The Forever War
Brian Doherty | August 16, 2006, 7:12am
Bush appears in front of reporters at the National Counterterrorism Center (located at "an undisclosed site in Northern Virginia known as Liberty Crossing"--c'mon, New York Times, spill!) to warn that
The enemy has got an advantage when it comes to attacking our homeland: They got to be right one time and we've got to be right 100 percent of the time to protect the American people.....That plot [in England] and this building and the work going on here is really indicative of the challenge we face--not only this week, but this year and the years to come.
Did no one ask him how often we have to be right in Iraq to declare victory in that particular part of the war? Would once be enough?
rob | August 16, 2006, 12:33pm | #
This thread, like the entry that spawned it, just keeps comparing apples to lemons... To recap:
The premise of the entry is that Bush made a GWOT comment and no one called him out on the fact that he stood on an aircraft carrier in front of a "mission accomplished" banner.
Even if we ignore that the standard "mission accomplished" complaint is specious because for the sailors on the carrier who hung it, it was undoubtedly true (they HAD accomplished their mission and were heading home) the question would still be inane.
Why would it still be inane? Because Bush's comment was about defending the US on its home turf and was not about the Iraq war. Hence all of Bush's rambling about how terrorists only have to have one offensive make it past U.S. defenses to succeed, but for the U.S. to successfully prevent them the U.S. must defeat them 100% of the time.
This would have made a question about the aircraft carrier thing as a victory declaration inane. (Inane as in: lacking significance, meaning, or point : SILLY ).
So then Ruthless segued into that bizarre bit about how the meek (anarchist pacifists) shall inherit the earth and reveal the true purpose of gov't.
Look, I see gov't as a barely necessary evil and I don't think I see its excesses through rose-colored glasses by any means.
But I happen to think the idea that Ruthless's claim that a utopia will be achieved by a "critical mass" of anarchist pacifists to be the LEAST likely of all the possible futures for humanity.
In fact I think it's a distant second in likelihood to the possibility that Communists will succeed in creating a "worker's utopia" in their nation by slaughtering their own people - and I think THAT is about as likely as the odds that I will be named “President of the World For All Eternity.”
rob | August 16, 2006, 1:16pm | #
Hmmm... According to CNN, it's both the Navy's idea AND something the White House provided:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/10/28/mission.accomplished/
White House spokesman Scott McClellan told CNN that in preparing for the speech, Navy officials on the carrier told Bush aides they wanted a "Mission Accomplished" banner, and the White House agreed to create it.
"We took care of the production of it," McClellan said. "We have people to do those things. But the Navy actually put it up."
The banner has been used by critics of the Bush administration as evidence of bravado and an unclear sense of how dangerous the postwar conflict in Iraq would be.
Assigning responsibility elsewhere, especially to the military, is not a typical move for the Bush administration and raised suspicions among critics.
Cmdr. Conrad Chun, a Navy spokesman, defended the president's assertion.
"The banner was a Navy idea, the ship's idea," Chun said.
"The banner signified the successful completion of the ship's deployment," he said, noting the Abraham Lincoln was deployed 290 days, longer than any other nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in history.
rob | August 16, 2006, 4:22pm | #
Herb - if you believe that we can stir up any more hatred you have more faith in the innate goodness of humanity than I do. As for targetng civilians, that's the way warfare has traditionally been carried out, even by "civilized peoples." The way that wars are fought now, by western nation-states, is a relatively new concept, even for Western civilization.
Wikipedia's entry on civilian casualties points out that "The concept of fighting combatants and uninvolved civilians is mostly modeled after the situation in Europe at the beginning of the modern age." The Middle East doesn't seem to have gotten the memo, the Arab nations in particular.
I've yet to see evidence that Israeli air strikes purposely targeted civilians, but it seems to be a point of pride with Hezbollah to both target Israeli civilians and to hide purposefully increase civilian casualties amongst Lebanese civilians as a cynical attempt to drive world opinion against the Israelis.
"No- its part of SOME PEOPLEs human nature, Rob. The question is do you want people with those marked depravities having power over you. If you think its 'human nature', then you are happy to report that you do 'evil shite' to people just because you can. Is that the case?" - MUTT
MUTT, I'm just saying that human nature encompasses a large portion of people willing to do evil shite. NO, for the record, I'm not advocating or excusing such behavior. What would lead you to think I was???I will say that I don't want depraved people in charge any more than I want someone whose pacifist BS would encourage the idea that my country can be attacked with impunity. (Frankly, I'm basically a minarchist, so I really don't want ANYONE in charge of me.)
My point about pacifism is exactly the same as yours - I'm not sure where the disconnect is... But, realizing that humanity includes a large portion of people whose nature is to do evil shite to other people just because they can, do you think pacifism is a winning strategy? I'd guess not, and I'd guess that Darwin would agree.
