Justification and conditions regarding suicide missions

[BarakzaiAbdali]

Barakzai just as an aside, not directly related to the subject of Pape's data


do you believe that suicide bombing in densely civilian populated areas which guarantees the deaths of civilians as a result; to be a legitimate tactic to use when fighting an occupier?

Now we are talking.

SXE, I think that its a complicated question with a complicated answer. Thanks for asking though. This is the old SXE that I am looking for. I knew you were in there somewhere.

So I think that we have to be careful and have a deep respect for the field of ethics (we both know its an intensely intricate field and whole academic departments are now devoted to it). In fact, Islamic ethics also deserves, as a subset of general ethics, a huge amount of respect. What i mean by respect, is that, there are shades of gray.

Lets take an abhorrent example: The Mai Lai massacre.

To many, its a simple: American troops killed a bunch of people... and raped them... they are animals.

I think its more complex SXE... as Muslims we are obligated to judge by degrees if we do judge at all.

So I think in that example the greater wrongs were done by LBJ and Nixon and Kennedy and these folks. These men were the true face of murder inc. They took a group of young boys and threw them into a country that had nothing to do with their national security benefit or deficit and sent them there under the guise of freedom and democracy. They have done the greater ethical wrong by sending Bob and Tom the murder and rapist to Mai Lai when Bob and Tom were just fine in Lubock Texas.

Then, the next level of wrong comes to those in Vietnam (dheim - their Karzai) that put their people in this predicament (communists and democrats alike). They created this environment and allowed it to sustain itself.

Then the next level of wrong was the Russians and the Chinese by sustaining a war for their interests, but pertending it was for the Vietnemese.

Finally, the foot soldier should have an ethical code... he should know that the little girl in Mai Lai had nothing to do with his comrade dying... but he's in a completely foreign enviroment that he was not supposed to be in the first place.

By the same token:

I do not think suicide bombing is legitimate and I have deep ethical questions about it, but I am not in their shoes. From my common sense and my own knowledge as well as the discussion above regarding the vast assymetry, I can just deduce that this is responsive element and not an instigative one. The side effect of its utilization is that you will have every brand of people.. (women whose husbands were killed, retards, brave people, depressed people) being the executers of this technique. I assume that there is a learning curve and that local commander variation reflects why these mistakes happen. Take for instance the Refsdahl interview with the Taliban. You have cool headed Commander Dauran, who is an aged but wise commander... and then you have the cow boy Talib named Umar who is a wild man and actually kidnapped Refsdhal for money.

This however does not address why its being utilized and who had done the greater ethical wrongs.

In my view the ethical wrongs begin with (starting with the greatest wrong):

The Muslims for being generally as a people, not working in their own national and self interests (perhaps the greatest wrong) ---> The US for interfering needlessly in places based in ideological disputes that do not enhance their national security, blood, or treasure ---> A questional ethical quandry of other Muslims involved in bringing this war to Afghanistan as a responsive element to what was going on in their countries ---> American leaders for lying to their people again and again about the motivations of their enemies ---> The US Army soldiers who gave a covenant to defend their constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic yet break that oath with occupation of other nations --> Wrongs done by local resistance fighters (including suicide bombing)

[ScimitarXEdge]

you're interpolating a caricature of what you want me arguments to imply. Now while I agree he's saying that most are ethnic locals; he also confirmed that there's a large enough percentage of non-locals particularly people affiliated with Extremist movements from outside the region. Ignoring this is intellectually dishonest. 10% is not something which can be casually overlooked. Otherwise you're cherry picking and what it seems, Pape is also cherry picking.

His Iraqi data? We're concentrating on Afghanistan here. Simply giving accolades by saying "it destroyed" my argument isn't veracity of the argument.You're merely filling bravado for lack of a rigorous argument. also you're conflating issues of Being against Imperialism and using suicide bombing. They're not identical, as proven by noted examples in history i.e. Soviet Afghan War.

I never said an attack and presence means the same thing; I'm saying for the claim to show correlation is causation THAT is what it would have to prove first; IT has not done that; I'm sorry Barakzai , the rules of logic and scientific analysis of data refutes your argument , no amount of inflating appraisal for something will redeem that. You're basically repeating the same argument over and over again, in what appears to be an attempt at thinking that if you repeat something enough times it will make it a reality.

The issues of Vietnam and Iraq in so much as this context is concerned; is purely red herring. Just a word to the wise; it's not always having references or data that makes your argument stronger; it's having RELEVANT data and references that do. Please understand this is nothing against you; but this is poor debate work. You haven't furthered your case except cyclically Making the same Correlation Fallacy. ....what can you present beyond the correlation fallacy is what will vindicate your argument

[ScimitarXEdge]

Now we are talking.

SXE, I think that its a complicated question with a complicated answer. Thanks for asking though. This is the old SXE that I am looking for. I knew you were in there somewhere.

)

Just a straight answer no embellished rationalizations please.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

Just a straight answer no embellished rationalizations please.

Thats about as logical as Bush's: "You are either with us or with the terrorists (Al Qaeda)."

It doesnt behoove us our our duty to all members of humanity to neglect the ethics of the situation.

To think there is a "straight answer" is a problem.

[ScimitarXEdge]

Thats about as logical as Bush's: "You are either with us or with the terrorists (Al Qaeda)."

It doesnt behoove us our our duty to all members of humanity to neglect the ethics of the situation.

To think there is a "straight answer" is a problem.

not really since I'm not giving you a false dichotomy

I just asked if you feel such a thing is legitimate, not a special preamble or explanaition; if I asked for the explanation, then you'd be fair in putting all that stuff in.



otherwise you're trying to circumvent.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

you're interpolating a caricature of what you want me arguments to imply. Now while I agree he's saying that most are ethnic locals; he also confirmed that there's a large enough percentage of non-locals particularly people affiliated with Extremist movements from outside the region. Ignoring this is intellectually dishonest. 10% is not something which can be casually overlooked. Otherwise you're cherry picking and what it seems, Pape is also cherry picking.

His Iraqi data? We're concentrating on Afghanistan here. Simply giving accolades by saying "it destroyed" my argument isn't veracity of the argument.You're merely filling bravado for lack of a rigorous argument. also you're conflating issues of Being against Imperialism and using suicide bombing. They're not identical, as proven by noted examples in history i.e. Soviet Afghan War.

I never said an attack and presence means the same thing; I'm saying for the claim to show correlation is causation THAT is what it would have to prove first; IT has not done that; I'm sorry Barakzai , the rules of logic and scientific analysis of data refutes your argument , no amount of inflating appraisal for something will redeem that. You're basically repeating the same argument over and over again, in what appears to be an attempt at thinking that if you repeat something enough times it will make it a reality.

The issues of Vietnam and Iraq in so much as this context is concerned; is purely red herring. Just a word to the wise; it's not always having references or data that makes your argument stronger; it's having RELEVANT data and references that do. Please understand this is nothing against you; but this is poor debate work. You haven't furthered your case except cyclically Making the same Correlation Fallacy. ....what can you present beyond the correlation fallacy is what will vindicate your argument

Wrong, you're stuck in what I call a positive feedback scimitarius illogcus loop. You're operating under the pretense that by repeating the same line and endorsing the null hypothesis that is no evidence behind it, that you can undo the damage to your argument.

What a ridiculous statement regarding strong correlations and causations. What it boils down to is you're saying you are going to use American lawyer language to avoid addressing the strength of the correlation by saying that causality cannot be considered even if the p value is .00000000000001. In essence, to ride on his example, you would have been one of the Americans that would have said despite the correlations between smoking and lung cancer... doctors have no right to imply causality.

He defined who the 10% where. 5% of them were Pashtuns from FATA region. Hmmm, I wonder why? Is it not because Wazirs also have land in Birmal and the border is nonexistent for them? Then he went on to correlate the correlation itself with activity across the durand line in FATA in line with Musharraf's surge. 4 pieces of corroborating data, 4 logical points, you lose.

Now its time to admit that you are attempting to take a sort of nonexistent middle ground under the false belief that some secret Islamic stealth force exists that rivals the Taliban and is truly the insurgency.

As per the PBS documentary I referenced to Randolph, Taliban imbeds float with Hizbe Islamis and vice versa.

The fantastic mythological conspiracy there wherein America set up Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and Pakistan, to create a hostile group that kills their own soldiers in order to sustain the imperial motive, while simulataneosly having India on board to neutralize Pakistan, but then ensuring the Pakistanis are on board for the scheme is about as realistic as the Easter Bunny.

I would expect such circuitous fantastical thinking from the Pashtun Marxists on here, and I suspect you know you're defeated, but you are just being stubborn.

The shin has been laid bare my friend; the data destroyed your argument in totality. The adjunctive data regarding warfare and your advocated methods failing in the field also only strengthened our argument.

QED

[ScimitarXEdge]

I'm not; it's not evidential because it's a faulty relationship; I've explained already why.

Going la la la lal la....I can't hear you is

Isn't a rebuttal against that. Until you can show his evidence does more than just "This happened after this happened, therefore the first thing was the cause; then the case is weak.


QED eh? I never saw a QED after attempts at defending faulty causation. But I guess logical consistency isn't your concern here.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

not really since I'm not giving you a false dichotomy

I just asked if you feel such a thing is legitimate, not a special preamble or explanaition; if I asked for the explanation, then you'd be fair in putting all that stuff in.



otherwise you're trying to circumvent.

Wrong, completely false dichotomy. Very similar to Lavaenay Zalmay's dichotomy of: well of course America has the moral imperitive it was attacked!

If a farangee like Scheuer can step back and say: wait a minute... whether we think 9/11 was real, unreal, the sky or the moon... lets determine what really happened here and who did the wrongs.

If a white guy who wants to see the enemy crushed can afford the Muslim world that level of decency, I refuse to not provide the same for the Pashtuns fighting a very assymetrically balanced super power.

Day in and day out the news releases are showing that the massive assymetry lays bare the inadequacies of your and Randolph's GI Joe X Men logic of how to fight war and how populations respond to it:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...0,549676.story

For instance, your commentary on climbing mountains to shoot down drones? Thats incredulous and incredible at the same time. In this article read the detailed description of how the drone operators function.

So certainly, a thorough answer is required for such a question otherwise you are basically emulating George W Bush.

[ScimitarXEdge]

do you know what false dichotomy is?

[ScimitarXEdge]

and By the way Barakzai; you're all over the map right now, try to focus, you're starting to found as random and spaced out as Soldat Amr or Toraman ..or worse Baygham.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

I'm not; it's not evidential because it's a faulty relationship; I've explained already why.

Going la la la lal la....I can't hear you is

Until you can show his evidence does more than just "This happened after this happened, therefore the first thing was the cause
"isnn't a rebuttal against that.

QED eh? I never saw a QED after attempts at defending faulty causation. But I guess logical consistency isn't your concern here.

You havent. You merely are evading the analysis of the data, now even provided to you in the raw. Moroever, as noted, he addresses the phenomena in both the Afghan and the Iraq wars (and the relevancy in studying his work on the Iraq war is that he addresses the correlations in regard to anti American action and the spikes that occured with regiment introduction to areas). You are also copping out with the "corrrelations dont mean causality" biz to avoid taking responsibility for addressing the correlation itself. He encricles you and tightens the noose when he addresses the phenomena occuring in a spikes across Iraq, the Pashtun FATA belt, and southern Afghanistan in relation to the ISAF troop presence.

It certainly does more justice to the Pashtuns than this nefarious set of unsubstantiated assertions that go:

1) Mullah Omar is actually Hamid Gul and he never existed
2) The Taliban insurgency is the ISI's tail (a very shallow analysis of the history and a complete dismissal of Hizbe's own links to funding from that source)
3) Therefore, the Taliban are actually an ISI strategy devised to permit NATO to stay in Afghanistan and to basically indiscriminantly bomb civilians so as to shift the Afghan populations sentiments towards Toramana. As if Hamid gul goes to the safe house in Waziristan and says "Yo Omar, we need some more $$$ and we really want those white guys that are letting India build embassies and screw up our strategic depth concept to stay around.. also we REALLY REALLY REALLY want Afghans to accept that ANP is super awesome and so please go send Nek Ahmad to Khost to kill a pregnant woman."

^ that sounds completely like Zaid Hamid's inverted image.

[ScimitarXEdge]

oh yeah and Randolph; nice work pointing out Barakzai's error regarding the associations of Hizb and Taliban; he seems to have glossed over that again.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

and By the way Barakzai; you're all over the map right now, try to focus, you're starting to found as random and spaced out as Soldat Amr or Toraman ..or worse Baygham.

We're very focused, we've pinned you down on your inability to deal with Pape. Thats the focus, in that you lost credibility of the assertions you were making. Its an inconvenient truth (though my suspicion is that you know very well that Mullah Omar and all of these people from haqqani to Hekmetyaar to whoever else are all involved in this war against American occupation - you are just attempting to not look like you lost the argument).

[BarakzaiAbdali]

oh yeah and Randolph; nice work pointing out Barakzai's error regarding the associations of Hizb and Taliban; he seems to have glossed over that again.

Lol you missed reading the transcript. It blew you and Randolph out of the water. Talibs were imbedded into the Hizbe effort. Since you laud Hekmetyaar, do you really think he woudl be that retarded to allow such imbeds if he suspected they were imperial proxies? Congratulating Randolph on something that he did not do doesnt extricate you from this Chinese finger trap of the mind you got yourself into.

[ScimitarXEdge]

We're very focused, we've pinned you down on your inability to deal with Pape. Thats the focus, in that you lost credibility of the assertions you were making. Its an inconvenient truth (though my suspicion is that you know very well that Mullah Omar and all of these people from haqqani to Hekmetyaar to whoever else are all involved in this war against American occupation - you are just attempting to not look like you lost the argument).

but I dealt with pape ...it's you who cn't deal with Pape, you feel Pape merely having data is enough ....which is faulty in itself you don't want to admit that Pape's Argument is a Logical Fallacy.

What's ironic is Soldat has presented similar arguments and you debunked him on the same grounds; when he tried to use referential data. It seems however you hold a different standard for yourself