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>It shouldn't be "they kill us and dance in their streets, we kill them and dance in ours". This is an invalid equivocation. Their 'dancing in the streets' is

by endtime 16y ago

>It shouldn't be "they kill us and dance in their streets, we kill them and dance in ours". This is an invalid equivocation. Their 'dancing in the streets' is after killing civilians, and being glad that bin Laden is dead is not even close to that.

hasenj 16y ago
Are you suggesting Arabs are lowly scum of the earth who dance for the death of civilians?
- endtime 16y ago
  I'm suggesting that some of them are. Are you suggesting otherwise? My suggestion is backed up by video footage.
  - hasenj 16y ago
    I'm suggesting you don't understand how these things work, and thus making bad judgements. When Arabs see Americans celebrating the invasion of Iraq, they see that as "Americans celebrating the destruction of an Arab country and death and humiliation of its people". Such broad generalizations are not a good way of looking at the situation. When people celebrate these kinds of things, they're not celebrating the "death" of civilians. They're celebrating a blow to the international imperial bully. Now I'm not saying this is OK, but it's not any less evil than Americans celebrating the successful invasion of Iraq. EDIT: To put it in a slightly more formal way: Event X occurs, group A views it as Y (something undesirable), group B views it as Z (something desirable). Group B celebrates (wrongly) the occurrence of "Z". Group A sees it as: Group B is celebrating the occurrence of "Y". Group A then wrongly makes an assumption that Group B celebrated the occurrence of Y.
    - ellyagg 16y ago
      Immediately after, and for at least months after, polls of Iraqi citizens showed > 50% support for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. It's dropped below that now, but that certainly demonstrates that there is no uniform Arab thought. As others, they are capable of more sophisticated moral reasoning than "our tribe versus theirs" and detecting the possibility of the toppling of a barbaric regime even by people whose cultura/nationality/skin color differs from their own.
      - hasenj 16y ago
        I didn't say or even try to imply "all Arabs" or "all Americans". Plenty of Americans also marched against the war. What I'm trying to say is, you see people hitting the metaphorical "like" button on something and you immediately assume there's only one explanation for this: these people are evil/rats. This is very wrong. Actually, speaking of the split in Iraq, this is one of the reasons. Various groups had different outlook on the events taking place, and ended up viewing each other as evil scumbags. Next thing you know is people are killing each other.
noonespecial 16y ago
I'm not saying that I'm not glad(1) Bin Laden is dead. I was just disheartened to see the video of Americans dancing in front of the Whitehouse waving the flag. It just seemed too much like what happened after the 9/11 attacks. Remember, to those celebrating American deaths, there really is no such thing as "civilian". If we act like they act in victory, they can feel like they have our attention and are in a "real war"(2). It is not (I think) as demoralizing to this enemy to see Americans dancing and celebrating this event as it would be to see Americans shrug their shoulders in a "well it had to be done" kind of way and get back to business with nothing more than a blurb on page 3 in the newspaper the next day. (1) In the same way I'm glad my pantry doesn't have rats because my traps worked, not the jubilant "I hate the bastard and everything he stood for" way we're going to see a lot of in the next few days. (2) I fully accept that we made it one and think that we shouldn't have. Its all part of the same course of error.
- swombat 16y ago
  If there's one thing you can learn from observing the world and reading about history, it's that people are the same all over the world. That is both heartening and frightening.
lutorm 16y ago
I'm pretty sure that those who have had innocent friends and loved ones killed as "collateral damage" in the US "war on terror" will feel that it's a lot closer to it than you might.
- retrogradeorbit 16y ago
  on both sides.

by endtime 16y ago

hasenj 16y ago

Are you suggesting Arabs are lowly scum of the earth who dance for the death of civilians?

endtime 16y ago
I'm suggesting that some of them are. Are you suggesting otherwise? My suggestion is backed up by video footage.
- hasenj 16y ago
  I'm suggesting you don't understand how these things work, and thus making bad judgements. When Arabs see Americans celebrating the invasion of Iraq, they see that as "Americans celebrating the destruction of an Arab country and death and humiliation of its people". Such broad generalizations are not a good way of looking at the situation. When people celebrate these kinds of things, they're not celebrating the "death" of civilians. They're celebrating a blow to the international imperial bully. Now I'm not saying this is OK, but it's not any less evil than Americans celebrating the successful invasion of Iraq. EDIT: To put it in a slightly more formal way: Event X occurs, group A views it as Y (something undesirable), group B views it as Z (something desirable). Group B celebrates (wrongly) the occurrence of "Z". Group A sees it as: Group B is celebrating the occurrence of "Y". Group A then wrongly makes an assumption that Group B celebrated the occurrence of Y.
  - ellyagg 16y ago
    Immediately after, and for at least months after, polls of Iraqi citizens showed > 50% support for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. It's dropped below that now, but that certainly demonstrates that there is no uniform Arab thought. As others, they are capable of more sophisticated moral reasoning than "our tribe versus theirs" and detecting the possibility of the toppling of a barbaric regime even by people whose cultura/nationality/skin color differs from their own.
    - hasenj 16y ago
      I didn't say or even try to imply "all Arabs" or "all Americans". Plenty of Americans also marched against the war. What I'm trying to say is, you see people hitting the metaphorical "like" button on something and you immediately assume there's only one explanation for this: these people are evil/rats. This is very wrong. Actually, speaking of the split in Iraq, this is one of the reasons. Various groups had different outlook on the events taking place, and ended up viewing each other as evil scumbags. Next thing you know is people are killing each other.

noonespecial 16y ago

I'm not saying that I'm not glad(1) Bin Laden is dead. I was just disheartened to see the video of Americans dancing in front of the Whitehouse waving the flag. It just seemed too much like what happened after the 9/11 attacks. Remember, to those celebrating American deaths, there really is no such thing as "civilian". If we act like they act in victory, they can feel like they have our attention and are in a "real war"(2). It is not (I think) as demoralizing to this enemy to see Americans dancing and celebrating this event as it would be to see Americans shrug their shoulders in a "well it had to be done" kind of way and get back to business with nothing more than a blurb on page 3 in the newspaper the next day. (1) In the same way I'm glad my pantry doesn't have rats because my traps worked, not the jubilant "I hate the bastard and everything he stood for" way we're going to see a lot of in the next few days. (2) I fully accept that we made it one and think that we shouldn't have. Its all part of the same course of error.

swombat 16y ago
If there's one thing you can learn from observing the world and reading about history, it's that people are the same all over the world. That is both heartening and frightening.

lutorm 16y ago

I'm pretty sure that those who have had innocent friends and loved ones killed as "collateral damage" in the US "war on terror" will feel that it's a lot closer to it than you might.

retrogradeorbit 16y ago
on both sides.