quote:I define murder as killing someone on purpose.
Ah. That would probably be the problem. Like I said, though, I can't really think of a situation in which I'd kill someone in cold blood, either, for what it's worth.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Murder is killing, accidental manslaughter is killing. Accidental manslaughter is not murder. Killing is not always murder. Killing is not always accidental manslaughter.
quote:Ah. That would probably be the problem. Like I said, though, I can't really think of a situation in which I'd kill someone in cold blood, either, for what it's worth.
Ok. That's what I wanted to clarify.
I can't really say whether or not I'd be prepared to kill someone in cold blood either, even for the reasons I mentioned; hard to know whether you're capable of that sort of thing until the situation presents itself. I can definitely see myself doing it, though.
quote:Murder is killing, accidental manslaughter is killing. Accidental manslaughter is not murder. Killing is not always murder. Killing is not always accidental manslaughter.
This is really very simple.
I think you're misunderstanding the point.
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Well, the point is that murder is by most definitions wrongful killing, and thus not a synonym for "killing."
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:And have much contempt for those who see only greys or only black and white
If I had a lot of time to waste, I'd actually try to parse that last phrase out. But there are other things more pressing in my life; like getting new laces for my sneakers.
However, I do agree with you on this:
quote:Me too. In fact, I would like to encourage Irami in his dream to be a suicide bomber. So long as he takes care not to harm anyone else, I think he should definitely stick to his principles and blow himself up.
Not that I really had anything personal against Irami.
BTW, I think there should be training schools for suicide bombers. But they should take their finals on campus.
I can picture one big, crater-strewn soccer field with a reviewing stand:
<BOOM> Teacher: "Aced it! Great work"
<BOOM> "Excellent, you get an 'A'!"
<BOOM> (And so on)
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quote:I think KoM is not grasping that there are religious people who define religion as only being possible if people are free to convert away from the religion. If a religion/cult is focused on death and compulsion, then it is not a religion--at least not one that needs protected.
Again, sez you. Again, why should I take your word over bin Laden's? You believe in equally irrational things.
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Irami, can you give any examples of where such behavior led to the accomplishment of the suicide bomber/murderers goals? It seems to me that it accomplishes nothing, and costs the lives of many innocent people who have no bearing on the situation whatsoever.
No matter how noble the goal. I could be vehemently opposed to over fishing oceans or pollution, but strapping a bomb to my chest and attacking a bait shop or a gas station is not going to accomplish anything.
Furthermore, I don't believe that a culture is threatened by capitalism. Mexico has retained its culture since embracing free markets. So has India. Where are these cultures that have gone extinct due to the influx of capitalism and free markets?
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I wouldn't. Ever. Any war in which we're so desperate we have to send suicide bombers is already lost. (Yes, I include kamikazes in that.) The only effect is to cause more death.
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quote:Well, the point is that murder is by most definitions wrongful killing, and thus not a synonym for "killing."
I never said the two were synonymous: I said purposeful killing and murder were synonymous which, to me, they are. I think the confusion came from you missing the phrase "on purpose" in my original reply.
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quote:Again, sez you. Again, why should I take your word over bin Laden's? You believe in equally irrational things.
Sez you. I call it like I see it. I don't expect you to get "it," but I am sure other's will. I am sure you don't know what I believe, so your comment is a pretty ignorant statement. I guess when you are used to lashing at religion/spirituality you get used to spewing your own rhetoric and it just slips out naturally.
quote:Originally posted by Will B: I wouldn't. Ever. Any war in which we're so desperate we have to send suicide bombers is already lost. (Yes, I include kamikazes in that.) The only effect is to cause more death.
That remains to be seen. If Japan had started the war with suicide bombers instead of waiting until the end, the Battle of Midway would have been very different.
But you're talking about it in the context of a last ditch effort. That's war specific though. It depends entirely on what we're fighting for, and what the enemy is fighting for. You don't think that after another decade of suicide bombings in Iraq, if the situation doesn't change, eventually we'll just give up and go home? I see it as a very real possibility.
You're talking about it perhaps from a moral viewpoint, such as to say that if we have to resort to that sort of method then we've already lost the war, because we've lost ourselves...America was born of actions that would today be considered terrorist, and many that at the time were considered terrorist. In many ways we invented some of the modern ideas of guerilla combat and dispatched the idea of fighting in straight rank and file lines. The British thought that was a form of terrorism, if they'd had had the word back then it would have been used to describe American militia.
You do what you have to do to win. For some, that means violating their own morality for the sake of a higher cause. For some it means altering their idea of morality entirely, for whatever rationalizations necessary to accomplish it. Though for some it means just giving up and letting the enemy win for the sake of morality. For my part, if I was defending my country from foreign oppression, I wouldn't let the majority of my morality get in the way. Chances are I wouldn't murder women and children just for the heck of it, but I'm sure I'd do some fairly shady things for the cause of freedom. I'm fairly sure many of you would too, if it really came down to it.
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quote:In many ways we invented some of the modern ideas of guerilla combat and dispatched the idea of fighting in straight rank and file lines.
Come on, a bit of patriotic history is ok, but this is just ridiculous. I suggest you inform yourself a bit about the various European wars before you make any statements about who invented what. (Not that I'm particularly claiming it for the Europeans either, guerrilla warfare was old when Sargon of Akkad was building the first centralised empire.) Try googling 'snapphane' for a start.
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quote:To draw a benign parallel, think about the Last Samurai. There is an extent to which aggressive global economy makes unescapable demands on politics, religion, and community. If these demands make it impossible, or even unlikely, to obtain a sense of self-respect for an individual, and for the way of life that makes sense to that individual, then I can see the attraction of suicide bombing, even as an act of compassion, if that action is going to some how stave off the desolation suffered by ones fellow dispossessed.
Someone sure as hell missed the point of that movie. No surprise there, really.
quote:They weren't hot blooded, malicious, or crazy, they were, however, firmly ensconced in a myth I find despicable.
They were frequently hot-blooded and undeniably malicious. That's probably the most foolish thing I've heard you say before, followed only by, "Let's teach black kids to be racist."
quote:They weren't insane or malicious. They were, however, deeply otherly sane. I think the same can be said about Ken Lay.
Ken Lay, if guilty as he is charged (and smart money says he is, I think) was not 'otherly sane'. He was a malicious criminal. Words lose all meaning if you merely redefine any wrongdoing as 'otherly sane'.
Suicide bombers are fools. They do not accomplish their goals by their actions. They do not advance their goals by their actions. To use the most common example, the plight of Palestinians is much worse than it would otherwise be, due to the presence and frequent attacks by suicide bombers.
You'd fit right in, Irami.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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Well, I dunno. Would the Israelis have withdrawn from those areas if not for the suicide bombers? Hamas would presumably see that as progress. Sure, the ordinary Palestinian is probably worse off, but there again, it's a war. The ordinary American was probably worse off because of all the resources being burnt in WWII, too, but that's doesn't mean it was a wrong thing for the nation to do. (You can fill in another war here if you like, it doesn't have to be a righteous one - just one that advances national security goals.)
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quote:Originally posted by lem: there are religious people who define religion as only being possible if people are free to convert away from the religion.
Yes, that is what I'm saying exactly. KoM, I can't even begin to understand why you keeps asking for proof this is better than compulsory belief because your very unbelief is not challenged by a religion that allows freedom of choice.
I see 3 options. Compulsory belief, aka OBL, freedom to choose belief, what I'm talking about, or compulsory non-belief. Are you suggesting that compulsory non-belief should be the rule of the land? So instead of the choice being between religious or non-religious, the only choice is to be non-religious?
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quote:In many ways we invented some of the modern ideas of guerilla combat and dispatched the idea of fighting in straight rank and file lines.
Come on, a bit of patriotic history is ok, but this is just ridiculous. I suggest you inform yourself a bit about the various European wars before you make any statements about who invented what. (Not that I'm particularly claiming it for the Europeans either, guerrilla warfare was old when Sargon of Akkad was building the first centralised empire.) Try googling 'snapphane' for a start.
Two questions for you:
1. What kind of rifles/muskets was Sargon of Akkad using?
2. When was the last time the US jumped someone with scimitars and long spears?
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tho everyone agrees that killing isnt something that anyone of us wants to ever do, i think im on the side that says they would do it if put in the right situation. if it was me or them. if i knew who i was about to kill wouldnt hesitate to kill many more than myself, then i think i could be convinced. the question is for ppl with this attitude, at what point is too far. there are bound to be situations where its a very difficult decision.
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Comrade Sargon was using the kind of musket usually referred to as a 'bow'; which has a longer range, better rate of fire, and more accuracy than the Brown Bess the British regulars used. The weapon is in any case irrelevant; guerrilla warfare is a set of tactics and attitudes. Further, you'll note that Washington actually did fight a fair amount of pitched battles in ranks and files, and the war didn't end until his troops were capable of winning such a battle. Finally, again I refer you to the snapphaner, who used guerrilla techniques with gunpowder weapons a full century before the American Revolution.
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KoM, perhaps you didn't see the "some" in "some of the modern ideas of guerilla." And that's almost irrefutable.
Mosby developed other ideas in the Civil War. That doesn't mean that the centuries of development prior to Mosby didn't happen. It means they didn't stop with Sargon or whichever poster child for guerilla warfare you wish to put forth.
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quote:Again, why should I take your word over bin Laden's? You believe in equally irrational things.
Again, for the same reason that you decided your atheistic belief system is better than Osama bin Laden's religion - because of certain evidence, reasoning, and faith.
You too, I suspect, believe in things just as irrational as many of bin Laden's beliefs.
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Tres, it is not a question between atheism and theism; that's separate. The question is, given that religious reasoning for killing people is allowed, where can you stop? Once you accept any such commandment at all, you cannot disallow any.
Dag, I think I would dispute it even so; just which developments were unique to the American wars? But in any case I was objecting rather more to the 'rank-and-file' bit.
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Comrade Sargon was using the kind of musket usually referred to as a 'bow'; which has a longer range, better rate of fire, and more accuracy than the Brown Bess the British regulars used. The weapon is in any case irrelevant; guerrilla warfare is a set of tactics and attitudes. Further, you'll note that Washington actually did fight a fair amount of pitched battles in ranks and files, and the war didn't end until his troops were capable of winning such a battle. Finally, again I refer you to the snapphaner, who used guerrilla techniques with gunpowder weapons a full century before the American Revolution.
Heh, oh dear.
I never said that Americans pioneered and created guerilla warfare from scratch, which you seem to have somehow inferred. I know that you like to jump on stuff like that, but it seems in your rush to be a stuffy jackass, you didn't stop to read what I actually said, or attempt to understand the context. As Dag said, I see that you seem to have purposely disregarded the word "some" in my previous post. But hey, don't let yourself get tripped up by facts and truths, just go with your gut.
The British thought it was a murderous terrorism that American soldiers would use riflemen hiding in the woods to pick off their officers. And I wouldn't exactly call mass fired arrows shot into the air towards a far off target to be more accurate than the rifles used during the American revolution, which were NOT, by the way, widely used a century earlier, they stuck to the musket. And while the musket was still the primary weapon of the American Revolution, and while Washington, Gage and others still often fought in straight rank and file lines...
The part I was specifically referring to, was the fact that American militia and continental soldiers used rifles much more regularly than previous armies had to specifically target and pick off officers on the field and off, which was not a practice norm, even for guerilla warfare at the time. There were other things too, but this is what I was specifically referring to.
Any other arrogant. smartass, attempted corrections you want to make KoM?
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The snapphaner were named for their rifles, which they used to pick off enemy officers from ambush. Not that they were adverse to killing troopers, by any means. The Swedes considered them bandits (that is, not regular troops; the word terrorist had not been invented) and executed them by impalement, with the occasional bit of breaking on the wheel thrown in.
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quote:Dag, I think I would dispute it even so; just which developments were unique to the American wars? But in any case I was objecting rather more to the 'rank-and-file' bit.
Since you left it so broad, I'd suggest you read up on Mosby. There's no question he came up with new tactics.
As to the revolutionary war, I'm not sure which tactics were pioneered there. I do know that a couple of military historians I knew back when I worked for the Navy took a class in the history of guerilla warfare and spent a considerable amount of time on the Revolution.
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Well, I've read several links, and sure, they all mention that he used 'daring and innovative tactics'. What I don't see is any actual details. This does suggest to me that possibly they were only innovative in the American context. As for spending considerable time on the Revolution, well, why would they not? It's an American war in which guerrilla tactics were important, and also a founding myth for the country. This does not prove anything one way or the other about how new they were.
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If you could provide a link to anything that talks about a snapphaner I'd appreciate it. Googling brought up only Scandinavian language sites. Though the one English site I did come across said that the word didn't come from the names of their rifles, but was rather a deragatory term laid upon them which they later took as an honorific of sorts.
posted
So you think guerilla warfare stopped developing with snapphaner?
Do you actually have any knowledge that the Revolutionary guerilla tactics weren't innovative, or are you just denying it out of habit? It seems like you don't actually know anything about it.
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No, actually, I think it stopped developing with Persian resistance to Roman invasion; the snapphaner were only an earlier example of similar techniques in the gunpowder era. Like maneuver warfare, it's re-invented every generation; only the weapons change. As for links, I couldn't find any good English ones either, sorry. I mainly learned about them in school, anyway.
It's true that the Swedes referred to any irregular troops as snapphaner, but they took the word from the Germans, who used it for bandits because a chicken thief could not very well use a matchlock - the light and smell would give him away. It seems the English spelling is 'snaphaunce', so for the weapon type you could search for that instead; it doesn't bring up the guerrilla aspect, though, which is a more Scandinavian thing.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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Guerrillas who strike at the civilian population, much like the Vikings, Huns, and other raiders at the edge of civilisation. Another example is the lightly armed ghazis who took on the Byzantine Empire. The modern explosives are just technology. Come to think of it, the Israelite invasion of the Fertile Crescent matches the description too, if you trust the Bible for history.
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Though, come to think of it, maybe the parallel isn't that close. The distinction between 'regular troops' and 'the civilian population' does kind of blur a bit in some eras.
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Vikings and Huns murdered en masse, they didn't kill themselves to do it.
It's not just technology, it's methodology and IDEOLOGY. Which believe it or not is a large part of what historians consider to be part of guerilla warfare. Guerilla warfare is not the same thing as commando warfare.
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quote:Tres, it is not a question between atheism and theism; that's separate. The question is, given that religious reasoning for killing people is allowed, where can you stop? Once you accept any such commandment at all, you cannot disallow any.
I think the line of distinction is rather obvious: It'd be right to kill based on any true religious beliefs that dictate a need to do so, and wrong to kill based on false religious beliefs. I think Osama bin Laden's religious beliefs are false, hence I think it is wrong to kill based on those beliefs.
Thus your assertion actually is that there is no reason to think any religious belief system is any more true than any other. I'm just pointing out that I think I have as much good reason to believe my religious belief system is better than bin Laden's as you think you have to believe your atheistic belief system is better than my religious beliefs.
Both of us have our reasons, and of course because neither us have any absolute proof that we are right, we both also mix in a healthy dose of faith (or whatever you want to call that which allows you to be confident in the things you can't really prove.) If that is good enough to follow one religious belief system over another, then your question is answered. And if that isn't enough evidence to justify following any given religion over any other, then the same logic should be applied to ALL belief systems, since there is no complete belief system about right and wrong that can be proven objectively. Then your "Why should I take your word over bin Laden's?" becomes "Why should I take ANYBODY'S word over ANYBODY else's?" since everyone believes in "irrational" things of one sort or another.
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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OBL is fighting a war against us and so far his best weapons are suicide bombers/pilots who are *fooled* into thinking that they are making a difference. They aren't. Their actions betray their own beliefs. If they win, what have they got?
Anyone (Irami) who actually takes the time to bring this up with a bunch of Westerners like us obviously hasn't decided we are completely worthless and not worth talking to. So I'm going to voice my opinion that suicide bombing is a complete religous sham. It is device created by people at war to sucker real religious people (the bombers) into killing themselves.
I imagine the people in the upper echelons know what they are doing. They are building a society where they are kings over the unwashed and unclean. As since I'm "unwashed", I will violently oppose someone trying to make me a slave to their own lecherous egotistical self esteem.
In fact, I'll jump in and take Irami's side now. American big business is evil. All gigantic company CEO's seem to all suffer from lecherous egotistical self esteem which is fed by their pocket books and they don't know when to say no. They will eat the world dry. Forget destorying culture. The world will get so messed up it will be uninhabitable if things keep going the way they are.
But blowing them up is the wrong way to fight them. There are ways, but it involves building a people who first admits and agrees that these things are bad. Then within a structure of cooperation they come up with rules that dicate what is allowed and what isn't, and they get everyone to live those rules. Note, the key word is agree, not force.
This is EXACTLY what democracy is about and the reason that big business can be fought. Problem is, that America has gotten so corrupt, it is hard to believe anyone is following our own rules. I have my own doubts over whether or not USA will fall like Rome or not.
But blowing America up ISN'T the solution. History after the fall of Rome isn't peaches and cream. Instead, we have to renew what started America, and division isn't it. It is unity and structure.
And call me stupid and unrealisticly idealistic, but I believe forums like this are part of the solution to build communities where eventually, we will have the power to fight big business or whoever is trying to take away our freedom of thought and belief.
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quote:...That remains to be seen. If Japan had started the war with suicide bombers instead of waiting until the end, the Battle of Midway would have been very different.
... You don't think that after another decade of suicide bombings in Iraq, if the situation doesn't change, eventually we'll just give up and go home? ... [/QB]
With respect (because you gave solid arguments, and I do have a lot of respect for that), I'd say:
If Japan had started with suicide bombers, that should have *helped* the USA, because they'd lose their manpower all the more quickly. It would have stopped us if we were so frightened we decided not to fight back, but I can't see *that* happening.
I can't process the Iraq idea as is because it has two ideas built in that I can't believe: that the situation doesn't change (situations always change); and that the US would be in Iraq in 10 years, with or without suicide bombings.
Anyway. I'm not saying that suicide bombings can't possibly turn the tide of a conflict -- it doesn't ever seem to have, but I suppose it could, theoretically -- but that powerful belligerents don't do it, because they have other means that don't reduce their manpower as much.
Posts: 1877 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Between the Battle of the Philippine Sea (400 carrier based/200 land based) and Midway (over 200 carrier based), Japan lost more than 800 aircraft and more than a half dozen carriers. Now I know these battles took place two years apart, but come on, that's EIGHT HUNDRED aircraft lost, and for those attacks, the Japanese Imperial Navy ended up sinking a paltry SINGLE carrier from America, losing seven of their own carriers and taking heavy damage to other ships.
Imagine what 800 kamikaze attacks could have done to the American fleet. Midway and Phillipine Sea could have been victories, and the Battle of the Coral Sea would have been a decisive victory as well. Those two battles were huge nails in Japan's naval coffin. They could have inflicted massive damage on the US fleet with even half that number being successful suicide bombers. It would have been a much more efficient use of personnel, rather than wasting the elite pilots they had in order to sink a single US carrier.
Now, we came up with ways to try and shoot down kamikaze pilots, with massed concentrations of AA fire, and using dergibles with tethers to slice the wings off of kamikaze attacks, but they were never 100% effective. The Japanese could have changed the tide of the war if they had began with that method, rather than using it as a last resort.
As for Iraq, I probably shouldn't have said a decade, but I posed it as a hypothetical. We might just be there in ten years. It depends on the progress of their government, the training of their soldiers, and the patience of the American people. I can't begin to guess how that will go, but it doesn't lool extremely favorable at the moment.
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