9/11 victims deserved their fate

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by The Vagabond


Don't mix an emotional reaction with a sober analysis of what is really going on.

Relatives of a crime victim are ready to tear the criminal to pieces. Yet society handles this by means of a sober approach.

Are you a relative of one of the hostages in the Moscow theatre?

Why do you divorce the Russian experience from that of the Yanks?

Are you saying that a sober analysis has the Russians really deserving it?

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by The Vagabond


I can't provide a direct answer here. Such an event is too horrible and hypothetical.

So in general the end does justify the means - unless the event in question is too horrible? Are you aware that there probably isn't a general definition of "too horrible"? What if the USians think Sept. 11 was "too horrible" to be justified at all?

Well, yours is a bad argument too, because you can condemn anything with it.

In such cases, one should look for more general premises in order to launch an analysis. This is what a sober analysis does.

I don't believe I made an argument to condemn anything. I was just criticizing the "the end does justify the means" style argument.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by The Vagabond


No need for thanks. Your govs know this cynical truth pretty well already.

Apparently not, or the Yanks would have leveled Baghdad long before now and saved themselves the trouble.

That seems to be the Russian way.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by molly bloom

It had the usual gaggle of would be urban terrorists- the Calvin Kleinhof Gang, say, sat down to earnestly study Marx's 'Grundrisse' and 'Das Kapital' .

"Calvin Kleinhof Gang"

[The Vagabond]

Originally posted by Atahualpa


If I take the article on a very abstract level I can agree with this.

I don't believe that any of the people died in the twin towers deserved death and I think arguing that way is really stupid.
Though _basically_ there are more levels on which to look at the situation and if you go more globally you can see the causes and consequences that makes one understand the WHY. On the one hand I think this is what the author tried to argue.
OTOH, what the author has not understood is that this doesn't influence justice on a local level. On the local level (and that's where our judical system works), the hijackers flew the plane into the building on purpose, so they are responsible for their deaths and to be called murderers. But again, the US GI in iraq killing civilians is a murderer as well.
Both civilians live in a combat zone, the iraqi in one declared by the US and the american in one declared by terrorists. Therefor it's hard to do any judging, though most people seem to think that only governments may declare war and combat zones. This is what has changed with the 9/11 attack.

The people who died took upon themselves the burden of the war. It's very unjust and horrible that those few had to bear so dearly the burden that rightfully belongs to society as a whole. Unfortunately, it seems that this is how the war works...

[Chemical Ollie]

Another idiot who connects 9/11 with Iraq

I can agree with him that the people in Pentagon are military targets, but the rest of the article is pure guano.

[Last Conformist]

I think you hate freedom.

Yup. Yours, specifically.

[Last Conformist]

Something struck me while arguing about this on CFC, BTW. According to figures published by the Iraqi regime and accepted by leading Swedish newspapers, the UN sanctions killed closer to 200k Iraqis per year during the '90s. The subsequent war and insurgency is supposed to've killed perhaps as much as 100k people in two years.

So, accepting those numbers and assuming that Shrub wouldn't invaded had the WTC attacks not occured, one'd be forced to conclude that the WTC attacks indirectly saved alot more Iraqis than it killed Americans directly.

[The Vagabond]

Originally posted by notyoueither


Are you a relative of one of the hostages in the Moscow theatre?

Not really. I have a distant acquaintance whose mother happened to be in the theater...

Why do you divorce the Russian experience from that of the Yanks?

Are you saying that a sober analysis has the Russians really deserving it?

I don't divorce it at all! (By the way, it's the western media that seem to divorce it all the time. )

Let me illustrate it in the following way. I am a member of society waging a war, and I support this war (at least, don't opppose). In this sense, I am a legitimate target for the opposing side, just as all those poor people happened to be. But, again, the underlying injustice is that few have to pay for the sins (actions) of society as a whole.

[The Vagabond]

Originally posted by notyoueither


Apparently not, or the Yanks would have leveled Baghdad long before now and saved themselves the trouble.

That seems to be the Russian way.

They would have leveled Baghdad had they encountered the same level of resistance as we had in Grozny. So it's not a matter of good manners. It's merely a matter of possibilities.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by The Vagabond
Let me illustrate it in the following way. I am a member of society waging a war, and I support this war (at least, don't opppose). In this sense, I am a legitimate target for the opposing side, just as all those poor people happened to be.

No, not every member of the "hostile" society is a legitimate target. You know, there are these things like war crimes etc.

[Atahualpa]

Let me illustrate it in the following way. I am a member of society waging a war, and I support this war (at least, don't opppose). In this sense, I am a legitimate target for the opposing side, just as all those poor people happened to be. But, again, the underlying injustice is that few have to pay for the sins (actions) of society as a whole.

I found myself arguing the same way once.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by The Vagabond
Let me illustrate it in the following way. I am a member of society waging a war, and I support this war (at least, don't opppose). In this sense, I am a legitimate target for the opposing side, just as all those poor people happened to be. But, again, the underlying injustice is that few have to pay for the sins (actions) of society as a whole.

So if I understand well, it would have been fairer if Moscow had been nuked than if the theatre had been attacked?

From what I understand, you imply that it is normal for a war to wish the complete obliteration of the society from where the opposition stems. In short, you seem to agree with the logics that genocide (extermination of a population) is a logical continuation of war.

Or am I wrong?

[Saras]

You're not.

[laurentius]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Laurentius I've seen you whine endlessly in other threads against group punishment or mass punishment yet here you are saying mass punishment is OK as long as the target is America.

Can you be any less consistant?

If you are referring to my "whining" about the torture of civilians US has and still is doing, then yeah group punishment is wrong. Thats very much different than what we have here though.

Here we have a war crimes against humanity and a just retaliation.

I'm not saying either thing is OK, or a good thing to do. The article simply establishes what was (or might have been) going on. Where is the inconsistency in this?