Yes, Imagine if they had nuclear weapons instead. If they have to fight an occupying force, beheading is the least destructive.
We have a saying in India. Don't step on fire, for you will be burned. If every person who lost a family member was bent on blood revenge, can you imagine what it would be like? But in reality, how many went berserk enough to actually do it?
I believe I saw something like that mentioned somewhere. Also I know from the news that they were not all part of any army.
Maybe they were just white English speaking people. Who knows, very few Arabs or Afghanis speak English. None of the civilians bombed are part of any army either. And they did not ask to be bombed as well.
Yes, SpAM, we didn't have or hear of suicide bombing until 1981, but suicide killing has a long and glorious history in Islam. All of them had terrorism started at the hands of revolutionist who wished to over throw their government, in South America, backed by the Russian, and Chinese, communist. Iraq, Saddam use terrorist tactics to keep the peace, how many disappeared, how many had their hand, cut off?, how many were tortured, in Saddam jails and prisons? how many were hit with Saddams CBR weapons for being the wrong ethnic people in Iraq? The advisors in Iraq were Russian. Afghanistan, terrorism goes back before history, it is famous for the savagery of its people. Pakistan, was born in Terrorism. And yes that is true, but it was Moslems who initiated it, in Lebanon, and then spread it to the rest Of the Moslem World. Islam was the instigator of suicide bombings, but Suicide Killings go back to the Hashshashin sect, and Rashid ad-Din Sinan.
No but maintaining power is. What kind of person encourages war and destroys freedom? For power or money, or keeping themselves top dog. Showing off military might, supporting despots, destabilising freedom and stoking conflicts? Encouraging murder and torture, denying accountability? Would you have such a one for a friend?
Yes Islam has a long record of suicide Murder; attacks of individual amoks and juramentado. An amok was a Moro who, for a variety of personal reasons, went berserk and tried to kill as many of the enemy as possible before meeting his own, expected death. Juramentados were perhaps even deadlier, since they were religiously motivated, swore a formal oath before the proper Muslim authority to attack anybody considered to be a foe of Islam, and always struck when and where least expected. Although certain of their own extinction, those fanatics were secure in their belief that they would be whisked to the Muslim paradise for their valorous self-sacrifice, where, among other glories, they would be serviced by 16 virgins.
Why do Saddam and Bin Laden come to mind? I'm curious to hear what you have against them. From what I have seen, neither of their crimes against the West were considered important enough for pursuit in a legal court.
"What kind of person encourages war and destroys freedom? For power or money, or keeping themselves top dog. Showing off military might, supporting despots, destabilising freedom and stoking conflicts? Encouraging murder and torture, denying accountability?"
Typical Western Propaganda. Never heard of them. Bet they were under attack, sounds like guerilla warfare.
Wooah.answer the question, Sam. People do commit all kinds of wicked acts during war - ask the Japanese - but you are trying to equate such acts to everyday life. There simply is NO comparison!
What everyday life? Where? Executions? That is upto the legal system of a country. Which non-war zone has people being beheaded? In fact, I am reiterating that war zone activities are not to be treated as everyday activities
(Insert title here) Which political leaders? "Peaceful" people often accept, and even promote, some pretty strange things. I would ask you to consider an historical context: • What has changed about Western society so that we kill, torture, and maim people for fewer and fewer offenses? In the United States today, for instance, we only execute people for murder and treason. We used to execute them for rape. If we go back far enough in American history, we find that the European Christians whose settlements on the continent marked the advent of the American experience were willing to kill one another for being perceived as not Christian. Throughout the heritage of European/Christian history that led to the United States, we find all manner of blood feud, torture, maiming, inquisition, mass execution. One of the great attempts to liberate a nation (France) led to something referred to as the Great Terror, in which mob justice brought many to the guillotine, and an American hero, Thomas Paine, narrowly escaped execution by the lucky coincidence of having been sick on the day of his scheduled beheading°. Certainly we can reach all the way back to Torquemada°, Kramer and Sprenger, Savonarola, and beyond. But it is well enough to stop at the fifteenth century for now, and to point out that it was, after all, the fifteenth century. It sounds like a 100-level university-level world history question: What factors have lent, over centuries, to the tempering of social brutality licensed under a Christian paradigm? The simplest answer lies in an examination of wealth, the distribution thereof, and the education necessary to acquire wealth in the evolving social paradigm often referred to as Western culture. The idea can even be reduced to a slogan: "They found something (e.g., money) that was more important to them than God." And that's what it comes down to. People are accustomed to wealth. They are accustomed to the delicate order that makes that wealth significant. It is, to the one, why Americans haven't many blood feuds among themselves, and why they tend to look at such quarrels with profound distaste. To the other, it is also one of the reasons why Americans haven't many riots or social upheavals°, and why they tend to look at such quarrels with profound distaste. The proper answer is, of course, more complicated, but it will thematically reduce to this Mammonic cult wherein wealth is the poster child for dignity. One might be an utter whore devoid of any spiritual qualities whatsoever, but how can the poor artist leverage any moral criticism against the industrialist who has "made it", and thus "proven" the validity and moral propriety of his avarice? The solution to violence in other cultures is not to exterminate those other cultures, but rather to find a way to bring them the same opportunities we in the West enjoy. The primary difficulties facing such an endeavor are time and the innate greed of those who enjoy the advantage. Listen to capitalists talk about who "deserves" what, and consider whether or not such judgment has any real utility aside from assuaging the aches and pains brought on by whatever shreds of conscience such people have not yet managed to tear away and cauterize. In the end, the whole bootstrapping philosophy by which one earns the credibility to deserve a seat at the table is untenable; we in the West maintain our luxury at the expense of exploited masses around the world. When you find the answer to what factors have tempered the ferocity of Western culture, you will also find, upon even cursory perusal, that not only do those factors not exist in the more violent regions of the world, but also that our luxury in the West is threatened by the notion of bringing those opportunities to others. Without a massive poverty class to support elaborate and oft-absurd structures above, everything we have comes crashing down to the ground. ____________________ Notes: ° lucky coincidence of having been sick on the day of his scheduled beheading — The story says that Paine suffered severe chills in prison, so the warden allowed him to keep his cell door open, that better air might circulate and help Paine's health. The result was that when a guard came to mark a cross on Paine's door, which indicated that he was scheduled for execution, the mark (a cross) was drawn on the inside of Paine's door. Our hero simply shut his cell door, erased the mark, and endured as best he could until, some days later, he was freed after yet another overturning of the French government. ° Torquemada — Interestingly, the legendary inquisitor whose name has become the standard for condemning the ferocity of Christian brutality in the fifteenth century was descended from a converted Jew. We are so many centuries removed that it is difficult to speculate how this affected his outlook on the inquisition, except that he devoted particular attention to the Marranos, who were only nominal Jewish converts attempting to preserve their faith in secret. See Randall, Beth, "A Regrettable Life: Tomás de Torquemada". ° Americans haven't many riots or social upheavals — Sir Elton John, while fully making a fool of himself for his proposal to shut down the internet, lamented, relevantly, "Let’s get out in the streets and march and protest instead of sitting at home and blogging." And while his general victimization of the net suffers from incredulous puerility, he is not mistaken to at least note that people aren't getting out and raising hell in the streets. While many would consider such a state a tacit endorsement of the war, truth is that Western society is so paranoid about its luxury that most are unwilling to risk it for any but what they perceive as the most dire circumstances.
Filipinos under occupation. What a surprise. Too bad they did not acquiesce to genocide like the Aborigines and native Americans eh?
