Sustained gunfire reported at School

[Vympel]

The attempt to "explain" an atrocity does not mean that one approves of that atrocity. If someone asks you what led to Nazism/WW2, do you answer "THEY WERE EVIL PEOPLE!!!!" or do you give a more sophisticated answer?

What annoys me is the journalistic double-standard- an article at www.russiajournal.com (one which I personally don't agree with as it took the whole shrill right wing tone to 9/11 under its wing- i.e. don't try and find out why or you're a traitor) talked about the Western press coverage of Beslan- they were all for explaining and finding the root cause for that one. But of course, 9/11 is holy writ and untouchable.

[Broomstick]

Maybe the asshats who keep trying "explain" this shit should be forced to watch the whole thing, though. Like, GET A CLUE, YOU FUCKERS, THESE ARE EVIL PEOPLE!

The attempt to "explain" an atrocity does not mean that one approves of that atrocity. If someone asks you what led to Nazism/WW2, do you answer "THEY WERE EVIL PEOPLE!!!!" or do you give a more sophisticated answer?

My apologies, I now realize I did not provide proper context for my outburst.

I am getting pretty damn tired of hearing how we should try to "understand" these terrorists, how their environment and culture generate these feelings and urges in them, and if we could just understand them better we would realize how our own actions are provoking them to violence and change our ways to soothe their outrage and thereby achieve World Peace (TM)

It's rather like saying that Jewish custom provoked the Nazis and if the Jews had just been more considerate and accomodating the Nazis wouldn't have been so angry and wouldn't have butchered them. That's bullshit. NOTHING the Jews did or could do either justified the slaughter or would have changed for the better how the Nazis treated them. Summing up with "The Nazis were wrong and their goals evil" works well enough - the details could occupy books and books, but that's what it boils down to.

Near as I can tell, our mere existance pisses the living hell out of these nutjubs like Osama bin Laden and al-Zawari and all those others. They want us gone - either wholly absorbed into their psychosis or simply erased from the Earth. Look at their record in Afganistan - butchery and destruction of anything not toeing their ridgid party line, and all they built were piles of rubble. So much for an Islamic paradise on Earth. Anyhow...

The assholes trying to blame Putin for someone else taking a school full of people hostage, torturing them for days, then killing, what 1/4 to 1/3 of them are full of shit. They just don't get it. Those terrorists wanted to kill EVERYBODY inside, all 1000 or 1200 or however many there were. They actually TRIED to kill everyone with bullets and bombs.

As soon as I heard these guys were refusing food and water for the hostages I knew this would end in a bloodbath. It had to. Frankly, if 2/3 or 3/4 of the hostages escaped I view that as a victory of sorts - we defeated the terrorist goal of murdering everyone.

Sure, there have been a LOT of oppressed people who'd like their freedom. However - MOST of those folks don't resort to killing children and suicide bombers. Want examples?

- the Irish have been pissed off at the English for going on 800 years now. While the IRA used carbombs and pipebombs, they did NOT generate suicide bombers nor did they ever specifically target children.

- the Kurds are known as a Middle Eastern group with some "issues". They don't generate suicide bombers either, although there certainly have been plenty of other instances of violence.

- under Apartheid, South Africa sure had plenty of violence but again, no suicide bombers.

- during the 1970's, Puerto Rican separatists engaged in various violent acts, including a car bomb in downtown Chicago - but again, they did NOT generate suicide bombers, nor did they target schools or children.

- Timothy McVeigh qualifies as "evil" in my book, but he didn't blow himself up, nor did he specifically target children, although children certainly were among his victims.

- the Basque separatists have committed many acts of terrorism and violence, but again, they don't generate suicide bombers and they don't target children. In fact, they have a history of calling in before bombs blow up to minimize innocent casualties. After the Madrid train bombings a lot of Spainards jumped to the conclusion "al-Qaeda" because those bombings were so UNtypical of the Basque operations.

Contrast this to Beslan - the terrorists, at least some of them, were clearly prepared and even expecting to die. And children WERE the primary targets.

Thus, I say this is different than "typical" freedom fighter/rebel/terrorist violence.

Yes, I think we do need to understand the motivations and goals of these folks... but that doesn't mean we can condone their "culture" (I refer to the nihilist world view of the terrorists, not to Arab or Muslim cultures in general) or their goals or aims or their "justifications" for their actions. Their acts are NOT the acts of an "oppressed people" struggling for self-determination. Their acts are those of power-hungry thugs and despots like... well, like but unlike Hitler or the Nazis. Or Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.

To me, at least, it is clear that the al-Qaeda types ARE interested in world domination and power, and if they can't have it then wanton (or even total) destruction will do. That strikes me as "evil".

MY culture can tolerate the existance of people who think and believe differently than I do - theirs cannot. There are only three alternatives here:

1) They can wipe us out. Needless to say, this one doesn't get my vote

2) We can wipe them out. This one does get my vote, because it's a permanent solution to the problem

3) We can exist in the present state being nibbled and pecked to death by atrocities wiping out hundreds or thousands of victims at a time, but with neither side gaining a true advantage. This could go on a long, long time... although eventually I think you come back to either 1 or 2

I suppose there is a fourth alternative - gradually escalating atrocities until either everyone is dead, or the world infrastructure/civilization collapses us back to a point where everyone is back to raw survival and we just can reach those goons on the other side of the planet anymore because there aren't any working planes or ships or guns anymore. I'm not too fond of this alternative, either.

Sure, we need to understand the enemy - but with an aim to defeating them, not to empathize with them.