Maybe you can, in your infinite wisdom, tell us what the debate is about?
We’ve done nothing of the sort! What we’ve done is point out the hypocrisy on the part of the those who were so “outraged” over the treatment of Iraqi prisoners and attempted to use it as a weapon to argue against our involvement in Iraq. We’re wondering where the outrage was over the much worse humun treatment visited upon Paul Johnson. We know the answer, of course: it’s because outrage expressed over that would tend to create support for our action in Iraq, which is what the real problem is here in the first place.
[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian]
Please help me to see otherwise if you wish to continue a debate on the topic. How is your (and Milum’s) debate topic not “Their terrorist acts are worse than our terrorist acts”? I have no debate topic and I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t really care to engage in a debate with you in the first place. I came into this thread primarily to try to help explain to those who were claiming not to understand Milum’s point in the OP what it was that he was driving at. My responses to you have been in regard to comments you have made either to me or to things I’ve posted.
Can you say “false premise?” “False,” as in inaccurate or untrue.
I must be making pretty good headway here for you to be grasping at such silly straws.
Your dog shits on the carpet. You tell him “bad boy” and put him out back for a few hours.
Your husband shits on the carpet. You…?
The point is, from one, you expect it. They are the bad guys, that is what they do. That is why we are fighting them. Because they behead people. Right? The other, you expect to stand of for what you believe in. You expect them to behave a proper way. You expect them to NOT behead people, or to NOT rape them with flashlights, or to NOT beat them to death. Thus, when they DO do so, you’re a tad more pissed off.
Unless you want to be a relativist about everything? Hm? Absolutist, everyone held to the same values?
In that case, 3,000 people dying on 9/11 is piss and shit compared to everything else on the planet, so you can suck it up and go home.
Oh, I see. Sorry, I thought WMD and its development technology had a longer life span than that.
That would be all well and good if the U.N. actually *did *anything.
How would *he *know, given that all of Iraq’s neighbors, most of Europe, the U.S. intelligence services and the U.N. itself all believed he did.
No, they are not supposed. They *are *my justifications.
I couldn’t disagree more. How many members of the U.N. were killed on 9/11? How many would be killed if a dirty bomb went off in New York City or Washington?
I would remind you that this is only your opinion. It certainly isn’t a fact.
What arrogance! I neither overlook it nor disagree with it. However, for the reasons I outlined I believe this grave action is not only justified but imperative.
Bullshit.
Who knows. Since you can’t remember them, I can’t speak to them.
Think what you wish. I know the basis of my reasoning to be as I’ve descibed. If you want to interpret it differently, go right ahead. It won’t make your opinion fact.
Again, what arrogance! Just like I said to Hentor, anything I’ve said to you has been in response to a question *you *posed to me or in regard to some comment *you *made about something I said. Further, I paid for the privilege of posting to these forums and I will do so anytime I like.
[QUOTE=Starving ArtistHow would *he *know, given that all of Iraq’s neighbors, most of Europe, the U.S. intelligence services and the U.N. itself all believed he did.[/quote]
Kinda funny, how they were all wrong, isn’t it?
Depends, are we counting Americans as “members of the UN,” or have we not officially withdrawn and flipped them off yet?
I would like to think that your previous complaint about the UN’s “not doing anything” and the UN’s “not being attacked” are SOMEHOW linked, but I just can’t put my finger on it…
I know I would be outraged to see such behavior by US armed forces anywhere. I don’t expect it from them because I regard them as morally superior to those who commit such acts. President Bush claimed he was “disgusted” by it, why shouldn’t I be?
Do not dare to make such a hairbrained assertion that my feelings about Mr. Johnson are subsumed by my political feelings. If I were to express my outrage about the matter in a political nature, it would be to say that our being in Iraq appears to be increasing beheadings, not that being in Iraq is justified by beheadings.
Do you think that Iraqis are beheading people? Do you think Saddam loyalists are behind this? His beheading demonstrates that we have wasted so much - so much time, money, effort and lives NOT going after al Queda, but invading Iraq for nothing. We should have not rested until al Queda was crushed, but what do we have? We are pulling troops out of South Korea and other parts of the world. We have alienated supporters and increased the motivation for others to act against us. The number of terrorist acts has increased, and the number we have foiled has decreased.
What you and Milum are doing is wrong on several levels. You are attempting to compare the acts of terrorists with the US military. You are equating the victims of torture at Abu Ghraib, who were largely Iraqi citizens pulled off the street with Islamic terrorists. You are concluding that acts of al Quada justify our invading Iraq.
[quote]
Can you say “false premise?” “False,” as in inaccurate or untrue.
[quote]
Can you explain how is it false? You are claiming that my lack of mention of the beheading of Mr. Johnson indicates my feeling on the topic. Have you mentioned Jeffrey Dahmer here? Well, doesn’t that mean something about your feelings for Jeffrey Dahmer?
Like a true Republican, you keep claiming “Mission Accomplished.” But you and Milum can keep high-fiving each other. You are equally intelligent and equally good debaters.
Are you saying if we don’t *do *anything, terrorists won’t attack us? We weren’t doing anything (unless you want to count some of us Western “infidels” having set foot on Muslim soil) on 9/11!
Point taken.
Attempting to understand an opponent’s motivations does not mean capitulating to them. It just means what it means. Be it the police in a hostage situation, sports opponents, or even terrorists, when you begin to understand their motivations and directions from their perspective it is easier (undefined) to locate weaknesses and defeat them. At the same time, it should bring a self-awareness that what we do, have done in the past, and apparently continue to do, may spark such terrorism against us. This by no means an attempt to blame ourselves for the terrorist committing such acts against us. Instead, it may help in understanding how our attitudes, opinons and motivations are seen by terrorists and why they seek to attack us.
In the end, could we be doing something differently? Perhaps, but again this is not capitulation.
Damnit Zagdaka, you woke me up! Your shit-on-the-carpet example is bullshit.
Doesn’t your young graduate-school mind realize that the principal of inherent equality for all of the citizens of this planet cannot be compromised.
Otherwise a bond would be broken with the most fundamental of postulates
that are held by 30% of the people of this world who are freemen and freewomen.
You in your youth can toss about silly academic terms like “relativist” and “absolutist” but to no avail. Reality laughs at such clumcy constructions.
Grab your coat. The train that will take you to freedom is pulling out of the station.
Get aboard… Now!
Well, with your definition of “not doing anything” we could be raping their mothers with the business end of a M-16 and be Holy Angels sent by the Lord to protect them.
Why Milum, glad to see you’re on board the equality train, considering that earlier you were of the opinion that American cultures succeeds because it is so much better than those other cultures.
Well, now that you’re on board, I’m sure you’ll see the 3,000 deaths on 9/11 business was a drop in the bucket compared to how many people we’ve killed before (and since). It is only something to be expected!
Sorry to have confused you with my fancy educated talk.
What I meant to say is that if “we are all equals,” or as you put it, the “principal of inherent equality,” you’ve got a little 'splaining to do about the trail of corpses you’ve left behind, much less trying to justify complaining about one little beheading.
I know you’re new at this whole “humanitarian” thing, but as you say, we’re all equals. I believe there are some people in Sudan who are interested in talking to you.
Did you catch a little German accent there? Where is this train going to, anyway?
As you yourself said, point taken. I understand better now and I can say I completely agree with you here. Perhaps I’ve become so accustomed to snide and condescending comments here than I occasionally see them where none are intended. I do apologize.
The problem isn’t that you are disgusted or outraged by what happened. The genesis of this thread was the apparent lack of disgust and outrage at what happened to Paul Johnson.
Perhaps if you got down off your high horse, you could see more clearly what’s going on here on the ground. Where did I speak specifically as to your particular feelings? When one speaks of a group of people, I would think there would be room for differences and/or degrees of feeling and/or behavior.
What a silly, junior high type of comment!
And you would be perfectly free to do so, and you would be right. But when has a war been fought without resistance and attempts to get the other side to back off? It’s part of war. You could say the same thing about the children and women used as human sheilds by Iraqi fighters when the war began. Our military set out to engage their military. This is the way wars are fought, and it is in accordance with the Geneva Convention. Some of those cowards came firing at our troops while hiding behind women and children; others tried to flee while hiding behind women and children in the hopes we wouldn’t shoot and they could get away. This type of behavior, and the beheadings as well, speak to the barbaric and uncaring type of people we are dealing with. According to your apparent way of thinking, wars should be fought with no outside casualties. While this would certainly be desireable, it is idealistic and completely unrealistic, which is after all a hallmark of your way of thinking.
I have to go now, but I will try to find time to (deservedly) rebut the remainder of your post tomorrow.
Correction: make that “human shields.”
I can’t think of a better way to illustrate the mentality of the type of people I’m having to contend with here than with this remark!
Keep this stuff up and it’s going to be hard to take you seriously enough to bother with.
Which, as I have already pointed out, is simply a lie by milum that you are swallowing whole. Before milum ever posted his false rant in the wrong Forum, pretending that no one was outraged at Mr. Johnson’s death, there had already been four separate threads initiated on the topic (two within ten minutes of the news being reported–long before miulum got around to posting) and a couple of other threads that alluded to it.
milum’s thesis is false (I suspect deliberately so), and that is the sillyness that I am surprised you are buying into.
Wow, tomndebb, will all the dips and dodges of the speakers from the left on this forum never cease?
Listen…The Pit is a bad neighborhood where decent people never trod.
It is a place of deviates and bankrobbers; a smelly, unsavory place where teenagers can go and say “motherfuck” without rebuke.
This is also the place where your refered * " four separate threads"* reported Mister Johnson’s beheading.
Hardly a decent burial for Mister Johnson’s sad plight.
Do you not think?
Jeez.
The Pit also happens to be the place most of us stow our anger and outrage about things.
The fact that there were 4 Pit threads on it, makes it appear that there was, in fact, moral outrage about the incident, so you’re still wrong.
The fact that you would mischaracterize the Pit in this way while bringing your own rant (for that is what your OP was) to this Forum expresses exactly how dishonest you are–both in your speech and in your actions.
Well, your concern for his sad plight is very touching. It is much better served by your politicizing it here. Much more heart-felt. Let’s look at your eulogy.
Wow. Nothing says serious tribute like “Hey gang!” And you sure have capture the essence of his life with “did anyone happen to catch the latest beheading”. This is not at all like a conversation around the water cooler.
You know what is really odd, given your concern for Mister Johnson, and your dedication to ensuring that he is remembered in an appropriate forum?
His name does not appear once in your OP.