Brandon9000 wrote:Brandon9000 wrote:
1. You are confusing military prisoners with citizen prisoners suspected of civil crimes.
2. You seem to be disproportionately concerned about the bad side of our attempts to combat people who are trying to kill us compared to the fact that they are trying to kill us. Agreed that there are real dangers in both areas, but you appear only to express concern about the nature of our attempts to save or lives and our culture from people who are actively trying to destroy both. This is particularly odd a day after the reminder in London.
3. What is it worth to you to not have nuclear or biological terrorist attacks which wipe out hundreds of thousands of people in each attack? I really need for you to give me a clear and unequivocal answer to this.
thethinkfactory wrote:Brandon:
Reply to 1) You seem to be confusing people suspected of civil crimes and those whose rights no longer exist and are imprisoned without council forever.
And what sort of recourse to courtrooms did prisoners captured in previous wars, e.g. WW2 have?
thethinkfactory wrote:Reply to 2) I am concerned about certain civil infractions protected by the very conception of our countries philosophies and possible attacks. There has been a few in the last 100 years.
Be specific. I do not know what you are referring to.
thethinkfactory wrote:As I said, strengthen our borders and stop being naive - not invasions are necessary to help with that.
Strengthening our borders would be a good thing, but it certainly won't keep a well planned and financed operation from getting someone in.
The purpose of the invasion of Iraq was not to stop terrorists from infiltrating the US. It was to finally and absolutely resolve something that Hussein was required to make clear to us years ago, the disposition of the WMD he had possessed. Bush has said over and over and over that this was the purpose of the invasion. How many repetitions does it take does it take before you grasp it?
thethinkfactory wrote:There are two questions here: Does decreasing our liberty remove the prospect of terrorist attacks to the level you mention above? Ofcourse not - look at the level of security in Isreal - it does not stop Palestinian terror attacks. Does war, or even a war on terror, help or hurt with stopping terror attacks? London has the most camera's per person watching the populace and it did little to stop the attacks of 7/7.
When violent organizations are trying to kill us, and in some cases succeeding, vow to destroy our value system, and present the possibility of much greater violence in the future, mentally normal people think it's a good idea to fight back, not to give them a hug. You're living in some kind of academic dream world.
thethinkfactory wrote:Reply to #3) So given #2 it is worth a lot to stop biological and terror attacks to me - but our methodology cannot be one of limiting civil liberties of citizenry and waging war on nation states associated with terror. It does not remove the prospect of terrorism, it only engenders those in vulnerable places (poor, angry and the like) and solidifies those already commited to terror acts.
As far as civil liberties go, I believe that it might be worth it to temporarily give up just a few minor ones to aid in our defense against people who are actively trying to kill us. I would oppose giving up too much, or any core liberties. Your idea that nothing can ever be given up with buildings exploding around you is foolish. Your idea that it's wrong to wage war back against people who are manifestly waging war on us is merely naive.
Although you have certainly answered my question, i.e. "What is it worth to you to not have nuclear or biological terrorist attacks which wipe out hundreds of thousands of people in each attack?" I would like you to be much more specific. How much effort do you think it warrants to protect your country from the real prospect of hundreds of thousands of lives being extinguised in a single event? You who purport to be so concerned with life and liberty seem strangely unconcerned about the prospect of hundreds of thousands of your countrymen lying dead in the streets, which is a perfectly possible outcome of a WMD attack on a city. WMD come within the grasp of more groups and less sophisticated groups every day.
1) Gitmo is not full of POW's. They are not slated as enemy combatants by the administration - they are slated as unlawful combatants that are claimed to have no rights and can be detained without council forever.
2) Besides Gitmo I could refer to the internment camps of the Japanese for one. I think it is you that have a sterilized version of what is going on in this country.
3) You seem quite capable of not answering arguments and attempting to make staw men out of mine. Strengthen our borders and increase intelligence is not "giving hugs". Answer the question and stop hedging. This is the fourth time I will ask it. How much liberty are you willing to give up? I will add an addendum - do you think a totalitarian state (extremely little liberty) would cure terrorist attacks?
4) Well funded, dedicated, and most importantly suicidal terrorists are impossible to stop. You can strengthen but you cannot stop a person willing to die for his / her cause. This has been the case for all of history. So in reference to how much liberty you are willing to give up - this comes down to an equation that cannot be zeroed at the end of the day.
5) Just because I teach philosophy now does not mean I am an academic, liberal, esoteric thinker. I carried the ubiquitous HM-16A2 well before I was a philosopher when I was in the Marine Corps and you don't get any less esoteric training than there. I understand a little of warfare and what works. I think if we started listening to our generals in Iraq we would stop thinking military actions will do anything about terrorism on the scale we have embarked upon in Iraq. Surgical strikes are much more appropriate and less costly than a full scale war that has killed more American's than perhaps Iraq ever would have (as they had no real weapons to kill us with).
6) Increasing our WMD's and invading countries that have hated the west since the crusades will do little to stop terrorists entering our country Despite millions spent on border stregthening our borders are so porous that any dedicated terrorist could be in a major city with whatever weapon was at his disposal without much effort.
I am dedicated to doing things that work. What we are doing is not working - not in Iraq and not in America. War is not a fire you can fight with fire. Intolerance is also a fire you cannot fight with fire. For every insurgent we kill - we create and train ten more - it is the nature of the relationship with that region. For every person you imprison without charges you alienate hundreds more from your democracy.
I, frankly, am not sure how to go about 'fixing' the problem - but what we are doing is simply not working. However, I never pretended to. I am simply arguing against our current policy.
I fear the long term answer lies in decreasing poverty and increasing education. I have no clue how to do that, and I think America cannot do that alone. We have them might to destroy any nation - we do not have the strength, alone, to rebuild any nation.
TTF
