IN case you missed the last few hours tonight...

[RobinStarwing]

Paris has been attacked. Currently over 100 dead in several incidents of shootings and suicide bombings. A concert hall was held with hostages (some of whom it sounds like were executed). France and Belgium have closed borders.

Source 1

Source 2

Source 3

My Own Personal Thoughts:

My heart goes out to the people of France. I potentially have relatives living in France and Belgium as that is where part of may family originated. I hope people find their loved ones and those that have lost...may they at least find peace and solace knowing sooner or later...this heinous act will be avenged in some way.

For me...Compassion is something that is the very definition of the best of Human Nature, the ability to care for and help another being. People like ISIS view this though as a weakness. They view our willingness to help as something to take advantage of and than bring atrocities like this to people who have no stake in their fight. Why? Power. They want to rule not in the name of "God" but rather for themselves and say "This is God's will!". They prey on people who have no hope, program them to do the unthinkable in the false hope they will go to heaven a Martyr if they die killing "the enemy".

So how do we win? We never stop showing the Compassion and Faith in the better side of Human Nature. To do so would be to hand these dishonorable lowlifes a victory. They claim they want us to fight them on the ground and prove we are Men. They don't deserve that honor. They deserve nothing less than death from above by bombs. But if they want to see how we fight on the ground...fine.

Reason I say that is this. There is a time for Compassion and than there is a time to be the Shield and Sword for those who can not protect themselves against something as Barbaric...as utterly Inhuman...as utterly Evil as ISIS/ISIL.

They behead anyone who won't turn to their "belief system". Destroy important, ancient ruins connected to our past. They force women and young girls into both Sexual Slavery and marrying them off. They kill ANYONE remotely different to them. They have threatened repeatedly to visit this evil wherever they can in the world...and they may have started now with Paris tonight.

I say it is time to bring the Hammer down and show ISIS/ISIL what happens when you push good people too far. If they wish to get Brutal...than we show them the meaning of Brutal and the words "No mercy. No quarter given."

I am not saying we do this with glee. I say this...

When an ISIS fighter looks up in the eyes of the soldier of ours who is going to kill them...he doesn't see a smile or anything. Just a sad or even neutral face. Sad at it having coming to them needing to die. Neutral in that we know their deaths are better for the countless innocent lives that will be saved. We come at them not in anger...but in a sad, cold, relentless fury.

"Cry 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war." - Act 3, Scene 1, line 273 of William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar

"Ang mabait, pag magalit, malupit."
(Translation> "When the good ones go angry, they're brutal.")
— Old Filipino saying

[tacticslion]

Praying for all those in Paris tonight.

[phil_]

I'm going to quote George Takei's Facebook and add a me2. https://www.facebook.com/georgehtake...08831629146286

Originally Posted by George Takei, via Facebook

I'm writing this backstage at Allegiance, my heart heavy with the news from Paris, aching for the victims and their families and friends.

There no doubt will be those who look upon immigrants and refugees as the enemy as a result of these attacks, because they look like those who perpetrated these attacks, just as peaceful Japanese Americans were viewed as the enemy after Pearl Harbor. But we must resist the urge to categorize and dehumanize, for it is that very impulse that fueled the insanity and violence perpetrated this evening.

Tonight, hold your loved ones, and pray or wish for peace, not only from guns and bombs, but from hatred and fear. If it is our freedom and joy they seek to destroy, give them not that victory. Against the forces of darkness and terror, love and compassion shall always prevail. ‪#‎JeSuisParis‬

-- George

me2

[Solid Snake]

Originally Posted by RobinStarwing

I am not saying we do this with glee. I say this...

When an ISIS fighter looks up in the eyes of the soldier of ours who is going to kill them...he doesn't see a smile or anything. Just a sad or even neutral face. Sad at it having coming to them needing to die. Neutral in that we know their deaths are better for the countless innocent lives that will be saved. We come at them not in anger...but in a sad, cold, relentless fury.

...Oh, hey, Robin's still here?
I could tell because of the inappropriate fury-addled bloodlust aimed directly at foreigners Robin views as stereotypically repulsive inhuman monsters.

[Bum Bill Bee]

Originally Posted by Solid Snake

...Oh, hey, Robin's still here?
I could tell because of the inappropriate fury-addled bloodlust aimed directly at foreigners Robin views as stereotypically repulsive inhuman monsters.

Robin's anger (fueled by an honest to god tragedy that I feel for) was directed specifically towards ISIS.


Now, if Robin said anything like "hey look, another reason to kill every single Muslim on the planet for the sake of national security blargity blarg blarg" THEN that would be a reason to voice some concern. But he did not say that.


When did you start coming back here anyway, Snake?

[Solid Snake]

Anger directed specifically towards Saddam Hussein and Bashar Al-Assad, however 'justifiable,' led to the exact deterioration of conditions in Iraq and Syria that led to the rise of ISIS, which uses our very militaristic actions to fuel its own attacks against the west.

So we'll spend even more billions of dollars to radicalize even more Muslims, who will in turn become increasingly desperate and ever more likely to lash out against us, which will fuel the next wave of attacks, and then the next, until the Middle East is a smoldering crater.

There's nothing about Robin's guttural analysis there that's appropriate. It's more us-against-them hogwash with barely contained bloodlust...Robin's practically salivating while imagining he's the one pulling the trigger with some combination of sadness and neutrality. Sure, ISIS is awful, but if you think you're going to solve the problem by dehumanizing them in the same way they dehumanize us, you're perpetuating it all.

[phil_]

Dammit, fine.

The problem isn't Robin's fetishization of the image of morally perfect paladins calmly and logically neutralizing monsters who cannot be dealt with any other way (at least, that's not the important problem). The problem is jumping from "Some people killed a lot of people" straight to "We need to kill more people." I really wish immediately retaliating against violence with more violence was self-evidently a bad thing, given that there are kids in highschool who have never known a time when we weren't at war. You know, because the US jumped straight from "Some people killed a lot of people" straight to "We need to kill more people" 14 years ago. That worked out really well; last I checked it got a bunch of people killed in Paris. But despite that, the fact that violence will not bring back the dead and won't undo what happened is not self-evident. So I have try to stop myself from writing logical proofs that killing is bad (because that apparently needs to be done) by having George Takei hold me back, and I keep failing.

Responding to this attack with having our guys kill their guys, by having "Arm the Jews to stop Hitler" Carson call for the elimination of Muslims (see, Robin didn't even have to do it; it got done), by blaming the people trying to run away from this shit for this shit; all that does is write ISIS's promo material for them. "The West despises you, sees you as nothing but trouble, blames you for all their problems when all your problems are to blame on them. Come join a winning side that loves what you are and wants the world to be yours. Free guns and righteous violence when you sign up!"

That's what I have against what Robin wrote. These attacks, beyond the obvious "kill people and scare the West," were carried out to make him fantasize about killing ISIS and people like him but on TV openly state that Muslims are the enemy. These attacks were carried out to scare Muslims residing everywhere of what their country sees them as, to make them feel like outsiders in their homes, to give them a bone to pick with the Robins they have to work with and live with. Because comfortable people don't join terrorist groups, and the reaction to every single violent act committed by a brown person for the last decade makes it pretty easy to predict that the reaction of the Robins and much worse people of the world to this attack will be one that alienates Muslims and people who aren't Muslim but dress funny.

And then people have to write things like this that should be obvious, rather than writing condolences to the people who lost people yesterday. Because until the above is obvious, this will keep happening.

[Bum Bill Bee]

Yyyyyyeah, Robin might be having the wrong attitude about it, and I certainly don't like Jingoism myself, but isn't sending troops against ISIS the only plausible way to stop them from doing bad things anywhere in the world? Isn't what Robin say we do what's going to solve this anyway? ISIS don't strike me as the type to negotiate, and damned if some Ghandi-like passive resistance will work.

But if you mean "use force when necessary, and don't act like a sadistic a-hole about it" then yeah, I'll agree to that.


Really guys, if I had a penny for every time I got called a "spineless Islamapologist who's just gonna let a bunch of people die and do nothing about it"....

[RobinStarwing]

You know what Snake, phil...guess what. I am angry and saddened.

I am those things because it may have to come to violence. Do I enjoy that? Hell no. No human in their right mind should. I should not have to hear we may have to send people into the Hell of combat because there are people out there wanting to destroy OUR way of life here. People who are FIRMLY devoted to starting off the Apocalypse according to their Faith.

That's what I am sad and angry about.

---------- Post added at 08:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:03 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Bum Bill Bee

Yyyyyyeah, Robin might be having the wrong attitude about it, and I certainly don't like Jingoism myself, but isn't sending troops against ISIS the only plausible way to stop them from doing bad things anywhere in the world? Isn't what Robin say we do what's going to solve this anyway? ISIS don't strike me as the type to negotiate, and damned if some Ghandi-like passive resistance will work.

But if you mean "use force when necessary, and don't act like a sadistic a-hole about it" then yeah, I'll agree to that.


Really guys, if I had a penny for every time I got called a "spineless Islamapologist who's just gonna let a bunch of people die and do nothing about it"....

Sorry to double post but thanks Bum Bill Bee. The bolded is what I am arguing for. The last bit was just...me being emotional again. >_>

[phil_]

We're already using violence against ISIS. We blew up "Jihadi John" just this week, apparently, according to current best intelligence. Using this occasion to demand further, greater violence, as if we haven't already turned the sky above the middle east into a weapons platform, is where one becomes the poster child for ISIS recruiters.

Robin, you are right in being angry about having to use violence. But it shouldn't just be for our soldiers sake. Having to use violence is sad and horrible for its own sake.