The "innocents", do they matter? ^

Originally posted by intrepid
That is a lot to ask, I know but isn't it worth thinking about? Stopping the mass manipulation?

Definitely. My vision for a perfect world, is one without countries, or organized religion. One's relationship with whatever higher being should be completely personal, and all the money spent on wars and spying, would be spent on medical research, and expanding man's living space to other planets, because without war and disease, we'll need more space. But that's just what I want personally, the world seems far off from my vision.

Originally posted by parrhesia

Originally posted by WestPoint23
I have one simple question, what do you do if a terrorist who you have targeted since 9/11 is finally located in a residential house that is full of civilians. You don't know if you will ever get another chance to kill him, so, what do you do?

Did it ever occur to you that those on the other side see it exactly the same way?

Bingo, You know everybody talks about terrorist how evil and how dare them to come to the US and target our nation.

But then again this was supposedly one group one band of terrorist.

Now it seems that every body in the middle east are terrorist.

I imagine that the same way we will defend our nation from invaders the same will these people do within their borders.

Let's remind you all that US and other European countries are the ones invading their lands by force.

Because when you are not invited in a land that is not yours you are considerate an invader.

And if you kill the people in those lands that do not want you there while using force against you then you are forcing your stay in that country that is not yours.

But we all know that is not the same, "We are fighting terror".

But who is really the terrorist here, when they came to our nation and killed our people they were terrorist.

But when we go into their lands and fight back in Afghanistan it was retribution and that was OK.

Now We are all over dictating their way of life and invading their land, "For liberation and democracy" while they die.

So now we are the terrorist.

Pardon my words . . . how dare me an American call my government terrorist.

I forgot we are fighting "The war on Terror" but it seems that the terrorist are now anybody in the middle east that is a muslin and believe in Allah.

Originally posted by 27jd

Originally posted by LoneGunMan
I don't see many lining up to self implode themselves in Switzerland!

That would be an amazing trick, it wouldn't do any damage, but I'd be very interested to see somebody implode themselves.

You might be trying to be a smartarse but I meant implode and thought most people would understand the drift. When you have that much explosives strapped around you, it explodes, and you pretty much implode.

Originally posted by LoneGunMan
When you have that much explosives strapped around you, it explodes, and you pretty much implode.

I guess that could be, but I was really just setting up for my Kate Moss follow up joke.

intrpid, I think you know that though out time, people have been killing each other for this or that.
I think we have gone a long way from the carpet bombing of the past. IF I remember right it was use that broke a good thing back in WW2 when some of our bombers got offcorse and dropped on a civilians town and not a military target. That in turned pissed off the Germans.
I am like You. I hate to see someone die that did not have a thing to do with what was going on! It makes me and I have seen this first hand.
But We are getting better at placing time on target. I just wish there were no targets at all! WORLD PEACE
As for the numbers you are looking for............ You will need a real ATS clearances to get that. Still just one is not a good thing.

Who deserves to die? Neither of them.

But one has to, and if the choice were up to me it wouldn't be Americans. If civilians happen to be near a terrorist when it’s his time to go, well, what can I say, it’s just the way it is, and that the honest truth. It’s certainly better then the alternative in my opinion, of just letting him roam about untouched because he is around civilians.

Are you telling me that with all the money that the US spends on offen, er, I mean defense, they couldn't figure out means to spare the ones that should be spared.

As much as I hate to admit it, the US though advanced, is still governed by the rules of physics and limits of science and technology There currently is no weapon that is 100% fool proof, and there probably will never be one. What I mean by that is that there will probably never be a weapon that hits it’s target 100% of the time.

And currently to my knowledge there is no long distance missile that can kill one individual out of a group of many. I’m sure we’re working on that, but achieving it is not as simple as you make it out to be. We cant just magically create weapons and put them in use. By the way, how about you give us some credit for our advancments in the field of PGM’s?

Whoa dude, I thought that soldiers trained to be put in harms way. Isn't that their job?

Dude, they are in danger by just being in the theater of operations, I said I wouldn't recklessly put them in danger. Their job is not to die because John Doe is upset by war images.

[edit on 18-1-2006 by WestPoint23]

Originally posted by WestPoint23
But one has to, and if the choice were up to me it wouldn't be Americans. If civilians happen to be near a terrorist when it’s his time to go, well, what can I say, it’s just the way it is, and that the honest truth. It’s certainly better then the alternative in my opinion, of just letting him roam about untouched because he is around civilians.

I wouldn't go so far as to say one of them has to die. The US does have other choices of methods they could use in a situation like we've been discussing. This is simply the one they have decided to go with.

Someone in the US chain of command has to make a decision to drop a bomb and give that order. Therefore, these lives were taken by representatives of the US government, by choice. Just as the blood of anyone the terrorists kill are on the terrorists hands, those the US kills are the US's responsibilty. Every action we take is a result of a choice, whether we realize it or not.

My contention is not that innocents must never be killed in war, although that would be rather nice. What I'm saying is that if innocents are killed during a surprise US attack, then the US is responsible for the deaths. To me, it is disrespectful of human life to then turn around and say it was the victims fault for being near the terrorist. I was taught that you take responsibility for your actions and not shift blame.

I always say this but I'll do it again. I don't expect to ever change anyone's mind. All I want to do is perhaps show them another way of looking at things. We may not agree, but at least we can understand where each other is coming from.

There is never going to be some Omnipotent super weapon capable of discerning who is innocent or deserving of death Not even the all powerful creators of every single religion on this planet are able to discern among the deserving and what not (you know “god’s will blah blah blah”). short of genetically marking some kind of bio weapon to specific person’s genetic profile (hey then we would have surpassed the creator beings since we can spite one person with having to bring plagues and floods to the many). When we went out of our way to only target military/government complex since the late 80s and early 90s do u know what was the next big trend for those who saw themselves in possible conflict with western (mostly US) powers, to intertwine their complexes among civilians or to forcedly bring in civilians and foreigners into these complexes to deter attacks (remember the first gulf war and night time shelter day time military facility???). And from what is being said in thread and by many westerners is seems to have been a good investment. Our enemies have shown little to no disregard in targeting our civilian centers they even attack their own mosque and people just to throw dirt in our faces. The number of collateral damage from US attacks is infinitely smaller compared to what are enemies are (well maybe not since the civilians ARE THEIR TARGETS) If we ever initiate a zero collateral policy, people would just make it imposible to get them with out some how killing somebody else. One should strive for zero collateral but not die by it cuz our enemies would use it against us.

Altruism and all this world peace talk is just extremely unrealistic and unattainable,there is always going to be some kind of conflict going on in this planet unless we are extinct, conflict is part of human nature, no NATURE PERIOD. We are where we are both technologically, culturally because of conflict. Most of all human inventions and progress can trace themselves back to conflict (either to help it or stop it) and the rest were most likely improved or benefited by progress made during such conflicts. Culture, religion, philosophy were all spread through conflict, western civilization can trace their roots back to the actions of Greco-Roman expansions (through Conflict) as well as any other significant civilization on earth now. It can be proven Empirically that conflict has been the main driving force behind evolution and life in general (survival of the fittest). Altruism sounds all good and nice and all, but it’s not practical, there is always going to be conflict of some form, don’t hold your breath waiting for world peace. We could space ourselves out in future generations through out the cosmos and still find some reason to come back and fight each other no matter how many light years we might be away from each other. We’ll always have conflict over resources, territory, religion, politics, race, ect. Until we are all extinct, or physically or pharmaceutically lobotomized every single person in this planet into complacent state, but then we’ll go the way of the dodo (lost all means of defending itself and DIED). Or has anyone seen the movie serenity and what happened to the people striving for world peace in that movie? It’s just unattainable, and to reach any where near it you would have to use violent (war/conflict) ways to try to reach it.

And while I don’t agree with some of our politics (US I mean), you got to really stop and look at who you want to support or give “aide” to, we strive (fight) to stop those who want to spread their religion/Ideas by any means necessary and only their ideas. We might do the same to a certain extent, but we TRY to limit who we go after and how and we not trying to stop them from following their religion or whatever after we’re done, just to stop trying to kill every one else (including other Moslems) who don’t agree with their views down to the last dot.

A bit of ramble but hey, I’m a deep atheist but I see more sense in religion then in any of this altruistic hand holding world peace talk. The most we’ll ever be able to do is limit it dramatically compare to the way it is now, and that will be through more conflicts and wars.

How many more of them do we have to kill before they like us?

I once actually heard this asked as an honest question.

My answer was 'put the shoe on the other foot'.

Most people are either unwilling, or unable to this.

Or they ignore Americas wrongs, and only focus on the metaphorical good intentions.

What is the road to hell paved with???

How many more of them do we have to kill before they like us?

The purpose of our attacks are to keep us safe, they are not to help us win some kind of popularity competition. There's a difference between those that hate you, and those that want to harm you.

What is the road to hell paved with???

What hell? But that topic is for another thread

We don’t have to make them like us, if that’s the point I figure a majority of the people in the world aren’t throwing daisies at us so to speak, but they keep it low and know not to strike at us or it will mean certain death to you and some around you. Once that is clear to you, you would hesitate before striking at us and keep a closer eye on those around you. And let those who are willing to sacrifice all just to get at us step up take what’s coming their way good or bad. Those willing to kill and die for their cause aren’t the ones going on about the whole collateral damage, it’s just more martyr’s and/or propaganda. One of the stories coming out of the recent strikes in Pakistan is that they started removing the Terrorist bodies from the “civilians” before the cameras started rolling.

As far as the whole road to hell, can’t say I disagree with you there, but hey that’s the world we live in, shape it into something practical as humanly possible and that’s the way we’ve been heading, things are a lot better now than in the dark ages, it’s better than it was back in 1940s, but it’s never going to be perfect


[edit on 1/18/2006 by Oblivions void]

I read throw all the posts ... and everyone has one or two good points in their argumenst... but i guess the main question remains ???

WHAT IS THE SOLUTION ?

1) hit them back ?

2) keep turning the other cheek untill there are no more cheeks to turn ?


Yes, its very sad that "innocent children" die (and i'm not addressing the thing), but if their own parents or family used them as shields, what is one suppose to do ?

How is this insanity suppose to be stopped ?

Today annew tape of Bin Laden showed up (personally i think he may be dead ... but some say he isnt) ... the tape talks about more attacks to USA cities and other capitals of the wolrd... what are we suppose to do ?

Let them happen? and do nothing after ?

Even if the goverment tries to have access to transmissions that may help prevent these attacks, everyone gets up in harms and complain they are beeing "spied on"...so what is the solution ?

How is this suppose to end ? what is the solution?
How does one stop fanticism?

Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic

Originally posted by masterp
There are 2 billion muslims out there...that's 2 billion possible terrorists. How do you deal with that?

Is that what you meant to say? Are you saying that every Muslim is a possible terrorist?

I mean that even if the top terrorists are killed, there are thousands, if not millions waiting in line to become 'martyrs'.

Originally posted by masterp
Well, if war is necessary to bring peace, so be it.

That's one of those justification statements I was talking about. It keeps people from taking responsibility.


[edit on 18-1-2006 by Benevolent Heretic]

Bullsh1t. The problem of terrorism is real. Foundamentalist muslims are near paranoia. Why should the world be destroyed for a few foundamelists who believe in things generated in their imagination ?

And who are these suckers that will tell me how I am supposed to live?


[edit on 19-1-2006 by masterp]

Originally posted by BaastetNoir

I read throw all the posts ... and everyone has one or two good points in their argumenst... but i guess the main question remains ???

WHAT IS THE SOLUTION ?

1) hit them back ?

2) keep turning the other cheek untill there are no more cheeks to turn ?


Yes, its very sad that "innocent children" die (and i'm not addressing the thing), but if their own parents or family used them as shields, what is one suppose to do ?

How is this insanity suppose to be stopped ?

Today annew tape of Bin Laden showed up (personally i think he may be dead ... but some say he isnt) ... the tape talks about more attacks to USA cities and other capitals of the wolrd... what are we suppose to do ?

Let them happen? and do nothing after ?

Even if the goverment tries to have access to transmissions that may help prevent these attacks, everyone gets up in harms and complain they are beeing "spied on"...so what is the solution ?

How is this suppose to end ? what is the solution?
How does one stop fanticism?

Fanatics can not be stopped. The only solution is to watch your back. I do not believe that it is a good solution to hunt terrorists around the globe...it is a doomed plan. They are just too many for this plan to work. The only solution is to secure the borders and tightly control who's in and out.

I’m not sure that I understand why there is surprise or disbelief that American soldiers are killing innocent children. This has been the American way for many years. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are clear examples where pilots from thousands of feet above indiscriminatingly bombed innocent people, melting the skin off of the bones of school children and causing their eyes to fall out of their skull. The BS that suggests that this was a life saving strategy suggests that Americans are easy prey to the propagandists. They did much of the same thing in Vietnam when they used Agent Orange and napalm to literally melt children into the ground as flesh dripped off their bones. So in the end it is really another two-faced policy of the American administration. "It’s horrific if they do it but when we partake it is all in the interest of peace and democracy".

It is ridiculous to suggest that Middle Eastern children are any more indoctrinated than those in the U.S. . American children are taught that their military leaders gallantly fought the ‘Redskins” when in fact what happened was they destroyed Native Americans, the first known residents of the land and forced them onto reserves. American kids are not given the facts as it relates to their forefathers having enslaved and tortured a race of Africans. They do not know that they live in a society that kills each other on a more frequent basis than any other western country; that they commit more violent crimes, carry more guns, commit more hate crimes than any other western country; that they have created cities where citizens cannot go out at night for fear of the violence that exists. Even their national anthem refers to violence. I don’t know any civilized country that, before any major sporting or cultural event sings an anthem to celebrates their “bombs bursting in air”. Americans must come to terms with the fact that they are a violent society. They say that their international violence is in the interest of peace and democracy. That Americans believe this, attests to the efficiency of the propaganda and brain washing that emanates from Washington.