Most of your posts have no content. If you want to debate, how about saying whether ISIL attacks are moral and legal or not?
Sorry. That would require that Pjen actually admit to having expressed an opinion that included moral ambiguity and she will never admit that hers is not the most (or only) moral position in an argument.
On the other hand, no one is required to respond to questions on this board, so, while you may note her evasive position, you may not demand that she clarify it.
Oh, I have no illusion that I can simply declare the rules to be such that she has to respond to my questions, no more than she can actually declare that I’m supposed to exit the thread. I’m simply stating the practical fact that to have a debate, one has to illuminate others on the reasoning for one’s positions so that there can be an informed exchange. I have to admit that I thought the odds were high that this would end up as one of those GD threads that boil down to “agree with me or GTFO” but I was enticed by the substance of the topic.
To be fair to Pjen, she did specify in the OP that she wanted to compare the actions by the two entities, not rate them individually on some objective scale.
Uh, where?
She asked if we can justify one, both, or neither. And she can only say that they are the same. Which means either they are both justifiable or neither is justifiable. She just refuses to say which it is.
In that case, maybe this thread belongs in IMHO.
Yeah, I guess I was focusing too much on the first line of the OP and not on the last. The two are sort of in conflict, but I guess that shouldn’t be a big surprise…
The amount of effort put into avoiding the question is quite telling.
Are you referring to your own effort or someone else’s.
Incidentally, I politely asked you a question earlier.
You claimed earlier that Allessan would understand something based on his “political background”.
What did you mean by that?
What is his particular “political background” that made you make such a statement.
I ask because I don’t remember you making such a statement to anyone else.
Please explain.
Thanks in advance.
PJEN: Do you follow this up with “interesting times”?
The conclusion cannot be the same for the reasons I mentioned in post 68. Everything ISIL does is illegitimate. The U.S. has a moral and legal claim to self defense, even if every exercise of that power does not measure up to the standard we expect.
Take, for example, UBL’s killing. Totally legal and moral. If ISIL raided anyone’s house - from Obama to a general to a private to a cop - it is an illegitimate use of force because they have no legal or moral claim to self defense. The only justifiable action ISIL could ever take is to dissolve itself.
The amount of effort still being put into avoiding the question is quite telling.
If you cannot or do not want to address an argument, then create a meta-answer to an unasked question.
Now that you have described your behavior, would you like to respond to Ravenman’s questions?
Are you joking? You need to differentiate between “avoid the question” and “giving answers I disagree with”. There have been plenty of answers to your questions, and you have not even attempted to answer the last one in your OP:
What is your answer to that?
So, are you going to answer my question of you?
I’ve been polite and frankly my statements have been more logical than your’s.
This gets one more round of speaking past each other and it’s closed.
No.
I just have to say that while I agree with your conclusions in the specific cases, I don’t agree with your reasoning. The judgments we make about ISIL are made on the same basis as the ones that were made about UBL, and those judgments have nothing at all to do with any legalistic legitimization of authority and everything to do with rational, objective moral judgments – which can be objective because rational people can generally agree on the basic values to which civilized societies must conform. That’s the only basis on which such judgments can be made and actions morally justified. National security and national defense are part of that rational value system, but that doesn’t mean anything goes.
That’s the problem I have with “The U.S. has a moral and legal claim to self defense, even if every exercise of that power does not measure up to the standard we expect.” The exercise of such power must measure up to appropriate moral standards, otherwise the actions are not moral and not justified. That’s ultimately the only standard there is. What would King George III have said if asked about the “legal legitimacy” of the American Revolution? All those soldiers he sent over there to fight the rebels were defending his legal rights to property and governance! Under the British law to which they were subject, the rebels were criminals. Their only defense is the larger moral one.
I personally don’t have a problem with the US drone attacks because I think all reasonable efforts are made to focus on critical high-value targets and minimize collateral damage. Conversely, the Iraq invasion was a completely unjustified illegitimate clusterfuck.
They’re certainly not recognized internationally as a state, and that seems to be a big part of being a state, certainly, but in everything other than that, they appear to act like a state…they have territory, government, laws, etc. So, in your mind, is it just lack of international recognition that prevents them from being a state, or is there something else? For a comparison from US history, look at the CSA, who also never had international recognition, but I wouldn’t be uncomfortable describing them as a state.
Captain Amazing, I mostly agree with you on what constitutes a State. However, as hard as it is to define, I think some measure of longevity is required in addition to your points. "A force to be reckoned with " no doubt but some kind of longish-term solidity of borders is required for me to think of it as a State.