US Government begins attacking the Philippines

You forget to respond to the parts which would show you to be contradicting yourself.

Specifically:

- Everything has a reason, even if we don't agree with the reason. What was the reason given by the terrorists? Aren't the terrorists responsible for all the lives lost on 9/11?

- What if those citizens don't want to be citizens of that country? What if you considered that government to be treasonous due to decades on conflict?

- Why wrong? You intend to kill people. You kill them. That's on you. That's all on the person pulling the trigger which routinely kills more people than targetted. There is no evidence that terrorists universally aim to hide among citizens. The truth is that terrorists and citizens mingle, everywhere, in every country, since the beginning of time, till the end of time. It is a reason that can be used without verification at ANY TIME. Am I supposed to get away from everyone who is religious conservative? Should I intrude into every stranger's beliefs? Do you think they walk around with weapons everywhere? You might go to an Italian restaurant, and not know the owner is a mobster. Maybe you don't care. Maybe you can't do anything about it. What if you get blown up? Did you deserve it for being from a shady neighbourhood and were never able to even afford to leave it if you wanted to? What if I went there to give a school a class about seeking peace and unity and I was murdered because someone with possible links to terrorists could have been in the area?

- Do you think the risk is higher or lower now after this strike?

These things were not happening up until recently. You can not possibly convince yourself that it is necessary. Nothing has changed, some things have gotten worse, lots of money has been spent, LOTS of people have been killed.

Is it going to get safer than this, given your insistence on protecting your own overseas interests, friends and tyrants with force:

Dude these are people. They shouldn't die with terrorists, like terrorists, and be generically called militants in the media. You wouldn't accept your own people dying in these exact same circumstances, please stop accepting it for other people.

Terrorism has always existed and will always exist as long as power exists, and force will always inflame it. Are you willing to believe that your method is so unique, so fair, so necessary that it will change the course of the entire history of terrorism? Because that's what it would take. The tragedy on 9/11 was not terrorism. The tragedy was losing the people. Losing the human labor which created those towers, those businesses, that infrastructure. Losing any semblance of closeness between ideologies in America. So on and so forth.

So what do you do? Do you also go kill people abroad? Destroy human labor? Divide them? Ignore their civilians in pursuit of your great satan? Befriend leaders who prefers your safety over the safety of their own people?

There is much better chance of defeating this ideology by befriending the moderates closest to the extremists. Do you know what kind of stuff moderate kids are led to believe in a place like that? A small town kid, told that America wants to rape and pillage all Muslims, that Israel is executing Palestinians, and that Israel controls America? They put a gun in his hand and tell him that since all Americans vote, then they are all responsible for the actions of their government. Remind him of a dead family member. You are making it too easy for the terrorists to recruit these hopeless kids. This is not a small deal. This is a huge, real, serious deal.

This is what I meant. If you went to an Islamic school in the south of the philipines. If you considered the government treasonous. If you lost family in these attacks. That doesn't make you a terrorist. But it is a scientific fact that trauma and stress increase the "suggestability" of humans. We know this right now. We know it. It literally makes you more likely to be a terrorist. So how can it possibly make sense that the correct action was to bomb a group of people, some of which were probably invovled in terrorism, knowing that every person in that town is immediately more accepting of conditioning from their teachers, their neighbours, etc? All that will happen is those in the south will become more susceptible to whatever is being fed to them, and so will everyone else, which creates polarization.

It creates fear and feelings of revenge, frustration, blame, etc. The same feelings that I'm sure you had too when 9/11. America was less radical the day before, and more radical the day after. So what is going to happen the day after you stop, if you just stop and leave?

Round and round we go.

 

No I didn't. You must have misunderstood.

But to answer your question, I don't believe that the current government of the Philipines has the authority to ask Americans to attack a territory that has been fighting for independence for 30 years. These people, who are fighting for independence, can be granted a state if the US supports it. No other obstacles. I suppose you believe THAT'S sovereignty? lol

There are between 500-1,000 terrorists out of 20 million people seeking independence over 30 years. In that light, I think that it is not only illegitimate, but also it is unacceptable to the rest of the population that this country is too weak to defend itself against this classroom full of terrorists, whose TOTAL list of crimes over 30 years can be compared to last weekend in Iraq.

 

1) It depends on what they are rising about. The fact that you have a position on the hypothetical example with no detail says a lot about your conditioning though.

2) He was not, that is not legitimate. You can not be the legitimate leader of your country with the people not agreeing to your legitimacy.

Recognition from legitimate/illegitimate leaders of other countries, and assuming No Objection from the illegitimate veto powers, does not constitute a legitimate leader.

You cannot pump a leader with weapons and money and then call him legitimate, and say he is the legitimate authority to sign contracts. He clearly violated the constitution of Egypt from day 1, beginning with treason and ending with probably every kind of crime imaginable.

You can say that, legally, he was the leader. You can say that the most powerful members of thei nternational community gave him legitimacy. But he was never the legitimate leader of Egyptians.

In the same way, if Russia now came and pumped Romney with money and defense deals and offered him legitimacy (inclusive China, N Korea, Cuba, etc), helping him seal the presidency with the money, strike down on protests against him with an iron fist using the weapons he got, throw every protestor in prison, kill every opponent, ban every relevant political party, then tear up relations with Israel... Then if Romney went over to Russia and sat with Putin and signed deals with him. Believe me sir, you would not consider him legitimate. This is not an exaggeration, this is exactly the inverse of the situation which you call legitimate.

You are probably chuckling at the thought of the GOP candidate ending up befriending the Russians. In fact, this is exactly the kind of flip that Mubarak did when your government came by with an envolope and a shipment of guns, tear gas, batons, and tanks, helicopters, etc. You see, Egypt had two enemies and these weapons and cash had a distinct quality: way more money and weapons that the raging Egyptian population, but clearly less money and inferior weapons than/to Israel.

But you are looking at things from an American perspective, not a human one. For example, if I took things from an Arab perspective on the other extreme of your perspective, I would say that the United Nations is void and all its charters void because enforcement of rules has been selective and usually tied to veto powers, while the veto powers and their allies routinely reject decisions by the UN. There are no controls for collusion, and corruption in the past (such as with the US delegation tapping other delegations phones for example) has gone unpunished. There is no independent body which can oversee the UN, and the UN can not establish independent organs due to infiltration by the biggest funders.

But I'm not doing that. I'm telling you that a legal President is not necessarily a legitimate President given all the variables in the world of law and politics which me and you both know about.

The distinction is paramount because Mubarak's politics, business and crimes are all given legality by the United States. But it was never given any form of verifiable consent by the Egyptian people. If you still don't know why this is important, check Mubarak's recent life.

You know why he's behind bars? Because countries can make Presidents legal, but they can not make them legitimate without the consent of their own people.

But still, the most fantastic statement you made is...

Should I answer this or was this comment made in error? Think about what you are saying.

Your disdain for total self-determination is common and almost universal. Noted and agreed, but there is no reason to call this TOTAL self-determination when it is in fact not materially different than the average self-determination movement.

 

For the general public, I'm not responding to ATW and this is hurting him so much that he is intentionally lying in his posts to compel me to respond. Peace out.