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Sure there is. They're evil, despicable human (?) beings that deserve death. :)Quote:
there has to be a reason people are willing to kill themselves to destroy others.
Point being - you should fight, regardless of the odds, and regardless of the supposed motives of your enemy. Don't try to understand their perverted view on things, and don't try to change yourself, to fit them.
The problem is in order to kill the weed you end up killing half the grass too. If we can stop terrorist leaders, that's great, but destroying countries to do so is counterproductive and feeds into the hatred and hopelessness that cause people to become terrorists in the first place.
Yes, but when we (the US) "destroy" those countries, we also put a lot of effort and money into rebuilding them beyond what they were before we took military action.
Maybe we do. I hope we do. I don't think we did a very good job in "rebuilding" South America, though. The US government doesn't seem too intent on actually fixing Iraq. And what about the rest of the arab nations in the middle east? Are we going to invade them all and fix them all too? We can't even provide good public schools to everyone in the US. How are we going to find the resources to rebuild an entire region of the world?
Then again, we don't seem to do a good job at "destroying," either. Billions of dollars are put into research each year to develop - and employ - precision munitions, which will only destroy what is needed, with minimal collateral damage. It's not like we carpet-bombed Baghdad.
There are other ways to destroy a country than just through bombs. It's not even really the US military doing the destruction as much as the governments of the countries themselves, but still. Once we get involved in bringing the old way down, we should really be involved in building the new way up. If we aren't willing to do that, we shouldn't have jumped into the fire in the first place.
The problem is in order to kill the weed you end up killing half the grass too. If we can stop terrorist leaders, that's great, but destroying countries to do so is counterproductive and feeds into the hatred and hopelessness that cause people to become terrorists in the first place. --eestlinc
If someone kidnapped your wife/mother/daughter and held a knife to her throat and said "Try to understand my position!", would you care what he has to say? I wouldn't. I'd kill him with my bare hands the first chance I got. A terrorist does this, only on a large scale. Maybe they have really nice and valid political views, who knows. I wouldn't really care anyways. Maybe this person is poor and needs food and money; that wouldn't stop me from tearing his heart out if I could. Poverty isn't an excuse for killing people. If Arab countries have problems, they should fix the problems themselves. Overthrow their dictators, reject the views that keep them ignorant and poor. It's not my fault Arabs live in countries with huge problems. I didn't cause their problems. Why should I care about them? Why is it OK to kill me to fix them, or to kill me to get other people to listen to them? The point where they decide it IS my problem, and it IS OK to kill me to fix their own problems, that's the point where I am granted the right to defend myself.
How about state-sponsored terrorism?
In the mid 1980s, French intelligence agents bombed a civilian vessel, the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior, in New Zealand waters to prevent it sailing to Mururoa to protest at nuclear weapons testing. This was a blatant act of terrorism, even an act of war against New Zealand. Then there were the CIA's many terrorist crimes in central America during the same period, including the bombing of ships and docks in Nicaragua, for the purpose of undermining the communist regime.
"Terrorism" doesn't just mean Islamic fundamentalist groups who despise Western culture and its "unholy" influence and values. However, where government-sponsored terrorism is concerned, negotiation is just as futile. Ronald Reagan refused to admit that the Central America bombings were illegal, claiming that the world court was full of communists and therefore couldn't be trusted. The point is, anyone - government, terrorist, whoever - is usually in possession of a single-minded, anflappable conviction that "I am right and you are wrong no matter what anyone says or does", just like the 'childish tantrum' analogy used earlier.
However, views can change. Look at Northern Ireland. Negotiation, communication and understanding has helped to resolve the long-running violence between Ireland and Britian. The IRA no longer bombs British sites, and peace is largely maintained. No need for the annihilation of one 'side'.
Like it or not, terrorists always have a reason for what they do. Understand this, though: reason does not equal justification. Almost always, the idea is to protect something. The US and France carried out the above-mentioned terrorist acts to protect their economic and/or military interests. Al Qaeda see Western lifestyles and cultural influence as an abomination against what they believe is God's will. Bank robbers hold up banks to earn money. These are reasons, not just "they're evil". Certainly, many terrorist acts are evil, as are those responsible for them. But pure evil alone is almost never the reason behind such an act.
Understanding why something happens is not the same as believing others' views or supporting their acts. Just saying "they're evil" is simply a cheap excuse to justify utterly destroying your enemy by any means, no matter how base. I'm sure the Christian Crusaders believed that Muslims, Jews and heretics were "evil", and that provided all the reason they needed to attempt genocide on several occasions.
Of course, when a nation suffers a terrorist crime it must respond. Force must be met with force, those who kill must be killed or brought to justice. It is fair, it is necessary to survival. There's no getting around that. However, trying to apply labels such as "good" and "evil" will accomplish nothing except to give one side the excuse to go to any lengths to wipe out those they oppose. It elevates the "good" side to a kind of divinity, above restriction and judgement, completely beyond reproach or restriction, while guaranteeing a sentence of death for anyone associated with the "evil" side. If Westminster had fought the IRA on "good versus evil" terms, then the bloodshed would be continuing to this day, with ever-increasing death tolls and ever more depraved acts of horror taking place on both sides.
Just my opinion.
Agreed, but going out trying to eliminate all terrorism in the world ever, as Bush is allegedly doing, is a futile fight. It's as futile as a war on drugs, IMO. It's a war that can never be won, and while it's quite arguably worth fighting, putting it in such black and white terms as Bush has is pointless.Quote:
Originally posted by DocFrance
So you're just saying that we should just let terrorists do what they want, killing thousands, perhaps millions of innocent people? Why - because there's no way to completely eliminate terrorism? That may be true, but it is certainly a lot better to have as little terrorism as possible that it is to do nothing at all.
Yes, trying to combat terrorism is a noble cause, but trying to target every country that harbours terrorists is pointless and ignorant, not to mention hypocritical as there's plenty of terrorists from the U.S. as well.
So more or less what eest said.
I don't support terrorists or approve of their actions, but I'm saying that if you want to truly fight terrorism, you need to do more than retaliate. You need to find out why people become terrorists for various causes and do what you can to change that.
Yeah, and that's what's being done.
How exactly is that being done? By turning Iraq into an anarchy? By leaving and letting the Shi'ite fundamentalists take over? By turning a blind eye to the hideous state of life in Saudi Arabia?
I thought the topic was 'if we weren't actively eliminating the causes of terrorism and suddenly somebody set us up the bomb', what would we do? Sure we could discuss the merits of peaceful or more effective solutions of combatting terrorism, but that's for another day. Right now they've got the bomb and [insert city here] is in trouble.
I think that for the sake of maintaining power over the individuals, the state should never give in to threats or demands. Even if we knew that the terrorist in question would 'make good on his word' and release the hostages/not nuke Thailand or something, the idea that the state would just let terrorists do as they wish is not very helpful for maintaining the semblance of safety in the population. Besides, if you try to stop the terrorists, there is a chance you could succeed, and then you will be that much better.
How about state-sponsored terrorism?--Big D
I agree with you that governments can and do do things that are wrong too. I don't see how that's relevant to the topic at hand.
Understand this, though: reason does not equal justification.
Qualify it to say "Reason does not ALWAYS equal justification" and I'll agree with you. Some reasons are right, and some are wrong. Religion, for example, is a wrong reason. Self-defense against an unprovoked attack is a right reason.
However, trying to apply labels such as "good" and "evil" will accomplish nothing except to give one side the excuse to go to any lengths to wipe out those they oppose. It elevates the "good" side to a kind of divinity, above restriction and judgement, completely beyond reproach or restriction, while guaranteeing a sentence of death for anyone associated with the "evil" side.
I believe in good and evil. I believe people who want to kill me without justification are evil. I don't agree in claming "I'm automatically right in all circumstances, and those guys are automatically evil" without justification; that's not valid. But that doesn't mean there is no good and evil. Hitler was evil, for example; you must agree with that. The reason: he purposefully killed innocent people, and he attacked other countries for nothing more than to gain power. Other countries fought him because he was evil. Saddam Hussein is evil; you must agree. Why? He purposefully killed innocent people on a large scale, and he attacked other countries for nothing more than to gain power, among other reasons. Terrorists are evil. Why? They purposefully kill innocent people for nothing more than to gain something they want.
I don't support terrorists or approve of their actions, but I'm saying that if you want to truly fight terrorism, you need to do more than retaliate. You need to find out why people become terrorists for various causes and do what you can to change that. --eestlinc
Exactly what obligates us to help our enemies? They have the right to hurt or kill me, but I have no rights, only OBLIGATION to help them in some way? That seems completely backwards.
We don't have any obligation to help our enemies, but we would be wise to treat those in the middle east who have not yet become our enemies from becoming our enemies. If we just say "screw you, bye" after waltzing in and taking out their evil leaders, we aren't fixing anything and the resentment will remain and the source of terrorism will remain.