Kara wrote:Unfortunately, in order to bring the longish piece to an end, Kagan did so precipitately. After discussing the bases and rationales of different world views, which he did open-mindedly and well, he abandoned his philosopher's tone and crashed and burned on landing. He seemed suddenly to decide that the world is indeed "us against them" and the "them" is Europe unless they come along on our leash.
I don't understand this comment. I think Kagan ended with a characterization of a real inescapable dilemma, and not a simplistic "us against them" like you characterized. Please help me understand your characterization of the following.
Quote:Herein lies the tragedy. To address today's global dangers, Americans will need the legitimacy that Europe can provide, but Europeans may well fail to grant it. In their effort to constrain the superpower, they might lose sight of the mounting dangers in the world, which are far greater than those posed by the United States . Out of nervousness about unipolarity, they might underestimate the dangers of a multipolar system in which nonliberal and nondemocratic powers would come to outweigh Europe . Out of passion for the international legal order, they might forget the other liberal principles that have made postmodern Europe what it is today. Europeans might succeed in debilitating the United States this way. But since they have no intention of supplementing its power with their own, in doing so they would only succeed in weakening the overall power that the liberal democratic world can wield in its defense -- and in defense of liberalism itself.
Right now, many Europeans are betting that the risks posed by the "axis of evil," from terrorism to tyrants, will never be as great as the risk posed by the American leviathan unbound. Perhaps it is in the nature of a postmodern Europe to make such a judgment. But now may be the time for the wisest heads in Europe , including those living in the birthplace of Pascal, to ask themselves what will result if that wager proves wrong.
Gelisgesti wrote: Juan Cole in the The Fallujah Report and the Liberal/Conservative Divide:
[
emphasis added by me]
Quote:The US military seems strangely unaware of the realities of insurgencies. It seems to think there are a limited number of "bad guys," who can all be killed or captured. The possibility that virtually all able-bodied men in Fallujah supported the insurgency, and that many are weekend warriors, does not seem to occur to them. In fact, as Mao noted, guerrillas swim in a sea of supportive civilians. The US military slides suggest that now that the bad guys have been taken care of, the civilians can be won over. That this outcome is highly unlikely does not seem to occur to them.
I doubt the truth of the boldfaced statements. However, should these boldfaced statements be true, an additional implication to the one drawn by Cole would be valid. These statements also imply that so-called collateral damage in Fallujah" is not collateral after all. Inadvertent killing of "virtually all ablebodied men in Fallujah" would be justified whether they were actual combatants or not. Those not combatants would in fact be aiders and abettors of combatants making them in effect combatants too. The killings of their wives and children, whether killed inadvertently by our troops or killed by Iraqi combatants, would be virtually, totally the Iraqis responsibilities. They would have willingly chosen to resist free elections at the expense of the lives of their families.
Kill 'em all. God will recognize his own, eh?
MerlinsGodson wrote:Kill 'em all. God will recognize his own, eh?
I of course cannot speak for God. Perhaps you can. I'll look for another star in the East.
But I can speak for myself. I think establishing a government in Iraq that is difficult to subvert by another Saddam tyrant, is necessary for American and Iraqi security from would be mass murderers of civilians. I think establishing a democracy in Iraq is a necessary step toward achieving that security. So, yes, I want to impose on the Iraqis a democracy designed by and for Iraqis. So, yes, those people in Iraq that seek to subvert that objective via mass murder of civilians must all be killed or permanently disabled.
Soon is not fast enough!
Ican, you missed, or, I suspect, ignored the point. There were, according to the Marine's chart, only two instances of non-Iraqi fighters in all of the battles that took place. That would suggest to me that it is not as the administration would like us to believe which is that the insurgents are only thugs and escaped criminals. If you haven't noticed there is a Jihad in progress .... a holy war against what the Iraqis see as oppressors .... who do you think that may be? As far as collateral damage My guess would be those deaths are the result of maybe a zillion tons of bombs dropped on what is regarded as 'coordinates' ..... and the classic 'kill everything within a hundred yards' play toy fondly refered to as 'cluster bombs' .... never mind that they are illegal under the Geneva conventions.
Ticomaya wrote:Gelisgesti wrote:Ican, you missed, or, I suspect, ignored the point. There were, according to the Marine's chart, only two instances of non-Iraqi fighters in all of the battles that took place. That would suggest to me that it is not as the administration would like us to believe which is that the insurgents are only thugs and escaped criminals. If you haven't noticed there is a Jihad in progress .... a holy war against what the Iraqis see as oppressors .... who do you think that may be? As far as collateral damage My guess would be those deaths are the result of maybe a zillion tons of bombs dropped on what is regarded as 'coordinates' ..... and the classic 'kill everything within a hundred yards' play toy fondly refered to as 'cluster bombs' .... never mind that they are illegal under the Geneva conventions.
But ...
on 12/12/02, Holly Burkhalter, U.S. Policy Directory, Physicians for Human Rights wrote:... A significant source of civilian casualties in the Afghan theater that is likely to be a bigger concern in Iraq is the use by allied forces of cluster bombs. Cluster bombs, with their wide scatter radius and many "dud" bomb-lets that are later picked up by civilians and detonated on contact, should be eschewed if there is a war against Iraq. The Geneva Conventions do not outlaw cluster bombs per se and do permit proportionate collateral damage when attacking appropriate military targets. But human rights groups and governments allied with the United States are appealing to the U.S. Government to rule out the use of cluster bombs because they are inherently indiscriminate. Here again, humanitarian law may be more permissive than international and domestic public opinion. ...
Link.
Is Ms. Burkhalter wrong?
By 'wrong' are you speaking 'morally' wrong or 'factually'? How would the differentiation impact the dead or maimed?
Gelisgesti wrote:By 'wrong' are you speaking 'morally' wrong or 'factually'? How would the differentiation impact the dead or maimed?
By "wrong" I mean is she factually incorrect when she made the statement that "the Geneva Conventions do not outlaw cluster bombs per se," which is in contrast to your statement that " 'cluster bombs' .... are illegal under the Geneva conventions"?
I'm not commenting on the "morality" of cluster bombs, just the factual statements being bandied about on this thread. I guess the dead don't care whether they're factual, and I doubt that the maimed are reading these posts.
MerlinsGodson wrote:Kill 'em all. God will recognize his own, eh?
and then sort them out.
a great line from the film "cold mountain";
"i imagine god gets weary of being called down on all sides of an argument".
god has nothing to do with war. his "word" is just a handy excuse when no logical reason can be given. neither does he "bless the united states of america" or "bless the martyrs with the guidance of jihad".
men say these things, not the creator.
Ticomaya wrote:Gelisgesti wrote:By 'wrong' are you speaking 'morally' wrong or 'factually'? How would the differentiation impact the dead or maimed?
By "wrong" I mean is she factually incorrect when she made the statement that "the Geneva Conventions do not outlaw cluster bombs per se," which is in contrast to your statement that " 'cluster bombs' .... are illegal under the Geneva conventions"?
I'm not commenting on the "morality" of cluster bombs, just the factual statements being bandied about on this thread. I guess the dead don't care whether they're factual, and I doubt that the maimed are reading these posts.
Why did'nt you tell me you were the 'truth police .... coulda saved some time
I can't say she was incorrect because she covered her but with 'per se'
I can't make the connection between eading this post and being maimed???
Rebels return to 'cleared' areas
In Fallujah, US forces are going through 50,000 houses one by one. But Iraqi insurgents are coming back.
By Scott Peterson | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
FALLUJAH, IRAQ – The embers in the house were still hot from the fire of battle when Cpl. Joshua Richard went in to view the remains of the insurgents who killed a fellow US marine.
At the base of the stairs - the same dark place where Lance Cpl. Blake Magaoay of Pearl City, Hawaii, had fallen in a burst of rifle fire - Corporal Richard harangued the burnt Iraqi corpse."You got what you wanted, didn't you?" he sneered, referring to the Marine casualties.
The corporal's anger is not unusual among marines who for three weeks have been taking casulties among comrades, as they continue to face an up-close battle in Fallujah. The Pentagon now says US forces will see their tour of duty extended until after the Jan. 30 elections. While their fight is no longer a front-page story, the physical and mental toll is growing, as the marines here continue to hunt an enemy that rarely seeks them out. Instead, pockets of insurgents lie waiting until teams - like that led by Corporal Magaoay - come crashing through their door.
Magaoay's death brings the US fatality toll in November to at least 134, one short of the toll of the most lethal month to date for Americans in Iraq. Seventy-one US troops died retaking the rebel-held city, according to Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler, the top Marine commander in Iraq. An additional 623 American troops were wounded in the most intense urban conflict for US forces since the Vietnam War.
Iraqi civilians are not expected to be permitted to begin returning to the badly damaged city until mid-December, and extensive damage to virtually every house and building across Fallujah means that detailed US and Iraqi government plans for rebuilding will take months, at least, to realize.
But the original problem persists: US forces sweep through one neighborhood after another, only to find insurgents popping up in "cleared" areas.
The battle Monday killed one marine and wounded three others - a high cost against three insurgents, who had moved into a house 50 feet across the street from a newly established marine position at a Fallujah fire station. That house and several others nearby had been cleared just two days earlier.
The ensuing fight revealed an enemy that has hardly given up and is making US forces learn the lesson of the warning taped up on the inside gate of the Marine fire station base: "Complacency kills."
"They are in survival mode, and they're just waiting until someone comes to them [to fight], rather than going out and initiating attacks," says Lt. Col. Dan Wilson, the deputy current operations officer for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force in charge of western Iraq.
"We have to go through close to 50,000 structures in the town of Fallujah," Colonel Wilson says, "to make sure that when someone comes home [an insurgent] doesn't jump out from a hidden wall or a spider hole, kills them, and continues to operate from that house."
Marines are pursuing insurgent cells, and have picked up cell leaders who are "making mistakes" because they are "on the run," adds Wilson.
General Sattler says that at least 1,200 insurgents had been killed in the city. The amount of weaponry found so far in Fallujah confirms to marines that the city had been the nationwide hub of the Iraq's insurgency.
Catalogued so far, US intelligence officers say, are more than 4,500 mortar systems, 400 grenades, 800 rocket-propelled grenades, 800 land mines, and more than 260,000 rifles and small arms.
"You could issue one [Fallujah] rifle to every man in the United States Marine Corps, and still have a bunch left over," says Wilson.
Senior officers say attacks in the Fallujah area have dropped off 44 percent since the invasion of the city began.
A chemical workshop that appeared designed to boost the explosive power of roadside bombs has also been found.
The Fallujah assault "is not good for the families and marines who have suffered and died, putting their lives on the line for the freedom of Iraq. But it has been good in terms of dealing a blow to the insurgency," says Wilson.
Gelisgesti wrote:Ican, you missed, or, I suspect, ignored the point. There were, according to the Marine's chart, only two instances of non-Iraqi fighters in all of the battles that took place. That would suggest to me that it is not as the administration would like us to believe which is that the insurgents are only thugs and escaped criminals.
I neither missed or ignored the point. I spoke directly to it. Whether the insurgents are 100% Iraqis or some percentage less does not change the fact that whoever they are, they seek to achieve their objectives (e.g., preventing democratic elections in Iraq) by intentional mass killing of civilians. I can think of of only one objective that warrants risking the
unintentional killing of civilians: that is the objective of stopping the
intentional mass killing of civilians. I think that by virtue of their
intentional mass killing of civilians they become "thugs and escaped criminals." According to my sources, many of these thugs and criminals are former Baathist members of Saddam's murderous government. The administration appears to me to think the same.
Gelisgesti wrote:If you haven't noticed there is a Jihad in progress .... a holy war against what the Iraqis see as oppressors .... who do you think that may be?
Themselves! Call this horrific, intentional mass killing of civilians what you please--jihad, holy war, religous war, righteous war, rebellion, insurgency, an attack on oppressors, just another form of self-expression--it doesn't change the fact that not their origins, but it is their choice to achieve their objectives via the mass murder of civilians, that marks them fully eligible for permanent and total destruction. They have less claim on life than the vilest bacterium or virus.
Gelisgesti wrote:As far as collateral damage My guess would be ...
not a good guess.
ican711nm wrote:Gelisgesti wrote:Ican, you missed, or, I suspect, ignored the point. There were, according to the Marine's chart, only two instances of non-Iraqi fighters in all of the battles that took place. That would suggest to me that it is not as the administration would like us to believe which is that the insurgents are only thugs and escaped criminals.
I neither missed or ignored the point. I spoke directly to it. Whether the insurgents are 100% Iraqis or some percentage less does not change the fact that whoever they are, they seek to achieve their objectives (e.g., preventing democratic elections in Iraq) by intentional mass killing of civilians. I can think of of only one objective that warrants risking the
unintentional killing of civilians: that is the objective of stopping the
intentional mass killing of civilians. I think that by virtue of their
intentional mass killing of civilians they become "thugs and escaped criminals." According to my sources, many of these thugs and criminals are former Baathist members of Saddam's murderous government. The administration appears to me to think the same.
Gelisgesti wrote:If you haven't noticed there is a Jihad in progress .... a holy war against what the Iraqis see as oppressors .... who do you think that may be?
Themselves! Call this horrific, intentional mass killing of civilians what you please--jihad, holy war, religous war, righteous war, rebellion, insurgency, an attack on oppressors, just another form of self-expression--it doesn't change the fact that not their origins, but it is their choice to achieve their objectives via the mass murder of civilians, that marks them fully eligible for permanent and total destruction. They have less claim on life than the vilest bacterium or virus.
Gelisgesti wrote:As far as collateral damage My guess would be ...
not a good guess.
I was wrong, you neither missed or ignored the point, you simply could not grasp it.
I intend this post to be limited to the issue of intentionality as it relates Ican's knowingly killing innocents to promote a stable and democratic Iraq under the guidance of the U.S., while the insurgents are purposely killing innocents to remove the U.S. and promote their own form of government (Theocracy? Some form of totalitarianism similar to Hussein's rule? I don't know). Thus, I reject the euphemistic claim (or at least the phrasing of that claim) that we are risking unintentional killing of civilians to prevent intentional killing. I have also omitted Ican's qualifier "mass," that he used to modify "killing" by insurgents but not "killing" by the U.S. I have no data that confirms that insurgents have killed more civilians than has the U.S. (I don't know if such data exists). Ultimately, where collateral damage is entirely predictable, as it is in this situation, the deaths cannot be considered mistaken. You cannot knowingly bring about consequences and then claim that those consequences were a mistake.
Framed in this way, I still think that we should finish the job in Iraq, but it's not an easy question of "risking unintentional killing" vs. "intentional killing." I realize that finishing Iraq calls for knowingly killing innocents and American soldiers. We must face this demon.
There was some "al Qaeda" in a relatively small area of a region of Iraq that was out of the control of Saddam Hussein. We invaded and are occupying the entire country because of a pretext based on this fact. We didn't destroy al Qaeda in Afghanistan, we killed some of them, the rest fled elsewhere and are continually recruiting more people throughout the world with our inadvertent help. We went in to Afghanistan to get al Qaeda's number one, Osama bin Laden. Our adventure in Afghanistan has been an utter and miserable failure in that regard. We went in to Iraq on the pretext of getting "al Qaeda" there. Our adventure in Iraq has been an utter and miserable failure there. The insurgents against whom we are fighting are largely Iraqis bent on impelling us to get out. There are few al Qaeda there who form an amalgam fighting against a single cause, the ouster of the occupying invaders.
Al Qaeda declared it's intention to continue mass murdering Americans. What does that have to do with Iraq?
Powell propagandized the claim that Saddam was harboring al Qaeda in Iraq.
There is much evidence against this propaganda. "Evidence" produced by the government amounts to "indications" of "tolerance," and "indications" that he "may have even helped" "al Qaeda in Iraq. "Al Qaeda" in Iraq amounted to a local group of Islamist extremists bent on the ouster of Saddam from Iraqi Kurdistan, and the creation of an Islamic Kurdish nation. The evidence indicates that an al Qaeda affiliated terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, fell in with this group of Kurds.
The threat that Saddam presented to us was negligible. He became so weak and irrelevant in regard to any kind of weapons systems that may have even come close to harming us, that he wasn't a threat at all, especially as compared to a nation like Korea. Saddam was thoroughly contained by way of the Joint Task Force's operations, the UN sanctions, and the UN inspections.
The invasion and occupation of Iraq as regards Saddam's actual threat was grossly overkill and UNNECESSARY.
When you doublethink, anything can be true to you, ican. Especially when you're presenting "evidence" to make a case for any kind of questionable action. Powell was wrong about everything he presented. The available evidence just doesn't support the propaganda he spewed.
Powell propagandized the claim that Saddam possessed WMD's deliverable to US targets in 45 minutes. A lot of people believed this. This was wrong.
Powell propagandized the claim that Saddam possessed mobile bio-weapons laboratories. A lot of people believed this. This was wrong.
Powell propagandized the claim of a "nexus" between Saddam and al Qaeda. This was his weakest claim, and some people believed it. A lot of people did not. Given his propensity to propagate wrong information about Saddam as indicated by the examples listed above, and putting these propagandistic claims to the light of the available, un-propagandized, un-ideologized evidence--evidence presented by organizations that had no stake either way in the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and evidence presented by organizations who, despite the possibility of having something to gain acknowledging Powell's propaganda, denied it--this was wrong.
Paradoxically, and quite telling of your mental operations, this is the claim to which you, ican, cling with the zealous belief of an Islamist fanatic.
One thing is Duelfer's report, another thing is basing one's support of the invasion and occupation of Iraq as NECESSARY in light of this report. Had Saddam resumed development of WMD, an invasion and occupation would not have been NECESSARY. Operations similar to Operation Desert Fox--which was phenomenally successful in accomplishing its goal at hand, which was not the destruction of al Qaeda, not the ouster of Saddam, but the destruction of WMD sites in Iraq--could have been carried out.
Similar operations could have been carried out to destroy the "al Qaeda" camps in Northern Iraq. The US government decided on an invasion and occupation of Iraq instead. The invasion and occupation of Iraq for this purpose WAS NOT NECESSARY.
Kay is a more reliable source than Powell because Kay actually went in looking for WMD in Iraq--Powell didn't--and found nothing.
For all of the "indications," and evidence self-describedly "uncertain" in its "reliability," a war of invasion and occupation was grossly superfluous and UNNECESSARY.
Saddam used the income from his corruption of the UN OFF program to build palaces and to fund weapons programs that amounted to individual regime officials using those funds for anything but weapons programs. The regime had fallen into corrupt dysfunction.
The bribery of French and Russian leaders by Saddam is irrelevant and a red herring in regard to our pretexts for the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
It's well known that Saddam gave money to the families of Palestinian terrorists.
What the US government says about "evidence that Saddam gave hundreds of thousands--maybe even millions--of Oil-for-Food dollars to terrorists and terrorist organizations," given its propensities to propagandize this--which, in regard to Iraq, has amounted to things like "indications" "tolerance" "may even have," and outright falsities--should be taken with a grain of salt.
Just wanted to drop in here momentarily to congratulate the Bush administration for it's achievement of the deadliest month yet (cue trumpets...enter from stages left and right virginal but oh so saucy baton twirlers from Akron High).
With major combat operations long past and the accomplishment of mission a matter of historical record (unfurl NO banners) we mark November 2004 as "Green Shoots of Freedom Push Upwards To The Christian God" month (crank up fog machines...slowly bring up platform with Mel Brooks in Hitler moustache singing "Springtime for Dubya"...random air blasts lifting skirts of baton twirlers over here then over there).
Infrablue: That last post was a great summation of the facts. I wouldn't put so much blame on Powell however, this invasion was a delusion formed by team effort and the faults lie squarely on the heads of Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and, most especially, George W. Bush.
Al Queda has not been harmed in the least by this costly and disastrous action. Rather, it has given it's many adherents time to organize, plan and recruit in hundreds of other places around the world, including Japan, the Philippines and Indonesia. Oh and yes, in the United States.
Kerik, the new Homeland Security chief, is a good cop. He will run the place like a good cop should, finding the bad guys, looking for the money men, but he is above all a rock-ribbed loyalist to this out of whack President and if there comes a time when this President insists that his version of reality must be inserted into the facts, Kerik will follow instead of lead.
Keep your heads down.
Don't get used to the war.
Joe
In the runup to the election, Kerik gave a speech wherein he said that if Kerry were elected, some further terrorist attack on the US was likely. Another toady up top.
Quote:...Framed in this way, I still think that we should finish the job in Iraq, but it's not an easy question of "risking unintentional killing" vs. "intentional killing." I realize that finishing Iraq calls for knowingly killing innocents and American soldiers. We must face this demon.
Steppenwolf.....Yes. That was an excellent post.
