Imagine, for a moment, that you live in a small town somewhere near the Southern California coast. You’re going about your daily life, trying to scrape by in hard times, when the missile hits. It might have come from the Iranian unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) – its pilot at a base on the outskirts of Tehran – that has had the village in its sights for the last six hours or from the Russian sub stationed just off the coast. In either case, it’s devastating.
In Moscow and Tehran, officials announce that, in a joint action, they have launched the missile as part of a carefully coordinated “surgical” operation to take out a “known terrorist,” a long-term danger to their national security. A Kremlin spokesman offers the following statement:
“As we have repeatedly said, we will continue to pursue terrorist activities and their operations wherever we may find them. We share common goals with respect to fighting terrorism. We will continue to seek out, identify, capture, and, if necessary, kill terrorists where they plan their activities, carry out their operations, or seek safe harbor.”
A couple in a ramshackle house just down the street from you – he’s a carpenter; she works at the local Dairy Queen – are killed along with their pets. Their son is seriously wounded, their home blown to smithereens. Neighbors passing by as the missile hits are also wounded…As news of the “collateral damage” from the botched operation dribbles out, the Russian and Iranian media pay next to no attention. There are no outraged editorials. Official spokesmen see no need to comment further. No one is held responsible and no promises are made in either Tehran or Moscow that similar assassination strikes won’t be launched in the near future, based on “actionable intelligence,” possibly even on the same town. In fact, the next day, seeing UAVs once again soaring overhead, you load your pickup and prepare to flee.
Of course, it doesn’t matter – if it really doesn’t happen here.
Right?
Oh stop, Señor Catshit… I’m blushing 😉
of course, you all know the US is way too weak, being the paper tiger pussies they are…to actually retaliate to anything like this right? radioactive wasteland I think not….the US is full of retarded pussies and weak gun-loving fags who couldn’t defend their asses from a randy rapist much less an invading force. give it up already.
So tell me, catshit, if someone has made it his business to kill you, are you going to rest easy at night because a court of proper jurisdiction has duly issued a restraining order against that person?
If yes: you are an idiot.
If no: you agree with me about the state of law between nations.
Have a nice day.
Bob, you will never understand the point if you keep reducing things to black and white issues. Right and wrong is a continuum and you can rarely be 100% right. That thinking is what allows people to build arguments for these type of acts and when we allow ourselves to think like that we allow ourselves to be hoodwinked.
Life is grey. In this continuum Afghanistan started light grey but has darkened over time. Iraq is very, very dark.
And #31, you are correct that analogy does not provide proof, but it is a good aid to clarifying what the key points to the argument.
#35, bob,
The failure in your argument is you are blind to reality. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
Most Middle East and Arabic nations understood getting Iraq out of Kuwait. What they didn’t understand was the wanton killing of retreating conscripted Iraqi soldiers. Thousands died on that highway. So who made enemies that day.
Well, the US did take Israel’s side, they provided her with munitions and intelligence, they regularly give a lot of money. With that aid, Israel has subjugated the Palestinians, murdered their leaders, with held food and medicine, destroyed infrastructure, imprisoned people for no reason, taken their land without recourse or payment, and held them in enforced ghettos.
So Israel’s friend was attacked. No, I don’t condone the attacks in 1993 or 9/11, but I understand the hate that caused it. This wasn’t something out of the blue. American foreign policy made a group our enemy. That isn’t hypothetical.
The only ones who like a bully is the bully himself. He ends up despised by everyone else, even those he counts as his friends.
Something not on the table is the fact that this administration allowed 9/11 to occur, even after being handed volumes of good intelligence (boy, is that an ironic use) about what was being done to plan an attack on us. The Bush Crime Family still needs to go to prison for lowering our guard so that the family friends (the Bin Laden Organization) to pull this off. I love that Bush I was playing golf with Osama’s brother when the attacks occurred.
37 MC.
I didn’t realize the convoy had surrendered with white flags. Or had they?
I wonder if Israel’s response had anything to do with Arab efforts to remove Israel from the map?
38 Cochituate. And then you have the DU liberals upset at present efforts to raise the guard. Make up your mind.
Osama had 4,382 brothers, give or take a few: owners of one of the largest Arab companies. I guess you also love that Bush was a pilot and so were some of the terrorists.
RBG
#39, RBG,
They were trapped on a road. They couldn’t go anywhere and they were strafed until every vehicle was destroyed. They were not given a chance to surrender.
White flags? Sure, like every soldier carries one. I have heard some asshat comments but that ranks right up there with the best of joshua, James Hill, Lyin’ MikeN, and Philleep.
So you think that is just one battle. Many others think it was genocide. How would you feel if your brother / cousin / father / son / next door neighbor was killed on that highway? Would you want revenge?
*
Israel was put in the middle of Arab territory. While the local population was willing to have them as neighbors, they were not willing to divide their country into a patchwork. Yet Europe insisted on a Jewish homeland to ease their own guilt after the holocaust.