Hamas = Barbarians?

Discussion in 'Off-Topic Discussions' started by Orson, Aug 2, 2002.

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  1. Orson

    Orson New Member

    "BARBARIANS: Doesn't it tell you everything that Hamas bombed a university?"

    --Andrew Sullivan (andrewsullivan.com)
     
  2. Wes Grady

    Wes Grady New Member

    Hamas gives barbarians a bad name..... and not just for bombing a university...

    Wes
     
  3. Dennis Ruhl

    Dennis Ruhl member

    Hamas

    And the Palestinian struggle for independence differs from every other one in which ways?

    In their colonial wars of independence the European powers were challenged by an enemy that could not beat them on the battlefield.

    The revolutionaries by selective and indiscriminant targeting of both civilian and military targets eventually made the price of occupation too high for the colonial powers. An example being the bombing of the King David Hotel.

    Nothing is simple in the middle east. Perhaps it is time for Israel to declare victory and entrench behind defendable barriers and remove themselves from the middle east.

    Arabs have a long memory. Independence in the region was yeterday, the crusades were last week.
    Whether victory comes tomorrow or in 100 years, the struggle will continue.

    The methods of Hamas, while certainly unpalatable to Westerners must be understood in a middle eastern context.

    Killing innocent people to accomplish objectives is certainly not something that America or Canada has ever had a problem with, as in the bombings of WWII.
     
  4. DaveHayden

    DaveHayden New Member

    Re: Hamas

    Yes, I guess Universities and night clubs are a hot bed of military production and activity. Next maybe O.B. wards in Hospitals?
     
  5. Dennis Ruhl

    Dennis Ruhl member

    Re: Re: Hamas

    Since when have Americans backed away from killing civilians in a war effort. The night clubs, universities and hospitals and good citizens in Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were shown no mercy. Even Canada lost 10,000 aircrew flattening Germany. For every act of immorality we can find in others, we can probably find several in ourselves, speaking as nations.
     
  6. Ike

    Ike New Member

    A neutral opinion

    While I am against terrorism directed to civilians in all its manifestations, we have to acknowledge that without prejudice, the two sides (Israelis and Palestinians) should be blamed for what is happening over there.
     
  7. me again

    me again Well-Known Member

    Bloodshed is not the answer...

    Thank you for the question:
    • Teaching their young to murder innocent women and children during non-combatant scenarios.
    • Martyrdom [sic] for people who kill non-combatant women and children.
    • The belief that if you kill women and children for your political cause, then you will automatically go to heaven [sic] if you are killed in the process.
    That‘s just for starters.
    You make a good point, but that was a “World War” involving several nations that spanned a couple of continents and the high seas. They were fighting for control of the earth. Is that different than fighting for a small parcel of land? Yes, there is a difference.

    I don’t think that we can kill the Jews. They have as much of a right to live as the Palestinians. The issue of ”driving the Jews into the sea” is a moot point. All stakeholders in that philosophy should go ahead and bury it because the issue is dead and it will never happen. If the shareholders of that philosophy would discard that idea, then it would be much more peaceful in Israel today.

    When the Hamas affectionally dress up their six year old sons as suicide bombers (with fake explosives wrapped around their bodies), then what are they teaching their young? They are teaching them that martyrdom as a suicide bomber is a noble cause that is highly respected by the Palestinians.

    Bloodshed is not the answer.
    This is another good question and I appreciate you asking it. Thank you:
    • In the conflict in Afghanistan, we have been using precision guided missiles that hit with near-pinpoint accuracy, thus avoiding collateral damages against non-combatant civilians. We don’t strap bombs around our torsos and then walk into a crowed pedestrian market where innocent civilians are taking care of economic commerce and then KABOOM -- blow’em up [sic].
    • In one controversial killing, we targeted a civilian wedding and we killed the participants. However, they were indiscriminately shooting automatic weapons into the air and our pilots thought that they were under attack. Put yourself in the pilots seat: You’re in a plane in the air and guns are presumably being fired towards you. :eek: The pilots didn’t know it was a wedding, but they knew that guns were being fired at them. That’s all they knew. Do you fault the pilots for this?

      :confused:
    • In the war with Sadaam, our precision guided missiles were not indiscriminately aimed at civilian population centers.
    • In our modern age, with our precision guided missiles, if you are suggesting that we are targeting civilians, then you get an “F.” Go back and re-do your paper.
    That was in an age when we did not have precision guided munitions. Also, we saved an estimated 10,000 American lives for one beachhead operation by targeting Hiroshima and Nagasaki. How many beachheads would we have had to attack to conquer the entire Japanese mainland?

    I deeply regret that Japan attacked the United States and then suffered the consequences. I also deeply regret that we saved thousands of American lives by bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
    That’s a good point that we need to share with the Palestinians. You’re not suggesting that it’s kosher to train children on how to die as suicide bombers, are you?

    :confused:
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 2, 2002
  8. Ike

    Ike New Member

    Mr. you again:
    Arabs have also been unfairly portrayed in the west. Most children in the west do think of Arabs as uncivilized barbarians even prior to 9/11.

    (Note: I am not an Arab. I am catholic and unbiased)
     
  9. me again

    me again Well-Known Member

    The Arabs are a Noble People.

    No, I don’t think that Arabs have been negatively portrayed, particularly in older American films. The Arabs are a very noble people with a rich cultural history. I don’t think that anyone has a negative image of Arabia. It is a desert beauty that is inhabitated by a majestic people!!! :)

    However, we do seem to have some cells of barbaric terrorist who are hell-bent on the destruction of the West and of Israel. Just because we point this fact out doesn’t mean that we’re casting all Arabs in an unfavorable light. :rolleyes:

    Most of us have the common sense to be able to distinguish a Middle Eastern terrorist from the rich cultural history that is in the Arabic culture.
     
  10. me again

    me again Well-Known Member

    Arabia

    • P.S. -- Note: I am not an Arab. I am Anglo-Saxon and unbiased.
    • P.S.S -- I am particularly fond of Arabs. I think that of all the different Middle Eastern cultures, theirs is the richest and the most admirable. I guess you could say that I'm biased in this one particular area. ;)
     
  11. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    Re: Bloodshed is not the answer...

    As a career (now retired) Air Force officer, I got to study this stuff. It has been estimated that the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved as many as one million Japanese, American, and Allied lives, when compared to what it would have taken to conquer Japan. Japan's willingness to fight to the finish was demonstrated clearly throughout the Pacific campaign. Not to mention the fact that they did not surrender after the Hiroshima attack; Nagasaki was three days later.

    There is little will on the Arab and Palestinian sides to stop this conflict, short of the destruction of Israel. Assuming this is unacceptable, what will bring peace?

    I believe the Israelis are in a position to unilaterally pull back from most of the West Bank, likely retaining a small strip for security purposes. They can keep the Golan Heights (again, for security) and all of Jerusalem (because they can). Using their military and civil superiority, they can then secure and defend their border. The Palestinians (and their descendents) who used to live in what is now Israel are out of luck, as are the Israeli settlers currently on the West Bank. The Palestinians stay in the West Bank and the Israelis return to Israel. Then Israel turns to Jordan and Saudi Arabia and says, "They're your problem. Deal with it." The Palestinians will be left with a contiguous territory with defined borders. The Jordanians and the Saudis can assist with setting up and administering a government. The Israelis can then treat any further incursions as the acts of war they really are.

    I'm not saying who's right and who's wrong. Both sides are way out of line. But the Israelis could stop it all now, by themselves.
     
  12. Dennis Ruhl

    Dennis Ruhl member

    You Again

    Note that I am neither anti-American nor pro-Palestinian. I do believe that the WWII nukes saved lives. This thread started with an anti-Palestinian (more precisely anti-Hamas) slant and I was just pointing out parallels in history from a different point of view.
     
  13. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    Re: You Again

    You serve to point out that there are no absolutes in this or any other thing. There are many things the U.S. is doing wrong over there.
     
  14. dlkereluk

    dlkereluk New Member

    Re: A neutral opinion

    Yes. As others have said, though, violence is not the answer.
     
  15. rabrou

    rabrou New Member

    For better or worse?

    The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), otherwise known as the Tamil Tigers, emerged on the scene in the 1970s. They are one of the world's most notorious terrorist groups. In their unrelenting drive for a separate homeland on the island, the Tigers have carried out more suicide bombings than Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Al Qaeda combined.

    http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/srilanka/index.html

    Of course, independent reports say that over 3.000 Afghani civilians - roughly the same number of civilians killed in the September 11 attacks - have been killed as a result of the US air strikes in Afghanistan since the attacks on the World Trade Center/Pentagon last year.

    Are Hamas leaders barbarians? Undoubtedly some are. Are Al-Qaeda death merchants beneath contempt? Again, the answer is yes. Is the United States (or Britain, or Israel, or any national) government or military free of these unsavory types? Not by a long shot.

    When savagery is ubiquitous, one doesn't have to look on the other side of the world for a place to point out the origins of the vicious cycles that result from hatred and greed. And one doesn't have to leave his or her living room to begin the end of those hopeless cycles.

    -Rabrogating
     
  16. Orson

    Orson New Member

    Re: Re: Re: Hamas

    Ever since the advent of modern industrialized warfare, nations and peoples have been faced with the worst possible of utilitarian choices: how do we achieve this goal or objective, kill the fewest innocent lives, and have the fewest casualties of our own?

    I envy no one who has faced this--and am glad to have never faced it, personally. However, as a citizen of the sole surviving world Super-Power, I know I am obliged to join in--and think long and hard about these issues myself. Therefore, I have been, and remain easily, on BOTH sides! It is hard...!

    Another who has thought long and hard about it is historian Stephen Ambrose. I watched his interview this past week on PBS' Newshour. In his youth, in his "Rise To Globalism" (which was the first book of his I've read), he believed the A-bomb was dropped on Japan immorally. Now, however, facing death from cancer, he's writing his last book, his swan song and "love letter" to America. Now Ambrose thinks that The Bomb saved the world from the Greatest Battle never fought--the one bound to have exacted the most lives ever lost!--The Battle of Tokyo.

    I'm going to read this forthcoming book; perhaps, Dennis, you will, too. Perhaps all the better to think and re-think, long and hard. (Lord knows, it's easy to "feel" and vent over them! I sure have.)

    --Orson
     "We will have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us."   Golda Meir
     
  17. irat

    irat New Member

    What is terrorism?

    Hamas approved the attack on a university. Hamas had to know that Americans and foreigners would be at the university. Clearly they are widening the war.
    At the same time the USA is talking about exterminating a foreign leader in the middle east. There has been no trial. There is currently no declaration of war. Doesn't the USA have laws against killing people outside of warfare? (and outside of legal convictions for specific crimes). Doesn't he United Nations frown on killing people without trials or declarations of war?
    If Saddam deserves to be killed for his acts. Why can't other countries say the same thing about Americans? Hamas says the USA arms the Israelis to kill palestinis?
    Castro knows the USA tried to kill him several different ways. Does he have the right to kill the Americans who perpretated this? (without a declaration of war or conviction in court of the perpetrators?)
    All the best!
     
  18. Orson

    Orson New Member

    Ah! The beouty of the "Arab mind"...

    Mark Steyn observed--in the Daily Telegraph (London) 8/3/02--
    "an estimated 10,000 Palestinians whooped it up in the streets of Gaza, celebrating their glorious victory on the battlefield of the university's Frank Sinatra Centre."

    Which reminds me of an obersvation by General George S. Patton
    (diary June 9, 1943):

    ""One cannot but ponder the question: what if the Arabs had been Christians? To me it seems certain that the fatalistic teachings of Mohammed and the utter degradation of women is the outstanding cause for the arrested development of the Arab. He is exactly what he was around the year 700, while we have kept on developing. Here, I think, is a text for some eloquent sermon on the virtues of Christianity."

    Perhaps the much rebuked columnist (last fall), Ann Coulter, was on to something.

    --Orson
     
  19. Orson

    Orson New Member

    Re: What is terrorism?

    SORRY to tell you this, Irat, but not only has Saddam routinely violated the terms of the peace treaty that ended Gulf War hostilities in 1991 (the first pretext for war), but, under international law, the pre-emptive strike against a threatening foreign power is also permitted (a second pretext for a US war on Iraq).

    But I believe that the ultimate rationale for war involves the geopolitics of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism, i.e., that Iran is its original fountainhead; they sponsor Hamas, Hezbolah [sp?]). The stategic goal? isolate this theocratic state--wait out a popular revolution, in a nation where popular democratic rule may be nascent.

    Why don't the Bushies just say so? It would alienate our alies and push fundamentalist sympathizers into the arms of our terrorist enemies! Such an announced strategy would be perceived as an attack aggainst Islam, per se.

    So, I'm not holding my breath--like the NYTimes, Wash Post columnist Richard Reeves, et. al.-- waiting for the announcement from the White House!

    --Orson
     
  20. Tracy Gies

    Tracy Gies New Member

    What gets me is that there is great consternation over how Muslims are being portrayed, but little such consternation over how Jews have been portrayed for centuries. How is that nearly everyone can agree that the violence perpetrated by Hamas is wrong, but that Isreal is equally wrong for defending itself against such violence? And how, exactly, would any abstention from violence on the part of Isreal thwart an enemy that is sworn to Isreal's extermination?
     

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