Max, you can call me Vinth, or an old woman, or abc, or a niquil junkie, whatever you gotta do. I understand that you'll need to do this in absence of a real argument, so go for it.
And Preechr, you know you
love the rough stuff.
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Originally Posted by mburbank
I agree. We have a clear enemey. They are significant, though small in number, and I beleieve we will never decrease their numbers by making traditional war, as we are doing in Iraq
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I believe Blanco covered this already, but the way we are fighting this war is far from "traditional". Would we have men and women on the ground to the extent that we do, going town to town and village to village, if we were fighting in a "traditional" fashion? I mean, we could pull a General Clarke and simply sit back and launch missiles at the country. We could level half the country, that'd probably fix our problems pretty quickly, no!!?
Also, you yourself said they are small in number. I think you're right about that, relative to the size and population of the greater muslim world. So what would a war on terror look like to you, Max? Ziggy, feel free to chime in here with your thoughts, too.
I think the Bush plan has been pretty clear, and it actually makes more sense than some random WOT that looks more like a "criminal investigation" (which a lot of liberals are fond of saying). Terrorism as a
tactic, and terrorist cells being the way they are, are indeed not very "traditional", you're right about that, Max. However, the countries that have funded these activities (yes, this includes Saddam's Iraq), as well as the countries that continue to breed intolerance, hatred, sexism, and racism towards Jews, Christians, and the West in general are actually VERY statist, and very traditional. Iraq compensated the families of suicide bombers in Israel. The
very specific reasons we were dragged into war there were wrong, which is why I still despise this administration for it. But to argue that Iraq had absolutely NO role in the current makeup of the modern Middle East is absurd. To say that this war is just against a few guys in a group called Al Qaeda misses the point and the real problem, and I think this is where we part on the matter.
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For the billionth time. My particular objection to the evil we do as opposed to the evil others do is that I help pay fr the evil we do. As an american I feel it is my patriotic duty to disagree most vocally with the evil done in my name, as opposed to the evil done in Allahs name, or Sadaams name, or Bin Laden's name, etc, all of which is evil, but not evil I directly fund. For the record, I believe wanton killing is bad, no matter who does it.
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And I respect your consistency, however I again think you're in need of some perspective. You yourself said it, we are at war. We have a very real enemy. However they don't seem to be large enugh for you to take this as a serious war (which I'll get to in a moment).
This isn't two equals having a duel at sunset over a chick. This isn't "wanton". We are fighting people who want to see us destroyed. We are fighting people who want to oppress women, destroy Jews, Christians, and just about anybody else who disagrees with them.
The loss of innocent life is horrible, unfortunate, and sad. The
intentional taking of innocent life is barbaric, and if any of our troops are guilty of it, we need to punish them and make sure that every soldier knows it's absolutely unacceptable (I opposed execution for personal reasons, but the law is the law). Churchill had a great quote, which for the life of me I can't remember, but it was about the clashing of a civilized nation with a barbaric one. The former inevitably gets drawn into the behavior of the latter, and while it's ugly, and sad, and should be avoided when possible and punished when caught, it is the reality of this kind of war.
That's right, the
intentional taking of innocent life is barbaric. This is why we need to defeat our enemies, because this is a measure that they see as effective. It allows them to kidnap and make idle threats, it also allows them to turn muslim against muslim. There won't be any investigation, media scrutiny, or court martial for the terrorists who blew up the dome of the al-Askari shrine, for example. Like the torture and execution of those two soldiers, I'm guessing they will only celebrate it.
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It's the evil I choose to write about. It's a free fuckin' country.
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Weak.
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I think war should be at very least productive.
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I know, I mean, what good does it do the Iraqis to not be living under Saddam any longer??? And all of this never-before-seen stuff, like Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds working in the same room to patch together a republic??? That stuff is dime a dozen in the Middle East, and certaily not a sign of progress in my book, no Sir.
erspective
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This isn't WWII or the Civil War and W isn't FDR or Lincoln. This is a substandard leader in an ill defined war, and I would say that makes his line crossing even worse and more dagerous than the line crossing of greater men in worse circumstances, but slightly more forgiveable, in that Lincoln and FDR knew better. Again, I don't see your point.
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Bingo. Now I know, I know, I know.....you really REALLY do believe we have a real enemy here, ad they are significant and stuff, but this isn't
really like any of those wars, right?
Call me Samuel Huntington, but I think we are on the verge of a great war. We are already involved in a great clash of societies, and the way we go about (that's right, America) handling it could have lasting implications for years and years to come.
This is yet another example Max of where I believe your lack of perspective and hatred for Bush has blinded you. WW II was six years, not including of course the fighting that had been going on between the Chinese and the Japanese years prior to that. That's also excluding the military buildup in Germany, and the rise of fascism in Europe.
We're fighting another kind of fascism IMO. I think it's still in the cooking stages, and to look back at WW II
now and cry about how this is sooooo not that is sort of stupid. Again, I'm thinkingof the "p" word.
This isn't the same as WW II. Thank God for that. And thank God that President Bush isn't alowing isolationists and political opponents to prevent us from dealing with this threat
now rather than later, much like they did to FDR.
On a side note, your thing about FDR and Bush was kind of funny, considering FDR was probably the closest thing we've had to an imperial president. So I agree, Bush certainly isn't like FDR.
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"our government could be doing far worse right now."
hat's a really powerful moral argument there, Kev. That's what I told the cop when I got brought up on assault charges, I said "What the fuck, officer, I coulda killed the guy and ate him."
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Yeah, but see the clever little thing you did there was you cut my comment in half. Let's review it in its entirety:
Considering the anarchic (corrected my typo) nature of terrorist cells, our government could be doing far worse right now. That doesn't mean Gitmo is right, or the NSA spy program is right, or whatevr else. But I think you're seriously lacking in perspective.
My point here was that since we
aren't fighting nation states, and we
can't necessarily fight in a traditional fashion, the government could have cause to take VERY extreme domestic measures, far worse than taking telephone records, listening to our phone calls, and reviewing our bank records. They would have the justification, and you know what? The American people would support it, just as they've supported all of the aforementioned things.
This puts you (and me, frankly) in a minority of Americans who don't believe these encroachments on liberty are worth the security. Most Americans seem to disagree with us. I would like it if they just went to the FISA court, but I digress....
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The official investigation notes that prior to Times article, the investigation was crap. We will never know if it would have stayed crap, but I think theres some reason to suspect it might have. If you beleieve that the pentagon doesn't try to sweep nasty shit under the rug on a regular basis, I think you are a rube. Appease the media? Cover up bloddlust? Nothing so complicated, dramatic or grandiose. Avoid bad PR. Reflexively, habitually. I think that's uglier, personally.
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Hmm, I recall you saying the initial investigation was wrong, but then I asked you to support that and you didn't. Something about how the roadside bomb fit into the picture......? Maybe you could work on that.
As for the general practice of the Pentagon, I dunno. I think you're probably right. Is that right? No. Does it make us the bad guys? No.
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"One side criminalizes the targeting of innocent life, and the other glorifies it."
Not exactly. One side criminalizes the deliberate targeting of innocent life. The accidental taking of innocent life is seen as an unpleasant biproduct that some policies try to avoid and others embrace with open arms. We use weapons we know for a fact are maximal killing machines like cluster bombs, we actively try to fuck up land mine treaties. They glorify the taking of human life, were casual about it. AND THIS IS MY COUNTRY!
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AND YOUR COUNTRY IS AT WAR WITH A "VERY REAL ENEMY", MAX!
PERSPECTIVE!