What’s Wrong with the World

Lydia,
I agree. The Modern notions of "goodness" has been swallowed by relativism and multiculturalism. We cannot say one is right and another is wrong. Some even claim that one could not denounce the terrorists attacks on 9/11 as immoral because "it was right to them." Our whole concept of tolerance has been grossly misconstrued and we now see the effects. Sadly and ironically, when one points out these hypocrisies they are no longer "tolerated", just epitomizing the nonsense of the position. May God help us.
In Christ,
Kevin
catholicrebel.blogspot.com

There is no question this is about Islam. I understand from Jihad Watch the perp is a British born Muslim of apparently Nigerian decent. So when he talks about what is happeining in "his lands", presumably Nigeria, why is he still in England? If he believes Nigeria to be "his" land, then go, and leave the rest of us alone. On another note, I don't recall any Brits, or Americans for that matter, dropping bombs on Nigeria. So this is ONLY about Islam, and his presumably avenging fellow Muslims, not Nigerians.

Robert Spencer has posted a full transcript of the murderer's remarks here:

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/05/full-video-and-transcript-of-uk-jihad-murderer-we-are-forced-by-the-quran.html

Spencer discusses Koranic "justifications" for the acts and the murderer's explicit invocation of Muslim texts here:

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/05/cameron-on-london-jihad-murder-there-is-nothing-in-islam-that-justifies-this-truly-dreadful-act.html

Kevin, if "we cannot say one [person] is right and another is wrong," then why would someone who "points out these hypocrisies" (whichever ones to which you refer) become "no longer 'tolerated'"? Sure, we've got a problem, but it ain't relativism. The same folks who said after September 11, 2001 that "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" told us with a straight face that George W. Bush is the biggest terrorist in the world, full stop. The throw-away line "That's just your opinion" is a cudgel such folks use against that with which they disagree; but they're always ready with "This is a fact" when it comes to that with which they agree. So yes, maybe you can't say someone is right and another wrong, but they can--and they do it incessantly.

Relativism is very uncommon as an actual belief. It is, rather, often a tool to enforce leftist orthodoxy. The battle today isn't over whether there is such a thing as goodness but instead over what goodness is.

It has come to this. The Tea Party has come to London.

After the Benghazi massacre and the Obama administration's lack of response, and it's subsequent whitewashing coverup, why wouldn't the Radical Islamists feel emboldened enough to commit a beheading in broad daylight?

Truth, the connection between Benghazi and London is less causal, and more general, than that. Not to say there is no overarching connection. But it's an overarching one, not a direct causal one.

Sage has it completely right. I don't think people like this guy in London need much emboldening. They have a point to make and they will make it. If anyone or anything is emboldening them, it might be the fact that England is full of wusses with Stockholm Syndrome who will engage in domestic appeasement all the time. (Which is not to say that the U.S. is now much better in that regard.) That and maybe the fact that no one is allowed to carry guns on the street and that they had to wait for twenty minutes for the armed police.

The jihad marches on.

Boy Scouts of America approve of gay scouts. The Scout's Oath of Honor has just been beheaded.

Way back in the early 1980s, while I was a grad student, I had a job as a late night convenience store clerk. This was also during the time when central americans, particularly from El Salvador, were flooding into the country. Coincidental with that flood was a rise in street gangs and gang murders, with Salavdorans out front and center.

The government line regarding the central americans was that they were coming here to escape the violence of their home country...so we all should welcome them as if bosom buddies.

As the late night clerk, I would have time to browse the magazines on the racks when it was slow. I recall opening one to a photo of a woman who had been decapitated, her head and body separated by a few feet, only the blood smear between them indicating they previously were connected. The woman was an El Salvadoran. The caption read something like this: While it may appear that this woman was killed during the civil war in El Salavdor, this actually is a picture of domestic violence from there.

A 3000 watt light bulb came on in my mind and I concluded that the refugees from there that we had welcomed into our country were NOT escaping extremely depraved violence as much as they were importing it into our country. This entirely changed my view of immigration from third world countries. They bring with them what they know and plant it here.

The murderers in Britain on their jihad are the symptom of what England has allowed in its immigration policies. Same goes for Sweden now after three days of Muslim riots, and Boston of course. Immigration is not only allowing bodies to come in, but background, culture, and a desire to reproduce all that is famaliar from the home land. It is no wonder what happened in London. The Brits have brought in people from enormously violent cultures to spread what they know as familiar and infect the minds of those around them. There is no melting pot anymore. There is only a collison of civilizations, which goes back to the very beginnigs of man. Importing large numbers of people from violent, alien cultures into one's country amounts pretty much to a death wish for one's ordered and felicitous society come true.

This horror, to me, is eerily reminiscent of the Zebra killings perpetrated by the Black Muslim Death Angels (nice...) in San Francisco in 1973-74. These animals would walk right up to whites on the street and shoot them in public and walk away (or throw them into their van and hack them up). Four of these guys killed 12 people and injured or maimed another 10 or so over 5 months before they were stopped. And these were just the murders that were confirmed and prosecuted. There were dozens or perhaps as many as hundred other killings or missing persons throughout California around this time that fit this profile but were never officially linked to this black muslim group.

If you haven't read Clark Howard's book recounting the case I think it's worth your time, but fair warning it will chill your blood.

I am not - and never will - excuse the killing of innocent people. These animals are just that - animals. And yes, this is all about an Islamic persecution complex.

But we cannot just excuse our governments for their indiscriminate, interventionist foreign policy - a policy that has also shed much innocent blood overseas. We cannot whitewash our own sins. We cannot just assume that America=Right. We need to take an honest look at what we do and why we do it. No, we don't target innocent civilians, but we sure kill a lot of them! Do you think it brings comfort to the orphans and widows when we say "we didn't mean it"? And, do we mean it? We know going in that there will be much collateral damage when we use massive bombs, but we do it anyway. Even targeted drone strikes with precision missiles kill innocent people. 3 out of the 4 American citizens killed by drone strikes were "untargeted". Does that make their death excusable? Is that "the good"? If you stacked up bodies killed in acts of terror vs. bodies killed in the war on terror - which stack would be higher?

Is that the answer? Kill them all? Keep killing until the threat goes away?

What are our goals? Spreading democracy? Or is it more about keeping the war machine in business?

We in the West need to seriously ask ourselves - what would happen if we just brought all of our troops, and all of our CIA agents, home? Would the jihad against the West continue? Or would they go back to killing each other?

These are fundamental issues we need to address.

Oh thank goodness. We were worried the Paulites might miss this thread and refrain from adding their insightful voices to the discussion.

"...what would happen if we just brought all of our troops, and all of our CIA agents, home? Would the jihad against the West continue?"

Short answer: Yes.

We in the West need to seriously ask ourselves - what would happen if we just brought all of our troops, and all of our CIA agents, home? Would the jihad against the West continue?

Yes. Beyond all doubt. The jihad was going on for hundreds of years before America even existed. The jihad led Muslim barbary states to kidnap American seamen circa 1800 when America was scrupulously abiding by a non-interventionist foreign policy. The jihad mandates turning all that is not "the house of Islam" into "the house of Islam." It is not, and never has been, a reaction to American foreign policy. That is just the excuse of opportunity of the moment.

Daniel, I'm probably one of the most sympathetic mainstream conservatives you will ever meet to anti-interventionist foreign policy. I opposed the second Iraq war. I oppose nation-building because I think it's stupid and never works. But it is all nonsense that this has squat to do with what these people are doing. It doesn't. Nor are we, in fact, indiscriminately killing women and children in their countries. Nor is it _immoral_ for us to have troops on their so-called "sacred land" in Saudi Arabia (with the permission of their government).

The real fundamental issue we need to address here is why we have so many Muslims in the West. We don't know much about one of these murderers, but the other one was from a Nigerian Christian family (so so much for all this baloney about "our land") and was converted to Islam by a group of Muslims in the UK. He was then evidently a protege of a Muslim preacher who preaches outright jihad.

Are they going to teach these people that they have a grievance? For sure, these radical preachers will do so. But even as it is, they lie and exaggerate. And beyond that, if it weren't one thing, it would be another.

Stockholm Syndrome. Blaming the victim. Avoid them.

And frankly, it's that kind of thing that makes me reluctant to write about these subjects. People always find silly things to say along the lines of "maybe we really could stop this if we just gave in to their demands." We should probably bring our troops home from many of these places for _other_ reasons. But not to appease the Muslims.

And guess what: When I've brought up the idea of restricting Muslim immigration, I've been told that _that_ would "cause" riots and backlash and blowback. Great. So we already let in members of a violent religion that use any excuse they can find for perpetrating evil violence, and then we're held hostage to keep on letting in _more_ members of that religion, because if we stop the ones who are already here will riot and kill. Just great. And that, presumably, would be our fault?

If it ain't one excuse, it's another.

I am not - and never will - excuse the killing of innocent people...But..

Yes you are.

But we cannot just excuse our governments for their indiscriminate, interventionist foreign policy

Oh, we are not indiscriminately interventionist. Of course not. We discriminate about that. We don't run roughshod into Canada or Russia. In order to make your case, you have to talk about bad intervention, i.e. intervening in places and ways where we shouldn't. And that has to be done individually, with discrimination, on a case by case basis, unless you want to play head-in-the-sand ostrich isolationism, the kind of isolationism which would have refused to come out when the Barbary pirates were pirating our vessels, and refused to come out when Britain was impressing out merchant marine men. I take that kind of isolationism to be hopelessly foolish and unreal, as did the men who founded this country.

We cannot just assume that America=Right. We need to take an honest look at what we do and why we do it.

We are supposed to do that every time we vote for new men in office. The fact that we have bad men in office is due, in part, to the fact that we have bad men voting who are voting for men who will make vice easier to maintain than virtue. But as long as we have democracy, rule by the people, we cannot make a virtuous government without choosing good men over evil men, and that's not happening.

We know going in that there will be much collateral damage when we use massive bombs, but we do it anyway.

True, but that's a COMPLETELY different moral issue than whether we should take a pro-active position regarding Muslim terror. Sure, the two are related, but that's because the question of moral prosecution of war applies to ALL war, not just the one on Muslim terror. I happen to think that that kind of collateral damage IS, definitely, morally justifiable in the right circumstances, and not justifiable in others, and it takes discernment to see the difference. I recognize that there are morally upright people who think otherwise, and I am willing to debate the issue - as long as they are willing to recognize for the debate that it's a moral question that is open to discussion and not a closed matter.

What are our goals? Spreading democracy? Or is it more about keeping the war machine in business?

I have been hearing about "the war machine" and the "military-industrial complex" for decades, and frankly I think that appeals to it's control over politicians is somewhat overrated. If it is the full panoply of entities that have some benefit from a pro-active foreign posture, that includes so many individuals and entities that it might as well as be called "the country" and be done with it - and it is too diffuse to attribute any specific results to it except the broad one that is explicit in the national debate: where does the common good lie? If it is a narrow slice, it cannot account for being able to outweigh all other factions regardless of whether Republicans or Democrats, liberals or conservatives, hold the reins.

In any case, as long as there is such evil in the world that we need an army, air force, and navy for (true) defense, there IS actually some good under consideration for keeping in operation such things as a high-tech shipyard, R&D on aeronautics, etc. The best way to remain un-attacked at home by foreign military remains being highly prepared to beat the crap out of any who might try.

"Collateral damage Tony..."

(Sorry. Iron Man joke. Never mind.)

William Luse:

Yes you are.

Lydia:

Yes. Beyond all doubt. The jihad was going on for hundreds of years before America even existed. The jihad led Muslim barbary states to kidnap American seamen circa 1800 when America was scrupulously abiding by a non-interventionist foreign policy.

What happened to the jihad between the 1800's and now? It seemed to grow strangely silent until sometime after WWII - after the West invaded, fought a war on, and divided their lands arbitrarily.

The jihad mandates turning all that is not "the house of Islam" into "the house of Islam." It is not, and never has been, a reaction to American foreign policy. That is just the excuse of opportunity of the moment.

Well "jihad" is an excuse for terrorists to spread their political brand of Islam. This can be seen once the jihadists acquire power, it becomes political. The thing we often don't consider is the fact that most Muslims don't accept the radical brand of jihad perpetrated by the terrorists. The problem is that our "war on terror" kills a lot of these Muslims also. Bloodshed is not the answer to every problem.

Daniel, I'm probably one of the most sympathetic mainstream conservatives you will ever meet to anti-interventionist foreign policy. I opposed the second Iraq war. I oppose nation-building because I think it's stupid and never works. But it is all nonsense that this has squat to do with what these people are doing. It doesn't.

That's not what THEY say. Of course they lie and we always tell the truth - right?

Nor are we, in fact, indiscriminately killing women and children in their countries.

Are we "discriminately" killing women and children? (Because we've killed a lot of them!)

Nor is it _immoral_ for us to have troops on their so-called "sacred land" in Saudi Arabia (with the permission of their government).

That's what the governments say - yes. But do governments decide what's moral?

The real fundamental issue we need to address here is why we have so many Muslims in the West.

I agree 100%. Part of "bringing our troops home" means worrying more about our own borders than about the borders between Afghanistan and Pakistan, Iraq and Iran, Iraq and Syria. Our resources would be better spent guarding the homeland - and that includes a rigorous immigration policy.

Stockholm Syndrome. Blaming the victim. Avoid them.

We tend to only see one side of the violence. We tend to pretend that our governments do nothing wrong or immoral (we do this by excusing their actions). We also tend to take it personal - as if "our government" = "us". This is the mindset we must break if we want to see things clearly. Just because our government does something, it doesn't mean we must dutifully fall in line behind it. Conservatives are quick to question the government on domestic and social policy but seem to feel our government is infallible on foreign policy. I'm saying that we need to examine what we do. And that's not to excuse the terrorists - far from it. It's to say that violence begets violence. We can't "kill 'em all" - that will never work. We need to look at what we are doing and what kind of blowback that can cause.

And frankly, it's that kind of thing that makes me reluctant to write about these subjects. People always find silly things to say along the lines of "maybe we really could stop this if we just gave in to their demands." We should probably bring our troops home from many of these places for _other_ reasons. But not to appease the Muslims.

What we should do is try to imagine what it's like to live in a country besides our own. What we should do is try to imagine the affects of American foreign policy from the other side. What would we feel like if our government (bad as it is) was toppled - say by the Chinese military - and replaced by another of their choosing? How would we feel if Chinese troops were occupying our lands, targeting our citizens, killing innocent men, women and children, and excusing that as "collateral damage"?

And guess what: When I've brought up the idea of restricting Muslim immigration, I've been told that _that_ would "cause" riots and backlash and blowback. Great. So we already let in members of a violent religion that use any excuse they can find for perpetrating evil violence, and then we're held hostage to keep on letting in _more_ members of that religion, because if we stop the ones who are already here will riot and kill. Just great. And that, presumably, would be our fault?

That's what the left says. That's not what I'm saying. We have the right, as a country, to decide who enters our borders and who gets access to our society. We are more concerned with policing the world than with policing our own borders.

What happened to the jihad between the 1800's and now?

Ever hear of the Turkish empire?

It seemed to grow strangely silent until sometime after WWII - after the West invaded, fought a war on, and divided their lands arbitrarily.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that was a typo for WWI. In any event, sorry, Charlie, but we wouldn't and shouldn't make stupid excuses for, say, German terrorism or Austrian terrorism, yet we fought a war on and divided up the Austrian empire just as arbitrarily as the empire of the Turks who had made common cause with them. Yet somehow, somehow, we don't have a problem with Austrian terrorism. Wonder why that is.

That's not what THEY say. Of course they lie and we always tell the truth - right?

No, but if we're not idiots we recognize when madmen following an insane religion are grabbing at excuses as well as exaggerating what is going on.

We tend to pretend that our governments do nothing wrong or immoral (we do this by excusing their actions).

Yeah, that's me all over. Apologist for the USG. Sheesh.

That's what the governments say - yes. But do governments decide what's moral?

Wait, wait, it's _immoral_ for the U.S. to have troops in Saudi Arabia? Seriously? Because it's the holy land of Islam? No, it may be unwise in this or that respect, but it is not immoral.

What we should do is try to imagine what it's like to live in a country besides our own. What we should do is try to imagine the affects of American foreign policy from the other side. What would we feel like if our government (bad as it is) was toppled - say by the Chinese military - and replaced by another of their choosing? How would we feel if Chinese troops were occupying our lands,

This is the kind of bull hockey that just makes me see red. A Nigerian Muslim convert whose land has never been invaded by Western troops _explicitly_ invokes the Quran and jihad to justify hacking a British soldier to death on the streets of London, and all you Paulites can do is blather "how would we feel if the Chinese occupied the U.S."

Sickening. Just sickening.

And by the way, it only works rhetorically with people who already are inclined to agree with you, so perhaps you and your hero R.P. and the leftists he's imitating should drop it if you hope to be effective.

Btw, Daniel, the Muslims hold a grudge for the loss of Spain to the infidels. They call it Al Andalus. That was over with in the time of Ferdinand and Isabella. Perhaps that is also a matter of "conquering and occupying their land" and should be analogized to our being conquered by the Chinese? You just don't get it.

Oh, another btw: How do you suppose the Barbary pirates were, shall we say, discouraged from kidnapping our seamen in service of the jihad? Instead of continuing to pay them jizya money and ransom for our men, which was costing us a pretty penny we could ill afford, we and the British, then in the process of expanding the British empire, went over there and beat the tar out of them. In their lands. It helps sometimes. That's where the line "to the shores of Tripoli" comes from in the Marine hymn.

Tony:

Oh, we are not indiscriminately interventionist. Of course not. We discriminate about that. We don't run roughshod into Canada or Russia. In order to make your case, you have to talk about bad intervention, i.e. intervening in places and ways where we shouldn't. And that has to be done individually, with discrimination, on a case by case basis,

Lets see - we went to war with Vietnam and now we trade with them; we supported Saddam before we overthrew him; we supported Mubarak before we stepped aside and let him get toppled; we support the Saudi government (though 9/11 was more integral to that country than any other); we opposed, then supported, then opposed Kaddafi; we opposed and toppled, then installed and supported, then, after the revolution, opposed again, the Iranian government... Yes we "discriminate" when it comes to foreign policy - very badly.

unless you want to play head-in-the-sand ostrich isolationism, the kind of isolationism which would have refused to come out when the Barbary pirates were pirating our vessels, and refused to come out when Britain was impressing out merchant marine men. I take that kind of isolationism to be hopelessly foolish and unreal, as did the men who founded this country.

Again with the Barbary pirates? Come on! The thing about my position is that you obviously don't understand it. It's not "isolationism", it's "non-interventionism". Isolationism is what we're doing right now to N. Korea and Iran - imposing sanctions in order to isolate them from the rest of the world. Non-interventionism is different - it can best be summarized with Jefferson's statement: "peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none."

But as long as we have democracy, rule by the people, we cannot make a virtuous government without choosing good men over evil men, and that's not happening.

I agree - and it hasn't happened for a long time.

True, but that's a COMPLETELY different moral issue than whether we should take a pro-active position regarding Muslim terror. Sure, the two are related, but that's because the question of moral prosecution of war applies to ALL war, not just the one on Muslim terror. I happen to think that that kind of collateral damage IS, definitely, morally justifiable in the right circumstances, and not justifiable in others, and it takes discernment to see the difference. I recognize that there are morally upright people who think otherwise, and I am willing to debate the issue - as long as they are willing to recognize for the debate that it's a moral question that is open to discussion and not a closed matter.

I agree that it's a moral matter. I think also that we need to view things "from the other side" (not from the terrorist's side but from the side of the people most affected by collateral damage). We need to apply the golden rule and agree that it is moral to "do unto others as we would have them do unto us".

I have been hearing about "the war machine" and the "military-industrial complex" for decades, and frankly I think that appeals to it's control over politicians is somewhat overrated. If it is the full panoply of entities that have some benefit from a pro-active foreign posture, that includes so many individuals and entities that it might as well as be called "the country" and be done with it - and it is too diffuse to attribute any specific results to it except the broad one that is explicit in the national debate: where does the common good lie?

Really? The big industrial corporations need defense contracts, the politicians get them these contracts because it means jobs for their constituents and more tax revenue for their district. So - because it's "for the common good", we should keep the wars and other military actions going all over the world? Because our people stand to lose income, because our government stands to lose tax revenue, we should keep building bombs, missiles and fighter jets - AND USING THEM? The plain fact is, there's a LOT of money tied up in the war machine, and, wherever there's a lot of money, there's corruption.

If it is a narrow slice, it cannot account for being able to outweigh all other factions regardless of whether Republicans or Democrats, liberals or conservatives, hold the reins.

Again - it's more about money and power than political ideology.

In any case, as long as there is such evil in the world that we need an army, air force, and navy for (true) defense, there IS actually some good under consideration for keeping in operation such things as a high-tech shipyard, R&D on aeronautics, etc. The best way to remain un-attacked at home by foreign military remains being highly prepared to beat the crap out of any who might try.

I agree. The problem lately (post WWII) is that we seem to go out looking for conflicts to get involved in. Were we "attacked" in Korea? Vietnam? Kuwait? Libya? Syria? And, other than shooting at our planes enforcing a "no fly zone" over their country, were we really attacked in Iraq? Was that war vital to our national security? Have any of the military actions pursued by the US since WWII been vital to national security - really?

The truth is, Daniel, people like you want to have it both ways. You want to make excuses for evil without admitting it. A Nigerian Muslim convert hacks a soldier to death in London, and you want to start talking like he and other jihadis like him have a rational grievance for "his lands" (what the heck?) based on the presence of American troops in Iraq. (How interesting that Muslims are so viscerally united among themselves that Iraq and Afghanistan are "our land" to a Nigerian convert from Christianity, *simply because he's Muslim.* A point the significance of which utterly escapes you.) Then you say, "I'm not making excuses." You're just totally tone deaf.

Lydia:

This is the kind of bull hockey that just makes me see red. A Nigerian Muslim convert whose land has never been invaded by Western troops _explicitly_ invokes the Quran and jihad to justify hacking a British soldier to death on the streets of London, and all you Paulites can do is blather "how would we feel if the Chinese occupied the U.S."

I am not excusing or justifying the acts of terror committed by terrorists. You really need to understand that. What I AM doing is trying to get people to see that "America" does not automatically mean "moral". Our government has committed atrocities too. If you want to condemn one, you MUST condemn the other (or be a hypocrite).

Nobody has addressed my "body-count" example. Nobody wants to talk about how many innocent lives have been taken from mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, husbands and wives, by US bombs.

Nobody wants to be consistent in their moral outrage.

We are rightly outraged when an Islamic man kills an innocent bystander in his self-justified "war for Islam" but we hide our heads in the sand and gloss over the growing body count of equally innocent bystanders in the "war on terror".

If you feel content with that, that's between you and God. I used to be that way. I used to feel the need to "kill 'em all", until something in my conscience broke. Something said that God is not always "on our side" - that God is not always about "an eye for an eye", that he is not always in favor of more bloodshed. Something inside me said that there must be a better way.

The problem I had was that I saw all Muslims as complicit with the terrorists. I saw them all as "evil". I dehumanized them. I did not see them as mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, husbands and wives - I saw them as terrorists and terrorist sympathizers. When we bomb Pakistani tribal areas with drone strikes, we are not just killing terrorists and terrorist sympathizers, we are killing Pakistani tribesmen, women and children. Our accuracy when targeting terrorists is notoriously sketchy. But, we have conditioned ourselves to accept those deaths as "necessary" and even "for the common good".

My only counsel to you and anyone else who thinks that way is to pray about it and see how that affects your own conscience.

"My only counsel to you and anyone else who thinks that way is to pray about it and see how that affects your own conscience."

I think OT Joshua prayed to God, and he had a clean conscience with the Caanite genocide.

P.S. Suppose some of these Islamic terrorists are sex traffickers. Still advocate non-interventionism, Daniel Smith?

I am not excusing or justifying the acts of terror committed by terrorists. You really need to understand that. What I AM doing is trying to get people to see that "America" does not automatically mean "moral". Our government has committed atrocities too. If you want to condemn one, you MUST condemn the other (or be a hypocrite).

Okay. Our government has committed atrocities. and this has to do with anything...why? What point are you trying to make here if it isn't to at least partially excuse this madman's actions.

What point are you trying to make here if it isn't to at least partially excuse this madman's actions.

It's funny that - no matter what I say - everyone here seems to view it as making excuses for a terrorist act. (Like I'm saying the terrorist was right and our government was wrong.) I have not said anything to lead anyone to believe that this man was justified in what he did. What I DID say was that OUR GOVERNMENT is guilty of the SAME THING. It is ALWAYS WRONG to shed innocent blood. That's my point. And, as already stated, I believe it is hypocritical to condemn the one and not the other. I believe we are WRONG to work ourselves up into such a vengeful bloodlust that we advocate MORE bloodshed over an act of terrorism. We should ALWAYS condemn the shedding of innocent blood - ALWAYS. We can't make excuses for it on the one hand and furiously condemn it on the other. We must be consistent.

I think OT Joshua prayed to God, and he had a clean conscience with the Caanite genocide.

That's the mindset right there. Justified genocide. There you go!

P.S. Suppose some of these Islamic terrorists are sex traffickers. Still advocate non-interventionism, Daniel Smith?

I don't get that question at all.

A quote to ponder:

"In other words, the problem of empire-building is essentially mystical. It must somehow foster the impression that a man is great in the degree that his nation is great; that a German as such is superior to a Belgian as such; an Englishman, to an Irishman; an American, to a Mexican: merely because the first-named countries are in each case more powerful than their comparatives. And people who have no individual stature whatever are willing to accept this poisonous nonsense because it gives them a sense of importance without the trouble of any personal effort.”
― Felix Morley

I saw, and defeated, something similar at work in my own heart.

Suppose some of these Islamic terrorists are sex traffickers. Still advocate non-interventionism, Daniel Smith?

Are you saying that the US government should start trafficking in sex to "fight" sex trafficking?

Tony:

I have been hearing about "the war machine" and the "military-industrial complex" for decades, and frankly I think that appeals to it's control over politicians is somewhat overrated.

If you have the time (it's 49 minutes long), I'd recommend this speech by Thomas E. Woods entitled "War: Big Government’s Best Friend", where he makes the case, much better than I can, against war and the military/industrial complex.

http://www.libertyclassroom.com/war-big-governments-best-friend/

Nobody wants to be consistent in their moral outrage.

We are rightly outraged when an Islamic man kills an innocent bystander in his self-justified "war for Islam" but we hide our heads in the sand and gloss over the growing body count of equally innocent bystanders in the "war on terror".

Moral equivalence much?

But, yeah, there is a difference whether you like it or not between killing innocents accidentally and killing them on purpose, individually, with meat cleavers. If the people you are hanging around, the Paulites and paleoleftists, are teaching you to throw the distinction out the window, you need to get yourself new friends.

If you feel content with that, that's between you and God. I used to be that way. I used to feel the need to "kill 'em all", until something in my conscience broke.

Buddy, bag that kind of talk or I'm going to start deleting your comments. _Nothing_ I or any other contributor here has _ever_ said has supported "kill 'em all." That is vile slander. (In fact, there are people on the Internet who think we're pacifists at W4 for our position on the bombing of Hiroshima. Go ahead, google it.)

Shame on you. If you can't do better than that, shut up. I'm not feeling merciful today.

Daniel Smith: "We should ALWAYS condemn the shedding of innocent blood - ALWAYS. We can't make excuses for it on the one hand and furiously condemn it on the other. We must be consistent."

Do you condemn abortion, Daniel Smith?

Me: "Suppose some of these Islamic terrorists are sex traffickers. Still advocate non-interventionism, Daniel Smith?"

Daniel Smith: "I don't get that question at all."

What don't you understand?

Anyways, just suppose some Islamic militants are sex traffickers. Do you advocate interventionism?

Me: "I think OT Joshua prayed to God, and he had a clean conscience with the Caanite genocide."

Daniel Smith: "That's the mindset right there. Justified genocide. There you go!"

Mr. Smith, are you a Biblical Christian?

The thing about my position is that you obviously don't understand it. It's not "isolationism", it's "non-interventionism". Isolationism is what we're doing right now to N. Korea and Iran - imposing sanctions in order to isolate them from the rest of the world. Non-interventionism is different - it can best be summarized with Jefferson's statement: "peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none."

The point about using the Barbary pirates as an example, is that it was PRECISELY JEFFERSON who went to war with them over their practice of taking ships. Because you obviously don't understand it... :-)

The problem I see, Daniel, is that "intervention" or "non-intervention" seems to be in the eye of the beholder just as much as "defensive war" in various circumstances. It would have been possible to say to the US shipping concerns: "the high seas are not the US. If you want to engage in dangerous traffic on the high seas, look to your own defense, it's none of our affair." Other nations did so, or paid the tribute. Other governments would have called our action a "war of choice", and not a war of defense. To be pure as the driven snow in terms of non-intervention, you would have to disagree with Jefferson's use of the US navy to beat the Barbary states. I don't know if you think Jefferson was in defiance of HIS OWN dictate about peace, commerce, etc., but it seems unlikely. In which case you have to figure out a definition of "non-intervention" that encompasses Jefferson's use of them. I don't know how. To my eye, it looks like intervening in a foreign nation's practice outside the US because they contravened something that is both a vital interest of the US (foreign trade) and a fundamental right of nations. Also to my eye, I think we had both an absolute moral right to so intervene, and that it was arguably in our vital interests to "intervene" even though it was not unarguable that we should take the step of fighting them off - many people argued that we shouldn't make the effort - and it was not on US soil or US territorial waters.

Vital interests can be viewed in the narrow and short term, and in the broad and long term, both are legitimate views, legitimate ways of thinking about the common good. It is surely true that it is difficult to be clear about how to ensure long term and broad vital interests as they relate to foreign trade, and for this reason caution and reticence in taking on entanglements is extremely well advised. But it is not all that difficult to argue that SOME FORM of foreign trade belongs to our long term vital interest. Likewise, it is not all that difficult to present reasonable arguments that in certain limited cases our being entangled in a foreign country is for our long-term interest. For example, setting aside WHY we were at war with Japan for the moment, there was a legitimate debate as to whether we should be an occupying force in Japan and have a heavy presence there for decades, or whether we should pack our bags and walk home after their complete surrender. I think that our choice to remain there, and helping to rebuild Japan, has paid worthwhile dividends. It is not a foregone conclusion that THAT foreign entanglement has turned out ill. Not every such choice is a bad one, even if every such choice is problematic.

Daniel, I still don't see your point. Sorry. Okay, I'll admit our government has done some pretty horrible things. Of course we have. Pretty much every government has at one point or another. But whatever - what does this have to do with the actions of the Muslim murderer in London? I was framing it that way because, despite your objections, that was still what it seemed like you were doing.

Also, you honestly don't see the difference here? Our government is not in the business of killing civilians. We don't want to kill civilians to get revenge, at least not as official policy, if it does happen. That civilians die is a bad thing but it's not even close to the same thing morally. This seems to me like a glaringly obvious difference.

As for Joshua - I think the Israelites had an excellent reason for believing that God was specifically guiding them. The Canaanites were a nasty piece of work at any rate.

Daniel, I still don't see your point. Sorry. Okay, I'll admit our government has done some pretty horrible things. Of course we have. Pretty much every government has at one point or another. But whatever - what does this have to do with the actions of the Muslim murderer in London?

MarcAnthony goes right to the heart of the matter. Why should a thread about the jihad and its latest manifestation in London end up being a thread in which every foreign policy move by the United States for the last hundred years is subject to second guessing? Why? Why even bring all of that up?

There are two answers to this, both of which show the wrong-headed thinking of people like Daniel: 1) Because people like Daniel actually believe that events like this murder in London, indeed this very murder, are actually, literally _caused_ by U.S. and British foreign policy. People like Daniel don't realize that the jihad finds the excuse it needs at the moment. The murder was caused by the adherents' devotion to Islam and to jihad. 2) Because people like Daniel explicitly refuse to distinguish, morally, between hacking an unarmed man to death on a public street and truly accidental collateral damage in war. They really believe the moral equivalence. Therefore they are susceptible to the rhetoric of these murderers themselves. And therefore they believe that a heinous murder like this is a good time to "have a conversation" about the whole panoply of foreign policy.

Tony:

The point about using the Barbary pirates as an example, is that it was PRECISELY JEFFERSON who went to war with them over their practice of taking ships. Because you obviously don't understand it... :-)

And the fact that it was Jefferson - a non-interventionist - who went to war with the Barbary pirates should tell you something about non-interventionism. The vital interests of US citizens WERE ATTACKED. THAT is the justification for war in non-interventionism (it has nothing to do with US soil). So Jefferson was being consistent with his own policy. He was reluctant to use US military force in the matter (as any commander in chief should be), but eventually felt he had no other choice.

The part of non-interventionism that DOES deal with US soil is that a non-interventionist foreign policy would dictate that our troops not be in other countries because of alliances with other governments. That does not apply in the Barbary situation.

Lydia:

There are two answers to this, both of which show the wrong-headed thinking of people like Daniel: 1) Because people like Daniel actually believe that events like this murder in London, indeed this very murder, are actually, literally _caused_ by U.S. and British foreign policy. People like Daniel don't realize that the jihad finds the excuse it needs at the moment. The murder was caused by the adherents' devotion to Islam and to jihad.

Wrong. I do not believe the US government CAUSED this murder to happen. The fact that some very sick individuals choose to do very evil acts - is totally on them. I am merely pointing out that the actions of the US government MUST illicit a response. You can't do the things the US (and British) government does and NOT expect a response of some kind!

We can't pretend that there is absolutely no connection between what terrorists do and what the US government does - especially when they specifically tie the events together themselves.

2) Because people like Daniel explicitly refuse to distinguish, morally, between hacking an unarmed man to death on a public street and truly accidental collateral damage in war. They really believe the moral equivalence. Therefore they are susceptible to the rhetoric of these murderers themselves. And therefore they believe that a heinous murder like this is a good time to "have a conversation" about the whole panoply of foreign policy.

You're getting warmer.

Lets say that I accidentally burn my neighbor's house down - killing his wife and kids inside. Then lets say that that neighbor comes to my house and brutally murders my wife and kids. Did I cause my neighbor to murder my wife and kids? Of course not. Was there a connection between what I did and what he did? Absolutely.

So, in the end, there's no moral equivalency between what I did and what my neighbor did (in the end though, both of our wives and kids are dead).

Now in the scenario above, the killing of the wife and kids was totally accidental. But what if I knew that the wife and kids were likely to be in the house? And what if I burned the house down on purpose - though not with the intent to kill the wife and kids, but rather just to kill my neighbor? At what point would I be morally accountable for the death of his wife and kids?

OK but that's still two people using vigilante justice and that doesn't apply in the case of war.

So let's change it again. What if the POLICE are looking to kill (not arrest) my neighbor? What if the police decide to set fire to my neighbor's house - knowing that his wife and kids are inside? Is that now morally "OK" because it's a government entity?

At what point does the US government bear responsibility for collateral damage in military actions they plan and order? If the political elite that make and plan these actions know going in that innocent civilians (perhaps even in the thousands) will die because of the actions they are planning - and they decide to go ahead and do them anyway - are they accountable at all for the carnage?

Or, are you going to go so far as to say that the terrorists are responsible for the growing body count in the war on terror? That the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqi civilians lie morally at the feet of the 9/11 terrorists or Saddam Hussein? "If Saddam would have just admitted that he had WMDs, those civilians would still be alive today." Is that your position?

Who, in the end, is accountable MORALLY for the dead? Someone gave the order. The chain of command would suggest that the commander in chief is ultimately responsible IF he knew going in that civilians would die.

We conservatives really need to stop equating support for war with patriotism. We conservatives really need to stop thinking of "us vs. them" - like anyone who points out problems with what the US government does is "not rooting for the home team".

We conservatives constantly criticize the US government for over-reaching, bad decisions, even immoral decisions, yet for some unknown reason, we give these same politicians a pass when it comes to foreign policy.

There are many, many, many dead in the war on terror. Who is morally accountable for that?

The fact that some very sick individuals choose to do very evil acts - is totally on them. I am merely pointing out that the actions of the US government MUST illicit a response.

Baloney. These two sentences make no sense together. On the one hand you want to say it's "totally on them." On the other hand, you say that the foreign policy activities you disapprove of "must" (even in capital letters) "elicit a response." Yeah, like hacking somebody to pieces on a city street is just a sort of automatic response. It's like, y'know, electricity or something. You do something that makes the Muslims mad, they're gonna "react."

Well, I totally reject that, because whether you like it or not it _does_ amount to a kind of mitigating of their moral responsibility, turning them into robots or something of the kind who are in some way automatically just "reacting" to something you regard as wrong. (And I love the fact that a Nigerian jihadi convert who took the name "Mujahid" when he converted is being analogized to a grieving father driven mad by grief because he got himself all angry over British foreign policy and hacked a British soldier to death. Um, yeah, that makes sense.)

The bogus nature of all of this is made particularly obvious by the fact that you Paulites literally also blame the _peaceable_ presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia for 9/11!!! Think about that: Nobody is conquering Saudi Arabia. Their questionably just government is allowed to go about its affairs, which is what non-interventionists want. We always hear, "It's not our business to try to overthrow every bad government in the world," right? Their horrible practices on little girls go on unabated. We're leaving them with "their" government. We're not "interfering." We have a diplomatic relationship with that country. We're not "imposing our values on them." We just *happen to have a military base there*, with their permission! Yet even *that* is treated by you Paulites as some sort of rational grievance, something to be brought up and endlessly chewed over, not to mention being lumped together with every other darned foreign policy move you happen not to like for decades, and brought up specifically as some kind of mitigation of Muslim terrorism.

Face it: America is always going to have _some_ troops abroad. If nothing else, we will have embassies abroad, and as Benghazi shows we should have troops within striking distance to defend them (as we did not in that case). America has sent troops abroad off and on since circa 1800, as I mentioned above. This might be in peace (as in Saudi Arabia) or in war (as in Tripoli or Iraq). The Muslims will make a grievance out of _anything_. And you guys, poor saps, will just follow right along like sheep led to the slaughter. Or a bull led by the nose. I swear, if they had tried to make a grievance out of our fighting the Barbary states, you would have been right there as an echo chamber: "I hear a wall fell in Tripoli and killed some children. This MUST call for a reaction."

Once one fully internalizes the fact that we are not dealing with rational actors with rational grievances but with the jihad, we will realize that our policies cannot be held hostage to murderous jihadis. In fact, if anything, we may have more success with a shoot-and-leave policy. Engage in a credible show of force and then get out of there. Regardless, there will always be some foreign policy decision or some soldier in some place or some weapons sale or some U.S. ally that the Muslims will object to. So stop trying to tell us we need to appease them. It's that simple.

Lydia:

These two sentences make no sense together. On the one hand you want to say it's "totally on them." On the other hand, you say that the foreign policy activities you disapprove of "must" (even in capital letters) "elicit a response." Yeah, like hacking somebody to pieces on a city street is just a sort of automatic response.

You seem to either misunderstand, misread, misinterpret, or ignore most of what I say. You completely ignored my body-count question, my questions on the morality of collateral damage, as well as my scenarios dealing with "cause" vs. "connection". Nevertheless...

1) I never said that what the terrorist did was an appropriate response - only that (in his own words) it was 'in response' to the actions of the British government. This in no way excuses him. His actions are vile. You seem incapable, however, of believing that the killing of innocent civilians in another country by a foreign government will illicit some response. That seems naive.

2) This has nothing to do with whether I approve or disapprove of the foreign policy - it has to do with how the institution of that foreign policy is perceived by the people most affected by it.

It's like, y'know, electricity or something. You do something that makes the Muslims mad, they're gonna "react."

It's simplistic to imply that the level of anger over what the US government does in a foreign country is somehow "Islamic". It would make anyone angry to have their family members and neighbors killed by a foreign government. The fact that they are Muslims determines (to some degree) the kind of response we get - since radical Muslims have no problem with brutally murdering innocent civilians in retaliation. (Something radical Communists, Nazis, and loads of pagan civilizations also had no problem with BTW.) Saying "You do something that makes the Muslims mad, they're gonna "react."" is bizarre. Doing something that makes ANYONE mad will evoke a reaction. That's human nature.

The bogus nature of all of this is made particularly obvious by the fact that you Paulites literally also blame the _peaceable_ presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia for 9/11!!!

We "Paulites" don't make that claim - the terrorists themselves made that claim. You seem to think that pointing out their rationale is "assigning blame". It's not. That is your biggest fallacy in understanding our position.

We just *happen to have a military base there*, with their permission!

We no longer have a base there. It was quietly closed after 9/11.

This might be in peace (as in Saudi Arabia) or in war (as in Tripoli or Iraq).

I believe the Saudi base was created for the purpose of invading Iraq in the first gulf war. It stayed there afterward "in peace".

Once one fully internalizes the fact that we are not dealing with rational actors with rational grievances but with the jihad, we will realize that our policies cannot be held hostage to murderous jihadis.

That's naive. We knew going in that the culture we were dealing with was one prone to irrational jihad - we've seen that in Israel for decades. Yet we decided it would be in our best interest to invade two Muslim countries, bomb the hell out of them, kill thousands (mostly innocent bystanders), occupy for years, build huge military bases, install puppet governments, and what - "hope for the best"?

In fact, if anything, we may have more success with a shoot-and-leave policy. Engage in a credible show of force and then get out of there. Regardless, there will always be some foreign policy decision or some soldier in some place or some weapons sale or some U.S. ally that the Muslims will object to. So stop trying to tell us we need to appease them. It's that simple.

Well, if I'd have been a "Paulite" back in the days after 9/11 I'd have supported his solution. He wanted to issue "letters of marque and reprisal".

From Wiki:

The issue of marque and reprisal was raised before Congress after the September 11 attacks and again on July 21, 2007, by Congressman Ron Paul. The attacks were defined as acts of "air piracy" and the Marque and Reprisal Act of 2001 was introduced, which would have granted the president the authority to use letters of marque and reprisal against the specific terrorists, instead of warring against a foreign state. The terrorists were compared to pirates in that they are difficult to fight by traditional military means. Congressman Paul on April 15, 2009, also advocated the use of letters of marque to address the issue of Somali pirates operating in the Gulf of Aden. However, the bills Congressman Paul introduced were not enacted into law.

We "Paulites" don't make that claim - the terrorists themselves made that claim.

Yep, and Muslim terrorists will always have some excuse at the ready. Just as any terrorist does. For example, the Unibomber's excuse was that he didn't agree with America's environmental policies. Timothy McVeigh was angry about American government overreach. And so forth. Every terrorist has some excuse ready to hand. Rational people *ignore these* rather than acting as an echo chamber for them. You treat them, selectively, like rational grievances. Therefore, you're not responding as a rational person.

We no longer have a base there. It was quietly closed after 9/11.

Try again:

http://militarybases.com/overseas/saudi-arabia/

It's simplistic to imply that the level of anger over what the US government does in a foreign country is somehow "Islamic". It would make anyone angry to have their family members and neighbors killed by a foreign government.

Do please explain to me what family members and neighbors of the Nigerian who hacked people to death were killed by a foreign government. Oh. No, it was because he was a convert to Islam, so he adopts all the Muslims' grievances as his own. But heaven forbid we should imply that this is "Islamic."

You do not get it. You completely, utterly, do not get it.

By the way: I'm still waiting for all the Japanese terrorism for America's actions in WWII. Maybe we should be expecting (as a reaction that MUST happen) American Indian terrorism for the actions of the American government in the 1800's. And heck, let's throw in some German terrorism in reprisal for the bombing of Dresden.

Somehow, we seem to have a _lot more_ Muslim terrorism. Think that _might_ have something to do with jihad, which goes back to the founding of Islam? Nahhhh.

Lydia,

You ignore the fact that I am in complete agreement with you that: A) this Nigerian man's actions were evil, B) the US and British governments in no way caused his actions, and C) Islam produces an irrationality in its most radical adherents that is at the root of such actions.

You keep responding as if I said something opposite to what I've said.

My main point, (I'll narrow it down to one at this point) is that the actions of the US government are equally horrific TO THOSE LIVING IN the countries where its military actions take place. What you call "moral equivalency" I call "moral consistency". That is, the shedding of innocent blood is ALWAYS WRONG.

It's easy for you, sitting safely, thousands of miles away, to give intellectual assent and moral justification to "collateral damage". But try telling the young Iraqi couple, holding their lifeless child in their arms, standing in a pile of rubble that used to be their home, amidst US bomb fragments, that "collateral damage is morally justified in times of war". Try telling them THAT! Somehow I think your words would ring hollow even in your own ears.

I was wrong about the Saudi bases. Thanks for pointing that out Lydia. There was a US base that ceased to operate as a US base in Saudi Arabia (Prince Sultan Air Base), but it was in 2003 - not 2001, and it was because of uneasiness in the Saudi govt over the Iraq war - not 9/11.

It's easy for you, sitting safely, thousands of miles away, to give intellectual assent and moral justification to "collateral damage". But try telling the young Iraqi couple, holding their lifeless child in their arms, standing in a pile of rubble that used to be their home, amidst US bomb fragments, that "collateral damage is morally justified in times of war."

Please indicate where Lydia has actually said these things. Thanks.

My main point, (I'll narrow it down to one at this point) is that the actions of the US government are equally horrific TO THOSE LIVING IN the countries where its military actions take place. What you call "moral equivalency" I call "moral consistency". That is, the shedding of innocent blood is ALWAYS WRONG.

It's easy for you, sitting safely, thousands of miles away, to give intellectual assent and moral justification to "collateral damage". But try telling the young Iraqi couple, holding their lifeless child in their arms, standing in a pile of rubble that used to be their home, amidst US bomb fragments, that "collateral damage is morally justified in times of war". Try telling them THAT! Somehow I think your words would ring hollow even in your own ears.

This is what is known as an emotional argument; nobody is saying that collateral damage is a good thing. Nobody is saying we shouldn't try to avoid it whenever possible; in fact, we have a responsibility to! A far cry from justification.

But trying to convince us of an argument with images of weeping parents and dead children is a cop-out. It's the same argument that people make when they say, "Sure, it's easy for you married straight people to say that homosexual marriage is wrong, but you get to marry the people you love and we don't! Imagine if you didn't have the option of marrying somebody you loved!" It's not an argument, it's a way to manipulate people.

Honestly, the fact that you don't see a difference between accidental deaths in military action and hacking somebody to death in broad daylight in the name of jihad absolutely amazes me, and you're losing credibility faster and faster in my eyes as this discussion gets longer.

And finally - What does this have to do with the main topic? We are discussing jihad and its harmful effects on western society. The actions of our military overseas mean, to use a colorful phrase, diddly-squat in terms of this discussion, unless you're trying to make a separate point with them - and THAT'S why we keep accusing you of making excuses for this murderer. Otherwise this is the equivalent of arguing the pros and cons of contraception on a thread about Kermit Gosnell.

Daniel Smith: "What you call "moral equivalency" I call "moral consistency". That is, the shedding of innocent blood is ALWAYS WRONG."

Daniel Smith, do you condemn abortion and the shedding of innocent unborn baby blood?

Sigh. Daniel, if you agree that Islam is a murderous ideology that lies behind the actions of this terrorist murderer, then why do you keep bringing up U.S. (and presumably British) foreign policy on this thread and saying that there is a "connection" between that policy and his actions? Why do you keep saying that the foreign policy you disagree with "MUST elicit a response" and that terrorist actions are that response?

I mean, face it: We've had not only collateral damage but much worse in our wars with various other countries. But it wasn't true that it "must" elicit a response. Look around, Daniel: No Japanese terrorism against the U.S. "elicited" for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And so forth.

It's so wearying that you want to have it both ways. You want to say that you are agreeing with me that this is about Islam and the jihad and that these guys are totally responsible, yet at the same time you get offended at any implication that " that the level of anger over what the US government does in a foreign country is somehow 'Islamic'."

Yes, Daniel, this particular use of disagreement with Western foreign policy to justify smiting the infidel soldier on the streets of London _is_ Islamic. It's _explicitly_ Islamic. It was done openly in the name of Allah by Muslims chanting "Allahu Akbar." It doesn't get more Islamic than that. And it was Islamic in precisely the sense that this Nigerian guy thinks of all Islamic countries as "his land" and takes personally any foreign policy that he disagrees with against Muslim lands, even though he's never set foot in any of the countries in question! This is a murderous ideology, and it will find the excuses it needs. Terrorists always do.

If you realize that terrorists always have a "cause" or a "justification," and if you understand that Islam is an ideological religion that encourages terrorism for the sake of the jihad and that therefore trains its adherents in the grievances of the moment that are being opportunistically used to justify jihad this year, then you'll realize that this is *not the place* to be discussing U.S. foreign policy. It just doesn't fit.

Sometimes you say that you understand that this is about Islam. Sometimes you don't.

I submit that your position is not as well-thought-out as you think it is.

Daniel Smith,

Go ahead and treat Memorial Day like any other weekend day. Your lips and your heart are far away from honoring those men and women who have nobly given their lives in service for their country.

Thank you.

Daniel Smith, do you condemn abortion and the shedding of innocent unborn baby blood?

Yes he does. I'm surprised you haven't seen his many comments about that subject on other threads.

Your lips and your heart are far away from honoring those men and women who have nobly given their lives in service for their country.

It is possible to criticize war policy while honoring those who have served. Since you think the Benghazi massacre was the result of weak or complicit leadership, you do theoretically understand the distinction. You also apparently think Biblical Christianity allows a religious exception be made for genocide. So I don’t know where you have a leg to stand on in the case of this barbarian in London committing brutal murder because it isn't hard to see that religiously motivated genocide is much worse than religiously motivated murder.

Step 2,

I can't speak for Daniel, but I think it is better to refer to the destruction of the Canaanites as a necessary removal from the State of Israel (commanded by God of course -- something that won't happen again given the death and resurrection of Jesus:

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2013/02/13/how-could-god-command-genocide-in-the-old-testament-2/)

Daniel,

This blog has often treated serious topics of the morality of specific actions taken during war, just war conditions, etc. in various posts. I have myself been persuaded to change my mind on specific topics (away from my reflexive hawkish positions) related to American warfar thanks to the thoughtful contributions of bloggers here.

But there is a time and a place for debating such topics -- for example on a post about drone strikes or a post about precision bombing.

This post was about the jihad and how it has once again come to England. Why you decided to change the topic is a mystery to me, unless you suffer from some strange form of incoherent rage about America's current wars and foreign policy that it totally clouds your judgement on any and all topics concerning the murderous tendancies of Islamic thugs. I suggest you examine your conscience and stop commenting on posts that have nothing to do with your pet causes.

Daniel Smith and Step2,

Suppose some of these Islamic terrorists are sex traffickers. Still advocate non-interventionism, Daniel Smith and Step2?

I didn't "change the subject". The terrorist himself said that his actions were in response to the foreign policy of the British government. so HE brought the subject up - not me.

So, (repeating myself), is there a connection between British foreign policy and the act terrorism on British soil? Yes - the man specifically said so. Does that mean the British government caused the act of terrorism? No - obviously not.

I gave the example of a house fire above. If you want to apply that example more exactly to this terrorist act it would be this:

Let's say I accidentally burned my neighbors house down killing his wife and kids. Let's say my neighbor did nothing in response. Let's say that a man - two towns away, who did not know me or my neighbor - decides that what I did was wrong and comes to my house and kills my family - to "avenge the wrong done to my neighbor".

Did I "cause" his actions? No. Is there a connection? Yes - obviously - though it is tenuous and irrational.

The point is, there are hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, Afghanis and Pakistanis who have a legitimate beef with the US and (to a lesser extent) British governments - having lost family, friends and neighbors as collateral damage in the war on terror. The fact that someone else decides to take up their cause is not surprising. This is multiplied by the fact that most of these people with legitimate grievances are Muslims - and Muslims (as we all know) have a propensity for radical violence. Again - this is totally in keeping with what we know about the culture.

So, should the US and British governments change their foreign policy because irrational people will commit horrific acts in response to it? No - that's entirely the wrong reason to do so. The US and British governments should not change their foreign policies because of irrational acts of terror - they should change their foreign policy because it's WRONG.

Will a change in foreign policy cause acts of terror against US and British civilians to cease? Maybe. It's a possibility. Look at history. When, where and why did terrorist actions occur? Either way the foreign policies we pursue cause an immense loss of innocent life. It is immoral for that reason alone.

Go ahead and treat Memorial Day like any other weekend day. Your lips and your heart are far away from honoring those men and women who have nobly given their lives in service for their country.

You are making a simplistic assumption that support for military personnel must entail support for US government policy (set by non-military politicians).

Are you pro-life? Well then you don't support the troops either because the US government policy is pro-abortion.

I support our troops 100% (they don't set foreign policy).

I support the US government much less so - as they are WRONG on many, many issues (including abortion).

Suppose some of these Islamic terrorists are sex traffickers. Still advocate non-interventionism

If the sex trafficking is taking place in America, then the US government should take every step to stop it. I don't believe, however, that it's the responsibility of the US government to police the world. If the sex trafficking is taking place in Saudi Arabia, and doesn't come to our shores, then it's not the responsibility of the US government.

Will a change in foreign policy cause acts of terror against US and British civilians to cease? Maybe. It's a possibility. Look at history. When, where and why did terrorist actions occur?

Sigh, no, this is where you _still_ don't get it. Islamic terrorism occurs because of jihadist Muslim ideology. It's like you don't even bother to try to find out about that ideology, like you're uninterested because you have your own axe to grind about foreign policy.

Part of the problem here is that there are other connections you don't see. You don't see connections among, e.g.,

--the riots in Stockholm
--threats against people like Robert Spencer or the guys at Answering Muslims for telling the truth about Islam
--calls for sharia applications and attempts to implement sharia *in Western countries*

among all these things, Islamic ideology, and Muslim terrorism. Face it: You cannot possibly connect all of these things to British or U.S. foreign policy. It's just that foreign policy is your little bee-in-the-bonnet. You choose to hypothesize that Muslim terrorism would maybe cease if we made different foreign policy decisions, because you don't see the larger pattern. And since it's been pointed out to you, I can only conclude that you don't see it because you don't want to see it.

Lydia:

Honestly, the fact that you don't see a difference between accidental deaths in military action and hacking somebody to death in broad daylight in the name of jihad absolutely amazes me, and you're losing credibility faster and faster in my eyes as this discussion gets longer.

The reality of those "accidental deaths" is that the people setting the foreign policy know - going in - that those "accidental deaths" will happen. They order the military actions anyway - making the decision that those accidental deaths are necessary and acceptable for the fulfillment of the goals of the US government.

We've had not only collateral damage but much worse in our wars with various other countries. But it wasn't true that it "must" elicit a response. Look around, Daniel: No Japanese terrorism against the U.S. "elicited" for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And so forth.

There were violent reactions in Japan in connection with WWII (ever heard of Japanese holdouts?) There were also violent reactions in the US when the Indians were being rounded up and relocated to reservations. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that nearly every military action in history produced some form of violent reaction by radical elements in the affected countries or communities. To think differently is simply revisionist history.

Acts of terror are not limited to Islam either, see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_terrorism

What I sense from the tone of this conversation is that you want to make this all about Islam. I am trying to make clear that - although Islam is a major factor - it is not the ONLY factor. It's just not that simple.

You don't see connections among all these things, Islamic ideology, and Muslim terrorism. Face it: You cannot possibly connect all of these things to British or U.S. foreign policy. It's just that foreign policy is your little bee-in-the-bonnet. You choose to hypothesize that Muslim terrorism would maybe cease if we made different foreign policy decisions, because you don't see the larger pattern. And since it's been pointed out to you, I can only conclude that you don't see it because you don't want to see it.

You know I'm not an idiot. I am well aware of the violent reactions of Muslims over the smallest perceived slights (Koran desecration, cartoons, movies, etc.)

The question is - why does our government persist in stirring the hornets nest if all these things are known?

Was there a good reason to invade Iraq? Really? Is there a good reason we're still in Afghanistan?

And, what's your solution?

Really, every injustice in history produced sympathizers, unrelated to the people involved except by religion, performing evil acts *thousands of miles away*? No, they didn't.

And, yes, *this particular* act of terrorism is indeed all about Islam.

Look at it in terms of probability: If the probability of Islamic terrorism is essentially the same whether we had a war in Iraq or not, then the idea that we are going to "provoke" Islamic terrorism should be irrelevant to whether we go to war in Iraq. We should make that decision independently. Had it been up to me, we would not have engaged in the second Iraq war. But not because I believed that that would be "stirring up a hornet's nest" of terrorism.

As for my "solution." In this world, there are no solutions. But my _approach_ would be: Stop Muslim immigration and arrest, try, and convict those like this particular young man's mentor who are directly inciting terrorist acts. "Disinvite Islam," as Jeff Culbreath and I wrote in an older series of posts. Make it clear that we will not submit. And stop trying to use our foreign troops (e.g., by making them walk and get blown up by land minds as a "sign of trust") to "win hearts and minds."

Really, every injustice in history produced sympathizers, unrelated to the people involved except by religion, performing evil acts *thousands of miles away*? No, they didn't.

Is that my claim? You better read it again. My claim had nothing to do with "unrelated" actors. My claim was that military actions always provoke a response.

And, yes, *this particular* act of terrorism is indeed all about Islam.

Is it? How can you possibly know that there were no other factors at play?

Look at it in terms of probability: If the probability of Islamic terrorism is essentially the same whether we had a war in Iraq or not,

That's an assumption - one I don't necessarily agree with. I'm not prepared to concede that the motivations behind every act of terror are singular. How do we know that the Muslim riots over the Mohamed cartoons were not also related to military happenings in the middle east? How do we know that the list of grievances is not long? These things don't happen in a bubble.

then the idea that we are going to "provoke" Islamic terrorism should be irrelevant to whether we go to war in Iraq. We should make that decision independently.

OK, let me get this straight. The leaders of this government KNEW that radical Muslims will react violently and irrationally to the slightest provocation. So what did they do? They invaded two Islamic countries, killing thousands of non-radical, non-terrorist Muslims! Who, in their right mind, would think that was a good idea? Who, in their right mind, would think that the reaction that such a policy is sure to provoke is "irrelevant"? Who comes up with this stuff?

As for my "solution." In this world, there are no solutions. But my _approach_ would be: Stop Muslim immigration and arrest, try, and convict those like this particular young man's mentor who are directly inciting terrorist acts. "Disinvite Islam," as Jeff Culbreath and I wrote in an older series of posts. Make it clear that we will not submit. And stop trying to use our foreign troops (e.g., by making them walk and get blown up by land minds as a "sign of trust") to "win hearts and minds."

All good ideas. Why are we arguing?

How do we know that the Muslim riots over the Mohamed cartoons were not also related to military happenings in the middle east? How do we know that the list of grievances is not long? These things don't happen in a bubble.

Wow, so it really doesn't matter what it is. You're going to relate it to foreign policy somehow, by conjecture.

That, sir, is what I call a narrow obsession.

Daniel,

All losing countries of all wars throughout history have lost innocent civilians to the winning side's winning warfare. If in all such cases the losing country's families of these innocent civilians had a morally righteous personal claim against the winning side, a claim that could and should be prosecuted for repair and recompense and redress,

It would be impossible to ever have peace after a war.

Part of the morality of warfare is that the personal claims of outrage - the farmer's fields and barns destroyed by the cavalry, the village's one factory destroyed, resulting in starvation and death of those dependent on it, etc...all of those evils (which would be matters of personal claim under civilian law if perpetrated by individual criminals in time of peace), CANNOT arise to a matter of a personal claim against the winning state to which the losing state has capitulated. If they constitute any sort of a proper moral claim at all, they can only do so through the losing STATE presenting a body of claims against the winning STATE for adjudication within a court of deliberation that will be, ultimately, under the control of the winning state. That's the most civilized response that has ever been crafted, and such a deliberative body has _never_ awarded damages or redress for damage done or lives lost in ordinary, reasonable pursuit of the war itself.

The individual Muslim terrorist suicide bombers are effectively repudiating their own state's capitulation, and (even more gravely) are repudiating all possibility of peace between the states as such.

It is admitted that many of the Muslim attacks on the US personnel, facilities, and soil come after the US attacked the Afghan Taliban, and after the US attacked the Iraqi Hussein regime. To a certain extent, particularly in the eyes of the Muslim attackers, their actions are a response to our attacks. But only to an extent, since the same Muslim organizations had OTHER attacks on various entities (states that never were involved in the complaint) before our wars, and the overall motivation appears so similar as to justify being categorically lumped: the motivation of jihad. In addition, it remains true that to the extent their attacks are (as described above) in repudiation of the possibility of just peace between states, they are inherently void of rationality, and any attempt to say then that they are "in response to" our warfare on them is tantamount to saying that everything that comes after is a response to everything that comes before, which hardly helps solve problems. What would be more accurate is that the Muslim suicide attackers foist upon their imaginations a rationalizing claim that their attacks are due to our impositions on them, but their own handlers generally know better: they are merely using events as opportunities to attack us. If we hadn't come along with our war, they would have used some other opportunity, or excuse for opportunity. Which means that our wars are only superficially a cause of the terrorist attacks, and it is almost pointless to say that the attacks are "in response" to our wars.

Which gets to the heart of the matter: Their ideology doesn't require further excuse other than the fact that we don't accept Islam, which they have made clear repeatedly. And their attacks BEFORE we were at war with them were probably designed specifically to engender visible response from us, which they could then use to achieve still greater effort against us.

If your point is that pragmatically speaking our making a response to their earlier radical violence is foolish without our taking into account the likelihood of their reacting thereto - the point is fine, so far as it goes. But you seem to be pushing it further - that the fact that we have killed civilians means ipso facto that we are engaged in unjust warfare, and that if that's the only way we can prosecute this war then again ipso facto that proves this war is a bad war and constitutes bad foreign policy. I think you believe that this war (say the one in Afghanistan) would be bad foreign policy even if we could have prosecuted it without killing any civilians, and that prior stance colors your perception of the morality of the ius in bello - the prosecution of war. But even if I am wrong about that, your insistence on bringing the state of the US war on Afghanistan and Iraq into Lydia's thread on a Muslim murder of a Brit, when the murderer was the son of Nigerians, is a little outlandish.

Wow, so it really doesn't matter what it is. You're going to relate it to foreign policy somehow, by conjecture.

That, sir, is what I call a narrow obsession.

And I'd characterize your view as narrow obsession as well - since you're totally fixated on Islam and won't acknowledge the obvious.

How can you rationally think that the US government can invade countries, overthrow regimes, prop up other regimes, kill thousands of innocent Muslims (Christians and Jews as well BTW), and yet maintain that THAT is not a factor in any of this?

Tony:

All losing countries of all wars throughout history have lost innocent civilians to the winning side's winning warfare. If in all such cases the losing country's families of these innocent civilians had a morally righteous personal claim against the winning side, a claim that could and should be prosecuted for repair and recompense and redress, It would be impossible to ever have peace after a war.

These wars are so different from past wars that I don't think standard rules of warfare even apply. Has the US "won" the war in Afghanistan? In Iraq? Based on what? What was the stated objective? It's not like Iraq invaded the US with the full support of the Iraqi people. Same with Afghanistan. If that were the case, sure, a vanquished people would accept their casualties as the cost of warfare. I don't think that argument holds in this case.

Part of the morality of warfare is that the personal claims of outrage - the farmer's fields and barns destroyed by the cavalry, the village's one factory destroyed, resulting in starvation and death of those dependent on it, etc...all of those evils (which would be matters of personal claim under civilian law if perpetrated by individual criminals in time of peace), CANNOT arise to a matter of a personal claim against the winning state to which the losing state has capitulated.

But the US govt is at war with al Qaeda. There is no "state". The "states" in this case consist mostly of uninvolved people who never supported either side in this war.

The individual Muslim terrorist suicide bombers are effectively repudiating their own state's capitulation, and (even more gravely) are repudiating all possibility of peace between the states as such.

They have no state.

It is admitted that many of the Muslim attacks on the US personnel, facilities, and soil come after the US attacked the Afghan Taliban, and after the US attacked the Iraqi Hussein regime. To a certain extent, particularly in the eyes of the Muslim attackers, their actions are a response to our attacks. But only to an extent, since the same Muslim organizations had OTHER attacks on various entities (states that never were involved in the complaint) before our wars, and the overall motivation appears so similar as to justify being categorically lumped: the motivation of jihad.

First - the US government has been involved in the region for a long time - not just since 9/11. Second, all of these attacks generally have a claimed motivation. Each one must be examined individually.

In addition, it remains true that to the extent their attacks are (as described above) in repudiation of the possibility of just peace between states, they are inherently void of rationality, and any attempt to say then that they are "in response to" our warfare on them is tantamount to saying that everything that comes after is a response to everything that comes before, which hardly helps solve problems. What would be more accurate is that the Muslim suicide attackers foist upon their imaginations a rationalizing claim that their attacks are due to our impositions on them, but their own handlers generally know better: they are merely using events as opportunities to attack us. If we hadn't come along with our war, they would have used some other opportunity, or excuse for opportunity.

You really need some historical evidence to establish this. You have to show specific instances of jihadi attacks that are completely devoid of prior actions that would conceivably constitute a grievance against the attacked party (or some linkage to the attacked party - such as British military - British soldier).

Which means that our wars are only superficially a cause of the terrorist attacks, and it is almost pointless to say that the attacks are "in response" to our wars.

I think you underestimate the trauma and devastation these wars have had on the affected peoples. I think this is due to the fact that we in America are so insulated from the actual bloodshed.

Which gets to the heart of the matter: Their ideology doesn't require further excuse other than the fact that we don't accept Islam, which they have made clear repeatedly. And their attacks BEFORE we were at war with them were probably designed specifically to engender visible response from us, which they could then use to achieve still greater effort against us.

Again - you need to back this claim up with historical data. "Before our government was at war with them" is still after our government inserted itself into a LOT of major political decisions in the area.

If your point is that pragmatically speaking our making a response to their earlier radical violence is foolish without our taking into account the likelihood of their reacting thereto - the point is fine, so far as it goes. But you seem to be pushing it further - that the fact that we have killed civilians means ipso facto that we are engaged in unjust warfare, and that if that's the only way we can prosecute this war then again ipso facto that proves this war is a bad war and constitutes bad foreign policy.

How, in a war against "terrorism" (defined as the targeting of innocent civilians to induce terror) is it NOT unjust to kill thousands of innocent civilians? I mean, even though we didn't target them - we still killed them in boatloads! How is such a tactic going to end terrorism? How would that even work?

I think you believe that this war (say the one in Afghanistan) would be bad foreign policy even if we could have prosecuted it without killing any civilians, and that prior stance colors your perception of the morality of the ius in bello - the prosecution of war.

No, exactly the opposite. That's why I think Dr. Paul's idea of letters of marque and reprisal was so spot on. It specifically targeted the guilty and left the rest of the world alone.

But even if I am wrong about that, your insistence on bringing the state of the US war on Afghanistan and Iraq into Lydia's thread on a Muslim murder of a Brit, when the murderer was the son of Nigerians, is a little outlandish.

The terrorist brought that into this thread - not me - since that was his claimed motivation. I was reacting to the counter-claim (that he could not have been motivated by that - since he was not from any of the affected countries).

I don't have time to dig through this whole threadjack of Paulite monomania, but Daniel Smith, can you please clearly relate this challenge:

How can you rationally think that the US government can invade countries, overthrow regimes, prop up other regimes, kill thousands of innocent Muslims (Christians and Jews as well BTW), and yet maintain that THAT is not a factor in any of this?

. . . to the cruel slaughter of a British soldier in the streets of London? Relate it not by mere similarity of rhetoric, but by train of observing logic.

(I notice once again that these courageous soldiers of Allah never dare attack armed Western fighting men on the field of battle. It's always unarmed civilians or by treachery.)

You have to show specific instances of jihadi attacks that are completely devoid of prior actions that would conceivably constitute a grievance against the attacked party

That is such total rubbish. _No_ prior actions that would _conceivably_ (in the mind of a jihadi???) constitute a grievance??? Puh-leeze. There is always something that can _conceivably_ constitute a grievance in the mind of a jihadi. That in fact is _my_ point--that they will always find something to say, and that people like you are setting yourselves up to play along. If your standard is that low, then you're more or less admitting that you will always pay serious, thoughtful heed to the jihadis' rationalizations. Therefore, I go back to what I said above

there will always be some foreign policy decision or some soldier in some place or some weapons sale or some U.S. ally that the Muslims will object to.

If the standard is that, if a jihadi shouting, "Allahu Akbar!" murders innocents on the streets in some country, and that you will assume this is "connected" to something that country has done rather than just being an out-working of the jihad so long as there is "some prior action that could conceivably constitute a grievance," then you're admitting that you're looking to validate the jihadis' excuse-making! That's pretty telling.

Put that together with your statement that, hey, maybe even when they are rioting ostensibly about cartoons of Mohammad it has _something_ to do with foreign policy you don't like, and what we have is that you're all set up to be a total dupe.

there will always be some foreign policy decision or some soldier in some place or some weapons sale or some U.S. ally that the Muslims will object to.

We've been arguing over al Qaeda's aims since before 9/11. Some take Osama bin Laden's specific complaints seriously. But we shouldn't, as we learned this month from his latest rambling communiqué, which faulted America for seemingly everything -- global warming, high interest rates, shaky home mortgages, and free-market democratic capitalism itself.

But the US govt is at war with al Qaeda. There is no "state". ... They have no state.

That's just not true. Al Qaeda itself is not beholden to any state directly, though it surely has direct ties to specific states. But the people of Al Qaeda almost all have a state that they are citizens of - Nigeria, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Afghanistan... The fact that they refuse to think of these states as being "their" state in such a way that they are obliged to consider the welfare of the state in their actions just means they are very poor citizens of their states. They have states.

The only ones out of the panoply that might be able to claim they "they have no state" are Palestinians, and while I have sympathy for some aspects of their plight, it is limited by the fact that their not having a state right now could have been overcome any time in the last 35 years merely by their committing to the existence and security of Israel as its own state.

That's why I think Dr. Paul's idea of letters of marque and reprisal was so spot on. It specifically targeted the guilty and left the rest of the world alone.

I don't have any problem with doing such letters, but I have no confidence they would have achieved anything useful. Nobody could have done anything to prosecute a "letters" attack on the Al Qaeda bases in Afghanistan without violating Afghanistan sovereignty. When a pirate has direct state sponsorship, and is not directly accessible on the high seas (in international waters) there is no choice but to involve nations. The Taliban government was a direct obstacle to doing anything in Afghanistan.

These wars are so different from past wars that I don't think standard rules of warfare even apply. Has the US "won" the war in Afghanistan? In Iraq? Based on what? What was the stated objective?

The rules of warfare are supposed to identify in principle the limits of just (and moral) behavior in war. If the "standard rules" don't apply, then either there aren't any rules (which the neoconservative hawks would love you for saying) or there are more fundamental rules that apply no matter what. Those "more fundamental rules" are just the principles of just war.

The US has defeated the former governments of Afghanistan and Iraq. In both places, there is a replacement government. That's called "winning" in some degree, even if not perfectly.

Daniel,

One more comment from me and then I'm done -- stop slandering the U.S. government with respect to our conduct in Afghanistan and Iraq. We weren't perfect there but we have not killed "thousands of innocent Muslims (Christians and Jews as well BTW)." That is just factually incorrect and get the real moral actors off the hook -- the insane terrorists and insurgents who have been fighting against the new governments in those countries. Again, shame on you.

The longer this thread goes, the more I'm convinced of Daniel's disconnect from reality.

Of course he has reasons other than jihad for justifying his actions. So what? He hacked a man to death in broad daylight, then said outright that it was motivated by his religion. This has been happening more and more, with frightening regularity. The connection here is jihad, not the actions of our men overseas. Or are you even denying that?

How can you rationally think that the US government can invade countries, overthrow regimes, prop up other regimes, kill thousands of innocent Muslims (Christians and Jews as well BTW), and yet maintain that THAT is not a factor in any of this?

Why aren't Christians and Jews also committing terrorist acts against us then?

How can you rationally think that the US government can invade countries, overthrow regimes, prop up other regimes, kill thousands of innocent Muslims (Christians and Jews as well BTW), and yet maintain that THAT is not a factor in any of this?

It most certainly is a factor to people who believe in collective judgement. If they believe the killing of innocents over there justifies killing some unrelated party over here, then surely that would motivate them. However, they have no right to be upset when the white majority in Britain decides to simply massacre every last man, woman and child in their ethnic group who won't self-deport peacefully. Why? Because genocide is simply collective judgement carried out on an industrial scale.

Lydia,

I'm afraid the brain-cell lossage must have taken place before you read my article, since I in no way argue that the Boston bombing was "our fault." Thanks for the link, however!

Alan Noble,

Let me translate your last comment for our regular readers: "We have always been at war with Eastasia."

Also, if you all want to read a perfect parody of a modern, left-wing Christian writer, check our Alan's latest:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/christandpopculture/2013/05/citizenship-confusion-when-world-mag-promotes-a-radical-anti-muslim-advocate/

It doesn't get much better than that :-(

Jeffrey S:

stop slandering the U.S. government with respect to our conduct in Afghanistan and Iraq. We weren't perfect there but we have not killed "thousands of innocent Muslims (Christians and Jews as well BTW)." That is just factually incorrect and get the real moral actors off the hook -- the insane terrorists and insurgents who have been fighting against the new governments in those countries. Again, shame on you.

Give me the actual figures and I'll retract my comments.

The thing most of you have either forgotten or don't know is that I used to be where you are. From 9-11-2001 until the 2012 election cycle, I was totally on board with the war on terror. I was a full on, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Fox News, neo-con Republican. I've made all the arguments you guys are making - and then some. I too, used to think Dr. Paul was "blaming the US for 9/11" and "making excuses for terrorists". I joined in with the chorus of boos for his foreign policy comments in the 2008 Republican Primary debates.

What's frustrating to me NOW is that I know that those claims are not true - yet I can't seem to break through the fog-of-war and convince any of you of what I was finally convinced of.

But I argued then just like you're arguing now - and I wasn't convinced through argument then either. No, it was a gradual internal "awakening" of my hardened Christian conscience that finally made me ready to let my guard down and listen to what Dr. Paul and his followers were saying.

So I guess I'll have to be content with my own convictions. I'm not going to argue this any more here in this thread. All I can ask is that anyone interested in giving me a fair hearing go back and re-read what I've posted here - soberly and without emotion - and see if anything I've said makes sense to you.

God bless.

These wars are so different from past wars that I don't think standard rules of warfare even apply.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymmetric_warfare#The_American_Revolutionary_War

Relate it not by mere similarity of rhetoric, but by train of observing logic.
I enjoy an impossible challenge, so I'll give my five cents worth.
http://peanuts.wikia.com/wiki/Lucy%27s_psychiatry_booth

To begin, Islam is a religion with a lot of cult tendencies, and of course it isn't alone among religions in that regard. The important thing to keep in mind about a cult is that it dissolves much of the identity of its members into the tribal collective. Many of the earliest religions were theocracies, as Islam claims as its purpose, and obviously the divine cult of royalty was strong enough in ancient Egypt to build the pyramids as elaborate tombs/monuments.

For a Muslim cultist there are multiple factors at work to create the vendetta mentality. Of course he feels much more association with and connection to other Muslims than he does infidels. His own holy book commands war against enemies of the faith and his prophet was a bandit warlord looking for martyrs to exploit. Despite the legacy of military greatness that was supposedly found in early Islam, he looks around and sees that his "land and people", which are in some ways considered sacred have been invaded and corrupted by infidel empires. So he constructs an elaborate grievance framework in which his individual act of holy war will bring justice for crimes real or imagined against Allah and the tribe. Unlike the Boston marathon bombers, the London attackers targeted a member of the military. In that particular respect they were closer to the ideals of jihad, while also acknowledging the jihad has been corrupted by insurgency warfare tactics.

Mr. Noble tries to claim he's not making excuses in his piece, but he then proceeds to do so with some blather about "zero-sum culpability" which makes about as much sense upside down as right side up. See also the sad disconnect from reality betrayed in this quote:

Which means that, contrary to what some people would claim, when we point out that U.S. foreign policy and military disasters have contributed to Islamic terrorism, that does not remove an iota of responsibility from the terrorists and their allies. Nor does it mean that we are The cause of Islamic violence. Both positions, I would suggest, are nonsense. It does mean, however, that there are actions we can take to decrease the likelihood of further attacks, if we will listen. [my emphasis]

Sigh. Some folks just don't get it.

Give me the actual figures and I'll retract my comments.

Do you know how the burden of proof works? You made the original claim. Now prove it.

But I argued then just like you're arguing now - and I wasn't convinced through argument then either.

What do you even think I'm arguing here? I don't even care if you're right, in this context. That has nothing to do with it. What I care about is this: A mad man hacked a man to death in broad daylight. He did this in the name of jihad. These types of attacks have been occurring, in the name of jihad, with frightening regularity.

And besides, at risk of being sucked into this vortex, I never said that everything we've been doing foreign policy wise has been the correct decision. What I've been saying is that it's different, morally, than hacking men to street in broad daylight or setting up bombs specifically to kill civilians, and I still think the fact that you can't see a difference there is frankly ridiculous.

This murderer is using his religion to justify his actions. This is the problem. What is your problem with that statement? And if you don't have a problem with it, well, it's probably a good thing you've stopped talking then.

The thing most of you have either forgotten or don't know is that I used to be where you are. From 9-11-2001 until the 2012 election cycle, I was totally on board with the war on terror. I was a full on, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Fox News, neo-con Republican.

Daniel Smith, here's a little homework assignment, one that, done well, might earn you back a modicum of the respect you've lost:

Examine the history of comment, by the contributors to What's Wrong with the World, on the subjects of (a) the war in Iraq, (b) what is called the War on Terror, and (c) the Allied bombings of cities during WWII; and relate these findings to your charge that we are "full on, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Fox News, neo-con Republicans."

MarcAnthony:

Do you know how the burden of proof works? You made the original claim. Now prove it.

Go here and find a number that is less than "thousands" - then I'll retract my statement.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_war_casualties

Will you retract yours?

Um, did you read the fine print on the Iraq Body Count? It includes "sectarian" and "criminal" violence. Translated: Not perpetrated by our guys.

Paul J Cella,

When I first came here, I went by the name "Chucky Darwin". Fortunately I also had a short-lived Newsvine blog during that time and I made a few political posts there. I managed to dig up the old links.

Here are my posts:
http://chuckydarwin.newsvine.com/

You might find this one interesting:
http://chuckydarwin.newsvine.com/_news/2010/09/09/5080730-on-koran-burnings-and-islamophobia

That's really the best I can do. If you don't accept that, then I guess you'll just have to take my word for it.

Like I said to the last person who challenged me on this - if I could introduce you to my very liberal son, or some liberal coworkers, or anyone who talked politics with me during that period, they'd all tell you how "far-right" was. I even argued that George Bush would go down in history as the "greatest US President ever" (seriously!) - once democracy took hold in the middle east.

I registered as a Republican in the early 80's because of Ronald Reagan. I have never, EVER voted for a Democrat in my life.

Believe it, or not.

The Masked Elephant,

You can read all the estimates on that page (some estimates as high as 1 million total Iraqi deaths) and still manage to convince yourself that the Iraqi civilian deaths caused by US military actions are less than "thousands"?

Amazing.

Here's a very conservative estimate (does not include civilian deaths caused by Iraqi military for example).

Civilians killed by US-led coalition [2003-2011].
Total deaths from coalition forces:
14,925 (13%) of all documented civilian deaths were reported as being directly caused by the US-led coalition.
Children killed by coalition forces:
Of the 4,040 civilian victims of US-led coalition forces for whom age data was available, 1,201 (29%) were children.

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/numbers/2011/

Paul J Cella,

Sorry, I misread your comment. I thought you were challenging me on my claim to have been a "Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Fox News, neo-con Republican". My comment (currently held for moderation) was based on that.

Will you retract yours?

What statement? That you had the burden of proof? No, not really. You've met the challenge. Congrats.

I'll also wager a lot of those deaths, even if caused by our military, were "human shields" put up by the Iraqis to shelter their own scum. In which case they're really the ones ultimately culpable.

It is logically possible that the US has done many impudent, and also many downright evil things in pursuing war against Iraq and Afghanistan, (and in earlier foreign policy decisions) and at the same time that the Muslim terrorists have done inexcusably evil things in their attacks on us. To point out the first set of errors is not as such to excuse the latter set of wrongs. So far as that limited stance, I think Daniel has a fair point to make. (If he would make it clearly it would help.)

Likewise, there is nothing logically incoherent about saying that Eisenhower, JFK, and LBJ made serious errors (both practical and moral) in their operational choices in the mid-east, AND ALSO saying that (say, as of Nov. 2001) we have a role to play over there, potentially including a war or other violent action, upon terrorists and state supporters of terrorism regardless of the fact that had people 50 years ago made different choices then we would have different choices in front of us. Just as a simple example: once we had made a significant commitment to the regime of Kuwait (and significant investment in their oil), our choosing to ignore those commitments after Saddam raped their country would have widespread and long-term consequences around the world for our ability to transact negotiations, business, etc. Even if, in a naked universe, our ousting Saddam from Kuwait wasn't a necessary decision for foreign policy, it wasn't a naked universe and we DID have to take into account actual historical factors and political-economic consequences.

Likewise, even if someone were to agree that we were not wise to have gone into Iraq in 2003 (as several people here at W4 have said repeatedly, not just Daniel), that isn't tantamount to a conclusion that we did so immorally in principle. And even if we conclude that we have prosecute the war wrongly - (for instance) using as evidence the figure that we have killed 14k civilians - that doesn't itself prove that our only rational course is to get out of there now. If we have prosecuted the war wrongly before, we can STOP prosecuting war wrongly. If we have pursued unwise policies over there before, we can START pursuing wise policies without necessarily disengaging altogether.

What all of these "not logically impossible" comments have in common (underneath) is this, in my opinion: if one is convinced that the terrorism perpetrated on us is primarily due to rage at the way our foreign policy imposes unsavory conditions on them, one will naturally think that we can primarily eradicate terrorism by eradicating the imposition of said conditions. (Please note that this statement makes no moral judgments of their rage or our foreign policy or the conditions imposed, so it works either way.) But if the source of the terrorism is more complex than being "primarily" due to rage at our treatment of them, then agreeing to many of Daniel's comments about our bad choices doesn't lead to any necessary conclusion that we shouldn't be over there now (just for example). As I have said about our Civil War, it is possible for BOTH sides to be in the wrong in the lead up to a war, and still one side may have a just claim in principle to prosecute a war.

Daniel,

I'm skeptical of that website. Go check out some of the underlying data for the early years of the war. For example, here is one random incident I clicked on:

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/incidents/x044

"142 - 200 civilian deaths recorded at Basra Teaching Hospital" How the heck do we really know it was coalition forces that killed those people? How do we really know how many people were killed? The fog of war was definitely in place back then.

That said, I'm prepared to accept the fact that we accidently killed a couple thousand innocent Iraqis -- a remarkable feat in the history of warfare, certainly when compared with the 20th Century's butcher's bill (although you have no way of knowing that those couple thousand include both Christians and more absurdly Jews).

Should those Iraqi families be mad at the U.S.? I suppose they should. Should those deaths inspire Muslim jihadis to butcher and blow-up innocent people living in Britain and the U.S.? Only if you have a warped moral sense and/or accept jihadi logic. By the way, I still get nervous around the Vietnamese -- you never know when they will want to exact their revenge for the war and start blowing up innocent Americans...I'm sure it will be right after the Panamanians launch their campaign of terror for the war we fought to get rid of Noriega. The British still don't trust any Argentines!

The British still don't trust any Argentines!

And I've been trying to tell people, "Never trust a Hawaiian...", but darned if they don't listen to me.

Daniel Smith, I have no trouble believing that you were once a "full on, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Fox News, neo-con Republican." What I have trouble believing is how this fact can possibly justify the view that you were once in agreement with us.

It is a curious but persistent error to confuse principled opposition to Jihad with warmongering and imperialism. The two positions are, in truth, no wise connected. Bush and his imperialist advisers and supporters were, on the whole, deluded fools when it came to the principled opposition bit. A half decade went by before they ceased spouting manifest nonsense about the character of our enemies.

Paul,

I quite like this comment of yours: "Bush and his imperialist advisers and supporters were, on the whole, deluded fools when it came to the principled opposition bit." Being somewhat sympathetic to the "imperalist position" I just wish we had a better class of imperalists! For example, good old Winston:

How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property – either as a child, a wife, or a concubine – must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen: all know how to die but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith.

Daniel Smith: " I have never, EVER voted for a Democrat in my life."

I genuinely respect and honor that. Please do fervently spread this particular conviction around.

I think I'll make a few comments and leave it at that.

Paul, you make a good point that the people here are not 'Fox News Republicans' by any stretch of the imagination. The fact that I once was just shows the immensity of my own ignorance I have to overcome.

Tony, I really like the sense of your last comment.

I don't think of American foreign policy so much as "evil" but rather as "inept". Our military has done a magnificent job minimizing civilian casualties - that can't be denied. But I wonder how many casualties could have been avoided altogether had our central planners taken a more 'hands-off' approach to dealing with the middle east. They overhyped the danger and ordered our troops to invade a Muslim country, and even though our troops did everything they could to minimize unnecessary deaths, the country exploded in a rash of violence - mostly due to the long repressed Sunni vs. Shia conflict. So even though the US military didn't directly cause the damage, the ineptitude of our central planner's attempt to 'spread democracy', 'fight terrorism', and 'liberate the Iraqi people' was at least an indirect cause of the outbreak of civil war in that country. You know what they say about the road to hell...

Yeah, it's paved with the skulls of bishops.

Oh, shoot, is that the right quote? Paging St. John Chrysostom, please report to the blog phone...

...the ineptitude of our central planner's attempt to 'spread democracy', 'fight terrorism', and 'liberate the Iraqi people' was at least an indirect cause of the outbreak of civil war in that country.

And there is a HUGE moral difference here between what went on when a British Muslim hacked a man to death in the street in the name of jihad.

Tony, I used to attribute the "paved with good intentions" quote to St. Augustine before I learned better.

Yes, but that "huge moral difference" is lost on those grieving their dead.

Think of it this way: Let's say the US government gets so corrupt that other countries view it as a threat to world peace. Let's say a Russian/Chinese coalition comes in (thinking we'd all rejoice to be rid of such an abomination) and quickly topples the US government only to have a civil war break out between liberals and conservatives as they vie for control of the new regime (and settle decades old grievances in the process).

With hundreds of thousands of dead Americans, do you think we'd give that Russian/Chinese coalition a 'pass' because they had good moral intentions? After all - they didn't do the killing - it was those pesky liberals and conservatives warring with each other.

Or would we blame the rival government for lighting the spark that erupted into such incredible bloodshed?

Of course none of this would excuse the Chilean who brutally murders a Chinese soldier because so many Americans "die daily". His claim would be bizarre. I mean why would a Chilean be upset about Americans dying?

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Yeah, why would he? The commonality here is Islam, Daniel. The reason why this Nigerian identifies with every possible grievance his fellow Muslims can come up with, to the point of thinking it's right to hack a British soldier to death on a street in vengeance for what he calls "our lands," is because he is Muslim.

We're talking morality here, Daniel. You're just manipulating emotions.

I might as well say that there's no difference between the man who was paying half attention and hydroplaned while driving and killed a child than the man who grabbed a child in the street and hacked him to death because the child looked at him funny. Or, a better comparison - a serial killer who hacks to death all of the children whose fathers caused a fatal accident.

I mean, there's an element of blame in both cases (you should always pay full attention while driving, after all), but the moral difference is lost on those grieving the dead, right?

You're manipulating emotions. This is the equivalent of the gay rights activists telling heartbroken stories about how they can't marry the person they love and straight people can. It's not an argument. There is a moral difference between a radical Muslim hacking men to death in the street in the name of jihad and your own description of what America has done in the middle east - something you actually recognize, but dismiss as irrelevant!

This reminds me of debates I've had in my High School History class about the atomic bomb. I argued that it shouldn't be dropped based on moral grounds, and I was completely shot down because "It was a war!" and "It saved lives!". The kicker - the teacher (in my Catholic School, by the way), agreed, and later said she was disappointed in our arguments!

Morals matter, whether it seems like they do to grieving mothers at the time or not. There are more people in this equation than "grieving mothers", such as the perpetrators.

Also:

Or would we blame the rival government for lighting the spark that erupted into such incredible bloodshed?

I guess so, sure. We also wouldn't hack people to death in the streets with machetes as revenge.

Lydia:

The commonality here is Islam, Daniel. The reason why this Nigerian identifies with every possible grievance his fellow Muslims can come up with, to the point of thinking it's right to hack a British soldier to death on a street in vengeance for what he calls "our lands," is because he is Muslim.

Well I agree that Islam is the commonality in this instance, but it is not unheard of for an individual, or even an entire country, to take up the cause of a totally unrelated people. Our government did it when we liberated the Iraqi people! What was OUR connection to Iraq? We're not Muslims, we don't have a significant Iraqi population here, no Americans were suffering under Saddam's regime - that happened thousands of miles away! Sure, he violated some UN resolutions, but is that really a more solid connection than a common religion?

MarcAnthony:

Morals matter, whether it seems like they do to grieving mothers at the time or not. There are more people in this equation than "grieving mothers", such as the perpetrators.

I didn't say that morality doesn't matter, nor did I say that these actions were morally equivalent. I made the point that morality is often irrelevant to those grieving the loss of a loved one. People want payback - that's a natural human emotion. It takes effort and restraint NOT to react that way. We shouldn't assume that they won't want payback because their loved ones died at the hands of someone taking the moral high ground.

Maybe you're saying that they don't have a right to that anger? Sure, but will that make them stop? And how does that help anyway? It only helps US to feel better.

it is not unheard of for an individual, or even an entire country, to take up the cause of a totally unrelated people.

I like that phrase "take up the cause." You keep using it. For crying out loud. No, actually, it's pretty darned bizarre and not very usual for someone to "take up a cause" to the point of hacking an innocent person to death, personally, on a road, just because you disagree with the actions of his government against people who have no relation to you whatsoever, and he happens to be a soldier. And we did not do that. That is what's called "ideologically motivated terrorism," Daniel. And Islam has a penchant for inspiring it. You keep saying you're not making excuses and then you keep making these dumb, dumb, dumb parallels. You really need to learn to _stop_ doing that. Apparently you only taught yourself to do it recently by taking up a particular ideology of your own. Maybe you should reconsider.

You guys seem to more or less oppose Ron Paul's foreign policy recommendations (even calling me a "Paulite" - with just a hint of distaste!)

So let me ask a favor. Dr. Paul recently posted a short dissertation taking the US government to task over Iraq and foreign policy in general. If you would please, read it and tell me what you find offensive in it? (It's very short.)

Thanks!

http://the-free-foundation.org/tst6-3-2013.html

Once again, this goes back to: What, exactly, do this have to do with a Muslim man hacking somebody to death in the street in the name of jihad?

Yes, the U.S. government had done bad things. So what?

Lydia,

The repulsiveness of his actions doesn't mean he wasn't doing what he did "for a cause". He's a bloodthirsty, cold-blooded, murderer, and he said he did it "for Islam"! That's not even in dispute here! I don't get what you're arguing FOR? I even agreed that Islam was the commonality he shared with those whose "cause" he claimed to be acting in vengeance of. I wasn't disputing the "for Islam" part. I've argued above that Islam was the determining factor in the despicable method he chose.

I was only pointing out that his claimed "our land" connection was no more tenuous than the Iraq/US connection. That many people take up causes for unrelated peoples. In short, that the "he's Nigerian" argument doesn't add anything to your case.

It appears though that anything I say will be taken as a defense of terrorism.

It appears though that anything I say will be taken as a defense of terrorism.

I won't speak necessarily for anybody else, but I was assuming you were staying on topic instead of going off on U.S. foreign policy.

And since it wasn't meant as a defense of this man, we come back to the original problem: So what?

I was only pointing out that his claimed "our land" connection was no more tenuous than the Iraq/US connection.

Well, no. I don't recall anybody advocating the foreign policy you disagree with on the grounds that Iraq is "our land." Nobody thinks that. That kind of identification is of a different order.

The reason, Daniel, is that what you're saying can mean one of two things: 1) A defense of this guy, or 2) A condemnation of the U.S. government foreign policy.

It's not that simple. To examine the man's words and try to decipher his true motivations is neither of those things. It feels like you're trying to wedge me into one or the other though.

Well, no. I don't recall anybody advocating the foreign policy you disagree with on the grounds that Iraq is "our land." Nobody thinks that. That kind of identification is of a different order.

This is exhausting. I didn't say that any American said "Iraq is our land". I pointed out that our government decided to 'take up the cause' of an unrelated people - even though it wasn't "our land".

I'm not sure what the problem is here: either I'm not making myself very clear, (a real possibility,) or you're just skimming over what I write.

I was only pointing out that his claimed "our land" connection was no more tenuous than the Iraq/US connection. That many people take up causes for unrelated peoples. In short, that the "he's Nigerian" argument doesn't add anything to your case.

Let's see the parallels (or lack thereof). Stop me when the comparison between Christian westerners fighting in Iraq and a Muslim descendant of Nigerians fighting his own nation's soldiers over being in Iraq hits a commonality:

British soldiers were in Saudi Arabia because that government invited them to be there because of an Iraqi henchman's rape of Kuwait.

The terrorist is in Britain because his Nigerian parents moved there, the British government permitted them to do so in benevolence and largess to Commonwealth citizens.

British soldiers made war on Iraq in Kuwait because the Kuwait government begged them to do so.

The terrorist made a terrorist attack on a British soldier at no government's request, certainly not Nigeria's, nor at any organized polity's desire.

British soldiers, at their government's orders, eventually followed up in Iraq itself because the Iraqi regime kept violating its own agreements with Britain and the US following Kuwait.

He followed up on his initial attack with dragging the body and posing for photos because he wanted to make a religious point.

His religion holds Arabia, especially certain parts of Arabia to be sacred, not to be defiled by Christians. The British are not in Saudi Arabia any more. No part of his religion holds Iraq sacred.

While it is true that sometimes people take up a cause for other people, they generally do it out of "common cause", i.e. common, shared goals, or out of plain decency sticking up for the guy who's being mistreated. A Nigerian Muslim doesn't have anything in common with an Iraqi Muslim except Islam, which fits with the stated intentions. But since the British were not fighting Iraqis out of repudiation of Islam, rather for other reasons that are (in first instance) irrelevant to Islam - the regional security disaster of the former Iraqi regime - generic shared Islam as such shouldn't have been the motivator of this murder. It wasn't "they are killing fellow religionists, so I am going to kill them." The motivating factor was, of course, jihad: "they aren't Muslim". Which means that Iraq is really a side issue, a convenient opportunity rather than a real cause: the British soldier wouldn't be Muslim whether the soldiers were fighting in Iraq or not.

In essence, we have been saying (at least I have) the attack was an irrational attack (from the standpoint of real, viable reasons), and the fact that he is of Nigerian descent does nothing to excuse or justify his actions. You have been saying that he was an outraged Islamic jihadist, and that in his own mind being Nigerian had nothing to do with it. The above disproof of any rational connection between Nigerian descent and his real motivations doesn't become invalid by merely citing his stated motivations: the Camerons and the appeasers will say whatever comes their way to make light of the murder, Nigeria being just one of many.

I give up.

I give up.

Okay Mac, give me a nice LOUD AUDIENCE ROAR here!