We're told all men are created equal and that this country was built on freedom.
Then enslaved good folks to farm the land that was stolen.
Yeah and we where founded on God also but that didn't last now did it.
Wandering the information superhighway, he came upon the last refuge of civilization, PoFo, the only forum on the internet ...
We're told all men are created equal and that this country was built on freedom.
Then enslaved good folks to farm the land that was stolen.
Tovarish Spetsnaz wrote:I don't agree that any of the examples you gave Jaakko are terrorism. Any action against a military target...be it to weaken that military power or to reduce morale...is not terrorism...but a legitimate military action.
IsildurXI wrote:Okay, military actions designed to inflict terror can be called terrorism. But most of us agree that military actions are not morally equivalent to attacks on civilians. So we differentiate between them by only calling the attacks on civilians terrorism. If you have a better word for that, to differentiate between the types of terrorism, let us know.
IsildurXI wrote:Okay, military actions designed to inflict terror can be called terrorism. But most of us agree that military actions are not morally equivalent to attacks on civilians. So we differentiate between them by only calling the attacks on civilians terrorism. If you have a better word for that, to differentiate between the types of terrorism, let us know.
IsildurXI wrote:Thats true, but "total war" is incompatible with civilized society and its morally wrong. The moral way to fight wars is to separate civilians from soldiers. Civilians can only be killed as collateral damage. Many in the Arab world haven't reached this level of civilization yet, so to them "total war" is justified.
Some arabs may call terrorists heros, but they can still be wrong even if thats "just the way they see things." Murdering thugs are not heros, and the American soldiers who liberated 23 million Iraqis while minimizing civilian casualties are heros.
Free the Six Counties! wrote:I have never heard military operations such as the firebombings of Dresden and Tokyo in WWII, called terrorism. Those operations clearest goal was to spread widespread terror among the populations of those, and other cities, yet they are considered legitimate military operations by the same people who label others with similar goals as "terrorists".
IsildurXI wrote:FtSC: Like Boondock said, the World War II examples are outdated. back then, yes, we accepted the doctrine of total war (especially since the other side was using it too). Now, we would never use total war since we have the technology required to both win the war and save civilian lives.
-Hmmm....this is not true you don´t use total war because:
1-It is extremely expensive.
2-You gain nothing by doing it (Sun Tzu, 2000 years ago argued that "the best is to capture the enemy country intact, not to damage and destry things)
3-It makes no sense to devastate a country that is unable to defend itself. It´s like killing ants with flamethrowers....
However, this don´t make you more civilized than anyone. NAZI Germany also avoid total war until Barbarossa invasion. Civilian deaths due to military action in the starting campaigns were relatively low. In the opening phases of Battle of England, Hitler gave express orders to avoid bombing civilian areas, because he wanted to get a deal with England. Even the terror bombings against London were the result of an unintended escalation, instead of a plan to kill thousands of people. German Army only used mass terror against civilian population when confronted with an enemy that was willing to fight to death.If we were ever facing a powerful enemy that used total war against us, we would also.
Thats true, but "total war" is incompatible with civilized society and its morally wrong. The moral way to fight wars is to separate civilians from soldiers. Civilians can only be killed as collateral damage. Many in the Arab world haven't reached this level of civilization yet, so to them "total war" is justified.
Some arabs may call terrorists heros, but they can still be wrong even if thats "just the way they see things." Murdering thugs are not heros, and the American soldiers who liberated 23 million Iraqis while minimizing civilian casualties are heros.
True, but we also don't use total war because we believe in civilized warfare. I think it depends on what you mean by total war also, because in true total war we would just nuke all of Iraq, which would never happen for a million good reasons.
But if you say total war just means killing as many civilians as necessary to win the war, we could have wiped out Iraq more easily and with fewer American casualties had we bombed every Iraqi military unit with massive MOAB bombs, casuing large numbers of civilian causalities. The reason we did not do this was not because it was too expensive, as there was no risk of our planes being touched and the MOABS probably cost less than the precision bombs. We would in fact have gained something from it: fewer US causualties. And we wouldn't be decimating the country, but causing massive civilian casualties. Of course even if you believe in civilized warfare, if a country attacks using total war and the only way to win is to use their tactics against them, you will do that.
Well they did risk their lives to some extent, so I consider them heros, but soldiers in wars like WWII where they faced extreme risks were more heroic.
your leadership wouldn´t hesitate just one minute before using lots of MOABS gainst Iraqi targets.
-The risks they faced is not much more than the risk of training missions (actually a substantial % of losses were due to accidents), and the human being is risking his life everyday, just by living....) I see no heroism in shooting defenseless enemies.
The difference is that these soldiers saved and liberated people. Soldiers in training don't do that, and neither do people just living their lives. If you run across someone who stopped breathing and is about to die, and you use CPR to revive him, then you are a hero, even if there was no risk to yourself.
What happened was the replacing of a brutal dictator with a state of anarchy, led by an occupation power that up to now was unable to enforce security and repair infrastructure. Actually, Iraq now can be mentioned as a proof that Hobbes was right. The worst government seems to be better than no government at all.....
To many of them this "liberation" meant death....althought the number of civilian casualties were relatively small (3-4,000), late mortality resulting from the destruction of civilian infastructure, due both to bombings, looting and general anarchy will be much higher, probably in the range of tens of thousands. And on, liberation, I´ve seen nothing that could be called like this.
In case you haven't noticed, the anarchy is winding down. I haven't heard anything about looting for at least a month. Lets see which is better, one month of anarchy, or brutal dictatorship to the end of your life?
How are looting and anarchy going to result in the deaths of tens of thousands??? Especially when control is starting to be regained already. SOme will die due the existence of unexploded cluster bombs, but that will not be tens of thousands.
In any event the number of civilian lives lost in the war is not many compared to the number Saddam would have killed had he stayed in power. And freedom is not free. Should we have not entered World War II and liberated Europe because civilians would die?
Reports from press suggests that there has been almost no progress in restoring law, order and civilian infrastructure (electricity and water mainly)
-The vast majority of excess deaths is due to destruction of water sources and hospitals (by looting or bombings). The is a New England Journal of Medicine article, published in 1992, arguing that "direct" bombings deaths were much smaller than late mortality due to infrastructure damage. And in 1991, civil infrastructure was repaired faster, because Iraq still had a working government (althought a bad one). Now, Iraq has no government.
You can´t prove this point. You have no reliable statistics on overall mortality in the 10 last years, and to what extent those deaths were caused by Saddam or by the embargo. And you obviously have no statistics for the next months/years. All you can say up to now is that your government killed something like 3-4 thousand people and much more are dying from disease. This can improve or degenerate even in more chaos.
@Potemkin , @Verv , @Hakeer , and others: I[…]