R. Blanston, since we covered most of this above, I think pretty thoroughly, can I refer you to rickflick’s comment on 8 Jan at 4:45pm and the long discussion that followed in response.

Paxton Marshall,
Why shouldn’t we take ISIS at their word? They tell us ad nauseam why they’re doing it, and execute their plan perfectly. You leave out the pew research data that shows most muslims are in favor of suicide bombings to achieve their ideological goals. You left out the data the shows millions of muslims would be in favor of Shariah law as the law of the land. Furthermore, you don’t advocate any plan what so ever – other than the U.S. is bad, and Islam is not bad. I only have to glance at the news and hear of an attack every single day somewhere in the world Islam is pronouncing itself as the one true religion. We simply don’t see that with other religions. We don’t see the the Tibetan monks doing anything but loving their Chinese captors that torture them – They don’t revolt or attack or use any kind of violence, and their texts do not ever call for violence like those in the Islamic religion. Your review lacks content and shows somewhat of a lack of idea about the true nature of the world around you. I think you should study Islam more. Learn the 5 pillars. Learn the mandates, learn how 27,500+ deadly acts of Islam since 9/11 affects peoples ideas about Islam.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2016/01/23/the-trumpification-of-atheism

Though I believe my post was clear enough, nevertheless since you impugned my logic I will restate for the permanent record:

I understand that you feel you would have handled the Saddam situation better if you had been in charge. You have every right to that opinion, which could be called second-guessing or Monday morning quarterbacking or armchair generalship. But to throw around language about war crimes is to trivialize a grave matter. If you’ve got the goods, bring suit, obtain a conviction, and then I will be forced to concede your point. But then there should be no selective prosecution — that criterion is hardly inconsistent or unreasonable.

If you don’t think Fadli is a suitable candidate for a case study, pick any other. If you can’t come up with a recent and relevant example to help us understand the mechanics of your thesis, well…

The comment immediately above is in response to Paxton, but like Ken I can’t imagine there is anything more to be said.

But — and I can only repeat myself — just rehashing generalities doesn’t get us far. Shall we focus on the case at hand?

“I’m not sure Mr. Fadli’s victims’ loved ones would describe it as a fantasy.”

The fantasy is your suggestion that I don’t hold Fadli responsible for his actions. I hold both ME terrorists and US politicians entirely responsible for their killing. It is only you who what to let one side off.

“You say no one would make excuses, and yet you as much as say that suicide terrorism is understandable.”

As Heather says, explaining is not excusing. If you are really interested, which I doubt, start with Pape’s Dying To Win for the rationale for modern suicide terrorism. Spoiler: both religion and politics are involved.

“I simply have requested that you share that understanding as it relates to an actual case.”

I’ve already said I don’t believe there is such a direct link as you seem to think in that case. I don’t know enough about it to say further. You can’t talk about random individual cases and claim to fully understand all motives without knowing a lot about the person involved and their background, their politics, religion, what they’ve said, etc. A very imperfect analogy would be that climate change is predicted to increase the frequency and violence of storms. That is happening regardless of whether we know it is true for any particular storm. Likewise, you can in general expect people to hit back when they feel they’ve been wronged. Even the CIA says that’s what motivated 9/11, ffs. And given how the US reacted to that, no more proof should be needed that people will in fact seek revenge when wronged, even if that means killing innocent people, as both the US and ME terrorists have done.

“It’s not immediately obvious to a mere mortal how your laundry list of alleged grievances supposedly shared by the entire Arab population would be grounds to attack Germany or Turkey, much less innocent bystanders.”

What is obvious, however, is the mere fact that you refer to my list of Western interventions as “alleged” shows that you either have zero knowledge of history, or will stop at no sophistry to deny that history. It is obvious you do not seek to understand, but to paint the lie that the Bush administration could do no wrong.

“Mr. Cheney can speak for himself.”

He sure can and is one of the few still claiming the Iraq war that has destabilised the region and contributed to countless deaths was a good thing. It’s madness.

“He certainly is not guilty of anything unless and until convicted in a competent tribunal, so I’ll await that verdict (feel free to wake me).”

Of course there will never be a verdict, because there will never be a trial. Crimes of US leaders don’t get prosecuted because there is no authority in a position to do so. That doesn’t mean we should not tell the truth and learn from the mistakes.

“Moreover, if there is anything to answer for (which I deny), there’s plenty of accountability to go around, not least on behalf of the incompetent Obama regime, as well as the legislators (Biden and Clinton among them of course) who authorized military action to enforce a multitude of UN resolutions against Saddam.”

First, I’ve written here often about the crimes of Clinton, Obama and other Democrats. Killing in the ME has never been a partisan issue.

But your logic is truly amazing. First you say there’s no way to judge guilt except via a tribunal, then you deny there is even anything to answer for, then you attempt to share the guilt with others. That you want to have it every way at the same time shows that you are not engaging sincerely or seeking truth.

I’ll not waste my time further. I’ve been contributing on this site for a year now. I doubt there are many interested in this argument, but I’m happy for people to compare my words to yours and determine who has better made their case.

Yes, jam the killing of innocents is a terrible thing. I don’t know where you’re from, but I’m from the US. Pick any time period you want and the US has killed more Muslims than they have killed us. And no doubt many of them died in excruciating pain from collapsing and burning buildings, without the rescue and medical services that western societies have had. Why do you insist on denying the whole picture and just focus on the evils of one side?

I suggested that we apply reason and evidence in a specific, concrete case because generalizations are getting us nowhere. Obviously that was naive.

Yes, the last sentence of that post was poorly constructed. The point is that no amount of rationalization, blame-shifting, tit for tat or other false equivalence has any bearing on the evil of killing innocents. To even intimate otherwise is beyond the pale in my view.