Home | Community | Message Board

Magic-Mushrooms-Shop.com
This site includes paid links. Please support our sponsors.


Welcome to the Shroomery Message Board! You are experiencing a small sample of what the site has to offer. Please login or register to post messages and view our exclusive members-only content. You'll gain access to additional forums, file attachments, board customizations, encrypted private messages, and much more!

Shop: Kraken Kratom Red Vein Kratom   Myyco.com Isolated Cubensis Liquid Culture For Sale   Unfolding Nature Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order   PhytoExtractum Buy Bali Kratom Powder

Jump to first unread post Pages: 1
OfflinePhred
Fred's son
Male

Registered: 10/18/00
Posts: 12,949
Loc: Dominican Republic
Last seen: 9 years, 2 months
Sanctuary
    #4946015 - 11/17/05 10:53 AM (18 years, 4 months ago)

Some of Wilshire's comments in the thread titled "Pentagon Admitted Usage of White Phosphorus" http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/4945905#Post4945905 reminded me I had been meaning to post some excerpts from one of Bill Whittle's essays for quite some time. He covers an awful lot of ground in that essay and it is well worth your time to read it ALL -- yes, both parts. And yes, I am aware that the phrase "read it all" is overused all too often in various forums where folks provide links, but this really is a case where it applies. A superb essay from one of modern America's premiere essayists.

He addresses intelligently so many of the topics we thrash out here in this forum -- the difference between a legitimate POW and the "insurgents" being captured in Iraq and Afghanistan, the difference between torture and humiliation, the practical basis of various "rules" which govern warfare post-Geneva, and of course the concept of "Sanctuary". He covers a bunch more as well and it is very difficult for me to stop excerpting and just cut and paste the whole damn thing, but I'll try and restrain myself.

Here is the quote from Wilshire which prompted me to make this thread --

Quote:

for example. it would be easier to simply shoot and bomb surrendering enemy troops than going through the trouble of capturing them and holding them prisoner. why do we take prisoners of war then? we take POW's for 7 reasons:

1. so that the enemy will not kill us when we surrender
2. so that the enemy is more willing to surrender to us
3. so that we may obtain intelligence
4. so that our troops will not be demoralized and traumatized by having to kill surrendering enemy troops.
5. so that the populace of the country whos army we're fighting against isn't further galvanized against us.
6. so that world opinion isn't turned against us.
7. so that the public at home is not outraged.

it has nothing to do with respect for law and order.




Here are some excerpts from Whittle's essay http://www.ejectejecteject.com/archives/000125.html

I've included some lead-in paragraphs rather than jumping directly to his comments on surrender and how to treat soldiers who have surrendered because they address other issues we debate here frequently. Read it all -- I assure you the relevance will become apparent. Here we go --












Now to hear some fellers tell it, the entire idea of ?Unlawful Combatants? came to Sith mastermind Darth Rover in a vision, and he instructed his familiars Chimpy McBushitler and Torture Master Rumsfeld to use it as an excuse to begin the unjustified savagery that is such an essential part of the American character.

Absent from this worldview is?well?just about everything.

During the actual Major Combat Operations of Iraqi Freedom, US generosity and grace toward defeated elements of the Iraqi regular army was in the highest tradition of the US Military, which is justifiably well-known for its benevolence toward a defeated adversary on the battlefield. Surrendering Iraqi regular units were given rations and medical care, and their officers were allowed to keep their sidearms as a show of respect and authority. I have not seen or heard of a single case of anything less than exemplary conduct regarding enemy regular-army soldiers.

So why were the Taliban and Al Qaeda and Fedayeen insurgents treated so differently? Why the hoods and shackles? Why the humiliation at Abu Graib?
It is not because these men shot at US soldiers. Regular Iraqi units, NVA units, North Korean Units, Germans, Japanese, Confederates and Redcoats have shot at American soldiers and upon their surrender their treatment has been, on the whole, exemplary. Why are these different?

It is not because they are opposing us. It is ? to put it as bluntly as possible ? because they are cheating ? cheating in a way that none of the above ever did.

They have willfully and repeatedly broken the covenant of Sanctuary.




Let?s speak to the Perennially Outraged as if they were the fully grown, post-pubescent children they pride themselves on being.

What is the obvious difference between an enemy Prisoner of War, and an Unlawful Combatant? Suppose two of them were standing in a line-up. What one glaringly obvious thing sets them apart?

That?s right! One is wearing a uniform, and the other isn?t.

And why do soldiers wear uniforms?

It certainly is not to protect the soldier. As a matter of fact, a soldier?s uniform is actually a big flashing neon arrow pointing to some kid that says to the enemy, SHOOT ME!

And that?s exactly what a uniform is for. It makes the soldier into a target to be killed.

Now if that?s all there was to it, you might say that the whole uniform thing is not such a groovy idea. BUT! What a uniform also does -- the corollary to the whole idea of a uniformed person ? is to say that if the individual wearing a uniform is a legitimate target, then the person standing next to him in civilian clothes is not.

By wearing uniforms, soldiers differentiate themselves to the enemy. They assume additional risk in order to protect the civilian population. In other words, by identifying themselves as targets with their uniforms, the fighters provide a Sanctuary to the unarmed civilian population.

And this Sanctuary is as old as human history. The first civilized people on Earth, these very same Iraqis, who had cities and agriculture and arts and letters when my ancestors were living in caves, wore uniforms as soldiers of Babylon. This is an ancient covenant, and willfully breaking it is unspeakably dishonorable.

Now, imagine you are involved in street-to-street fighting?

We should actually stop right here. No one can imagine street-to-street fighting. It is a refined horror that you have lived through or you have not, and all I can do with the full power of my imagination does not get to the shadow of it. Nevertheless, there are men who have peered around corners in Fallujah, and Hue, and Carentan and a hundred unknown places; places where the enemy?s rifle may be leveled inches away from your nose, awaiting the last split-second of your young life.

Most of the time, you do not have time to think. A person jumps up from below a window three feet away. If he is wearing a grey tunic and a coal-scuttle helmet, it?s a Kraut and you let him have it before he kills you and your buddies. But what if he is wearing street clothes? What if he is smiling at you?

For brutal soldiers ? like the Nazi?s those of the far left accuse us of being precisely equal to ? this is a moot point. The SS killed everything that moved. They executed prisoners in uniforms, partisans, hostages and children. They were animals.

Our soldiers are civilized, compassionate and decent citizens doing a tough, horrible job. That means when they see someone who might be a civilian, they hesitate. That hesitation can and has killed them. And some people wonder why enemy soldiers without the honor and courage to wear a uniform are treated less than honorably after being captured by men full of courage and restraint.





Worse ? worse by far ? than the artificial safety given to enemies not wearing a uniform is the additional horror such behavior will inevitably inflict upon their own civilian population.

And it doesn?t hurt to point out ? repeatedly ? that the people they are putting at infinitely greater risk are supposedly the very people these so-called Muslim Warriors claim be trying to protect: their own women and children. Michael Moore has called these ruthless cowards the moral equivalent of our revolutionary Minutemen. I would point out to Mr. Moore that when confronted by an overwhelming enemy force, our Minutemen grabbed their guns, put their elderly, their women and their children behind them, and went out to face their adversary as far away from the weak and vulnerable as possible. These people do precisely the opposite. Our Minutemen fought for Freedom and Liberty; these fight for repression, state torture, and the right to force everyone to behave as they see fit. Am I surprised that Michael Moore cannot see this difference? I am not. The man has not seen his own toes for two decades, and they are a good deal closer to him than the streets of Fallujah.

Do those protesters ever wonder why prisoners of war in World War II movies ? soldiers -- trying to escape in civilian clothes would be shot as spies? A soldier out of uniform, a soldier trying to hide in the civilian population is gaining a one-time personal advantage, but that not the real sin. The real sin is that he is endangering the non-combatants. He is using civilians as cover. He is breaking down the barrier between the armed and the unarmed, the threat and the non-threat. He is trying to have it both ways.

Whenever there is war and invasion, there will be terrified civilians trying to get from one place to another. In the very early hours of Operation Iraqi Freedom, when we expected to be fighting the same Army that in the Gulf War fully honored the idea of uniformed troops, our soldiers discovered large numbers of unarmed, military-aged men in civilian clothes making for the rear. Many of these men were let through, and promptly took up arms and caused immeasurable damage before blending back into the population.

But they did much worse. Because after a few suicide bombers in civilian vehicles drove up to checkpoints and blew themselves and honor-abiding Coalition soldiers to bits, we have found ourselves having to treat all speeding civilian vehicles as hostile. We simply have no choice anymore. We did not simply decide to open fire on civilians; rather the enemy, in a cold and calculated decision repeated many, many times over, decided to violate the Sanctuary given to civilians to wage war on an American and British Army playing by the rules. They have made the line between civilian and soldier nonexistent. They did this, not us. They did it. They gained the benefits from it, and it has cost us dear. And so perhaps, in a world with less ignorance and more honesty, Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena ? who sped at a US roadblock, weaving, at more than 60 mph and in violation of warning shots -- would be pointing her finger at the people who violated this Covenant of Civilization, and not those being forced to make terrible decisions in order to preserve it.






War is hell, and soldiers have to live there. It is an unbearable burden; unbearable in the sense that not a single man and woman who has been fully exposed to war has ever come back home. Someone else comes back home. Sometimes, it is a better person. Sometimes a worse one. But they are different, all changed in the horror and crucible of war.

And so from the beginning of war, there exists between soldiers a bond that cannot be described. There is the obvious connection of a soldier to his comrades, but there is too a strong sense of respect and kinship with the soldier on the other side of No Man?s Land, shivering in cold wet places just the same, under orders and doing his job, too ? just wanting to get the thing over with and go home.

Surrender is a mercy in such a place. The idea that certain death may be avoided, that one might be willing to simply give up fighting and still survive, is mercy of the deepest blue. Surrendering enemy soldiers are often greeted with a warmth and understanding that friendly civilians do not receive, for they have shared in the misery and hardship of war in ways that we comfortable and safe civilians can never know.

Surrender, in war, is perhaps the ultimate of Sanctuaries. It is a way out when hope and rescue have fled the field. Honorable surrender has never been treated with shame by any American unit I have ever heard of.

And so, when groups of un-uniformed enemy soldiers waving white flags suddenly drop and open fire on unsuspecting, generous and honorable Americans, then the masters of these men have made a terrible bargain. They have destroyed the Sanctuary of Surrender, and eliminated for their own men a deep and abiding refuge in the nightmare of the battlefield.

They have done this to their own men. Not us. We have known of the brutality of the Iraqi army regarding prisoners from at least as far back as those taken and beaten during the first Gulf War, and as far as improvements over the intervening years, we might perhaps call Jessica Lynch to tell us of any newfound magnanimity on the part of the Ba?athists.

False surrender as a weapon of ambush is an abomination. When it is repeated, it is obvious that is not an aberration; it is policy. It is, like the abandonment of the uniform, a tactic to gain a short-term advantage that leads to long-term hardship and misery for their own troops. It is a Devil?s bargain, and they have had the Devil to pay for it ? as have we.





They violate the Sanctuary of the Uniform. They violate the Sanctuary of Surrender. And the most reprehensible of all is the violation of the Sanctuary of Mercy.

Throughout the insurgency, and especially in places like Fallujah, enemy fighters with real or feigned wounds have called for aid. Not often does a soldier who has been in combat look down upon the wounded of either side without horror and sympathy. In places like Fallujah and Iwo Jima and Antietam it is an easy thing to see one?s own reflection in that grimace and that agony.

So when a soldier out of uniform, who may have faked surrender to kill unsuspecting Americans, calls for aid and then willfully kills medics with a concealed grenade? where does that leave us? What unplumbed depths remain? When mercy is used as a weapon against the merciful, what horrors and abominations remain unplayed?

THAT, dear left-wing Citadels of Conscience, is what we are up against. That is what you support against the decency, honor and kindness you mock in your own countrymen as they build schools and hospitals and, indeed, an entire democracy. That is the definition of ?Unlawful Combatant.? It is not a legal nicety, and it is not a rhetorical flourish. It is a pattern of ruthlessness, deception and murder. And regardless of your motive, it is the side you find yourself taking.

These are the kind of men in Guantanamo. Who controls such men? And when busloads of men from Afghanistan and Syria and Jordan and Egypt and Iran, men without uniforms, men not under the control of any officer, men who follow no code of conduct other than an oath to kill any American, anywhere ? who among us with a gram of understanding and perspective can be surprised when such men are hooded and shackled on air transports? And being left to sleep in the open air is one thing in Northern Germany in the winter of ?44, and something else entirely in the middle of the goddam Caribbean! I mean, for the love of God, some of the people screaming themselves into a lather over such an outrage will pay tens of thousands of dollars for the same privilege a few miles away on a catamaran anchored off the coast of Jamaica.

And when people acting on the stage of their own moral outrage wonder when such men will be released, what do we say to them? When Osama bin Laden officially surrenders Al Qaeda on the deck of the USS Ronald Reagan? They have no government, they have no command structure, they have no objective but death. That is their great strength, and by God, it is also their weakness, and we would be fools ? absolute drooling idiots ? to let them have it both ways.

These fanatics have been rigorously coached to lie about mistreatment and torture, and despite this transparent fact, every utterance they make is breathlessly quoted and trumpeted by the press as absolute truth. The naked human pyramids, intimidation with dogs, sexual humiliation and threat of electroshock torture that marked a day or two of mistreatment at Abu Graib were the tools used by immature and untrained individuals precisely because the methods previously employed at that location ? removal of fingers and tongues and genitalia, electrified wire brushes, and the rape and murder of relatives before the eyes of the prisoner ? are so far beyond the horizon of what American interrogators are able to imagine doing that any comparison between the two betrays the moral blindness of those making the comparison.

Is humiliation the same as torture? It is not -- that's why the words are spelled differently. To get to the heart of the difference, assume you were a prisoner at Abu Graib, and your interrogator started to remove your fingers one by one with bolt cutters. How long would it take you to beg to be posed with women?s panties on your head? Yeah, I thought so.

This is not to excuse in any way the shameful behavior committed there by a few individuals who clearly are not fit to wear the uniform of the United States. They have disgraced us all and done incalculable damage. But if producing humiliation and fear is now to be defined as ?torture,? what international human rights organization will be appointed to help the surviving readers of The New York Times?

No system built on human behavior is perfect; they can only be good. What's a reasonable guess as to the number of sadistic, brutal and infantile Americans who so dishonored their uniforms at Abu Graib? Shall we say, perhaps fifteen? Fifteen who knew about what was happening, and countenenced it? So those fifteen, out of a total force of 150,000, completely negate the hard work, restraint, courage and compassion of the rest of the American presence in Iraq?

That is not ten percent bad apples. That is not one percent. That is not one-tenth of a percent. It is, in round numbers one percent of one per cent. What is the percentage of of criminals in the general population? A hundred times that? A thousand? Can college professors boast that kind of quality control? Can reporters? And yet this is all the press can obsess about, for over a year...the behavior of .0001 of the U.S. forces employed to liberate Iraq?
But remember, there is no bias in the media.

And by the way, has it not occurred to anyone that during the years since 9/11 there has not been a single terrorist attack on the United States? Do you think they simply stopped trying? Or have we been winning a secret war of information in dark rooms in Langley, Virginia? How many failed attempts have there been to kill you and your family in the past four years? Two? Twenty? One Hundred?

If we cannot use torture to get that information -- and we most emphatically should not and have not -- then what can we use? Anything? No intimidation? No sleep deprivation? No threats? No coercion? No drugs? What are we left with to persuade these killers to talk? The comfy chair?

It is not only possible, but likely, that many of the press elites who consider bright lights and harsh language as a form of ?torture interrogation? are alive today in places like New York and San Francisco precisely because of information gleaned from inmates at Abu Graib and Guantanamo Bay. I have no doubt of this whatsoever. What would their response be, I wonder, if standing at the funeral of their friends and children they discovered that the information needed to save their lives could have been obtained not through torture, but through fear of torture, or through humiliation and intimidation?

As you sit here reading this, there are men and women working around the clock using information obtained ? not just without torture, but humanely ? to keep us safe at night. They do this without any recognition or fanfare. But there are no less than ten televised award shows each year honoring those who do the best job at playing make-believe, and more often than not, the heroes they pretend to be are the soldiers and intelligence agents and policemen they so spectacularly spit upon the second the camera stops rolling.

We worship the wrong people. More on that in a moment.






There is one final layer of atrocity, a violation of the very core idea of Sanctuary as a place of safe haven that the insurgents in Iraq practice with abandon.

These religious fanatics, who will form a mob and tear a person limb from limb if he (or especially she) so much as looks askance at a copy of the Quran, routinely and methodically have used mosques ? even their most sacred mosques ? as ammunition dumps, staging areas and firing positions, viewing our decency and restraint as foolishness and weakness.

These acts have been recorded so many times that it has become banal. It?s just a fact. It?s what they do.

If they had genuine respect for their own religions and holy places they would give them the widest berth available, not turn them into command bunkers, ambush sites and staging areas.

Here is a violation of Sanctuary written as plainly as the eye can see. They use safe havens -- hospitals, hotels and places of worship -- as military fortresses because they are counting on our decency and honor to spare them from retaliation.

Actually, it is deeper than that. I suspect what they are really counting on is that sooner or later, such provocations have to be answered. And then there will be armies of useful idiots with television cameras and microphones and Expensive Hair, who will rally the full weight of recrimination and guilt and defeatism and accomplish for a few bearded lunatics what entire armored divisions could not achieve for them on the battlefield: Victory over the Americans.

That is a glimpse into a door we will fully open in a moment.

****************************************************************




There's more -- a LOT more -- at the link. Give it a click.





Phred


--------------------

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Offlinelonestar2004
Live to party,work to affordit.
 User Gallery

Registered: 10/03/04
Posts: 8,978
Loc: South Texas
Last seen: 13 years, 2 days
Re: Sanctuary [Re: Phred]
    #4946066 - 11/17/05 11:16 AM (18 years, 4 months ago)

WOW! great writer.


"There?s nothing ?progressive? about what these people believe. It is refined selfishness and moral cowardice. I can understand not wanting to go overseas and lose blood and treasure to solve other people?s problems. I can at least understand that. But these ?progressives? should be thanking whatever they take to be sacred ? which is nothing ? and hit their knees in gratitude that better, braver people have built them the kind of Sanctuary where torture and state-sponsored murder are so far from their closed eyes that even the act of imagining such horrors is beyond them.

How far from the reality of human nature do you have to be to see our culture as a curse on the Earth, rather than being the only ones willing to roll up our sleeves, shoot the wolves that are eating our kids, go out into the blizzard to collect some firewood and then paint the goddam house?"


--------------------
America's debt problem is a "sign of leadership failure"

We have "reckless fiscal policies"

America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership.

Americans deserve better

Barack Obama

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflinePhred
Fred's son
Male

Registered: 10/18/00
Posts: 12,949
Loc: Dominican Republic
Last seen: 9 years, 2 months
Re: Sanctuary [Re: lonestar2004]
    #4946114 - 11/17/05 11:30 AM (18 years, 4 months ago)

Bill Whittle is one of the finest essayists alive today. He addresses serious issues in an understandable and plain-spoken (and often entertaining) way.

I've read all his essays (all of them are available for free at his website, www.ejectejecteject.com) several times and I intend to buy his book on my next trip to the real world.

I am so envious of his way with words I can't describe it. I'd kill to be able to express myself as clearly yet eloquently as Whittle does. If you found this essay good, I strongly suggest you take the time to read all of them. So much good stuff in there it is exceedingly difficult to excerpt just the goodies -- it's all good.





Phred


--------------------

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Offlinekilgore_trout
Stranger
Registered: 10/17/03
Posts: 1,607
Last seen: 15 years, 8 months
Re: Sanctuary [Re: Phred]
    #4946125 - 11/17/05 11:32 AM (18 years, 4 months ago)

i found it to be bullshit, and him too. but we saw that coming.


--------------------
"I didnt fight a secret war in nicaragua so you could walk these streets of freedom bad-mouthing lady america in your damn mirrored sunglasses."

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineRedstorm
Prince of Bugs
Male

Folding@home Statistics
Registered: 10/08/02
Posts: 44,175
Last seen: 5 months, 8 days
Re: Sanctuary [Re: Phred]
    #4946285 - 11/17/05 12:09 PM (18 years, 4 months ago)

I think the article was great, but I have an issue concerning uniforms and sancutary. Though we are past (hopefully) the bombings intended to destroy civilian morale during WWII, the bombings being undertaken in Iraq still concern me.

Though I have no doubt that our soldiers are of the highest moral caliber when determining between civilians and combatants, misguided bombs or unexploded bombs do not discriminate between enemy forces and civilians. That is my main problem with how the war is being fought. Though it may not be intentional, an unacceptable amount of civilians have been killed unintentionally by bombing practices.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflinePhred
Fred's son
Male

Registered: 10/18/00
Posts: 12,949
Loc: Dominican Republic
Last seen: 9 years, 2 months
Re: Sanctuary [Re: Redstorm]
    #4946310 - 11/17/05 12:16 PM (18 years, 4 months ago)

Quote:

Though I have no doubt that our soldiers are of the highest moral caliber when determining between civilians and combatants, misguided bombs or unexploded bombs do not discriminate between enemy forces and civilians. That is my main problem with how the war is being fought. Though it may not be intentional, an unacceptable amount of civilians have been killed unintentionally by bombing practices.




There have been far more civilians killed by "insurgent" bombs than by "insurgent" bullets, true. My solution to that is to kill more "insurgents". What's your solution?

As for the effects of stray bombs and shells, are you saying wars must not be fought with anything other than handheld weaponry? Because any projectile weapon, be it a laser-guided smart bomb, a radar-guided artillery shell, a mortar round, a bullet, an arrow from a bow or a bolt form a crossbow or a rock from a slingshot or even a javelin or a spear or a boomerang can miss its target. Are we to be reduced to edged weaponry and cudgels from now on?






Phred


--------------------

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineRedstorm
Prince of Bugs
Male

Folding@home Statistics
Registered: 10/08/02
Posts: 44,175
Last seen: 5 months, 8 days
Re: Sanctuary [Re: Phred]
    #4946340 - 11/17/05 12:26 PM (18 years, 4 months ago)

Don't be facetious, Phred. Just b/c I posted something you disagree with doesn't mean you have to build an array of absurd hypotheticals that have little to do with what I said.

Quote:

There have been far more civilians killed by "insurgent" bombs than by "insurgent" bullets, true.




I'm not talking about insurgent soldiers. At this point, I am addressing the one thing we have control over, which is our military's own practices.

I am opposed to bombimg cities or infrastructure, unless there is no way civilians or civilian property will be destroyed by these bombs. If our military can not be assured that this is VERY likely, then they should not bomb a target. If the military is unsure whether it can complete a bombing campaign without minimal (or no) civilian casualties, it should not be undertaken and should instead be replaced with a ground invasion. Though casualties of soldiers are not ever wanted, they are much more acceptable than innocent civilian casualties.

Also, I am against the use of bombs which deploy "bomblets" which have a relatively moderate rate of failing to explode at contact, which leaves a dangerous trap for anyone who ends up finding it.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflinePhred
Fred's son
Male

Registered: 10/18/00
Posts: 12,949
Loc: Dominican Republic
Last seen: 9 years, 2 months
Re: Sanctuary [Re: Redstorm]
    #4946379 - 11/17/05 12:40 PM (18 years, 4 months ago)

Quote:

Don't be facetious, Phred.




I assure you I am not being facetious at all, nor am I creating "absurd hypotheticals". Do you dispute that any projectile weapon used in an environment in which civilians are present (urban warfare) has the potential to injure or kill a noncombatant? I give you credit for being intelligent enough that you wouldn't dispute it. I can guaran-damn-tee you that at least some Iraqi noncombatants have been killed by stray projectiles other than mortar rounds and smart bombs.

So the only question remaining to be settled is what you -- Redstorm -- define as "acceptable" in the context of the number of non-combatants killed by stray explosive and projectile weaponry. Give me a number. Ten per year? A hundred? A thousand?

Once you've given your number, defend your assessment of that number as "acceptable". Tell us why we shouldn't cut that number in half. Or by ninety per cent. In other words, lay out for us the principles by which you arrived at your number.



Phred


--------------------

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineRedstorm
Prince of Bugs
Male

Folding@home Statistics
Registered: 10/08/02
Posts: 44,175
Last seen: 5 months, 8 days
Re: Sanctuary [Re: Phred]
    #4946428 - 11/17/05 12:50 PM (18 years, 4 months ago)

When bombing in a civilian center, any civilian casualties are unacceptable, but unavoidable of course. In my opinion, cities should not be bombed, unless it can be assured that a forced evacuation will precede it. Civilians did not ask to be dragged into a war, so any casualties are not acceptable. That should always be the goal and the standards in a war. Soldier casualties are acceptable, but not civilian casualties, unless the casualties are taking part in negligent behavior which puts their own lives in danger.

Bombing metropolitan areas is a practice which needs to be stopped. Even with our fancy-pants laser-guided missiles, some miss. When trying to hit a weapons arsenal in the rural desert with no one around, a miss may not be a big deal. When you are aiming for an apartment in a dense city that the military believes contains insurgents and they miss, this obviously has greater consequences to human life.

You have to understand that I do not believe we should be there anyways, so any civilian loss of life adds to the unacceptability of the war.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflinePhred
Fred's son
Male

Registered: 10/18/00
Posts: 12,949
Loc: Dominican Republic
Last seen: 9 years, 2 months
Re: Sanctuary [Re: Redstorm]
    #4946489 - 11/17/05 01:03 PM (18 years, 4 months ago)

Under your proposed rules of engagement, all an opponent needs to do in order to be invincible is to hide out near civilians.

But all this falls outside the scope addressed by Whittle's essay, so perhaps we should take it to another thread. I'll create a new one.





Phred


--------------------

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Offlinezappaisgod
horrid asshole

Registered: 02/11/04
Posts: 81,741
Loc: Fractallife's gym
Last seen: 7 years, 9 months
Re: Sanctuary [Re: Redstorm]
    #4946499 - 11/17/05 01:06 PM (18 years, 4 months ago)

Quote:

Redstorm said:

I am opposed to bombimg cities or infrastructure, unless there is no way civilians or civilian property will be destroyed by these bombs.




This is absurd and raises the level of surety required to such a degree that no action will ever be taken unless it is hand to hand with knives and swords against uniformed personnel. Like I said, absurd.

Quote:

If our military can not be assured that this is VERY likely, then they should not bomb a target. If the military is unsure whether it can complete a bombing campaign without minimal (or no) civilian casualties, it should not be undertaken and should instead be replaced with a ground invasion.




Now you're waffling. You went from none to minimal. Good. You're making more sense. You do, however seem to be rather willing to put the ground troops at much greater risk than otherwise.

Quote:


Though casualties of soldiers are not ever wanted, they are much more acceptable than innocent civilian casualties.




Hierarchy of acceptable victims:
American civilians
Allied civilians
American soldiers
Allied soldiers
Enemy civilians
Enemy soldiers
Enemy spies/non-uniformed combatants
You can rearrange them any way you want but I won't.

Quote:


Also, I am against the use of bombs which deploy "bomblets" which have a relatively moderate rate of failing to explode at contact, which leaves a dangerous trap for anyone who ends up finding it.




What's moderate in your view? As a sidebar question could you please provide a count on the number of civilians in either Iraq or Afghanistan killed or wounded by unexploded Coalition munitions or mines. Shit happens. Nothing is perfect. Demanding perfect surety before any endeavor, be it war or work or crossing the street is a recipe for one thing and one thing only, paralysis. Every action is predicated on risk assessment and delineating the level of acceptable risk. Demanding absolute surety of the world is for infants.


--------------------

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineRedstorm
Prince of Bugs
Male

Folding@home Statistics
Registered: 10/08/02
Posts: 44,175
Last seen: 5 months, 8 days
Re: Sanctuary [Re: zappaisgod]
    #4946516 - 11/17/05 01:10 PM (18 years, 4 months ago)

Zappa, how can you have enemy civilians? That doesn't make sense in Iraq. the civilians there are not supportive of Saddam or the insurgents, and did not lobby or vote to be brought into war. Soldiers take part in war, and know that they is a probability (which they accept) that they may die. Civilians never accept that probability, especially when they are not loyal or aiding the enemy.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Offlinezappaisgod
horrid asshole

Registered: 02/11/04
Posts: 81,741
Loc: Fractallife's gym
Last seen: 7 years, 9 months
Re: Sanctuary [Re: Redstorm]
    #4946526 - 11/17/05 01:13 PM (18 years, 4 months ago)

Then I guess they are now allied civilians. Although not every civilian population in Iraq would deserve that designation if they allow insurgents safe harbor.


--------------------

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineRedstorm
Prince of Bugs
Male

Folding@home Statistics
Registered: 10/08/02
Posts: 44,175
Last seen: 5 months, 8 days
Re: Sanctuary [Re: zappaisgod]
    #4946531 - 11/17/05 01:15 PM (18 years, 4 months ago)

Actually, I should have added a caveat. What I posted above applies to a situation where the civilians are innocent bystanders, and are not aiding the production of military effort against us. Though I still believe precautions should be taken to avoid killing them, I would not place the same stringent restrictions that I would place when confronting civilians who are neutral or disloyal to the enemy.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflinePhred
Fred's son
Male

Registered: 10/18/00
Posts: 12,949
Loc: Dominican Republic
Last seen: 9 years, 2 months
Re: Sanctuary [Re: Redstorm]
    #4946545 - 11/17/05 01:20 PM (18 years, 4 months ago)

Could we continue this tangent in the thread titled "Redstorm's Tangent", please? http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/4946539/an/0/page/0


Phred


--------------------

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineRedstorm
Prince of Bugs
Male

Folding@home Statistics
Registered: 10/08/02
Posts: 44,175
Last seen: 5 months, 8 days
Re: Sanctuary [Re: Phred]
    #4946557 - 11/17/05 01:24 PM (18 years, 4 months ago)

Yeah, sorry. I didn't see that thread until after I had posted.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Jump to top Pages: 1

Shop: Kraken Kratom Red Vein Kratom   Myyco.com Isolated Cubensis Liquid Culture For Sale   Unfolding Nature Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order   PhytoExtractum Buy Bali Kratom Powder


Similar ThreadsPosterViewsRepliesLast post
* Evidence shows use of US Chem. weapons against Fallujah civilians
( 1 2 3 all )
SquattingMarmot 6,596 59 11/10/05 03:06 PM
by Phred
* Male Insurgents: Get back to where you once belonged...
( 1 2 all )
ricyjo 5,414 20 11/12/04 11:25 AM
by Xlea321
* anyone else have respect for the insurgents in iraq?
( 1 2 3 4 5 6 all )
ZippoZM 7,120 108 10/18/05 12:07 AM
by Alex213
* Insurgent Groups Responsible for War Crimes. lonestar2004 459 0 10/25/05 11:32 AM
by lonestar2004
* The most powerful insurgent group in Iraq.
( 1 2 3 all )
The_Red_Crayon 5,529 42 06/21/06 08:49 PM
by Phred
* 35 children killed by insurgents downforpot 633 1 09/30/04 05:29 PM
by Divided_Sky
* informative war article page vampirism 689 3 11/04/04 07:54 PM
by Great_Satan
* Insurgents Target Iraqi Police; 59 Dead
( 1 2 3 4 all )
RandalFlagg 4,453 62 09/16/04 04:37 PM
by Zahid

Extra information
You cannot start new topics / You cannot reply to topics
HTML is disabled / BBCode is enabled
Moderator: Enlil, ballsalsa
997 topic views. 4 members, 5 guests and 9 web crawlers are browsing this forum.
[ Show Images Only | Sort by Score | Print Topic ]
Search this thread:

Copyright 1997-2024 Mind Media. Some rights reserved.

Generated in 0.037 seconds spending 0.007 seconds on 14 queries.