Subject:
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Re: From Reason: "It's all bad news - Chaos in occupied Iraq"
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Wed, 26 May 2004 22:13:08 GMT
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Viewed:
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1520 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal wrote:
I agree with the latter part; torture is notoriously unreliable as an
information source. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that the
torture at Abu Ghraib (and likely elsewhere) was endorsed by high ranking
military personnel, up to at least the level of General.
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Even if it is, it is policy (which is my point anyway).
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But we have been vigilant and condemned the behavior and
are punishing the perps. Where is the same indignation from Berg’s
executioners? There, of course, is none, because this is apparently the
will of Allah.
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Your comparison holds true only if we accept that these “rogues” acted on
their own initiative and without the knowledge of even a single superior
officer. Every person who was aware of the torture but chose not to act to
stop it is equally culpable.
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Again, this is not our policy.
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Certainly you must know that I’m no more upset by Muslims screaming ‘Allah
is the Greatest’ than I am about the US President declaring that God is on
Our Side or Generals declaring that
our god is
better than their god.
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An offensive comparison. At least compare apples to apples. The equivalent
would be our general slicing off the head of a prisoner on camera and
declaring that “our God is better their God”. Of course that would never
happen. The worst part of the Berg execution was the chanting, IMO. Pure
savagery and inhumanity.
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Why must it be a General?
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It doesn’t.
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Are you buying the Dubya line that the beheader
was Zarqawi? The only “evidence” that we have is the assertion by the Dubya
Administration that it is so. Since Dubya et al have lied to us for years,
then I flatly reject their assertion without additional corroborating
evidence.
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They have more evidence than I, but I’m not sure it even matters to me anyway.
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A General who publicly claims divine mandate and who commands US military
forces is far more terrifying than a few anonymous thugs in a room.
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He still takes his orders from men, not God. Aren’t people entitled to their
beliefs? Where’s the tolerance?
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Even if we accept that these four or five men are inhuman savages, then how
does that justify the murder of innocent Iraqi civilians?
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Unrelated.
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If the four or
five are guilty, then let’s get them. But no other retaliatory US action can
be justified by their actions.
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You miss my point completely. Yeah, the slaughter of Nick Berg was horrific.
But he was just one man. The impact of that event was the particulars of the
slaughter-- the chanting, the grisley, inhumanity, the cruelty. These men are
heroes among the Muslim extremists; the GIs at Abu Grubby are punished.
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Why do you advocate murderous Christian
fundamentalism while decrying murderous Islamic fundamentalism?
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Your equivocation is simply dishonest, Dave! US policy and action have
nothing to do with Christianity.
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Are you suggesting that the US policy is guided by Christian fundamentalism?
Please.
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Well, since you
asked.
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That’s laughable. Reminds me of the assertions that US policy was guided by
mystics under Reagan.
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How many Iraqi civilians
have died because of US action?
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How many were spared torture and execution at the hands of SH’s regime?
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If you ask that question, then you tacitly forfeit any claim of US moral
authority. You’re saying, in essence, that we’re entitled to free rein
because we’re not quite as bad as the man we’ve described as a brutal,
sadistic madman.
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No, I’m merely pointing out that your argument based on numbers is fuzzy math.
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And how many American civilians have died
because of Iraqi action?
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How many were spared because we took the fight TO al-Qaeda?
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I’ll answer that question once you demonstrate to me the clear ties between
Iraq and al Qaeda that Dubya used as justification for his choice to go to
war.
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What would suffice? Documents? Admissions? Smoking guns?
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Is it because they kill
innocent civilians in the name of a greater cause?
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Let’s be clear here. The deaths of innocents is never our intention.
That makes a big difference. All the difference.
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Not so fast. If
you’re going to dismiss the actions of a few bad American apples, then you
have to dismiss the actions of a few bad Iraqi apples, too.
Besides which, you can’t just pretend that we’re guiltless in the slaughter
of innocent civilians simply by claiming that it wasn’t our “intent” to kill
them.
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Look at the circumstances from that article. The soldiers did everything they
could to try and prevent the killing of these poor civilians. But the fact is
that if they were suicide bombers, many more GIs would have been killed by
less stringent measures. The whole thing is unfortunate, but I hardly fault
them for their caution, especially since many GIs had been killed precisely
under those very conditions.
Those animals from the Nick Berg video are hardly “a few bad apples”; they are
the nightmarish norm.
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1. How do you determine that they are insane or inhuman?
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Because human, civil, sane people do not slice the heads off of innocent
people while chanting to their God.
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Okay. So those four men are subhuman. How do you determine that the other
Iraqis we have slain were inhuman or insane?
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They share the same beliefs.
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2. How do you determine that you are fit to judge their relative insanity
or inhumanity?
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My fitness is irrelevant to their immoral behavior.
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You’re kidding, obviously. Your perception of your own morality is the
yardstick by which you judge their behavior. If you can not demonstrate your
morality to be fit, then there is no basis for accepting your morality in
preference to theirs. Far from being moral relativism, this is a call for
you to demonstrate that your morality is correct and absolute. But it is
insufficient to judge your own morality by the values contained within it;
you must assert a higher, verifiable standard (meaning that “revealed
morality,” for instance, won’t cut it).
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Perhaps at this juncture, the argument should steer away from the war in Iraq to
morality in general (although that topic has been ploughed, it might be worth
revisiting)
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3. On what basis do you determine that the United States is fit to judge
their relative insanity or inhumanity?
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Same as above. Their immorality is unrelated to ours.
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So you accept our immorality? Now we’re getting somewhere.
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For the umpteenth time, we are not perfect, but that does not mean that we
cannot judge.
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4. On what basis do you determine that the United States has the moral
authority to act against them?
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They acted against us. We have the right to defend ourselves.
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Innocent Iraqi citizens DID NOT act against us, yet we continue to kill
them and subject them to oppressive military occupation. Do you have
convincing evidence to the contrary?
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What about in 30 days?
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5. On what basis do you determine the appropriate response to the enemy?
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Now you are talking specifics and military strategy. I would say we
generally try to neutralize any given threat as quickly, safely, and cheaply
as we can.
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Does “any way we can”
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If you are going to quote me, please do it correctly.
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include a house-to-house extermination mission to kill
every last Iraqi? What if that’s the safest and cheapest method available to
us?
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Safely for all parties, innocent civilians included.
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Are we therefore justified, based on this simple economic assessment?
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Obviously no. In fact, we have spent billions on developing “smart” bombs in
order to minimize civilian casualties.
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6. On what basis do you determine that the United States is not equally
guilty of the crimes it accuses the so called “insane” of committing?
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Because we have codes of conduct to which we try to adhere. They have none.
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I am certain that they adhere to a code of conduct, but because it does not
coincide with yours, you declare it non-existent. Elsewhere, you have
declared that Islamic fanatics wish to impose Shariah, which I believe is
a code of conduct, is it not?
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Okay, our codes are morally superior to their codes.
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If you assert that our code is better than theirs, then you must present your
objective evidence in support of your claim. If we have a code of conduct
but fail to live up to it, how are we better than another group that fails to
live up to its own code of conduct?
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So, if we aren’t perfectly living up to our code, we are just as bad? Sorry,
you argumentative insistence upon perfection is getting tired.
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Every objection you have raised thus far applies equally (or more so) to
the actions and policies of the Bush Administration. Do you condemn the
Adminstration equally, or do you apply your criticism only to those who do
not profess to worship at the Americhristian altar?
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Please let’s dispense with the anti-Christian rhetoric.
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Be careful--you’re approaching the dreaded straw man. I’m not claiming that
all Christians are bad or worthy of contempt. I’m asserting that claims of
divine mandate, or claims that we are somehow uniquely blessed,
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Do you deny that we are uniquely blessed? What exactly do you mean by the
pejorative “worship at the Americhristian altar”?
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are hardcore
zealotry and should be treated as the mental illness that they are.
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Is that your professional opinion as a Doctor of .....what?
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Your attempts at
equivocation are at best specious and at worst offensive to Christians who
don’t appreciate being unjustly compared to the dirtbags who perpetrated the
Nick Berg slaughter.
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If we apply this to the specific Christians to whom I refer (namely Boykin
and Bush, in this discussion) then I am happy to identify them to dirtbags.
I am not discussing mainstream Christians, but rather those elements of the
fanatical Right who claim either to speak to God or to act on his behalf.
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And your proof that they are not indeed doing that is?.....
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Yeah, Bush is a Christian. So what? It’s where he gets his values.
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It’s also where he gets his policy, and it’s how he panders to his
electorate. If he got his values from Christianity without using Christianity
as a bludgeon against his ideological enemies, then I’d have no problem with
it.
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It’s called politics:-)
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No worse than from where ever you get yours or Kerry gets his.
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That’s an endorsement of moral relativism, of course. Care to rephrase?
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Not that I believe that--you believe that!
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Kerry’s a Christian-- why do you support him?
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In the most basic sense, I support him because he isn’t Bush.
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Neither is my cat. Can she count on your support? :-)
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More
specifically, I support him because I believe that his goals for America are
superior to those of Bush, and that those policies will do better to provide
security and economic strength for the country.
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Fair enough. But you seem less interested in delving into Kerry’s religion than
Bush’s....
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By what authority do you assert that the United States has no moral
authority to condemn any nation or entity? You are hoisted by your own
moral relativism.
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Because the United States sees fit to endorse policies for itself that it
condemns in others, the United States is by definition hypocritical. Dubya
justified the invasion of Iraq on the claim that Saddam tortured, raped, and
murdered Iraqis; the US military has tortured, raped, and murdered Iraqis, so
we cannot presume to judge Saddam.
I haven’t even gotten to my moral relativism yet--I’m merely holding the
United States to the same standard to which it holds other nations. Do you
propose that the United States should be judged by a different standard?
Why?
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So we’re justified in killing as many innocent civilians as we wish?
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No, merely pointing out that a numbers-game argument is meaningless.
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Then I challenge you to write a letter to President Bush every time he
invokes the memory of the ~3000 who dies on 9/11. Dubya is more than happy
to argue the numbers game, even if he doesn’t like “fuzzy math.”
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Yet again, this is argument by assertion. Why do you assert that we
have the right to judge but Muslim extremists (presumably) do not?
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I base it on how we treat our fellow human beings and how they treat
their fellow human beings. Our system is morally and ethically superior.
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If you are judging your morality and their morality in terms of your own
morality, then it’s no surprise that you judge your morality to be superior.
I may be a moral relativist, but you are a solipsist!
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When I look that up and see what it means, I’ll get back to you;-)
(snip)
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That’s my Rabid Disturbance™ in action!
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I’ve read about that. I hear the shots are painful;-)
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Conservaties want to restrict the right to marry by altering the
US Constitution,
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That is only proposed to protect the institution of marriage from being
REDEFINED by activists with their social agendas.
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I’d like to withdraw this point from the current debate. You know my views,
and I’m happy to go over them again in another thread, but there’s no need to
enlarge the debate already in progress.
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Agreed.
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I’m just curious. Whom would you describe as a “Left Wing” zealot?
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You mean aside from myself? 8^)
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:-)
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I don’t know, really. If we define a left- or right-wing zealot as someone
who clings to extremist policies regardless of their applicability to or
repercussions upon the real world, then Nader and Kucinich probably qualify
for the left. Michael Moore probably qualifies, too, though he finds the nut
as often as not. Barney Frank is a left-wing jerk, but I don’t know if he’s
a zealot.
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I gotta run so I need to beam this off (webpost) So much to say, so little
time:-(
JOHN
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