Predator Drones

[Woeler]

[quote="Azdgari"]The majority do not believe that. The average Palestinian is more concerned with providing for their family than killing Americans, the same way the average German was not a genocidal Jew-hater. That's what radicalism is: a minority. And when the everyman is dragged into it, it's rarely ideological. When your family is starving and your local Al Qaeda cell offers you some money to fire pot shots at an American base, is that radical idealism or people doing what they need to?

You do realize the separation between Al Qaeda and the Taliban and Palestinian/Afghani civilians, correct?[/quote]
Watch "The Wave", based on a real life experiment that worked. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1063669/
The majority in fact does believe that. It's not a coincidence that the muslim brotherhood is taking over Egypt and Libya now. People actually vote for this nonsense. Rich, poor, everyone. The taliban does not provide homes and neither does al-qaeda. This is radical idealism, and even the moderate version of this ideology is in a westen sense radical.

Watch that movie, read the study. The average German was in fact a radical jew-hater, Hitler turned them into jew haters, and this movie shows exactly how it works. It is a reconstruction of an experiment performed on a random group of people who were slowly being converted into nazi-like creatures without even realising it.

[DGFone]

[quote="Woeler"][quote="Azdgari"]The majority do not believe that. The average Palestinian is more concerned with providing for their family than killing Americans, the same way the average German was not a genocidal Jew-hater. That's what radicalism is: a minority. And when the everyman is dragged into it, it's rarely ideological. When your family is starving and your local Al Qaeda cell offers you some money to fire pot shots at an American base, is that radical idealism or people doing what they need to?

You do realize the separation between Al Qaeda and the Taliban and Palestinian/Afghani civilians, correct?[/quote]
Watch "The Wave", based on a real life experiment that worked. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1063669/
The majority in fact does believe that. It's not a coincidence that the muslim brotherhood is taking over Egypt and Libya now. People actually vote for this nonsense. Rich, poor, everyone. The taliban does not provide homes and neither does al-qaeda. This is radical idealism, and even the moderate version of this ideology is in a westen sense radical.

Watch that movie, read the study. The average German was in fact a radical jew-hater, Hitler turned them into jew haters, and this movie shows exactly how it works. It is a reconstruction of an experiment performed on a random group of people who were slowly being converted into nazi-like creatures without even realising it.[/quote]

I normally don't agree with Woeler, but from the videos I've seen, even "normal" Palestinians and Middle Easterners somehow manage to blame America and other western nations on all their problems. They don't do it as a scapegoat. They do it because the only authority around keeps telling them that all their problems are caused by us.

And using the WWII example: If the regular German was not slowly converted into a Jew hater, how can entire cities, for that matter, an entire nation,
A: allow the concentration camps to exist,
B: support these camps, and,
C: When asked about them after the war, still say "We had no idea they existed" even if the camp was half a mile down the road from your house.

Same with the case with the Middle East now: the population is slowly being turned anti-western, when they can't even care less about what we do. But as long as they get food for saying "I hate Americans!", eventually, they'll even start believing it, unfortunately.

[Azdgari]

I refuse to condone acts of violence against civilians.

And I refuse to partake in (what I see as) the hypocrisy that is condemning them for having anti-western sentiment while we openly condemn their entire culture.

[Regulus]

[quote="Azdgari"]I refuse to condone acts of violence against civilians.

And I refuse to partake in (what I see as) the hypocrisy that is condemning them for having anti-western sentiment while we openly condemn their entire culture.[/quote]

I agree 110%. Regardless of whether or not the citizens of the middle eastern countries hate us, wiping them off the map isn't the right way to deal with it. It's the easiest way, I'll give it that, but if we went to war with every country that thinks about hating us, we'd become the very idea of the oppressive superpower of a nation that we, in theory, oppose.

It just isn't right.

Also, my dad has been to Afghanistan. I probably know, better than anyone else here, what it's like over there.

[DGFone]

And we don't need to. In fact, wiping off the population is what I call "treating the symptoms versus treating the cure." We don't need to wipe civilians off the map, and we shouldn't.

But the drones that are used in Afghanistan to attack terrorist and Taliban strongholds are not the same drones that are to be used here. They might look similarly enough, and have the same parent design, but the use is completely different.

In Afghanistan, the drones are mostly used to take lives. Preferably of those that are not civilians, while the drones here are meant to save lives. Preferably of civilians.

[Woeler]

[quote="Azdgari"]we openly condemn their entire culture.[/quote]
Like I said: our culture isn't "different" from one that sends death threats to terrorists. It's better.

That's not racism, that's not nationalism. That's common sense.

And Regulus, don't use euphemisms here. They don't hate us. They want us dead. Draw a cartoon and up go the banners "behead those..." That is not normal. In fact, it is a dangerous, evil and dehumanizing ideology that pollutes and degrades the world we have to live in.

Believe me, I have debated religion a lot, but islam is different. Islam is not only a religion. It is a way of life, a totalitarian ideology and thus it should be treated like one. We also fought stalinism and fascism. Why is this one sacred? Because a God is involved? Because we still hold the preposterous tabboo on criticizing people's beliefs? I have no idea what it is, but it isn't helping.

Islam and worldpeace do not go together, anf again that is not racism. That is common sense. Maybe you people should read the Quran.

[Regulus]

We terrorize them just as much as they terrorize us. They have every reason to want us dead.

[Azdgari]

Woeler, have you ever taken time to get to know someone who practices Islam, or spent time in an Islamic country? Because that kind of stuff really helps one develop some empathy and understanding. As it is... I guess I don't want to get into it. I really don't agree with what you're saying on a lot of levels, I don't think it's good stuff at all. I guess that's as far as I want to go. We've got a tendency to end up in a stalemate when it comes to religion, neh? ;P

[Woeler]

[quote="Regulus"]We terrorize them just as much as they terrorize us. They have every reason to want us dead.[/quote]
If only that reason would be ''because they bomb us'', but that isn't their reason. Their reason is ''because they are not Muslims, or the insult Allah''.

@Azd, Yes I know Islamic people, I have visited mosques, I have read the Quran both in English and in Dutch. I will not feel the slightest empathy for an ideology (with its followers) that goes out of its way to insult, to judge and to condemn me as an inadequate human being, which this ideology does with self-righteous gusto.

You disagree, you have that right and I respect that.

[Regulus]

[quote]If only that reason would be ''because they bomb us'', but that isn't their reason. Their reason is ''because they are not Muslims, or the insult Allah''.[/quote]

It isn't just because we bomb them. It is because we have been trying to westernize their culture.

From their point of view, we are the ones condemning them. And I'm not going to say they are wrong to believe that.

[quote="Woeler"]@Azd, Yes I know Islamic people, I have visited mosques, I have read the Quran both in English and in Dutch. I will not feel the slightest empathy for an ideology (with its followers) that goes out of its way to insult, to judge and to condemn me as an inadequate human being, which this ideology does with self-righteous gusto.[/quote]

So... we should kill them?

We're talking about a civilization that does not differentiate their sewer from their drinking water. Essentially, they're living at least 2000 years in the past, because even the ancient Romans managed to do that.

National security is hardly as big of an issue as the politicians make it seem.

Live and let live.