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Hey, I was going to say that.
Okay. So:
Mkay, the reason I'd put foreign fighters in the "terrorist" category, is because you can't get so specific as to say "Guy with a gun A is there to help his buddies in Iraq. Guy B is there to kill Iraqis to cause dissent and pave the way for his regime/cleric/belief to take over Iraq"
So, wherever there's a case where you can't easily determine what someone's up to, you'll declare them a terrorist? Nice.
(Aside from that, I think you'd need quite a bit of evidence to say that a significant number of those from outside of Iraq who enter the country with intent to commit terrorist acts are doing so to "pave the way for [their] regime/cleric/belief to take over Iraq".)
a) Someone who believes in a part of the Muslim faith that non-Muslim lives are not worth as much as Muslim ones, and that the killing of infidels is not only allowed, but encouraged. Especially if the belief includes Muslims not of their sect to be "non-Muslim."
b)Hamas, the PLA, Al-Qaeda, World Wide Jihad, just about every major terrorist organization has used suicide bombings, and used them because it maximizes damage while minimizing their own loses. Not to mention the psychological message inherent in it. If you want articles and the like, just google the word, or the name of a terrorist group and 9 times outta ten you will get a good hit.
Could you substantiate the claim that those who use terrorist methods do so either wholly or primarily because they believe that "Someone who believes in a part of the Muslim faith that non-Muslim lives are not worth as much as Muslim ones, and that the killing of infidels is not only allowed, but encouraged"? If you're not claiming this, you certainly seem to be conflating it, by referring to e.g. Hamas and the PLO. Whereas as far as I can tell, Hamas and the PLO, when they use terrorist methods, do so primarily to send a polite message to Israel asking if they'd be kind enough to stop occupying Palestine, discriminating against Palestinians and regularly engaging in terrorist activity itself.
Second, I'm not quite sure how you measure the idea that someone believes that a non-Muslim life is worth less than a Muslim one. What *is* apparent to me is that something fairly equivalent (but in my opinion significantly worse, coming as does from a position of privilege and power) is that the majority of USAmericans very clearly believe that an Iraqi life is worth less than a USAmerican one - this is sometimes openly stated by the right-wing, but is more widespread in the fact that even in the "left" in the USA, casualties in Iraq are invariably primarily counted in terms of the number of US troops dead, with a million Iraqis being only an occasional afterthought.
Third, just because suicide bombings are heavily publicised when used by a handful of terrorist organisations, does not mean that either they are the most widespread tactic used by those organisations or that they are used by all such organisations (or even those that consist of so-called "Islamic extremists", the meaning of which I'm still puzzled by). If you like, Wikipedia has a list of proscribed terrorist organisations (generally fuzzily defined, as groups opposing e.g. US interests are invariably more likely to be included than groups which use similar methods but are more in accordance with the US) - take a look and check how many of them use suicide bombings, and how many of those use them as their primary method of violence.
Incidentally, I just realised I missed this above:
And the main reason I used suicide bombing in one of my examples in that thread was to show how psychologically indoctrinated into the belief you have to be to want to sacrifice your life for it.
In the other thread Haus briefly mentions some research on suicide bombings. To expand on that a little here, said research notes that suicide bombing has barely any link to Islam or Islamism, but an awful lot to do with being occupied and systematic oppression. Shocking, isn't it?
We're again agreeing on the same thing lol. I'm saying that because suicide bombs are used so frequently to attack civilians deliberately, they have acquired a bad reputation. Its true u can say the same thing about any other form of attack, but with suicide bombs they are almost always associated with civilian deaths, because they are used so frequently in public areas.
As Flyboy says, please stop lolling. Or tell us what's so lol-worthy of those terrifying Islamofascists who might come through your window and blow themselves up or behead you any minute.
Anyway, no - we're not saying the same thing. You say:
I don't say "homicide bombers" or anything like that because to me a suicide bombing is just a military tactic. Is it one I approve of or find acceptable? No its not
In other words, you say suicide bombing is unacceptable, full stop. That's not the same as "it's attained a bad reputation because it's often associated with certain highly-publicised attacks on civilians".
And I know personally that a good deal of American troops care very deeply for the Iraqi people. My good friend Dan recently returned from his tour, and he was very friendly with the civilians in the areas he was in. Most of them were just ya know...normal folk looking to get by without bad shit happening. His favorite was the street vendor that sold a roasted goat stew that he went too whenever he could, cause the guy was really nice. He also spoke pretty good english and would fill Dan in on how happy he was that one of his sons was joining the Iraqi police force. Just ya know, little things like that are what keep most of the US troops going.
And I'm not exaggerating, I'm not saying that where ever they go, women and children are throwing roses at them and waving flags and kissing their feet. But they aren't all wishing death upon the troops, most of them are just people looking to get a salary and take care of their families.
So please, don't say that the majority of US troops don't care about innocent life. They aren't Nazi stormtroopers, these people have friends and family too and I think the majority of them hope everyday that the war ends and Iraq is free.
That's terribly sweet that your mate Dan luvs the Iraqis. On the other hand:
61 per cent of Iraqis support attacks on US troops.
That's the Iraqi side. The US side is even worse:
Only 47 percent of soldiers and only 38 percent of Marines agreed that noncombatants should be treated with dignity and respect.
That's not just "not particularly caring". That's the majority of US troops believing that Iraqis don't deserve basic respect - that they're subhuman, basically. And that's just the ones that are prepared to say so in a survey.
If you want to know what a lack of even basic respect looks like, this provides a few jolly anecdotes from US veterans.
As to the "total war" stuff: why on earth are you mentioning it? What use does that hypothetical serve? Is it supposed to say, "Well, the US isn't just utterly obliterating everything in sight with no thought to anything, so you should be thankful"? |
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