14% of North Africans and Middle Easterners Believe Targeting Civilians is Sometimes Justified

Unless you want to declare an open city and get rhetorically emasculated for the next three-quarters-of-a-century by your oldest ally, your administrative and economic centers will be considered military targets in a declared war and civilians deaths will be unavoidable. If you're talking about all the undiagnosed manic depressives using religious scripture as a pretext for murder-suicide, probably not.

 

The Axis of evil during 1943 had no problem fire bombing German, British and Russian cities. Its not always psycho's committing the atrocities.

 

I believe the context of Mathloom's point is referring to the Pew research polls that are shoved down everyone's throat anytime someone suggests that a majoirty of Muslims aren't psycophaths.

 

It IS sometimes justified, just not very often. This just means that 86% of North Africans and Middle Easterners got that question wrong.....and then consider that 74% of them got the first question wrong too it makes you think that maybe they just aren't very good at polls.

 

No it's never justified. O wait, that's a normative statement. Stop making it into a positive one.

 

Sounds like you're re-framing declared wars or sovereign police actions as murder, then excluding domestic terrorism to squarely condemn US and the UK.

 

You still aren't grasping the intent. I'm sure you've seen these Pew research polls that are constantly posted here about significant portions of Muslims in various regions that support certain violent precepts of Sharia Law. I think Mathloom's point is if you want to use polling data as valid evidence of a certain groups values then you have to accept that Americans place less value on civilian life than North Africans, Middle Easterners and Europeans.
It's that simple.

 

An issue with what the guy in the video is trying to do with this data is that he's suggesting a link between the answer to the first question and the answer to the second question where there is no link. You can support a violent interpretation of Sharia law without "targeting civilians". The death penalty isn't "targeting civilians" it's just a punishment for a crime. You could support cutting someone's balls off for rape and you wouldn't be targeting civilians, you'd just be carrying out a sentence.

Just because they got the answer to both questions wrong doesn't mean that they don't support violence.

 

Says the guy who worked for a dictatorship that holds slaves from South Asia and has a terrible human rights record.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/johann-hari/the-dark-side-of-dubai-1664368.html

Here is more:

http://wereblog.com/the-dark-side-of-dubai

Remember, Mathloom worked or works for the government that exploits South Asian workers as slaves. He is an enabler of slavery. He also made the following statements here: He said he wanted a cartoonist who drew Mohammed to live in fear for the rest of his life and he blamed a woman who got raped. That is the same guy who has been making insane Islamist anti-USA rants like the above on this site for years.

 

Targeting civilians is sometimes justified. If the civilian in question is, for example, operating as a forward observer for a mortar team, he can certainly be targeted. If a civilian is trying to kidnap a child, of course he can be targeted, even by non-military personnel. It is a bizarre way to phrase a question when what I think they are trying to get at is whether or not the respondents think terrorism is sometimes justified. They should have given a more concrete example. Had they asked something like, "Do you think the (Hamas rocket attacks against Israeli cities/attack on the Charlie Hebdo office/Paris attacks/San Bernardino attack) are/was justifiable?" I imagine we would have seen very different results.

 

You're right, of course. Americans are so violent, we need to secure our border and eliminate immigration, so as not to endanger the billions of poor foreigners who want to move here for a better life. It's for their own safety.

 

If a person is operating as a forward observer for a mortar team then they are definitely not a civilian.

 

They are not a non-combatant, but they may still be a civilian. Civilian means not a member of the armed forces. If some kid on a cell phone calls in a position to a mortar team, he does not become a member of the military, but he does become a legitimate target. That to me is the problem with the question, and it makes the results meaningless. Even if you disagree with my analysis of who is a civilian and who is not, I would have answered that targeting civilians is sometimes justified based on that.

 

They are actively taking part in hostilities, which would not make them a civilian by any kind of definition.

 

No... Any combatant is not a civilian. In your definition of 'civilian', members of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda are civilians. Neither entity is part of a formal standing military. That would mean any insurgent force and all COIN operations, the enemy are civilians. Just no...

 

I suppose Merriam Webster's online dictionary doesn't provide definitions of words in your estimation?

Setting aside the non-military personnel that aid military operations directly, would you consider any of the following both civilians and legitimate targets:
1. people working in an arms manufacturing plant, either conventional or nuclear/biological/chemical
2. spies
3. criminals actively engaging in activities such as armed robbery, rape, attempted murder, or kidnapping

 

The Geneva Conventions are what most would use to define a civilian. This is generally any person who is not engaging in hostilities to the conflict (particularly Article 5):

Art. 5 Where in the territory of a Party to the conflict, the latter is satisfied that an individual protected person is definitely suspected of or engaged in activities hostile to the security of the State, such individual person shall not be entitled to claim such rights and privileges under the present Convention as would, if exercised in the favour of such individual person, be prejudicial to the security of such State.

Where in occupied territory an individual protected person is detained as a spy or saboteur, or as a person under definite suspicion of activity hostile to the security of the Occupying Power, such person shall, in those cases where absolute military security so requires, be regarded as having forfeited rights of communication under the present Convention.

A person who is "actively engaging in activities such as armed robbery, rape, attempted murder, or kidnapping" would still be a civilian. A criminal as well, but still a civilian. If those activities they were engaging in were against any of the hostile parties to the conflict, then they would forfeit the rights of a protected person (civilian).