Terrorists are not bad people

[Trialbyfire]

One of the classic justifications for many terrorist acts is that they did it to directly or indirectly protect thier families, friends etc. For example a terrorist may blow up several innocent civilians and justify this by saying that if it stops the people that they consider to be the agressor from killing, maiming, raping or just generally oppressing thier family or friends then it is worth it. Likewise military under the control of most governments have to make similar decisions every day, weighing up collateral damage. Is the life of one innocent person being held hostage worth the justice metered out to the hostage takers ??

 

IMO, labelling these issues as 'Insane' seems a bit dismissive and ill thought out.

While there are insane elements of the military who deliberately target civilian villages for no other reason beyond the lust for killing, I would be shocked if the U.S. military were to enter a village or city under orders, to suicide bomb civilians and self.

 

A hostage taker isn't an innocent civilian. They're either perpetrators in a crime for monetary gain or they're extremist motivated. There are also hostage takers within the military, for political reasons. No matter how you spin it, they're not innocent civilians going about their daily lives, uninvolved in the situation.

 

Let me guess. You believe it's sane to venture into an ice cream shop to blow up 8 year olds...

[Mahatma]

Many of you are taking ethnocentric views here. Yes, I know it is wrong to kill people, yes you do too. Your environment has provided you with what knowledge and culture you have.

 

If Trial was brought up and told by the majority of the people he knew that he would explode upon reaching the age of 18, I guarantee you he would believe it. Same if he was brought up and taught that killing westerners was a good thing.

[Isolde]

Purity of intent is overrated. Nothing in life is crystal clean and simple. Even the most fervent religious believer has moments of confusion. You are basically glorifying the terrorists by putting a "dutiful" angle on their actions. We have seen the results of that kind of "pure thinking" throughout history: the Holocaust, etc. You've obviously tried to see this objectively and that's good but I just can't agree that there is any justification whatsoever.

[theBrokenMuse]

Many of you are taking ethnocentric views here. Yes, I know it is wrong to kill people, yes you do too. Your environment has provided you with what knowledge and culture you have.

 

If Trial was brought up and told by the majority of the people he knew that he would explode upon reaching the age of 18, I guarantee you he would believe it. Same if he was brought up and taught that killing westerners was a good thing.

 

We already know these are your feelings on the subject, you've already reasserted them several times without really addressing the arguments laid before you.

[Mahatma]

Purity of intent is overrated. Nothing in life is crystal clean and simple. Even the most fervent religious believer has moments of confusion. You are basically glorifying the terrorists by putting a "dutiful" angle on their actions. We have seen the results of that kind of "pure thinking" throughout history: the Holocaust, etc. You've obviously tried to see this objectively and that's good but I just can't agree that there is any justification whatsoever.

 

Of course you can't. Neither can I. And no, I am not trying to glorify what they do. I think it is a horrible tragedy that these sorts of things happen. I just do not think the terrorist is to blame. The ill will comes from the leaders and people dictating what happens.

[Trialbyfire]

Of course you can't. Neither can I. And no, I am not trying to glorify what they do. I think it is a horrible tragedy that these sorts of things happen. I just do not think the terrorist is to blame. The ill will comes from the leaders and people dictating what happens.

Why are there moderate Islamists who wouldn't hurt a flea and others, who are terrorists? Don't you believe that people have a brain and free will? Do you believe that people have no control over themselves?

 

How about you? Do you believe everything you were taught at school and learned at home? Or possibly, have you amended some of your beliefs?

[kdark]

Many of you are taking ethnocentric views here. Yes, I know it is wrong to kill people, yes you do too. Your environment has provided you with what knowledge and culture you have.

 

If Trial was brought up and told by the majority of the people he knew that he would explode upon reaching the age of 18, I guarantee you he would believe it. Same if he was brought up and taught that killing westerners was a good thing.

 

Yes morality most certainly is relative. The terrorist most definitely has a warped sense of things compared to us, and they would say the same thing about westerners. One countries freedom fighters is anothers terrorists.

 

But when Trial was to turn 18, and she didn't explode, that would rock the foundation of everything she was taught, and would have trouble trusting those people that taught her that.

 

I've read stories of people from countries who were raised to hate westerners their whole life, come to realize that they were horribly wrong when they were on the receiving end of true kindness from a westerner.

 

Honestly, us westerners haven't been beacons of hope and light for the middle eastern nations. Just look at the atrocities committed by america on iraq and israel on palestine, and you can understand why the hatred is so prevalent in those areas.

 

I definitely don't agree with terrorism by any means, but i can understand why they are driven to do it given the hopeless situation some people live in those areas.

[Taramere]

they're doing what they think is right, what they've been taught. which in a way makes them courageous.

 

i get it.

 

I think it makes them the very opposite of heroic and courageous. Haven't you heard of the Stanley Milgram experiment?

 

I would reserve my respect for people who don't cop out of taking responsibility for their actions. Who don't just do whatever they're told to do because they're too stupid to think for themselves, and/or because their religion is feeding their vanity with notions about being "a hero".

[Woggle]

Blowing yourself up in an ice cream shop is wrong but so is dropping bombs in residential neighborhoods where children play. How would anybody here feel if planes flew by right now dropping bombs and when it was all over your friends were blown to bits and the power was out in your town plus there is no access to food or medical care. Wouldn't that cause some rage towards thos responsible?

[Taramere]

How would anybody here feel if planes flew by right now dropping bombs and when it was all over your friends were blown to bits and the power was out in your town plus there is no access to food or medical care. Wouldn't that cause some rage towards thos responsible?

 

I'd be too busy setting myself alight to care.

 

No, seriously. If I lived in a fundamentalist Islamic state, I'd just pray that my friends had died quickly and curse myself for not being in the direct path of the bombs so that I too could escape such an oppressive hell.

[grogster]

Mahatma's message: web cam terrorist throat slitters, Taleban acid throwers in the eyes of female school children, and other Islamist slaughterers of the innocent are all entirely blameless--morally and criminally.

 

Why? Because their motives are pure, they're sincere and feel strongly that what they do is right, true, correct. Blame the terrorist deed, not the terrorist who believes that he is merely an instrument of Allah's Will.

 

Kill, maim and torture with Islamist purity and motivation, and you're blameless.

 

And then there's the "moral equivalency" crowd who never ever go away. Back in the 1970's and 1980's they bleated that the United States and the Soviet Union were one and the same.

 

Now, they trumpet that the United States and al qaeda are one and the same. To those political geniuses I extend a very sincere, pure middle finger salute.

 

Don't blame me.

[Woggle]

The US and Al Queda are very similiar. I am not saying I support either one but 9/11 was nothing compared to Hiroshima and or what we did in Iraq and Vietnam. If killing is wrong then it is wrong on all ends. America does not have some special right to murder that the rest of the world doesn't have.

[Taramere]

The US and Al Queda are very similiar. I am not saying I support either one but 9/11 was nothing compared to Hiroshima and or what we did in Iraq and Vietnam. If killing is wrong then it is wrong on all ends. America does not have some special right to murder that the rest of the world doesn't have.

 

That's an idealistic sounding view for sure, but let's say this is a power struggle between democracy as you know it and fundamentalist Islam. Let's say you have the final say in who should win that power struggle and you're not allowed to sit on the fence.

 

Who should rule? Which ideology do you select as the one better suited to promoting happiness and harmony for the people governed under it?

[disgracian]

If we recall what terrorism actually means, then those "spreading democracy" with our cruise missiles (robotic suicide bombers) need only look in the mirror.

 

Terrorists are bad people, when it comes down to it. The indoctrination they are (usually) subjected to in order to become terrorists plays a part and adds some moral complexity, but ultimately everybody is accountable for their actions. To those who would say that they chose their own actions, I would remind them that while this is true to a degree, no choice is made in a vacuum; instead they are the product of a whole range of factors that are not all under our control.

 

Cheers,

D.

[grogster]

The US and Al Queda are very similiar. I am not saying I support either one but 9/11 was nothing compared to Hiroshima and or what we did in Iraq and Vietnam. If killing is wrong then it is wrong on all ends. America does not have some special right to murder that the rest of the world doesn't have.

 

No one's arguing that the US has a "special right to murder." That's a straw man.

 

The US, however, is a representative democracy, and I seem to remember an election back in November, which resulted in a new President, someone very different from the former President.

 

As for the "US and Al Queda [being] very similiar," when, pray tell, did Al Queda hold its last election?

[Woggle]

So if the people vote for mass murder that is okay?

[taiko]

So if the people vote for mass murder that is okay?

 

It depends, what is murder and what is merly killing? Hiroshima is only the same as 9/11 if you were not an 18 to 40 year old male in 1945 getting ready for the invasion of the Japanese home islands.

[Mahatma]

The US and Al Queda are very similiar. I am not saying I support either one but 9/11 was nothing compared to Hiroshima and or what we did in Iraq and Vietnam.

 

Very true. Along the lines of Woggle's statement, do you guys believe the men who dropped the bomb are going to go to hell? Their intentions were good. You can not judge people by your surroundings, you must judge them by theirs.

 

Were they just as bad as terrorists? or even worse?

[headlesschicken]

I think it makes them the very opposite of heroic and courageous. Haven't you heard of the Stanley Milgram experiment?

 

I would reserve my respect for people who don't cop out of taking responsibility for their actions. Who don't just do whatever they're told to do because they're too stupid to think for themselves, and/or because their religion is feeding their vanity with notions about being "a hero".

 

i don't know, i think people who are willing to do anything for their beliefs are courageous.

 

to break laws, customs, whatever, for your belief is hard to do.

 

i'm not saying it's right, and its reprehensible when it comes to the murder of other people. but it takes a strong person to throw everything away for their beliefs.

[Trialbyfire]

i'm not saying it's right, and its reprehensible when it comes to the murder of other people. but it takes a strong person to throw everything away for their beliefs.

Not if you're suicide bombing innocent civilians and children. There's nothing noble about that, since you don't have to deal with the aftermath.

[Trimmer]

Very true. Along the lines of Woggle's statement, do you guys believe the men who dropped the bomb are going to go to hell? Their intentions were good. You can not judge people by your surroundings, you must judge them by theirs.

 

Were they just as bad as terrorists? or even worse?

So wait, are you now granting that terrorists are bad? By making this argument, you are changing the entire basis of this thread. Are you just throwing things out to be contrarian, or do you have a belief here?

[Moose]

Very true. Along the lines of Woggle's statement, do you guys believe the men who dropped the bomb are going to go to hell? Their intentions were good. You can not judge people by your surroundings, you must judge them by theirs.

 

Were they just as bad as terrorists? or even worse?

The men who dropped the bombs were under orders.

 

Christians are taught that we are to obey authority. The consequences lies at the feet of whomever authorized the act.

[grogster]

So wait, are you now granting that terrorists are bad? By making this argument, you are changing the entire basis of this thread. Are you just throwing things out to be contrarian, or do you have a belief here?

 

 

I hope he's a contrarian. I'm fed up with all True Believers.

 

Contrarians irritate, as opposed to kill, people.

[taiko]

The men who dropped the bombs were under orders.

 

Christians are taught that we are to obey authority. The consequences lies at the feet of whomever authorized the act.

 

Besides it was 1945 after 6 years of war. The enenmy had proved how he acted in defeat in China, the Philippines, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Everyman on both B29s knew what whould happen if those two bombs failed. They saved more lives then most anybody in history can claim.

[Trimmer]

The men who dropped the bombs were under orders.

 

Christians are taught that we are to obey authority. The consequences lies at the feet of whomever authorized the act.

How do you square that, with this:

Life is around us everywhere, and most of it is "good". How can anyone destroy that which was given to us unless that person(s) is convinced out of his or her own gain? That's complete selfishness...

How can anyone destroy? Apparently by following the orders of the authority one has been taught to obey. You're kinda making mahatma's original argument here, that they aren't bad, they're just following the orders of the authority they have been indoctrinated to believe in and submit to.

 

Of course, the response to this is likely to be "well, my religion is right, and theirs is wrong, so my (our) actions are righteous, and punishments and rewards will all get sorted out in heaven..." Yeah, that's exactly "their" justification, too.

 

As I believe that all religions are creations of man, I think that NONE of it will get sorted out in heaven, and that we need to be completely responsible for our behavior and our treatment of fellow human beings here on earth, with all the difficulties and ambiguities that brings.