Topic: Bin Laden is DEAD!!!!!!

[Crazen]

look, more killings from idiotic fundamentalists, revenge will lead to more revenge, which will lead to more revenge

so what should we do about terrorists when they kill us? somehow convince them to come quietly?

[Detoxicated]

i dont know, you shouldnt mess with their countries, stop invading and stop destroying their homelands, start pushing their economy...
only misery creates terrorism...
death only creates more death so its actually stupid to engage in combat...
things happened as they did, osama is dead and afghanistan's destroyed as is iraq, while western arms industries continue to secretly bring weapons to their enemies... the only solution to terrorism to the politicians, right now, is by sheer force and destruction, which will kill the symptoms but doesnt cure the disease, only through equal treatment, education and free exchange of goods and knowledge, will the common man chose the civil way and not the way of terror.

[munchkin5]

The war in Afghanistan has done a lot to defeat terrorism and is on the way to building a better state. Before the invasion it was a failed state run by a brutal, anti western theocracy; you seem to suggest that the aim of the western invasion was to destroy an otherwise peaceful country and harass it's people, which blatantly isn't the case.

And as for this:

while western arms industries continue to secretly bring weapons to their enemies

Are you suggesting that defence contractors are selling arms to the Taliban  

[Detoxicated]

The war in Afghanistan has done a lot to defeat terrorism and is on the way to building a better state. Before the invasion it was a failed state run by a brutal, anti western theocracy; you seem to suggest that the aim of the western invasion was to destroy an otherwise peaceful country and harass it's people, which blatantly isn't the case.

And as for this:

while western arms industries continue to secretly bring weapons to their enemies

Are you suggesting that defence contractors are selling arms to the Taliban  

well i suppose my chosing of words is as usual unexact and i must apologize, i dont doubt the good intentions behind anything, but the actual outcome is still rather gruesome and brutal towards the civil society. The afghans feel oppressed by the americans even if it isn't their intention.

By the way my father is working in afghanistan, so i get some first hand info on society, your so called building society lives still on the most parts in medieval circumstances with no running water nor electricity. If the Western countries would do more to build up trade, schools and infrastructure instead of putting more money into soldiers on so called peace missions the country would have been far more developed than it is now.  The fight against terrorism is in my oppinion a farce. I mean obiously its horrible what happened during the 11th of september but if you actually look at the numbers of deaths per year by terrorism you will be surprised to see that it hardly reaches 100 in a year, while millions die of cancer, car crashes and poverty in the United States and other western countries.

So, there is a disbalance in where the governments invest their money. Imagine you would have all those ressources that are put into afghanistan used for civil services like schooling, science and health care, we would have quite the better circumstances in our countries. I mean they are cutting fundings for schooling in all the western countries, while going into deep debts going to war with a country. The educated people would bring the countries to a peak of scientific research which would aid the entire world more intensly than any war could ever do.

[Inkling]

I didn't feel like responding again, because it feels like we're going in circles, but Didero demands a post.

The most recent bombing in Pakistan is tragic, I agree.  But the  Taliban, Al Qaeda, and other groups bombing someone they don't like isn't a new phenomenon after we killed Bin Laden.  Maybe you haven't been paying attention over the last ten years, but these groups attack and kill anyone and everyone they disagree with.  Osama's death is just the latest excuse, if he was still alive, they would still be trying to kill people.

You keep talking about how violence only spreads more violence.  You seem to have confused justice with revenge, which is an understandable mistake in some ways.  Justice is holding those who committ crimes and atrocities responsible for their actions.  Revenge would have been nuking Kabul in response the attacks on 9/11. 

Governments have an obligation to protect their citizens.  Example time!  If a crazed gunman opens fire on people in a crowded mall, the police do not hold back for fear of angering the gunman's friends and family.  They don't try to make the gunman start liking people again by offering him money, food, and books.  They use every resource they have to subdue the gunman and protect innocent lives, up to and including lethal force.  A government that loses 3,000 people in a terrorist attack and doesn't hold those responsible accountable would have failed its citizens.

All of that said, you might be surprised to know that the US and its allies have been doing more than just shooting and bombing people.  We are at war with terrorist groups, not the people of these countries.  We are building roads, schools, hospitals.  I can't tell you how many stories I've heard on NPR and elsewhere about Agriculture graduates going to Afghanistan to help farmers rebuild and improve their farms, or new business ventures in Iraq.

I guess what I'm saying is that you can keep being idealistic and preachy, but you don't seem to know what you're talking about.

EDIT: while you were typing 2 new replies have been posted. You may wish to review your post.

Oh well.

[Detoxicated]

yet its always the people suffering, i dont know, my pops took pictures, looks pretty destroyed to me... and also is it right to kill civilians in another country just cuz civilians died in the homecountry.

[Didero]

i dont know, my pops took pictures, looks pretty destroyed to me...

Sounds like selection bias to me.
What does your father do in Afghanistan?

[Plank of Wood]

yet its always the people suffering [...] and also is it right to kill civilians in another country just cuz civilians died in the homecountry.

That was a dumb statement

I would love to point out what was wrong with it, but considering you clearly didn't even bother to read Inkling's explanation any further discussion is essentially wasted on you.

Well done?

[Detoxicated]

its dumb to defend war, period. by attacking a country you dont bring back people from the dead.

my father works in an agency to train future bureaucrats to make the government more efficient. he gets transported by helicopter from place to place because American soldiers have the tendency to bomb any car driving on the long roads, as a car poses a possible threat. So a government has an obligation to protect its citizens, but by entering a war in the middle east they actually raised the danger of getting attacked once again, as people just grow more angry of an american supremacy.

I wonder why my father isnt shooting pictures of schools and working hospitals, perhaps because the only hospitals available to the people are based on military bases. The soldiers dont know **** about the afghan costums and constantly insult (without their knowledge) the people of afghanistan and are isolated on their army bases, unless they are on patrol, which leads to no understanding of their culture at all and to more misunderstandings between the civilian population and the well armed soldiers. It looks like a failure to me, as civilians and soldiers die every other week or so. So your truly more valuable american citizens are dying for nothing, as they create, without their knowledge as they don't make any decisions, pain misery and hatred.

so you say my father is biased, well i guess less biased than you and your media fed mindset. Just go to wikileaks and look at the numbers and you see how much actually gets done. But yea its justified, cuz some americans died.

[Plank of Wood]

its dumb to defend war, period. by attacking a country you dont bring back people from the dead.

I'm not. I'm basically on your side but that was still a stupid statement.

[munchkin5]

While I'm not about to defend the killing of civilians during the war, you need to compare the casualties to what would have happened without the intervention rather than assuming everything would be fine without it. Terrorism would have been far more prolific both in the west and the middle east, the entire country would have remained in a state of poverty and political isolation, the people would be suffering even more than they are now and the country would have no economic future. The ongoing project at the moment is to make the country somewhat stable, democratic and a lot safer, while making sure the terrorists like al qaeda and the taliban can't get a foothold again, but obviously isn't close to being achieved yet considering projects like that take generations and a large investment, something i hope we'll follow up with.

The civilian casualties have generally been a result of military action, mainly airstrikes, and i don't agree with what's happened there. The military operation could have been carried out with a lot more discretion; especially at the start of the war. However something i don't think was ever an option was allowing the Taliban to retain control of the country, and there wasn't ever a perfect solution to that problem either.

Also:

so you say my father is biased, well i guess less biased than you and your media fed mindset. Just go to wikileaks and look at the numbers and you see how much actually gets done. But yea its justified, cuz some americans died.

You should stop treating everyone like some idiotic, die-hard american patriot who thinks the war is some sort of glory mission, and start treating people like they know what they're talking about.

[Detoxicated]

You should stop treating everyone like some idiotic, die-hard american patriot who thinks the war is some sort of glory mission, and start treating people like they know what they're talking about.

Well as long as anyone defends any war I'll stay the way I am. War means death and destruction of civilization in all cases.

[Luminar]

The old "The immigrants do the jobs the populace don't want to do" thing. Never been totally sure of the veracity of the claim, and it has a nasty habit of generally appearing mostly in nationalistic/racist debates. I've never really been able to determine which side of that debate it's actually on - on one hand, it's cool that they can get jobs relatively unabashed. On the other hand, is it not like tossing them table scraps?

[Didero]

so you say my father is biased, well i guess less biased than you and your media fed mindset. Just go to wikileaks and look at the numbers and you see how much actually gets done. But yea its justified, cuz some americans died.

I'm not calling your father biased. I'm talking about the statistics-related selection bias, by which I mean he only sees the terrible civilian casualties while I doubt he gets called to many places just to admire the new hospital they built.

The old "The immigrants do the jobs the populace don't want to do" thing. Never been totally sure of the veracity of the claim, and it has a nasty habit of generally appearing mostly in nationalistic/racist debates. I've never really been able to determine which side of that debate it's actually on - on one hand, it's cool that they can get jobs relatively unabashed. On the other hand, is it not like tossing them table scraps?

Stuff's going on here right now. Romanian pickers who come here voluntarily aren't allowed anymore, growers try to find Dutch pickers, can't find any.
I don't think there's any racism behind it, I just think most Dutch people see themselves as too well-educated to do this sort of work. Plus, I think Dutch unemployment benefits aren't very small. The Minister deciding on this just wanted to save some money on those benefits, I think.

[Plank of Wood]

You should stop treating everyone like some idiotic, die-hard american patriot who thinks the war is some sort of glory mission, and start treating people like they know what they're talking about.

Well as long as anyone defends any war I'll stay the way I am. War means death and destruction of civilization in all cases.

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I'm basically on your side but that was still a stupid statement.