War and Morality. Al Qaeda v USA

I was reading the news this morning and came across a couple of disturbing articles. Even though President Obama is pledging and trying to get our troops home, and even though we have spent more money fixing Afghanistan's infrastructure than we should be spending on our own, there continue to be random and cowardly (in my opinion) acts of terrorism against troops and civilians alike.Suicide truck bomber targets Afghan hospital, kills 30The real question: How to achieve AfghanizationThe gall of these people! They should expect war if they continue doing the things that they are doing! I realize that the U.S. is far from innocent in matters of efficient killing, but we do at least try and target non-civilians, within the limits of our technological capacity to do so. What does Al Qaeda want from us? Why are these people under such enormous social and cultural pressure to fight us?I still don't understand the mindset nor the motive. Edited by Phat, : fixed linkEdited by Phat, : changed topic title

Well they derive their morality from the quoran or their beliefso from their perspective they are the purely moral ones while the US is thoroughly immoral, so it is their duty to bring morality to America by any means necessary.It would not help much if the US gave all its money to Afghanistan, or if they would have never killed a civilian they would still be considered immoral and an enemy of Allah. The only way you could become friendly to those nations is if the whole of America would convert to Muslim, that you would change your constitution to be compatible with the quo ran ......Or time and a whole lot of it because this generation is alredy taught to hate the infidels hopefully the next will not be or the next or the next.......

The ability to target individuals instead of populations is close to realization. The wife says leave Afghanistan to the relatively civilizing force of the Iranians, I say leave Afghanistan period and let technology (or in one recent case, Delta Team 6) deal with individual threats.

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The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas - uncertainty, progress, change - into crimes.
Salman RushdieThis rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It’s us. Only us. - the character Rorschach in Watchmen

How much money does it cost to create, build, maintain and use smart weapons?How much does it cost to create, build, maintain and use an improvised explosive device?If you are a poor peasant fighting to drive the invaders out of your country, which of those weapons is in the realm of possibilities?

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

many billions. perhaps five hundred dollars This is what I dont understand, though. This conflict is more than poor peasants driving out the "infidels". Most of these peasants are not Al Qaeda members, and many are told to fight. Besides, we rebuild their infrastructure better than it was before in many cases. My question is directed at actual Al Qaeda operatives. No peasant in their right mind wants to blow themselves up to save the family goat.

Then I don't think you should be expecting a reply... at least I'm not aware of any that frequent EvC. There... that's better.Jon

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Love your enemies!

When all you have is a family goat, would you not want to protect it?If your nation was invaded, would you not want to try to expel the invaders?

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

I am at a loss...to comprehend...and I don't think we are the bad guys. Browsing the internet, I looked for opinions and comments of others. I realize that this is not the best way to find answers, but it may lead to further questions. Surely the people of Afghanistan have a choice whether to support the Taliban or to support the Western Democratic system of capitalism and commerce. It would be the same as if my neighbor had a rowdy house guest who scared my children and egged my car. Would it not be my neighbors responsibility to expel this house guest for the good of the neighborhood?? I know that some of you may ask why we have the right to try and change another culture. The fact is though, many of them hate us and mostly because they don't want to understand us any more than we want to understand them. As long as they plan on attacking us, we need to react and react forcefully.

Do you know what a CWO is?Factually, the gentleman is incorrect when he says, "We don’t want to be in Afghanistan, we have never invaded a country for the purpose of occupying it or taking its land or resources. " and also when he says "We are there because it was the birthplace of the plot to destroy the World Trade Center and ruin the financial district of America. "We have invaded countries to take the land and resources, and the list is quite long and includes much of what is today the US.The evidence shows that much of the planning and training for the 9-11 attacks took place all over the world, Indonesia, Canada, Spain, England, France and the US as well as Brazil IIRC.And do you really think that the best way to get folk to love us is to invade their country?

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Can you show us that evidence. It is a bit of a sensitive issue for us north of the border because we often hear stories about how the 9/11 terrorists came through Canada when discussions of border security come up. It just ain't true.

Well, border security is pretty much a joke anyway. Non of the participants seem to have traveled illegally during the event.But yes, I can document that but it will take considerable time that I'm simply not likely to invest. But it's all available in the tens of thousands of pages that were published on the investigations.By the way, the incident regarding terrorists crossing from Canada that I know of was unrelated to 9-11 and was a West Coast incident.My point is that Afghanistan played almost no role in the 9-11 attack or any of the preparations.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Then in your next post you say..... I just want to be clear that there is no Canadian connection with the 9/11 attacks.By the way, the incident that you mentioned where an alert border guard picked up some one trying to cross from here was on a ferry that I watch sail out every day from the front of my home.

Whatever.The point is that none of the countries INCLUDING Iraq and Afghanistan and yes, even Canada had anything to do with the events of 9-11. The folk involved, particularly in the planning, were mobile people that moved freely throughout the world, and that the majority of the training and planning happened in the US, Indonesia and Germany, yet TTBOMK we have not yet invaded any of them.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

The attacks were attributed to Al Qaeda, however, and the Taliban hosted the Al Qaeda leadership. With the intelligence that we had at that time, we simply couldn't have sent James Bond or Maxwell Smart around the world to pick off individual targets. We had an enemy that had identified itself and that had taken claim to an act of terror, and we had terrorists who came from Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Afghanistan was a known training center for terrorists and we had to appease the victims families by doing something! What else could we have done? Edited by Phat, : added

We could have gone after the individuals.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!