London Bombing

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Wait wait wait, I found this post from BigV on August 3, 1952. It was on the backups:

Damn, August 3, 1952? Out here in the West us kids were still playing with tin cans attached with string. You folks back there in Philly were pretty damn advanced for the Eisenhower era. I couldn't even hold a crayon yet. Just how old did you say you were again, BigV?

[warch]

It is not the moderates on either side who have gotten us into this, but the fundamentalists on BOTH sides who are creating the havoc.

Crusades and historic tallys aside, Fundamentalist Islamic militants seem (at least to me) to be creating more havoc right now. Trying to understand the enemy is one thing, excusing is another. I'm not up for that.

Originally Posted by warch

Crusades and historic tallys aside, Fundamentalist Islamic militants seem (at least to me) to be creating more havoc right now. Trying to understand the enemy is one thing, excusing is another. I'm not up for that.

Who said anything about excusing them? There is no possible excuse for 9/11, no possible excuse for what just happened in London. We must be aware, however, that our side, too, has been responsible for its share of civilian deaths.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by warch

Unless you are a murderous Islamofacist extreemist blindly convinced of your own revelation and the subhuman nature of your victims. I do not believe there is any rehabilitation possibility there. Recruiting and indoctrination, if we can find a way to break that powerful weapon....

Originally Posted by somebody NOT warch

Unless you are a murderous Christofacist extreemist blindly convinced of your own revelation and the subhuman nature of your victims. I do not believe there is any rehabilitation possibility there. Recruiting and indoctrination, if we can find a way to break that powerful weapon....

Bonus points if you can find the functional difference in these two quotes. How is it that an "Islamic" whacko is irredeemable? It is the "islam" or is it the "whacko" that makes it so? I thought we established some time ago that this is not repeat not a religious issue, irrespective of the language used to camoflage it. There are often levers pulled and buttons pushed on all sides that are connected to the faith of one side or another. But any serious study of any of the faith traditions involved in any of these conflagrations any you'll find that the moderate position in all of them hold that bombing the unbelievers is a no-no.

Regarding recruiting and indoctrination...indoctrination is the exact opposite of understanding. THAT'S why it works as a recruiting tool, because it is indoctrination. "Do not think, do not question, obey. Act on orders. Do as you're told." You're right to point out that this is an important aspect of the problem, one that is critical to solving this problem.

Let me ask you, when those that are already indoctrinated, those that are indoctrinating the new recruits, what are these guys saying to the recruits? "America is bad, so bad you must be willing to die to help turn our situation around", or words to that effect. Now think, on someone not yet indoctrinated, someone who's avenues of critical thinking remain open, what would be a natural response to this dramatic statement. I mean, I would need some pretty good evidence to back up the claim that I have to be willing to die (something I don't want to do, something no one wants to do). Evidence, support, reasons. What might these trainers point to for support. What would convince a young man (or woman) to do this?

In my world, when I mess up once, I have to do, like, twenty good things before the memory of my goof-up fades. That ratio is flexible, if it's a bad boo-boo, then I might have to do many more postive things to balance out the perception of my net goodness. I believe this applies it your recruitment question as well.

Unfortunately, there are many many many things that are negative, some true, some not, some in between (spun), that we, America / the West / etc, that we're tarred with. The prospect of outweighing that mountain of negativity with twenty or a thousand or a zillion mountains of good is daunting. But doable. And it only happens one act at a time. I am trying to do my share. Jag put it well in this exchange:

Originally Posted by mrnoodle

--snip--You can't change minds until you've made your own people safe from the bombs.

Wrong.

Originally Posted by jaguar

You can't make people safe from the bombs until you change minds.

What stopped the last group to terrorise london, the IRA? Certainly wasn't the security forces.

Originally Posted by warch

The moderate muslims need more than to just get to know us, they need to get to know and value a new view of themselves.

Huh? The moderate muslims need what? If anything, the moderate muslims need to get to know their own community better and apply their own standards more consistently.

So let's recap. Whackos==bad, they bomb people and are impossible to rehabilitate.

Killing unbelievers is anathema in all mainstream religions, and the large majority of moderate believers agree.

A laser sharp focus on the religious aspect of this issue misses the point and wastes energy better spent on the real issue of entrenched, bone deep disillusionment and a sense of helplessness and victimhood on the part of the perpertrators.

I am not an apologist for these terrorists or their actions. I want it to stop. I believe the best way to reach that goal is through a greater understanding of each other. Don't you get it? You reap what you sow. I'm trying to sow peace here. I am sowing understanding. listening, compassion, brotherhood, in the hope that I will listened by my brothers. I hope that listening leads to understanding and compassion. I hope that leads to peace.

[warch]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/e...on/4664209.stmmissing

Yeah, yeah. I'm not up for a debate. I'm just angry and sad.

Originally Posted by warch

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/e...on/4664209.stmmissing

Yeah, yeah. I'm not up for a debate. I'm just angry and sad.

As are we all. Just remember the horror continues on BOTH sides. Wouldn't these pictures also make ANYONE angry? These are children injured by US bombs. When are both sides going to stop killing innocent children, someone's beloved father, someone's sister or brother, someone's best friend in this world? The tragedy of London is HUMAN tragedy. The tragedy of 9/11 is a HUMAN tragedy. The tragedy of these two Iraqi children and many more like them is a HUMAN tragedy. There is no "us" versus "them." There is only us. If I must be the first one to reach out my hand, so be it.

[warch]

I disagree. There is an "us" vs "them. Them being those who would specifcally target civilians during rush hour to create most terror and casualties.

Your peace movement needs a reality check.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by BigV

Let me ask you, when those that are already indoctrinated, those that are indoctrinating the new recruits, what are these guys saying to the recruits?

Exactly. That's how terrorist organizations survive. They gain strength by being attacked, because the increasingly forceful and powerful attempts to quell them can be used as recruiting propaganda. Even if they all are killed, that will be the impetus for a new organization to form. The only way to kill a terrorist organization is to make it harder for the recruiters to convince people on the edge to join the fight.

Originally Posted by warch

I disagree. There is an "us" vs "them. Them being those who would specifcally target civilians during rush hour to create most terror and casualties.

Your peace movement needs a reality check.

Those children were responsible for the London bombings? Those children engineered 9/11? Why did we drop bombs over their homes? Why didn't we go after the REAL terrorist, Bin Laden?

My "peace movement" as you call it, is simply a desire to end the slaughter of innocents on both sides. If this desire makes me out of touch with reality, then so be it.

[warch]

Even with our govermental missteps and mismanagement of which I have been alarmed, I guess I still dont equate the motivations or results of our miltary actions with those of Islamic terrorists. I still think we're the good guys.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

That's how terrorist organizations survive. They gain strength by being attacked, because the increasingly forceful and powerful attempts to quell them can be used as recruiting propaganda. Even if they all are killed, that will be the impetus for a new organization to form. The only way to kill a terrorist organization is to make it harder for the recruiters to convince people on the edge to join the fight.

This cartoon kind of sums it up.

[Undertoad]

via Andrew Sullivan

"I feel the appeal, believe me. You are exasperated with the manifold faults of Tony Blair and George W Bush. Fighting your government is what you know how to do and what you want to do, and when you are confronted with totalitarian forces which are far worse than your government, the easy solution is to blame your government for them.

But it's a parochial line of reasoning to suppose that all bad, or all good, comes from the West - and a racist one to boot. The unavoidable consequence is that you must refuse to support democrats, liberals, feminists and socialists in the Arab world and Iran who are the victims of Islamism in its Sunni and Shia guises because you are too compromised to condemn their persecutors.

Islamism stops being an ideology intent on building an empire from Andalusia to Indonesia, destroying democracy and subjugating women and becomes, by the magic of parochial reasoning, a protest movement on a par with Make Poverty History or the TUC.

Again, I understand the appeal. Whether you are brown or white, Muslim, Christian, Jew or atheist, it is uncomfortable to face the fact that there is a messianic cult of death which, like European fascism and communism before it, will send you to your grave whatever you do. But I'm afraid that's what the record shows."

- Nick Cohen, writing yesterday in London's Observer.

For what its worth, here's my "peacenik", "bleeding heart" take on the entire mess:

We should hunt down Bin Laden and Co. and execute them.

We should hunt down those responsible for the London bombings and execute them.

We should hunt down any other terrorist responsible for innocent deaths and execute them.

We should do this cleanly, with surgical precision, and with no mercy.

We should stop carrying out theatrics which involve massive "collateral damage." We are smarter than this and all we accomplish is the creation of new fanatics who must again be tracked down and executed. We have better things to do with our time then to create breeding grounds for venomous reptiles.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Wait wait wait, I found this post from BigV on August 3, 1952. It was on the backups:

UT: A couple of points...

1 -- First off, that's pretty funny. 1952. hehehe. Nice to have a little laugh, even if only to take the edge off.

2 -- Pertinent. Nice tie-in. Good job avoiding the easy/wrong blunder of casting this in religious tones.

4 -- I have got to learn to type faster. At this pace, I put knots in the thread. Sorry.

3 -- Thanks for helping me understand that I have been unclear in my earlier posts. I wish to revise and extend my remarks. I have been freely mixing two different related ideas and the results has been to muddy my expression of both ideas.

The first idea is that greater understanding of each other leads to less violence.

The second idea is that there is an important distinction between what has happened already, and what can be done in the present to improve the situation in the future.

My first idea (peace love and understanding) is squarely aimed at the prospect of reducing and preventing future violence. I see nothing in your post, artful though it is, that inclines me to change my mind. I should say that there are limits, however. Sometimes this approach does not work. I believe that those limits are human limits, not limits on the effectiveness and usefulness of this strategy. Have you ever heard the aphorism: a conclusion is where you got tired of thinking? I believe that violence is where you got tired of understanding. Because trying to understand is work. It's tiring. People give up. And if that surrender happens before the understanding equals the grievances, then ignorance will fill the gap, and violence is the product ignorance.

Your illustration is instructive. Let's follow it a little while. I would say that the KKK lynched negroes about whom they understood very little. Understanding breeds compassion, not homicidal violence. I can imagine the mental conversations of a lynch-er "I've seen enough. Hang'im." A closed mind. A closed mind admits no further understanding.

When you put words in my mouth: "If only we understood them more, they would blah blah blah...", get them right. I am saying that if I understand more, I am less violent. If the Klanmember's understanding were to increase, his tendency toward violence would diminish. I believe there is a level of understanding among men that would eliminate violence. I think that level is beyond my limits sometimes, beyond the limits of many men. But those limits can be increased, and what exercise raises the limitations of ignorance? Understanding. Striving. Compassion. Cause when those run dry for me, all I have left is this rock, this gun, this bomb. The more I increase the former, the less I rely on the latter.

How do I know this is a good idea? What about a contrarian view? Why don't we just kill all the offenders? There are difficulties in that route, fatal difficulties. Like, how will you know who to kill? What if you kill the wrong person? What effect will that have on the people close to the person you killed? What if you kill the right person? What effect will that have on the dead killer's surviving comrades? What if you kill all the right ones? What effect do you think that will have on the people who knew the ones you killed. Don't you think that all this killing is likely to incite the survivors to greater hatred? Why would you propose a strategy that makes more killers more desparate killers? There doesn't seem to be a deterrent effect given that many of these people already behave as though they have nothing to lose.

I would clarify my second point, regarding the past, what has already happened. For those whose actions brought death to innocent people, no amount of understanding is possible to change the past. Our society has successfully coped with killers, for a long time. There are institutions and structures to serve justice, if not our hunger for retribution. Let those systems continue to work. It is hard work, and I support those dedicated individuals that do the work.

As to the second point regarding future violence. Let's look at your example again. Were the lynchings stopped because we carpet bombed the south? Because we made sweeps of neighborhoods and rounded up all the crackers and squeezed them until the squealled? Did we just shoot first and ask questions later? No. They stopped because our society's understanding of what was right and wrong reached a saturation point and crystallized into action. Whites and Blacks together decried the injustices, and worked within the bounds of our system to make it illegal then worked in their own communities to make it unpopular. Community shame was a powerful motivator, good ol' peer pressure, backed by the force of law. Upheld by people who believed in laws. Not because we just imprisoned indiscriminately or killed freely those who "looked like the perps".

Understanding is a UNIVERSAL HUMAN NEED. There is no man or woman that does not yearn to be understood. This understanding is not a finite resource. This is not a zero sum game. Understanding is like love, the more you give, the more you have. Like a wick kindled from a flame, one becomes two, and the light increases.

[Happy Monkey]

Whether we started the fire isn't as relevant as whether we're pouring gasoline or water on it, now. Of course the terrorists are evil. Of course, the vast majority of them are beyond rehabilitation. Of course Islamic fascism is a movement in and of itself, and one that needs to be stopped. The question is the best way of stopping it. And the only way to stop an ideological movement is to starve them of recruits.

Islamism stops being an ideology intent on building an empire from Andalusia to Indonesia, destroying democracy and subjugating women and becomes, by the magic of parochial reasoning, a protest movement on a par with Make Poverty History or the TUC.

Here Cohen displays some ignorance about the subject. The terrorists and Islamic fascists are beyond help. The ones at issue are the ones who are on the edge, ripe for the picking. And that edge is what needs to be pushed back. They need to be shown that we are on their side, and the terrorists are not.

Cohen is of course correct that terrorism is bad, but he seems to be trying to use that fact to say that we should ignore the things we do to make it worse.