Re: [Gnu-arch-users] [OT] facism gaining ground in US

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

>>>>> "Pierce" == Pierce T Wetter, <address@hidden> writes:

    Pierce> I don't think "limited war" is a joke,

Well, you wrote that you did. ;-)

    Pierce> but I think at that point our soldiers have become
    Pierce> policemen.

No, I disagree.  The "opposition" are not ordinary criminals, or even
organized crime.  They aren't even criminals in an important sense:
they are out to become the government, and if they succeed, they make
the rules.  Ethical, I dunno, but that's standard practice.  Remember,
guerrillas have to live off the land, which involves a combination of
genuine support from the population, intimidation, and too often
outright robbery.  Much of the problem is not free-lance looters and
other "ordinary" crime.

Dealing with that is soldier work, not police work.

    Pierce> It would also worry me if we started training our army to
    Pierce> be able to peacefully subjugate the population.

Uh, put that way it scares me shitless.  _I_'m a population, too.  :-/

    Pierce> Earlier you said that you thought he deserved a red card
    Pierce> instead of a yellow card. While I believe that there are
    Pierce> certain moral absolutes and that Rumsfeld violated them, I
    Pierce> also believe that you should judge not.

Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.  Maybe I've been in Japan
too long; here the guy who gets fired is _never_ the one who created
the problem.  (That guy is long since comfortably retired.)

Anyway, note I said fired, not "hung" or even imprisoned.  This is not
a judgment, this is an executive decision.  You can fire somebody for
one mistake, or even for being in the neighborhood of a mistake.
These guys serve at the pleasure of the President.  While I can hardly
expect Bush to fall on his sword, a high-ranking head has to roll IMO.
While military people have to be punished as well, the civilian
adminstration needs to make a show of taking responsibility.  It has
to hurt.  Who's left?  You can't pin it on Powell or Rice, can you?

    Pierce> Civilian casualties would be even worse if he hadn't
    Pierce> forced Franks to completely revise the war plan to be much
    Pierce> less damaging to Iraq. Men produce both good and bad, I
    Pierce> haven't quite figured out where you draw the line and say
    Pierce> "this is the limit".

If it were a matter of balance, I'd agree.  But as you say, I'm trying
to come up with some absolutes that are "no-brainers", that we _can_
respect without much constraining strategy.[1]  Nadim claimed that we
killed 5 million Vietnamese (and Laotians and Cambodians); I don't
recall whether that figure is at all accurate, but surely the number
was high enough that if the U.S. had lost the Vietnam War instead of
managing a draw, Nixon and Kissinger would have spent time in the hot
seat at the Hague, even if they managed to avoid conviction.  That
kind of thing must not be allowed to happen ever again.

And we must tighten the rules for "that kind of thing" as much as
possible.  I don't know what actually might be legitimate, but I'm
pretty sure that U.S. interventionism goes well past the boundary.

    Pierce> If I was to sit in judgement on Rumsfeld,

I have no desire to do that.  That's his boss's job.  This is a
basically symbolic, political issue for me.  If Bush wants to use him
in another position after a suitable period of penance, that would be
an issue of judgement, and I'd leave that up to Bush.


Footnotes: 
[1]  As a first step.  I'm heading in the direction of constraining
strategy, of course.

-- 
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences     http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
University of Tsukuba                    Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
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