Comment by ceejayoz | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ceejayoz | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> almost one in four British Muslims believe that the 7/7 attacks on London were justified

The same line states "although 99 per cent thought the bombers were wrong to carry out the atrocity", which is a pretty important thing to omit.

> Your counterargument that American's feel similarly to unintended casualties in war when targeting enemy combatants is very very weak. Who were the enemy combatants on the London subway system? Who were the enemy combatants on the double-decker bus?

I'm simply arguing that the wording "can violence against civilians sometimes be justified" is vague enough it could encompass precisely those sorts of unintended casualties.

I'd be more interested in a poll asking "can violence specifically targeted against civilians be justified". I'd also be interested in the reasons cited by those answering yes. Plenty of Americans feel today that the bombing of Hiroshima was appropriate, despite it falling well within that category.

> I'd be more interested in a poll asking "can violence specifically targeted against civilians be justified"

The survey we're discussing asked "can suicide bombing and other forms of violence against civilian targets to defend Islam be justified". Note "against civilian targets".

> The same line states "although 99 per cent thought the bombers were wrong to carry out the atrocity", which is a pretty important thing to omit.

That was from a different survey, done a year prior to the one I quoted. I don't debate that moods shift in the muslim population, hence the link to all the surveys I'm aware of.

> The survey we're discussing was "can suicide bombing and other forms of violence against civilian targets to defend Islam could be justified". Note "against civilian targets".

I'd reiterate that Americans believe that themselves.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/08/04/70-years-aft...

> [T]he share of Americans who believe the use of nuclear weapons was justified is now 56%, with 34% saying it was not.

> I'd reiterate that Americans believe that themselves.

You really don't see the difference?

Americans justify the use of nukes on the basis of the war being just. For example, if we'd nuked Japan because we thought sushi was an abomination, approval of our use of nukes would plummet. If we'd nuked Japan after the war, approval would plummet. If we killed Japaneese Americans rather than Japaneese, approval would plummet. This is why it's dishonest to equate approval of the wartime use of nukes to the approval of the suicide bombing of civilians on a subway. The foundational beliefs have no similarity.

Also, saying that a large percentage of muslims feel like they are in combat with their countrymen doesn't make it any better... if anything it just makes the survey data scarier.

From http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/sleepwalking-toward-armag...

> More British Muslims have joined the ranks of ISIS than have volunteered to serve in the British armed forces.

This is a defensive 'just war', in view of some of the perpetrators, as articulated by one here: "...If the United States does not get out of Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries controlled by Muslims, he said, "we will be attacking U.S.," (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06... also http://www.salon.com/2010/06/22/terrorism_22/) There are very similar statements from the likes of bin Laden, Aiman al-Jawahiri, and even the brutal crazies of Daesh also reportedly made similar claims.

In my brief explorations, I found that Jews found shelter in the Muslim Spain in an era when Europe was in full force to get rid of the 'Jewish problem'. Fair share of the likes of Andrei Breivik and Dylann Roof are also in the present Muslim world, especially in this neo-colonial era.

> Americans justify the use of nukes on the basis of the war being just.

So would ISIS. You really think they're all sitting around going "gee, we're assholes and this what we're doing is wrong and unjust, but let's keep going!"? They think they're fighting a just war of survival against a new wave of Christian crusaders.

Sure, it's wrong, but it's a belief genuinely held.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com