“Outskirts” is my word for “a ring comprising area within 20 miles or so of a city”. From what I can tell, no bombs hit inside of Kabul’s city limits (such as they are). Certainly, Kabul’s residential areas are being spared – as they should be. Dresden, it ain’t. No moral problem for me.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Stoid *
**
Actually, this quote of mine:
… is addressed to you, Stoid. I started writing before Sofa King posted, and then saw his cites on preview. I then added the subsequent paragraph to my post to let you know how I regarded Sofa King’s cites, and encourage you to hopefully provide more conclusive cites for such an extraordinary claim (not necessarilty Web sites – books or mags would suit me fine).
Sofa King"Took to hiring car-bombers" is not supported by the cites you gave me, in my opinion. “Allegedly trained.” What you wrote originally suggested that we commissioned a car-bombing.
Note: I tried to edit but hit submit instead of preview. Ergo, the “mind” comment. Sorry. My first draft usually gets toned down two or three (or 10) times before I submit it. This time you got the raw, unadulterated, nicotine-starved Beagle. <quit a few months ago>
Stoid I agree with much of what you said. Some excerpts:
All good points. I abhor unjustifiable vengance-- which begets more violence. I oppose innocent people being killed, even if many more of the guilty are killed in the process. I prefer the rule of law over rule of might also. On some major points we agree. As usual, the difficulty is how to get there.
You oppose (Republican) military action before it even happens, see my previous posts. That is where we diverge. Often people who oppose action refer to the “imperialism” of the U.S. Where did you stand on Clinton’s many interventions. I wonder if you were as critical?
As for the “marginal” distinction, it can be the difference between “military action” and “war crime.” To suggest we are bombing within a city, when we are not, must be corrected.
Elucidator How about some evidence or arguments? That would help in determining what you mean.
Vietnam, our presence was as justifiable as the Soviets was. When we left (not lost, left due to domestic politics) the whole region fell into chaos and the communists committed genocide on a massive scale. How does that relate to our initial presence? All of that was communist sponsored. A great argument can be made that Pres. Kennedy and Pres. Johnson blew it with incremental force and micromanaging. Whatever you think about Tricky Dick, he did get the U.S. out of Vietnam. Really. Look it up.
<fingers cramping>
Nicaragua. The Sandanista rebellion was Soviet backed. The Sandanistas killed and tortured domestically, exported revolution, and destabilized the region, killing many more in the process. Your argument that more died because we opposed Soviet expansionism is puzzling. Almost exactly the same number died in the Sandanista Revolution as the Contra Rebellion, yet you seem unconcerned that the Sandanistas killed. This argument militates for rolling over and not opposing the Nazis, or letting the South take over the Union, since more people died. Can you not see a connection between our military opposition and the Sandanistas handing over power? It seems obvious to me.
The CIA. You seem to blame the lack of Farsi speakers on the Bush Administration in power for months (somewhat fair). Yet, you exonerate the Clinton Administration, which was in charge for eight years during many Arab-backed terror attacks on U.S. targets?
Guatemala and Peru will have to wait for another day. I have contingency anthrax meds. to pick up.
Hmmm. Without might, law is impossible to enforce in the international community. How else besides might can international law be enforced if a rogue nation decides to flout it? If a rogue nation’s “law-breaking” has such an immediate impact on other nations that economic sanctions and other peaceful measures are too slow-moving?
I know you directed it to me, and I never said anything about it. This isn’t my post, my assertion or my topic and I can’t easily find whose it is. It’s just not mine. Check Sofa King.
Now, where did I oppose military action before it even happened? ** Your ** previous posts do not do a thing to prove what ** I ** said. I have never used the word 'imperialism" to criticize the US in my entire life.
As to Clinton’s military actions, I never felt very strongly about them one way or another, frankly. Most of the time I supported them, in a vague, unpassionate sort of way.
A better analogy would be the Gulf War. Which I wasn’t rah-rah about, and I fully recognized that it wasn’t really about “protecting the Kuwaiti people”, which was horseshit, it was about “protecting our oil interests in the Middle East” and on that basis alone, I pretty much supported it.
Heh. And here I read the thread title and thought Stoid would be teeing off on Ashcroft and we could agree.
I’ll just add this:
Just thought you two should know that I’m scratching you both off of my list of candidates for when D.A. Morganthau finally retires. But if I ever find myself in front of a jury, I’ll make sure my attorney keeps you on.
Is good you fear for innocents, and vish to protect dem. I like dat part of you. On other hand, vy you don’t want justice for our innocents?
Were they not people? Did they not deserve to live? When we have a murderer loose in our country do we not hunt them down and jail/kill them? We don’t ask them to never do it agian, we make sure they don’t. I would not care if the Taliban swore on a stack of bi Laden photos that they would behave, I would want them dead or in prison, and bin Laden’s head on a stick for what he has done and promised to do.
Is also interesting that we agree on the reality - what the US will do will most likely involve the deaths of innocents, and that is very painful to swallow (darn, I should not use that expression in this thread, with the previous Clinton reference). I do not see any way around it in all of the scenarious presented so far. But that does not mean it should stop us - as you’ve said.
Please allow yourself to have the same concern and respect for Americans as you show for others. (I think you are expressing that, I think).
As for justice… again, my issues even with criminals have less to do with “justice” than with preventing further crimes from being committed. Although I do of course believe that even one-time criminals should pay a price for their crime.
But this just isn’t that simple. There are far too many other factors in play for us to indulge our desire for retribution. Justice can only be served by accident, not by design. If it fits into all the other goals, great. If it doesn’t, leave it. And I woudlnt’ care if Bin Laden swore on a stack of Korans! He’s not to be trusted…therefore we must take our security into our own hands.
bordelond You know I meant unjustified military action. I agree with you. I don’t subscribe to the “nuke em’” or “bomb to Stone Age” camp. I think unfocused, retrubutive, military action blows back and causes more problems. As for might being necessary, absolutely.
I would love to capture Bin Laden, though, and put him in jail for his whole life. If he really believes what he says he believes, killing him is doing him a favor. OBL rotting in the general population of a U.S. jail (preferably in New York) would be real “justice.” [sub]Not to mention big gobs of revenge[/sub]
elucidatorHere is some good info on South America to make your case for you. My take on South America: Mix violent leftist groups, violent right-wing groups, violent leftist governments, violent right-wing governments, a big pile of drugs, mounds of drug money, a misguided U.S. drug policy, shake. Generally speaking U.S. South American policy appears to be an afterthought, or sold to the highest bidder. To describe it all as Cold War policy is wrong.
Peru and the United States, if you meant Peru, have a long relationship. You will have to tell me what you mean. Drugs? Shining Path? Fujimori? CIA money? Soviet involvement? Chile is a better example, as the 1973 coup (Allende and all that) was as bad as…
The “United Fruit Coup” in Guatemala (1954) was a dark moment for U.S. foreign policy. Since then there was the 36 year civil war. Our coup started the whole mess. This is one example of the effort to “contain communism” being misdirected. The government we overthrew was elected. The overthrow had nothing to do with fighting communism, it was to prevent land reform. So, if this is what you think was bad, I agree.
Stoid I interpret a “sigh” as opposition. Or, was it a supportive “sigh?” If you do not use “imperialism” that makes me very happy.
Ah, Manhatten, did you happen to see second part of my post? The point is that giving up will just encourage them. The only way we can trust these people is when our boots are on their necks…same with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.
No, coexistance is impossible. These people must be exterminated.
And hey, I’m all for putting criminals in jail. Where’d you get the idea that I want to let them go? I said I would let them go, if only it would work. But of course it won’t work, no matter how much the bad guys promise that this time they’ve learned their lesson, they are going to keep doing bad stuff.
I don’t care whether we call our response in Afghanistan justice, revenge, punishment, deterrence, or security as long as we wipe them out and never give them a second chance.
So how many airplanes have to crash into skyscapers until we can feel justified in striking back? Thats why the call it ‘war’. You kill the ememy because the alternative is that he is going to kill you.
How many members of Al-Q reside in Afghanistan? We have no idea. How many reside outside Afghanistan? Not a clue. Do they have a membership list? They might, we sure as hell don’t.
Lets put you in charge. Minister of Justice Most Extraordinary. How are you going to identify the guilty? In your complete power is millions of ragged, hungry Afghans, maybe a hundred (thousand? ten thousand? we have no idea) of whom are, to varying degrees, complicit in Al-Q’s plans.
Go ahead. Dispense justice. Eye for an eye, and all that. Who goes to the wall? At what point will you make that compromise? “Well, a few innocent people will suffer” How many? What percentage is “acceptable”? 5% who go to the wall? 10%?
We know that the top three are currently in Afghanistan. We have asked that country to turn those individuals over for justice. They have refused.
We do not seek the merely complicit. We seek the actively involved. We identify the guilty by tracing back the money to Al Qaida; by talking to associates who know the organization and who is in it; and by following the trail of evidence to identifiable individuals. We cut off the head of Al Qaida, even if we do not have the ability to cut off every finger. The head, beyond argument, is Osama bin Laden.
Justice is not necessarily an eye for an eye. No one has said that it must be. Justice includes making sure that those who were responsible for the action in question are not in a position to repeat it. It also includes punishing the individuals personally. How that should be done is of course open to debate, but I personally have no qualms in saying that people responsible for the mass deaths of 6000 should in turn pay with their lives.
Oh, I don’t know. More than twenty, which is the toll as of today.
It probably goes without saying, but allow me to state, for the record, that my chief concerns are (a) seeing that this never happens again and (b) obtaining justice for the victims, in that order. But then, I am fully aware that “justice,” “retribution,” “retaliation,” and “vengeance” are not synonyms that may be used interchangeably, a distinction that appears to have escaped STOID. It must be very easy to state that you’re not for justice when you apparently don’t have much idea of what the word means.
It was a sigh of dismay. I am dismayed at the prospect of more war in more countries. I am dismayed by what has happened already. I was dismayed by the Gulf war, even though I supported it.
I think you should stop reading so much into things. Particularly with me. If I mean to say something, I will say it.
So we do nothing? We know who some of the terrorists leaders are. We have intelligence agencies whos job it is to find people and collect information about them. Just because Al-Q doesn’t give us their mailing list doesn’t mean we don’t have methods of finding them. http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20011010/ts/attacks_investigation.html
Like the OP said, finding the guilty and punishing them is nice, but not the primary goal. The primary goal is disrupting their ability to launch attacks.
Unfortunately, humanity can do do no better. Never could, and almost certainly never will. Just my opinion.
Our great-great-great-grandchildren will also see such wars fought during their lifetimes. Though humans are reasoning animals, we are still animals – and will continue to be for the foreseeable future.
Well, it’s like a teeter-totter with humanity – as a collective whole, humanity will assure it’s own survival. I don’t think any concievable war will ever end in destruction of mankind. War is just a condition of the human existance – we’ve always had war and we always likely will, but we haven’t managed to wipe ourselves out.
War & peace are the two ends of that teeter-totter. For desctuction of all of humanity to occur, the teeter totter has to stay down on the side of “WAR”, and never come back up. Even then, it would be practically impossible.
