Acts of War

[juliod]

Judging by the thread in the apologietics forums, the current conflict in Lebanon has left a lot of people unsure what to think. Below are some points I want to make which might be good subjects for debate.

1) Every nation (including Israel) has the inherent right to unleash war on people they consider to be enemies. They do not have to engage in any formal justification, or even explain to anyone why they are doing it.

2) But the nation making war does have to look to the present and future in order to show that the war will make things "better". It must be expected that political constituents and international partners will hold a war-making nation accountable.

3) The mere utility of war as an instrument of policy is extremely doubtful. It is not likely that this conflict will make things "better" (for Israel or anyone else) in the short or long term. The use of conventional forces has dropped clean of the chart since WWII. No military action has yielded tangible benefits for any nation. Israel's many conflicts has not resulted in security and stability. India and Pakistan fought 4 wars and yet resolved none of their differences. Many nations (including the US and the Soviet Union) fought protracted counter-insurgencies, and universally lost. War among lower-tier nations has an equally dismal record over the last 50 years.

4) Individuals also have a right to wage war, but under the risk that they will be treated as a criminal rather than a combatant.

5) Residents of an area have an inherent right to defend against all threats, domestic or foreign. This right is absolute, and no one need obey conventions or legalisms in the defence of their homes and neighborhoods. This leads, however, to some of the most nasty internal fighting, ethnic cleansing, massacre, etc. Powers that seek to control such areas will treat these insurgents as criminals or (usually) worse.

6) The distinction between war and crime is entirely in the hands of the conventional powers. A nation decides how to respond to an incident involving non-nation-states. For example, we decided to respond to 9/11 with a "war" on terror. We decided against the alternative, which was to proceed under a law-enforcement paradigm. Given the well-established dis-utility of warfare, this was probably a mistake.

7) All people have the right to be treated well when captured, even if the "other side" does not do so. All persons have rights, all the time. If a prisoner is an acknowledged combatant, then they must be freely released as soon as the conflict is over. If the prisoner is a "criminal" then they have the right to a speedy trial in a proper forum with a genuine legal process. The current US practise of claiming that certain "illegal combatants" do not have rights is a shameful stain on our national character and history that I never expect to be expunged.

DanZ

[Cephus]

You apparently, however, do not seem to think that a direct attack on U.S. soil and the murder of over 3000 people is sufficient provocation for an American counter-attack on Al Qaeda. I guess your solution was to ignore them and hope they go away while they gleefully thumb their noses at you and prepare for their next attack?

No, I question why, if we're supposedly out there trying to get Al Qaeda due to the moral outrage against 9/11, we're spending all of our time and energy and lives on something that has nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11? I have to question if there's something more to this "War on Terror" than we're being told or led to believe. For all the billions we've thrown away in this so-called war, Al Qaeda is still alive and kicking, bin Laden is still alive and well and all we've managed to do is destabilize the Middle East even further, which is one of the things that brought on the 9/11 attack in the first place. Don't believe the Bush lies about how they hate us for our freedom. They hate us because we won't get out of their business and let them live their lives how they see fit.

And the war in Iraq certainly isn't helping any. In fact, I'd be prepared for more attacks, simply because we're doing everything in our power to piss them off. We deserve it.

[Metatron]

You apparently, however, do not seem to think that a direct attack on U.S. soil and the murder of over 3000 people is sufficient provocation for an American counter-attack on Al Qaeda. I guess your solution was to ignore them and hope they go away while they gleefully thumb their noses at you and prepare for their next attack?

No, I question why, if we're supposedly out there trying to get Al Qaeda due to the moral outrage against 9/11, we're spending all of our time and energy and lives on something that has nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11? I have to question if there's something more to this "War on Terror" than we're being told or led to believe. For all the billions we've thrown away in this so-called war, Al Qaeda is still alive and kicking, bin Laden is still alive and well and all we've managed to do is destabilize the Middle East even further, which is one of the things that brought on the 9/11 attack in the first place. Don't believe the Bush lies about how they hate us for our freedom. They hate us because we won't get out of their business and let them live their lives how they see fit.

And the war in Iraq certainly isn't helping any. In fact, I'd be prepared for more attacks, simply because we're doing everything in our power to piss them off. We deserve it.

Okay, so what are all of the horrible things we were doing to Al Qaeda and their partisans before 9/11 aside for paying exorbitant amounts of money for their oil? Keeping in mind that Al Qaeda began it's attacks at least as far back as the first World Trade Center attack in 1993. Why exactly did we DESERVE to have thousands of civilians murdered?

APPEASEMENT, THY NAME IS CEPHUS!

[Cephus]

Okay, so what are all of the horrible things we were doing to Al Qaeda and their partisans before 9/11 aside for paying exorbitant amounts of money for their oil? Keeping in mind that Al Qaeda began it's attacks at least as far back as the first World Trade Center attack in 1993. Why exactly did we DESERVE to have thousands of civilians murdered?

APPEASEMENT, THY NAME IS CEPHUS!

It has nothing to do with appeasement, it has to do with reality which is something you've clearly not grasped. The US preaches freedom and self-determination, unless that freedom and self-determination goes against our interests. Then, you'd better believe we're playing the part of the 800-lb gorilla, telling people what to do and expecting everyone to jump. We've been doing that in the Middle East for decades now, pushing our will on people who want nothing more than us to go take a long walk off a short pier. That goes for keeping our noses out of their oil interests as well as keeping our money and influence out of Israel. They want the same right to self-determination that we preach out of one side of our mouth. Had we not been intimitely involved in trying to control the oil supply for years, had we not been propping up Israel for years, had we not been hypocrites, things like 9/11 likely would never have happened. A lot of terrorist activity is due to the fact that we've left them no other choice. They can't compete with us politically, they can't compete with us militarily, they can't compete with us financially, what other choices do they have? Bend over and take it? Certainly I don't support what they're doing, but I can certainly understand why they do it and the more we shove straight up their backside without vaseline, the more you can expect them to shove back the only way we've left available to them.

That's reality.

[Metatron]

Okay, so what are all of the horrible things we were doing to Al Qaeda and their partisans before 9/11 aside for paying exorbitant amounts of money for their oil? Keeping in mind that Al Qaeda began it's attacks at least as far back as the first World Trade Center attack in 1993. Why exactly did we DESERVE to have thousands of civilians murdered?

APPEASEMENT, THY NAME IS CEPHUS!

It has nothing to do with appeasement, it has to do with reality which is something you've clearly not grasped. The US preaches freedom and self-determination, unless that freedom and self-determination goes against our interests. Then, you'd better believe we're playing the part of the 800-lb gorilla, telling people what to do and expecting everyone to jump. We've been doing that in the Middle East for decades now, pushing our will on people who want nothing more than us to go take a long walk off a short pier. That goes for keeping our noses out of their oil interests as well as keeping our money and influence out of Israel. They want the same right to self-determination that we preach out of one side of our mouth. Had we not been intimitely involved in trying to control the oil supply for years, had we not been propping up Israel for years, had we not been hypocrites, things like 9/11 likely would never have happened. A lot of terrorist activity is due to the fact that we've left them no other choice. They can't compete with us politically, they can't compete with us militarily, they can't compete with us financially, what other choices do they have? Bend over and take it? Certainly I don't support what they're doing, but I can certainly understand why they do it and the more we shove straight up their backside without vaseline, the more you can expect them to shove back the only way we've left available to them.

That's reality.

Okay, let's look at it this way. It's shortly after the 9/11 attack, rescue workers are digging through rubble at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon looking for thousands of bodies, it has been determined that Al Qaeda (an Islamofascist group that has already attacked US interests at least three times before) is responsible, and they have a large training and logistical facility in Afghanistan (a country controlled by another group of Islamofascist known as the Taliban). What do you do?

[Grumpy]

Metatron

What do you do?

Well, we certainly can't bomb them into the stone age, their minds are already there and they live in caves!!!

If the Arab countries wanted peace, there would be no conflict,PERIOD!!!

So the onis for the current situation is entirely on them(as it has been since the formation of the State of Isreal. That slip of the tounge from GB to Tony Blair ironicly is the only good foreign affairs work that W has ever done. Syria and Iran are responsible for EVERY death in the Middle East(and elsewhere through terrorism).

Grumpy

[Cephus]

Okay, let's look at it this way. It's shortly after the 9/11 attack, rescue workers are digging through rubble at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon looking for thousands of bodies, it has been determined that Al Qaeda (an Islamofascist group that has already attacked US interests at least three times before) is responsible, and they have a large training and logistical facility in Afghanistan (a country controlled by another group of Islamofascist known as the Taliban). What do you do?

You go get them, but you do it the right way. Otherwise it comes off as a bunch of Christofascists going after the Islamofascists. You do it with broad multinational and UN support and you do it targetting Al Qaeda, not the government of Afghanistan. Even if you do end up taking out the Taliban, which I agree may be necessary, you do not use the fight as a springboard for personal vendettas outside of the stated purpose of the war. And, of course, you actually manage to succeed in what you go in to do. You catch OBL, you catch the leaders of Al Qaeda, you don't go scooping up random people and stuffing them into Guantanamo for years on end without legal representation or even charges. Hopefully, you're not as hopelessly pathetic in the "mission" as we have been in the last 5 years. And when you're done, you offer aid in rebuilding and allow the local residents to decide if they want to accept said aid and how they want to handle it. You do *NOT* decide for them that they're going to have a western-style democracy, like it or not, and impose western culture and beliefs on them. Self-determination means they decide on their own what is best for then, but then again, we've never been very good at letting others do things without our very heavyhanded "help".

[Goat]

Okay, let's look at it this way. It's shortly after the 9/11 attack, rescue workers are digging through rubble at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon looking for thousands of bodies, it has been determined that Al Qaeda (an Islamofascist group that has already attacked US interests at least three times before) is responsible, and they have a large training and logistical facility in Afghanistan (a country controlled by another group of Islamofascist known as the Taliban). What do you do?

Why, I wipe out the Taliban, then use the excuse of non-existant WMD to attack Iraq, and proclaim a bunch of countries as an 'Axis of Evil', which immedately caused them to be much more hostile to American interests, and therefore being a self fullfilling prophecy.

[Metatron]

Okay, let's look at it this way. It's shortly after the 9/11 attack, rescue workers are digging through rubble at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon looking for thousands of bodies, it has been determined that Al Qaeda (an Islamofascist group that has already attacked US interests at least three times before) is responsible, and they have a large training and logistical facility in Afghanistan (a country controlled by another group of Islamofascist known as the Taliban). What do you do?

You go get them, but you do it the right way. Otherwise it comes off as a bunch of Christofascists going after the Islamofascists. You do it with broad multinational and UN support and you do it targetting Al Qaeda, not the government of Afghanistan. Even if you do end up taking out the Taliban, which I agree may be necessary, you do not use the fight as a springboard for personal vendettas outside of the stated purpose of the war. And, of course, you actually manage to succeed in what you go in to do. You catch OBL, you catch the leaders of Al Qaeda, you don't go scooping up random people and stuffing them into Guantanamo for years on end without legal representation or even charges. Hopefully, you're not as hopelessly pathetic in the "mission" as we have been in the last 5 years. And when you're done, you offer aid in rebuilding and allow the local residents to decide if they want to accept said aid and how they want to handle it. You do *NOT* decide for them that they're going to have a western-style democracy, like it or not, and impose western culture and beliefs on them. Self-determination means they decide on their own what is best for then, but then again, we've never been very good at letting others do things without our very heavyhanded "help".

Great! Then we are in agreement. I never claimed that the Afghanistan invasion was handled in an optimal fashion. I merely claimed that it was necessary.

I also have reservations about how things were handled. U.S. forces deferred to indigenous allied forces at Tora Bora probably allowing Osama bin Laden to escape the noose. I'm also rather leary of the efficacy of "nation building", especially in cultures so divergent from our own. It would be grand if democracy would flourish in Afghanistan and Iraq but overcoming the twin hurdles of ingrained tribalism and conservative religions that have evolved little since the middle ages is probably too much friction to overcome.

[Metatron]

Okay, let's look at it this way. It's shortly after the 9/11 attack, rescue workers are digging through rubble at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon looking for thousands of bodies, it has been determined that Al Qaeda (an Islamofascist group that has already attacked US interests at least three times before) is responsible, and they have a large training and logistical facility in Afghanistan (a country controlled by another group of Islamofascist known as the Taliban). What do you do?

Why, I wipe out the Taliban, then use the excuse of non-existant WMD to attack Iraq, and proclaim a bunch of countries as an 'Axis of Evil', which immedately caused them to be much more hostile to American interests, and therefore being a self fullfilling prophecy.

I'm not trying to make excuses for the rest of this, but what would you have done concerning Al Qaeda and Afghanistan?

[juliod]

I'm not trying to make excuses for the rest of this, but what would you have done concerning Al Qaeda and Afghanistan?

We could have, for example, have put pressure on Pakistan, which was the only government to recognize the Taleban. Pakistan is a dictatorship, with nuclear and other WMDs, with a history and current practice of supporting active terrorist groups, including coordination with their own military.

There was a brief period after 9/11 where Bin Laden suffered from being too successful. The collapse of the towers, which no one expected or planned, was just too great a tragedy. No one, except a few of the most extreme extremists, wanted to be identified as supporting that.

It would not have happened overnight, but by strong diplomacy and law-enforcement, Bin Laden's trial would by now be long over. Remember, we haven't captured or killed him, and terrorism is now a daily event in the headlines.

Instead, Dubya was concerned only with getting his Bin Laden associates out of the country before any of them were implicated, and in pursueing his family fued with Hussein. Given the amount of good-will and sympathy expressed by the world after 9/11 it seems that only a concerted effort to intentionally squander that resource could explain our current situation.

Keep in mind also, that our campaign in Iraq (as well as our tacit approval of Israel's invasion of Lebanon) has almost no effect except furthering Iran's foreign policy objectives. We've removed their major enemy, increased their influence in Iraq many fold, guaranteed their nuclear ambitions will not be halted or slowed, and Israel has promoted their proxy army to the status of major international player. This is all a free gift from our "war" on terror.

And also, we have not actually had any success in Afghanistan. It's just the Soviet experience all over again. We control only the ground we stand on. Eventually the Taleban or some successor movement will take over.

DanZ