I thought Gaudere was a chick.
She is.
I will gladly state this as bollocks.
As I see it, Gaudere was out of line.
You didn’t say you were going to go out and kill American soldiers, only that that’s what it made you feel like doing. And, I believe, your point that others in the ME feel that way was totally valid. That people are willing to take up arms against an invading army.
In my mind it’s a double standard: you can say that America should wage war on Iraq (and thus, let’s not sanitize or whitewash this, you’re saying Americans should kill Iraqis and ‘insurgents.’)
However, if you say that those being invaded should fight back against their invaders, you violate board rules.
So, yes, you’re in the right, but you also seem to be letting this get to you a bit much. Don’t let this degenerate into a meltdown and then suicide by mod.
Take a little time, drink some tea, read something that’ll make you smile.
Don’t give them any excuses to ban you.
- Check Gaudere’s post. It was made yesterday. So today seems a fine time to discuss it, n’est pas?
- My guess is that the word for it is “someone who isn’t a christian.”
But that’s more than one word.
I do see one important difference between saying that the US should nuke something, and saying you feel like going to Iraq and shooting at soldiers. None of the posters here have access to nuclear weaponry. You could easily get a gun, and it doesn’t sound like you’d have to travel far to get to Iraq. One (while still hateful and stupid) can’t be seen as an actual threat. The other can.
Ok, what if instead of ‘nuke’ posters say “we should beat those insurgents!” or “sure I’d enlist so I could fight those “terrorists” in Iraq!”
I don’t understand the warning. Does this apply to American servicemen only, or does it apply to all the American people? How about British troops? How about Iraqi civilians or citizens of the Middle East in general? Nevermind the last one, we all know they’re fair game.
And he never ,ade a threat, the mod stretched the truth a little there. He stated a feeling.
But you still need to calm down a bit, Ald. You’re beginning to sound like the American neo-cons and warhawks … two sides of the same coin.
There’s also the problem, here, of the scale of threat implied in the rant. In the rants where people have said they wanted to nuke various countries, this was seen as a fairly idle threat, even though it did betray a wildly anti-social attitude on some peoples’ parts, and even though nuking those countries would be horrible beyond reckoning.
Saying, on the other hand, that these atrocities make him angry enough to want to go and kill American soldiers is a bit different, because he has led us to believe that this is, in fact, something that he could do. If, instead, he had said he wanted to nuke America for what had happened, it wouldn’t have been perceived as that big a deal, because we assume Aldebaran isn’t a nuclear power…
FinnAgain I don’t really see the difference between ‘I feel like joining up and fighting those Iraqis.’ and ‘I feel like going to Iraq to help fight those invaders.’
Nor do I.
Which is why I think that the rule should either be applied equally or not at all.
Although we’ve attempted to whitewash the war here at home, the fact remains that fighting it means death for Iraqis, and supporting it means, in whatever limited manner, supporting the deaths of our ‘enemies’ in Iraq.
Why is it cool to say that we should fight (eg. kill) Iraqi ‘terrorists’ but not okay to say that ME’ers feel like fighting (eg. killing) the American troops who have invaded their region?
Aldebaran asks the obvious but difficult question concerning the invasion. It is one that Americans should confront.
Your ties of kinship to soldiers and national pride; Or answering the call of justice.
It is one or the other, which do you choose?
It takes moral courage.
The other way of looking at it; how to bring home to red America the wrong and folly of current policy?
In Iraq, no WMD (remember?) no Al-Q, torture, rape, civilian casualties, no exit strategy, no positive outlook: all this at the behest of US forces. Yet, not a blip. Popular news back home. “Learning them A-rabs and all”.
UN disapproval? Give me a break, that’s worth 6 points in Iowa!
No, as a matter of cool-headed strategy, the only way to shorten this occupation and stop it happening again, is for domestic USA to confront the corpses and maimed bodies of their own young men and women. It is regrettable and not something to be met with any relish, but what else remains?
This takes no moral courage to put in writing. Men and women of bravery I cannot conceive, are electing to give their own lives to answer the call of justice and dignity.
Give this one a break, already. It’s been hashed over too many times, both calling him ‘Deb’ and quasi-demanding he prove where he lives as some sort of qualification. This isn’t helping anyone or anything.
The not-so-subtle implication of trolling is out of bounds too. As more than a few recent Pit threads have already proven, plenty of people around the world, not the mention in the US, don’t observe Christmas. This Pit thread is no more inappropriate than any other for falling on a particular day.
TVeblen
Pit mod
His mere sentiment is enough proof of his intent? What the hell is that?
If so, then I again see no difference between what he said and those advocating things involving nuclear weapons. The U.S. is a nuclear nation who has used nuclear weapons on civilians before. If you’re going to argue “he could get a gun and make good on his threats” one can just as easily say “he’s going to lobby a very war-like administration to invade another sovereign nation where they can use their newly developed mini-nukes.” I guess we can stretch all types of things to mean all types of things. If you let one side present its case, it would be nice to let the other side do likewise. Of course, no one said this place had to be nice.
No… seriously?? Come on… you’re just being contrarian. We know you.
No?
Well I’m shocked… shocked I tell you!
There is a war going on on this planet.
Not the war in Iraq, not in Sudan… but everywhere on this planet.
That war is about civilization versus annihilation.
This war is not fought in cities or deserts.
It is not fought with guns and bombs.
It is being fought in the hearts of all mankind.
Everytime we as humans see our own dying because of an idological difference between the “enemy” and “us,” we feel our hearts burn with the desire for revenge.
But the fire is not a righteous fire. The fire of revenge only masks the cold sickness that envelops our soul and drags us down into the hell pit of inhumanity and hatred. It is the same hatred that caused our own to die. It is the same hatred that fuels the next death, the next, the next.
When will it stop?
I wish I knew.
But I do know one thing…
Brother Aldebaran your anger and hate is the subtle and evil force of the satanic influence of this world. Love and peace is true submission to Allah. How can any true believer hurt anyone who was created in the image of Our Lord God? Look at the battlefield, see the gnashing of teeth and wailing of mothers holding their children in their arms. Do you see American mothers in the eyes of the Iraqi mothers? She is grieving. She wants vengance. The American mothers wants the same. Who is right?
Neither of them.
Every Israel killed, every Palestinian killed brings the world closer to annihilation. Not the world dying, but humanity’s soul dying. Our souls are hardening, our hearts are being covered in ice. All the while, our minds are burning with hatred. God, the All Merciful, is slipping from our grasp. The satan we have made in our hearts is embracing us in our own hell.
Kill them, he whispers.
Hate them, he whispers.
I will make you righteous, he whispers.
I will make you powerful, he whispers.
How many will die until we reject him?
How many lands will be scorched?
How many children will die?
When will it end?
It ends when the hearts of mankind rise up and shout, “Never again.”
When all people of God, all people of good will, all human beings born who want peace and love say, “No more, never again,” then and only then will our hearts break free of the ice of hate and our souls find the love of Allah, the Great, the All Glorious.
The choice is yours. Do you embrace the power of hatred and lose your soul?
Do you embrace love and peace and gain paradise?
I bid you peace and love and a prayer for any soul that you know that has died.
Where did I say that?
I don’t know. You’re the one who said it.
All I said was that one statement could not reasonably be seen as a threat a poster could carry out, the other could.
While I don’t want our troops killed (for the record, I don’t want Iraqis killed either), I agree with what Aldeberan said in his original post.
Are US troops in Iraq for no good reason? You bet.
Has the whole operation been handled terribly? Absolutely.
Have our troops brought suffering and death to innocent Iraqis? Sadly, they have.
Is suggesting that we should invade Syria monumentally stupid? It is.
Ryan Shut the fuck up, already.
Al - violence begets violence. No matter how upset you are, resorting to violence, in real life or virtually on a message board, will not make things better.
I thought you were a pin in the ass when you joined, but you have certainly changed over the time here. Don’t devolve to what you were when first joining. Chill and take a break.
BytopianDream, that was beautiful.
Haj
As an American I have to disagree.
Violence sure as heck settled our grievences with Great Britain in 1776.
Or, as Heinlein put it “If you don’t think violence ever solved anything, go tell that to the Carthaginan elders.”
Yes, communication and negotiation should always be first options. But once all other options are exhausted, sometimes it’s time to pick up a gun. After all, (to quote Heinlein again) there is nothing more noble than to put one’s own body between home and loved ones, and the war’s desolation.
Doc:
My mistake. I thought you were inferring “he would” when you said “he could.” But if not, I don’t see how what he said can be interpreted as a threat. I “could” do a lot of things. That doesn’t necessarily make me, or what I say, a threat. But I think we agree for the most part any way.