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>I do not see how his support of ISIS is necessarily harmful Wow. You dont see how video taping beheadings, raping tens of thousands of women, killing million

>I do not see how his support of ISIS is necessarily harmful Wow. You dont see how video taping beheadings, raping tens of thousands of women, killing millions, selling stolen oil, and suicide bombings are 'necessarily harmful' I dont know that ive ever encountered someone with such a mispointed moral compass, absolutely amazing what people can justify in their heads.

grandalf 10y ago
The tactics used by ISIS are quite barbaric. But so are the tactics used by the US. The two are not equivalent, but I'd hope that the side with millionfold more resources would hold itself to a slightly higher standard. What criteria would you impose upon a grassroots political movement in the middle east? Is it allowed to use force? Should it invest in smart bombs before proceeding to get involved in conflict? There is a tremendous asymmetry of force between the US and ISIS. Both sides use propaganda, both sides try to scare and intimidate civilians into supporting their cause. To claim that a suicide bombing of civilians is morally worse than a drone attack on civilians is to be completely deluded. That one side can afford to send in drones that are controlled by pilots thousands of miles away does not matter to the victims of the attack, nor do the details of the decisions that led a suicide bomber to volunteer. The point is, attacks on civilians are always intended to break the will of the civilians to support their side... the goal is for people to be drifting off to sleep at night and to be startled and fearful at every noise, lest it is an attack (suicide bomber or drone). It's completely unreasonable to expect ISIS to hold itself to first world standards (drones, smart bombs) when fighting in such an asymmetrical battle. The US itself throws out its moral standards when victory is uncertain. So unless you think ISIS ought to just surrender and give up, there isn't really any other way for asymmetrical conflict to occur without one side using tactics that the other side's population deems morally reprehensible. The absence of this obvious realization comes from the propaganda nature of all the news about ISIS. We are supposed to oppose ISIS because ISIS opposes US intervention in the region, and ISIS poses a threat to the US hawkish vision for how it wants to reshape the middle east. As an American, I'm not sold on the idea that the US should be meddling in the middle east, and so I choose not to buy into the propaganda about ISIS. I do not support ISIS, but I think that all political organizations start out looking like groups of thugs and gradually become less violent and help with the basic needs of their constituents.
- zimbu668 10y ago
  >What criteria would you impose upon a grassroots political movement in the middle east? Maybe not genocide? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_of_Yazidis_by_ISIL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_of_Yazidis_by_ISIL
  - grandalf 10y ago
    A fine criterion as long as you acknowledge that what the US is doing is a sort of genocide as well. Consider the death toll among fighting aged males in the middle east since the 1970s. Why? The US overthrew a democratically elected government in Iran, and supported both sides in the Iran/Iraq war in order to destabilize the region and disempower both regimes.
- tim333 10y ago
  ISIS isn't much of a grassroots political movement http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3190314/The-secret-ISIS-s-success-100-former-Saddam-Hussein-era-officers-run-jihadi-group-s-military-intelligence-operations-Iraq-Syria.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3190314/The-secret-I...
  - grandalf 10y ago
    Aside from claims made by GW Bush, what evidence do we have that Baathists were any worse than the average ruling class in the region?
- unprepare 10y ago
  >What criteria would you impose upon a grassroots political movement in the middle east? not filming ritualistic beheadings not raping thousands of women not killing millions of civilians not stealing and selling oil not performing suicide bombings to add to that: not promoting the death of entire populations of people not claiming to have religious authority to commit these atrocities not using violence of any kind to further their political agenda That would be a good start. >Is it allowed to use force? no. no political movement has any moral authority if it uses physical violence. >should it invest in smart bombs before proceeding to get involved in conflict? seems you predicted my answer to the previous question wrongly. no they should spend time getting bomb technologies because if your politics takes violence to convince others, you are not a political movement, but a terrorist organization. >There is a tremendous asymmetry of force between the US and ISIS there is also extreme assymetry between the libertarian party and the republican party, yet the libertarian grassroots movement doesnt resort to violence of any kind to further its political agenda. same can be said for the green party or tea party. >To claim that a suicide bombing of civilians is morally worse than a drone attack on civilians is to be completely deluded. To identify what is morally wrong, you need to determine the reasoning behind the action. For example, is it worse if a 17 year old kid gets in a car accident and someone is killed, or if a 17 year old kid takes a gun to a super market and shoots a random shopper? In one case, there was an accidental death, still very much a crime and the person responsible will still be punished. in the other case we have a case of clear premeditated murder. You are making an argument that premeditated purposeful killing is on the same moral level as accidental killings. You are free to hold that view, but you will not find general support for it. This is not because of propaganda, it is because of the intent of the actors in the two cases. If your intent is to kill as many civilians as possible, you are more morally corrupt than someone who intends to kill a specific known target and accidentally kills bystanders. Is it worse when a cop shoots a bad guy running down the street and a stray bullet kills a bystander in the process, or is it worse when a random person runs down the street shooting indiscriminately? >As an American, I'm not sold on the idea that the US should be meddling in the middle east on this we can agree >and so I choose not to buy into the propaganda about ISIS I mean, SOMEONE beheaded those people on video in the name of ISIS - are you suggesting they do not engage in brutalistic tactics? are you suggesting that they dont capture and systematically rape women? Have you looked at ISIS's own materials to determine their objectives?

grandalf 10y ago

The tactics used by ISIS are quite barbaric. But so are the tactics used by the US. The two are not equivalent, but I'd hope that the side with millionfold more resources would hold itself to a slightly higher standard. What criteria would you impose upon a grassroots political movement in the middle east? Is it allowed to use force? Should it invest in smart bombs before proceeding to get involved in conflict? There is a tremendous asymmetry of force between the US and ISIS. Both sides use propaganda, both sides try to scare and intimidate civilians into supporting their cause. To claim that a suicide bombing of civilians is morally worse than a drone attack on civilians is to be completely deluded. That one side can afford to send in drones that are controlled by pilots thousands of miles away does not matter to the victims of the attack, nor do the details of the decisions that led a suicide bomber to volunteer. The point is, attacks on civilians are always intended to break the will of the civilians to support their side... the goal is for people to be drifting off to sleep at night and to be startled and fearful at every noise, lest it is an attack (suicide bomber or drone). It's completely unreasonable to expect ISIS to hold itself to first world standards (drones, smart bombs) when fighting in such an asymmetrical battle. The US itself throws out its moral standards when victory is uncertain. So unless you think ISIS ought to just surrender and give up, there isn't really any other way for asymmetrical conflict to occur without one side using tactics that the other side's population deems morally reprehensible. The absence of this obvious realization comes from the propaganda nature of all the news about ISIS. We are supposed to oppose ISIS because ISIS opposes US intervention in the region, and ISIS poses a threat to the US hawkish vision for how it wants to reshape the middle east. As an American, I'm not sold on the idea that the US should be meddling in the middle east, and so I choose not to buy into the propaganda about ISIS. I do not support ISIS, but I think that all political organizations start out looking like groups of thugs and gradually become less violent and help with the basic needs of their constituents.

zimbu668 10y ago
>What criteria would you impose upon a grassroots political movement in the middle east? Maybe not genocide? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_of_Yazidis_by_ISIL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_of_Yazidis_by_ISIL
- grandalf 10y ago
  A fine criterion as long as you acknowledge that what the US is doing is a sort of genocide as well. Consider the death toll among fighting aged males in the middle east since the 1970s. Why? The US overthrew a democratically elected government in Iran, and supported both sides in the Iran/Iraq war in order to destabilize the region and disempower both regimes.
tim333 10y ago
ISIS isn't much of a grassroots political movement http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3190314/The-secret-ISIS-s-success-100-former-Saddam-Hussein-era-officers-run-jihadi-group-s-military-intelligence-operations-Iraq-Syria.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3190314/The-secret-I...
- grandalf 10y ago
  Aside from claims made by GW Bush, what evidence do we have that Baathists were any worse than the average ruling class in the region?
unprepare 10y ago
>What criteria would you impose upon a grassroots political movement in the middle east? not filming ritualistic beheadings not raping thousands of women not killing millions of civilians not stealing and selling oil not performing suicide bombings to add to that: not promoting the death of entire populations of people not claiming to have religious authority to commit these atrocities not using violence of any kind to further their political agenda That would be a good start. >Is it allowed to use force? no. no political movement has any moral authority if it uses physical violence. >should it invest in smart bombs before proceeding to get involved in conflict? seems you predicted my answer to the previous question wrongly. no they should spend time getting bomb technologies because if your politics takes violence to convince others, you are not a political movement, but a terrorist organization. >There is a tremendous asymmetry of force between the US and ISIS there is also extreme assymetry between the libertarian party and the republican party, yet the libertarian grassroots movement doesnt resort to violence of any kind to further its political agenda. same can be said for the green party or tea party. >To claim that a suicide bombing of civilians is morally worse than a drone attack on civilians is to be completely deluded. To identify what is morally wrong, you need to determine the reasoning behind the action. For example, is it worse if a 17 year old kid gets in a car accident and someone is killed, or if a 17 year old kid takes a gun to a super market and shoots a random shopper? In one case, there was an accidental death, still very much a crime and the person responsible will still be punished. in the other case we have a case of clear premeditated murder. You are making an argument that premeditated purposeful killing is on the same moral level as accidental killings. You are free to hold that view, but you will not find general support for it. This is not because of propaganda, it is because of the intent of the actors in the two cases. If your intent is to kill as many civilians as possible, you are more morally corrupt than someone who intends to kill a specific known target and accidentally kills bystanders. Is it worse when a cop shoots a bad guy running down the street and a stray bullet kills a bystander in the process, or is it worse when a random person runs down the street shooting indiscriminately? >As an American, I'm not sold on the idea that the US should be meddling in the middle east on this we can agree >and so I choose not to buy into the propaganda about ISIS I mean, SOMEONE beheaded those people on video in the name of ISIS - are you suggesting they do not engage in brutalistic tactics? are you suggesting that they dont capture and systematically rape women? Have you looked at ISIS's own materials to determine their objectives?