New at Reason

Julian Sanchez | December 9, 2005

Brendan O'Neill suggests that the good in us may be bringing out the worst in our enemies in Iraq.

Comments

|12.9.05 @ 6:23PM|#

I'm gettin' 404 on the link.

...FNF baby, that dog don't hunt.

|12.9.05 @ 6:29PM|#

The link on the main page works, Ken.

I thought the article had an interesting thesis.

|12.9.05 @ 6:30PM|#

He'll never be head of a major corporation...

|12.9.05 @ 6:33PM|#

First, yes we should be showing these pictures, as long as it is done in what I consider "proportion". We should be seeing Iraqis killed by other Iraqis/foreign Jihadis, Iraqis killed intentionally and unintentionally by Americans, and Americans/coalition troops killed by the Jihadis - all in at least some relationship to the actual number of deaths. Any other method results in a distorted picture of the truth, with one type of killing emphasized over the others.

We should then make the same demand of Al-Jaazera and its ilk. They should start the day by talking about Muslims/Arabs slaughtered by other Muslim. Then they should talk about all the non-muslims slaughted by Muslims. They should finish the day by talking about the reverse. People in the Middle East would quickly get the point when Al-Jaz had to talk about Muslim-on-Muslim violence from 12:01 am to 6 pm, followed by Muslim-on-everyone-else violence until 11:50pm. Al-Jaz likes to claim it is just telling the truth. The problem is that it turns 18 hours of info into 10 minutes and ten minutes of info into 18 hours, badly and very deliberately distorting the problem.

|12.9.05 @ 6:35PM|#

Chad,

True dat.

|12.9.05 @ 6:40PM|#

Chad, I've said many times before that Al-Jazeera is just the mirror image of Fox News. Neither lie, but Fox focuses on the good stuff that happens over there and Al-Jazeera focuses on the bad.

Or, to see it another way, Fox takes the point of view of the invading army, and Al-Jazeera takes the point of view of the country that's been invaded.

|12.9.05 @ 6:42PM|#

Makes sense. We made it obvious we wanted a bloodless surgical war and the insurgents realize that by denying us our goal, we will be shamed into leaving and forced to declare ourselves defeated.

|12.9.05 @ 6:48PM|#

Of course, the easiest way to be rid of us would be to lay low, let W declare victory and bring the troops home, then bring back the guns and overthrow the US installed government.

The reason this hasn't been done is that the insurgents are not a monolithic force. They are controlled by competing warlords jockying for position to become the next dictator.

|12.9.05 @ 6:51PM|#

Nick, what about this article compelled you to include it in Reason? It's about as insightful as the typical Time Magazine fluff. It's almost as bad as O'Neill's previous super-lame article on PETA, "Fur Flies in PETA Paroxysm". (By the way, the Search engine on Reason.com fails to find the PETA article that I just mentioned. In fact, it doesn't seem to work very well at all. Trying to find all of the articles by Brendan O'Neill failed, unless I wanted to just search for O'Neill.)

He makes general assertions about "our" negative sensitivity to death and the imagery of deaths, but fails to note how often death and the imagery of deaths manages to shore up support for the war effort, especially when it features the brutality and inhumanity of the insurgency. Hell, the carnage of 9/11 was largely responsible for the critical mass of support that made this whole mess possible in the first place. Supposedly, part of their motivation for 9/11 was to scare us into pulling all of our troops home and hedgehogging in fear. You'd think that when the exact opposite happened, it might have registered a little bit.

Sorry for all the bitching. O'Neill is a better writer than I am, but his stuff isn't up to snuff with the rest of the Reason staff and contributors, in my opinion.

|12.9.05 @ 6:51PM|#

Jennifer, I would disagree. The American media (Fox included) does not show bloody pictures. However, "bad news" is talked about constantly, usually to a far greater extent than good news. I am currently not in the states at this time, but from what I remember of last year, Fox was more likely to talk about positive news than most of the other networks.

I invite you to look at a relatively "neutral" news site such as CNN. You should note that in the headlines bad news is usually stated as fact
(ie, "18 killed in bombing") while good news is almost qualified with "Bush/Cheney/Rice/etc claims..."

As westerners, we are flooded with numerous angles and a relatively broad picture of the problem (if we pay attention). The same is not true in the Middle East. When their "moderate" information hubs are like Al-Jaz, which is about a thousand times more biased than Fox, there is a tremendous problem.

|12.9.05 @ 6:55PM|#

As interesting as this thesis is, I'm not sure if I agree, for the simple reason that it seems so. . . "solipsistic," isn't the right word, but something like that. I don't know--the idea that all these insurgents have such exquisite psychological insight and know exactly which Western buttons to press? I'd more readily buy that if we WERE fighting a monolithic organization getting orders from a single (insightful) leader.

I always figured that the insurgents did things like cut off people's heads for the same reason ancient Britons used to paint themselves blue before fighting battles--to scare the enemy into having thoughts like, "My God! These people we're fighting are freaking insane"!

|12.9.05 @ 6:57PM|#

You should note that in the headlines bad news is usually stated as fact (ie, "18 killed in bombing") while good news is almost qualified with "Bush/Cheney/Rice/etc claims..."


Serious, non-snarky observation: Bush/Cheney/Rice have been caught in so many lies already that taking their statements at face value would be irresponsible journalism.

|12.9.05 @ 7:01PM|#

Damn it, I hit "post" before I was finished typing! Chad, what I also wanted to say was that our news stations generally focus on AMERICANS in Iraq--how many soldiers killed today? What do the soldiers do in their off-time? What are the soldiers' living conditions like? How is that injured soldier learning to adjust to life without a leg? And so forth. Whereas al-Jazeera focuses on Iraqis.

How many times have you seen CNN or any other American news outlet have a story about the number of Iraqis killed by Americans at checkpoints? Or killed in bombings? (Not trying to start an argument, yes I already know the war-is-hell arguments to explain these happenings.) That is what al-Jazeera focuses on.

Really, is it surprising that a news channel for Arabs would be more interested in what happens to Arabs, than what happens to the people occupying them? It's no different from the way here, in American news, an earthquake that causes one skinned knee in California will get more attention than an earthquake killing thousands in China.

|12.9.05 @ 7:13PM|#

Of course, "body-bag syndrome"--where people tire of the sacrifices being made by their friends or fellow countrymen--is a side-effect of many wars, especially unpopular ones.

...in other times, our leaders have willing to send young men to die if it is for something they truly believe in, but here they promised few deaths from the very outset.

This is a function, at least in part, of the Iraq War not being a war of self defense--in spite of what you may have heard from your friendly neighborhood reverse domino theorist. From the onset, there was cold, calculated pragmatism in the bottom of that barrel.

Out of one side of their mouths, the Administration has to defend the meager benefits of the Iraq War, in spite of all the dead Americans (and civilians), even as they claim it was all done in self-defense. ...the proverbial rock and a hard place, no?

...FDR didn't have to promise there wouldn't be many casualties after Pearl Harbor. He didn't send anyone to Congress to assure us that the war would pay for itself either.

I have a small mountain of moral objections to the Iraq War--add to that my pragmatic objections too.

|12.9.05 @ 7:23PM|#

This is a function, at least in part, of the Iraq War not being a war of self defense--in spite of what you may have heard from your friendly neighborhood reverse domino theorist. From the onset, there was cold, calculated pragmatism in the bottom of that barrel....FDR didn't have to promise there wouldn't be many casualties after Pearl Harbor. He didn't send anyone to Congress to assure us that the war would pay for itself either.

Worth repeating. I have nothing to add.

Tim Cavanaugh|12.9.05 @ 7:25PM|#

The link is fixed. Sorry for the mixup.

|12.9.05 @ 7:25PM|#

Jennifer, if Al-Jaz focuses on dead Arabs and the American media focuses on dead Americans, that is natural. However, Al-Jaz focuses on dead Arabs killed by westerners.

It is natural to worry about those that have a connection to you than those who do not. I can tolerate this bias, even though it remains one. However, Al-Jaz has a far worse bias of hiding anything that Muslims do wrong and blowing anything Americans do wrong far out of proportion - and Al-Jaz is among the "least-biased" of the bunch over there. This is not true in the American media. Abu Ghraib was less bad than numerous individual terrorist bombings, yet look at the responses. Our media blows our own sins far out of proportion. Al-Jaz does the reverse.

That is dangerous.

While of course all media have biases, trying to compare ours and theirs is downright silly. Yes, there is no black and white. However, not all shades of grey are equal.

|12.9.05 @ 7:29PM|#

Ken Shultz-

As a follow-up point/rhetorical question, would the public aversion to casualties apply if you substituted Afghanistan for Iraq?

Also on your FDR/WWII point, Stephen Ambrose once wondered out-loud if the US would have sought peace with Germany during the Battle of the Bulge had there been the same sort of televion coverage as Vietnam or Iraq. Perhaps a lot of people would have said why endure the sacrifice against Germany when it never attacked us.

|12.9.05 @ 7:36PM|#

if Al-Jaz focuses on dead Arabs and the American media focuses on dead Americans, that is natural. However, Al-Jaz focuses on dead Arabs killed by westerners. . . . . hiding anything that Muslims do wrong

Their English Website discusses and condemns Arab-on-Arab violence. Are you sure their Arab channel doesn't? Where are you getting this information?

Even if they focus more on the American-inspired violence than the Arab-inspired, that too is to be expected, given that Americans are the authority figures there. It's the same way that in America, stories about uniformed cops raping or murdering people are considered far more newsworthy than stories about regular people raping or murdering people.

|12.9.05 @ 7:46PM|#

As a follow-up point/rhetorical question, would the public aversion to casualties apply if you substituted Afghanistan for Iraq?

The public will always have an aversion to casualties, and it will always have an aversion to death.

...but I think the American public's aversion to casualties and death is far, far less in Afghanistan, and I think that's because the public considers the Afghanistan War a war of self-defense.

P.S. Has anyone heard from kwais?

|12.9.05 @ 8:06PM|#

"The authors of the war promised this would be a "clean" invasion in which few would die"

Yeah, I remember that. It reminds me of when JFK said we really shouldn't bother putting a man on the moon since its just too easy.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/10/22/sprj.irq.main/

|12.9.05 @ 8:12PM|#

Their English Website discusses and condemns Arab-on-Arab violence. Are you sure their Arab channel doesn't? Where are you getting this information?

One of the interesting things I've read about is that a lot of Arab/Muslim websites/new services put on a very moderate face when speaking in English, but are incredibly fundamentalist when speaking in Arabic.

|12.9.05 @ 8:14PM|#

One of the interesting things I've read about is that a lot of Arab/Muslim websites/new services put on a very moderate face when speaking in English, but are incredibly fundamentalist when speaking in Arabic.

Of that, I have no doubt. A lot of them do--but what do we know of al-Jazeera?

dave bones|12.9.05 @ 8:22PM|#

Yeah, the article is distorted by what the media calls news and its a blabbing opinion piece. Media will always focus on 16 deaths rather than 100 000 living peacefully. No one will say that the insurgents are a relatively minor threat. No one wants to believe that maybe 19 people took down the twin towers. Journalists don't feel important saying

"A relatively small group of people are causing trouble."

They'd look stupid. At a very basic level everything we can't see for ourselves with our own eyes is in a hall of mirrors isn't it.

|12.9.05 @ 8:24PM|#

I'm Irish, so I'm respectful of any O'Neil.
That said, he's a parasite on clear thinking.
What would he have Dubya do? Develop a regiment of kamikazes within the US Army? That would be so easy. Too easy.
But, then where would we be?

Give the Irish credit though for being able to think outside the box.

|12.9.05 @ 8:37PM|#

At a very basic level everything we can't see for ourselves with our own eyes is in a hall of mirrors isn't it.

On any given day, at least one journalist is taking every possible position on every noteworthy event. ...and we have access to all of it. We decide when to be skeptical and what to believe. It's all on us. I wouldn't have it any other way.

|12.9.05 @ 9:26PM|#

Jennifer,

What lies would those be? Leave it to Jennifer to say something so soft-headed.

Daniel,

(A) Ambrose's best work was done by other people.

(B) The Battle of the Bulge didn't last long enough for anything like that to happen. I mean really, you are talking about an offensive that lasted from December 16th-December 23rd, and a battle which was over by January 7th (when Hitler decided to finally withdraw after the pounding his forces were taking following December 23rd). As usual Ambrose was being as realistic as Hitler was.

|12.9.05 @ 9:32PM|#

Daniel,

No, the better analogy would the invasion of Italy and the battle for Rome (including Anzio and the efforts to take Monte Cassino). However, despite much negative press on the matter of these events the resolve to continue the war on the one front the U.S. was involved with on the ground combat troops at the time was not abandoned (despite the best efforts of Gen. Clark and Gen. Montgomery - later replaced to go England to prepare for D-Day - to fuck it up).

|12.9.05 @ 9:33PM|#

Ken Shultz,

War is hell. People need to get used to that idea.

Tim Cavanaugh|12.9.05 @ 9:43PM|#

I don't know how much Arab media in Arabic people on this thread are familiar with, but one thing to keep in mind is that the Arab news media in all areas-including reporting on local traffic accidents and such-are more comfortable with graphic depictions of violence than the western media. There are political differences, and they're all abundantly covered (and mis-covered) here, but the cultural differences are, I think, at least as important. If you watch an Arab TV news report about a construction worker falling off a tall building, chances are the report will show the body of the worker lying in a pool of blood with its eyes open. You don't see that kind of coverage in TV news in America, where even a puddle of blood is generally denounced as sensationalistic.

I draw no conclusions from this, just note I know it to be true.

Tim Cavanaugh|12.9.05 @ 9:47PM|#

despite the best efforts of Gen. Clark and Gen. Montgomery - later replaced to go England to prepare for D-Day - to fuck it up

Somewhere Mark Clark is burning in lousy-general hell, and this comment alone has made me regret that I ever kicked Gary-Hakluyt out of the comments.

Rich Ard|12.9.05 @ 10:03PM|#

"Ambrose's best work was done by other people."

That's a gem, Hak. :)

|12.9.05 @ 10:49PM|#

Describing The Memory Hole as "an anti-war website" severely damages O'Neill's credibility as far as I'm concerned. Kick may be an opponent of the war, and is certainly vocal critic of some of the American policies associated with it, but the website;s home page now includes links to "OSHA's Lost Workday and Illness Database," "FBI Research Reports on the Nation of Islam," "Philadelphia Grand Jury Report on Pedophile Priests" and plenty of other stories with absolutely nothing to do with the war. O'Neill is either sloppy, lazy or mendacious.

|12.9.05 @ 10:50PM|#

Rich Ard,

You know, prior to Ambrose being outted there was much discussion about the issue of how he used sources between military historians, etc. However, by the 1990s he'd become such a big, popular figure most were afraid to rock the boat. Also, I'm still convinced that a graduate student I knew was the "deep throat" behind the story of his outting. My friend hated Ambrose and thought that he was a hack.

Tim Cavanaugh,

It was all part of the "heat of battle" re: the banning. I've let bygones be bygones. I guess we have a general dislike for Gen. Clark in common. If you ever want to read some negative comments about him all you gotta do is read Gen. Juin's (of the French Expeditionary Corps) memoirs on the guy; he has nothing but scorn for the needless, pointless deaths that Clark sent men to. His moronic decision to try to take Monte Cassino, instead of pursuing another line of attack, will always cause people to spit when they hear his name.

|12.9.05 @ 10:56PM|#

Of course Clark also ended up getting a lot of Italians killed too when he made his moronic and ego-driven move to capture Rome first.

Viking (safe to come out of hi|12.9.05 @ 10:59PM|#

wonderful all!

|12.9.05 @ 11:36PM|#

From the article:
Both sides have helped to turn death into the defining issue, so it is not surprising that the insurgents should focus on that same issue.

Killing is an integral part of war. If you don't kill anybody you probably won't win the battle, hence all the rifles and missiles and whatnot. And if you don't take casualties you probably won't lose. So it's understandable that death might be the main issue.

From Chad at 6:51 pm:
You should note that in the headlines bad news is usually stated as fact
(ie, "18 killed in bombing") while good news is almost qualified with "Bush/Cheney/Rice/etc claims..."

Bodies are easy to count. But "turned corners" and "last throes" are more subjective. Now, purple thumbs are easy to count, and I don't recall any newspaper saying "Rice claims that an election was held."

And I totally agree with what Ken Shultz wrote at 7:13 pm.

|12.10.05 @ 12:32AM|#

I'm slightly confused about O'Neill's point. I mean if we grant that the insurgents are tailoring efforts to American squeamishness about death, then don't we somehow need to stop being squeamish about death? Don't you usually do that by showing pictures? Similarly, when O'Neill talks about the emotional blackmail used by antiwar activists, how does he expect to neutralize that blackmail except by acclimating the American public to them?

(And for the record, by what stretch of the imagination is a demand for an accurate estimation of civilian war dead "emotional blackmail"? Even if the data is used for propagandistic purposes it is still data, goddamit.)

As Tim points out, Arab TV in general is just more violent overall, and I assume that the audience is correspondingly more blase towards it. I have found similar differences in broadcast standards when travelling abroad. Lord knows an excessive dose of Italian TV almost made me blase about breasts.

Almost.

Anon

|12.10.05 @ 1:31AM|#

Thoreau: killing may be an integral part of war, but in an alleged "humanitarian intervention" it should certainly be expected that the death toll resulting from the war would be part of the win/lose calculation. After all, "winning" a humanitarian intervention is defined as improving the lot of those whose country you're intervening in. Dead people are rarely better off.

The simple arithmetic of a kill to casualty ratio doesn't necessarily apply in a guerrilla war, or intervention, or whatever this is. The British Army, for example, lost more soldiers in Northern Ireland than it killed IRA terrorists, and yet the IRA has essentially given up their armed struggle. There was no need for them to do so, since they had the enemy outnumbered and outgunned, but they accepted higher casualties on the grounds that the political cost of dead soldiers was lower than that of dead civilians.

The difference was that the dead civilians would have been British subjects, which is what made the political cost so high. In this case, the dead civilians are foreigners we never really cared for much in the first place. The domestic political cost of their deaths are pretty low in comparison to the political cost of dead soldiers. On the other hand, the political cost in Iraq of dead civilians is quite high.

Reading what I just wrote makes me extremely pessimistic: in order to gain domestic support for continuing the war, Bush must minimize American deaths, even at the expense of more Iraqi dead. In order to win the war in Iraq, the military must minimize Iraqi deaths even at the expense of more American deaths.

Oh, yeah, this is gonna end badly.

|12.10.05 @ 2:26AM|#

The article says

these faceless killers who incinerate worshippers or blow up kids taking sweets from a U.S. soldier?

Uh huh. And then it says

The pro-war right can only say the insurgents are "pure evil." That is no rational explanation, either.

Only the pro-war right calls this evil? B.S.

Why, precisely, is "pure evil" not a rational catagorization of the motives of people who murder their own civilian populations with reckless abandon? The "insurgents" are monsters. Call a spade a spade.

This, however,

American leaders sent a clear message to the insurgents: "If you want to get one over on us, kill people. We cannot bear this burden."

is true. Except, it isn't just "American leaders" who sent, and keep sending, that message.

It's our MSM that makes sure that message is up and running 24/7.


Rimfax,

Nick, what about this article compelled you to include it in Reason? It's about as insightful as the typical Time Magazine fluff.

I agree, the regular Reason staff is generally a cut above what we got in this article. Still, this article does have a point to make.

The enemy is using our own unwillingness to take casualties, and inflict civilian casualties, against us. It is not the first enemy to do so, and I suspect it will not be the last.

Good point above Re: the fact that we ought to be able to see a) how many US soldiers killed, b) how many civilians killed by US, c) how many civilians killed by "insurgents".

If we also had an average number of civilians killed by Saddam per year to put up there next to all this, then we might start getting a clearer picture of what "casualties" are all about in Iraq. But don't hold your breath until the media, anywhere, puts all this info together in one package.


My concern is what happens if we ever get into a justified and necessary war. There aren't a whole lot of those (my opinion), but they do happen.

Our military technology better stay really, really good relative to everbody else's, because our Achille's heel is right out there where everybody can see it.

|12.10.05 @ 2:31AM|#

James,

Oh, yeah, this is gonna end badly.

I said the same thing before we ever got to Iraq, for about the same reasons you gave.

My way of putting it was, the US will not be willing to do what must be done, if there is to be any chance of achieving the fuzzy aims our leaders claim we're there to achieve.

|12.10.05 @ 2:39AM|#

James,

Oh, yeah, this is gonna end badly.

I said the same thing before we ever got to Iraq, for about the same reasons you gave.

My way of putting it was, the US will not be willing to do what must be done, if there is to be any chance of achieving the fuzzy aims our leaders claim we're there to achieve.

|12.10.05 @ 2:53AM|#

Why, precisely, is "pure evil" not a rational catagorization of the motives of people who murder their own civilian populations with reckless abandon?

It's definitely a rational categorization for acts of terrorism. The article, however, said it wasn't a rational explanation. "Pure evil" is what you see in Star Wars or Indiana Jones movies. I'm not against killing terrorists, but I think it's harder to do so, or even prevent terrorism, if we don't understand the enemy. And I think if we apply simplistic labels to the enemy like, "pure evil," it makes it harder to truly understand them. Human beings are complex. Human beings that do evil things are especially complex.

fyodor|12.10.05 @ 3:15AM|#

Les & Kahn,

I'm not sure if calling terrorists pure evil is a "rational" explanation for their behavior or not (in such a context my mind kind of blanks at what a rational explanation even is), but I think it's clearly not a very useful one. Well, maybe it's useful for venting or rallying the troops, but not for understanding the phenomenon or what to do about it. Unless we could really just kill them all or scare them into submission. But I doubt it will ever be that easy.

|12.10.05 @ 8:34AM|#

I thought this article was interesting and insightful, but in the end frustrating because I can't discern what this guy thinks we should do at this point. So they "love death" as we "love life" -- are we supposed to love death now? Publicly behead a few insurgents, perhaps?

Decades ago most people here didn't even flinch at the firebombing of Tokyo. Later we had a national implosion over the same tactics used in Vietnam. We are a different nation than we used to be. Do you want to go back?

I had these same questions when we got into this war. A tidy, surgical little operation, in and out in six months -- "the humanity of it" -- yeah right! Never happened and never will.

|12.10.05 @ 12:08PM|#

Remember shock and awe?
If you have big planes that's what you do.
If you have a 20 year old rifle, a big knife, and a video camera, you film yourself cutting off heads.
Both are motivated by the same desire to scare the enemy and make them give up.

This article is just silly. Hard to do with such a serious topic

|12.10.05 @ 12:34PM|#

I agree with Catalina. I like the fact that we are less sanguine about throwing bodies into the meatgrinder. War may benefit the Carlisle Group, but pretty much everyone else suffers, on both sides.
The key to this change has been religion, or more precisely the loss of it. Agnostic Europe is convinced the GWOT is a war of Christian fundamentalists vs. Muslim fundamentalists, and they want no part of it. Good for them. Maybe we (Americans) are more squemish about death because we're not so convinced paradise is waiting just on the other side of that IED.

Spreadin' It, As Requested|12.10.05 @ 1:06PM|#

How deeply a nation truly believes in the justness of a war is strongly correlated to how many of their citizens they are willing to have die. The insurgents are constantlty testing the depth of US committment to the best of their abilities. Surprise! Surprise! Support in the Coalition Of The (Somewhat) Willing ain't that deep when measured by the only meaningful metric.

Warren|12.10.05 @ 1:11PM|#

The people of the Middle East are determined to continue killing each other. Nothing we do will ever change that. All of human history supports this thesis.

|12.10.05 @ 3:16PM|#

fyodor, I agree with you 100%.

|12.10.05 @ 3:23PM|#

Kahn,

The supposed story about how Americans or Westerners or whatever can't stand to take casualties is about as stale and tired a point as how Americans or Westerners "just don't get" Middle East politics or culture. This story added nothing new to the discussion and failed to even retread some fairly obvious and interesting ground on the subject.

For instance, is there a difference between the way that Americans react to civilian casualties rather than military casualties? What about when the civilian casualties are more foreign to us? The fact is that the main kvetching going on about casualties here is about American military casualties. Yet the feature photo was about a civilian casualty, and it is my very limited perception that beheadings and the like actually appear to marginally increase support for the occupation rather than decrease it.

From what I see, the main driving force against support for the occupation is not the ongoing casualties, but that there is no apparent progress despite the casualties. Americans, media included, were actually very pleased with the low casualty figures during the actual invasion. There was apparent and obvious benefit for the awful, but less than expected cost. The other element is that fewer people have any trust left in those who continue to claim that there are benefits for the costs.

|12.10.05 @ 3:59PM|#

Just for the record...

Only the pro-war right calls this evil? B.S.

You wrote this in response to:

The pro-war right can only say the insurgents are "pure evil." That is no rational explanation, either.

...O'Neil didn't write that "only the pro-war right calls this evil"; he wrote that "The pro-war right can only say...", which is different.

|12.10.05 @ 4:40PM|#

Decades ago most people here didn't even flinch at the firebombing of Tokyo. Later we had a national implosion over the same tactics used in Vietnam. We are a different nation than we used to be.

Once again, the nation of Japan attacked us, and I suspect this contributed to the lack of squeamishness. The TV coverage had something to do with the drop in support for the War in Vietnam, but, even there, much of the support for Vietnam came from the perception that we were protecting ourselves from an expansionist Soviet Union.

...heard anything sounding like domino theory lately?

So, I'm not sure we're so different from where we were then. The Colonists adopted a rattlesnake as a Revolutionary standard along with the words, "Don't tread on me." Rattlesnakes will only bite you in self-defense, and, even then, they give a long, loud warning before they strike. Self-defense as a principle has been part of our national character for a long time.

Maybe some things are worth killing and dying for to the American people, and other things just aren't. Regardless of whether a cause justifies the killing and dying, I don't see our squeamishness as the problem. ...and it certainly isn't the facts of war. The problem is when you get knee deep in a war, and the benefits aren't worth the costs.

I can justify most any cost in the name of self-defense, but in every other case, I have to think real hard for something to justify all the dead Americans in the cost column. ...and if the President proposes war, then so should he. Even as the pictures of our dead soldiers flash by on our televisions.

|12.10.05 @ 6:47PM|#

I think Mr. O'Neill comes close here. The Left v. Right analysis of the situation in Iraq is to blame for the likelyhood that Iraq is never going to work. The right calls them "pure evil" because the folks responsible for pissing off the middle easterners would rather not risk alienating public support for said people by explaining why it is they really hate us in the middle east. (I'm really refering to the left-overs of Reagan-era policy makers who still hold power and the policy-makers since then who have tried to fix, extend or cover-over those policies.)

O'Neill might be close in stating that how we define these people is a big part of the problem. It's easy to say that they are pure evil; all pro-war propaganda (I use that word with neutrality) asserts a battle over good and evil, with us being the good, and they (whether it be Cherokees, Japs, Yankees, etc.) being the evil.

The lefties just lack a spine and would rather ride on the tails of the dead and wounded rather than propose a reasonable way to deal with anti-US feelings in the Middel East. It would be poitically unpopular to say, "Let's just forgive and forget." which is what they really want to say. Not a bad policy, as long as we make note that if a 9/11 happens again, we go 'nucular' on any country that supports another attack; of course that is unreasonable and causes conflict with the lefty ideal of not having to kill, ever.

Final alanlyis of the current status? It's a big arterial wound. The right says "Look, let's put a band-aid on this here 'laceration' because band-aids here will lead to band-aids elsewhere and a body covered in band-aids will stop bleeding for good!" The left just sits on the sidelines and points at the wound and says "Your band-aid policy sucks ass, look at all the blood. I'm going out to grab a latte and a tofu-brussel sprout wrap; call me when the patient is dead."
Neither are proposing bringing in the doctor into the OR to slap on a tournaquette.

|12.10.05 @ 6:53PM|#

So, I'm not sure we're so different from where we were then. The Colonists adopted a rattlesnake as a Revolutionary standard along with the words, "Don't tread on me." Rattlesnakes will only bite you in self-defense, and, even then, they give a long, loud warning before they strike. Self-defense as a principle has been part of our national character for a long time.




Just because we used a symbol back in the 18th century does not mean that it's principle has been part of our national character for a long time. Really, of all our wars and conflicts, how many were legitimatley self-defense? And how many countries claim to be not interested in self-defense? The rhetoric is as old as war itself.

|12.10.05 @ 7:42PM|#

Really, of all our wars and conflicts, how many were legitimatley self-defense?

Good point--not all of our wars have been wars of self-defense. You're not suggesting that all of our previous wars were good ones despite this, are you?

The War of 1812 counts. I've already commented that popular support for one arena in the Cold War was predicated on self-defense arguments regarding Communist, particularly Soviet, expansion. I'd add the Korean War as one of those cases.

Neither the Spanish American War nor the US-Mexican War are very good candidates for having been wars of Self-defense. We might have done as well without those wars, I suspect.

...and yet the Spanish American War began with a Gulf of Tonkin like, self-defense rationalization as did our entry into World War I. In fact, it seems like the pretense of self-defense has been very important historically, even the Mexican American War had such a pretense.

One side of the Civil War might see it as a war of self-defense, and from the other side, Lincoln seemed to make the case that what the North was fighting for was worth the loss of life.

And how many countries claim to be not interested in self-defense? The rhetoric is as old as war itself.

No question, self-defense has been used to justify wars that weren't really wars of self-defense. I suspect our Iraq War is an example; indeed, I suspect that domestic support for the war has waned to the extent that the American people no longer consider it a war of self-defense.

P.S. Panama and Somalia weren't wars of self-defense, but I don't think they're comparable to what we're doing in Iraq.

|12.10.05 @ 11:13PM|#

Ken-

To be fair, I think that the self defense issue comes down to what you consider self defense. Retaliation against people directly involved in an attack is obviously self defense. Pre-emptive attacks on people who are obviously preparing an attack (e.g. armies massed along the border) can also be clear self defense.

But military action could also be considered self defense in situations somewhat less clear cut than those obvious examples. Now, how far out we'd go, how far out we draw the lines, those are the thorny issues. I think that most (all?) war supporters would say that Iraq was a defensive war, at least if viewed in the long run.

Some would say that, despite what we now know, at the time the WMD threat appeared real enough that pre-emption was necessary as self-defense.

Some would say that, even if the Saddam-9/11 link wasn't as strong as the Taliban-9/11 link, any link at all, no matter how tenuous, in unacceptable.

Others would take a "big picture" view and say that a liberalization project is a form of pre-ventive self defense.

And, to be honest, some people seem to think that every now and then we simply need to kick the asses of some bad foreigners who don't like us, just to show that we can't be messed with and thereby discourage attacks. I don't share that view, but they clearly think that it's a form of self defense.

So just about every war supporter views war as a form of self defense. The thing we need to debate is how expansively we should view self defense.

|12.11.05 @ 1:44AM|#

Want to be successful against the "insurgents"?

1> Remove all non-Iraqi jouralists from Iraq. They are not making a positive contribution to anyone.
2> When an insurgent is identified, immediately kill every person discovered to have had a recent contact with that person, including first and second level family members, wherever found. Instantly cease financial and military aid to any government failing in any way to cooperate.

Word will get around, the "insurgency" will be over in six months.

Or (my preference): leave and let the people of Iraq do something similar once we are gone.

Yeah, its not the American way, but this is a "when in Rome..." situation.

|12.11.05 @ 3:06AM|#

DogBreath: I was hunting around on the web a few years back for something or another and I happened on a website that showed pictures of WW2 atrocities. One stuck out in my mind. It was a Russian girl of fourteen, clad only in a man's shirt and boots, hung in the middle of winter. She was executed for trying to set on fire a barn full of German soldiers.

Oddly enough, this firm and decisive action against a known Russian terrorist failed to prevent further attacks. Perhaps the Germans were simply insufficiently ruthless in their behavior towards occupied territories.

|12.11.05 @ 10:07AM|#

DogBreath,
That wouldn't work if we did it. It might work if the Iraqis did it.

Their (the Iraqi's) problem isn't a lack of ruthlessness. (Saddam didn't do his thing on his own) it is a problem of agreeing in the direction they want to go.

On another note. This thread might be dead, sorry I didn't show up earlier guys. I am on a much busier schedule than I was last time I was deployed. I really don't have time to contribute to this blog much. Too late and not enough. I'll try to write another article for Gyrilade about Afghanistan.

|12.11.05 @ 9:30PM|#

So just about every war supporter views war as a form of self defense. The thing we need to debate is how expansively we should view self defense.

I agree with that.

...although I'd add that of the people who are against the Iraq War, many are against it because they don't think it's a war of self-defense--anymore. ...and I maintain that "bodybag syndrome" is less apparent when the American people believe the war in question to be a function of self-defense--however expansive their view.

P.S. I suspect you'd consider my view of self-defense as expansive, relatively speaking. Some of the things I'd find objectionable otherwise, are okay with me so long as they're done in the service of an alliance. Also, in the name of self-defense, I don't have a problem with the idea of preemptive action per se. It's just that in the Iraq War, what we preempted remains unclear to me.

|12.11.05 @ 11:24PM|#

wasn't the original graphic a dude holding a severed head? and now it's flag-draped coffins? what happened?

|12.12.05 @ 8:54AM|#

Want to be successful against the "insurgents"?

Leave.