Bin Laden Transcript

[littleFella]

Originally Posted by JohnScott

They do not believe in giving people the right to choose whether or not to sin - they legislate morality.

Sounds just like conservative American Christains.
Btw. isn't Bush one of them?

[littleFella]

Originally Posted by JohnScott

They didn't shoot the plane down because they don't shoot planes down. The sugestion that they should have shot it down is rediculous.

Wrong.
In the US only the president has the authority to order an American civillian plane to be shot down, but the fact is that this clause does exists in emergency regulations, and is accepted as something that may be done if deemed necessary. It's not an easy decision to make, but on 9/11 it would have been probably the right decision.

[John Scott]

Originally Posted by littleFella

Wrong.
In the US only the president has the authority to order an American civillian plane to be shot down, but the fact is that this clause does exists in emergency regulations, and is accepted as something that may be done if deemed necessary. It's not an easy decision to make, but on 9/11 it would have been probably the right decision.

No, killing Americans is never the right decision.

[John Scott]

Originally Posted by littleFella

Sounds just like conservative American Christains.
Btw. isn't Bush one of them?

No, it sounds like both American political parties. They legislate morality all the time - local Democrats here in Seattle are very active in anti-gambling legislation and anti-strip club legislation.

[South]

Originally Posted by littleFella

Wrong.
In the US only the president has the authority to order an American civillian plane to be shot down, but the fact is that this clause does exists in emergency regulations, and is accepted as something that may be done if deemed necessary. It's not an easy decision to make, but on 9/11 it would have been probably the right decision.

So you do support using military force that kills innocent civilians to stop an insane, murdering hijacker, but don't support military force where innocent civillians get killed to unseat an insane, murdering dictator?

Liberal logic.

[littleFella]

Originally Posted by JohnScott

No, killing Americans is never the right decision.

Only Americans?

Anyway, this is a gray area. If the "never" part of your post it true than the US would not send US troops anywhere near Iraq.

Also, one knows that shooting down a plane with 100 Americans on board will save 3000 other Americans in WTC then the decision might be right. Those 100 will be killed anyway. That's the basic premise behind wars. Even deffensive ones. You sacrifice the lives of a few to save the lives of many.

Again, I would not like to be in shoes of anybody having to make such a decision (shooting down a plane), but that decision might be the right one under some circumstances. The US government agrees with that point of view, since they do have provisions for such situations.

[littleFella]

Originally Posted by JohnScott

No, it sounds like both American political parties. They legislate morality all the time - local Democrats here in Seattle are very active in anti-gambling legislation and anti-strip club legislation.

Sure the conservative Christians are not the only one trying to impose morality standards. That's kind paradoxical, because even allowing the freedom of religion may be (with a bit of creativity) perceived as an attempt of legislating morality.

[John Scott]

Originally Posted by littleFella

Only Americans?

Anyway, this is a gray area. If the "never" part of your post it true than the US would not send US troops anywhere near Iraq.

Also, one knows that shooting down a plane with 100 Americans on board will save 3000 other Americans in WTC then the decision might be right. Those 100 will be killed anyway. That's the basic premise behind wars. Even deffensive ones. You sacrifice the lives of a few to save the lives of many.

Again, I would not like to be in shoes of anybody having to make such a decision (shooting down a plane), but that decision might be the right one under some circumstances. The US government agrees with that point of view, since they do have provisions for such situations.

The idea is rediculous.

If somebody calls you up and says, if you go to the local preschool and hack of the heads of ten kids, they won't kill one hundred kids, would you do it?

Killing just isn't an option, even if you know that it might mean more people die in the end.

[John Scott]

Originally Posted by littleFella

Sure the conservative Christians are not the only one trying to impose morality standards. That's kind paradoxical, because even allowing the freedom of religion may be (with a bit of creativity) perceived as an attempt of legislating morality.

Allowing freedom of religion is now leglislating morality?

Why do you feel the need to spin everything? Just face the facts - Americans, whether they be Democrats or Republicans, feel the need to impose their morality on others.

You don't know what freedom is until you've been to Japan. Japanese come here and say that the US is a police state, because it is. I've been to several Asian countries, and no country is as heavily regulated as the US. And a lot of that is due to the Democrats and their legislation of Political Correctness.

[littleFella]

Originally Posted by southnow

So you do support using military force that kills innocent civilians to stop an insane, murdering hijacker, but don't support military force where innocent civillians get killed to unseat an insane, murdering dictator?

Liberal logic.

I am really puzzled why you're trying to put words in my mouth. I merely pointed out that "using military force that kills innocent civilians to stop an insane, murdering hijacker" is what the US law allows under some conditions. In my view (may I have one please?), the conditions of 9/11 justified the shooting of these planes. Read my post again.

The second part of your post does not appear to reflect reality. The US did not go to Iraq to defend any population. This excuse came to surface when it became clear that the Whitehouse lied about WMD. As a matter of fact the US politicians were shaking hands with Saddam while he was using WMD against Iran, and then against Kurds after Desert Storm. I would put the latter on Bush Sr's. conscience (among others).

Originally Posted by southnow

Liberal logic.

try to keep this dicussion classy. No need for this kind of hints. Beter stick to the topic of the discussion and avoid dicussing intellectual capabilities of the opponent. That will serve us all much better.

[littleFella]

Originally Posted by JohnScott

The idea is rediculous.

Apparently some US laws are ridiculous, so you may want to get in touch with your Washington, DC representative. Hopefully there aren't many more of those laws.

Originally Posted by JohnScott

If somebody calls you up and says, if you go to the local preschool and hack of the heads of ten kids, they won't kill one hundred kids, would you do it?

That wasn;t the scenarion of 9/11, was it?

I did mention that decisions of that sort are tough, but they have to be made sometimes - not within the scenario you proposed. Ethic, morality and such are not black and white at all.

When you really think about it, anti errorist/hostage crisis forces are trained to minimize the loss of life. Sometimes there is no loss of life, but it is understood that in tough situation some of the hostages/victims may be killed.

Originally Posted by JohnScott

Killing just isn't an option, even if you know that it might mean more people die in the end.

Again, that would be pretty much an anti war statement in general.

[John Scott]

Apparently some US laws are ridiculous, so you may want to get in touch with your Washington, DC representative. Hopefully there aren't many more of those laws.

I did not say the law was rediculous. It may be necessary to shoot down an airplane - but only if there are no innocent civilians on board. I said you suggestion that we should kill civilians was rediculous. Do you have difficulty understanding English?

Again, that would be pretty much an anti war statement in general.

No, it's not an anti-war statement. It's a statement of principle. Wars are not conducted to save lives - they are conducted in support of principle.

[Atom]

Originally Posted by awall19

we think its no big deal to shoot down commercial airliners elsewhere in the world...

According to US government accounts, the American ship mistakingly identified the Iranian airplane as an attacking military jet. According to the same reports the American ship tried more than once to contact Flight 655, but there was no acknowledgement. At 9:54am, with the civilian jet about 10 miles away, the Americans fired SM-2 antiaircraft missiles. One broke the plane into two halves and also damaged the plane's tail and right wing sections. Only afterwards it was realised that the plane had indeed been a civilian airliner.
http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionar...20Flight%20655

you need to research your position a bit John.

What? Do you think that the flight 655 disaster wasn't a mistake? And if not why are you bringing it up?

You know full well that John didn't mean that in the absolute. Why bring it up? I'm puzzled.

With posts like this your motives seem shakey. Do you want to play judge and jury to this incident, as well, now?

awall19 quote:
"we think its no big deal to shoot down commercial airliners"

What? I sincerely hope that you are kidding, and if so I wish you wouldn't kid like that, it's very demented to kid about something like this. And if you're not kidding, then may I suggest that you are indeed simply demented.

dementia = not usually a good thing.

Do you actually consider this demented post debate?

oh well other people are posting crap too...

Oh... ok well... carry on then.

[evilregis]

I don't understand that it is better to have 1500 innocent people die than to have approx. 60 die to save those other lives.

It's not like the hijackers would have allowed themselves to be politely escorted to the ground by a military jet. They were going to kill thousands of people. If there were a better way to save a couple thousand people, I'd like to hear it. But in a situation where one plane had already crashed into the one tower, and a second one is on course, surely you have to know what's going to happen and limit the number of casualties.

It's not pretty. But you can't sit there and say it's better to lose 1500 people because it wouldn't be right to prevent it due to the loss of 60.

[John Scott]

Originally Posted by awall19

we think its no big deal to shoot down commercial airliners elsewhere in the world...

According to US government accounts, the American ship mistakingly identified the Iranian airplane as an attacking military jet. According to the same reports the American ship tried more than once to contact Flight 655, but there was no acknowledgement. At 9:54am, with the civilian jet about 10 miles away, the Americans fired SM-2 antiaircraft missiles. One broke the plane into two halves and also damaged the plane's tail and right wing sections. Only afterwards it was realised that the plane had indeed been a civilian airliner.
http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionar...20Flight%20655

you need to research your position a bit John.

Aaron,

Let's try to keep the discussion intelligent. By that account it was an accident. Or, are you saying it is a good thing that we shot down a civilian airliner?

[John Scott]

Originally Posted by evilregis

I don't understand that it is better to have 1500 innocent people die than to have approx. 60 die to save those other lives.

It's not like the hijackers would have allowed themselves to be politely escorted to the ground by a military jet. They were going to kill thousands of people. If there were a better way to save a couple thousand people, I'd like to hear it. But in a situation where one plane had already crashed into the one tower, and a second one is on course, surely you have to know what's going to happen and limit the number of casualties.

It's not pretty. But you can't sit there and say it's better to lose 1500 people because it wouldn't be right to prevent it due to the loss of 60.

So by this principle, we should murder innocent civilians whenever it may save more lives... What's the number needed to justify it? If murdering one innocent civilian saves the lives of two, is that ok?

[littleFella]

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