Why when the West attacks terrorists...

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


The fact that states are involved is fundamentally irrelevant to EiF's point that the whiners hold the west to a hypocritically different standard. If we wanted to operate on the level of terrorists, but with state resources and power, we could remove entire cities from the map. Instead of ****ing around with tribes who protect terrorists, we could exterminate them to the last man, woman and child, and give their former territory to those who play ball with us. Instead, our counter-terror and anti-terror responses are highly moderated and focused, but this still isn't good enough for the whiners.

WORD

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by GePap
Interestingly, I found EiF post to be a long vitrolic troll

Yes, Godwin's law in the 7th post. They lost pretty quickly.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
The fact that states are involved is fundamentally irrelevant to EiF's point that the whiners hold the west to a hypocritically different standard. If we wanted to operate on the level of terrorists, but with state resources and power, we could remove entire cities from the map.

There's no material difference. Terrorism is terorism, it doesn't matter if you kill one person or level an entire city.

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Instead of ****ing around with tribes who protect terrorists, we could exterminate them to the last man, woman and child, and give their former territory to those who play ball with us.

Are you advocating genocide, MtG? That's way way lower than terorism.

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Instead, our counter-terror and anti-terror responses are highly moderated and focused, but this still isn't good enough for the whiners.

Yet these "counter-terror responses" are exactly the same as terrorism, which is the use of violence to change the political position of a group of people.

What you are saying is, since the West (actually pretty much the US, unless BCN weapons are involved) can do massive damage but chooses not to, that they should not be criticised for these attacks?

That's pretty weak for an ethical argument.

[MRT144]

Heres my idea. send people like PA and Fez to shoot Osama during "negotiations". no, theyre too busy telling other people what to do and blame the left for everything to do that.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by C0ckney
it was comic genius from EiF

It doesn't matter. Godwin's Law is Godwin's Law.

[Solly]

Striker

[Kropotkin]

Yeah, extermination of entire villages sounds like the perfect solution to end terror-acts against western civilians forever. You might as well help radical groups out by funding recruitment offices for their missplaced Jihad in Bradford.

[Whaleboy]

elijah, sorry you've totally lost me

What I'm basically saying is that force is not necessarily the answer to terrorism, and that those who oppose the use of force are not advocating we do nothing about terrorism, nor concede to their demands. Furthermore, the political motivations of those who support the use of force are, shall we say questionable in an Orwellian/Goering-esque sense.

Furthermore, analogies with World War II are woefully flawed, about the only similarity there is that you have an empassioned enemy in Japan, the similarity of the strawman attacks upon the pacifists and the increased determination/morale of those who were under (sometimes devastating) attack. A more self-evident example than Japan post-Nagasaki would be British cities during the Blitz! Good way to increase determination on that front.

Nonetheless, the levelling of cities is not a good analogy to the murder (since he was not convicted of any crime, nor declared a combatant) of a high-profile Hamas leader, except that such assaults would cause the population (Palestinians in this case) to become more angry and united against Israel, and the pacifists of their own. Note that "revenge" politics has a similar effect in the aggressor nation, Israel in this case.

Fortunately, there is a growing feeling among liberal Judaism of separation of religion and state. Increasingly, Jews are being embarrassed by the actions of Israel, myself included and that seems to be mirrored by the number of people in Israel who do want peace and not mere revenge.

I MtG.

Everyone loves MtG (I'd hit it...)

One of the best ideas I've ever heard Player. So simple and puts everything back in the CORRECT perspective.

Your perspective is correct? How is that necessarily the case? How is an opposing view necessarily inferior to yours? And what exactly does "WORD" mean?

[C0ckney]

selective quoting, fun for all the family!

Originally posted by molly bloom


Gosh, I thought we were comparing organisations which use terror to achieve political ends- and here I am confusing the I.R.A. , the I.N.L.A. and Continuity I.R.A. with organisations that place bombs in public places and detonate them, regardless of who they kill.

I should have realized that you meant by I.R.A. , a group similar to the Greens, or the Liberals, who don't attempt to cirumvent the political process or ballot box with 5 lbs of semtex in a car, or launch mortar bombs at no.10 Downing Street.

On July 21 1972 in Belfast, 22 explosions killed eleven people. Presumably in a way completely incomparable with the way Hamas kills people with bombs.

How about the twelve civilians incinerated in an attack on a restaurant on February 17, 1978, and the ten year old girl blown apart by a booby trapped car? Were the ways they were killed significantly different from Hamas
restaurant bombings, or booby trap devices?

I'm having difficulty seeing the difference in the 'method'- please enlighten me.

The Provisional I.R.A. by its opposition to the elected government of Eire showed that it considered itself the 'legitimate' Republican movement, and the government of Eire and certainly British government in the Six Counties, illegitimate governments.

You can quibble and say, 'well, the Provisionals have mouthpieces, who are prepared to be the nice guys abroad when drumming up funds from gullible Irish Americans' but I prefer to think of them as the people responsible for over 2 000 deaths (Catholic and Protestant) between, for instance, 1970-1980, and over 200 million pounds having to be paid out in compensation for property damage, which translated into American terms for instance, would mean in proportion, 276 000 dead with another 1 and 1 half million injured.

hmmm well there seem to be two options here, either a) you're deliberatly misunderstanding what i am saying or b) you're unbleievably dense. :/

i read my post again and i fail to see where i defend or excuse the actions of the IRA, or the IRA themselves. saying that two terror organisations are different does not mean i am defending one of them (why i should have to explain this is quite beyond me).

all i am saying is that they are very different organisations and that they cannot be dealt with in the same way.

elijah, i never mentioned ww2, but thanks for explaning

[Whaleboy]

C0ckney: That ok, I mostly concur with your point. I think in a vague, but useful sense they can be dealt with the same way but broadly speaking we should deal with each situation on a case-by-case basis, where imo force is never the solution save point-defense.

[East Street Trader]

I have an admiration for the way in which successive UK governments, of all persuasions, have sought to handle the troubles in Northern Ireland. They have consistently made it clear that they will not negotiate with a gun to their heads and they have sought to catch and to prosecute in the courts individuals who break the law. But they have also talked to those who are aggrieved via whatever channels have been available.

Time after weary time this has led nowhere. But after each of the inumerable setbacks the talking has started again.

They have sought to understand the difficult position of the Eire government and have gradually forged a trust between the two governments that nothing now can shift.

Along the way they have addressed the many genuine grievances that one side or the other in the dispute have refered to so that the political, and to some extent, the social arrangements in Northern Ireland are sounder based to-day than they were when I was young.

Now you can call all this appeasement if you will. But I don't.

I suspect the present, rather more hopeful, position in N. Ireland may owe more to increased properity and the benefits which membership of the EU has brought to all of Ireland than to the negotiation. Perhaps also to the sense that if everyone, catholic and protestant, UK citizen and Eire citizen alike, is happily a part of the greater EU community it does not matter so very much that within it there are different histories and a patchwork quilt of loyalties (a diminishing of the domination of the nation state).

But I am clear that, at the least, the willingness to talk, and to talk, and to talk and to try to understand the grievances rather than just endlessly to confront created a situation in which if and when circumstances came along where the steam might go out of the dispute peace was given a chance to break out.

Had successive governments instead made a song and dance about responding to violence with violence, declared "war" on the terrorists, played on patriotism, dismissed any appeasement, and generally catered to the fears and frustrations of the governed rather than seeking to lead them wisely then I suspect we would still have bombs going off on a regular basis.

The actions of successive Israeli governments make quite a contrast.

It was unwise to order this man murdered.

It is unwise to be dismissive of "appeasement".

[Whaleboy]

EST:

Wins the best post in thread competition!

[Caligastia]

Good post EST, but I have my doubts that the same policy would work with Islamic terrorists.

[*End Is Forever*]

When considering Israel's actions, remember one thing.

If Hamas and Islamic Jihad gave up their arms tomorrow, there would be peace.

If Israel gave up their arms tomorrow, there would be genocide.

[Whaleboy]

I don't think he's advocating that, I think he's saying how the forceful "eye for eye" approach that we see with the US, UK and Israel now (for political capital) is going to fail on the ground.