RE: Does it bother anyone else the Boston terrorist is 19?

RE: Does it bother anyone else the Boston terrorist is 19? (Full Version)

All Forums >> [Community Discussions] >> Dungeon of Political and Religious Discussion

Message

YN -> RE: Does it bother anyone else the Boston terrorist is 19? (4/29/2013 5:45:49 AM)
More interesting is that it is now reported that the mosques and Islamic connections the young men made while in Dagestan were of the Salafi cult from Saudi Arabia. I can find an English version if others cannot. The House of Saud strikes again.

WantsOfTheFlesh -> RE: Does it bother anyone else the Boston terrorist is 19? (4/29/2013 5:55:19 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: PeonForHer quote: I'm curious as to just what "evil" brings to the table, really, except a justification to dehumanize Well, it brings a speedy satisfaction, Aswad, regarding who are the goodies and who are the baddies. It helps us stop the need to think, and start to picture who needs to be punched and kicked now are ya suggesting tha surviving brother shouldnt be severely punished or are ya suggesting it will lead to some sorta invasion? well there hasnt been major international responses to tha numerous domestic islamist terror incidents in recent yrs (post 9/11) & theres been no reports of such a response to the boston marathon bombing either tho perhaps unlike tha rest of us ya have a direct line to tha white house? [:)]

WantsOfTheFlesh -> RE: Does it bother anyone else the Boston terrorist is 19? (4/29/2013 6:26:30 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Powergamz1 You are describing a comic book fantasy, not the real world. The objective isn't to turn anyone into 'good guys', or persuade them to give up 'evil'. The objective is to assess what they might consider a legitimate target (from their viewpoint) in the future. they consider any american target legitimate tho civilian activity like marathons bringing large crowds are tha most attractive according to al qaeda coz tha aim is to kill & maim as many as poss & so terrorize american society. tha list of attractive targets is so wide it cant help predictiveness so not much help cept maybe to big up the security sector.

Aswad -> RE: Does it bother anyone else the Boston terrorist is 19? (4/29/2013 4:51:34 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: WantsOfTheFlesh they consider any american target legitimate tho civilian activity like marathons bringing large crowds are tha most attractive according to al qaeda coz tha aim is to kill & maim as many as poss & so terrorize american society. Sorry, but you're describing an older DC Comics view of the universe, best summarized like this: "Vee vill do zis for our eeevil purposes." As a rule, people don't set out to kill and maim. People set out to do something else, and they get the idea that killing and maiming is the best way to go about it (heck, sometimes, it is; doesn't seem like Hitler would've been stopped by a little harsh language), and then they usually have to go through a lot of work to justify that to themselves, and then they do it. Understanding what their motivations and goals are is crucial. Then we can try to make other courses of action be more attractive to them. What you're proposing is belief in a magical universe with no causal relationships we can make sense of and influence. Guess what, we're human beings. We've gone from hunting and gathering, cowering from the elements and succumbing to illness and injury, to having sprawling cities of millions, chemically synthesizing fertilizers to supply food that nature doesn't produce for us, treating inborn conditions, transplanting organs, altering our own genes, living in buildings that can withstand earthquakes, setting our feet on the Moon, splitting the atom and probing the very nature of reality itself. That, right there, is a testament to what makes us the apex predator: We make sense of our environment, and then we rearrange it into what we want it to be, dammit! Stop trying to throw that out over simplistic notions of good and evil. If you can't make sense of it, then frickin' step back and let those of us that can, do, instead of aggravating the problem with an emotional refusal to understand that these are regular people we're dealing with, not much different from you and I. IWYW, — Aswad.

PeonForHer -> RE: Does it bother anyone else the Boston terrorist is 19? (4/29/2013 5:08:16 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: WantsOfTheFlesh quote: I'm curious as to just what "evil" brings to the table, really, except a justification to dehumanize Well, it brings a speedy satisfaction, Aswad, regarding who are the goodies and who are the baddies. It helps us stop the need to think, and start to picture who needs to be punched and kicked quote: now are ya suggesting tha surviving brother shouldnt be severely punished or are ya suggesting it will lead to some sorta invasion? No, I'm not suggesting either of those things. In fact, I can't follow your thought processes there, I have to say, in order to see why you think I could be suggesting these things. quote: well there hasnt been major international responses to tha numerous domestic islamist terror incidents in recent yrs (post 9/11) & theres been no reports of such a response to the boston marathon bombing either tho perhaps unlike tha rest of us ya have a direct line to tha white house? [:)] I have a pretty direct line to our experience here with Irish Republican bombings, which went on for decades, until only relatively recently. One failing, for those many years, was exactly that of lack of political will actually to find out what the problems were, then solve them, rather than just go down the road of reprisals. That's not something I'd want to see replicated elsewhere.

WantsOfTheFlesh -> RE: Does it bother anyone else the Boston terrorist is 19? (4/29/2013 5:20:44 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Aswad quote: ORIGINAL: WantsOfTheFlesh they consider any american target legitimate tho civilian activity like marathons bringing large crowds are tha most attractive according to al qaeda coz tha aim is to kill & maim as many as poss & so terrorize american society. Sorry, but you're describing an older DC Comics view of the universe, best summarized like this: "Vee vill do zis for our eeevil purposes." maybe ya should email al qaedas inspire magazine bout that coz thats what i was going by. quote: As a rule, people don't set out to kill and maim. People set out to do something else, and they get the idea that killing and maiming is the best way to go about it (heck, sometimes, it is; doesn't seem like Hitler would've been stopped by a little harsh language), and then they usually have to go through a lot of work to justify that to themselves, and then they do it. Understanding what their motivations and goals are is crucial. Then we can try to make other courses of action be more attractive to them. would be great if folks like yrself stop tha strawmans. i said loadsa times that understanding is very important. but i also said understanding is no pass for excusing & justifying their fucked up actions. some folks around here think that tho. most folks dont set out to kill & maim. some do tho. some are bred wit so much hatred they do it to a dehumanised enemy. quote: What you're proposing is belief in a magical universe with no causal relationships we can make sense of and influence. nah i'm not. i'm saying folks are morally accountable for their actions no matter what tha justification, excuse r ignorance. quote: Guess what, we're human beings. We've gone from hunting and gathering, cowering from the elements and succumbing to illness and injury, to having sprawling cities of millions, chemically synthesizing fertilizers to supply food that nature doesn't produce for us, treating inborn conditions, transplanting organs, altering our own genes, living in buildings that can withstand earthquakes, setting our feet on the Moon, splitting the atom and probing the very nature of reality itself. That, right there, is a testament to what makes us the apex predator: We make sense of our environment, and then we rearrange it into what we want it to be, dammit! being predators is only 1 reason for mans achievement. true change came wit being pack animals wit socialised behavior. quote: Stop trying to throw that out over simplistic notions of good and evil. If you can't make sense of it, then frickin' step back and let those of us that can, do, instead of aggravating the problem with an emotional refusal to understand that these are regular people we're dealing with, not much different from you and I. aswad ya say i am trying to stop others discussing tha issue wit some sorta emotionalism. thats bs. ya keep strawmanning. i wasnt tha one saying they were evil, i was answering ya bout tha idea of evil being valid in discussion on human action. also ya dont get to say what tha acceptable parameters of a discussion are. ya try to throw loadsa observations out by saying they were just normal folks. they are not normal folks. theyre not like me tho maybe ya feel they are like you?

Powergamz1 -> RE: Does it bother anyone else the Boston terrorist is 19? (4/29/2013 10:18:15 PM)
Again, enjoy the comic book 2 dimensional approach. quote: ORIGINAL: WantsOfTheFlesh quote: ORIGINAL: Powergamz1 You are describing a comic book fantasy, not the real world. The objective isn't to turn anyone into 'good guys', or persuade them to give up 'evil'. The objective is to assess what they might consider a legitimate target (from their viewpoint) in the future. they consider any american target legitimate tho civilian activity like marathons bringing large crowds are tha most attractive according to al qaeda coz tha aim is to kill & maim as many as poss & so terrorize american society. tha list of attractive targets is so wide it cant help predictiveness so not much help cept maybe to big up the security sector.

tweakabelle -> RE: Does it bother anyone else the Boston terrorist is 19? (4/30/2013 1:32:19 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: PeonForHer quote: I'm curious as to just what "evil" brings to the table, really, except a justification to dehumanize Well, it brings a speedy satisfaction, Aswad, regarding who are the goodies and who are the baddies. It helps us stop the need to think, and start to picture who needs to be punched and kicked (and shot, hanged and electrocuted). It doesn't help in the long term, of course, but in the long term, there'll be a new presidency, so that doesn't really matter. Yes. An aspect of this conflict that some people may find odd is that the Islamists use exactly the same language and concepts to describe the West. For them, everything Western is "evil", everything Islamic is "good". Just as we feel outrage at attacks such as Boston, 9/11 or 7/7 in London, they feel outrage at drone attacks in Pakistan or the invasion of Iraq, or the brutal assaults on Gaza. Western attacks on Muslim lands are as senseless and mystifying to them as AQ attacks on the West are to us. The strategy of the West is a mystery to them and the way AQ and its allies make sense of it all is to resort to simple black-and-white moral concepts such as "good vs evil". In this view, the "Crusaders' are attacking all of Islam under one guise or another, as the West has done for centuries. It's simple, it seems to cover all bases, it removes the need for any introspection - so Muslims can avoid having to ask the same hard questions of themselves that WOTF objects to being asked here. We're good they're bad and that's all there is to it. Negotiations, understanding, trying to work problems out peacefully is a complete waste of time as the others lot are pure evil. You're either with us or against us and we've got God/Allah on our side. The only solution is to blow the other side to pieces, on God/Allah's behalf. Works for both sides and works equally well (or poorly, depending on your POV) for both sides too.

WantsOfTheFlesh -> RE: Does it bother anyone else the Boston terrorist is 19? (4/30/2013 2:11:34 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Powergamz1 Again, enjoy the comic book 2 dimensional approach. quote: ORIGINAL: WantsOfTheFlesh quote: ORIGINAL: Powergamz1 You are describing a comic book fantasy, not the real world. The objective isn't to turn anyone into 'good guys', or persuade them to give up 'evil'. The objective is to assess what they might consider a legitimate target (from their viewpoint) in the future. they consider any american target legitimate tho civilian activity like marathons bringing large crowds are tha most attractive according to al qaeda coz tha aim is to kill & maim as many as poss & so terrorize american society. tha list of attractive targets is so wide it cant help predictiveness so not much help cept maybe to big up the security sector. so do ya otherwise know why they picked a densely crowded family civilian event to let off their bombs?

WantsOfTheFlesh -> RE: Does it bother anyone else the Boston terrorist is 19? (4/30/2013 2:25:51 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: tweakabelle An aspect of this conflict that some people may find odd is that the Islamists use exactly the same language and concepts to describe the West. For them, everything Western is "evil", everything Islamic is "good". Just as we feel outrage at attacks such as Boston, 9/11 or 7/7 in London, they feel outrage at drone attacks in Pakistan or the invasion of Iraq, or the brutal assaults on Gaza. Western attacks on Muslim lands are as senseless and mystifying to them as AQ attacks on the West are to us. The strategy of the West is a mystery to them and the way AQ and its allies make sense of it all is to resort to simple black-and-white moral concepts such as "good vs evil". In this view, the "Crusaders' are attacking all of Islam under one guise or another, as the West has done for centuries. It's simple, it seems to cover all bases, it removes the need for any introspection - so Muslims can avoid having to ask the same hard questions of themselves that WOTF objects to being asked here. funny how you folks just keep on strawmanning. i said loadsa times on this thread & other threads its important to understand their motives but that doesnt mean drawing tha false equivalences you & aswad keep wanting other folks to make coz ya want to push apologist perspectives for tha barbaric attacks on civilian families. its totally clear ya draw parallels between tha efforts to suppress terrorism in afghanistan/pakistan where civilians got killed tragically & tha deliberate target of civilians at peaceful events. i dont like drones much either but thats tha big ole moral divide between unintended consequences & deliberate ones that ya seem hell bent on erasing.

Politesub53 -> RE: Does it bother anyone else the Boston terrorist is 19? (4/30/2013 2:51:20 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: WantsOfTheFlesh i dont like drones much either but thats tha big ole moral divide between unintended consequences & deliberate ones that ya seem hell bent on erasing. I have a major problem with the unintended consequences stance. Firing a missilee at a suspect in a car and hitting the passenger could be construed as unintended. Firing a missile at those going to help the wounded, as demonstrated in Iraq by the helicopter attack video posted on here, is entirely intended. Killing the 16 year old son of a terrorist suspect, again posted in here, was also fully intended. One killing fully justified in my book, even if he was American, the other wasn`t. Lets not start suggesting otherwise.

PeonForHer -> RE: Does it bother anyone else the Boston terrorist is 19? (4/30/2013 3:00:03 AM)
quote: Firing a missile at those going to help the wounded, as demonstrated in Iraq by the helicopter attack video posted on here Where was that, PS? I'd like to give it a look.

NotSoNormalGuy -> RE: Does it bother anyone else the Boston terrorist is 19? (4/30/2013 3:13:09 AM)
To the original topic - the only thing that bothers me about this terrorist's age is that he will probably see another birthday or two. I, personally, would be delighted if he didn't make 20. Enigma

Aswad -> RE: Does it bother anyone else the Boston terrorist is 19? (4/30/2013 3:30:51 AM)
Politesub, Thank you for articulating something I haven't been able to. Also, let's not forget the capacity for target discrimination. AQ has very limited resources, compared to e.g. the USA. The USA is quite capable of using something a little more selective than the 8kg high explosive warhead of a Hellfire missile, whereas AQ is pretty much limited to imprecise attacks. Not saying this justifies anything, just saying the USA has some options that AQ doesn't, yet chooses not to use those options. That's a simple matter of economics. It's too inconvenient, or too risky, to be surgically precise. Soldiers that have chosen to risk their lives to be part of a force projection military weigh more heavily than foreign civilians that haven't made such a choice. Valuable resources weigh more heavily than foreign civilian lives. That's a tactical choice, and one that crosses the line into "deliberate", in my book, even though it's not as far as actually targetting civilians directly (which, as you point out, has happened). We all understand that if you're hitting a target, you risk civilian casualties. But a choice is still made as to what the acceptable losses are, and that choice isn't anywhere near as carefully made as it could be. From an outside perspective, it doesn't seem like civilian casualties figure at all, beyond not going for overkill (most of the time). Nobody's innocent here, except the bystanders getting hit on both sides. WOTF, Yes, me and tweakabelle are observing parallells (drawing them, while a perfectly fine idiom, almost implies that we're making them, which we're not; they're pretty plain and obvious, indeed hard not to see). And, as you may be able to see, the line as to deliberate vs unintended is not as clear cut as you'd like it to be. A couple of apropos quotes from one of my favorite philosophers, taken out of context, but no less appropriate for it: «He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.» «Thus do I counsel you, my friends: distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.» Try to take the high ground. Tend to your own values first, and make sure they're not the sort you're criticizing. IWYW, — Aswad.

WantsOfTheFlesh -> RE: Does it bother anyone else the Boston terrorist is 19? (4/30/2013 9:09:12 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Aswad WOTF, Yes, me and tweakabelle are observing parallells (drawing them, while a perfectly fine idiom, almost implies that we're making them, which we're not; they're pretty plain and obvious, indeed hard not to see). And, as you may be able to see, the line as to deliberate vs unintended is not as clear cut as you'd like it to be. A couple of apropos quotes from one of my favorite philosophers, taken out of context, but no less appropriate for it: «He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.» «Thus do I counsel you, my friends: distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.» Try to take the high ground. Tend to your own values first, and make sure they're not the sort you're criticizing. tha line between intended & unintended is clear tho ya may wish to obscure it maybe even for yr own motives. tend to my own values first? lol yr tha one saying other folks on here can easily b terrorists too just coz they expressed their feelings of disgust & outrage at what happened. ya did tha same here wit me. dude how bout ya take some of yr own advice? punishment is a whole big part of justice & deterence against injustice tho some folks naively thunk otherwise.

WantsOfTheFlesh -> RE: Does it bother anyone else the Boston terrorist is 19? (4/30/2013 9:14:06 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Politesub53 quote: ORIGINAL: WantsOfTheFlesh i dont like drones much either but thats tha big ole moral divide between unintended consequences & deliberate ones that ya seem hell bent on erasing. I have a major problem with the unintended consequences stance. Firing a missilee at a suspect in a car and hitting the passenger could be construed as unintended. Firing a missile at those going to help the wounded, as demonstrated in Iraq by the helicopter attack video posted on here, is entirely intended. Killing the 16 year old son of a terrorist suspect, again posted in here, was also fully intended. One killing fully justified in my book, even if he was American, the other wasn`t. Lets not start suggesting otherwise. Tha issue of unintended consequences isa tough one but for folks who deny it tha result is theres no moral distinction between some dude who doesnt mean to kill & someone who does in loadsa scenarios. If some nation starts a war they know civilians will be killed tho they do not want to target civilians. if a terrorist lets off his bombs ina subway jammed full of civilian folks going bout there everyday business thats 100% intended. i see a clear blue line here coz tha death started by tha nation was in pursuit of a legitimate military target. if a helicopter fires on people helping some leaded terrorist ya can say they intended to kill those folks below them. true but full intention depends on whether they thought those folks were terrorists r actually civilians. if they knew they were civilians then tha crime is a big one pretty much as bad as tha terrorist targeting civilians.

Politesub53 -> RE: Does it bother anyone else the Boston terrorist is 19? (4/30/2013 12:07:28 PM)
Peon, the van helping the wounded gets attacked around the nine minute mark. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newsvideo/7558741/US-military-video-showing-2007-Apache-attack-on-Iraqi-civilians-posted-on-YouTube-Full-video.html

PeonForHer -> RE: Does it bother anyone else the Boston terrorist is 19? (4/30/2013 12:17:17 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Politesub53 Peon, the van helping the wounded gets attacked around the nine minute mark. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newsvideo/7558741/US-military-video-showing-2007-Apache-attack-on-Iraqi-civilians-posted-on-YouTube-Full-video.html Thanks PS. That was the one that I thought you meant.

Rule -> RE: Does it bother anyone else the Boston terrorist is 19? (4/30/2013 12:57:48 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Aswad Guess what, we're human beings. We've gone from hunting and gathering, cowering from the elements and succumbing to illness and injury, to having sprawling cities of millions, chemically synthesizing fertilizers to supply food that nature doesn't produce for us, treating inborn conditions, transplanting organs, altering our own genes, living in buildings that can withstand earthquakes, setting our feet on the Moon, splitting the atom and probing the very nature of reality itself. That, right there, is a testament to what makes us the apex predator: We make sense of our environment, and then we rearrange it into what we want it to be, dammit! I am sorry, Aswad, but all of that simply is not true for most people. Granted that every being with some kind of nervous system tries to make sense of its environment, but it always does so within the limits that such a nervous system allows. Even I, a low IQ supergenius, have my limits. quote: ORIGINAL: Aswad Stop trying to throw that out over simplistic notions of good and evil. If you can't make sense of it, then frickin' step back and let those of us that can, do, instead of aggravating the problem with an emotional refusal to understand that these are regular people we're dealing with, not much different from you and I. Those are bold assertments. But the crux of the matter is of course is 'how much' are they 'not much different from you and I'? Let me first establish that my mind is nothing like yours: our psychologies differ like day and night. So if they are not much different from you, then they are extremely different from me - and vice versa. Again: how much is 'not much'? We will not know until we scan their brain activity and compare it with yours. And what about the oxygen consumption of their brain compared with yours? Is it equal? Even if corrected for body mass? What if it differs say half a percent? You may very well be correct that there is not much difference between them and you - but it is a difference that counts. What will you do when your girlfriend falls in love with someone else and gets pregnant by him? Will you cut her throat? Burn her to death? Bury her alive? Drown her? Throw stones at her until she dies? Since you claim that there is not much difference between them and you, may I then assume that your answer to all those questions is 'Yes, I will'?

Rule -> RE: Does it bother anyone else the Boston terrorist is 19? (4/30/2013 1:14:36 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: tweakabelle An aspect of this conflict that some people may find odd is that the Islamists use exactly the same language and concepts to describe the West. For them, everything Western is "evil", everything Islamic is "good". And from their point of view they are quite correct. That is because they are on a different evolutionary track, which is antithetical to the evolutionary track of normal people. Each of the two evolutionary tracks has its relative "evil", which is represented by the other evolutionary track. But besides those relative 'evils' there also is absolute evil - and I judge that that ball is entirely in their court.

Page: << < prev 6 7 [8] 9 10 next > >>

Collarchat.com © 2025

Terms of Service

0.078125