Query: Is it possible for ANY country to actually win a war with the present state of morality and war?
I suggest that such is not possible. To actually win a war, a country must be able to kill, maim and imprison with impunity. You kill the so called insurgents, then you kill their mother, fathers, and brother/sisters. After they are all dead, you bulldoze their house and leave it in a hubble. (Anyone thinking of Israel?) In my opinion, only when America and it’s allies are ready to run tanks over women and children will we be able to actually “win” (whatever that means) win a war. Recall Dresdan, Germany.
Just a thought.
Why bother with tanks… Just call out Duke Nukem…
Drop the nuke bombs and do it soon.
Notice my signature line.
[quote=“Enigma”]Query: Is it possible for ANY country to actually win a war with the present state of morality and war?
I suggest that such is not possible. To actually win a war, a country must be able to kill, maim and imprison with impunity. You kill the so called insurgents, then you kill their mother, fathers, and brother/sisters. After they are all dead, you bulldoze their house and leave it in a hubble. (Anyone thinking of Israel?) In my opinion, only when America and it’s allies are ready to run tanks over women and children will we be able to actually “win” (whatever that means) win a war. Recall Dresdan, Germany.
Just a thought.[/quote]
At that point we’ll be indistinguishable from al Qaeda.
Only to people who would think so anyway.
What’s the moral difference between deliberately running women and children over with a tank and walking into the middle of them with a suicide vest and detonating it?
That’s probably as good a deliniation of the moral divide between you and me as there is. You apparently see a moral distinction there and I don’t and can’t.
I don’t believe TC is talking about deliberately running over civilians in an effort to break the minds and spirits Spook. I do think he is talking about the absolute renlentless pursuit of the baddies, despite the collateral civilian costs and deaths.
I dont speak for TC but I believe that is the implication of his brief post.
[quote=“jdsmith”]I don’t believe TC is talking about deliberately running over civilians in an effort to break the minds and spirits Spook. I do think he is talking about the absolute relentless pursuit of the baddies, despite the collateral civilian costs and deaths.
I dont speak for TC but I believe that is the implication of his brief post.[/quote]
Exactamundo JDS.
[quote=“jdsmith”]I don’t believe TC is talking about deliberately running over civilians in an effort to break the minds and spirits Spook. I do think he is talking about the absolute renlentless pursuit of the baddies, despite the collateral civilian costs and deaths.
I dont speak for TC but I believe that is the implication of his brief post.[/quote]
[quote=“Enigma”]
Query: Is it possible for ANY country to actually win a war with the present state of morality and war?
I suggest that such is not possible. To actually win a war, a country must be able to kill, maim and imprison with impunity. You kill the so called insurgents, then you kill their mother, fathers, and brother/sisters. After they are all dead, you bulldoze their house and leave it in a hubble. (Anyone thinking of Israel?) In my opinion, only when America and it’s allies are ready to run tanks over women and children will we be able to actually “win” (whatever that means) win a war. Recall Dresdan, Germany.
Just a thought.[/quote]
No, no spook. You’re missing the point.
If they’re really bad, then its ok to be really bad when you take them out… thus making the world safe for all the ‘nice’ people. You know… like the ones you just took out chasing the bad men.
How is it possible to be diplomatic with terrorists and insurgents who have no diplomats?
Give them their own country and then they can vote for who they want to represent them on the world stage.
Just like “Palestine”. Hammas & Hezzboallah. See how nicely that has worked out?
Problem solved…right?
Like the IRA? Ok. They had Sinn Fein.
edit: [quote][url=http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/articlenews.aspx?type=UKNews1&storyID=2007-01-28T223958Z_01_L26824446_RTRUKOC_0_UK-IRISH-POLICING.xml&WTmodLoc=HP-C1-TopStories-2]Sinn Fein voted to end decades of opposition to Northern Ireland’s police force on Sunday, removing a major obstacle to the restoration of a regional power-sharing government.
The party, political ally of the IRA which killed nearly 300 police officers during a 30-year campaign against British rule, voted overwhelmingly at a special meeting in Dublin to back the Protestant-dominated force.[/url][/quote]
Like Hamas and Hezbollah? Erh, they have political wings too.
The ETA? Damn, them too.
Tamil Tigers? Ditto.
The Irgun, and Lehi? Crap. They got their own recognized state.
The Lord’s Resistance Army probably qualifies.
In Iraq, many of the militant factions are run by gov’t ministries, or used their influence to put ministers in place, so that’s political too.
Taliban? Used to run the country, however poorly.
Al Qaeda? Definitely operating as political entity, but don’t have ambassadors as such; instead they appeal directly to the people, and win support from a slice thereof. I suppose one viable political strategy might involve countering their popular appeals; another might involve the targeted, discrete use of force… dropping bombs on wedding parties probably isn’t a step forward on the political front; a third route might mean supporting the growth of political alternatives to ruthless despots and wide-eyed fundamentalists. Of course, neither the despots nor the fundamentalists think much of that idea, but that’s sort of the point. I know! We could call it “A Battle for Hearts and Minds,” that’s catchy.
The dichotomy between soldier and civilian is ridiculous. The phrase “innocent civilian” has become so trite that “innocent” is now redundant. It is a shared beliefs in Western nations that all civilians are innocent. But you take some pimply face kid, teach him how to march, dress him in camoflauge clothing, put a rifle in his hand, and by God he’s fucking expendable. If he gets his head blown off, no problem. If a stray bullet drops his fat mother like a potato sack, a crime against humanity has just been committed. It matters not one wit that mama spent three hours a day every day praying to God to grant her more children who can become soldiers and kill the enemy, nor does it matter that junior wanted to be an artist and not a grunt. Mama’s death is a calamity; junior’s death is nothing.
When nations go to war, everyone is involved. 21-year-old widows stuffing powder into bullet shells and 19-year-old soldier boys are equally committed to killing you, and you have to be equally committed to killing them. In Dresden we got the Germans a triple sweet treat: first we blew their roofs off with powerful explosives, then we dropped incendiary bombs into the exposed timbers, and laid down more high-powered bombs on their roads to prevent fire trucks and ambulances from saving the city or its people. In Japan we did the same thing, but on a grander scale and all across the country. Those wooden cities of Japan burned like rice paper, some cities being over 80% demolished. We killed 300,000 people during the fire bombing of Japan, the same number we killed in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. So are we war criminals? Should we have been hanging vets instead of pinning medals on them?
War is hell. War is terrible. War is a teenage soldier back from Iraq with no arms and legs who can look forward to a long life in diapers. War is a disemboweled little girl praying to Jesus or Krishna or Allah or who the fuck ever to let her die quickly. People need to wake up and smell the napalm, and not get themselves or their countries involved in wars unless it is absolutely necessary.
[quote=“gao_bo_han”]The dichotomy between soldier and civilian is ridiculous. The phrase “innocent civilian” has become so trite that “innocent” is now redundant. It is a shared beliefs in Western nations that all civilians are innocent. But you take some pimply face kid, teach him how to march, dress him in camoflauge clothing, put a rifle in his hand, and by God he’s fucking expendable. If he gets his head blown off, no problem. If a stray bullet drops his fat mother like a potato sack, a crime against humanity has just been committed. It matters not one wit that mama spent three hours a day every day praying to God to grant her more children who can become soldiers and kill the enemy, nor does it matter that junior wanted to be an artist and not a grunt. Mama’s death is a calamity; junior’s death is nothing.
When nations go to war, everyone is involved. 21-year-old widows stuffing powder into bullet shells and 19-year-old soldier boys are equally committed to killing you, and you have to be equally committed to killing them. In Dresden we got the Germans a triple sweet treat: first we blew their roofs off with powerful explosives, then we dropped incendiary bombs into the exposed timbers, and laid down more high-powered bombs on their roads to prevent fire trucks and ambulances from saving the city or its people. In Japan we did the same thing, but on a grander scale and all across the country. Those wooden cities of Japan burned like rice paper, some cities being over 80% demolished. We killed 300,000 people during the fire bombing of Japan, the same number we killed in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. So are we war criminals? Should we have been hanging vets instead of pinning medals on them?
War is hell. War is terrible. War is a teenage soldier back from Iraq with no arms and legs who can look forward to a long life in diapers. War is a disemboweled little girl praying to Jesus or Krishna or Allah or who the fuck ever to let her die quickly. People need to wake up and smell the napalm, and not get themselves or their countries involved in wars unless it is absolutely necessary.[/quote]
Were the three-thousand people incinerated in the World Trade Center “innocent civilians” in your view of things or legitimate casualties of war as al Qaeda maintained – in-line with your “everyone is involved” thesis?
Oooooh, I don’t think you two have gone head to head before. 
Where’s the popcorn.
Anyone who’s played Warcraft knows this. Kill as many as the other guy’s peons as possible.
Good post.
PS: What’s with all the bearded old dudes in this thread? I thought you were JD.
What were the targets of the planes?
WTC: economic heart of America.
Pentagon: military heart of America.
Congress: political heart of America.
If anything–or nearly anything–goes in war, why were these not legitimate targets? Surely it’s not merely because there was no formal declaration of war. Surely such attacks were deeply wrong for reasons that go deeper than that. There are bounds that cannot be crossed, even in war.
I can’t think of a bound that hasn’t been crossed.
Shouldn’t then. Or can’t be crossed without consequences. Consequences which flow from the actions themselves, if not reactions to them.