Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

[hap0206]

And in response -- from the right:
=================
Posted by GreatHairySilverback on May 20, 2005 08:13 AM:
Mi-mi-mi-mi-miiii.

(ahem) Okay, all warmed up now.

To Juan Kerr, I gotta' say, I for one was not angered by what you said. I was a little disappointed to see some of the same old tired "leftier" claims being dragged back out of the dust, but that in itself doesn't anger me. However, I do understand why it would anger others, not the least of whom would be the host of this site. [Bill Whittle] It's not necessarily because they think you are the end-all-be-all icon of all things evil in this world, or the ultimate poster-child for anti-American defeatism, but because unfortunately, you just happened to chime in right at that point in time when "we've" finally decided we're just not going to put up with it any more. In other words, the last anti-Bush/anti-war guy BEFORE YOU, was the official last straw.

Like Mr. Ponytail... he might have been a "pretty easy target," as you said, and "hardly representative of the left that [you] know," but the whole point of that little vignette was to show that people like that, with that kind of insulated, intentionally clueless, utter blindness, are no longer going to be ignored or politely debated. They're not listening, they're not paying attention, and they're not saying anything new. So, ENOUGH.

And since you started right off with a classic pot-calling-the-kettle-black cliche', you started with your own self-inflicted wound. You said, "Your essays are well written but taken from an essential standpoint of the war being justified. Presupposing that, everything else follows. Without that being the case it is baloney. The war is not and was not justified. Like Vietnam."

You made not only a faulty comparison, but also, after belittling Bill's "presupposition" about the war being justified, you then handed us YOUR presupposition about it NOT being justified (as if that was a "fact" just because you said so), and dusted off your hands with a "case closed" attitude. And that IS a "Mr. Ponytail" thing.

In a later posting, you went on to the definitions of a "Just War," as if they were the Ten Commandments or something, and as if -- without actually citing any examples -- you believed they'd all been violated by us.

I mean, you said, "A just war describes a war that satisfies a set of moral or legal rules..." [WHOSE morals? WHOSE legal rules? You mean like the Geneva Accords, that most of the world's nations did not sign? Or like the Kellogg-Briand Pact that you cited later, which was an historical laughingstock of legislation, since it basically tried to make war "illegal," and was signed by every one of the later combatants of World War II?] Further, you said, "War can only be waged for a just cause, such as self-defense against an armed attack..." [9/11 aside, if someone threatens you with a gun -- someone with a history and a reputation for using guns on innocent people, who outwardly loathes you, and clearly has no regard for the sanctity of human life -- do you have to wait until they've actually sunk that knife into your chest before you start to defend yourself? Isn't it self-defense to PREVENT them from doing that? Maybe not in the perfect PC-world -- which is just exactly what "SANCTUARY" is railing against -- in which no one is "assailable" unless they're actively beating, stabbing or shooting you at the time (you're even expected to STOP defending yourself once your assailant has momentarily stopped the beating, stabbing and shooting), but by my definition of common sense, pre-emptive self-defense IS self-defense. Historians and military experts alike all lament the lost opportunity that was missed when the French -- or ANYBODY -- failed to intercede when Hitler marched the Wehrmacht into the Rhineland in blatant violation of the Treaty of Versailles. One platoon could have stopped them, discredited and ousted Hitler for his recklessness (as professed by Hitler himself), and he would never have gotten the chance to instigate the global conflict that followed. If only. Now, when that same opportunity raised its ugly head again, somebody actually acted on it this time, and thankfully, we'll never know what far greater conflagration was forestalled by that action]

Continuing, you said, "War can only be waged under legitimate authority..." [as in "the Congressional approval that Bush had?" As in "in accordance with the terms of UN 1441," which it was?] Then you added, "War can only be waged for a just cause, such as self-defense against an armed attack..." [already addressed]... "War can only be waged under legitimate authority..." [already addressed]... "War can only be waged with a reasonable chance of success. It is considered unjust to meaninglessly waste human life and economic resources if defeat is unavoidable..." [Well, if "it is considered unjust," then, WHOA! But WAS "defeat unavoidable?" Did defeat even occur? To ANY degree? Was ANY military objective not achieved? Were the casualties or the collateral damage disproportionate? Were they even comparable to any other wars in history? The answer to all these is a resounding, "No!"]

You said, "War must be waged with proportionality in mind." [says who?] "The suffering which existed pre-war should not be overshadowed by the suffering the war may cause..." [so, does having electricity and running water in places that never had it before count as post-war suffering? Does the cessation of state-sponsored torture, rape and executions count? What about the establishment of a popularly elected democratic government? What about the outside effects and influences of this victory, like Saudi and Syrian back-pedaling on their support of terrorism, and Libya's curtailment of its nuclear program, and the recent granting of a woman's right to vote in Kuwait? Are these all symptoms of greater post-war suffering?]

"War can only be waged as a last resort. War is not just until all realistic options which were likely to right the wrong have been pursued..." [you mean like, say, 12 YEARS of failed negotiations, ineffective (to Saddam) but brutal (to his people) sanctions and embargoes, violated treaty terms, and baldfaced threats (from the U.S. and the UN both) of invasion? What other options did we miss? Bribery? Did that. Under-the-table deals? The UN did that. A visit from Jessie Jackson? Did that too.]

And finally, you said, "... nothing justifies the use of war from these previously accepted tenets."

Sounds to me like every friggin' count was satisfied, despite the fact that this list of someone else's "rules" is meaningless when you're dealing with an opponent that recognizes nothing that stems from compassion. If you don't speak someone's "language," they don't hear a word you're saying. And Saddam wasn't listening.

That long-promised invasion (and the U.S. was only one voice in the UN's ongoing impotent threats) could have been forestalled at any time by Saddam Hussein, as could the sanctions. He could still be in power right now. His army could still be intact. He could still be secretly working toward a flourishing WMD program. All he had to do was follow the rules he'd already agreed, in writing, to follow. And we would have, AGAIN, backed off, let him be, and be paying for it heavily in less than five years (if the UN inspectors' assessment about him having a fully operational nuclear weapons system within 4 years proved to be true).

Yeh, we've heard all this before. We've heard it previously, from people like old "Winston Smith," who's STILL saying stuff like...

"The fact [there's that idly wielded word again] is that despite Saddam Hussein's brutality, the majority of Iraqis have a much lower quality of life now that they did under Saddam Hussein..." [ignoring all the improvements already accomplished and those still ongoing -- some of which I already mentioned above -- this assertion is still based on post-WAR conditions, which, just like my neighborhood here in Orlando, post-HURRICANE, has still got a lot of clean-up to go yet. By that kind of logic, Orlando will never recover, and our lives have now all gone permanently to hell, because, for the moment, we're suffering more now, post-hurricane season, than we were before it. "It's not PERFECT yet! Therefore our world will never be the same again!"]

And then this little gem: "... Hitler had been killing Jews for years before we got involved, and we got involved for a very clear-cut reason: Germany declared war on the United States."

No, that's just what finally gave FDR the formal justification and Congressional approval that he'd been itching for for 3 years. Hitler's declaration of war on America (and Mussolini's, which begrudgingly followed it) was just an empty show of "solidarity" with Japan (upon whom the U.S. had just declared war, for well documented reasons), in accordance with the terms of their Tri-Partite Pact (which created the so-called "Axis"). And FDR knew it. The Germans weren't about to invade us -- they were already fighting a two-front war with Britain and Russia -- and though they fully intended to step up their U-boat activity in the Atlantic, they were already sinking U.S. ships before that point, and we were already countering that with improved sub-chasers, and a torrent of Liberty Ships pouring out of American shipyards faster than the Krauts could sink 'em. So we didn't NEED to go to war with Germany right then, not for our own sake anyway (at least not immediately). It would actually have been a far more effective effort if we could have focused exclusively in the Pacific against the Japanese. But we chose to go after Germany as well because our allies needed us. Period. A war on the other side of the Atlantic (which could have been avoided if, as Bill suggested in his essay "POWER," FDR had taken the unilaterally unpopular action of stepping into the Rhineland, where the French would not, and turned back the Germans then, BEFORE the bloodbath could begin) -- that theater of the war was fought by us, when it was, because it just plain needed to be fought. Our closest friends were cornered, beleaguered, and nearly fought out, and we had the means to help them and reverse that tide. So we did.

And even then, it was very nearly too late.

You'd almost think we learned something from that.

Well, SOME of us did anyway.

GHS
=========
http://www.ejectejecteject.com/cgi-bin/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=126