Yesterday, I was told that George Washington was as much a terrorist as Arafat.
Huh?
I have compiled some information. Let's debate this thing. I get hammered EVERY time I suggest that Arafat is a terrorist thug and Palestine doesn't want to live side by side with Israel.
If I imply, that Palestine wants Israel driven to the sea, I'm being nasty and closed-minded.
Obviously, I just don't get it. I don't understand how blowing up a bus full of schoolchildren is resistance against an oppressive government. I mean are ten year olds running the show in Israel...
Let us examine the Rules of War and a few definitions and straighten this thing out.
I never again want to hear that the Father of Our Country is as much a thug as Arafat.
Let's Roll!
ter·ror·ism
The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.
terrorist
One that engages in acts or an act of terrorism.
freedom fighter
One engaged in armed rebellion or resistance against an oppressive government
war
A state of open, armed, often prolonged conflict carried on between nations, states, or parties.
war crime
Any of various crimes, such as genocide or the mistreatment of prisoners of war, committed during a war and considered in violation of the conventions of warfare.
Rules of War according to the Geneva Convention
Rule 1: Warring nations cannot use chemical weapons against each other.
Rule 2: The use of expanding bullets or materials calculated to cause unnecessary suffering is prohibited.
Rule 3: The discharge of projectiles (such as bullets or rockets) from balloons is prohibited.
Rule 4: Prisoners of war must be humanely treated and protected from violence. Prisoners cannot be beaten or used for propaganda purposes (to try to change the way people think about something).
Rule 5: Prisoners of war must give their true name and rank or they will lose their prisoner of war protection.
Rule 6: Nations must follow procedures to identify the dead and wounded and to send information to their families.
Rule 7: Killing anyone who has surrendered is prohibited.
Rule 8: Zones must be set up in fighting areas to which the sick and injured can be taken for treatment.
Rule 9: Special protection from attack is granted to civilian hospitals marked with the Red Cross.
Rule 10: The free passage of medical supplies is allowed.
Rule 11: Shipwrecked members of the armed forces at sea should be taken ashore to safety.
Rule 12: Any army that takes control of another country must provide food to the people in that country.
Rule 13: Attacks on civilians and undefended towns are prohibited.
Rule 14: Enemy submarines cannot sink merchant or business ships before passengers and crews have been saved.
Rule 15: A prisoner can be visited by a representative from his or her country and they have the right to talk privately without observers.
If you can show me evidence that George Washington regularly made a habit of targeting civilians, I will agree wholeheartedly.
Hell, if you could find me one example of his doing that--or indeed, any example of the continental army doing such a thing and getting away with it--I might concede that you've got a point.
Can anyone point to a documented example of such a thing?
Dean
[Excerpted from a longer piece by Rabbi Noah Weinberg:]
George Washington was a legitimate "freedom fighter." He did not urge the massacre of British civilians or depict Great Britain as a fascist horror that God wants to destroy.
Nor did he destroy British places of worship or publish maps showing a Europe wiped clean of England."
Before I forget:
I actually heard a family member of mine say this yesterday (and you have to give me extra points for not going postal):
Reporting the news out of the Middle East must be especially hard because there are no "facts" to report. Everything you hear is "true" but at the same time it's also "false". The Europeans have a point, the US has a point, the Israelis have a point and the Palestinians have a point.
How do you decide who's right and who's wrong?"
Ara - you get no extra points. Your family member is just another democrat, like you, with maybe a slightly less nuanced view of the Palestinian occupation than you do.
Michael,
You crack me up, man! You have no idea what my view is.
As it turns out, I (as a so-called "democrat" with a lower case 'd') apparently ascribe to what you call "zero-base thinking."
Case in point, my "slightly more nuanced view" of the Palestinians is "slightly" to the right of Menachim Begin.
Could it be ...?
Maybe not. Maybe "zero-base thinking" is just short-hand for "agrees with Michael Gersh."
Which is it?
"The Rules of Warfare." Frankly, the word "rules" and the word "warfare" do not belong in the same sentence together. It's ridiculous to try to apply rules to something that, by nature, breaks the rules of humanity. It's as if having a nice little set of rules for war makes us feel better about bombing people's houses and blowing people up, scattering body parts across the ground. "It's more humane." It's not. It's an oxymoron.
As for comparing someone's war antics to someone else's, it really comes down to what perspective you take in your analysis. The road feels different in different shoes.
According to the Bible, God is a war criminal. Read on:
"God instructed the Jews that when they invaded the territory that God had granted to them, as for the inhabitants, "you must utterly annihilate them. Make no covenant with them nor show them compassion!" (Deuteronomy, Chapter 7.) God instructed the Jews that, when confronting other people who lived on land other than that granted to the Jews, they could give them an offer of perpetual slavery for their whole population, or else they could kill all the males and take the women and little children as slaves. (Deuteronomy, Chapter 20.) God set rules for male Jews who desired to take a wife from among these captives. (Deuteronomy, Chapter 21.)"
What an asshole that God is.
Tim
Tim
Since the rules weren't established until 1864. God, by default, would not be a war criminal.
Trinity
Check out the Geneva Convention history link provided.
It's ridiculous to try to apply rules to something that, by nature, breaks the rules of humanity.
Fighting does not break the rules of humanity. Humanitarian Law didn't exist before 1859. The rules are a direct result of Henry Dunant, author of "A memory of Solferino", it was his idea for the creation of what we now call the Red Cross.Which led to the establishment of the Geneva Convention and International Humanitarian Law.
There is a difference between being human and being humane. Killing is innately human, we kill all the time. We do it to survive. Being humane is something most humans have developed. It is not a natural instinct it is learned. That's why we didn't create Humanitarian Law until the 19th century. Slow learners.
"As for comparing someone's war antics to someone else's, it really comes down to what perspective you take in your analysis. The road feels different in different shoes."
That is the point of this thread. My shoes say that blowing up innocent children on a bus, hotels and airplanes full of civilians is at best war crime action - if we allow ourselves to believe that the Palestinians/Saudi's/Syrians/Africans/Indonesians and etc that are doing this are legitimate Freedom Fighters as opposed to being the terrorists that they deny they are.
I want someone out there to justify the constant slaughter of innocent civilians. Not just in Israel but at this point all the world over.
If I shove an old lady to the ground and run off with her purse, I've done nothing different than if I shove an old lady to the ground to get her out of the way of a moving bus.
The notion that there's such a thing as "humane" pushing around of old ladies is really quite farcical.
If I punch you in the mouth because you punched me, that's really no different than if I knifed you, tied you up, raped you, and then cut off your nose and ears--in response do your punching me.
Violence is violence, after all, and the notion that you can draw moral distinctions between what is acceptable and what is not are really quite naive.
Perhaps we should take this doctrine seriously.
If we were simply to carpet-bomb everyone in the Middle East with nuclear weapons, it would be no different from what we did in Afghanistan, right?
Right.
Hey, Trinity, ever hear of the Joad Resolution? The graduating class of (Oxford?) passed a resolution that "under no circumstances would this school ever fight for King or Country", war being such a bad thing. Certainly it enhanced Hitler's career..
Now suppose instead Great Britain executed a pre-emptive strike against Germany in 1936:no WW2, no 80-100 million people dead, no Holocaust, no (probably) Cold War... All of this because France & Great Britain wanted to follow the civilized, humane, peaceful course of action.
Let's build a list of "horrible" wars:
Salamis
Thermopolae (ok, I'm weak on Greek)
Cannae
Tours
English Civil War
Revolution of 1688
American Revolution
Amercian Civil War
World War Two
I leave adding to the list as an exercise for the reader.
Dean: did you really mean to say - with a straight face - that you really do believe that "Violence is violence, after all, and the notion that you can draw moral distinctions between what is acceptable and what is not are really quite naive."?
Hmmm...
Casey, Dean's face may have been straight, but his tongue was firmly embedded in his cheek: "Violence is violence, after all, and the notion that you can draw moral distinctions between what is acceptable and what is not are really quite naive." His examples drove home the point that moral distinctions are quite possible. If I'm wrong, I'm really glad that I don't live next door to the Esmays!
You are not wrong. His tongue was embedded so far in his cheek that he looked like a chipmunk.
Whew! He had me goin' there for a minute.
What is truly scary is that there is a significant part of the population that thinks exactly in that manner. Take Trinity for example. Unless she is foolin' too, she really does believe that nuking the entire Mid-East is the same as operation ANACONDA.
Rosemary, I think you dropped the ball when you agreed with Trinity that there is some degree of moral relativism involved. Nope. No. There are barbarians, and there are civilized human beings. But that's just me.. [grin]
For an interesting overview of how hard it can be to define terrorism in academia, try Terrorism in the Classroom by Stanley Michalak.
Violence is not the answer. Sex is.
And I assure you that my tongue is not in my cheek as I say this.
Casey:
I don't think that I agreed with Trinity. I actually think that I disagreed and pointed out why I did so. Perhaps I didn't do a good job at it. ;-)
Trinity:
I'm sure that your tongue would be far too busy to be in cheek if you meant that!
Actually, in a weird sideways sort of way, Trinity has a point (or two points, depending on what we're talking about. Heh). Regarding terrorists that is.
Several observers have pointed out that the behavior muslim terrorists display is not uncommon in several respects:
-they are nearly all young (15-25) single males
-they are very poor
-being very poor can limit your opportunities for marriage.
-being poor and single in a Muslim country severely limits a young man's opportunities for sexual, if not emotional release.
Add all this up and you have a very frustrated young man; sexually, romantically, and financially... With no way of relieving those frustrations. No wonder they want to blow things up. ;)
Hehe. All very good points. So what should we do? Oh, the dilemmas. Maybe we should set up Terrorist Rest-Stops, where they can stop and take a "rest" from their tiring jobs of terrorizing the world, and we'll provide very nice-looking, disease-free whores of all shapes and sizes to make passionate love to the terrorists, while whispering "make love, not war" in their ears in a tone not above subliminal.
And on their way back out to terrorize the world, we'll provide them with a few trees to hug.
We could set up tents with 72 pro"virgins".;-)
We could advertise it. 72 virgins for not killing any infidels. Why waste all the time and money killing for 72 virgins in heaven when you can get them here on earth for being good little boys?
Washington could have been King of America, but refused.
Arafat is a dictator.
Washington freed his slaves and made provisions for them.
Arafat steals from his people and sends their children to die while killing other children.
Washington set his nation on a path of expanding freedom.
Arafat puts his people on the road to Hell.
You'll notice I didn't use both their names in the same sentence.
Noel,
I much appreciate your not using Washington's name in vain.
Very well stated.
Trinity, that sounds like what Jimmy Buffet wanted to do for the USSR (obviously pre-1989!): take a b-1 bomber, fly it over Russia and drop $5 bills all over the place. Give the Russians a week to think about what to do with all that money, then "bomb" them with Victoria's Secrets Catalogs.
We'd have world peace, full employement (making all the stuff), and the Russians would have crotchless underwear into the 21st century!
Hmmm. Maybe we should clone Iman (is that her name, that gorgeous Somali model?) and post her clones outside all US facilities in VS's lingerie. It would be one hell of a dilemma for the terrorists: "sex or bombs, sex or bombs?...