This scare the shit out of anyone else?
- Thread starter ShakyFiend
- Start date
It's not really that a guy died that makes for reason to celebrate; it's the fact that evil, religious intolerance got kicked in the nuts, which just so happens to have manifested itself in the form of a guy getting killed, that we're so happy as we are.
What? Looks perfectly reasonable to type that. What's wrong with you? *trollface*rsvp42 said:The fact is, we haven't had a whole lot to celebrate as a country recently. We've been looking for this guy for 10 years and we finally finished the job. Let us revel in it a little, get a little bit of closure for 9/11 and I promise we'll all go back to painting in the lines and feigning civility. Yes we're celebrating a death, but it's the death of the most infamous terrorist in recent history.
If this "scares" you, you're misinterpreting the situation.
also what the hell, captcha:
OT: Humans like to tell themselves murder and death is wrong and evil, but it's times like this that the latter portion of that idea is revealed -- 'as long as it's someone I like'.
Exactly how much of a threat was Bin Laden? I mean, really. Your country has designated him as the face of terror, convincing itself that this one man is singlehandedly controlling a huge, unified 'organisation of evil', when in reality he's just one more high ranking figure in a sprawling intangible network of various groups and like-minded fundamentalists. Given that he's been on the run for the last eight years, I highly doubt that the worlds terror network has entrusted their survival to him. He'd be a liability to any organisation. Nothing changes with his death. Israeli fundamentalism wasn't reliant on this one guy.spectrenihlus said:
As for the rest of your argument, you come across as highly arrogant. America blatently disregards international law, laws put in place to maintain international cooperation and safeguard the sovereign rights of states, and you say that this is justified "because we can". Well, I /can/ steal from whomsoever I wish, and I /can/ kill a member of your family for whatever reason I see fit, but if the law actually let me do these things, then society simply wouldn't function. Perhaps I murder a man, and justify it by claiming the man wronged me in the past. That doesn't mean I should be given the right to break the law. If I was given such a right, then everybody else would have to be given the same right, and the lauded American values of democracy and liberty and justice would mean precisely nothing.
I fail to see how you can possibly claim that every other country in the world would break international law in the same situation. There's no precedent for a claim like that. One example isn't exactly infutable evidence. Besides, as i've already somewhat shown, the fact that a country would act in a certain way doesn't make it acceptable. Your view of the nature of international politics seems rather an aggressive one, not to mention an inadequate one. By definition, international politics is far more than just 'us and them' fighting it out to the death; it's about the way in which the world interacts with itself, whether through war, trade or international government. Your simplified definition implies an anarchic system of international relations. In fact, it rejects the concept of international relations entirely. It's fairly obvious then, that your definition doesn't fit, as the nations of the world don't interact exclusively via warfare. I'm not naive, I just have a more considered, less blindly cynical view of the world.
International laws are not rendered meaningless when one side refuses to abide by them. If anything, the fact that they are broken makes them critically important. After all, that's why they exist, isn't it? If a criminal breaks the law, is the law meaningless? Of course not. The law has meaning /because/ of criminal activity. It's because people commit theft that we need a law against stealing, and it's because of the arrogance of nations who believe they have the right to act however they please on the world stage that there needs to be laws to keep them in line.
Smartarse.Father Time said:
I don't mean 'on the run' in such a literal sense, but rather in the sense that he's been avoiding capture, evading the law. He may not have been doing so actively, so to speak, but my point stands. You can't exactly operate as the kingpin of an international terrorist organisation when you're being hunted by half the developed world.
I've always been the type to celebrate when someone who i feel really deserves it dies. When my drunk abusive ex-stepdad who threatened to kill me dies i'll have a party. When Osama died, i simply smiled and thought maybe now the government can focus on problems at home rather than abroad.
As far as i'm concerned, the ends do not justify the means here. You say that America was ensuring the safety of its citizens, but as I think I pointed out a few posts ago, Bin Laden himself doesn't represent any real danger. His death does very little in the grand scheme of things. America seems to have a habit of scaring its people into accepting its own irredeemable crookedness. The patriot act, for example. Exactly how did killing Bin Laden 'work', anyway? That statement makes no sense. I say again, Bin Ladens death is going to change nothing in the long run. There's still terrorists, and there's still fundamentalists, and there's still decades of bitterness directed at the western world.spectrenihlus said:
Norway is a weird example, but I see what you're trying to say. Regardless of your opinion of their actions, Pakistan was well within their rights to hinder American military activity on their soil, and America can't just break laws because they don't get their way. I don't think you fully appreciate exactly what is meant by sovereignty. It is, as wikipedia defines it, "the quality of having supreme, independent authority over a geographic area, such as a territory." A good comparison would be to property rights in the developed world. I have the right to refuse to let you into my house, and you have no right whatsoever to enter my house without my express permission. You can't simply decide that you're entitled to trespass on my property because there's something you want on it.
I'm afraid I can't really understand the next point of your post, as the grammar gets a little weird.
As for the final part of your argument, i'm afraid it's nonsense. You fail to understand the mindset of an islamist fundamentalist. They're not just barbaric animals without reason. You underestimate them if you think a couple smacks with a rolled up newspaper will stop them. To think so is to underestimate your enemy. Obviously the fundamentalist doesn't care if you kill him. If they did, then why don't they just plant the bombs, instead of martyring themselves? Their violence isn't aimless, and it isn't vulnerable to a stern hand. They have a clear ideological goal and a cause to uphold. If you're still not convinced, just read up on the viet nam war and see just how easily /they/ gave in. Like the Islamists, the viet cong were motivated by ideology and a passionate belief in a cause. They held onto their cause for twenty years against the Americans. Al Queda and company aren't going to be perturbed by one lousy death.
Ok so what should have been done with Osama? Should the US just sat their and took what they got on 9/11 and let Osama get away with it?Harrowdown said:
i recently did a term paper on the subject of human nature and as it turns out, humans really aren't violent by nature. The enjoying of violence is a learned trait we developed. We observed people enjoying violence when we were younger and thus we learned to enjoy it as well.believer258 said:
and i don't think it's medieval. Think back further to the Colosseum days either rome or greece with the gladiator and the people enjoying it then. that's what i think. you should never wish death upon a real person. These people make humans look like twits. Personally i'm glad obama is not releasing the photo's. He said americans...no...humans are better than that. Well i think he's right. we ARE supposed to be better than that. but if they still want to see the photos so bad i guess he was wrong about the human race in saying that's not who we are. We aren't supposed to be barbarians
Well to start with, they shouldn't be carrying out illegal military operations in other countries. Failing that, it would've been ideal to capture Osama and put him on trial. Given the recent details of the operation, which state that Bin Laden was in fact unarmed, that probably shouldn't have been too hard. As when Saddam Hussein was captured, a trial would erase any suspicions that America was bypassing the justice system, and would probably act as a far better message to the enemy than just killing people. I think perhaps you're looking at this whole thing the wrong way. You seem to think that America needed to prove a point by killing Osama, that it was a matter of petty revenge rather than an act of combat. Yes, Osama did undoubtedly need to be dealt with, but not like this, and not for such silly reasons. All of the anger and contempt is out of place in any war. It simply impedes progress towards a solution, which is always the indisputable goal during any conflict. Holding up peace to settle old debts and prove points is irrational and foolhardy.spectrenihlus said:
I'm not sure where you thought you saw outrage. Probably best not to assume anything about people's emotions when your only data consists of text. It was an observation that I've made many times before, and am quite accustomed to at this point. I am sure that somewhere on the net there is a person who is as rabid as you imagine I am. I'm just curious why you've decided to pick a fight with me. "Cavemen" is hardly something that I think of as an insult that requires you to defend the honor of the people I applied it to. There are much worse things that I'm sure others have said, likely on this very thread.Father Time said:
Personally, I think it's enough to simply be happy he's gone and forget about him, like I did with Jerry Falwell and, in a slightly different sense, with George Bush when he left office. In that last case, there were people that celebrated his departure, and that did get called out as indecent. It might not be barbaric, but it's not noble either.
True, but not the entirety of it. In the long run, he's just a single person. It's like dancing in the middle of a warzone because you just pegged off an enemy. It's liable to get you killed, and accomplishes little.Father Time said:
You're mis-contextualizing my posts. I'm all for being thrilled the man is dead, and "celebrating" the smallest of victories (such as my "Victory Dances"; a cigarette when I've accomplished something particularly trying). I did, however, imply it's barbaric to use it as an excuse to act like it's gorramed Spring Break.Father Time said: