That .0001% is usually the difference between indifference of the soldiers and lobbing mortars into a base.
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Doubtful. Anyone angered enough by it to take violent action was almost certainly already on the "side" of the folks who got peed on and would have acted violently anyway. Everyone else is like "Yeah, that's not a very nice thing to do. Lets go get a beer".
And in case anyone was confused, I repeated it again:
gbaji wrote:
Yup. And those people are unlikely to progress from ambivalence (or even willingness to help) to "lobbing mortars" at us just because some of our soldiers peed on some guys they'd killed. They are most likely to simply *not* help us. I've never said that there are no negative consequences, nor do I think there should be. I'm simply responding to claims that this will have some significant effect on violence towards us.
It wont. As I said above, those who'd take such offense at this that it would drive them to engage in violence were already well on their way there anyway.
And just in case some were still confused, I repeated it yet again:
gbaji wrote:
Most people will say "tsk tsk". They might even demand an apology. That's about it. I'm sorry, but I just don't believe that very many people would not turn to violence when we run around with our military in their country, still not turn to violence when overthrow their current leaders and replace them with ones more friendly to us, still not turn to violence when we bomb villages and what little infrastructure they have, still not turn to violence when we impose curfews, still not turn to violence as their mobility within their own country is limited by armed soldiers at checkpoints, still not turn to violence when we kill their fellow countrymen, but learning that some soldiers peed on the body of someone they killed will be the magical trigger that sets them off on a course of violence.
What part of my posts were unclear about this? I was talking about to what degree such an act would increase violence against us. It's not going to turn otherwise peaceful folks into suicide bombers. It might be used as a rationale for a specific attack, but by people who'd use something else for said rationale anyway.
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By trying to paint lolgaxe as some kind of bigot, you're just showing that you've lost your tenuous grasp of what on earth's being discussed.
When I argue that folks not inclined towards violence against us aren't going to start doing violence against us because of this incident and he insists that I'm wrong because I just don't understand how easily those Aghans become violent he's doing a great job of showing his bigotry without me needing to help him. Need I remind you of this little gem?
lolgaxe wrote:
You're using your beliefs to analyze their culture and their situation and their beliefs and how they'll react, and discounting historical evidence that disagrees with you soundly. It's really far from what you would believe. Convoys get attacked because they stopped at a town and one of the male soldiers looked at one of the females for too long. That's all, just looked at and boom. You've ever seen a mob of people go from indifferent to violent simply because someone grab an arm that was trying to slap them?
He's attributing the tendency towards responding to minor events with violence as an aspect of their culture. He's
blaming me for not seeing his view of their cultural tendency towards easily provoked violence. You see no bigotry here? He's making the equivalent of saying "those darkies are all lazy and will rape your women if you don't watch out!". But he's not being bigoted. He's just got a better feel for the culture he's talking about.
Sorry. I disagree. I think he's no different than anyone who attributes characteristics to a group he's not super familiar with based solely on what he's heard about them on TV and in the papers. He's not doing it out of maliciousness. He's almost certainly not even aware that what he said was incredibly bigoted. But it doesn't change the fact that his responses are the result of a false perception about another culture.
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It's not a stretch that some could take to violence based on such inciting.
Some? Sure. But that some represents a very small percentage of the population. And that some represents almost exclusively those who were inclined towards such actions towards us anyway.
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Never know what straw will break the camel's back.
Sure. But at the risk of repeating myself, when you're one minor straw away from strapping bombs on yourself and killing some folks, that "last straw" will happen even if this event isn't it (or doesn't happen). It's somewhat absurd to insist that the entire rest of the world cease doing anything which might make someone upset because that one thing might just be that last straw.
[quote]And it only takes one to cause very detrimental negative consequences to those soldier's actions.
Especially when his argument was that everyone who would attack us over this was going to attack us anyway...