Quote Originally Posted by delusionsofNORMALity
as is usually the case, you seem to miss the point entirely. when you couch a group's aims in the most extreme terms, any goal can be made to seem honorable or evil. these disparate groups are really after the same thing - POWER. the ends being equal, it is the means by which we should judge which is the more admirable cause. each side is fighting to gain control over a wider swath of the population, one through the use of economic and political power and the other by the indiscriminate use of explosives. now tell us again how you can see any cause to admire a group that advocates strapping on an explosive vest and wandering into a crowded marketplace.

the west may have a grand love affair with the underdog, but that doesn't make the cowardly actions of the little guy any more admirable. can you honestly say that hiding behind children and women's skirts while lobbing bombs at noncombatants is any more honorable than the horrors of collateral damage?
I was expressing it in the most extreme terms, as you say. You're right--it really comes down to power and the struggle of two factions over it. I'm saying that neither side is moral or amoral because they both want power at the expense of the other side's life/dignity/etc., and use violent and often horrific means to achieve it. I made the point that I did because it is too often assumed on these boards, even by those who oppose the wars, that the West are the good guys and the insurgents are villains. I was trying to show that that isn't the case by pointing out that at least the insurgents are fighting for power they have been deprived of, whereas the U.S./West, etc. are just trying to keep everyone else's balls on the mantlepiece. I'm not saying the insurgents are honourable--neither side is--just that they are the freedom-starved underdogs.