[QUOTE=kidchameleon]
I have a feeling some people are just reading bits of what Scylla is trying to say and not his whole message. From his POV, it may come down to “them” or “us”, i.e. his worst case scenario. He’s advocating us to be far more destructive than were are in order to avoid such a situation, to decrease the chances of being forced into an us or them situation. While it was noted that he considered wiping them out would be a victory, it was only slightly less desirable than having us all killed. I, for one, would rather kill my enemy rather than be killed. Other than a few devout non-violence advocates, I can’t think of anyone who would disagree.
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[QUOTE=RTFirefly]
You’re kidding, right? Because if you’re serious, there aren’t words that suffice.
[/QUOTE]
I think you’re being whooshed to some extent. The point is accurate. As currently conceived, we are engaged in a war we cannot win unless and until we kill each and every last person even remotely related to our abstract definition of what it means to be an enemy. So, either we do that, or we don’t fight. That is, I think, pretty much true. I can’t argue with it.
Here’s the part that’s gone unsaid, and which you’ve missed: Engaging in mass indiscriminate slaughter is unthinkable, so, by logical conclusion, we can not and should not fight.
Unless you disagree, and believe that mass indiscriminate slaughter is what we should be doing. As Scylla apparently does.
Pitting Scylla for posting evil, asinine crap such as …
… I can certainly support.
Scylla, I know you have excrement for a sense of a morals, but listen closely:
Opposing a president’s (or anyone else’s) policies in a democracy, within the bounds of the law, DOES NOT equal “actively promoting the enemy’s agenda.” Anyone who asserts such is an enemy of democracy. I truly hope your hyperbolic statement does not represent your true feelings.
I do think this is a worthy and well-earned pit on the whole. The linked posts by Scylla are highly reprehensible.
On the other hand, the OP’s “or, worse, a conservative” is seriously off base.
Scylla deserves to be pitted for posting fascist, genocidal crap, not for being a conservative (which I’m not sure he is, actually).
Here’s another case where a poster is being pitted merely for having an unpopular opinion. For what it’s worth, I think Scylla is right to an extent – if we want to win militarily in Iraq, we have to take the gloves off. If that were the only question at issue, there’d hardly be a controversy.
Scylla truly thinks “cutting and running increases the chances of a worse conflict later, and increases the chances of a genocide later.” He may be right or he may be wrong, but if he’s right, there’s a little more validity to his first point, no? Just as you might argue that while Sherman was an out-and-out terrorist, the ending of secession and slavery was worth it.
I personally think he’s 100% wrong about the dangers of losing Iraq, but hey, that’s what GD is for.
[QUOTE=elucidator]
Swing and a miss, strike one Red.
[/QUOTE]
Dunno, 'luc. if I’m the manager of the team you called that strike on, I’d shoot outta dugout and at the very least kick-up some dirt into your shoes. Throw me out of the game if you wish…but not before I take my three swings:
Riddle me that one, Batman. Sure, it’s a spitball and filed to boot…but not that hard to understand what’s being implied in the slime.
Scylla wants to go all out to win a war. But,are we in a war?.We are not against a n opposing nation. We are not fighting against a defined army. No uniforms ,no grouping of enemies. This is a police action. We went into a country presumably in the war on terror. There were no terrorists there. There were no weapons of mass destruction. That is why we sit in a green zone and watch.
Now ,we have decided we should not emphasize the training of Iraqis to step up so we can step down. The whole thing is a big lie about oil.
[QUOTE=Cervaise]
I think you’re being whooshed to some extent. The point is accurate. As currently conceived, we are engaged in a war we cannot win unless and until we kill each and every last person even remotely related to our abstract definition of what it means to be an enemy. So, either we do that, or we don’t fight. That is, I think, pretty much true. I can’t argue with it.
Here’s the part that’s gone unsaid, and which you’ve missed: Engaging in mass indiscriminate slaughter is unthinkable, so, by logical conclusion, we can not and should not fight.
Unless you disagree, and believe that mass indiscriminate slaughter is what we should be doing. As Scylla apparently does.
Clearer?
[/QUOTE]
Well, I mostly agree with what you’re saying. mswas’ extension to warfare in general, OTOH, I find disturbing. State-v.-state conflicts have often been won at levels of carnage that don’t remotely approach the genocidal level.
And the “war on terror” (really the war on al-Qaeda and its main offspring and fellow travelers) is to some extent a war, just not in the classical sense, and with the appropriate means of fighting being a complex mixture of public and private diplomacy, intelligence-gathering, and police and special-forces operations. None of this requires anything like genocide; none of this requires traditional state-v-state warfare, which of those here, only Scylla seems to find useful in the immediate context; but it does require some of the tools of war, and it is as much deserving of the appelation as the Cold War was.
[QUOTE=Gangster Octopus]
While not a Conservative myself, I find it distasteful that the OPs subject line basically pits Scylla for being a Conservative.
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Legitimate query. Other than the relatively few (+/- 30% of Americans; guesstimate that figure easily goes down into the single digits world-wide) remaining hard-core Conservatives, who else is backing this clusterfuck?
Would someone be so kind as to link me to the thread where Scylla admitted that he sometimes trolls the board? I remember it, but can’t seem to find it.
The other fallacy here is the notion of a finite and exhaustible source of enmity. We have more enemies now than we did on 9/11. On 9/12, we had more friends than at any time before or since. Hell, people who didn’t even like us that much were holding candle light vigils! Sweet Og, the opportunity squandered!
Point being, policies like this create more enemies than they neutralize, and they provoke terrorism as vengeance. Despite our having captured the #3 man in AlQ about 27 times, we are (probably) less safe now than we were: we have more enemies, which is the best and most practical measure. Remember that crap sandwhich we were served, about how 75% of the leadership of AlQ was liquidated? Well, looks like they went and got some more.
The manpower pool is, for all practical purposes, unlimited. There are more of them than there are of us, and we cannot deal with them effectively with “boots on the ground”, even if we mobilize the Campfire Girls.
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
Has Scylla never been Pitted before?! No matter. His/her/its shamelessly and openly genocidal comments in this thread should be sufficient to justify the thread title, and I have no doubt many other Dopers can come up with equally rich examples.
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I generally like you BG, but you sure can be a sanctimonious asshole at times. Get over yourself.
[QUOTE=elucidator]
The other fallacy here is the notion of a finite and exhaustible source of enmity.
[/QUOTE]
I think it is simplistic to wave this away as a fallacy. I think the truth is a bit more complex than that.
First of all, as I stated above, a totally beaten people can channel their energy into more productive areas (political reform, reconstruction, economic development, etc) once they decide that they cannot win. This was true in Germany in 1945, where the economy was in shambles and the military completely beaten. Same with Japan, as I said above.
Scylla noted that this sort of thing would be preferable to a situation like the Palestinians, where false hope has led to a paralyzed political and social development. I don’t see where that particular point can be argued, really. The only thing that can be is whether the tactics involved to get to that point would be worth it in the end. I think it is far from a decided question.
Also, we remain in an era where even if the government of the United States can sometimes make unpopular decisions, the popular culture and economic power of the country holds tremendous sway. This buys us a lot of resentment worldwide in addition to a lot of admiration. Oftentimes the two coexist.
If we had friends on 9/12 that we did not have on 9/11, they were shallow friends indeed, and the enemies we’ve picked up after a few years of a Bush White House might be just as shallow. This isn’t to minimize the threat posed by our genuine enemies, nor the contributions by our enduring allies, nor to say that this might affect the makeup of both columns. Just that your post about us squandering opportunities fails to take that into account.
[QUOTE=RTFirefly]
Well, I mostly agree with what you’re saying. mswas’ extension to warfare in general, OTOH, I find disturbing. State-v.-state conflicts have often been won at levels of carnage that don’t remotely approach the genocidal level.
And the “war on terror” (really the war on al-Qaeda and its main offspring and fellow travelers) is to some extent a war, just not in the classical sense, and with the appropriate means of fighting being a complex mixture of public and private diplomacy, intelligence-gathering, and police and special-forces operations. None of this requires anything like genocide; none of this requires traditional state-v-state warfare, which of those here, only Scylla seems to find useful in the immediate context; but it does require some of the tools of war, and it is as much deserving of the appelation as the Cold War was.
[/QUOTE]
I think the threat of Islamic fundamentalism is of a different nature than prior conflicts.
Our enemy does not require a state to perform its activities.
Our enemy benefits from operating out of failed states.
Our enemy has maximized its effectiveness by taking advantage of modern technology and the modern market.
Our enemy can severely cripple us with fewer people than it requires to form a battalion.
Our enemy cannot be stopped by bombing infrastructure, see 1 and 2
Our enemy gains support the longer we fight them on 2nd/3rd generational war terms.
Our enemy believes that God is on their side, they will not stop.
Therefore the only possible course of action in a total war scenario is genocide. It is the only reasonable way to defeat our enemy using total war. We are faced with two options.
Eradicate the enemy.
Restructure to a decentralized system where the state no longer becomes an useful target.