Al Quaeda No 2. We Don't Kill Innocents

[myata]

Others here have tried to explain to you in the past that beyond the safe bounds of our country there are a lot of very bad places. Places where you would be lucky to survive more than a few days. Do you understand what I'm trying to tell you?

Yes there're lots of different places, etc (I'm not in the bragging contest here, have it all to yourself). It doesn't mean that you have to go there, or if you do, not think of what you're doing and what the result (not your rosy plans) may be. There're many who go, and many who do not cause unprovoked and unnecessary deaths and suffering.

And no, wrong. They were surviving before we barged in. But in a different way that what we find acceptable, you mean?

... I mean when any human being has to live in such a place under such conditions. Believe me, their lives suck in a major way, I''ve spoken to them, protected them and lived amongst them, have you?

Protecting against who? Aliens? Evil monsters? How can you protect people against themselves? Against their centuries old traditions and way of life? Short of changing, reengineering them, from top up, so that they are exactly like you. Is that your understanding of helping and protecting? And again, there're people who do come with a different kind of help. They usually don't carry heavy guns or drop bombs though.

Here's a simple thing that you'll never be able to disprove with thatever sophistry or presumed to be experience: if - them - people - love - us - so - much - why - do - we - need - ,000s - of - troops - armed to their teeth - to make it work? Why don't they simply take it into their hands? And if they don't show great and massive enthusiasm for it (i.e democracy), who - said - that - they - have - to - be - taught - anyways? Forcefed it? You want to call it, "helping" and "protecting". Feel free. To me though, it looks every bit and penny the same as imposing our way of life on them. I.e. same plain old colonialism, and even by the same means (arms & fire).

At that point what happens is a joint understanding. Us "Invaders" interact with the people around us, with time an uneasy symbiosis occurs, neither one willing to give total trust, but both sides make overtures towards that goal. With time you actually make friends, those friends in turn breed fiends. However in the end sometimes even those who have become friends can and sometimes do turn on you. Doesn't matter though, you still keep trying and cultivating.

Sure, invaders are people and nothing humanly is foreign to them. Which doesn't grant a speck of legitimacy to the excercise, though. You haven't been asked in; you came with arms, anyways; why do you want to spin beautiful explanations and justifications around it? why do you think I should believe what you think or say, rather than what I see?

So...apart from bitching and moaning, what exactly have you done and learned?

No, can't hold off them insults for more than one post, do we?

Edited April 10, 2008 by myata

[Rue]

Since he wont I will.

Manslaughter charges hopefully. Intent would not matter, he knew or ought to have known that innocent people would be killed. Police Act charges and failing that his cop buddies should arrest him.

Rule: Never fire the gun when you are unsure of the backdrop.

Actually criminal negligence, but close enough. Lol.

[Rue]

War is bad, other things are worse.

Probably went over his head. Let me translate. Morality is an ideal we strive towards. It has degrees. Morality is not something you either completely have, or do not have at all. Its not like saying you are either pregnant or not pregnant. Its more like saying, how smelly are you. Morality is a fluid, relative, variable.

Oh that helped.

[Army Guy]

Yes there're lots of different places, etc (I'm not in the bragging contest here, have it all to yourself). It doesn't mean that you have to go there, or if you do, not think of what you're doing and what the result (not your rosy plans) may be. There're many who go, and many who do not cause unprovoked and unnecessary deaths and suffering.

And no, wrong. They were surviving before we barged in. But in a different way that what we find acceptable, you mean?

What a load of crap, you will never, ever understand what it is like, "until you go outside the wire" and experiance the smells, the sights, until you feel your heart pulsing with ever beat....they call it outside the wire for a reason, it's the wild west on steriods, life is short outside the wire, not just for soldiers, but for everyone.......According to the locals this is normal, quite, relaxed....and yet i can recall each time i stepped outside the wire, i remember every second of my existance until i'm safe inside the wire once again....

The locals describe life under the taliban and local war lords, in detail, describing scences of death, and pain i have never fathomed, or seen, and i can tell you i've seen some horrid stuff in my 2 tours in afgan....scenes out of a the worst horror movie made....and despite all the talk of Afgan casualities and inocents being killed, none would perfer to exist under the taliban rule again....not one....

So while you may think that they where surviving before we came along, your dead wrong....They were a beaten , defeated people that lived minute by minute...not day by day, they're furture was here and now....not what i'm i going to get for x-mas next year.... What NATO and Canada is giving them is hope, pride, and reason to live....and if we have to send some of the bad guys to allah to give the average Afganis citizen some hope, pride, and reasons to live, then sign me up again....

I don't know how many times i've tried to explain this to you....but NATO , and Canada are not there to make Afgan into another province, or carve them into little Canadians...but to give them a chance to have a small piece of what we take for granted everyday, with an afganis twist or flavour....If tommorow the Afganis government informs NATO that we are done then we go home....

Protecting against who? Aliens? Evil monsters? How can you protect people against themselves? Against their centuries old traditions and way of life? Short of changing, reengineering them, from top up, so that they are exactly like you. Is that your understanding of helping and protecting?

Protecting them again'st a small gorup of men that refuse to let the old ways die, to fade away....because they lost thier power and control over everything in thier lifes....and they want it back....the hangings, stonings, the exicutions, the religious police, the dailey beatings....they miss it and have decided that they are willing to die to get it back....by putting your head in the sand you enable them to punish millions, for the sake of a few thousands...they have drawn the line in the sand, they have committed everything to battle, and NATO is responding to that with the blessing of the Afganis government. But you can't see that....

Kind of like watching someone getting murdered or raped, quick turn your head and will pretend we never saw anything....Bullshit....we as a nation with soooo much can afford to help a nation with so little....and here is the thing that pisses me off so much....The Majority of Canadians don't give a shit....they will not support the mission, because of various reasons....Money, dead soldiers, because it's an american war, or the Harper government is running the show....alot of reason other than the right ones....

[myata]

I don't know how many times i've tried to explain this to you....but NATO , and Canada are not there to make Afgan into another province, or carve them into little Canadians...but to give them a chance to have a small piece of what we take for granted everyday, with an afganis twist or flavour

Except it's impossible, of course. A rosy dream to deceive yourself, or feed to others.. Change comes not through an alien jumping on you from outside and force feeding it, but through slow maybe painful realization. When majority of people know what democracy is what they want, they'll have determination and will to create and defend it no matter Taleban or what; it happened in many many other places (collapse of communism in Eastern Europe the latest), and to say that these people are incapable of coming to democracy by themselves, in their own time and by their own means, is nothing short from denigrating them; who cares if it's cloaked into the words of peace liberty etc whatever

....If tommorow the Afganis government informs NATO that we are done then we go home....

Wouldn't that be like, what's the guy's name, Najib, asking Soviets to go home? After we gave them power and kept them safe from the other guys? You see high chance of that happening, anytime soon?

Protecting them again'st a small gorup of men that refuse to let the old ways die, to fade away....because they lost thier power and control over everything in thier lifes....and they want it back....

Ok, the group is small... and population greatly aspiring for democracy is large; moneys and arms are flowing freely; foreign troops are providing all heavy support; and still the "democracy" would collapse the moment we pull out.. One of the above must be wrong; name it.

the hangings, stonings, the exicutions, the religious police, the dailey beatings....

... executions by lethal injection .. (oops that was from another story, sorry). Should the go to all the places and make them look, feel and behave just like us?

Kind of like watching someone getting murdered or raped, quick turn your head and will pretend we never saw anything....

No, not really. You're mixing up different things. Murder, etc is a crime, in our culture; anybody who can is free and should attempt to prevent it; stoning, religious police; corporal punishment aren't (or weren't) crime in theirs. They were accepted norm recognised by majority; just like it was common here some hundred or so years back; and as e.g capital punishment still is, in some places;

So here's the question: are we allowed, by our moral, to go to other places, maybe wild and violent and impose our understanding of moral, culture and society, by force; and how is it different from the colonizers of old?

Here's another hypothetical example, maybe, to think over: tomorrow Canada decides that death penalty is inacceptable (in our hipothetical new moral); it drums up the horrors (real ones) of people being put to death against their will; it issues ultimatum to all countries to stop using it, instantly. And under a threat of force. Some won't agree because they "refuse to let the old ways die", etc.. What do you do? Go in, for sure? Educate them; improve them; perfect them. After all, it's the burden of the white man, right? they couldn't ever do it themselves?

[White Doors]

Except it's impossible, of course. A rosy dream to deceive yourself, or feed to others.. Change comes not through an alien jumping on you from outside and force feeding it, but through slow maybe painful realization

Wrong. See Japan circa 1945. Two atom bombs later and poof! A democracy!

[White Doors]

You're mixing up different things. Murder, etc is a crime, in our culture; anybody who can is free and should attempt to prevent it; stoning, religious police; corporal punishment aren't (or weren't) crime in theirs

What a ridiculous and childish argument. All cultures are NOT equal.

What if there was a culture where after a woman gave birth, it was the accepted wisdom of the cultural leaders to kill the mother? it's part of their culture, it's the beliefs, should we allow it t happen?

What would you do then?

What if another culture had a belief that they were the only viable culture on the planet and that all others must die? Would you sacrifice yourself to 'honour their traditions'? See how easily weak arguments like your can be guillotined by me?

grow up.

[Peter F]

Wrong. See Japan circa 1945. Two atom bombs later and poof! A democracy!

Good point. I forgot that war lasted 1 week.

[myata]

What a ridiculous and childish argument. All cultures are NOT equal.

Right, calling it names settles it once and forever. How serious and adultly!

Still, there's a small matter of proof. Who defines that one culture is more "equal" than another?

E.g in our culture we don't kill criminals while in theirs, they do. Does that makes us more "equal" than them? Should they be educated in our superior ways, even against their will?

What if another culture had a belief that they were the only viable culture on the planet and that all others must die? Would you sacrifice yourself to 'honour their traditions'?

Forgetting that as of now, it's us who are coming to educate them, in their own land, and not the other way around? Your example, as usual, completely misses the point.

See how easily weak arguments like your can be guillotined by me?

Are you kidding? The only thing you've "guillotined" is the logic. Grow up!

[Peter F]

What a ridiculous and childish argument. All cultures are NOT equal.

What if there was a culture where after a woman gave birth, it was the accepted wisdom of the cultural leaders to kill the mother? it's part of their culture, it's the beliefs, should we allow it t happen?

What would you do then?

What if another culture had a belief that they were the only viable culture on the planet and that all others must die? Would you sacrifice yourself to 'honour their traditions'? See how easily weak arguments like your can be guillotined by me?

grow up.

Are you suggesting that Afhani's kill birth-mothers and/or think all other cultures must Die?

Your argument has nothing to with the present situation in Afghanistan, particularly Myata's argument that the supposed goal of Nato's intervention ( to make Afghanistan safe by remodelling it - and doing all the work for them) will be an effort in futility.

And who gives a hoot if cultures are not equal? The fact is Afghani's actually like thier culture - unbeleivable as it may seem.

[M.Dancer]

Are you suggesting that Afhani's kill birth-mothers and/or think all other cultures must Die?

Your argument has nothing to with the present situation in Afghanistan, particularly Myata's argument that the supposed goal of Nato's intervention ( to make Afghanistan safe by remodelling it - and doing all the work for them) will be an effort in futility.

And who gives a hoot if cultures are not equal? The fact is Afghani's actually like thier culture - unbeleivable as it may seem.

If that's his argument then it has a false premise. NATO's goal isn't to remodel afghanistan ....no matter how many times some say it is. Its goal is to provide enough security so that the legal government can look after themselves. If they, te elected gov't want an islamic state, theen that is what they will get.

All we want is a state that does not breed and nurture terrorists, destabilise their neighbours and export refugees.

[bush_cheney2004]

Good point. I forgot that war lasted 1 week.

No, White Doors is correct. The reality and collective American experience is that democracy was imposed on Japan by force (years of war), and it has been a shining success.

[Peter F]

If that's his argument then it has a false premise. NATO's goal isn't to remodel afghanistan ....no matter how many times some say it is. Its goal is to provide enough security so that the legal government can look after themselves. If they, te elected gov't want an islamic state, theen that is what they will get.

All we want is a state that does not breed and nurture terrorists, destabilise their neighbours and export refugees.

I agree with you - that is NATO's goal. Others thinks different - argue with them.

[M.Dancer]

I agree with you - that is NATO's goal. Others thinks different - argue with them.

Why would I want to argue with people who are dishonest or nuts? If they are too stupid to understand realitity and have to substitute their own version....more power to them, they keep the tin foil industry growing.

[Peter F]

No, White Doors is correct. The reality and collective American experience is that democracy was imposed on Japan by force (years of war), and it has been a shining success.

And two nukes did it? I think not. I think it was the complete crushing of Japan; Its Navy, its Army, its Air Force; its Industry, its leadership and its people; and it took two and a half years not two weeks and the nukes were but a drop in the bucket.

[M.Dancer]

And two nukes did it? I think not. I think it was the complete crushing of Japan; Its Navy, its Army, its Air Force; its Industry, its leadership and its people; and it took two and a half years not two weeks and the nukes were but a drop in the bucket.

Japan stil had a formidible army in China that had not yet come to grips with the allies.

Luckily the bomb to away the will to continue.

[bush_cheney2004]

And two nukes did it? I think not. I think it was the complete crushing of Japan; Its Navy, its Army, its Air Force; its Industry, its leadership and its people; and it took two and a half years not two weeks and the nukes were but a drop in the bucket.

The record speaks for itself....two "nukes" did indeed end it. Either way, "democracy" was imposed by force, or to be more correct, force destroyed the military, political, and cultural opposition to the modern democracy that was created in the years following WW2.

[Peter F]

Japan stil had a formidible army in China that had not yet come to grips with the allies.

Luckily the bomb to away the will to continue.

And nothing else mattered. Horseshit.

[DogOnPorch]

And nothing else mattered. Horseshit.

They were allowed to surrender conditionally (slightly) with what little honor was left by keeping the Emperor. That was the BIG selling point. Had the Allies not allowed the Japanese their Emperor, they might not have surrendered A-Bombs or not. Many Japanese pilots fought on for several days afterwards on the Japanese home islands. They refused to stop engaging US aircraft like B-29s. Only after their airfields were occupied did they stop. The vast majority, though, responded to the Emperor's speech on the radio.

Outside Japan, over at Rabaul for example, it was a tricky situation as 50,000+ Japanese were left to 'die on the vine'...not all surrendered and as those who grew up post WW2 know, for years afterwards, Japanese soldiers would turn up on islands or deep in the jungles. Surrender seems to be an individual act for the Japanese...

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We have resolved to endure the unendurable and suffer what is insufferable.

---Emperor Hirohito

[myata]

Why would I want to argue with people who are dishonest or nuts? If they are too stupid to understand realitity and have to substitute their own version....more power to them, they keep the tin foil industry growing.

Yeah, right. You'd rather dispute with a mirror. It'll be smart enough for you, for sure.

[White Doors]

Good point. I forgot that war lasted 1 week.

??

[White Doors]

Are you suggesting that Afhani's kill birth-mothers and/or think all other cultures must Die?

Your argument has nothing to with the present situation in Afghanistan, particularly Myata's argument that the supposed goal of Nato's intervention ( to make Afghanistan safe by remodelling it - and doing all the work for them) will be an effort in futility.

And who gives a hoot if cultures are not equal? The fact is Afghani's actually like thier culture - unbeleivable as it may seem.

No, I'm not suggesting that at all. I'm suggesting all cultures are not equal and some are better than others at allowing people, as individuals, to live their life how they please.

The facts are, the Afghani's would like us to stay in Afghanistan, killing Taliban, more than the left in Canada would want us to stay. We are there. We are doing the right thing according to the Afghani's and that is that.

We are staying, your and myata's white flags wagging vigourously, notwithstanding.

[White Doors]

I agree with you - that is NATO's goal. Others thinks different - argue with them.

The fact is, we have already remodeled Afghanistan into a democracy. It's already been done.

We are there now to make sure that when we leave the democracy that the people of Afghanistan has voted for won't be over thrown by a barbaric dictatorship.

Presumably you and myata would prefer to feed the sheep to the wolves. Fortunately there are better people than you willing to pick up the pieces and fight for a beaten people.

Edited April 11, 2008 by White Doors

[myata]

The fact is, we have already remodeled Afghanistan into a democracy. It's already been done.

No, no, all wrong. You can call it anything, maybe even "democracy", as long as it's an independent country. As of now though, it's a protectorate; because there's not a single province where "democracy" can sustain itself, i.e without massive help of foreign troops. Even by admissions of democracy's chief architects, it'll collapse the moment we pull out.

(In that sense, my earlier (and hypothetical) example can surely (and proudly) be branded as "environmetal democracy of the new age" (or whatever you want to brand it). Imagine all those people, as one, exaulting in the joy of clean environment friendly living..... with cute little laser boxes hanging around to help them ensure peace and stability).

Added reflections on "democracy": you're aware of course that those countries in exotic outlying lands weren't brutally occupied in the past, colonial, age; no how could we? they were all locally governed by democratic (oops, whatever was the order) governments of the day, such as rajs; kalifs; kings, etc, etc. The only way such a "kalif" could be told from a real kalif was in their respective areas of soveregnty; e.g an independent, democratic and sovereign president of one such well known "democracy" cannot, for all he wants, prevent certain foreign company of operating armed paramilitary units in his country. Wants ... but can't. That's the kind of "democracies" they are, my friend.

Edited April 11, 2008 by myata

[Army Guy]

Except it's impossible, of course. A rosy dream to deceive yourself, or feed to others.

Is it really, a rosy dream, did they not have elections, did the Afganis people not vote in a head of state of thier own chosing, did they not show up in record numbers, most travaling many hundrds of miles on foot just to have a chance to vote....That has got to say something about a rosy dream....I'm not decieving myself i've talked to dozens afganis army pers, whom believe with all thier hearts they are making a difference despite being payed very little, equiped with nothing, them and thier families hunted down like dogs by the Taliban, thats got to say something about a rosy dream....the same could be said about thier police, every other dept,including school teachers, doctors everyone.... the taliban have put a price on everyones head, and yet every day they show up for work, thats got to say something about a rosy dream..... They want peace, they want change, they do not want the taliban and they are greatful to NATO for our assistance...

But you make it sound like it was NATO that decided thier leader, and it is NATO that dicates policy, do you think it was NATO that decided to make it punshable by death to convert from Muslim to christian, there is other examples of Afganis policy being made that the west does not agree on, and some how you think it is the west that is force feeding them our morals and values, and it is NATO dictating to the afganis government how they should govern...NATO is advising them, but the final choice, and the final decision is the Afganis government....

When majority of people know what democracy is what they want, they'll have determination and will to create and defend it no matter Taleban or what; it happened in many many other places (collapse of communism in Eastern Europe the latest),

This has already been explained a dozen of times as well, the Afganis government is a democracy, and it is one that is controlled and run by the Afganis elected officals. They the (Afganis people) have already decided...it was them that voted...you do remember that right.... and millions work every day , they work with a price on thier head...a majority want the taliban to stop...and fade away...

The Afganis people want a few things they want peace, and they want work....it would not matter to them if the next government was democractic, communist, dictatorship...to them it truely would not matter....I guess that more than 40 years of war does that to a people....NATO is there now, democracy is what they are offering...and like i said before they are accepting it as long as it brings them peace and work....

[