[tom8517]

First, any who may remember me Hello, It's been a very long time. An interesting thread, in particular in how others have sacrificed their lives contrasted with the suicide bombers of modern Islamic terrorism.

To begin, with the last post, oh hell no, people do not get their hands cut off for theft. People steal for a whole host of reasons, some noble, feed the family I allow this the rare exception. Some for a thrill, some are professional criminals. My father caught me stuffing hard candy from a supermarket bin in my pocket when I was 4. He took me back to the store, made me tell the store manager what I did, then he made me ask the store manager to please not call the police.

I never stole anything again, but I am very glad I still have my hands.

The Japanese soldiers who flew their planes into American ships, were not terrorists. They made the choice to make the ultimate sacrifice for their country, they knew they were losing the war. But, and I say this as a USMC veteran who has no love for suicide attacks on our fleet. But keep in mind they were directed against military targets, and with a military objective.

The reference to the IRA in an earlier post is perhaps even more telling, the IRA is perhaps unique in modern guerilla/terrorist organizations in that they in made a practice of phoning in warnings prior to the bomb going off. I am not trying here to be an apologist for the IRA, they did inflict civilian casualties, and they were involved in some horrific atrocities. But the statistics I have seen show upward of 75% of the casualties inflicted by the IRA were on armed members of the security forces.

so, back to the point of the thread, the terrorists of ISIS and Al Qaeda have no historical justification. When a groups aims are nationalism, or ideology, a negoation is possible, but when your enemy thinks he has a direct line to
God, you pretty much have to kill him