Qaeda Leader Beheads U.S. Civilian in Iraq

[East Street Trader]

The man who did this is the lowest of the low and those who collaborated with him no better.

To lump these scum together with countless millions of other people for no better reason than that they share a religion or race is daft.

It is where all this crap starts. By people taking sides and then getting so commited to harming "the enemy" that they revert to barbarity.

To those of you who watched this thing, that is not right. It is disrespectful of the dead man and damaging to the dignity of his family. Curiosity is natural in the young. But not to be indulged when to do so goes beyond the bounds of decency. The internet is presently attractively free of supervision and long may it remain so. Mreanwhile your instincts are a good guide to what is merely daring or exhuberant and what is indecent.

If you need persuading that standards of decency are worthwhile - as the young usually do - try comparing Poly with some of the more juvenile sites.

If these people hire their servers, those who provided them should be ashamed.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

Enlist then, you chicken****!!!

There are plenty others who'll volunteer to do that sort of stuff who are better for that sort of work .

Translation: I have the same moral compass that lead such stalwarts as Heinrich Himmler to prominence, although unlike him I'm actually proud of my moral shortcomings rather than embarrassed by them.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by lightblue
The main reason there will be no outrage in the Arab world is their whole concept of honour, vengeance and blood debt. The tribal structure of many of the arab countries means certain practises that stopped existing in Europe with the decline of the feudal system are still relatively common place and more easily accepted.

Certain of the practises done in the Abu Graib prison were designed to humiliate arab men to the maximum (women present when they were naked, homosexual activities etc), which is probably less acceptable in the Arab world than decapitation.

The decapitation is designed to get maximum revulsion points from the West, and it looks like they succeeded again (just as with Daniel Pearle, the Norwegians in Kashmir etc).

I am just not sure if western cultural values and arab islamic values will ever be compatible, at least in the foreseeable future.

At some times my initial gut instinct says that maybe the rules of engagement should change, as the whole tribal structure can be intimidated. I think of how WWII german forces tried to surpress any resistance by wiping villages of the face of the earth, deporting the families of those involved to the death camps and that sort of thing. But we should not descend to that level.

I think we should do what it takes to win, even if it involves manipulating the Arabs into behaving badly enough that we can perform some de facto genocide in "self defense". It's time for their culture to suffer a crisis which will transform it into something quite different. Otherwise it should be destroyed.

[Harovan]

Translation: I have the same moral compass that lead such stalwarts as Heinrich Himmler to prominence, although unlike him I'm actually proud of my moral shortcomings rather than embarrassed by them.

Godwins law invoked...

I think we should do what it takes to win, even if it involves manipulating the Arabs into behaving badly enough that we can perform some de facto genocide in "self defense". It's time for their culture to suffer a crisis which will transform it into something quite different. Otherwise it should be destroyed.

... and topped.

I thought you were a reasonable chap, Sikander.

[East Street Trader]

Born a little late, then, Sikander.

No one has bothered with crusades for a while now.

Pity really. If there was some way to isolate all the nutters around the world who enjoy this sort of thing you could all have fun crusading against each other and genociding away while the rest of us got on with the things we enjoy.

[alva]

What a way to loose a child...

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph

I thought you were a reasonable chap, Sikander.

I am reasonable. We need to get something from this war, namely the realization by the Arabs that they are on the verge of being destroyed by any number of peoples working in coalitions or as individual nations if they don't get their sh!t together. We are too interconnected to simply ignore them any longer and vice versa. Their recent slight connection to the modern world has led them to hate it and want to destroy it. They need to know that they are the ones who are on the brink of destruction, and only the fact that we really didn't care about them has thus far enabled their culture to survive. It needn't remain that way however, and this is the point that needs to be made clear.

Fallujah should be a smoking hole in the ground already as an example. No need for indiscriminate carpet bombing either, simply answer ever rifle shot with a barrage of artillery. Every building which hides illegal weapons is torn down. Every family who hides an insurgent loses one of their own.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by lightblue
The main reason there will be no outrage in the Arab world is their whole concept of honour, vengeance and blood debt.

Where was the outrage over Daniel Pearle if the prisoner teatment was the "reason" for this killing?

[Harovan]

Sikander,

it is an outrageous crime, committed by barbarians bare of the slightest sign of humanity. Hunt them down by all means, find them, try them and hang them on their own bowel. I will stand and applaud, even though I am normally against the death penalty.

But it's just that, a crime. Nothing less, but also nothing more. There is no need to carpet bomb and nuke an entire population as some nutjobs demand, or to call for a crusade, genocide or retaliation among family members as you do. Doing this, you lower yourself to their level. That's exactly what they want to achieve.

[Sloth]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
Doing this, you lower yourself to their level.

From what I read on this thread it's already happened....
invoking genocide....
I'm thinking of leaving this site.....

[oedo]

Originally posted by Sikander
I think we should do what it takes to win, even if it involves manipulating the Arabs into behaving badly enough that we can perform some de facto genocide in "self defense". It's time for their culture to suffer a crisis which will transform it into something quite different. Otherwise it should be destroyed.

This is exactly the way al Qaeda wants us to think and wants us to act: They're trying to manipulate the Yanks and the Euros into behaving badly enough that they can perform some de facto genocide in "self defense" on us.
You know how this game works, nonetheless you decided to play it.

[Spiffor]

Sikander and Plato are normally reasonable guys. I expect them to stop thinking this once they are over the shock.

[SlowwHand]

Ok, Oedo. Your advice would be to play to lose?
You're like the Vietnam politicians.

How about this? State the objective, and get the hell out of their way.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
Ok, Oedo. Your advice would be to play to lose?
You're like the Vietnam politicians.

How about this? State the objective, and get the hell out of their way.

Hell he's got the Jane Fonda avatar doesn't he?

[SlowwHand]

I didn't even notice.
Got nothing more to say to Oedo. His thoughts are plain.