Can we kick some real terrorist ass please?

[Edan]

Originally posted by GePap


I see you ignored the question as to why argentina..couldn;t come up with an answer? IIRC, there were several thousand Israeli troops in Lebanon in 1994.... Hizbullahs aim being to remove them form their nation, Lebanon, my statement remains true.

Yes, but the bombing in Argentina had nothing to do with that goal. It was an attack against Jews and Argentinians, not Israelis. An attack in the US would have exactly the same effect. And given the twisted political mind that would kill Argenitinan Jews halfway around the world to attack Israel, I don't see them being "nationalistic" nor do I see them limited in scope.

Hizbulah atatcked the US in Lebanon: the US was in eccense already involved, so retaliation was not an issue.

Unless you consider the possibility that since they were already involved, their retaliation could well be larger. Compared to, say, the '93 WTC bombing.
(speaking of which, I seem to remember that one of those suspects was a member of Hezbollah, though my memory may be playing tricks on me...)

And, if they were worried about retaliations after the US left Lebenon, why attack the Khobar Towers?

Israel was already in Southern Lebanon in '94 , so again, a no issue.

I must have missed that Israel was in Argentina.

Did this happen to occur in the 80's?

1986. After the US had withdrawn. Maybe it was all just an accident and misunderstanding?

But then, I'm sure the Hezbollah terrorist seeking US citizenship planned to be a model citizen...

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Spiffor
More seriously, Elijah:
I didn't read this thread carefully (especially your discussion with yavoon), but from what I understood, you think that rational / logical decisions are better than emotion-based decisions. No, not "better" decisions, but rather "best" decisions actually.

This philosophical stance is extremely unoriginal and dates back to Descartes already (and I'd guess quite a few Greeks figured this intellecutal w@nking). To imagine there is any originality in this position is to completely inore it has been rehashed and rehashed for centuries.

Maybe we don't speak about the same game theory, but the one I learned actually teaches that if everyone follows his rational interest, the situation will be suboptimal as a whole. The only way for players to reach the optimal situation is to have a positive hunch about the other players' intention.

Besides, you're rambling about absolute rationality and somesuch. This absolute rationality is on the one hand impossible to human beings : even the most ivory-tower types have their feelings which lead their thinking processes - among them, their belief in rationality.
On the other hand, even if we accept the idea that some people can have purely rational thinking processes, the results won't be optimal because of the limitations in information and attention. You might want to read the theories of limited rationality to see how limited the human being is when he's looking for information and judging this information.

This was a non ad-hominem post to tell that your position of looking for most rational decisions as possible is unoriginal, unreasonable, impossible, and ignores the fundamental limitations of the human being.

I guess the others simply didn't bother writing as much as I did.

Good post Spiffor, and it makes a lot of points that I didn't have the patience to. To seperate emotion from political debate / discussion is to miss the essence of the thing in a huge way. All that you are left with are the tactics of debate, the ultimate expression of which is to "win" a debate defending a patently false position. This is a supreme waste of time, especially in a forum where there are so many intelligent and knowledgable posters from whom I can and usually do learn a lot of useful things.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Dom Pedro II
Sikander: I'm not saying we CREATED them. I'm saying we backed them, financed them, and trained them for our purposes. We did not know that they were going to turn around and attack us, although we probably should have.

For the sake of argument let's say that we agree that the groups you are speaking of were trained and financed for our own purposes. So what? We provided considerable assistance to the Soviet Union in WW2, knowing full well the nature of that regime. Was this a mistake as well? Simultaneously we leveled German cities and tried with all of our might to destroy their capacity to make war. Five years later we embarked on a decades long program to rebuild Germany's capacity to make war. This is the nature of international relations, especially in a time of rapid change like the 20th century was. IMO there is nothing inherently wrong or illogical in backing someone when it seems like a good idea and opposing them when the opposite is true.

Again, I have to ask what is your larger point?

Originally posted by Dom Pedro II
I never said we created Saddam Hussein, but we did back him for quite some time. And I never said we created Al-Queda, but we did work intimately with Osama bin Laden, and there we helped him make connections. The CIA was as much another player in this big game in the Middle East as anybody.

We "backed" Hussein only so far as we allowed his state to survive the war with Iran. This did not earn us his friendship by any means as both of us were aware of the completely self-serving nature of the relationship. Again I ask you to provide evidence of our working "intimately" with OBL. Being part of the same alliance in a war as complex as that one hardly counts. You could easily say that we worked intimately with Iran for that matter, even as we clashed with them militarily on several occasions during the same period. Whatever your larger point, it won't hinge on this bit of data, it's just that I'm getting tired of hearing this claim when I haven't seen one shred of evidence to back it up, and contrarily have heard interviews with CIA people who were in charge of the American effort who said that they never heard of him until very late in the war, and never met him.

Originally posted by Dom Pedro II
My point was that our bedfellows can quite easily become our enemies. To think that the same thing will not happen in Iraq is foolish.

Again, yes they can. Anyone who is familiar with history is well-aware of this potential. Entire wars are fought with allies we realize are going to be our enemies the minute it is over. Yet it seems to come as a constant surprise to people like journalists for some reason. (Not all of them of course, but many love to make a big point of it as you are doing.) I think people should be required to play RISK! in school before taking international relations courses so that they understand the tendency for situations to change rapidly. We could save a lot of time by skipping the arguments about the fact that someone who was once our ally has changed into an enemy, and look at the more useful analysis of whether a particular policy was in the end a net positive for us or not. This is really the crux of the matter. Analysis is made all the more difficult by considering that we are not really at the end of anything while making this assessment. But things should be generally clearer the further away we are from them, which is why the study of history in many cases is more useful than an instant analysis of recent events as far as making policy judgements is concerned.

[Whaleboy]

Yes, "intellectuals" are often more likely to be liberal, but "intellectuals" is a broad group that encompases both intelligent and wildly stupid people. Don't delude yourself that your side is any more intelligent than the other.

Read posts. I have shown that liberalism benefits from intellectualism, or rather, one could say to a greater degree than conservatism, is spawned by it. I am not talking about intelligence, dont strawman me, the furthest you could take my argument is that liberalism is more intellectual. It makes a good soundbyte, but all I have shown is that intellectuals are more liberal.

To seperate emotion from political debate / discussion is to miss the essence of the thing in a huge way.

I am not saying we separate emotion from philosophy/politics/debate/discussion. As establised, that is impossible and undesireable, as it is our emotions and inherent logic that merge to forge our positions. In my experience, superflous emotions like situational anger can do the same, but are less reliable, and lean towards the "emotion", irrational response side of things, rather than a considered logical position stemming from an emotional disposition. We cannot change those elements about us, I am merely saying that in government and generally when making decisions one should TRY to be as logical as one can. As establised, logical decisions are just better! To clarify, when faced with a choice, between a logical decision and an emotional one, objectively you should choose the logical one. Sometimes that's hard, either because you are affected by subjective emotions that impede logical judgement, or because your electorate is but nonetheless, people in government can and should have the capacity to rise above that. Certainly the fact that you are affected by emotions is no reasonable justifcation for choosing the emotional course of action .

I suppose it's a question of balance, in the mind and in our decision making process between logic and emotions. Emotions at a level in the mind pre-determines the conclusions to our arguments, which leads to our fundamental disposition and many unreconcileable differences between people. Logic is hence a slave to that pre-fab conclusion, forming a justification and strengthening that position. However, it is such a powerful tool that it leads to new decisions, that are often opposed to the ones that emotions would suggest that are different to our personal disposition. Even in the mind, when faced with that choice, I always try to err on the side of logic... though its hard sometimes. Emotions are a valid part of the human condition, and inevitable, of debate (to a point, in an actual argument or critical analysis, emotional responses carry little or no weight... that's the way it is now, not wishful thinking skywalker ), philosophy etc. That is not in dispute.

Like I said earlier, my argument is unrealistic because it fails to account for noteable flaws in democracy. However, that is a problem of democracy - it leads to bad decisions if you take it too far.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by elijah

I am not saying we separate emotion from philosophy/politics/debate/discussion. As establised, that is impossible and undesireable, as it is our emotions and inherent logic that merge to forge our positions. In my experience, superflous emotions like situational anger can do the same, but are less reliable, and lean towards the "emotion", irrational response side of things, rather than a considered logical position stemming from an emotional disposition. We cannot change those elements about us, I am merely saying that in government and generally when making decisions one should TRY to be as logical as one can. As establised, logical decisions are just better! To clarify, when faced with a choice, between a logical decision and an emotional one, objectively you should choose the logical one. Sometimes that's hard, either because you are affected by subjective emotions that impede logical judgement, or because your electorate is but nonetheless, people in government can and should have the capacity to rise above that. Certainly the fact that you are affected by emotions is no reasonable justifcation for choosing the emotional course of action .

I suppose it's a question of balance, in the mind and in our decision making process between logic and emotions. Emotions at a level in the mind pre-determines the conclusions to our arguments, which leads to our fundamental disposition and many unreconcileable differences between people. Logic is hence a slave to that pre-fab conclusion, forming a justification and strengthening that position. However, it is such a powerful tool that it leads to new decisions, that are often opposed to the ones that emotions would suggest that are different to our personal disposition. Even in the mind, when faced with that choice, I always try to err on the side of logic... though its hard sometimes. Emotions are a valid part of the human condition, and inevitable, of debate (to a point, in an actual argument or critical analysis, emotional responses carry little or no weight... that's the way it is now, not wishful thinking skywalker ), philosophy etc. That is not in dispute.

Like I said earlier, my argument is unrealistic because it fails to account for noteable flaws in democracy. However, that is a problem of democracy - it leads to bad decisions if you take it too far.

IMO most political positions are based initially on emotions, with supporting logic coming later if at all. This is a lot easier than it sounds, for logic is a lot less puissant when it is removed from the pristine environment of the classroom or computer program and has to get its hands dirty in the complex systems of reality. In the real world truisms are vindicated one minute, and dashed the next. Sometimes positions are simultaneously brilliant and inane, all depending upon one's point of view. Logic is wonderful when a system is stripped down until it bears little resemblence to anything in the real world, and we can of course use a lot of information gained at this level to predict somewhat what effect action X will have on the simple system.

Political systems however are much more difficult to usefully analyze in this fashion. For starters, they are complex systems. Not only do the typical complex system behaviors take place (ie sensitivity based upon initial conditions which we cannot know due to the sheer volume of the data), but we also have to deal with things that are impossible or extraordinarily difficult to measure at all, like human emotions. Add to this mess the dialectic tendencies of human systems (an action produces not only a (physical) result, but a reaction) and you will find simple logic provides very few answers with any degree of certitude. Simply put, one person's opinion is as proveably good as the next, at least until the time for action is past.

The data alone is estimated to a ridiculous degree. By the time we look at all the factors that we can think of (and we won't be able to think of them all) we are entering the realm of complete intuition in our opinions of these matters. We can think and argue logically all we want, but the data just doesn't support much certainty. IMO a facility for "feeling" the environment will often give someone a better handle on a given situation than a pile of ironclad data. I therefore cannot honestly dismiss out of hand arguments based on emotion. They might be right for reasons beyond my ability to know or understand. They may be right sheerly by chance. We are all betting on what we feel to be the best course of action, but none of us knows much of anything. When gambling it is better to be lucky than to be good.

I don't intend to put to you that reason and logic have no place here, they do. But they have less of a place when arguing about the real world than they do when applying the same tools to something as extraordinarily simple in comparison as a game of Civ. By focusing so intently on logic one can really miss out on the benefits of unfocusing and trying to see the whole picture.

Look at the people most successful at dealing with complex human systems like politics. Very few of them are masters of scientific thought. Most of them are quite sensitive or empathetic, even if they use that sensitivity to browbeat, manipulate or terrify people. They use logic, but their use of logic is not what sets them apart from others, it is their vision that does.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by elijah

Without that emotional/logical hybrid, I'd be as conservative as the rest of you! jk

Now thats really insulting, since I´m not a conservative

*BeBro manages to get a post in before poly wents down again*

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap
[q]Take Hizbullah: the largest and best armed Terror
Let me give you two some advice: read what I have writen before commenting on it. That generally helps make an intelliegent comment, instead of an idiotic assumption (we all know what they say about people who make assumptions, now do't we?)

I never took issue with your statement that the attack in Buenos Aires was not an attack on the US. I did take issue with the your statement that it was not international terrorism. It was. The motivations of Hezbollah are not relevant.

An attack launched by a group based in country A on a target in country B is international terrorism. Period. Hezbollah is based in Lebanon, and received support (including on this particular strike) from Iran. The target was in Argentina. Ergo, it was international terrorism. Why cant you just admit that?

I'll take your word that youre not an antisemite. But implying that the murder of Argentinians is not an attack on Argentina just because those targeted were Jews (which is how I read your post) sounds quite antisemitic to me.

And it would help if you would distinguish between what I have posted and what edan has posted. Quoting the parts of my posts you disagree with would clarify that. Or maybe theres nothing in my posts in this thread that you actually disagree with?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap

And this is for LoTM: I do not for a second appriciate your side comments wondering if I am an anti-semite. I am not, and I am deeply insulted that you would insinuate it. I don;t know hoa far your education took you, but here is a nice lesson: an opinion different from your about a matter that involes Jews does not make one an anti-semite. Seems like a simple statement, but one you do not yet grasp.

I am quite aware that one can differ with me about Israel, or about Jews without being an antisemite. This does not mean i cannot look at a post and see that it has deeply antisemitic implications. You took an attack on Argentinians, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and said it was an attack on Israeli interests. I have repeatedly explained that it was an attack on Argentina (Objectively an attack on Argentina - whatever was in the minds of those who carried it out) and therefore an example of international terrorism. You have neither agreed that I am correct, nor explained why I am not. At least one possible reading of your posts is that you do not consider Jews to be legitimate nationals of the countries in which they live. This is a classic antisemitic position. I DO NOT assert that you hold it, but i have yet to see an alternative that makes sense of your posts. It is YOUR obligation, not mine to either A. admit that your denial that the attack in Buenos Aires was international terrorism was incorrect. of B. Provide some alternative explanation of your position

The only explanation I can think of that fits your posts, and that doesnt make you an antisemite, would be some radical subjectivism that says that actions MUST be defined by persons who carried it out - IE if the terrorist thought it was an attack on Israel than it was, and no objective reality can contradict that, since objective reality is an illusion (of patriarchal western philosophy, yadda, yadda)

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by lord of the mark




The only explanation I can think of that fits your posts, and that doesnt make you an antisemite,

alternative explanation

A little research reminds me that prior to the attack on the Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires in 1994, there WAS an attack on the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992. Perhaps GePap was simply getting those two incidents confused. Geez, i get confused and make mistakes like that all the time, nothing to be embarrased about.

It would seem that there has been enough subsequent discussion to make clear that we are talking about the JCC bombing, not the embassy bombing. Yet GePap has not admitted his confusion. So it seems that GePap is NOT - repeat NOT an antisemite, just maybe a little too immature to admit this kind of minor mistake.

[GePap]

There was no confusion: I did not know about the '92 bombing. Only the '94 one mattered.

And you are half right about the satement: you are wrong to labell it radical relativism. When trying to understand why groups attack where they do (which was the point of the discussion), what these groups think and how they classify targets is what matters. These groups attack based on their own ideas, not yours or mine: thus, what you or I think, or how we decide to classify something is utterly meaningless to knowing what targets are in danger.

I am also a radical humanist: I don;t particualrly care for any form of nationalism, and tolerate it, insofar as I am a realist and understand nationalism to be the pre-eminent ideaology of our day. In my view the perfect solution to the ME crisis is a multiethnic state encompassing thwe whole: that is NOT going to happen, neither side wants it.

Edan:

As I just told LoTM, when thinking what was atatcked, what matters is what the state of mind of Hizbulah: Not being a member, I am unclear about what they think the relation between the Diaspora and Israel is. What I do believe is that they saw a connection worthiwhile and strong enough to attack.

As for Khobar: That wasn;t Hizbullah, IIRC. Iranian agents are belieevd involved, but not HIzbullah.

[st_swithin]

He missed the twain. Both of 'em.

[Edan]

Originally posted by GePap
As I just told LoTM, when thinking what was atatcked, what matters is what the state of mind of Hizbulah

No, IMHO, it doesn't. Given that Hezbollah's "mind" is sick and twisted, and that the outcome most definatly caused international terrorism on the other side of the world, I see no reason to see why they won't continue to perform the same kind of action, where or not they (if not us) see it as helpful to their interests.

If they want to beliueve all their actions are all in the forwarding of their goal, I don't care - they attack on a global plane - they are global terrorists. (Not that local terrorism should be tollerated, either).

As for Khobar: That wasn;t Hizbullah, IIRC. Iranian agents are belieevd involved, but not HIzbullah.

Umm, no, I'm fairly sure that Hezbollah was one of the groups involved.

[Whaleboy]

IMO most political positions are based initially on emotions, with supporting logic coming later if at all.

Indeed

In the real world truisms are vindicated one minute, and dashed the next.

True, but a more logical decision given a given circumstance mostly, if not always works better. Nonetheless, emotional decisions would fare no better and probably worse in a tumultuous reality than logic!

Political systems however are much more difficult to usefully analyze in this fashion. For starters, they are complex systems. Not only do the typical complex system behaviors take place (ie sensitivity based upon initial conditions which we cannot know due to the sheer volume of the data), but we also have to deal with things that are impossible or extraordinarily difficult to measure at all, like human emotions. Add to this mess the dialectic tendencies of human systems (an action produces not only a (physical) result, but a reaction) and you will find simple logic provides very few answers with any degree of certitude. Simply put, one person's opinion is as proveably good as the next, at least until the time for action is past.

Ideally one would always make decisions in a canonical, purely logical way. That is not the case for two reasons, that we have already covered. Firstly is our emotions and a limit to our logical capacity (though I maintain that this is a high limit, not breached in any contemporary situation up for discussion here). Secondly, and more relevant is the emotions of the subject... that is, some of the major human factors affecting the decision one is to take.

To emphasise, I am not purporting the elimination or disregarding of emotions in politics or any other circle, but we use them as part of a coherent and primarily logical system, that we are all capable of (just needs us to try and not let our hot headedness get in the way... something that takes not inconsiderable cognetive effort). In this context, we use our emotions and human "theory of mind", to account for emotions. Its a pretty simple sociological/psychological consideration when taking an otherwise economic/tactical decision.

I don't intend to put to you that reason and logic have no place here, they do. But they have less of a place when arguing about the real world than they do when applying the same tools to something as extraordinarily simple in comparison as a game of Civ. By focusing so intently on logic one can really miss out on the benefits of unfocusing and trying to see the whole picture.

Which is exactly what I have been saying. To use occams razor, all I am really saying is that we should think about our decisions more, engage our intellects etc. Gaining political capital by taking populist decisions based on little or no logic for the given context, rather knee-jerk, simplistic emotions, using arguments that do not hold up under any reasonable critical analysis, to me, is unsatisfactory. Of course its human nature, but then, so is rape and murder. I never thought I'd be able to compare conservatism to rape!jk

To reiterate, we need the right balance between emotions and logic, it is dangerous to let the former overrun the latter. It is a flaw in democracy that because it must account for the not necessarily considered views of the retarded masses (which, lets be honest, they truly are), it allows for bad decisions. Running the country should be the domain of thinking wo/men, not dribbling idiots with the intellectual capacity of an iceberg lettuce - people whose simplistic and flawed assumptions, upon which their logic is based cause inferior decisions to be taken because they are popular. Ok so that was probably a little too cutting, but really have I not got a point?

Bring on AI government!!