The problem with relativism, David, is that it makes everything possible. I think your argument is that, since Iraq was invaded by a foreign power, that makes killing occupying soldiers (but not civilians) ok. So if I read you correctly, you are actually in favour of anyone making a choice to kill (say) any Australian soldiers in Iraq because they are an occupying power ? Or if not in favour, then you apparently consider it unobjectionable ?David wrote:Here's the original poll those claims are based on:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jso ... apoll.html
(No idea about the credibility or methodology of the poll itself, mind you - it's run by an American organisation called 'Terror Free Tomorrow' which is associated with figures like Bill Clinton and John McCain.)
The only particularly eyebrow-raising result in that poll is the 75% affirmative for the question "Do you support financial assistance for Iraqi fighters, the Palestinian groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and Hizbullah?". This may sound alarming if you automatically translate this as "75% of Syrians support terrorism" (the soundbite Skids and his mates in the Barbarossa-sphere are licking their lips over), but the facts are not nearly so simple. The organisations listed play dual roles - both as fundamentalist aggressors and also as a perceived resistance force.
If you asked Australians in a nationwide poll tomorrow if they support terrorism, 99% would probably say no. Yet if we were being attacked by a foreign power, how many do you think would oppose, say, bombing military checkpoints if it were to prove strategically beneficial? Hell, if our flag-waving anti-Islamic patriots lived up to their personas, they'd be strapping bombs on themselves.
In 2007, Palestine and Iraq were actively at war and Lebanon, if I recall correctly, had just endured a massive bombing campaign and partial invasion from Israel. These groups were on the frontline of those respective conflicts. That's not a defence of any of these groups. All of them have targeted civilians, not just soldiers. But when they're your only functional resistance, or your close ally's only functional resistance, you're inclined to be at least somewhat favourably inclined towards them.
We wouldn't ever support such monsters, though, would we? Lol. Yeah right. Have a read through some recent threads on here to see how pious we feel about civilian casualties in a 'necessary' war. That doesn't mean that I actually think any of the posters here airily waving away victims of drone strikes would willingly pull out a kalashnikov and start murdering civilians themselves. Most people aren't like that. Likewise, I wonder how many people campaigning for refugee families to be barred from entering the country would be willing to stand at the threshold of a squalid, disease-ridden refugee camp and drag them back in. I guess there's a big difference between abstract support of bad things being done by other people and actually doing it yourself, isn't there?
The trouble with this position is that, ultimately, it leads to a hell of nihilistic relativism. Are the aboriginals justified in killing white Australian military ? Were the Timorese entitled to start planting bombs on Australian streets after Australia acquiesced to the Indonesian invasion in 1975 ? Where does it end ?
Ultimately, values are irreducibly subjective, and you need to take sides. If you choose to take the side of those who wish to kill a young soldier of the liberal society that protects you and feeds you, when that young man is trying (at some stupid politician's behest) to impose order and democracy on a society that is collapsing into anarchy, then I think you are in a bad place.
