Here are the posts that pissed me off so much, in their entirety.
Now, here’s my understanding of Zenster’s position. The Taliban and OBL are bad. The Afgani people did not get off their starving, oppressed asses and overthrow them. The Afghani people must pay for this and pay dearly. Decimation would work. Obliteration of their civilization is good too.
I did ask Zenster to clarify his position in that thread. He never answered me back. So I’m left to believe my interpretation is correct. Maybe you can tell me what Zenster really meant Scylla
The concept of a “Scorched earth” automatic retaliation is pretty straightforward, and makes for an effective deterrant.
It’s also an appropriate one in certain circumstances. For example, when you stand alone against many many enemies who threaten to overwhelm you, none of whom singly are stronger than you, if you overreact to the first attack against you in extreme fashion, that may serve to hold the others in abeyance.
It’s pretty much an extreme, last-ditch tactic (one Israel has used on occasion effectively though.)
In our current circumstances though, I think such a response would produce gravely unfavorable results. If you’re the underdog and you do this, it garners respect and caution. If you’re a superpower it makes you look like a bully.
…I second everything Biggirl just said. The thesis of Zenster’s thread (Afghanistan: Our people have suffered so much) is that the threat of genocide should legitimately be applied against the Afghani people due to their culpability in the WCT attack, which culpability is demonstrated by their tolerance of the Taliban, who in turn are complicit due to their sponsorship of al Qaeda. He makes this position crystal clear in the post I cited and in this quite eloquent post earlier in the thread (which answers the question about who’s society he wants to decimate).
Hee hee! Nope, but it’s nice to see your application of logic is consistent with your usage of literary terms. My point was that Zenster’s strident phrasing of his theses is not the technique of hyperbole, where a writer extravagantly exaggerates a notable situation, idea or characteristic to draw attention to a salient feature. Rather, he is entirely sincere in his assertions, or if not sincere he’s failed to retract or apologize for them. (Which, just to help you out, as I know you have trouble seeing these things, is the thesis of this thread.)
It helps us understand your views, Scylla; views with which many of us can quickly agree. However, it says nothing about Zenster’s views, as he’s expressed them, and it offers no insights into the true meaning of Zenster’s words, which you’ve asserted we don’t understand.
The Ender Wiggin approach. It’s important, however, to realize that it’s best used against the actual attackers. In no circumstances is it acceptable to “overreact” with a slaughter of the non-culpable.
I think it does say something about Zenster’s arguments, adn does help me with my original point (in some cases.)
It seems the main thrust of rebuttals that Zenster is getting are along the lines of “How could you say such a thing?” or otherwise construing those quotes as pregnant with bloodlust and fury.
I think Zenster’s wrong to a large degree, but I don’t think you can argue effectively with his stance by chiding him for his lack of concern for Afghani citizens. I don’t think Zenster’s a hateful guy. I think he fears that an insufficiently firm retaliation will lead to more attacks on the US, and add more power, strength, and credibility to our enemy, causing a longer and more bloody confrontation down the road.
I think he’s correct in that we must be sure to anhiliate this threat.
I think the way to correct his misaprehensions isn’t by saying his advocated tactics are “mean, inhumane, bloodthirsty, or will cause suffering.” He knows this. He thinks they are justified still because the alternative is far worse and lasting.
Don’t argue the justification of the tactics. We have a known ruthless enemy who attacks wantonly against noncombatants. Extreme tactics are justified against such if they are the best or only solution.
Argue why his tactics will not have the desired effect, or won’t work, or what will work better and I’d think you’d make headway.
If the only way to stop these terrorist attacks were to “decimate” the population of Afghanistan I’d say we have to do it. Fortunately, I don’t think that’s the case, nor would it have the desired effect.
Rather than recoiling at the horror of such a proposition, show why it doesn’t work.
Actually I was thinking the Wyatt Earp approach. He mentions it specifically three times in My Friend Doc Holiday
Twice he held off a larger and overwhelming armed group by promising (and having the reputation for willing to deliver) death to the first person who moved against him.
The third time he was forced to make good on it, and was much surprised that he survived the ensuing bloodbath that resulted.
And, if you are a positing a survival situation, which are confrontation with the terrorists may arguably be, than what is “acceptable” is moot. You either do what is required to survive, or you don’t.
There are a large array of “extreme tactics” which could be supported on military or strategic bases, Scylla. Some of them are also ethical, and some of them are not. I damn well will argue against the justification of tactics which I consider unethical.
Please refer to every thread referenced in Abe’s OP.
But Scylla, it was the part about decimating and destroying the civilization of innocent people that pissed me off. Why should I question the effectiveness of his tactics when it is his tactics that offend me?
I never thought Zenster was a hateful guy either, but everything he’s posted on Afghanistan is chock full of hatred. He has distorted the truth to fit his hatred. Read his posts. Any other “tactic” proposed to him is not good enough because it is to soft on the Afghan people. He has equated the Afghan people with with OBL and the Taliban in his mind. His hatred has spread to include Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
It looks like bloodlust to me. I think you are the one who is picking and choosing which words represent what Zenster believes and are discarding and ignoring everything else.
Please tell me your misconstrual here is deliberate. I’m saying don’t argue whether or not the tactics are justified if you wish to make headway with Zenster. It’s a judgement call, and September 11th arguably justifies quite a bit, as does the survival imperative.
I wasn’t making a blanket ethical statement, but a specific suggestion. Did you not got the, or were you just going for the rhetorical flourish?
And a straw man is when you deliberately create a weak or obviously false argument and assign it to your opponent to shoot it down. That’s what your metaphor was.
If you don’t think your argument was a straw man, that’s your problem, but please don’t project your ignorance of these things onto me. You can call it “extreme rhetoric to fight extreme rhetoric,” but it’s still a straw man. The fact that you created a straw man to shoot down an invalid argument in the first place doesn’t change that, and the fact that I noted it was a straw man with a freakin’ smiley should have provided you with a clue that I wasn’t seriously objecting.
At any rate, you’re getting a little pissy with me, and I’d appreciate it if you’d stop.
I’m not here to fight, but to raise the possiblity that perhaps some are being a little hard on Zenster and that his rhetoric has gotten stronger and stronger because he’s arguing from crossed purposes.
But if you were trying to bash me on the head with a brick I’d be feeling a little defensive too.
All of Zenster’s opinions are of the normal mix we all hear every day since the bombing. Why fuss and moan over it? Lots of view points are going to be expressed here, as in the real world.
If it’s just the tactics that offend your principles do you also object to the decimation and destruction of the civilization of innocent people in Japan during WWII?
What about Nazi Germany?
We devastated both of those country’s and killed lots of innocent people doing so.
Does the fact that we did those things piss you off as well?
Or, would you concede that there are occasions when such actions are not only justified, but necessary?
Yeah, I got what you were saying. GET THIS: I find the tactics advocated by Zenster to be repellant. I will argue against them on purely ethical grounds, regardless of the “headway” you feel this will allow me to make.
Twaddle. Firstly, I didn’t assign my example of rhetoric to Zenster; I offered it as a congruent example of extremism. Secondly, although my “Texas convicts” assertion was certainly analogical to Zenster’s assertions, there was nothing metaphorical about it.
My ignorance? Simply asserting again that my argument was a straw man doesn’t make it so. Jackass. (Note the smiley, which indicates that wasn’t a “serious” characterization of you.)
Sure. I’ll stop. But I’d appreciate it if you’d use your terminology more carefully. I don’t make strawmen.
Uh, this is Mrs. Big Liberal-love-thy-neighbor Girl you’re talking to here.
I don’t think we should have dropped either one of those bombs on Japan. I think the firebombing of Dresden was an appalling act. What either of these things have to do with advocating destroying Afghan civilization and killing one tenth of population just to teach them a lesson, I have no idea.
The point is simple. We don’t need to argue it. You can decide if it has merits and take it for what it’s worth. If you’re not smart enough to figure out what I mean than I’ve seriously underestimated you.
Ok, I’m not smart to figure out what you mean, either, Scylla.
No, I do not think we should have dropped the atom bombs on civilian targets (I would have no problem with military targets).
No, I do not think that we should have carpet bombed Germany (or Japan).
No, I do not think that Germany should have bombed British cities.
No, I will not concede that there are situations where such actions are necessary.
I will concede that in war civilians will be killed, but I will not demur from my insistance that all reasonable measures be taken to avoid civilian deaths.
You’re point seems to be (but I apologize if I am too stupid to get it right) that we should not be attacking the ideas Zenster has put forward simply on their face, but we should instead be debating their effectiveness.
I will not do that. Some of the ideas Zenster has put forward on dealing with Afghanistan and the terrorists are unacceptable on their face, regardless of their effectiveness. It is great that the suggestions have him all conflicted, but he makes them anyway.
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*Originally posted by obfusciatrist * Ok, I’m not smart to figure out what you mean, either, Scylla.[.quote]
That’s not my fault.
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That’s nice. Personally, I don’t think we should have wars, period.
However, I am not sheltered enough to think that we live in such a world where people do or don’t do things based on whether or not they are justified.
The problem is, Germany and Japan were deliberately practicing a concept known as “total war,” with only some very minor concessions to civilized behavior.
A militarily inferior enemy can defeat a much larger and superior entity if they are practicing “total war,” and their enemy is not.
Total war is also self-escalating. If one side practices it, the other side either loses or catches on real quick.
A good analogy might be a physical fight with another person. Assuming that you are stupid enough to engage in such behavior, it can happen according to three basic scenarios.
You agree on the rules beforehand, say a boxing match, in a ring, with gloves and a ref. No problem here. It stays realtively civilized. In fact what you have isn’t a fight. It’s a sporting contest. You might as well just play poker (which would be my choice.)
No rules, but fear of escalation. Both sides fight conventionally out of self-interest. They know that if they escalate, so will their opponent. This is your basic fisticuffs.wrestling match behind the bar. Nobody wants to grab a weapon.
Total war. This is where you escalate immediately and without limit in the attempt to gain an unbeatable advantage, that you maintain through momentum. You ignore conventions in pursuit of victory.
Now, I might argue that the only one that is justified is #3. IMO there is no such thing as a fair fight or an honorable battle. If it’s not worth #3, it’s not worth fighting about.
When you say that bombing a civilian center is not justified, I agree 100%. I agree. Don’t fight the fucking war. Soldiers love life and it hurts just as much for them to die as when anybody else does. Their lives are just as valuable as anybody else’s. Don’t send people to kill each other, period.
The problem is is that if somebody is engaging in total warfare against you, and you’re not, you might as well be showing up at a knife fight with just your dick in your hand. You’re gonna die.
Germany and Japan were engaging in total warfare. We could respond in kind, or die. We used nuclear weapons on Japan because Japanese civilians had the same value as American soldiers. We had to defeat Japan, and either they could take the casualties or we could share them on both sides. You may not agree, fine, What alternative action would you have proposed?
What’s reasonable? Should American soldiers be put in harm’s way, before Afghani citizens?
By what reasoning do you assign a higher value to an enemy civilian’s life than to a friendly soldier’s? Aren’t they both human lives? Why is one worth more than the other?
The tactical fact is that in total war, a friendly civilian is most often worth less than a friendly soldier.
If you are not fighting total warfare, do you believe there’s some such thing as a civilized war?
Sherman practiced total warfare against the South and brought the war to a fast resolution.
The Vietnamese practiced total warfare against the US forces, and fought us to a standstill.
Afghanistan is a country that knows well the lessons of total warfare. Ask the Russians?
I think it unlikely that we will be able to fight a conventional civilized war against this enemy, and prevail.
The bombing of the WTC showed that our enemy was not fighting conventionally. We can adapt, or lose. Make no mistake about it, the US is fighting a form of total warfare in this conflict. Our restraint and compassion towards enemy civilians, and our limiting of the conflict is not merely for humanitarian reasons, but to deprive the Taliban of potential sympathy and aid. They had hoped and planned that we would react in a wanton fashion, I’m sure, in order to procure this aid.
Well yes. We are talking about warfare and killing and suffering here. You seem to think that some kind of military response is called for. By what vanity do you rate soldier’s dying horribly as more acceptable than civilians dying horribly? Do you think that this is a civilized activity?
If we’ve made the decision to kill people, don’t you want to make sure we do so effectively?
On a different level, responding to Zenster in terms of effectiveness, is more likely to result in meaningful debate. It’s just a suggestion, not an edict.
Really? Certainly one in ten German soldiers died in WWII. That was “decimation.” Are you that sure that we won’t see a Jihad and fight a full scale war? If that happens do you beleive that both sides will just call it off and head home if levels of casualties reach “decimation.” At what level beneath decimation are casualties on either side acceptable.
What about nuclear? Assume our shaky and fickle friend Pakistan decides to go the other way, and starts nuking Israel, and India, and maybe starts smuggling bombs into the U.S. and setting them off in high population areas.
Should we allow Pakistan to nuke our troops, our allies, and us for a few months while we fight a ground conflict, or do we strike back swiftly and destroy Pakistan with nuclear weapons to prevent them from killing tens of millions?
Bio weapons? Sure I’d use them. Suppose the US has a bio weapon that’s highly contagious. It gives everybody who catches it a severe headache and flu symptoms rendering them unable to fight, until they’re innoculated. Isn’t that more humane and effective than just killing them.
I could go on, but I think it’s unfortunately all too easy to imagine a scenario where any of Zenster’s suggestions are not only justified, but the only rational, even inevitable solution.
He may not have thought these things through, or know enough theory or history. Do you?
No, its not. I don’t recall blaming you for it. However, when you find that nobody is smart enough to figure out your point then you may want to consider that it might be your fault.
Well, there’s a difference between us. I do think we should have wars. (Well, not that we should but that there are situations in which they are justified and required.)
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Of course; and it is impossible for a journalist to be objective but that doesn’t make the goal unworthy. Yes, terrible things will happen during war. Yes, immoral things will happen during war. That does not mean you stop trying to prevent them and go straight for the lowest common denominator.
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Really? I missed the part where Japan carpet-bombed Los Angeles. I missed the part where, after finishing at Pearl Harbor, they headed for the residential neighborhoods of Honolulu.
Japan did not have the capability to carry out total war against the United States.
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Acceptable behavior between individual people is not a good analogy for acceptable behavior by nation states.
But if you want to make the comparison, are you saying that in a bar fight, it is acceptable for one person to just immediately pull a gun and shoot the other dead simply because “that’s where it would have gone anyway”?
So, anything worth fighting over is worth shooting someone for? If some guy in a bar insists on grabbing my wife’s breasts I should just shoot him? Just go to the end game?
But again, comparing conflict between two individuals to conflict between two nations is not a valid comparison. In your strange lingo, it is an incorrect metaphor.
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Don’t take this the wrong way, but to say that a soldiers life is equal in value to a civilians life is fucking ludicrous. The whole point of a soldier is to place their life at risk.
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True, assuming that the combatants are otherwise equal. If Robocop showed up at the knife fight with his dick in his hand he would still likely win. But again, comparing individuals to nations is faulty.
First, I would argue that our need to defeat Japan was not so paramount so as to justify victory by any means. If we had just walked away when Germany surrendered, no real threat was posed to the United States by Japan. I’m not saying we were wrong to pursue the war to conclusion, but that the situation did not justify victory by any means.
Yes, there was an alternative to dropping the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The alternatives are called “military targets”. How many islands were there that contained only military personnel? I would have no problem dropping bombs on those. Or how about finding a carrier fleet in the Pacific and dropping on those? I’m sure that, with a little effort, the same point could have been made without dropping them on civilian targets. But I’m sure I’m just being naive.
What is reasonable? First, if you are shooting AT the civilians, that isn’t reasonable. Second, how important is it to kill the enemy soldiers right then and right there? If you wait a day, could you confront the soldiers away from a population center? Reasonable really is a judgment call and I am not saying it is a black and white issue, but saying “let’s kill one-tenth of all Afghans” is unreasonable.
Second: Yes, American soldiers should be placed at risk before we start intentionally targeting Afghan (the proper term, by the way) civilians. I’m willing to accept that civilian lives will be lost in the bombing, but I also expect the military to do everything it can to minimize those deaths.
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Is this really that hard to see? They are soldiers! Shooting, and being shot at, is their JOB.
We kill civilians accidentally, we kill our soldiers with intent.
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That is a value judgment with which I disagree. And that was my whole point, it is completely valid to argue that, on their face, Zenster’s suggested tactics are invalid. You can disagree, but it is still a valid point of argument.
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Most wars start out “civilized” but I will agree that unless they are short, they will quickly degenerate. Does that make them any less wrong? I would further argue that because there are unjust acts within a war, this does not necessarily make the entire war unjust.
However, just because I recognize that unacceptable acts will occur in war (such as My Lai) doesn’t mean that I am wrong to condemn them, wrong to avoid them, wrong to expect that our leaders will strive to prevent them.
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And he was wrong to do so.
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I would say you are getting a little loose in your terminology here. I wouldn’t say that they fought “total war” so much as they fought a guerilla war. But, whenever the Viet Cong targeted civilians, they were wrong to do so. Just as we were when we destroyed an entire village because we knew VC were in there somewhere.
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But do you really expect that Osama bin Laden (and those like him) really care if we kill 10% – or even 90% – of the Afghans around him?
Yes, I do. I have no problem with my position that soldiers are of different value than civilians. We’ll have to disagree.
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Absolutely. But if your argument is that we should just kill everybody or anybody then I am going to disagree with that decision.
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Yes, it will produce a debate on the effectiveness of indiscriminate slaughter. But I fail to see how debating the validity of indiscriminate slaughter is not a good topic as well.
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Absolutely. And we were entirely justified in killing 100% of German soldiers (assuming they didn’t surrender). In any war, kill all the soldiers you can, as efficiently as you can. What does that have to do with the argument that targeting civilians is unacceptable?
If the “decimation” is among soldiers, it is up to the individual warring nations to determine when casualties are enough. But if you don’t feel that “decimation” will be enough to stop the “jihad” then why bother killing the civilians? Revenge?
So, we kill tens of millions to prevent Pakistan from killing tens of millions?
I can’t answer this question, Scylla, I don’t have nearly enough information. Would there be a way to sufficiently cripple Pakistan short of nuclear weapons? If we have to use nuclear weapons, is it necessary to make the entire country glow? If it is necessary to make the entire country glow, is there any way we can save civilian lives? If there is no way to save civilian lives, then you maybe have to do what you suggest.
Yes, you and I could probably come up with dozens of scenarios where you would get me to admit that targeting civilians is the only answer (The Riddler’s magic mind beam turns the population of Colombia into mindless zombies moving inexorably through the United States, tearing anybody they find limb from limb!). Fortunately, we don’t have to come up with fantastic scenarios. We have one right before us. Zenster’s suggestions are not hypothetical.
The conflict before us does not, in my opinion, warrant “total war” against Afghanistan. You don’t think this a valid point of debate; we’ll just have to disagree.
I’d like to think I do. I personally like to start my thoughts about war with Just War Theory (Michael Walzer’s Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations is my favorite starting point), but I’m willing to discuss whatever theory it is you find most appealing.
(Note the smiley, which indicates that wasn’t a “serious” characterization of you.)