So basically your argument is that anyone who can take any territory by force is right, that the people who actually live there don't matter and that mass-murder's OK as long as it's being committed by a strong country in the course of occupying a weaker one. Well, now that we've got THAT cleared up, we should just sell Putin a few gas ovens and let him take it from there.
No. I'm not Putin. I just think he makes decisions that you and I would shy away from.Originally Posted by nichomach
He is in power. We have to watch him. Like a hawk. He is the next potential trouble after Korea and Iraq. But his PEOPLE think he's right. Therefore he is right in his own territory.
and our leaders wont push him too hard.
Which is why its all so scary
But Chechnya ISN'T his own territory; it's the Chechens' territory which he is occupying by force in defiance of the international community and the population itself. It's their country; what the Russian people think of Putin should matter in Russia. Chechnya isn't Russia. If you're saying that the occupation of Chechnya is right then you're agreeing with my summary above. It's one or the other.
I agree with his occupation in Defensive Terms. I would not want to gibe it up
Hes just done it......badly
But as you say...300 years is hard to sort
Good debate...you win
Thanks, Zak, that was a good one, and one I enjoyed greatly.
I agree totally, why should we give them a degree of deference? Same as I disagree with murders being termed 'executions'. They are murders. Execution conveys some hint of legality about it.
Anyone who deliberately targets children is beyond any form of justification and deserves any measures taken against them. I have sympathy for the Russian soldiers in this respect. This was forced on them. They had to go in and go in hard with no solid intelligence of what they were going into. These animals were gunning down kids trying to escape from their screwed up explosive devices. The Russians had to go in ad hoc and try and save what they could. I think their own casulaties in doing so reflect this. I doubt any disciplined force in the world would have reacted differently.
As for the debate on invasion. I've often pondered this question myself. My conclusion is that that if my country was invaded then I would fight (assuming I was able to) with whatever means I could and with the utmost brutality and lack of mercy for the invader. Using savagery as a psychological weapon in itself. Hell, I'd even stand on the beach as they left trying to stop as many from getting home as I could. Giving them 6 ft of English soil to call their own. No marker of course. So in some (and only some) respects I can sympathise with the Chechen position. Having your country taken from you, I think, gives rise to some extreme emotions.
Russia and the lands around it have probably the saddest history of all. Since the beginnings of history it has been a land of brutal conflict and oppression. Which probably has an effect on the Russian psyche. Different value sets. As zak said 'they don't think like us'. It will take a lifetime to breed that out if ever.
"You want loyalty? ......get a dog!"
What kind of a world do we live in? Here are some of my thoughts...
- We live in a world where instead being accommodating to those who don't think, talk, live, behave, etc, like us, they are seen as enemies and we treat them with intolerance.
- We live in a world where those who have been elected into positions of responsibility choose to ignore the 'will of the people' and instead pursue their own agenda outside their elected mandate, often to the detriment of the electorate.
- We live in a world where those who think they've been ignored prefer to take 'direct action' against authority and even society itself, instead of voicing the concerns (often with good intentions) through channels that are considered 'reasonable'.
- We live in a world where individuals and businesses alike behave in manners that can only be considered as greedy - turning around the famous line by former US President John F Kennedy into: 'ask what your country can do for you' and 'ask not what you can do for your country'.
- We live in a world where people are spending more and more of their disposable income on things that they think will make them happy, but instead the more they buy, the more they feel miserable and empty.
- We live in a world where 'sensations' dominate certain sections of the news, without asking for the reasons, instead choosing to believe in gossips. Victims or villains are not considered as victims and villains, but ultimately 'celebrities' who can be 'marketed' toward a certain section of the public.
- We live in a world where nothing ever happens to you is due to your own fault: whatever misfortune befalls on you, it is always someone else's fault. There are no such things as accident - accidents are opportunities to lay blame. Since someone can be blamed, you sue. You sue the schools, the shops, the companies, the local council, the hospitals, the governments, the whole world... If no one individual or group of individuals can be blamed, it is the fault of the society - society has let you down.
- We live in a world where we are constantly pursuing 'progress', but never stop and think what 'progress' really mean and where our efforts really lead to. Progress is good; change is good. It is not the result that counts, but the sheer 'progress' and 'change' that are count - the end result is just a by-product and we deal with those by-products only when we find they don't suit our need. More change needed!
What a fcuked up world we live in!
Caution: Cape does not enable user to fly. - Batman costume warning label (Rolfe, John & Troob, Peter, Monkey Business (Swinging Through the Wall Street Jungle), 2000)
Does a 500 lb precision guided munition, released from a US aircraft, that ultimately incinerates an Iraqi family make the US any less sick than the group that beheads an American citizen? Are the 2,500 US civilians killed on 9-11 worth 20,000 Afghani and Iraqi civilians killed? Is it ethical that Israel uses British and US military equipment for assassination missions or the killing of the Rachel Corries of the world?
Just to play devil's advocate:
Was the intent to incinerate the Iraqi family? Can this be held in parallel with a group that beheads American, Bulagarian, Turkish, Pakistani, Nepalese etc. citizens.
Is there a balance to drawn against people killed in the world trade centre against the removal of 2 regimes that routinely tortured and murdered it's own citizens in numbers in excess of 20,000 (perhaps someone can come up with the figures for the Taliban and Ba'ath party). And put the question to the majority of the people who are now rid of these regimes.
Last one is difficult but if they weren't supplied then the surrounding nations would wipe the Israelis from the face of the earth. Is it acceptable to eradicate one nation for the sake of another?
Not actually taking a line here but just looking at an opposite view. We should also view these situations through the eyes of the people on the ground not through those of westerners who live in a fairly soft safe society in comparison where if you so much as slip on a wet floor then someone is bound to compensate you for your discomfort.
"You want loyalty? ......get a dog!"
Not familiar with Rachel Corrie, feel free to enlighten me.
"You want loyalty? ......get a dog!"
That's a brilliant point you've highlighted there:
A terrorist to one person is a freedom fighter / revolutionary / devoted believer / etc to another.
Caution: Cape does not enable user to fly. - Batman costume warning label (Rolfe, John & Troob, Peter, Monkey Business (Swinging Through the Wall Street Jungle), 2000)
What kind of world do we live in?
A world that would be better off without the human race.
BBC News Link
A good question; in English law for instance, where an accused person denies intending to kill or cause serious harm in a murder case, it is possible for a jury to infer intent if they are certain that in the first place death or serious harm was a virtually certain consequence of the defendant's actions and that the defendant appreciated that (R v. Woollin, House of Lords, 1998). So one could phrase the question as follows; prior to releasing the 500lb bomb into a populated area, was it a virtual certainty that innocent people would be killed or seriously harmed? If so, did the US Government appreciate that such was the case? If the answer to both these questions were yes, even if that harm were not the primary stated aim of the US, then the consequences are ones which it would be possible to infer that they did intend.
I don't believe that there's any balance at all between one and the other; the Sept 11th attacks were utterly unjustifiable. The actions of the Taleban régime and the Ba'athist régime were utterly unjustifiable. That said, there's no automatic association between them; even the US Government now accepts that it is highly unlikely that there was any association between the Ba'athist government in Iraq and the events of Sept 11th. The Taleban régime absolutely, yes, had close ties with Al Qaeda, and terrorism and the state support of terrorism were good grounds for intervention in that country. They WEREN'T good grounds for intervention in Iraq. That's not to say that such intervention is wrong; I believe that the removal of the Ba'athist régime is a good thing in itself, so long as what results for the Iraqi people is genuine freedom.
That doesn't mean however that because our aims might be laudable or at least generally beneficent that we are justified in using any and all tactics in support of them.
Hmmm...that's what's known as a false dichotomy; similar to Bush stating that if you don't support EVERYTHING the US does, you're supporting terrorism. I don't support the eradication of Israel, certainly not. I think any solution to the troubles there has to recognise the Israeli need for security, and that the international community has to be prepared to underwrite Israeili security within it's own borders. If that means committing troops to defend Israel's legally established and agreed borders, and equipment to help them maintain those borders themselves, so be it. Let them build that big "security fence" if they like - so long as the land they build it on is theirs and they don't (as they have been doing) use it to annexe yet more Palestinian land. By all means when they do, help them defend it. That doesn't mean that we should be supporting, even tacitly, their own unlawful actions in lands that they are illegally occupying. Still less should we be supplying the equipment to them without obligation to refrain from those acts.
Just so's we remember that the people on the ground aren't just us, the US and the Israelis - there's rather a lot of other people living in those areas too?
This is very true and let's not forget the fact that it isn't just the 'home' nations involved. A great deal of the agitation is from outside the borders of the nations involved i.e. Iraq. Neighbours who won't pass up an opportunity to have a go at western forces away from home and with the added advantage of being able to say that it is nothing to do with them.
The whole argument is far from cut and dried. Taking a direct stance is pretty much untenable as each side has weaknesses in the argument. The ultimate answer is going to be; have the lives of the ordinary Afghans and Iraqis improved and do they prefer the results in the long term. Sitting and debating the rights and wrongs in the comfort of our own homes is pretty superfluous really as none of it afects us as a majority directly. The same people will scream for a solution (based on their own value set) will criticise and denigrate any solution that is attempted and then scream for someone to do something else. Notably not putting forward a viable solution themselves.
As for Rachel Corrie, well as an impartial viewer I doubt we will never know as both sides of the argument have an axe to grind with the other and will probably distort facts to suit their respective causes. Did the bulldozer driver see her or didn't he? Personally, emulating the Chinese protester in Tianaman square standing in front of the tank is not a good way to grow old (as I understand it the authorities disposed of said Chinese man later). She was wearing a flourescent jacket. So what? it can have a flashing 'I luv NY' on the front but still won't be seen through the blade of a bulldozer or through a pile of rubble. Of course the driver may well have thought 'silly bitch.....try this for size'. She may have slipped after deciding she had carried her protest far enough or she may have thought she was invincible behind the authority of her American passport. Either way she should have thought twice because everyone knows the Israelis play rough.
"You want loyalty? ......get a dog!"
This I agree with, and I don't believe therefore that one can say, as the US and Israel AND Putin would like, that one side is always right and one side is always wrong; I think that in the same way that the UK position when terrorists come before our courts has always been to treat each incident as a separate crime with an individual verdict in each case, we should treat the actions both of external terrorists and governments in the same way. By that I mean that the question should be "in this instance, was the act lawful and justifiable?". So in the same way that I would convict and imprison for life without possibility of parole any surviving terrorists from an incident like that in Beslan, I would, if the US failed the Woollin test above as regards the dropping of 500lb bombs, consider that innocent civilians had been intentionally harmed or killed and would ask that there be a legal response to that.
This is why I am not opposed to the decision to intervene in Iraq so long as what results is genuine freedom for the Iraqi people, and not the exchange of one dictatorship for another.
It will do if the ordinary people in an area believe that they're being ignored and ridden roughshod over; if they believe that their rights are being abrogated for someone else's interests, and if they believe that their country is subject to a foreign invader that no-one is attempting to remove. If that's the case, then it's a racing certainty that some, a small minority but some, of those people will adopt a response which is evil. Some will become recruits for Al-Qaeda or adopt their methods, as is happening in Chechnya. As I say, it doesn't make them less wrong, but it's a certainty that it'll happen. This is why every so often I say that we have to understand peoples' motivations even when they do evil things. What we've seen recently is the extreme (and evil) end of a spectrum of response to the situation in Chechnya, and that's not going to go away. If we address that then we have a chance of reducing the likelihood of people adopting an evil response to it.
I think the Chechens would put forward the view and solution that they would like the Russians to go home, please.
Given your previous pro-Israeli stance? OK, I'll take your word for it that you're adopting as impartial a view as you can.
It doesn't make them always right when they do, though, and it doesn't change the fact that they were operating in an area where they had no legal right to be, using force in pursuit of their occupation of that area. And THAT doesn't make Palestinian suicide bombers blowing up buses full of civilians right either - see above on extreme and evil responses, though.
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