Bravo nimh and ebrown.
One thing to add -- convincing oneself that the enemy "has no face" directly results in things like Abu Ghraib. All Arabs are barbarians, so it matters little what is done to them. Nevermind that (60?)% of them were NOT picked up because they were pointing a gun at Americans, and were in fact not picked up for any particular reason.
And of course, if the actual face is too disturbing, too human, put a hood over it.
Re: The Most Ancient Enemy. "They have no faces..."
Tarantulas wrote:You're making this whole thing way too hard. Who cares whether the barbarian is an Iraqi or an Al Qaeda foreigner? If he's pointing a gun at you, you shoot him. It's as simple as that.
I was assuming that the article was about distinguishing what comes down to "barbarians", against whom we fight nothing less than a "war of civilisation", from regular enemies.
The ratio of true apocalyptic "wars for civilization" to claims of such a dire civilization-in-the-balance wars is something like 0 : innumerable.
It gets old seeing people equate their side in a conflict to a messianic salvation of civilization.
Finn D'Abuzz
If we are all honest we will admit that excepting a few have views that are too opposite to debate without it going into a merry-go-round. You said that my view represent a liberal view (or something like that) that you almost always disagree with. (putting your into my words) The same is true in my case with your views and others like you. Although I have no real hard feelings (except some days when I am having a bad day...) towards anyone.
However, that is not why I didn't particulary want to debate why I found the article to be too sweepingly judgemental and dismissing a race of people as barbarians, the main reason is that I have really said all I know to say on it and you disagree, what else need be said?
Ah - the Four Shetland Ponies of the Apocalypse again...
