The Beheading of Nick Berg

[Viper Daimao]

well here's one guy's response to that, (I havent seen the video)

Did these people see the same video I saw? Berg is clearly alive when the terrorists shove him to the ground. The reason he doesn't wriggle in resistance is because he's completely tied up. They then proceed to saw off his neck, and you can hear him screaming for a good 5-10 seconds. When they hit the jugular, you can see a lot of blood spill out.

here's a little parody someone did of the Al Jazeera website talking about how the movie was a fake

[AnonCastillo]

I might not have seen the same video. Like I said, the one I saw was of shitty quality.
Anyway, the scene changes just as they shove him to the ground (like they stopped the tape, moved the camera, then started again). He was clearly alive when the terrorists were giving their speech. He doesn't move much (except when pushed) in the final scene when they shove him over and hack his neck.
But, like I said, I'd prefer to see a better quality movie before I judge.

[The Infallible]

Originally Posted by MFD

Makes you wonder where the good guys went. I mean, what happened to the great liberators of the Nazi death camps? What happened to America as the last great defender of justice in this world (Japanese internment camps nonwithstanding... I mean, Manzanar was no Auschwitz...)? Why the Hell aren't we standing for the moral right?

Who's right anymore? Why do we declare that humans all have some basic rights, and then do nothing when others take them away? Why do we declare that, and then take them away ourselves?

This isnt the America I love.

Well said my friend, in years past the United States has stood for whats right. we were LOVED goddamnit. Ever since we started this atrocity of a war our popularity went down the tubes. this whole thing is the biggest act of hypocracy that ive ever seen

[DarthZeth]

Originally Posted by lucas

not quite. mexico, north korea, britain canada never recieved any substancial aid after the wars with them. don't go making up bland policy statements that aren't true.

yes quite.

North Korea is probably the worst example you gave. Not only were they NOT defeated they have remained adversarial to us since the 50s. The examples of Reconstruction and the Marshall plan don’t really apply there. We aren’t about to go build infrastructure in a country that maintains a massive army ready to invade an ally.

Likewise, the Britain/Canada example is pretty poor. The last time we fought them was in the early 1800s. Britain maintained their massive empire well into the 20th century, and didn’t even officially give up their claim to the French throne until the 19th (I want to say the 1890s?). Unless you propose that I was claiming that a nation of 15 states ought to “give aid” to an empire that laid claim to over a quarter of the land on the globe? No no, our magnanimity doesn’t extend QUTIE that far.

You almost have a point with Mexico. We didn’t “help” them, since they were an empire that was rivaling us for the American west. And we never did “conquer” them, although we did Defeat them for the contested areas. The area we won from them wasn’t exactly in need of massive subsidies , since it was mostly pioneer land.

You’re actually missing some of the best examples to support your case. But I’m not in a generous mood, so you can think them up yourself.

On the larger scale, America has changed the rules of war. America by and large does not plunder, rape, or burn villages to the ground of a defeated, surrendered enemy. So long as someone is not hostile to the Americans (or their allies or interests), the Americans treat them civilly. That’s more then you can say of most nations that have ever taken it upon themselves to wage war on another.

Originally Posted by lucas

first off, it might not be in a year, so speculation without backing is useless

“speculation with you backing”? Iraqi elections are set to occur in January 2005. that would be with in a year. Like I said.

The speculation would be on your side, lucas, not mine. That was a crappy attempt to discredit the argument

Originally Posted by lucas

why are troops there in the first place. after all, if they had to do it themselves, then they should have deposed saddam on their own.

.
You’re smarter then that, lucas. The argument was that we can’t let them become a client state forever. Its counter productive. And you KNOW why we’re their. You KNOW that we could just cap Saddam and leave the nation to chaos. That’s twice as counter productive as letting them become permanently dependent on us.

even today, in the paper, the letter's section had one idiot extolling the virtue of killling EVERY SINGLE ARAB as revenge, while 2 others advocated 1)napalming iraq completely 2) forcing those responsible to die by being drawn and quartered.
proof? we're idiots too!

and

i've never stated that the paper is published in the states, and i've never revealed where i come from.

well, if its not published in the states, I guess that makes YOU idiots, doesn’t it?

Or, more accurately, it proves that the letter writers are idiots. Not that ”we” (or “you”) are.

basically you try to invalidate my point by saying that people you don't know, in a paper you've never read, are the lower common denominator, and that they spew out ideas that are "idiotic".

hehe, that’s funny. Considering you tried to make a point that ”we’re idiots” with mysterious letters from a mysterious paper that you claim is usually top notch stuff except for these examples.

Your lack of disclosure and intentional mysteriousness is bullshit, dude. Your point sucked form how you made it in the first place. I agree with shiney on this: it sounds like your exalted paper is scraping the bottom of the barrel with those letters, and we haven’t been shown anything about this wonderful unnamed paper that shows us that the articles usually ARE good. So, given the evidence presented, your paper sucks a nut. Feel free to prove otherwise by actually, you know, showing us what paper it is.



Anyway, to jump to the major thread that runs through your arguments:

Originally Posted by lucas

this, however, is clearly a personal attack. its clear mudslinging, really.

mudslinging? Not at all. Lets take a look at some of what you’ve been saying.

Originally Posted by lucas

i don't think that [Bush’s] methods are moral at all
…
[Osama Bin Laden] isn't a moron, maybe his aims aren't so shallow and laughable [as killing every infidel].
…
why go out of his way to kill non-believers if he was already comfortable? no one's going to give the real reason, because only he knows, but killing for the sake of killing isn't really useful, is it?
…
how do you know what the terrorists are after?
…
isn't power what ALL extremists want? i mean if you look at it, i don't think its limited to islamic extremists, and in that end, islam shouldn't really be singled out.
…
its fully possible, and perhaps probable that he is a zealot, but that's something we can't take for granted.
…
both sides are irreversably human.
…
to try and say that our humans are better than all theirs is patronizing. …
i believe i said both sides were stupid, i.e. i start on the assumption that beheading is REALLY disgusting and immoral. its not that i'm not blaming them, i'm just taking blame as a fait accomplis. As for you feeling justified in demonizing them, i can't argue against that, but i find that revolting.

so your arguments add up to be “osama’s got a goal, but I wouldn’t do anything so irrational as assume it what he says it is. I’m sure he doesn’t REALLY want o kill ever last infidel out there.” and “both sides suck! Neither side is better!”

I’d say that’s a pretty good reason to question which side you’re on. You’ve stated yourself, you DON’T believe our side is right. You are NOT on our side.

Actually, if I take your meaning of that last line I quoted by you correctly, you think that demonizing Osama is “Revolting”. (unless you were saying that the beheading was revolting?)

But anyway, you DON’T think we are right. You are NOT on “our” side. So don’t act so indignant when someone says so.

[Lucas]

You’re actually missing some of the best examples to support your case. But I’m not in a generous mood, so you can think them up yourself.

we all like concentrating on one line that was a throw off comment? well, if so, then i'll have to bring what its about back.

we've had a "help our enemy" military mentality for just about our whole history as a nation

i don't see "help our conquered enemy" or, "help our underpriviledged enemy". i DO remember saying that generalizing was bad, in fact i remember that BEING THE POINT. if you HAD said that "from the second world war onwards, our strategy in post combat operations has been focused on the reconstruction of our defeated enemy" then we'd have no problem. the fact is that you didn't say that, and that's what i was calling you on. you don't HELP an enemy, you REBUILD the nation they were in so that you don't make more. the difference in language is pretty big, and leaves a different impact. yours sounds nice and pretty and cute and clean, while my point was that if that doesn't happen, there's a potential military reality waiting to come bite the winning nation in the butt.

also, notice on a temporal scale, from the end of WWII until now around 60 years have past. the united states is more than 120 years old, therefore even if ALL enemies following WWII were approached with open arms, then you'd still have no real basis in using the word most. y'know, i actually thought that a simple remark about generalization would be incredibly easy to understand, and yet...

“speculation with you backing”? Iraqi elections are set to occur in January 2005. that would be with in a year. Like I said.

The speculation would be on your side, lucas, not mine. That was a crappy attempt to discredit the argument

this was said in may, and yet the planned handover is at the end of june. considering as we're in the middle of may, that's 45 days discrepancy. 45 days isn't peanuts, its more than 10% of a year. maybe i've been hittin' the chem lab to hard, but figures over 10% normally matter. then again, maybe i was being anal. who knows?!

You’re smarter then that, lucas. The argument was that we can’t let them become a client state forever. Its counter productive. And you KNOW why we’re their. You KNOW that we could just cap Saddam and leave the nation to chaos. That’s twice as counter productive as letting them become permanently dependent on us.

rhetorical question alert: obviously they couldn't have just overthrown saddam, but by the same token its obvious that without a charismatic leader and a firm context on which to base the formation of a new government they'll fail. now why'd i bring that up?

are you being sarcastic? i'm not sure, because i would say that, yes, Iraq not only IS better off, on the larger part, but will be much better off, with a representative government, eventually. probably with in a year.

of course, we can only carry them so far. soon or later daddy lets go of your bike and you gotta learn to ride it by yourself. Whether they succeed in the long run is out of our hands, unless we decide to make them a puppet state, which isn't the goal.

the point is pretty simple, since, as the rhetorical question implied, the military WAS needed, then it follows that iraqis had trouble controlling their country. that's easily verified by current conditions. next, if there's so much unrest without military intervention, then the government set up is going to need furthur daddy style help. in short the point is that if they succeed or not is definetly in our hands. see, satirical comments make these points in nice compact packages.

well, if its not published in the states, I guess that makes YOU idiots, doesn’t it?

Or, more accurately, it proves that the letter writers are idiots. Not that ”we” (or “you”) are.

i also never said it WASN'T published in the states, so again, assuming makes an ass out of u and me (whomever posted that first... you're freakin' brilliant). my point was simple, from a western perspective, there's just as much demonization as from a middleeastern perspective. did i say western? yes did i show it was from a western perspective? yes. did i even give my reason? yes. so what are talking about?

i said

i live in western society, that's all that matters. next, the normal levelheaded quality that my paper has is contrasted with the emotional anger resounded in those letters. this doesn't flip flop at all, it demonstrates the gravity of the emotional turmoil that western citizens face when confronted with Berg's execution.

so when i say US (like me and you) i mean the western world, which isn't limited to the states. so again.. what are you talking about? read my post more than once if its that confusing.

hehe, that’s funny. Considering you tried to make a point that ”we’re idiots” with mysterious letters from a mysterious paper that you claim is usually top notch stuff except for these examples.

Your lack of disclosure and intentional mysteriousness is bullshit, dude. Your point sucked form how you made it in the first place. I agree with shiney on this: it sounds like your exalted paper is scraping the bottom of the barrel with those letters, and we haven’t been shown anything about this wonderful unnamed paper that shows us that the articles usually ARE good. So, given the evidence presented, your paper sucks a nut. Feel free to prove otherwise by actually, you know, showing us what paper it is.

you want a paper's name? i can give you a few that ran angered letters regarding the death of berg.

here's two in the states: the sacramento bee and the arizona republic. you'll find interesting letters on both of their sites, and most of the local policy ones are fairly well thought out, rational, and insightful, but when it comes to the beheading of Nick Berg, we see the following.

Published 2:15 am PDT Saturday, May 15, 2004
Re "American slain on tape in Iraq," May 11: The day I learned that Islamic extremist animals brutally decapitated Nick Berg was a very dark day for me. For the first time it dawned on me that good may not necessarily triumph over evil.

that isn't a rational argument, its an appeal to emotion. its also fully consistent with the fact that i'm

demonstrat[ing] the gravity of the emotional turmoil that western citizens face when confronted with Berg's execution.

you do, then, realize that you're argueing against the fact that this beheading is shocking, an assertion i didn't think i'd need to defend all that much because its pretty damn truistic. good call on that. really. no, i'm serious.

mudslinging? Not at all. Lets take a look at some of what you’ve been saying.

apart from being totally out of context, most of the quotes you provided there are perfectly neutral. to try and use someone's loyalty as an argument in a debate as the crux of your argumentation says this to me "i'm not going to listen to you because you aren't agreeing with me". again, nice call there.

the closest thing to "i'm not on your side" was "i don't think bush's methods are moral at all", and if you go look at where i wrote it, and what i wrote it in reply to (which was quoted right above) you'll see that i'm stating that i didn't enjoy going to way, because in my opinion, something better could have been arraigned. this is in no way "not on your side". i'm very much on your side, i just don't agree with YOU on our course of action's validity.

both sides are irreversably human.

yeah, i'm totally not on your side for saying that. c'mon, grow up.

i'm just taking [the beheader's] blame as a fait accomplis

yes, i blame them, and this proves i'm not on your side.

even your supposed evidence is weak.

if i had said "go osaaaaaaama!!!!!!" or something like that, then i'd understand this position. but am i defending the man? no. i'm saying that as an enemy of the united states, underestimating and assuming things about him that are logically improbable is a bad tactic. obviously in zeth tsu's art of war underestimating your enemy is a key tactic for the experienced commander.

no, but seriously, you're joking right? what do my arguments have to do with my loyalties, or with where i live? my arguments have credence beyond me.

can you say McCarthy?

did i ever support osama? no i said that calling him an idiot is pretty dumb. did i say that i find demonizing someone is revolting? yes i did, because it means that someone has done something which deserves demonization in the eyes of another, and it means that someone has chosen to see a human as something else, both of which revolt me. does that mean i <3 osama? no it means i think he's the biggest idiot of our time, the biggest human idiot. not an animal or an incarnate of satan. a repugnant human. its about time someone realizes that humans are responsible for disgusting things. why should this be any different? hitler wasn't a monster, he was a human. THATS what makes it so scary.y'know i'm revolted that people could fly airplanes into buildings and i'm revolted that people would behead other people, but only because its humans doing these things. you can tell me i'm an idiot for not demonizing osama, but the entire demonization thing is what got 9/11 to happen anyways.

next time you decide to invalidate an entire set of posts on the basis of allegiance, first make sure philosophically that allegiance matters in a debate, and then secondly, get your facts straight. i'm dissapointed in you.

[DarthZeth]

Originally Posted by lucas

don't see "help our conquered enemy" or, "help our underpriviledged enemy". i DO remember saying that generalizing was bad, in fact i remember that BEING THE POINT. if you HAD said that "from the second world war onwards, our strategy in post combat operations has been focused on the reconstruction of our defeated enemy" then we'd have no problem.
…
my point was that if that doesn't happen, there's a potential military reality waiting to come bite the winning nation in the butt.

well, still, not quite. We’ve had the principle of magnanimity in our military culture for a long while, pre-WWII. The excellent American riflemen would take care to try to only kill Officers on the battle field, and made an attempt, when possible, to not kill rank and file red coats. Although, as policy, I think Reconstruction at the end of our Civil war was the first instance of an actual attempt to rebuild an “enemy” (although, you haven’t said that you’re form the US, so I don’t know if you know much about the Civil war? [not that a lot of Americans do anyway])

and also, it is sometimes not needed to “help” our “defeated” enemies. Like in the American Revolution (just as an example) we defeated Cornwallis and the British Empire’s forces. But we didn’t help “rebuild” the British empire.

Anyway, the point was that America has always acted civilly towards people who were (and often ARE) our enemies. You can dice words if you want, but this was the point I was attempting to get across. We don’t act like Ghengas Khan and leave burnt, pillaged, raped cities in our wake.

Actually, if I remember correctly, when the Marines marched to Tripoli in .. 1804? They hired local raiders to fight, but only under the provision that they did not plunder.

So, no, I’m not talking soley about after WWII, and im not talking about only rebuilding nations. Im talking about an over riding principle that the Americans follow which says you do ONLY what you need to do to win the war, and nothing more. We are not ruthless when we don’t need to be. And we do not stick the heel of our boot at the throats of a defeated enemy. We help them up, shake their hands, and hope that hostilities are over once and for all.

this was said in may, and yet the planned handover is at the end of june.

I’m not following you on this one. As far as I know, July 1, 2004 has been the IGC turn over date since the time table was drawn up last November.

if there's so much unrest without military intervention, then the government set up is going to need furthur daddy style help. in short the point is that if they succeed or not is definetly in our hands.

yeah its in our hands. For now. If we leave, we fuck them over.

But long term peace and democracy is in THEIR hands. If they ever have trouble and ask us for help, we’ll probably help them out.. but they have to get a competent military and police force together… which they are only beginning to have today. Many of their police and Security forces are still dismally untrained and unprofessional. It takes time to get a good police force developed, especially when you’re taking recruits from the old police force, which took Bribery and corruption as a part of doing business.

The goal is to eventually have an Iraq that IS capable of taking care of itself. We can’t just snap our fingers and have it happen, though. It takes time and hard work.

Anyway, you’re original comment was “why are troops there in the first place. after all, if they had to do it themselves, then they should have deposed Saddam on their own.” As I said, you know why they are there, and you know why they can leave. You know all this because I just explained it to you.




About the newspaper: you’re still keeping your exalted source a mystery. We still don’t have an evidence that you are, in fact, quoting a “top notch” paper with usually excellent editorials. A line form another paper (that says nothing as drastic as “napalm them all”, like you said your paper’s editorials wanted to do). That line form that one editorial also doesn’t seem to convince me that ”we’re idiots too!” (as you claim that the editorials in your Mystery Paper prove)

Either way, I don’t think the angry rantings of an editorial “proves” much of anything, besides maybe the disposition of the author.

Originally Posted by lucas

i said that calling him an idiot is pretty dumb.
…
it means I think he's the biggest idiot of our time

hehe

Originally Posted by lucas

next time you decide to invalidate an entire set of posts on the basis of allegiance…

I didn’t try to “invalidate” an entire set of posts. I was just pointing out that, like Shiney said, you aren’t on our side. Morally, you say we’re the same as Osama. All I ask is don’t pretend to be offended when someone says ”you aren’t supporting us”. Because you’re NOT supporting us.

Now, that isn’t to say that you <3 Osama. There IS a school of thought that says “if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem”, though. Which is pretty valid.

Shiney and I think that hunting down Osama and stringing him up is a GOOD thing. Inherently moral. You say that our desire to bring Osama to justice and to stop him from ever committing acts of violence again is a BAD thing. So, you’re against us. Its not complex.

[Lucas]

Either way, I don’t think the angry rantings of an editorial “proves” much of anything, besides maybe the disposition of the author.

do i have to highlight my words to get you to understand that the angry disposition's existance is the point of my argument? thank you for proving my case.

It takes time and hard work.

which was my point to begin with, so we agree.

http://www.csis.org/features/iraq_fallujah.pdf
oh, and i keep hearing June 30th, from the canadian security and intelligence services or whatever their name is.
first link i hit, guess i got lucky.

i said that calling him an idiot is pretty dumb.
…
it means I think he's the biggest idiot of our time

yeah, i said i "think" he's an idiot. but i don't use that thought to prove any argument. there's a big difference in being appalled at what he's done and treating him like some demon incarnate. regardless, i still hold my original point: the most effective way to shut him up is to find out what he wants. i'd get into how islam can't be the end-all due to his distancing from his family, which is currently sponsoring islam across the world, but that's not what i'm argueing here. i can personally think the man is an idiot, but again, if my argument is based on that assumption i make, my argument is flaky. likewise if my solution is based on that assuption, its less likely to work than one that's considered all possibilities.

I didn’t try to “invalidate” an entire set of posts. I was just pointing out that, like Shiney said, you aren’t on our side. Morally, you say we’re the same as Osama. All I ask is don’t pretend to be offended when someone says ”you aren’t supporting us”. Because you’re NOT supporting us.

Now, that isn’t to say that you <3 Osama. There IS a school of thought that says “if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem”, though. Which is pretty valid.

Shiney and I think that hunting down Osama and stringing him up is a GOOD thing. Inherently moral. You say that our desire to bring Osama to justice and to stop him from ever committing acts of violence again is a BAD thing. So, you’re against us. Its not complex.

para 1:shiney's wrote me a pm about this before you replied, maybe a day or so before, and he admitted to being a little pissed. which is completely fine with me, because discussion is so contraversials it makes me get teh tingle. what he wrote wasn't written to furthur any argument he'd put down. it wasn't there to knock any of mine down, and it was most certainly aimed at making me look like something i wasn't. that's not something i approve of, considering how my arguments here are what they are: arguments. had he said "due to this... bla bla bla" then fine, i'd have attacked the logical link between an "alleigiance" i've got, and that bla bla bla. but as it stands, he didn't. it was placed there as a simple attack on me. for a person who's so adamant on getting the facts and only the facts, you should have picked up on that.

para 2:so according to that school of thought, you are, i assume, the cause of genocide in rwanda, unless you were actually there stopping it, in which case i'll go with you're responsible for the kosovo war.

and that's totally false, so since i've just found a big obvious logical hole in a philosophy that most people in grade 5 use while picking clicks, we should stop wasting time using it, even after i've bashed the logical and philosophical implications it has in my last post.

what are you trying to invoke with the "if you're not with us, you're with them"? are you trying to prove that you and McCarthy are friends? are you trying to prove that you can't read, in that i stated that my aims in the de-demonification are those that dissemble the pieces of critical hatred that lead to actions like 9/11, the beheading, the prison torture, etc? i mean it clearly HELPS if people stop killing each other because they finally go "oh crap, we're killin' sons and mothers and husbands and cousins" instead of going "die infidel/great satan" (note, why is it great satan and not satan?).

and question mark, but did i ever say that finding osama and stringing him up was bad? no i didn't, but i'll say it now. yeah, that's a pretty stupid thing to do. why? first off i'd give him a fair trial, if he gets death there, then fine, if he gets life, then so be it. but i don't see how you could manifest these words of mine into being before i wrote them, and now that they're down, we see an interesting problem for your argument:

i want the same things as you do, only done in a different way. again you use this argument without basis and again it fails. i'm starting to think you want to discredit me or something. why is this argument centered on my person? give me a good answer to that using only pre-shiney's post, or just drop it

[NineBirds]

Nick Berg didn't deserve to die and the people who did it are complete assholes. The conspiracy theories I've heard about it are that his captors were actually Americans or something--they cite the wall color, chair, and orange jumpsuit that is akin to those seen in the Abu Ghraib photos, the white hands of the murderers, supposedly one of them is wearing Air Jordans, and apparently the declarations are made in English and Arabic is spoken with a Russian accent towards the end. I dunno, I haven't watched the tape and certainly can't verify the language stuff.

The Abu Ghraib pictures . . . I feel really sorry for anyone who thinks that was acceptable treatment of prisoners, or soldiers "having a little fun". Put yourself in those prisoners' positions. Even if, after that, you wouldn't find it that big of a deal keep in mind they were in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions.

Anyway, the point was that America has always acted civilly towards people who were (and often ARE) our enemies. You can dice words if you want, but this was the point I was attempting to get across. We don’t act like Ghengas Khan and leave burnt, pillaged, raped cities in our wake.

Whoa. Whoawhoawhoa. BAAAACK UP. What?

First off, an earlier statement you made about Americans and ethical warfare--the Geneva Conventions set the standard, not America. And the business about only shooting officers, well, I'd like to see your evidence of that and evidence it wasn't practiced by other countries. From what I know of the French-Indian War and the American Revolution Western guerrilla warfare was practically invented by British colonists and new Americans; additionally, if you've ever seen pictures from the Civil War you'll quickly realize that officers weren't the target.

As for this "not leaving burnt, raped, pillaged cities in our wake" business--dude. Mai Lai? Nogun-ri? Cheju? What about American support for war criminals: Pinochet? Nicaraguan guerrillas? The Iran-contra affair? Supplying Hussein with weapons in the late 1980s? Treating enemies civilly--my God, Abu Ghraib comes immediately to mind. You do know in order to keep in line with Geneva the CIA makes a business of turning sensitive prisoners over to its less, shall we say, delicate allies (Pakistan, Egypt)?

I won't deny America tries to do a lot better job that the vast majority of countries, considering there are more third-world dictatorships out there than tested democracies. But it's far from a bastion of ethical warfare.

Concerning patriotism. Isn't patriotism following the spirit of one's country (such as defending those rights set in the Constitution), whereas blind, unquestioning faith in one's leaders is jingoism?

Concerning Osama bin Laden. I'm going to agree that he's a religious zealot whose close ties to the Saudi royal family give him a further economic incentive to push Western influence out of the Middle East. Sometimes the only reason people need for acting crazy is because they really are crazy.