MacBeth: 1. you and i see the world very differently. what you call mere perspective, i would call evil. maximizing civilian casualties is not a good practice. you will never convince me different. i, apparently, will never convince you that there is something objectively wrong with that. 2. you can make some weak arguments from OBL's perspective about WTC being strategic. how about making those same arguments for palestinians blowing up school buses transporting children? strategic because it's so evil...so full of terror?? perhaps. evil, still...absolutely.
MM...I said i wanted to avoid this, but if you're going to call me on it... Yeah, we see it differently. I see both as evil. I don't see the moral superiority of Nagasaki over 9-11. Almost whichever way you cut it...death toll, choice of weapon, vulnerability of target, % of civilian casualties,the choices are both , for lack of a better word, evil. Same goes for intentionally infesting Natives with disease, etc. In fact, if you wanna get John Wayne about it, at least the 9-11 evil bast*rds had the moral conviction to die with their victims, unlike either of the examples I cited. I am not here defending the moral right of terrorists OR freedom fighters...just saying that those who condemn one while praising the other ought to take a closer look at the line they're drawing, and that had I been born in Beirut, Belfast, Jerusalem or Gizza, and had no other realistic alternative, I am not as certain that I would have chosen to reamin cool, calm, and collected, and go about rectifying the wrongs against me and my people with petitions and poems. I'm not sure you and I agree about the concept of evil, MM, I'll grant you that...but so far as I do believe in evil, I see it in both choices. or
MacBeth - I really didn't mean it in an argumentative fashion at all. I recognize that not everyone sees the world in the same way I see it. Totally agreed on the treatment of Native Americans. I mean TOTALLY agreed. It's absolutely shameful. It's evil. Slavery is another...absolutely evil...the very premise that one man's liberties are subservient to another based on skin color is flat out wrong. There is no moral equivalency test for it. Nagasaki I would argue a little differently...we were a nation already attacked...we were facing HUGE projections of casualties with an invasion of mainland Japan..etc. I don't like to analyze that decision after the fact with information we know now...rather through the eyes of those who had to make it at the time...not knowing really what was going to happen. I know the arguments on the other side and would prefer not to argue history..particularly with a professor! I don't see unintended casualties in the liberation of a nation as evil...you're right. They're regrettable. And I hate that people died. But when Britain was dropping bombs over Berlin...yeah, I don't think that was evil. I think that evil has to be stood up to...and non-violence, unfortunately, isn't always the answer. (by the way..look at my subtle Hitler reference! )
MM...as you say, you don't want to get into an historical debate...I am saying that war is evil..I am, however, agreeing that it is somethimes a necessary evil...however, as it relates to Nagasaki in particular, even given the knowledge of the time, the decision to target a largely civilian area for a psychological aim was entorely consistent with what we now see as terrorist thinking...and, remeber too, that the Palestinians in question, and/or those like the, figure we declared war on them years ago...we just never said it out loud.
Just a thought: There are collateral damages in a lot of things we do. The very act of legalizing the use of automobiles in the US is a guarantee of deaths by the thousands. That's collateral damage. Terrorism? Evil?
If that's a serious thought, carry it a bit further, and you eliminate the need to make messy decisions like 'criminal' and 'non-criminal', 'murder' and 'accident'...etc. There is a degree of taking responsibility involved in dropping a bomb on an area populated with civilians that have no say in the matter than sort of distinguishes the essence of the ideal from allowing people to choose to drive.
Collateral damage is by definition "accidental," no? MM's point is exactly what you are trying to point out to me: there's a big difference between intentionally target civilians while trying very hard to maximize the damage and "accidentally" killing civilians while trying very hard to minimize the damage--even though the "accidents" are guaranteed to happen. Thus my automobile analogy. As for "no say" and "choose to drive" distinction: Well, I don't feel that I have any choice of NOT using a car living in a society like the US. Am I a "no say" victim if I get killed in a car accident? What about the many pedestrians who choose not to drive but still get killed? MacBeth, I agree that the Atomic bomb on Hiroshima, and the rockets fired into civilian district by Israelis were acts that went over the line of "collateral damage." But if you put the Iraqi civilian casualty in the same category with the 9-11 victims or the suicide bombing victims, then you must put car accident victims in there too, because legalizing cars is a deliberated act with full knowledge of consequences.
But there are two individual factors you are not considering; with the cars, you are 'allowing' people with free will to make a choice which statistically may result in their death, and assuredly result in someone's death... But when you choose to drop a bomb on an area, you are choosing for them, and it's not a possibility, it's an extreme probability...the people who are unaware and not part of the decision you are making are going to die if you hit them. Also, the reason I differentiate, among others, for especially Nagasaki are more than just the standard "War is hell" arguments. I agree, war is hell. I havce spent a lot of my adult life studying that aspect of the human condition, and am not unaware that war is a practical probablility. That said, if you research the thinking behind the use of the atomic bombs, it's pretty ugly. Not so much Truman, who, I believe, was sort of thrust into a terrible situation, and made the decision he thought best. But the brain trust around him...the reasoning...it's amazing, and would not sound out of place in a bad guy/evil empire scene in a movie. There was some thought that the bomb would, on papaer, save a certain number of lives, all told...certainly there was thought that it would save American lives...but the cost/benefit factor was skewed in this way: virtually every predicted outcome of the drop option acknowledged that there would be an incredibly inordinate civilian composition to the casualty list...ie, they made the decision to go knowing that this would result in beyond the pale civilian casualties, and the 'best' reasoning for it was that the US combatant lives it would save were worth it. That's what I mean by not just standard 'collateral damage'. Then you get into other factors...the worst of which involve the intent of the Bomb...it was not a standard strategic gain, but a desire to make such a shocking statement of power and intent that the will of the Japanese people would be numbed into submission...exaclty the type of thinking behind 98-11. Precisely. Not " If we destroy this army or this munitions factory we destroy their capacity to make war, and it will benefit us in the field." type of reasoning...this was " Cut off all of the arms of the immunized children and let them know that we are in it for keeps." type thinking...Do something so devastating, so shocking that they lose the desire to resist. It is possibly pragmatically justifiable, but morally indistinguishable from 9-11. And then there are the darker reasons behind the bomb, especially the 2nd one. For one thing they were tow different types of bombs, and there was a huge desire to see the effect of both. I know it sounds too sick to believe, but read the reports...remember than many involved both had been working so long and so hard on this that it would be suprising if they hadn't developed tunnel vision, a common result of that kind of life. Read Fat Man and Little Boy, or Dr. Oppenheimer's journals if you doubt me...there was significant push to use the 2nd bomb, irrespective of what practical effect it might or might not have on the Japanese. And also, if you read the notes of many of the higher ups at the time, they are laced with references to the Japanese as inhuman, as monkeys, in terms of revenge because of Pearl Harbor, and other such enlightened examples of thought. Not alll that far from what we assume id the thinking behind 'terrorist' actions, no?
MacBeth, As I said in my last post. I agree that the Atomic bomb was over the line of reasonable collateral damage. But the point of your original post was that there was no qualitative difference between terrorism, freedom fighting and conventional war. That is what I'm trying to contend. Almost every decision is a calculation of gain and loss. We decide to use cars because even though we know a certain percentage of people will be killed by it, the gain outweigh the loss. And we try our best to minimize the loss. This is very similar to many contemporary wars. Terrorists, on the other hand, disregard the loss of innocent people. Instead, they seek to maximize the loss. That is a qualitative difference. If you are talking about deliberately bombing civilians, then I agree with you. If you are talking about accidental killing of civilian while targeting military targets, then I think it is very similar to using cars. Let's set aside the government's "allowing" us to drive. Let look at our individual decisions. Every time you decide to drive a car, you are deciding to use a machine (weapon?) that might kill not only yourself but innocent people who are unaware and not part of the decision you are making. So are you a probabilistic suicide bomber? Of course not, because you do not intend to kill these people. You try your best to avoid killing these people, even though you know very well that some people might die due to your decision to drive a car. The difference between driving a car and bombing military target is quantitative, not qualitative. The difference between bombing military target and terrorism is qualitative.
This is a great point about Hamas. If the U.S. funded soup kitchens, schools, social services for an oppressed people, we wouldn't be seen as an enemy, we would be doing a good thing, it would lessen the public support for groups like Hamas, thereby lessen terrorism. As far as non-violence and the American being runover by a bulldozer, it's a tragedy, but it's not non-violence on the scale needed. It needs to be massive, and yes people will die while using non-violence. The oppressive Israeli regime will no doubt kill many non violent protestors. That would be true martyrdom which any who die in the cause are now labeled. It needs to be public though, and in massive numbers that these protests happen.
in all this chest-pounding about how the U.S. invests billions of dollars to fight wars which minimise collateral damage, i would like to ask a simple question... WHO in the world has money like the US to invest in these technologies? hell, most countries don't even have a billion dollars for their ENTIRE military budget... I'd say 99% of the nations in this world totally lack the ability (whether in a suitably trained/disciplined military, necessary logistics infrastructure, laser-guided weaponry, or even sufficiently advanced ethics background) to wage war like the U.S. Are we saying that, well, if you can't fight wars OUR way, we'll prohibit you from fighting wars at all? If the Palestinians DID field an army, it would probably kill just as many civilians. It would also lose a lot more men and kill a lot less Israelis (both soldiers and civilians). To me terrorism is basically the lowest form of armed resistance. And armed conflict carries this "limited war" (minimal collateral damage) standard ONLY in the West and ONLY in the past 20 years. The rest of the world simply doesn't see it this way. Look in the news, how many times do you have to be "shocked" for you to realise that this just isn't the way it's done? It's more hocus-pocus which Western politicians, abusing the Geneva Convention, use to impart upon the public a false sense of evil-mongering by their erstwhile enemies. the moment any western states start a war against some third world country, the media goes out looking for blood, signs of genocide, signs of torture, signs of massacres and mass graves. how ironic! if we EXPECT to find them, why should we be so shocked? The most ironic twist is this war, is that we go in there expecting to find these things again, but we find nothing. We're DARING them to use WMD against us, but they don't. All we found were starving children (which we caused), bombed out cities (which we caused), and total civil chaos (which again we caused)... So I ask, what now? to franchiseblade, you make a great point about nonviolence. i also wish that palestinians would be lucky enough to go down this path and find salvation. i don't mean to say that nonviolence won't work. it just hasn't yet. but terrorism certainly has.
The following is why it was chosen as a target. This is the conclusion of the Avalon Report,,Yale Law School. http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/abomb/mp05.htm The city of Nagasaki had been one of the largest sea ports in southern Japan and was of great war-time importance because of its many and varied industries, including the production of ordnance, ships, military equipment, and other war materials. The narrow long strip attacked was of particular importance because of its industries. Sorry for coming in so late ...just knew something about Nagasaki you must have missed. If you really want to know facts about Hiroshima and Nagasaki..you might want to read the Yale report.
Lil, I don't quite follow your logic. Are you saying that since the US/West is the only force that have the resources to minimize collateral damage, we are not supposed to tell other people to stop fighting "low budget but high damage" war? Also, how exactly has terrorism worked in terms of benefitting the Palestinians?
Generally speaking, I think that killing is a tragedy in any circumstance. That goes for state sponsored executions, murders, and bombings. In the real world, however, the use of force is sometimes going to prove necessary to protect certain things we value. However, terrorism is really just an asymetric method of warfare. It's particularly wrong in that it often targets innocents. Unfortunately, such innocents are often greatly harmed by the very policies that provoked the terrorist response. In Israel, I refuse to place a moral distinction between the terrorists and the government. Israel's actions harm civilians far more than the terrorists bombings. Far greater #'s... far greater total amount of harm. And it does not appear that such is simply a reaction to terrorism. Even during periods of relative peace, Israeli policies have caused incredible harm to the Palestinian civilization. I think that much of the moral condemnation of terrorism in particular (and I am guilty of this as well) comes from the fact that it's unnecessary for us. We have far more sophisticated and broader means of attack. Yet terrorism can still hurt us. And it's about all that can really threaten us. In any conflict, two sides are attempting to coerce the other through the use of force. We have tanks. They have no corresponding force. Terrorism is the unfortunate b ut inevitable response.
The arabs came after Israel in 1967 with tanks, planes and all of their other resources, all of Israels arab neighbors joined in. In six days the arabs were defeated and Israel was preparing to run roughshod over the entire bunch..the US stepped in, offered foreign aid to beef up Israels defenses, in order to stop Israel from completely destroying their aggressors in self defense. Its got the situation to where it is now, Israel trying to protect its country from invading terrorists. Thats the main reason for creating a country, security,, Israel has the right to protect their country from these murderers, in any way they can.
Is there any difference between being a soldier and a terrorist? If a US soldier lined up civilians and gunned them down, s/he would be courtmartialed, and considered a criminal. And the military would no longer consider them soldiers. Clearly the person has stepped over the line between pursuing their military objective and being a criminal. Those we call 'terrorists' claim to be soldiers fighting with different methods. I think some are and some are not. Those that target pizza parlors with no military significance are not soldiers. You cannot even make the 'symbolic' argument on this (as MacBeth does with the WTC). They have blurred the line between advancing their objective and criminality just as the US soldier has. In other examples (the French in WWII) there were not attacks of this kind. There is a big difference between assassinating a local Gestapo officer, or cutting phone lines or blowing up bridges, and killing families eating pizza.
Actually the 1967 war wasn't really all of the ARabs coming at ISrael with everything they had. Egypt only sent in 2 divisions, and at least one former Israeli prime minister admitted that they weren't trying to take over Israel. http://www.cactus48.com/1967war.html "I do not think Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent to The Sinai would not have been sufficient to launch an offensive war. He knew it and we knew it." Yitzhak Rabin, Israel's Chief of Staff in 1967, in Le Monde, 2/28/68 In addition many of the conflicts with Syria were provoked so that Israel could increase it's holdings. "Moshe Dayan, the celebrated commander who, as Defense Minister in 1967, gave the order to conquer the Golan...[said] many of the firefights with the Syrians were deliberately provoked by Israel, and the kibbutz residents who pressed the Government to take the Golan Heights did so less for security than for the farmland...[Dayan stated] 'They didn't even try to hide their greed for the land...We would send a tractor to plow some area where it wasn't possible to do anything, in the demilitarized area, and knew in advance that the Syrians would start to shoot. If they didn't shoot, we would tell the tractor to advance further, until in the end the Syrians would get annoyed and shoot. And then we would use artillery and later the air force also, and that's how it was...The Syrians, on the fourth day of the war, were not a threat to us.'" The New York Times, May 11, 1997
The whole question of whether or not they should be called "freedom fighters" or "terrorists" is *silly*. It is a stupid question, totally, 100% irrelevant to the issues facing us. The fact of the matter is that regardless of what else you want to call them, they are enemies in a war against us. That renders them subject to any sort of high explosives, lead, or rhetoric we deem appropriate to land on them, regardless of what you want to call them. They are *enemies*, however else you choose to label them. And that is all that matters. But, as usual, leave it to MacBeth to wax philosophical in an attempt to redirect our attention and give sympathy to the devil. No surprise at all there.
Jesus, tree, do you even try to get this? First of all, I never said what they did was right...I said that, according to your own reasoning, "The fact of the matter is that regardless of what else you want to call them, they are enemies in a war against us. That renders them subject to any sort of high explosives, lead, or rhetoric we deem appropriate to land on them, regardless of what you want to call them." that's how they regard us. As such, I said that we DO do them a disservice by distuinguishing between 'freedom fighters' and 'terrorists' just based on whether or not they;re on our side. Secondly, in terms of your reasoning, ie War justifies any kind of action we deem appropriate, as that war makes them enemies...you do see the flaw, right? Otherwise there is absolutely no such thig as practical morality...ie Step One: Declare war on somebody, or effectively make war against them but call it 'police action', 'supporting Israel', etc... [ I]Step Two:[/I] Step one makes them enemies, and the Tree Doctrine means that you can thereafter effectively do what you want, as long as you deem it necessary. Step Three: Break out the bubbly for a Might Is Right Post War Bash! Invite your friends, and there will be prizes for who correctly guesses which nation/people will be next in line to face Step One...
MacBeth: Well, it's good to see that you understand where I'm coming from. We did not start this war. We did not want it. We would rather not have to fight it. But... Our enemies started this war, very much want it (such a jihad is their reason for existence in their minds), and revel in fighting it. Faced with enemies such as these, you're damned right that I feel that we should do whatever we must to win. Whatever we must, because losing is not an option (to the rest of us, that is). You and your ilk fail to see this war for what it is: a war of annihilation. These enemies will not stop until we and our way of life have been *totally erased from this planet*. As they are unbending in their beliefs, we have no choice but to totally annihilate them in turn. This war is going to go on until either they achieve their goal or we achieve ours. Do I care how we achieve our goal? Not particularly. Does it bother me when innocents get hurt in the crossfire? Yes, but not necessarily enough to make me want to cease. You are a moral relativist. Moral relativists do not win wars - the Shermans, Scipios, and Saladins of the world do. In order to win a war of annihilation, or even one of subjugation, one must be willing to throw morality aside - all moral considerations - and do the unthinkable, particularly when one is fighting someone who has already thrown the rules out the window. That is how the West has dominated all others in warfare for over two millenia - not by being moral or merciful, but by throwing morality and mercy out the window. Now, I'm sure that seems barbaric to your ultra-civilized, high-minded, big-brainy academic mind, but as a student of history you must concede my point here. Like it or not, you don't win wars of annihilation by being civilized. You win them by being the scariest SOB that you can in the hopes that your enemies will fear you, and if they don't then you erase them from existence. Calling these people "freedom fighters", and pondering their own reasons for waging war on us (and presenting them as rational reasons, no less) is to give them legitemacy where they deserve none. That, and display our own weaknesses, which only feeds their hatred and vitality. We'd all be better off if you and your kind just shut the hell up for the time being and let the warfighters do their jobs. But no, all you can do is theorize about their reasons for harboring animosity against us, pretend that it is our fault that they hate us, and politicize the war by bashing the current administration. Yeah, that's all real helpful...
