NATO kills Afghan shepherd boys.

Who are the "bad guys"? Your signature implies that you already know that the "bad guys" is us:
"Government is a disease masquerading as it's own cure.

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere,diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies.
Groucho Marx"

 

Just another war crazie under color of historical virtue joined with the 3 evil spirits of Revelation 16 to thrust us all into yet another Armageddon, justifying it all by the sins, real and imagined, of others.
Haven't we had enough Armageddons already?

 

Main thing I'd like to see is hold everyone, that's everyone to the same standard. Does not matter if you are part of NATO, IDF, Pakistan, the Taliban, or even if you are some innocent goat herder, just minding your own business---all must be held to the same standard.

Did the Taliban or Al-Queda ever sign the Geneva Convention?

If you are an Islamic "freedom fighter" or whatever---you must wear a military uniform that easily identifies yourself, or be put to death without trial if caught doing anything suspicious in a war zone.

Those who harbor militants in their homes have no right to expect mercy. Culture and customs do not matter one bit. If the poor, innocent Afhgan fighters are allowed to hide under civilian protection, then NATO forces have every right to place ammo dumps and barracks inside children's schools.

 

Hold everyone to the same standard of lies, mayhem, destruction, torture, that the USA practies on a daily basis?
Here is the standard US military policy as set by Lincoln & US General Sherman that continues as active US policy to the present moment:
"We are not fighting against enemy armies, but against an enemy people, both young and old, rich and poor, and they must feel the iron hand of war in the same way as organized armies."
Here is the kind of character that the USA loves:

 

I saw that you had posted in other threads last night and this morning. I figured you had left this thread. Apparently I was mistaken, my apologies.

A timeline is appropriate here:

Attacks/demolitions in NY and DC: 9/11/2001

Obama denies involvement (confirmed interview with Unmat): 9/29/2001 http://www.globalresearch.ca/interview-with-osama-bin-laden-denies-his-involvement-in-9-11/24697

US invades Afghanistan: 10/7/2001

Date of your news article (referring to someone in a video, alleged to be Bin Laden, unverified) that you linked to: 10/29/2004

Even if Bin Laden reversed himself and took credit, that was 2004, over 3 years after the US and its lapdogs attacked Afghanistan. How was Bin Laden's involvment apparent on 10/7/2001?

He was wanted for involvement in the Khobar towers bombing. He was on the FBI ten most wanted list for that. He was never charged or wanted by the FBI for 9/11.

How very disingenuous of you. The fact that you have to resort to this says much.

Other countries did it too? That justifies USA and NATO killing innocent shepherds and hundreds, if not thousands of other innocents in Afghanistan? (Not to mention thousands more in all the other places in the ME and Africa).

Moral relativism. Pfft.

 

Yes when the people become to complacent and stop holding their public officials accountable for their actions mayhem follows, and becomes the rule of the day. The problem with these "wars" is there was no established line crossed, never an actual goal, no exit strategy, well not until enough money could be squeezed out of the veins of the American workers/taxpayers. We don't even know who we are fighting. We basically appointed the Afghanistan leaders as the eligible candidate to be voted on (just like Iraq), but now he (they) evidently are accusing the USA of coordinating an endless effort of mayhem with the supposed enemy. Basically playing the political propaganda route to assure they have some credibility when the USA finally gets the hell out of that (*)(*)(*)(*) hole.

I couldn't tell you squat about what is actually going on there, and I doubt the people who are there could either. But when YOU go to war the goal is to end the matter as quickly and efficiently as humanly possible. It's not pretty and it certainly isn't civilized, but it does create some form of closure if both parties are in agreement. Otherwise you are just pissing in the wind. Making rules about who wears what color, whether they march in a straight line, or insure the bombs and ammo is clean and rust free so they will not cause an infection when they tear the flesh, is just psycho babble bull (*)(*)(*)(*). If you are at war the idea is to win, period. Why would you expect anything different from the other guy?

 

Rules are a joke! We will kill any and all of your troupes but we will never harm an officer, and treat them as if they were our own, tells me that the heart of the leaders isn't in the fight and something else is actually going on. When you are attacked you show little mercy and fight just as hard as you do the first day until it is over and finished. The goal is to win, not to milk it for all it is financially worth or so you can get a deal when and if you lose. You are either in it to win it all the way or it is a sham. No better than an elitist leisurely activity betting with the lives and livelihoods of the peasants who are disposable at best in their supremacist minds.

 

Well, excuuuussseee MEEEE!

First off, please tell me what government over the last 200 years has fought with a code of honor acceptable to your standards? Who are they?

Have your examples done any fighting to help share responsibility for making the world a better place?

 

I'm not sure how many times I have to say this. I actually prefer a lot less intervention than we currently engage in.

Whenever possible, I vote for non-interventionists.

The difference between me and a lot of other non-interventionists, however, is that I don't idealize how war should be fought.

If you commit to war, you don't win by being a boy scout.

 

If you consider the coalition that invaded Afghanistan to be our lapdogs, then I guess most of the world is our lapdogs. Very few countries didn't participate.

The fact that you support the people fighting us says plenty about you as well.

And if the shoe was on the other foot, I can assure you they'd kill a lot more people than we would.

All you have to do is observe how bloody the Islamic conquests were.

Like it or not, there is always going to be some country or empire dominating the world. We just happen to be the top dog right now.

A few centuries from now, it might be China or maybe Brazil.

Compared to the empires of the past, we're more merciful than a lot of our predecessors.

And yes, it is a matter of relativism. I know you like to tout the absolutism flag, but basically everyone is a relativist at some point.

For example, most of us agree that murder is wrong overall, but very few of us wouldn't make exceptions for self-defense.

Therefore, the morality of killing is relative to the situation. It's not absolutely wrong for most people.

 

Again you dodge a question. You float like a butterfly but you have no sting...

How many murderers have to participate for the murders to not be crimes?

I support defenders and innocents. Apparently you support aggressors.

But the shoe is not on the other foot and was not about to be. Still no justification for the US's aggressive war.

Which goes against US law and founding principles. Which makes the imperial US government an illegal usurper regime and America, by its moronic acceptance of the regime, a rogue nation.

More like a few decades, the way the US regime is running America into the ground with endless war, enormous debt and endless printing of funny-money.

Merciful? Merciful to fat-cat "defense" contractors, maybe. Certainly not merciful to shepherd boys.

Even if I accept this, which I do not, the situation under discussion does not justify the killing.

 

No, there is no justification for it, none. Anybody attempting to so do is of unsound mind. All killers are- especially those who believe that they are ' authorized ' to kill. These particular killers have parted with their souls.

 

A crime is defined by those in charge -- which goes back to that side discussion we had on war crimes.

Only the losers of a war typically are charged with anything. There are a few cases where we've held soldiers accountable for things like the killings in Fallujah, but overall, most of the world apparently doesn't consider the war in Afghanistan to be a crime.

Again, it's relative to who considers it a crime.

You can continue viewing this with idealism, but it's not going to change anything.

I support self-interest. What's most in our self-interest is leaving. Short of that, it's just a matter of making whatever decisions are necessary to contain the insurgency.

It doesn't really go against our founding principles considering the fact that the entire time we've existed as a nation, we've either taken land from natives or exerted influence militarily and economically in lands outside of our country.

The same could be said for most other major nations. The only real difference is the scale, which is a result of differences in technology from past regimes.

So, as much as some people would like to believe in American exceptionalism, it's not reality. At the time when this phrase was first coined, we were exceptional in our unique part of history, but at this point, plenty of other nations resemble our own in terms of democracy and interventionism.

Maybe so. And if it falls below a certain level, I'll probably make the necessary moves to enter whatever country takes our place.

There's not a lot of mercy to go around in Afghanistan to begin with. It's been a battleground for various forces throughout the ages. We just happen to be the latest conquerors.

When it's not outside forces fighting there, it's a matter of tribes fighting each other.

So you disagree with the notion that the morality of murder is relative?

Interesting. That means you can't defend the defenders then. They are attempting to remove us from the area by killing our soldiers.

 

In other words, crime is in the eye of the beholder. The American founders' view is idealism. Got it.

I disagree.

The only way to contain the "insurgency" is to leave. No occupation, no "insurgency".

As advanced as their thinking was for their time, the founders were still products of their era. They were also not in control of everyone else. Especially those who came after them. Idealistic as you think I am, my "idealism" is codified in a legal document created by those founders and ratified by the pre-existing states that formed the orginal union. That document is still the supreme law of the land. It does not authorize our agent, the US government, to form an empire with a unitary executive serving as judge, jury, and executioner.

Well look at that. We agree on something.

So you're an opportunist, not a patriot. I kinda figured that already.

And that's all we are, just the latest conquerors. Nothing special, just normal business for an empire.

Killing in defense is not murder.

 

It is a defense to a murder charge, so you are wrong and have just relativised murder.

 

Patriotism is for people attached to nations. I support individualism, not patriotism.

You call it opportunism. I call it adaptation.

Did you expect something more? The nations change, but human nature remains the same.

At best, you can push for better leadership, but even in doing so, you have to keep your expectations realistic.

See Liebe's post. That's how it works.

And when it comes to war, both sides engage in murder. It's just not prosecuted as such.

 

No, you are wrong and have just misrepresented the English language:

1 mur·der
noun \ˈmər-dər\
Definition of MURDER
1: the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought

2
a : something very difficult or dangerous <the traffic was murder>
b : something outrageous or blameworthy <getting away with murder>

2 murder
verb
mur·deredmur·der·ing
Definition of MURDER
transitive verb
1: to kill (a human being) unlawfully and with premeditated malice
2: to slaughter wantonly : slay
3
a : to put an end to
b : tease, torment
c : mutilate, mangle <murders French>
d : to defeat badly

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/murder

 

No both sides do not engage in murder. See my response to Liebe's post.

 

And law is determined by the ruling party.

During war, killing done by both sides isn't regarded as murder. It's only after war that some killings are deemed murder.

So, this is largely dependent on who wins the war.

 

Care to clarify?

 

Conceptually, you can call the killing done by both sides "murder." It's like when you called the deaths caused by our drone strikes "murder."

You were using the term in a figurative sense. It's not literally a murder until it's prosecuted as such.

That's why I mentioned that murder is a matter of how the law recognizes a killing.

On the other hand, I was acknowledging that, figuratively, you can consider either side to be committing murder.

If we assume a killing to be something not regarded as murder when it is done in self-defense, this still doesn't let the defenders off of the hook.

Drone strikes aren't done in self-defense, but then again, neither are truck bombings, IEDs, or sniping soldiers.

So, if we want to examine individual incidents of killings and how they could be prosecuted, plenty of potential murder is being done by both sides.

The potential is contingent on prosecution.

 

I think I'll just stick with the dictionary definition. Much simpler, as basic facts usually are. No law or prosecutor is required to know what murder is and that it is wrong.

 

Hardly. The opposition/resistance have laws of their own. Nobody stays on top forever.

 

Good luck with all that. Not all of us view life in black and white terms.

Sure. Although, since I'm not a fan of Sharia Law, it's hard for me to sympathize with the resistance in Afghanistan.

 

The Afghan resistance doesn't need your sympathy.