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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 easi

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
  Actually my position is close to yours as stated directly above. Just stop trying to tar my people or my religion with another genocide. Another difference is I see law enforcement and armed forces as basically good forces that have sadly been misused as tools for greedy powerful people. In fact I have served and would maybe even have attempted a career (edit: in the army) if it wasn't for the fear that I would be sent to some war halfway around the globe to fight people who never harmed us instead of just doing the thing that I believe in: defending the our country at our borders and the borders of our allies. As for any hashtag that suggests groups of humans should be killed that should be covered by the definition of hate speech and around here I'd halfway expect people to get a visit from law enforcement or child protection if they do that.
  - dang 9y ago
    > Just stop trying to tar my people or my religion with another genocide. HN does not exist for this kind of flamewar. Please don't post like this here, even when someone else is deeply wrong. I'm going to kill this thread outright because it's so emblematic of what has no place on this site.

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
Actually my position is close to yours as stated directly above. Just stop trying to tar my people or my religion with another genocide. Another difference is I see law enforcement and armed forces as basically good forces that have sadly been misused as tools for greedy powerful people. In fact I have served and would maybe even have attempted a career (edit: in the army) if it wasn't for the fear that I would be sent to some war halfway around the globe to fight people who never harmed us instead of just doing the thing that I believe in: defending the our country at our borders and the borders of our allies. As for any hashtag that suggests groups of humans should be killed that should be covered by the definition of hate speech and around here I'd halfway expect people to get a visit from law enforcement or child protection if they do that.
- dang 9y ago
  > Just stop trying to tar my people or my religion with another genocide. HN does not exist for this kind of flamewar. Please don't post like this here, even when someone else is deeply wrong. I'm going to kill this thread outright because it's so emblematic of what has no place on this site.