absolutely. Diogenes
At this point I’m not entirely certain just what the statement was. I mean, I know what it says but not what Colinito meant, exactly. If he is singling out the military specifically as murders, then I would he was wrong, and that Airman’s response was justified (in the proper forum). If he was making a more general statement about national collective guilt, then I would say that was a valid philosophical subject for debate, arguable, perhaps, but not an insult to Airman.
Bilge spew.
We have fucking rules? Here? :eek: I thought that was only the stuff from the Bible, and various penal codes, and suchlike.
I agree with Beagle, not even close. I’m still trying to figure out why David B didn’t smack down both of them. Much as Great Debates sometimes turns into a hockey game, it still doesn’t make any sense to punish the retaliator and let the instigator go unpunished.
yep, and I understand that Coldfire has the video rights.
Since when is “murderer” an insult anyway? Over the top bullshit rhetoric, to be sure, but an insult? I don’t think so.
Lawyers = thieves
Politicians = crooks
Doctors = quacks
Military = murderers
And life goes on.
Don’t credit me - I mean, unless this is some new wonderful tradition - I just bolded the text for DtC. Others pointed out that the “USAF. that says it all” part had to refer to the Airman - unless it was channeled through John Edward. But, since early on in the thread **AirmanDoors,“USAF,”**posted quite a bit, it was reasonable to assume that was what was meant.
I can see how the mods. missed it. The usual convention of bolding the slandered poster’s name was not used, thus creating a stealth slander.
I just saw the use of Airman’s name as a form of address, i.e. “Airman, we are targeting civilians…” Looking at it now though, the use of the word “murderers” could be read as a specific charge against the poster being addressed. I still think it’s ambiguous, though, and if given a chance, Colinito may have clarified himself. In any case, it isn’t an easily catchable slur if one does not specifically have his attention drawn to it. Flaming in GD is easy to catch and is a violation no matter what the provacation. I still would like to know why Airman didn’t report the post to the mods if he was offended. That is what the function is for. He chose to provoke the mods, instead with a blatant violation of his own. Frankly, I’ve been more personally and openly attacked myself outside the pit without feeling the need to flame away in the wrong forum. If someone says something truly insulting in GD there are better ways to deal with it than Airman did.
Sorry, I can’t let this go unchallenged.
Two words: Hiroshima, Nagasaki.
Yeah, I did point out in some thread about North Korea that we are the only nation to have ever engaged in a nuclear first strike, and that we have adamantly refused to rule out doing it again.
Meantime,
Originally posted by monster104:
As a dedicated fencer I’d just like to say that if we’d limited everybody to swords, we wouldn’t be having any of these problems at all. I remember reading about an Italian general who, having lost a number of his best swordsmen to musketeers firing from a distance, cut their hands off when his men overtook and captured them, he was so incensed at the idea of long distance killing.
The sword is the antithesis of the weapon of mass destruction. Not that it will be reintroduced any time soon, unfortunately.
Oh well. Carry on.
You are wrong.
In any event, we are talking about the upcoming war and you’ll be sure to let the military Dopers know that they are expected to strafe women and children, bayonet babies, torture old people and so on.
Regardless of the rules debate, it seems to me that in this instance that the insult is so egregious that it requires condemnation. Calling the USAF murderers and accusing them of targeting civilians is disgusting and should not be countenaced or allowed to go unchallenged by civilized people.
Bullshit. All I said what that it would be nice to see some of the liberals step up and denounce this slur on our military. It’s possible to disagree with someone and still defend them from unwarranted attack.
For the sake of argument, say the US goes ahead with the planned invasion of Iraq against both, international law as interpreted by the UN and world opinion. It will then come as no surprise to anyone that during said invasion any number of innocent civilians will die as direct result of American military actions.
So the question is, or should be, what will the ensuing casualties be called? The euphemistic ‘collateral damage’ that will surely surface in the pro-american/censored press or the nefarious ‘murder-victims’ label that will arise in the media outlets controlled by those who oppose the war? And I guess the answer lies in your individual perspective. The Fog of Morality if you will.
The sad irony in all of this is that dead is dead, no matter what you call the people who killed them. Thin line between hero and murderer when it comes to war – and it is being blurred by as we speak.
Ultimately, I think we’d all agree, someone has to be responsible for the dead – it is not like they are going to die in a vacuum.
Saddam Hussein. If he had played straight and obeyed the UN resolutions to give a full accounting of his WMDs, none of this would be happening.
So to prove my error, you point to a previous debate? Can I do the same to prove you wrong?
And thanks for putting words into my mouth. Fitting, I guess, since that seems to be what’s really being debated here.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been talked to death over the years, and there’s no need to hijack this thread to rehash the same old discussions.
Surely under the scenario I proposed – which looks more and more likely – the US and whatever other Govs it can recruit (against the will of their own people if we’re to believe most of the polls taken world-wide) would be the ones indicting Saddam for said deaths. To the eyes of the UN and the rest of the world your actions would be illegal and by default, inmoral. Where that polarization might/will lead us, is a topic for a different thread. But it is happening already.
In mind, anyone banging the drums of war – especially those that insist on ‘preemptive action’ – bears the ultimatate responsablity for the killings.
In the case of the military, I am not so clear. I suppose they really have no choice (or gave up that choice when they enlisted) but to go ahead and follow orders. But I’d still differenciate between those that are pushing for this engament and those – and I suspect there are many – who will proceed from a sense of duty alone.
What you brought up was a thread about the relative utility of the A-bomb attack, which you could debate until Armageddon itself, because of the hypotheticals involved.
This has zero to do with the central issue: the deliberate targetting of civilians. We did it before. In this specific instance. It refuted, directly, your invalid claim that our military doesn’t deliberately target civilians.
Agreed. Then you cannot make the statement that our military does not, or has not, targeted civilians.
Those were intended to end the war, not to kill civilians. You sound as if our troops deliberately kill noncombatants in every conflict.