http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3556099.stm

Allahu akbar, and good riddance

Sine says it all.

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I’m not going to die, I’m going to see if I was ever alive. - Spike
It's not your right to decide whether they live or die. They deserve a chance! - Vash
BABIES EVERYWHERE!!!

Good!
There are people in this world that it is good that they are dead.

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To artificial life, all reality is virtual.
HTP

*applauds*

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If you ever want to be hated by your peers, make them look bad. That's what America did.

I wonder what their retaliation will be like...

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The Massassi-Map
There is no spoon.

Ouch.

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I can't think of anything to put here right now.

This is good, but the consequences probably won't.

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<landfish> FastGamerr > Satan

Now he is a martyr. I can't imagine a worse situation than the one in the middle east right now. I don't see how those suicide bombers can be human.

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"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke

"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right." -Isaac Asimov

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The future is here, and all bets are off.

It's pretty simple. Get people who are certain that x group is going to destroy their culture. Have no way to get out of this paradigm. Then have your government promise to feed and grant protected status to your starving family and remind you that you'd be one less mouth to feed. Then pretend it's for Allah and go deal some damage and take out some aggression and frustration rooted in a futility of trying to support yourself and make a difference.

Now does this account for all bombers, no certainly not, but it's certainly not uncommon. And all things considered, living in a constant situation like that under the same circumstances given the same options and same assurance that my family would be fed and protected, damn straight i'd do it in a second.

It's not particularly like they tend to have a lot of self-determination or options or freedoms in those sorta environments, there often /isn't/ really any better alternative or whatever as presented and believed. We kinda tend to think oh well they totally coulda just gotten to the unemployment bureau and lived off of wellfare for a while, whilst they looked for a better job or whatever. Yeah, right, not so much.

Fundamentalists, especially violent ones, are from a sociological perspective the immuno-defense system of the societal macro-organism. The soceity is almost a larger evolutionary form than the individual, macrocosmic societal body reflecting the microcosmic of the physiological body, with specialization of labour and organs as it were, with a very strong self-preservation instinct that exists virtually independant of the actual organisms which make it up, they are largely interchangeable, even to the extent that many of them are 'treated' by this macroorganism as though they are expendable [there's always more to replace them]. Recent psychology and sociology seems to very strongly indicate that fundamentalism derives from the fear that one's culture is going to be destroyed, not necessarily any fear that oneself as an individual is in danger. It's a sort of human strong histamine reaction.

Given that, it's not at all surprising or inconceivable. Not to condone it or say it's not still whatever, but it's certainly not totally inexplicable.

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[Blue Mink Bifocals !] [fsck -Rf /world/usr/] [<!-- kalimonster -->] [Capite Terram]
"You'll have to face it, the endings are the same however you slice it. Don't be deluded by any other endings, they're all fake, with malicious intent to deceive, or just motivated by excessive optimism if not by downright sentimentality. The only authentic ending is the one provided here: John and Mary die. John and Mary die. John and Mary die." -Happy Endings [Margeret Atwood]
NPC.Interact::PressButton($'Submit');

[This message has been edited by Dormouse (edited March 21, 2004).]

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I'm not an actor. I just play one on TV.

If I were in Israel, I'd avoid any buses or night clubs for the next few weeks...

There isn't a better way, is there?

Drudge Report has a worse picture of his broken wheelchair in a pool of blood. Shocking stuff!

Yeah, I think most Israelies will be ashamed of this event in their history. It doesn't matter who he was, killing an old paraplegic and several innocent bystanders with an attack helicopter is perverse. It's like hunting rabbits with a bazooka!

[This message has been edited by UGG (edited March 22, 2004).]

Is is just me or is Israel painting a big red target on every bus, nightclub and cafe in the West Bank and begging to be blown up??? I'd hate to be there right about now.

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This post was proudly brought to you by KegZ™

Meh, I'm not sure they're asking for any more trouble than they were going to get anyway. Maybe a bus will blowup this week rather than next week but it's a safe assumption that another one was going to go boom regardless of this incident.

So many people in this dispute are clearly beyond reason and their definition of peace is having all their enemies dead.

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Cantina Cloud | BCF | The Massassian 1 & 2 | Gonkmeg
Corrupting the kiddies since '97

Dormouse: A part of me has never liked the political sciences, psychology, historical or anthropological disciplines simply because I've always had the feeling that, somehow, none of those terms are real and it's all just an elaborate prank on we common folk.

In spite of the collegiate-technobabble, your post was still an excellent summary of how this layperson understands the conditions. I give it a 4.5/5.

I love the way only sine is allowed to create political threads, all others must be trolled with prolonged sarcasm(read: parody) until closed.

While this will almost certainly incite more violence, I think it was the right thing to do. Israel has taken a hard line toward terrorism, and I can only hope it works out in the end.

Just because he's a quadraplegic means they shouldn't have killed him? What sense does that make? He's a terrorist ******* who deserved a death a lot more painful and a lot longer than the quick incineration he received by that missile. All Hamas does is target places where innocent civilians who have no affiliation with Israel's government are, and then they're surprised when Israel goes and kills one of their leaders.

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Kids must be shot by Monday.

Honesty tests for workers can't be trusted, report says.

Psychopaths are unpredictable.

Jay Leno's Headlines > Everything

When's Arafat?

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Superstition brings bad luck.
-Raymond Smullyan, 5000B.C.

Hopefully soon.

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Kids must be shot by Monday.

Honesty tests for workers can't be trusted, report says.

Psychopaths are unpredictable.

Jay Leno's Headlines > Everything

... "to this I have nothing to say"

Since I'm not one to delete posts, I'll just edit it out. I realized that I really don't want to be responsible for starting a flame war. So I replaced original post with this text.
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<scribbly handwriting barely resembling name>


[This message has been edited by Gandalf1120 (edited March 22, 2004).]

I think Jeff hit the nail on the head, not least with the decidedly non-partisan "so many people"; BOTH sides have commited terrible crimes and I'm actually quite shocked that it took so many posts into the thread as it did for someone even to question Israel's tactics (not just in this particular case, but in general).




The tragedy is that they ARE human and aren't the mindless killing machines that they are often portrayed as- there are reasons behind the suicide bombings (just as there are reasons behind the security fence, the evictions, bulldozings, illegal occupation and the fact that so many Palestinians are dead too).


The issue is much, MUCH more complex than "helicopters good, suicide bombers bad" or vice versa (or even "Judaism/Islam good, Islam/Judaism bad", though that's falling into the trap of equating Israeli policy and a religion, which many on both sides intentionally exploit) .

[This message has been edited by CookedHaggis (edited March 22, 2004).]

Bout time...
I don't see why anyone should be surprised about it... Israelis can only warn one person so many times before a missile lands in his lap.
The long term will most likely outweigh the short term.

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"So there I was completely naked and covered in tartar sauce..."

Israel is going to be a target now? Gasp, no it can't be! Israel is going to be a target until they eradicate their enemy. Peace through victory. That's something both Israelis and Arabs understand.

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Have you forgotten ...

"Make a desert and call it peace"

How about abandoning their illegal settlements just, you know, for starters.

That might be something people could understand.

Neither group will abandon anything as long as they still have the stregnth to do so.

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"So there I was completely naked and covered in tartar sauce..."

Exactly. One side will have to be defeated. Now, things may slowly change over there now that there is a struggling new democracy in the region but I doubt that will be fast enough for Israel. No, personally I think they need to take whatever actions they deem necessary to defeat the terrorist threats to their security.

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Have you forgotten ...

Come on, Sine! You started this thread. Why do you think it's justified? The rest of the world is against this action, even the US.

[This message has been edited by UGG (edited March 22, 2004).]

I hope the Hamas do not bond with Al Qaida. That wouldn't be good.

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Snail racing: (500 posts per line)
------@%

Not quite. Where do get that from? The US government said it was disturbing but failed to condemn the action. Why do you think that is? Because they're happy as hell that that clown is gone! It just wouldn't be PC to say so.

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Have you forgotten ...

Evil rabbits. Like Bun-Bun.

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Map-Review | My Portfolio | The Matrix: Unplugged

Because he was the head of an organization whose a) stated aim is the destruction of Israel, and b) carries out attacks that purposefully target civilians.

That's really all I need, and saying it was wrong because he was paraplegic is one of the most terribly ironic things I've ever heard.

I didn't say the US condemned it, I said they were against it. If you're "troubled" by something then you obviously wish it had not happened.



Sine, Israel has extremist groups who want the destruction of the Palestinian Authority. Also, Israel frequently carries out attacks in populated areas which result in many civilian deaths.

It may be ironic from your point of view but not from mine. I'm against killing people regardless of their crimes.

...And do any of them bomb Palestinian mosques or taxis?

Also, I never said the IDF hadn't killed civilians. There is one fundamental difference between the IDF and Hamas, however - it never has been, is not, and never will be the policy of the IDF to target innocent civilians. Does that honestly mean nothing to you?

Wait until Sharon sees this forum. *gasp* It's full of anti-semites! He'll order his ambassador to throw a lighting fixture at you all...

If only some idiot hadn't gone and shot Yitzakh Rabin...

Baruch Goldstein threw grenades into a mosque and killed 26 Palestinians. That's just one example in a long history of attacks by Israel extremists. Even Yassin was killed in his car outside a mosque, by the IDF no less.

Nothing at all. IDF soldiers who kill civilians are rarely punished while those who protest are usually punished.

Well thank you. Sorry for the verbage, i tend to lapse into certain sorts of terminology because i understand or tend to explain things certain ways [ie networking or coding argot slips in a lot to utterly different genres of discussion]. So don't take all of that as canon -ology terminology.

The macro-organism interpretation or filter is more or less my own just understanding or metaphysic of it, though i cannot claim it entirely, it has shown up in a number of previous places. Robert M Pirsig's Lila [better known for Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenence] dabbles in it if i recall.

However it has been around at least since it was rather coherently in Thomas Hobbes' Leviathon- or the Matter Forme and Power of a Common-wealth Ecclesiastical and Civill all the way back in 1651 [shortly thereafter forwarded by Oxford University to be burned along with various other 'pernicious books and damnable doctrines'].

Ironically enough i just somewhat randomly checked out a book today which abstracts exactly those ideas and cites Leviathon and such. It is entitled Darwin Among the Machines: The Evolution of Global Intelligence, by George B Dyson. I was looking for The Age of Spiritual Machines which was still checked out and stumbled upon this, it is really quite fascinating [and rather in line with a lot of my sort of metaphysic as it were] the first few pages in i have read.

And to be perfectly realistic, Jon, you are precisely correct. That actually is one of the things i'm occasionally dodgy about with regards to sociology or poli-sci. Though it isn't so bad that i've noticed. However in one of my soc courses the prof was going on about some model or theory or something and i was totally not buying it and i called him on it and he very straight-up was like yeah it's a theoretical somewhat abstract model based upon most precise or specific or favourable conditions, and i was all but it has no relation to reality by any understanding of it i have gathered, and he was all yes more or less but it /is/ internally consistent and useful in some forms of modelling or predicting or something. So there are things like that.

But i would wager that there are very similar things in every science, like mathematics for instance where every now and then they seem to just up and invent a new coefficient or constant because it fills in this gap in this theorom or function ['i' comes to mind].

[/tangent]

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[Blue Mink Bifocals !] [fsck -Rf /world/usr/] [<!-- kalimonster -->] [Capite Terram]
"You'll have to face it, the endings are the same however you slice it. Don't be deluded by any other endings, they're all fake, with malicious intent to deceive, or just motivated by excessive optimism if not by downright sentimentality. The only authentic ending is the one provided here: John and Mary die. John and Mary die. John and Mary die." -Happy Endings [Margeret Atwood]
NPC.Interact::PressButton($'Submit');

[This message has been edited by Dormouse (edited March 23, 2004).]

Not really relevant, but has anyone else noticed the eerie resemblance of this fellow to Saruman as portrayed by Christopher Lee? Not really sure what to make of that...

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[If anyone can think of a good pithy quote to put here, please let me know. I'm stumped.
--Krig]