Iranian Pre-emptive strike?

[PhillyKev 0]

Ask yourself this. If you're dead, do you care what the motivation was of the person who killed you? Or if you sister, mother, wife, son are killed, do you grieve more if it were terrorists instead of an army?

[Ron 10]

Quote

Ask yourself this. If you're dead, do you care what the motivation was of the person who killed you? Or if you sister, mother, wife, son are killed, do you grieve more if it were terrorists instead of an army?

Answer mine first.

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

[PhillyKev 0]

Ok

If an American solider can avoid killing a civilian does he?

Yes, I would hope so.

Would a Terrorist kill 10,000 innocent civilians if he could?

Yes.

.....

Now mine. Tell me why that makes a difference to the dead or their family.

[Ron 10]

Quote

Ok

If an American solider can avoid killing a civilian does he?

Yes, I would hope so.

Would a Terrorist kill 10,000 innocent civilians if he could?

Yes.

.....

Now mine. Tell me why that makes a difference to the dead or their family.

It does not matter to the family. But it should matter to anyone looking at it from the outside. One is an accident, the other deliberate

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

[freeflydrew 0]

Quote

Ask yourself this:

If an American solider can avoid killing a civilian does he?

Would a Terrorist kill 10,000 innocent civilians if he could?

We're not killing 13,000 civilians by a soldier misfiring his gun... We're killing these people by dropping bombs in cities full of civilians, Ron.

So if an American soldier can avoid killing a civilian, does he? Not if he's ordered to drop a bomb in the middle of a city.

Would a Terrorist kill 10,000 civilians if he could? Probably, but I still don't think your point makes any sense.

[Ron 10]

Quote

Would a Terrorist kill 10,000 civilians if he could? Probably, but I still don't think your point makes any sense.

Simple...we don't target civilians. We target military targets. Yes, at times civilians die when they are near military targets. But it has been that way since warfare was invented.

The terrosists tartget civilians, not military targets..

There is a big difference and I am surprized you cant see that.

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

[freeflydrew 0]

Quote

Simple...we don't target civilians. We target military targets. Yes, at times civilians die when they are near military targets. But it has been that way since warfare was invented.

The terrosists tartget civilians, not military targets..

There is a big difference and I am surprized you cant see that.

Ron, we're targeting specific people or groups in the middle of cities and dropping cluster bombs on them... I'm surprised that you can't see that there isn't that big of a difference. Take away the reasoning behind it, and we're doing the same thing: Killing a lot of innocent people (13,000 so far)

[wmw999 2,589]

The terrorists targeted the American economic structure; civilians are an integral part of it. They were destroying the buildings; the people happened to be in it, in the same way that the people happen to be close to the buildings that we bomb.

We don't aim an specific civilians, no. But we aim at places where there are civilians. So did the terrorists. That doesn't make the US terrorists (we all breathe air, too, but that too doesn't make us terrorists). But it does mean that our actions do not define purity, kindness, and right.

Wendy W.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[Ron 10]

Quote

We don't aim an specific civilians, no. But we aim at places where there are civilians

Because they use civilians as shields at times, and some of those same "innocent" civilians are also fighters.

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

[Jimbo 0]

Quote

The terrorists targeted the American economic structure; civilians are an integral part of it. They were destroying the buildings; the people happened to be in it, in the same way that the people happen to be close to the buildings that we bomb.

Bullshit. The terrorists targeted the World Trade Center, at 9AM. The terrorists knew the buildings would be full of innocent civilians. The terrorists knew that they would get the most 'shock' value by targeting those buildings at the specific time that they struck. Had the terrorists been interested in targeting simply the American economic structure, they could have gone for the Wall Street Stock Exchange (only a few blocks away), and they could have done it at night. They didn't. They weren't destroying buildings, they were destroying people.

-
Jim

"Like" - The modern day comma
Good bye, my friends. You are missed.

[kallend 2,150]

This is a silly discussion.

The terrorists, in their context, attacked a legitimate target in line with their goals and objectives. Just because their thinking does not appeal to a conventional military mindset in 2001 does not make it invalid. 50 years ago we thought it quite appropriate to attack civilian targets. 50 years is peanuts in human history.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[billvon 3,120]

>If an American solider can avoid killing a civilian does he?

No. American soldiers intentionally killed 350,000 innocent civilians with two nuclear weapons 40 years ago. Soldiers in Iraq have tortured prisoners to death.

>Would a Terrorist kill 10,000 innocent civilians if he could?

Of course!

[Darius11 12]

Quote

>If an American solider can avoid killing a civilian does he?

No. American soldiers intentionally killed 350,000 innocent civilians with two nuclear weapons 40 years ago. Soldiers in Iraq have tortured prisoners to death.

>Would a Terrorist kill 10,000 innocent civilians if he could?

Of course!

Thats Sad that we are no different then the terrorist Bill

I'd rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not." - Kurt Cobain

[billvon 3,120]

>Thats Sad that we are no different then the terrorist Bill

Oh, we're quite a bit different. But the difference is not that we never do bad things - we would have no problem nuking the top ten cities in the USSR if there was a war on. The difference is that we are currently in power, and so we have an obligation to _not_ kill civilians unless it is to defend ourselves from attack. Usually we live up to that obligation. When we don't - that's when things need to change.

[Jimbo 0]

Quote

>If an American solider can avoid killing a civilian does he?

No. American soldiers intentionally killed 350,000 innocent civilians with two nuclear weapons 40 years ago. Soldiers in Iraq have tortured prisoners to death.

Bill, would you say that the torture of a few Iraqis was done by the majority of American soldiers? Would you say that it was condoned by the majority of American soldiers? You can always find a few bad apples, but I don't think it's fair to paint every American soldier as a civilian killing monster simply because of a few bad apples. Do you?

-
Jim

"Like" - The modern day comma
Good bye, my friends. You are missed.

[billvon 3,120]

>Bill, would you say that the torture of a few Iraqis was done by the
>majority of American soldiers?

No. The torture was done by a minority of US soldiers; most US soldiers would not torture someone unless directly ordered to. However, we often go by the assumption that anyone tortured or killed in a foreign country was effectively tortured or killed by the leader of that country; if we are going to claim that our torture of Iraqis had nothing to do with the "real" USA we may have to change that assumption.

>You can always find a few bad apples, but I don't think it's fair to paint
> every American soldier as a civilian killing monster simply because of a
>few bad apples.

"Civilian killing monster?" Them's pretty strong words. Would you call the crews that dropped the nukes on Japan, or the crews that firebombed Dresden, civilian killing monsters? They went there with the express purpose of killing hundreds of thousands of civilians, but that's what happens in war.

[Botellines 0]

Quote

Bullshit. The terrorists targeted the World Trade Center, at 9AM. The terrorists knew the buildings would be full of innocent civilians. The terrorists knew that they would get the most 'shock' value by targeting those buildings at the specific time that they struck. Had the terrorists been interested in targeting simply the American economic structure, they could have gone for the Wall Street Stock Exchange (only a few blocks away), and they could have done it at night. They didn't. They weren't destroying buildings, they were destroying people.

I would like to remid you when the U.S got this intel (bad intel BTW) that saddam and his son where in a restaurant downtown bagdag and the U.S droped a bomb in the middle efectively killing many, many civilians. What was the U.S destroying at that point?

[TheAnvil 0]

This thread is now absurd. By far the most intelligent left-winger in the forums, perhaps in the nation, even billvon has gone absurd with his Hiroshima/Nagasaki comments.

Disgusting on many levels. War is Machiavellian in many respects. Deal with it.

Vinny the Anvil
Post Traumatic Didn't Make The Lakers Syndrome is REAL
JACKASS POWER!!!!!!

[skydyvr 0]

Quote

The terrorists targeted the American economic structure; civilians are an integral part of it. They were destroying the buildings; the people happened to be in it, in the same way that the people happen to be close to the buildings that we bomb.

Yea, that international mix of people just "happened" to be in the WTC at 10:00am on a work day . . . so obviously they were just collateral damage in the terrorist's quest to damage the American economic system. And I'll bet those terrorist groups felt really bad later, knowing they'd "accidently" removed 3000 people from the planet. Remember that huge grin on Bin Ladin's face as he later described the planes smashing into the towers on videotape? That was all just an act, along with all those Palestinians pretending to dance in the streets later that day.

The same thing could probably be said about those Palestinian homicide bombers trying to take out the Israeli City Transit system too . . . 'cause you know it's the buses, and therefore the economy, they're really after, not dead bodies.

Maybe the terrorists could have followed suit with US policy and dropped a lot of flyers around NYC before the attack . . . but I'm sure they just didn't think of it.

. . =(_8^(1)