Do Barbaric Peoples Really Deserve Freedom?

[Grojlach]

Originally posted by Sir Degrader: Anti war protesters squawk when mosques are accidently bombed and civilians killed by mistake, then remain silent when mutilated US bodies are dragged through streets then hung up. How typically left wing. I bet none of them raised a fuss when Clinton bombed Serbia in 1998, only now that it's a republican in the white house. Shamefull.

Apart from the well-deserved pounding you got from some other IW-members for your naive and inflammatory post, how is it typically left-wing? And what does that make "typically rightwing", then? Just because I hardly see any Republican accounts of the number of civilian deaths in Iraq, does that mean that it's typically right-wing to keep silent about it? No, of course not. Maybe there's a spindoctoring part who tries to control the news output (as in occasionally temper, occasionally blow a certain news item out of proportion) on each side, but they surely don't account for the majority of left- or rightwingers.
I on my part am saddened by every single reported death.

[skywalker]

Originally posted by Chewbacca: On another note... I'm going to not mind my own business.... Calling someone a terror sympathizer is a pretty serious accusation, even if watered down with a qualifier such as "mild". A terror sypathyzer, as I define it, would be a supporter of the 9-11 attacks, the attacks in Bali, Spain, and the reoccuring terror attacks in Isreal, ect. So unless you have a different definition of the term 'terror sympathizer" I have never seen Skunk make statements that supports the actions of terrorists. Quite the contrary actually. Like I said, I find accusing someone of supporting or sympathizing terrorists to be a fairly serious accusation. It can certianly be percieved as a character attack and could even be percieved as libel or defamation. At the least it is an ad hom attack that has nothing to do with the issue at hand and other hot-button issue that may casue disagreeance. So unless you would like to offer some compelling evidence to back up the persisent and wild claims of terrorist sympathy- I suggest sticking a sock in it.

I could just shut up on this, but I won't because I know how it feels to be called a terrorist sympathizer. It happened shortly after 9/11 and that is all I have say about the incident. But to have the label come up again is just really unfortunate and I personally think it is terribly insulting. Take it from someone who knows.

Mark

[ 04-01-2004, 06:29 AM: Message edited by: skywalker ]

[Timber Loftis]

Well, I don't know how to respond. All of your comments have affected me. Most of the time, I am all about trying to "step into the shoes" of the other mindset. Maybe I just think that since it seems to me skunk spends most all of his time understanding and explaining the mindset of the jihadist or Muslim, I just wanted to try to force him out of it or criticize him for not turning the thing over to look at the other side.

Hierophant, I don't have an "illusory sense of empowerment." I don't have a sense of empowerment, so it can't be illusory. I know empowered people -- they don't bother trying to discuss politics on the net because they don't have anything much to rant about. It seems your main attack against me is that I read the news and come here to argue/learn about it. Do any of us here have any other access to information than that? Isn't that what we all do here?

Anyway, I want to affirm that I stand by my initial statements of barbarism. That's what this act was. Go on NY Times and see the photos -- especially the one where they tied a rock to a hunk of one of the victims (arm I think) and tossed it over a telephone line, so it could hang in the air. Temporary insanity, offered up by Skunk, is the only possible explanation I've heard of this, and let me reminds us all that when any defendant starts to make this argument, well all begin to roll our eyes. Applying "temporary insanity" to a whole population is even more of a stretch.

If we call these people rebels, i.e. those fighting a force occupying their country, then let us look back through history to see how other rebellious people have behaved. And, now that I think about it, maybe there's something to be learned there. I'm not familiar enough with this issue as it relates to our own revolution, the French revolution, etc. But, there probably were acts of torture, mutilation, and other such barbarisms. I don't know, but I guess I'll look into it.

[John D Harris]

Barbaric or Civilized, people don't deserve anything, nothing in life is free. Rights and Deserves are not the same thing. By the actions one takes their deserves will find them out, but just by breathing you don't deserve anything, you just get the right to die that's IT.

Now what we need is the diffinition of barbaric and civilized, then we need to find out what gives the diffiner the right to make the destiction(sp?), and their diffinition the one we accept over somebody elses diffinition.

I have a diffintion, but due to the band on religious threads on the board I won't give it or why my diffinition should be accepted.

So now everybody is in the same boat, There is no universal diffinition of barbarism of civilization, just competting oppinions. How do we deal with these people, on the individual level we find out what their sense of honor is and use that to force them to change. Just like the U.S. military used their sense of honor in the war to make them come out and fight stupidly. ie: Used loud speakers to call the fighters women and cowards, so they came out in droves and were killed in droves.

Now we have to find out what actions will make them beholding to us, and take those actions, make them think they are in our debt and owe us something, according to their honor system. There is more then one way to skin a cat

[John D Harris]

WALK IN ANOTHERS SHOES? ROTFLMAO

Do you people really want to do that? I mean if that is the course you people want to take then lets do it 100%, I'm all for that. After all this is the Cradle of Civilization the wonderful area of this dust ball we call home, where the policy was to UTTERLY destroy your enemy that resisted you. To kill every man, woman, child, even kill their livstock and pets, if they did not submit.

The problem with walking in anothers shoes, is sometimes those shoes don't fit. We only want to walk in their shoes and use the parts we like, or the course we like, and dismiss the parts we don't like.

[Timber Loftis]

Well, here I go again posting someone else's findings because I don't have the gumption to go to Iraq and investigate matters myself. *nods to Hierophant*

Let me note the actions of the Falluja people is called "bestial" in here, which seems about how I have been characterizing it.

Let me also point out that I found out the Falluja residents who burned the car and made cat-toys out of the dead human bodies were not the ones to kill them. As I understand it, four black-hooded gun men sprung from a building and opened fire at the car, killing everyone inside.

I also note their attacks resulted in cancelling a trade expo for companies wishing to do business in Iraq. Congratulations, f-tards, you're one step closer to accomplishing your goal of keeping your people backward and poor. [img]graemlins/biglaugh.gif[/img] I don't laugh because it's funny, I laugh because it's a horrible irony.
_________________________________________________
April 1, 2004
U.S. Officials in Iraq Vow to Avenge Killings in Falluja
By KIRK SEMPLE

American officials in Baghdad vowed today to use "overwhelming" force to avenge the grisly killings of four American contractors in Falluja on Wednesday and establish control over the volatile city. But they cautioned that the American military would not move hastily for fear of worsening a perilous situation.

"We are not going to do a pell-mell rush into the city," said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, chief spokesman for the American military command in Iraq. "It's going to be deliberate, it will be precise and it will be overwhelming."

L. Paul Bremer III, the top American administrator, said the contractors' deaths "would not go unpunished."

Also today, a roadside bomb injured three American troops in an American military convoy near Falluja, news agencies reported. Then an American-sponsored trade fair for companies that want to do business in Iraq was postponed, undermining American reconstruction efforts.

In Wednesday's attack, the four American contractors were ambushed and killed as they were driving through Falluja, and, in an outburst of anti-American rage, their burned bodies were dragged through the downtown streets. Two of the corpses were hung by ropes from a bridge. The White House has blamed terrorists and remnants of Saddam Hussein's former government for the attack.

But since the incident, there has been no apparent American military response in the center of Falluja, a hotbed of anti-American hostility.

General Kimmitt, speaking at a news conference in Baghdad today, explained that the American military decided not to enter the city on Wednesday out of concern for inflaming the situation.

"I think that there was a well-thought-out decision on the part of the Marines that let's not rush headlong into there, there may be ambushes set up, there may be civilians being used as human shields," he said. "And at this point, while it was dreadful, while it was unacceptable, while it was bestial, a preemptive attack into the city could have taken a bad situation and made it even worse."

The bodies of the murdered contractors have been recovered and handed over to American authorities, Agence France-Presse reported today.

American officials did not specifically indicate how or when they planned to move back into the city. "We will be back in Falluja," General Kimmitt declared. "It will be at the time and the place of our choosing. We will hunt down the criminals. We will kill them or we will capture them. And we will pacify Falluja."

The military convoy that came under attack near Falluja today was hit by a bomb, the military reported. In another incident today, two explosions near an American-escorted fuel convoy in northern Baghdad wounded at least one Iraqi, The Associated Press reported.

The American military also reported today that a car bomb at a market in Ramadi, west of Falluja, killed six Iraqi civilians and wounded four.

A spokesman for the trade fair, Baghdad Expo, which had been scheduled for April 5-8 in Baghdad, said no new date had been set for the event, Reuters reported.

Iraqi police established roadside checkpoints in and around Falluja today, but some residents vowed to repel any American attempts to take control of the city.

"We will not let any foreigner enter Falluja," one resident, Sameer Sami, told The A.P. "Yesterday's attack is proof of how much we hate the Americans."

Another resident, Ahmed al-Dulaimi, said: "We wish that they would try to enter Falluja so we'd let hell break lose."

[ 04-01-2004, 02:06 PM: Message edited by: Timber Loftis ]

[Skunk]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: Maybe I just think that since it seems to me skunk spends most all of his time understanding and explaining the mindset of the jihadist or Muslim, I just wanted to try to force him out of it or criticize him for not turning the thing over to look at the other side.

Oh but I do look at it from both sides - it's just that 'our side' (the west) is pretty much covered in these forums. It would be preaching to the converted.

I don't have to state the obvious - that the US was literally 'mugged' on 9/11, and just like any mugging victim, got angry and wanted justice. I don't have to repeat to this largely western audience that, just like any mugging victim who is convinced that he knows the identity and address of the perpetrator that he will want to sort them out himself if the 'justice system' (UN) fails to convict and sentence that person. I can understand all of that - but I can't condone vigilantism if the system doesn't go your way. And I don't think that I need to state that vigilantism is just plain wrong, do I?

And if I provide an explanation, a personal opinion, on the causes of certain acts, it does NOT imply sympathy or support for that action. An explanation is NOT the same as a justification. And I should not have to add "I do not support or condone X but" at the start of every post - it should be taken as read that I do not support or condone acts of murder: unless I state the contrary.

And what happened to these guys in Iraq WAS murder. And it would have been considered murder before, during and after Saddam came to power. How they defiled the bodies afterwards was DISGUSTING. But do I REALLY have to state this? Do I really have to state the obvious before I begin?

But WHY they defiled the bodies and, more to the point, why so many people, were involved is an important question to ask.

Simply calling them 'barbaric people' gives us a 'head-in-the-sand' explanation. They committed a barbaric act because they are barbaric people - no further explanation neccessary. When in reality they were civilised people who committed a barbaric act - which begs the question of where the 'barbarism' came from: certainly not out of thin air.

Address that, and this town will become a sleepy little town, rather than the breeding ground of "tommorow's terrorists" that I suspect it to be.

Explanations, and even 'empathy' does NOT EQUAL justification or support.
I empathise with victims of crime (as I'm sure you do), but I don't support them taking the law into their own hands (and I'm sure you don't either).

It wasn't fair to make that conclusion.

Originally posted by John D Harris: After all this is the Cradle of Civilization the wonderful area of this dust ball we call home, where the policy was to UTTERLY destroy your enemy that resisted you. To kill every man, woman, child, even kill their livstock and pets, if they did not submit.

No, the rules of war were codified more than 3,000 years ago and the rule that those who did not bear arms against you could not be slain was strictly adhered to - until secular rulers like Saddam appeared on the scene in modern history. In the main, when a christian city fell, not only were the inhabitants spared - but they were even allowed to continue worshiping in their churches. Christian crusaders did the opposite - putting everyone to the sword and desecrating mosques.


That's the problem with being unwilling to stand in the other guys shoes. You rarely get an accurate picture or understanding of the situation - or indeed the history.

[Night Stalker]

The so called Rules of War have been continually violated ever since they were codified by all civilizations at some point in history. To believe otherwise is willfull self-serving denial.

[Timber Loftis]

Well, I think by even posting here we are all trying to stand in the other fella's shoes to some extent. I read all your posts, so I certainly am willing to consider the other point of view. If we wanted to bury our heads in the sand, we'd click the little X button at the top right of our screens.

Part of what I was originally asking is whether a barbaric act may be evidence of a barbaric people. It was the inquiry I was making in a roundabout way, though you put a fine point on it -- specifically, by pointing out that the real question is "Why did they do this?" As you pointed out, there are certainly possible reasons other than "because they are barbaric."

For me, though, I can't see a civilized people doing this with bodies as a group under any circumstances. For me, these acts, in and of themselves, may -- may -- speak to a moral corruption. Frankly, I do not know that they are a civilized people over there. Everything I read or see on TV leads me to think that generally they are, but such a large percentage of them continue to undermine efforts to rebuild, that I do wonder. As I said, it's my own potential prejudice that I am grappling with here.

It seems so odd that given 2 groups (the US, which builds schools, reconstructs towns, etc., and the detractors, who just try to destroy buildings and people and do nothing constructive), the population would choose the destroyers. I just don't get it.

[Edit] Just a thought. What kind of a person hates others so much that they forget to love their own?

[ 04-01-2004, 02:35 PM: Message edited by: Timber Loftis ]

[Stratos]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: For me, though, I can't see a civilized people doing this with bodies as a group under any circumstances. For me, these acts, in and of themselves, may -- may -- speak to a moral corruption. Frankly, I do not know that they are a civilized people over there. Everything I read or see on TV leads me to think that generally they are, but such a large percentage of them continue to undermine efforts to rebuild, that I do wonder. As I said, it's my own potential prejudice that I am grappling with here.

Please define 'civilized'. Nazi Germany was considered 'civilized' and we all now what they did. Europeans historically have often considered themselves to be an island of civilization in an ocean of barbarism, and yet their actions in places like the African continent speaks for themselves. While it might be easier to fall over the 'moral edge' in a harsh and violent enviroment, these things can happen everywhere given certain circumstances. Granted, it doesn't happen here in the West as often as in some other places around the World, but that's most likely because we have an orderly and relatively un-corrupted society that still allows you to walk outside without fearing for your life. It simply runs smooter than many other countries.

[Edit] Just a thought. What kind of a person hates others so much that they forget to love their own?

To many people in this World, it seems.