What is the difference between the American soldier with the most powerful military in the world and the suicide bomber whose family is starving?

What is the difference between the American soldier with the most powerful military in the world and the suicide bomber whose family is starving?
Pay, equipment, support, faith...and whose home is being fought over.

How can we defend one--for whatever reason, and condemn the other?

How can we defend one--for whatever reason, and condemn the other?
For someone with the "proper" feelings of entitlement, that seems to be easy, doesn't it?

I worked with a guy I thought was quite pleasant until one day he said that he didn't care about anyone else in the world or about any other species, that we are designated by God to rule over everything and therefore we can do whatever we like. I couldn't have been more appalled if he'd pulled his face off over his head and stood revealed as a BEM.

What is the difference between the American soldier with the most powerful military in the world and the suicide bomber whose family is starving?

Depends.

Suicide bomber in itself is a loader term. A bomb is just a tool for killing people, and if one considers violence legitimate under certain circumstances(self defence) then the suicide belt is no less legitimate than a rifle. The break point is in application, when used against combatants use is legitimate, otherwise not, imho. Defining combatant can be fuzzy, are men gathered outside a recruiting station combatants, I tend to believe so but it might be argued otherwise, targeting markets and wedding parties is unacceptable(to say the least!).

That we are the invaders in Iraq makes anything we do over there illegitimate.

Terror against non-combatants has always been a tool of hierarchy. Use of terror by liberation(termed very loosely) groups has often occured, the American Revolution, particularly here in SC, which had many features of civil war, featured much use of terror by both sides. Other than revenge, this terror has been justified by the end justifing the means. Don't know if I can go there, where does one draw the line?

The means go a long way in justifing the ends.

What is the difference between the American soldier with the most powerful military in the world and the suicide bomber whose family is starving?

Trick question... The American soldier is far more likely to be religious.

This is from Robert Pape who taught at the War College, teaches now at the University of Chicago, is very Conservative, and did the only real, empirical study on the subject:

Evidence of the broad nature of Hezbollah’s resistance to Israeli occupation can be seen in the identity of its suicide attackers. Hezbollah conducted a broad campaign of suicide bombings against American, French and Israeli targets from 1982 to 1986. Altogether, these attacks — which included the infamous bombing of the Marine barracks in 1983 — involved 41 suicide terrorists.

In writing my book on suicide attackers, I had researchers scour Lebanese sources to collect martyr videos, pictures and testimonials and the biographies of the Hezbollah bombers. Of the 41, we identified the names, birth places and other personal data for 38. Shockingly, only eight were Islamic fundamentalists. Twenty-seven were from leftist political groups like the Lebanese Communist Party and the Arab Socialist Union. Three were Christians, including a female high-school teacher with a college degree. All were born in Lebanon.

What these suicide attackers — and their heirs today — shared was not a religious or political ideology but simply a commitment to resisting a foreign occupation. Nearly two decades of Israeli military presence did not root out Hezbollah. The only thing that has proven to end suicide attacks, in Lebanon and elsewhere, is withdrawal by the occupying force.

http://www-news.uchicago.edu/citations/ ... e-nyt.html (http://www-news.uchicago.edu/citations/06/060803.pape-nyt.html)

http://political-science.uchicago.edu/images/faculty/pape.jpg

Evidence of the broad nature of Hezbollah’s resistance to Israeli occupation can be seen in the identity of its suicide attackers. Hezbollah conducted a broad campaign of suicide bombings against American, French and Israeli targets from 1982 to 1986. Altogether, these attacks — which included the infamous bombing of the Marine barracks in 1983 — involved 41 suicide terrorists.

In writing my book on suicide attackers, I had researchers scour Lebanese sources to collect martyr videos, pictures and testimonials and the biographies of the Hezbollah bombers. Of the 41, we identified the names, birth places and other personal data for 38. Shockingly, only eight were Islamic fundamentalists. Twenty-seven were from leftist political groups like the Lebanese Communist Party and the Arab Socialist Union. Three were Christians, including a female high-school teacher with a college degree. All were born in Lebanon.

What these suicide attackers — and their heirs today — shared was not a religious or political ideology but simply a commitment to resisting a foreign occupation. Nearly two decades of Israeli military presence did not root out Hezbollah. The only thing that has proven to end suicide attacks, in Lebanon and elsewhere, is withdrawal by the occupying force.

http://www-news.uchicago.edu/citations/ ... e-nyt.html (http://www-news.uchicago.edu/citations/06/060803.pape-nyt.html)



Wow.

Fucking WOW.

I knew it.

What is the difference between the American soldier with the most powerful military in the world and the suicide bomber whose family is starving?

1. Ours are ours, theirs are theirs.

2. One is a regular state sponsored organized military, the other is not.

3. Suicide attacks, in either context, are seen as morally different than other types of warfare.

4. Intentional targeting of civilians can happen in either situation, but one method of warfare is at least nominally trying to avoid that - and has a long history that for the most part did avoid that until recently - while the other is defining itself by that.

Those are some differences I see. I am not sure why you included "Sacrifice, Service to Country, Honor and Duty" and "starving" to the mix, so I can't address those. I fear that you used "Sacrifice, Service to Country, Honor and Duty" as a coded message or hidden meaning or perhaps an attempt to mock other members here who have used those words or frame the discussion in a certain way, but since you aren't being overt in your intentions I can only speculate. "Starving" I assume - well I don't know. I don't see how starving is connected to the question.

I took your question at face value and answered it as such. My answers are not intended to imply approval or disapproval of anything, nor am I taking a "side" on this.

What is the difference between the American soldier with the most powerful military in the world and the suicide bomber whose family is starving?

Well there's this:

http://www.cherifo.com/situation/palchild.jpg

And this:

http://www.inminds.co.uk/tank-old-woman.jpg

Rattle on all you want folks I challenge anyone to show me an organism responsible for more death on Earth, human and non-human, than the thing called 'America'. Y'all can wrap yourself fuzzy around the sacrosanct ConsteeTwoShun all you wish but it changes nada.

3. Suicide attacks, in either context, are seen as morally different than other types of warfare.

'Are seen' by who? Not by me.

I don't recall ever learning about broad moral outrage among Americans about kamakazis. I wonder why we didn't just start our fake ass War on Terra then.


4. Intentional targeting of civilians can happen in either situation, but one method of warfare is at least nominally trying to avoid that - and has a long history that for the most part did avoid that until recently - while the other is defining itself by that.

Nominal avoidance indeed. Civilians galore have been Murdered by state war machines. I disagree with your comment.


Those are some differences I see. I am not sure why you included "Sacrifice, Service to Country, Honor and Duty" and "starving" to the mix, so I can't address those..."Starving" I assume - well I don't know. I don't see how starving is connected to the question.

Perhaps you've not followed the news of late in re Gaza.

Rattle on all you want folks I challenge anyone to show me an organism responsible for more death on Earth, human and non-human, than the thing called 'America'. Y'all can wrap yourself fuzzy around the sacrosanct ConsteeTwoShun all you wish but it changes nada.
The question asked for a comparison of individuals in the two situations, not the situations themselves, which is what your post addresses. Moral superiority of the weaker force against the stronger, which in this case I agree with, does not translate to moral superiority for individual participants in either force. You cant judge the group by the individual and you can;t judge the individual by the group.

I am assuming that we were being asked to make a moral comparison because of the otherwise disconnected and unrelated use of the terms in the title.

If individuals in the one situation are presumed to be morally superior to those in the other, then integrity would demand that each individual bring their life into alignment with the force they judged to be morally superior. I doubt however that any of us will be enlisting in the insurgency against either Israel or the US any time soon. The notion that there is some neutral position that permits one to escape moral culpability is itself morally bankrupt in my opinion. Those who stay here and cooperate with the system are no less culpable than those in the tanks over there, and all of us play a crucial cooperative role in the advancement of the goals of the ruling class here - a much more important role than the people in uniform do. We make dissent harmless to the ruling class and safe for people to join. One way we do that is by consistently judging the individual by the group and the group by the individual, and hypocritically and arbitrarily drawing those lines in such a way that is self-serving.

Those who stay here and cooperate with the system are no less culpable than those in the tanks over there, and all of us play a crucial cooperative role in the advancement of the goals of the ruling class here - a much more important role than the people in uniform do. We make dissent harmless to the ruling class and safe for people to join. One way we do that is by consistently judging the individual by the group and the group by the individual, and hypocritically and arbitrarily drawing those lines in such a way that is self-serving.

Yes Indeed.

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