Bombs over Boston

Crni Vuk said:
It helps to understand WHY there is actually such a danger for Americans in teh first place, that some of the issues you face are actually "home made" to speak so.
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I wouldn't put any of this past a Canadiens fan either. Boston had it coming.
 
Cimmerian Nights said:
I wouldn't put any of this past a Canadiens fan either. Boston had it coming.
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Hey now, we're not like that. Our issues are resolved with fists in mouths, not with cowardly bombs. Not saying that Boston doesn't deserve any (non-lethal) misery that comes to it, however.

Besides, only terrorists in our history made mailboxes explode, not marathons. Well, there was that one incident where they kidnapped and assassinated a minister, and Montréal came under martial law. Good times.

In all seriousness, I personally think it was a lunatic, like that crazy bastard whose name I can never remember who blew up a building in Oklahoma. It just doesn't seem like the M.O. of some Arab terrorists, for some reason.
 
McVeigh blew up a federal building full of DEA, ATF and Secret Service agents i.e. "The Man". That's a far cry from bombing a charity marathon.
 
Cimmerian Nights said:
McVeigh blew up a federal building full of DEA, ATF and Secret Service agents i.e. "The Man". That's a far cry from bombing a charity marathon.
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And how were these agents any less innocent, except for the fact that they worked for the government? How the hell does that make them less innocent than people who run a marathon? Unless one is a paranoid nutjob who thinks the gummit is out to get them, personally, I guess.
 
McVeigh struck at federal agents because he was motivated by some of the sketchier shit they did in the 90s. He had a hard-in for Lon Horiuchi and was a witness to Waco firsthand. You had federal agents shooting women and kids dead and the government having to pay out millions in damages.
This is a far cry from targeting charity marathon runners, who, while their bumper stickers are kind of pretentious, aren't fomenting terrorism, domestic, international or otherwise.

It doesn't really matter to me what your politics are, or which side of a border you come from, or which god you worship.
We can manufacture justifications all day long. End of the day, only wackos do this shit.

Or maybe I'm just giving charity marathon runners too much leeway.
 
Cimmerian Nights said:
McVeigh struck at federal agents because he was motivated by some of the sketchier shit they did in the 90s. He had a hard-in for Lon Horiuchi and was a witness to Waco firsthand. You had federal agents shooting women and kids dead and the government having to pay out millions in damages.
This is a far cry from targeting charity marathon runners, who, while their bumper stickers are kind of pretentious, aren't fomenting terrorism, domestic, international or otherwise.

It doesn't really matter to me what your politics are, or which side of a border you come from, or which god you worship.
We can manufacture justifications all day long. End of the day, only wackos do this shit.
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Yeah the bolded part is exactly my point... I got the faint impression that the government people somehow deserved it or something. Being fucked over by the government in a democracy doesn't mean you can blow up completely unrelated people. It's not better or worse than bombing a marathon, both acts are the product of mass-murdering madmen.
 
I don't bomb anyone, so it's not for me to say if government targets deserve it or not. The yahoo bombers decide, based on perceived grievances of one political bent or another.

I do find it a double standard to accept that international terrorism is somehow inevitable because of US foreign policy, but domestic terrorism is any different without regard for controversial domestic policy.
I'm not partial to one group over another.
 
Cimmerian Nights said:
I don't bomb anyone, so it's not for me to say if government targets deserve it or not. The yahoo bombers decide, based on perceived grievances of one political bent or another.

I do find it a double standard to accept that international terrorism is somehow inevitable because of US foreign policy, but domestic terrorism is any different without regard for controversial domestic policy.
I'm not partial to one group over another.
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Fair enough, but I daresay US foreign policy is leaps and bounds more controversial than its domestic policy, coming from an outsider POV anyhow. Not that it justifies 9/11 or anything, but it does not surprise me in the least that it happened, with hindsight.

But I digress. Terrorists who specifically target civilians are scum, that's for sure, regardless of the motivation.
 
Saw a on-the-ground photo yesterday.

As often it gives new meaning to "injured"

three dead, hunreds injured, and you think "Phew, injured, that doesn't sound so bad."

Reminds me of all the "injured" from Utøya, many of them having pieces of their skull torn off, due to gunshots to the head O.-

It is the most basic, most glaring, most obvious aspect about terrorism that is the most aggravating - how flippantly they deal with life and death. The fact that people are gone, it's so easy for them, *bam* "Maybe now you'll listen to my political opinions!"
 
Cimmerian Nights said:
McVeigh blew up a federal building full of DEA, ATF and Secret Service agents i.e. "The Man". That's a far cry from bombing a charity marathon.
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Did you forget that the explosion also took out the kindergarten in the building?
 
Ilosar said:
But I digress. Terrorists who specifically target civilians are scum, that's for sure, regardless of the motivation.
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hope the same morale counts for the people behind Guantanamo. - The people which run and govern it, not the prisoners.

Just saying. Its always very easy to paint a certain "group" as evil. But things are never that simple really.
 
Tagaziel said:
Cimmerian Nights said:
McVeigh blew up a federal building full of DEA, ATF and Secret Service agents i.e. "The Man". That's a far cry from bombing a charity marathon.
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Did you forget that the explosion also took out the kindergarten in the building?
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I don't think McVeigh ever took that into consideration one way or another. It was incidental to whacking the feds, which he was singularly obsessed with. In contrast, I don't see that this was directed towards "the man" directly, rather than just targeting a random concentration of people.
 
There's approximately 100,000 civilian deaths documented during the American occupation of Iraq. Perhaps the culprit of Boston bombing was one of former Abu Ghraib prisoners, who was beaten and arse-raped by those friendly American fellows. Who knows?
 
DammitBoy said:
Crni Vuk said:
Its always very easy to paint a certain "group" as evil. But things are never that simple really.
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Yes they are. Blowing civilians up with bombs on purpose is evil.
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you know, one thing that is interesting trough out history is how selective our perception and views are - I admit even mine. Particularly when it comes to the way how we form opinions.

When talking about the Nazis (I know I know ad hominem argument, but still), people see the atrocities and crimes, so as far as the "normal" educated person goes they are seen as evil, criminal scum. Thats more or less the role they fill in an historical context, as far as history they teach in "school" goes.

Now, the role of the US army when they started to deport and outright kill many indian tribes is not seen as critical, and they are not collectively painted as "evil", despite the fact that many of the people which got deported simply died, starving to death, freezing to death etc.

It is also interesting that many things depend on the "context".

We all agree that the founding fathers have been, more or less, noble figures, fighting for their freedom. In the eyes of the British Empire though they have been "terrorists" of some sort. And if the British Empire would have won, I doubt that People like Washington would had much to laugh, as they have been seen as traitors and not as people fighting for their "independence". On top of that they fought for the freedom of who? All people? Including their slaves? Of which all of them had one? Of course back then this was seen as "normal" like buying coffee in an grocery store you bought back then negros. Nothing fancy.

But it shows me one thing. Opinions change. And many times something we see as "fact" or "given" depends on the context, the perception. You and I see those terrorists today as questionable. I tend to rather not see people outright as "evil" though because its usually not that simple. But I do agree that their actions are not good. From our perspective. If you ask some Serbians which has lost his family and home because of American bombings, he might beg to differ. But thats the balkan. And who cares about that corner.

But this goes to violence in general if you ask me. All kind of violence has to be avoided if possible. politicians should urge the of use of restraint, as far as military actions and the use of violence goes. Particularly a nation like the US which actually has not really to fear any huge treat, because I really thought that comparison between Pearl Harbor in 1942 and the 11. september was nothing else but propaganda by the media to heat up the population, which even today, does not know all of the facts - no one of does, and we probably never will. 9/11 was a tragedy. But instead of actually investigating what lead to it and how it could be prevented in the future, all the US did was just to make the situation worse, because honestly, the US today is not more save (politically) before 9/11. There is neither less terrorism nor is there less hate regarding American citizens. in fact all they did was pushing nations like the Iran and North Korea in to more extreme actions to protect them self. If NK or the Iran really have nuclear weapons, then this might become a problem one day.

But the biggest problem is, that if you paint a group clearly as evil, where you dont even recognize them as force, you dont give them any other option then to fight. Did anyone ever tried something else then "wars on terror"? I mean really to analyse the situation? Maybe even offer negotiations? Alternatives? Many of the fighters in Afghanistan for example are not even Taliban. They are mercenaries. They earn their living by fighting. Because thats what they learned, in an nation that did nothing else for the last 30-40 years of its history. You have there whole generations that have grown up with nothing else but wars and conflicts, either against the Soviets, or some local ruler or like against the NATO/US forces now. As we have seen in the last decades, droping bombs on them, isnt enough. So if we cant kill them, what else can we do?

One of the things that bothers so many of the terrorists is the fact that the US has such a high presence in the Arabic nations, which they see as "holy land". What ever if we like them or not, but this is something we have to accept. Its what they believe. Their way of religion. We dont have to like it. I hope that you do understand here the difference between an explanation and an justification, because I sure dont agree with those people. But its what they believe. And as far as I know, you do agree as well that the US should rather close some of their military bases all around the world. Another issue is that many of the terrorists claim that US forces kill and torture civlians. Is that wrong? No. We all saw those footages. We all know about people held in Guantanamo, without trials, some of which have been innocent. Same for Abu Ghraib. US forces also do sometimes kill civilians. I "guess" probably not on purpose. But it happens.

if we accept those things as facts, then it becomes A LOT more difficult to paint all those terrorists simply as "evil".
 
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