Lebanese celebrate child murderer

Kestra, that is petty semantics, why did you even bother?

But more to the point - even though Hezbollah and Hamas (and any other terrorist organization out there) are illegal combatants, I still make a clear distinguish between killing/abducting soldiers and killing/abducting innocent people (especially children). But you see, those organizations usually don't care much if they kill a soldier or a child.

On the other hand, take some western army - everything it does is meant to battle the combatants and not the general population. Sure, sometimes innocent people get hurt in battle, but can you REALLY say the intention is the same here? If you do then I think you have a serious problem with grasping the battleground as it is now, and moreso, you have no idea how an army works.

You've been playing Thresh too long. Here, let me help.

Evil defined by dictionary.com

I don't see any reference to any particular religion, religion at all, or even anything referring to evil being a relative concept. And since you're not religious, I'm assuming that in your eyes, I can come to your house, kill your mom, rape your sister and steal your car and I wouldn't be evil since evil doesn't seem to exist to you?

And furthermore, while you're reading, try reading the rest of my post before you reply. Better yet, I'll quote myself:

"I've MET these Middle Eastern people. I don't believe the Middle East should become a parking lot for India, but I don't believe all is good there either. There are good people there, and no, I don't think Islam is evil. Just some of their extremist sects. And yes, those exist in all religions and countries."

AND

"...America is guilty of such deeds as slavery, the Trail of Tears, and the Japanese internment camps..."

AND

(referring to my own fellow soldiers who did nasty shit) "...those murdering bastards ARE behind bars."


At what point did I EVER say that we're better than anyone else ideologically? When did this become a debate among regions?

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Originally posted by kestra
I disagree with these two statements so fundamentally, I don't even know where to begin. I'm going to have to think about it somemore and get back to you.

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Really? Do you have actual experience with the truly depraved, demented, twisted, vile people of the world?

I have never been in combat, however, I do get to see rapists, murderers, pedophiles, and other very wonderful people on a near daily basis.

There are fundementally evil people out there, there are people who tell you that they enjoy torturing and killing children. I have a murder trial coming up where, before putting two shots in the back of the head of his innocent victim, the defendant put a bullet in each - ankle, knee, elbow (reloaded), shoulder, and then two in the back of the head. When asked by the police why, he said "Because I could."

Hell, even public defenders talk about how bad, and evil, some of their clients are. Im not sure how you can "fundementally disagree" that there are some really evil people out there.

There is the ivory tower approach, and then there is simple reality. Reality is that good, decent, people are getting beat back so badly in many major cities by evil/derranged people willing to do anything and everything that it is quite sad.

I only tossed that out there to demonstrate that evil is not limited to one group, culture, sect, religion, race, or country.

Good vs. Evil does have religious overtones... I mean... "Good" = to be god-like, however, there are other definitions of good or evil that are much more persusive.

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My only point is that I believe the West is no more ethically, or morally superior to East. Both sides have done, and are doing alot of nasty shit to each other; so for one side to say they're the 'good guys' is a load of crap to me.

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Really?

Let's take a look here.

Internally the west is vastly superior to the east on how we treat our own citizenry. The west allows due process before life and liberty is taken, suspected criminals are given far more protection than in the east. The west is far more giving internally, we have many, many, many charitable organizations and governement sponsored progams to help the less fortunate.... the east have things like caste systems, slavery, death squads.

Externally!

The west constantly sends aid missions any time a catastrophe happens in ANY country in the world. The United States is the leading humanitarian aid nation in the world, no one can even come close to the amount of aid - both in dollars and man power, that we put out to help people that need it. When is the last time one of the filthy rich oil nations helped another country? How much money did Iran dole out to help Africa or how many troops did Saudi Arabia send to stop genocide in Africa???

Kestra, I've watched you post things on these forums from your first days playing Threshold... in that time, have you actually gone out and experienced real life? The world is not a nice, happy, place. Yet, despite that, the West still is far ahead of the east as far as doing more good, doing what's right.

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At what point did I EVER say that we're better than anyone else ideologically? When did this become a debate among regions?

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You didn't.
I don't see any countries as the "good guys". I see countries acting in their own self interest.

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There are fundamentally evil people out there, there are people who tell you that they enjoy torturing and killing children. I have a murder trial coming up where, before putting two shots in the back of the head of his innocent victim, the defendant put a bullet in each - ankle, knee, elbow (reloaded), shoulder, and then two in the back of the head. When asked by the police why, he said "Because I could."

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Go ahead and call it evil. I don't. Try and call it something more appropriate, like psychotic, or a psychopath, or whatever.

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Kestra, I've watched you post things on these forums from your first days playing Threshold... in that time, have you actually gone out and experienced real life?

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I'd wager a bet that I've seen more of the world than the average north american. I'm not naive.

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Hell, even public defenders talk about how bad, and evil, some of their clients are. I'm not sure how you can "fundamentally disagree" that there are some really evil people out there.

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My disagreement was the statement made saying that the US isn't evil.
Yes, US humanitarianism is to be commended. But the government in power for the last 8 years has been terrible for the world. How many examples of how would you like?

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How much money did Iran dole out to help Africa or how many troops did Saudi Arabia send to stop genocide in Africa???

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I have no idea. It is worthy to note for the record that Iran did offer its hand in
support after 911. That offer was taken. They were also instrumental in getting rid of the Taliban in Afghanistan and installing Hamid Karzai. The US was very grateful for this.

I don't support Iran. The Ayatollah and the President deny the Holocaust.
There are fundamentalists over here, and of course over there.

The difference is I'm interested in learning how these terrorists became how they are. You will NEVER, EVER stop terrorism by killing them all.
There seems to be little interest, at least on this forum board in learning the hows and whys. Wanting to understand and learn about it DOES NOT equal bending over and letting them trample all over us.

The difference between an 'evil' person, and a 'immoral, depraved, debased,' person IS semantics. Evil is really just a convenient term when it's used in a non-religious context. I agree with Kestra when I say I don't believe in evil as a religious force. I do, however, believe the term is accurate in describing these child killing crazies. Why? In western culture, children are considered to be the ultimate innocence by, I dare say, the vast majority of peoples. To murder or manipulate an innocent child, who we generally assume is whole at this point, is very easily referred to as evil. I'm not exactly sure how naming an entire nation or faction evil, as opposed to depraved or "insert word here", changes the fact of the matter, or the resolve to disrupt and end them.

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Lebeau: So why are people evil? Mommy and Daddy abused you and you came up a psycho?...Behavior comes from a thought in an individual's mind. The individual CHOSE to act in an evil manner.

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Joreth: There is the ivory tower approach, and then there is simple reality. Reality is that good, decent, people are getting beat back so badly in many major cities by evil/derranged people willing to do anything and everything that it is quite sad.

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I've listed these two quotes because they're very related, in my opinion. Related because of the corruption of innocent children, I believe.

First I'll respond or expound on Lebeau's statement: While I largely agree (and I believe I've heard something similar to this out of my own mouth) that somewhere a person performing evil or depraved acts has made a choice to act that way; I do not think it's so conveniently cut and dry, and I think especially in the case of examining these acts and these people, we're better off understanding that circumstances drastically affect the makeup, even if the result is the same or similar. I personally believe it's worth understanding before we simply condemn. Even if we inevitably condemn.

More to do with the statement about "mommy and daddy" abusing someone. First, it's never quite that simple. If it was a mere matter of mommy and daddy abusing someone, I'd say that we'd have about a third of the pedophiles we currently have on the registered sex offenders list. What generally causes the affect that an abused child then in turn abuses is: re-traumatization, and abuse manifesting itself in less overt ways against the child.

The environment has everything to do with it. If a child is molested, and then is able to live in a healthy environment (and I'm not going to assume how this child got into a healthy environment) there is an astronomically higher chance of the child overcoming said abuse. However, if a child is molested, and returns to an abusive environment, especially when the abuse is only more wicked and deceptive (maybe evil?): there's a high probability that this abuse is going to manifest from the child as an adult (and I won't assume how this abuse would manifest, as it could manifest in many, many different ways.)

There are differing opinions in the psychological world about this: from my own experience, I just wish to add that the Doctors claiming that an abused child will abuse by default, and that the real traumatization in a child occurs as a result of society's perception of the abuse (incest in particular, and that children and abused adults put themselves in situations to be abused, and that a child is an anyway responsible for the abuse performed by an adult - ARE COMPLETE FUCKING QUACKS. And I half wonder if the people who say these things aren't child molesters themselves, trying to shed blame for their EVIL transgressions against helpless and innocent children.

I digress.

Onto Joreth's comment, and how they relate.

Yes, it is sad. Here's why: abuse manifests in many ways. Sometimes a child who was beat, then beats their children. Sometimes a child who was raped takes on risky, or criminalistic behavior. Sometimes we see things that are so devastating to our minds that we do any number of things as a result. Sometimes we have our conscience conditioned out of us. And there are a myriad of these causes and affects.

Abuse, as a very loose term, spans generations. Dysfunction can beset a generation the same way that we pass on our genetics - though obviously it's in conditioning (and that's not to say there aren't genetic anomalies that cause dysfunction). And it isn't contained within a single family. A convenient analogy would be aids: some say it started with one, now it has spread to millions. And good people get swallowed up by it. Hell, the ones doing the swallowing were once good, innocent children.

Point 1: if we lose our heart even in dealing with people we deem depraved or evil, we are absolutely no better than they are.

Point 2: Nothing changes if we don't understand the root cause. Being too general is dangerous ground to trod when we're talking about the psychology of people.

Point 3: At some point, they made a choice. At some point they struck out (to a degree) of their abusive situation, and decided NOT to identify the dysfunction within them. At some point they began abusing others as a result.

Moving along.

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Aristotle: You can't fight a "behavior," You can't stop a "behavior." You can only stop people. The longer we sit on our hands trying to change "behaviors" the more likely it is that these people, who care about results not our feelings, will destroy us.

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This isn't entirely true. Behavior can be changed, it just takes a long, long time. Generally, through much strife. Here's an example using our sweet, innocent children: I watched one of the Harry Potter movies with my nephew recently - there was a ball, and a red-haired white boy invited a mid-night black skinned young lady, one white kid invited a Asian girl, and Ol' Harry and his friend Red invited two Indian girls (I think they were indian). I said: Hey, that's cool that they're doing that. I bet some hicks in the sticks are outraged. The nephew looked at me like I was completely retarded. Point is: after some several hundred years, the nephew doesn't even so much as notice that these people are of other races. That's a drastic change in behavior.

The same idea holds true in evil people. Of course, it's not feasible to wait that long, and that may be Ari's point. Also, the circumstances are different when we're dealing with religious extremists.

But it's all a matter of conditioning. Whether we want to call them 'evil' or we'd rather call them 'depraved' and argue about how we're evil from their vantage point: it's all rather pointless if you take a hard look at the big picture.

Brute force alone won't fix it (look at Iraq and Afghanistan), incarceration won't fix it (Charles Manson for 500, Alex.), at some point it involves altering a behavior, and this is a generational task.

Though, I'm not saying we should sit back and wait for that to happen.

Thank you for reading this very long, very off the topic post. (I hope I don't regret posting this after I get some sleep.)

I read through my post again to make sure I didn't make any huge errors as I was very tired at the time, and thought it could use an explanation as to why I used unrelated topics to make a point.

Ultimately, religious conditioning has a similar affect as any other abusive conditioning (I'm not saying all religious conditioning is dysfunctional, but there are obviously more visible examples of the bad.) In America and alot of Europe, we have an Evangelistic movement, which are part of many denominations of the Church. In just about every part of the world, there are religious movements as well, respectively.

Of course, we're not talking about *healthy* religious conditioning when we're talking about violent extremists (Or maybe that's my Western thinking to call it unhealthy.) but it's still a matter of conditioning (and maybe too much sun exposure) that a religious sect believes all enemies are infidel combatants who need to die: even their innocent children.

Child abuse is a very visible example to use when explaining the affects of conditioning, and that's why I used it, especially since Lebeau hinted at it. Although it's an entirely separate subject, and I apologize for that. But the mind in the east functions the same way as the mind in the west - the real difference is societal and, in this case, religious conditioning.

As I explained in my last post, conditioning can be undone. I used race as an example because it was (is?) a very pervasive and visible topic.

Ultimately, my point is that war and murder don't solve these things. Just like the thinking of religious extremists destroying Americans is going to undo our evil, and American retaliation is going to snuff that thought out. Someone didn't set a variable to exit the loop here, considering that both actions seem to draw more fervor for each cause. At some point, behavior needs to be altered. I personally believe that child murderer's behavior needs to change, so I find myself (as a westerner) to be in the right in this case. I don't think it's a matter perception, though: killing children should be the highest of wrongs in all regions of the world (maybe it is?). We won't see peace in this issue until behaviors change, and that could be one peace loving (LSD driven) generation away, or it could be a hundred, two hundred or more years from now.

So it's not only a game of cat and mouse warfare, which may be completely necessary, it's -also- a game of wait and see, and hoping that tolerance is adopted by extremists for the sake of preserving precious life (precious to all Gods?). To discount the necessity of altering behavior is a long, slow suicide.

Thanks again for reading another long post.

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Originally posted by Cais
Someone didn't set a variable to exit the loop here, considering that both actions seem to draw more fervor for each cause.

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Once upon a time, about 60 or so years ago there was a variable to exit the loop. It was the most extreme thing ever done in human existence and stopped WWII in it's tracks.

Maybe we're not extreme enough?

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Once upon a time, about 60 or so years ago there was a variable to exit the loop. It was the most extreme thing ever done in human existence and stopped WWII in it's tracks.

Maybe we're not extreme enough?

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Middle Eastern Terrorism < Nazi Germany/Imperial Japan.

You cannot compare the two and say the same solution is necessary. For one, the scales of the conflict are not even close. After all, the bomb was dropped to facilitate a possibly swifter end to a conflict which would potentially cost a huge amount of casualties in the endgame. Even if our armed forces degraded to the skill of Imperial Stormtroopers, an equivalent loss in today's conflict is not possible.

Two, the bomb was a never before seen weapon. Now, the potential for a motivated group to acquire a nuclear weapon is real and in this situation, it would most definitely be used. It would begin a tit for tat game with very dire results.

To reiterate: this conflict will not be solved by killing all of the terrorists. That just makes more terrorists. Destroying the foundation for the creation of more terrorists is key. That requires a nuanced and understanding approach which is not glamorous, does not "feel good" and requires time and patience. Unfortunately, the correct paths will many times be the most difficult.

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Originally posted by Jolen


To reiterate: this conflict will not be solved by killing all of the terrorists. That just makes more terrorists. Destroying the foundation for the creation of more terrorists is key. That requires a nuanced and understanding approach which is not glamorous, does not "feel good" and requires time and patience. Unfortunately, the correct paths will many times be the most difficult.

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You mean, the solution to the conflict is to kill all of the current terrorists and ensure that the people, in the countries that the terrorists are operating, understand that the best choice for them and theirs' is NOT the side of the terrorists.

In simplified terms: Turn the people against the terrorists, kill the terrorists, win.