The Iran Thread

Fine. Clarification. We are being asked to sympathize with victims which come from an ethnic and religious group that have done more than any other in the past 20 years to kill and maim and which deliberately target civilians in an attempt to maximize such deaths and injury. Is that better?

Sort of. You’ve clarified who we’re supposedly being asked to sympathize with, and why you’re opposed to that. But I still don’t know who is suggesting that we sympathize with them, or where that’s been stated.

Not trying to be a pain, I just don’t see it.
Unless it’s in the call for basic justice. But I don’t see that sympathy is necessarily a part of that.

Sigh. Your point noting that my point to you and its relevance is not clear is noted. Therefore, no need to note that the point that I noted is not clear to your understanding at least as far as I am noting your understanding of how you noted your note regarding my noting of your understanding.

:bravo:

Post of the day! :slight_smile:

Fred, I’m sending you my box of Crayolas…I oft times find them helpful. [color=violet]Liberal Lavender[/color] is a nice shade for getting ones point across.

God willing, I have a counterpart in the Muslim world who’s telling those ghouls that no matter how they want to paint it – self-defense, necessity, God’s will – what they did was murder. May he stand his ground against their self-righteous ranting and raving too.

BS BB. Noted.

Shall we try again… in Liberal Lavender?
[color=violet]Who advocated sympathy?
Where? [/color]

How about it conservative red?
[color=red]Sympathy? Where? Who?[/color]

I read this as a call for sympathy. Anyone else see it that way? As in evil US bombs being dropped on poor innocent Muslim victims. Sorry, perhaps, I was missing the point? But no. I look at CS’s answer and it appears to be the same reaction so, er, um, could be that many of us are seeing Spook’s comment as a call to sympathy for the innocent victims of American aggression and using my knowledge of world affairs and as any brief glance at any newspaper would indicate, those deaths seem to be occurring in Afghanistan and Iraq, um, er, where, as it would seem to be, though I note that your understanding of this may differ from mine, that the little school girls in, er question, would um therefore be er that is if you note that the understanding is based on the noted publications, er that they would be Muslim. And I am noting, though this is open to interpretation depending on how readers will respond whether noting or not noting the understanding of my note therein, that it would appear or seem to be that the most terrorist incidents in the past 20 years have been caused by er um Muslims of the same ethnic and religious groups as the er potential victims and real victims as outlined in the brief comment that CS cited of Spook’s.

Let Bob sort that out.

I said “bomb the shit out of them” (Iranians).

And Spook asked for kind of sympathy by mentioning little schoolgirls would be killed in that act.

Thank you. That wasn’t so difficult, was it? Well, perhaps given how it broke down at the end.

See, I read that as acknowledgement that there’s a whole lot of shit going on, and that here or there, good guys or bad, it’s still bad shit when it leaves little school girls in pieces.
Sympathy? Belongs with the school girls.
Comprehension? That might help in finding a solution that leaves the fewest possible corpses rotting in the sun.
Justice? Difficult without comprehension.

Justice may be blind to who appears before her, but she needs to see, clearly, what’s been going on.

Injustice, on the other hand, turns aside.

And if you look very carefully at the scene at the bottom of the image of injustice, you’ll see something happening in the woods; something very like what we’re discussing.

[quote=“bob_honest”]Let Bob sort that out.

I said “bomb the shit out of them” (Iranians).

And Spook asked for kind of sympathy by mentioning little schoolgirls would be killed in that act.[/quote]

Well, now I must admit it sounds a bit rude.

But again, having mercy with their losses in an act aiming to take away the Iranian capability to build nuclear weapons may lead to them building it. At then we turn our face to the side again, when the Israelian or other kids are rotting in the sun. To take over your wording.

It is called “logic of war”. Once someone starts it, some lives become almost meaningless, even if they are otherwise very very precious to us. I hate that! But the side starting to threaten the others introduces this logic.

I once read a long article about it how totally opposed the war logic is compared to our normal logic and values.

Normal value: never kill kids.
War logic: You have to accept civilian losses in a war or to stop an agressor…

I hate that logic. It is jungle logic in a new form.

[quote]Normal value: never kill kids.
War logic: You have to accept civilian losses in a war or to stop an agressor…

I hate that logic. It is jungle logic in a new form.[/quote]

It’s not logic so much as an assessment of risk. People are always talking about peace as if they are the only ones that want it while others are warmongers, etc. BUT what if the peace results in a war that kills even more people later? Hmmm? How many more children will be killed etc? AND what irritates me more than anything is that somehow in this perverted moral code, children and their lives have more value than the old, women more than men. Why? I am a 40 year old male who values my life. Why is it worse when a woman or infant is killed and not for me or an 80 year old? Now, that is the kind of “logic” that pisses me off.

The world is full of people claiming the other devil made them do it. That will undoubtedly be Saddam’s defense and he’s probably convinced himself into believing it.

There is a moral argument to be made for unavoidably taking innocent human life to save others but it’s a high threshold and the ‘bomb the shit out of them’ argument doesn’t begin to cut it. If you can’t tolerate having your own argument for taking innocent schoolgirls’ lives challenged without flying off the handle then maybe your conscience is trying to tell you something.

[quote="fred smith How many more children will be killed etc? AND what irritates me more than anything is that somehow in this perverted moral code, children and their lives have more value than the old, women more than men. Why? I am a 40 year old male who values my life. Why is it worse when a woman or infant is killed and not for me or an 80 year old? Now, that is the kind of “logic” that pisses me off.[/quote]

Because a child has not decided to go to war and will not have had time to live life a little bit.

Most men do not either. Certainly, since Iran is not a democracy, most of the men there would have no say so again I find the point tiresome and inherently biased. ALL life is EQUALLY valuable. No? Or who’s to say? I do hope that you are not on the left to the degree of being rabidly pro-abortion because then I would have to wonder why you would even care. Now, I merely mention this in passing to point out moral confusion. I have never said that I would be in favor of banning abortions but I do want the matter recognized for the moral issue that it is. A very serious one.

Most men do not either. Certainly, since Iran is not a democracy, most of the men there would have no say so again I find the point tiresome and inherently biased. ALL life is EQUALLY valuable. No? Or who’s to say? I do hope that you are not on the left to the degree of being rabidly pro-abortion because then I would have to wonder why you would even care. Now, I merely mention this in passing to point out moral confusion. I have never said that I would be in favor of banning abortions but I do want the matter recognized for the moral issue that it is. A very serious one.[/quote]

As you have lived approximately half of your expected life span i would argue that a childs life is worth more than yours, just as i would argue that yours is worth more than that of an 80 year person, the child has more to offer than you do, they have almost their entire life ahead of them.

So no, not all life is equally valuable.

Good you added you never said you were in favor of banning abortions.
What especially pisses me off is to have to listen to some men deciding to go to war and kill thousands of people and telling women not to abort.
As you said ALL life is Equally valuable. Not even talking about which country is more valuable . 30000 iraqi compared to 2000 american. What is making the headlines, the 2000.

As for your life, you can probably defend yourself much better than a child or a woman. Thats what makes the loss of a child or a woman more disgusting.

I recognize fully that it involves choice but also morality and I would never want to have to decide nor do I think that I should have to, but late-term abortions should be banned in my opinion since another two to three months wait after six or seven…

Is the decision to go to war made only be men?

but the how and why of their dying matters. To pretend that an Iraqi killed by an insurgent because of the American action is equivalent to a death under Saddam would not be fair in my opinion and some things are worth fighting and dying for. I think many in Iraq realize that.

I disagree. Bombs from the air don’t discriminate and men have always paid the price for wars to a far greater degree than women and children. I don’t think that is fair, but… there you are. Difficult situation again.

[quote=“spook”]The world is full of people claiming the other devil made them do it. That will undoubtedly be Saddam’s defense and he’s probably convinced himself into believing it.

There is a moral argument to be made for unavoidably taking innocent human life to save others but it’s a high threshold and the ‘bomb the shit out of them’ argument doesn’t begin to cut it. If you can’t tolerate having your own argument for taking innocent schoolgirls’ lives challenged without flying off the handle then maybe your conscience is trying to tell you something.[/quote]

Well, not God but common sense tells me that stopping Iran from having nuclear weapons may justify a military strike. Limited to what it needs to stop their ability to produce that weapon.

Most men do not either. Certainly, since Iran is not a democracy, most of the men there would have no say so again I find the point tiresome and inherently biased. ALL life is EQUALLY valuable. No? Or who’s to say? I do hope that you are not on the left to the degree of being rabidly pro-abortion because then I would have to wonder why you would even care. Now, I merely mention this in passing to point out moral confusion. I have never said that I would be in favor of banning abortions but I do want the matter recognized for the moral issue that it is. A very serious one.[/quote]
In an alternate universe somewhere …

“You know, you’re right, GUEST2. Children have no hand in making war. They depend on adults to keep them safe. They also depend on adults to keep the world safe, and unfortunately, sometimes that means war. In the end, any adult who is qualified enough to make a sound decision to go to war with another nation should also be able to differentiate between suicide bombers and schoolgirls, certainly to the point of knowing that the former should be dispatched as rapidly and severely as possible, and the latter protected and treated as humanely as possible. After all, while a bomb solves some problems, societal mentality prevents them in the first place and the future of that mentality rests with the children.”