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I just read something about a Giovanni Gambino waging war on ISIS should it come here... Anyone else read this anywhere

 Tactical_Spam wrote:
I just read something about a Giovanni Gambino waging war on ISIS should it come here... Anyone else read this anywhere

That's some goofy thing from a few years ago, I believe.

Maybe you mean Linda?



And oh hey I'm in a sig. Sweeeet

This sums it up:



Because everything, apparently, is under control.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-34907983


Hoooooo boy.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Are you arguing for mass killing of everyone who happens to live in an ISIL controlled area?

How would you achieve this aim?

You have a thing for straw man questions, don't you?

There isn't such a thing as a straw man question.

If there were, you just indulged in one yourself, by imputing the idea that my question is not worthy of answering without answering it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grey Templar wrote:
No, I am arguing that might be the price you have to pay to remove this insidious evil.

That's the same thing, unless you have some other suggestions that do not involve killing everyone.

 Tactical_Spam wrote:
I just read something about a Giovanni Gambino waging war on ISIS should it come here... Anyone else read this anywhere

There was an article recently about him warning them not to mess with New York... and that the Mob would keep New York Safe from ISIS.

 Grey Templar wrote:
At some point the possibility of those civilians being innocent of the crimes of ISIS ceases to outweigh the damage ISIS causes to the rest of the world. Lots of innocent people were killed to remove Hitler from power, it was still worth it.

 Grey Templar wrote:
No, I am arguing that might be the price you have to pay to remove this insidious evil.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Collateral damage will never be as evil as beheading people and putting the footage on youtube or forcing civilians to remain in an area that is under attack so their accidental deaths can be used as propaganda. Its not even evil, its just an accident. Accidental deaths happen in war.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Still only maybe .001% as evil as beheading hundreds of people, forcing women into sexual slavery, and deliberately trying to get civilians killed as propaganda/as human shields.

I mean... I can't even... really? You've said some absolutely ridiculous things on these forums, but nothing nearly as ridiculous or disgusting as this. Also, do you really think killed millions of people just because they happen to live where ISIS controls is really going to stop radicalism? Do you think about this gak before you type it or have you moved past that?

I'm reminded of what George Orwell wrote in 1945 in his essay Notes on Nationalism:

George Orwell wrote:“All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts. [...] Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them. There is almost no kind of outrage—torture, imprisonment without trial, assassination, the bombing of civilians—which does not change its moral color when it is committed by ‘our’ side. The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.”

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Are you arguing for mass killing of everyone who happens to live in an ISIL controlled area?

How would you achieve this aim?

You have a thing for straw man questions, don't you?

There isn't such a thing as a straw man question.

If there were, you just indulged in one yourself, by imputing the idea that my question is not worthy of answering without answering it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grey Templar wrote:
No, I am arguing that might be the price you have to pay to remove this insidious evil.

That's the same thing, unless you have some other suggestions that do not involve killing everyone.

It was a leading, loaded question.

That's called Loaded Question Fallacy (no really... That's what its called).

Straw Man is when an opponents position is misrepresented, or replaced with one that is superficially similar, to make it easier to attack.

 LordofHats wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:
Bombing Germany in WWII for instance was morally justifiable because it stopped the Nazis from conquering Europe.

Did ti though? Historians are still arguing about that and weight shifts back and forth every couple of years (current weight favors it didn't help that much, probably swing back next year for all I know).

On a related note, the ease with which people can find their absolutist view of good and evil in this thread disturbs me

What historians are you reading that argue that Germany would have been defeated without us opposing them militarily? If we hadn't conducted bombing campaigns against Germany they would have kept fighting, the war would have dragged on longer and more people would have died.

To end a war against an aggressor nation you need to make them capitulate and they aren't going to surrender if you limit your targets to front line military units. Those limitations are counter productive, hence the creation of the total war concept centuries ago. Nations can always produce more soldiers and more equipment so in order to win a war as quickly as possible you have to target the means of production. Otherwise you'll just have nations feeding troops and material into a meat grinder for years and years. That was the impetus behind the Hague Conventions and Geneva Protocol, because heads of state realized that modern nations with their large populations and industrial capacity could extend conflicts long after they previously would have thrown in the towel. It's extremely difficult to break a state to the point of surrendering if you don't attack the means of production and shorter wars are better than long wars.

Prestor Jon wrote:
What historians are you reading that argue that Germany would have been defeated without us opposing them militarily?

I'm referencing the strategic bombing campaign, not the war itself. Namely, the attacking of targets in civilian heavy populations (factories and such). The effect of strategic bombing on German road and rail ways has never been in much dispute, given that once destroyed many of those took weeks or even months to rebuild if at all.

If we hadn't conducted bombing campaigns against Germany they would have kept fighting, the war would have dragged on longer and more people would have died.

The strategic bombing campaign did little to slow production of German arms as far as any Historian can tell (as evident from Germany's own rather meticulous book keeping). Fluctuations can be found in the production of many things like ball bearings, steel, and munitions in timing with Allied Air Raids, but Germany always quickly recovered. Futher, German production increased throughout the war at a regular linear rate in all industries. There are personal accounts from German officials saying that they thought the campaign was effective, but this is where the swinging weight I mentioned comes in. How reliable, or seriously, Historians take those personal accounts tends to be a bit of a tug of war between 'their opinion doesn't match the numbers' and 'just because the numbers went up doesn't mean they couldn't have been up more' kind of arguments.

Meanwhile, the bombing campaign killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in Germany, begging the question "was it worth it?" I'm not really trying to answer that question here so much as point out that the absolutism of 'yes of course it was right' is very misguided and to me personally, disturbing, because people seem to jump to it and stick to it so passionately even though it is very debatable. So much so Historians have been debating it for 70+ years.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:

sirlynchmob wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

sirlynchmob wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
No, I am arguing that might be the price you have to pay to remove this insidious evil.

the price is to become more evil than those you fight against.

Collateral damage will never be as evil as beheading people and putting the footage on youtube or forcing civilians to remain in an area that is under attack so their accidental deaths can be used as propaganda. Its not even evil, its just an accident. Accidental deaths happen in war.

I'm sorry, bombing an area twice is not an accident. see the cases of double tapping, to not only kill the target but also kill those coming to help the victims. bombings are a deliberate attempt to kill lots of people and double taps are extremely evil.

killing 1 person is evil, killing 100 people with a bomb is 100 times more evil.

That's a ridiculous moral equivalency. Murder, rape, kidnapping, arson, robbery etc are all morally wrong. Preventing such actions from happening or continuing is good. Sometimes the people intent on committing such actions must be forcibly stopped because they can't or won't listen to reason, use of force in such situations is just and moral. Bombing Germany in WWII for instance was morally justifiable because it stopped the Nazis from conquering Europe. Forcibly stopping ISIS from committing atrocities is a justifiable and moral use of lethal force.

And knowingly murdering innocent children in bombardments is not morally wrong? Collateral damage is never accidental, it is just an euphemism for murder. When you drop that bomb on a populated area, you know it is going to kill innocents, and you accept that that is the price that must be paid.
Don't make it look any better than it is, there is nothing just or morally justifiable about it. It needs to be done to combat the evil of ISIS, but that does not change anything about the inherent evilness of bombardments.

Yes it does. The context and motivation behind the bombing completely changes morality of the action. It's not always wrong or evil to kill somebody. There are plenty of justifications for killing people that make it the moral thing to do. Is ISIS invading countries, occupying territory, committing crimes and atrocities and aiding and abetting acts of terrorism in other countries? Yes. Then opposing them and taking direct action to curtail the ability of ISIS to conduct those acitivities is morally justifiable. Then we have to decide the best way for us to attack ISIS. If the most effective and practical action we can take against ISIS is a strategic bombing campaign then we're going to bomb them. Yes, civilians are going to be killed, bombs are area of effect weapons, they will indescriminately kill/injure anyone in the blast radius. That is unfortunate but it is neccessary. Our bombs kill civilians. ISIS also kills civilians. When ISIS kills civilians they profit from it and grow stronger, when we kill civilians it's a side effect from killing ISIS targets. If we do nothing, civilians in ISIS controlled territory will continue to die and at the end of the day there will be dead civilians and a strong ISIS that kills any civilians it wants. If we bomb ISIS we degrade ISIS' ability to function, yes civilians die but the civilians that die are unfortunate bystanders and it's not a campaign of genocide. At the end of the die, civilians are dead but ISIS is degraded to a lesser state that is less capable of conquering and occupying territory and committing crimes and atrocities and supporting terrorism. Two different outcomes with different values, context and justifications.

Prestor Jon wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:

sirlynchmob wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

sirlynchmob wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
No, I am arguing that might be the price you have to pay to remove this insidious evil.

the price is to become more evil than those you fight against.

Collateral damage will never be as evil as beheading people and putting the footage on youtube or forcing civilians to remain in an area that is under attack so their accidental deaths can be used as propaganda. Its not even evil, its just an accident. Accidental deaths happen in war.

I'm sorry, bombing an area twice is not an accident. see the cases of double tapping, to not only kill the target but also kill those coming to help the victims. bombings are a deliberate attempt to kill lots of people and double taps are extremely evil.

killing 1 person is evil, killing 100 people with a bomb is 100 times more evil.

That's a ridiculous moral equivalency. Murder, rape, kidnapping, arson, robbery etc are all morally wrong. Preventing such actions from happening or continuing is good. Sometimes the people intent on committing such actions must be forcibly stopped because they can't or won't listen to reason, use of force in such situations is just and moral. Bombing Germany in WWII for instance was morally justifiable because it stopped the Nazis from conquering Europe. Forcibly stopping ISIS from committing atrocities is a justifiable and moral use of lethal force.

And knowingly murdering innocent children in bombardments is not morally wrong? Collateral damage is never accidental, it is just an euphemism for murder. When you drop that bomb on a populated area, you know it is going to kill innocents, and you accept that that is the price that must be paid.
Don't make it look any better than it is, there is nothing just or morally justifiable about it. It needs to be done to combat the evil of ISIS, but that does not change anything about the inherent evilness of bombardments.

Yes it does. The context and motivation behind the bombing completely changes morality of the action. It's not always wrong or evil to kill somebody. There are plenty of justifications for killing people that make it the moral thing to do. Is ISIS invading countries, occupying territory, committing crimes and atrocities and aiding and abetting acts of terrorism in other countries? Yes. Then opposing them and taking direct action to curtail the ability of ISIS to conduct those acitivities is morally justifiable. Then we have to decide the best way for us to attack ISIS. If the most effective and practical action we can take against ISIS is a strategic bombing campaign then we're going to bomb them. Yes, civilians are going to be killed, bombs are area of effect weapons, they will indescriminately kill/injure anyone in the blast radius. That is unfortunate but it is neccessary. Our bombs kill civilians. ISIS also kills civilians. When ISIS kills civilians they profit from it and grow stronger, when we kill civilians it's a side effect from killing ISIS targets. If we do nothing, civilians in ISIS controlled territory will continue to die and at the end of the day there will be dead civilians and a strong ISIS that kills any civilians it wants. If we bomb ISIS we degrade ISIS' ability to function, yes civilians die but the civilians that die are unfortunate bystanders and it's not a campaign of genocide. At the end of the die, civilians are dead but ISIS is degraded to a lesser state that is less capable of conquering and occupying territory and committing crimes and atrocities and supporting terrorism. Two different outcomes with different values, context and justifications.

Now where is that meme from billy maddison?

If you have to morally justify it, that means you know it's evil, and choose to do it anyways, which makes you more evil, because you are choosing to do evil. Bombings have done nothing to slow ISIS down, it just shows you're better and more brutal at killing civilians than they are. You're actually helping ISIS at this point, "don't worry about killing civilians, we'll do that for you" so if ISIS killing civilians makes them stronger, than the US killing countless more civilians makes them even stronger. After all it was your bombing to Al qada that lead to the creation of ISIS.

 LordofHats wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:
What historians are you reading that argue that Germany would have been defeated without us opposing them militarily?

I'm referencing the strategic bombing campaign, not the war itself. Namely, the attacking of targets in civilian heavy populations (factories and such). The effect of strategic bombing on German road and rail ways has never been in much dispute, given that once destroyed many of those took weeks or even months to rebuild if at all.

If we hadn't conducted bombing campaigns against Germany they would have kept fighting, the war would have dragged on longer and more people would have died.

The strategic bombing campaign did little to slow production of German arms as far as any Historian can tell (as evident from Germany's own rather meticulous book keeping). Fluctuations can be found in the production of many things like ball bearings, steel, and munitions in timing with Allied Air Raids, but Germany always quickly recovered. Futher, German production increased throughout the war at a regular linear rate in all industries. There are personal accounts from German officials saying that they thought the campaign was effective, but this is where the swinging weight I mentioned comes in. How reliable, or seriously, Historians take those personal accounts tends to be a bit of a tug of war between 'their opinion doesn't match the numbers' and 'just because the numbers went up doesn't mean they couldn't have been up more' kind of arguments.

Meanwhile, the bombing campaign killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in Germany, begging the question "was it worth it?" I'm not really trying to answer that question here so much as point out that the absolutism of 'yes of course it was right' is very misguided and to me personally, disturbing, because people seem to jump to it and stick to it so passionately even though it is very debatable. So much so Historians have been debating it for 70+ years.

Productivity alone isn't the best way to judge the effectiveness of the bombing campaign. Resource allocation is also key. What was the opportunity cost in allocating additional resources to maintain production gains? Additional resources spent on production along with changes to production schedules to combat the bombing has a negative impact on the war effort. The ability to launch attacks into the heart of the country, behind the front lines and do significant amounts of damage also affects morale, political will and the war effort.

Take Japan for example. They suffered a string of defeats during our island hopping campaign, we had driven them back to their home islands and won naval and air supremacy. Their defeat was assured yet they refused to surrender. We dropped an Abomb on them and asked them to surrender again and they still refused. We dropped a second Abomb on them and they finally capitulated. Nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki forced them to surrender and avoided the need for a full scale invasion that would have caused an even greater death toll. Bombing two cities that didn't have a high military value still had a very large impact on ending the war.

I'm a big fan of a line from, "The Unit" that seems relevant here.

"A moral choice, is not a choice between Good and Evil, for one must always choose to do Good. No a moral choice is a choice between two evils."

sirlynchmob wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:

sirlynchmob wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

sirlynchmob wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
No, I am arguing that might be the price you have to pay to remove this insidious evil.

the price is to become more evil than those you fight against.

Collateral damage will never be as evil as beheading people and putting the footage on youtube or forcing civilians to remain in an area that is under attack so their accidental deaths can be used as propaganda. Its not even evil, its just an accident. Accidental deaths happen in war.

I'm sorry, bombing an area twice is not an accident. see the cases of double tapping, to not only kill the target but also kill those coming to help the victims. bombings are a deliberate attempt to kill lots of people and double taps are extremely evil.

killing 1 person is evil, killing 100 people with a bomb is 100 times more evil.

That's a ridiculous moral equivalency. Murder, rape, kidnapping, arson, robbery etc are all morally wrong. Preventing such actions from happening or continuing is good. Sometimes the people intent on committing such actions must be forcibly stopped because they can't or won't listen to reason, use of force in such situations is just and moral. Bombing Germany in WWII for instance was morally justifiable because it stopped the Nazis from conquering Europe. Forcibly stopping ISIS from committing atrocities is a justifiable and moral use of lethal force.

And knowingly murdering innocent children in bombardments is not morally wrong? Collateral damage is never accidental, it is just an euphemism for murder. When you drop that bomb on a populated area, you know it is going to kill innocents, and you accept that that is the price that must be paid.
Don't make it look any better than it is, there is nothing just or morally justifiable about it. It needs to be done to combat the evil of ISIS, but that does not change anything about the inherent evilness of bombardments.

Yes it does. The context and motivation behind the bombing completely changes morality of the action. It's not always wrong or evil to kill somebody. There are plenty of justifications for killing people that make it the moral thing to do. Is ISIS invading countries, occupying territory, committing crimes and atrocities and aiding and abetting acts of terrorism in other countries? Yes. Then opposing them and taking direct action to curtail the ability of ISIS to conduct those acitivities is morally justifiable. Then we have to decide the best way for us to attack ISIS. If the most effective and practical action we can take against ISIS is a strategic bombing campaign then we're going to bomb them. Yes, civilians are going to be killed, bombs are area of effect weapons, they will indescriminately kill/injure anyone in the blast radius. That is unfortunate but it is neccessary. Our bombs kill civilians. ISIS also kills civilians. When ISIS kills civilians they profit from it and grow stronger, when we kill civilians it's a side effect from killing ISIS targets. If we do nothing, civilians in ISIS controlled territory will continue to die and at the end of the day there will be dead civilians and a strong ISIS that kills any civilians it wants. If we bomb ISIS we degrade ISIS' ability to function, yes civilians die but the civilians that die are unfortunate bystanders and it's not a campaign of genocide. At the end of the die, civilians are dead but ISIS is degraded to a lesser state that is less capable of conquering and occupying territory and committing crimes and atrocities and supporting terrorism. Two different outcomes with different values, context and justifications.

Now where is that meme from billy maddison?

If you have to morally justify it, that means you know it's evil, and choose to do it anyways, which makes you more evil, because you are choosing to do evil. Bombings have done nothing to slow ISIS down, it just shows you're better and more brutal at killing civilians than they are. You're actually helping ISIS at this point, "don't worry about killing civilians, we'll do that for you" so if ISIS killing civilians makes them stronger, than the US killing countless more civilians makes them even stronger. After all it was your bombing to Al qada that lead to the creation of ISIS.

ISIS was killing civilians wholesale and posting the videos on the internet long before we ever dropped a single bomb on their territory. The only reason we're bombing ISIS at all is because they're committing atrocities. Not fighting ISIS enhances their ability to keep doing what they want to do, murder lots and lots of people. Fighting ISIS causes civilian deaths but has the benefit of fighting ISIS, not fighting ISIS causes civilian deaths and has no benefit at all.

ISIS is just a militant Wahabbist movement. Salafis were going to form something like ISIS eventually as that's the logicial progression of an ultra orthodox fundamentalist sect of zealots.

Prestor Jon wrote:


ISIS was killing civilians wholesale and posting the videos on the internet long before we ever dropped a single bomb on their territory. The only reason we're bombing ISIS at all is because they're committing atrocities. Not fighting ISIS enhances their ability to keep doing what they want to do, murder lots and lots of people. Fighting ISIS causes civilian deaths but has the benefit of fighting ISIS, not fighting ISIS causes civilian deaths and has no benefit at all.

ISIS is just a militant Wahabbist movement. Salafis were going to form something like ISIS eventually as that's the logicial progression of an ultra orthodox fundamentalist sect of zealots.

You also have to consider the way america picks and choose which atrocities to get involved in. ISIS could affect oil production so we'll focus on them, yet let all the atrocities in africa continue.

ISIS has killed 7,800 in it's best year, yet in america 30,000 a year dying to gun violence is considered a good year and nothing to worry about. Maybe we should bomb chicago?

Not fighting ISIS is actually the more humane thing to do because the number of innocent deaths is so horrifying it's a state secret. I've seen some state it's upwards of 1 million.

sirlynchmob wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:


ISIS was killing civilians wholesale and posting the videos on the internet long before we ever dropped a single bomb on their territory. The only reason we're bombing ISIS at all is because they're committing atrocities. Not fighting ISIS enhances their ability to keep doing what they want to do, murder lots and lots of people. Fighting ISIS causes civilian deaths but has the benefit of fighting ISIS, not fighting ISIS causes civilian deaths and has no benefit at all.

ISIS is just a militant Wahabbist movement. Salafis were going to form something like ISIS eventually as that's the logicial progression of an ultra orthodox fundamentalist sect of zealots.

You also have to consider the way america picks and choose which atrocities to get involved in. ISIS could affect oil production so we'll focus on them, yet let all the atrocities in africa continue.

ISIS has killed 7,800 in it's best year, yet in america 30,000 a year dying to gun violence is considered a good year and nothing to worry about. Maybe we should bomb chicago?

Not fighting ISIS is actually the more humane thing to do because the number of innocent deaths is so horrifying it's a state secret. I've seen some state it's upwards of 1 million.

I honestly have to ask at this point, are you trolling or ignorant? Your posts in this topic are just getting sillier and sillier.

 CptJake wrote:

sirlynchmob wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:


ISIS was killing civilians wholesale and posting the videos on the internet long before we ever dropped a single bomb on their territory. The only reason we're bombing ISIS at all is because they're committing atrocities. Not fighting ISIS enhances their ability to keep doing what they want to do, murder lots and lots of people. Fighting ISIS causes civilian deaths but has the benefit of fighting ISIS, not fighting ISIS causes civilian deaths and has no benefit at all.

ISIS is just a militant Wahabbist movement. Salafis were going to form something like ISIS eventually as that's the logicial progression of an ultra orthodox fundamentalist sect of zealots.

You also have to consider the way america picks and choose which atrocities to get involved in. ISIS could affect oil production so we'll focus on them, yet let all the atrocities in africa continue.

ISIS has killed 7,800 in it's best year, yet in america 30,000 a year dying to gun violence is considered a good year and nothing to worry about. Maybe we should bomb chicago?

Not fighting ISIS is actually the more humane thing to do because the number of innocent deaths is so horrifying it's a state secret. I've seen some state it's upwards of 1 million.

I honestly have to ask at this point, are you trolling or ignorant? Your posts in this topic are just getting sillier and sillier.

I'm serious, everyone keeps trying to point out how evil ISIS is, yet they just can't compete with america. Pointing out the failures of your foreign police seems prudent at this point.

how about this one. problem: A armed gunman just walked into a school, solution: Drone strike the school. Because who cares about collateral damage, we got the bad guy.

sirlynchmob wrote:

 CptJake wrote:

sirlynchmob wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:


ISIS was killing civilians wholesale and posting the videos on the internet long before we ever dropped a single bomb on their territory. The only reason we're bombing ISIS at all is because they're committing atrocities. Not fighting ISIS enhances their ability to keep doing what they want to do, murder lots and lots of people. Fighting ISIS causes civilian deaths but has the benefit of fighting ISIS, not fighting ISIS causes civilian deaths and has no benefit at all.

ISIS is just a militant Wahabbist movement. Salafis were going to form something like ISIS eventually as that's the logicial progression of an ultra orthodox fundamentalist sect of zealots.

You also have to consider the way america picks and choose which atrocities to get involved in. ISIS could affect oil production so we'll focus on them, yet let all the atrocities in africa continue.

ISIS has killed 7,800 in it's best year, yet in america 30,000 a year dying to gun violence is considered a good year and nothing to worry about. Maybe we should bomb chicago?

Not fighting ISIS is actually the more humane thing to do because the number of innocent deaths is so horrifying it's a state secret. I've seen some state it's upwards of 1 million.

I honestly have to ask at this point, are you trolling or ignorant? Your posts in this topic are just getting sillier and sillier.

I'm serious, everyone keeps trying to point out how evil ISIS is, yet they just can't compete with america. Pointing out the failures of your foreign police seems prudent at this point.

how about this one. problem: A armed gunman just walked into a school, solution: Drone strike the school. Because who cares about collateral damage, we got the bad guy.

He's clearly either trolling or being willfully ignorant and deceitful. Domestic US "gun deaths" which is just a semantic game to include suicides with murders to make the number bigger have nothing to do with ISIS.

We don't attack lone domestic criminals with drone strikes because lone gunmen/criminals aren't high value targets. There people out there that are deemed a grave enough threat to be worthy of drone strikes at any/every available opportunity. It's a matter of value. The US does what every state does, we act in our own interest, view the world through that prism and make our valuations accordingly. Nobody else has to agree with it and nobody else is responsible for our interests.

The reason atrocities go unchecked in Africa is because no other nations strong enough to stop them gainenough benefit from expending the cost in blood and treasure of stopping it. In the regard the US is no different from the UK, EU, Russia, China etc. It amuses me how quickly you change your tune from declaring its immoral to attack ISIS and try to stop their atrocities to claiming that it's immoral not to intervene in Africa. You already stated that you believe leaving ISIS alone is a better more humane course of action so why is there a moral imperative to intervene in Africa?

Prestor Jon wrote:

sirlynchmob wrote:

 CptJake wrote:

sirlynchmob wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:


ISIS was killing civilians wholesale and posting the videos on the internet long before we ever dropped a single bomb on their territory. The only reason we're bombing ISIS at all is because they're committing atrocities. Not fighting ISIS enhances their ability to keep doing what they want to do, murder lots and lots of people. Fighting ISIS causes civilian deaths but has the benefit of fighting ISIS, not fighting ISIS causes civilian deaths and has no benefit at all.

ISIS is just a militant Wahabbist movement. Salafis were going to form something like ISIS eventually as that's the logicial progression of an ultra orthodox fundamentalist sect of zealots.

You also have to consider the way america picks and choose which atrocities to get involved in. ISIS could affect oil production so we'll focus on them, yet let all the atrocities in africa continue.

ISIS has killed 7,800 in it's best year, yet in america 30,000 a year dying to gun violence is considered a good year and nothing to worry about. Maybe we should bomb chicago?

Not fighting ISIS is actually the more humane thing to do because the number of innocent deaths is so horrifying it's a state secret. I've seen some state it's upwards of 1 million.

I honestly have to ask at this point, are you trolling or ignorant? Your posts in this topic are just getting sillier and sillier.

I'm serious, everyone keeps trying to point out how evil ISIS is, yet they just can't compete with america. Pointing out the failures of your foreign police seems prudent at this point.

how about this one. problem: A armed gunman just walked into a school, solution: Drone strike the school. Because who cares about collateral damage, we got the bad guy.

He's clearly either trolling or being willfully ignorant and deceitful. Domestic US "gun deaths" which is just a semantic game to include suicides with murders to make the number bigger have nothing to do with ISIS.

We don't attack lone domestic criminals with drone strikes because lone gunmen/criminals aren't high value targets. There people out there that are deemed a grave enough threat to be worthy of drone strikes at any/every available opportunity. It's a matter of value. The US does what every state does, we act in our own interest, view the world through that prism and make our valuations accordingly. Nobody else has to agree with it and nobody else is responsible for our interests.

The reason atrocities go unchecked in Africa is because no other nations strong enough to stop them gainenough benefit from expending the cost in blood and treasure of stopping it. In the regard the US is no different from the UK, EU, Russia, China etc. It amuses me how quickly you change your tune from declaring its immoral to attack ISIS and try to stop their atrocities to claiming that it's immoral not to intervene in Africa. You already stated that you believe leaving ISIS alone is a better more humane course of action so why is there a moral imperative to intervene in Africa?

Nice of you to admit you're only attacking ISIS is because you want cheap oil. There's some moral high ground for you.

sirlynchmob wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:

sirlynchmob wrote:

 CptJake wrote:

sirlynchmob wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:


ISIS was killing civilians wholesale and posting the videos on the internet long before we ever dropped a single bomb on their territory. The only reason we're bombing ISIS at all is because they're committing atrocities. Not fighting ISIS enhances their ability to keep doing what they want to do, murder lots and lots of people. Fighting ISIS causes civilian deaths but has the benefit of fighting ISIS, not fighting ISIS causes civilian deaths and has no benefit at all.

ISIS is just a militant Wahabbist movement. Salafis were going to form something like ISIS eventually as that's the logicial progression of an ultra orthodox fundamentalist sect of zealots.

You also have to consider the way america picks and choose which atrocities to get involved in. ISIS could affect oil production so we'll focus on them, yet let all the atrocities in africa continue.

ISIS has killed 7,800 in it's best year, yet in america 30,000 a year dying to gun violence is considered a good year and nothing to worry about. Maybe we should bomb chicago?

Not fighting ISIS is actually the more humane thing to do because the number of innocent deaths is so horrifying it's a state secret. I've seen some state it's upwards of 1 million.

I honestly have to ask at this point, are you trolling or ignorant? Your posts in this topic are just getting sillier and sillier.

I'm serious, everyone keeps trying to point out how evil ISIS is, yet they just can't compete with america. Pointing out the failures of your foreign police seems prudent at this point.

how about this one. problem: A armed gunman just walked into a school, solution: Drone strike the school. Because who cares about collateral damage, we got the bad guy.

He's clearly either trolling or being willfully ignorant and deceitful. Domestic US "gun deaths" which is just a semantic game to include suicides with murders to make the number bigger have nothing to do with ISIS.

We don't attack lone domestic criminals with drone strikes because lone gunmen/criminals aren't high value targets. There people out there that are deemed a grave enough threat to be worthy of drone strikes at any/every available opportunity. It's a matter of value. The US does what every state does, we act in our own interest, view the world through that prism and make our valuations accordingly. Nobody else has to agree with it and nobody else is responsible for our interests.

The reason atrocities go unchecked in Africa is because no other nations strong enough to stop them gainenough benefit from expending the cost in blood and treasure of stopping it. In the regard the US is no different from the UK, EU, Russia, China etc. It amuses me how quickly you change your tune from declaring its immoral to attack ISIS and try to stop their atrocities to claiming that it's immoral not to intervene in Africa. You already stated that you believe leaving ISIS alone is a better more humane course of action so why is there a moral imperative to intervene in Africa?

Nice of you to admit you're only attacking ISIS is because you want cheap oil. There's some moral high ground for you.

How does attacking ISIS reduce the price of oil?

Saudi Arabia already increased production and reduced prices in response to the increase in production in the US in North Dakota and in Canada. How many oil wells and refineries does ISIS control? How much oil were we buying from Syria and Iraq prior to the destabilization of the region due to ISIS activity in the two years? How does the existence of ISIS raise the price of oil? You want us to leave ISIS alone as it's the most "humane" thing to do in your opinion so logically you must also believe that allowing ISIS to murder people with impunity and raise the price of energy across the globe is beneficial to somebody, somewhere?

Nations always act in their own self interest. There are no altruistic nations. Every aspect of foreign and domestic policy is designed to provide some form of benefit to the country. That's true for every country everywhere. There isn't a single country out there that is deliberately harming their own interests for the sake of benefiting others.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
At some point the possibility of those civilians being innocent of the crimes of ISIS ceases to outweigh the damage ISIS causes to the rest of the world. Lots of innocent people were killed to remove Hitler from power, it was still worth it.

 Grey Templar wrote:
No, I am arguing that might be the price you have to pay to remove this insidious evil.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Collateral damage will never be as evil as beheading people and putting the footage on youtube or forcing civilians to remain in an area that is under attack so their accidental deaths can be used as propaganda. Its not even evil, its just an accident. Accidental deaths happen in war.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Still only maybe .001% as evil as beheading hundreds of people, forcing women into sexual slavery, and deliberately trying to get civilians killed as propaganda/as human shields.

I mean... I can't even... really? You've said some absolutely ridiculous things on these forums, but nothing nearly as ridiculous or disgusting as this. Also, do you really think killed millions of people just because they happen to live where ISIS controls is really going to stop radicalism? Do you think about this gak before you type it or have you moved past that?

I'm reminded of what George Orwell wrote in 1945 in his essay Notes on Nationalism:

George Orwell wrote:“All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts. [...] Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them. There is almost no kind of outrage—torture, imprisonment without trial, assassination, the bombing of civilians—which does not change its moral color when it is committed by ‘our’ side. The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.”

Are there actually millions of people inside ISIS's borders? I believe there isn't even close to that many.

At some point, you have to say ''enough!" and actually do something. Not be some bleeding heart on the fence just saying ''stop that! Stop that is say!" Without actually doing anything.

Is it a gakky solution? Hell yeah. But if its the only solution you really don't have much choice.

The USA doesn't want cheap oil any more thanks to the shale gas revolution.

If the USA still needed it, Saudi Arabia would be very happy to sell cheap oil. (So would Saddam have been, if allowed to, but we cut him off.)

Saudi Arabia is one of the the more repressive regimes in the world, denying a wide range of basic human rights. To be fair it's not as bad as China or North Korea, but these are not great regimes to be not as bad as.

Saudi Arabia is the source of much of the international funding for ISIL and Wahhabism.

Saudi Arabia is one of our two best allies in the Middle East.

Saudi Arabia is the reason oil prices are as low as they are. They don't want the USA to be able to use fracking. As long as the threat of fracking exists, we don't need to invade anyone for oil. Not that we ever did.

Prestor Jon wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:

sirlynchmob wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

sirlynchmob wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
No, I am arguing that might be the price you have to pay to remove this insidious evil.

the price is to become more evil than those you fight against.

Collateral damage will never be as evil as beheading people and putting the footage on youtube or forcing civilians to remain in an area that is under attack so their accidental deaths can be used as propaganda. Its not even evil, its just an accident. Accidental deaths happen in war.

I'm sorry, bombing an area twice is not an accident. see the cases of double tapping, to not only kill the target but also kill those coming to help the victims. bombings are a deliberate attempt to kill lots of people and double taps are extremely evil.

killing 1 person is evil, killing 100 people with a bomb is 100 times more evil.

That's a ridiculous moral equivalency. Murder, rape, kidnapping, arson, robbery etc are all morally wrong. Preventing such actions from happening or continuing is good. Sometimes the people intent on committing such actions must be forcibly stopped because they can't or won't listen to reason, use of force in such situations is just and moral. Bombing Germany in WWII for instance was morally justifiable because it stopped the Nazis from conquering Europe. Forcibly stopping ISIS from committing atrocities is a justifiable and moral use of lethal force.

And knowingly murdering innocent children in bombardments is not morally wrong? Collateral damage is never accidental, it is just an euphemism for murder. When you drop that bomb on a populated area, you know it is going to kill innocents, and you accept that that is the price that must be paid.
Don't make it look any better than it is, there is nothing just or morally justifiable about it. It needs to be done to combat the evil of ISIS, but that does not change anything about the inherent evilness of bombardments.

Yes it does. The context and motivation behind the bombing completely changes morality of the action. It's not always wrong or evil to kill somebody. There are plenty of justifications for killing people that make it the moral thing to do. Is ISIS invading countries, occupying territory, committing crimes and atrocities and aiding and abetting acts of terrorism in other countries? Yes. Then opposing them and taking direct action to curtail the ability of ISIS to conduct those acitivities is morally justifiable. Then we have to decide the best way for us to attack ISIS. If the most effective and practical action we can take against ISIS is a strategic bombing campaign then we're going to bomb them. Yes, civilians are going to be killed, bombs are area of effect weapons, they will indescriminately kill/injure anyone in the blast radius. That is unfortunate but it is neccessary. Our bombs kill civilians. ISIS also kills civilians. When ISIS kills civilians they profit from it and grow stronger, when we kill civilians it's a side effect from killing ISIS targets. If we do nothing, civilians in ISIS controlled territory will continue to die and at the end of the day there will be dead civilians and a strong ISIS that kills any civilians it wants. If we bomb ISIS we degrade ISIS' ability to function, yes civilians die but the civilians that die are unfortunate bystanders and it's not a campaign of genocide. At the end of the die, civilians are dead but ISIS is degraded to a lesser state that is less capable of conquering and occupying territory and committing crimes and atrocities and supporting terrorism. Two different outcomes with different values, context and justifications.

I reject your morals. Deeds are good or evil by themselves, motivations do not change that. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions, as they say.
Neither does the outcome of a deed influence the deed itself. If you can save 10 people from dying by murdering one person, that changes nothing about the fact that killing is evil.
When faced with two different evils (letting ISIS rampage about unopposed or fighting them, killing many, including innocents, in the process) one should always choose the lesser evil, but that does not change the fact that the lesser evil is still evil. It does not become good just because it is the best course of action. Bombing children is never just, it is evil by definition. To say otherwise is just sick.

I reject the opinion that all killing is 'evil'. Nor is all killing 'murder'.

I think that Russia and Turkey going at it, even if it doesn't become a full on shooting war will effect the campaign against ISIS, people. Any thoughts?

 BaronIveagh wrote:
I think that Russia and Turkey going at it, even if it doesn't become a full on shooting war will effect the campaign against ISIS, people. Any thoughts?

Feth Turkey.