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Your argument suggests that only X are responsible for Y's civilian deaths. But given that X and Y are at war with each other, if Y sets up military operations
by rlpb 11y ago
Your argument suggests that only X are responsible for Y's civilian deaths. But given that X and Y are at war with each other, if Y sets up military operations in the middle of Y's civilians ("human shields") whereas X keeps its civilians and military apart, then I don't think it's fair to say that X are performing worse (less ethically, or whatever) if more of Y's civilians die in the conflict than X's civilians.
> It shouldn’t be the only way in which we compare them. But it’s still informative to compare them.
Unfortunately I think it's as uninformative to compare them as it is uninformative to not compare them. I think it only makes sense to count a civilian death in the context of what the civilian was doing in an area targeted by the military of the other side. That is relatively easy in the West to understand, since these areas aren't in the middle of warzones. In areas of conflict it becomes impossible to understand because of propaganda.
- rdancer 11y agoIronically, much of the personnel involved in the U.S. drone program lives and works stateside, among the civilian population.
- omonra 11y agoYet no muslim terrorist has accidentally killed innocent civilians when targeting drone operators, have they? They rather simply always target innocent civilians.
- lolc 11y agoMany definitions of terrorism require targeting civilians. So your statements are trivially true. There have been attacks on people in uniform by people identifying as Muslims. These were labeled as terrorist attacks too, so your second statement is not true if you follow the broader definition. One wrong does not justify another, unless of course you decide to follow their logic.
- omonra 11y agoWe were talking about drone operators as being equivalent targets to whoever Americans blow up with drone (with concomitant collateral damage). I pointed out that no muslim terrorists have killed people while attempting to kill drone operators (or other specifically targeted military personnel). And why jump through verbal hoops with 'people identifying as Muslims'. Don't we have a word for that - 'muslims'? Is there any chance of someone not being sure if you are talking about people or goats, thus the need for further clarification?
- SixSigma 11y agoYou should walk round tumblr and see all the otherkin people "identify" as. We don't count any of them as wolves or mermaids.
- omonra 11y agoBut that's because we don't consider it sufficient for someone to identify as a woolf or mermaid to be one. Whereas if someone identifies as a Christian/Jew/Buddhist or whatever - that's sufficient reason for everybody to accept that.
- DanBC 11y agoIt's pretty handy to seperate out a tiny number (maybe 200,000 people) of terrorists from the much larger group of non-terrorist Muslims. Like we don't talk about the Christian terrorists killing doctors in the US, we use other language to describe them.
- lolc 11y ago> I pointed out that no muslim terrorists have killed people while attempting to kill drone operators (or other specifically targeted military personnel). I don't see how this is relevant. We already accept that terrorism is not justifiable, we're discussing whether drone strikes are terrorism. > And why jump through verbal hoops with 'people identifying as Muslims'. Because being Muslim is not a terrorist's defining characteristic. One defining characteristic would be a disregard for human life.