Paris attacks

[Ophiolite]

 

Let's not single them out. Many Americans believe in gender and group disparity (see SDO) and capital punishment. Of course most of them don't even read The Bible that much.

I see nothing in this response that addresses my question. You have chosen to sidestep the question. You made a definitive statement relating to the motives of IS, or its members. I ask again, in what way are the actions I listed defense against an unreasonable enemy? Alternatively, you may wish to withdraw the statement.

[tar]

Ophiolite,

 

It is hard to keep track of who is saying what in this thread, and since the Syrian civil war is at least a three sided affair, and probably a lot more sided than that, when we are talking about winners and losers, in either ideology or lives, we have to be pretty darn specific about whose side we are on, and what we are looking to achieve. Whose lives and ideology we are looking to protect, and whose lives and ideology we are looking to destroy.

 

The Paris attacks struck terror in our hearts. Daesh brought the fight to a theatre near you.

 

You ask the question "I ask again, in what way are the actions I listed defense against an unreasonable enemy?" So you have a point, and think perhaps something, but do not specify whether we are to concentrate on whether the actions defended us against an enemy, or whether we are supposed to concentrate on whether the enemy was unreasonable, or whether we should consider our establishing of another person as an enemy a reasonable thing, in the first place."

 

So I read a Wiki Article on Palmyra to see what your reference was about, and what point you were making, and I was not successful in determining what point you wished to make. I read the Wiki article on the Syrian civil war, and overall see a very messed up situation, with intricate conflicts of ideologies and

groups and notice more than ever that this is not a black and white issue, and remember batck a few years to the Arab spring where our country was on the side of the rebels in Arab Spring, down with the oppressive ruler, situations.

 

Palmrya was the Syrian's trying to get the city back from the rebels. Rebels happened to be ISIL. So if we are trying to fight ISIL we should be helping Assad. It is ISIL that is destroying ancient artifacts and our history, by mining. It is ISIL that is not only talking genocide, but doing it. It is the rebels that have caused 220,000 deaths in the country. Why should we come down on the side of Arab spring, to protect our democratic values, if the result is the rise of ISIL?

 

There are voices here, calling for dialogue with Assad. I would like to add my voice.

 

If we screwed up by drawing a red line in the sand, against Assad, we should own up to it, and move forward, from here, on the side of Hezbollah, on the side of the Russians, on the side of the Iranians, on the side of reasonable Sunni, on the side of Syrians that want their country back.

 

But I say this to point out that any idealogical struggles we are having at home, should not be fought out in a proxy manner in Syria, using other peoples lives to try to control an outcome we want. We cannot both fight on the side of the Arab Spring, and against ISIS. We have to make up our mind. What exactly is it, that is the most important to achieve, right now, to stabilize the area, to bring peace, to stop Daesh Terror.

 

I am looking for reasonable responses, as to who the U.S. should be throwing its support behind, and what that support should look like. Boots on the ground, to invade Syria and yank it from Assad's control is obviously off the table. Boots on the ground to help the Syrians get their country back, might be a reversal, but might be indicated.

 

Regards, TAR

There is a good chance that reactionary impulses against Muslims AND revolutionary reactions against Assad, are BOTH undesirable at this juncture. The republicans and the democrats are doing it wrong. We should ask Assad what he would like to see us do. We should ask the French what they would like to see us do, and then, if we can find a thing to do that will establish peace in the area, protect France from ISIS, destroy Daesh and defeat that bankrupt ideology, without sacrificing the values written into our constitution, we should do that thing, and do it soon.

even if it involves putting American Lives on the ground in the line of fire

 

Against Daesh.

Edited December 7, 2015 by tar

[Bells]

Those are religious laws. It's moral to follow them if you have a fundamentalist view of religion.

 

No it isn't.

 

How can you define it moral to throw people off buildings because of their sexuality moral? How can you define murdering old Imams in town squares, in front of the whole town to set an example, because they refused to swear allegiance to their leaders, moral?

 

There is nothing moral or religious about what they are doing. At all.

 

So how can you say that these are religious laws and moral for them to follow? What religion dictates that these crimes must be committed and are moral? Islam certainly does not.

 

Does that mean if someone goes out and bombs an abortion clinic, killing people inside, because they are pro-life and Christian, that this is a moral act?

 

 

 

It also allows the feeling of persecution from secular influences looking to destroy their way of life.

 

What way of life do you think needs to be protected? Their right to rape, murder and pillage Muslims and non-Muslims alike?

 

Remember, they invaded, they enforced their interpretation of religious beliefs on others and forced people to fall in line or die. They became and are the outside influence. A large portion of their fighters are foreign born.

 

So which secular influences are they fighting against when they mass murder Shi'ite Muslims, Christians and other religious and non-religious groups alike? Because I do not consider Shi'ite's to be secular.

 

 

 

It doesn't have to make sense to us, it only has to make sense to those who hold those views. If you want to take away their way of life, they are the victim again.

 

So, poor baby doesn't get to murder thousands of Shi'ite's.. boo hoo, they are the victim now?

 

Please.

 

 

 

How can Isis see themselves as the good guys? They have had their friends, families, homes, schools, hospitals, markets, and p,aces of worship blown to pieces by oppressive foreign powers.

 

I think it is a tad more nuanced than that.

 

 

 

 

They think they are just defending themselves against an unreasonable enemy that wants to eradicate them, largely due to their religion.

 

What? Fellow Muslims and Christians and other religious sects that have equally strong ties to the region after generations of their ancestors had existed there together?

 

Remember, Isis have killed more Muslims, Sunni and Shi'ite's alike, than they have any other Western or non-Western nationality combined.

 

They did not do this to protect their religion. The rise of ISIS was purely political. It was and is a power play. Control. By fear and terror over the populace. If people refuse to obey, they are killed. If people disagree, they are killed.

 

They are not protecting their religion when they sought to destroy their ancestral history.

 

 

 

They aren't wrong, they just focus on their own victim hood. We focus on ours, but it pales in comparison to what we have done to them.

 

They aren't wrong?

 

I'm sorry?

 

What we have done to them pales in absolute comparison to what they are doing to their own people. They are seeking to eradicate Shi'ite Muslims and all other religious sects and people in the region. And you think they aren't wrong? What they are doing is tantamount to genocide.

[Willie71]

No it isn't.

 

How can you define it moral to throw people off buildings because of their sexuality moral? How can you define murdering old Imams in town squares, in front of the whole town to set an example, because they refused to swear allegiance to their leaders, moral?

 

There is nothing moral or religious about what they are doing. At all.

 

So how can you say that these are religious laws and moral for them to follow? What religion dictates that these crimes must be committed and are moral? Islam certainly does not.

 

Does that mean if someone goes out and bombs an abortion clinic, killing people inside, because they are pro-life and Christian, that this is a moral act?

 

 

 

What way of life do you think needs to be protected? Their right to rape, murder and pillage Muslims and non-Muslims alike?

 

Remember, they invaded, they enforced their interpretation of religious beliefs on others and forced people to fall in line or die. They became and are the outside influence. A large portion of their fighters are foreign born.

 

So which secular influences are they fighting against when they mass murder Shi'ite Muslims, Christians and other religious and non-religious groups alike? Because I do not consider Shi'ite's to be secular.

 

 

 

So, poor baby doesn't get to murder thousands of Shi'ite's.. boo hoo, they are the victim now?

 

Please.

 

 

 

I think it is a tad more nuanced than that.

 

 

 

 

What? Fellow Muslims and Christians and other religious sects that have equally strong ties to the region after generations of their ancestors had existed there together?

 

Remember, Isis have killed more Muslims, Sunni and Shi'ite's alike, than they have any other Western or non-Western nationality combined.

 

They did not do this to protect their religion. The rise of ISIS was purely political. It was and is a power play. Control. By fear and terror over the populace. If people refuse to obey, they are killed. If people disagree, they are killed.

 

They are not protecting their religion when they sought to destroy their ancestral history.

 

 

 

They aren't wrong?

 

I'm sorry?

 

What we have done to them pales in absolute comparison to what they are doing to their own people. They are seeking to eradicate Shi'ite Muslims and all other religious sects and people in the region. And you think they aren't wrong? What they are doing is tantamount to genocide.

 

I didn't say that I think they are moral, but that they think they are moral. The fact that I don't subscribe to centuries old fairy tales and myths only strengthens their perception of us/them.

 

 

This response shows why you can't win the war on terror. Unless you understand what motivates the terrorist group, you do the wrong things to try to stop them.

 

 

One read of these Abrahamic religious texts shows multiple examples of genocide, xenophobia, and bigotry. Thankfully there are more moderates that haven't even read the texts than there are fundamentalists. You have to understand this to understand the motivations of ideologically driven conservatives.

 

The USA has killed more Muslims than Isis btw. By a long shot.

 

Like I said, it doesn't have to make sense to others, just to the people who subscribe to the ideology.

 

 

Remember Kim Davis? To conservatives, she was the victim even though she was in the position of power violating others' rights. There are thousands of examples of this twisted ideology that motivates these fundamentalists. They believe they are moral.

 

 

If I'm wrong, you think Isis or Davis believe their actions are immoral? Why do it then?

Edited December 7, 2015 by Willie71

[Bells]

I didn't say that I think they are moral, but that they think they are moral. The fact that I don't subscribe to centuries old fairy tales and myths only strengthens their perception of us/them.

 

 

 

Oh?

 

 

 

Those are religious laws. It's moral to follow them if you have a fundamentalist view of religion.

 

Their fundamentalist views of their religion, well, more to the point, it is against their religion to murder other Muslims. It's not about what they think is moral. They are genocidal freaks, who are intent on wiping out other Islamic sects and orders because they feel theirs is superior.

 

 

 

This response shows why you can't win the war on terror. Unless you understand what motivates the terrorist group, you do the wrong things to try to stop them.

 

I fully understand what motivates them. In minute detail.

 

That does not mean I feel they should be pitied or excused. They were not dragged into this kicking and screaming, unlike the poor people who they are forcing to do as they bid. I am not denying the role the West has had, but I also do not think we should ignore or absolve the role certain actors in the Middle East has had in the fray.

 

And I certainly do not think that accepting blame for our role in this whole mess should amount to excusing or ignoring the horrendous crimes they are committing against their own people. And frankly, we would be derelict as human beings if we turned our backs or excused it or tried to pity party our way out of it because we do not want to offend their delicate morals in their so called defense of their religious ideology which amounts to mass slaughter of innocent men, women and children because of their religious identity or their political affiliation or their culture.

 

 

 

One read of these Abrahamic religious texts shows multiple examples of genocide, xenophobia, and bigotry.

 

There is a difference between protecting one's religious beliefs and forcing it on others at gun point. You do understand this difference, yes?

 

They are not protecting their religion or religious belief. They are forcing it on the populace and forcing their interpretation of their religious text, not to mention some dodgy laws and ideology that do not exist in their religious text, on others. Those they deem beneath them, like Shi'ites and Christians, for example, are simply killed.

 

 

 

Thankfully there are more moderates that haven't even read the texts than there are fundamentalists. You have to understand this to understand the motivations of ideologically driven conservatives.

 

I think it is more the majority are not murderous genocidal psychopaths.

 

 

 

The USA has killed more Muslims than Isis btw. By a long shot.

 

No one is denying that, nor is anyone defending it or excusing it or calling it moral. I say that ISIS have killed more Muslims than they have Westerners and this is your response?

 

I do not quite understand what you are trying to say with this point. That it is okay for them to do so as well? What is the point of that comment?

 

 

 

Like I said, it doesn't have to make sense to others, just to the people who subscribe to the ideology.

 

Does not mean that their murderous ideology needs to be accepted or respected.

 

 

 

Remember Kim Davis? To conservatives, she was the victim even though she was in the position of power violating others' rights. There are thousands of examples of this twisted ideology that motivates these fundamentalists. They believe they are moral.

 

 

And?

 

Does not mean they deserve to be respected or pitied.

 

I'm sorry, but I refuse to say nothing or excuse or blame the West, when someone deigns to throw people off buildings for being gay, because it might hurt their feelings or offend their religious beliefs, whether they think it is moral or not.

 

 

 

If I'm wrong, you think Isis or Davis believe their actions are immoral? Why do it then?

Politics and power.

 

Kim Davis was trying to prove a political point. Their beliefs in what is or is not moral had little to do with it. This was the right going after Obama again. She was political fodder. And excusing this behaviour because she thought it was moral, or saying nothing or trying to understand her bigotry to not make waves or insult her.. Her lack of morality deserves to be insulted. Her bigotry deserves to be insulted.

 

Have you read some of the articles about the people who managed to escape ISIS? The ISIS brides, for example? They knew their actions were immoral. They knew it was wrong. And their husband's killing others indiscriminately was not about religion. It was about power and control:

 

 

Though the women tried to rationalize their enlistment, there was no way to avoid seeing the Organization as the wanton killing machine it was. But all of Syria, it seemed, had become about death.

At night, Aws and Dua heard attempts at self-justification from the husbands they had waited up for and would go to bed with. They had to be savage when taking a town to minimize casualties later, the men insisted. Mr. Assad’s forces were targeting civilians, sweeping into homes in the middle of the night and brutalizing men in front of their wives; the fighters had no choice but to respond with equal brutality, they said.

[...]

By the time the trees blossomed that spring, it was common to see the heads of captured soldiers and people accused of treason hanging in the main square near the clock tower. But most who had stayed in Raqqa were either too afraid to rebel or had no desire to.

Horrified, the cousins kept trying to cope, soothing themselves with the thought that, though they had joined the Organization, at least they were not personally killing anyone.

“We saw many heads being cut off,” Dua recalled.

“You saw the heads — it was just the heads you saw,” Aws corrected her.

“Well, it is forbidden in Islam to mutilate bodies.”

“I saw bodies that lay in the street for a whole week.”

[...]

One week in July 2014, he did not return for three nights. On the fourth day, a group of fighters knocked on her door. They told her that Abu Soheil had blown himself up in a battle against the Syrian Army at Tal Abyad, on the border with Turkey.

Dua was devastated, especially when the commander told her Abu Soheil had requested a suicide mission. He had never told her about such a plan, and she broke down, shaking and sobbing, at the men’s feet.

She tried to console herself with the thought that it was honorable to be a martyr’s wife. But days later, she learned a fact that made things even harder to bear: Abu Soheil had killed himself in an operation not against the hated Syrian Army, but against a competing rebel group that the Islamic State was trying to wipe out.

“I cried for days,” she said. “He died fighting other Muslims.”

Just 10 days later, another man from her husband’s unit came to the house. He told Dua she could not stay home alone and would need to marry again, immediately.

Again, the Organization was twisting Islamic law to its own desires. Under nearly universal interpretations of Islam, a woman must wait three months before remarrying, mainly to establish the paternity of any child that might have been conceived. The waiting period, called idaa, is not only required but is a woman’s right, to allow her to grieve. But even in the realm of divine law, the Islamic State was reformulating everything.

[DimaMazin]

I didn't say that I think they are moral, but that they think they are moral. The fact that I don't subscribe to centuries old fairy tales and myths only strengthens their perception of us/them.

 

 

This response shows why you can't win the war on terror. Unless you understand what motivates the terrorist group, you do the wrong things to try to stop them.

 

 

One read of these Abrahamic religious texts shows multiple examples of genocide, xenophobia, and bigotry. Thankfully there are more moderates that haven't even read the texts than there are fundamentalists. You have to understand this to understand the motivations of ideologically driven conservatives.

 

The USA has killed more Muslims than Isis btw. By a long shot.

 

Like I said, it doesn't have to make sense to others, just to the people who subscribe to the ideology.

 

 

Remember Kim Davis? To conservatives, she was the victim even though she was in the position of power violating others' rights. There are thousands of examples of this twisted ideology that motivates these fundamentalists. They believe they are moral.

 

 

If I'm wrong, you think Isis or Davis believe their actions are immoral? Why do it then?

Discipline wins in war. War is war. We must attack.

[tar]

Willie71,

"The USA has killed more Muslims than Isis btw. By a long shot."

 

Not that I don't agree with a lot of your points in 404, but Bells is seeing this pretty clearly and saying something like the USA has killed more Muslims than ISIS is not exactly the kind of statement that works against fueling us vs them mentality.

 

I think the goal here, at least my goal and apparently Bell's goal is TO create an us versus them mentality when talking about us as moral human beings versus Daesh as the blatant and publicized face of immoral behavior, while suggesting we NOT say anything or do anything that makes this a West against Islam, or Assad against human rights, or Republican vs Democrat, or Capitalism vs Communism, or Arab against Zionist, or Feminists against Sultans, or NRA against homeland security, or whatever other very valuable fights people have to protect their way of live.

 

America can have bigots and guns, and black lives matter folks burning cars, and boys having sex with boys, and drugs and crime on the streets, and citizens hating other citizens for their actions and stances and motivations, and have all sorts of feelings about who is the cause and what is the solution, who is the enemy, and who is "the rest of us" trying to right the wrong, AND STILL do the right thing, by defeating Daesh. Anti U.S. propaganda does not help anybody to defeat Daesh.

 

So I would ask you cite the numbers of Muslims that the U.S. has killed in what context, and the number of Muslims that ISIS has killed in what context, so we can decide which group might hold the higher moral ground in each of our own eyes.

 

Regards, TAR

not by weight of numbers, but by the reasons such was done

 

for instance if a mortar shell hit a market place in Bagdad during the American occupation of Bagdad, and 15 Muslims were killed, are you chalking that up to the U.S. or to ISIS?

if ISIS defeats a rebel group that was armed and backed by the U.S. and uses captured weapons to kill Syrian Army soldiers and pilots and between the fight with the U.S. backed rebels and the fight with the Syrian Army 183 Muslims were killed, who gets the credit/blame for killing those 183? The U.S. or ISIS?

Edited December 7, 2015 by tar

[Willie71]

Oh?

 

 

 

Their fundamentalist views of their religion, well, more to the point, it is against their religion to murder other Muslims. It's not about what they think is moral. They are genocidal freaks, who are intent on wiping out other Islamic sects and orders because they feel theirs is superior.

 

 

 

I fully understand what motivates them. In minute detail.

 

That does not mean I feel they should be pitied or excused. They were not dragged into this kicking and screaming, unlike the poor people who they are forcing to do as they bid. I am not denying the role the West has had, but I also do not think we should ignore or absolve the role certain actors in the Middle East has had in the fray.

 

And I certainly do not think that accepting blame for our role in this whole mess should amount to excusing or ignoring the horrendous crimes they are committing against their own people. And frankly, we would be derelict as human beings if we turned our backs or excused it or tried to pity party our way out of it because we do not want to offend their delicate morals in their so called defense of their religious ideology which amounts to mass slaughter of innocent men, women and children because of their religious identity or their political affiliation or their culture.

 

 

 

There is a difference between protecting one's religious beliefs and forcing it on others at gun point. You do understand this difference, yes?

 

They are not protecting their religion or religious belief. They are forcing it on the populace and forcing their interpretation of their religious text, not to mention some dodgy laws and ideology that do not exist in their religious text, on others. Those they deem beneath them, like Shi'ites and Christians, for example, are simply killed.

 

 

 

I think it is more the majority are not murderous genocidal psychopaths.

 

 

 

No one is denying that, nor is anyone defending it or excusing it or calling it moral. I say that ISIS have killed more Muslims than they have Westerners and this is your response?

 

I do not quite understand what you are trying to say with this point. That it is okay for them to do so as well? What is the point of that comment?

 

 

 

Does not mean that their murderous ideology needs to be accepted or respected.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And?

 

Does not mean they deserve to be respected or pitied.

 

I'm sorry, but I refuse to say nothing or excuse or blame the West, when someone deigns to throw people off buildings for being gay, because it might hurt their feelings or offend their religious beliefs, whether they think it is moral or not.

 

 

Politics and power.

 

Kim Davis was trying to prove a political point. Their beliefs in what is or is not moral had little to do with it. This was the right going after Obama again. She was political fodder. And excusing this behaviour because she thought it was moral, or saying nothing or trying to understand her bigotry to not make waves or insult her.. Her lack of morality deserves to be insulted. Her bigotry deserves to be insulted.

 

Have you read some of the articles about the people who managed to escape ISIS? The ISIS brides, for example? They knew their actions were immoral. They knew it was wrong. And their husband's killing others indiscriminately was not about religion. It was about power and control:

 

 

 

Though the women tried to rationalize their enlistment, there was no way to avoid seeing the Organization as the wanton killing machine it was. But all of Syria, it seemed, had become about death.

At night, Aws and Dua heard attempts at self-justification from the husbands they had waited up for and would go to bed with. They had to be savage when taking a town to minimize casualties later, the men insisted. Mr. Assad’s forces were targeting civilians, sweeping into homes in the middle of the night and brutalizing men in front of their wives; the fighters had no choice but to respond with equal brutality, they said.

[...]

By the time the trees blossomed that spring, it was common to see the heads of captured soldiers and people accused of treason hanging in the main square near the clock tower. But most who had stayed in Raqqa were either too afraid to rebel or had no desire to.

Horrified, the cousins kept trying to cope, soothing themselves with the thought that, though they had joined the Organization, at least they were not personally killing anyone.

“We saw many heads being cut off,” Dua recalled.

“You saw the heads — it was just the heads you saw,” Aws corrected her.

“Well, it is forbidden in Islam to mutilate bodies.”

“I saw bodies that lay in the street for a whole week.”

[...]

One week in July 2014, he did not return for three nights. On the fourth day, a group of fighters knocked on her door. They told her that Abu Soheil had blown himself up in a battle against the Syrian Army at Tal Abyad, on the border with Turkey.

Dua was devastated, especially when the commander told her Abu Soheil had requested a suicide mission. He had never told her about such a plan, and she broke down, shaking and sobbing, at the men’s feet.

She tried to console herself with the thought that it was honorable to be a martyr’s wife. But days later, she learned a fact that made things even harder to bear: Abu Soheil had killed himself in an operation not against the hated Syrian Army, but against a competing rebel group that the Islamic State was trying to wipe out.

“I cried for days,” she said. “He died fighting other Muslims.”

Just 10 days later, another man from her husband’s unit came to the house. He told Dua she could not stay home alone and would need to marry again, immediately.

Again, the Organization was twisting Islamic law to its own desires. Under nearly universal interpretations of Islam, a woman must wait three months before remarrying, mainly to establish the paternity of any child that might have been conceived. The waiting period, called idaa, is not only required but is a woman’s right, to allow her to grieve. But even in the realm of divine law, the Islamic State was reformulating everything.

You continue to miss the main point. I do not think that Isis is right, or that Islam, Christianity, or Judaism is right. Simply telling an idealogue that they are wrong will accomplish what exactly? Nobody told them they were wrong before? How about killing than? That teaches the rest they need to amend their ways? No, it tells hem they are under attack, and that they are persecuted. This fuels the zealotry.

 

To defeat fundamentalism, you must be able to understand why and how they believe what they do. To understand how they think they are moral and defending themselves against what the west stands for is the only way to mount an intelligent strategy to enlighten those who want to return to a preindustrial "utopia." The only thing that undoes fundamentalism is education. Every year of additional education a person receives results in a 4% decrease in fundamentalism. The most conservative remain unaffected by education though, with no known solution to date.

 

As previously posted, taking in Refugees is a PR nightmare for Isis. It doesn't fit the narrative of the "evil west." It makes it harder for Isis to sell its brand to new recruits.

[tar]

Somewhere between 220,000 and 350,000 have died since the current Syrian civil war has started, many of them Muslim. Which of those deaths do you count as Muslims killed by the U.S. and which of them do you count as Muslims killed by ISIS?

Willie71,

 

Well I think I must have missed the memo.

 

Several people here, including yourself are using the term "we" inappropriately, if you think the majority of the people on the planet are in favor of being cured of their religion.

 

Fact is the majority of us care very deeply about our beliefs, our principles and the rules by which our group goes.

 

It would be, in the context of this discussion, Willie71 that is being the ideologue. Whether that ideology be physics or belief in the scientific method, or relativity or humanism or whatever, your particular ideal of how the world should be is not consistent with "the rest of us" if one of your tenants is that "the rest of us" are in error.

 

Regards, TAR

Edited December 7, 2015 by tar

[Willie71]

Somewhere between 2 and 4 million Muslims have been killed by western forces over the past 30 years. Isis might have passed 100,000, but it's hard to find accurate numbers. The US budgeted 30 billion for bombs for drone strikes. How many people will that kill? Isis' total resources are under 10 million.

[tar]

for illustration lets say you say you love the world, but you hate cold and heat and dampness and dryness, those darn Chinese, the North Koreans, the Russians, The French, the Brits, the Americans, the Muslims and the Jews, the Christians and the Buddists, the criminals and the drug addicts, the gays and the bankers, the Republicans and World Court, the U.N. and the ...

 

Which part of the world is it then, that you love?

[Willie71]

for illustration lets say you say you love the world, but you hate cold and heat and dampness and dryness, those darn Chinese, the North Koreans, the Russians, The French, the Brits, the Americans, the Muslims and the Jews, the Christians and the Buddists, the criminals and the drug addicts, the gays and the bankers, the Republicans and World Court, the U.N. and the ...Which part of the world is it then, that you love?

I honestly have no idea what you are getting at here.

[tar]

Willie71,

 

How many of those Muslims killed by Western forces were killed by the U.S.? How many of those Muslims were killed by Saddam or his guard which I would rather, you chalk up to ISIS than chalk up to the U.S.?

 

And drone strikes and their ordinance, while expensive, tend to be very precise and selective in exactly who is killed. For instance killing Jihadi John could just as easily be counted as the U.S. killing a Brit, if reigniting the revolutionary war is the kind of propaganda you would wish to spread to cause hatred between Great Britain and the U.S.

 

So what is your point? How many people of whose army did the U.S. kill in those last 30 years. Who was the commander in chief, that signed the order? Were you for or against the U.S. at the time? Give me some context on these numbers, so I can look at them reasonably. I take your statement as a talking point for some anti-American propaganda machine. I hardly take it as a statement meant to produce some thoughtful standard by which to judge morality.

 

Regards, TAR

[Willie71]

Somewhere between 220,000 and 350,000 have died since the current Syrian civil war has started, many of them Muslim. Which of those deaths do you count as Muslims killed by the U.S. and which of them do you count as Muslims killed by ISIS?Willie71,Well I think I must have missed the memo.Several people here, including yourself are using the term "we" inappropriately, if you think the majority of the people on the planet are in favor of being cured of their religion.Fact is the majority of us care very deeply about our beliefs, our principles and the rules by which our group goes.It would be, in the context of this discussion, Willie71 that is being the ideologue. Whether that ideology be physics or belief in the scientific method, or relativity or humanism or whatever, your particular ideal of how the world should be is not consistent with "the rest of us" if one of your tenants is that "the rest of us" are in error.Regards, TAR

Use any name you like for what you think I am.

 

You have religious beliefs that contradict what I believe is ethical, yet you feel your religion is right. How can you not see that others who believe things you do not believe they are right also?

 

At one point in time, most people believed the world was flat. Doesn't mean they were right, or that those who questioned this were wrong.

 

Once you read numerous religious texts from multiple cultures, it becomes quite apparent that they all share many traits, such as being limited to the knowledge of the times. There are hero traits that are similar to each other, and some stories are outright plagiarized. It's hard to take any of them seriously.

 

Tar, do you really believe the flood story, Jonah and the whale, or that there were dragons and Giants? Do you really believe the world was created in 6 days? Most people engage serious apologetics when confronted by these "truths." Do you believe homosexuals should be put to death, or that wearing mixed fibres is an abomination? What about touching your wife when she is menstruating? Oh, that's the Old Testament, right? What did Jesus say about that? It's inconvenient. You do realize the Jesus story is plagiarized from at least 10 pagan myths, don't you? Christmas is a conglomeration of pagan winter solstice traditions, having nothing to do with the bible?

Willie71,How many of those Muslims killed by Western forces were killed by the U.S.? How many of those Muslims were killed by Saddam or his guard which I would rather, you chalk up to ISIS than chalk up to the U.S.?And drone strikes and their ordinance, while expensive, tend to be very precise and selective in exactly who is killed. For instance killing Jihadi John could just as easily be counted as the U.S. killing a Brit, if reigniting the revolutionary war is the kind of propaganda you would wish to spread to cause hatred between Great Britain and the U.S.So what is your point? How many people of whose army did the U.S. kill in those last 30 years. Who was the commander in chief, that signed the order? Were you for or against the U.S. at the time? Give me some context on these numbers, so I can look at them reasonably. I take your statement as a talking point for some anti-American propaganda machine. I hardly take it as a statement meant to produce some thoughtful standard by which to judge morality.Regards, TAR

For those who look at both sides of a debate, you sound like a pro USA propagandist. You can't seriously believe the US doesn't have innocent blood on its hands?

[tar]

Willie71,

 

You don't have to convince me of evolution. I already agree. I was raised Presbyterian and schooled in schools with religious founders. I am an Atheist myself. My point was that you cannot use the words "rest of us" when talking about morality, if you at the same time discount the basis of morality upon which "the rest of us" including possibly yourself, are going.

 

And your jumping into attack mode, against my stupid religion, when I don't even go to church, is an indication more of human propensity for hate and intolerance and false stereotyping and such than any indication that you are above such things.

 

Regards, TAR

And yes I am a pro American person. I might "spin" something differently than an anti-Zionist would spin it. But yes I support everything the U.S. has done in the last 30 years. I even support when we do stuff I would do differently myself. I can just lobby.

 

But where I differ from anti-American propagandists is I do not see the value in any self hatred.

 

It is like suing a company you own stock in. You are suing yourself. Where we do wrong, we root it out and fix it, according to the public opinion of the day. We put Japanese that were Americans in prison. We paid reparations to the families later. Neither act was morally bankrupt.

 

Regards, TAR

Not like ISIS. You have no basis upon which to put the U.S. and Daesh on equal moral footing. NONE.

U.S. good

Daesh evil

black and white

done deal

Like Bush said at the beginning of this. This is not a war against Islam. Islam is a peaceful religion. It is a war against terror. You are either with us, or against us.

 

If that line has been blurred in anybody's mind, in the years between, it is not of my doing. I still see the line carefully drawn. And I have been making the distinction between hating the crime and hating the criminal, then, since and still.

 

I knew there was evil in the world when my towers came down. Big dangerous evil that needed to be met.It is still around. It still needs to be met. It is silly for you to expect me to disavow my alliegience to America inorder to defeat my sworn enemy, that is my enemy because I am American.

 

Regards, TAR

Edited December 7, 2015 by tar

[Willie71]

There is a difference between being an anti American propagandist, and recognizing historical facts, which include numerous war crimes and acts of terror by western forces. I've worked with plenty of soldiers with PTSD from what they were ordered to do to be able to believe we deserve some sort of moral high ground.

 

 

I may have worded my religious questions harshly, but an appeal to majority is a very weak argument, especially with the hypocrisy of that particular majority.

[Ten oz]

Climate change can make storms stronger, cold spells longer and water supplies drier. But can it cause war? A new study published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says drought in Syria, exacerbated to record levels by global warming, pushed social unrest in that nation across a line into an open uprising in 2011. The conflict has since become a major civil war with international involvement.

Drying and drought in Syria from 2006 to 2011—the worst on record there—destroyed agriculture, causing many farm families to migrate to cities. The influx added to social stresses already created by refugees pouring in from the war in Iraq, explains Richard Seager, a climate scientist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory who co-authored the study. The drought also pushed up food prices, aggravating poverty. “We’re not saying the drought caused the war,” Seager said. “We’re saying that added to all the other stressors, it helped kick things over the threshold into open conflict. And a drought of that severity was made much more likely by the ongoing human-driven drying of that region.”

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-change-hastened-the-syrian-war/

 

 

How about we invest some time and energy on Syria's drought which added fuel to the unrest rather than simply looking for the right combination of bad guys to kill. There will only be more situations like Syria if we can't get beyond the superficial excuses for war.

[tar]

And silly for some to suggest I stop fighting the evil and just pay the ransom and change my policie s in the world, according to what the terrorists want, inorder to pre vent the recruitement of more terrorists.

[Ten oz]

And silly for some to suggest I stop fighting the evil and just pay the ransom and change my policie s in the world, according to what the terrorists want, inorder to pre vent the recruitement of more terrorists.

Terrorist want attention, they want to be treated like the big bad threat they actually lack the resources to ever be, they want there message heard by the world, they want infamy, they want to matter, and jumping to attention everytime they say go gives them all those things.

[tar]

Willie71,

 

That is a weird argument.

 

If the commanders, following the orders of the commander in chief, had rules of engagement that confused the troops as to who they were supposed to shoot and who they were not allowed to shoot, caused great stress and later PTSD, the mixed signals of telling a person to kill and telling them to not protect themselves from possibly being killed were a problem. Perhaps trying to inject too much morality into a stressful position.

 

Being formal military, I had the opportunity to speak to many who were in Vietnam. And I listened to the daily reports on the radio of what was going on in Iraq, and tried to put myself in those soldier's shoes. Damned if you accidently shot an innocent. Dead if you did not shoot the guy with the device or weapon. Warriors, made policemen, patrolling a neighborhood that had occasional residents that wanted to kill cops...

 

Interesting argument. I think you are confused about accepting historical fact.

 

Regards, TAR

ten oz,

 

Understood. But we are human. We react to threats. We over react to threats. That is our nature. One person gets killed by a drunk driver and we change the laws. One person gets hurt jumping off a waterfall and jumping off waterfalls is outlawed in NJ. That is why people suggest we not make a rule to change the legal status of anybody on the terrorist no fly list, as to NOT be reactionary and scared, and change the rules for everybody, because of a couple bad actors. The same argument against being reactionary can be made against the left, as is made against the right. Consider the way willie71 jumped on me for my irrational religious beliefs, because I said "Fact is the majority of us care very deeply about our beliefs" He immediately reacted and did not want to have irrational religious beliefs hurt him. He did not consider I might be an atheist and highly critical of the role some of Mohammed's (pbuh) words play in the minds of Radicalized Muslims.

 

Regards, TAR

[MonDie]

I see nothing in this response that addresses my question. You have chosen to sidestep the question. You made a definitive statement relating to the motives of IS, or its members. I ask again, in what way are the actions I listed defense against an unreasonable enemy? Alternatively, you may wish to withdraw the statement.

 

I'm sorry. It was somewhat tangential.

 

---

 

I did recently wonder whether turning in George W Bush for his war crimes would alleviate some of the tension.

It makes us look like hypocrites.

[tar]

Last night my wife and daughter and I got a Christmas tree as we do every year. When we were going down, we were debating whether to get the tree first and have it unguarded on the roof of our car while we ate, or to eat first and possibly have the place that we were heading for, where we did not know their hours, close while we were eating. We decided to get the tree first on the theory that anybody that would steal a Christmas tree, probably was poor and we could consider it a donation if it was stolen, and just go get another. Reality is, I should not have worried about it in the first place. Nobody is going to steal a Christmas tree. If you believed in the spirit of Christmas, you would already have plans to get onethat did not involve stealing one. If you didn't believe in Christmas spirit, you would have no need for a tree. So I was silly to worry about anybody stealing a tree off the roof of my car, based solely on a mother's day where an azalea my daughters gave my wife and that we planted one evening, was a hole the next morning.

Edited December 7, 2015 by tar

[Ten oz]

ten oz,

 

Understood. But we are human. We react to threats. We over react to threats. That is our nature. One person gets killed by a drunk driver and we change the laws. One person gets hurt jumping off a waterfall and jumping off waterfalls is outlawed in NJ. That is why people suggest we not make a rule to change the legal status of anybody on the terrorist no fly list, as to NOT be reactionary and scared, and change the rules for everybody, because of a couple bad actors. The same argument against being reactionary can be made against the left, as is made against the right. Consider the way willie71 jumped on me for my irrational religious beliefs, because I said "Fact is the majority of us care very deeply about our beliefs" He immediately reacted and did not want to have irrational religious beliefs hurt him. He did not consider I might be an atheist and highly critical of the role some of Mohammed's (pbuh) words play in the minds of Radicalized Muslims.

 

Regards, TAR

We ignore plenty on threats. Our Military leadership has indentified climate change as a major national security threat and as a country we mostly ignore it. We have more mass shootings a year than hit movies or PPV sporting events yet we do nothing about guns. A threat is only meaningful as we choose to acknowledge it. We ignore plenty of risks/threats; driving a car is one of the most dangerous things the average person does. We smoke, drink, use drugs, and do many dangerous things that are a greater threat to average American than Terrorism. We have the apacity to control how we respond to threat, how we prioritize, and minimumize threats. We are not coupled to some sort of natural automatic response.

[tar]

hypocritical and anti-American both

 

you are forgetting the commander in chief responsibilities of a president

 

a president can order the bombing of a city in times of war, or the sending in of a cruise missle in the Balkans, or the assassination of an terrorist leader by drone strike.

[MonDie]

hypocritical and anti-American both

Why should I support a hypocritical country? You would want muslims to turn in their violent Islamist leaders, but you aren't willing to do the same yourself.

I have to wonder what you would do in the Milgram experiment.

 

This response shows why you can't win the war on terror. Unless you understand what motivates the terrorist group, you do the wrong things to try to stop them.

 

 

One read of these Abrahamic religious texts shows multiple examples of genocide, xenophobia, and bigotry. Thankfully there are more moderates that haven't even read the texts than there are fundamentalists. You have to understand this to understand the motivations of ideologically driven conservatives.

These same books full of genocide and bigotry are also full of absurd commands that nobody follows today. Furthermore, Christians should follow Jesus first and foremost, but they do not. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi

 

"I know of no one who has done more for humanity than Jesus. In fact, there is nothing wrong with Christianity … The trouble is with you Christians. You do not begin to live up to your own teachings. " - Gandhi

Edited December 7, 2015 by MonDie