kidnapping children and using them to catch their terrorist parents... okay?

[sixtyandaquarter]

If you ever did something you felt was bad, or knew was bad, but did it anyway because you thought it would help someone - anyone - more than it would hurt, then guess what?  Same thing.

It's the same as stealing bread to feed your family.  You justify what you do, with a reason of good and protection.  There are people out there would do bad things all the time and claim it's saintly, because of why they did it.

War isn't that special.  It's not.  It doesn't change any rules, or shape any clout.  It's merely war, another excuse to do what's good by those who feel it must be done.

If being in a war changes anything, it only allows these actions more so by those who feel they need doing.

 

[iceplosion]

I talk about war realistically, not fun.

You talk about war with excitement, with no understanding of what it's really like.

We like to delude ourselves by saying exactly what you say - we desperately want to believe that humanity has conquered its ancient instincts, that our bestial nature is long behind us, that we are 'civilized' and somehow separated from the natural world.  All of humanity's accomplishments are ultimately geared towards that single goal of self delusion.  We've obtained mastery over the sciences to try and prove that we can control the natural world.  We've conceived philosophy to try and find a way to explain ourselves that is beyond reducing us to animals.  We've created Gods because we want to believe that we are a special and chosen people.

Every time I see you post you always respond in a similar fashion, something along the lines of "humans are animals that don't really control themselves" I honestly think you're deluded if you believe that, it's comforting to think that you have no choice but to do what you did, that way you can never feel guilty, after all you're just an animal, right? Well that's not how people work and if you think that everyone thinks like you do then you're incredibly deluded.

Even if what you said was true (It wasn't, maybe do a little reading before making sweeping statments about human psychology next time, k?) the people who did the kidnapping are not really truly threatened, they don't have a chance of losing this war, they're just motivating more people to become terrorists.

War is war, people are people, wars end and people die but the people who are left will have to deal with their actions, the people who feel crushed by what they have done will be able to move on and live in the world, the people who can do things like this without remorse will only be able to live with war.
Honor, respect and guilt, these things will affect our actions in every situation, no matter how much you don't like it, no matter how much you don't want to deal with it, it's true.
Some people pretend they're not affected by these things and bottle those feelings up, those are the people that commit suicide when the war's over. (Here I am obviously referring to people who actually go to war, not the people who sit back in their comfortable homes saying they support war)

 

[Diedrupo]

Kidnapping children of terrorists? Did they rip that from 24? That was a great episode.

 

[Dissonance]

You talk about war with excitement, with no understanding of what it's really like.

When did I do that?  If you mean "Welcome to war, baby!" it was pretty obvious that I said it in jest and that my real point, about the perpetuation of ideology, was the next line down.

Every time I see you post you always respond in a similar fashion, something along the lines of "humans are animals that don't really control themselves"

I have an extremely dim view of human nature.  I don't believe in things as romantic as "humans are rational beings" or whatever it is that you seem to buy into.

I honestly think you're deluded if you believe that, it's comforting to think that you have no choice but to do what you did, that way you can never feel guilty, after all you're just an animal, right? Well that's not how people work and if you think that everyone thinks like you do then you're incredibly deluded.

While I do agree that humans are just animals as you said, I never once said anything about being free of guilt.  We don't have enough intelligence to stop ourselves from doing idiotic things, but we do have just enough to realize that they are idiotic in the first place.  If anything, we should be more guilty for having the ability to recognize our faults but having no power to do anything about them.

Even if what you said was true (It wasn't, maybe do a little reading before making sweeping statments about human psychology next time, k?)

While it may be true that my statements didn't reflect every purpose of the institutions I named (Religion has other uses than self-delusion, for example) I didn't say anything untrue.  Religion's purpose specifically concerning the human ego is exactly what I said it was.

the people who did the kidnapping are not really truly threatened, they don't have a chance of losing this war, they're just motivating more people to become terrorists.

They also don't have a chance of winning it.  That's the thing about terrorism and sneak attacks - You can have as many troops and as much of a hold as you like, they're still damn hard to stop. 

Honor, respect and guilt, these things will affect our actions in every situation, no matter how much you don't like it, no matter how much you don't want to deal with it, it's true.

They're powerful motivators, but they fall aside when it comes against the human will to stay alive.

 

[Xaixis]

What bullshit!

You think that we are being crude and unjustly! We are in the middle of a WAR against people who believe that they will receive special privileges in the afterlife because of it. You don't understand the measures we take when handling POWs and hostages [COMPARED to the Muslim extremists].

One of my close friends who is overseas was simply patrolling the streets with his squad when someone chucked a grenade and killed 3 of his friends right in front of him. So he caught him and brought him back (LIVE) to his base and had to fill out the paper work for a POW.

Soon after the guy is released because my friend spelled his name wrong (BY ONE LETTER). And because of this simple error in paperwork... the guy was let free...


If it was the other way around they would have simply shot him or tortured him THEN kill him.... oh yes WE are crude...

 

[Marcus]

You talk about war with excitement, with no understanding of what it's really like.

okay then how about an opinion from someone who does know what war is really like?

the number 1 goal in war is to win.  that's all.  what means you use to accomplish this varies from country to country but ultimately we want to win.  no one likes to lose, especially war.

with that said, the geneva convention and war crimes were established to prevent the mistreatment of people during war.  consider these the "laws of war".  america isn't breaking any written codes here.  i guarantee you that these kids are being treated like fucking royalty and probably have accommodations you'd find in a four star suite.  if anything is "gross" it's probably that they're being brainwashed to like western ideals so if they do barter with their farther they won't want to come back home (we call this stockholm syndrome, where the hostage beings to respect and even like their kidnappers).

i don't understand why you find this so terrible.  if anything, they're better off in america than with the pakistani police because at least here they have the tightest security.  the kids are being treated with respect you'd expect a prince to receive and all they have to do is disclose information regarding their father.  i don't see how this is any more evil than deluding a child to strap a bomb to his chest and blow himself up outside of an embassy.

 

[sixtyandaquarter]

i don't see how this is any more evil than deluding a child to strap a bomb to his chest and blow himself up outside of an embassy.

What?  Oh come now, you know that deserved being said twice.

The only time this is 100% wrong is if we have the 100% wrong person, and even then, it's really not that wrong.  Shit happens.  Civilians die in crossfires in war, and get fucked up worse than the general opposing army does - most of the time.  Forget when you have civilians as your opposing army.  It's all sorts of fucked.  Shit.  I hope if I'm ever living in a war zone or close to one, someone kidnaps my child instead of "accidentally" shooting them - or, dare I say, blowing them the bkdaujfifuck up.
I say "accidentally" in quotes merely to cover the "Accidents don't happen" argument with war.

 

[Marcus]

The reason I added that last sentence is because when another country does something morally corrupt it's "tactics" but when America does something it's an "atrocity."  I guess it's because this country was "built" to be the upstanding lead-by-experience big brother of the world but taking children into custody for questioning is, pardon the pun, child's play.

If anyone is actually losing sleep over this one rare incident then try wrapping your brain around the fact that there are currently some 100+ countries that actively conscript (not recruit, conscript) boys and girls ages 12-16 into military service.  The Philippines even have an all girls guerrilla unit and the average age is like 15.  I saw pictures in a National Geographic of this 13 year old baby faced girl with an MP5 in her hand and a big smile on her face and I didn't know whether to cry or think it was cute.

 

[Dissonance]

The Philippines even have an all girls guerrilla unit and the average age is like 15.  I saw pictures in a National Geographic of this 13 year old baby faced girl with an MP5 in her hand and a big smile on her face and I didn't know whether to cry or think it was cute.

Cute.  Definitely.  :3

 

[So fist]

If anyone is actually losing sleep over this one rare incident then try wrapping your brain around the fact that there are currently some 100+ countries that actively conscript (not recruit, conscript) boys and girls ages 12-16 into military service.  The Philippines even have an all girls guerrilla unit and the average age is like 15.  I saw pictures in a National Geographic of this 13 year old baby faced girl with an MP5 in her hand and a big smile on her face and I didn't know whether to cry or think it was cute.

Or wrap your head around the fact that they lock teenage boys in the basement in Palestine until they see the logic in "volunteering" for a martyrdom operation.  Which then they reemerge to go kablooey in a restaurant.  Which fortunately doesn't occur anymore.  Not so much because of a great revelation of how wrong the practice is, but because the evil hateful racist jew wall makes it impossible to do.  Or in Iraq where there has been like five separate incidents where radio activated bombs were attached to retarded people who were conscripted for martyrdom.  But in the end we are the evil ones and its due to an embarrassment of riches merely.  We win and we don't have to do much evil to do it.  There is something about people that makes them feel sorry for losers even if they are the biggest losers on the planet.  Perhaps we are forgiving at heart and because in our own hearts we doubt we would be purposely be vicious enough to break a sixteen year old mentally enough to make him voluntarily relinquish his life to the Al Aqsa Martyrs brigade that we think others do it because they too are victims of some great wrong they lash out throwing ethics into the winds.  Thus they make ethics an issue of relativity.  If I am a strong American soldier making detainees wear underwear on their heads and make naked pyramids, I am a monster.  If I am a terrorist sawing off an American contractor's head for arabian terrorist youtube I am merely reacting to the evil American's naked pyramid or whatever other slight you can think up.  And no this doesn't mean I think what happened at Abu Ghraib was just. 

The truth is if you make the ethics of human rights conditional to the perpetrators you have robbed it of its premise of universality and made it simply another bullshit game of political sophistry.  The idea of human rights means that we as a community of people believe there is something ethically, morally, and inherently robbing people, no matter what the relationship between victim and victimizer, of these inherent rights.

If you want to help someone you don't find excuses for their nasty behaviors.  If your poor drunken jobless friend spends his time constantly drinking, beating his wife, and blaming his lack of work on some vague conspiracy against him, you wouldn't, if you're a good friend, sit there and nod away comforting him and agreeing with his reasons to do no different.  You would tell him to stop being a shit for brains baw faggot and tell him go do something constructive.  But the worst thing about the double standard is that it assumes the people like Janjaweed, Al Qaeda, and the Al Aqsa Martyr's brigade are somehow incapable of respecting human rights because of their relative power position.  As if respecting another's rights was some kind of masters degree only afforded by the affluent and the powerful.  As if those few, violent thugs are inherently incapable of what their normal less powerful brethren do on a daily basis.

 

[miss matcha]

Thus they make ethics an issue of relativity.  If I am a strong American soldier making detainees wear underwear on their heads and make naked pyramids, I am a monster.  If I am a terrorist sawing off an American contractor's head for arabian terrorist youtube I am merely reacting to the evil American's naked pyramid or whatever other slight you can think up.

Well put Great Terror.  It was so refreshing reading some of the posts here (despain, marcus, sixty, etc.).  I went to the most America-is-the-devil university you can think of, and I constantly had to listen to crap like "oh my gosh, Americans are so evil, they made those terrorists dress up like women, poor terrorists."  And I'm like, are you kidding me?  How does that compare with the horrendous human rights violations that are committed over there on an hourly basis?  And their reply usually consisted of some bullshit having to do with how rich and evil America is.  Sorry, but last I checked, being a leader of a terrorist organization in an impoverished country doesn't somehow allow these people to transcend universal human rights, I don't care how much of a hegemon the US is. 

Not to mention that the people who are complaining about how "rich and evil America is" are the same people who relish in the riches and security of being American every day of their lives.  I want to say to them, do you worry about your next meal or clean glass of water?  Do you go shopping at the mall?  Do you have leisure time to surf the internet and go out for coffee with friends and what not?  Do you live in a war-torn society that is in constant fear of suicide bomb attacks?  Are you able to voice your political views without getting tortured and killed for doing so?  Wake up, we ARE the "rich evil Americans" that are hated by terrorist factions... oh you didn't know that?  Egad.     

So yes, thank-you for these posts; sometimes I forget that there are people out there who can see this (given that I'm living in California and all, I'm quite used to folks who love to banter on about how evil America is as if they aren't the average people in rich developed nations that they regularly denounce). 

This is not surprising because it's just another example of american overseas badassery.

Hell yeah.

 

[Sic Semper Tyranosaurus]

I like how wars are all about good guys and bad guys, and nobody's just a pressed human being doing the terrible things war makes people do. :gangsta:

Yeah, it's not a good thing to kidnap children. Then again, it's a tried and true method in warfare. It's nothing new, and it's even a little archaic. People are dicks, and war can make dicks of us all, I say.  :cheers:

 

[sixtyandaquarter]

Wait.  What?  War has a bad guy?
Since when?

Seriously not one country has ever gone to war for the wrong reasons.  Until they lose in such a crushing defeat that the victors push the guilt and shame on them to crack their pride.  Or until a social movement ushers in the young that separates a generation.

If you are a country, and you go to war, it is because those in power of you in majority have decided to go to war.  And they did it for perfectly fine reasons.  They were wronged, they were victims, and the enemy is a very evil, evil bad group of peoples.

Until history decides otherwise, there is no such thing as a bad guy in war, just as there's no such thing as a bad idea or action in war.  Social opinions are only less crap than history, but history is mandatory in schools.

 

[Sic Semper Tyranosaurus]

Wait.  What?  War has a bad guy?
Since when?

You seem to have misunderstood my post so massively that I can't even tell if you're replying in kind to my obviously sarcastic comment. You're just about the last person I would have expected to totally miss that.  :crazy:

 

[sixtyandaquarter]

I didn't miss your point, I just figured I'd set up the rest of my post using it.
My intent on that post is supposed to be complementary and agreeing to a few points since my last post.  If I missed your point, maybe your point wasn't my target.