Karzai condemns airstrikes
11-30-2013 | 01:26 PM
#21
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From: B737
11-30-2013 | 02:31 PM
#22
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From: Lovin' life at .4 (ish) mach
We helped put this guy in power, then he's waving a list of demands in order for us to stay there to help HIS country? I don't see the logic on his part..... time to get out.... at least when the Taliban goes back into power there, and Karzi is under a knife, Poppy will be illegal once again and the farmers will not be able to produce opium.
11-30-2013 | 04:06 PM
#23
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We helped put this guy in power, then he's waving a list of demands in order for us to stay there to help HIS country? I don't see the logic on his part..... time to get out.... at least when the Taliban goes back into power there, and Karzi is under a knife, Poppy will be illegal once again and the farmers will not be able to produce opium.
Anecdote: Say we're Afghani and you do me a huge favor one day. Then you go off to be trained as a terrorist, while I become a Afghani police/military. Then years later you come back a freshly trained terrorist, and come to me and ask me to get you a job as cop (with access to US bases). I know you went off to say Pakistan and most likely got trained as a terrorist, but since I "owe you," I have to vouch for you. Then you commit another insider attack...
That's how messed up that place is!
11-30-2013 | 04:34 PM
#25
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Have you read "First In" "Jawbreaker" or "Horse Soldiers?" All great books and they all hit on how Afghanis will change their allegiance on a whim. Whoever helps them the most that day. Their ideals are very screwed up!
Anecdote: Say we're Afghani and you do me a huge favor one day. Then you go off to be trained as a terrorist, while I become a Afghani police/military. Then years later you come back a freshly trained terrorist, and come to me and ask me to get you a job as cop (with access to US bases). I know you went off to say Pakistan and most likely got trained as a terrorist, but since I "owe you," I have to vouch for you. Then you commit another insider attack...
That's how messed up that place is!
Anecdote: Say we're Afghani and you do me a huge favor one day. Then you go off to be trained as a terrorist, while I become a Afghani police/military. Then years later you come back a freshly trained terrorist, and come to me and ask me to get you a job as cop (with access to US bases). I know you went off to say Pakistan and most likely got trained as a terrorist, but since I "owe you," I have to vouch for you. Then you commit another insider attack...
That's how messed up that place is!
11-30-2013 | 08:36 PM
#26
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From: Pipers & RV-12
You don't get it. As we go into one country like Iraq and wipe out the "religion of peace", there are like 6 bordering countries that see us go in there and try to exterminate all the sources of terrorism....Our religious dogma is no better than theirs, but we are creating the entire reasons they attack us, because we constantly attack them.
I think we have forgotten the objective of war. It is not to destroy the people of an army or a nation. War must be directed to destroy their ideology. We didn't destroy the people of Japan, we destroyed State Shintoism. We didn't destroy the people of Germany, we destroyed Naziism (including its takeover of Christianity -- see "Positive Christianity"). We only kill people until the ideology no longer animates them and they surrender...sometimes that is a lot of killing, and it isn't limited to combatants.
You have to name the ideology. The animating ideology that we should be attacking is very obvious to an unprejudiced person who doesn't mind analyzing the facts, thinking for their own self, and drawing their own conclusions.
"Our religious dogma is no better than theirs". I agree with you James, our jihadists in the US and their dogma are no better than the dogma of the jihadists we fight.
If you're simply spouting your belief in some form of religious relativism, then yes, that type of simplistic dogma is a problem that keeps us from thinking clearly about the connection between religion and ideology. Thinking clearly about ideology, including religious influences on it, is a prerequisite to being able to effectively attack it. We weren't afraid to forcibly change religious components of an ideology following our victory in WWII. Are we afraid to today?
12-01-2013 | 10:11 AM
#28
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From: Left Seat
If that's what you think James, then I refuse to "get it" also. I've been in Japan and Germany, the two nations we fought in WWII. The people in Japan were not antagonistic to the US, even though we nuked them. The Germans were not antagonistic to the US, even though we fire-bombed them and destroyed whole German cities. We attacked and defeated their ideology. We did it in a very brutal way, killing many more civilians than were killed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen, or Pakistan -- millions more civilians, in fact. By destroying millions we didn't create reasons for them to attack us. We destroyed their ideology, and forbid them from resurrecting it.
I think we have forgotten the objective of war. It is not to destroy the people of an army or a nation. War must be directed to destroy their ideology. We didn't destroy the people of Japan, we destroyed State Shintoism. We didn't destroy the people of Germany, we destroyed Naziism (including its takeover of Christianity -- see "Positive Christianity"). We only kill people until the ideology no longer animates them and they surrender...sometimes that is a lot of killing, and it isn't limited to combatants.
You have to name the ideology. The animating ideology that we should be attacking is very obvious to an unprejudiced person who doesn't mind analyzing the facts, thinking for their own self, and drawing their own conclusions.
"Our religious dogma is no better than theirs". I agree with you James, our jihadists in the US and their dogma are no better than the dogma of the jihadists we fight.
If you're simply spouting your belief in some form of religious relativism, then yes, that type of simplistic dogma is a problem that keeps us from thinking clearly about the connection between religion and ideology. Thinking clearly about ideology, including religious influences on it, is a prerequisite to being able to effectively attack it. We weren't afraid to forcibly change religious components of an ideology following our victory in WWII. Are we afraid to today?
I think we have forgotten the objective of war. It is not to destroy the people of an army or a nation. War must be directed to destroy their ideology. We didn't destroy the people of Japan, we destroyed State Shintoism. We didn't destroy the people of Germany, we destroyed Naziism (including its takeover of Christianity -- see "Positive Christianity"). We only kill people until the ideology no longer animates them and they surrender...sometimes that is a lot of killing, and it isn't limited to combatants.
You have to name the ideology. The animating ideology that we should be attacking is very obvious to an unprejudiced person who doesn't mind analyzing the facts, thinking for their own self, and drawing their own conclusions.
"Our religious dogma is no better than theirs". I agree with you James, our jihadists in the US and their dogma are no better than the dogma of the jihadists we fight.
If you're simply spouting your belief in some form of religious relativism, then yes, that type of simplistic dogma is a problem that keeps us from thinking clearly about the connection between religion and ideology. Thinking clearly about ideology, including religious influences on it, is a prerequisite to being able to effectively attack it. We weren't afraid to forcibly change religious components of an ideology following our victory in WWII. Are we afraid to today?
In 1940, we did not have that technology. So obviously civilian deaths occurred as we bombed the he11 out of cities in Europe. A airplane factory, if the bombs dropped on it missed, and landed on a school or hospital, well, we tried. Next time we will try to do better.
USA is not in the business of "spreading ideologies" or attacking other idealogies, because, by doing so, we have then decided (and who is USA to decide) that "their" idealogy is "bad" and ours is therefore "good." Who is to say that a tribe of indians in the Amazon rain forest, who hunts fish out of the Amazon, and worships the stars, is a "bad" ideology. I do concede that our leaders would love for Afghan and Iraq to magically become free democratic societies, and we have conducted efforts in that regard, by building schools, educating women, provided medical care and hospitals to poor rural citizens, in an attempt to cultivate favor and points in support of the American way of life. But this was not rammed down their throats via bombs or bullets.
What you, my friend, are advocating, by attacking ideologies, and killing mass civilians in the pursuit of this strategy, is close to terrorism itself.
Don't take my word for it, lets take a look at the FBI and DOD's definition of terrorism. For clarity, the DOD defends us from terrorism abroad, the FBI defends us from terrorism within our borders. So their definition carries some horsepower.
FBI Terrorism Definition
Definitions of Terrorism in the U.S. Code
18 U.S.C. § 2331 defines "international terrorism" and "domestic terrorism" for purposes of Chapter 113B of the Code, entitled "Terrorism”:
"International terrorism" means activities with the following three characteristics:
Involve violent acts or acts dangerous to human life that violate federal or state law;
Appear to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and
Occur primarily outside the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S., or transcend national boundaries in terms of the means by which they are accomplished, the persons they appear intended to intimidate or coerce, or the locale in which their perpetrators operate or seek asylum.*
"Domestic terrorism" means activities with the following three characteristics:
Involve acts dangerous to human life that violate federal or state law;
Appear intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination. or kidnapping; and
Occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S.
18 U.S.C. § 2332b defines the term "federal crime of terrorism" as an offense that:
Is calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion, or to retaliate against government conduct; and
Is a violation of one of several listed statutes, including § 930(c) (relating to killing or attempted killing during an attack on a federal facility with a dangerous weapon); and § 1114 (relating to killing or attempted killing of officers and employees of the U.S.).
* FISA defines "international terrorism" in a nearly identical way, replacing "primarily" outside the U.S. with "totally" outside the U.S. 50 U.S.C. § 1801(c).
Page 1-2
The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) approved definition of terrorism is: “The calculated use of
unlawful violence or threat of unlawful violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological.”
unlawful violence or threat of unlawful violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological.”
12-01-2013 | 08:12 PM
#30
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From: Pipers & RV-12
If by nation you mean our political doctrine, I agree. I took an oath to defend the US Constitution, and not our beautiful North American patch of dirt or our lovely US population. Many people may not understand this, but every US soldier takes the oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic, and to bear true faith and allegiance to that Constitution. This inevitably makes one a defender of the ideology within our US Constitution.
USA is not in the business of "spreading ideologies" or attacking other idealogies, because, by doing so, we have then decided (and who is USA to decide) that "their" idealogy is "bad" and ours is therefore "good." ... What you, my friend, are advocating, by attacking ideologies, and killing mass civilians in the pursuit of this strategy, is close to terrorism itself.
In doing so, we try to minimize civilian damage and focus on military/combat threats... In addition, the fact that we killed mass civilians was not due to some brilliant strategy per se, it was more due to the lack of precision weapons/bombs that are available today. Today a remote controlled drone can kill one guy on a motorbike, and hurt nobody else. Today, a bunker bomb can be droppped and laser guided/GPS guided to a target.
In 1940, we did not have that technology. So obviously civilian deaths occurred as we bombed the he11 out of cities in Europe. A airplane factory, if the bombs dropped on it missed, and landed on a school or hospital, well, we tried. Next time we will try to do better.
In 1940, we did not have that technology. So obviously civilian deaths occurred as we bombed the he11 out of cities in Europe. A airplane factory, if the bombs dropped on it missed, and landed on a school or hospital, well, we tried. Next time we will try to do better.
By the way, here is what our senators with access to intelligence think about the results of our "high tech, precise targeting" methods in this "War on Terror": Feinstein: 'Terror is up worldwide' ? CNN Press Room - CNN.com Blogs
"FEINSTEIN: I think there is a real displaced aggression in this very fundamentalist, jihadist, Islamic community. And that is that the west is responsible for everything that goes wrong, and that the only thing that's going to solve this is Islamic Sharia law and the concept of the caliphate.
And I see more groups, more fundamentalists, more jihadists more determined to kill to get to where they want to get. So, it's not an isolated phenomenon. You see these groups spread a web of connections. And this includes North Africa, it includes the Middle East, it includes other areas as well."
But then, who is the USA to decide this jihadist ideology is "bad"?
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