School Attacked In Pakistan - 100+ dead

William Haskins

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with or without going back to the ottomans?

when does history start for those who seek to blame every one but the terrorists?
 

raburrell

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with or without going back to the ottomans?

when does history start for those who seek to blame every one but the terrorists?

Is someone doing that here? Or is this more of a general statement about people who'd excuse the murders of a hundred and forty children?
 

RichardGarfinkle

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with or without going back to the ottomans?

when does history start for those who seek to blame every one but the terrorists?

History starts when people start writing down their views of what people do in their time and in times past.

The study of history starts when people try to learn from that, in order to make fewer of the same mistakes that those people made, both in their actions and in their stories about those actions.

The study of history will really start when people stop pretending to be qualitatively different from those people over there, and those people back then.

The short answer to your question is that history starts before a time that would be convenient to start telling the story only from one perspective.

Humanity starts when people refuse to accept the killing of children regardless of the excuse.
 

Amadan

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Is someone doing that here? Or is this more of a general statement about people who'd excuse the murders of a hundred and forty children?


Well, first it was the U.S.'s fault for funding the Taliban, which was Reagan's fault, except actually it was Carter, but Eisenhower and Churchill started it, unless you count the Ottomans.

So yeah, we seem to have a lot of people blaming it on everyone except the terrorists what need killin'.
 

raburrell

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Well, first it was the U.S.'s fault for funding the Taliban, which was Reagan's fault, except actually it was Carter, but Eisenhower and Churchill started it, unless you count the Ottomans.

So yeah, we seem to have a lot of people blaming it on everyone except the terrorists what need killin'.

I see a lot of agenda-pushing, but beyond that just a lot of horror at what happened today. Can't speak for others, but that's what I'm focused on.
 

Zoombie

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Well, first it was the U.S.'s fault for funding the Taliban, which was Reagan's fault, except actually it was Carter, but Eisenhower and Churchill started it, unless you count the Ottomans.

So yeah, we seem to have a lot of people blaming it on everyone except the terrorists what need killin'.

The issue is that...we keep can both fight bad people AND try to stop creating situations that generate bad people - because bad people aren't born. Well, some are, yes, born aberrations, but a lot of bad people are crafted through a combination of bigotry, powerlessness, blindness, zealotry, and other things ending in Y and Ness.

The world creates these people, and we are part of the world, so examining what we as the United States have done in the past means we can learn how to not do it again in the future.

Will that magically make every terrorist go away? No.

But if we can just prevent one person from becoming a terrorist, is a greater victory than shooting ten terrorists in my book - because that one person has family and friends, who won't be pushed towards extremism because their son, their brother, their husband, their best friend got exploded by the Great Satan.
 

Amadan

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That's nice and all, but Taliban need killin'.
 

Zoombie

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Yes, I am in favor of fighting to stop these guys.

If they surrender, take them prisoner, throw them in jail, and show the world we're better than them.

If they surrender.
 

emax100

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*cough* Of course it was actually Carter who decided to use Afghanistan to bleed the Soviets. *cough*
You are right, but let's be frank here, we've got Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr, Clinton, Bush Jr and Obama and the whole lot of them are fundamentally accountable in some form or another of promoting US foreign policy that is global jihadists' best friend. (and the Taliban and other mujadeen are indeed global jihadists). On this issue, arguing about which one is least guilty is not entirely unlike looking at convicted murderers on death row and arguing which of them is least guilty.

But yes, now is the time to focus on what the Taliban are doing and what is being done, if anything, to ensure that women have a future where they never have to worry about murder or even intimidation or threats of any kind from global jihadists for embracing opportunities First Worlders take for granted.
 
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backslashbaby

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We've been killing them for years now, if that helps any. That little war in Afghanistan? 2000+ US soldiers dead trying to stop them (and AQ, of course)?

I don't know how much farther from support you can get than full-out war on someone. Maybe somebody has an example, lol?

This school horror is sickening, and it's not the first time they've been completely sickening. So strange to think that Afghan women wore miniskirts in the 70's! I have no idea how they get back to that :(

I'm certainly not convinced it's our place to try to (continue to) force that, though. It's Afghanistan. Wars from the outside there don't work (imho).
 

firedrake

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Blaming past presidents seems a pointless exercise in the face of a tragedy of this scale.
Just get rid of the bastards who did this.

And, yeah, the history of 'western' powers meddling in Afghanistan's affairs is centuries long and bloody to boot. Pity no one seems to have got the message.
 

raburrell

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We did have one - I'm going to take a wild guess that the mods are mid-merge.
 

Okelly65

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Sorry about that Somehow I completely missed it.
 

zerosystem

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Blaming past presidents seems a pointless exercise in the face of a tragedy of this scale.
Just get rid of the bastards who did this.

And, yeah, the history of 'western' powers meddling in Afghanistan's affairs is centuries long and bloody to boot. Pity no one seems to have got the message.

Agreed.

The Taliban targeted that school because there were children of military personnel there. Despite whatever interaction American leaders had with them, this tragedy would have happened regardless.
 

Okelly65

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The Taliban targeted the school because there were children there. Children being educated in the Western style. Meaning it wasn't a religious school and girls were being taught. They proudly boasted that the targets were children.

And above all else, it doesnt matter military school, civilian school, or a playground, only cowards and animals attack children, there is no excuse, no justification for that kind of behavior.
 

cornflake

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Agreed.

The Taliban targeted that school because there were children of military personnel there. Despite whatever interaction American leaders had with them, this tragedy would have happened regardless.

I don't see how you can possibly claim that. Had the U.S. not supported the Taliban, repeatedly, had the U.S. not made many choices it has, this would have happened anyway?

That's unknowable, and I'd argue unlikely. They're in the position they are because of where they've been.

The Taliban targeted the school because there were children there. Children being educated in the Western style. Meaning it wasn't a religious school and girls were being taught. They proudly boasted that the targets were children.

And above all else, it doesnt matter military school, civilian school, or a playground, only cowards and animals attack children, there is no excuse, no justification for that kind of behavior.

They didn't proudly boast the targets were children, quite the opposite.

The Taliban claimed responsibility and said the people who went in to the school were meant to kill military personnel, not kids. They said from the beginning the targets weren't supposed to have been children. The people who did it obviously either didn't get the memo, didn't agree or didn't care, but the Taliban as a group was not boasting that children were targets or had been killed. They may now be trying to justify it, but that's not the same thing.
 

Amadan

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Yes, all events in the world follow a chain of causality. But I'm impressed that this winds up being (a) the U.S.'s fault; (b) not the Taliban's fault.
 

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They didn't proudly boast the targets were children, quite the opposite.

The Taliban claimed responsibility and said the people who went in to the school were meant to kill military personnel, not kids. They said from the beginning the targets weren't supposed to have been children. The people who did it obviously either didn't get the memo, didn't agree or didn't care, but the Taliban as a group was not boasting that children were targets or had been killed. They may now be trying to justify it, but that's not the same thing.
Oh, please. What did they expect they'd find in a school? A tank battalion? A special ops unit? A nuclear sub or two? Or, like, third graders.

When you target a school, who the hell do you think you're going to kill? Give me a break. If you want to kill military, go to where they are, not where their children are.