Thank you. That about covers it.
Partially in response to the assertion that atrocities committed in Nazi Germany could not happen in America, Stanley Milgram conducted an experiment in which study participants were asked to deliver electric shocks to what they believed was another study participant as part of a learning task (in actuality, no real shocks were administered). Roughly two-thirds proceeded to administer shocks to the end of the scale (450 volts), despite indications on the scale of danger associated with such a level.
Americans are no different than anyone else in the world.
Some of these threads and some discussion I have heard recently have caused me to wonder if we are more given to mindless obedience and conformity than others, but rationally speaking I don’t believe so.
http://www.cba.uri.edu/Faculty/dellabitta/mr415s98/EthicEtcLinks/Milgram.htm
Because Jordanian Islamist Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi has been the one to claim credit for the kidnapping of Westerners and executing them. If not for Iraq, Zarqawi and his thugs would still have been killing someone somewhere.
If Iraq falls into a civil war, then yes, the US bears responsibilty (as do those who choose to slaughter each other.) Civil war was a predictable outcome possibility. But arguing that the US should not act because some pyschos might do something crazy is a game of futility. By their very nature, pyschos are unpredictable and one should not be basing global decisions on how they might respond. There are plenty of valid reasons to argue against the war without having to resort to blaming the US for the murderous actions of lunatics.
Sure. How about this? The government puts floride in the water. A small group decides that this is an effort to assert mind control over them and launch a bloody revolution attempt that peters out after a few hundred deaths in six states. Is the government responsible?
Cause and effect is rarely that easy to determine as is predicting alternative future outcomes. And basing decisions on what lunatics may or may not do is a waste of time.
I do not deny it.
I think we are miscommunicating and I suspect the confusion is probably on my end.
Well, it’s just been confirmed that Margaret Hassan has been murdered.
A big FUCK YOU to the motherfuckers who did this.
Margaret Hassan lived in Iraq for THIRTY fucking YEARS. She was originally from Dublin, Ireland, but held British and Iraqi citizenship. She had been working as an aid worker in Iraq for the past thirteen years. Ordinary Iraqis protested on the streets for her release, but to no avail.
So, a big FUCK YOU to the people who, through unrestrained adventurism and poorly conceived strategy, allowed these motherfuckers to run riot.
President Bush called, he said
“Yeeeeha! Bring it on! Stay the course! Mission accomplished!”
Then he rode off into the sunset.
At least, that’s what I think happened.
And here’s where the rabbithole goes deeper. Are you aware that well before
the invasion we had this guys location in Northern Iraq? Did you know the Pentagon drew up plans to take him out and was rejected by the Bush admin? Did you know that the Pentagon went back two more times with plans to kill him?
No one knows the reasoning behind the decisions, but it’s commonly held that killing him would have taken away a big reason for invasion.
Talk about fucked up eh?
Hey, I was agreeing with you. I was drawing a parallel to one of the presidential debates where Kerry explained why he didn’t vote for a bill and Bush came out with the Yes/No black/white retort.
Wrong, as detailed above this post.
Whu? Huh? These guys are part of the resistance in Iraq. Their actions were perfectly predictable. Just because they’re atrocious doesn’t mean they’re crazy. On the contrary, they’re trying to intimidate Westerners into leaving. Plenty of people predicted this kind of shit would happen.
Did the government know that this group was likely to launch a bloody revolution attempt? Did they know that there were alternative ways to achieve the goal of dental health that were far less likely to cause hundreds of deaths? If so, then yes, the government is responsible.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re trying to predict the actions of crazy people. Sometimes even lunatics are predictable, and when they are, you share responsibility for the predictable consequences of your decisions.
Daniel
IF, as World Eater suggests, the Bush administartion passed on an opportunity to kill al-Zarqawi when it had the opportunity to do so, then I suppose one could argue that the administration bears some responsibility for al-Zarqawi’s continued murdering rampage. However, if the Bush administration had killed al-Zarqawi before the Iraq war, then I have no doubt that folks on this board would be decrying that as an unlawful act and the predictable revenge killings that would follow would then also be blamed on the US.
What I’ve learned here is that it’s all the US’s fault. Murdered your spouse? US’s fault for its actions raising your stress levels. Locusts eating your crops? US’s fault. If only the US had sent some locust fighting aid to your nation but it was greedy and didn’t. Curdled milk? US’s fault for failing to provide refridgeration. I can’t think of anything that happens in the world that isn’t the US’s fault at least indirectly. Perhaps earthquakes…
Ah but see the government was secretly giving into a dentist terrorist organization that was threatening to go on a bombing campaign if flouride wasn’t added to the drinking water.
Any action or inaction can be used as an excuse for an atrocity. No matter what the US does or doesn’t do, it’s the US’s fault.
And yet I don’t think you are willing to allow your actions to be dictated by the crazy person on your block who insists that you pee your pants or he’ll throw a rock through your neighbor’s window. Which is a shame because the resulting broken window is a predictable consequence of your inaction.
Perhaps we can test this hypothesis by looking at the reaction to the killing of an alleged terrorist using a predator drone in Oman, if I recall correctly. I don’t remember there being a marked outcry against this. I could be wrong, but it should serve as a good test of your allegation.
And what I’ve learned is that you either can’t read or you can’t be bothered to be honest about what your opponents are arguing. Yet again:
**Once more: the guilt of this woman’s murderers is undiminished. Please acknowledge I’ve said this.
[/quote]
Is the murder a predictable consequence of the US’s decisions? Almost certainly not, so bullshit.
See above.
Again, see above.
If you’ll disrespect me, I’ve got no problem telling you that you’re being an obnoxious little fuck. And that’s what you’re being. But I’ll spell it out for you.
If I give in to the lunatic, then the lunatic is emboldened to make worse demands, creating more harm in the world. That’s a foreseeable consequence of my decision, so I share responsibility for it. Sometimes there’s no winning decision to make, so you make what you think will lead to the best consequences.
The US, in this case, chose a series of actions that predictably led to a mess. For some reason, probably rah-rah jingoism, you can’t possibly admit that the US shares responsibility for the mess. That’s pretty damned stupid.
Daniel
One could argue? Bush passes up THREE seperate chances to kill the guy, because we need him alive to say AQ actually exists in Iraq, and we need to invade. Then we invade and this fucker is causing total meyhem, and one could argue Bush fucked up? It’s crystal clear that he fucked up.
I bet post 9/11 (IIRC they could have killed Zarqawi in 2003), no one would have had a problem with it. In fact this is the type of war we need to be fighting. Quietly kill the fucking guy one night with a Predator drone and let that be the end of it. Who knows, if we had done that and only that, we might have accomplished more safetywise then this whole Iraq thing.
Ok. One could argue it quite well. Was just trying not to be partisan.
I recall quite a stir when the US offed some members of Al Qaeda in Yemen with a Predator drone. I believe some members of this board declared it to be murder.
For me, if it means avoiding a massive war, I’m all about offing our known enemies with drones.
Yemen. And I don’t remember one either.
Surprisingly, someone claiming to be Al Zaqarwi called for her release a few weeks ago. Whether it was him sincerely, him cynically, or someone else exploiting the situation, we may never know, but he never issued a rebuttal.
I don’t recall much of a stink. I don’t recall much of a stink going into Afghanistan either. This should indicate that we’re fully with dishing out the asskicking when needed, and in the proper place.
Something we can agree on here.
Should be an easy enough search to do. If you don’t mind, I’d love to see those names, the context, and your argument that they were representative of any larger movement or group in opposition to that bombing, rather than loonies. Thanks!
Unless you’re an unarmed, wounded Iraqi POW, of course, when it will be the last thing you ever see.
So far as uninformed jingoistic kookery goes, this one’s right up there with the post from last March that justified the ousting of Saddam by saying (paraphrased) “the prisoners in Abu Ghraib will be glad to see him gone … you would be too if you had electrodes attached to your testicles”.
IF, indeed.
But let me repeat…
Mr. Bush had rejected any strike on the camp until after an official outbreak of hostilities with Iraq.
I won’t even address the rest of your assinine post – it’s not worth letting your rude and unfounded accusations piss me off any more than I already am over this bullshit war.