Causes and effects

[aadler]

 
Regarding the anti-Muhammad movie reputed to be the excuse for anti-American riots in multiple countries:

When you provoke a mad dog in the middle of a bunch of people, you do, in fact, bear some responsibility for what happens to those people.

On the other hand, someone, sometime, will eventually have to do something about the mad dog.

Preferably something final.

Comments

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

The new Libyan government is still fairly weak, and sending a military force or using drones in a newly sovereign state without consultation would a) make the Libyan government look weak, b) make many of the people who are sympathetic and on the US' side get angry, and c) how will you know who to attack?

Our consulation should be of the form "They must be destroyed. Shall you destroy them or will we have to do it ourselves."

If the Libyans refuse these options, then they are retroactively sanctioning the attack, which means they have gone to war with us.

As for "How will we know whom to attack?", the group presumably has bases and holds territory. It could not have carried out an attack on this scale if it were just five college students in a dorm room muttering threats of revenge.

And "any members of the group who are handy?" I know the US has changed since 9/11 but first, calling it war legitimises your enemy as an opponent and secondly collective punishment is something that you lot used to condemn foreign governments for.

The group Ansar al-Sharia has gone to war with America; hence any members of the group are enemies, who may be lawfully engaged in combat. This is how one normally fights a "war."

Are you under the delusion that this was a mere act of criminality?