Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
We hope you enjoy your visit.


You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free.


Join our community!


If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features:

Username:   Password:
Add Reply
Reaction to the Nick Berg outrage
Topic Started: May 12 2004, 12:50 AM (1,727 Views)
somerled
Member Avatar
Admiral MacDonald RN
Minuet :
You've a short memory and no I can't be bothered seeking out a quote from you from another relatively recent thread - and even if I didn't have to sit an exam at 9am tomorrow - I wouldn't bother.

You are the one who is offended - you prove your allegation.

Talking about exams - I'd better get back to the lecture notes and text book - I've already wasted too much time here tonight - back to the grind-stone !
Offline | Profile | Quote | ^
 
Minuet
Member Avatar
Fleet Admiral Assistant wRench, Chief Supper Officer
With regards to the question about Jewish Martyrdom I found the following article which I thought was a good one.

A new kind of Jewish martyr, dying for Kiddush Hashem

Quote:
 
In most of Jewish history, those who died for kiddush hashem, making the Name of God holy, were killed precisely because they were Jews who were upholding Torah for the sake of the Jewish people. Their attackers, like the Roman authorities two thousand years ago, were enraged by their Jewish commitment itself, and they died mostly in company with other Jews — usually not along with those of other ethnic or spiritual communities.

This sort of martyrdom continues to happen, especially among the victims of terrorist attacks in Israel or elsewhere — though now the dead of such attacks often include non-Jews as well.

AND — One of the measures of a new turn in Jewish history is that the following
people were murdered because they were acting out of a Jewish concern for
universal values. Many were killed along with people of other
traditions and communities not as a "side effect" but precisely because they were working together on behalf of the universal values of justice, peace, and the empowerment of the poor.

They were killed not because they were Jews, but because they were acting upon profound Jewish values. This is a new path of Kiddush hashem — making holy God's Name — well befitting a new world in which Judaism stands alongside and with other paths of decency and holiness.



Under this definition I would say that Berg was definitely a martyr because he was in Iraq to help rebuild. He was not there for a specific Jewish cause, but he was there because of the values that Judaism taught him. If you read the whole article Daniel Pearl is one of those listed as a person the author thinks is a martyr.
Offline | Profile | Quote | ^
 
Minuet
Member Avatar
Fleet Admiral Assistant wRench, Chief Supper Officer
somerled
May 13 2004, 09:53 AM
Minuet :
You've a short memory and no I can't be bothered seeking out a quote from you from another relatively recent thread - and even if I didn't have to sit an exam at 9am tomorrow - I wouldn't bother.

You are the one who is offended - you prove your allegation.

Talking about exams - I'd better get back to the lecture notes and text book - I've already wasted too much time here tonight - back to the grind-stone !

Ok, I will say it outright. You refuse to look not because you are lazy and not because you are busy. I submit it is because you are lying and know that the allegation does not exist. I have nothing to prove. Your lack evidence to back up YOUR allegations is all the proof I need.

Edit - How the hell does one go about proving one DID NOT say something anyways! I can't quote a non existing quote. You don't make any sense. The burden of proof is always on the person making the claim.
Offline | Profile | Quote | ^
 
ImpulseEngine
Admiral
doctortobe
May 13 2004, 12:09 AM
I have seen the question, how does that make us different from the terrorists? The answer is simple. If we were to totally back out of the Middle East and halt all attacks, the Muslems would still attack us. If the Muslems would cease their attacks on us, we would live in peace with them.

Sorry, but that only justifies our defending ourselves by some means. It doesn't justify behaving in the same animalistic manner.
Offline | Profile | Quote | ^
 
ImpulseEngine
Admiral
Swidden
May 13 2004, 01:45 AM
Frankly, I don't see this altering substantially our methods in fighting the war in Iraq. I can only hope that we will be able to finally track down this Zawaqiri (?sp.) bastard and help arrange his introduction to Allah with all due haste.

I'm not convinced that he was behind the beheading. (But he certainly needs to be caught and made to face the consequences anyway for obvious other reasons.) I was thinking, if they wanted the world to know he and al Qaeda were responsible, why hide behind masks? :shrug: This is especially true if he actually did the beheading. (I've heard 2 versions - one says he did it, another says he's behind it - i.e., just ordered it and might not have even been present.)
Offline | Profile | Quote | ^
 
Fesarius
Member Avatar
Admiral
Minuet,

Thank you for that excellent information on martyrdom. It's interesting where the article leads near the end--to other subjects close to my heart.

Quote:
 
Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner (both Jews), and James Chaney (an African-American) were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi June 21, 1964, while taking part in Freedom Summer in support of full civil rights for the Black community of Mississippi.

Allison Krause, a student at Kent State University, was one of four students killled by the Ohio National Guard on May 4, 1970. The Guard fired on a nonviolent demonstration against the Vietnam War. Krause was a committed Jew, the daughter of a Reform Jewish family, who opposed the US war against Vietnam out of a sense of the meaning of Judaism.

Gosh, Allison Krause. We almost named one of our daughters after her. I remember Kent State (as well as Jackson State) like it was yesterday. The tragedies in 1964 (as well as that of Medgar Evers) and those of 1970 are subjects that I have studied intensely over the years, and for which I have a great affinity. The name of Allison Krause (*not* the singer, obviously), as well as those of Scheuer, Miller, and Schroeder, have become household names for me.
Offline | Profile | Quote | ^
 
Intrepid2002
Member Avatar
UNGH!
Quote:
 
I can't go along with advocating the same kind of barbarism that these animals are guilty of.  The horror of that slaying just underscores that point.  If there is one thing that is obvious about that video it's that it is not ok EVER FOR ANY REASON.

So what do we do...?


What do we do indeed. People from the opposite side have presented themselves eloquently on this thread. Regardless of the 'hoowah', 'let's kill all them damn terrorists', 'let's fight a real war', 'one or two atom bombs oughta do it'
'*bleep* this PC war' rhetoric, they at least present their solution.

I don't agree with their solution, but what do wedo? We're so far in that there is no true victory. Hearts and minds? We're way past that now. It's the majority of the military over there desperately trying to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people (most by the way who happen to be Muslim) and all that is shot down the tubes with ignorant behavior of prison guards and the subsequent beheading of an innocent american man just trying to help out.

What else is there left for us to do except vote in November and pray?.......
Offline | Profile | Quote | ^
 
ImpulseEngine
Admiral
Intrepid2002
May 13 2004, 11:08 AM
What do we do indeed. People from the opposite side have presented themselves eloquently on this thread. Regardless of the 'hoowah', 'let's kill all them damn terrorists', 'let's fight a real war', 'one or two atom bombs oughta do it'
'*bleep* this PC war' rhetoric, they at least present their solution.

I also presented a solution.

I will vote in November. As an atheist/agnostic I won't be praying. Sorry, but I fail to see what these two things will solve. People pray now and it doesn't appear to be working. By "vote in November", I assume that you mean vote Bush out. So that would presumably mean Kerry would be President. How will Kerry resolve this? How would any person in the position of President? The solution is far more complex than that.
Offline | Profile | Quote | ^
 
ds9074
Member Avatar
Admiral
This is a mess and if I remember there were people warning about the dangers of invading Iraq before the conflict got under way. We were led to believe that Iraq would become a beacon of democracy for the whole region to follow and that we would be welcomed in Iraq. But you right looking back and laying blame is not a solution to the present problems.

I'm not an expert but my suggestion would be for our countries to stand up and admit that the situation in Iraq is not as we had hoped. I would then like to see an international summit of heads of state to formulate a plan of action to move the situation foward. At the said summit I would like to see Mr Bush and Mr Blair show some humility amoungst the other world leaders and be truely open to ideas that they might have. The other side to that coin in that I would like people like M. Chirac to realise the seriousness of the situation and not sit back and gloat but offer practical assistance. I know this sounds like a stupid idea and people will shoot it down but to me it seems like a better idea than nuking millions of innocent people. One idea I like that could be organised by such a summit would be for the troops to no longer be under US control but be NATO troops instead (obviously still a large US contingent) and be expressly authorised by a new United Nations resolution.

It seems to me that certain organisations, most notable the UN, and certain protocols were put in place after WW2 to ensure our own security. We flouted or at least bended the rules of those organisations arguing they were ineffective. Now we find that they might have been there for a reason, that the post-WW2 generation might have realised that slow and incremental action while sometimes frustrating is better than world war.

Offline | Profile | Quote | ^
 
Wichita
Member Avatar
The Adminstrator wRench
Intrepid2002
May 13 2004, 03:08 PM
What do we do indeed. People from the opposite side ....

Can we make that people from another side?

"Opposite" implies either/or. Since I certainly don't advocate a nuclear solution and neither do I think a change in White House occupants will make any difference, I am left without a "side" if there are only two.
Offline | Profile | Quote | ^
 
doctortobe
Speak softly, and carry a 57 megaton stick!
Quote:
 
First point - have you considered that they may fear for their very lives if they - in those areas where hard-liners hold sway - come out against these very hard-liners ?
Not all Germans supported Hitler and his henchmen, but they were forced to join the Nazi party in order to survive, and not all Japanese supported the militurists in the Japanese high command or government , but again they had to keep their mouths shut or else.


If you shoot at us because you are threatened by your leaders, you are still an enemy. I doubt the Red Cross or the UN will put stickers on these people's forheads so that we can tell the difference. In any case, did we care which Germans and which Japanese supported their leader? No, we bombed enemy territory. If they didn't want to be part of the conflict, they could try to find some way to surrender.

Quote:
 
Second point - you can't have been watching or listening too hard , there have been many very strong condemnations of ABL and Al-Quaeda , and their associated groups by Islamic clerics and Islamic diplomats.
Ever heard the term - rent a crowd - many of the demonstrations you see are likely unemployed people who have been given a few dollars or shakels or pounds or dracmar or what ever they call money - to make a demostration. A bit like the demonstration of happiness put on when Saddam's statue was toppled.


I have yet to see a condemnation that didn't add "but it was America's fault that he died", or the fact that they only felt bad about the killing because it gives America reason to stay in Iraq. There have been few, if any genuine condemnations.

I really like that you mentioned rent a crowds, If these people can be made to celebrate around charred bodies at the drop of a hat, how little persuasion do they need to attack US troops?

Quote:
 
Sorry, but that only justifies our defending ourselves by some means. It doesn't justify behaving in the same animalistic manner.


Defend ourselves? The terrorists need only succeed in attacking us once. Our defense needs to be 100% secure. A great military mind once said "You can never win a war if you cannot take the fight to the enemie's home". If we just stay in our borders and try to stop them from attacking, we will never see the end of them.

In any case, why do you think my methods are animalistic? The most heroic war in the history of the West used these tactics. The only reason that you are against this is because the military hasn't used total war tactics since WWII. And in every war since then, not waging total war has come back to haunt us.

Korean War: Look who's developing nuclear weapons north of the 38th parallel.

Vietnam War: Need I explain?

Gulf War I: Didn't we fight Gulf War II because we didn't finish Gulf War I?

Kosovo: We're still keeping them from each other's throats aren't we?

I think that history justifies my views. If we had gone on a war footing like we had in WWII, none of these would have ended like they did. Instead, we tried to do it humanely and where did it lead us? To more conflict. Just one question IE, when is the last time we saw Germany or Japan as a threat to us?
Offline | Profile | Quote | ^
 
ImpulseEngine
Admiral
Quote:
 
In any case, why do you think my methods are animalistic?

Because it's too indiscriminate.

Quote:
 
The only reason that you are against this is because the military hasn't used total war tactics since WWII.
No, I'm against it because I firmly believe there are better ways. Just because we haven't yet found one that has worked doesn't mean its not there. And, as long as the only approach we're willing to take is a show of force, we won't find it either. I think some force is inevitable, but by itself, it's far from sufficient.

[Sarcasm]Fine, blow up every Muslim and every practitioner of Islam. [/Sarcasm] I wonder how many people that will pi$$ off in the world and how many new terrorists that will create...
Offline | Profile | Quote | ^
 
doctortobe
Speak softly, and carry a 57 megaton stick!
Gee willikers IE, did we blow up every German and Japanese person in WWII? I could have sworn that Japanese and German people were still on the earth. I must be wrong however. Either that or you are attempting to pervert what I said.

War IS indescriminate, especially in cases where the combatants are mostly civilian. Do you seriously think that we can fight a "civilized" war if the enemy refuses to do the same? If you do, then you are advocating putting American lives at risk for the sake of people who want to kill us.
Offline | Profile | Quote | ^
 
ImpulseEngine
Admiral
Yes, I exaggerated to make a point, but I honestly don't think the exaggeration is much different than what you proposed other than quantity.

Quote:
 
Do you seriously think that we can fight a "civilized" war if the enemy refuses to do the same?
I don't expect we could be "civilized" completely. By that, I mean we do have to eliminate the leaders and organizers who perpetuate this barbarism and doing so will require some extreme measures. But that doesn't mean I would advocate bombing a whole city just because I knew it contained one such leader. We can do better than that.

Beyond that type of thing, yes I do believe we can be civilized - and must. Anything else just fuels the fire we're trying to extinguish.
Offline | Profile | Quote | ^
 
Adrian
Lieutenant Commander
I hate to say this Doc, but you're using the WWII example (a classic total war) in a guerilla war situation.
In the guerilla war situation, using total war tactics and strategies only creates more guerillas. The old Vietnam War example of the non partisan farmer getting his hut blown to bits by an errant bomb and then becoming a guerilla works here. These insurgents/militias/militants aren't massing troops for a nice, clean target. They're walking out into the street, firing off a clip, and then disappearing into the crowd.
What we need is the UN to come in and make this not a US effort, but a world effort. Mostly the locals hate us because we're the USA. If we're the UN, from all over with no one country's agenda driving the process, it will go better.
Now which canidate is backing that? Oh, yeah that Kerry guy! Who opposes that? Hmmm....Oh yeah, that Bush guy.
Offline | Profile | Quote | ^
 
ZetaBoards - Free Forum Hosting
Free Forums. Reliable service with over 8 years of experience.
Learn More · Register for Free
Go to Next Page
« Previous Topic · Politics and World Events Forum · Next Topic »
Add Reply

Tweet
comments powered by Disqus