freecounterpoint: is it worth it?

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

is it worth it?

and, if so, how many more such incidents before you decide it isn't ?

28 comments:

Tecumseh said...: Horrible, indeed. But this is precisely what the head-hackers expect of the West, and that's precisely what they get, at least from the squishy pinko crowd, which adores to obsess over our shortcomings such as they are, instead of taking the fight to the enemies of civilization. It is left to the brave Marines to carry the torch, out there on the ramparts. To the fallen: Requiescat in pace. To their comrades: don't let the perps get away with murder.; 6/20/2006 4:58 PM
Tecumseh said...: By the way, I predict the Left will latch onto this atrocity to try and demoralize the public, and hand out victory to the enemy. Clearly, the head hackers did their head-hacking precisely for this purpose, and their amen corner plays their role, right on cue. It's all so predictable -- exactly the game plan from Vietnam. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.; 6/20/2006 5:12 PM
The Darkroom said...: ok maybe, but is it worth it ?; 6/20/2006 5:15 PM
Tecumseh said...: Is it worth what? Fighting for our survival? I think so.; 6/20/2006 5:29 PM
The Darkroom said...: Is the loss of human life and dignity worth winning this war and at what cost ? In other words, how many tortured soldiers are you comfortable seeing sacrificed to reach your goal ?; 6/20/2006 6:20 PM
The Darkroom said...: My question isn't as loaded as it seems to be: there is a cost to all things and I am wondering what you deem an acceptable cost to fighting militant islam. This implies that there is a cost above which you would estimate the benefits are outweighed. What is that cost for you ?

Obviously we see this very differently: I think jihad is, at its "best", a major annoyance, akin to a mafia on steroids if you will. You are instead stating that the future of western civ is at stake and have an argument pending on the issue. I think this is where the root of our difference lies: I don't think the danger is worth the cost in cash or in human capital, simply because i don't see the threat as being significant.; 6/20/2006 7:46 PM
Tecumseh said...: OK, the positions are clearly stated. Instead of dwelling on the conundrum, I'd focus on a way to resolve the situation, inasmuch as such a huge problem has a solution (well, one that is acceptable, if such a definition can be made). I'll go with the solution adopted by our ancestors, which is, when attacked, stand your ground and fight, unless confronted by overwhelming force, in which case one has to make a judgement call. But I don't think this is the case here -- the case for standing up and fighting is blindingly clear to all except the most Jim Jonesy lefties.

As AA says (and I paraphrase), if our forefathers had adopted the Alan Alda mentality way back when, we'd live in a very differrent world by now. To start with, there would be no internet, no computers, nay, no electricity, and certainly no we-are-the-world, I-feel-your-pain, all-is-relative liberals to gaze at their navels and wonder at their infinite moral superiority. Hey, come to think of it, this could be a neat subject for one of those parallel universe, what-if quasi-historical novels (you know the genre, what if the South had won the Civil War, what if Hitler had won WWII, etc -- with chilling dystopias a la 1984). Anyone knows a good book along those lines?; 6/20/2006 8:31 PM
Arelcao Akleos said...: Oh, before I go...

Pepe, it is not just me who has to present an argument as to why the leaders of Islam Militant mean precisely what they say when they describe their actions as having the goal the subjugation of Dar el Harb. It is also you who have to present an argument as to why/how they do not mean what they say and are in fact just an criminal organization with bigger muscles ["Mafia on steroids" being your description].
AI, I don't know of a novel which takes "What If" to the question of Islam's attempts to subjugate Europe or other parts of kufrdom [eg. China, the Americas]. I do know of one which raises "What if" for the (near) future....but can't remember the title.
Yeah, what if Charles Martel was the one whose blood ran at Poitiers? What if Vienna had fallen?
Of course History has its direct lessons, recquiring no "What Ifs". For example, what did happen to the civilizations of Egypt, Persia, the Syrian Greeks, Byzantium? The Gothic kingdom of Iberia? The pagan Berbers led by the Katuna? The Nestorian Christians of central asia? The Buddhist kingdoms of what is now Aghanistan and Pakistan? The Hindu civilization of the Indonesian archipelago? For a small beginning list of worlds which had the misfortune to meet the Mafia on Steroids in its happy salad days. Even "what happened" novels are scarce on this issue...It seems that for some pens, the fear of the Sword is indeed mightier than the pen.; 6/20/2006 8:43 PM
Tecumseh said...: Good point you make AA -- forget about the what ifs, what about the what happened? I know some of that, but not nearly as much as compared to 20th century happenings, or historical minutiae about, say, the Hundred Years War. And not because of lack interest in the subject -- to the contrary. As you say, there must be a chilling effect going on here -- having a knife at one's neck (even if virtually) does tend to chill one's blood, yes?; 6/20/2006 8:56 PM
Tecumseh said...: Obligingly, the MSM follows the party line: nothing is worth fighting for, it's all a vast right-wing conspirancy, there is no enemy but us:

The text does not specifically mention Guantanamo, which the United States insists is needed in the "war on terror".

The scare quotes say it all. Alles klar.; 6/20/2006 10:04 PM
The Darkroom said...: ok so first off, I'll assume, for the sake of this conversation only, that there is a relationship between the US presence in iraq and the issue of terrorism. As you know, I find this dubious at best but admettons.

Two conditions are required for the threat to be taken as significant: the enemy has to have 1. the will and 2. the means to destroy you.

There is not much debate (even among us pinko-we-are-the-world nanny-state-worshiping tie-dye shirt wearing atheists) over whether or not AQ has the desire to trample your lawn and steal your satellite dish. But, fortunately for you, intent is not sufficient, it's all about the means.

So what can AQ do to you ? As far as we know, they have been able to take advantage of security loopholes at airport security and destroy a few of tall buildings. Although this operation proved impressive, it was really minuscule when compared to the damage that the Warsaw Pact nations could have inflicted upon you in their heyday. I do not know this for a fact, but the death toll from 9/11 is probably commensurate to that caused by car accidents or similar garden variety calamities.

Beyond this, we have to dig deep into our imagination and make up padillesque dirty bombs to attribute to AQ any measure of a serious threat. I submit to you that AQ has no means that we know for a fact to be of significant danger to western civ.; 6/20/2006 10:08 PM
The Darkroom said...: >>the case for standing up and fighting is blindingly clear to all except the most Jim Jonesy lefties.

ai, the case maybe clear to you but I would submit that, given the lack of popularity that this war has around the world, it isn't just the few lefties who don't see it the way you do...; 6/20/2006 10:41 PM
The Darkroom said...: aa - would you care to focus your argument on the dangers that AQ proper presents without resorting to historic extrapolation: I fail to see much connection between Martel fighting Arab expansionism @ Poitiers and W fighting OBL in Baghdad (save perhaps for the fact that in both cases the attaquants were circumcised) ?; 6/20/2006 10:51 PM
Tecumseh said...: There is a classic fallacy in this attempt at an argument: comparing the might of the Soviet Empire at its height, with that of a newer enemy, who has just begun attacking us (about a dozen years ago, when they first bombed the WTC, I would say.) If you want a honest comparison, you should compare the might of of this foe to the the might of the commies a few decades after theitr prophet, Karl Marx, declared his own fatwa (called class warfare) against Western Civ. So the anarchists would detonate some bombs here an there, no big deal, huh? Even when the Bolshies took power in Russia, mosyt in the West (with the notable exception of my hero, Sir Winston) pooh-poohed the present danger posed by that implacable ideology. So OK, in the end we won the Cold War -- but it was a 50-year twilight struggle, all along sabotaged as much as they could by the useful idiots of the Left.

At any rate, back to the present now. Recall the "salami technique" employed by the commies to subjugate little by little Eastern Europe in the late 40s (or, for that matter, Hitler's gobbling up bits and pieces of Europe in the late 30s)? As any aspiring enemy of the West knows, you don't attack frontally New York and Washington, DC first (though Binnie did just that at some point, go figure). Instead, you slowly and methodically attack the weak links -- the domino theory redux, if you wish (actually, we did the same thing in WWII: we did not attack directly Berlin or Tokyo, but rather, started with the likes of Oran or Salomon Islands, moving up from there.

Case in point: Somalia.

But one of his disciples is Mohamed Ali Aden, 19, who commanded 350 men in the recent war and said he would settle for nothing less than a full-fledged Islamic state.

"We've neglected God's verses for so long," Mr. Aden said in an interview. "We want our women veiled and we want them at home. We men have to grow our beards. [...] If you will not join Islam, you are not my brother," he said, refusing to offer his hand. "I am a holy warrior and those who disturb Islam, we will disturb them."

Don't worry, be happy, heh? OK, whatever, dude.; 6/20/2006 10:56 PM
Tecumseh said...: More about the tender mercies of what the Michael Moore Left calls the Minutemen:

the remains of the men would be sent to the United States for DNA testing to determine their identities definitively. That seemed to suggest that the two Americans had been wounded or mutilated beyond recognition.

"We couldn't identify them," the American military official in Baghdad said.

Maj. Gen. Abdul Azziz Mohammed Jassim, the chief of operations at the Defense Ministry, said he had seen an official report on the bodies and that he could confirm that the two Americans had been "killed in a very brutal way and tortured."

"There were traces of torture on their bodies, very clear traces," General Jassim said. "It was brutal torture. The torture was something unnatural."

Will this create an outcry of even 0.1% magnitude among the pinko-lefties and the MSM compared to undies-on-the-head "torture" at Abu Ghraib? Naahhh. As we've seen already (and as we shall surely see again), this will only provide them with an alibi to agitate even more vociferously for surrender. It's like a Pavlov reflex, after all.; 6/21/2006 1:19 AM
The Darkroom said...: >>"There were traces of torture on their bodies, very clear traces," General Jassim said. "It was brutal torture. The torture was something unnatural."

Is this to be contrasted with waterboarding, hanging people by their wrists and other baghram/abu ghraib favorites which constitute "natural" forms of torture?; 6/21/2006 5:07 AM
Tecumseh said...: You may do so, if you wish. But having the head hacked and the body mutilated beyond recognition (before or after death? not clear yet) is altogether in another category than what the MSM delights into dwelving on for months and years on end. Again, I repeat -- will any on the opponents of the war express even 0.1% of the outrage they expressed at our armed forces? I very much doubt it, as the above reply clearly demonstrates. The double standard is blindingly clear.; 6/21/2006 9:58 AM
Tecumseh said...: Taranto weighs in on this debate:

To most of us, this is a reminder of the depravity of our enemies. But blogress Jeralyn Merritt sees it as a reminder of America's sins:

Violence begets violence. Inhumanity and cruelty bring more of the same. The whole world is watching and we don't have the right to claim the moral high ground so long as those responsible for the abuses at Guantanamo and detention facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan go unpunished, the policies stand uncorrected and the Pentagon continues to prevent the media from learning the facts first-hand.

The always excitable Andrew Sullivan similarly laments "the cycle of depravity and defeat."

This rhetoric about "cycles" appears to reflect a theory of moral equivalence, but in fact it is something else. After all, if the two sides were morally equivalent, one could apply this reasoning in reverse--excusing, for example, the alleged massacre at Haditha on the ground that it was "provoked" by a bombing that killed a U.S. serviceman--and hey, violence begets violence.

But America's critics never make this argument, and its defenders seldom do. That is because it is understood that America knows better. If it is true that U.S. Marines murdered civilians in cold blood at Haditha, the other side's brutality does not excuse it. Only the enemy's evil acts are thought to be explained away by ours.

Implicit in the "cycle" theory, then, is the premise that the enemy is innocent--not in the sense of having done nothing wrong, but in the sense of not knowing any better. The enemy lacks the knowledge of good and evil--or, to put it in theological terms, he is free of original sin.

America ought to hold itself to a high moral standard, of course, but blaming the other side's depraved acts on our own (real and imagined) moral imperfections is a dangerous form of vanity.; 6/21/2006 5:03 PM
The Darkroom said...: >>The double standard is blindingly clear.
you have a point there. But I would argue that the double standard goes both ways:

>>Taranto weighs in on this debate:
To most of us, this is a reminder of the depravity of our enemies.
I haven't heard anything about the depravity of the US troops following any incident: just a few bad apples in an otherwise virtuous organization.; 6/21/2006 5:10 PM
Tecumseh said...: >To most of us, this is a reminder of the >depravity of our enemies.

I haven't heard anything about the depravity of the US troops following any incident: just a few bad apples in an otherwise virtuous organization.

That's right. This particular enemy obeys no rules of war -- kills and maims with abandon soldiers and civilians alike, just for the hell of it, without wearing uniform, or adhering to any of the Geneva Conventions. Whereas we fight fair and square, all by the book; a few glitches here and there (unavoidable in the fog of war) do not in any way change this fact. It's all crystal clear, unless one follows slavishly the Michael Mooresque -- Mother Sheehanesque party line.; 6/21/2006 5:24 PM
The Darkroom said...: but haven't you set up a whole system of imprisonment specifically to avoid the geneva conventions ? Aren't you repeatedly stating that geneva doesn't apply to yourenemies and make up legaleze mumbo-jumbo to bypass it ? Isn't gitmo and the "enemy combattant" status created just for this purpose ?; 6/21/2006 10:44 PM
The Darkroom said...: fair and square ? is rendition fair and square ?; 6/21/2006 10:47 PM
Tecumseh said...: Typical hard Left cartoon, drawing a despicable moral equivalence between AQ and US Army. Par for the course for the 5th Column.; 6/21/2006 11:08 PM
Tecumseh said...: Yes, fair and square. By definition, the Geneva Conventions apply only to the signatories -- soldiers in uniform from nation-states that ratified those conventions. Is this too hard a concept to understand? Even undergrads in Law 101 should be able to grasp such a basic definition. Non?; 6/21/2006 11:10 PM
Tecumseh said...: As a public service for those who cannot be bothered to read the Geneva Conventions, here is the relevant paragraph defining those who are protected by said conventions:

Article 4
Prisoners of war, in the sense of the present Convention, are persons belonging to one of the following categories, who have fallen into the power of the enemy:
Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict, as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.
Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfil the following conditions:[
that of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
that of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;
that of carrying arms openly;
that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.
Members of regular armed forces who profess allegiance to a government or an authority not recognized by the Detaining Power.
Persons who accompany the armed forces without actually being members thereof, such as civilian members of military aircraft crews, war correspondents, supply contractors, members of labour units or of services responsible for the welfare of the armed forces, provided that they have received authorization, from the armed forces which they accompany, who shall provide them for that purpose with an identity card similar to the annexed model.
Members of crews, including masters, pilots and apprentices, of the merchant marine and the crews of civil aircraft of the Parties to the conflict, who do not benefit by more favourable treatment under any other provisions of international law.
Inhabitants of a non-occupied territory, who on the approach of the enemy spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces, without having had time to form themselves into regular armed units, provided they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war.

If anyone can point out where any of the AQ combattants fit under any of the above categories (in a way that conforms to intelligent logical discourse, not the usual non-sensical moonbatty non-sequiturs), I will gladly eat crow. If not, I can suggest some excellent recipes for said bird, and a white wine to go with it.; 6/21/2006 11:27 PM
The Darkroom said...: ai - i am well aware of this article of the GC as the admin has been trumpetting it ever since they re-opened gitmo.

I make no claims to the legality or lack thereof of the US actions in its "war on terror" but your point was that you are fighting fair and square. I take this to be an entirely different matter.

First off, I understand fair and square to imply that the same rules apply to all. This means all prisoners should be afforded GC rights, even if they aren't legally entitled to them. That would be fairt and square.

Imprisonement without charges is fair and square ?
Extroardinary rendition is fair and square ?
Denying the Red Cross access to some prisonners is fair and square ?
You gotta be pulling my leg.; 6/22/2006 11:51 AM
Tecumseh said...: Imprisonement without charges is fair and square ?
Extroardinary rendition is fair and square ?
Denying the Red Cross access to some prisonners is fair and square ?

If we were fighting a regular foe -- like, eg, the regular Iraqi Army in 1991 or 2003 -- of course not, and in fact, I don't think even the most rabid anti-américain primaire ever accused the US of nt obeying the Geneva conventions in those (or similar) conflicts, have they? But, when fighting the equivalent of spies or saboteurs, I think altogether different rules of conflict apply. That does not mean one should loose one's humanity and stoop to the level of the head-hackers, and yes, certain basic rules (such as the ones under which the US Army operates, regardless of whom they are fighting) should be enforced. But my point is that these rules are strictly an internal matter, they are not governed stricto sensu by the Geneva Conventions or other international treaties, basically because none of the combattants we are facing are party to these conventions (or follow them is any way). Alles klar?; 6/22/2006 6:04 PM
Tecumseh said...: A postscript:

As war critics mourn three jihadist suicides at Gitmo, we have three dead soldiers who might have met their fate simply because, after Hamandiyah and Haditha, they took too long to determine if their kidnappers were friend or foe. If they'd killed their assailants, would they now also be accused of killing "innocent" civilians?; 6/23/2006 8:48 PM