Well, whether you tried to be or not, you succeeded.
Anyway, no one was colonizing anything prior to 9-11 and the strike wasn’t done at the terrrorist’s home.
Plus, we’re all humans, so they would still be in the wrong. If it had been, say, cows doing the attacks, you might have a point.
That’s your opinion. But as a species, it’s a suicidal opinion to have. High morals are all fine until you wind up getting your children enslaved or killed because of them.
Some would argue that it was the President whose actions caused the death of hundreds of thousands of humans. He was the one who ordered the sneak attack on the alien fleet that subsequently caused them to retaliate.
Oh, I’d say he was to blame as well…but the fact is. it wasn’t the president that told the lizards. Yes, Yeager could probably figure out that the secret wouldn’t be kept forever…but I sure as HELL know that, were I in his situation, my thought would have been “Yes, the secret will eventually come out…but not from ME.”
Not remembering that specifically in the story, but just for Turtledoves “look at the parallels to real history - look look look, I can repeat myself all day!” factor, it would be Chernobyl, right?
I don’t know if it’s a matter of “high morals” as it was that the Race wasn’t a threat to the US, or to “humanity” in general, at the time of the attack on the colony fleet. It’s true that when the Race came to the planet, their goal was to conquer the word (under by what all appearances is a reasonably benign empire), but they had, by the time the colonization fleet arived, realized that wasn’t practical, and had reconciled themselves to the territory they then controlled. It seems like you’re working from a kind of speciest bias here, if you’re trying to say that any action against the Race is appropriate when that isn’t the case regarding a human nation.
Also, remember, even after the attack on the colony fleet was revealed, Atvar offered to not attack an American city in retaliation, provided the US gave up its space program. President Warren refused.
Yes, I freely admit to being biased towards my own species, and supporting the killing, even the cold-blooded murder, of any alien species that wants to invade our planet and colonize us.
Anyway, nothing you say is going to change my opinion, so we may as well just agree to disagree on the matter.
I would submit that there is a meaningful distinction to be made between human and non-human enemies. By the twentieth century, there were damn few human cultures that could make a plausible claim to real isolation from all other human cultures. For the most part, Earth was well on its way to becoming a global melting pot. Trade was international, and global in scope. The rise and fall of empires over time meant that almost everywhere you went, the local culture would be a melange of at least a few other civilizations that had run the place at one time or another. Culturally and economically, we may not have been - certainly were not! - one big, happy family, but we had ties to one another that involved more than killing the other guy and taking their stuff.
The Lizards aren’t a part of that - they haven’t “paid their dues”, so to speak, to human civilization. They weren’t here for the invention of the wheel, or iron smelting, or antibiotics - they came to Earth with no other intention than to conquer the place for their benefit. They’re true parasites, seizing upon all the works of human civilization and saying “yoink! this is ours, now.” Unacceptable.
To put it bluntly - every human, even the ones who’d sort of like to blow me up, is my cousin (many, many, many times removed). His culture and mine have historical ties. His nation and mine have economic ties. I owe every other human a certain decency and respect, as a result of that. If I go and kill other human civilians, I’m breaching that duty.
But if space aliens invaded, they would have no such claims upon my honor, any more than a tapeworm would. There’s no such thing as a civilian space alien invader - they’re all parasites upon human civilization, and I’d cheerfully kill as many of them as I felt to be in humanity’s interest. That doesn’t mean I’d have ordered the sneak attack on the colony ship - I’d probably have feared the inevitable retaliation. But I’d have no moral problem with it.
I’m with the “All sentience is people” side, myself.
Anything else gets us in the Matrix, people!
Well, personally, I’m with the “sentients is people too,” but with a generous helpin’ of good ol’ fashioned Salus Populi Est Suprema Lex/Inter arma enim silent leges.
So…Draka superairship transport system: how long d’ya suppose that’ll hold out? 
If you want to call me a dick, muster whatever stones you have to do so and go to the appropriate place, dude.
Your distinguishing features don’t strike me as all that relevant. “They’re not our kind of {sentient|human} and if they didn’t want what we just did to them, they should have stayed where they belonged.”
If grabbing a share of living space makes a people parasitic, then all Americans not of Native origin are parasites, and any and all measures intended to eject them are justified; similarly, all measures to get Americans out of the Middle East where they don’t belong, whether said measures are directed against the occupying Americans or some other Americans. (Unless you’re seriously telling me that you’d have objected to nuking the Lizard homeworld as a message to them to quit Earth.)
Human beings have a very good history of defining people they want to be rid of as “not people”, and who’s to say their judgement is more flawed than yours?
But I didn’t call you a dick…you did. Can’t you see the beautiful symmetry of it?
Well, in the sense that saying “I don’t want to be X” implies “I am X”, yes. :rolleyes:
What is it that I’ve heard Jim Rome say? Oh yeah, when someone starts out a sentence with “No offense,” that means they’re about to say something offensive.
I was shooting more for “Objectively I believe this is inoffensive, but here’s a nod to your particular sensibilities, just in case.” However, if quoting Jim Rome makes you feel wise, by all means carry on dancing.
I don’t think much of Rome, but even a blind squirrel finds an acorn now and again.
Oh, and I am not quite certain how telling someone they’re being an apologist for 9-11 could be considered “objectively inoffensive.” YMMV.
Ah, I see where we’re getting confused. I merely meant that your argument was fallacious, in that it could be advanced by the perpetrators of 9/11 to justify their actions with as much merit as you had used it. It is essential for this purpose that 9/11 be understood to be inexcusable, from which we see that the argument itself lacks merit. I hardly supposed you would suppose for an instant that I took you actually to be justifying 9/11. I hope this helps.
But here’s the thing.
If you consider the Lizards vermin to be exterminated, then you have no call to complain if they feel the same way towards you. If intelligent beings that aren’t a member of your species are not entitled to any moral consideration, then why would you expect the Race to take a different point of view? You wipe out their colony ships without shedding a tear, they nuke Washington without shedding a tear, or whatever it is that Lizards do instead. If you want to explain to them it it was morally wrong for them to come to Earth and try to conquer it, you have to take as a postulate that moral considerations apply across species.
Except it’s not true that the Lizards hold that non-Lizards have no moral standing. The natives of the other two planets conquered by the Race weren’t treated as animals, they were treated as citizens.
And they weren’t expecting to siphon off the wealth of the humans who lived on Earth, they were expecting to find sword-swinging barbarians. They expected to move to Earth and build everything themselves, not expect human slaves to provide it for them.
As was Kassquit, the human child raised by the Lizards in order to study human psychology. While there was certainly some prejudice against her, she was still considered a citizen and had the rights of one (and she was able to win over Lizards who showed prejudice against her by making the moral argument that she was a citizen and servant of the Emperor, and should be treated the same as any other).
For that matter, the various nations on earth don’t treat the Lizards like vermin (except maybe for the Nazis, but they treat everyone like vermin). There are Lizards living in the US, like the former POWs Ristan and Ulhass, and the defector Strahaa, and they seem to be treated the same as human beings in their position would be, and seem to have the protection of the law.