Taliban slaughters children

[jazyd]

Taliban shot up a school filled with children up to 17 killing around 140 last count, school is for children of military.

This follows a report of Issis killing 4 Christian students who refused to denounce Jesus. The cut off their heads on stuck them on stakes.

There is evil in this world, it's getting stronger as our president makes us weaker. But he does get to play golf and hang out with his Hollywood buds

[CitizenBBN]

You're supposed to empathize with these sub-humans Jazy. Feel the pain they have that somehow justifies targeting innocent children in retaliation.

Children die in wars, it happens, but these groups specifically target children to inflict maximum shock value and horror. They're sick and evil and need to be exterminated, not empathized.

The caring and compassion that was the hallmark of old-school "liberalism" is fine, but this new form of Leftism where Western values are to be chided and compassion is twisted into some kind of sick support for what is inherently evil is just a disease of the mind. In the name of social justice and tolerance they support the worst kinds of intolerance and injustice.

There is no social justice in allowing ISIS and the Taliban to repress millions and commit horrible acts of terror on the innocent, yet we're supposed to empathize with them and be tolerant. It's the most screwed up lack of critical thinking the world has ever seen, and it's seen some whoppers.

[Doc]

I hope we catch the bastards, throw them in a hole and give then a nice soft cot, 3 square meals a day, internet and cable tv.

[jazyd]

I hope we catch the bastards, throw them in a hole and give then a nice soft cot, 3 square meals a day, internet and cable tv.

Club Gitmo?

I think a nuke would work just fine, destroy them all.

[Doc]

Club Gitmo?

I think a nuke would work just fine, destroy them all.

So long as we don't ask then tough questions or deprive them of sleep.... or put panties on their head. Hell, I know guys who will pay a $100 buck to have women's panties put on them. What some call a fetish, others call torture.

[suncat05]

C'mon guys........where is your 'empathy' for these poor, misunderstood people? How can we come to understand their situation when we are so critical of their plight? Where's the love of your fellow man?
That 'ol hag Hillary probably doesn't get the irony of her words, or if she does she just doesn't care. We just cannot have this woman residing in our White House again, only this time holding the keys to the front door.
We really, seriously need to end this extremist Muslim terrorist problem. Even when "W" was in charge we were not prosecuting this war anywhere near as aggressively as we should have been. There is only one way to deal with people who want to kill us. We need to kill them first. This isn't rocket science, it's kill or be killed.

[PedroDaGr8]

You're supposed to empathize with these sub-humans Jazy. Feel the pain they have that somehow justifies targeting innocent children in retaliation.

Children die in wars, it happens, but these groups specifically target children to inflict maximum shock value and horror. They're sick and evil and need to be exterminated, not empathized.

The caring and compassion that was the hallmark of old-school "liberalism" is fine, but this new form of Leftism where Western values are to be chided and compassion is twisted into some kind of sick support for what is inherently evil is just a disease of the mind. In the name of social justice and tolerance they support the worst kinds of intolerance and injustice.

There is no social justice in allowing ISIS and the Taliban to repress millions and commit horrible acts of terror on the innocent, yet we're supposed to empathize with them and be tolerant. It's the most screwed up lack of critical thinking the world has ever seen, and it's seen some whoppers.

I don't think very many people claim that we should be tolerant of them. Understanding them isn't a bad thing, its always better to understand you enemy. So that you can combat them and exploit their weaknesses. The Kurds are masters at this, using women to kill ISIS (ISIS believes if they are killed by a woman, they won't go to paradise). While it is convenient for us to view the Taliban and ISIS in the same light, as Islamic brown people. The reality is they are not the same, two different strains of evil. ISIS is by far the darker and more evil of the two. I came across an excellent synopsis of the Taliban on Reddit. That can at least explain their thinking, not that it makes it OK but as I said before, to learn your enemy is a means to destroy him:

The larger context right now is being ignored. Since June the Pakistani military has been conducting a military offensive in the Northwest Frontier Provinces. This area often called the FATA district is home to various Pakistani Taliban groups and tribal groups ( like the Mehsuds and Wazirs) with shifting allegiances. The Pakistani Taliban is influenced by A) Deobandi Islamism which is a Southeast Asian variation of radical Islam: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deobandi B) and its dominant influence is the Pashtun tribal ethos of Pashtunwali: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pashtunwali

These two influences have shaped Taliban religious and political ideology. Now, 80 % of the Taliban are Pashtuns, while Pakistan is divided into various ethnic and regional groups ( like Sindhs, Punjabis)..The Pashtuns are also in Afghanistan as the Durrand Line ( the border between Pakistan/Afghanistan) cuts between their ethnic " homeland". They don't identify with the state of Pakistan. Now, since the operation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Zarb-e-Azb was launched since the breakdown of the ceasefire with the Taliban and PM Nawaz Sharif's gov't and the Jinnah int'l airport attack in June, The Taliban consider the use of attacks on children and schools as a means of exacting revenge which is a major important thing in Pashtun culture. They see the deaths of their tribesmen as something that justifies these barbaric attacks. They have been scattered now into various cities in Pakistan as well, which makes it more dangerous. The Pakistani Taliban are at war with the government in Islamabad. I would also like to add that the Taliban attacked an ARMY school, which means these kids were children of soldiers who were fighting in the NWFP. The tribes the Taliban protect there lost many children to the Pakistani military. This is cold blooded revenge for the Taliban at the same time sending a message to the Pakistani military to stay out of " their" territory.
Edit: I am also going to add a Wiki link to the areas where the Pashtun people predominate. If you notice its in the area of the border region: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pashtun_people#mediaviewer/File:Pashtun_Language_Location_Map.svg
Edit 2: Wow.Thanks for the gold! I am only doing my duty as someone with a History degree. If you want some good sources I suggest two readings:
http://yalepress.yale.edu/book.asp?isbn=9780300178845
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/may/01/pakistan-hard-country-anatol-lieven-review

Blood revenge is very common in "bedouin"-like tribes around the world, not just in the middle east. It is a way of ensuring the rule of law in a very lawless environment. I think to understand the malevolent logic behind their acts, you must read Pashtunwali to get an idea how a people can come to believe that such an evil act is OK and justified.

I'm sure some of you will still attempt to claim that I am "white-washing" their actions. I'm not doing anything of the sort, I'm just giving some context to an otherwise context-less action. Their is no way any sane person can condone their actions, only understand the logic in hopes that in the future you find ways to either use it against them or change their logic.

[suncat05]

One other thing comes into play here, or is about to very soon. What is our plan if these a$$hole$ get a nuke and use it against us, or the Israelis, or worse, both?
I'd love to see how well 'empathy' works then. Unless the Kenyan Muslim sympathizer is still at the helm, then I'd be hard pressed to believe that he didn't give them some of our arsenal. Which he is basically doing anyway by playing "patty-cake" with the Iranians during his time in the big chair with his limp wristed negotiating policies.
And if the terrorists do succeed in attacking us with a nuke, what's he going to do then? Surrender?

[jazyd]

So long as we don't ask then tough questions or deprive them of sleep.... or put panties on their head. Hell, I know guys who will pay a $100 buck to have women's panties put on them. What some call a fetish, others call torture.

Bill would love it. :)

Seriously, I am with suncat, just nuke them and get it over with and start over. We, nor the rest of the sane world, will ever change the mindset of these evil pieces of crap, won't happen, hasn't for thousands of years. You have to destroy it, completely and reboot as Darrell would say about his computer. You deal with them from power, not what Obama is doing which is nothing. And I happen to also agree with suncat that imo Obama is a muslim, and he does side with them at every chance. He is the weakest president in my lifetime, worse than Carter which Inever thought I would utter those words for anyone.

I do NOT TRUST obama even slightly when it comes to the ME. imo, he has set out to destroy as much as he can here, while not dealing with them there. And has brought in a bunch of pansy ass liberals who are as weak minded as he is, who think this country is garbage and everything we stand for is wrong. Why don't they leave, go start their own way of life, see if they could figure out how to do things while playing with all their tech toys.

You cannot reason with evil, you cannot understand evil, you don't beat evil, you cannot tolerate evil, you must DESTROY evil.

[KeithKSR]

I hope we catch the bastards, throw them in a hole and give then a nice soft cot, 3 square meals a day, internet and cable tv.

Obama would just make them promise not to do it again and send them to Qatar.

[jazyd]

Obama would just make them promise not to do it again and send them to Qatar.

wonder, has he built them a golf course yet? they would lprobably turn it into a shooting range.

[ukblue]

Serve him pork 3 times a day Doc and only show male only pornos.

[CitizenBBN]

Pedro ---

I"m all for understanding, but the word put out there was "empathize with our enemies". that is very different from "understand". One should always understand one's enemies, the enemies of individual liberty and equality, but one does NOT ever empathize with them.

I understand where Hitler's resentment of European nations and Jews came from, but I have zero empathy with it despite the fact that he was a war veteran with some childhood issues and even trauma. Understanding he didn't have a perfect life is fine, but at no point does that become empathy for him given his actions in response to that hardship.

With adversaries it is important to understand them so we can perhaps find common ground and work out differences. But with true enemies, people who are determined to spread repression and hatred and fear and violence, the main point of understanding them is so you can best deter, debilitate and destroy them.

That clearly isn't what Hillary is suggesting. She's suggesting we find common ground with them like we would a nation that is our mere rival, which is no different from the position of Lord Chamberlain and the rest circa 1930s Europe.

[CitizenBBN]

Now, re the Taliban v ISIS I agree they are very different in some ways, and that ISIS is far worse.

Re the tribal nature of this response, that's true, I agree and I don't find it white-washing. What I do find it is still abhorrent and utterly unacceptable behavior. There are lots of tribal and other cultural traditions I'm perfectly comfortable judging as unacceptable. That includes things done by Americans from time to time and things done by others.

I do not subscribe to the absolutist view of tolerance. I do prefer to be tolerant within a basic framework, so I accept that justice in one place may mean capital punishment for a crime and in another may mean far less and in some areas may not be a crime at all. I can judge those things within the context of their laws.

But I cannot support any law or tradition or culture which undermines the basic belief I have in the equality of all people and the inalienable rights with which they are endowed. That means I cannot tolerate the female castration of many of those same tribal areas or the foot binding of southeast asia or the summary execution of people for their religious beliefs, etc.

So while I understand this was a tribal response in the general mode of "an eye for an eye", where they feel their families are being killed so they go kill military families, I will still condemn the action as a crime against humanity. If push comes to shove I do judge it less harshly than the ISIS beheading of children b/c there is simply no way in which they are not innocent, but I still find the specific targeting of children to be wholly unacceptable in any context of war.

If they attacked a Pakistani base and it happened to kill women and children it would be tragic, but it would be an act of war. Targeting just their children in a school is an act of terrorism, and those are two very different things.

Lest someone think I'm being ethnocentric about it let me mention an act by Americans I find to be abhorrent, the firebombing of Dresden. Unlike the bombing of Hiroshima which brought the war to a conclusion, there was nothing to be gained by killing the general population of Dresden. The Germans were not going to surrender bc of it or reallocate resources in any meaningful way nor was it going to impede their war effort.

The bombing of military or economic targets related to a war, in which innocent people die, is a harsh fact of war. Targeting innocent people when there is no other target than to simply kill innocent people as an act of brutality to dissuade the enemy must be rejected and condemned and punished strongly.

I understand the Taliban goal is to have a Hiroshima event where their attack is so vicious it dissuades further attacks on them, but the Taliban are not in the position that made our attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki have strategic impact. It was simply a tribal act of vengeance of eye for an eye that in the end leaves everyone blind.

Lastly, regardless of the moral and ethical questions of warfare, they are in fact our enemy and the enemy of our belief system, and as such I don't see any need to empathize with them. Understand them yes, but empathize? no, not even close.