Attackers Tweet As They Assault UN Development Program Compound 240
Koreantoast writes "In another interesting example of the increasing use and sophistication of social media by non-governmental organizations, the Somali-based Islamic insurgency al-Shabab live tweeted their latest attack, a suicide assault against a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) facility in Mogadishu which left 15 dead. During the event, they denounced UNDP, tweeting during the attack that the UN is 'a merchant of death & a satanic force of evil, has a long inglorious record of spreading nothing but poverty, dependency & disbelief' and proceeded to mock newly appointed UN Representative Nicholas Kay who is to arrive in Somalia later this month. Also of note is their initiation of communications with various press entities including the AP, BBC and IHS Janes through Twitter. Hat tip to Foreign Policy magazine for the story."
Given the UN's track record in Africa... (Score:5, Insightful)
I have to say, I can understand how they would view the UN in such a way. The UN's policies are pretty firm in their pushing of dependence, which is unsurprising given the way the wealthier and more influential nations are able to control it.
Re:Given the UN's track record in Africa... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Given the UN's track record in Africa... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's clear the spreading of disbelief is the real motivator here. Kill in the name of God.
Exactly. When I read this: "a merchant of death & a satanic force of evil, has a long inglorious record of spreading nothing but poverty, dependency & disbelief", for a moment I thought they were talking about their brand of radical Islam.
Re:Given the UN's track record in Africa... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Someone had no tolerance for their beliefs, their way of life and their resources, and are invading them, with armies, global economy or/and factories.
I don't think they were invaded because of their beliefs and their way of life. The resources, on the other hand... It doesn't help, of course, that these countries have a lot of people willing to get bribed.
Re:Given the UN's track record in Africa... (Score:5, Funny)
They don't seem to want to play nice with the rest of the world, and frankly isn't everyone about to start getting tired of going out of our way to be some tolerant of those that show absolutely no tolerance to anyone different than they are?
For a second there, I thought you were talking about Congress.
Re:Given the UN's track record in Africa... (Score:5, Interesting)
When is the rest of the world, going to finally have enough of these 'pease loving' American asshats and just start stomping them...HARD? They don't seem to want to play nice with the rest of the world, and frankly isn't everyone about to start getting tired of going out of our way to be some tolerant of those that show absolutely no tolerance to anyone different than they are?
Do some counting. Americans have killed a lot more innocent muslims in the middle east than muslims have killed innocent westerners. You are far more evil than those you claim to hate.
Re:Given the UN's track record in Africa... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hopefully never, since the stomping won't stop there. Once you have your jackboots on, everything starts to look like a human face.
Re:Given the UN's track record in Africa... (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't believe I'm seeing genocide advocated on slashdot... and up-voted.
Do you not understand that western governments, and particularly the U.S. and U.N., have been fucking with the entire african and mid-east region for centuries? Colonization, genocide, propping up dictatorships, mass-depopulation, stealing resources, military occupations, institutionalized rape and slavery...
How the hell do you justify your "fuck these guys, they're annoying me, kill them all" attitude to yourself? You want them to leave you alone? It's really simple. Leave *them* the fuck alone.
I don't know how much more of this world I can stand. The ignorance and stupidity and *immorality* of even the intellectual elites of modern society disgust and frighten me.
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It's a never ending game of whack-a-mole. And anyone who tries to do something gets castigated and scorned for interfering in someone elses business. As long as the trouble makers confine themselves to their own country we should do nothing unless the country experiencing the problems specifically ask for assistance in writing. They should also expect a bill for services rendered.
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Have any more handy guilt-by-association arguments?
In reality, though, when "I" hear about it, it's more in-line with the statistical facts, the facts being it's the kind of "always" where "always" isn't even the majority of cases--that status being held by the family members of the victim themselves.
Re:Given the UN's track record in Africa... (Score:5, Insightful)
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People are complicated, but the delusions are simple. Anyway, you don't punish people for having delusions; you treat them.
With napalm!
I think I have to treat you with a facepalm.
Not justice (Score:3)
The indiscriminate justice you advocate...
What he is advocating is not justice, indiscriminate or otherwise. There are many peace loving islamic people and tarring them with the same brush as the extremists is just ignorant. If you are not convinced then think about another collective group: your country. Would you want to be held accountable for the actions of your government? Assuming you are in a democracy, you have far more control their actions that than a muslim has over the actions of other muslims.
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There are many peace loving islamic people
I think that you're forgetting the namespace issue: Islam::PEACE and WesternWorld::PEACE are two different values.
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Well, you gotta start somewhere...
Sadly, it might seriously be time for considering a modern version of the crusades. But without the religious slant on our side. These islamists are basically invading again like before, heck, look at what its doing to Europe right now. In the past, well, there was p
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So, why don't we quit pretending and searching them so closely and turn our attention more directly on islamists around us in our countries and focus more on containing and pushing back against their countries that are openly antagonistic against us.
Because violence begets more violence. The greatest marketing tool for Al Qaeda is the claim that America is in a war against Islam. There is nothing to be gained by making that claim factual.
Re:Given the UN's track record in Africa... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Given the UN's track record in Africa... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's clear the spreading of disbelief is the real motivator here. Kill in the name of God.
It's really about pursuit of power, as in: They who are not in power want to be and will use any means to achieve their ends, including corrupting interpretation of their own "faith" to achieve these ends. It really isn't anything about spreading the good word of the Prophet, who would probably be outraged at the practices these people engage in, recruiting people to become suicide attackers/bombers.
Never attribute to religion what greed and malice can easily explain.
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If they are, they're doing a piss poor job of being "aggressive".
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I'm surprised more people haven't stopped to think about what the UN's (and indeed, other world authorities) policies actually do to developing countries. These attacks would not have happened unless something was going on that they found objectionable enough to kill over. A google search turns up a particularly informative book on the subject entitled Looting Africa. [ukzn.ac.za] (Large PDF)
Apparently not everyone is happy when you hand their national resources over to a foreign company.
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"These attacks would not have happened unless something was going on that they found objectionable enough to kill over. "
many use the ancient writings of a madman in a holy book to use as their justification to kill.
Re:Given the UN's track record in Africa... (Score:5, Funny)
many use the ancient writings of a madman in a holy book to use as their justification to kill.
Come on, the words of Adam Smith or Karl Marx aren't that old to be called ancient.
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western money has an influence on whether these book gain or lose following. for example, no meddling in the middle east since the 40's would certainly have had a beneficial effect.
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All "holy books" call for violence. Except for one, Buddah does not call for it in any instance.
Re:Given the UN's track record in Africa... (Score:5, Insightful)
All "holy books" call for violence. Except for one, Buddah does not call for it in any instance.
And yet, Buddhists have committed and still commit violence [wikipedia.org] in the name of their religion. People are funny creatures, aren't they?
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Yes they are, they find justification to kill each other all anywhere they can find it.
Re:Given the UN's track record in Africa... (Score:5, Informative)
If people really studied what the New Testament is calling people to do, you wouldn't find anything objectionable. It is all about, love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, self-control, forgiveness, repentance, humility, etc... What is wrong with any of that? Nowhere in the New Testament (again, the instructions for followers of Christ today) does violence upon anyone even come into the picture. Read it before making blanket statements.
Re:Given the UN's track record in Africa... (Score:4, Insightful)
That is NOT what christian churches teach.
And don't even try to tell me that the bible has not been used for the justification of murder. See the history of the Roman Catholic church for a plethora of examples.
I know intimately what Christ said and taught, that has nothing to do with what Christians believe and do. And his teachings are certainly not being followed in any large organized churches.
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Lumpy, Of the many, many churches I have been involved with over 30 years, 100% have taught exclusively that a Christian life is one of tolerance, peace, love, self control and virtue.
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Re:Given the UN's track record in Africa... (Score:4, Informative)
I've read the Bible over 15 times straight through. If you want to argue me on verses, i will quote the entirety of the New Testament (with nothing taken out of context). If you want to quote the Old Testament, I will simply say that it is a great example of the problems of man and struggle that God had in trying to deal with a sinful world...which led to the need and solution found in Jesus.
Please don't quote the evil done in the name of Jesus when it was never Jesus who said they should do that. That is simply more and more examples of men screwing up big time and trying to justify their actions with religion. I don't like any religion...including the spirit of religion that has captured a lot of Christians. I believe in a relationship with God and follow Christ. It is good. there is NO EVIL in what He did or says to do....ever!
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yes, in the biblical concept, God create the angel that we now refer to as Satan, but the angel was created good and was good until pride caused him to think he was as good as his creator
Re:Given the UN's track record in Africa... (Score:4, Interesting)
God is all powerful but in allowing free will (giving you the ability to choose) He has allowed evil as much as we desire it. People choose evil. You may not choose God. Who do you choose? If you are not for Him, you are against Him. Do you know who else is against God? Evil doesn't force itself on people. If God didn't allow this choice, you would be called a robot and have only good to do and not allowed to do anything else. The next logical question is why should there be free will. The answer is that love is only love when it is freely chosen. If your child is forced to love you, is it really love? If your child chooses to love you, you know the difference.
God is good, all the time. He does allow evil, but never condones approves or encourages priests to do evil things. That is each person's choice.
These are good questions. Keep them coming!
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God is all powerful but in allowing free will (giving you the ability to choose) He has allowed evil as much as we desire it.
You appear to be arguing that the potential for evil is a necessary requirement of free will. Correct?
If so, that's just another way of saying that god is not omnipotent. That His will is constrained by some other force that requires free will to include the potential for evil. That God can not create a universe in which evil simply does not exist, just as this universe has all kinds of physical laws of nature that He could have defined to work some other way if He so desired it. A truly omnipotent God
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You forgot the argument that, if God is omnipotent, can he create a rock so big that he can't move it? Either way you will claim then He is not omnipotent. He is not constrained by anything except Himself. He could say at any moment, "Enough is e
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No. God is a big boy. He isn't frustrated in heaven wondering what went wrong. It's no a surprise to him that evil would take the course it did. It was his plan back at the time of creation that He would send His son to die for our evil. That is what Jesus did.
I don't see how deliberately choosing to create a system that includes evil so that people can struggle with it is a good thing when there is the option to simply not have evil at all.
I didn't say that God couldn't create a universe without evil. He chose to create it this way. When I get to heaven, I'll ask Him why he did it this way.
That sounds like a version of "it is not for us to judge" which isn't particularly convincing.
BTW...thank you for not being rude, condescending, or arrogant in this discussion. It makes an intelligent discourse possible. It seems to show lack of intelligence when people just end with calling names. So, thank you again for that!
Don't worry, I save that for people who use their faith to rationalize persecution of other people. I believe in the saying that "When you read the Bible, the Bible also reads you" - people with malice in their heart will find malice
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God is all-knowing and did know that this was going to happen and had a plan in place to deal with it...Jesus
God is all powerful but in allowing free will (giving you the ability to choose) He has allowed evil as much as we desire it. People choose evil. You may not choose God. Who do you choose? If you are not for Him, you are against Him. Do you know who else is against God? Evil doesn't force itself on people. If God didn't allow this choice, you would be called a robot and have only good to do and not allowed to do anything else. The next logical question is why should there be free will. The answer is that love is only love when it is freely chosen. If your child is forced to love you, is it really love? If your child chooses to love you, you know the difference.
God is good, all the time. He does allow evil, but never condones approves or encourages priests to do evil things. That is each person's choice.
These are good questions. Keep them coming!
The best thing about religion is that when something good happens, it's god's doing. When something bad happens, it's man's own fault out of free choice.
Really can't lose with that can you? :-)
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I think it started much earlier still, I am guessing the Romans already did that. But removing the influcence of the last 70-80 years alone would have been marvellous.
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I'm gonna hafta side with Lumpy on this one: many African dictators and warlords are simply crazy. Several countries were put into severe straits by the imperialism of the 19th century, which has created a vicious cycle. The most notorious is the Congo Free State, which was abused by Belgians acting without governmental authority; the atrocities committed then are more than sufficient, on their own, to explain continued horrors like the LRA and the Rwandan genocides.
Between the extremism of religion and the
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Re:Given the UN's track record in Africa... (Score:4, Interesting)
> These attacks would not have happened unless something was going on that they found
> objectionable enough to kill over.
I think it more likely that these attacks would have been differently justified. That or these attacks would have been different attacks. The group is a militant group with a clearly larger agenda than opposing the UN.
That said, the best propaganda does have some truth to it. If there wasn't some sentiment already in this direction, then these attacks would be pointless. I am reminded of the talk of newspeak and the idea that big brother being good could be so ingrained in a language that to even say the opposite would seem, on its face, wrong. Just try to replace the UN with the Redcross or Doctors without Borders, and a lot less of us will be sitting here saying "well they have a point..."
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I can understand how they would view the UN in such a way
Yeah, but compared to the Islamist militias, they're generally a lot lest rapey and murdery.
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I think a better analogy might be having a bad boss who you don't like. And then one day, a new guy tries to come in and replace this boss. Only the new guy is John Wayne Gacy. And you're pretty sure he's going to kill you and bury you in an unmarked grave if he gets in. In that situation, it may be better to stick with the old boss.
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Since the UN doesn't go around taking over wealthy, stable countries (which would be more profitable), that's a stupid analogy. They're not burgling houses. They're like the cops who go into a violent area of the city and try to prevent crime.
Your line of thought is more like people living in a ghetto who buy into the "no snitch" program because they hate cops more than each other.
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Unfair to the UN and unfair to wealthy nations. If they didn't do anything at all, the poorest people in the world would be much worse off and literally millions of people would have died of starvation and disease. Helping countries with corrupt governments (almost all of Africa) or no government at all (such as Somalia) is a more difficult problem than you think and in every place where Islamic radicals operate they make that problem much more difficult.
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I am now immune to dystopic fantasy (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I am now immune to dystopic fantasy (Score:5, Informative)
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I am pretty sure that tweeting that you are suicide bombing a 'merchant of death' requires the OED to make a new notation on the irony page.
well they're giving away gpl death.
How it probably went down in tweets (Score:5, Funny)
starting 2 attack un compound lol #somaliinsurgency
just killed another 1! he wont go home 2 his family 2nite lol
guns empty, got 2 reload in the middle of fight #thirdworldproblems
bullet just smashed through bffs skull! wtf assholes #thirdworldproblems
just collected friends brain matter from wall, going 2 sell on ebay lol
just took bullet 2 arm lol eww feel blood running down past elbow
going in for suicide attack lol! brb
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This is surprisingly funny. ^^^
dammit slashdot (Score:4, Interesting)
I'll bet clicking on that Twitter link put me on some kind of list, and I needed to fly somewhere later this month!
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Followed (Score:5, Funny)
Please RT
Hmm (Score:2)
"UN is 'a merchant of death & a satanic force of evil"
so we kill them all, muwahahaha.
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it's more of "UN is stepping on our protection money racket.. erm.. taxes collection".
it's politics over there, not religion that is driving it. gangland/tribal politics. about taxing, about local monopolies, about local power.
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Because religion over there has nothing to do with tribalism, politics, and power?
Seriously? (Score:2)
Whoever runs this Twitter account has better grammar and spelling than 99% of Americans.
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FTFY
Crazy as hell (Score:2)
I wonder what those tweets looked like.
I don't understand the use of Twitter (Score:2)
After looking at the feed for this group, it contains a bunch of reporters trying to speak to them. Only on twitter would you see a member of the associated press type a message like this:
@natemook @HSMPRESS1 So in ur idea of journalism u ONLY speak 2 peep who don't kill/respect human rts? How do u expect 2understandextremism?
It reads like a teenager talking to equally less caring friends. Why has twitter of all things become such a figurehead over these kinds of communications? It seems asinine.
The revolution will be twittered (Score:2)
Don't worry though (Score:2)
The UN has already blamed the Jews.
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The people engaging in these attacks represent a minority of the people who live there.
Re:Why... (Score:5, Interesting)
And the people who live there aren't doing a fucking thing about it are they? Do you think they don't know who it is?
Why is it they I'm guilty for standing aside and watching a crime against humanity, but they are absolved?
If they had such a problem against it, they'd do something about it. They do not. They are only slightly different than the ones actually perform the bombings.
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I'm sure some of them try do something, although I'm sure some of them are dead now. Do we abandon them?
Of course, most people just go with the flow. Do you condemn them for being human?
Despite this setback conditions in Somalia are improving. Pretty good for the most lawless place in the world.
Re:Why... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Why... (Score:2, Insightful)
Germany, early 20th century. Not very many madmen, initially. Yet they acquired power and then they managed to keep population in fear, didn't they? Many more examples before and after.
It's not that difficult for people with agenda to establish control if they have access to weapons (as opposed to the rest od the population), don't hesitate to use violence and know how to use propaganda, religious or otherwise. Religious propaganda or any other based on superstition(s) has worked very well since eons until
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The elephant in the room is Islam. It is a different proposition to be opposing say a communist militia in your country and opposing an Islamist militia. People who are thought from childhood to believe that Koran is a literal word of God cannot reasonably oppose Jihadists who are fighting infidels for the glory of Islam, because that is what God clearly orders them to do! This is the power of religion. When you have people fanatical enough to torture and murder young children in front of their parents for
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Yes, there was so much popular opposition to Communist militias executing people during the Cultural Revolution. After all, those people hadn't been raised to believe in the word of God, just in the word of some guy named Mao.
The power-hungry won't be stopped by something as simple as a secular government.
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To be honest, Mao wasn't that bad. He wasn't any Stalin. He wasn't very friendly to the US, and he had some silly ideas, but he generally had good intentions. As authoritarian dictators go Mao was pretty decent. The real problem is centralized control. But as Somali proves, anarchy isn't all that good either. (Basically, anarchy is unstable against some group establishing a coercive power structure.)
And democracies and republics seem to drift towards authoritarian dictatorships. Britain is a bit of a
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I should add to that, I don't believe in going to destroy their country in a big invasion. I believe we should just leave them alone and let them kill themselves instead of trying to 'save them'.
These sort of problems resolve themselves fairly quickly without outside support. Evolution is a bitch.
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That is absolutely absurd.
For example when you talk about "they" who do you mean? All of them?
Take, for example, drug-dealing in the West... now drug dealers have to conduct business in public and with the public, Al-Shabab do not and can remain relatively hidden during their planning and operations. What percentage of the population of Western Towns and cities do you think could accurately identify or name over 50% of their local drug dealers? I'm guessing it's in the region of a few percent - the other ni
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You're drawing the wrong conclusion from your analogy. Most people don't personally know drug dealers. They don't need to. If an abandoned house in your neighborhood is being used by drug addicts, you know what you do? You call the cops and they clear it out. If the cops are interested (usually they're not, they'll just break up the "party" to placate the people who called them), they can find out who is selling drugs in that area. It's so trivial it's a joke. I'm guessing you're not from the US or you'd kn
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in Afghanistan, the world did nothing when a small group of religious troops start to take over, killing and controlling everything.
No one helped...they were just another group...
All other forces combined would defeat the talibans, but they all were broken apart with regional battles and war lords and one at time they were being defeated by the talibans. After some time the remaining war lords were too weak to defeat then.. and no one helped...
Internal resistance was getting weaker and weaker until most of
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in Afghanistan, the world did nothing when a small group of religious troops start to take over, killing and controlling everything.
Not everyone sat by and did nothing. The US funded and helped foster the Taliban, according to Selig Harrison from the Woodrow Wilson International Centre [infowars.net]:
The CIA made a historic mistake in encouraging Islamic groups from all over the world to come to Afghanistan. The U.S. provided $3 billion for building up these Islamic groups, and it accepted Pakistan's demand that they should decide how this money should be spent.
The old associations between the intelligence agencies continue. The CIA still has close links with the ISI (Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence).
Today that money and those weapons have helped build up the Taliban, Harrison said. The Taliban are not just recruits from 'madrassas' (Muslim theological schools) but are on the payroll of the ISI. The Taliban are now "making a living out of terrorism."
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Of course the locals know that their neighbors are plotting to kill. The locals also know that if they stop their neighbor's plot, they'll be dead by the end of the week. They don't have body armor, helmets, tanks, bodyguards, or even so much as a solid front door. They are absolutely powerless against the people with guns, so we send in the UN troops. They're trained soldiers with all the equipment they need to do what the locals can't. That changes the game, and the locals now have to publicly pretend to
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You are guilty because some very well-meaning but strategically inept white people realised that the imperial powers that colonized Africa in the 19th century basically sold the entire continent guns without any attempt at training. Most of the time, they left afterwards.
And most of the time, these were not literally guns, but ideas: Christianity, capitalism, democracy, bureaucracy, self-determination... These are all very powerful tools that can be used to positive effect by a mind from the right culture,
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Matthew Parris: As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God [richarddawkins.net]
Are Savages Noble? [reason.com]
The Effect of Cell Phone Coverage and Political Violence in Africa [journalistsresource.org]
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I think all of those more or less underscore my point; to avoid doing more harm than good, there are a lot of deep cultural changes that need to be seen through to the end before simply throwing technology and ideas at a group of people. Science fiction belabours this point endlessly, although it rarely goes beyond the surface.
The idea of an atheist prescribing religion isn't really a new one, either; you can hardly look at history without realising that's why we developed religion in the first place. The h
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But I agree with the Anon Coward. The majority that live there want peace? Let them fix their own house then. Maybe some support but enough with trying to police the world. Quarantine the problem areas and let the supposedly peaceful majority take control then we can negotiate with them. You can't negotiate with people who are perfectly content to blow up 100 of their own people to kill a few infidels.
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The Germans involved in the Holocaust were a minority of the overall German population. But we bombed the crap out of the entire country anyways.
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Yes. we bombed the shit out of berlin for days on end. Why? because that was the only way to stop the evil people. you had to kill others to get the evil people.
Why dont the UN just fire up gatling guns and mow down the whole frigging crowd attacking?
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You fight murderous forces with murderous forces, only a fool would try to do otherwise. Read the "art of war".
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The UN is never going to convince these people that they are the good guys, because to them they're not the good guys. The UN should be trying to convince the rest of the world that they are the good guys. And that means killing the bad guys.
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We didn't bomb them to stop the Holocaust, we bombed them to win the war. Germans started it by bombing the crap of civilian areas all over Europe at the beginning of the war, sinking civilian ships etc etc. It was that kind of war.
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Yes, but not to protect foreign interests, only to limit American rights.
Do I hear sirens?
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So the nuts can use social networking too. Heck of a lot faster than mailing your insane manifesto to news organizations.
Would have been interesting if Twitter was around in the days of the Unabomber (and incredibly ironic if he used it).
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Considering that the attacks were described as "suicidal", calling the perpetrators "cowards" seems gross misuse of the language. "Crazed" is plausible, but needs more evidence. 'Fanatic bigots" seems more justifiable.