Don't get mad, it's for our troops
POSTED BY: Succatash
UPDATED: Sunday, May 16, 2004 12:45
VIEWED: 14196
PAGE 8 of 10
We are in agreement, Zoriah.
--Anthony
"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner
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Someone Wrote:
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<--?? Until the "whole world" participates in our democractic election process, and has a voice in who is doing the leading here and, if I might say, we don't even have that HERE, considering the outcome of the 2000 election)
Your friend's good points would be better without mentioning the 2000 election. I've heard about the 2000 election a lot, due to my virtue of having been from South Florida and having lived there at the time of that election.
I remember in Civics class in the 7th grade, I learned that due to our election process, it was possible for someone to lose the popular vote but win the election. This is due to our screwy electoral process. It's the same process that's been around for centuries. Everybody decided to suddenly get excited about a phenomenon that has always existed, simply because it was a very close call between Bush and that other guy.
One of my favorite things to hear is how, if people in Florida knew how to count ballots, Bush wouldn't have won. The other guy would have taken Florida, by all rights, and we'd be living in a peaceful utopia of a world now.
Turns out, though, that Bush really did win Florida. A dozen recounts by a dozen agencies demonstrated that if the ballots were counted properly, Bush would have won.
The only problem with the 2000 election is the problem that every election has had since we've held elections. The structure of the thing does not account for each person's vote. The electoral process was designed and built with 18th century technology in mind.
So please, if you don't like the electoral process, say so. But don't harp on the 2000 elections as an example. 2000 was no different than any other, except that the losers were louder about it.
If anything, get mad at American Idol's voting process.
Now, as an aside, I think it's also important to point out that a democracy is not the only way to run a country. It's certainly the one I'd choose, but that doesn't mean I have the right to tell others to live that way. So no, we don't have the right to tell other nations what to do, nor even to enforce a particular political ideal.
We do have the right to kick a nation's ass when they try to slit our throats... but that's not the situation in Iraq, is it? I remember thinking, way back when this war started, "We had BETTER find WMD, because if we don't, we're going to look like the assholes of the universe."
Guess what?
--Anthony
"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner
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Maybe what I wrote seemed flippant? I didn't intend it to.
To answer you directly, I absolutely agree that we need to have single standards to evaluate behavior and tactics, and like I said I think the tactics being used are shocking and offensive, morally corrupt and deserving of punishment.
My point was to divert attention from a single incident and instead focus on what that single incident tells us about the broader military struggle in Iraq. What most news etc. is trying to put over is that the Abu Gharib torture was "isolated" when I think it is perfectly clear it is not. I don't think these kind of things can be justified morally under any circumstances--the best you can get is to say the ends justify the means (which of course never approaches moral justification), but even then my point was to say that the "means" have been and will be undermining our ends rather than achieving them. That is, I don't think that these photos serve as an indictment of our efforts in Iraq; we should never have gone there at all for the precise reason that, as many many people predicted, resistance to our occupation would result in brutal tactics and violence. And in the context of this resistance it would be difficult for the US to implant a democracy even if our policymakers acted in good faith.
I do think there is a meaningful difference to be made between insurgents and international terrorists in terms of motivation and location. Depending on how a given President (ahem) manages it, I think they could make it quite difficult for terrorists to blend in Muslim communities in the United States; the Lackawanna 5, for example, the 5 guys arrested in Buffalo I think 6 months or so following 9/11, all admitted to attending an al Qaeda camp. But they claimed that they had done so under false pretenses, and at least one of them had contacted the FBI following 9/11 to ask if they could render any assistance. My guess is that the vast majority of Muslims in the US are here because they like it (even if they might disagree with our Israel policy etc.). And US Muslims don't come from one nation but many, and probably the most nationalist of these are African-Americans in the Nation of Islam rather than Indonesians etc.
In Iraq we are dealing with a nationalist insurgency in its own nation, and to my mind the historical examples that fit are the National Liberation Fronts in Algeria and Vietnam, Mujahedin (sp?) in Afghanistan, etc. etc. The conflict is taking place in their country where we are an army of occupation that is actively preventing the formation of a representative national government, which means that there are base level policy grievances shared by a large number of the population of which the insurgents are only an extreme expression. The populace as a whole is much more receptive to their analysis (if not their actions) than our own Muslim population--which went to great lengths following 9/11 to proclaim allegiance to the US and distance themselves from al Qaeda.
Anyway, maybe this was buried in my earlier post, but I think Iraq is fundamentally a political rather than military problem and therefore requires a political solution--similar historically to nationalist insurgencies, which were started because imperial powers refused to allow subject populations sovereignty. And I think that by imagining the struggle against al Qaeda as simply a "war" our government has made a huge mistake, of which those photos are the tip of the iceberg.
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I realize this wasn't address to me, but I found some of this rather interesting.
“Just because we believe everyone has those rights, it does not give us the right to impose by force of will (and force of arms) it upon other sovereign nations, no matter how despicable we find them to be.”
This I find a little strange. Would your friend have opposed removing the Nazis on the bases of their extermination of the German Jewish population? Did your friend oppose Clinton’s use of force in the former Yugoslavian state? If what your friend is saying is something she actually believes and applies consistently, then your friend must certainly have opposed the American Civil War, which was a use of force that ultimately imposed the Republican belief of freedom on Southern Democratic Slaveholding states.
“Do you think that we should also deprive the U.S., UK, and our allies of those weapons? Because we have them too, and we HAVE used them.”
Do you think you can convince North Korea, India, Pakistan, Russia, France and litany of others to get rid of their arsenals? If you do, and can then the US will follow suit very quickly. While France and maybe (big maybe) Russia might be willing to go along with that. You’ll find that nations like North Korea will not. And their arsenals necessitate all others. I’ll settle for keeping them out of the hands of terrorist and rogue nations, who would seem bent on using them to kill innocent people in their bid for world domination.
"Until the "whole world" participates in our democractic election process, and has a voice in who is doing the leading here and, if I might say, we don't even have that HERE, considering the outcome of the 2000 election), then we have no right to impose upon the WHOLE WORLD. If we do that, we are dictators, no better than Colonialists, full of Noblesse Oblige, patting the head of Little Brown Brother."
I see. So liberating nations so that they can participate in a World Democracy makes us bad guys, but nothing we do is justified until all nations can participate in a World Democracy? So the hopes and dreams of a world free of despotism rest squarely and completely on the shoulders of men like Kim Jung Il, the Ayatollah of Iran and Castro to give up their lofty positions. That doesn’t seem terribly Democratic to me or likely.
Other then that I think I agree with everything your friend said.
Also the moral of this story is that, it's not that simple. You can't tie the hands of liberal democratic nations because they don't necassarly act democratically in the face of despotic rulers.
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Someone Wrote:
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This I find a little strange. Would your friend have opposed removing the Nazis on the bases of their extermination of the German Jewish population? Did your friend oppose Clinton’s use of force in the former Yugoslavian state? If what your friend is saying is something she actually believes and applies consistently, then your friend must certainly have opposed the American Civil War, which was a use of force that ultimately imposed the Republican belief of freedom on Southern Democratic Slaveholding states.
The Nazis were not removed on the basis of their treatment of Jews. If that was the only basis for removing the Nazis, there'd be no Jews in Europe right now. Nobody even wanted to take Jewish refugees and exiles, much less go to war ont heir behalf. You can throw that warm and fuzzy reason for armed conflict right out the window.
The U.S. has only ever went to war when it had something to gain from it, or in self-defense. We have never gone to war for altruistic reasons. We probably never will. Nor will anyone else. There is no United Federation of Planets cranking out perfect little people who only care about the fuzzy wuzzies. There's just us dirty humans on this dirty rock. Anything good that comes to people as the result of our military action is always a side effect, and never the primary intent.
As for the Civil War, that was an internal conflict within the United States, and slavery was a rallying issue, not the true issue. Kind of like how bringing democracy to Iraq is a rallying issue. It's not why we went in. It's the excuse we use to stay there. Something the people can get behind.
So... no. I don't think that going to war to 'help people' or 'end oppression' is enough. Judging from history, few people ever have. We go to war to serve our national interests. That's about it.
--Anthony
"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner
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FIrst of all, let's give ourselves a big round of applause for having an intelligent, nuanced, and well articulated discussion! I haven't had the time to do anything more than lob in a few posts, but I've really appreciated reading everyone's comments. Finn, Hero, Jasonzz, Zoriah, LordJ, AnthonyT and all the rest- you've made this an insightful discussion! You're all invited to Rendino's in Diamond Bar CA for pizza and beer. I'll pay for the first five pitchers and pizzas!
OK, now for some (I hope) equally nuanced and insightful comments. Hmmm... working my way bass akwards as usual....
AnthonyT- I agree with MOST of what you've said, but there are some important fractures in your last post. On the one hand, you say that "we" never go to war for warm fuzzies, but that they provide a rallying cry for "the people" to get behind. You're obviously assuming that "the people" who put the effort into the war, and the "we" who decide to go to war are entirely two different things. The schism continues when you talk about "our" national interests. If "the people" have to be winkled into going to war, are their interests really being served? The point is that the USA - or any nation- is not just one uniform blob of people with united interests. it's an intersting point that deserves to be dissected.
Finn- Strangely, I'm on your side on the BASIS of your argument (going to war for the good) but on the opposite side when it comes to the particular case of Iraq. I've been saying - since well before we ever invaded that hapless country- that our motivations are intrinsically bound up with the fact that Iraq sits on the second-largest proven oil reserves in the WORLD. If you've looked at the shifting excuses for our presence- WMD, terrorism, getting rid of Saddam, bringing democracy- you should have figured out that the real reasons have nothing to do with the stated reasons.
AnthonyT- the biggest scandal in the Florida elections was the 70,000-95,000 mostly Democrats who were knocked off the voter rolls for specious reasons at the behest of Florida Scy of State Katherine Harris. You should look up Pallast's article. Also, I looked at the raw data of the Florida-wide recount done by six media companies, using the various criteria for counting ballots (how many free corners, how filled the circles etc.) Of the 24 possibilities, Bush would have won 12, and Gore would have won 12. Oddly, the swing block was in the electronic ballots, not in the hanging chads.
Finn- I'm getting back to my original point about evidence. The point of my second example is that 90% of bombs dropped on Iraq were "dumb iron", and bombs were targeted at civilian infrastructures (ie. power plants, water treatment facilities tec.) Even if 50% of the bombs did nothing but blow holes in the sand, and the remaining bombs only killed one civilian each, you're looking at civilian casulties of 1000 per day- not eight over eight days.
To get back to what we've done in Iraq this past month: "Explosion Fill Night Skies of Fallujah"
www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/central/10/16/ret.ac130.profile/
The aircraft used in this case were AC-130s- heavily armored, heavily armed versions of the C-130 transport. Looking up AC-130s, you'll see that they are mounted with "40-mm Bofors cannon and a 105-mm Howitzer cannon. Newer models also mount a 25-mm gun, used to saturate a target area with extremely rapid fire." Also, they have a cruising speed of 335 mph, and although I couldn't find a stall speed I assume it's something like 200 mph. Doing a little math on the speed of plane and the firing rate of the Bofors cannon, you'll see that it places a shell about once every 60-100 ft. In other words, the AC-130 is NOT a precision weapon. It's designed to cut a swath with saturating gunfire.
Apply this to a city, and the only term that comes up is "massacre". It's been mentioned, quietly, on some public radio stations. My husband pointed out the C-130 characteristics, since he was in Budapest in 1956 and clearly remembers what 50mm shells sound like as
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Someone Said:
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The aircraft used in this case were AC-130s- heavily armored, heavily armed versions of the C-130 transport. Looking up AC-130s, you'll see that they are mounted with "40-mm Bofors cannon and a 105-mm Howitzer cannon. Newer models also mount a 25-mm gun, used to saturate a target area with extremely rapid fire." Also, they have a cruising speed of 335 mph, and although I couldn't find a stall speed I assume it's something like 200 mph. Doing a little math on the speed of plane and the firing rate of the Bofors cannon, you'll see that it places a shell about once every 60-100 ft. In other words, the AC-130 is NOT a precision weapon. It's designed to cut a swath with saturating gunfire.
Apply this to a city, and the only term that comes up is "massacre". It's been mentioned, quietly, on some public radio stations. My husband informed me of this, sicne he was in Budapest in 1956 and clearly remembers what 50mm shells sound like as they walk across a wall.
This information isn't complete, as you are assuming a linear flight path with apparently vertical targeting.
You also need to know what the turning radius of the plane is, and if it was circling, what the dispersion of shells would be if fire was directed at the center point of the circle's diameter.
You may still get a massacre, but over a much smaller target area. This is desireable, as you want lots of lead into as compact a kill-zone as possible. This is how I would conduct an aerial shelling operation if I was in charge of it.
--Anthony
"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner
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Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
Someone Said:Quote:
I think they are really beside the point. The US is fighting an insurgency, i.e. combatants who use their ability to blend into the population as a military tactic, and the only way to figure out who is who is to knock down doors and torture the poo out of folks. It is horrifying to contemplate but its necessary.
Wow. So the only way to stop Terrorist cells in the United States (combatants who use their ability to blend into the population as a military tactic)is to knock down doors and torture the poo out of folks.
What? No? Oh. Maybe that tactic is only 'necessary' for us to use in other nations.
Hmmm...
--Anthony
Thank you, Anthony! Yes, if we cared a fig for "the Iraqi people" we would never condone torturing any of them. The idea that torture is a necessary tool of some ad hoc international justice system run by the U.S. is a lie.
To those reasonable people who post on this board in defense of torture I pose these questions: Where do you get your information? Do you have the slightest idea what torture really is? The long term damage it does to people? Have you seen it? Been subjected to it? Do you truly believe that our success in the "War on Terror" depends on the use of torture? Do you have even the slightest respect for human life? (Sorry, this last question is a bit loaded I realize
, but when I hear people justifying depravity I have to think they do it out of a profound ignorance; that they don't understand that the victims of our righteous torturers are actual full-fledged human beings who may be entirely innocent and who are, by the way, born with the same "inalienable rights" as we are. Inalienable. Look it up.)HKCavalier
Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.
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Good points. Much is made of the precision of the AC-130 because of it's low yield munitions. However, given the fact that this is an urban environment, I think it's impossible to separate out the friendlies from the non-friendlies, especially at night. According to hospital directors in Fallujah, "most" (let's assume 50.1%!) of the 600-1000 casualaties were women and children. Given the population distrubution in Iraq (50% of the population is under 15, and 50% of the remainder are women) this isn't quite indiscrimate killing but it's not targeted either.
The other thing that needs to be pointed out is that the AC-130 is really only good for killing people who have no anti-aircraft defenses: ground troops with light arms. convoys, civilians etc. In other words, it's a people-killing machine.
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AnthonyT- I agree with MOST of what you've said, but there are some important fractures in your last post. On the one hand, you say that "we" never go to war for warm fuzzies, but that they provide a rallying cry for "the people" to get behind. You're obviously assuming that "the people" who put the effort into the war, and the "we" who decide to go to war are entirely two different things. The schism continues when you talk about "our" national interests. If "the people" have to be winkled into going to war, are their interests really being served? The point is that the USA - or any nation- is not just one uniform blob of people with united interests. it's an intersting point that deserves to be dissected.
That is exactly right. By virtue of being in circles of power, money, and influence, the 'powers that be' will always have goals different from those of the 'common man.'
But look deep into your self. If Iraq wasn't the biggest oil reserve around, how anxious would you be to get this country into a war to save them from an evil despot?
The world is rife with evil despots that no one wants to go to war with. Stopping evil just isn't enough of a motivation for most folks. As long as the evil is way over there, it doesn't bother us.
They had to layer lots of reasons for going into Iraq. Stopping evil alone wasn't enough for us. It was a good idea, though. Enough to make us listen. Self preservation? Yuppers. We can get into that. Oil? Hmmm. Oil. I doubt the average American would go to Iraq for oil... but the dream of dollar-gasoline was probably in the back of our minds somewhere.
The government might have had Oil as concern #1, but if they told it to us that way, we'd have been turned off.
Now the only reason they've got left is oil. And we're being turned off. But it may be too late.
--Ant
"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner
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