RANT: "War On Terror"

Casius Magnus

Banned
Joined
Oct 27, 2013
Messages
58
Age
38
Gil
0
(Warning! This rant is critical of the US Government and top military officials. It is not critical of the US citizen, or the US culture. Please, do not read if you have thin skin, or are easily upset as a patriot. Thank you.)



It's July in Afghanistan. The year is 2002. In the Oruzgan province, a newly wed couple celebrate their union at a party with friends and family. You can almost picture the scene...

Music and laughter fill the hot, dry air. Bodies in fine linen twist and move to the rhythm of the beat. An atmosphere of love, joy, and hope; anticipation for a future so bright...

But little did they know, that just on the horizon, screeching forth like a flock of eagles from the heavens, wielding razor sharp talons of justice and freedom, a group of US fighter planes closes in on the unsuspecting event. The pilots take their time, down to the last second. With laser-beam precision, and dedicated calculation, the pilots, with but one click of a button, unleash glorious death upon what should have been the happiest day of two families lives. Roughly 48 civilians are murdered in cold blood that day... But this is the country that opened fire on Canadian troops in Afghanistan. It's easy to mistake a wedding party for an al-Qaeda swap-meet when you don't even know what your allies look like.

So what is terrorism? Blowing up a building full of innocent people using hijacked planes full of innocent people? Eradicating a wedding party, or bombing a city for days, until the civilian death toll climbs to a horrific 133,000?

I guess it depends on where you live.



Welcome to the good 'ol US of A! The country remembered for Hiroshima, and slavery!

So maybe that's unfair. There's also the assassination of the only two Presidents who even remotely gave a fuck about the people, or ethical conduct in general. Oh, and there's the biggest military fail in history. (Vietnam) But in the decades to come, ISIS will be added to that list.


Let me paint a picture for you. September 2001. Members of an Afghanistan-based terrorist cell called 'al-Qaeda' attack the World Trade Centre in New York, New York.

2003. US forces invade Iraq on that grounds that Saddam is hiding WMDs. (Weapons of Mass Destruction)

The US levels Baghdad with the sort of reckless, barbaric bombing tactics we haven't seen since Germany started bombing Europe in WWII.


Let's jump ahead ten years. It's 2013, and the US has pulled out of Iraq (no pun intended). By now they have killed more women, children and civilians than they will ever kill terrorists. (133,000 civilians slaughtered) And no WMDs (other than those brought by America) were ever found.

Out of the ashes, rises the Islamic State; ISIS. Radical Muslims united against the Christian and western worlds.


Does anyone remember the good 'ol days? When that little production company called al-Qaeda used to lay around the desert, making trash-talk videos, puffing their chests out? Yeah, those were the days... I mean sure, they may have been hired by the Bush Administration (or George Senior) to orchestrate an attack on American soil which would provide enough provocation to finish daddy's business in Iraq. Sure, 9/11 was a dark day that demanded justice, but Iraq had NOTHING to do with 9/11, hence the "Weapons of Mass Destruction!" bullshit.

But no one is denying that Hussein was a tyrant who could no longer be allowed to control all of that oil - I mean all of those WMDs!! >.>'

But instead of of taking the time, care and precision to execute the mission properly (mission being take down Hussein, locate/secure [fictional] WMDs), they leveled Baghdad with such reckless abandon, and barbaric force, that civilians actually began to fight back against US troops, stoning, attacking, and burning them alive in the streets of Iraq...

The US presence in Iraq damaged the country more than it ever helped it, or fought the "War On Terror."

This senseless, unholy slaughter is without question, the direct catalyst behind the forming and recent surge in activity of ISIS. This is fact, not opinion or theory.


So I'd like to propose a hypothetical scenario to everyone. Some country, any country (you decide), invades your country because another country attacked them, and you have resources they want. They murder 133,000 women, children and unarmed civilian men. Women holding the mutilated remains of their toddlers, screaming in agony, "Why?!"


Let me be completely frank for a moment... If ANY country came to Canada and pulled the sort of shit the US pulled in Iraq, I'd be on YouTube cuttin' heads off too... If America slaughtered 133,000 innocent Canadian lives in an attempt to hunt down terrorist and "liberate us from a tyrannical regime," some boys makin' noise in the middle-east would be the least of your problems, 'cause I'd be bringing the fight state-side, and I wouldn't be alone. 1812 all over again, baby. Believe it.

To be clear, The Islamic State is a ragged house of lost, pathetic souls, and barbaric savages. I do not support, nor sympathize with them. But I am not ignorant and blind enough to look past why they fight. Thousands of Muslims were unjustly slaughtered at the hands of westerners, Americans in particular. I'm not anti-American, I just stand against the kind of malicious, clumsy, three sheets to the wind tactics and conduct the US carries into combat. It's estimated that in the Vietnam war, roughly 587,000, civilians were killed by America... Roughly 444,000 Vietnamese soldiers were killed. Reckless abandon, and a sheer lack of value for human life in war-time scenarios. Rather than lose one GI, you'll raise an entire fishing village to the ground... The pretence of war, does not excuse the murder of women and children, period. It's your JOB as a soldier to die making sure innocent lives aren't snuffed out - that's why we fight wars!

America should immediately, and indefinitely give up it's pathetic "War On Terror." We don't need them for this fight, they've already done enough by perpetuating this situation in the first place by throwing Greek fire on it, murdering thousands of innocent Muslims. So long as America is gallivanting around the desert, blowing up anything that a terrorist could be hiding in, the hatred and animosity toward Christianity and the west will never be defeated. Every home or business we destroy, every innocent women or child our bombs mutilate, is more fire in the hearts of these radical Muslims. So no, I hope America stays home to focus on their own problems, like funding their DHS agency for more than a week at a time, but that would require anyone to trust them to not use that money to do shady, nasty shit.

When we need random civic buildings or farming villages blown up, we'll give you a call. Until then, let the governments who value ALL human life, regardless of colour, creed or political stance, handle a task this fragile and volatile.

If I were an American, I would be deeply ashamed of the things my country has done, and will continue to do. My people are out there, between two pissed off armies that wanna kill each other, packing Rubber. Fucking. Bullets, preventing senseless slaughter. Murdering thousands of people for oil, and to settle an ex-President's vendetta (who's son just happened to be the current President, after stuffing the Florida ballot to take office), that flies in the face of everything America is supposed to stand for, and every Canadian and American soldier who ever died in the name of peace. I come from a deeply rooted military family. My parents met in service, my daddy's daddy gave his life so that folks wouldn't kill each other, and building filled with women and children wouldn't be raised to the fucking ground any more! I've lost close friends to the bullshit in the middle-east, so you better believe I'm somewhat passionate about the subject.


I love America, I think it's one of the greatest countries in the world, but your government is seriously fucked up. In the last hundred years, you've been to war with Canada, Britain (your two primary, and basically only real allies), and yourselves for fuck sake. You even invented a new kind of war. You called in the "Cold War!" but it was really just an apocalyptic game of chicken using IBMs instead of cars or tractors. Wake up and smell the Bacon (see what I did there?), America is not the White Knight, but the Freelance Assassin who's double life is a White Knight.


I hope Americans don't take serious offense to this. It's just mu opinion, and it's critical of your government and highest military command, who order the bombings and commit war crimes by killing thousands of civilians over multiple bombings. It's not critical of you, the citizen, or the men and women on the front lines, following orders. So don't be hurt, unless of course you are directly responsible for the actions of your government and military command, in which case, feel free to defend yourself. If you want to go ahead and say, 'fuck Canada, your immigration policy is so relaxed, you unintentionally support terrorist activity in North America (for example). That's fine. It's true. I don't take offense because I don't set policy, but I don't shy from truth, whether at a gain or loss.


So thank you so much to everyone who sat through that, it felt amazing. I've been bottling that up for a very long time. And again, I do not hate America or Americans, I just strongly disagree with your military policies, tactics, and conduct (and again, that is not a reflection of the average US soldier, risking life and limb to follow orders).
 
Last edited:
I'm not a fan of killing people in general. Therefore I'm appalled when I learn about acts of terrorism on any scale.

IS (I refuse to call them ISIS now, as that is dirtying the name of an ancient Egyptian goddess - she can no longer be googled without specifying that we mean the Egyptian Isis...) is a very worrying development. Back when Al Qaeda were the main threat we might have heard about the occasional kidnap and beheading, or the occasional horrific bombing, and that was bad enough, but IS is a constant worry.

It is, however, vital to look into why these people are doing these things. It's not about forgiving them, as things are beyond that now, but we need to understand what sets a person off in that direction. There is no such thing as a monster. There are monstrous acts, but not monsters. Monsters are only things that people can't explain, or do not want to explain. Every terrorist was once a giggling baby. There will have been some sweet moments, I imagine, in their lives. Something has happened to make them do the things that they do. If we don't tackle this then we are procrastinating. The 'monster' label is dangerous because it sweeps everything under the carpet until the next time these things happen. We might not like to think about it, but humans are doing these things.

Some of the things that Western military forces have done in the East have shocked me as well. I must add that it hasn't all been like that, and there are many soldiers who go out there for the right reasons (with the idea of helping people and fixing the world, etc - but arguments like this are a matter of perspective!). Shocking errors have occurred though. 'These things happen in war' is the excuse.

That we still fight wars anyway is a great embarrassment to me. We should have grown out of that sort of thing by now. Since war does still exist because people can't handle their anger and want to throw toys out of the pram, then the very least that people can do is be careful enough and avoid civilian casualties. I'm sure that most people do, but it only takes a handful of idiotic mistakes to kill multitudes of people... Killing a person is like cutting off the head of the Hydra. Whenever someone is killed then you risk creating enemies of other people (family, friends, colleagues, or sympathetic strangers, etc) and any of these might join the military or militant group seeking revenge. This happens on both sides to an extent. Killing people, even in war, is not necessarily the smartest move towards peace. Killing civilians is worse because you then become the transgressors and no longer hold moral high-ground.

But a worrying thing about IS (although it was a worry already with Al Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist groups) is that many of these terrorists are not directly affected by these drone strikes, bombings, or mistaken identity cases. Instead some seem to be young Muslims born and raised in Western countries who have become radicalised and have decided to leave their countries to join these causes. These young people have felt isolated, it seems, and they have at some point mixed in with the wrong set of people and had their opinions of the world distorted. Full of hate for some reason or another, they are now a huge problem.

It is important, I think, for us to think of the Home Front too, so to speak. The issues with the military and the government (and the mistakes) are only part of the problem. We also need to consider the social conditions which lead people in the West to join in with this madness. Is Islamophobia to blame? I've seen a shocking amount of that in my country (UK). People fear the religion itself, which is not a sensible thing to fear. Religion on its own is harmless, and religion is only really a face for these terrorist groups (who would probably be doing equally horrific acts behind another mask if Islam did not exist - religion may be a facilitator though). If people separate themselves from all Muslims because of the acts of these radicals, then by isolating and not understanding Muslims (or treating them as different beings) are they not possibly contributing to the feelings which some young Muslims develop before they become radicalised? Racism is not helping things either.

It might seem as if we're powerless, but perhaps there is something that we can all do in our own areas. Lighten up, and try to understand people for the different people that they are. If particular people feel as if they belong in their countries, then that'll minimise the risk of them growing up hating the country and their peers and running off East to behead innocents in the name of a distorted and irrelevant version of Allah.

But hey, we'll never get along as a species. Sometimes I think that people secretly love the anger and the hatred and the constant struggle for life. I don't, and our planet frustrates me. Alas.
 
Americans, the next time you go to the polls to vote, be it for your next President, or for your Congressman, take a thorough look at that candidate's stance on foreign policy. As a British observer, to see so many prominent names be as hawkish as they are is absolutely alarming - doubly so when any one of them has a chance to exercise considerable leeway on the direction of US foreign policy for years to come, through any mechanics, be it through the means of the executive down to the lobbyist level.

To fight the War on Terror as a conventional sort of war has been one of the most disastrous strategies ever enacted, yet we seem unable to learn the proper lessons from the last decade or so of mistakes. We continue to think that a good supply of bombs is a sound strategy without sufficiently thinking about the consequences for these bombs. It isn't just the ongoing struggle against Sunni jihadism in the region; David Cameron felt it was a good idea to push for British involvement in Libya, only to contribute to the descending of Libya into a factionalist, failed state. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also turned up to the US Congress the other day to give his unoriginal take on why any sort of peace discourse with Iran is a bad idea (if only so Israel can continue to be generously armed to the teeth with American weaponry, I imagine). All around, so many statesmen stubbornly cling to the idea that the side with the bigger toys can eventually win and that outdated conventions cannot be retired, without recognising that the true arena of war now is through ideas and smart political diplomacy, NOT military might.

The United States' innate big problem is to do with its military industrial complex. To explain what the military industrial complex is, it's basically making a business out of war. It was something Eisenhower himself feared back in the day as something that would utterly warp and pervert the military cause of America into something uncontrollable that cannot be adequately tamed - where endless war becomes somewhat desirable. Think of the defence contractors. They want profit. They want to be constantly building and shipping fighter jets, tanks and other military assortments. To that end, they need government contracts to give them the opportunity to make big bucks off of killing foreign brown people. They reap big money and use a percentage of those profits as campaign donations for certain hawkish politicians (and remember: the US has no real legislation to curb the extent of funding AND there is a tendency to treat corporations as people). More money in America means a greater likelihood of being elected or re-elected, because big war chests go a long way in political campaigning. With the ideal guy elected, he or she can either use the political office they hold, or lobby with fellow hawks to initiate MORE government contracts for defence corporations. The cycle is perpetuated and war becomes a for-profit business. All notions of a "good war" are immediately cast out.

Let me be completely frank for a moment... If ANY country came to Canada and pulled the sort of shit the US pulled in Iraq, I'd be on YouTube cuttin' heads off too... If America slaughtered 133,000 innocent Canadian lives in an attempt to hunt down terrorist and "liberate us from a tyrannical regime," some boys makin' noise in the middle-east would be the least of your problems, 'cause I'd be bringing the fight state-side, and I wouldn't be alone. 1812 all over again, baby. Believe it.

No, no you wouldn't. It's good to rant and to vent that emotion regarding a particular topic out of your heart, but please don't ever think of drawing parallels with IS. No reasonable human being should ever deem it prudent to slowly saw off the heads of captives with tiny knives. The least we can do is to never contemplate stooping to their level of barbarity for any reason, even if it's war.

Also, I think your assessment of IS is a bit too simplistic. Dan in his post above has astutely discussed this already, but I feel the need to go on about it anyway. I don't doubt for a second that many members and advocates of the organisation have sided with them out of a grave feeling of injustice; that their lives have been irreversibly destroyed and their view of the world drastically altered by the indiscriminate actions of western military coalitions in the last decade. I think you are absolutely right in your belief that we have undoubtedly done so much more to foster more radicalism through despair than we have provided actual foundations for everlasting peace in the region, but this does not take into account the vast numbers of young people from the West who have elected to take flight from their peaceful homes and join IS.

Denmark is the biggest exporter of terror in Europe, given the numbers. Here in the UK, we've also seen considerable noteworthy examples of young people abandoning their comfortable homes, families and lifestyles for jihadism in the desert. We've seen those three schoolgirls depart for Syria. We've seen the ubiquitous news stories of Mohammed Emwazi, aka Jihadi John, who abandoned a promising future of IT for a life of inhuman beheadings in the desert. To see people educated in the west and with zero direct exposures to the horrors of war get up and go to Syria is genuinely terrifying, BECAUSE it's unpredictable, even to family and friends.

This is the home front of the War on Terror, and I'm not suggesting for a moment that we start imposing brutal, draconian measures to deliberately create a simple us vs them narrative between non-Muslims and Muslims. We have to understand what has prompted these young people to unpredictably get up and leave to Syria as they did. We must also do our service as a community, hand in hand with the many moderate Muslims here, to root out young people who are potentially being radicalised. We must find any preachers deliberately pontificating austere, extreme interpretations of Islam and cut their influence. Somehow, we have to pre-emptively step in before any more young Muslims become that estranged from society around them, and Muslim society in general, that IS suddenly becomes an appealing road for them to take.

Ideas and understanding will go so much closer to winning this War on Terror, not bombs and bullets. If our leaders constantly insist that this can be fought like a conventional war and IGNORE the very real potential problems lurking beneath the surface at home, then we deserve to fail. The more we resort to guns and bombs without proper thinking, the more likely we are to dig an ever deeper hole to throw our bodies into.
 
Casius Magnus

I think we have to look at the bigger picture. The US has probably the most benevolent military policy of any superpower in human history. The problem the US has to deal with is having to dignify every action to your average spoiled, sheltered voter. In a society where a battle hardened Marine has as much voting power as an angst ridden teenager you're always going to end up with an incongruous message being conveyed by those in power. Cue false pretenses of an heroic liberation army putting a stop to tyrannical, primitive minded enemies the world over so Mr Opinionated back home can deal with the turmoil of having to hear of injustice whilst those in the know deal with the harsh reality of war.

These lies are being told so the military can get on with keeping the societies we live in on top whilst placating the numerous hyper sensitive folk who don't understand the folly of mixing sensibilities with warfare. Judging by your reaction you've fallen for the facade hook, line and sinker.

As for Islamic State I'd have to disagree. IS isn't a vigilante force cobbled together to target westerners in revenge for killings a decade or two ago, it's an attempt to establish a religious Caliphate. If the name isn't sufficient to convince, consider the mass slaughter of adherents to different faiths and smashing of ancient relics and artifacts considered symbols of Idolatry. Their's is a rhetoric of regional followed by world domination. The unrest in Syria coupled by American withdrawal in Iraq has provided them the perfect opportunity to capitalise on the vacuum of power in the region.

The reason your average westerner is at a loss as to why this is happening is because our left wing media is being disingenuous. The IS stories are highly emotionally charged, the questions are irrelevant and the language is devoid of meaning. Replace "deplorable" with "brutal" and "inexplicable" with "calculated and effective" and you immediately have a better idea of the whats, whys and hows with regards to IS.

As for the "riddle" of western young Muslims leaving their homes to join IS, whose interpretations of the Qu'ran do you suppose they would sooner identify with? Politicians with a proven track record of lying about anything to gain extra votes in a society of relative hedonism and apathy or Islamic scholars who have studied Islam extensively, are passionate about their religion and have lived in Islamic societies such as supposed descendant of the prophet Muhammed and leader of the Islamic State Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi?
 
No, no you wouldn't. It's good to rant and to vent that emotion regarding a particular topic out of your heart, but please don't ever think of drawing parallels with IS. No reasonable human being should ever deem it prudent to slowly saw off the heads of captives with tiny knives. The least we can do is to never contemplate stooping to their level of barbarity for any reason, even if it's war.

No reasonable human being should ever deem it prudent to slaughter women and children by bombing random civic buildings...

And don't tell me what I would and wouldn't do, please and thank you.



@Casius Magnus

I think we have to look at the bigger picture. The US has probably the most benevolent military policy of any superpower in human history.


I would have to strongly disagree, as would the million civilians their military has murdered in the last 100 years.





Thanks for your input, though.
 
Casius Magnus

Chances are you wouldn't do anything though. We'd sooner see another rant thread.

And can you name a more benevolent superpower in history? What you're complaining about is a storm in a teacup in comparison to the acts of former superpowers.
 
No reasonable human being should ever deem it prudent to slaughter women and children by bombing random civic buildings...

And don't tell me what I would and wouldn't do, please and thank you.

I deplore that as much as any reasonable individual would, but you're positing a false equivalence.

While I am furious that there have been cases of mass collateral deaths in an effort to kill only a few individuals, at least there is no conscious attempt by US leaders to indiscriminately slaughter as many brown people as possible to ensure that the bad brown people cease to consider blowing us up. I can spend a long time forwarding my own rant about some dipshits in Congress who probably think that's a sound strategy simply because they're more stupid than malevolent, but at the very most I can condemn the West for in general is sheer arrogance; tragic incompetence; a staggering inability to strategise in the long term; a weak ability to properly consider and understand the wider, geopolitical, socio-political consequences for their actions; and the relative lack of self-criticism.

IS are going around fucking cutting off captives' heads to make a loud statement with hopes of deliberately stirring terror and a reaction, throwing gay people off a building and generally violently murdering and dislocating anyone that doesn't fall in line with their iconoclastic interpretation of Islam. I can't believe this has to be spelt out. No reasonable person should look at IS's actions with any form of reverence.

Meanwhile, it would also be great if the US drops the attitude with regards to Cuba, and perhaps Venezuela. It's downright embarrassing to still have that old Cold War sore hanging around just as embarrassing as it is to see scores of Congressmen bleat about how terrible it would be to make any sort of reconciliatory diplomatic move with Iran. Sure, I do think the United States is the most benevolent superpower, but only by default, as its predecessors have been even worse dicks and idiots. Even after all the deaths by bombs and the democratically left-wing regimes overthrown by the CIA for far-right dictatorships, the US would still rank higher than say, the old British Empire. Here in the UK, as much as it may be nice to hark back to the days of Empire when we were relevant and ruling the world (even if none of us were around to see it), few of us are very historically aware of some of the worst atrocities committed by Britain in places like Kenya. Then there's the shit we fucked up in the Middle East following WWI that makes what America have done lately look like a minor oops in comparison.
 
Chances are you wouldn't do anything though. We'd sooner see another rant thread.

Not only is that grossly ignorant, but tragically mistaken as well. You have no idea what I would or wouldn't do. What I have already done, witnessed, and taken part in. My stance here isn't some CNN fuelled quasi-political stance. It's intimately personal for me... You understand what I'm saying to you?

So I'll be the judge of what I will and will not do, thank you very much, Ma'am.



And can you name a more benevolent superpower in history? What you're complaining about is a storm in a teacup in comparison to the acts of former superpowers.


Let's (as a massive history buff) put this in perspective. You're talking about bureaucratic bullshit and paperwork. Speeches by slick snakes in expensive suits, and misinformation and propaganda you're fed on a daily basis. I'm talking boots on the ground, on the front lines; actions speaking louder than words.


To answer your question, Greece in 300 BC, lead by Alexander The Great. In ancient times, it was commonplace, accepted to burn towns to the ground and take survivors as slaves. That was just the way things were done; had been for thousands of years, would continue to be done for a thousand. So those things aside, Alexander had a FAR better foreign policy. Rather than obliterate and oppress his foes, he embraced them as his brothers and sisters after defeating them. Each new country occupied by the Greeks was adopted by Greece. They built cities there, brought riches and trade, and the men fought side by side with Greeks.


Post-1914, it's no longer acceptable to slaughter 133,000 innocent civilians in an attempt to locate and neutralize 26,455 terrorists and insurgents. Do that math and tell me again how benevolent the US is in combat situations. Are you kidding me, honey?


This is the only country to EVER nuke another, not once, but twice, simultaneously... You're right, they are the most benevolent country in the history of mankind...







I'm done with this conversation.
 
Last edited:
Casius Magnus

You seem like an alright guy and I'm not trying to wind you up but when you start with all that big talk you're opening yourself up to be judged and given all that belly aching in your original post I'm not buying any of this taking the fight "stateside" nonsense.

If you really wanted to put it into perspective rather than take another opportunity to air your thinly veiled resentment towards the US you wouldn't chastise the US for the same things you've allowed former superpower to get away with. Alexander the Great systematically executed political opponents and had a foreign policy of conquest. The world's population then would have been minuscule in comparison to today so the numbers can't compare but there's no doubt military campaigns conducted on the impulses of Alexander would have taken countless innocent lives all for the sake of conquest.

The reason I'm comparing the US to superpowers of old is because being at the top requires a certain blend of characteristics. Military and political ruthlessness, a manipulation of public opinion, cultural dominance and so on. You could compare them to Nepal or Tibet, but that's a comparison of apples and oranges.
 
...

When you open up by trying to compare a 21st century superpower to that of ancient superpowers, from completely separate eras, with completely different cultures, coming from opposite ends of the moral spectrum in terms of comparing the two, you're not off to a good start.

The US is the new warmonger nation of the world, regardless of what the world was like thousands of years ago, that's irrelevant by any stretch of the imagination. Coming into the 20th century, Germany took the title from England. Post-WWII, The United States of America, is the new warmonger of the planet Earth, I mean, this is a fact. You can't avoid facing this without actively trying for your own reasons.

And I didn't allow any superpower to do anything, my country has the best combat record on the planet; it's impeccable. Out of those nations who actually have, and or make use of a sizeable military force, Canada has the most prestigious military record you can hope to have.


Alexander's father, Philip II was assassinated. Key bit of information you so elegantly left out. Macedonia and the Greek city States Philip ruled were now in peril, facing an uncertain future, in a (as you have made perfectly clear) much darker, more violent and extreme social climate. He was not mentored by Aristotle of Stagira for years to offer himself in service to the man who would replace the corpse of his father... Your insight into ancient times is poor, at the very best.

No, Alexander was going to ensure the best, brightest future for Greece, and his father's legacy. He did what had to be done in the interest of his people, as he saw it. The man paved the way for, and helped make Christianity possible. He torn down previously existing racial barriers between Greeks and Persians where there only existed enmity and hatred prior to his reign.



But again, I'm done with ignorant bullshit. I've served overseas, so I won't be spoken to on this matter by someone so ignorant and audacious.
 
Last edited:
Casius Magnus

The United States is in that enviable position of being the world's foremost cultural, political and military power to the point of dominance. Such is a measure of their influence that western morality has become not the mere opinion it is but rather a learned fact of human nature to most of the world. Violence and sexual assault are seen as "wrong" in a very matter of fact way and yet even in modern times we're reminded of the uncomfortable reality that this behaviour is very much a part of human nature. Organised criminals, African warlords, Islamist Militants, etc remind us that power isn't tied to kindness but rather who can apply the most force, physically and mentally. From what you've complained about the US holds up well when compared to present day examples and even better against past examples. I'd say there are far better examples of war mongering today than the US, there's a crisis going on in the Middle East and vast swathes of Africa are warzones. Would you prefer the US to be more like Russia? Because that's the choice. Who would play the role of Ukraine? ;)

As for Canada's impeccable military record, that's like myself claiming to have a better record than Mike Tyson because I'm undefeated at professional level. Canada is a military irrelevance.

If you want to play the different times, different social climate, guy doing what needed to be done angle then it's easily applied to the US. In fact, it suits US' rhetoric perfectly!

As for the Christianity stuff historians are pretty unanimous in their agreement that Judaism paved the way for Christianity and Jesus made Christianity possible. Scripture paints an identical picture.
 
Okay, sweet heart. Do some research into Canada's role in either world war.

And here's a tiny history lesson for you and your historians. Alexander spread the Greek language all over North Africa, the Mediterranean, the middle-east, and the Asia Minor. If not for this, those gospels which have nothing to do with Christianity might not have been read far outside the reaches of Judaism. But hey, the Victoria Secret model knows best.
 
It doesn't matter what Canada's military record looks like they're still an irrelevance, nothing to brag about.

And "might not have been" isn't much of an argument is it? Mary might have had a miscarriage, she didn't. The New Testament was written in the common language of the time, which happened to be Greek. The choice of language isn't a decisive factor in Christianity's development.
 
Please let's cool the attitude, guys. :sad2: This is a discussion of the War on Terror rather than another front of the War on Terror.


-

The so-called Hellenistic period which resulted from the aftermath of Alexander the Great’s conquests was indeed a critically important period for Greek literature and the spread of Greek culture and language. It was also a period (as were the periods which followed) where we get a lot of cultural transference, helped by some Greek speaking (or ‘Hellenised’) foreigners writing about both their own cultures and Greek culture, syncretising beliefs, or translating foreign concepts for different audiences in ways they might understand. Ideas were passing between cultures more fluidly than they had done before, but this was already happening before this and had always been happening to an extent. From the Archaic period there were Greek colonies in North Africa, Egypt, the three coasts of Turkey, Spain, Italy, France, and the Black Sea coast. Contact between cultures is reflected in Greek literature, and even some of Greece’s earliest concepts have Eastern precedents (for example compare the narratives of Hesiod’s Theogony with the earlier Hurrian / Hittite ‘Kumarbi Cycle’, among others). Many scholars today prefer to think of ancient Greece as being part of the ‘Near East’ rather than being ‘Western’. I prefer to think of the ancient Greeks as they thought of themselves, in that they were central. Ideas passed to them, through them, and from them from both sides of the known world at the time. But mainly from the east!

The formation of Christianity is one of those historical moments where numerous events contributed to make it possible (aren’t all important historical moments a bit like this?). It can’t all be put down to parts of the near-eastern world becoming ‘Hellenised’ (or having increased contact with Greek and later Roman culture), but on the other hand if this did not occur then we would have a very different world. Christianity’s transmission and acceptance into Roman society was hardly a smooth process (persecutions for centuries, etc), but perhaps if it wasn’t for a circulation of early Christian texts in Koine Greek then a transmission Westwards may not have happened at all (or not for a while, and not through Constantine’s toleration and Theodosius’ later officialising of Christianity for Rome). How many followers would it have had if it wasn’t for this? Maybe anything could have happened. Who knows? It would have happened differently at least.

Why is any of this relevant for a discussion on the War on Terror? It is relevant because we may need a fluid, reciprocal and respectful transmission of ideas if we want a free and peaceful world. Obviously we’d all start laughing hysterically if we tried to explain the spread of Christianity (and its offshoot subsects) as being entirely peaceful… This is an impossible task. These things happened. We don’t have to be interested in that sort of thing today. We can, however, learn from the good lessons as well.

So if we want a peaceful world then perhaps we are to accept a circulation of a variety of different opinions, faiths, philosophies and lifestyles. This has to be carried out with respect only, or it could never work. People calling out for the death of an individual or group of people are fanning the flames and do not want peace. Groups which seek to destroy people, freedoms, history, or cause mayhem in the planet itself end up destroying any chances of peace.

It frustrates me that my talk of tolerance and respect can easily be shot down by people who might then label me an ‘Islamist apologist’. That’s a faulty and dangerous label. Yes, we need to consider why Islamic extremists are doing what they are doing (as we’ve discussed in this thread), but explaining this is not surrendering, it is instead a more effective weapon against extremism. I talk of tolerance and respect for those who will accept it, so that fewer people may be led astray from ever respecting or tolerating another human life. Sometimes racism, religious intolerance, social conditions, etc, get in the way of this. Some of us need to grow out of our prejudices and hatred. We need to relax a bit and accept people as people. But this is but a dream.

Our planet has a dark secret (which perhaps is not a secret at all). It does not want these good things. It wants us all to burn. Alas.
 
This planet has no secret... You want to know what the real secret is, Dionysos? Humanity is a Celestial Cancer... We are an aggressive, parasitic life form that has destroyed our planet through the pursuit of making our lives just a little more convenient and luxurious.



I no longer care what you think. Understand?

Now, I'ma (for the last time) break it down like we're in the Slow Kids Class, in basic math anyone could understand.



9/11 claimed 2,996 lives. That's 3,000 lives snuffed out senselessly. And for what? The ambition of one idiot with the power to see it done.

The US invasion of Iraq claimed 133,000 lives... 44.33 times as many lives as those claimed by 9/11... But it's okay, the 9/11 victims were American, British, Canadian... They were from the "good" countries. Iraqi lives are CLEARLY, worth far less... About 44 to 1, in fact. And for what? ... The blind ambition of one idiot with the power to see it.. yadda yadda...


That's justice, that's benevolence, that's.... Terrorism?






Believe whatever you want, it's irrelevant. Facts remain facts in the face of ignorance.





The sweet sight of benevolence...
 
The world is ruled by crazy people. Got to be crazy to have any part in any of the modern day governments. They are all messed up. Also, the citizens of the various different countries are basically ignorant to how the governments actually work. Why such mass murder is possible. If the people, who had power, were sane the world would be in peace. No one country is innocent of such crimes. I often wondered that if all the soldiers, in the world, decided just not to fight and follow orders, in all countries, what would happen? This includes the "terrorists".
 
Evil would eventually rise again. Money, power struggles, religion, something would provide a reason for men and women, brothers and sisters to go off and kill each other. It's human nature. 5,000 years of bloodshed tells us this without the slightest hope for a basis of argument.


But I like your overall perspective.


And to Harlequin: The New Testament was written in Greek, because Greek was spoken from North Africa to India... It was spoken over this vast 'a landscape because Alexander of Macedonia brought and/or fostered the Greek culture there!

If you can't see the direct connection, I don't know how we can continue to discuss this. At that time, there was no other language spread that widely—none. No historian will deny that impact on the early influence of those books, prior to Rome assembling The Bible.
 
Back
Top