idiggory, King of Bards wrote:
My only point was that they saw no difference--the dead, by virtue of being American (or <insert race/creed>) were their enemies.
"They" saw no difference between deaths among the general civilian population and deaths among those actively involved in fighting. We do. Well, most of us do. Strange that you don't though. Isn't that the exact argument you were making with regards to Hiroshima and Nagasaki (maybe it was someone else)? It just seems like you're demanding a double standard here.
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And they celebrated the deaths of their enemies. We can argue all day long about who is more justified in their definition of enemy, but that just seems absurd to me.
It doesn't seem absurd to me at all. It seems rather to be the heart of the matter. How a society determines who is a legitimate enemy and target during war would seem to be pretty significant in terms of judging that society within this context.
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If they were celebrating the assassination of the president, we'd react the exact same way--calling them barbarians. But, in reality, he is their enemy in a very real way.
This wasn't the scenario you originally mentioned though. You compared cheering at the thousands of random deaths of civilians on 9/11 to cheering at the very specific and targeted death of OBL. And while we'd be pretty darn pissed if they managed to assassinate our president, I also don't think that's in the same category as cheering the deaths of random innocent civilians. The reality is that as Commander in Chief, Obama *is* a legitimate military target. I think you're confusing being angry about an act which falls outside the realm of reasonable military objectives and being angry about an act that hurts us militarily and politically.
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When I heard ObL had died, I wasn't overjoyed at his death. Frankly, all I could think about was how differently things would have been if he hadn't been forced to grow up in a hell hole. He was an extremely intelligent and charismatic man--had he been raised in a culture that impressed him with different values, he could have been just as big a source of happiness as he actually was pain. So I take no joy in his death--he was as much the creation of his culture as I am a creation of mine.
But that's the same culture that causes people to cheer when they deliberately target and kill civilians. So you agree that it's a problem with that kind of culture and how it affects those who live in it and choose to act on it? Why then insist that it's no different (or worse) than our own culture? One affects the other. You can't both blame the culture for causing OBL to be the way he was *and* defend the culture as being no worse than our own. Which is it?
Edited, Oct 17th 2011 2:19pm by gbaji