I wonder sometimes if passionate outrage is the right approach to shedding light on violent injustice in this world. After all, isnt violence rooted in our biology, our culture, our history, our very humanity...and it's undeniable that a refusal to act violently in immediate self-defense can perpetrate evil more effectively than fighting and killing when attacked. Civilization is founded on violence and the right of the state to act violently to curtail greater violence that would result in its absence.

The question is can we find a way towards peace without violence at its foundation? And how far is too far once you unleash the dogs of war and 'moralize' killing? How do you work to reveal the horror underlying war and break through the ideological blinders that keep us from facing our own perpetrated atrocities?

Reading the Wiki entry on Lehi (the Stern Gang) is interesting because it illuminates the reasoning of a 'terrorist' group that is a powerful argument that terrorists have a stricter morality regarding violence than the states they oppose. Here is Yitzhak Shamir's argument:

There are those who say that to kill Martin (a British sergeant) is terrorism, but to attack an army camp is guerrilla warfare and to bomb civilians is professional warfare. But I think it is the same from the moral point of view. Is it better to drop an atomic bomb on a city than to kill a handful of persons? I don’t think so. But nobody says that President Truman was a terrorist. All the men we went for individually — Wilkin, Martin, MacMichael and others — were personally interested in succeeding in the fight against us. So it was more efficient and more moral to go for selected targets. In any case, it was the only way we could operate, because we were so small. For us it was not a question of the professional honor of a soldier, it was the question of an idea, an aim that had to be achieved. We were aiming at a political goal. There are many examples of what we did to be found in the Bible — Gideon and Samson, for instance. This had an influence on our thinking. And we also learned from the history of other peoples who fought for their freedom — the Russian and Irish revolutionaries, Garibaldi and Tito.

The best example of a passionately moral opposition to war that I know of comes from Chris Hedges in his book War Is the Force That Gives Us Meaning. Here's an excerpt:

I learned early on that war forms its own culture. The rush of battle is a potent and often lethal addiction, for war is a drug, one I ingested for many years. It is peddled by myth makers -historians, war correspondents, filmmakers novelists and the state-all of whom endow it with qualities it often does possess: excitement, exoticism, power, chances to rise above our small stations in life, and a bizarre and fantastic universe that has a grotesque and dark beauty. It dominates culture, distorts memory, corrupts language and infects everything around it, even humor, which becomes preoccupied with the grim perversities of smut and death. Fundamental questions about the meaning, or meaninglessness, of our place on the planet are laid bare when we watch those around us sink to the lowest depths. War exposes the capacity for evil that lurks just below the surface within all of us.

All that's true, Alex, but sometimes within a specific context war is also the worst possible alternative, except for all of the others. There aren't any perfect resolutions to some conflicts, but some resolutions are less imperfect than others. Everything that Hedges says is true, but for all his eloquence, his perspective is more that of an observer than a policymaker, and in the absence of a much greater feeling of common ground on the part of the two sides in a struggle, his writing doesn't give much in the way of practical advice to either side.

IOW war is hell, but sometimes a "Hitler" (or a bin Laden) really is a Hitler (or a bin Laden), and what do you do about stopping him?

IOW war is hell, but sometimes a "Hitler" (or a bin Laden) really is a Hitler (or a bin Laden), and what do you do about stopping him?

You teach three or four generations of humans that aggression and unjust behavior as a non-defensive measure lead to death that solves nothing and stunts a society so that when a Hitler or Bin Laden shows up they are dismissed by the population as pointless thugs. Leaders need people to follow them.

Yes, this is a slow, long-term, and utopian solution. Not sure how one can argue it isn't a worthwhile goal, however.

You teach three or four generations of humans that aggression and unjust behavior as a non-defensive measure lead to death that solves nothing and stunts a society so that when a Hitler or Bin Laden shows up they are dismissed by the population as pointless thugs. Leaders need people to follow them.

Yes, this is a slow, long-term, and utopian solution. Not sure how one can argue it isn't a worthwhile goal, however.

No question that it's a worthwhile goal, Lassus. Now all you need to do is to figure out who's going to do the teaching. Maybe the good folks who write the Palestinian textbooks can kick start the project. Or perhaps the Texas Board of Education would have a few thoughts on the matter. Everyone loves peace, just as long as the other side gives up first.

Everyone loves peace, just as long as the other side gives up first.

Well, I understand it's meant to be pithy, but it's obviously not true. Such people have no interest in peace, no matter what they say.

It's a sea change.

The thing about Palestinian or Iraqi or Afghan terrorism is that it by definition cannot have any legitimate (or moral) political aim

In Afghanistan the aim is quite clearly to make the outside powers leave in frustration. Then deal with the puppet government.

And that's the way they started out in Iraq. To the extent that you can tell what motivated al-Zarqawi that is. If there's anything in the way of long-term goals now I can't see it.

In Afghanistan the aim is quite clearly to make the outside powers leave in frustration. Then deal with the puppet government. And that's the way they started out in Iraq. To the extent that you can tell what motivated al-Zarqawi that is. If there's anything in the way of long-term goals now I can't see it.

Well, I think that IS the long-term goal. No one leaves in frustration after one week of terrorist bombings. It takes a long time. Not that it ever works, of course, but I think not seeing it as the long-term goal is a mistake.

Everyone loves peace, just as long as the other side gives up first.

Well, I understand it's meant to be pithy, but it's obviously not true. Such people have no interest in peace, no matter what they say.

We can argue whether or not the Palestinians would find a new enemy if all the Israeli Jews emigrated to Brooklyn, but assume that you're correct. All that does is bring us back to square one: How do you stop those who have no interest in peace? Who gets to be the teachers under your solution? Who gets to hire those teachers? And who's going to insure their safety once they start contradicting the various national mythologies?

It's a sea change.

Which will likely happen about at the time when those Texas and Palestinian textbook writers hold hands and walk across the Red Sea.

NOTE: I'm not implying for a second that you don't realize all this. I'm just trying to figure out how, in the real world, you get from A to Z, or even from A to C or B. If your response is that it's up to individuals to influence their governments in the right direction, I couldn't agree more.

#309 The reason that I qualified what I said about Iraq is a) al-Zarqawi was a nut-job perfectly prepared to kill just because (How many others have got, "hey tone it down" memos from Bin Laden?). I mean the Jordanian bombing served no strategic purpose.

An awful lot of the killings in Iraq are cycle of revenge. The US is leaving and the killings don't change that dynamic. The current killings look like the run-up to a civil war (with 4 obvious factions. Joy). Whether that's how things eventually play out is another question.

226. My Grate Friend, Peason Posted: March 11, 2010 at 10:57 PM (#3477879)
101 posts, eh? O/U 230.


My line seems to have been set too low.

Of course, this post is only reinforcing that.

New O/U: 450

What is the responsibility of a writer like Hedges, or better yet my responsibility when I become aware of the truth and the reality of injustice? 'Conjectures of a guilty bystander' could apply to most on the liberal/left, including Hedges, who would likely agree. It doesnt cost much to vent on the 'net or as a professional writer. Hedges makes his living writing polemics against the system with, as you say, little practical advice. In a recent piece, he quotes Camus and the human necessity to oppose wrongdoing through rebellion.

The deeper problematic is very few even see the problem in the first place. You throw up Hitler and bin Laden (like they are equivalent), not only implicitly accepting massive warmaking as an acceptable response to a bin Laden, never even getting to how the US has literally bankrupted itself through its economic/military policies. Hedges blasts liberal democrats for going along with a system they no is wrong and leaving rebellion to demogogues on the right. If our economic system completely collapses with hyperinflation and massive unemployment, the Hitler you have to worry about will be homegrown.

Like Hedges, I'm afraid we're on our way..and even more afraid of my own lack of rebellion.

know, not no.

Back on the previous page, someone pointed out that terrorism works..not because it gains its immediate ends, but works towards them. In what was considered the worst terrorist attack of th 20th century, Begin and Irgun blew up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, hq of the British consulate, killing 91 and injuring 46, clerical staff and workers and bystanders. It was condemed, but acheived all the aims of Irgun, including alienating the Jewish population from the British authorities in the ensuing crackdown. Hamas has achieved similar results, esp if their aim all along was legitimate political power and not destruction of Israel.

Its easy to call terrorists madmen, but violence has been proven to achieve political ends throughout history.

Snapper's blindness to the crimes of the western world is utterly amazing.

Pardon?

Nowhere did I say that the US invasion of Iraq was a good idea, or that it (or the Afghanistan invasion/occupation) have been well handled. In fact I think Rumsfeld/Bush/Cheney/Powell/Rice are some of the most incompetent war leaders our country has had the misfortune to have. Only Johnson/McNamara/Westmoreland jump to mind as equivalent buffoons.

I also feel bad for the truly innocent civilians who have been killed in the wars. But, that's true of any war.

My point is not about advisability of war, or the competence of the strategy/tactics etc. It's about the morality of war.

Legitimate governments have the moral right to make war. Now that war may or may not be just, but once it is launched by a legitimate authority, the people of that country have the moral duty to support it, unless the aims or means become truly evil.

Likewise, the unintentional killing of civilians in war is not immoral. As long as the target is a legitimate military target, the civilians killings are a case of double effect. Scattered atrocities also do not illegitimate an entire war.

The justness of the US war efforts is unknowable (we can't know what Bush et. al. actually believed). I'd guess Afghanistan was just, and Iraq not, but that's a guess.

It's also irrelevant once the conventional wars have been concluded. Both Iraq and Afghanistan were utterly defeated by the US, following the rules of warfare. The US military conducted itself properly, and even went out of its way to avoid civilian casualties.

Once the initial combat was over, the justice of the war no longer matters. By starting an insurgency, the Iraqis and Afghanis were launching a new war. In order to be just, that war had to have a reasonable chance of success, and not fighting had to have proportional downside to the costs of the insurgency.

People do not have an absolute right to self-determination. They do not have an absolute right to resist an invader.

If the government the invader is imposing is largely benign (and there is no way to argue the US-imposed gov't were any worse than the typical indigenous Iraqi or Afghan gov't) then the people have no right to resist.

Further. Even if there was a right to resist, it would have to take the formed of legitimate armed combat by uniformed forces. To justify terrorism/intentional killing of civilians, the occupation would have to be truly horrific; Nazi/Soviet level brutality.

For example, the Belgians or French had no moral right to use terrorism against the German occupier in WWI. The Americans had no right to use terrorism against the British in the Revolution. The Indians had no right to use terrorism against the British Raj.

Finally, don't kid yourself. The people we are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan are hideous fanatics. Their brand of Islam should be repellant to any decent person. Their leaders are bent on the domination of the world by their ideology.

At some point they need to be defeated and killed. Hopefully, it will be reasonable Muslims doing most of that fighting. But, if they won't, they West will have to do it, sooner or later, b/c these people won't give up.

What is the responsibility of a writer like Hedges, or better yet my responsibility when I become aware of the truth and the reality of injustice?

Well, what is it?

'Conjectures of a guilty bystander' could apply to most on the liberal/left, including Hedges, who would likely agree. It doesnt cost much to vent on the 'net or as a professional writer. Hedges makes his living writing polemics against the system with, as you say, little practical advice. In a recent piece, he quotes Camus and the human necessity to oppose wrongdoing through rebellion.

Hedges has his own particular perspective on war that leads him to his conclusions. Perhaps a victim of the Taliban might have another, as might a Palestinian victim of an Israeli land grab or an Israeli victim of a suicide bomber. Needless to say, that's a very incomplete list.

The problem is that ALL of those perspectives are completely legitimate as far as they go, and yet all of those perspectives are rather tragically incomplete. But in the human nature of things, the vast majority of people focus solely on their own set of grievances, and either ignore or minimize the other person's.

But once you've incorporated all of these perspectives as a presumably disinterested potential activist, where does that leave you? Going on a hunger strike until the world comes to its senses? Writing new Palestinian or Texas textbooks? Lobbying the IMF to reduce Third World debt payments?

Again, I'm trying to understand exactly what Step B is, after you've figured out Who's Right and Who's Wrong.

The deeper problematic is very few even see the problem in the first place. You throw up Hitler and bin Laden (like they are equivalent),

Their "equivalence" lies only in their common goal of waging a war with rather large scale ambitions, and leaving the rest of the world wondering what to do about their messianic visions. It doesn't mean that you fight them with identical strategies.

not only implicitly accepting massive warmaking as an acceptable response to a bin Laden, never even getting to how the US has literally bankrupted itself through its economic/military policies.

You're reading much too much into what I wrote.

Hedges blasts liberal democrats for going along with a system they know is wrong and leaving rebellion to demogogues on the right. If our economic system completely collapses with hyperinflation and massive unemployment, the Hitler you have to worry about will be homegrown.

Again, what does Hedges propose to do about it? His What Every Person Should Know About War is a hell of a sobering book that I'd recommend to just about anyone suffering from a Cowboy Complex, but none of his 119 pages worth of Q's & A's about war's reality addresses that point. The book is the ultimate cockteaser, as is any theory that begins and ends with platitudes, and doesn't acknowledge the fact that you can't always convince armed men with logic or an appeal to justice.

Who gets to be the teachers under your solution? Who gets to hire those teachers? And who's going to insure their safety once they start contradicting the various national mythologies?

This is a short-term and ineffective strategy, and is not what I'm proposing.


If your response is that it's up to individuals to influence their governments in the right direction, I couldn't agree more.

Yes, but at this point it means far more to influence other people, because we're nowhere near it yet.


I know human nature and I know history. I'm not a hippy moron who thinks that if I tell one person "hey man, LISTEN to other people, dude, ok?" everything's going to be ok. As a clinical and specific strategy, working to explain the benefits of a lack of conflict and warfare for the advancement of society as a whole is what I think gets humanity to new heights. Instead, we're just meat and insects.

EDIT: I'm basically working towards the ultimate societal mockery of snapper's entire post and philosophy behind it. In 500 or so years time, hopefully.

I know human nature and I know history. I'm not a hippy moron who thinks that if I tell one person "hey man, LISTEN to other people, dude, ok?" everything's going to be ok. As a clinical and specific strategy, working to explain the benefits of a lack of conflict and warfare for the advancement of society as a whole is what I think gets humanity to new heights. Instead, we're just meat and insects.

EDIT: I'm basically working towards the ultimate societal mockery of snapper's entire post and philosophy behind it. In 500 or so years time, hopefully.

Man is not perfectable in this world.

Man is not perfectable in this world.

What I wrote is not perfection. If you don't feel improvement is possible, that's something else entirely.

That was some scary stuff in snapper's post.

Snapper - your entire post comes down to 'might makes right'. Did your read Ratzinger's comments? Your entire post obscures the illegitimacy of US action in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Andy - The US are the armed men immune to logic and justice, at least in the logic of bin Laden, etc. It's not a complete explanation of his project, but who first armed bin Laden? Who supports the Saudis, who gave support to Hussein?

The answer isnt what to do, its what not to do - start unprovoked wars that have illegitimate means and unachievable ends.

..waging a war with rather large scale ambitions, and leaving the rest of the world wondering what to do about their messianic visions.

Doesnt this perfectly describe the United States, a nation that acconts for half the worlds military expenditures, and spends nearly half its tax monies on
war-making? Why do we have military bases and personnel spanning the globe, and the vision of the American way of life as the only way on the planet?

As for my responsibility, I think those always have to extend from the place where you can have the most influence outward. The left's utter irrelevance in the US largely stems from its unwillingness to engage locally instead of pontificating globally.

Hmmm... bet the under..i think my preaching is overwhelming my practice.

That was some scary stuff in snapper's post.

Don't worry about it, he's got he church on his side. What could possibly go wrong?

That was some scary stuff in snapper's post.

Serious question; what's scary? I'm talking standard Just War doctrine, and trying to apply it to messy real world situations as best as I can.

Do you think anyone at any time has the right to resort to terrorism just because they lost a war, or don't like their government?

People do not have an absolute right to self-determination. They do not have an absolute right to resist an invader.

This is a very provocative and challenging pair of statements, particularly in the modern world. I certainly don't think colonialism is inherently unjust, but that's more of my own moral calculus of the episodes that are already part of history's dustbin. I also, like Niall Ferguson and many serious thinkers, believe that were parts of the world to become recolonized, it would not only not be unjust, but would likely be a positive good. Were, for example, the United States' war aims in Iraq to be outright annexation of the country that would be a perfectly just outcome, and a less ambiguous aim, thereby more likely to be accomplished effectively -- and thereby, potentially, with less bloodshed on both sides.(**) Therefore, I can't see that I can disagree with either statement -- at least in all circumstances.

(**) I'd prefer total disengagement to the current policy also.

Snapper - your entire post comes down to 'might makes right'. Did your read Ratzinger's comments? Your entire post obscures the illegitimacy of US action in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I've read the Popes' comments (both the current and the last). They urge peace and offer a personal opinion, which is their role. They never definitively judge either war to be "just" or not, using the teaching authority of the Church. It's not their role. That's up to the competent civil authorities under Catholic teaching.

I'm perfectly willing to admit the war in Iraq was probably not a just war. Less clear on Afghanistan.

My point is that the justness of the war has no impact on what actions are just in resisting it once the war is concluded. Our occupation/imposed government hasn't come close to causing the level of harm the terrorists have.

There is no right to insurrection and terrorism just b/c you don't like your government. If you lose a war, you have to put up with the imposed government, or resist it by legitimate means: see Japan post-WWII. They understood that. Why is that so hard to understand?

(**) I'd prefer total disengagement to the current policy also.

Agree entirely. I wish we had never invaded. Or, if we had, we brought enough troops to pacify the country, and quickly partitioned it among Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites.

The current policy, actually the entire policy since the decision to invade was made has been ####.

"In Afghanistan the aim is quite clearly to make the outside powers leave in frustration."

Agreed. If Bin Laden and the thousands of Arab and Paki fighters doing his bidding in the Hindu Kush would move back to Saudi Arabia and Islamabad in frustration, the Afghans would be very happy indeed.

That was some scary stuff in snapper's post.

I'm gonna go ahead and disagree with all of what he said. A point by point breakdown might take hours.

But I *will* stir the pot by saying that his perspective does not surprise me, as Christianity is a conqueror's religion(!).

Not to pile on, snapper, but i find your universalist stance in religion and politics totalitarian. It doesnt let in the light of multiple pov.. pertinent regarding Andys comments on Hedges - his eloquent writing is impressive, but Hedges is more than a bit godstruck in his moral convictions. They arent grounded in concrete reality.

The view from on high can be stunning in its clarity, but ungrounded, unreal. Both my strength and my weakness as well.

I'm gonna go ahead and disagree with all of what he said. A point by point breakdown might take hours.

He was certainly correct that people don't have the right to bind together, pronounce "We don't like our government," and thereby gain the unquestioned moral right to start strapping explosives around their waist and blowing up pizza parlors.

And he was certainly correct that (i) the people binding together being of the same ethnicity; and (ii) the government not being of the same ethnicity doesn't change that critical moral principle. The world losing its bearings on this point was responsible for much of the 20th and early 21st century carnage.

He was certainly correct that people don't have the right to bind together, pronounce "We don't like our government," and thereby gain the unquestioned moral right to start strapping explosives around their waist and blowing up pizza parlors.

What if the government is Soviet and the people in question happen to be Chechnyan or Afghan? Would it then become justifiable? And at what point does the Taliban, a group of roving bands in the beginning, stop being that and start being the legitimate (just) government? At the moment they defeat the puppets installed after the Soviet retreat? Logically that would suggest that the whole of their actions were unjust until the point that they achieved victory, at which point the final result is just if not the actions required to achieve it. And the "just" war, a classification earned by American moral and martial superiority, brought down upon Afghanistan from the United States: it renders that sudden legitimacy moot and turns the Taliban into terrorists. That is to say, unjust. It's tough work being a Taliban!

What if the government is Soviet and the people in question happen to be Chechnyan or Afghan? Would it then become justifiable?

Whether it was or wasn't wouldn't depend on ethnicity.

Neither has any moral right to slaughter Soviet civilians simply because their governors are Soviet.

What if the government is Soviet and the people in question happen to be Chechnyan or Afghan? Would it then become justifiable?

It depends on how bad the existing gov't is. Certainly the Chechens have caused far more death/destruction/suffering to their own people by their rebellion that the Russian occupiers (they were no longer Soviet at that point) were inflicting. I'm not sure how bad the original Soviet occupation/puppet gov't of Afghanistan was, before the rebellion started.

Certainly the Nazis in Poland, or the Soviets in the Ukraine (1930's) were regimes that you could resist with all means available, since they sought to liquidate large portions of the population, and enslave the rest.

But a simple autocratic gov't doesn't justify killing civilians.

Neither has any moral right to slaughter Soviet civilians simply because their governors are Soviet.

So passive or military resistance is their only option? In the case of the Soviets, I'm sure you can see the problem. Passive resistance gets you killed *even now* in Russia. Basically, you're saying that they have the right to be dominated by their legitimate government and deal with it only on the battlefield or through politics... Neither of which worked in the Soviet era. Yes, it's easy to say that the Soviet government collapsed, so in the end it all worked out. It's much more difficult to think that when you see your grandfather hauled away to the gulag for disagreeing with the local government.

And you still haven't addressed the point that by your logic, rebellion is unjust until it is successful, at which point it becomes just or rather its *result* becomes just.

Basically, you're saying that they have the right to be dominated by their legitimate government and deal with it only on the battlefield or through politics...

That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying the governing authority being of a different ethnicity from you doesn't give you the moral right to resist it by murdering civilians of the same ethnic group of the governors -- or of any ethnic group for that matter. If the Chinese took over the US government and governed justly, I or you wouldn't be justified in setting a bomb off and killing a bunch of 8-year-olds in the Chinese School of Manhattan to get them to leave.

I also said that the world losing its bearings on this point is a major cause of the carnage of the last 110 years or so -- which it is.

If the government loses its legitimacy through its acts, your rights and obligations toward it change -- obviously.

If the government loses its legitimacy through its acts, your rights and obligations toward it change -- obviously.

And at what point is that determined?

And at what point is that determined?

A lot further away than the grievances of the Palestinians, that's for sure. Blowing up a school filled with children is essentially never justified, other than to stop the very same thing from happening to more children at the same time.

And at what point is that determined?

When the likely damage caused by the rebellion is less than the damage caused by the continued unjust government.

When the likely damage caused by the rebellion is less than the damage caused by the continued unjust government.

I'm imagining Lenin waving a spreadsheet at Czar Nicholas. Or perhaps from the podium, before the Douma or one of the Congresses. I think that your position cannot be quantified and is accordingly hard to address in absolutes.

I'm imagining Lenin waving a spreadsheet at Czar Nicholas. Or perhaps from the podium, before the Douma or one of the Congresses. I think that your position cannot be quantified and is accordingly hard to address in absolutes.

Of course it can't be quantified, but the calculation happens, if the would-be-revolutionaries are rational, and not fanatics.

The Confederacy didn't launch a guerilla war after Appotmatox b/c they knew the suffering it would cause, and they knew the US troops weren't coming to rape their wives and kill their children. They knew the loss of slavery and some political rights wasn't worth the misery.

Imagine a coup in the US your country that imposed an authoritarian (but not totalitarian) type regime, either leftist (e.g. Chavez) or rightist (e.g. Pinochet). Political liberties are suspended (i.e. elections are rigged, direct speech against the regime is supressed, etc) but daily life isn't affected much.

Are you going to commit suicide bombings or massacre woman and children by the thousands to oppose that regime? I could see taking up arms against it, joining a guerilla movement that attacks military/police targets. But would you blow up schools full of the children of the regimes supporters?

He was certainly correct that people don't have the right to bind together, pronounce "We don't like our government," and thereby gain the unquestioned moral right to start strapping explosives around their waist and blowing up pizza parlors.

But the US has a right to pronounce, 'we don't like YOUR government' and the moral right to bomb the hell out of cities, pizza parlors and all? Or, preferably, finance/train/arm proxies within a country to subvert/overthrow governments, elected governments. Or train death squads to keep the population from peacefully seeking trade unions. Again, snapper, most of your arguments not only delegitimize armed resistance, they camouflage incredible violence and destruction perpetrated by the US quite illegally.

To quote Jesus, better take that log outta your own eye before trying to remove a speck in the other guys.

But the US has a right to pronounce, 'we don't like YOUR government'

Yes; the US is an internationally recognized state in a world organized into states. It isn't a perfect way of organization but it beats anarchy and tribalism. The US has every right to tell another state, "We don't like your government."

moral right to bomb the hell out of cities, pizza parlors and all?

As to cities, generally not though it does so more than it should in practice; as to pizza parlors, essentially never.(**) There is a practical -- if not moral -- distinction between civilian deaths caused incidentally in an otherwise just endeavor of the military of an internationally-recognized state and civilian deaths intentionally caused by the insurrection of a faction. Yes, the civilians are "just as dead," but that's far too simplistic a statement to mean much in the real world.

It can't be the case that incidental civilian deaths caused by the military of an internationally-recognized state justifies intentional slaughtering of civilians by factions. That is a recipe for lawlessness and unending carnage.

(**) I'm not sure how this can be that hard to understand since slaughtering civilians is against US military law, and punishable by execution.

Are you going to commit suicide bombings or massacre woman and children by the thousands to oppose that regime? I could see taking up arms against it, joining a guerilla movement that attacks military/police targets. But would you blow up schools full of the children of the regimes supporters?

If Chavez brought in a bunch of Venezuelans, took over the prime land by driving out my people, separated others from their farmland by walls, frequently closed checkpoints, etc. -- I would be very tempted, yes.

Lucy: "Charlie Brown, are there more good people in the world than bad people?"
Charlie Brown: "Who is to say? Who is to say who is good and who is bad?"
Lucy: (thinks for a moment...) "I am!"

If Chavez brought in a bunch of Venezuelans, took over the prime land by driving out my people, separated others from their farmland by walls, frequently closed checkpoints, etc. -- I would be very tempted, yes.

But would you do it?

If I said "Whatever", how many of you would be pissed?

SBB, I don't think I could rightly answer. Have I ever lived under oppression? No. I have never felt the anger of the oppressed.

Could I shoot a 7 year old kid point blank? No, I couldn't. Would I be able to detach the image of dead kids from my act of setting up the bomb? Not likely, I say now. What if I thought the very existence of my people was at stake? Then probably yes.

If I said "Whatever", how many of you would be pissed?

Depends on what you mean by 'pissed'. I'd probably blow up some children over it. Does that count?

I'd probably blow up some children over it. Does that count?

Who knows...you might just be blowing off steam...

If Chavez brought in a bunch of Venezuelans, took over the prime land by driving out my people, separated others from their farmland by walls, frequently closed checkpoints, etc. -- I would be very tempted, yes.

I think you're not really considering what he's asking carefully enough. Should the US government regress into a Nazi regime, and start imprisoning and slaughtering Jewish people, I still would not consider blowing up a school filled with children. I would die first. I would see my loved ones die first, and I would expect them to understand.

Targeted killing of military and government figures? Sure. Guerrilla attacks on critical military targets that might accidentally kill a relatively small number of civilians? Sure. Torture of captured active soldiers or politicians to gain information and/or incite fear? Probably.

It's just a movie, but imagine Inglourious Basterds. Quite a lot of killing and violence. Some collateral damage, for sure. No deliberate murder of children.

There comes a point where, no matter how badly you are treated, that you have to just accept that there's a line that you won't cross because it's simply irredeemably evil. If I am seriously considering strapping a bomb to myself and blowing up a school bus filled with children, someone should put me down like a rabid dog for the sake of the world, no matter how worthy my cause.

I still would not consider blowing up a school filled with children

Crosby, you raise good points. May I ask if you have a limit of what you can take? Suppose your hypothetical government starting taking away your first-born and training them as Nazi butchers? Take away your first-born and kill them? Would you exact a retribution on their children in order to convince the leaders not to continue with that policy?
Would you consider blowing up the school of the leaders' children, if you were convinced that the collateral damage would be small?

May I ask if you have a limit of what you can take? Suppose your hypothetical government starting taking away your first-born and training them as Nazi butchers? Take away your first-born and kill them? Would you exact a retribution on their children in order to convince the leaders not to continue with that policy? Would you consider blowing up the school of the leaders' children, if you were convinced that the collateral damage would be small?

The limit of what I can take is something that is so terrible that I would feel it necessary to end my own life. I hope I would have the courage to do so before I would murder innocent children. That's in a moral sense.

In a practical sense, taking the more moral road of targeting the people actually responsible without placing innocents at risk also increases the chances of not alienating some of the few people within the power structure with the capacity to help my cause.

Should I start murdering children, I shouldn't expect any sympathy from anyone inside or outside the power structure. I certainly wouldn't deserve any.

I understand the 'whatever' - the debate is much to abstracted from the real way wars happen. Hedges book WIAFTGUM is great because he explores how violence unleashes people to do horrible things they wouldnt have considered beforehand..and how those horrible things, despite the suffering and hardship, make them feel fully alive likw nothing else. Beyond the PTSD vets return home with, the hardest thing most face is the hollowness of civilian life where no one truly understands the horror...and thrill..of war.

As for the rules of war and the comportment of civilized soldiers, read if you will this piece detailing military psy ops and counterinsurgency in Vietnam, specifically the Phoenix program. Don't imagine the same operations arent going on in Iraq and Afghanistan, using the same justification that the native insurgency started it and is much worse.

Phoenix Program

IIt really does confound me that state-sanctioned murder of non-combatants in the most abhorent fashion halfway across the globe against people who are ZERO threat to the US is calmly justified, while insurgent defense against foreign military invasion and destruction of their homes is not. I guess if you are powerful enough, you can force anyone to eat #### and die and call it justice.

I still would not consider blowing up a school filled with children

What if they were Yankees fans? Like, if you could time travel back to 1995 and blow up a school where Jeffrey Maier was enrolled...

What if they were Yankees fans?

I thought we were talking about innocent people.

I thought we were talking about innocent people.

I thought we were talking about people, not soul-less shells...

Not necessarily. Revolutions, Rebellions, and Guerrilla wars have been justified on much weaker grounds than "fear of genocide". One could just as easily argue that the Israelis want terror attacks to stop they should give in to all Palestinian demands short of Jewish extermination or enslavement.

Do you honestly think that would stop Palestinian terrorism? I don't.

I guess what it depends on is how reliant are the terrorists on the "Average Palestinian Joe". Because I can guarantee you that reprisals, assassinations, and stricter security protocols aren't causing Hamas' support to waver.

If the terrorists are independent psychopaths - then nothing short of genocide will stop the violence. And given the fluidity of modern borders, you are not going to be able to stop with the Palestinians.

What you could maybe do is desensationalize or spin the violence. Don't even give blame/credit to your nation's enemies. Create different fake groups that take credit for all attacks, diluting claims of the actual perpetrators. Claim that all the Jews killed were actually Moslems. Blame them on industrial accidents.

But this will never happen, because there is a big chuck of Isreali politics that is just as reliant on the Palestinian menace as Hamas is on perpetrating is.

For example, the Belgians or French had no moral right to use terrorism against the German occupier in WWI

I've been reading up on this, and German conduct as an occupier in WWI was a hell of a lot worse than is commonly assumed - not as bad as WWII on the Eastern front- but quite a bit worse than their conduct as occupiers in the West in WWII...

anyway, reading Snapper and Perros has been fascinating, they are both just so, WRONG, but in such diametrically opposite ways, I suppose Ghost is somewhat less wrong...

Legitimate governments have the moral right to make war. Now that war may or may not be just, but once it is launched by a legitimate authority, the people of that country have the moral duty to support it, unless the aims or means become truly evil.

Ok, Hitler's Government was "legitimate", so it had a "moral right" to wage war, and so when it invaded France, the means were not "truly" evil- and his intent towards France was benign enough (compare the treatment of occupied France to that of other areas) that it wasn't "truly evil"- so Germans in 1940 had a moral duty to support Hitler's war on France?

OK, that was an unfair take on your comment. I suppose what you wanted to say was that Henry David Thoreau was immoral when he protested the Mexican American War by refusing to pay his taxes? Or that Congressmen Lincoln was obviously morally unfit to serve in elective office as evidenced by his badgering of the duly elected President of the US over the President's justification/pretext for war?

Back on the previous page, someone pointed out that terrorism works..not because it gains its immediate ends, but works towards them.

That it "works" every now and then doesn't mean that it is good strategy- every would be insurgent should read up on Mao's thoughts on a how to conduct an insurgency...(and then they should read about how he governed- it's a great primer op how NOT to govern...)

If the terrorists are independent psychopaths - then nothing short of genocide will stop the violence. And given the fluidity of modern borders, you are not going to be able to stop with the Palestinians.

Some terrorists obviously are "independent sociopaths"- someone mentioned the Iraqi/Al Qaeda goon whom even BinLaden thought had gone too far... Much of the violence in Northern Ireland at the end of the troubles was carried out by a relatively small number of men on both sides- men who reveled in violence*- a violent insurgency will attract sociopaths like moths to a flame- those who might become serial killers or spree killers in peacetime can actually be regarded by some as heroes during an "insurgency" (or conventional war for that matter). Some "terrorist" organizations are well aware of this- many actually have plans- in case of victory/peace to liquidate some of these people.

*WRT Northern Ireland, the vast majority on all sides wanted the violence ended long before it began ending- but the violence didn't really end until the "armies" involved began liquidating the "hard" men- their own "hard" men- when you employ sociopaths it's not over until the sociopath say it is- or until the sociopath is dead..

JP - I'd be happy to hear further how I am wrong..and though I wish it wasnt so, terrorism is extemely effective in all its guises most of the time. Hamas gained power through it, Irgun achieved its aims in the hotel bombing, Sept 11 was a huge success in many ways...just like counterinsurgency terror tactics work, the atomic bombs worked, etc. The real problem is then what you allude to above - you not only empower sociopaths, you encourage sociopathic behavior throughout society, normalize it.

He who lives by the sword dies by it.

JP - I'd be happy to hear further how I am wrong

I see things in shades of gray, I think you do to, but my impression is that some of the things I see as being light or medium gray you see as dark gray and vice versa- IOW you see moral equivalencies where I don't.

The philosophy that seems to be espoused in some of Snapper's posts OTOH are just scary...

Wait - at what point did Hunter blame the Jews for his portrayal in the article?