Would it not be easier to say that there is no valid justification for anyone on this board to want to kill anyone? Or do US troops have some kind of status not possessed by other people which makes it wrong for anyone to want to kill them?
The minor Shiite insurgency is over. The Sunni insurgency appears strong as ever with increasing foreign support.
How on earth did you come to that conclusion
This thread is not about killing in general. My response is focused on an individual who expressed a desire to kill US soldiers. Clarity is a virtue.
Christ, I step out for a week and come back to see the king of all shitstorms. I’m too lazy to read through a 11 page thread to catch up on current events around here, so someone give me the gist.
Truth is also a virtue. Talking about how you feel is very different from taking action. It certainly isn’t a threat to anyone … and the fact that he was warned for it was even seen as unfair by US members.
If the moderators had admitted to making a mistake [do they ever?] and withdrawn that unjust warning, I don’t think Aldebaran would have been banned. Unfortunately he got a bit carried away with his anger at what many people saw as a mistake in moderation. Especially given some of the things later in that thread which were ignored, although much more worthy of moderation.
I don’t think he was a troll, either - he was someone who cared deeply about the people of the ME and about justice.
It was a 3-page thread that did him in.
Well, just because the point of this thread is whether anyone should be allowed to advocate Iraqi violence versus American violence. It seemed your point was that even the Iraqis don’t support killing US troops so we shouldn’t allow talk about it. I inferred that you didn’t also say we shouldn’t advocate American violence because you think Americans support it.
But I suppose I could alternately infer that you believe we should NOT allow advocating American military action. I’ll let you clarify.
We are seated squarely on the horns of a moral dilemma.
The right of an invaded people to resist their invaders is almost universally recognized. Whether you want to call them “insurgents”, “terrorists” or “patriots”, that is only a matter of spin and propaganda. Mere semantics will not help.
Our only possible moral standing was our insistence that we were reacting to a threat, a threat since proved to exist only in the fevered imaginations of our leaders. Hence, our invasion has no standing, it is aggression. Our loftly moral pronouncements are just so much verbage, they amount to diddly-squat.
It is our soldiers who are burdened with carrying out our misguided intentions. And I have no option, no choice. I cannot possibly cheer for the insurgents, even as I recognise the clear superiority of their cause. These are my people, I honor their service and commitment, even as they serve a monstrous folly. The enemy has every right on his side, but let him be worm-meat, let his wife be widowed, let his children be orphaned. Not ours, not mine.
This is a ghastly predicament, there is no honorable choice, the honorable choices were all nullified by the men who insisted on serving us this turd sundae. Worse still, if the insurgency is wiped out, and our soldiers prevail, these very same morally bankrupt goons will declare victory, and count themselves wise and prescient. As if betting all your money, your home and your children that you can roll double sixes three times running is a smart move if you succeed. No matter how lucky a fool is, he remains a fool. But they will pat themselves on the back for their wisdom and prescience, they will gloat over their determination to proceed against wise counsel, and they will be encouraged to believe that they know best. And another such adventure into blithering idiocy becomes that much more certain.
It may very well be that the best possible outcome for our country, objectively considered in the long-run, would be a total rout and defeat for our forces, at a cost that rouses us to hold these men accountable and chuck their sorry asses out at our earliest opportunity. But that would mean the sacrifice of people whose committment I honor and whose lives I hold dear, more dear than honor, more dear the being right.
I only am certain of this much: I will never, ever forgive the men who forced this ghastly dilemma upon me.
Please stop beating around the bush and answer my question. It was clearly based on your previous coment as follows
I’m not beating around the bush at all. I answered you quite directly. Correct me if this is not a paraphrase of your earlier post:
“There is no reason to call for American casualities because the majority of Iraqis don’t want American casualties”
If it is then I ask you: is it alright to call for Iraqi casualties? If so, why?
I can’t possibly improve on what elucidator has written above, so I would just like to endorse those comments.
Carnalk, where did you infer that I implied that most Americans want to kill Iraqis ?
ffs, read.
I didnt say you made the claim so quit acting so frigging defensive about it. I’m highlighting the fact that you have a specific standard for whether we should allow talk about US deaths which you apparently have a mental block applying to the opposing view.
That, dear sir, is a steaming crock of shit. Sawing the heads off of NGO aid workers is not a legitimate means of resisting an invasion, semantic equivocation be damned.
And torturing prisonners is not a legitimate means of administering conquered territory. And your point?
bolding mine
Now I had asked you how you came to that conclusion. Answer me please.
Brutus’ point is that the US army has a few bad apples, but the Iraqi insurgents are all bloodthirsty villains.
grienspace, nah don’t think I’ll bother. You ain’t catching on quick enough for my taste.
Screw this ‘bad apple’ nonsense, the Americans had a directive from the president authorizing torture. They just backed off on it a bit this past week in a cynical effort to get the president’s torture-lawyer appointed attorney general.
And what is? You seem to be reaching to declare that all Iraqi resistance is illegitimate, but dare not say it.
If you want to say that any and all resistance in the part of the Iraqis is, by definition, illegitimate, say so. Be prepared to answer a gentle inquiry as to the facts underlying that conclusion.
If you are only striving to make the blindingly obvious point that some forms of resistance are legitimate, others are not, thank you for sharing.
Exactly, the ten thousand U.S. soldiers killed and wounded are the evidence of resistance, not the stories about groups that capture and behead civilians. Do not put them in the same boat. Just as I would not equate Pvt. England’s sick demented ways with every other U.S. soldier.
FACT: There is a resistance that fights U.S. troops.
FACT: There is a group of terrorists who are killing Iraqi’s and civilian workers.
FACT: These two groups, despite what your leaders and media tell you, are NOT necessarily the same.
It is sad, but U.S. troops are legitimate targets for the resistance. We sent them there as invaders. Like it or not, when U.S. troops die, it is not at the hand of terrorists… it is at the hand of combatants. Like Elucidator, I support our soldiers because our evil leaders made us choose a side.
However, until this board can accept that reality and enforce the rule about wishing death, calling for death or advocating the methodology of death against others from all cultural perspectives (including the support of any Military action) then this will not be an International board because there are just too many people who disagree with U.S. policy.
Cite?