Terrorism as "collateral damages"

Discussion in 'Ethics, Morality, & Justice' started by S.A.M., Mar 3, 2010.

  1. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    Oh, I remember what else I was going to say.

    I think Arthur C Clarke summed it up best in "2010, the year we made contact".

    "Weapons had served their purpose for mankind, however as long as they continued to exist, mankind was living on borrowed time".

    The context here is hunting and survival - the ability to craft weapons to defend ourselves from wild animals, and to provide us with an alternative source of nutrition ensured our survival, however, they have now become more than that...
     
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  3. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    Given the damage that Chernobyl did (and that was 'just' a chemical explosion in a Nuclear reactor), and Pinatubo did, I think the world would be a very different place.

    I think it would be colder, and more dangerous.
    I don't think we would have to worry about global warming for quite some time.
    I think I would be very glad for being a New Zealander (as far as I know, New Zealand isn't targeted by anybody, nothing of importance here).
    I think we would have been far far worse off.
    Yes, we could have come out of the cold war better off, with fewer problems and such, but the alternative is orders of magnitude worse.
     
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  5. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    Why? How many nukes would it have taken for either of them to stop? How many civilians killed? Hitler issued directives against bombing civilians after Warsaw, Churchill did after Dresden. How many would it take for the Americans and the Russians?
     
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  7. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    :Shrug:
    I honestly don't know, my understanding of such policies, as to what constitutes 'unacceptable casualties' under the circumstances is somewhat limited, but my impression is that it would be an 'all in' kind of a deal. There's also the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction

    Mutually Assured Destruction on Wiki

    I honestly wouldn't like to guess where either side would put up a white flag and say "Enough's enough, we quit already" but suffice to say, both sides persistence in Afghanistan, not mention the situation in Iraq make me glad we never had to find out - especially when one bares in mind that both sides arguably applied scorched earth policies.

    If you get the opportunity, look up a movie called "By Dawns Early Light"
    By Dawns Early Light on Wiki

    It's a WWIII movie, that as I recall, starts with a disenfranchised soviet general launching a nuclear weapon from Turkish (NATO) air space at a soviet city, which causes an automated response (launching at designated targets) by Russian systems (I forget if the Americans retaliate by launching as well, but part of the plot involves a standoff between Soviet and US bombers).
     
  8. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    I would assume that neither Americans nor Russians are any more or less suicidal than Germans or Japanese.
     
  9. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    Yeah, but don't forget about Mcarthyism (sp?) the commision for unamerican activities (which had Einstein in front of it at one stage), and the degree of patriotism and nationalism that existed on both sides at the time.

    I honestly don't know where either side would have stopped, and the thought of how far they would have gone fills me with a sense of dread that I lack the ability to describe.

    Of course, that very fear is precisely what both sides were relying on to maintain or shift the balance of power.

    Arguably, the germans were beaten 'fair and square', as I understand it, Berlin was invaded, and most of Germany was under allied or soviet control.

    The Japanese fell for the bluff contained in the Potsdam Declaration (it implied the Americans had more than two nuclear weapons, and teh Americans feared what might happen should the Japanese find out they had exhausted their nuclear capability before they surrendered).
     
  10. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    Not really; they stuck to the same conditions they demanded for surrender and which the Americans used as an excuse to kill so many of them. There wasn't much difference to their demands before and after the bombing
     
  11. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    Sam cannot seem to answer certain questions concerning terrorism 'collateral damage' so I thought I would bring them here.

    In response to a post Sam said this:

    How much Americans will weep for two buildings, will they not? How many they will kill, burn, dismember and torture for just two buildings (post #27)

    http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=99951&page=2

    So I asked her this:


    I would like to know why you refer to the twin towers as being buildings that people 'weep' over and do not take into account all those who died during 9/11 (which is why they wept)?

    Are you becoming yourself desensitized in the way you accuse others?

    Do you believe that the bombing in Beslan was a proper 'military' or 'activist' response to the war in Chechnya?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_school_hostage_crisis

    Maybe she can answer them here.
     
  12. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    Americans weeping about the twin towers is to me similar to OJ Simpson weeping about incarceration. They easily brush off millions killed by them as foreign policy, collateral damages, birth pangs, terrorists and what not.

    Its like an amoral serial killer who has cut off the breasts of thousands of women with steel wires, while pushing broken glass bottles into their vaginas and arseholes, complaining about a stubbed toe.

    Its cognitive dissonance on a massive scale
     
  13. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    So then they had it coming is that it? No big deal just 3,000 dead as compared to countless other deaths?

    So what about the Beslan school massacre? Did they also have it coming for Russian troop involvement in Chechnya?
     
  14. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    I don't know much about it. I recall that some terrorists had taken over a school. It sounds like PTSD.

    Do violent serial killers have stubbed toes coming to them? Should OJ Simpson be morose about going to jail for breaking and entering?

    One would wish for better systems of accountability
     
  15. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    PTSD?:roflmao:

    If you don't know let me school you on what happened:

    The Beslan school hostage crisis (also referred to as the Beslan school siege or Beslan massacre) began when a group of armed mostly Ingush and Chechen militants took more than 1,100 people (including 777 children) hostage on September 1, 2004, at School Number One (SNO) in the town of Beslan, North Ossetia, an autonomous republic in the North Caucasus region of the Russian Federation. The hostage taking was carried out by a group sent by the Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, which issued demand of end to the Second Chechen War. On the third day of the standoff, Russian security forces stormed the building, using tanks, thermobaric rockets, and other heavy weapons. A series of explosions shook the school, followed by a fire which engulfed the building and a chaotic gunbattle between the hostage-takers and Russian security forces. Ultimately, at least 334 hostages were killed, including 186 children; hundreds more were injured and many were reported missing.

    It wasn't PTSD they were issuing a demand for the end of the Chechen war.
     
  16. Spud Emperor solanaceous common tater Registered Senior Member

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    Shamil Basayev complained however of a badly stubbed little toe... poor chap...that really hurts.
     
  17. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    Its not clear who did the killing. Was it the Russians or the Chechnyans? Regardless, they would have been better off taking Russian politicians hostage.
     
  18. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    Sorry missed these two.

    First of all I don't consider this to be a valid example of what we are discussing. But if its the example of your position then the bombing a school full of children is a valid response to the Chechen situation?

    Basically from what you are saying is that all those who died during 9/11 deserved their fate.

    Would you feel the same way if a soldier or civilian american or used this as an excuse to harm an innocent muslim?

    How would you feel if people in Beslan began to harm innocent Chechen's living among them for the massacre?
     
  19. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    Obviously it wasn't russians. They were muslims from the republic.

    It lead to this:

    "Three years after the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, influential Muslim voices around the world are finally being raised to denounce Islamic extremism. The massacre of children at School No. 1 in Beslan, Russia, was a bridge too far for many moderate Muslims."


    "It is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists, but it is equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all terrorists are Muslims," he wrote in the London-based Arab daily newspaper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat."

    Even in Sydney, at the height of the Beslan crisis last Friday week, a group of Muslim students and teachers from Strathfield's Muslim Noor Al Houda Islamic College visited the Russian consulate in Woollahra. They passed over letters of sympathy, condemned the terrorists and said: "This act runs counter to the teaching of Islam," the consulate website said.

    http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/09/11/1094789736288.html
     
  20. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    No I am addressing the cognitive dissonance of Americans. How do they brush off the millions of people they kill and torture?

    I thought Beslayev was Russian? Seems like the Russians on either side shared their empathy for the civilians in the cross fire.
     
  21. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    But they never brushed them off. There were and are many americans who are absolutely against these wars and they were out even before the first bomb was dropped!

    Read what I inserted in the previous post. Is it that muslims brush off deaths by terrorists? Many don't but you seem to as you consider the victims akin to OJ and serial killers.

    What because someone is russian now means they are not muslim?
     
  22. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    Actually I compared the victims of 9/11 to the toe of a serial killer. Not actively involved in cutting off the breasts and pushing broken bottles into vaginas, but still part of the body that keeps him going.

    I think if the Chechens were Ukranians or Georgians, they would still feel the same way. Its their geography and history that is relevant here.
     
  23. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    So the people were really 'toes' of the US government?

    So are muslims 'toes' of muslim terrorist activity? :bugeye:

    What is relevant is that children and adults died needlessly, you know like Afghan children that are 'collateral damage'.

    I'm trying to point out that if you look upon US civilians as collateral damage don't be surprised when people in the West do the same and vice verse.

    When you speak of the twin towers as mere 'buildings' you speak with the same desensitized tone as the americans you think of as monsters...or toes.
     

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