catching on

68 Responses to catching on

1. gunnison says:

   July 18, 2012 at 1:35 pm

   “I don’t think you’d say that i fetishize the military.”

   No, of course I wouldn’t, and didn’t.
   I was speaking culturally. It goes beyond respect for any individual’s military service, which fully deserves that respect, particularly in times of actual military conflict.

   Do you remember the TV coverage of the Iraq action — when retired Colonels/Generals were standing in front of the big screen describing what was happening on the big screen behind them, which was showing missile strikes on bridges and buildings, and how they all giggled about the car that just made it across that bridge before it was vaporized?

   It was a video game, a clinical exercise. It was entertainment. No blood, no brains on the sidewalk. But of course there was, really, wasn’t there? And the assumption was that they all were legitimate military targets.

   Awful.

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2. Pornstar says:

   July 18, 2012 at 1:41 pm

   Blessedly i don’t think that i ever saw that.

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3. Bluthner says:

   July 18, 2012 at 1:48 pm

   Tommy,

   how about instead of calling it a ‘victory’ we simply admit that AQ was never such a big threat as Cheney et al painted them, and that the more we big them up the better they are able to recruit and live large. Ignore the fuckers, at least in public, keep tabs on them in private, and if one of them really does pose the kind of threat that can’t be dealt with by other channels, then track him and, okay, take the shot.

   Which may be what Obama thinks he is doing right now. Given the military’s track record in the ‘battle’ with AQ, I’m not at all convinced the guys at the top aren’t overstating the threat in order to up their ‘share’ of the budget.

   All my life my government has been inventing enemies we HAVE to fight, so they could keep buying and building bigger and bigger and more and more complicated, and especially ore and more expensive ways to blow shit up. And then inventing new conflicts in which to play with all their toys, so they could build and spend even more. I see no evidence whatever that they have changed their spots. Do you?

   So as usual there is another way through. Gunny is right: we’re on a fool’s errand that simply has to come to grief, there’s no other outcome possible because the assumptions at the bottom of it are so wide of what is possible. I have no love for Ron Paul, but he did talk sense when it came to foreign adventure.

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4. Bluthner says:

   July 18, 2012 at 1:54 pm

   While were on the subject, have any of you guys heard about or better yet read, ‘Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk’? By Ben Fountain? He pretty well nails the disconnect between the cynical view of the soldiers at the sharp end and the fantasy patriotism of the cheerleaders at home. And it’s not satire, either, never mind what the dust jacket says. It’s worth a read.

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5. NatashaFatale says:

   July 18, 2012 at 2:02 pm

   I want to hear more about The New Actuarial Science of Political Morality (and its Drone Employment Division especially). I feel like we’re on the verge of some kind of important synthesis here — maybe we might even discover Geopolitical Risk Pooling, or something equally grand.

   Meanwhile, can anybody tell me when since the days of Curtis LeMay — ever, even once — some serving military brass hat has asked for the responsibility of deciding which civilians get to live and which don’t? Or even admitted publicly that that could somehow be a proper role for the armed forces?

   I mean, we’re free to do it, and man, is it a popular way to pass the time. But are we really playing armchair general when we indulge ourselves like this? Or are the real generals just a tad too responsible to join in, and are only stuck with the nuts and bolts of the job when the rest of us shrug it off and tell them to get on with it?

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6. MadameMax says:

   July 18, 2012 at 2:59 pm

   I was speaking culturally. It goes beyond respect for any individual’s military service, which fully deserves that respect, particularly in times of actual military conflict.

   Gunny, I really find this automatic respect for “any individual’s” military service problematic. People join the military for all sorts of reasons and serving one’s country is probably nowhere near the top of the list. There are professions that are more harrowing, more stressful, and provide a greater service to the country and to individuals. Why does the act of signing up, putting on a uniform, garner respect for someone who quite possibly hasn’t done one thing to deserve it?

   My childhood through most of adolescence was lived among military people. Granted, that was a long time ago, but humanity hasn’t changed all that much. You find just as many scumbags, who join up because they have violent tendencies or they can’t think of anything better to do, as you do in any other walk of life. And don’t forget that just about anyone who can breathe can join the Army these days.

   Those in the military are no better or worse than anyone else. Why should anyone get respect based on their profession alone?

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7. MadameMax says:

   July 18, 2012 at 3:07 pm

   The people I believe are truly deserving of respect are those non-combatants who survive horrible war conditions that were none of their own choosing. The Bosnian woman who works at my local pharmacy comes to mind. She has more courage and stamina than any soldier I ever met.

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8. gunnison says:

   July 18, 2012 at 5:00 pm

   “Why should anyone get respect based on their profession alone?”

   That’s not really what I was trying to say.
   Sure, people join the military for all kinds of reasons higher in their priorities than serving the republic. Bus drivers serve their community by hauling people around, but few of them are motivated to be bus drivers because of that. They still fulfill that function even if they’re assholes in their private life. They still provide a service.

   It’s the service that earns respect, or at least acknowledgement, not the person. I guess that’s what I was getting at.
   Nor was I saying that level of respect should be disproportional. Cops, firefighters, surgeons, bakers, whatever, all deserve some respect for doing what they do, but there is something about risking life and limb, rather than just the occasional paper-cut, that makes some kind of difference, regardless of the dominant reason for signing up.

   I’m thinking now that I went off in that direction because I was always angry at the protesters during the Vietnam thing for the way they teed-off on returning soldiers. Most of those guys were drafted, then placed in dreadfully impossible circumstances by lesser men. It always pissed me off that so many hippies (with student deferments, often) were so condemnatory. It really was appalling.

   Anyway, I was arguing that the US exhibits a cultural fetish for their military that goes way beyond the “automatic” respect we’re dissecting here. That’s the bigger problem, to my eye.

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9. Pornstar says:

   July 18, 2012 at 6:09 pm

   McCain is a good man. Bachmann is an ugly piece of shit.

   http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-mccain-sinister-attacks-on-clinton-aide-huma-abedin-must-stop-20120718,0,2521198.story

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10. Tommydog says:

    July 18, 2012 at 8:44 pm

    I think there was a determination not to treat young service people today in the same manner as many Viet Nam era vets were treated. That determination may, in fact, have been largely on the part of people who were ashamed at how they may have behaved back then. I don’t think there is any fetish much beyond that. I was traveling the past few days, and I did notice that some airport gate attendants did call out for applause some soldiers waiting at the gate, and they were always given early boarding, but hey, that was basically ok with me. One young lieutenant sitting near me looked like a high school kid.

    I’m not buying Bluthner’s statement that AQ may not have been that big a threat. They did effectively take over a country, albeit something of a backwater, and showed themselves to have both the capability and resolve to inflict thousands of casualties upon western populations. Certainly they were never likely to conquer a western country, but there was no prospect of any country just sitting there and accepting the odd attack as a part of life. No government would have stood had they attempted to follow that course of action. By most reports AQ is weakened substantially, but there is probably still more effort that needs to be done, and that likely means many more drone attacks. I really can’t get on board with the idea that we should accept a lot more US military casualties in order to spare more civilians, though there probably is some threshold (and someone in the military has probably defined it), as to how many civilians they are willing to kill in order to get one AQ target)

    I’ve been reading Martin Gilbert’s biography of Churchill (the one volume version). I was surprised to learn that Churchill actually had contingency plans drawn to drop gas on German cities as a way of trying to get them to back off on their V1 bomb attacks.

    I”m really not accepting g’s floatation of an idea that the 9/11 attacks were brought on ourselves by our own actions. If bin Laden was offended by the presence of US troops or foreigners in general on Saudi soil, they were here with the consent of the Saudi government. Also, this area has a lot of Afghans. I know a few. The Taliban are a nasty piece of work. Ask the people who fled.

    Sometimes one group has to contend with another group that wants them off the planet. There aren’t a lot of options in those circumstances.

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11. Pornstar says:

    July 18, 2012 at 9:40 pm

    Problem is Tommy, it seems to be like the hydra. Cut of one head and 2 grow back in it’s place.

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12. gunnison says:

    July 18, 2012 at 10:01 pm

    The Taliban are a nasty piece of work. Ask the people who fled.

    I don’t need to ask them, I know perfectly well they are nasty.
    That didn’t stop us from considering them less “nasty” that the Russians though, did it, and arming them to the teeth?
    Then bailing out on the Afghan people the minute the Russians left.
    No Tommy, it’s not simply a matter of US presence in Saudi. And speaking of whom, the House of Saud is not exactly Mister fucking Rogers, now are they?

    We played the same crap with Saddam Hussein, he was just all peachy when Iraq was at war with Iran, and we provided arms and other assistance then too. After that, all of a sudden, not so much.

    There is no way to look at historic US global involvement, esp in the ME, as being anything but duplicitous and self-serving, with few abiding loyalties or little consistent moral compass at all. It’s no surprise there’s animosity.
    I’m not saying 9-11 was nothing but blowback, things are rarely that simple. But an insistence that blowback was in no way one of the determinants is hard to support with an appeal to history.

    And the idea that we consistently oppose brutal tyrants who butcher their own people won’t fly either. We don’t, and sometimes we even help them. This is the historic reality, and folks around the world know it perfectly well, even if we don’t admit to it here in US public life.

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13. Bluthner says:

    July 19, 2012 at 1:15 am

    Toppling the (as OBL considered it, illegitimate) house of Saud was always AQ’s primary motivation and objective. Hatred for the U.S. was all about our support for the house of Saud.

    Tommy cleverly changes the verb tense: I never said AQ was never a threat. I said I think for a while now they have not been nearly as much as threat as they are being bigged up to be, and by bigging them up we make them… more capable of being a threat. We feed the Hydra. On the very best Wonder Bread available. Grows bodies 12 ways. At once and in all directions.

    But the notion that the U.S. has always stood up for the good and true and democratic against the tyrannical and venal… has me falling out of my chair with derision. Pinochet anyone? Kissenger?

    And how willing Churchill was to use WMD against civilians and women and children and targets of little or no military value is already well established. Dresden anyone? I’m great fan of Churchill, or at least certain of his moments and qualities, but have no illusions that he works as any kind of moral litmus paper. He was what Britain needed to stand up to the monster built by Hitler, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t also at times a monster himself.

    AQ are not and never possessed a power approaching Hitler’s. Though of course it fed the fantasies of many to think so.

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14. MadameMax says:

    July 19, 2012 at 6:40 am

    I really can’t get on board with the idea that we should accept a lot more US military casualties in order to spare more civilians,

    You see what he did there?

    How many foreign civilians are worth one American soldier’s life? Did those civilians walk into a recruiter’s office and say, “Sign me up for war and death and destruction”? Did those civilians say, “Please, invade our country, foreigners, because of what some other foreigners did to you. Kill our children, destroy our homes. We will gladly sacrifice our lives for your soldiers.”

    Better yet, think of the joy of the sacrifice of those who are not even “at war” with the U.S. Reporter shoves microphone into face of keening mother. “Do you realize how many American troops were saved because your child who just happened to be walking near that terrorist was blown to smithereens?” “Oh,” she says. “In that case, I’m good with it.”

    Who the fuck do you think you are, measuring lives, deciding American soldiers’ trump all?

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15. Tommydog says:

    July 19, 2012 at 9:01 am

    Bluthner, well to quote you:
    

    how about instead of calling it a ‘victory’ we simply admit that AQ was never such a big threat as Cheney et al painted them, and that the more we big them up the better they are able to recruit and live large. Ignore the fuckers, at least in public, keep tabs on them in private, and if one of them really does pose the kind of threat that can’t be dealt with by other channels, then track him and, okay, take the shot.

    So, if I’ve misunderstood you I think you need to acknowledge that you weren’t exactly clear if you meant to say that they’ve now been weakened to the point where they are not such a threat.

    G, the blowback of which you refer was largely the work of a very wealthy son of a Saudi construction magnate, able to finance his fantasies. That was an unusual set of circumstances and such blowback might not have happened but for bin Laden’s bank account. The Russians, if you ask anyone who lived in countries behind the Iron Curtain, were also pretty nasty pieces of work. We were right to oppose their invasion of Afghanistan, but indeed the Taliban were coarse tools.

    Bluthner, speaking of Dresden, per this biography I’ve been reading the bombing was at the request of Stalin, and concurred with by Roosevelt at Yalta, in an effort to divert German resources away from the Russian front. Monster himself? Churchill was capable of making hard decisions. Perhaps the British attack on the Vichy French fleet was as strong an example as you can get.

    And that is ultimately the point here. Except for Bluthner’s modified comment that AQ is no longer such a threat, I have seen no support in this discussion for easing up. I’m the only other person who even raised it (unenthusiastically) as an idea for discussion. I have to take that to mean that most people think this fight needs to continue, and if that is what you think then obviously decisions are weighed as to what risks to take and what losses we are willing to incur. That does mean that some lives are valued more than others, and in a shooting war your value your peoples’ lives at many more times than your opponents’ and their civilians’ lives. Denying that is simple hypocrisy.

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16. Pornstar says:

    July 19, 2012 at 9:08 am

    Tommy -

    Maybe i wasn’t clear earlier in my response to you. I supported easing up.

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17. gunnison says:

    July 19, 2012 at 10:10 am

    That was an unusual set of circumstances and such blowback might not have happened but for bin Laden’s bank account.

    Sure. I said it was complicated.
    Bin Laden’s wealth was a determinant. Recruitment was assisted by anger at the US. On and on. I was very careful to be clear that I don’t think it was nothing but blowback.

    And sure the Russians were nasty, I’m not contesting that either. What I am doing is arguing that the US, as defined by its history of global intervention, also has a record of nastiness, and a record of supporting nastiness elsewhere, whenever they perceive it to be advantageous.
    This appears to be something you would prefer not to acknowledge, which is not at all uncommon.

    Since, by and large, we are unable to admit the reality of our own foreign entanglements, we are equally unable to face the way in which that reduces our options for dealing with genuine threats. And again, the insistence that our own actions have not contributed to (that’s “contributed to” now, not “caused”) the genesis and growth of many of those threats is simply not supported by history.

    In many ways, we’re trapped into being a hammer, thus seeing every problem as a nail. We have done much of that to ourselves, but as is normal in such circumstances we tend to blame it on others.

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18. Pornstar says:

    July 26, 2012 at 5:37 pm

    http://dronewarsuk.wordpress.com/

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