"Almost all terrorists are Muslim" derail split from "Rants"

[untermensche]

The destruction of the WTC disrupted the entire economy. It caused the US Stock Market to lose value.

Exactly. A thoroughly civilian target.

Since when? How is weakening your opponents ability to fight not a valid war aim?

And depriving an army of food is also a valid military objective.

Of course. And if you do it by blowing up the enemy army's supply convoy you're a commando and if you do it by rounding up the enemy country's farmers and machine-gunning them you're a terrorist. Methods matter.

Again, since when? Since when have farmers not been targets in wars?

That is one end of the spectrum. Terrorism on the very small scale.

So you're speaking your own private language.

English is not my private language.

I am defining words so that they have a consistent meaning. I understand this is different from the way this word is usually defined, which is highly restrictive and basically means the way those poor people with their primitive weapons fight against us Superpowers.

Of course nobody is admitting this is their claim.

But divining intentions is akin to magic.

...Figuring out other people's probable intentions from observation of their speech and behavior is something everybody who isn't autistic does constantly the whole time he's interacting with other people.

If a stranger comes up and claims they need help how do we who are not autistic divine their intentions?

People are abducted and robbed all the time because they think they know intentions.

People dealing with Bernie Madoff thought they knew intentions.

It is a guessing game and we are only right most of the time because most people we deal with don't have malicious intentions. The majority of people are social tame animals.

The intentions decided in courts don't go far beyond premeditation.

Nonsense. Premeditation is how they distinguish between first degree and second degree murder. Intention is how they distinguish between second degree murder and manslaughter, and pretty much everything else for which "I didn't mean to" is a valid defense, such as deciding between a criminal assault prosecution and a civil personal injury lawsuit. You aren't going to beat an assault charge with "Sure, I beat him up on purpose, but I wasn't planning to in advance.".

To do anything on purpose is to have premeditation. You are merely examining the difference between long term premeditation and short term premeditation.

And as I said, courts don't decide much beyond this.

They don't have to decide in the murder case what caused the premeditation, only that it occurred.

The intention was to weaken an enemy that was intruding into the internal politics of foreign lands.

So the intention was self defense.

The intention was to weaken an enemy by killing civilians who weren't fighting them. That means those civilians weren't collateral damage; they were the intended targets.

You claim to know the civilians were a target.

I claim the connections to the military, including economic connections were the target.

Here we are, two claims about intentions. And neither is the final word.

The examination of intentions is just a can of worms with intransigent sides all claiming to know the true intentions.

So? You propose to replace intentions with moral justifications.

With first some moral truisms, like, if an action is condemned it is condemned no matter who does it.

If aggression is condemned then it is condemned no matter who is carrying it out.

If one nation claims it has the right to attack another because of imagined fears then all nations have that right.

If I use weapons of sufficient killing power in sufficient amounts that I know for certain I will kill many innocent civilians, have I intended to kill some innocent civilians?

Welcome to the Trolley Problem. If you push a guy off a bridge so his body mass stops the trolley, then you intended him to get hit. If you throw a switch so the trolley veers away from the track with five guys on it onto the track with only one guy, you may know for certain that he'll get hit, but you didn't intend that result; you only caused it and expected it. You may well disagree with making a moral distinction between the two actions on that basis -- many ethical philosophers do -- but that's how English works and that's how typical human moral intuition works.

This is not the trolly problem.

In this case a third option exists. Bomb nobody.

 

[Metaphor]

Sure, but it's nevertheless interesting to see that the American muslims are apparently no more extremist than American Jews.

The data do not show that at all.

Around 2.1% of the United States population is Jewish while about 0.8% is Muslim

So, the Muslim population is less than half the Jewish population, but the total number of acts of terrorism committed by each group is about the same (that is, Muslims account for more terrorism per capita than Jews).

 

[tupac chopra]

Sure, but it's nevertheless interesting to see that the American muslims are apparently no more extremist than American Jews.

The data do not show that at all.

Around 2.1% of the United States population is Jewish while about 0.8% is Muslim

So, the Muslim population is less than half the Jewish population, but the total number of acts of terrorism committed by each group is about the same (that is, Muslims account for more terrorism per capita than Jews).

Are you including acts of terrorism where the FBI was instrumental in that "act of terrorism"?

 

[Metaphor]

The data do not show that at all.

Around 2.1% of the United States population is Jewish while about 0.8% is Muslim

So, the Muslim population is less than half the Jewish population, but the total number of acts of terrorism committed by each group is about the same (that is, Muslims account for more terrorism per capita than Jews).

Are you including acts of terrorism where the FBI was instrumental in that "act of terrorism"?

I'm not 'including' or 'excluding' anything, it's not my list. I'm simply pointing out that it makes no sense to use the list to claim Jews are more extremist than Muslims because they have a slightly bigger number on the 300-odd incident list; that completely fails to take into account the underlying population distribution.

The list shows, in fact, that Muslims are far more likely than Jews to turn to terrorist violence.

 

[Jayjay]

Sure, but it's nevertheless interesting to see that the American muslims are apparently no more extremist than American Jews.

The data do not show that at all.

Around 2.1% of the United States population is Jewish while about 0.8% is Muslim

So, the Muslim population is less than half the Jewish population, but the total number of acts of terrorism committed by each group is about the same (that is, Muslims account for more terrorism per capita than Jews).

Good point.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Because Israel's national objectives are NOT morally justifiable. Peace alone is attainable immediately through the dismantlement of its settlements, the withdrawal to its own internationally recognized borders and a commitment to respect both the sovereignty and the human rights of Palestinians. But Israel isn't seeking peace, Israel is seeking economic, political and military dominance. That is not a morally acceptable justification for the use of terrorism or for military force in general.

There's absolutely no reason to believe that dismantling the settlements would bring peace and every reason to believe it wouldn't.

If you are under the impression that the settlements were created in the first place for the purpose of promoting peace, I would LOVE to hear you attempt to justify that proposition.

Then again, dismantling the settlements ALONE is not sufficient to attain peace. Withdrawing to within the 1967 borders IS, primarily because this has been the cornerstone of the Palestinian position for decades. I am well aware you do not believe that peace would be entirely permanent; that is, and has always been, irrelevant. Peace is attainable NOW. It will not be attained because Israel does not want peace.

Note how they always refer to the "occupied territory"--for deluded westerners this means a return to the 67 borders

Apparently Mahmoud Abbas is a "deluded westerner" too.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Again, since when? Since when have farmers not been targets in wars?

Farmers have OFTEN been targets in wars. Especially in wars that feature the use of terrorism as a battle tactic.

I am defining words so that they have a consistent meaning. I understand this is different from the way this word is usually defined

"The way the word is usually defined" is called "The English language."

"The way untermensche decides to redefine a word for rhetorical purposes" is, essentially, your own private language.

Too many people have tried to explain this to you in this thread for me to believe you can grasp this point, but it's really very simple: terrorism is most accurately defined as "violence directed against civilians with intent to terrorize the population thereby causing political, economic or military disruption." In assessing whether an attack is an act of terrorism or other more conventional military tactic, one has to consider the intentions of the attacker: was he TRYING to kill as many civilians as possible, or was he aiming at a military target and the civilians just got in the way?

If a stranger comes up and claims they need help how do we who are not autistic divine their intentions?

Did he ask for help?
Did he accept help when it was offered?
Did he take actions OTHER than those consistent with someone who is looking for help?
Did he attempt to harm or otherwise take advantage of the person who tried to help him?
When helped, did he immediately seek out someone else to help him in the same way as if he had not received help at all?

These are things you consider when attempting to determine a person's intentions. Note that these things are generally determined AFTER the fact, which is exactly what we are doing when we examine acts of violence to determine whether or not they are terrorist tactics. It is also worth noting that the lack of knowledge/rush to judgement of intent DURING an incident is part of what contributes to many tragedies both in law enforcement and sometimes even on the battlefield. It is examination AFTER the fact, not during the fight, that classifies the nature of those incidents.

To use an example from history: the shootdown of Iran Air Flight 655, while both unjustified and contributing to massive terror and anxiety for Iranian travelers, was NOT a terrorist attack because the crew of the USS Vincennes did not intent to terrorize Iran when they opened fire. OTOH, the bombing of Pan Am 103 was intended as retaliation for U.S. military action in the Gulf of Sidra, retaliation that was explicitly directed at civilians, with the intention of causing public terror and disruption to "punish" western governments for their policies.

It is a guessing game

It's not a guessing game when you actually bother to investigate and figure out what ACTUALLY HAPPENED.

It only becomes a guessing game if your preference is for coy word games and rhetorical devices.

And as I said, courts don't decide much beyond this.

Of course they do. Jury deliberations consider MANY such factors in such cases, and sentencing guidelines take this into account as well. In particular:

With first some moral truisms, like, if an action is condemned it is condemned no matter who does it.

If aggression is condemned then it is condemned no matter who is carrying it out.

If supplying a consistent moral framework is your goal, then the nonsensical wordplay with an alternate definition of "terrorism" is a waste of time. We already know western nations apply a double standard in determining just/unjust conduct in just about everything. Instead of playing word games, you're probably just better off denouncing the moral authority of the U.S. Government to make those kinds of determinations (you will get basically no argument on that point).

 

[Archimedes]

Why isn't it admitted that islam is the problem? Has been that way for centuries.

Because it isn't "the" problem. An extremist interpretation of Islam is a contributing problem.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

There's absolutely no reason to believe that dismantling the settlements would bring peace and every reason to believe it wouldn't.

If you are under the impression that the settlements were created in the first place for the purpose of promoting peace, I would LOVE to hear you attempt to justify that proposition.

Then again, dismantling the settlements ALONE is not sufficient to attain peace. Withdrawing to within the 1967 borders IS, primarily because this has been the cornerstone of the Palestinian position for decades. I am well aware you do not believe that peace would be entirely permanent; that is, and has always been, irrelevant. Peace is attainable NOW. It will not be attained because Israel does not want peace.

Note how they always refer to the "occupied territory"--for deluded westerners this means a return to the 67 borders

Apparently Mahmoud Abbas is a "deluded westerner" too.

No, he's one of the ones doing the deluding.

 

[untermensche]

In assessing whether an attack is an act of terrorism or other more conventional military tactic, one has to consider the intentions of the attacker: was he TRYING to kill as many civilians as possible, or was he aiming at a military target and the civilians just got in the way?

How exactly do we know the intentions of the US military half way across the world?

We simply believe every word they say?

Where do you get this knowledge that civilians are not ever targeted? They were in WWII. They were in Vietnam. There is evidence they were in Panama.

How exactly do we divine the intentions of US military or intelligence personnel?

Please be specific.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

In assessing whether an attack is an act of terrorism or other more conventional military tactic, one has to consider the intentions of the attacker: was he TRYING to kill as many civilians as possible, or was he aiming at a military target and the civilians just got in the way?

How exactly do we know the intentions of the US military half way across the world?

You start by reading what their actual ORDERS were (military officers tend to follow those more often than not). Examining the conversations of the military leaders who originally wrote those orders also helps, which is why internal investigations often subpoena the internal memoranda and/or emails from high-ranking officers in the relevant chain of command (and why leaking those memos/emails to the press is a REALLY good way to blow the whistle on something you don't like).

If, on the other hand, a military officer in the field did something noticeably different from what he was ORDERED to do, that's when things tricky. Investigating the intentions of that specific officer becomes necessary, and rank-and-file guys aren't always so tidy with their documentation.

Where do you get this knowledge that civilians are not ever targeted?

I presume from the same imaginary universe in which I CLAIMED that civilians are not ever targeted.

They were in WWII. They were in Vietnam. There is evidence they were in Panama.

Indeed. And when civilians are targeted with the intention of directly terrorizing the civilian population, I (and the rest of the English-speaking world) would classify that as an act of terrorism. The question is whether or not TERRORIZING the population was the actual goal of those attacks. The My Lai massacre, for example, wouldn't be classified as a terrorist action since it appears that the officers in charge intended to kill everyone, not terrorize them. Mass murder of civilians is a war crime, but it isn't necessarily terrorism.

How exactly do we divine the intentions of US military or intelligence personnel?

Assuming you can't tell from their documents (orders, memos, emails, statements, telephone conversations, etc) you can often tell by their actions.

When you have an armed drone following a suspected terrorist for hours at a time, for example, you have ample opportunity to eliminate him if you are told to do so. If you choose to strike this target when he is in a very crowded public place, or when he is with family members or relatives, or when he is in a place that other militants and/or Islamists believe is safe for them to be for political reasons, that's a data point that suggests that the intention of the strike may have been less about the killing of that suspect and more about "sending a message" to militants that they and their families are not safe anywhere (Israel, as one example, has been very explicit in this policy, especially when it comes to arrests, home demolitions and even its targeted killing program). When you demonstrate that extreme violence is being used in order to instill terror in a targeted population, you have an example of terrorism.

One should not assume, however, that a military strike that kills lots of civilians MUST be terrorism. It could just as easily be incompetence.

 

[untermensche]

How exactly do we know the intentions of the US military half way across the world?

You start by reading what their actual ORDERS were (military officers tend to follow those more often than not).

How do we know what the actual orders were?

We simply believe whatever we are told?

This is morality for three year olds.

How exactly do we divine the intentions of US military or intelligence personnel?

Assuming you can't tell from their documents (orders, memos, emails, statements, telephone conversations, etc) you can often tell by their actions.

Dead civilian all over the place. Civilians captured and tortured.

Those are the actions we are looking at.

Now what exactly were the intentions?

You have given no reasonable way to decide.

You have given a method for children. We simply believe everything we are told.

It is a worthless method to decide anything.

 

[Bomb#20]

Exactly. A thoroughly civilian target.

Since when? How is weakening your opponents ability to fight not a valid war aim?

Of course it's a valid war aim. So what? Winning is a valid war aim! That doesn't make any and all means of winning valid military operations. Who the heck ever defined terrorism as "targeting noncombatants in order to achieve invalid war aims"?

Of course. And if you do it by blowing up the enemy army's supply convoy you're a commando and if you do it by rounding up the enemy country's farmers and machine-gunning them you're a terrorist. Methods matter.

Again, since when? Since when have farmers not been targets in wars?

Huh? Are you suggesting that if a tactic has been used for centuries then it must not be terrorism? Since when have belligerents not resorted to terrorism? Read Thucydides, for gods' sake. Most of it's just one war crime after another.

So you're speaking your own private language.

English is not my private language.

Then speak English. No normal native speaker classifies a guy who's raping women for the sake of his own twisted sexual jollies as a terrorist.

I am defining words so that they have a consistent meaning. I understand this is different from the way this word is usually defined,

This, right here, seems to be the central source of the dispute. The circumstance that another person defines a word based on a distinction he makes, plus the circumstance that you reject this distinction, do not add up to evidence of inconsistency on that person's part. He is contradicting you, not contradicting himself. This is an elementary point of logic. Do you understand it?

which is highly restrictive and basically means the way those poor people with their primitive weapons fight against us Superpowers.

The vast majority of victims of poor terrorists with primitive weapons are even poorer and less well-armed than the terrorists. Or was ISIL somehow striking a blow at America by drivring Yazidi villagers onto a mountain and butchering them?

What is it with the endless mantra of our superior weaponry, anyway? Do you think war is a goddamn sporting event where for it to be any good both sides need to have a fair chance? Do war crime laws not apply to poor people with primitive weapons because if they obeyed them they'd lose? And everybody fighting a Superpower has a right to win? Where does ISIL get a right to win? Their conviction that they have a valid Hadith providing religious justification for enslaving and raping captured women?

...Figuring out other people's probable intentions from observation of their speech and behavior is something everybody who isn't autistic does constantly the whole time he's interacting with other people.

If a stranger comes up and claims they need help how do we who are not autistic divine their intentions?

People are abducted and robbed all the time because they think they know intentions.

Oh my god, are you telling me that sometimes the universe fails to provide us with enough data to answer some questions reliably? Gosh, I had no idea. So this is the fundamental difference between questions about intentions and questions about rocks, is it?[/sarcasm]

The intentions decided in courts don't go far beyond premeditation.

Nonsense. Premeditation is how they distinguish between first degree and second degree murder. Intention is how they distinguish between second degree murder and manslaughter, and pretty much everything else for which "I didn't mean to" is a valid defense, such as deciding between a criminal assault prosecution and a civil personal injury lawsuit. You aren't going to beat an assault charge with "Sure, I beat him up on purpose, but I wasn't planning to in advance.".

To do anything on purpose is to have premeditation. You are merely examining the difference between long term premeditation and short term premeditation.

You're speaking your own private language again. The point is to hold people who decide to kill someone on the spur of the moment less guilty. What you call "short term premeditation", normal native English speakers call, "he didn't meditate".

And as I said, courts don't decide much beyond this.

They don't have to decide in the murder case what caused the premeditation, only that it occurred.

No. They don't have to decide that it occurred. They can instead decide that it didn't occur. And if they decide that, then they also have to decide whether the killer intended for the victim to die, or whether he only intended to hurt the guy, or whether he didn't intend to do anything to him at all and was just being stupid and careless. Courts decide all these things, based on however much data the universe provides in each case. Sometimes that's not enough to tell, just as when a stranger comes to you and asks for help; and sometimes it is enough data to tell. There are no guarantees you'll get it right; that doesn't make doing the best you can with whatever data on intentions you've got magic; it doesn't even make doing the best you can with whatever data on intentions you've got any different from trying to tell whether the rocks three miles beneath your feet are oil-bearing.

The intention was to weaken an enemy by killing civilians who weren't fighting them. That means those civilians weren't collateral damage; they were the intended targets.

You claim to know the civilians were a target.

I claim the connections to the military, including economic connections were the target.

Here we are, two claims about intentions. And neither is the final word.

Do you even believe your "claim"? Surely you're just playing devil's advocate here, pointing out that someone could claim what you said and we couldn't rule it out, right? It's not as though you care whether the connections to the military were the target -- the criteria you're advocating explicitly exclude that as a consideration. So show me a competing claim you actually seriously believe is correct, and then we can review the data and see if it supports one claim or the other.

If all you're pointing out is that I can't be certain the civilians were a target, that's true; but so what? It's a synthetic claim. All we can ever know about synthetic claims is that some are probable and some are improbable.

So? You propose to replace intentions with moral justifications.

With first some moral truisms, like, if an action is condemned it is condemned no matter who does it.

Sure. Raping people because your scripture says it's okay should be condemned whether it's Islamic or Christian scripture. Targeting civilians should be considered terrorism whether it's their civilians or ours. I have no problem with calling Harry Truman a terrorist.

If aggression is condemned then it is condemned no matter who is carrying it out.

Certainly; but "no matter who" isn't the same thing as "no matter why".

If one nation claims it has the right to attack another because of imagined fears then all nations have that right.

Nations don't have rights. People have rights.

If I use weapons of sufficient killing power in sufficient amounts that I know for certain I will kill many innocent civilians, have I intended to kill some innocent civilians?

Welcome to the Trolley Problem. If you push a guy off a bridge so his body mass stops the trolley, then you intended him to get hit. If you throw a switch so the trolley veers away from the track with five guys on it onto the track with only one guy, you may know for certain that he'll get hit, but you didn't intend that result; you only caused it and expected it. You may well disagree with making a moral distinction between the two actions on that basis -- many ethical philosophers do -- but that's how English works and that's how typical human moral intuition works.

This is not the trolly problem.

In this case a third option exists. Bomb nobody.

That's the second option, not a third. The combatants you choose not to bomb in order to avoid bombing the innocent civilians will themselves go on to bomb innocent civilians. There isn't any "nobody gets bombed" choice. So yes, it's the trolley problem. The point is, most people make a distinction between knowing for certain you will kill many innocent civilians, and having their deaths be a part of your plan that you wanted. You may well feel that that's an irrelevant distinction, perhaps even a ridiculous one. But your feeling on this point is not evidence of inconsistency on those people's part. It's only evidence that you have a moral disagreement with them.

 

[angelo]

Could I please have the apologists defence that not all terrorists are muslim again?

 

[bilby]

Could I please have the apologists defence that not all terrorists are muslim again?

It takes neither an apologist nor a defense to demonstrate that not all terrorists are Muslim.

If you disagree, I suggest a short visit to Belfast, Amritsar, or Jaffna might help.

 

[laughing dog]

Could I please have the apologists defence that not all terrorists are muslim again?

Timothy McVeigh.

 

[untermensche]

Since when? How is weakening your opponents ability to fight not a valid war aim?

Of course it's a valid war aim. So what?...

It just makes your argument worthless, that's all. If something is a valid war aim then any civilian deaths are simply collateral damage. That is something the US has said countless times over the past 13 years.

English is not my private language.

Then speak English. No normal native speaker classifies a guy who's raping women for the sake of his own twisted sexual jollies as a terrorist.

It is English. Maybe it's an idea you can't fathom, but that doesn't make it some other language.

The vast majority of victims of poor terrorists with primitive weapons are even poorer and less well-armed than the terrorists.

What does that possibly change?

I don't hear the cries from Muslim victims in the Middle East. Their voices are muted and ignored, almost universally, in the US media.

All I hear talking about terrorism are ignorant jingoistic hypocritical Americans, who define that word as violence committed against US interests.

It is their definition that is wanting because it ignores the leading terrorist nation in the world, the US, and the second, Israel.

Oh my god, are you telling me that sometimes the universe fails to provide us with enough data to answer some questions reliably? Gosh, I had no idea. So this is the fundamental difference between questions about intentions and questions about rocks, is it?[/sarcasm]

In this little rant I see no answer to my question. If one claims they can decide things based on intentions they are a mystic, a seer, a dreamer.

Human intention is many times invisible even to the human carrying out the action.

Certainly; but "no matter who" isn't the same thing as "no matter why".

The why is many times just your fairytale.

The US invaded Iraq for some reason. It had nothing to do with WMD, there were none. It had nothing to do with connections to Al Qaeda, there wasn't one. It had nothing to do with US security, Iraq threatened the US in no way. It had nothing to do with democracy, the people who did it don't like democracy and proudly say so.

Why did the US invade? What was it's true intention?

This is really all you have to address. This is a test for your method.

What were the intentions of GW Bush when he ordered a terrorist attack of Iraq?

 

[Jokodo]

Could I please have the apologists defence that not all terrorists are muslim again?

Terrorist attacks against Muslims in the last few days in France including:

Three training grenades thrown at a mosque in Le Man; a bullet hole was also found in one of the mosque windows
A bomb blast at a restaurant adjacent to and associated with a mosque in Villefranche-sur-Saone
Gunshots fired at a mosque in Port-la-Nouvelle

http://www.vox.com/2015/1/10/7524731/french-muslims-attacks-charlie-hebdo

Sweden hit by three arson attacks against mosques within a week: http://news.yahoo.com/sweden-hit-third-mosque-arson-attack-week-145914459.html

Not only is it not true that all terrorists are Muslims, but furthermore there's a considerable amount of anti-Muslim terrorism by non-Muslim Europeans.

 

[bilby]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/tens-of-thousands-of-muslims-flee-christian-militias-in-central-african-republic/2014/02/07/5a1adbb2-9032-11e3-84e1-27626c5ef5fb_story.html

 

[angelo]

Could I please have the apologists defence that not all terrorists are muslim again?

Timothy McVeigh.

Chicken feed compared to muslim atrocities.

- - - Updated - - -

Terrorist attacks against Muslims in the last few days in France including:

Three training grenades thrown at a mosque in Le Man; a bullet hole was also found in one of the mosque windows
A bomb blast at a restaurant adjacent to and associated with a mosque in Villefranche-sur-Saone
Gunshots fired at a mosque in Port-la-Nouvelle

http://www.vox.com/2015/1/10/7524731/french-muslims-attacks-charlie-hebdo

Sweden hit by three arson attacks against mosques within a week: http://news.yahoo.com/sweden-hit-third-mosque-arson-attack-week-145914459.html

Not only is it not true that all terrorists are Muslims, but furthermore there's a considerable amount of anti-Muslim terrorism by non-Muslim Europeans.

I would attack them differently. I would buy half a ton of pork mince then shower the worshippers in a mosque with it!!