Al-Qaeda may be “more concentrated” evil, but I think if you could measure the overrall suffering caused by the United States versus the overall suffering caused by Al-Qaeda, the U.S takes the prize.
I think anyone who actually thinks you can make a meaningful measurement like that already has a huge axe to grind and isn’t really worth listening to in the first place.
I could argue that any large country is worse than any major terrorist group just based on the fact that ANY large country has large corporations that have but untold millions out of work. Many of them have even indirectly contributed to death in the third world. The business practices of the EU, the US/NAFTA and even China has probably done untold harm to some sectors of the world.
But it’s not really a meaningful discussion because everyone recognizes that there are innate differences between states and terrorist organizations.
You know, it’s easy to say that when it’s purely hypothetical and you’re not on the point of losing your life. In Vietnam, many GIs surrendered to the enemy (rather than fighting to the death) – knowing full well their detention would be indefinite and that their captors would not follow Geneva Conventions rules and might even torture them. Same in WWII – Japan was not a signatory to Geneva and did not even pay it lip-service, yet many American and British GIs allowed the Japanese to capture them.
You sell your life cheap, but as long as it’s all comfortably in the hypothetical, why not?
There was a time when we could be expected to do the right and honorable thing with prisoners. It was at least partly in expectations of getting the same treatment when our people get captured. It also was a humane and more elevated way to act. Those times are gone. Whether we actually treated prisoners a lot better than other countries did was debatable. However we have eliminated the high road and have become a different kind of country. To expect to get good treatment nowadays or to be expected to give it would be fanciful.
One noteworthy difference between states and terrorists is that states (at least the U.S) will follow the will of its citizens if enough of them take advantage of the democratic process.
Al Qaeda is not so amenable to reason.
So the reason us “america hating” liberals spend so much time condemning our own countries actions and less time on Al Qaeda is because we have direct control over our own actions and speaking out can make a difference. It also helps to have the moral high ground. To paraphrase Jesus, we need to take the speck of dust out of our own eyes and then we will see clearly enough to take the dust out of other peoples eyes.
Or a British soldier being captured by the Irish Republican ,so called Army
I agree with you on everything except Iran .
Was it 1979 that they took over your embassy and abused your diplomats ?
I think we could possibly have sane dialogue with the Iranian government but no chance at all with the Mullahs and the revolutionary guard.
Actually I think many people who actually have experience of the region might find that somewhat trite statement incredibly offensive.
While some of the practices used by Allied troops (Im not talking about criminal ,rapist scum who should be executed) but some practices used by our forces for questioning terrorists in captivity are not sanctioned by international law, quite honestly they are no worse then the hazing practiced in some U.S. fraternities .
Oooh deary me were they stripped and handled a little bit roughly were they?
As survivors of the Saddam regime they must have found that so traumatic!
And lets face it thats not much worse then the insurgents electrocuting ,burning and cutting their prisoners,not even to get information but out of sheer sadism .
Try having a look at a captured Al Quida prisoner holding area the next time they show one while you’re watching the telly in front of the fire and drinking your coffee .
Have a little look at the bloodstained walls and floors and the barbed wire their captives were hung up by the wrists from and the body parts lying around.
Yeah just like what the superpowers have been doing to their prisoners !
Oh and the terrorists cut their prisoners heads off as well but thats not much is it ?
Its only a detail,nothing to write home about .
Oh you forgot to mention about the insurgents torturing and murdering the families(for families read mums ,young children and the old people) of those they consider to be against them ,probably slipped your mind .
Its so easy to do isn’t it?
We may be fucking up out there but at least we’re trying to help the poor bastards who have no choice but to live there .
Meanwhile apologists are trying to score debating points while the innocents are suffering dreadful deaths.
Too damned bad.
Not that I believe that, but if that’s true then the people in charge of those fraternities should be executed or tossed in prison for life. You do realize that we managed to drive quite a few of our victims insane, and killed or crippled others ? And as for the “criminal, rapist scum”, what makes you think they are the exceptions ? They got in trouble because their actions became too public, that’s all. Instead of abusing and killing people in Guantanamo Bay or some CIA prison, they did it in Iraq; that’s why it was called Gitmoizing.
Lies. We are conquerers and exploiters. We are murderers and rapists, looters and torturers and destroyers. WE ARE THE BAD GUYS.
If you are “fucking-up out there” – and it’s precisely due to said fucking-up that innocent people are dying wholesale – how are the “apologists*” wrong?
*WTF does that mean anyway in the context of the Iraq invasion? If there are any “apologists” they are clearly the ones that supported the insanity.