Today marks 11 years from the point when the WTCs fell. I remember the day, it was like any other. I woke up, went to the bus stop, and it wasn't until I got to school that I was informed of what happened. Being a middle-schooler at the time, I didn't really understand the implications, or should I say, the greater impact and significance of such a terrible act. For weeks after, all I would see on TV were scenes of bombings as the US retaliated immediately.
Eleven years later, we are still at war and heavily involved in the middle east area.
There is no doubt that what the bombers did on 9/11 was a horrible act, a great crime against humanity. But there have been many thoughts that I have pondered in the past - thoughts and questions concerning "terrorism". The word is clearly one of the most misinterpreted and misused (anonymous anyone?). Us here at TL are constantly reminded how sketchy and elusive the idea of terrorism is to really understand.
I was having a conversation with a friend the other day, partly stemming from a recent thread about absolute moralism. We both agreed that, for the most part, morals are very subjective. A person's moral and outlook on life (which would encompass their perspectives in many areas, eg. cultural, philosophical, etc.) is greatly influenced by their upbringing. Their upbringing is to a huge extent determined, not only by the obvious factors of parents and peers, but the geographical location they just happened to be born in. Only a couple crimes (murder, rape, etc) could be universally recognized to be morally wrong by anyone with common sense and a healthy conscious.
So, assuming that 90% of people from anywhere around the world may have this sort of common sense (the 90% is just a random number that sounded reasonable to me), lets talk about terrorism, and how things may be perceived from different areas and cultures of the world.
When we hear the word terrorism in Western society, the usual picture that comes to mind for westerners is along the lines of a suicide-bomber, an arab person with an Islamic background.
What about for people in their culture? What do these people think of us, the Westerners, and the ways in which we attempt to control and dominate so many aspects of life? When we invade their countries, and innocent civilians end up dying, do the affected families of the victims consider us to be terrorists? And if so, are they justified in thinking that? (My view is yes, we are doing just as much terrorizing in a sense if we are killing innocent victims, regardless of intent and the political motivation behind it).
I'm curious to hear what other people think of this sort of paradoxical use and notion of terrorism. I am obviously not equating what happened on 9/11 to accidental civilian killings, but in the end, what is significant is that innocent people are dying.
Is it really okay for this kind of stuff to be happening, even if it's for a greater end-cause?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- EDIT! Not really surprising, but there have been some commentary concerning 9/11 conspiracy theories. We can try to talk about this in a civil manner. As ludicrous as it may sound, no possibility can be thrown out the window completely without concrete proof. Just out of interest, I am going to post a quick poll to see what the general TL consensus is regarding these theories.
Poll: What do you think happened in 9/11?
Secretive government act (45)
51%
Terrorist bombing (44)
49%
89 total votes
Your vote: What do you think happened in 9/11?
(Vote): Terrorist bombing (Vote): Secretive government act
My opinion is that it was a genuine act of terrorism, not from the US government but by the Al Qaeda. Just a personal opinion, I find it really unlikely, or should I say, I can't seem to believe in the slightest bit that the US gov. would be willing to actually pull something like this off, regardless of possible benefits. But I am also aware that nothing has really been proven completely. Lets just hope that we'll see what really happened in the future!
"Is it really okay for this kind of stuff to be happening, even if it's for a greater end-cause?"
That's subjective in itself. To many people have differing opinions on what even went down on that day and since it never really had a solid investigation/no one seems to care I don't really bring much about it up, to much ignorance through the fog of everything.
People are animals, they followed revenge and invaded on that principle "we got attacked, we attack" and although to everyone who researched the topic or even has their head above the sand knows that Iraq had nothing to do with it and it was a mainly Saudis involved it didn't matter at the time because America wanted blood.
The reason America is invading anything has direct correlation thus far with oil/political standing so I assume all of these people feel violated. I say America but I should specifiy the West because Canada and Nato are involved as well (although not to the same extent)
My opinion? My opinion doesn't matter nor does anyone on the outside and that's how it is. Move along.
So my issue with things like this is that while I do not disagree that it could be possible that something like this could occur it is that no digging by anyone has been done into finding out if this is true or not... Like other then ... the 9/11 comission it just hasn't been researched enough.
I would hold back conspiracy theories until an actually full blown real investigation is made into the events that took place (probably will come within the next decade or so). Right now claiming it was an inside job is about as naive and uneducated as claiming you know it wasn't, we're all relatively ignorant as to what happened.
...and already the tin foils show up. This thread isn't about who blew up the WTC, this thread is about the morality of what is going on in the middle east. As for my opinion on the topic, well, I'm a means-end kind of guy. If a was given a gun, and was told to shoot a mother of 3 and her kids in order to prevent a bomb from going off in Times Square, I would apologize, then shoot them in the head. Once they were all down, I would shoot each one once more in the head to make sure they were dead. As long as the end justifies the means, we should stay there.
Right now claiming it was an inside job is about as naive and uneducated as claiming you know it wasn't, we're all relatively ignorant as to what happened.
There are tens of thousands of pages of financial records, receipts of things like plane tickets, flying lessons, records of apartment rentals in the US and Germany, documents captured from al-Qaeda, video of the hijackers getting on to the planes, audio of phone calls from the planes describing the hijackings and the hijackers, etc.
Claiming anything other than al-Qaeda did it is either malicious or, as you say, uneducated.
Is it really okay for this kind of stuff to be happening, even if it's for a greater end-cause?
Support for terrorism has gone way down in Muslim countries, apparently they aren't too hot on the idea of slaughtering infidels when there's actual consequences for it.
Like this kinda shit... oh they're mad that some Dutch film is allegedly being produced in America (probably by Jooooooos, by the "thinking" of the idiot masses), so let's go storm the embassy walls. Too many Muslims get angry because their beliefs and feelings are oh so special and they feel like they can do whatever they want about it. Osama bin Laden hated the US because we saved Saudi Arabia from Saddam Hussein in 1991 and we're infidels so it's okay to kill us for setting our dirty feet on the holy sand dunes of the Arabian Peninsula. Give me a break.
Eventually this kind of violent xenophobic arrogance turns into hijacking planes and attacking airline terminals and then blowing up buses and restaurants and later still flying planes into buildings. There needs to be consequences for it, people in the Middle East need to realize that bad shit's gonna happen to them if they do bad shit to others.
in general, the US does not specifically target civillians. furthermore, the US rarely uses terror (an act of violence designed to intimidate/terrorize civillain populations) in order to protest/resist policy that we do not like. do we make war upon other countries? yes. do civillians die when this happens? yes. have there been some attrocities committed by our troops? absolutely. is it the general policy of the US armed forces to commit these attrocities? no.
that is the big difference between the "terrorists" and the US. we throw our weight around, we fuck shit up sometimes when we're pressed, but we don't cross the line into spreading terror. how often are American generals calling for suicide bombings of school buses and civillian airliners? how often is the US kidnapping al-Jazeera reporters and beheading them? there is a very large difference between making war and between engaging in terrorism.
furthermore, the US armed forces are considered a legitimate military force, backed by a legitimate government. we can argue all day about the exact nature of US freedoms, and to the exact extent that the US government is legitimate, but it is commonly accepted that the US is a free, democratic nation that generally respects the human rights of both its own people and its enemies. military action that is sanctioned by our government is legal, and is far more legitimate than the actions of an unsanctioned, para-military organization that acts with the specific intent of spreading terror and chaos among civillain populations.
and finally, the terrorists rarely recieve real support from the people they claim to be representing and fighting for. terrorists often use terror against their own population in order to intimidate people into providing support/shelter for more terrorists. it is a myth that there is widespread support for the terrorists, and it is a myth that the terrorists are fighting for any realistic, noble goal. they want power for themselves and nothing else.
On September 12 2012 03:40 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote: ...and already the tin foils show up. This thread isn't about who blew up the WTC, this thread is about the morality of what is going on in the middle east. As for my opinion on the topic, well, I'm a means-end kind of guy. If a was given a gun, and was told to shoot a mother of 3 and her kids in order to prevent a bomb from going off in Times Square, I would apologize, then shoot them in the head. Once they were all down, I would shoot each one once more in the head to make sure they were dead. As long as the end justifies the means, we should stay there.
jesus christ if that isn't the most disgusting thing i've heard someone admit in a loooong time...
Right now claiming it was an inside job is about as naive and uneducated as claiming you know it wasn't, we're all relatively ignorant as to what happened.
There are tens of thousands of pages of financial records, receipts of things like plane tickets, flying lessons, records of apartment rentals in the US and Germany, documents captured from al-Qaeda, video of the hijackers getting on to the planes, audio of phone calls from the planes describing the hijackings and the hijackers, etc.
Claiming anything other than al-Qaeda did it is either malicious or, as you say, uneducated.
There are a lot of anomalies that also occur, call it being a "tin foil hat" but I've studied history well enough to find out most events that have coincidental and anomalies occur often times have other things at work.
This again though isn't a debate on whether it is an inside job (as I alluded to during my first post) but I will remain behind the statement that blindly trusting data while other data sits contradicting is as naive as blindly denying any relevant data (such as the things you posted) just because the "big brother" government is bad.
We need more information and research before we even begin to find out what occurred and whether or not you believe that is up for you to decide.
On the morality issue I would say that "an eye for an eye" fits the example the West is displaying in the Middle East, also the actions of the West are only growing the terrorist network as we've seen a giant influx of terrorism activities in the last few years but as a poster previously stated who was doing a thesis on terrorism (in anon thread I believe) the definition is being absued a bit and we can just name it all asymetrical warfare.
Is it really okay for this kind of stuff to be happening, even if it's for a greater end-cause?
Support for terrorism has gone way down in Muslim countries, apparently they aren't too hot on the idea of slaughtering infidels when there's actual consequences for it.
Provide data? All I've seen is the massive influx of insurgents joining the cause and a network which has gained in size expanding from the Middle East to Africa and some parts of Asia/Europe.
BTW I simply just googled "terrorism is growing" and this is the first link with a lot more as I didn't have any specific ones off the top of my head but I keep hearing terrorism is growing.
This leaves for debate as to whether terrorism is growing or the term is broadening, if terrorism is growing that is one thing but if we begin to broaden the term of terrorism to mean different things that is a very very very bad thing as it begins to simplify the world as "good guys/bad guys" in the eyes of the public and they begin to blindly follow laws because the big bad terrorists will get them.
moral thinking is not a part of politics (atleast in my opinion), so the question "is it ok?" is irrelevant. I guess the 9/11 attack and the subsequent middle East military campaign are largely a fight for power and control over strategically important regions of the world. Terrorism in far eastern countries like Indonesia for example, is a fight between laicism/secularism and clericalism as society models. In short, I don't think that terrorism is a question of morality, but more a result of power struggles between or in societies.
Of course many people in invaded/occupied countries hate the west, that's what happens if you kill 100 000s of people.
Oh and as Nemesis already pointed out, the opinion of the citizens is not of any importance.
On September 12 2012 03:32 GizmoPT wrote: it was a false flag wake up terrorism is fabricated
Rofl. People like you are the ones who need to "wake up". Turn off the computer and experience real life for once instead of sitting at home, living in a virtual reality.
On September 12 2012 03:32 GizmoPT wrote: it was a false flag wake up terrorism is fabricated
Rofl. People like you are the ones who need to "wake up". Turn off the computer and experience real life for once instead of sitting at home, living in a virtual reality.
As I said previously, although he is obviously naive and suffers from the effect of ONLY grabbing data that supports his own theory it is rather naive to simply make ad hominem attacks about him. A lot is left unknown thus far and from your response it is obvious you simply just believe what you hear (which is great in a perfect world, but obviously this is not that) but we really should not turn this thread into a "did 9/11 happen" because people from both sides (believers and denying parties) just get into a shouting match as to who is more patriotic and smart etc etc.
Let's keep this on morality at least for the first 10 or so pages.
Yeah the whole terror thing is being blown out of proportion by those who benefit from it, that much i think everyone can agree with. Anything less is just blind patriotism.
The more suprising thing is how everyone was so suprised that it happened. Is the American people severly uninformed about their past and recent international actions? The betrayal of the United states to the al-Quaeda was obviously big enough to generate generations of pure hatred. For those who are clueless+ Show Spoiler +
al-Quaeda was created and trained in Pakistan during the cold war to combat the Sovjet. When the war was over they were abandoned and USA went to support India who was having long time hostilities with Pakistan, obviously al-Quada went bonkers on the USA hate. (not the whole story but you can prolly read up on it somewhere).
why are people so obsessed with terrorism and 9/11, 11 years later, no major terrorist attacks in years yet we are still under threat? right?
...right?
I don't even think anyone knows what the 'end cause' you speak off is anymore. We haven't been attacked in years, loss of life has been comparativley low (every year you have a one in three point five million chance of dying in a terrorist attack) its all exceptionally sensationalised in the grand scheme of things.
Edit - Noak - +1. Wait, how did these groups become armed? Oh right, we gave them weapons to fight the Soviets, OK it makes sense now. The fact it is so hard for most people in the west to link events together is amazing..
i cant believe people jsut random point the finger at muslim people becuase your government says it was them nobody takes the time to look into the situation and compare evidence that has been given on the matter you would rather nod your head at everything your told and just blame people. this is the type of thinking that makes me have no hope in the human race
On the morality issue I would say that "an eye for an eye" fits the example the West is displaying in the Middle East, also the actions of the West are only growing the terrorist network as we've seen a giant influx of terrorism activities in the last few years but as a poster previously stated who was doing a thesis on terrorism (in anon thread I believe) the definition is being absued a bit and we can just name it all asymetrical warfare.
What giant influx of terrorism activities? Muslim terrorists are fighting Muslim governments more than they're fighting us these days.
Also asymmetrical warfare targets military. Driving a two-ton truck full of high explosives into a market and blowing it up because it's a Shiite market or a Sunni market is not asymmetrical warfare or getting revenge on the occupiers, it's a war crime.
Sounds like standard government boilerplate to me. South America has been a "growing" terrorism spot for the last ten years and it's never really grown into a real problem. Western Africa is a growing problem because the governments are (mostly) weak and that's the last place they have to run to, the Middle East and Pakistan and Afghanistan aren't the safest places to operate anymore. Eastern Africa was a growing problem until Ethiopia and Kenya and Uganda and the other countries with half-decent governments there started seriously fighting it.
Provide data? All I've seen is the massive influx of insurgents joining the cause and a network which has gained in size expanding from the Middle East to Africa and some parts of Asia/Europe.
They used to do a lot of polling of Arabs / Muslims but they seem to not do so much recently:
On September 12 2012 03:32 GizmoPT wrote: it was a false flag wake up terrorism is fabricated
Rofl. People like you are the ones who need to "wake up". Turn off the computer and experience real life for once instead of sitting at home, living in a virtual reality.
you are the one living in a fabricated society think outside the box i simply like to know how stuff works and not simply accepting what im told
On September 12 2012 03:56 Young Terran wrote: i cant believe people jsut random point the finger at muslim people becuase your government says it was them nobody takes the time to look into the situation and compare evidence that has been given on the matter you would rather nod your head at everything your told and just blame people. this is the type of thinking that makes me have no hope in the human race
This is a really poor example but I couldn't think of a better one so I apologize for the offense this will surely bring but it is the best comparison I could make knowledge of history.
A lot of people have condemned Germans (the people not the party) as horrible horrible people for allowing the NAZI party attempt to exterminate an entire race of people and not standing up against it but the people quite possibly didn't have all of the information, many stated they had no idea about the camps and when propaganda comes into play you get "Jews aren't human" "muslims are terrorists" it dehumanizes people.
So no I'm not saying America or the West are on the same level as the Third Reich, but I am saying that it has comparable traits such as blind faith by the people etc. I mean hell I'm pretty pro-muslim in the sense I have no bias against them but after getting it drilled into my head for years I still get this "sense" everytime I see one in the back of my head and then I throw it aside and say in my head how I'm being a bigot.
So kinda to close I think people follow blindly becaucse they're conditioned like a herd of cattle to do so, it isn't exactly their fault. Also "milgram experiment" look it up, people do crazy things when authority commands it.
On September 12 2012 03:40 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote: ...and already the tin foils show up. This thread isn't about who blew up the WTC, this thread is about the morality of what is going on in the middle east. As for my opinion on the topic, well, I'm a means-end kind of guy. If a was given a gun, and was told to shoot a mother of 3 and her kids in order to prevent a bomb from going off in Times Square, I would apologize, then shoot them in the head. Once they were all down, I would shoot each one once more in the head to make sure they were dead. As long as the end justifies the means, we should stay there.
jesus christ if that isn't the most disgusting thing i've heard someone admit in a loooong time...
What if you were one of those who was going to die in the bomb blast? I agree with the other guy, and to me, you seem like an ostrich sticking his head in the sand because he is afraid to acknowledge the evils that exist in this world.
And to the others who insinuate that this whole thing was made up/ executed by America in order to further some other sort of agenda is damn-near the dumbest thing I have ever heard in my life.
Yeah the whole terror thing is being blown out of proportion by those who benefit from it, that much i think everyone can agree with. Anything less is just blind patriotism.
The more suprising thing is how everyone was so suprised that it happened. Is the American people severly uninformed about their past and recent international actions? The betrayal of the United states to the al-Quaeda was obviously big enough to generate generations of pure hatred. For those who are clueless+ Show Spoiler +
It's blind 'insight' to claim that terrorism was or is blown out of proportion and if you don't agree you're just being blindly patriotic. How many hundreds of thousands of people have been killed by terrorists the last ten years?
US never supported al Qaeda, US supported Afghan muhajideen. Osama = Arab. Osama's organization = Arab. Pakistani ISI did not work with Arabs either. Osama bin Laden said himself that he was mad at the US because we 'occupied' the holy soil of Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War and kept occupying it with our bases there after.
A lot of people have condemned Germans (the people not the party) as horrible horrible people for allowing the NAZI party attempt to exterminate an entire race of people and not standing up against it but the people quite possibly didn't have all of the information, many stated they had no idea about the camps and when propaganda comes into play you get "Jews aren't human" "muslims are terrorists" it dehumanizes people.
If you do some research you'll discover that most Germans did know what was going on and were fine with it.
On September 12 2012 03:32 GizmoPT wrote: it was a false flag wake up terrorism is fabricated
Rofl. People like you are the ones who need to "wake up". Turn off the computer and experience real life for once instead of sitting at home, living in a virtual reality.
you are the one living in a fabricated society think outside the box i simply like to know how stuff works and not simply accepting what im told
If I were you, I would put all that energy into trying to stop the wars caused by 9/11.
Whether it was an inside job or not, it is too late to make that big of an effect should you prove it to be true. So please, stop wasting your time being a sheep to conspiracy theories and actually try to help people in the Third World being affected.
EPT
