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I'm not sure where I argued an equivalence between these forces. Western fundamentalism doesn't have to be equivalent to Isis to be damaging in nature. It's m

I'm not sure where I argued an equivalence between these forces. Western fundamentalism doesn't have to be equivalent to Isis to be damaging in nature. It's my position that the counterterrorism movement is off the rails -- a negative, objectiveless, and misguided force on the world that is more damaging (because of scale) than terrorism. There are many different groups of people who support and feed the counter-terrorism movement -- among them are many people who are happy to advocate for extreme levels of violence against unknown or imagined enemies. If you ask, many people in the us support "turning the deserts to glass" -- they have perceived enemies in the deserts and don't particularly care for who else they kill in pursuit. People in the west want to pretend that terrorists are unique in their lack of regard for civilian lives -- but there is an objective question we can ask to determine the truth of this. Who's actions result in the deaths of more innocent civilians? These numbers reveal that western hands are not so innocent as they pretend. Semantic quibbling (and often misdirection) about the relationship of "intent" to these deaths is the manipulation tactic -- a frequently biased mechanism for the whitewashing of responsibility and guilt off the hands of the chosen marked as noble without regard to evidence.

reitanqild 9y ago
People in the west want to pretend that terrorists are unique in their lack of regard for civilian lives This is a problem. However in this thread you seem to go from this to "attempted genocide". Also: there is a really huge difference between - being careless as a soldier and - actively trying to harm civilians as a terrorist Western soldiers should be held to a higher standard but as I mentioned elsewhere in this thread: if they have been trying to kill (or in your words exterminate) civilians then they have failed pretty spectacularly.
- breatheoften 9y ago
  You fall back on this notion that because genocide has not succeeded, there are therefore not voices pushing to target and marginalize large numbers of people. By your logic I should be able to say that because jihadists have not overthrown America there are therefore no terrorists with harmful plots. The op mentioned the western voices that call for mass killing (via various mechanisms) of muslims and other perceived enemies -- those voices exist and their prevalence and political power definitely moves the goal post with regard to notions of acceptable collateral loss in pursuit of the perceived objectives of the counterterrorism movement. The western fundamentalist notion of the "Muslim holy enemy" bleeds into policy decisions that absolutely affect far more people who have nothing to do with terrorism than they do terrorism. The mistaken idea of holy war is the reasoning flaw that causes insane numbers of metric tons of bombs to be dropped on real life humans - everytime reproposing the assumption that _this time_ they are targeting the holy enemy. Countries ravaged by war for decades yield innumerable stories of savagery -- not necessarily related to terrorism at all but easily confused into becoming part of the holy enemy story by opportunist politicians -- and thusly the expansion of the targeting mechanism grows and grows. You want to pretend that you can trace the motivations, details, circumstances of all the western killings case by case -- and from this perspective of true information, inform a model that supports the morality of the objective of counterterrorism and its associated callous killing process which has been going on for decades. You can't -- you do not have those details. What we have are the we are the aggregate results of this movements pursuit of its objectives -- these soldiers have been killing for decades -- sometimes killing innocents by mistake, sometimes killing innocents with a deliberate calculus that does not value the lives of those innocents as they kill them. The sustained killing in this context is simply a decision -- the west keeps doing it knowing the outcome with a misguided belief about what their objectives are and how they can achieve them. It's a kind of western blood lust that keeps this going. Counter-terrorism is a giant wheel rolling down hill with an evil momentum that creates the enemies with which to satisfy its own insanity.
  - reitanqild 9y ago
    First: I'm not defending what the west (including the country I feel I belong to) has done in e.g. Afghanistan and Iraq. Then again your logic breaks down easily: You fall back on this notion that because genocide has not succeeded, there are therefore not voices pushing to target and marginalize large numbers of people. By your logic I should be able to say that because jihadists have not overthrown America there are therefore no terrorists with harmful plots. There is one major difference here: Western military forces has the capability to flatten whole cities without warning inhabitants first. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden for an example of what they were capable of as early as 1945. To make this painfully clear: If people who decides were at all trying to indiscriminately kill citizens of any of these countries thats what they should have done. Instead for some reason they waste their bombs and their troops trying to take out smaller groups of people. My conclusion stands: either they are really dumb or they have a different goal. I'll let each reader make his own conclusion here though... As for why jihadists doesn't kill more people I think it is because they don't have the capability. Looking at the Manchester bomb for instance that looks more like what someone who wants to indiscriminately kill as many as pissible would do. Again I'll still leave it up to the readers to make their own conclusions. Then again: you and OP again and again mention things like "voices that call for mass killing (via various mechanisms)". I have yet to see one link in this thread. My conclusion: yes, I think the west has been horrible in a lot of cases. I think some people are profiting from it. But you need to document these "voices that call for mass killing" because last time I heard someone talking about killing civilians from other countries was one weird guy 15 or 20 years ago. And I know quite a lot of people who belive very strongly in a certain deity that many westerns tend to worship or (sadly IMO) often just pretend to worship.
    - breatheoften 9y ago
      The goal post of what constitues "mass killing" has moved since 1945. Maybe we can at least agree that not slipping that post backwards is a good thing? I don't keep a catalogue of these kinds of tweets/media reports etc -- going back for 20 seconds to find examples I come across new types of media/messaging in similar vein (not vetted) http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/muslims-are-evil-let-s-kill-them-all-us-tv-commentator-erik-rush-provokes-furious-reaction-with-8575176.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/muslims-are... And how about the #killallmuslims hashtag -- search it and follow along with some of the verified accounts/accounts that seem to be legitimate humans. Nowhere did I try to claim that this was majority view, but similar voices have a lot of influence now. The public dialogue around terrorism and Islam which has been in a sad and misguided state for decades, has diverged even further from reality in terms of what issues are important, what/who is dangerous and to whom, and why. We have real policy and public discourse aimed at satisfying people who believed that Barack Obama was a Muslim that wanted to impose Sharia law on the West. Search for Islam on Breitbart and you will quickly find innumerable topics discussing the holy war nature of the Wests conflict with Islam. You are trying to "leave up to readers" a decision about what exactly? My position: counterterrorism movement is off the rails, dangerously unfocused, subject to evil political games, causing massive harm to the world and in fact more harmful than the amorphous "terrorist" movements it claims to oppose. Your claim: counterterrorism movement makes mistakes but is restrained compared to the firebombing of Dresden in WW2, long term western wars fueled by counterterrorism movement haven't necessarily accomplished many useful goals but are not immoral because the long term intent remains moral despite the actual numbers and dispositions of people killed

reitanqild 9y ago

People in the west want to pretend that terrorists are unique in their lack of regard for civilian lives This is a problem. However in this thread you seem to go from this to "attempted genocide". Also: there is a really huge difference between - being careless as a soldier and - actively trying to harm civilians as a terrorist Western soldiers should be held to a higher standard but as I mentioned elsewhere in this thread: if they have been trying to kill (or in your words exterminate) civilians then they have failed pretty spectacularly.

breatheoften 9y ago
You fall back on this notion that because genocide has not succeeded, there are therefore not voices pushing to target and marginalize large numbers of people. By your logic I should be able to say that because jihadists have not overthrown America there are therefore no terrorists with harmful plots. The op mentioned the western voices that call for mass killing (via various mechanisms) of muslims and other perceived enemies -- those voices exist and their prevalence and political power definitely moves the goal post with regard to notions of acceptable collateral loss in pursuit of the perceived objectives of the counterterrorism movement. The western fundamentalist notion of the "Muslim holy enemy" bleeds into policy decisions that absolutely affect far more people who have nothing to do with terrorism than they do terrorism. The mistaken idea of holy war is the reasoning flaw that causes insane numbers of metric tons of bombs to be dropped on real life humans - everytime reproposing the assumption that _this time_ they are targeting the holy enemy. Countries ravaged by war for decades yield innumerable stories of savagery -- not necessarily related to terrorism at all but easily confused into becoming part of the holy enemy story by opportunist politicians -- and thusly the expansion of the targeting mechanism grows and grows. You want to pretend that you can trace the motivations, details, circumstances of all the western killings case by case -- and from this perspective of true information, inform a model that supports the morality of the objective of counterterrorism and its associated callous killing process which has been going on for decades. You can't -- you do not have those details. What we have are the we are the aggregate results of this movements pursuit of its objectives -- these soldiers have been killing for decades -- sometimes killing innocents by mistake, sometimes killing innocents with a deliberate calculus that does not value the lives of those innocents as they kill them. The sustained killing in this context is simply a decision -- the west keeps doing it knowing the outcome with a misguided belief about what their objectives are and how they can achieve them. It's a kind of western blood lust that keeps this going. Counter-terrorism is a giant wheel rolling down hill with an evil momentum that creates the enemies with which to satisfy its own insanity.
- reitanqild 9y ago
  First: I'm not defending what the west (including the country I feel I belong to) has done in e.g. Afghanistan and Iraq. Then again your logic breaks down easily: You fall back on this notion that because genocide has not succeeded, there are therefore not voices pushing to target and marginalize large numbers of people. By your logic I should be able to say that because jihadists have not overthrown America there are therefore no terrorists with harmful plots. There is one major difference here: Western military forces has the capability to flatten whole cities without warning inhabitants first. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden for an example of what they were capable of as early as 1945. To make this painfully clear: If people who decides were at all trying to indiscriminately kill citizens of any of these countries thats what they should have done. Instead for some reason they waste their bombs and their troops trying to take out smaller groups of people. My conclusion stands: either they are really dumb or they have a different goal. I'll let each reader make his own conclusion here though... As for why jihadists doesn't kill more people I think it is because they don't have the capability. Looking at the Manchester bomb for instance that looks more like what someone who wants to indiscriminately kill as many as pissible would do. Again I'll still leave it up to the readers to make their own conclusions. Then again: you and OP again and again mention things like "voices that call for mass killing (via various mechanisms)". I have yet to see one link in this thread. My conclusion: yes, I think the west has been horrible in a lot of cases. I think some people are profiting from it. But you need to document these "voices that call for mass killing" because last time I heard someone talking about killing civilians from other countries was one weird guy 15 or 20 years ago. And I know quite a lot of people who belive very strongly in a certain deity that many westerns tend to worship or (sadly IMO) often just pretend to worship.
  - breatheoften 9y ago
    The goal post of what constitues "mass killing" has moved since 1945. Maybe we can at least agree that not slipping that post backwards is a good thing? I don't keep a catalogue of these kinds of tweets/media reports etc -- going back for 20 seconds to find examples I come across new types of media/messaging in similar vein (not vetted) http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/muslims-are-evil-let-s-kill-them-all-us-tv-commentator-erik-rush-provokes-furious-reaction-with-8575176.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/muslims-are... And how about the #killallmuslims hashtag -- search it and follow along with some of the verified accounts/accounts that seem to be legitimate humans. Nowhere did I try to claim that this was majority view, but similar voices have a lot of influence now. The public dialogue around terrorism and Islam which has been in a sad and misguided state for decades, has diverged even further from reality in terms of what issues are important, what/who is dangerous and to whom, and why. We have real policy and public discourse aimed at satisfying people who believed that Barack Obama was a Muslim that wanted to impose Sharia law on the West. Search for Islam on Breitbart and you will quickly find innumerable topics discussing the holy war nature of the Wests conflict with Islam. You are trying to "leave up to readers" a decision about what exactly? My position: counterterrorism movement is off the rails, dangerously unfocused, subject to evil political games, causing massive harm to the world and in fact more harmful than the amorphous "terrorist" movements it claims to oppose. Your claim: counterterrorism movement makes mistakes but is restrained compared to the firebombing of Dresden in WW2, long term western wars fueled by counterterrorism movement haven't necessarily accomplished many useful goals but are not immoral because the long term intent remains moral despite the actual numbers and dispositions of people killed