Locke lives in a country that is not impotent against terrorism, so the jurisdiction is not yours. Get it?
But I heard they are hiding weapons of mass destruction somewhere. That overrides jurisdiction last time I heard. Because:
"If we don't do it, who will?"
They aren't "hiding weapons of mass destruction". Everyone knows Israel is nuclear, along with USA, Russia, etc. I understand that you're trying to mock the American-Iraq war, but you're just regurgitating buzz phrases that aren't applicable to Israel's situation. I'm not even going to read the rest of your post since it started so wrongly.
Pardon? Israel's nuclear program is actually one of the main controversial points in the Middle East. How is that not applicable?
He said they are hiding. They are not hiding. Learn to fucking read.
Reading comprehension generally involves knowing what a person is talking about in context. You nitpick one sentence and expect to tangent a point from there so perhaps it's you who needs to take up that advice?
As threads often go, we were focusing on a brief tangent. "Israel is not hiding nuclear weapons." Your point of contention questioning the validity of their possession of nukes was completely non-sequiter. And yeah, that's worth nit-picking because it had nothing to do with what we were discussing, and it's a shifty tactic to change subjects like that on an internet forum discussion, rather than concede a point; you couldn't get away with it IRL, so why should you here?
Don't use words that you're unclear of it's meaning. How is it changing the topic when the US is attacking a country based on the idea that it was developing WMD's?
they are 'pests'. people who choose to blow themselves up in public places give up their humanity. they are scum who should be exterminated. its questionable to call those who harbor and support them innocent in the first place.
You were good until you got up to here.
how can you consider them anything else? they fully believe theyre going to live in paradise with 70 virgins for blowing themselves up and taking out as many infidels as they can win them and nothing can shake that belief.
pest and scum is a flattering term for something like that, its downright scary. you cant deal with an enemy like that, whos indoctrinated into such blind unshakeable hatred that theyre happy to kill themselves to do damage to you.
Do you know that you sound just like them? This actually made me raise the question - are you Jewish by any chance?
On December 22 2008 17:04 Locke. wrote: The civilians who will die are the moral responsibility of the terrorists, not you. It must be clear that western armies will kill terrorists wherever they are. Only that way they will be defeated and stop using civilians as shelter. The blood of the soldiers you send to die and the life of their families is your moral responsibility, they must only be sent to die when there is no other way.
Oh cool, I heard some Palestinian extrimists hide near your house, may I kill you?
Locke lives in a country that is not impotent against terrorism, so the jurisdiction is not yours. Get it?
But I heard they are hiding weapons of mass destruction somewhere. That overrides jurisdiction last time I heard. Because:
"If we don't do it, who will?"
They aren't "hiding weapons of mass destruction". Everyone knows Israel is nuclear, along with USA, Russia, etc. I understand that you're trying to mock the American-Iraq war, but you're just regurgitating buzz phrases that aren't applicable to Israel's situation. I'm not even going to read the rest of your post since it started so wrongly.
Pardon? Israel's nuclear program is actually one of the main controversial points in the Middle East. How is that not applicable?
He said they are hiding. They are not hiding. Learn to fucking read.
Reading comprehension generally involves knowing what a person is talking about in context. You nitpick one sentence and expect to tangent a point from there so perhaps it's you who needs to take up that advice?
As threads often go, we were focusing on a brief tangent. "Israel is not hiding nuclear weapons." Your point of contention questioning the validity of their possession of nukes was completely non-sequiter. And yeah, that's worth nit-picking because it had nothing to do with what we were discussing, and it's a shifty tactic to change subjects like that on an internet forum discussion, rather than concede a point; you couldn't get away with it IRL, so why should you here?
the US is attacking a country based on the idea that it was developing WMD's
What, you mean Pakistan? India? Maybe France!? Aren't we allied or controlling everyone with WMDs?
It is never ok to kill anyone under any circumstances, ever. Once you understand this, you too will be considered a rational and moralistic being.
Uh... don't go all hippie on our asses.
I find it disturbing that people assume there's something wrong with what I said.
You're a sniper in the Army Reserve chosen to work in DC on Jan. 20th. In a parking garage 500m from the Capitol, you spot a white van with blacked out plates and three people in ski masks are unloading a draped, long tube from the back. Guy 1 is on a walkie talkie, guy 2 is setting up a tripod and guy 3 unveils a L96A1 Arctic Warfare sniper rifle. Are you going to "talk them out of it" or BOOM HEADSHOT their asses?
How else do you expect them to fight a bunch of guerillas?
With less air strikes?
Send in troops
A better idea.
and have them die?
Yes, sometimes when war happens, people die.
Yeah, but, I'm sure the Canadian Army is reluctant to send in troops and have them die needlessly to a bunch of terrorists. Even the Americans are. Hence the solution is to bomb the spots they are in.
Honestly Look at history. How successful was operation rolling thunder during the Vietnam war. It's not like we're bombing factories or anything that would cripple a terrorist organization.
On December 23 2008 14:03 Savio wrote: Besides kazokun, your idea of never killing anyone doesn't even at a minimum make the exception of self defense.
Its not a viable argument unless you soften it.
What do you not understand about Kantian ethics? Do not kill means do not kill. It is never the ends but the means by which things should be ethicised.
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.
I don't have time to read the rest of this thread so I don't know how much this has been discussed, but I just want to comment on this one post.
A huge problem in the history of modern combat has been the situation where a group of soldiers is in foreign territory (say a village) and is being attacked by enemy insurgents who are mixing in with crowds of civilians. Historically, the soldiers eventually lose it and just open fire on the crowds of innocent people (there are Americans in jail because of this situation). You want to avoid this situation at all costs, and while I'm not saying our current situation with air strikes is necessarily good or bad, I am definitely saying that the suggestion to simply send in ground troops is very dangerous.
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.”
“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.
they are 'pests'. people who choose to blow themselves up in public places give up their humanity. they are scum who should be exterminated. its questionable to call those who harbor and support them innocent in the first place.
You were good until you got up to here.
how can you consider them anything else? they fully believe theyre going to live in paradise with 70 virgins for blowing themselves up and taking out as many infidels as they can win them and nothing can shake that belief.
pest and scum is a flattering term for something like that, its downright scary. you cant deal with an enemy like that, whos indoctrinated into such blind unshakeable hatred that theyre happy to kill themselves to do damage to you.
Blaiming "faith" is the easy way out of the problem but it doesn't actually identify what's going on. It's a severe type of socialization, fueled by extreme poverty and embarrassment, usually started when they're young children or bored teenagers. Peer pressure and nationalism are also a big part of it, as are financial benefits or threats for the individual's family.
It also happens to be extremely effective. Air raids are not.
“[T]he taproot of suicide terrorism is nationalism” not religion (79). It is “an extreme strategy for national liberation” (80). This explains how the local community can be persuaded to re-define acts of suicide and murder as acts of martyrdom on behalf of the community (81-83). Pape proposes a nationalist theory of suicide terrorism, seen from the point of view of terrorists. He analyzes the notions of occupation (83-84), homeland (84-85), identity (85-87), religious difference as a contributor to a sense of “alien” occupation (87-88), foreign occupation reverses the relative importance of religion and language (88-92), and the widespread perception of the method as a “last resort” (92-94). A statistical demonstration leads to the conclusion that a “linear” rather than “self-reinforcing spiral” explanation of suicide terrorism is best (94-100). However, different future developments of the phenomenon of suicide terrorism are very possible, and more study of the role of religion is needed (101).
there are poor and downtrodden people all over the world. i dont see the dregs of any other society blowing themselves up in mass. i find it hard to believe that a society built entirely upon a religion that encourages such martyrdom and holy war and what not is coincidentally producing suicide bombers.
they are 'pests'. people who choose to blow themselves up in public places give up their humanity. they are scum who should be exterminated. its questionable to call those who harbor and support them innocent in the first place.
You were good until you got up to here.
how can you consider them anything else? they fully believe theyre going to live in paradise with 70 virgins for blowing themselves up and taking out as many infidels as they can win them and nothing can shake that belief.
pest and scum is a flattering term for something like that, its downright scary. you cant deal with an enemy like that, whos indoctrinated into such blind unshakeable hatred that theyre happy to kill themselves to do damage to you.
Do you know that you sound just like them? This actually made me raise the question - are you Jewish by any chance?
On December 22 2008 17:22 IdrA wrote: [quote] how so
Look, there's two pov's that you can take.
There's the utilitarian pov, and the argument for that basically boils down to the US having to bomb Afghanistan because killing terrorists (even with some civilian casualties resulting from it) means less deaths in the future. This meets the utilitarian view of the least harm for the least amount of people.
Then, there's the Kantian pov, and the argument for that is that the actions, not the consequences that result from those actions, are what is most important. In the mind of a deontologist/kantian-ethicist it does not matter that you are potentially saving lives by killing terrorists (and harming civies in the process), what matters is that you are nixing your morality and have decided to kill people. Once again, the end result is not important to a deontologist, only the means by which it is reached.
I hold the second point of view, of the deontologist. I believe it is just plain wrong to kill, and that it must never be done because doing so means you are violating your own moral code, and that is much worse than not doing anything.
well thats pretty stupid the end results are what actually affect the real world. if your inaction causes more deaths than your action would it doesnt matter if you have the moral high ground, you've done a disservice to the world.
I do not see how using irrational (unethical) actions to quell irrational actions is doing a service to the world. But yeah, judging by the way you responded, I am going to guess you're a full-on utilitarian? I just wanna ask, to what morally vacant ends are you willing to see America reach to assure a victory in Afghanistan? Would you be willing to bomb a village, with ample warning beforehand of course, just to kill some terrorists? Man, it's on your head, not mine, bud.
the actions are neither irrational or unethical. inaction that causes harm is just as bad as action that causes harm, therefore it would be unethical to not act in a situation where not acting causes more damage than acting.
if there were terrorists setting the next 9/11 in motion hiding in the village, hell yes. are you saying you wouldnt? i take back what i said, i dont see how you can claim the moral high ground in this situation.
obviously 9/11 is an extreme example, but yes if i believed allowing the terrorists to survive would cost more lives than the collateral damage of the bombing, i would.
So you're saying I'm immoral for not supporting the death of innocents? How can you support actions that fuel the motives of the terrorists more? Come dusk, the Afghans know that the bombs dropped on their village were American. To whom are they to put the blame? How will you be able to tell them that their deaths were for their own benefit? These people see the United States as a threat, not an ally. Why are we allowed to impose on their lives when they cannot do the same to us?
For every village that the government bombs there is going to be at least one child who looks at the burning pile of rubble and body parts, forever compelled to go to any lengths to destroy the entity who destroyed his or her home.
Each bomb plants the seeds for dissent. The bigger the bomb, the more helpless they will feel and the more drastic measures they will take to retaliate.
Why support violence when it only breeds more violence? Even from a Utilitarian point of view, this course of action seems rash and improvised. The true Utilitarian would not advocate these useless forms of violence, so it is assumed that those who support the American style of diplomacy are themselves rash.
Then we must assume that the American course of action was not born out of calculated necessity but out of the anger and frustration stemming from the tragic loss of life on September 11th. It is out of this blind rage that nearly a decade of disastrous foreign policy was enacted. We have treaded onto an immense minefield that we now don't see ourselves getting safetly out of. We have done this to ourselves because we could not think beyond the cold hard statistics of "getting even". We have traded our morality for the insanity of attrition. "All is well as long as they're dead and we're not," one would say. "Kill them all."
It's wrong, unjustifiable, and heinous.
the only will we are imposing on them is that they are not allowed to impose their will on us, which seems perfectly fine to me. we arent telling them how to live their lives or who to pray to, just that they cant blow themselves up in our buildings if we make a comic about allah.
bombing villages does indeed create potential terrorists, as does allowing those children to grow up in the islamic terrorist environment. you seem to miss the point that there is no good solution when dealing with an enemy like this. we cant simply pack up and go home and expect them to ignore us. it is a war of cultures that cannot coexist as they stand, we either beat them into submission and force them to become acceptable members of the world, or we live under the constant threat of another bin laden. i personally dont think thats acceptable, and i dont see them voluntarily changing any time soon.
We aren't telling the civilians how to live their lives, sure, but we are telling them how they're going to die. We are also telling them that their tribal way of government, which had been their way of life for hundreds if not thousands of years, is wrong and that democracy is the only suitable way to govern in a land who's people have no clear understanding of what it even means to be partial to everyone. We perceive their hard way of life as undesirable and thus do not see them as equal to us. You seem to have missed the point that we have made them into the enemy through making revenge politics a reality. The American people are too proud and stubborn to even try to understand the plight of people who aren't them.
we're telling them that if they cant control the terrorists in their midst theyre going to die because those terrorists will otherwise kill us. i agree with you that its not right to force democracy on them if they dont want it, but we're not pushing democracy in favor of the tribal governments, but in favor of the totalitarian regimes that ruled the countries before we invaded. they are already an enemy because of their ideology, in some cases the motive may be revenge ideology, that doesnt mean the action that results from it is necessarily wrong. look at iraq, blair and bush use scare tactics with the wmd's to support taking down saddam. it was wrong of them to do that, but still right to attack.
We need to pack up and go home BECAUSE we came in and wrecked the place. I do not think that the Afghani people would hate us even more if we left. I believe that their animosity towards us would in fact cool down. Yeah, maybe in fifty years they might like us again if we leave them alone, so we must.
ya sounds plausible when exactly did we drop bombs on the homes of the 9/11 hijackers?
"It is a war of cultures that cannot coexist as they stand, we either beat them into submission and force them to become acceptable members of the world, or we live under the constant threat of another bin laden." -IdrA
Do you know how mad that sounds? People are not like animals, you cannot beat a person into obedience, you cannot pummel little villages into the ground and have their people accept you as their rulers. They'll hate you every second of their lives for it, and rightfully so. If you want people to change, you have to let them change. Any other way just grounds their belief that you're imposing your will onto them. I don't know how that doesn't make sense to you.
once again the only will we're imposing is that they arent allowed to impose theirs on us. 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 see you as a person of results. You want to hear at the end of the day that things got done and that's it. You don't really care how it's done, you just want it done. Fast and easy. You also prefer to shift the blame onto other people. Perhaps that is the reason why you can legitimize killing innocents, and perhaps you will forever be incapable of seeing that as wrong. If you have no qualms with that, then perhaps all is lost. I hate how you say there is no good solution when "dealing" with these people, as if they were some sort of pest that you need to exterminate.
so its ok when innocents are killed by the terrorist attacks, but not in attempts to kill the terrorists? they are 'pests'. people who choose to blow themselves up in public places give up their humanity. they are scum who should be exterminated. its questionable to call those who harbor and support them innocent in the first place.
"so its ok when innocents are killed by the terrorist attacks, but not in attempts to kill the terrorists?"
It is never ok to kill anyone under any circumstances, ever. Once you understand this, you too will be considered a rational and moralistic being.
The "us vs them" argument is propaganda bullshit to make you believe there is a definite and present threat to humanity in this world that needs to be extinguished.
sucks. life isnt fair. by the choice of the islamic terrorists people are going to die, 'we' get to choose who. seems obvious to me that forced into that choice you have to choose the lesser evil. which is exactly what i was saying.
"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. "
"they are 'pests'. people who choose to blow themselves up in public places give up their humanity. they are scum who should be exterminated."
Wow... that is terrible.
k you can keep being a little girl and being horrified by reality or you can explain yourself and be part of the big boys discussion. your choice.
On December 23 2008 11:35 Jibba wrote: Here's the problem, IdrA. First, it's easy to abuse anything "for the greater good" (see: PATRIOT Act.) Second, our intelligence is and will always be extremely imperfect. The cost/benefit analysis for "possibly killing terrorists in caves" fails, because we are terrible at predicting the cost (see: Afghanistan 1979/Somalia 2005) and the benefits are unpredictable as well.
Our weapons are extremely accurate, but the decision making is not. The collateral damage we've caused is enormous and hasn't been effective and it may not even be particularly beneficial. The Taliban is essentially a greater threat to Afghanis than it is to the US. Like Saddam, their major intent is to avoid rocking the boat in international waters and retain control of the country. If they, or anyone for that matter, wanted to attack the United States, it could be done fairly easily. Two rednecks in Oklahoma did a pretty good job, and they chose a terrible target. Numerous independent studies have shown that we're not safer from any type of attack than we were 10 years ago. Remember, who trained the 9/11 pilots- a Florida flight school.
If you want to make the case that we should do it for humanitarian reasons, then fine. Afghanis don't deserve the miserable treatment the Taliban will inflict, just like Iraqis didn't deserve what Saddam gave them. Still, this is an even more difficult battle to win than Iraq is, because we have too few troops (Soviets failed with 600,000), little internal support (this is an anarchic/tribal territory), ridiculously mountainous borders to control and there's nothing to cover the costs. Afghanistan has deserts, mountains, rocks and a few opium/rose fields- it's a shitty place to live. Not only will the conflict hemorrhage us financially, but it's also taken our attention away from the nearly failed state next door, that actually has nuclear weapons.
It'd be great if we could punish the groups that attacked us, and one could even argue the government has an obligation to attempt to, but eventually you have to realize that it was a failed state that drained an empire, and it's currently a failed state that's draining an empire.
you're right its impractical, but there is no good solution to the middle east at the moment. as you said right now their main goal is upsetting the international scene as little as possible so they can regain control of their country. as much as it sucks to agree with the bush administration, its better to fight them over there than over here.
it seems to me it would be far more dangerous to withdraw and let them restabilize when at the moment theyre forced into hiding in villages and caves while we control the cities. i dont really know how effective the bombing raids are, it may be that they should be stopped for practical reasons. but i was arguing that they were justified on moral grounds, given that the terrorists were capable of greater potential harm than what we would be doing.
There's the utilitarian pov, and the argument for that basically boils down to the US having to bomb Afghanistan because killing terrorists (even with some civilian casualties resulting from it) means less deaths in the future. This meets the utilitarian view of the least harm for the least amount of people.
Then, there's the Kantian pov, and the argument for that is that the actions, not the consequences that result from those actions, are what is most important. In the mind of a deontologist/kantian-ethicist it does not matter that you are potentially saving lives by killing terrorists (and harming civies in the process), what matters is that you are nixing your morality and have decided to kill people. Once again, the end result is not important to a deontologist, only the means by which it is reached.
I hold the second point of view, of the deontologist. I believe it is just plain wrong to kill, and that it must never be done because doing so means you are violating your own moral code, and that is much worse than not doing anything.
well thats pretty stupid the end results are what actually affect the real world. if your inaction causes more deaths than your action would it doesnt matter if you have the moral high ground, you've done a disservice to the world.
I do not see how using irrational (unethical) actions to quell irrational actions is doing a service to the world. But yeah, judging by the way you responded, I am going to guess you're a full-on utilitarian? I just wanna ask, to what morally vacant ends are you willing to see America reach to assure a victory in Afghanistan? Would you be willing to bomb a village, with ample warning beforehand of course, just to kill some terrorists? Man, it's on your head, not mine, bud.
the actions are neither irrational or unethical. inaction that causes harm is just as bad as action that causes harm, therefore it would be unethical to not act in a situation where not acting causes more damage than acting.
if there were terrorists setting the next 9/11 in motion hiding in the village, hell yes. are you saying you wouldnt? i take back what i said, i dont see how you can claim the moral high ground in this situation.
obviously 9/11 is an extreme example, but yes if i believed allowing the terrorists to survive would cost more lives than the collateral damage of the bombing, i would.
So you're saying I'm immoral for not supporting the death of innocents? How can you support actions that fuel the motives of the terrorists more? Come dusk, the Afghans know that the bombs dropped on their village were American. To whom are they to put the blame? How will you be able to tell them that their deaths were for their own benefit? These people see the United States as a threat, not an ally. Why are we allowed to impose on their lives when they cannot do the same to us?
For every village that the government bombs there is going to be at least one child who looks at the burning pile of rubble and body parts, forever compelled to go to any lengths to destroy the entity who destroyed his or her home.
Each bomb plants the seeds for dissent. The bigger the bomb, the more helpless they will feel and the more drastic measures they will take to retaliate.
Why support violence when it only breeds more violence? Even from a Utilitarian point of view, this course of action seems rash and improvised. The true Utilitarian would not advocate these useless forms of violence, so it is assumed that those who support the American style of diplomacy are themselves rash.
Then we must assume that the American course of action was not born out of calculated necessity but out of the anger and frustration stemming from the tragic loss of life on September 11th. It is out of this blind rage that nearly a decade of disastrous foreign policy was enacted. We have treaded onto an immense minefield that we now don't see ourselves getting safetly out of. We have done this to ourselves because we could not think beyond the cold hard statistics of "getting even". We have traded our morality for the insanity of attrition. "All is well as long as they're dead and we're not," one would say. "Kill them all."
It's wrong, unjustifiable, and heinous.
the only will we are imposing on them is that they are not allowed to impose their will on us, which seems perfectly fine to me. we arent telling them how to live their lives or who to pray to, just that they cant blow themselves up in our buildings if we make a comic about allah.
bombing villages does indeed create potential terrorists, as does allowing those children to grow up in the islamic terrorist environment. you seem to miss the point that there is no good solution when dealing with an enemy like this. we cant simply pack up and go home and expect them to ignore us. it is a war of cultures that cannot coexist as they stand, we either beat them into submission and force them to become acceptable members of the world, or we live under the constant threat of another bin laden. i personally dont think thats acceptable, and i dont see them voluntarily changing any time soon.
We aren't telling the civilians how to live their lives, sure, but we are telling them how they're going to die. We are also telling them that their tribal way of government, which had been their way of life for hundreds if not thousands of years, is wrong and that democracy is the only suitable way to govern in a land who's people have no clear understanding of what it even means to be partial to everyone. We perceive their hard way of life as undesirable and thus do not see them as equal to us. You seem to have missed the point that we have made them into the enemy through making revenge politics a reality. The American people are too proud and stubborn to even try to understand the plight of people who aren't them.
we're telling them that if they cant control the terrorists in their midst theyre going to die because those terrorists will otherwise kill us. i agree with you that its not right to force democracy on them if they dont want it, but we're not pushing democracy in favor of the tribal governments, but in favor of the totalitarian regimes that ruled the countries before we invaded. they are already an enemy because of their ideology, in some cases the motive may be revenge ideology, that doesnt mean the action that results from it is necessarily wrong. look at iraq, blair and bush use scare tactics with the wmd's to support taking down saddam. it was wrong of them to do that, but still right to attack.
We need to pack up and go home BECAUSE we came in and wrecked the place. I do not think that the Afghani people would hate us even more if we left. I believe that their animosity towards us would in fact cool down. Yeah, maybe in fifty years they might like us again if we leave them alone, so we must.
ya sounds plausible when exactly did we drop bombs on the homes of the 9/11 hijackers?
"It is a war of cultures that cannot coexist as they stand, we either beat them into submission and force them to become acceptable members of the world, or we live under the constant threat of another bin laden." -IdrA
Do you know how mad that sounds? People are not like animals, you cannot beat a person into obedience, you cannot pummel little villages into the ground and have their people accept you as their rulers. They'll hate you every second of their lives for it, and rightfully so. If you want people to change, you have to let them change. Any other way just grounds their belief that you're imposing your will onto them. I don't know how that doesn't make sense to you.
once again the only will we're imposing is that they arent allowed to impose theirs on us. 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 see you as a person of results. You want to hear at the end of the day that things got done and that's it. You don't really care how it's done, you just want it done. Fast and easy. You also prefer to shift the blame onto other people. Perhaps that is the reason why you can legitimize killing innocents, and perhaps you will forever be incapable of seeing that as wrong. If you have no qualms with that, then perhaps all is lost. I hate how you say there is no good solution when "dealing" with these people, as if they were some sort of pest that you need to exterminate.
so its ok when innocents are killed by the terrorist attacks, but not in attempts to kill the terrorists? they are 'pests'. people who choose to blow themselves up in public places give up their humanity. they are scum who should be exterminated. its questionable to call those who harbor and support them innocent in the first place.
"so its ok when innocents are killed by the terrorist attacks, but not in attempts to kill the terrorists?"
It is never ok to kill anyone under any circumstances, ever. Once you understand this, you too will be considered a rational and moralistic being.
The "us vs them" argument is propaganda bullshit to make you believe there is a definite and present threat to humanity in this world that needs to be extinguished.
sucks. life isnt fair. by the choice of the islamic terrorists people are going to die, 'we' get to choose who. seems obvious to me that forced into that choice you have to choose the lesser evil. which is exactly what i was saying.
"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. "
"they are 'pests'. people who choose to blow themselves up in public places give up their humanity. they are scum who should be exterminated."
Wow... that is terrible.
k you can keep being a little girl and being horrified by reality or you can explain yourself and be part of the big boys discussion. your choice.
"k you can keep being a little girl and being horrified by reality or you can explain yourself and be part of the big boys discussion. your choice."
Big dicks, big balls, we're hardcore and we're gonna kill us some muzzies. That's reality. Everyone who disagrees is a woman, mmhmm.
"OH MY GOD PEOPLE DIE OH NOES IT CANT BE TRUE" ? that has no place in a discussion, either explain yourself or get out.
what is wrong with
"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. "
"they are 'pests'. people who choose to blow themselves up in public places give up their humanity. they are scum who should be exterminated."
You must be retarded, the afghans haven't done anything to deserve this.
"I dream to see those Muslim pests die horrible deaths. They are scum."
Leave the discussion to people who have brains. Your cocksure way of thinking is so archaic it should be smothered just like every other piece of utilitarian thought-trash. You don't know the half of what you're even saying. Realism, tsh. gb2/practice/
? since when were we talking about all muslims there are plenty who have ignored the more revolting parts of islam's teachings and so are perfectly functional, normal members of society, theres nothing wrong with them and i have nothing against them.
we were talking specifically about the terrorists. i do believe they deserve to die horrible deaths.
kinda ironic you talking about having no brain, seeing as you dont seem to have a single thought in your head, just keep saying 'kantian philosophy' whenever told to explain yourself.
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.
fighting back may make it easier for them to recruit, but it is not the base reason.
read the thread? their religion commands them to wage jihad until the rest of the world is under muslim control or eliminated pretty sure that covers it.
On December 23 2008 17:58 L wrote: Assuming that's correct, addressing the base reason would imply converting every muslim, or killing them all.
Which explains a lot of your previous posts.
is every muslim you know or know of devoted to the destruction of the western world? is every christian you know as crazy as the fundamentalists?
i would prefer if they would all give up religion simply because i believe religion is bad in general, but for the purposes we're discussing here they only need to ignore the militant parts of their religion, which many people already do.
So then the solution to the base reason is dissuading people from taking up the militant side of their religion, which you're suggesting bombing despite collateral damage for?
Tell me, what do you think makes someone go radical?
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
The civilians are the taliban. Just some are male and some have weapons. And they aren't hiding among woman and children. It's their families.
And if they aren't with the Taliban they get killed and NATO won't do anything for them while the US destroy their only income whatever they choose to do.
You can't wage a war on terrorists, period. It goes against the definition of a terrorist. A terrorist is a criminal, not a soldier. You always have to use police and intelligence to combat terrorism.
Not to mention all Al Qaeda people left are across the border and the 9/11 terrorists almost all came from Saudi Arabia. Plus, the US never provided any evidence to the Taliban that Bin Laden was behind 9/11. So yeah the Taliban didn't hand OBL over to the US. Not so strange. No self-respecting country would do that. The US even protects war criminals where the evidence is freely available because they were on the CIA payroll and if they are put on trial they will talk and that will be bad for the US. People like Emmanuel "Toto" Constant.
And actually it turned out that at that point the US didn't even have that evidence.
So what is left to fight for in Afghanistan? Only to support one warlord over the other. Many important people in the Afghan government or Karzai clan are former Taliban people. They have the exact same morals as those they are fighting. They just don't have to be as cruel because they have NATO on their side. Not to mention that western public opinion demands that from them. And if you want to be cruel you always have an excuse. No need to behead someone with a sword. Just throw a bomb and call it collateral damage. It will get the same message across.
On December 23 2008 17:20 IdrA wrote: ? there are plenty who have ignored the more revolting parts of islam's teachings and so are perfectly functional, normal members of society, theres nothing wrong with them and i have nothing against them.
Yet you're saying that these people who are perfectly functional, normal members of society who have nothing wrong with them can be considered perfectly acceptable casualties as long as the terrorists get killed along with them. You have nothing against them, but they're worm food if they get caught in the crossfire between the Taliban and the American army. You're ok with that.
---------------
If subscribing to a certain code of ethics means I must be stupid, then you must be absolutely brain dead seeing as you subscribe to no code of ethics.
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.
On December 23 2008 18:02 L wrote: So then the solution to the base reason is dissuading people from taking up the militant side of their religion, which you're suggesting bombing despite collateral damage for?
Tell me, what do you think makes someone go radical?
On December 23 2008 17:44 IdrA wrote: read the thread? their religion commands them to wage jihad until the rest of the world is under muslim control or eliminated pretty sure that covers it.
it is not a matter of 'going radical' the religion is in itself radical and it is quite apparent they have no intention of giving up that part on their own. it gives the leaders the political and social power they want and it gives the fighters a purpose and a fictional reward.
On December 23 2008 17:20 IdrA wrote: ? there are plenty who have ignored the more revolting parts of islam's teachings and so are perfectly functional, normal members of society, theres nothing wrong with them and i have nothing against them.
Yet you're saying that these people who are perfectly functional, normal members of society who have nothing wrong with them can be considered perfectly acceptable casualties as long as the terrorists get killed along with them. You have nothing against them, but they're worm food if they get caught in the crossfire between the Taliban and the American army. You're ok with that.
---------------
If subscribing to a certain code of ethics means I must be stupid, then you must be absolutely brain dead seeing as you subscribe to no code of ethics.
seriously are you really stupid or just pretending to obscure the discussion?
i never said its good or even ok to kill the civilians. i have said, multiple times, that because of the beliefs and actions of the terrorists innocent people are going to die. if we believe that more deaths would be caused by allowing the terrorists to live than bombing their villages... how can you say its moral to not bomb them? wed be directly responsible for more people dying. (no people dying is not an option). you're the one with the the questionable ethics here, not me.
Yet you're saying that these people who are perfectly functional, normal members of society who have nothing wrong with them can be considered perfectly acceptable casualties as long as the terrorists get killed along with themdont get bombed. You have nothing against them, but they're worm food if they get caught in the crossfire between the Talibanterrorists and the American armytheir 70 virgins. You're ok with that.
wow you're espousing the murder of innocents for insufficient reasons. you must be an amoral asshole!
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.
On December 23 2008 11:35 Jibba wrote: Here's the problem, IdrA. First, it's easy to abuse anything "for the greater good" (see: PATRIOT Act.) Second, our intelligence is and will always be extremely imperfect. The cost/benefit analysis for "possibly killing terrorists in caves" fails, because we are terrible at predicting the cost (see: Afghanistan 1979/Somalia 2005) and the benefits are unpredictable as well.
Our weapons are extremely accurate, but the decision making is not. The collateral damage we've caused is enormous and hasn't been effective and it may not even be particularly beneficial. The Taliban is essentially a greater threat to Afghanis than it is to the US. Like Saddam, their major intent is to avoid rocking the boat in international waters and retain control of the country. If they, or anyone for that matter, wanted to attack the United States, it could be done fairly easily. Two rednecks in Oklahoma did a pretty good job, and they chose a terrible target. Numerous independent studies have shown that we're not safer from any type of attack than we were 10 years ago. Remember, who trained the 9/11 pilots- a Florida flight school.
If you want to make the case that we should do it for humanitarian reasons, then fine. Afghanis don't deserve the miserable treatment the Taliban will inflict, just like Iraqis didn't deserve what Saddam gave them. Still, this is an even more difficult battle to win than Iraq is, because we have too few troops (Soviets failed with 600,000), little internal support (this is an anarchic/tribal territory), ridiculously mountainous borders to control and there's nothing to cover the costs. Afghanistan has deserts, mountains, rocks and a few opium/rose fields- it's a shitty place to live. Not only will the conflict hemorrhage us financially, but it's also taken our attention away from the nearly failed state next door, that actually has nuclear weapons.
It'd be great if we could punish the groups that attacked us, and one could even argue the government has an obligation to attempt to, but eventually you have to realize that it was a failed state that drained an empire, and it's currently a failed state that's draining an empire.
you're right its impractical, but there is no good solution to the middle east at the moment. as you said right now their main goal is upsetting the international scene as little as possible so they can regain control of their country. as much as it sucks to agree with the bush administration, its better to fight them over there than over here.
it seems to me it would be far more dangerous to withdraw and let them restabilize when at the moment theyre forced into hiding in villages and caves while we control the cities. i dont really know how effective the bombing raids are, it may be that they should be stopped for practical reasons. but i was arguing that they were justified on moral grounds, given that the terrorists were capable of greater potential harm than what we would be doing.
How so? Al Qaeda could attack us right now if they wanted to. Keeping pressure on Afghanistan is doing nothing but weakening us in the future.
The grievances of other "dredges" doesn't really compare and they don't have the expertise. If Pinochet were alive and well today, it wouldn't be that shocking if a crafty leader turned Catholicism for the same cause.
On December 23 2008 17:44 IdrA wrote: read the thread? their religion commands them to wage jihad until the rest of the world is under muslim control or eliminated pretty sure that covers it.
This understanding of Islam and what goes on is elementary at best. There's over a billion muslims in the world and the number of terrorists is probably in the tens of thousands, all for different causes. Muslims of the same religion are killing eachother in Turkey and Somalia, and Islamic empires have been around for a thousand years without what we're seeing today.
The "battle of ideas" approach is counterproductive for two important reasons: first, it encourages the concept of a Manichean struggle raging between two equally powerful and opposing world views, in effect legitimizing the extremists' understanding of the struggle, and second, it overstates the extent to which bin Laden's world view constitutes a viable theological alternative for the world's 1.3 billion Muslims. These zealous religious views are not only alien to most Muslims living today, but have also earned a place on the fringe of the history of Islamic intellectual thought.
...
The second step requires recognition that most grievances expressed by extremists such as bin Laden are secular and political in nature. They are angry about what they perceive as the exploitation of Muslims at the hands of the United States. They enjoy sympathy from Muslims who perceive the United States, and the West in general, as perpetuators of an unjust global political-economic system. As many have already noted, the attacks of 9/11 targeted American FINANCIAL and military complexes and not Western religious symbols. Though the United States should not accept at face value the legitimacy of al Qaeda grievances, we cannot effectively prevent terrorist acts from taking place without a better understanding of their ultimately profane roots.
On December 23 2008 17:44 IdrA wrote: read the thread? their religion commands them to wage jihad until the rest of the world is under muslim control or eliminated pretty sure that covers it.
This understanding of Islam and what goes on is elementary at best. There's over a billion muslims in the world and the number of terrorists is probably in the tens of thousands, all for different causes. Muslims of the same religion are killing eachother in Turkey and Somalia, and Islamic empires have been around for a thousand years without what we're seeing today.
The "battle of ideas" approach is counterproductive for two important reasons: first, it encourages the concept of a Manichean struggle raging between two equally powerful and opposing world views, in effect legitimizing the extremists' understanding of the struggle, and second, it overstates the extent to which bin Laden's world view constitutes a viable theological alternative for the world's 1.3 billion Muslims. These zealous religious views are not only alien to most Muslims living today, but have also earned a place on the fringe of the history of Islamic intellectual thought.
...
The second step requires recognition that most grievances expressed by extremists such as bin Laden are secular and political in nature. They are angry about what they perceive as the exploitation of Muslims at the hands of the United States. They enjoy sympathy from Muslims who perceive the United States, and the West in general, as perpetuators of an unjust global political-economic system. As many have already noted, the attacks of 9/11 targeted American FINANCIAL and military complexes and not Western religious symbols. Though the United States should not accept at face value the legitimacy of al Qaeda grievances, we cannot effectively prevent terrorist acts from taking place without a better understanding of their ultimately profane roots.
i did not say all of islam was the militant teachings, however it cant be denied that it does encourage jihad and martrydom and everything else thats been discussed. maybe the leaders are just using it to further their own goals, in fact i think thats quite likely, but as i said before there are politically and socially downtrodden people all throughout the world. the ones without islam dont seem to be blowing themselves up quite as much.
On December 23 2008 11:35 Jibba wrote: Here's the problem, IdrA. First, it's easy to abuse anything "for the greater good" (see: PATRIOT Act.) Second, our intelligence is and will always be extremely imperfect. The cost/benefit analysis for "possibly killing terrorists in caves" fails, because we are terrible at predicting the cost (see: Afghanistan 1979/Somalia 2005) and the benefits are unpredictable as well.
Our weapons are extremely accurate, but the decision making is not. The collateral damage we've caused is enormous and hasn't been effective and it may not even be particularly beneficial. The Taliban is essentially a greater threat to Afghanis than it is to the US. Like Saddam, their major intent is to avoid rocking the boat in international waters and retain control of the country. If they, or anyone for that matter, wanted to attack the United States, it could be done fairly easily. Two rednecks in Oklahoma did a pretty good job, and they chose a terrible target. Numerous independent studies have shown that we're not safer from any type of attack than we were 10 years ago. Remember, who trained the 9/11 pilots- a Florida flight school.
If you want to make the case that we should do it for humanitarian reasons, then fine. Afghanis don't deserve the miserable treatment the Taliban will inflict, just like Iraqis didn't deserve what Saddam gave them. Still, this is an even more difficult battle to win than Iraq is, because we have too few troops (Soviets failed with 600,000), little internal support (this is an anarchic/tribal territory), ridiculously mountainous borders to control and there's nothing to cover the costs. Afghanistan has deserts, mountains, rocks and a few opium/rose fields- it's a shitty place to live. Not only will the conflict hemorrhage us financially, but it's also taken our attention away from the nearly failed state next door, that actually has nuclear weapons.
It'd be great if we could punish the groups that attacked us, and one could even argue the government has an obligation to attempt to, but eventually you have to realize that it was a failed state that drained an empire, and it's currently a failed state that's draining an empire.
you're right its impractical, but there is no good solution to the middle east at the moment. as you said right now their main goal is upsetting the international scene as little as possible so they can regain control of their country. as much as it sucks to agree with the bush administration, its better to fight them over there than over here.
it seems to me it would be far more dangerous to withdraw and let them restabilize when at the moment theyre forced into hiding in villages and caves while we control the cities. i dont really know how effective the bombing raids are, it may be that they should be stopped for practical reasons. but i was arguing that they were justified on moral grounds, given that the terrorists were capable of greater potential harm than what we would be doing.
How so? Al Qaeda could attack us right now if they wanted to. Keeping pressure on Afghanistan is doing nothing but weakening us in the future.
The grievances of other "dredges" doesn't really compare and they don't have the expertise. If Pinochet were alive and well today, it wouldn't be that shocking if a crafty leader turned Catholicism for the same cause.
? you said yourself, right now their main goal is regaining control of and stabilizing the countries they operate from. drawing international anger with another 9/11 is not the way to go about doing that. its not in their best interests to attack the us while theyre fighting for afghanistan.
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.
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
? 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.
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.
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.
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.
? 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.
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.
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.
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.
The Qu'ran was first published in the mid 7th century. Suicide attacks originated in the 17th and 18th century by non-muslims, and modern terrorism/jihads as we know it, against civilians, took hold in the late 1960s and early 1970s by a branch of the PLO.
Considering Salah ad-Din was largely justified, you've got some explaining to do about this large chunk of time where being non-muslim wasn't an issue. "Clash of civilizations" is utter bullshit.
Suicide attacks are as old as wars. Hell, there's a semi-documented case where Knight's Templars did a suicde attack. That must have been during Saladin's time if I remember correct.
But surely modern Islamists have brought it to another level. But there's very recent christian cases and there are plenty of secular one's as well.
But surely the notion of afterlife works because then you can do it without a single bit of altruism.
On December 24 2008 19:42 BlackStar wrote: Suicide attacks are as old as wars. Hell, there's a semi-documented case where Knight's Templars did a suicde attack. That must have been during Saladin's time if I remember correct.
But surely modern Islamists have brought it to another level. But there's very recent christian cases and there are plenty of secular one's as well.
But surely the notion of afterlife works because then you can do it without a single bit of altruism.
You are right that suicide attack are very old. there have been many cases some of them very famous like the Japanese Kamikaze pilots and such.
The suicide bombers in the name of Islam phenomenon is pretty new and it became widespread mainly in the 1990s. What is unique is that they suicide not in order to destroy an opposing army they do it to kill ordinary people who don't threaten them in any way, in the name of their religion.
Even more interesting in many of this attacks the suicide bombers can execute the bombs from afar or just lay it down and escape yet they prefer to die for the cause of killing ordinary people.
Unfortunately they are using a whole different scale of morality and the world will have to learn to deal with it.
Asymmetric warfare is not new, and it's done for very practical reasons. Unloading a sea of napalm onto Vietnam was far less rational than suicide terrorism.
On December 24 2008 11:55 IdrA wrote: 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.
Comical how you're unable to answer the most basic questions.
Today, it is easy to find Marines measuring footbridges, Air Force pilots negotiating with road contractors, Navy reservists debating the finer points of pouring concrete for school foundations, infantrymen immersed in solar-cooking projects, and field medics handing out packets of lozenges to curious villagers.
Moreover, explains John Espinoza, the State Department representative in Nuristan Province, there is simply more emphasis on such support. "While the amount of money committed to the effort is important, the impact of small, lower-cost community projects is also critical," he says. "Whether it's fresh water supplies, schools, clinics ... we are bringing immediate changes to Afghan communities. The long-term effects of that cannot be underestimated."
All this is being carried out amid ongoing fighting and a rising death toll. But while it is difficult to do effective development work without security, stresses Nuristan PRT commander George Perez – it's harder yet to attain security without offering development.
"Until we really have an impact here, in terms of healthcare, education, etc., Afghans will continue to suffer – and be amenable to ideological pressures of Al Qaeda," says Mr. Perez, a submarine officer. We need to give them a reason to be on our side."
This is how you win over a country. Some Special Forces groups were doing this during Vietnam and were very successful, helping villages and gaining added security through villager loyalty and information. Unfortunately it was too little, too late.
On December 24 2008 19:42 BlackStar wrote: Suicide attacks are as old as wars. Hell, there's a semi-documented case where Knight's Templars did a suicde attack. That must have been during Saladin's time if I remember correct.
But surely modern Islamists have brought it to another level. But there's very recent christian cases and there are plenty of secular one's as well.
But surely the notion of afterlife works because then you can do it without a single bit of altruism.
The suicide bombers in the name of Islam phenomenon is pretty new and it became widespread mainly in the 1990s. What is unique is that they suicide not in order to destroy an opposing army they do it to kill ordinary people who don't threaten them in any way, in the name of their religion.
You're pretty much totally wrong. Google something about russian revolution and terrorism in the beginning of 20'th century. Those muslims didn't invent anything. It started pretty much as soon as humankind invented explosives, but there has been a huge halt in the use of these methods. Why? Apparently, something is indeed very wrong with the world if people keep sacrificing their lives just to make someone listen to their message. Once again, it's what Nietzsche phrased best: "If you want your writings read, write them with blood."
On December 24 2008 20:46 Locke. wrote: Even more interesting in many of this attacks the suicide bombers can execute the bombs from afar or just lay it down and escape yet they prefer to die for the cause of killing ordinary people.
it's also so they can become martyrs in the name of Islam.
On December 24 2008 20:46 Locke. wrote: The suicide bombers in the name of Islam phenomenon is pretty new and it became widespread mainly in the 1990s. What is unique is that they suicide not in order to destroy an opposing army they do it to kill ordinary people who don't threaten them in any way, in the name of their religion.
How about that country, who illegally occupies a land and claims it theirs under the name of a religion, (which ironically is against their own religion) as is the opinion of many anti-zionist orthodox jews.
If you have a bunch of people willing to blow themselves up for a cause, and a lot of explosives, then suicide attacks are a viable option. Or they could be the only option in a war if you can take out more enemies using a suicide attack than fighting face-to-face.
On December 24 2008 19:42 BlackStar wrote: Suicide attacks are as old as wars. Hell, there's a semi-documented case where Knight's Templars did a suicde attack. That must have been during Saladin's time if I remember correct.
But surely modern Islamists have brought it to another level. But there's very recent christian cases and there are plenty of secular one's as well.
But surely the notion of afterlife works because then you can do it without a single bit of altruism.
The suicide bombers in the name of Islam phenomenon is pretty new and it became widespread mainly in the 1990s. What is unique is that they suicide not in order to destroy an opposing army they do it to kill ordinary people who don't threaten them in any way, in the name of their religion.
You're pretty much totally wrong. Google something about russian revolution and terrorism in the beginning of 20'th century. Those muslims didn't invent anything. It started pretty much as soon as humankind invented explosives, but there has been a huge halt in the use of these methods. Why? Apparently, something is indeed very wrong with the world if people keep sacrificing their lives just to make someone listen to their message. Once again, it's what Nietzsche phrased best: "If you want your writings read, write them with blood."
I didn't say there was no terrorism before and that people didn't suicide to kill others that has been going on for ages. I said that what was special in the new Muslim terror is that the death of the killer is a value by itself. Even if they can save their lives and kill just as much they prefer to die as well. Of course others died while doing terror attacks but their death wasn't the goal. That is what's unique with the new Muslim terror.
BTW if you quote someone, quote the whole paragraph and not just one sentence so you don't get it out of context, this is not law school...
On December 24 2008 20:46 Locke. wrote: The suicide bombers in the name of Islam phenomenon is pretty new and it became widespread mainly in the 1990s. What is unique is that they suicide not in order to destroy an opposing army they do it to kill ordinary people who don't threaten them in any way, in the name of their religion.
How about that country, who illegally occupies a land and claims it theirs under the name of a religion, (which ironically is against their own religion) as is the opinion of many anti-zionist orthodox jews.
Too much unrelated nonsense to answer. What are you even trying to say?
On December 24 2008 19:42 BlackStar wrote: Suicide attacks are as old as wars. Hell, there's a semi-documented case where Knight's Templars did a suicde attack. That must have been during Saladin's time if I remember correct.
But surely modern Islamists have brought it to another level. But there's very recent christian cases and there are plenty of secular one's as well.
But surely the notion of afterlife works because then you can do it without a single bit of altruism.
The suicide bombers in the name of Islam phenomenon is pretty new and it became widespread mainly in the 1990s. What is unique is that they suicide not in order to destroy an opposing army they do it to kill ordinary people who don't threaten them in any way, in the name of their religion.
You're pretty much totally wrong. Google something about russian revolution and terrorism in the beginning of 20'th century. Those muslims didn't invent anything. It started pretty much as soon as humankind invented explosives, but there has been a huge halt in the use of these methods. Why? Apparently, something is indeed very wrong with the world if people keep sacrificing their lives just to make someone listen to their message. Once again, it's what Nietzsche phrased best: "If you want your writings read, write them with blood."
I didn't say there was no terrorism before and that people didn't suicide to kill others that has been going on for ages. I said that what was special in the new Muslim terror is that the death of the killer is a value by itself. Even if they can save their lives and kill just as much they prefer to die as well. Of course others died while doing terror attacks but their death wasn't the goal. That is what's unique with the new Muslim terror.
BTW if you quote someone, quote the whole paragraph and not just one sentence so you don't get it out of context, this is not law school...
It's not really unique to Islam though. Kurds don't do it in the name of Allah against other Sunni Muslims, and there's a few other secular groups. It's another one of those practical things that has been construed to seem ideological, by both sides. It had to begin that way simply because remote explosives were out of the question when they first started doing it, and then it started gaining more stigma. It also gives greater adaptability and the psychological effect is bigger than it would be otherwise.
When they're low on money to keep paying families or recruitment dwindles (when you give teenage boys something better to do with their time) they'll adjust to the problem.
EPT
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