I would say, respectfully, that such a statement shows that neither you nor Maher really understand the mindset of Jihadists nor what having “big balls” means.
The 911 hijackers sincerely believed that when they died they would immediately be transported by angels to paradise where they would spend eternity getting services by beautiful virgins.
Most of them probably died with erections.
I should add that I’m not trying to be puerile. In his letters to his men, Muhammad Atta reminded them that “the women of Islam are waiting for you whispering 'come hither friend of God”.
Also, almost all of them were unmarried and came from societies where young women generally didn’t “put out” because there were extremely strong taboos against doing so and serious punishments were meted out to women who violated them, most of the men were probably virgins themselves(at least regarding women).
Never underestimate the power of sexual frustration.
Those men weren’t brave in the face of death. They chose to embrace it because they believed they’d be lavishly rewarded in paradise for doing so.
Wait, what? Are you saying you know your comments about Hitler and Bin Laden were bullshit, but you had to say it because … I later called them bullshit?
It is about drone strikes specifically. I have no problem with James Bond and his ilk running around neutralizing ne’er do wells.
So are you also conceding that the platitudes mouthed by the US government about human rights, freedom of man, blah blah blah, are also just so much bullshit?
I’m not here as a character witness for either of these shitbags. My point is that, at least in some of their public pronouncements, both Hitler and bin Laden clearly expressed their ill will towards the rest of the world. It would be refreshingly honest to see a prominent US official say something along the lines of:
“Yeah, we’re the biggest dog on the block - so fucking what? What are you gonna do about it, you speck of dirt? We’ll do whatever we feel is necessary to further our interests, and if you don’t like it, tough shit.”
Such a statement would be reprehensible, but given the public pose of the US government to date, at least it wouldn’t stink of hypocrisy.
I can’t handle being active in two hot threads at once, but I certainly have no problem in starting another thread, “Why does the US push the rest of the world around and think it’s justified?” or some such.
I’m not just focusing on the flaws, but I’m not about to ignore them either. My main reason for being in this thread is to make sure that we go beyond “can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs” line of thinking and seriously look at the harm this drone program is causing too. Sure there’s now more dead “terrorists”, but there are also dead children and dead civilians.
I’m not comfortable with 75% of people we kill in drone attacks are “targets”. I’m not comfortable with only 2% of people we kill in drone attacks being “high profile targets”. I’m not comfortable with 25% of the people we kill in drone attacks being civilian. And I’m not comfortable with 5% of the people we kill in drone attacks being children.
No. If you could guarantee (more than “what if”) that the number of civilians killed by the terrorists would be more than the civilians killed by a drone attack, I’d agree with you. When you CAN guarantee that, let me know.
Why? Both can be acts of war and can kill innocent people, and you’ve said a couple of times that you wished you hadn’t introduced the whole “cowardice” thing. What other reason is there?
No, although I have acknowledged that its human rights record has many flaws. I do think its human rights record is much better than that of the Taliban and Al Qaeda (and yes, I’m setting the bar low - that’s what you’re using as a comparison). You said:
As compared, obviously, to the U.S, which isn’t forthright. I pointed out that this was completely wrong. At times Hitler and Bin Laden were honest and at other times they lied their asses off depending on whatever suited their purposes. So now you’re down to saying they sometimes told the truth about their intentions (although even at those times they didn’t announce their other statements had been lies, which creates a big believability problem), while the U.S. is hypocritical for refusing to agree with your strawman position about its actions. For some reason you’re now saying you “had” to spout that bullshit in response to something else I said later in the thread. How does all this work?
Well based on your clarification, we have no major disagreement on these points.
I’m not comfortable with the level of civilian casualties based on what I know of the targets. None of us know enough about the specifics to say for sure, but indeed, the numbers are troubling.
As for the second point, I was just trying to establish the principle you were working on. You’ve made it clear.
The drone strikes might be moral, if they are conducted against legitimate targets, but nobody here knows whether they are. Nobody here knows what procedures are in place. Nobody here knows why standard of proof is used before targeting someone. Nobody here knows what collateral damage is acceptable. Nobody here knows what, if any, review process is in place to prosecute people who make negligent mistakes. Nobody here knows whether children are targeted. Nobody here knows wether the killing are legal. Nobody here know enough to say whether the program is moral.
Whichn is how a democratic country should run. The president should have the power to kill people and keep all the details secret without any potential consequences.
Go America. This country is setting a great example. We are truly shining city of a hill.
Because when espionage missions are successful (which I deduce is most of the time, given the paucity of stories like this), there actually is - literally - no collateral damage.
No argument here. I lived 35 mostly happy years in the US.
This really is a side-issue, but again, I was only talking about avowed public intention versus practiced behavior as a means of determining degree of hypocrisy. Both authors explicitly pursued lawless courses of action, whereas the United States prides itself (rightly) upon the rule of law.
But why are they troubling? What are you comparing them to, if anything?
The ideal is that only bad guys die - yes. But there always will be collateral damage, especially when we fight in urban areas.
Do you want to never fight in those zones? One child = “safebase”?
I remember going through the entire “Just War” discussion a couple of decades ago, and terrorist groups weren’t even the main opponent on the radar then. We talked about whether bombing a munitions factory or a shipyard was justified during a war effort, or hitting a farmer’s fields. Some argued that mining Hanoi Harbor was evil, or bombing the rice paddy dike system.
Are these statements not equally applicable to nearly every military action in our history? Did you personally review the list of bombing targets in 1991 during the Gulf War and make some recommendation as to whether the US should bomb the suspected weapons factory that had a sign in front reading “Baby Milk Factory?”
And they get MUCH better gas mileage, which is good because, you know… global warming.
Almost all bombing conducted (by the greatest military power the world has ever known) involves very little risk.
To be fair, we spent almost a trillion dollars in direct and deferred costs in Afghanistan. The GDP of Afghanistan is something like $30 Billion dollars/year. Thats less than the interest payment that a trillion dollars would yield. We could have turned Afghanistan into a club med for that kind of money.
I never had a problem with invading Afghanistan, I have a problem with using a $300,000 missile to blow up three pup tents in the middle of the desert.
I’m not sure I am willing to grant a police action against terrorists the moral equivalent of war. Frankly you sound like a character from 1984. You know, “We have always been at war with Eastasia.” Only you are saying “We have always been at war with the terrorists.” It’s the exact same mindframe.