Aside from the question of “us and them” how does this differ from ill guided drone attacks in Afghanistan.
What is the appropriate reaction when ISIL explode a bomb under a military family christening or marriage.
Can we justify one, both or neither?
Well, I’d certainly offer that we regret them and the Islamic State celebrates them. I’d consider that a significant difference.
On the other hand, this appears to be one more attempt by ISIL (ISIS? I never know) to goad the opposition into reactionary attacks that will continue to boost their membership instead of achieving any concrete goal. They begin to appear to behave like a multi-level marketing scheme where the overall goal isn’t to sell anything (or win a war) but rather to keep new people joining up.
I agree. But that is the way that all political and controlling organisations work in reality- creation of a myth and accretion of believers; the ends are often superseded by the means.
Well, one difference would be civilians targeted by accident or negligence (in the former case) vs. civilians targeted deliberately (in the latter), although I recognize that such a distinction may be lost on the victims and their families.
Point of order: if someone who otherwise has no known direct connection to ISIL happens to read their call to action and kills members of a military family, entirely on their own, can we say that ISIL did it?
I was thinking of drone attacks aimed at decapitating certain individuals or groups in the various Afghani resistance organisations, resulting in deaths at family weddings, and the same aimed at senior US military personnel and their friends and families.
Do both have valid targets with ‘collateral damage’?
Anything done to advance the cause of ISIS is evil - it serves an indisputably evil end even if it does not use an evil means. We can and should oppose this action by ISIS simply because the purpose is to make it easier for ISIS to rape more women, murder more religious minorities and raze more archaeological sites. They could be running a pet-a-kitten-a-thon and it would still be evil if it was a fundraiser to send ISIS a new set of machetes.
Such fundamentalism neatly mirrors the excuses the combined terrorist organizations use to justify their attacks on Western civilization.
Apart from ‘us and them’ what separates attacks on domestic premises when opposing military personnel are present?
There is no moral equivalence between a terrorist group on one hand that has a specific aim to kill innocent people for not being Muslim enough - rather, not being psychopaths in perverting a religion - and a group of countries that nearly always upholds the law of war and often gives compensation to the families of innocents who were wrongly killed.
It is complete bullshit to cherry pick a few similarities between the two: “I saw an ISIL guy in the TV wearing a hat, but don’t our soldiers wear hats too? OMG our governments are terrorists too!!”
The difference to be made is that the DAESH , as their celebration and claim of credit for the barbaric killing in the Tunis already tells us, do not care for any targetting or accuracy.
The americans make mistakes and are too blind to what they call the collateral damage, but I do not believe they deliberately kill without discrimination. DAESH deliberately kills and deliberately celebrates the killing without discrimination or any logical justification of targets.
You are the person who has claimed you feel that the killing of Muslim apostates is no more morally objectionable than the execution people convicted of raping and killing children.
I’d recommend against accusing others of “fundamentalism”.
Agreed.
Frankly I wish we’d focus a lot less on the atrocities they inflict on Western civilians and more time on the vastly, vastly greater number of Muslims and non-Muslim Middle Easterners they victimize.
Even this little stunt was probably far more designed to gain attention than to get sleeper cells to kill off American soldiers.
Beyond that, I’m surprised at Pjen’s question because such tactics by the IRA, who did them repeatedly have always been classified as terrorism.
If ISIS suggested they did it, would have done themselves if they could, and are glad the third party DID do it.
Then yeah, for all practical purposes morally speaking IMO they get to share the credit/blame.
There’s something fundamentally wrong about the proposition that any civilian casualties incurred in the process of combatting an evil foe (using means that minimize such casualties) are morally equivalent to deliberately targeting noncombatants and rejoicing over their deaths.
Rosa Parks would have understood the difference.
Where did I state that?
You have a risk of giving them more importance than they really have and creating a stronger image of their organization than it really is.
I said morally, not strategically.
Given that in most cases, Western democracies act more morally than IS, I am asking bow these two specific actions compare and contrast. To me, targetting identified specific supposed military combatants with minimal due regard for collateral damage seem fairly equivalent.
Did anyone read the link? Far be it from me to defend the so-called Islamic State (SCIS), but the article says they have instructed sympathizers in the US to kill military personnel-- nothing about families. Now, that may not be the whole story, and the SCIS has a history of deliberately killing civilians, but as far as the article goes, this is not the case here.
The question is, does the SCIS have the moral authority to direct attacks against the military in the US? I don’t see why not. We’re attacking them, militarily.
Other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?