# The terrorists win one - thanks, Manila **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 16, 2004, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-terrorists-win-one-thanks-manila/255448 "2004-07-16T17:31:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![MysteryFellow63427](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e4f/32.png) [@MysteryFellow63427](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MysteryFellow63427)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2004, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-terrorists-win-one-thanks-manila/255448/41 "2004-07-20T19:53:55Z")
> [@RedFury](#): > > Big “IF” there, pal. Care to guess how may ‘terrorist’ were actually in the aproximately [12,000](http://www.iraqbodycount.net/) civilians killed so far? BTW, this “right” you speak of, is it divine? 'cause I can’t seem to recall anyone else “giving” it to you. I’m not going to argue - figuring out who’s a terrorist is the hard part, killing is the easy part. Also, you mischaracterize my use of the term right. > [@](#): > > I’d also be curious to know if Iraqis that oppose your continuing presence there would, in your opinion, count as “potential terrorists.” Because if they do, for the sake of consistency with this whole “pre-emptive war” business, you’re going to have to wipe out at roughly [80% of the Iraqi population](http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-04-28-poll-cover_x.htm). They count as “potential terrorists” in the same way that anyone who doesn’t believe in Christ counts as a “potential Christian,” and obviously, wiping out every Iraqi who doesn’t like us at the moment is absurd. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2004, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-terrorists-win-one-thanks-manila/255448/42 "2004-07-20T22:48:51Z")
> [@Goldenchild487](#): > > What is wrong with negotiations and diplomacy? What makes the terrorists less capable of negotiating than say a brutal and imperialist force? I would negotiate with a terrorist to avoid bloodshed. Why not? Does the fact that they fight for political ideas with weapons like millions of other people make me less likely to cooperate with them? Isn’t it better to form agreements and understandings than turn places into bloodbaths? > > Plus I think the Filipinos will be glad to be home, considering most of them did not support this war. Well, these terrorists aren’t just terrorists in their method of fighting the imperialists, they also have the goal of imposing a brutal reign of terror if we give them the chance. At least, that’s what I consider an authoritarian theocratic state to be. Even if 99.99% of the country’s population votes to turn their country into a theocratic concentration camp, that is not enough for me because the dignity of the individuals in the %.01 left over trumps the tyranny of the majority. If a semblance of pluralistic democracy, perhaps similar to Turkey, fails to be established in Iraq, then Europe and Turkey should look to their borders because a flood of asylum seekers will soon be on their way. As I said, I didn’t see much point for the Philippines to have been there in the first place, I’ve been disappointed from the beginning that the European democracies are so disinterested in establishing democracy in, what to them, is a quite nearby region of the world. Not that I expected everyone to go when Dubya said “Go!”. What I’d like to see is more cooperation among the world’s prosperous democracies, and less complacency regarding regimes that grind their people into the dust. A housebound woman in Afghanistan and a gassed Kurdish man in Iraq are every bit as much human beings as, say, a Frankfurt teacher or Chicago engineer, and are entitled to self determination. To condone their subjugation to tyrants is to deny their human equality. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2004, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-terrorists-win-one-thanks-manila/255448/43 "2004-07-21T00:33:16Z")
> [@Spectre of Pithecanthropus](#): > > they also have the goal of imposing a brutal reign of terror if we give them the chance. At least, that’s what I consider an authoritarian theocratic state to be. They do? All I’d heard about the Islamic Army-Khaled bin Al-Waleed Corps is that they’re a “previously unknown group.” ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2004, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-terrorists-win-one-thanks-manila/255448/44 "2004-07-21T01:47:30Z")
Don’t worry, since terrorists are obviously insane loony madmen who only respond to force, they won’t be able to draw any logical conclusions from this action. For all we know they will say, “Ok, cool, that’s all we really wanted and thanks. Back to work,” then promptly start travelling circuses. > [@](#): > > Wait. So if they kill people to get troops to withdraw, it’s wrong. > > But if we (we as in the “good guys”) kill/rape them to get them to back down, we’re in the right? Heh. Today I saw a sign from around the time of the start of the war, or rumblings thereof. “We refuse to listen to the UN so we can go to war with Iraq for refusing to listen to the UN?” 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2004, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-terrorists-win-one-thanks-manila/255448/45 "2004-07-21T04:03:27Z")
Pretty stupid of the Philipines. Even if you argue that the costs were low (they were leaving anyway) to save the life of a man, the reality is that Phillipines has many more terrorists closer to home that will get the message that Manilla can back down. However, I’d like to know why terrorists and potential terrorists respond to incentives in this case, but apparently don’t in any other case (i.e., the apologist’s refrain that “hate us no matter what” so it doesn’t matter if our policies make life hell for people) ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2004, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-terrorists-win-one-thanks-manila/255448/46 "2004-07-21T04:35:57Z")
> [@Apos](#): > > the reality is that Phillipines has many more terrorists closer to home that will get the message that Manilla can back down. The reality is that the Phillipines has been paying ransom to terrorists like the [Abu Sayyaf group](http://cfrterrorism.org/groups/abusayyaf_print.html) for years now. As I mentioned back in post #12, the [US government facilitated ransom payments to this al Qaeda linked group](http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,48779,00.html) as recently as 2002. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-terrorists-win-one-thanks-manila/255448.md?page=2)