london bombings: what now? thread (political discussion) Part 2

Discussion in 'Politics & Current Events' started by Dante, Jul 9, 2005.

  1. Colm

    Colm Member

    Aug 17, 2004
    UK
    Club:
    Tottenham Hotspur FC
    Nat'l Team:
    --other--
  2. Colm

    Colm Member

    Aug 17, 2004
    UK
    Club:
    Tottenham Hotspur FC
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    --other--
    [​IMG]

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    pictures of the blown up train near Allgate tube station
     
  3. Karimi8Rulz

    Karimi8Rulz New Member

    Jul 3, 2005
    he fully realizes what he is doing but trying to portray the "naive", and "ignorant" view to sell the bigger argument. he is no dummy, but thinks too highly of his slickness.

    as I said before, he and his few "buddies" seem to be on a mission, and most of the posters on this forum are much to sophisticated to fall for all that anymore. by now, most people ignore "their" posts.

    it's sad, they are hurting their own cause with all the lies.
     
  4. Karimi8Rulz

    Karimi8Rulz New Member

    Jul 3, 2005
    it has to do with the "moslem terrorists" whom happen to be Palis or supporting the pali cause. It's the complexity of the issues in ME that indeed Israel shares a huge burden to the international community. Yes in fact Israel is the first & formost component of this "terrorist" activities, if we want to kill the cause of the problem. Likud party had a major role in this "war on terror" strategy. so I think it's irrational to discuss the ME issues including terrorism and leave Israel completely out, would be a nice way out for Israel ;)
     
  5. RichardL

    RichardL BigSoccer Supporter

    May 2, 2001
    Berkshire
    Club:
    Reading FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    Terrorists deliberately target civillians in the hope that the emotive fallout of seeing innocent people murdered will change public and political opinion.

    The belief that murdering innocent people, as graphically and publically as possible, is a justifiable means to an end, makes people terrorist sympathisers.

    Hezbollah fits comfortably into the first part of that definition, while you are looking quite well suited to be in the second.
     
  6. Iranian Monitor

    Iranian Monitor Member+

    Aug 18, 2004
    Nat'l Team:
    Iran
    That is something it seems you just made up. Terrorism aims to strike "terror" (i.e fear) to achieve its political objectives. Otherwise, even "terrorists" recognize that the "emotive fallout of seeing innocent people murdered" is to be disgusted with the groups responsible for the act! Except, they believe eventually the fear, the costs, and havoc will further their political objectives by eroding the will of the "enemy" to resist their demands. Kind of like the thinking behind dropping nukes on Japan.

    Terrorism, in any case, is broader even than that and has a legal definition. You don't need to make one up that doesn't fit either what terrorists have in mind, or the facts. It can be found in manuals of most law enforcement agencies, including the FBI. The definition of terrorism is the unlawful use of force to further a political objective. That definition, however, is not applied even handidly and instead to shield those who symphathise with the actions of some government, as opposed to others, "labels" are preferred instead.

    That said, can you share with me what Hezbollah has done that fits your definition? And, while you are at it, let me know how you know they have done what you claim to have done?

    I think terrorist sympathisers are easy to find. They are all those who believe that the unlawful use of force to further a political objective is acceptable. Similarly, it is easy to find people who are geniunely opposed to terrorism: they oppose the unlawful use of force by everyone and anyone regardless of whether the gulity part is politically their freind or foe.

    Incidentally, the favorite tactic of terrorists of all stripes, to lessen human sensibilities as they plan their misdeeds, is to engage in broad "generalizations". The legal niceties that require "proof of guilt" are inconvenient to the methods employed by terrorists. Certainly, the specific victims of 9/11 or July 7, as with those of even greater atrocities by the US or Israel, have never been found guility of anything. But dehumanizing is important to be able to employ the tactics of terrorists. Calling Japanese what this program now censors makes them less human when you want to throw nukes on them; lessening human sensibilities about Moslems is similarly required if you are going to be able to do the kind of things Israel has done or which the US is doing as of late. Similarly, on the other side, rallying hatred towards broad groups (Jews, Americans, Brits etc) accomplishes the same tactical purpose. It makes it less significant to their audience if the particular victims of their crimes are guilty of anything; they are all "guilty" just by virtue of fitting the "broad label" or generalization that is used.

    I know who are "terrorists sympathisers". They are easy to spot. They aren't few in numbers either, since we are still a long ways from having a world that accepts that violence to further a political objective is inappropriate unless sanctioned by appropriate legal authority. Even when sanctioned by appropriate legal authority, even one that enjoys legitimacy over the area of its claimed jurisdiction, you still will have people who will be against violence. But those people, who generally are pacificists, are not a threat to anyone.
     
  7. taosjohn

    taosjohn Member+

    Dec 23, 2004
    taos,nm
    Now there's a use of the Hitler analogy that actually is unfair. verybdog's post is pure unadulterated Jefferson: "a friend to all nations, an ally to none."

    Of course it didn't work very well even in 1805...
     
  8. RichardL

    RichardL BigSoccer Supporter

    May 2, 2001
    Berkshire
    Club:
    Reading FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    well clearly I cannot know anything because all western media is lies, while only the arab media tells the truth, but the Hezbollah suicide bomber truck bomb that killed 63 at the American embassy would be a good start, unless you think the mainly clerical staff that man such embassies were really military targets who deserved to die.


    As for Japan, Japan declared war on the United States. Wars are different, and Japan whould probably have happily dropped an A-bomb on Los Angeles if only it'd been able to. (The people of London, on the other hand, wouldn't be supportive of Britons going to the middle east and blowing up commuter trains there). It was an act of war against people who were at war with them. The west is not at war with Islam, no matter how much the extremists claim it is.

    However, I like your broader term of the legal definition, as by definition it makes Hezbollah terrorists by your reasoning.



    I wouldn't disagree with you, but you are completely missing the hugely obvious point that muslims are not being "dehumanised" by anyone, only the terrorists and their sympathisers come in for flak - and let's face it, it doesn't take a huge amount of spin to turn opinion against the sort of people who think blowing up trains full of innocent people is the glorious will of allah.
     
  9. odessit19

    odessit19 Member+

    Dec 19, 2004
    My gun safe
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    AC Milan
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    Ukraine
    Point taken, but how would you define then a person who would not mind too much that one nation is to be destroyed based on their race (in this example Israel and its Jewish population?)
     
  10. odessit19

    odessit19 Member+

    Dec 19, 2004
    My gun safe
    Club:
    AC Milan
    Nat'l Team:
    Ukraine
    Spoken like a true mouthpiece of every muslim regime. Congratulations on being brainwashed by Al-Jazeera and its media sisters
     
  11. taosjohn

    taosjohn Member+

    Dec 23, 2004
    taos,nm
    You are not asking for a definition; you're asking for a label...

    You care a great deal about the issue; he is essentially expressing indifference. Your energy would perhaps be better spent attempting to affect your opposition than the indifferent?
     
  12. odessit19

    odessit19 Member+

    Dec 19, 2004
    My gun safe
    Club:
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    Ukraine
    I have tried affecting the opposition and failed because many times as you know the opposition has passed the point of no return, thus they have become fanatics. Hence I figured that indifferent folk can be influenced easier than the oppostion
     
  13. taosjohn

    taosjohn Member+

    Dec 23, 2004
    taos,nm
    Probably not-- one reaches a point of exhaustion. And "neutrality" is a perfectly reasonable concept-- "not all situations are yours to resolve" as the Buddhists say...

    And I said "affect" instead of "persuade" for a reason...
     
  14. Iranian Monitor

    Iranian Monitor Member+

    Aug 18, 2004
    Nat'l Team:
    Iran
    No, unlike you, I don't put myself in position to decide selectively who "deserves to live or die". Not based on any "media" -- your's or anyone else's. At the very least, I want those decisions to be made and authorized by competent, legitimate, organizations. That is why I support strengthening, not weakening, institutions such as the United Nations. That is why I support the Internatonal Criminal Court, which the Bush administration and Israel don't like.

    No, I can't say anyone deserves to die just because they work for an embassy. The same way I don't think people occupying the many government buildings in Iraq struck by US bombs were guilty and "deserved to die". But unlike you, I just don't like making distinctions that don't make a damn difference unless you think one type of people are just more deserving of life than others!

    Precisely because wars -- whether waged by one group or another -- involve a lot of ugliness and nastiness, I want to make sure the decision to wage war is based on legally legitimate factors under international law. And for competent courts, not political bodies, to have the final say in making these distinctions.

    First, I personally advocate that the West be at war with Al Queda, as I advocate the East be at war with Al Queda. But the rest of your mumbled reasoning is worthless. An attempt to make distinctions that aren't there.

    Al Queda has declared war on the West. And they are waging their war, in the process using tactics I find deplorable. They cannot, incidentally, wage that war on on behalf of "Islam" no more what they pretend; they can only wage it on behalf of their own group.

    None of that, however, means that their tactics per se are somehow more "wrong" than when the US nukes an entire city or, alternatively, when it wages the many wars (covert and overt) that kill many people without having any legal justification. These are all wrong and deplorable. That is if you really are against terrorism!

    By my reasoning, you let these issues be decided by competent bodies created to make these decisions based on legal principles For instance, by the International Criminal Court. And by my reasoning, such courts should have equal jurisdiction to deal with allegations against Hezbollah as they would have against allegations against the US or Israel any everyone else.

    I see you just don't get it! I am not interested in Al Queda, their savagery, their goals or their tactics. But unlike some, I can see that their exact mindset is prevalent in the West as well. The same kind of mindset, but with a different group of "enemies" -- broadly defined based on labels, rhetoric, and not much else.
     
  15. RichardL

    RichardL BigSoccer Supporter

    May 2, 2001
    Berkshire
    Club:
    Reading FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    so who have I claimed deserves to die? So if the people at the embassy didn't deserve to die, does that make it a terrorist act or not?




    you won't have to get in line to find people here disagreeing with you on that one.

    it's more wrong because deliberately targetting civilians for emotional impact, and gloating about it afterwards, is completely different to the regretted killing of civillians as part of a military action. Sure, the families of the dead aren't going to feel comforted by the fact that the missile wasn't meant to kill their family, but they aren't going to turn on the TV and watch scenes of Americans/Brits dancing for joy in the streets at their killing, nor hear the soldiers talking about how great and righteous it was to kill them. You'll be hard pushed to find anyone here who thinks killing Iraqi civilians is a good thing.

    I can't say I was alive to tell you how people reacted to the bombing of Hiroshima. Maybe when I'm there next month there'll be some info about it at the museum, but I doubt people were cheering in America. Nearly twice as many died at Okinawa as at Hiroshima. Was that an act of terrorism too?

    maybe that mindset does exist, but I don't see too many rednecks or chavs bombing muslims, or calling for the west to rise up and kill them, do you?
     
  16. nicephoras

    nicephoras A very stable genius

    Fucklechester Rangers
    Jul 22, 2001
    Eastern Seaboard of Yo! Semite
    :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: Israel has 1% of the population in the middle east. Iran has only been hostile to Israel since 1979 to further its Stalinist brand of regime survival. Its NOT about Israel. Al Qaeda is not about Israel. September 11th is not about Israel.
     
  17. sardus_pater

    sardus_pater Member

    Mar 21, 2004
    Sardinia Italy EU
    Club:
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    Especially if they are not building it at their borders.

    http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en

    GHETTO FORTRESS

    The International Court of Justice decided, a year ago, that Israel has the right to build a security wall on its border with the Palestinian territories, but not i n s I d e the Palestinian territories.

    Sharon and his people admit now that the path of the wall was not decided upon to meet security needs, but to fix the permanent border between Israel and Palestine.

    The new slogan: "We shall fix the border unilaterally".

    This border annexes a large part of the West Bank, for the benefit of the settlers.

    This is not a border of peace. It is a border of a permanent war.

    The border of a fortified ghetto.


    Gush Shalom ad published in Ha'aretz, July 8th, 2005
     
  18. Iranian Monitor

    Iranian Monitor Member+

    Aug 18, 2004
    Nat'l Team:
    Iran
    I will leave these issues to be decided by competent legal authority, based on legal principles. And I would want those principles to be applied equally to American and Israeli actions.

    You just went from Hezbollah to something else. I was discussing Hezbollah bombing US Marine barracks and the US embassy in Lebanon. Versus the US bombing government targets in Iraq.

    Again, you are off on a tangent. I don't recall Hezbollah saying "killing civilians is a good thing". Nor do I recall any of the other things you mentioned when it comes to Hezbollah's actions.

    That said, your distinctions are in any case ridiculous. How an act is received by certain people who hear the news about it is not what makes any difference when deciding if the act was a "terrorist" act or not!

    Some people are just dense. They make their own pseduo distinctions, assume their own facts, imagine certain issues, and think they are making any points. I hope you are not one of them.

    Under international law, the deliberate targetting of civilians to achieve a war aim is a "war crime". The use of nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasak is a much bigger act of "terrorism" than anything Al Queda is capable of doing in its sick war.

    Are you kidding me? Listen carefully: You don't see it because it is not happening in YOUR COUNTRY. It is happening somewhere else. Otherwise, yes, that mentality is what allows for all the things that are wrong and whcih are perpetuated constantly by the US. The crimes are buried in pseduo distinctions, generalizations, inciteful labels, but they are crimes. Which is why the US and Israel are very much against the International Criminal Court, especially if it is going to have any jurisdiction over their actions!
     
  19. BenReilly

    BenReilly New Member

    Apr 8, 2002
    Any peace agreement will have some transfer of territory and will likely approximate the path of the wall.
     
  20. odessit19

    odessit19 Member+

    Dec 19, 2004
    My gun safe
    Club:
    AC Milan
    Nat'l Team:
    Ukraine
    Cry me a river, why don't you speak up next time a bus full of people is blown up?! Oh yeah, because you can care less about the people on the other side of the fence. Oh, and since you have never seen the wall and probably never will, reading any kind of article, which is slanted 100% in one direction is not the best way to gather information.
     
  21. Karimi8Rulz

    Karimi8Rulz New Member

    Jul 3, 2005
    the population ratio is irrelevant. Israel is not the ONLY reason but it's one of the MAIN reasons that certain groups tend to jump on. Another major reason is Wahabaism and its support thru the House of Saud (Saudi Arabia as a government).
    But Israel certainly plays a huge role in the instability of the region.
     
  22. arthur d

    arthur d Member

    Oct 17, 2004
    Cambridge England
    I'm surprised you don't understand the difference between 'moral right' and practical applicability. If you think that Germany have the moral right to keep Ethiopians from immigrating, you probably also think that Switzerland had the moral right to keep German Jews from immigrating? That's a bit beyond me, to be honest.

    BTW, you forgot to add :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: to your previous post, which significantly reduces its arrogance rating. Must be an oversight....
     
  23. RichardL

    RichardL BigSoccer Supporter

    May 2, 2001
    Berkshire
    Club:
    Reading FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    fine, but what's your viewpoint? Do you think it was justified or not?


    The US bombing of government target could be said to be a strategic part of winning any war in this day and age - knock out the command & control of the govenment and render them unable to control their battles. Bombing an embassy was just to kill people. It served no purpose except vengence. That's the difference. Whether the former legitimizes it is a different matter, but you have to be blind not to see there is a difference.

    yep, I'm sure they were all really sorry.

    I'm highlighting the completely different mindset that exists over here opposed to over there. However insincere the words may seem, western leaders do regret the loss of civilian life. Terrorists, on the other hand, gloat about it. Do you fail to see that distinction too?

    Even if you disagree about the term terrorist, do you really not accept that unintentionally killing civilians is not the same as deliberately targetting them?



    If al-queda had an a-bomb do you think they'd use it? I don't think they'll ever have one, let alone sneak one into a western country, but anyone prepared to wipe out buildings housing 50,000 people would happily do much worse if they had the opportunity. And they'd be delighted about it too.
    Stop trying to drag Japan into this anyway. For all your claims about being sickened by al-queda's tactics, you seem very keen to pseudo-justify their actions by claiming the US is just as bad. 60 years ago is a very different world, and a very different battle.

    OK, so where in the US are people advocating targetting civilians? Where in the US do you see people celebrating Iraqi civilians being killed? Where in the US do you see influential leaders calling for "death to muslims"?
     
  24. eejit

    eejit Member

    Jun 10, 2004
    The war in Iraq was a necessity IMO. It gives a place for young Jihadies to focus their energies and fight their 'holy' war.

    Currently many young terrorist recruits travel to Iraq to fight the Jihad out there. Consequently it is the infrastructure of a muslim country that gets destroyed in the process and they engage with professional soldiers rather than innocent citizens.

    Without an Iraq war these terrorists would have carried out many more 911 type attrocites IMO. The terrorists are easier to engage if you can suck them into one area such as Iraq where you can combat them. Without Iraq they would be much more dispersed and difficult to engage.

    Sure you probably create a few extra terrorists by invading Iraq but it is better than the alternative of fighting them on your own soil having your own cities attacked.
     
  25. TruxHalapino

    TruxHalapino New Member

    Jun 19, 2002
    Right. But next time please consult with us -Iraqis- first. OK?

    And if my family get blown up tomorrow by these terrorists that you -according to your post- brought to my back yard, I wont go down to their level when I excute my revenge on your home soil. Instead I will do the honorable thing and attack the US 1st Marine Corps heads up while employing faster marching speeds, worked for Napoleon. Or I might just Dive bomb their rear while having my tanks blitzkrieg.
     

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