Justification and Calls to Kill Americans

[Productivity]

"I do not understand why we are not allowed to curse, but we are allowed to justify and call for terrorist attacks? "

Sorry, but if you are going to say you can't do the above, then it has to run both ways. No more justifying attacks on Iraq, no more calling for invasions of other countries.

Both are a form of terrorism to civilians, one just has (somewhat) more legitimacey than the other.

[Duke John]

Was the US justified in dropping the Atom Bombs?
Bombs dropped on cities, and you asked wether it was justified. And then you have the guts to make this thread?

...

[Kaiser of Arabia]

I'm sorry but I cannot stand this anymore.
I have been on the forum for about ten months, give or take. I have made many posts, participated in many debates, and I always come back for more. However, there are times in which I consider leaving here for good, never to come back to this place again. And it's not because of flames, or bashings that I've received from people, hell, even moderators, but it's because of coments like the one's Panzer posted, comments that offend me so deeply I cannot express my utter hatred for anyone who would even thing of murmering them, much less posting them on an online forum for the world to see. These comments attack my country; the one thing on this world that I would sacrifice anything, including my life, for. And I come in here for a friendly discussion or debate, and then I see these. What am I to do? Do I say somthing? If I do, I might get in trouble, so what do I do? Maybe I'll just not come back here. That is what I think at times, yet my loyalty to this place is unwavering, so I, perhaps foolishly, always return for more. Yet now, it's gotten to a point at which I cannot take it anymore. I have said offensive things before, and I try not to anymore, sometimes I slip but I try, and the last time I purposly said somthing to offend someone was a long time ago; I've changed since then. Flame me all you want, I care not, but leave my country alone.
-Capo

[Duke John]

Yea i do, you dont seem to be able to comprehend the difference between posting an objective question about an event that happened 60 years ago, and calling for the deaths of thousands today.

My point was:
60 years ago the US deemed it right to bomb cities full with civilians as means to fight a war. Today terrorists deem it right to bomb civilian targets (at a much smaller scale) to fight their war.

To me it's the same subject and if you allow opinions on one issue then also allow it on similar issues.

[Templar Knight]

I'm sorry Byzantine_Prince but why do you believe that the US deserves another attack?, you have lost me

Why should innocent people who are trying to get through life, people who probably don't like their governments foreign policy, be targeted by cowards who cant fight face to face, planning their cold blooded actions to kill men, women and children in the most gruesome way possible. I find it disgusting that anyone can say 'they deserve another attack'.

No one deserves terrorism!

[PanzerJaeger]

This thread is not about Gregoshis actions, its not about iraq, and its not about poor americans being mistreated by the mods. The thread was meant to be informative to the mods and let them know we take this seriously.

What he said is equivolent to him saying "Black people deserve and should be lynched" or "Jews deserve and should be gassed", just interchange blacks or Jews with Americans.

You can read it yourself. He does not even use the past tense when he declared that we need to be attacked again.

[TosaInu]

The link to this topic please PanzerJager?

[Templar Knight]

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=42880

[Lonewarrior]

Edit: I change my mind, I'll delete this, nothing bad was said here....so...carry on to the next post.

[Ar7]

I hope all who feel offended by my topic take the time to read through the whole PM I sent to Gregoshi, I tried to rephrase my initial thoughts in a more neutral way.

I have to stress that I did not have anything against Americans, but I rather wanted to state my critical opinion towards their goverment and see if others agree or have other, different thoughts. I did not want it to become a flame topic, I wished for a discussion.

[The_Emperor]

The line "The US deserved it", was certainly not right in that thread... And was a very poor choice of title.

For my part at least I tried to focus on the point that was made about the mistakes in Cold War policy shaping today's world rather than anything else.

Still a a better title for such a topic could have been "did the West inadvertantly help create the Al Qaeda threat?"

[Redleg]

My point was:
60 years ago the US deemed it right to bomb cities full with civilians as means to fight a war. Today terrorists deem it right to bomb civilian targets (at a much smaller scale) to fight their war.

To me it's the same subject and if you allow opinions on one issue then also allow it on similar issues.

Okay first of all - lets review what was said in the Monstary. The Initial post by the person that started the thread provides some insight to this discussion.

So basically their own weapon back fired againts themselves, I believe they deserved the terrorist attacks that were made against them ( I stress US as a state deserved it, not the people that have died, they were just unlucky to pay for the mistakes of their goverment ) The USA brought terrorism to life, first by simply sponsoring it and then by bringing the chaos of war to Afganistan and Iraq.

The person who started the thread attempted to bring a contraversial (SP?) thread for discussion about Terrorism and its coming about in such a way, now why I don't agree with his conclusion, find his statement somewhat offensive - and futhermore the satement of deserved shows that the author of the thread did not intend for the converstation to remain civil (Worse case) or does not completely understand that some sentences and word use creates what is called an emotional appeal in an arguement (best case). The use of the word deserved is what makes the statement offensive- because its not an attempt to show justification for actions taken but casting blame on the target of the discussion.

If I would of spoted the thread before it was closed - I would of mentioned several terrorist activities that happen - not because of the United States but because of many other things - such as the PLO/Israeli issues, the Communist sponsered Terrorist gangs, and several other historical context things about Terrorism and its root foundations.

Much like most of the discussion in the Atomic weapons justification thread, the attempt to bring it up for discussion is valid - the method is questionable. The initial author set the conditions not with the title of his thread - but with the word deserve which establishes an emotional arguement right off the bat. Most of the counter arguements - basically stated that no-one deserves terrorism - and I appreciate the attempts to deflect the discussion to a more reasonable course - however we then see this post.

As bin Laden hiself has said already all the US have to do is get the hell out of the Middle East and change it's foreign policy with Israel. Then he'll stop humiliating them over and over again to the rest of the world.

Yes the US does deserve an attack. I think it would have been better if he had just attacked the Whitehouse, the Pentagon, and the CIA headquarters. That outta send a good message. We wouldn't have that retard as the most powerful person on earth. I think it was a mistake to kill innocents, then again it's hard to not to seeing as they used civilian planes.

You are right though, the US does deserve terrorism, just not on the civilian level(except they are KKK members or Republican's, lol).

Notice the content of the message and how the message is sent - even if one can see past the words used in his statement - its not hard to gather what the intent of the post was. Again its much in the same spirt of the initial post - an attempt by the author to express his feeling on the issue - but without understanding the inflammatory nature of what they are writing (best case). Or if they do understand - a reckless disreguard for how their post will be taken (worst case).

Where the statement crosses the line into something that should not be allowed is this statement. (IMO)

I think it would have been better if he had just attacked the Whitehouse, the Pentagon, and the CIA headquarters. That outta send a good message.

Frankly is not hard for someone to be offended by that statement - and I image that was exactly the authors intent. And that is a violation of the forum rules. Posts containing any generally objectionable material: knowingly false and/or defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or otherwise violative of any law

The breakdown of the discussion was happening before this statement - and Gregoshi closed the thread before it went futher.

As a moderator Duke John you have to be able to tell the difference in what is a poorly worded post that is not intended as an attack - and what posts seem to be an indication of the authors violation of the forum rules, its not the subject that is in question - but the violation of the rules by the members who particpated in the discussion.

[Duke John]

What I understand from PanzerJagers post is that the subject does matter:

I do not understand why we are not allowed to curse, but we are allowed to justify and call for terrorist attacks?

The first post in the Terrorism thread was poorly worded and offensive (I agree), but if that was the only issue then I cannot understand why PanzerJager made this entire thread. A simple PM to Gregoshi should have fixed matters.

Instead PanzerJager decided to make a thread in the Watchtower and then I get the feeling that he wants to make a point about Americans deservering terrorism.

My opinion is then that there is little difference between a subject about the Americans dropping atomic bombs on cities or a subject about the justification of terrorists. All is fair if you believe in freedom of speech BUT there might be a point wether the Org wants to host such discussions, espesically since terrorism is a current issue.

But then I have the opinion that the Backroom should have been closed a long time ago since the day I read how people dare to express their opinions about homosexuals. I mean stating that they are abominations against God might also trigger people to beat gays. Yet it is allowed on these forums.

[Gregoshi]

Yesterday after I closed the "US deserves terrorism" thread and before this thread appeared, I received a PM from Ar7, the creator of the controversial thread. In his PM, Ar7 was little distressed at the direction the thread went in. He wished to post a clarification of his intent but I had already closed it. Since he has been portrayed here as something of a villan and part of his messsage relates to a point brought up by Redleg, I'll post the relevant parts here and the full text in the original thread. In the PM, Ar7 wrote (the bolding is my emphasis):

I am sorry that this topic has gotten out of hand, when I started it I didn't want to hurt any feelings or offend anybody. I simply wanted to hear different opinions from around the world.

Perhaps when I used the word deserves I was wrong. I merely wanted to point out, that the US doesn't have the right to talk about freeing the world and blaming other countries for sponsoring terrorism, as they were infact the ones who created the threat that the world is facing today. Because most of the largest terrorist organisations are linked to Alkaida or Usama in one way or the other.

...we see a situation where the US continues to endanger its citizens and continues it's politics the same way they did thus creating more terrorism along the way...

I just wanted to point out that the US goverment is largely resposible for what is happening today and that these attacks should have changed their politics and thus the word "deserved" in the topic.

I hope I explained myself better this time and I hope I caused no serious offence. I in no way support terrorism as I am a Russian and the latest attacks have influenced me as well. I just wanted to say that people who can change this, do nothing and thus endanger more and more people.

I hope you post this message for me as I really didn't want this topic to end the way it did.

[Redleg]

Yesterday after I closed the "US deserves terrorism" thread and before this thread appeared, I received a PM from Ar7, the creator of the controversial thread. In his PM, Ar7 was little distressed at the direction the thread went in. He wished to post a clarification of his intent but I had already closed it. Since he has been portrayed here as something of a villan and part of his messsage relates to a point brought up by Redleg, I'll post the relevant parts here and the full text in the original thread. In the PM, Ar7 wrote (the bolding is my emphasis):

Thanks for posting his PM Gregoshi because it confirms what my hope was concerning his post - that he did not intend it to be taken that way and was just a poor choice of a word.

[Redleg]

What I understand from PanzerJagers post is that the subject does matter:


The first post in the Terrorism thread was poorly worded and offensive (I agree), but if that was the only issue then I cannot understand why PanzerJager made this entire thread. A simple PM to Gregoshi should have fixed matters.

Instead PanzerJager decided to make a thread in the Watchtower and then I get the feeling that he wants to make a point about Americans deservering terrorism.

My opinion is then that there is little difference between a subject about the Americans dropping atomic bombs on cities or a subject about the justification of terrorists. All is fair if you believe in freedom of speech BUT there might be a point wether the Org wants to host such discussions, espesically since terrorism is a current issue.

But then I have the opinion that the Backroom should have been closed a long time ago since the day I read how people dare to express their opinions about homosexuals. I mean stating that they are abominations against God might also trigger people to beat gays. Yet it is allowed on these forums.

Freedom of speech is indeed a dangerous concept for some people - most often it is because they find some peoples views offensive and would rather not hear them, so instead of ignoring the speech - they would like to restrict the speech to fit their world view.

However since this is the second time I am attempt to respond to your post (I still forget to copy before posting and I know that the server is experiencing a bug ) I will make this one shorter then the last.

Discussion on issues is important - and regardless of how offensive I might find the issue to be - or for that matter anyone else - if the the attempt at civil discourse is being made by the patrons discussing the issue - it should be allowed. However that does require the moderators to activily monitor the conservation to insure that those who would rather distract from the discussion are either removed from the discussion - or sanctioned for their violating the rules of the forum. It requires an understanding of moderation techniques and argumentive styles that requires maybe a little bit more moderation time then what some would like to volunteer. However in the back room there are four individuals that monitor the message board and that is why such discussion are best suited for that area. To remove the backroom will insure that the moderators in other areas will become more active in policing the politicial rethoric out of their areas of the message board.

I don't post often in the Monstery because of the simple defination of what is to be posted there. A discussion forum linked to the historical periods depicted in the Total War games series. The discussion topic that this thread is mentions in the first place had no business in the Monstery - and Gregoshi handled it as quickly and efficiently as a single moderator could

However my thoughts on this go into some things already mentioned in another thread and in private messages to those I feel are involved in the issue. If they would like me to expound upon it here they can either mention here or PM me.

The issue is important and it requires frank and honest discussion to help fix the problem or the preception of a problem.