You're shifting focus.

Post #18,820 by Brandioch 11/19/01 2:21:30 PM Reply	You're shifting focus. We started off with people who UNKNOWINGLY shielded the attacker. Your example of someone dressing as a fan of one team and attacking fans of the other team. Now you're to the point of discussing people who actively support the attacker. Instead of that, why don't we continue to focus on the reactions of the people who don't fully support the attacker yet. The one's that form the crowd he is hiding in. You go to a ball game. You're cheering your team. Arabs start shooting at the crowd you're in. Hitting and killing many of you. But they were just trying to get the one person hiding in your crowd. Feel free to blame the person they claim to be shooting at. Rather then them for actually killing the people who weren't involved. Again, full circle. Let's breed another generation so we can continue the bombing.
Post #18,823 by drewk 11/19/01 2:40:27 PM Reply	You left out a few parts from the analogy Like the parts where the crowd I'm in is told that there is a "criminal" in our midst. Shown pictures of what he looks like. Told what he did and shown footage of the thousands of dead he caused. Told what section of the stands he is in. Told that that section will be targeted in 15 minutes and anyone still in it will be considered a willing collaborator. Okay, the analogy is getting stretched. But I know that's your preferred method of debate: focus on the flaws in an analogy rather than the insight it may provide. Any analogy that so closely matches the original situation as to have no arguable differences is no longer an analogy, but the thing itself. So rather than trying to refine my analogy any further, I'll go back to the original formulation: If a combatant hides among non-combatants in an explicit effort to cause them to be targeted, he is at fault for their deaths. We have to fight the terrorists as if there were no rules and preserve our open society as if there were no terrorists. -- [link\|http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/05/opinion/BIO-FRIEDMAN.html\|Thomas Friedman]
Post #18,827 by Brandioch 11/19/01 2:57:47 PM Reply	Think about that. We've bombed sites that we KNOW he is not in. We've hit civilians because of that. Care to reconsider your example? I agree, >IF< we could do what you say, then it would be easy to justify. But when they know what he looks like AND They know he isn't near them AND We bomb them THEN We are at fault

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