Bill O'Reilly sez you're unpatriotic if...

[Sava]

Originally posted by Straybow
O'Reilly is right because what the US is doing isn't terrorism, period. Some people who have found that their arguments from logic have failed choose to switch to rabble-rousing instead and call it "terrorism."

Bah.

well if it were your homeland that the US was bombing, perhaps you'd see it differently. btw, I wouldn't classify US actions in this case as terrorism (or support of terrorism). But I think the US has proven that it is a nation that in the past has supported terrorism.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Sava
I don't think I need to point out that criminal law is irrelevant when talking about war... or else (for instance) Bush would be liable for the deaths of civilians in Iraq. But if you are saying Bush is guilty of a crime, by all means I won't object.

Do you think, then, there's no moral difference between accidentally running over someone and premeditated, serial killing?

[Imran Siddiqui]

So it's possible to love your country and still recognise and despise that the government employs terrorism?

Calling the US a 'terrorist state', as opposed to saying this administration backs terrorism, while saying terrorism as a perjorative term is inconsistent with being patriotic. I'd argue that considering your country one of the worst in the world means you don't love it (to do so would be very strange... do you love people you absolutely hate?).

There is a difference between calling your country a terrorist state and deploring that a certain administration uses terrorism. If you refer to a majority of administrations as terrorist then I don't think you can really be patriotic.

You mean he's a troll?

One of the best .

[Sava]

Originally posted by Kucinich

Originally posted by Sava
I don't think I need to point out that criminal law is irrelevant when talking about war... or else (for instance) Bush would be liable for the deaths of civilians in Iraq. But if you are saying Bush is guilty of a crime, by all means I won't object.

Do you think, then, there's no moral difference between accidentally running over someone and premeditated, serial killing?

There is, but for all intents and purposes, such a discussion is irrelevant because intent is something that is extremely difficult to prove.

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Kontiki -

Shall I count the ways? Immoral people who portray themselves as moral do that to me. He's pompous, rude, obnoxious, pretentious, thin skinned (welcome to the thin-skin zone), hypocritical, a wold in sheep's clothing, and deceitful. All this and he criticises people who aren't good role models for children.

I'm sure he's all of those things and probably more. But so are a lot of other right-wing windbags on American TV and radio - Rush Limbaugh springs immediately to mind. I'm just wondering why O'Reilly in particular seems to get your goat. It almost seems personal.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I don't think I need to point out that criminal law is irrelevant when talking about war... or else (for instance) Bush would be liable for the deaths of civilians in Iraq.

No criminal law isn't irrelevant when talking about war because war has its OWN criminal law, which is distinct from domestic criminal law. Deaths of civilians which were by accident or collateral damage doesn't violate that international law, BUT deliberatly targeting civilians does. Therefore intent is preeminenetly important.

[Sava]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

I don't think I need to point out that criminal law is irrelevant when talking about war... or else (for instance) Bush would be liable for the deaths of civilians in Iraq.

No criminal law isn't irrelevant when talking about war because war has its OWN criminal law, which is distinct from domestic criminal law. Deaths of civilians which were by accident or collateral damage doesn't violate that international law, BUT deliberatly targeting civilians does. Therefore intent is preeminenetly important.

Maybe important for the lawyers and diplomates... but less important in the world of public opinion. And if you want to get technical about intent in terms of terrorism, by your definition, I don't think Osama bin Laden would be a terrorist. His intent isn't to strike fear. His goal is supremacy of his form of Islam. In fact, most forms of "terrorism" are motivated by political goals, not the desire to create fear.

I can see why you like the discussion of intent, Imran. It's not based on facts, and bloodsucking lawyers can gab until they are blue in the face about intent.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Kidicious

The difference is in the purpose of the act. The purpose of dropping the bombs on Japan was not to diminish Japan's military capabilities. We know this because Japan was already beaten.

Really? Tell that to their leadership, or to the Army, Navy and Marines on Okinawa. It doesn't matter if an enemy is beaten or not (arguably, the Japanese were plainly screwed after Midway), if he either doesn't know it, or refuses to acknowledge it.

The enemy is only "beaten" in a meaningful sense when he surrenders and organized resistance stops. That wasn't the case in August, 1945.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Ramo

Yes, by all means, let's all put on pimply lima delta pedant mode, and ignore the fact that military and civilian targets were inseparable in Japan, or that prolongation of the war over winter would have resulted in mass starvation and epidemics (due to critical shortage of medical supplies) that would have killed millions, or that many of the military leaders of Japan seriously considered complete ethnic and national suicide as a response to invasion.

If ten times more people starve and die of disease due to prolonging a war, it's ok, because it's passive and we can all satisfy our neo-leftist limp dicked sense of "morals" rather than taking the only feasible action to immediately and decisively end the war.

I didn't address whether it was moral, merely whether it was an act of terrorism.

The whining about terrorism usually stems from a sense that one act is ok (at least in relative terms), while another is not. Unless you want to broaden the definition of "terrorism" to include any destructive act that scares anyone, for anything vaguely related to a social or political reason.

There is nothing significantly different from the bombing of Hiroshima than typical strategic bombing at the time - you attacked targets with military value. Dresden and the Tokyo firebombing were exceptions, because there was no significant military value, but most strategic bombing didn't fall into that category.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by MosesPresley
Nuking them was the humanitarian thing to do. Yeah right.

Much better to let a large number of them starve over the winter or die of normally non-lethal illnesses due to lack of medical supplies.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by MosesPresley
Nuking them was definitely in our best interests, but to try to cloak it in terms that it was best for the Japanese people, as MtG was insinuating, is disengenuous. We nuked them because we could and we were pretty sure that they would come to the table afterwards. Some people have said that another reason we nuked them was to show the Russians what we were capable of doing.

When you are the only kid on the block with nukes, you can pretty much do what you want.

Go talk to WW2 generation Japanese about their living conditions late in the war. Did we nuke them out of a sense of benevolence and love? Hell no, we nuked them to end the war then and there. Did that benefit more Japanese than it destroyed? Yes, by far.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger

Are democracy and freedom thick ethical concepts? They don't seem to apply to certain acts, but there is no doubt that these are political words.

Democracy proper applies to a certain political arrangement – it is a descriptive term. But it is used as a political word – as in "The Democratic Republic of Korea". Freedom (in the political sense) is a thick ethical concept – it's just that there is disagreement over its content.

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by Kucinich

Were did the issue of OKness enter the discussion? An act of terrorism doesn't magically cease to be terrorism if it's the least bad option in the situation.

It does, though, if your intent is to minimize civilian deaths, rather than maximize.

Terrorism is about means, not ends.

It's not terrorism if, for instance, we drop a bomb and accidentally kill some civilians, or if we target someone knowing that some civilians will probably die too but try to minimize the civilian casualties.

Now, the Hiroshima and Nagasaki strikes pretty intentionally killed civilians by the dozens of thousands, so this seems somewhat tangential.

Again, terrorism is about using violence to induce fear, fear that is supposed to further your ends. That doesn't necessarily imply trying to maximize civilian casualties. There's been terrorist groups who have fairly strictly targeted representatives of the state.

[Last Conformist]

MtG

Really? Tell that to their leadership, or to the Army, Navy and Marines on Okinawa. It doesn't matter if an enemy is beaten or not (arguably, the Japanese were plainly screwed after Midway), if he either doesn't know it, or refuses to acknowledge it.

Arguably, the Japanese were done for in dec '41.

Doesn't mean they didn't need getting the point driven home with some force, of course.

[Ramo]

The whining about terrorism usually stems from a sense that one act is ok (at least in relative terms), while another is not. Unless you want to broaden the definition of "terrorism" to include any destructive act that scares anyone, for anything vaguely related to a social or political reason.

There is nothing significantly different from the bombing of Hiroshima than typical strategic bombing at the time - you attacked targets with military value. Dresden and the Tokyo firebombing were exceptions, because there was no significant military value, but most strategic bombing didn't fall into that category.

I would define terrorism as political violence conducted either indescriminately or intentionally against civilians. As such Hiroshima would fall under the category. As would suicide-bombing a police station in the middle of Baghdad.

It's not whining, it's a simple application of a definition. I'm just tired of people defining terrorism as "things I don't like."