How Many Iraqi Civilians Have Died Since the 2003 U.S. Invasion?

[Bladibla]

edit - rewriting what i really meant:

Just because you sympathise doesn't mean you agree it simply means you understand.

I guess you're not very big on compassion russ.

Erm..

He said understanding *is* sympathising.

Analyse more carefully before jumping to inane conclusions.

 

[The Smoking Man]

Erm..

He said understanding *is* sympathising.

Analyse more carefully before jumping to inane conclusions.

All well and good except for one thing ... he used the word sympathizer:

sym·pa·thize Audio pronunciation of "sympathizer" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (smp-thz)
intr.v. sym·pa·thized, sym·pa·thiz·ing, sym·pa·thiz·es

1. To feel or express compassion, as for another's suffering; commiserate.
2. To share or understand the feelings or ideas of another: sympathized with the goals of the committee.
3. To be in accord; correspond.

sympa·thizer n.
sympa·thizing·ly adv.

sympathizer

n
1: commiserates with someone who has had misfortune [syn: sympathiser, comforter]
2: someone who shares your feelings and expresses sympathy or hopes that something will be successful [syn: sympathiser, well-wisher]

Used in conjunction with the word terrorist gives it a connotation that is quite nasty.

She sympathizes with the people who were invaded not terrorism.

 

[MaxS]

Erm..

He said understanding *is* sympathising.

Analyse more carefully before jumping to inane conclusions.

Uh... let's see here:

"I said it before and I'll say it again: "understand[ing]" is not an acceptable, moral response to murder."

I think its quite plain what he was trying to imply and watch your mouth.

 

[russ_watters]

That's an interesting point of view because the excuse used by the apologists when US forces inflict civilian deaths or torture prisoners is that we need to 'understand' the pressure etc. that they are under. Double standards perhaps? Or just plain bias?

I've never heard that justification. Source?

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

This posting is very reminiscent of the poem Tomlinson's Ghost by R. Kipling
Perhaps you should read the report before criticising it. At least you could then critique it from a position of knowledge rather than 'I read a piece that said this or I heard a guy who thought that' You will find the methodology and source material is extremely well documented throughout.

Perhaps you could have seen that I have read the report considering that I was quoting it's material and numbers and even provided a link to it. And no the source material is not "extremely well documented", it is just a long winded description of still mostly anonymous material. A description that you more or less have to take on faith because there is no bibliography of the actual source material. Yes I pointed out that I had read negative things in regard to the report and I added that this is simply what I had read, meaning not necessarily true, as opposed to others who parrot numbers from news articles and refer to them as known fact.

BTW in relation to the insurgents and unknown agents you referenced above you neglected to mention that the report says

The ‘unknown agents’ category is therefore likely to overlap to an extent with the ‘crime’ and ‘anti-occupation forces’ categories, but may also overlap with the ‘US-led forces’ category, since some of those killed were clearly opposed to the military occupation.

And? Does this in anyway clarify anything? Or does it just state that these catagories are fuzzy and continue with the reports trend of not clarifying it's numbers very well which I have already intimated?

Perhaps you should also have a look at the Oxford Research Groups's home page to view their credentials before trying to dismiss their report. http://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/aboutus/aims.htm

Firstly if you paid attention to what I wrote you would see that I have not dismissed the report but only shown hisitation to accept it as being very accurate or athoritative. Secondly http://www.keele.ac.uk/depts/ps/jasbiog.htm is the individual who lead the project and whose credentials I was concerned with, not in fact the entirety of the Oxford Research Group.

 

[MaxS]

russ you hear it from pundits like hannity, rush limbaugh etc. I remember them talking about this stuff when the f18 bombed a wedding a couple years back i can't give you a direct source but i doubt i would be the only one who has heard them speak that way, or that they are the only ones doing so.

 

[russ_watters]

As for 'understanding' being an unacceptable response to murder, I wonder where criminal profilers would be without it.

Trying to understand why someone does whatever someone is doing is not synonymous to accepting, or sympathizing, or even taking a moral stand on the action itself. This awkward fallacy seems to be responsible for quite a bit of ranting overall, and what is weird is how can this be turned against Alexandra who is categorically representing the humane side in these discussions.

The word "understand" has multiple meanings depending on the context. You can "understand" calculus but not sympathize with it. In the context of a criminal profiler, sympathy is not implied, just like it isn't implied with understanding calculus.

Perhaps you see one context implied and I see the other. On request from Evo, though, I won't pursue this line of discussion. Decide for yourself and I'll decide for myself.

 

[MaxS]

Speaking of pundits, this off snopes:

Claim: Television evangelists Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson said that liberal civil liberties groups, feminists, pagans, homosexuals, and abortion rights supporters bear partial responsibility for the terrorist attacks on the USA because their actions have turned God's anger against America.

Status: True.

Origins: During
a September 13 appearance by Jerry Falwell on the Christian Broadcasting Network's TV program "700 Club," hosted by Pat Robertson, the following exchange occurred:

JERRY FALWELL: And, I know that I'll hear from them for this. But, throwing God out successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools. The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way - all of them who have tried to secularize America - I point the finger in their face and say "you helped this happen."

PAT ROBERTSON: Well, I totally concur, and the problem is we have adopted that agenda at the highest levels of our government. And so we're responsible as a free society for what the top people do. And, the top people, of course, is the court system.

The story was covered in the next day's Washington Post, and a partial transcript of the broadcast was published on the website of People for the American Way.

In a disingenuous attempt to put a good face on this one, Pat Robertson and CBN subsequently issued a press release in which they maintained that the whole thing was Jerry Falwell's fault, claimed that they didn't understand what he was saying, and blamed People for the American Way for "taking statements out of context and spinning them to the press for their own political ends." (If Mr. Robertson truly didn't understand Mr. Falwell's remarks, one has to wonder why he responded to them by saying "I concur totally" and then elaborating on the remarks he supposedly hadn't understood.)

Falwell attempted to quell the furor he caused by issuing a series of increasingly insincere "I didn't do anything wrong, but I'm really sorry people are mad at me" apologies.

 

[russ_watters]

No, Russ, I do not condone those tactics. Don't you dare accuse me of being a terrorist sympathiser!

I didn't say you "condone" the attacks, alexandra. You're talking about two different things and not disagreeing with what I said. If you want me to clarify that, PM me - I'm dropping this part of the conversation on request from Evo.

[edited on request from Evo.

 

[MaxS]

You know what's sick russ? Is that you would call her a "terrorist sympathiser" in a derogatory context for exploring their motives.

I guess we should just bomb them all that'll solve all our problems!

 

[russ_watters]

I am a real Marxist. What that means is that I do not believe in effecting change through sectarian violence - it can never happen that way...

You can easily confirm this by reading every one of my posts

I'm a little unclear on what you mean by "sectarian violence", but you were quite clear in other threads in saying that you do support violent revolution because that's what a "Marxist revolution" is. Further, you acknowledged that you understand that people will not willfully give up their material possessions and as a result it will need to be taken from them by force. You can't have it both ways.

...but of course, those who hate me (for ideological reasons, I imagine) have already made their minds up and won't bother to give me a fair hearing by doing as I suggest.

I assume you mean me - I don't hate you. I honestly don't understand how you can hold some of your opinions, but heck - I don't even dislike you: You're relatively polite for someone with such an unpopular point of view.

 

[russ_watters]

russ you hear it from pundits like hannity, rush limbaugh etc.

I know it probably makes it easier to believe that I listen to those guys, but I don't. I abhor Rush Limbaugh. Hannity I have no opinion of, since I don't recall ever listening to him.

Its probably comfortable to believe that I'm the sterotypical Republican, but I'm not. I'm not very religious, I'm not pro-life, I'm not anti-gun control. Scary as it probably seems, I'm quite moderate.

 

[MaxS]

FFS I never said you listened to them you asked for sources and I told you where I heard it.

 

[Burnsys]

A real supporter of terrorism

Bill O'Reilly Calls for Mass Starvation of Civilians in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya
Aim Is to Force Civilians to Overthrow Those Governments
September 17, 2001

Bill O'Reilly, Fox News talk show star, called tonight for mass terrorism against the civilian populations of Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.

O'Reilly advocated completely destroying the civilian infrastructure of those countries, as well as mining the harbors of Tripoli, Libya.

Then, O'Reilly said, those populations will have two choices: starve, or overthrow their governments.

"Knock their food supply out and their water supply out and those people will have to overthrow the Taliban. It's either that or they die."

"The population must be made to endure another round of intense pain" O'Reilly said of Iraqi civilians.

Note: Targeting and harming civilians for political purposes is the very definition of terrorism.

 

[russ_watters]

FFS I never said you listened to them you asked for sources and I told you where I heard it.

Um, so when you say "you hear it..." you didn't mean that "you listened to them"?

So does anyone really wonder how misunderstandings happen here?

 

[MaxS]

oh sorry i see how that could be mis interpreted pretty easily, its just a figure of speech, some times typing the way you talk doesn't pay off i guess =P

When I said "you hear it" I meant to imply its something one would hear listening to those folks etc, not specifically you.

 

[The Smoking Man]

oh sorry i see how that could be mis interpreted pretty easily, its just a figure of speech, some times typing the way you talk doesn't pay off i guess =P

When I said "you hear it" I meant to imply its something one would hear listening to those folks etc, not specifically you.

Listen ... I've told you a thousand times and I'm telling you again... Be clear with your posts.

We have all heard what it says in the rules.

Evo told me to read them.




Edit: That's a joke, Evo.

 

[El Hombre Invisible]

Decide for yourself and I'll decide for myself.

You're free to decide to yourself. But for the sake of common decency, please keep it to yourself. I certainly don't include you in this, but some people on this forum are basically decent people and don't deserve that kind of BS.

As for your 'sympathy' comment - YOUR statement was that UNDERSTANDING is not a reasonable response, not sympathy. Defending your argument by changing it is not really defending your argument. Give it up.

 

[russ_watters]

As for your 'sympathy' comment - YOUR statement was that UNDERSTANDING is not a reasonable response, not sympathy. Defending your argument by changing it is not really defending your argument. Give it up.

Since they are exact synonyms in some contexts, saying that "understanding" is unacceptable is the same as saying "sympathy" is unacceptable if the context is the same. For clarity, here's me saying that both are unacceptable.

 

[Art]

Since they are exact synonyms in some contexts, saying that "understanding" is unacceptable is the same as saying "sympathy" is unacceptable if the context is the same. For clarity, here's me saying that both are unacceptable.

This is getting lost in semantics to get back to the issue are you still saying that Alexandra is a terrorist sympathiser?

 

[El Hombre Invisible]

Since they are exact synonyms in some contexts, saying that "understanding" is unacceptable is the same as saying "sympathy" is unacceptable if the context is the same. For clarity, here's me saying that both are unacceptable.

Which gets me back to criminal profilers. Man, this could go round and round forever.

 

[alexandra]

She sympathizes with the people who were invaded not terrorism.

Yes, TSM - THANK YOU! And thanks to everyone else who correctly interpreted what I was trying to say. I thought I was being clear, but obviously I wasn't being clear enough.

 

[alexandra]

I'm a little unclear on what you mean by "sectarian violence", but you were quite clear in other threads in saying that you do support violent revolution because that's what a "Marxist revolution" is. Further, you acknowledged that you understand that people will not willfully give up their material possessions and as a result it will need to be taken from them by force. You can't have it both ways. I assume you mean me - I don't hate you. I honestly don't understand how you can hold some of your opinions, but heck - I don't even dislike you: You're relatively polite for someone with such an unpopular point of view.

So we are still talking about this?

Ok, a here's a brief lesson in politics: 'sectarian violence' basically means terrorism - individuals or small groups organising and doing violent acts aimed at random targets to achieve some 'greater' end. Revolutionary change (qualitative change as opposed to quantitative change), as in the change from feudalism to capitalism, involves mass action by the majority of the population who can no longer live under the prevailing conditions.

The only revolutionary social change we know about (the French Revolution or, as Marxists call it, the bourgeois revolution) involved violence too (or do people deny this?) - but a very different sort of violence. The ruling class of the time (the aristocracy) was not about to give up its power willingly. So the ordinary people, led by the newly-emergent bourgeoisie (or capitalist class), defeated the powerholders of feudal society and feudal society itself by mass-based action. The masses of ordinary French people were no longer going to put up with the extreme poverty they were doomed to living in in that system while the aristocracy lived it up - they collectively and openly overthrew the aristocracy, and the present ruling class was born (today's capitalist class). This is political action of a very different sort (and of a very different scale) to that of little secret groups of people doing random acts of violence.

If the vast majority of the people demand rights and freedoms that they are not being given by the powerful, perhaps they will be able to persuade those in power to hand over their power peacefully, or perhaps they won't. In any case, if it is the vast majority of the people acting in concert in their own interests, they will not be targetting each other in senseless acts of violence, so whatever political action they are taking would not be classified as 'terrorist'.

 

[alexandra]

...I don't hate you. I honestly don't understand how you can hold some of your opinions, but heck - I don't even dislike you: You're relatively polite for someone with such an unpopular point of view.

Good to know that you don't hate me - but I'm only relatively polite? I'm disappointed in myself: I'll try harder to be more polite while at the same time not compromising my beliefs

 

[alexandra]

Ok all, Russ PM'd me to get further clarification about my position and here's part of my response to his questions. Maybe it's time to get back to the OP's topic after this.

Response to Russ' PM:

Regarding acts of terrorism: analytically, I can stand back and see that someone who is misguided and is unable to properly analyse the situation, someone who has been brainwashed by some religion (any religion), etc - can erroneously think that acts of violence are the only resort. I am, after all, a trained academic: I have been trained to dispassionately analyse situations and, my field being the Social Sciences, to analyse motivations when it comes to human actions. So I can analyse this situation and 'understand' it in that way; this does not mean that I sympathise with it, or would ever excuse or condone or ever even contemplate participating in such behaviour. When it comes down to it, I believe myself to be a civilised, evolved person - a person of ideas. Violent acts are alien to who I am. I can't really see that ever changing, somehow.

So perhaps this is a bit of a truce? Anyway, if I haven't responded adequately to your questions, please point it out to me so I can try again.

alex