Is Bombing Afghanistan a Bad Idea?
- Thread starter TAFJonathan
- 167 comments
- 5,152 views
- 543
i meant to say what is innocence? isn't it the innocent that prove to be the most harmful..........think about it it's true
"judicious application of force" is this not just a fancy way of saying bombing? and since i must be clueless how about an example?
i'm not sure you were trying to say what you said by indiscriminate bombing.....so okay.
I don't like being compared to Al-Quaida, so let's not do it. Do you not understand that terrorism was peaked with the bombings on the trade centres? this gave the world a true reason to start the war against terrorism. who is the biggest terrorist known to the u.s.? Bin Laden. I know that fact isn't so hard to see......so does it really matter is laden was really behind it or not. He told the world he agreed with the bombing isn't that enough?
"judicious application of force" is this not just a fancy way of saying bombing? and since i must be clueless how about an example?
i'm not sure you were trying to say what you said by indiscriminate bombing.....so okay.
I don't like being compared to Al-Quaida, so let's not do it. Do you not understand that terrorism was peaked with the bombings on the trade centres? this gave the world a true reason to start the war against terrorism. who is the biggest terrorist known to the u.s.? Bin Laden. I know that fact isn't so hard to see......so does it really matter is laden was really behind it or not. He told the world he agreed with the bombing isn't that enough?
I'm still not sure I understand what you mean by "the innocent that prove to be the most harmful". Is it that the people who are innocent of knowledge of the entire situation who do the most damage by cheering on George W? I'd agree with that.
A few recommended readings:
From The Guardian - http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4275547,00.html
Human Rights Watch - http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/arms/cluster-bck1031.htm
Marc Herold, U of New Hampshire - http://www.cursor.org/stories/civilian_deaths.htm
An analogy: A bank robbery gets interrupted, and the three bank robbers are holding 12 hostages in the bank surrounded by police. Do the police
a) Establish negotiations, situate snipers, and attempt to end the standoff with no loss of life. Only if that fails does a well trained SWAT team assault the building.
b) Toss tear gas and grenades into the building and shoot anything that moves, calling the civilian deaths "collateral damage" caused by the robbers by hiding among civilians.
Of course we don't really value Afghani civilian lives that much, do we?
So...anybody who agreed with the bombing should be hunted down and killed? That's going to take a lot of bombs.
http://www.danielpipes.org/article/64
Ever wonder why so many people hate us?
Rick
- 543
just so I know who i'm dealing with, how old are you what kind of schooling do you have.....do you consider yourself to be enlightened, do/have you study/studied philosophy of any kind?
I could understand your point with the analogy, but who were hostages in this? Who did we want to save?
I've had it with ya, you dodge all of my bullets, try not to focus on one sentence or sentence fragment but understand my entire concept!!!!!!
what i mean is, "so anyone who agrees with the trade center boming should be hunted down and killed", makes absolutely no sense. did you know who osama bin laden was before the world traders fell? Maybe you really didn't. who knows.
you bring up an odd point in your analogy, let me ask this question, to prove a political point that will save over thousands of people their lives, does it not mean more then losing 12 hostages?
and don't know if you could follow that it's hard for me to. okay...if there was a situation that you could take out the worlds most dangerour man, (NOT SAYING BIN LADEN WAS) would it be worth losing 12 hostages?
to prove this point to the rest of the world that would ensure relative safety for the nations citizens over the next 15 years be worth losing 12 hostages?
I could understand your point with the analogy, but who were hostages in this? Who did we want to save?
I've had it with ya, you dodge all of my bullets, try not to focus on one sentence or sentence fragment but understand my entire concept!!!!!!
what i mean is, "so anyone who agrees with the trade center boming should be hunted down and killed", makes absolutely no sense. did you know who osama bin laden was before the world traders fell? Maybe you really didn't. who knows.
you bring up an odd point in your analogy, let me ask this question, to prove a political point that will save over thousands of people their lives, does it not mean more then losing 12 hostages?
and don't know if you could follow that it's hard for me to. okay...if there was a situation that you could take out the worlds most dangerour man, (NOT SAYING BIN LADEN WAS) would it be worth losing 12 hostages?
to prove this point to the rest of the world that would ensure relative safety for the nations citizens over the next 15 years be worth losing 12 hostages?
- 543
are you familiar with the vietnam war?
OK let's trade bios. I'll go first.
I'm 56.
A Civil Engineer. BS in Engineering from the U of Washington 1968, MS in Engineering from U of California at Berkeley 1979.
One daughter, 34 and a granddaughter, 12. Three stepsons 12,15,19.
Enlightened, I'm not sure what that means in this context. I've read a lot, especially Political and Military History.
Politics - Democrat, leaning toward the Greens.
Military service - none. I took the Army physical in 1964 and failed. Yes, I am familiar with the Vietnam war. Ever read "A Bright and Shining Lie"?
Arrests - none.
Traffic tickets - a few. :-) Last was 12 years ago.
Religion - No
Ethnicity - Half Finnish, half Norwegian. Grandparents were immigrants.
Your turn. Then we can continue with the rest of the discussion.
Originally posted by infallible
j
I've had it with ya, you dodge all of my bullets, try not to focus on one sentence or sentence fragment but understand my entire concept!!!!!!
Sorry, that wasn't my intention. Sometimes I'm so subtle that no one else knows what I'm talking about :-). I'll try to watch that.
Rick
- 543
alrighty...
i'm 15
working on an associates degree in some math or scienced based field, plan on getting it in about two years (semester after i graduate high school)
i'm no where close to being married, i have a couple girls i
consider to be closer then friends
i feel to be enlightened as far as a juvenile mind can venture. What I mean by enlightened is pretty much the book definition, "a sense of being smart" to put it bluntly...and since you are 56 you are most def. enlightened.
politics....i haven't had to worry about them yet, so I won't, but i'm most likely republican...i think
only thing close to military service is the recruiters that come to my school during lunch.
traffic tickets......will most likely get a few
religion-strong protestant christian, however i'm starting to question, but i will always be a religious kid/man
i'm half german half swiss, great great great great great grandparents came over.
oh i've read a lot of philosophy books and classical lit, but i don't understand them fully, however i do understand bits and peices.
no i haven't read your vietnam book but i could imagine what it's about..and so you understand the innocent bit, in the nam war the "innocent" civilians would come up to u.s. troops and gain their trust, then pull out a couple of grenades and do a suicide bombing. in my young opinion i believe these innocent people to be the worst threat.
a lot like commercial pilots........911
so there ya go
if you won't hold any prejudice against me because of my age, lets keep on battling this out, but if you don't want to that's quite all right.
i'm 15
working on an associates degree in some math or scienced based field, plan on getting it in about two years (semester after i graduate high school)
i'm no where close to being married, i have a couple girls i
consider to be closer then friends
i feel to be enlightened as far as a juvenile mind can venture. What I mean by enlightened is pretty much the book definition, "a sense of being smart" to put it bluntly...and since you are 56 you are most def. enlightened.
politics....i haven't had to worry about them yet, so I won't, but i'm most likely republican...i think
only thing close to military service is the recruiters that come to my school during lunch.
traffic tickets......will most likely get a few
religion-strong protestant christian, however i'm starting to question, but i will always be a religious kid/man
i'm half german half swiss, great great great great great grandparents came over.
oh i've read a lot of philosophy books and classical lit, but i don't understand them fully, however i do understand bits and peices.
no i haven't read your vietnam book but i could imagine what it's about..and so you understand the innocent bit, in the nam war the "innocent" civilians would come up to u.s. troops and gain their trust, then pull out a couple of grenades and do a suicide bombing. in my young opinion i believe these innocent people to be the worst threat.
a lot like commercial pilots........911
so there ya go
if you won't hold any prejudice against me because of my age, lets keep on battling this out, but if you don't want to that's quite all right.
- 12,993
- USA! USA!
yeah, lets juust kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people when in all reality Osama and his "homies" probably had nothing to do with this attack.
Once again people seem to have no idea about the political 'structure' of Afghanistan, and can't distinguish between Al Qaeda, the Taliban or the general population of Afghanistan.
To explain - in the power vacuum after the war with the Soviets, the Taliban, one of the various tribes that make up Afghanistan, came into power with the backing of the Pakistan secret service (and, if the rumours are to be believed, the CIA).
The Taliban became ostracised from the international community because of their extremist Muslim practices, particularly towards women.
Needing money and arms, they welcomed Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, who were able to provide both. With a safe base to work from, Al-Qaeda set to work planning terrorist strikes that probably include the September 11 attacks.
Afghanistan is made up of a number of different tribes, most of whom hate one another - the ongoing war between the Northern alliance and the Taliban being a prime example.
The US is not at war with Afghanistan - there is not the sovereign state in the sense the US, just a loose affiliation of tribes. The general populace is simply struggling to survive in third world conditions in probably one of the most inhospitable places in the world.
If the US is to prevent Afghanistan from causing further problems, it needs to commit to a long and expensive period of nation building - which is only fair, since the war against the Soviet Union (to which the US contributed much support to the Afghan oppostion) is the reason the 'country' is in the state is in. Yes, the Russians need to get involved - the US and Russia stuffed it, they should fix it.
To explain - in the power vacuum after the war with the Soviets, the Taliban, one of the various tribes that make up Afghanistan, came into power with the backing of the Pakistan secret service (and, if the rumours are to be believed, the CIA).
The Taliban became ostracised from the international community because of their extremist Muslim practices, particularly towards women.
Needing money and arms, they welcomed Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, who were able to provide both. With a safe base to work from, Al-Qaeda set to work planning terrorist strikes that probably include the September 11 attacks.
Afghanistan is made up of a number of different tribes, most of whom hate one another - the ongoing war between the Northern alliance and the Taliban being a prime example.
The US is not at war with Afghanistan - there is not the sovereign state in the sense the US, just a loose affiliation of tribes. The general populace is simply struggling to survive in third world conditions in probably one of the most inhospitable places in the world.
If the US is to prevent Afghanistan from causing further problems, it needs to commit to a long and expensive period of nation building - which is only fair, since the war against the Soviet Union (to which the US contributed much support to the Afghan oppostion) is the reason the 'country' is in the state is in. Yes, the Russians need to get involved - the US and Russia stuffed it, they should fix it.
- 543
why help a feuding people?
Because you're a significant part of the reason they're feuding.
The Soviets had support of some of the tribes in Afghanistan (if memory serves they might have actually been invited in).
The US backed opposing tribes with weapons, training and funding in their war with the Soviets.
- 12,993
- USA! USA!
There really is no hope for human kind, is there?
Quite sad.
Robbers = Al Quaida/Taliban
Hostages = Innocent Afghani civilians
Cops = US
The point is that the US was not real careful about who they killed when going after the Taliban. Estimates range from hundreds to thousands. We may not know the real story for years.
Do you mean intentionally killing 12 hostages to kill Bin Laden? Like just bombing the building he's in? Of course it's not worth it!!! Mounting an assault is a different thing, as the Israelis did at the Munich Olympics in '72 and in Entebbe. That was the whole point of the hostage analogy, if the "bad guys" hide out among civilians that's no reason to kill them all.
That's not necessarily true. :-)
Not a problem
From a review - " Neil Sheehan's A Bright
Shining Lie tells the story of the Vietnam War as experienced by U. S. Army Lt. Col. John Paul Vann. Vann first went to Vietnam as a soldier in 1962, fully supporting the U.S. war effort. He soon discovered
corruption in the military and the destruction resulting from American occupation. He spoke out against what he felt was a futile and vicious U.S. strategy, but his superiors did not listen to him. Vann left the army and returned to Vietnam in 1965 as a civilian working with the pacification program, and he remained there until 1972 when he was killed. "
But that's Vietnam and getting off topic, and I'm getting hungry :-)
Rick
Off-point, I realise, but it was actually the German police that mounted the assault against the Palestinians at the '72 Olympics.
The Germans let the surviving 11 terrorists go and I believe the Israeli Secret Service 'settled accounts' with eight of those in the following years.
The Germans let the surviving 11 terrorists go and I believe the Israeli Secret Service 'settled accounts' with eight of those in the following years.
You're right, thanks for the correction. So what do you think of the Israeli's assasination of them? No arrest, no trial, no presumption of innocence, no proof beyond a reasonable doubt. We'd probably have been pretty irritated if the Chilian secret service had assasinated the Director of the CIA in response to the killing of Alliende in Chile in 1973.
Rick
Well, yeah. The Israelis do seem to have had a degree of duplicy in terms of its secret service operations in handling its neighbours. The terms of justice that we seem to take for granted in our countries don't seem to apply when countries deal with each in espionage type situations.
I don't pretend to understand secret service operations - the dour stink of hypocrisy hangs over all operations in this regard, and I don't think any countries can genuinely plead innocent.
I guess I can just count myself lucky I'm not in a country that is forced to deall with organisations in this way - I wonder if the Israeli population ever feel twinges of guilt over the actions of their secret service - probably just viewed as necessity, I guess.
Not having any relevant perspective on the situation, it makes hard to make comment without sounding completely uninformed (probably because I am completely uninformed).
- 12,993
- USA! USA!
MIR wouldn't radio down to Texas either. If that is what you mean by Huston.
Joey D
Premium
- 47,426
- Lakes of the North, MI
- GTP_Joey
- GTP Joey
Please excuse my lang here but:
I say bomb those mother******* off the planet. You don't mess with the USA and not get screwed over in the worst way. I say only bomb the people who are guilty. So Im not saying to bomb the innocent. This is my view on it.
I say bomb those mother******* off the planet. You don't mess with the USA and not get screwed over in the worst way. I say only bomb the people who are guilty. So Im not saying to bomb the innocent. This is my view on it.
- 12,993
- USA! USA!
Guilty for what?
Is there any proof that anyone in Afghanistan crashed a plane into the WTCs?
Is there any proof that anyone in Afghanistan crashed a plane into the WTCs?
- 12,993
- USA! USA!
Prove it.
Just because the media and the US government says so doesn't mean it is.
Just because the media and the US government says so doesn't mean it is.
Similar threads
