I’m sure you saw in the news that the three men convicted of carrying out the Bali bombings were executed by firing squad at the weekend. Was that the right way to punish them? And will this deter others who may consider such attacks?
Would it help combat terrorism if all countries, regardless of their domestic laws, agreed that certain terrorist acts will be punished with execution? Or are some of you right to be pre-occupied about creating martyrs? Is killing these men likely to make the fundamental problem worse?
Remember, we’re talking about the death penalty’s use in response to acts of terrorism, not its general use. Or maybe that’s a pointless distinction.
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The death penalty is pointless when dealing with a group of people who are often willing to commit suicide to further their cause….and it does indeed create martyrs to “inspire” future terrorists.
Well, then we must also ask, is Terrorism essential?
Those who are or would be terrorists actively engage in violent actions (that usually intends to cause death to numerous innocent people) as an expression of their dissatisfaction with the ways things are.
Eye for an eye, perhaps?
Execution may well feed the martyedom of terror within the ranks of the disenchanted. However, some may fear the risk and hesitate and to that extent, lives may be saved. A more barbaric demise may prove more effective deterant; crusifiction for example. On the justice front, there are now 3 less terrorists in the world to finance and do more harm or risk “hostigates in trade for their release”.
The death penalty is always a necessary option for all heinous crimes. It is a Lawyers job to negotiate a better deal for their client. Where they end usually depends on where they start. If a criminal has a bunch of bodies buried or links to other involved criminals, you want the prosecutor to be able to say, “ok if you give us the information we need, we will take the death penalty off the table.” With out the death penalty, the prosecutor will have to say, “we know you have raped and killed at least a few other children, but to find their bodies, we are willing to take ‘life in prison’ off the table.” Same way with “terrorist”. While they might not be as responsive, it is a useful tool to say, “you committed this bombing, there is no doubt. We know you took orders from further up. Give us that info and we will not seek the death penalty.” It all about having a bargaining chip. Every now and then you will have to kill one so his buddy knows you are serious.
Doesn’t seem like the death penalty would be much of a deterrent since Terrorists are by nature violent and willing to die for their cause. Being executed only turns them into Martyrs for the cause for future generations. The Death Penalty serves no deterrent purpose for any crime since much violent crime is crime of passion. The terrorist Timothy McVeigh and now the assassination plotters are not thinking about what is going to happen to themselves later, they are only thinking about their fanatic causes and want to make a splash for history.
I am not opposed to the death penalty at all. I think it should be done more often and in more painful ways. If a person commits a crime so hainus as to warrant it, I agree totally. There must, though, be some safe guards. The case should be proven beyond the shadow of a doubt, all appeals exhausted, due process followed. Then the way they are put to death should mirror their crime. If the place a grenade under a child’s bed, then they should be strapped to a bed and a grenade put under them. An eye for an eye. We have a building here in SW Florida that says on it “The first rule of Society is Justice”. I sometimes think that if public execution was brought back people would consider more the ramifications of their actions and not use things as scape goats. “No one loved me so I joined this extreme fundamentalist group for the attention I never had as a child and called it love, then blew up a building because they said it would be a glorious act” What ever! People have been taught for to long that they can get away with anything they want to do based on their age, race, or religion, and I for one scream ENOUGH! Governments should no longer pay for years of care, 3 square meals a day, better healthcare than working law abiding citizens have, and accommidations that include cable tv. But, those are just my feelings.
The death penalty is pointless when dealing with a group of people who are often willing to commit suicide to further their cause….and it does indeed create martyrs to “inspire” future terrorists.
Exactly what I was thinking when I read this topic.
The low ranking members of these groups who carry out the suicide attack have been brain washed into believing that the greatest thing is to die for their cause. What difference does it make whether it by their own bomb or at the hands of those they hate? Their own life has little value to them if they are willing to conduct such senseless acts. So no, the death penaltiy is not essential as is very unlikley to make any difference.
Well if anyone would like to have a look on my blog you would quiet simply see my thoughts on this particular matter. Here r
obert1987.wordpress.com/bali-bombers-h…-been-executed
While it is true that a robust and categoric message needs to be sent to terrorists and would-bes, the death penalty defeats its purpose but rather only hardens these heartless individuals to continue instilling terror on others. As an advocate and member of Amnesty International, i condemn the action of terrorists and at the same time, those who effect the death penalty.
I’d also fear that the penalty would eventually extend to people accused of assisting terrorists or terrorist activities… That would be a step in the wrong direction as it would further the cause for inspiration which Bob noted in his posting.
I think the only really important thing about terrorism is that this sort of proposition is not only dangerous in escalating it , but diverts attention from the real cure.
. Fix other issues such as Palestine question and Western dependency on oil and you inaffect dissipate the fuel on which ‘terrorism’ thrives.
As the saying goes ”.one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter ”
I don’t know why they gave the bodies back to the families,the authorities should have harvested the terrorists organs and cremated the rest and scattered the ashes away from the spotlight.
Is the death penalty essential to fighting terrorism?
Terrorism can be viewed as sedition or treason in some circumstances and war crimes or criminal acts in other situations ,the death penalty should be available as a sanction ,therefore you could say it is essential to have the option.
But terrorists use real issues to commit crimes, not always better a cause for greater good. Besides, if they really wanted to fix problems, then they too should not have to bomb and kill others to achieve that goal, but they do. They think that the only way a problem can be solved is by killing others in such a way as to make them famous. I think the media should stop granting their requests by feeding them air time for their atrocities. But, the death penalty, a public death, might be the better cure. Maybe a slow public death. No martyrs, just crying begging cowards in the end.
I also agree with Bob in Queensland – execution is pointless for people who consider death a success.
We need to rethink our ideas of “cruel and unusual” punishment for these people. Perhaps a more effective deterrent would be whatever their philosophy or religion considers the worst possible outcome – castration, perhaps, along with a life sentence.
I’m opposed to the death penalty under any circumstances. It diminishes the society that executes in cold blood even the worst villains.
Terrorists often feel they have their reasons to stand on what they see as the moral high ground. One should at least consider the roots of their chagrin, if only to refute their claims.
Society should not take away lives as punishment. There is always the remote possibility of remorse. Many terrorists would prefer martyrdom to spending the rest of their lives in jail. Better to give them years to consider and perhaps regret their actions.
As for those who suggest crucifixion or grenades under the bed, where is your moral authority? You are descending to the level of the perpetrators.
@eileen in virginia
I am curious….are you anti-abortion as well?
Death is not the best punishment for a criminal. Life without parole is the best way to punish even terrorists. Once a person dies, they no longer feel any pain or remorse, that does not deter crime.
ASK YOURSELF DOES ISLAM TURN A BLIND EYE TO SUICIDE? THEREIN THE PROBLEM LIES.COMPOUND THIS WITH THE HEINOUS ACT OF TAKING INNOCENT PEOPLE WITH THEM.
ONCE AGAIN WE DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH MODERATE ISLAMIC TEACHERS COMING OUT AGAINST THIS FORM OF “EXPRESSION” TO FURTHUR YOUR CAUSE .WOULD THIS SILENCE SOMEHOW SHOW SUPPORT??
THE OUTCRY OVER THEIR EXECUTION WOULD SUGGEST THAT THERE IS A FEAR THAT WOULD ONLY ENCOURAGE OTHERS TO FOLLOW SUIT.YES IF THEY ARE LEMMINGS!! INCARCERATING WOULD ALSO SET THESE THREE UP AS A LIVING PILGRIMAGE AND ROLE MODELS …THE PUNISHMENT WOULD NOT HAVE FITTED THE CRIME!! COME ON ISLAM IF YOUR TEACHINGS ARE SO GREAT WHY RESORT TO DESPERATION .YOUR JUST TEEING OFF AND POLARISING THE WORLD
The use of the death penalty will not change a thing. People like that will continue to do their activities regardless.
I absolutely support the use of the death penalty in instances as the bali, the world should be spared the thought that such terrorists are in jails, breathing fresh air and being catered for by the tax payer after they took the lives of so many people in such grotesque manner. Its only extreme fundamentalist like the killer who will consider them as heroes and martyrs, and not the majority of the people. It was interesting to hear that those bali terrorists argued that death by firing squad is torture when they ripped apart bodies and burned many in raging fire through their actions. May the bali terrorists continue to burn in hell.
Kwabena
It will not stop the hard core, but it my prevent some of the willing or un-willing from assisting them in their insane acts, plus it might help to some degree the relitives left behind to greive.
Regards
@eileen
If you give them forever in prison they can reorganize. They can gain a following in jail, get orders to the outside world and continue on with their terrorists ways. Why should citizens who cant afford food for their families have to pay taxes in order to house some of the most dispicable people the world has ever known.
My moral authority lies with right and wrong. I, as an adult, understand right from wrong and I know that for every wrong action I have there is a consequence. That keeps me on the side of right. If I choose to ignore those laws and commit crimes so bad as to warranty death than I would expect no less.
These terrorists know before the commit their crimes what their punishments can be, but they disregard human life and innocent bystanders. They think their plight is the only one of significance. They care not for the children the victimize, the parents, or grand parents they kill. Why should we hold them in better regard?
I don;t think that the death penalty is helpful in the fight against terrorism. Number of terrorists commit suicide in order to kill thousand of innocent people. And I cannot see the point in killing one more man. Do you really think that if we kill all the terrorist there won’t be such a thing like terrorism.
An eye for an eye… no. Not in this case. Anyway, how many really dangerous terrorists were taken into prison or sentenced?
We have to try to solve the fundamental issues underlying the terrorism.
It can be easy to execute a terrorist. But the challenge is to execute terrorism itself that is spreading in different parts of the world.
Determined terrorists have no fear of death as they consider it as a means to further their perceived notion of jihad. Executing them doesn’t mean much to them as long as- according to their views- they would live in the heart of their supporters and their terrorist act(s) would secure them a place in Paradise.
However their execution is good for society as it will be cleansed of them. It’s better to bury them instead of living them alive as a living memorial of their acts. it is also a means to give relief to the friends and relatives of the victims.
The worst terrorist ideology is the one based on the hatred of people of other faiths and their systems of life. Perhaps there should be a prescription to kill the mentality fostering terrorism instead of killing just the terrorists that can be easily replaced by more zealous ones who see life as worthless without destroying as many innocent lives as possible.
Hello!
Thank you for your email. It’s a hard question to answer but the specified case is simpler.
Intentional loss of life should not go unpunished. How can society live on if terrorists or assailants
would go on killing and get away with it? The loss of life should be the determining factor in passing the laws and setting them in action. One can also imagine that terrorism will burgeon if the laws are tender or dubious. What excuse may there be for intentional killing? Terrorism targets the accidental and the innocent and deadly chaos furthermore. Thank you.
Marija Liudvika Rutkauskaite
Yes, the death penalty is essential to fighting terrorism. However, it should not be the only means of combating acts of terrorism. I think it would be useful as a bargaining chip; if the person is seriously remorseful for their actions they will have no problem giving up dirt on their higher ups.
For people that say that people who think this is an option are villiams; these are not people who are in the best mindset. Excuse me if I don’t feel sorry for them. I would much rather protect innocent bystanders from their whacked out beliefs.
Let’s look at this from the other side of the coin.
If the murdering of innocents is really evil then why are we keeping evil alive?
Is the possibility of “remorse” worth the expense of confining a terrorist, the constant threat to the guards, the stress on the guards and the possibility that smart lawyer will secure his release.
What about the toll on the families of those brutally murdered. As long as the terrorist lives, the pain persists, there is no healing.
I am a death penalty advocate. It is irrelevant if at some distant point in the future a terrorist shows remorse or finds Jesus. These people are the living embodiment of evil and need to be eliminated.
@ Jennifer
Here Here!!!!
It’s cost effective.
The Death Penalty for terrorists does not stop terrorism.
It makes them martyrs, yes, in their estimation; and seemingly in ours…
No retaliatory violent act by the victim ever stops further violent acts against further victims…
Retribution is not a means to to attaining peace…
But- it does give folks a quiet satisfaction to see the buggers squirm as the firing squad takes aim!
JackTheHat
Dear Ros,
I believe that the death penalty, when properly administered is a proper weapon in the fight against extremely violent crimes – mindless terrorism being no exception.
The execution of those men may have well further radicalized some others, but the alternative of allowing them to stay alive, only helps to embolden other would be terrorists. At least with these particular ones dead, the world does not have to worry about them planning terrorist attacks from their prison cells.
Which would we rather it be, the world minus 3 wicked people or the world with 3 wicked people in prison and being taken care of by tax payers’ money?
Hi ros,
such a nice debating topic, ask also “does terrorists have the right to kill people”? no, of course, so if the death penality can be used as an effctive tool in combating terrorism, let it be used and implimented to it fullness capability, because “a dead bird cannot sing, a dead dog cannot bark, a dead snake cannot bite, so a dead terrorist cannot course no more problem to peaceful, innocent people. so to your question, yes.
royston roland
freetown, sierra leone
I’ve no problem with the death penalty, but it’s futile to believe it can by itself make a real difference in the fight against Islamic terrorism (which is the terror we’re mainly talking about).
Anyone prepared to blow himself up, who believes in a Playboy mansion afterlife, and who’s co-religionists have sincerely declared that they are ‘in love with death’, is unlikely to be scared off by the threat of a capital sentence.
What is essential to fighting Islamic terror is what no Western country is presently willing to do: apply a discriminatory and exclusive immigration policy; require mosques to conduct their business in the national language; subject all mosques to police surveillance; close mosques used to preach hate ; strip individuals of their citizenship for sympathising with terror or supporing jihad/sharia, and (where the opportunity arises) deport them to whichever country they have an ancestral connection with. That’ would save more lives than the death penalty ever could.
But this only applies to the West, where Islamic terror can be conceived in terms of the need to extrude an unwelcome presence. I think Islamic terror is now a permanent and ineradicable feature of Muslim countries like Algeria, Iraq, Egypt, Palestine, Pakistan and Indonesia. I suspect most of these places already have the death penalty, for all the good it’s done them.
Hi Ros in my opinion I think it is unfair to execute people everybody deserves a right to live. In any case even if you execute them those who had been killed by this people will not come back to life so let them live. Hope we will talk later I am in class now.
Hi there Lads,ladies and all listeners in the Globe penaltry is not the solution to
terrorists as point of disciplining them but death penaltyhas got no reform at all
unless given psychological support as a way of reforming that person who involved in that acts point in note is that somewhere in the book of bible or exodus : 20 :1 that you shall not kill ,i felt shy to tell the world that there
are those who called themselves that they know human rights that any one is to be condemned but to me with my little theory about the rights of people .
it was agreed that in the universal declaration of human rights if am not mistaken that everyone is born free,also nobody shall be given inhuman treatment or else degrading punishment ,torture of all kind was also abolished as well as detention without trial is like death sentence also in the old testament somewhere stated that
don’t judge and will be judge ,he who charge someone of death penalty will also be judge,otherwise to kill terrorist is not he answer let reform them is the only
am student of Studies in Africa
regards,
The death penalty does not deter crime.
The death penalty is useless in preventing any crimes, including terrorism. There is no evidence that the death penalty deters criminals, from pickpockets in 18th century England who stole silk handkerchiefs at public hangings and were then hanged for it, to suicide bombers today who are ready to die in the course of their terrorist acts, and would therefore be willing to die afterwards. States with the death penalty have higher rates of violent crime than states with no death penalty
Violent states breed violent citizens.
Killing people is wrong. When the state kills people to show that killing people is wrong, it engages in illogical behavior: it demonstrates the punitive vengeance that it is trying to prevent. Actions speak louder than words, and state killing promotes rather than prevents private killing.
Death penalty is another name of terrorisa. The foundation of prevaiuling terrorisam is injustice & Political issues, this is why death penalty may not resolve the issue may create more complecation’s.
In Ireland case religious isues been observed & never been classified as terrorists why?
Death penalty?
This is another way of terrorising. Hence the best way of dealing will be to make them realise their mistake and ensure that others do not repeat the same mistake. If you wish to impose death penalty on the so called terroist, what about Bush and others who supported him against Iraque?
Ros
When has the death penalty ever deterred anyone from doing anything?
I lived through the IRA’s bombing campaign – would killing any of them stopped the bombs? Was Bobby Sands a hero or villain?
It seems that people in general, just don’t learn a thing from history – and that is the saddest part of it all.
@Rachel in California USA
I ask the same question I asked Eileen in VA….are you also anti-abortion?
Let me ask a question of all those opposed to the death penalty,
What if your child was killed by someone on purpose with malace? What would you want to happen to that person?
I for one can say without a shadow of doubt, that if the courts didn’t execute the person, I would. I know, that sounds bad, but if a person has such hate and contempt for others as to kill another, why should they be spared? But if it was my child, better bet they would be hurting before they died.
Now, expand that to the terrorists. They show no feelings toward those they kill, blow up, decapitate, etc, so why should society try and reform them? If they harbor that much hate no matter how much therapy you give them they will kill again. Sociopaths will lie and tell you what you want to hear, “I found God, I’m sorry,” whatever to get freedom, just to do the same thing again. I am not a violent person, but crimes against other people should be answered accordingly. Soft answers cause more problems than they solve.
@ Mandie
I am not a violent person, but crimes against other people should be answered accordingly.
____________________
No one is violent until they feel they have a reason to be violent. That reason may be reality or a creation of the mind. Either way the reason is reality for the person who becomes violent.
Having said that, I sincerely hope that if I ever resort to violence, it will not be for something as primitive as revenge.
@ selena
I disagree, some people are violent because they want the power that threat holds over people. That is the basis for terrorisim. There comes a point that the world community as a whole has to stand up and scream no more. The “war on terror” that Bush ran into and brought allies in on was not the right answer. There are still too many countries who are so scared as to harbor these people and protect them. I feel 3 down, how many more to go?
And, I have to say, primitive or not, if it involved the harm of my children, I would gladly resort in the name of revenge.
Death Penalty can never reduce terrorism what we must know as sane world citizens is that we are fighting an Islamic Ideology(for muslim terrorsits) so entrenched in their hearts that they consider themselves matyrs and Allah heroes. Worse of those who are left in islamic terrorists view the Islamic Terrosists as heroes and want to die for it too. For the terrorists with no ideology I doubt they can die for a cause. Which expalins why Carlos the Jackal has still not given up on life in his French Jail and hung himself.
I disagree, some people are violent because they want the power that threat holds over people.
Well then, that is their reason to be violent? And the question becomes: why do they want power over people?
In all honesty, the death penalty has been so corrupted in nearly every place where it is practised, especially in the US. It is used for political ends, to oppress women, and in what seems to be an attempt at ethnic cleansing.
If it were used properly, the death penalty might have some effectiveness as a deterrent to terrorism. However, in the hands of our corrupt world leaders, it will only be a tool of fear and oppression.
-Pink
see me After Hours
@selena in Canada
“And the question becomes: why do they want power over people?”
______________________________________________________
At the risk of being accused of being sexist you’d have to be a male to understand the answer to that question. I think the quest for power is in the genetic makeup of every man.
RE “” three men convicted of carrying out the Bali bombings were executed by firing squad “”
———————————————————————————————–
———– Where’s the justice for their victims?
Usual suspects to be whining about this example of the most humane execution known, but these curs got off easy.
No, their execution won’t solve the problem of Islamic terrorism is the short answer. All it does is give some minor justice of revenge to the surviving friends and family of the victims.
The question of what to do with convicted terorrists has no humane answer. Confining them for life takes away resources from the living and endangers other less violent inmates and guards.
It’s the dilemma of world history, what to do with abject, congenital killers. The Chinese use summary firing squads to a fault. Very cost effective and developing countries have the need to be as cost efficient as possible. They don’t have the luxury of wringing soft hands over the rights of unrepentent.
Better citizens would solve the problem, but evolution has thus far proven to be uncooperative.
@ selena
because they are sick. They like to see people run scared and hide. they like to see people cry and sift through destruction they caused. they want money. they like to go online and find their videos streaming showing innocent reporters and foreign aid workers cower at the thought of losing their heads if they aren’t paid or if some of their fellow extremests aren’t released from jail because society cried to reform them and leave them alive instead of execution.
I’m sorry if you are trying to make me reverse my position, but I believe strongly in it. I am not abdicating blind acts of execution. I do believe due process must be followed and all acts done accordingly.
Not intentional perhaps …but look how the question dictates the debate and the answer ….
I think you have the responsibility to now ask the question .:
. ”is terrorism a symptom rather than a cause”
for as a question…doing what questions do (.as in setting up the answer ) we might end up with some more intelligent answers than we have here .
Well, I’ve already posted why I don’t believe in capital punishment for the specific crime of terrorism. However, if we want to broaden the debate onto the death penalty in general….
….there are two possible motives for have a death penalty:
If you want a deterrent to certain forms of crime, the trouble is there is plenty of evidence that the death penalty has no deterrent effect whatsoever. I suspect this lack of deterrent applies in particular for terrorist crimes for reasons I’ve already stated.
If your motive is revenge, so be it. However I personally object to the death penalty because no legal system can be 100% certain it will not execute an innocent person. So long as there’s any possibility of the wrong person being executed, I can’t support capital punishment.
It simply makes martyrs out of thee terrorists and emboldens their image in their hearts of their cohort of supporters…
Not executing terrorists means they will have a life imprisonment. This means it will be even more costly to society as they will have to be put in top security prisons and ironically enjoying more protection than ordinary criminals.
Even the repentance of the terrorists doesn’t mean much to society or to the relatives of their victims. Justice should be carried out. What matters is that terrorists should be given fair trial. In other words, terrorism shouldn’t be politicized just to give reason for repressive measures. Human rights should be respected for those who respect humanity and not for those who act in barbaric way.
Execution isn’t essentially a deterrent against further terrorist attacks. But at least it minimises the number of potential terrorists. Having a strong law to deal with terrorism is better than wasting time debating whether a general amnesty can make potential terrorists think twice and regain the mainstream instead of continuing to drift in unknown paths in the hope of being upgraded in this life and after death.
@ Will,
When has the death penalty ever deterred anyone from doing anything?
Every time you see a mob hit man roll over on the organization in exchange for having the death penalty removed from the books. Every time a gang member turns on the trigger man in a crime. Every time a serial killer gives up his story and the bodies that eventually helps psychiatrist diagnose the potential behavior. These things come about because they negotiate the death penalty away. These activities save lives.
I think this will create or ignite fresh terrorist activities. Death penalty will not bring the dead back and this will lead to more bombing. Extremist use this chance to recruit more young suicide bombers in the future. You can never fight fire with fire.
Who is Terrorist? Nelson Mandela name was just washed off the “Terrorist List” when he turned 90, so I wonder if these guys we are calling terrorists now could also get washed out and maybe we be called terrorists in the nearby future too, who knows?…. Let’s stop calling names and start to treat or look at these guys as people fighting for some cause, just like every one of us in this room voicing our theories to world crisis. Are we terrorists as well or just “armchair strategists”?
Bob ~ I never believed that the death penalty was a deterrent unless carried out quickly. Here in the States a murderer can live 25+ years on death row. Too bad the victim didn’t have that extra time.
If we are looking for revenge then we are no longer a civilized society.
I am a death penalty proponent for terrorism and murderous acts of true cruelty but it must be carried out swiftly.
@ Mandie
I’m sorry if you are trying to make me reverse my position, but I believe strongly in it.
I am not trying to reverse your opinion. That would mean that I hold dearly to my views, which I don’t. My ideas are always changing and I hope evolving. Yet, I think the idea and reasons for the death penalty is a discussion that should be more widespread.
You hold the opinion that terrorists are “sick”. Yet they see themselves as freedom fighters.
Just as you say you would want to kill any person who would kill your child, they want to kill the people they see responsible for their children being killed. They rejoice when they see the perpetrators killed just as you have said you would, if I understand you correctly.
Don’t you think we should look at why people feel the need for “any eye for an eye”?
Is revenge a raw emotion low down on the evolutionary scale or is it truly justified?
@Dan
To satisfy your curiosity, no I am not against abortion. I fully support a mother’s right to choose.
What I don’t support is the state killing in cold blood.
If the death penalty was efficacious, for anything, it would have been obvious by now. Though I have to say, if it were any of my kids who died, were injured or maimed in the Bali bombing, I wouldn’t have minded a few moments alone with the perpetrators. They wouldn’t have died, but it would have been a memorable occasion for them.
Malc
(Berlin)
@ Dan.
Do you really think ‘the quest for power is in the makeup of every man’? How revealing.
YES. People who uses religions as a way of killing others deserves death penalty but failure by the leaders to executes such a people will be a great injustices to the victims.
@eileen in virginia
With respect…you may think that the two are different things but they are not.
This is not a religious issue but a secular one.
No matter how you parse your words or relabel murder…it is still murder.
A “mothers right to choose” …HA!!…
How about my right to choose to kill some one?
They are the same. Both are Clod Blooded Murder.
@ Paul: you wrote, “Who is Terrorist? …. Let’s stop calling names and start to treat or look at these guys as people fighting for some cause, just like every one of us in this room voicing our theories to world crisis. Are we terrorists as well or just “armchair strategists”?”
Mandela, who was also mentioned by you, was certainly a terrorist, which is not to say that he did not have a respectable cause. When, here in the UK , people of Somali or Pakistanis origin detonate themselves, or attempt to do so, amongst hundreds of innocent people, in support of Palestine, Iraq or some other distant cause which cannot by any stretch of the imagination be described as ‘theirs’, then that’s pure, murderous, evil terrorism. Don’t excuse it by pretending it deserves to be considered in any other light.
@eileen in virginia
“Do you really think ‘the quest for power is in the makeup of every man’? How revealing.”
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
What does it reveal to you?
Boukili. I agree with u that why should criminals be protected more than ordinary people because its just encouraging.
Yes the death penalty is needed, but terrorism is not a law enforcement issue, it
is clearly a military, on the run, attack matter.
We have been at war with Islamic Jihad for some 35 years now. It must be clearly dealt with now rather than for the next 100 years.
The time to sacrafice is now. It will be the toughest war ever. The Germans and the Jappanese were very foolish in that they attempted to use traditional arms and tremendously expensive resources which could be disrupted, and of course they were extremely obvious by wearing uniforms and basically trying to operate outside the civilian populous, which they only particially slipped into. However more civilians died in war than actual soldiers.
We need boots on the ground. Millions of them in order to surround, isolate, then sift through, find and kill the bad guys.
We must use our criminals, train them, then drop them by parachute into identified base camps and areas of suspected human activity. They will be interpreted as enemy soldiers and attacked with full vengance. For sheer survival they, the American criminals and illegal aliens, will have to ally with each other and fight for their own survival. This will approximate more closely the combat of basic olden days, where clashes were decided in a more decisive way. The losers really do know they lost and their lines exterminated.
If we fail at that then a more universal draft of the general society must be reverted to. This limited war, pin prick efforts do not in the remotest work. War must be total. Winnning will leave no doubts.
When enemies interpret the United States to be attacked, they must be prepared to incur horrendous consequences to their very existence. We were at one time able to understand that victory must be total against really hateful enemies. We used weapons of mass destruction against both the Germans and the Japanese
They only attacked isolated military assets of rusting hulks.
The Jihadists did a lot worse and we must respond in far greater viggor and sacrafice than we ever did in WW II. This type of war must be dealt with quickly, and with far more death than we ever used against the Germans and the Jappanese.
War must be total, it must be fairly quick and it must be horrible in terms of actual blood spilled per capita of enemy forces.
The further you move away from the jungle the less realistic we become in dealing with the horrible human enemy. By trying to avoid cost and loss we handicap ourselves into believing we cannot possibly win.
Somebody has to make some bold decisions, radical though they may be, they end up being far more humane than the way we string things out these days.
troop 503-368-7099 or troop.dragonslayers@yahoo.com
ROS. There is Africans proverb say “A MAN IS A HEAD OF A FAMILY BUT WOMAN IS A NECK THAT TURN HEAD AROUND” that is why i say that terrorism will not died out unless Bin Laden is killed or arrested.
By Imposing Death penalty to terrorist, this will create retaliation and encourage new young recruits to become a suicide bombers to take revenge on the government. I think death penalty will only create more problems than fighting terrorism itself. You can kill a man but you can never kill his ideology. I am sure there will be more bombing in the near future.
The death penalty in itself may not deter terrorists, but at least the world would be a lot safer with the execution of such people regardless of the fact that others may regard them as martyrs. An option, aside from the death penalty could be life imprisonment with real hard labor. That way it is not taxpayers’ money that pay for their upkeep, but the sweat of their own brows.
Monrovia, Liberia
Hi my dearest Ros… Oh, to punish the terrorists ?! Wow, how interesting !!! Well guys, I do believe that you guys should take a look at the Iraqi experience in this regard, because here, the ones who are actually punished are the victims of the terrorists, not the terrorists themselves ! :-)… With my love… Yours forever, Lubna…
@VictorK
Don’t excuse it by pretending it deserves to be considered in any other light.
And that is the way you see it and it makes perfect sense to you.
Yet, ‘they’ see it in a light that makes perfect sense to them. No matter how much your views seem legitimate, in your mind, the minds of others see their views as just as legitimate.
Pure, monstrous evil terrorism it may be but not all people see it that way and someone has to make an objective judgment about something that means different things to different people.
The more firm the views the more suspect!
The death penalty is just as much a cowards solution as terrorism. You cannot justify killing because of killing. It is usual for the human race to take the easy way out. We must become responsible in our actions. I believe that anyone who believes in war should get up and get to the front lines and anyone who believes in the death penalty needs to go into the execution chamber and deal the fatal blow. To stand at a distance and decree an activity is cowardice.
i dnt think so.its not essential to execute by hanging-its not only for terrorism but also for any other form of occurance like murder-Defendant might face life imprisonment.
@ Bob and Brett,
Like Selena my stance on some issues evolves based on experience and circumstance. While I struggle with my support for capital punishment every time the issue comes up, I do agree with you that it seems pointless to execute someone who doesn’t value his/her own life. So what is the alternative option for terrorist?
Although, on the flip side as an example, U.S. prisons have proven that a detain person is still capable of leading elaborate crime rings on the outside, so maybe we are safer executing the terrorist. Lock them up and throw away the key to learn their lesson? What lesson is their for them to learn? What kind of inhuman conditions should we lock the people who would who wishes to cause mass causalities to advance their agenda? What kind of reform are we looking for them to have by keeping them alive? Repent? Switch religions? How do we measure remorse or what does remorse even look like for a terrorist?
Dinka: “There is Africans proverb say “A MAN IS A HEAD OF A FAMILY BUT WOMAN IS A NECK THAT TURN HEAD AROUND” ”
Please expand
@Bruce,
I’m willing to go to Afghanistan to hunt down terrorists. Please tell anyone hiring private killers to go there that I am available. I’m an old war marine now 65 years old. Can still do just about everything I ever could in my 20s, but they say I am too old. Be glad to go and take the place of anyone on the local high school football team ….. who is likely to end up being sent. I’d be a better soldier than the young kids who are just so easy to go out and get hurt.
I’m here, I’m ready, I’ll gladly go, but the system is not realistic enough to get the effective ones out there.
troop
@ Dan
RE eileen in virginia and Rachel in California USA comments
“I am curious….are you anti-abortion as well?”
What does it matter? Let me guess, you have an anti-choice stance that has been manipulated into the deluded opinion that somehow it saves a life, all the while neglecting women’s life. So, ladies, lets do keep popping out babies so they can be forgotten in broken school system until they’re old enough to be shipped off to war ill equipped with little to no survive equipment to kill or be killed. If they lucky enough to make it back, don’t worry the government will show them gratitude by not giving you inadequate social services and letting you fall through the cracks into old age.
@ Dan
RE: capital punishment
My stance is on capital punishment is similar to yours, but when you make such statements it makes me want to write to my senators asking them to abolish it. Also, do you think in general people cannot be reformed or just terrorist? In the U.S. it is my understanding that people who “find” Jesus do mot get off from being executed. So why mock someone beliefs?
“As long as the terrorist lives, the pain persists, there is no healing.”
Really and you have been appointed speaker of all who have been affected by unnecessary death? You not speak for me and I have have lost a love one to a terrorists.
The death penalty certainly brings a sense of justice to the surviving relatives of those murdered by the hands of terrorists. However it does not deter murders and in particular terrorism. The motivation of terrorists is so varied that it is beyond our understanding I beleive.
as far as i remember these guys were NOT suicide bombers, that is the reason why they were caught alive!!!! so they did not want to die for there cause. in light of this minor observation, i do believe they deserve the death penalty.
@Selena: lunatic asylums are full of people who consider their views as perfectly ‘legitimate’ – it doesn’t make them any less crazy.
I think every healthy society judges certain acts and (even) opinions as immoral, evil, inappropriate, dangerous, or wrong, and decides what, if any, consequences should follow from engaging in actions or (to a degree) holding opinions so judged. Not to have basic standards and be willing to maintain and defend them is to be a decadent society much like, say, the Netherlands. Dutch society, of course, is dying and on the way to being replaced in a few generations by a new majority-Muslim society. Lack of faith in one’s society is suicidal.
You’re right that the terrorists have their own sense of the rightness of their cause; but I have a sense of the rightness of my society and what it stands for, which the acts and opinions of the Islamic terrorists are directed against., and I’m determined to see that what I and other members of my society believe in should prevail. That’s where discussion ends for me and action begins.
It comes down to this: are you prepared to defend your way of life – using the death penalty or any other means necessary – or are you prepared to surrender your country to the Talibans, bin Ladens, and Jihadists of this world because they hold their belief in their right to conquer the world more firmly then you believe in your right to live free of them?
@Dan
No matter how you parse your words or relabel murder…it (abortion) is still murder.
The question of abortion’s being murder rests upon the sole issue of when life begins.
And there can never be an answer acceptable to all regarding when a human embryo/fetus actually becomes a person.
It is very easy to say (supported by the bible) that life begins with the first breath. In that case abortion is not murder. But if life begins at conception then abortion is murder.
As I see this important issue, the number of weeks or months gestation or the size of the fetus makes no difference. It is all about when life begins!
when any struggle is unsuccessful it is known as terrorism and when it becomes successful it is known as revolution.so we should define clearly what do we mean by terrorism.
@ Selena
“No one is violent until they feel they have a reason to be violent./
You really think so? What about serial killers? Are they not born with some serious mis-wiring in their head? I disagree.
I oppose the death penalty – but not for terrorists who indiscriminately murder for whatever their purported cause.
Such people have no place in a civilised society prepared to respect and recognise the rights of others whatever their race or religion.
Hey Troop, If I remember right the Portland airport isn’t that far away. Get up and get going. I didn’t say they should do it I said YOU should do it. That is the exact opinion I am trying to address.
@ Jens
Really? I thought they were not able to full execute their plan or backed out… or something. Regardless, you’re right it does change things.
———-
@ Pink
“If it were used properly, the death penalty might have some effectiveness as a deterrent to terrorism. However, in the hands of our corrupt world leaders, it will only be a tool of fear and oppression.”
Excellent point!
See me at After Hours too, for a further debate tonight.
@Jessica in NYC and Selena in Canada
Perhaps I was too obtuse and my point was missed.
First let me say that I am NOT anti-abortion but that was not my point.
I find it inconsistent that one is for abortion but against capital punishment. Murder is murder.
Senator Jesse Helms held the precise opposite view and the liberal left pillaged him. Why are you better?
I am just looking for clarity on the issue.
The death sentence is an instituionalized form of revenge. People call it “justice,” but what they really mean is “revenge.” It allows society to extract revenge without having to have an individual being responsible for carrying it out.
Executing terrorists makes us no better than they are, when they brainwash their youthful hotheads into blowing themselves up in a crowd, or when they behead people on the Internet.
Let’s leave such unspeakable behavior to them. Let’s not stoop to their level. Always seek the moral high ground. In the case of terrorism, it should be so easy to do.
@ Jess,
they killed over 202 people in 2002 by remote controlled bombs. As far as I remember they were set off in a tourist area of Bali, to punish the wester people for having a hedonistic life style, ie go on vactions and have fun….
these gguys are NOT suicide bombers, they very much hoped to get away alive and commit more of the same. as i said good riddens of them, they have no respect for human life and therefore i have no or little respect for theirs.
The death penalty in itself may not deter terrorists, but at least the world would be a lot safer with the execution of such people regardless of the fact that others may regard them as martyrs. An option, aside from the death penalty could be life imprisonment with real hard labor. That way it is not taxpayers’ money that pay for their upkeep, but the sweat of their own brows.
The problem with the death penalty for terrorists is that there are only two options: yes or no, and both can be backed by valid arguments.
My point is that death penalty or no, terrorist outrages will continue until someone decides that the only final resolution will come by one of two methods: total and utter bloody war until either side is defeated, or thoroughgoing dialogue until acceptable agreements are reached.
Total warfare will not succeed because terrorism can’t be defeated in any sort of war scenario. It is a hydra which will always survive because it knows how to go underground and bide its time.
By this logic, it is time to talk, not about death penalties, but about what it will take to bring about peace based on mutual understanding and trust. There’s no use in saying that terrorists don’t deserve being talked with. They are a real force now, and we have to deal with reality as we find it.
Execution in general does not solve any problem at all?? murder covered with another murder is instead likely to hide the truth.The move was not fair and the concerned persons where instead supposed to help in steering the investigations and as well fight the Act.
In my pinion such persons where supposed to be rehabilitated and then enrolled in the fight. In anycase they know there directives well enough than any other persons.
Myself, i have never liked these death penalties and they need to be scrapped as the world changes and as time goes by. Acriminal will definately for fear of his life and knowing very well that she or he will die any time, will continue to abet other criminals and associates.
1 -A good team would very well ask why these people chose to murder?
2- what is that, that they want so that they can stop killing people?
3- who is behide them and what do they gain?
4- carrying out medical tests to find out whether there condition is quiet different from others? and so on!
They are wrong we know but why can’t they stop it? such methods would assist!
However they are also bad elements of society for that envidence – Laws depend!
I hope obama has better views about these mass murder. Hope so!!!!
Death Penalty vs. Abortion
I am vehemently opposed to abortion. I don’t believe that the life being exterminated in that case had a right to choose. It never had a chance to make a mistake I which society could not forgive it. That belief also stems from science, as I am an atheist. If a parent can claim the right to kill a life once the catalyst has been set to create life, it is immoral to stop it with out just cause. Saying a mother has the right to extinguish life at 6 weeks after conception is not any different then saying she has the right to extinguish it 2 years after conception.
The death penalty is for people who have had a chance to influence society in a positive direct and failed so badly that they have proven that their very existence is a threat to others. Because we are human, and not the monsters that we seek to rid the world of, it should be the goal of governing bodies to perform the executions as painlessly and quickly as possible. Lest we become the monsters we wish to rid the world of.
To kill someone is to kill someone, whether you call it terroism or justice. The death penalty has existed forever and has not ended crime. I’ve listened to people here today talk about how those “terrorists” deserve to die yet how do we justify this feeling in our own hearts? Is there not some flaw in a society that supports the most abhorrent activity to punish the most abhorrent activity? Can we not find a way that is better than those we label as the worst of us?
You may kill a Terrorist just to cover a boss behind the whole thing, Envidence destroyed can never be recollected. What if they had the direct link!!! data first, I suppose!!!
Hi Ros,
This is a great question.
The death penalty has not proven to be a deterrent in fighting crimes like murder so I don’t believe it works as a deterrent in terrorism. The problem with terrorism is that it is a radical form of a cult. The only difference is that a cult separates itself from society (Jim Jones for example) and will harm itself before others. In terrorism they want to kill others along with themselves.
roebert,
a noble point of view, BUT you forget that these fundamentalist aim to gain world domination by any means. it is virtually impossible to reach an aggrement with a group of people who have an unreasonable point of view and are unwilling to move even an nanometer from this point of view. as you pointed out war is sensless as well, since you cannot beat a hidding organization. the only means is to have as good as possible intelligence and as the word says you got to be intelligent to obtain this information…..
Execution for deterrence compounds the problem. Execution for justice only has meaning for us, not them, and again only compounds the problem. Locking them up for life is expensive, so… how about creating an international prison, which all participating countries contribute to funding and where all convicted terrorists are sent for life imprisonment in solitary confinement?
@ Bob and Brett
Some are saying it is pointless to kill them, but what are people supposed to do, let them sit in prision where they can recruit and possibly kill other innocent people??? I say kill em. Firing squad sounds good to me!!!
@ Selena
The problem is that the reason some people get violent because you’re a jew, or because you’re black, or because you’re a woman.
-Anthony, LA, CA
@ Jens
Thanks the details had gone fuzzy. It has all come back to me. Good riddance to them, I am with you.
——————-
@ Selena & Dan,
No! It’s more than just the issue of when life begins. Let’s just say, that it begins a conception only for this argument. Can this “life” live outside the mother? No, it is a fetus and not only until it has fully formed into a baby and can survive outside the womb it is life. This is why you cannot have an abortion at the 3rd trimester, because it is now a fully formed baby that can live outside the womb. The facts and science are clear on this, it is religion that distorts the facts. I cannot support an issue that would put the life of something that has not been born before the mother. The government has no right to legislating what happens under the sheets or after. How about the government create harsher penalties for rapist to minimize those abortions? How about the government give better sex and health education including contraception to minimize those unintended pregnancies. It seems strange to me that most anti-choice people are republicans who supposablly favor small government so long as that means more laws and higher spending.
Crucifiction?!
Yes, nothing says “Killing you in the name of our God” More than tossing these idiots up on a cross.
That may not be the intent, but watch the fans of Anti-Western-Christian sentiment roar if something like this was ever done.
Perhaps another ancient form of torture which isn’t so closely related to a religion which preaches love and forgiveness?
@Bert: the dictionary definition of revenge is ‘…retaliate, requite, exact retribution for…’. Since the death penalty – for terrorists or any other guilty party – does just that what is the problem? Revenge is part of justice.
“Executing terrorists makes us no better than they are”. Really? Someone noted in relation to this kind of false analogy that a physical parallel (the state carrying out an execution) isn’t a moral parallel. There’s a big difference between (a) being torn to shreds by a terrorist nail bomb while going about your lawful business, and (b) the state, following due process and the letter of the law, invested with the moral authority of the soceity that it represents, exacting justice for wrongdoing by facilitating the death of a terrorist criminal. It’s like arguing that Europe would have been wrong to resist Nazi aggression since ‘Using war to get what we want makes us no better than the Nazis’.
@Roebert: why do you assume that Islamic terrorists are capable of a peace based on mutual understanding (bin Laden, for example, mourns the ‘loss’ of Spain and thinks it should still be Muslim!)? Islam is committed, as a matter of doctrine to fighting all ‘infidels’ until the world has been conquered. There are only three realistic responses: the death penalty and/or other types of defence (and the prospect of never-ending war); surrender (the implied position of some on this forum, whether or not they realise it); or complete disengagement of the West from the Muslim world and the gradual extrusion of Islam from the West. (which is what I favour),
Those Muslim terrorists who welcome martyrdom might reconsider if they knew their bodies would be fed to pigs. Do that to both those executed, like the Bali bombers, and to the remains of suicide bombers. A few widely-publicized cases will have a salutary effect on those considering doing likewise.
It probably was not just, since they were probably patsies. It’s not hard to confirm that at least half the terrorism is false flag provocation – the religious fanaticism we see in the media is mostly provoked, encouraged, exaggerated and funded by CIA/FBI, MI5/6 and MOSSAD who are the source of more terrorism than you can imagine – it’s not by accident that the Finsbury and Brixton Mosques are known as MI5 and MI6 Patsy Schools respectively.
@VictorK
lunatic asylums are full of people who consider their views as perfectly ‘legitimate’ – it doesn’t make them any less crazy.
Perhaps you might want to consider the criteria for considering someone a lunatic. I think you could find that even the diagnosis of lunatic is open to interpretation.
Women who fought for the right to vote were thrown into prisons and mental asylums and called lunatics.
Their views were certainly legitimate, although some men may still think they were not. 🙂
Lunacy is not as clear cut as some might think.
Jens: No-one has yet seriously tried to engage them in dialogue. Who says they’re after world domination? I think that’s a bit of a sci-fi reading of the situation. They certainly want attention, and they believe they have grievances to redress. So why not give talking a serious shot. If that fails, well then you’re forced to more dire actions. We should try to talk with them on a massive and global scale.
Anthony:
Some are saying it is pointless to kill them,
While not entirely pointless, perhaps counterproductive more than anything.
I don’t care for them, but I’m not going to play Allah or God or whoever their killing others for, and take their life. My only concern in this matter is that it will fuel the flames of support and sympathy for a terrorist’s cause or organization.
How could someone oppose the death penalty generally, but then want a special exception for terrorisms, insane people who welcome death? If anything, we should make sure to give them the best healthcare so they can rot in jail for even longer.
Jessica,
There are lots of babies in the hospital that can not “live outside the womb” at least unassisted. Many are a couple of years old. There are many living outside the womb. Children have been born late in the second trimester and still lived. I would even go as far as to say that no child can “live outside the womb” without some kind of parental support. But it is considered immoral to kill them.
As we can see by the fact that every time the death penalty or abortion mentioned it gravitate to the same conversations. The two issues boil down to the basic questions about the sanctity of life. What is moral and what is immoral is a matter of opinion that is made up as a matter of upbringing.
Is the death penalty really a punishment for terrorists? Aren’t we just fulfilling their martyrdom dreams? I say keep them in prison for life, in solitary confinement if necessary. Don’t give them what they want.
Jessica & Selena~
I do not want to get into a discussion of abortion and when life begins but I think that if one is for Capital Punishment they will also be Pro abortion.
As I said I am a believer in capital punishment when that punishment is swift. If one is in prison for 25+ years enjoying cable TV, drugs, sex and life I think that is obscene and further punishes the victims family.
Unfortunately in europe though “life” in prison is only 10-25 years. If it literally were life in prison, then I can’t see why people would oppose that. Europe is overly lenient when it comes to murderers.
Simply put: Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.
To the caller who’s son died:
Sir, I am so sorry your son died. But you are preaching the same hate that those who killed your son used by arguing for their deaths. Do you not realize that it is an endless cycle where each side will demand death as a punishment for whomever kills their loved ones? And on and on and on it goes. You hate them, they hate you, you want them to die, they want you to die. Where does it end?
P.S. No, I’ve never been in your shoes, though I truly feel for you and your loss.
Death Penalty would be the way to go. If they stay alive they can preach there thoughts to others in the prison and have them continue their works.
Do to them what would hurt them the most, Baptize them before you kill them….no 72 virgins for you!!!
-Anthony, LA, CA
The death penalty only assauges the guilt of the people around the victims.
We execute the terrorist and say “that ends that’ without determining why the terrorist committed the act in the first place. (IE: most terrorists these days do bombings for a political message, not out of sheer hate.)
We need to get at the root of the problem, not simply treat the symptoms in a superficial manner.
In my opinion, as an American, the death penalty is NOT a deterrent to everyday murder and certainly does not serve as a significant threat to those who routinely kill themselves in the act of killing others. Why would a suicide bomber care about the death penalty?
I feel that a special internationally agreed upon method of imprisonment that exacts a particularly brutal punishment (i.e. hard labor or harsh solitary confinement in small dark cells) should be implemented when considering those who seek to kill on a massive scale.
Hello WHYS,
Simple solutions to a complicated problem. Terrorists are a disastor for soceity, as punishment we should look to see how that can be reversed. Examples, I’m no genious but hard labour on like road building or cleaning the streets, forestry work where they’re not near people or if proven sane after a long time of servitude, then helping the elderly in either the country where they commited their crime or their place of choosing or birth especcessially if countrys could agree to link their punishment systems for such extreme cases.
If people can agree to such sensible simplicities, why can’t our politicans?
Robin Burke
I don’t think terrorists necessarily have to be uneducated and “brainwashed” as one of the callers said. Not too long ago, in the UK, several Doctors attempted to make car bombing attacks on UK airports, but fortunately failed. These were highly educated people.
I would like to know how Jim justifies putting the families of terrorists—who of course cannot be held responsible for terrorist acts—through the suffering caused by the execution of their loved ones. Are innocent family members just more of “these people” that deserve to suffer?
@ roebert,
just read their manifestos and video broadcasts. to a certain dgree it is anchored in the koran. the issue here is that these guys take a piece of scripture and bastartize it to their fundament believes. we must not take the describtion “world domination” literally, considering the time and location these sentences were put together. nobody was able to actually account for the size of the world at that time and i seriously believe that this was an issue of establishing dominace in a specific region of the world, very much like any other tribe or religion was doing at that time, considering that countries were very much unheared of and empires were de jour.
I interpret “an eye for an eye” differently than many people. I believe society should not have the responsibility for choosing a punishment for crimes as heinous as murder. I feel the Biblical passage implies that the criminal, by their actions in consciously choosing to murder, has selected society’s appropriate response for their crime.
If they intentionally murder it must be assumed their world view would require them to murder again, therefore they must be removed permanently from society.
Accidental killing, killing in self-defense, or killing as a conscript in war is not driven by the same world view, and therefore does not call for the same punishment.
Over 2/3 of the world has rejected the ancient barbarism
of the death penalty, or an eye for an eye. God eliminate
all violence on this planet including war, executions, and animal cruelty.
Bullets cannot eliminate darkness
nor can hatred melt hatred.
http://www.innocenceproject.org
Anna Niemus
kenny in florida,
You are COMPLETLY missing the point of an “eye for an eye……..”
it means if you take the eye of a person, you must offer your own eye…..get the difference?
Over 2/3 of the world has rejected the ancient barbarism
of the death penalty, or an eye for an eye. God eliminate
all violence on this planet including war, executions, and animal cruelty.
Bullets cannot eliminate darkness
nor can hatred melt hatred.
http://www.innocenceproject.org
Anna Niemus
Akron Ohio USA
To the caller, “we need to get to the route of the problem.” She is correct! Terrorism is a radical cult. Most to these people are young men (I know that some are now young women). These young people have seen nothing but fighting in their county and feel that the west is to blame. We have seen that the war has not been totally successful. So, lets try education and see if it works.
Adam,
the point is that they DID NOY MARTER THEMSELVES. they set remote controlled bombs……try to understand the difference……
I live in a non death penalty country and I am absolutely opposed to introduce exception for certains acts, no matter their gravity. It would be like opening a pandora box.
The best way to stand against terrorists is to show them that, despite their crimes, they will never manage to make us change our societies and ways of living.
lol,
I heard it said once that no lawyer is truly for the death penalty. They all have one phrase to refer to people on death row. “potential clients”.
Nobody should ever be put to death in the name of “revenge”. This is one of the central philosophies of Christianity. Stopping the circle of violence requires not acting upon human urges to revenge. To stop further threats either from the criminal or as an example to others that might follow them is the only acceptable answer. Revenge is an objective perspective and not definable in finite terms.
I encourage anyone who believes that the death penalty should not be an option for terrorists watch Lock-up on MSNBC. Pay special attention to the gangs that are active within the prisons that are always causing trouble. The correction officers do their best to curtail gang related activity but its impossible. The same applies to terrorists. Keeping them in jail would only allow them to continue to have their beliefs and carry out further acts of terrorism. What’s the alternative to the death penalty? Turning them loose to commit further crimes against innocent people?
As for the difference between terrorists being executed and abortion; there is no comparison. It’s not like babies are little renegades with machine guns trying to take out innocent people.
Terrorist’s are a cancer which will spread. So what do you do to cancer??? Destroy it before it spreads right?
-Anthony, LA, CA
I may try, but I cannot truly imagine the anguish of all those who have lost loved ones to terrorist attacks. Yet a state-sponsored death penalty for terrorists is simply a justification for state murder. The number of innocent people killed by all the world powers in their wars or “police actions” is unknowable. As well, the execution of such people would only seem inflame further those who share the same twisted beliefs. This is particularly apt in the actions of the government and agencies of the USA for decades. For was not the My Lai massacre not “terrorism”? Was that episode not revenge? You can dress it up any way you want, but the death penalty is still a revenge that only brings any state who uses it down to the same level as the perpetrators of terrorism.
I forgot to tell …. We can make them NOT to be a MARTYR by … telling others (specially the supporter) .. especially from their religions (i meant Muslims) respectable person that will convince them (the supporter) that they are not a MARTYR … its a heavy duty … but its WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE ….
I think it’s a bit hard to compare the IRA with islamic terrorists. WHile the IRA did murder with guns and did bomb, they usually would call in bomb threats. They usually wanted to scare people whereas the islamists wanted to kill as many people as possible. I lived in London in 1996 when the IRA rebegan their bombing campaign, first with the Canary Warf bombing. It was very destructive, and somebody died from a heart attack, but they did the bombing at at a time when very few people were there.
Not long later an IRA terrorist accidentally blew himself up on a bus by the LSE. For a while they thought it was a suicide bombing, but realized the bomb accidentally went off.
1985,September 30
Four Soviet diplomats kidnapped in Beirut, Lebanon by Islamic Liberation Organisation, which was thought to be a front for the Iranian backed Hezbollah. One of the Russians was killed but the other three were released unharmed after a relative of the terrorist group’s leaders was kidnapped and killed by the Soviet KGB. No Soviets were touched again by terrorist organisations.
I am not saying that we should descend to this level, but fight fire with fire. The only thing people with a pathological belief in terror understand is a proportional response.
No but Social Justice.
Executing terrorists creates martyrs. It creates resentment among their family and friends, who may become motivated to follow in their footsteps. It gives them what they ultimately wanted: death while fighting their target. And it would seem to confer whatever joys have been promised to them in the afterlife.
I don’t know what the solution is, but I would suspect that we should not execute people who are imprisoned and therefore incapable of creating more violence, and we should not motivate others like them to carry on their work.
What happens with falsely accused? Should the jury or judge responsible for falsely convicting a person be held responsible when that ‘terrorist’ is mutilated, tortured, or killed? If so, then are they to be held to the same punishment? You know, since its ‘their fault’ that this individual died or was mutilated lets keep it consistant here……
These terrorist have been brain washed their whole lives. Attempting to bring them back from that mindset seems kind of pointless because once thrown back into the Jihadi mix they’ll be back up to their same old plots. Don’t waste tax payers money and put them in prison..kill’em
Engaging violent terrorists, like the IRA thug that was on air, in dialogue does encourage more terrorism. There are plenty of divisions among peoples without giving special attention to the most violent. The IRA thug was speaking as if he had legitimate greivances in balance to the murder he commited. That does present a model for anyone else with grievance that should not be encouraged.
Alowing universal death penalty for terrorism would be a catastrphy. Yuo would be giving ruling goverments arround the world a wonderfull legal tool to get rid of political opocition.
I am an Argentine and we have our own terrorist, the elite of the military dictatorship that you may remember from their forgein policy disaster, the Falklands war. They actually comited their crimes claiming their victims were terrorist, inspite among the DESAPARECIDOS where for instance two french nuns.
This criminals have been pardond by a corrupt goverment, now their are in jail for sistematic child theft. Although their crimes, death has carve so deep that no one here want death penalty for them, let the rot in jail.
To the callers and the discussing people:
Education would be ideal, but possibly is not realistic. But we should still not revert to death penalty, for the reason of our own soul and to prevent ourselves from heaping guilt upon us. God gives life, we are not allowed to take it.
It might help to point out strongly that Islam, Judaism and Christianity all three are based on the same book, the same bases.
If you kill the people, you are not killing the ideas, but if you engage the enemy by learning why and how they could do what they did, and if you use that information to answer hard questions then you are taking a real step towards understanding and a solution.
If I was in prison and the Gov’t tried to re-educate me and I knew that they would let me go, I would agree to what ever the Gov’t would say and then when the Gov’t releases me I would continue with my believes. Kids do it all the time.
An eye for an eye, just makes things worse, look at the middle east,
its an unhealthy emotion, revenge, left over from cave days.
Why not lobotomize terrorists?
Have them work the Fields or do the laundry after the
the higher functions of the brain have been removed.
No death penalty but a much stronger deterent I think
So, we should keep in them in prison for life and put the burden of cost on the tax payers? Heck no, kill them and get it over with, I for one cannot afford to provide a better life for these terrorists than most homeless people in the country.
Is penalty by death a requirement to battle terrorism? I don’t think so but, in the battle for hearts and minds blood is often shed, and within our current state, I don’t think the penalty of death will fade anytime soon. For most of these zealots that operate in the realm of higher purpose, I think a remainder of their life spent working to rebuild lives which they have help destroy would be a better purpose, living out the rest of their days helping the people they harm would be the greater punishment. “Keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer.” Either way it’s going to cost money. Why not use them as cheap labor and get something from them, and maybe in the process they might learn something. Death is a part of life, but murder does not have to be.
One can only hope.
Bearing in mind that there is no universal definition of terrorism or who a terrorist is, I say:
Yes, death to terrorists but not if we have Muslims in Mind because they are not terrorists. They are reactionaries. They react to the action of the USA motivated by hatred for Islam and not initiate action against the USA.
The USA government is the real terrorist therefore death penalty to the USA government, more so that it has refused to oblige itself to the World Court by imposing its view through Article 98 on others..
Prince Awele Odor
They deserve the death penality. There should be no way around that. However, it is an extreme act on their part which suggests there is a serious matter that has to be discussed. Understanding their reasons and actions are very important to get to the route cause of any social injustice they may have felt.
@ Kenny
“Simply put: Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.”
While it still holds weight, it’s old testament. New testament is, “Turn the other cheek.”
I’m against the death penalty, but those who are calling for it to be used on terrorists should also demand it for state terrorists like Bush and Blair, who have murdered hundreds of thousands in an illegal war.
Gerry, Berlin.
At all who what to participate on the abortion debate please meet me at:
WHYS after the show forum
http://z13.invisionfree.com/WHYSERSaftertheShow/index.php?act=idx
All the strife in the middle east is caused by israeles taking of palastinian lands and property. I think this could be solved in a world court as a land dispute that all parties would make their case as to who is the real owners beyond a doubt .They should both aggree to live by ruling. loser leaving area. As evidence they should both be allowed to present any titles and documents they possess and decide once and for all who is entitled to this land. Dealing with individuals on a death penalty basis dosn’t solve the root problem.
I ask people who are debating about whether this is right or wrong. If they get cancer on their legs. Do they remove it or live with it and die. These people are cancer to the world peace.
Actions to be taken for this issue.
1) Kill all the terrorist who are proved the involvement in these killings.
2) Block all possible functioning of these organizations who inculcate hatred.
3) Work on the education of people.
There are tons of the problems this world is facing and we are wasting so much of money and human resource of killing each other.
Even if you solve all the problems in the world. We can go to mars do wonders in this universe and move forward than doing all these and hurting families.
Suicide murderers exact their own justice by blowing themselves up along with their innocent victims. Their God will judge their actions. The people who launch suicide murderers should not escape punishment when they are caught simply because some people consider them victims or champions of a just cause. Murder is murder and if the penalty for murder is death in any particular country, so be it.
There has been mixed feelings about the death penalty.
If it dosent serve the purpose, at least it gets rid of three bad men.
And we are three hardened terrorsts less.
Allen
The death penalty in this instance just further fuels the more extreme elements of a religion that most of the West do not understand. It encourages revenge attacks which in turn generates greater fear and so it goes on. These Bali bombers didn’t act on their own – they were encouraged, trained, funded, directed to do the job. Ironic that they fought their death penalties so vigorously, so one assumes they weren’t really prepared to die as martyrs. But that is what they are now – and the West will pay……again.
Islamic countries in general see the West as having double standards. For example – how can the US expect Iran to cease it’s own agenda when the US is seen to significantly support the Israeli government and what the Israeli’s are doing to the Palestinian people??
In the past 10 years there has been little to no desire in the West for real diplomacy with countries in the Middle East – not only regarding religious extremism, but also where Palestinians and Israel are concerned. People should listen to Mary Robinson’s interview regarding her trip to Gaza and the humanitarian crisis that aired on BBC about two weeks ago. And we wonder why people seem to think a good alternative is to blow themselves and/or others up??
It is time to step up and truly understand the complexities of the Middle East and make a real effort to change things.
Sorry folks, you’re mostly dupped – the current wave of terror sweeping the world is GLADIO for the 21st C. – learn the history of false flag provocation – Red Brigade, Beider Manhoff were both creations of NATO agents who ran the GLADIO program – it’s not called AL-CIA-duh for nothing!
Is the death penalty essential to fighting terrorism?
Humor me, I might be fickle.
Why don’t you ask the person whose been wired up?!
bjay.
Good day WHYSayers,
Whenever the discussion about death penalty comes up, the emphasis is always placed on mercy- impose life sentence, imprisonment them instead, let them do community service. But very little attention is ever paid to JUSTICE, for the perpetrator(s) and especially for the victims.
Jesus Christ is the embodiment of Justice and Mercy. Not mercy only or Justice only.
In this psychopathic age, everything has been turned upside down! Wrong has become right and right has become wrong!
Justice demans that we look out first for the welfare of the victim but instead government try to outdo each other trying to be more humane.
The death penalty cannot solve the problem of terrorism because most if not all terrorists are fanatics and they welcome a supposedly martyr death. But Justice demands that the murderer forfeits his life for the shedding of innocent blood!
The argument about whether the death penalty is or isn’t a deterrent is a non-issue because that’s not the point. The point is justice. And justice should not be separated from mercy. That is exactly what’s happening in this twisted world and that’s why the world is a mess!
Kingston- Jamaica
@ Paul Harbin – Waco, Tx.
Well said, and I understand this, however, I did not mean it in a religious sense, I for not do not follow the bible. The saying does stand out to me though as a simple yet elegant sound of logic.
Aside from my personal aversion to the death penalty, it won’t deter the most fanatic terrorist.
For anyone willing to blow himself up to make a point, the death penalty holds little persuasion. The only people it will make think twice are weekend activists and profiteers — and great forebearance should be observed in using it against them.
It said that prison is one of the greatest “universities” for future leaders. Too casual use of the death penalty for terrorism could deprive us of a future Nelson Mendella.
Louiisville, Kentucky, US.
Is the death penalty essential to fighting terrorism?
YE !
It would be cost effective without due processes: however democratic ways are the obstacle.
Nevertheless, time comes when they/you will have no other choice.2.
If you do want to convert them, please not on my account.
I do not/will not pay for your societal political bluntness.
For social preventive maintenance, you might find a good customer in me.
bjay connotation with accent.
Whether the death penalty is or is not a deterrent is irrelevant. The fact is, a dead terrorist doesn’t use up the diminishing recourses of an overcrowded world and certainly won’t be able to commit more acts terrorism.
Bit of a daft question really. And the whole thread is daft. 2 out of 10 for this one.
Can we not get our minds off “terrorism” (daft subject), Death, Sex, Bush and Osama, Ombama as well? Let’s look at what is real rubbish about the EC fo instance. And then work outwards.
Too often “we”, the gullible, the “sales point” of the propaganda (yes, there are certain broadcasts by the BBC that are pure “wind up propaganda”) , are pumped full of essentially politically motivated nonsense. Well nonsense if you are the receiving end, big bucks (these days in government handouts, that is your money going out the window never to return through the door),
“What do you think is Propaganda Now?”
There is a question.
Make a list.
Who is fooling you?
Who is ripping you off?
Who is charging too much rent?
Who doesn’t care if you live or die?
Do the maths.
———————————————-
Who do you want to kill?
No doubt there are at least a couple of hundred here on the firing line.
But that’s no answer.
Ashes to ashes etc.
The Good Books full of the best jokes.
It all comes back.
So who do you really want to kill?
Did the three Really Want To Kill all those people?
I think they did.
For whatever reason.
For me, that is the question. Not that they should be put to death, for that achieves nothing, but that we never really found out the reason for this hate against humanity. To know that what it is in people that leads them exercise such cruelty on their fellow citizens, that would be interesting.
But you are not going to get that information by giving them a hard time.
If prisoners were given luxury rather than degradation, a situation well used to, the luxury bit being the missing factor in the life of said prisoner, perhaps not in the case of J. Archer, but anyway, I do not see many suicide bombers who were recent lottery winners.
Don’t shoot them!
Give them cake.
Just joking.
Malc
<<<<<<ps
Give them cake…
————
and Make Them Eat It.
And yer aunt made the cake…
…and my aunt doesn’t “do” cakes.
“Always come out dry* she says.
The ultimate torture.
Eating my aunts cakes…
Since bread is no longer widely baked in the sorts of ovens from which “cake” is scraped, the next best thing is day-old bread – plenty in the West, not so in the 3rd World, where most of the terror is directed, the chaos targeted – the goal: fail all self-determinant states to the point of begging for protection – oldest racket in the book – wonder why the “martyrs” so resisted their execution?
http://u2n2.com/article.asp?id=56899
The death penalty should never be used as means of punishing terrorist. As Ghandi said,”An eye for an eye, and the whole world goes blind”. we should not kill these terrorist because it is not just to kill someone, even if he is the aggressors. These incarcerated prisoners are already being tortured and tormented by the penal system and also their conscience. Violence is never the answer to any question because we will only be giving these terrorist cells a cause to continue their plights.
I basically agree on death penalty that just applied to rub terrorism. but it would never make other people who committed to do such thing afraid as the most likely attract them may be caused by other formal terrorism that come up and pretend not like a terrorism, for example humiliating other nations or religions by attacking them through war or stuff like that. if war still existed on the earth I am not sure if terrorism will be able to cleaned up by death penalty. thus lets keep this world to be more friendly for every one and no war anymore
If martyrdom death is what the terrorists were striving for. The death penalty would in no way be a deterrent or punishment for their crime. Indeed if death is what they wanted, perpetual solitary confinement could well be what they feared most.
I wonder how many Australians who called for the bombers’ execution would support similar treatment for the Bali 9 drug smugglers, or restoring capital punishment in their home country.
Victork: apologies; didn’t see your post there. Well, yes: extrusion from the west is the most thoroughgoing solution to the problematic presence of Islamic fundamentalism in the west, but is hardly feasible.
I was thinking, in my posts, more about the west’s unwelcome presence and interventions in Islamic countries and regions, and would probably argue that the proposed extrusion of Islam from the west should be preceded by an extrusion of the west from the Islamic regions.
The latter extrusion, I believe, will certainly be easier to effect, and may render extusion of Islam from the west unnecessary, as grounds for conflict and fundamentalist actions will have been removed.
Like it or not, the stumbling block will always be the State of Israel, and that is a problem to which I can see no solution. Unless Vermont, Alaska or some other US territory can be made into a new Israeli state…or perhaps some territory in Europe…
To my view dead penalty is a vital approach to fight terror. This is the only mean which can take us to the end (to stop terroristic acts)
We have been witness of the governments adopting several different approaches to fight terror. None of them worked well and indirectly these aprouches were an aid to expand terror.
Arresting and puting the terrorists in jails,has no positive effect, but to increase the expenses and expanding financial problems.
Lets give the terrorists a dead penalty on spot of the crime scene.
Is the death penalty essential to fighting terrorism?
The caption itself is funny! What punishment terrorists deserve other than death penalty? The death penalty in case of terrorism is not meant to scare someone from commiting terrorism. It is simply meant to eliminate certain individuals who could kill many more people, if they are left alive. It does not serve any other purpose.
The difficulty with death penalty is that it creates martyrs to the cause how ever wrong it may be… You can execute the terrorist, but not the cause for which he committed his crime.
The Jihadists of to day who are generally considered to be the Public Enemy # 1 for the USA have one cause that resonates in all Arab minds – the injustice being perpetrated against the Muslims of Palestine… The world sheds crocodile tears about the genocide ethnic cleansing of Muslims in Serbia Bosnia Georgia, Chechnya or any where else except Palestine, where, the graduates of Adolf Hitler’s concentration camps are creating a “clean” Jewish Home land…
If at least once the international community would show some spine and stand up to the US and say “What is being done to Palestine is an atrocity and injustice and it has to stop NOW” then the Islamic terrorists will no longer have any justification to continue the murder… Now as far as they are concerned the world is just full of enemies to Muslims…
The pronouncements of all the world leaders demand more from the victims – the Palestinians – than from the aggressors – The state of Israel…
Do something to really address this issue without the biased goggles that America has set on every ones nose and then lock these terrorists in a sealed room ( I would suggest that steel cell doors of their prisons be welded closed and be opened only for taking him out on every man’s final journey… Thus the cause for the Jihad and its foot soldiers will be removed from this world without any one having to break the command “Thou Shalt not Kill!”
just recently some gutter clerics had a 13 year young girl stoned to death because she was perceaved to be an adulterer.if at all you are for laws set up by such clerics from their not true religion,then the death penalty should be enforced.
THE LAST DAD
precisely right
tambua,hamisi,kenya.
@Roebert: I agree 100% with you about the (voluntary) extrusion of the West from the Muslim world. No more wars to spread democracy, bring liberty, spread human rights etc. Simply learn to deal with governments as they are, dictators and despots included, not as we’d like them to be.
Re the extrusion of Islam from the West: given the will, perfectly feasible. I’m not talking about the physical expulsion of Muslims, which in current circumstances would be extreme (though the detonation of a dirty nuclear bomb in a Western city will make some countries give that option serious consideration). What I have in mind is a parallel to de-Nazification in post-war Germany: the systematic eradication of an ideology, in this instance that of the Koran. I don’t believe in freedom of religion.
Israel has as much right to exist as any other country, however much the Islamic world would like to exterminate it. Israel’s nuclear arsenal means it is perfetly able to defend itself. I don’t see why the Israel-haters of the Muslim world should be allowed to set the agenda: it’s for them to get over their genocidal intolerance and not for the Jews to abandon their historic homeland (to which only the Canaanites have a better claim).
Victor: My comments on Israel are, obviously I hope, not seriously meant. I agree that Israel has a right to exist (again, obviously), and that is easy enough for us to accept. The reality, however, is that the Muslim nations don’t agree. It’s a tricky situation, rather similar to the cat’s perfectly obvious right to exist in a largely canine environment. We know the cat has a right to exist, but how much simpler it would be if the cat just were not there. It bedevils everything by it’s obvious right to exist.
But, to get back to reality, it might be that the Israeli problem will be more easily solved if the west stopped interfering so heavily in the region. Besides which, I don’t think that Israel’s having the bomb is its final security or its ticket to regional integration. That can only come by settling the injustices that still obtain in the Palestinian situation. About this we can blah blah ad infinitum. But the situation won’t improve until the Palestinians are given their fair portion.
And, Victor, you lost me there for a bit on the Canaanite quip, until the penny dropped. But if we’re going to go that route, let’s not forget the Macedonian and Roman interventions and how they re-shaped the landscape. I think that the Israeli right to exist rests much more heavily on moral than on territorial grounds, which view doesn’t weaken that right.
@Roebert: apologies for having mistaken your remarks on Israel.
You’re right – we could go on endlessly about the Palestinian problem. Happy to save the blah blah for another time.
NO.
I wonder whether it is possible for a body like UN could invite the repsentatives of all the designated so called Terrorist organisations for a discussion and asertain their grievances.Of course some may not co-operate.
At least talk to those who are willing and see how you could solve their problems
So many organisations which were condemned, are now cosidered Freedom fighters and respected as leaders of their country.
Unforunately when government armys kill civilians indiscriminately by boming from the air they are called nationalists,but when organisations fighting for their cause retaliate by other means they are referred to as TERRORISTS. The effect is the same.
Now that you are all clearly sitting comfortably aware that you are members of the one billion as opposed to the uncivilised lot, the other 5 billion it might be about time you began asking the right questions. I can’t believe how much people find comfort in talking about symptoms in a crisis, like coming home and finding the house flooded and running after the mop instead of the tap. The UN is not impotent for no reason. That is its up to date image which delegates put up with so long as it keeps tax payers from knowing the truth and real agenders. If you want to know who the terrorists are and why they are protecting you SO FAR then do the research. Search “mossad” , “UN katanga massacre”, “nato gladio operation cold war”, “house of rothchild UN adulf hitler” . This is insane, blood thirsty meddeled war veterans across the country after collecting God knows how many millions of pounds this year, are today celebrating their Red Poppy Appeal day. Only these days they pay more attention to the lives lost in Iraq. 176 they say! British soldiers that is. Well the estimates for loss of civilian lives in Iraq is somewhere between 60 – 70,000 and that’s just since the illegal invasion began. What about the over 250,000 carpet bombed along Highway of Death or the up to 500,000 cancers and abnormalities among Iraqi children during UN sanctions??? Is this not terrorism? To date the only country in the world ever to be convicted of terrorist acts by the world court is USA. Red poppies don’t save lives! Instead they create a distraction from what our government continues to do best: deceive, manufacture consent, use biased media and collect taxes from the mass-production and over consumption of the masses.The reason the powers that be are carrying out such false flag operations as 9/11 and blaming Islamic extremists is so that they CAN invade countries like Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran and of course that’s all very good for the arms industry, the oil industry, the finance industry and the media.
I’m against the death penalty, but those who call for that punishment for terrorists should include state terrorists like Bush and Blair who have killed hundreds of thousands in an illegal war of conquest. Their argument that they don’t intend to kill civilians is specious. They know that the result of their actions will mean massive civilian deaths and terrible injuries, and they do it anyway. They can’t even argue that they have “good” motives.
Gerry, Berlin.
well said ricci and gerry
Ricci Davis & Gerry in Berlin,
Good to see there are some voices of reason surfacing here, and new posters making sensible and worthwhile comments and suggestions and not just blanket statements.
Ricci Davis and Gerry in Berlin are making the point that war prosecuted as the so called moral cause that is just and good, is so easily conveyed and skewed one way when the powers that be deliberately manipulate the media to do their bidding. It is highlighted by journalists of real calibre and stature, like Robert Fisk for example. A man who has for so long been a firsthand witness to numerous conflicts throughout the world over many years. He has always been able to seriously question the given and accepted version of events as transmitted and broadcast across all major global TV News networks and media, into something that is so easily packaged up for public consumption. Any other interpretation of events is very quickly and cynically discarded and dismissed without a second thought. BBC are culprits of the very same far too often, and should really re-examine, re-assess and therefore re-interpret what is fed to them via some of their very own foreign correspondents. Real and honest truths are being obfuscated by certain people in order to conceal a greater untruth and lies carefully secreted and hidden away for calculating and divisive reasons.
“Martyrs for the cause” as are all individuals who takes up arms in response to oppression of anykind, will knowingly enter the fight, the battle and the endless struggle to right the wrongs that have been imposed upon them from another side. Be they roadside bombers, suicide bombers, tribal fighters just trying to survive a conflict, the western mentality is to defeat the so called terrorist by all means necessary. You just add fuel to the fire and pour oil on troubled waters. For all those to suffer capital punishment at the hands of the enemy reinforces their intractable belief in what they are doing and all those who die in such a manner will be held up as heroes and idol worshipped by the naive and easily led. More importantly it is ideal recruiting ground for many more who will step forward to fight “for the cause” to the bitter end.
But State sanctioned terrorism by George Bush, Tony Blair, Ronald Reagan, Bill (clean as a whistle) Clinton and too a cleverly hidden and lesser extent Jimmy Carter. They all have blood on their hands! Bush & Blair by far the most guilty have so far got away with consummate and absolute murder, but will never go to The Hague unless the UN, the world and all decent and upstanding people have the guts to put them on trial, firstly by a thorough unimpeded and unhindered independent investigations into WMD, 9/11 and Iraq the legality and justification for invasion and occupation by Coalition Armed Forces. Otherwise the question posed in this debate is wholly pointless and of no consequence.
It’s obvious that the Muslim world is angry by the way Israel has and continues to treat the Palestinians. They see this as an attack on Islam, so i think the world should put pressure on Israel to be responsible for it’s actions.
I also think that any Imam, Rabbi or Priest who preaches hate should be dealt with harshly not only by government but by the hierarchy of that particular religion.
An eye for an eye is the old Jewish and Islamic law, we need to move past this or society will always be in turmoil. Learn to forgive, love and understand.
Each person is a product of their environment so lets get to the root of the problem and address that first. Any religion or ideology that preaches hate or that any person is more worthy than the next is massively flawed for the simple reason that God created all.
I totally agree that hate, anger, desire for revenge for real and imagined wrongs, and power quests are negative motivations with regard to all participants in the current power struggle between radical Islamists and the rest of the world. Justice meted out to suicide murderers or their launching controllers by a country’s legal system after sober and prolonged consideration is a sign of civility.
I would like to stress “Terrorism should not be tolerated anywhere in this world since it will create destruction to property and human lives. Punishment with the most severity, according to the law laid down in the country it was committed, be given to deter future act of terror”. Whether it will be successful or not is another matter but justice needs to be served especially for those innocent victims. The world shouldn’t be held at ransom by these terrorists. Every human being has the right to live.