"Every time we show the enemy our moral superiority—we get weaker. Every time the enemy brandishes his complete lack of morality—he gets stronger. Furthermore, every time he is presented with a new weakness on our part – he grows stronger still."
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TonyPSchaefer @ Oct 25 2006, 09:08 AM) [snapback]337896[/snapback]</div> ?
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TonyPSchaefer @ Oct 25 2006, 09:08 AM) [snapback]337896[/snapback]</div> This is another fine math you are getting us into!
Allow me to elaborate though it's actually quite simple. No one who respects laws can beat those who have no laws. Morality alone has never won a war. Those who adhere to no code of combat nor find any value in the lives of themselves and their enemies will always prevail. Taking the time to distinguish between a combatant and a civilian is less effective than killing them both. In other words, nice guys finish last. Always.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TonyPSchaefer @ Oct 25 2006, 09:27 AM) [snapback]337908[/snapback]</div> = True
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TonyPSchaefer @ Oct 25 2006, 09:38 AM) [snapback]337917[/snapback]</div> I was wondering why you answered with a an early 80's TV show....: http://www.tv.com/q.e.d./show/8719/summary.html (I actually remember watching it!)
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TonyPSchaefer @ Oct 25 2006, 09:27 AM) [snapback]337908[/snapback]</div> Thanks. There are times I wonder if there are those that willingly and knowingly handicap our armed forces and expose them to greater harm and danger - and then I wonder why?
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dbermanmd @ Oct 25 2006, 10:12 AM) [snapback]337985[/snapback]</div> We willingly and knowlingly handicap our armed forces when we teach them that they must - above all else - follow a code of conduct when engaging an enemy. We willingly and knowlingly expose them to great harm when we engage them in battle against an enemy that does not follow the same code of conduct.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TonyPSchaefer @ Oct 25 2006, 11:40 AM) [snapback]338003[/snapback]</div> That is true. In prior conflicts they were allowed to meet the enemy on an even battlefield - now we are attempting to grant enemy combatants habeus corpus rights - what will that do to the operating system of an American soldier in harms way. What if we subjected them to the will of the Hague? In every war in which our troops have been placed in harms way, America has stood solidly behind them in terms of the conduct of combat - including Vietnam. Now the dems and some repubs seem to be straying from that too. IMHO - sad. I cannot remember an enemy that conducts itself like our current enemy. I cannot remember an enemy that worshiped death and targeted innocent civilians to the same degree that our current enemy does.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TonyPSchaefer @ Oct 25 2006, 10:40 AM) [snapback]338003[/snapback]</div> We're missing an important distinction here. Engaging in battle is one thing. Treatment of prisoners is another matter completely, and that's where we're particularly failing. By mistreating prisoners, by ignoring the Geneva Conventions, it reduces the aid (in troops or other support) by our otherwise allies. Even more importantly, this allows the Islamic media and clerics to point to us, saying "See, they are the bad guys". That brings more recruitment of foreign mercenaries willing to go to Iraq and fight their "good fight" against the Americans who are conveniently in their backyard. Allowing anybody to be declared an enemy combatant and held indefinitely without charges, without legal recourse, possibly to be tortured with government approval is a violation of our good sense, Constitution (for U.S. citizens) and Geneva Conventions (for all others) and reduces us to a police state more effectively than the terrorists themselves could ever have done. When we fought the American Revolution, part of why we won is because we engaged in sneaky battlefield tactics (for the time). We didn't march in formation into an open field and open fire while standing in neat rows. Instead we often hid behind trees and caught them on the move. But we still followed standard humane treatment of prisoners, then and in 1812, including prisoner exchanges (background for the writing of the Star Spangled Banner, for instance).
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TonyPSchaefer @ Oct 25 2006, 10:40 AM) [snapback]337956[/snapback]</div> So you really were referring to a pulsar in our galaxy pretty much making most of all this a moot point? I misunderstood, sorry.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(nerfer @ Oct 25 2006, 12:34 PM) [snapback]338046[/snapback]</div> Yes there are bad apples in the US Armed Forces like there are in the USA. The difference is that when we catch our bad apples we prosecute them - are you expecting perfect behavior from every single member of the Armed Forces - are you holding them to higher standards than you do of the non-military American citizens. There were terrorists before 2003 and there will be terrorists after we leave too. It would be foolish to believe we are the incubator or generator of terrorists. You make it seem that we are just taking fools off the street and accussing them being an enemy combatant. You say we torture them. Our constitution allows for the system of military justice - something that has been in existance and the method of handling enemy combatants for every war we fought. There are reasons non American enemy combatants are not afforded the rights and protections of our civil court/legal system. You mention Geneva Conventions - please show me where non-uniformed combatants are protected by their articles? I am not an expert in the war tactics of the 1700's - I am pretty sure we did battle with the Brits using similar tactics to theirs but we also learned to overcome our natural weakneses there - we were able to adjst our tactics based on the performance of our troops. We never intentionally shot or killed innocent civilians - yes there have been instances over the past 250 years of some US soldiers doing wrong - that has always been the EXCEPTION not the rule -- this has not changed -- not even in iraq today - yet that is what you are assuming. With regards again to torture - both houses passed a bill setting the standards of interrogation and holding and prosecution of enemy combatants. And the IRC and other organizations are constantly visiting gitmo - please name besides abu graib another instance where we are accused of doing wrong to prisoners. Mind you it has been 3+ years and thousands of prisoners have been captured. And please comment of the people we have released that have ended up back on the battlefield trying to kill our soldiers. We must not lose sight that we must always err on the side of protecting tens of millions of people while weighing the "rights" of a few enemy combatants. I will always err on the side of protecting the tens of millions.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(nerfer @ Oct 25 2006, 11:34 AM) [snapback]338046[/snapback]</div> Agreed. ___________________________________________________________________ And, no, I don't think that "nice guys finish last." "Finish *what*? This assumes there is a "finish." Can the proponents of this philosophy tell me, exactly, what finish line we're racing towards? The complete domination of everyone we perceive as enemies...or, lacking that, our total and complete annihilation? Do you really believe that we are currently engaged in the final struggle between two competing ideaologies, and winner takes all? The only finish is if we all kill each other or bomb each other back into the Stone Age. Other than that, it's a continuum.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dbermanmd @ Oct 25 2006, 01:03 PM) [snapback]338097[/snapback]</div> Funny thing is, I never heard the term "enemy combatant" before 2003. This was a category largely unused until G. Bush wanted more latitude in detaining people without charges. Many of those released from Gitmo were actually innocent, but it took years to determine that. How many people are still in there that are innocent? What about the American citizens that are classified as enemy combatants? Admittedly there aren't many of these, but the recent bill passed by Congress gives the President more powers in this regard. I'm not talking about the rare cases where a soldier intentionally shoots a civilian or even mistakenly shoots a civilian. I know the rogue soldiers are eventually taken to justice, and we take a good deal of care to reduce the possibility of the latter. I don't have a problem with our battlefield tactics, I think our soldiers are doing a fine job there, given the conditions they're in. But our treatment of captured people is not correct, and the direction of this comes from higher up. I also have an issue with the number of boots on the ground from 2003 on, but that's a different topic. That's the really scary part. I don't like this bill at all, and I didn't even hear about it until the last minute. Why was there not more public discussion on something this important? Instead we're worrying about Britney's second baby and why is Madonna in Africa? They've visited, and they've raised numerous issues, some of which have been addressed, many haven't. The prisoners haven't been charged with a crime, and haven't seen the evidence (or lack of it) against them. That is not the operating procedure for a society that prides itself on following the rule of law. That is something Pinochet would do, or Duvalier. As for released people going back to the battlefield, I think we've released more of them that were innocent of charges to start with, but I don't know the numbers. (Some of these may have been corrupted by their cellmates and/or embittered by the American experience and gone on to fight Americans upon release even if they hadn't done that originally). Having a fair and speedy trial would've avoided this recruitment and kept the truly dangerous ones behind bars. Well, there's the debate. Iraq was not involved in 9/11 or supportive of Al Qaeda until we got them involved. Iraq did not threaten tens of millions (outside of the Middle East anyway). Even at the time we knew they didn't have WMDs that were an imminent threat, or the means to effectively deploy them on our soil (any more than, say, Yemen does). I'm not defending Saddam Hussein, he's a bad, bad man, and I'm glad he's out of power. But we didn't go in with the right motive and we didn't follow up with enough manpower and we didn't keep our moral authority then or now, which hurts our international standing considerably. And that hits us in the pocketbook as we shoulder the large part of the burden of policing Iraq. We could've used that money for a better Medicaid or Medicare system and saved more lives than terrorists would've taken. Or on R&D to create cellulosic ethanol that would free us from OPEC oil. One could argue that America is not a pure democracy anyway, it's not a simple rule of majority - there's a lot of protections for the minorities, starting with no government-sponsored religion and continuing on with the other rights listed in the Bill of Rights. So you can't just add up numbers and take the side with the biggest numbers. Of course, that argument doesn't entirely apply to criminals or even suspected criminals - even though you are innocent until proven guilty, you can be held in jail until a jury makes that decision. The critical thing is, you know you will be tried and what you will be tried for and that you can consult a lawyer. These people don't have any of that.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TonyPSchaefer @ Oct 25 2006, 06:27 AM) [snapback]337908[/snapback]</div> History does not agree with or support your hypothesis. Any examples will be of such rare and infrequent nature and for such a brief period of time considering the whole scheme of things that they can be defined as mere aberration. Wildkow
Gee, Kow. The one time I outright agree with your friend the doc and you're disagreeing with me. I'm so confused. I'm no history buff nor do I claim to have many facts (just concepts), but here are the "aberrations" I was thinking of: Nerfer mentioned the guerrilla warfare styles of the American Revolution. That tactic worked very well against the British who were trained to fire only when told, march in unison, stand in formation. The History Channel did a really great piece about Ghengis Khan. In it, they discussed how his "new" style of warfare completely took the Romans by surprise since they knew only how to march in squares and fight in unison. Sun Tsu says that when fighting a tightly structured enemy it is best to devise a non-conforming attack and use the element of surprise and chaos to your advantage. "There are no rules in a knife fight." On the other hand, it is extremely easy and convenient to disagree. Considerably harder to provide facts. I would be very interested in the history that supports your disagreement of the statements I made. In previous posts on other threads you have linguistically jumped up and down insisting that members provide the facts that drive their opinions, oft calling names at those who don't. It's your turn.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TonyPSchaefer @ Oct 25 2006, 11:40 AM) [snapback]338003[/snapback]</div> WOW Well said! B)
