[tammer]

It is precisely your neo-imperialist, 'preemptive strike' mentality that is the cause of contemporary terrorism.

It is, in fact, terrorism itself.

If you think your life as a Western consumer is somehow non-violent and unrelated to the global situation, I pity your naïveté.

I haven't the time to expound further.

[anigbrowl]

No it isn't. The US accepted the Taliban as de facto rules of Afghanistan, notwithstanding their backwards approach to running the country, and negotiated with them on things like rights-of-way for trade and so on up to the summer of 2001, when the Taliban broke off negotiations. That was before the attack on the US took place and the Taliban turned out to have been giving Al Qaeda a a home for its terrorist activities.

There are lots and lots of things wrong with Western policy towards Central Asia, but the causal argument boils down to 'you made me do it', which is almost never true.

[smsm42]

Terrorism is a tactic of murdering civilians in order to scare other civilians to behave like the terrorists want. Striking terrorists is nothing like that - nobody cares how they behave once they fulfill one simple condition - they don't murder anybody, don't blow up stuff and don't kidnap and behead people they consider infidels. If they stopped doing that, nobody would care what they do.

It's the same as saying putting a murderer into prison is the same as kidnapping an innocent child. Both limit freedom, but if you think for a minute, you'll find the difference. Try it.

[tammer]

Are you honestly deluded enough to believe there have been no civilian casualties in the United States' war?

Are you honestly too callous and/or imbecilic to think that calling this "collateral damage" changes the situation for someone who's life has been destroyed by a foreign entity?

Again, I'm speechless at how deeply some have imbibed the propaganda of the war machine. Please, please recognize the terrible mistake in your logic.

[detst]

  [...] I pity your naïveté
  Are you honestly deluded [...]
  Are you honestly too callous and/or imbecilic [...]

Where's the substance? You said "I haven't the time to expound further" and then came back to spew more insults. Reasonable people read "I haven't the time" as "I haven't a valid argument but I disagree so I'll make you out to be a fool so obviously wrong that you're not worthy of a proper rebuttal". That doesn't work here.

[tammer]

I found some time.

First and foremost, there is simply no recourse for smsm42's argument, no recourse that that holds reason to a higher degree than nationalism.

Particularly,

  nobody cares how they behave once they fulfill that one simple
  condition - they don't murder anybody, don't blow up stuff and don't
  kidnap and behead people they consider infidels.

This remark doesn't allow for American acts of war to have any degree of inaccuracy. If you take such an idea as fact, you and I shall never find agreement. While perhaps my insults betray their hasty inception, the idea is so inaccurate as to warrant it's correction being, in my mind, an act of human decency.

Now, let's move to the matter at hand.

The crux of tokenadult's argument is that, above all:

  Americans and other people in developed countries get to lead
  civilized, advanced lives in the Twenty-First Century.

This is the element with which I find fault, and where you may find the division between myself and those who follow the causality constructed by propaganda. For there is an extreme fallacy here, one that is perpetuated endlessly and has set the tone of our generation.

How, I ask, can we lead civilized lives while actively participating in war?

There is a disconnect between the technologically and socially liberated, wonderfully progressive population of Americans imagined in tokenadult's words and the utter chaos and violence unleashed in the reality of ground invasions and air strikes. The problem with tokenadult's argument is that this break in the chain of causality is a complete illusion.

Now, you may argue, how can a "civilian" be participating in a war they did not decide to enter, and was in fact prompted by a major attack?

To which I would reply, I'm not talking about the conflict in Afghanistan.

I'm talking about the drug war, and all its brutal ramifications from the international to the local. I'm talking about the return of slavery manifested in our prison economy. I'm talking about trade agreements both national and private designed to create entire populations of debtors. I'm talking about the very concept of health care that hinges on salary. There are many more.

These are all wars we fight daily, contribute to endlessly, and support in our very existence. Not only our tax dollars, but our attitudes and opinions are weapons in these wars.

tokenadult looks around and sees a peaceful utopia. I look around and see a society rampaged by violence, racism, sexism, and class warfare. This is not a future I wish for Afghanistan, or anyone at all.

And I certainly don't think we can get anyone anywhere by force.

Time's up. Now let's go write some code and get on with our lives.